The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 23, 1905, Page 4

apd his I believe, e have all that Theodo- their hearts e hollow of their hands Stephen the means that so tion of their m has grown se they no longer love each ge has dis- they i of each other? soon as th their door shut For none of these he earnest n who have co to ange determination can lay his v one of these commen rea- the rock upon which wrecked. mselves will tell you—will hat their happiness is not m in wrecked, that they are only going for- ward to & new and brighter happiness. Stephen Inness and his wife are both young. They have health, wealth and the ca- pac for the full enjoyment of life. They are both well-bred, well edu- cated, cultured. They both have pleasing person- mlities. Mr, Innes has a clear-cut, Intellectual face, manly, refined, and sharpened a little by asceticism, a well-set-up, active figure, for he was a college athlete and one of the crack football players in the University of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Inness is comely, gentls, reserved, domestic, possessing the loveliest of the feminine attributes, 2 woman softly, es- sentially womanly. She is a gifted mu- sician, a talented artist. Mr. Inness is the son of the Rev. Robert F. Inness of Philadelphia, noted in char- ftable work and the founder of the Phil- edelphia Home of the Merciful Saviour for Crippled Children. Mrs. Inpess was Loulse Smithers, the daughter of & wealthy New York bank- er, F. §. Bmithers. These two young people enjoying every advantage of birth, education and envi- ronment, so. happily conditioned, met some €ix years ago and fell in love after the mayper of young people. Five years ago they were married and came here. Mr. Inness was ordained an Episcopal clergyman and came here as rector of the pretty little church of St. Mary the Vir- gin. In the little white frame rectory on Union street just around the corner from the church the bride and groom set up their houschold gods, the bride trans- forming the modest little house into a charming home, for above all Mrs. Inness has the gift of the home-maker. For three years the force and beauty and earnestness of Mr. Inness’ sermons made the church of St. Mary the Virgin a notadble church, and the charm of Mrs. Inness’ perscnality made the rectory a cial center for the parishioners. Then Mr. and Mrs. Inness became con- verts to the Roman Catholic faith, teok the narrow step from the “High” ehurch to the Catholic church, and Mn Inness ©of course gave up his church and Mrs. Inness the little rectory. Then the story of Stephen Inmess and dis wife began—actively. As a matter of fact it had begun long pefore—in Stephen Inness’ boyhood— subconsciously—in the springs of being. Supplied with ample means, untrou- bled and unharassed by the sordid cares of life, they made them a beautiful home out on Filbert and Lyon streets— the very last house on Filbert street. They bought them an ample lot, and built a high board fence around it, and set a guaint, roomy, pleasant, redweod- shingled house well b from the street on its highest part, so that their wild garden runs down between their door and the street and they command an uninterrupted view of the bay and the Golden Gate, and the hills of Marin, as far as the eye can travel. All that an exquisite, cultivated taste and money can do was done for their home, and peace and comfort and beauty dwell within. So, too, dq cheer- fulness and harmony and the spirit of home. Mr. and Mrs. Inness possessing so many of the good things of life did not set themselves to a selfish, exclusive en- joyment of them. Having no children of their own they adopted a little homeless boy and a young girl who needed the care and protection of a home, and another young girl, now a young woman, be- cause she was motherless. There was—there still is—a beautiful, simple home life in that household at the end of Filbert street. The young girls flit through the beaytiful rooms, the little boy races about the lawn and bounds up and down the stairs in child- ish glee. The canary bird in his cage trills in an ecstacy of joy, the big Per- #ian cat sinks her claws In the deep pile of a rug and purrs contentment. A flood of suhshine pours through the wide windows to add to the beauty and cheerfulness, the flowers are abloom in the garden, and in the distance the wat- ers of the bay are sparkling and the whitecaps dancing. The man and woman, still side by side, walk and talk and study together, now as always in harmony; now as al- ways tenderly attached; now as al- ‘ways thoughtful of each other, the while their eyes look out on a future apart, a future in which this dear com- panionship will be only a memory, in ‘which this beautiful, peaceful, shelter- ing home nest will be only a picture on @ turned page, an episode in a closed chapter. With all that goes to the making of merely human happiness, free from the grinding cares and pressing material necessities of life that fray the smeoth edge of even the cheerfulest spirit, still loving each other tenderly and truly, with their fajth in each other serene and undisturbed, their-tastes congenial, their minds in barmeny, why is it then that this man and weman will not go on | to the end of life hand in hand, hus- band and wife? What is it that sends them journeying to Rome to bend the knee before the father of their church and pray him to sever the bond that binds them? To give them leave to walk in separate ways—alone? An idea—the compelling power of an idea. “An idea,” says Stephen Inness, ‘is more real, is more -surely and se- curely mine than that book case,” seiz- LAY-DAYS are here again and for a longer or shorter period we are all living in the open. A compo- site picture of the nation at play would be interesting and inform- ing. Tt would reveal the vast variety of modern out-of-door pursuits graded to the taste, the financial