Earlier text: THE NINTH COMMANDMENTOUR LONDON LETTER.
By M. Ellsworth Olsen
The coronation has come off at last, and the whole nation heaved a sigh of relief when the long-looked-for ceremony had actually taken place. There can be no doubt that the king’s illness, which was the cause of the postponement, has really added to the strong affection with which he is regarded by his people. If loyalty be measured by magnificent displays of bunting and every outward sign of rejoicing, then Coronation Day could boast plenty of it. Even the side streets and alleys, where the very poor have their abode and where hunger and want are by no means strangers, were decked in gala dress on Saturday, and mottoes expressive of thankfulness for the king’s remarkable recovery and of fealty to his throne were most numerous. In order to make sure of a place along the line of the procession, quite a number of people unable to buy seats took their positions Friday night and bivouacked till the morning; and when, a few days later, Westminster Abbey was opened to the public with an admission fee of sixpence, a line of people, two abreast, and about two miles long waited their turn to view the interior as it looked during the coronation ceremony. Evidently sight-seeing is still popular. The religious features of the coronation ceremony took on more weight and meaning than would have been the case had there been no postponement. It seemed to be the general feeling that the sovereign’s life had been spared in a special and providential manner, that he might continue to reign over the empire. Perhaps the sentiments of practically the whole country were expressed by Lord Roseberry’s words: “We lay our crown upon the altar, and ask the Divine sanction for our empire, our power, and our dominion.” The English are essentially a religious people, and the old theory of the divine right of kings, while not recognized any longer in politics, still holds a place in the hearts of the subjects of King Edward VII. A member of Parliament writing in the Christian World, says that the coronation service “emphatically declared the union of Church with State. Clergy gathered about the king and queen, and never left them until all was completed.” Most of the other religious papers emphasize this feature, and indeed the same may be said of a portion of the secular press. The coronation celebrations conducted with the greatest enthusiasm in all parts of the kingdom, were not wanting in some sad incidents. Alcoholic drinks were imbibed freely and with usual results. In one village some one contributed eighty gallons of beer, which was placed in the public square, and supplied to any and all indiscriminately. Even children became intoxicated, and one man was kicked to death in a drunken brawl. Alcoholism is steadily increasing in Great Britain, especially amongst the women. This is all the more significant when it is remembered that in no other country in the world are the various temperance organizations so numerous or apparently so active and efficient. The religious outlook in Great Britain at the crowning of King Edward VII. is very much the same as in America. There is the same tendency on the part of the liberally inclined to minimize slight differences of creed, and unite in the effort to solve difficult social questions, and do something to alleviate the needs of suffering humanity. There is also apparent a feeling as if the foundation were slipping away. People who have never studied the Word of God for themselves, and have taken all their beliefs second hand, are beginning to see upon how flimsy a foundation many of these have rested, and are looking for something better. Speaking of the present day, a prominent religious weekly says, “An age of faith we still believe it to be, but faith ofttimes wistful, and sometimes perplexed, whose angel searches the future with shaded eyes for a further revelation.” This probably expresses truthfully the attitude of a great many honest seekers after truth. How sad that they have not learned to look to the prophetic portions of the Word, which are “as a light shining in a dark place,” until the dawning of the day of final deliverance. But the tendency of the present teaching from the pulpit and in the religious press is to seek to undermine the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures, thus removing the only means of deliverance from doubt and despair. Evidently there is great need of the simple Gospel, founded on the Word of God, mighty now as ever, to save from sin in every form. This is also the cure for the social evils which are eating into the very vitals of present day society. A SIGNIFICANT EVENT.
By S.
