The day book. [volume], August 26, 1914, LAST EDITION, Image 18

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
P9TWW9WiffWVVlVVf9?fViiPi
THE WANDERING SPIRIT
By Mildred Caroline Coodridge.
(Copyright by W. G. Chapman.)
Roscoe Phail was dead." There was
no repulsion, dread or lamented loss
of identity present with him, as in
the same room where his white set
face looked up from the satin-lined
Arrayed in a Plain Dress Was a
Young Girl.
casket he was conscious only of being
a spiritual entity, nothing more.
A part of a ray of light, of a cur
rent of air of a nameless essence,
lacking form and substance, still did
he possess the full comprehending
sense. Pain was gone, desire, specu
lation he was simply passive and
content. He viewed the group in the
room clearly, he took in their spoken
words.
"He was a good man," said one of
his oldest former friends.
"A patient unselfish person to the
last," appended a physician.
"Soulful always, charitable and
above all grateful," added the clergy
man. "They tell he was once a dis
sipated man, leading to a painful
sickness for years. He came out of
the ordeal a changed, chastened be
ing. In his gratitude for life, he vow
ed to devote it to others. Nobly has
he kept his pledge."
And then the low voiced throng be
gan to ricite many and many inci
dents of little and great deeds that
the philanthropist had done for the
good of humanity.
Roscoe Phail took the recitals in as
one would listening casually to a
moderately interesting story. He was
not conscious of self glorification, of
the deserving reward for well doing.
Finally the lawyer said:
"Strange, but the day Mr. Phail
died I received a letter from a far
distanct place. It seems that about
ten years agoMr. Phail put on his
feet a worthless inebriate named
Morton Ross. The letter is from t a
relative of that person, now dead,
telling how Ross reformed and how
that incident has led to a great re
sult to humanity."
Morton Ross! Why, Phail had for
gotten the incident years agone. Even
now it appealed to him as quite com
monplace among what he considered
greater acts of thoughtfulness and
charity in his career.
Ah! He did not know did not
know that the deed he did that day
in the long past for one Morton Ross,
was destined to shine and bring forth
glorious fruit for aye!
With the removal of his mortal part
the next day, the spirit of Roscoe
Phail seemed to float from the old en
vironment. It was a flight to the
stars, a grope beneath vast ocean
depths, now in the holy silence of
some dense African forest never in
vaded by the foot of man, again on
the mountain tops of some" lofty Him
alaya range, unhampered, time,
space, distance annihilated, his ego
m
gfif