ability and the tem- perament of the individual. The last twenty years have multiplied these ave- nues of enjoyment. The automobile has won its thousands of admirers and the bicycle and golf sticks their tens of thou- sands. Where one person a score of years ago was Interested in nature studies ten are to-day observing plants and flowers, watching the birds and their ways, following up the wild animals to their secret haunts and eveén kodaking them there. Great summer educational and religlous assemblages attract attend- ants from near and far who in leafy groves are instructed and inspired while breczes play in end out of the audi- toriums or waves splash gently hard by, Meanwhile the standard, time-honored, out-of-door occupations, tramping, camp- ing, riding, driving, mountaln-scaling, ocean sailing, exercise their fascination over an increasing multitude. . ‘What a glorious thing it is for a nation which works so hard that it can also play S0 profitably and so variously, What an antidote are play-days to the fever and fret of our hurrying, crowded days. From the physical point of view alone, s are as great a sanitary force as an army of physjcians and’ nurses. They restore the equilibrium, ease the strain of life and make existence longer, ‘happier and more worth while. ‘What s the best'thing one can take into the open? I suggest ope essential article of baggage whether you are going to Burope or simply to the next township, whether you are to be gone all summer or simply over Bunday—and that is a free and open mind. Discharge from your "Qut In the Open "'l v, . ing for illustration the first object his eyes rest upon. “Yes,” I assent, “the book case may catch fire and go up in smoke. “And my idea remains mine—Is a pgrt . thoughts the Interests and problems that most burden it. We shall deal with them more effectively when we resume our in- door life if we have divested our minds of them during play-days. But we want an open, as well as a free mind. Otherwise nature can never teach us any of her secrets, or give us any larger, truer, outlook upon life in gen- eral. Out in the open we ought to get rid of long-standing prejudices of bond- age to half truths, of distorted views of mankind and of the universe. ‘What ought we to find in the open? First of all ourselves. When surround- ed constantly by people, when the hum of industry {s sounding day and night in our ears, we are likely to lose that priceless thing we call self or smother it beneath the conventions of soclety. A man who has achieved brilliant business success in New York was taken to task the other day by a coliege classmate for never putting off the harness. His sad reply was that the office habit had be- come to him a secona nature, that he could not be happy when away from the treadmill of dally buying and selling. ‘Was there ever better illustration of the fact that a mian may gain the world and lose himself! Get out into the open, friend, before this fate befalls you. In the open, in the courss of our play- days we may also find our brother-man, see him in & new and kindlier light, get frésh evidence of the fidelity and good heartedness of the average man. May- be your guide in the forest, your rus stage-driver, your companion at the farm- house table will be able to teach you hitherto uplearned lessons and give you a more optimistic view of human nature than you have been able to charish for some time. And God is in the open and he who gets near the heart of mature is not far from the heart of God. THE PARSON, ly, p’”’dlm‘,\\ I of my belng. It is real rfiesuucu- while all else is ephem . M'."s\xch things as these with which we surround ourselves and to which we at- tach oursglves—a pleasant home. a beautiful view, congenial friends, dear companions, the ordinary comforts of life, give us pleasure, of course. But they are extraneous. They are the ac- cessories of life, not an actual part of it. They are ephemeral. We can get slong without them. They do not con- stitute happiness. Happiness must come from within. ‘Iis source is in yourself. The mere enjoyment of life is not happiness. It leads to nothing. To give yourself up to it makes your life futile; you might as well not have ved. “Each of us has that within him that tells him what he must do, the impulse that must be obeyed if he would have his life worth while. “To ignore this impulse is to fail in the purpose of life. “It is this impulse recognized and obey- ed that makes one man an artist, of another a sclentist, that compels one man to be an actor, another a writer, a mis- sionary, a physiclan to give his life to healing, an explorer, a soldier in his country’s need—that forces him to do his lite-work. “Real happiness lies in obeying this impulse, in doing that which your in- most self bids you do, that which you know, without evasion or equivocation, is the one right thing for YOU to do. “We are not all required to travel the game road, to answer the same call. The impulse within forces us-along widely divergent paths. What is right and good for one may not be so for another. ’ “What Mrs. Inness and I have deter- mined to do may seem foolish, even wrong and wicked to some people, but we feel that it is right for US, that it is the only thing for us if we would fulfill the purpose of our lves. “Life is not given to be held for self alné. Do you think it 1s?