It has frequently been pointed out in these columns that the increasing power of labor organizations, whose members are smarting under real or fancied wrongs, is bringing about a condition of things fraught with terrible consequences for the great hoarders of wealth; that a time was fast approaching when labor, with all the powerful accumulations of years of discontent and longing for a portion of the riches it has helped to produce, would strike at the capitalists of the world a powerful and staggering blow. Whether they will be able to capture and divide the spoils for whose possession that blow will be struck we do not know. It is certain that if they should accomplish their object, the period of possession would be short. In the first place, re-accumulation would begin, and the strenuous, scheming ones would soon possess again the portions of the weaker ones, while in the capture and distribution terrible scenes of bloodshed would be witnessed. In the second place, God’s Word tells us that when that condition does occur, Christ’s coming is at hand. In view of this an action taken at the recent State Convention of the New Jersey Federation of Labor is full of significance. The action of the coal trusts in closing their mines, refusing to arbitrate differences with the miners, and then steadily advancing the price of coal, increasing their wealth while the miners existed as best they could,—all had combined to make this convention of the Federation of Labor one of unusual interest and spirit. So, “amid violent demonstrations of delight,” says the report, the federation passed unanimously resolutions calling upon the Federal Government to “confiscate the anthracite coal mines and operate them on public account.” Whether the convention would have the government compensate the companies for any part of the properties was not stated. It is sufficient that the demand for the confiscation of the properties was made. The Springfield Republican declares that this action “has an ominous ring;” and that “such a demonstration from representatives of a strong voting element in the State can not strike the coal corporations very favorably.” It is not to be expected that it would. It is a menace to their possession of their own property, from which they have reaped their millions, their prestige, and their luxury. But the demand will continue from time to time, and will become more frequent, more powerful, and more insistent; so much so that even if their wealth is not confiscated and dispersed, the conditions will be such that they will be in the most anxious perplexity. It is well described in the book of James, and the reason for it is also given there. “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” James 5:1-7. It is a terrible indictment which the Lord here brings against the money kings of this generation. There never was a time when money was being hoarded as it is to-day; never a time when men and women were spending so much money for costly raiment; never a time when there was so great dissatisfaction among laborers with the wages they receive, and so great a cry for a division of the wealth which their labor has produced; never a time when there was so much living in pleasure and wantonness. All these things are actually taking place to-day in direct fulfilment of the inspired Word. Therefore we are rapidly approaching that condition of things which will cause the “rich men” to “weep and howl” for what they see coming upon them; and the demand made by the New Jersey Federation of Labor for the confiscation of the anthracite coal properties is among the first muttering of the oncoming storm. We will hear more of it from day to day until it swells into a cry that will be heard and repeated around the world, causing the kings of finance to tremble for the safety of their lives and the security of their possessions. We are not espousing the cause of either party, as against the other. We know there is wrong and oppression. But we see the conditions that are coming; and seeing them, we can not fail to warn the world. We are living in momentous times. We are privileged to see God’s Word fulfilling before our very eyes. We can not afford to sleep now. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Is THERE an apostasy? To this question all who see the situation and understand the signs of the predicted falling away, must answer, “Yes.” Many who recognize that the difference between much of the teaching of the modern churches and that of those who founded them is so radical as to amount to the entire abandonment of their old positions, consider it the evolution of a pure faith. Others see that at last the teachings of Thomas Paine and other infidels who denied the truthfulness and infallibility of the Bible, have come to be accepted in most of the seminaries for the preparation of ministers of the Gospel. . . . There are many, however, who perceive that the movement has gone much farther than to attack the Bible on which the faith rests, and has assailed the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion. That which distinguishes the Gospel from Pagan and apostate religions is the fact that it is not a system of morals, but glad tidings of redemption, expiation, and forgiveness of sins. It is now common to encounter preachers and teachers who reject the doctrine of the blood of Jesus, and many of those who accept it intellectually never preach anything but salvation by character. The result is that a large portion of the Christian churches are led back to the same place in which the Gospel found our Pagan ancestors,—condemned by their consciences, but without a Saviour. One who recently visited on successive Sunday evenings, the principal churches of one of our large cities, testifies that he did not hear one preacher emphasize the finished work of Christ, or say one word that would have given light to a sinner seeking the way of salvation. With the abandonment of the doctrine which marks the fundamental contention of Christianity with heathenism, it is not surprising that belief in the salvation of the heathen is gaining ground. Plain as are the evidences of the departure of the professing people of God