BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1500, 14 August 1880, Page 27

BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER.

There are a great many Bluebeards in this world — 1 mean outside of children's storybooks. The outrageons tyrant we used to read of in nursery day 3is living still. He Is— somebody's husband. Now this man has many rooms in his heart, and the keys he dutifully places in the hands of hiß wife ; but one door she must not open, for that door leads to the chamber of horrors. There, under the dust of years, are the corpses of youthful faults, secrets never dragged forth into the light, and memories buried forever in the dark. The wife will one day enter, and then there will be a tragedy. A husband .should never let the shadow of a secret fall between his helpmate and himself. The prayer of every wife in Christendom should be this line of Vivien's Bong to Merlin : " Oh, trust mo not at all, or all in all." The first little breach in the confidence that links two hearts together, will widen, until at last an unbridged gulf may yawn between. The two " whom God hath joined " should walk hand-in-hand together, hearts beating responsive unto hearts. Although it may not seem very Btrange to wander for a few hours on opposite sides of the little stream of life, yet beware I that stream may one day become a river flowing swiftly onward to the sea, In the words of Tennyson, it la—

" The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all." If there be a Bluebeard's chamber in your heart, break all, the looks, throw wide the doors, and through the open blinds let in the sunshine of the heavens. X J. M.