* Stephen 'Inness asks the question so simply, so quietly, so earnestly, so sure of the answer that there can be but one answer, and you give it to him out of the bock of your own experience, even as the relentléssness of life has taught it to you. In Stephen Inness there is no cant, no fanatical fervor, no visionary glamor and ambiguity. He sits in his pleasant drawing-room a quiet, athletic, well-groomed, modern young man, smooth-shaven, a:hl:u—cllnsd. sack-coated, a figure reassuring in fits reasonableness. He is like the well-man- nered, well-educated young men you are accustomed to—the pleasant, wholesome 'varsity young men—and as he talks in his quiet tones he might be talking of making a venture in search of the north pole or into the wilds of Labrader, in- stead of what in your mind you call the realm of martyrdom. His earnestness, the sincerity of his convictions compel your respect, for you cannot withhold your respect from a man who s honest, even though you differ fre~ him as to the wisdom of his hom- esty. It is not without pain and not with- out courage to pear the pain that he has come to his strange determination. #He is yielding, as he feels he must, to the inevitable. “It seems,” ke says, “as though one is pushed along the way in which he must go. That the forceg of life com- certaly bine to drive & man into s ath.” : 2 And indecd it seems SO in Bis own life. . Admiration for the charitable an liglous work of his father inspir him even as a boy the desire to do work. Although his father is a copal clergyman, and his work 1 the fleld of his own church, the bo strongly attracted to the ana‘-\ olie church and dreamed of taking ders and devoting his life to religious labors in that church. In spite of or perhaps because of his religious tendencies he was given as liberal an education &s a yOumg man can get. He was a student at ths University of Pennsylvania, and after being graduated from that spent a year tn post-graduate work at the Univer- sity of Chicago. Then, before realizing his boyish dream of religious labors, the common fate of man overtook him. He fell In love, and married His father's church, much to hiy father’s happiness, offered an opportu- nity for work such as he had dreamed of and that his wife could share with him. He came here as rector of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, and for a time he was satisfled—almost satis- fied. g Now and then the boyhood dream came back—or, as perhaps he would say himself, the Impulse that tells each of us what he must do stirred within him, at first feebly, then with increasing insistence and frequeney. The faith to which his boyish heart bad turned drew him, the faith ha had subscribed to seemed Inadequate. A[—‘ ter a time he could not go on as reo- tor of the pretty little Church of St Mary the Virgin. He went over to the Catholic faith, and bis wife went with him, Then— How strangely !mpotent we molding our lives in accorda our wishes. The Innesses left the pretty . little church and the charming little.rectory and builded them their beautiful home out at the end of Filbert street -and settled themselves In it with all that delighted their senses. They took into this home and their hearts the children that needed their care, and set them- selves to living a good and useful as well as a beautiful life But to Stephen Inness it was not sat- isfying. This. pleasant as It was, useful, kindly and beautiful as it was, was not what the impulse within him bade him do. He saw but the one path. He feit always the force that was pushing him toward it. To shut his eves to it. to avold it, was to fail in the purpose of life. This was bis conviction. So there came a day whep Stephen Inness told this to his wifel Perhaps she had already divined it— for there is little that can be hidden from. the love of a woman. Howeyer that may be, when he show- ed her the path that he must travel she saw with his eyes. ‘What else was there for her to do What avalls it to beat against doors of Fate? To cry out agalnst her inexorable de- crees? The inevitable remains Inevitable. So Stephen Inness’ wife acquiesced. And in doing so she did only what other wives have done since the world began—since man first hearkened to the call of his soul and fared forth, leav- ing all else behind, to answer it Mrs. Inness with a rare courage and & rere devotion has, done more thaa acquiesca. , She bas set her feet to follow. Unlike Stephen Inness her girlhood was stirred by no religious impulse, other than that of a carefully reared child in a Christian household. She dreamed of no life devéted to religious labors in a sisterhood. Like ordinary girls of am- ple fortune and assured social posi- tion, she dreamed of loving and mar- rying and being mistress of a home— and her dream came true. She found herself in sympathy and har- mony with her husband—a sympatby and harmony so complete that when he dar- ed to tell her his comvictions, when he l1aid before her his obligation to lifs, as he sees it, she was ready to say: “Yes, you are right—and the example you set I shall follow.™ And this she means to 3o. Stephen Inness and his wife will close their beautiful home here. They are not heedless of thelr re- sponsibilities, even though veoluntarily l e In e with assumed. They are not visionary an forgetful of practical every-day life and its needs. They have arranged for the future of the children they took into their care. Thelr houSehold will . be carried on in San Jose with one of the youngest girls to take care of the little boy they adopted and her aged father to give his protection. The other girl to whom they have given & home will go to Italy with them. ‘When their separation s sanctioned Stephen Inness will enter the priest- Bood, not to become a recluse, seeking the salvation of his own soul, but to enter upon an active work in the fleld he has dreamed of In this country. Mrs. Inness will enter a sisterhool that will also give an opportunity for activity for a real work of help and benefit to young girls, a work her heart and iInterest naturally turn to. ‘The young girl who is going abroad :‘:‘(’:‘ her will enter the same sister- In the eves of Stephen Taness as be faces the strange future he has deter- mined upon there is eager hopetul- nmess—he sees before him the realiza- tion of his boyhood dream, of his life's purpose. lntthn 'eyu‘ol Mrs. Innes there is Sweet resignation and the light of & beautiful courage.