from the truth, it is even more evident that holy standards of life are being set aside. No one believes that Wesley would tolerate the worldliness of the institution founded by him. Who of the Puritans would recognize the churches which proudly claim a Puritan ancestry? They9 would turn in disgust from the Unitarian doctrines which are now preached, the silly papal holidays, and the vanities of the modern church. It is our growing conviction, however, that the apostasy is deeper than all these things. Sin, unbridled, save by the demands of respectability and fear of publicity, unreproved by pulpit or pew, is in the religious life of this land an incurable sore that is surely and rapidly bringing the professing church to utter ruin. The most open and unblushing sin of the churches is the love of gold. Even preachers in their home missionary sermons might be accused of obtaining money under false pretenses, when they ask the poor to contribute to the work of sending the Gospel to the abandoned people of the frontier, and then apply it to their own allowance from the society, or when it is spent to make a $600 salary mount up to $800 or more. Covetousness, the idolatry of our day, is hardly dealt with at all. But perhaps no sin is so universal as lasciviousness in its various forms, thriving as it does on secrecy. Every physician knows some chapters of the disgusting story, and the crimes connected therewith. Most preachers know little about it, because they deal scarcely at all with sinners. Wicked customs of society are winked at, and parents allow their sons and daughters to drift into solitary vice unwarned, and to be exposed to temptations in the midnight ride and the pleasure party, as well as in their own homes behind closed and often locked doors, which are a peril to the strongest and most virtuous character. Any preacher of the Gospel who deals faithfully with sin in the lives of even the better class of people in his congregation finds it difficult to believe the revelations which come to his view. Without question the time has come when men “will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Then for the sake of God’s true children who have not had their eyes opened to the perils of our times, we will not cease to sound the alarm.—The Gospel Message. Lightning Deaths and Other Current Events
In the year 1900 the number of deaths caused by lightning in the United States amounted to 713, and there were 973 persons injured by it. It is interesting to note that for the five years ended 1894 the number of deaths by lightning in the United States averaged only 224 per year, as against the 713 of 1900; and further that in the one month of July, 1900, nearly as many were killed by lightning as the average for the years mentioned, the number who were killed in that month being 202. The tendency toward increase in the deadly destructiveness of this agency is the same that is seen in the other warring elements of this old earth, which is ripening for the harvest, and tottering toward her dissolution. The German labor journal, Arbiter Zeitung, declares that the recent assassination of officials in Russia is the work of a secret order which exists throughout all Russia and whose members are sworn to give their lives, if required, for the cause. The recent attack on Prince Obolenski is supposed to have been made by a member of this society. The prince’s escape was due to the fact that he was wearing a waistcoat of chain armor. An expert electrician of New York comes forward with the announcement that murderers sentenced to die in the electric chair are frequently not killed by the current, and would be buried alive were it not for the autopsy which follows the electrocution. He states that every week linemen are shocked with higher voltage than that used in the electric chair. These men are not killed, but after a few days’ treatment are able to be about. Germany will now require shipments of American grains to be accompanied by certificates of origin, as that government wishes to impose a retaliatory duty of 15 per cent. on Canadian grains because of Canada’s preferential treatment of British goods. By having the certificate of origin the German customs officials will be enabled to distinguish between Canadian wheat and that grown in the United States. The price of meat in Germany continues to rise. The market prices now quoted are 26 per cent. higher than in 1900. This condition is attributed to the scarcity of domestic animals and the exclusion of foreign cattle and canned meats. Autumn rains in Minnesota and the Dakotas are reported to have damaged the grain crops to the extent of several million dollars. Much of the grain is rotting or sprouting in the shocks. Gambling.— As the matter of accumulating vast fortunes becomes the absorbing thought in the minds of the majority to-day, the methods by which it may be accomplished are becoming more questionable, and greater numbers are adopting these questionable methods and practices. Summer resorts are becoming centers for the unrestricted practise of this unlawful money-getting. The truly moral element has been shocked recently by the enormous gambling transactions of money-kings at Saratoga, in which large fortunes were lost or won on the turn of a card. A magnificent structure, gorgeously fitted up, with lavish expenditure, has just opened its doors in New York City to the devotees of the gambling mania. This institution stands next door to one of the high-class hotels of that city. To give an idea of its sumptuous fittings, it is stated that one of its staircases alone cost $30,000. This institution will be supported by those who play at its tables for their neighbors’ money. But this is but the more open manifestation of the prevalence of the covetousness which characterizes this generation. It is fostered in the homes of the people by the private or social card parties at which some prize is offered to the winner; or in which, as is very frequently the case, the guests play for each other’s money. On every steamer that crosses the Atlantic the gambling element is much in evidence, and wealthy men barter away or win fortunes in an evening. This, with the development