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Show Divine Forgivnes BY WINIFRED BLACK. THE man':- wife has deceived hint. She eoufeses it and pays she is sorrv and swears she will never deceive him again. Shall he take her back and try to believe her again? She has always been a good woman wom-an before this. She is tho most loving, comforting little wife iu the world. She makes a real home fer the man, and there is a little boy, B little laughing, roguish, elear-cyed elear-cyed boy, who loves his mother and thiuks she is the most perfect being on earth. What shall the man do1 he wants to know. That's the worst part of it he wants to know. If he only knew himself now, there wouldn't be any doubt of what, to do. If he could uot for give her, then the thing would be settled right then and there; if he could forgive her. and feel all right about it. who is there to interfere in-terfere by one single syllable 1 Rut he doesn't know, he can 't decide. "I love her,'' sas (he man in bis letter. "I love her and I be here she really loves mo. She is a helpless little thing, and I don't see what she ean do without me, and I believe it would kill the boy to part him from bis mother. What is the right thing for me to do? I want to do the right thing, just the right thing; that's all." Bless your heart, man alive. T wonder what vou arel So big that vou are almost godlikp, or so small that you are beneath contempt! Do you want to forgive the worn an because you love ber and are sorry for her and anxious to do the right thing for the boy? If that's your idea why, then, hats off to a Man, every inch of him. You are doing the noblest, kindest, kind-est, bravest, truest thing a man can do. Or do vou want to take her back because you can't be comfortable without, her? Do you care so 1 i tt lo for her that you don't care what she has done, so long as you can have her again? That 's different, quite different. Do vou know where you stand yourself? The path of a man who takes a woman back because he doesn't quite know where he could get as good a housekeeper is never strowu with roses, or even poppies, and it should uot be. I've known such men; one T think of in particular. His wife ran away from him with his dearest dear-est friend, and he followed the pair and begged the woman to go home with him; aud the woman went, and that man never let her have one moment's peace again. He twitted ber. tormented her, suspected her, until she ran away again, and this time she stayed away, and all the man's world despised de-spised him and avoided him as they would avoid a creature with leprosy, lepro-sy, and I always thought he did have moral leprosy. I knew another man who did the game thing, but for quite a different differ-ent reason. He wont away on a long journey, and while he was gone a man he knew made a fool of the man's wife, and she threw her good name to the winds and followed the false friend, who brought her poor silly-feet silly-feet to the Road of Agony. And when her husband knew, he went after his wife, and ho took her home and comforted her, and stood her friend, and no one ever dared to hint to tho man that any one but he himself and the wife and the other man knew of the wretched wretch-ed heartbreaking story. And all who knew the real truth of the affair admired and rc-spected thc man, for they knew that he did what be did because he realized that his wife was a foolish, lightheaded light-headed girl and that, tho husband should not have left her alone so long. And they knew that he. took her bock, not to gratify a whim of ms own, not to minister to bis comfort, not to have her and keep her no matter what sho was, just because she could make, him comfortable, but because he loved her in the higher sense. He loved her enough to protect her from ber own follv and his own carelessness. And in all his little world no man walked more in the light of esteem and friendship than that man. Another J knew once, long ago, in the far wrest. A girl came from an orphan asylum asy-lum to a great city. She was in love with a boy who had been at tho same asylum, and the boy was in love with her, and tboy had promised to marry each other as soon as tho boy had a home for the girl. The boy went to the wild lands and took up a claim and in time built a little house of logs, and wrote tbe girl that he was coming to take her borne. And when the girl received the letter she was in a hospital very ill, and she held in her arms a little child, a child of misery and disgrace. She was very young and very-helpless, very-helpless, and the man who had brought the cniel shame upon her was a man of experience and of cunning, and she had had no more chance against him than a little whivering, white rabbit has against a snake. So she wrote the boy she really loved in spite of it all and told him she could never bo any man's wife, and told him plainly. And the bov who was brought up m the asylum did not write and answer. He went instead to I he great city and to the hospital, and tbero was a wedding in tbe ward, and when the bride and groom left the man carried in his arms a little helpless child. J could have knelt, on the rround and kissed the great coarse shoes he wore, and so could the girl he rescued from herself. T saw that man and that wo man not long ago, Tbey h-ave a comfortable home. a growing family, and the eldest son is growing grow-ing up to be the prop and stav of it. T think that husband and wife havo forgotten everything but. their mutual love and trust. What shall vou do, oh man with the struggling soul? Search your own heart nnd find there the an swer. |