Finger Posts on the Way of Life   By: Timothy S. Arthur (1809-1885)

BY

T. S. ARTHUR.

BOSTON:

PHILADELPHIA:

1853

PREFACE.

OUR title, though savouring of quaintness, is yet in keeping with the object of this volume. As we press onward in the journey of life, to each of us the path is new and strange. Often it is rough and thorny; often it winds through places beset with difficulties and danger; often the sky is so dark that we can scarcely see the narrow line upon which our advancing footsteps may rest in safety. As "Finger Posts on the Way of Life," pointing the wary traveller in the right direction, has this little book been written. It does not, professedly, take the high mission of the preacher; yet, while its end is to guide in natural life, the author is never unmindful of the fact that all natural life is for the sake of spiritual life, and that no one can live well in the true sense, who does not live for Heaven. He trusts, therefore, that while these "finger posts" indicate the path in which to walk safely through the world, they will point, as well, to the narrow way that leadeth to Life Eternal.

CONTENTS.

SHADOWS FROM A CLOUDED BROW GENTLE HAND WILL IT PAY? THE LAY PREACHER HOW TO DESTROY A GOOD BUSINESS THE TWO INVALIDS MARRYING WELL BLESSING OF A GOOD DEED PAYING THE DOCTOR THE LITTLE BOUND BOY. EUTHANASY THREE SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A WORLDLING MATCH MAKING THE RETURN; OR, WHO IS IT?

SHADOWS FROM A CLOUDED BROW.

A LITTLE thing clouded the brow of Mrs. Abercrombie a very little thing. But if she had known how wide the shadows were often diffused, and how darkly they fell, at times, on some hearts, she would have striven more earnestly, we may believe, to keep the sky of her spirit undimmed.

It will not be uninstructive to note the incidents, in a single day, of Mrs. Abercrombie's life to mark the early cloud upon her brow, and then to glance at the darkly falling shadows.

Mr. Abercrombie was a man of sensitive feelings, and though he had striven for many years to overcome his sensitiveness, he had been no more able to change this hereditary weakness than the leopard his spots or the Ethiopian his skin. At home, the lightest jar of discord disturbed him painfully, and the low vibration ceased not, often, for many hours. The clouded brow of his wife ever threw his heart into shadow; and the dusky vail was never removed, until sunlight radiated again from her countenance. It was all in vain that he tried to be indifferent to these changeful moods to keep his spirits above their influence: in the very effort at disenthralment he was more firmly bound.

From some cause, unknown to her husband, there was a cloud on the brow of Mrs. Abercrombie one morning, as she took her place at the breakfast table. Mr. Abercrombie was reading, with his usual interest, the newspaper, and the children were sporting in the nursery, when the bell summoned them to the dining room. All gathered, with pleasant thoughts of good cheer, around the table, and Mr. Abercrombie, after helping the little ones, was about mentioning to his wife some pleasant piece of news which he had just been reading, when, on lifting his eyes to her countenance, he saw that it was clouded. The words died on his lips; a shadow darkened over his feelings, and the meal passed in almost total silence at least so far as he was concerned. Once or twice he ventured a remark to Mrs. Abercrombie; but the half fretful tone in which she replied, only disturbed him the more.

Soon the pleasant aspect of the children's countenances changed, and they became captious and irritable. Both parents were fretted at this reaction upon their own states of mind, and manifested, at some slight misconduct on the part of one or two of the children, a degree of ill nature that instantly transferred itself to those against whom it was directed, and became apparent in their intercourse one with another.