of the trust idea, the growth of combines, the bank embezzlements, thieving of accountants, forgeries for money, passing of fraudulent checks, the transacting of fraudulent business, the traffic in chastity, and the multitudinous other ways by which men come into possession of that which is not lawfully theirs, indicate the ripening of the world’s harvest of sin. We are now in the harvest time, and soon will the great Reaper thrust in the sickle on this earth. Never before in the history of this world did wealth set such a mad pace for its worshipers. The goal is near, and the contestants are sacrificing everything to win. An organization known as the Compressed Spirits Company, with a capitalization of $1,000,000, has been organized at Binghampton, N. Y., for the purpose of manufacturing whisky and wine in tablets which can be carried in the vest pocket; so that a man can easily carry in his pocket enough whisky or wine to make him completely intoxicated. Whether these are to be swallowed as tablets or dissolved in water, the report does not state. It is another one of Satan’s inventions for the debauchery of the age. Such a discovery for such a purpose did not seem necessary, but it has come, showing that there are still unfathomed depths to be reached in the work of destroying the image of God in man, and preparing him for the undisputed possession of his wily master. British and German journals are discussing at great length the recent utterances of the President in his tour of New England, especially in reference to the Monroe doctrine. Some of the English journals see in the President’s reference to this matter at this time a threat or warning to some European powers which are thought to have their eyes on South American or Central American countries. The Germans are surprised at the strong re-assertion of the doctrine at a time when, they claim, there is no thought of interference with that doctrine. Some of them see in it a desire to prepare the public mind for an enlargement of the American navy. The North Atlantic fleet, under Rear-Admiral Higginson, has put to sea from the southern New England coast, to take part in the sham battle between the army and navy. The navy is to make an attack on some part of the southern New England coast, and the army is supposed to forestall the attack. The whole coast now is under army patrol, and troops are kept in readiness to re-enforce any threatened port, while each artillery post is manned with its quota of artillerymen, who are sleeping by their guns as if actual war were on instead of a sham battle. One of the greatest trusts yet projected is that proposed by the union of the great meat-packers of the United States. It is reported that this proposed trust will have a capitalization of $500,000,000, and will do an annual business of $1,000,000,000, with an annual net profit of $75,000,000. Such a combination will have literal control of the meat market of this country, fixing the prices of both what it buys and what it sells to make the business pay just such a profit as it may choose. The Isle of Pines has now no government, either de facto or de jure. By the terms of the agreement between the United States and Cuba, this island was not included within the boundaries of Cuba. It is not yet a part of the United States, tho it is probable that eventually it will be so. The schools have been closed for the want of revenue to continue them, and every other public function has been abandoned. The civil affairs of the island are at a standstill. There is a concerted movement among the railway operatives of the country to unite in a demand on their employers for a considerable advance in pay. The movement is said to include engineers, conductors, brakemen, firemen, carmen, and switchmen. The demands are to be made formally on certain groups of roads by the middle of September. Preparations are being made at the San Francisco mint for the coining of $250,000 per month in subsidiary silver for the Philippines. These will be distinctively Philippine coins. On August 30 a train consisting of six coaches was picked up from the track near Owatonna, Minn., by a tornado, and the coaches were rolled over and over as if they had been playthings. Three persons were killed in the wreck, four fatally injured, and about thirty less seriously hurt. The engineer was endeavoring to run away from the threatening cloud, but its speed was greater than that of his train. From the clouds of fine dust which have been obscuring the sun over the islands of the West Indies during several days of this week, it is evident that another terrible eruption of Pelee has taken place. Cable communication with the island has again been interfered with, which indicates subterranean disturbances among the islands. The members of the Lee family of Chinese in San Francisco have just imported a new idol for one of their joss houses, at a cost of $15,000. The officials of the custom-house will charge duty on this joss, not in accordance with its supposed value to its worshipers, but according to the value of the material used in its construction. The director of the United States mint announces that the amount of gold produced in the United States during the year 1901 aggregated $78,666,700, which was about half a million less than the amount produced during the previous year. The commercial value of the silver produced during 1901 amounted to $33,128,000. A movement is now on foot for a world trust in the manufacture of steel and iron. German manufacturers are planning to reach an understanding with the great American trust for the purpose of dividing the territory and eliminating competition, and thus securing greater profits from their investments. Serious strikes of laborers are occurring in a number of Italian cities. The restaurants of Florence are all closed, and the newspapers can not be published. In other cities the street cars are not running, tho many of these towns are crowded with tourists from other countries. Recent earthquakes in the island of Mindanao, Philippines, are reported to have been very severe. The shocks were sufficiently heavy to overturn cannon, throw men off their feet, and toss