NIGHTSHADE OR MORNING-GLORY?
By Lotta V. Wallar
THE nightshade family is a large one. The member to which we are to be introduced at this time is called Atropia Belladonna, or, more commonly, the deadly nightshade. Perhaps if we did not know this familiar name we might be less shy of our new acquaintance. Naturally we are quite apt to give him a warm welcome; for, altho we may never have met him before, we are well acquainted with two of his very near relatives. One, the potato, we know to have saved many lives in Ireland. The other, the tomato, upon making her first visit to England so attracted the gentlefolk that she received the endearing name, love apple, regardless of the fact that she behaved so unseemingly as to cause many a fair head to seek its pillow. But with the nightshade we shall be a little cautious—he is but a stranger yet. "By their fruit ye shall know them." If we ask a druggist about the fruit of the nightshade, he will tell us that from it is produced belladonna, a drug whose active principle is atropia, a narcotic. If an oculist wishes to examine your eyes he will doubtless put four or five drops of belladonna in them. At first you will experience no change but when this has been repeated a few times, like Mother Eve of old, you will see things in a new light. Everything will appear larger and more distinct. But, if you continue to look, the objects will grow larger and larger, while at the same time the outlines grow dimmer and the form less distinct until the focus of the eye is so great that nothing can be distinguished; the whole world is a blur. So with our spiritual eyesight. At first a sin appears large and hideous; gradually we come to tolerate it, and finally the angles and outlines have worn away and we see nothing very objectionable. Or, as Pope says, "We first endure, then pity, then embrace." In the same soil where grows the nightshade, watered by the same dew and absorbing light from the same sun, twines the fragile morning-glory. We do not find it standing stiff and firm on a strong stalk as does the nightshade, but, delicate and tender, it confidently clings to some friendly branch for support. Altho quite dependent, the little morning-glory has its mission in "this great world of ours." Besides the trailing vine of shapely leaves we have its beautiful flowers, from the milky-white through the delicate pink and pale blue tints to the rich royal purple. True, its blossoms are but short-lived, while the dew is still on and the slanting rays of the sun are still tempered—but not the oldest nor the sturdiest gives the most lasting impression. "The keel plows ten thousand leagues of ocean and leaves no trace of its deep-graven furrows. The chisel scars only a few inches on the face of a rock, but the story it has traced is read by a hundred generations. The eagle leaves no trace of his path, no memory of the place where he built his nest; but a patient mollusk has bored a little hole in a marble column of the temple of Serapis, and the monument of his labor outlasts the altar and the statue of the divinity." Which shall we be—a nightshade, seeking to cover our black, deadly fruit with leaves, or the morning-glory, with its sweet, simple blossoms? What shall we give to the world—a profession of life-giving power in the temporary quickening of the pulse, a knowledge of good and evil in the night of life, or a few bright flowers in the morning of youth?