“If you won’t look on only one side of a subject, Kellup, you may find yourself in as curious a place as Melvin Case was last fall. His wife told it herself to Miss Gansey, and Miss Gansey told the editor of the Augurs’es wife, and the editor of the Augurs’es wife told Miss Mooney, and she told the woman’s first husband’s mother-in-law that told me. It come straight.
“It was a very curious situation, and the way on’t was: Melvin Case, as you know, married Clarinda Piller of Piller P’int, down on the Lake Shore road. Wall, they had been married 23 years and never had no childern, and last fall they had a nice little boy. He was a welcome child, and weighed over 9 pounds.
“Wall, Malvin thought the world of his wife, and bein’ very tickled about the boy, and feelin’ very affectionate towards his wife at the time, he proposed at once that they should call him after her maiden name—Piller. Of course she give her willin’ consent, and they was both highly tickled. But you see, bein’ blinded by affection and happiness, they didn’t look on only one side of the idee, and they never studied on how the two names was a goin’ to look when they was put together, till after he had wrote it down in the Bible; and then he paused, with his pen in his hand, and looked up perfectly horrified at his wife, who was holdin’ the baby in her arms and lookin’ over his shoulder, and she looked perfectly dumbfoundered at him, for they see it looked awful—Piller Case.
BABY PILLER CASE.
“Now you are lookin’ at one side of the subject, but there is another side to it, Kellup,—there is as sure as you live and breathe.
“God knows too much cannot be said or sung about the duty the rich owe to the poor. They cannot study too correctly, and follow too closely the pattern that He, the loving Elder Brother, set them. He who was so tender in His compassion; so helpful and thoughtful to the claims of the poor and humble. But charity is a big word, and it has more than one side to it. It means charity to the poor, under whose lowly roofs He once entered, a child of the poor, and so consecrated them honorable for all time. Those who were His closest friends through His toilsome earthly life; those whom He loved first, and loved last; cared for even in that supreme moment of His most triumphant and glorious ignominy. Shall not His followers forever love and bless those He hallowed by His tender care in such a moment? Yes, charity to the poor first. But we mustn’t stop there, Kellup. We may want to set right down in front of that side of the word, and stay there. But we mustn’t. If we want to view this heavenly word on every side we must walk round on the other side of it, and see that it means, too, charity to the rich. A higher, subtler quality of charity it calls for in us than the other.
“For I can tell you, Kellup, some folks say it is a tough job for one to keep a sweet, charitable, loving spirit towards them that are richer, more successful, and happier than they be. Hard for ’em to rejoice over the good fortune of the great. Hard for ’em to keep from judgin’ them severely—from feelin’ envious over the good fortune they cannot share.
FEELIN’ CHRISTIAN.