heavy ammunition boxes about. Twenty natives are reported to have lost their lives from falling walls. Reports from the Orient state that thousands of persons are dying of the plague in China and the island of Java. In one city of Kwansi Province, China, the disease finds so many victims that coffins can not be supplied for their burial. In Japan also the disease is finding many victims. Reports from the island of St. Vincent state that an epidemic of the plague has broken out on that island as a result of the many bodies of volcanic victims being left so long unburied. The disease is spreading all over the island, and many hundreds are suffering from it. Altho some are predicting that the strike of the anthracite coal miners will soon be over, there are no indications of its termination. Several clashes have occurred during the week between miners and the militia, and additional troops have been called out. While the British are seeking for a cotton belt in the region of the upper Nile which would make England independent of the American cotton supply, the Germans are seeking to develop cotton-growing in Togoland, West Africa, for the same purpose. Thirty thousand Navajo Indians are said to be actually at the point of starvation in Southern Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. It is feared that unless something is done for them soon, there will be a disastrous uprising. In Michigan City, Indiana, recently two infants were born who were already stricken with smallpox at the time of their birth. Both the families are said to be Dowieites, and physicians are not permitted to enter the homes. Representatives of the Boers are now seeking for the concession of a large area of agricultural and pasture land on the island of Madagascar, and it is said that the French Government is looking favorably upon the request. Fighting continues in Colombia, Venezuela, and the Republic of Hayti. It is reported also that war is probable between Nicaragua and Colombia, because of Nicaragua’s assistance to the Colombian revolutionists. Capitalists of Buenos Ayres, with the assistance of British capital, are planning a combination with the great meat trusts of America, with the purpose of controlling the meat trade of the world. King Victor Emmanuel of Italy visited the German emperor at Berlin on August 28, and was received with great enthusiasm and military demonstrations in his honor. The new battleship Maine, altho the fastest in the navy, is still one-tenth of a knot below the contract speed, she having attained 17.9 knots on her official trial trip. From the State of Nepal, India, comes a report of disastrous landslides which have resulted in the death of several hundred persons. Reports from Brazil state that there are new rumors of conspiracies against the government and of plans for a revolution. SIMPLICITY IN THE HOME.
By Edward Bok
[Edward Bok, in the July Ladies’ Home Journal.] OUR whole future very often depends on how we start. It is not, of course, expected that a young married couple will start exactly right. That would not be possible. Experience teaches us as nothing else can. But there are one or two points easy of comprehension that are possible to take into married life at the very beginning; and one of them is the great gospel of simplicity. The simpler we keep our lives the happier we are. If she but keep this one idea in mind, two-thirds of her future troubles will be avoided. It fits into everything she puts into her life, and whatever she puts into her home—that one little word, simple. Small as that word is, it is one of the most difficult to understand and grasp. But to learn its fullest meaning is to bring to one’s self the greatest happiness possible. It solves more problems than any other single element in our living of to-day, when it is so easy to drift into complications. We become nervous, petulant, ill; we make burdens of our homes instead of rest-places of delight; we make of ourselves unattractive wives and irritable husbands simply by permitting too many things to come into our lives under the impression that they are necessary to our living and happiness. We place a value on externals far beyond their value, until they assume a fancied necessary place in our lives. But, as a fact, we would be infinitely better off without them. And by our failure to perceive that they are unnecessary, we simply complicate our whole order of living, and push happiness farther away from us. Every unnecessary thing we do takes away just so much of our time and strength from the necessary thing, which, if we did, would add to our strength, and make our lives of surest benefit to others. Sooner or later our American women must awake to this gospel of simplicity. A young wife starting out in her housekeeping to-day with a determination to keep it and her home simple, and thereby enable her to make her own life fuller and richer, need not fear that she will incur criticism. She is simply putting herself in line with a strong modern tendency. The senseless incumbrance of our homes and our lives with things that matter not, that push out the real and the vital, has caused enough damage to the freshness of our women, and stood long enough in the way of their finest and fullest development. A realization of this truth has come. The simple home and the simple life have taken on a new meaning, and with them will come a new womanhood. The thing that is worth while is the study of the hour. And that is what every wife, young or old, should stand for; the real, the simple, the natural, the thing worth while. That means that brightness of spirit that keeps us ever young no matter how the calendar may count our years. That is what cements love, strengthens congenial companionship between husband and wife, and keeps alive that beautiful consideration in the heart of a man for the companion of his life that is the finest and highest feeling that a man can treasure for a woman—not the consideration that a stronger vessel feels for a weaker one; but the consideration that elevates with each day; that refines a man; that commands the highest respect of himself, and brings out the best that is in him. THE HOME AND FAMILY IDEA.
THAT the true home with its interesting family of children and grandchildren is passing away from the “new woman,” and society folk in general, and growingly from many others, is sadly true. Both sides have lately been discussed in the Independent. For small families or no children Mrs. Ida Husted Harper made the plea, and that excellent writer of uncommon good sense—Marion Harland (Mary Virginia Terhune)—replied to her. Mrs. Harper mentions a banker who would like to have children, but dreaded, as unendurable, the humdrum, commonplace life which the rearing of a family would necessitate; a sad mistake, as Marion Harland suggests, unless the husband and wife be common-place in themselves. Mrs. Harper also mentions the case of a “wealthy president of a corporation” who would give half he is worth for a daughter; a “professional man of much refinement and sensibility speaks with emotion; another “has a beautiful house and spacious grounds which would be a paradise for children;” and all of them dismiss these God-given yearnings because of the pain and inconvenience of bringing children into the world. Marion Harland closes her article with this old-time family picture, now growingly infrequent:— A month ago I attended the funeral of a devoted servant of the church, an active citizen, a beloved husband and father, who went down to his grave full of years and honors. The family connection is large, and every branch of it was represented at the services held in the homestead. The widow leaned on the arm of a stalwart son in the progress to the grave; the tender hands of her daughters arranged her wrappings, a granddaughter carried extra shawls, and two grandsons assisted her to alight from the carriage. The patriarch of the tribe, eighty-seven years of age, walked between a daughter and a son; about his white-haired sister hovered her devoted children, solicitous lest the winds of winter should visit her too rudely. Daughters, and sons-in-law, and grandchildren—manly boys and graceful girls—were gathered, affectionate satellites, around the central group.
“I am not comfortless,” said the widow, as I bade her “good-bye” after the return to the smitten home. “The dear children make life worth living.” The octogenarian answered her, “You are right! They are the best investment one can make. We know this in old age, if never before.” “Life is short,” and the happiness it contains for those who dream is of present pleasure, and ephemeral amusement is the frailest of bubbles. Young lives, which have sprung from our own, are linked into and welded with ours, and carry them on into the eternities. To us the days never come when we shall say, “We have no pleasure in them.” Parenthood robs old age of its terrors, and defies death itself. “O, I just fill in the chinks.” The girl laughed as she said it, but her mother added quickly:— “The chinks are everything. You haven’t the slightest idea what a help she is and what a load it lifts from my shoulders, this ‘filling in of the chinks,’ as she calls it.” The busy woman spoke warmly as she smiled happily at her daughter. “You see, when she was through school, there didn’t seem to be anything definite for her to do. Her father and I wanted her at home, for a while at least, before she undertook to go out into the world. “Our one servant does all the heavy work, of course, and I am kept pretty busy with the children, and so she looked around and noticed the little things that should be done to keep a home neat and orderly, and which a servant never does and I have very little time for. The left-overs, I always called them—O, but it is such a comfort to have them done.” “And what are they?” I asked of the girl, as she sat pulling out the edges of a lace mat and making it look fresh and fluffy. “O, I don’t know,” she answered. “There are so many of them, and such little things, you know.” She spoke almost apologetically. “Let me see. Well, I began in the parlor, of course. All girls do at first. There were some little silver vases that were seldom shined. I kept those bright, and the silver on the afternoon tea-table. You have no idea how much it tarnishes. And the little cups always dusted, and the doilies fresh and clean, and the tidies also. Really, that is a work by itself, and mother used never to have time. Then the picture moulding. The brass hooks that hold the picture cords were never dusted. I kept those clean. Then in the bedrooms. I look out that there are fresh towels on the bureau and stand, and that the hair receivers are not jammed full. “It is really too funny the way I found them packed when I first began. And the soap dishes clean and fresh soap when it is needed, and dusters in their bags, and waste-baskets emptied. O, yes, and buttons11 sewed on to the shoes. I believe I sew on a half-dozen every day. “I go over the house daily, in the morning, right after the children are sent to school. “I begin by picking up the things they have dropped, and putting them in their proper places. “Then I go into the library, sharpen the pencils that need it; fill the ink-well; see that the pens in the penholders are good, the blotting pad not too old, the waste-basket empty; and then I go through the other rooms, and, if you’ll believe me, I always find something to be done, something aside from the regular work of clearing up, sweeping, or bed-making; these belong to the girl to do. “You see, I only do the little things that get left for the general cleaning, or are neglected altogether. “It is very pleasant, and helps—at least mother says that it does.” “Yes,” said the mother, “and no one else knows what a difference it does make to have those chinks filled.”—Good Housekeeping. MY NEIGHBOR.
By Fanny L. Fancher
[Fanny L. Fancher, in Hopeful Treasure.] My blessed neighbor over the way didn't wait until I was cold and lifeless clay ere she brought me her flowers. Ah, no! She dropped her morning task, gathered that lovely bouquet and hastened to place it in my living hands; and there in the vase on the table it is filling the room with incense most sweet, and my heart with joy and cheer. Before her advent a despondency that I could scarce resist cast a gloom about me; but sight of the flowers, and thought of the giver, causes me to wonder how I could have been other than glad. Dear readers of this true incident, may we emulate the beautiful example of my neighbor. Let us strive to brighten the sad lives of those about us with gifts of flowers and words of appreciation, remembering that the day may soon come when it will be too late. Thy loving looks, tho full of tenderness,
Thy tears of sympathy, tho they fall fast,
Thy words of praise, alas! can ne'er avail
In lifting shadows from a life that's passed. And thy rarest blossoms—what can they suffice,
Offered to one who can no longer gaze
Upon their beauty? Flowers on caskets laid
Impart no incense to departed days. WHAT WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
By Adelaide Proctor
Have we not all, amid earth's petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a nobler life
That once seemed possible? Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings, and feel it near,
And just within our reach? It was! and yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret,
And now live idle in a vague regret;
But still our place is kept, and it will wait
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been!
Since good, tho only thought, has life and breath—
God's life—can always be redeemed from death,
And evil, in its nature, is decay,
And any hour can blot it all away;
The hopes that lost in some far distance seem,
May be the truer life—and this the dream.
—Adelaide Proctor. STANDING UP FOR THE RIGHT.
Even schoolboys will find opportunities for showing courage as real and noble as that of the bravest soldier on the battle-field. The following illustrations of this truth are taken from the lives of two noble Englishmen:— When Bishop Patterson was a schoolboy he was an excellent cricket player and a member of the school eleven. One day during a practice game he heard some of the boys using profane language. Immediately after the game he wrote to the captain of the eleven, telling him that if such conduct were allowed on the cricket ground, he would withdraw. Boys will understand how much courage was required to take this stand, and it was no wonder that such a boy afterwards became one of the most heroic of Christian missionaries. During the school days of Gladstone he was present at a dinner when a doubtful toast was proposed which was usually drunk with great enthusiasm by the boys. Young Gladstone sat still with his glass turned down as a protest against the conduct of his companions. Boys who will stand up for the right, even if they must stand alone, are needed in every school, and such boys will always win the respect of those around them.—King's Own.