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THE GUIDING HAND
Worth Woman’s While.
By FLORENCE TUCKER.
“Dark Closets.'’
“What though thy yesterday be sadly fraught
With disappointments, heartaches, failures, sins,
Touch not thy gloomy past with word nor thought—
To-day another chance for thee begins!”
We all have them—these secret chambers where
are stored away everything that ever experience
knew or memory turned away from, trying to for
get. Who has not lain awake in the night watches,
dwelling on the mistakes and griefs that not even
the daylight is permitted to see? And how larger
and larger they grow! How enormous becomes
our offense, how abject our failure! And the more
they torment us the more we go back to them till
it has become a habit. ‘ ‘ Going into dark closets, ’ ’
Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney calls it.
And one who has once read her warning must
wish that every woman in the world might receive
the wholesome message; and go into her own closet
just one more time, and tear out every single thing
hidden there, or if she cannot do that, let in the
light and determine that when she finds herself
turning thitherward she will deliberately go the
other way.
It is the only way to meet growing habit—and no
habit is easier acquired than that of gloom, of
thinking about ourselves, and finally retiring within
ourselves till we may also be said to live in a
dark closet. It creeps upon us imperceptibly, too.
Fancy being shut in from the rest of the world
shut off from the warmth and joy of its sympathy
and ready comradery! It could never have been
the conscious intention of any one, and yet it is
what we surely come to if we spend too much time
in the dark closet.
And when outside the whole world, the very
house itself, is flooded -with sunshine. Ah, and hope,
and new life! For as “neither death nor life, nor
angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present” can separate us from the Father’s love.
So, not any of these, nor things past, can defraud
of the chance that is for us in the new day of each
recurring sun. Not to-morrow, but “to-day another
chance begins.” Yesterday is gone, and with it the
deed we now regret—we can recall neither the
one nor the other, and what good were it ever to
rmember mistake except only to profit by it? And
what good ever came of settled grieving?
Ah, these “dark closets”—how we cling to them,
like very household gods! And it is only our own
poor little will that holds us to the gloom and shad
ow, and will not let us break- away to the light—
nothing more!
k
The New Queen of Norway.
The wife of Carl of Denmark, now Haakon the
"VIL, is not only Norway’s queen; she is wife and
mother in her home, and her subjects even call her
“the mother of our people.” While crown princess
she established hospitals and orphanages and homes
for the aged, and endeared herself rarely. The life
she lived with her husband in Copenhagen when he
was not rich, and their home in a flat taught her
much that a woman in State or Court life never has
the opportunity or privilege of knowing. How she
valued this privilege may be judged by her answer
when asked if it was true that at that time she
had done most of her own housework:
“I did,” replied the queen, “and am quite proud
of it. I think it as much my place to work as it
is my husband’s. I would be quite ashamed of
him, even if he were a very wealthy man, if he were
not always doing something useful, something that
helped not only our home, but others. And if I am
proud of him because he has never idled, I wish to
have him proud of me because I can perform any
duty of the home.
The Golden Age for March 1, 1906.
“I like to sew, cook, have the care of the home,
and see that all that surrounds my husband in his
home is to his comfort. I do not believe an idle
woman has any real place in this world. She will
do more harm than good. God intended in His
plan of the world that everyone should work, and
what I can do I strive to do my best.
“If I had a dozen daughters or sons, they should
never come up in idleness, no matter what our sta
tion might be. They should learn useful things, do
helpful work. It would be a wonderful world if
everyone worked with a useful purpose.”
The Price of Wives in Different
Countries.
Comparison is a mighty consoler sometimes. If
Western women who imagine themselves the slaves
of men and unjust conditions and restrictions would
but compare their lot with the women of other coun
tries more of the content of the Japanese would
prevail among us.
The latitude that American girls have—it is not
restricted—in the choice of a husband must appear
monstrous to other peoples, even as their customs
are foreign to our understanding. Think of being
sold for a wife! The case of poor little Ena of
Battenberg is hardly better. To be given away in
marriage for the advancement of State or other
interests—what difference is there, so far as the
happiness of the woman is concerned?
But to contemplate the purchase, at once, of one
hundred wives, and all for one husband! It is al
most more than our Occidental perception is capable
nt*. Yet that is the order. The Shah of Persia needs
just so many, and his envoy has been commissioned
to procure them—a little more difficult undertaking
than once it was, since the Persian women have be
gun to assert themselves, and more and more to
throw off the yoke; and the beautiful Georgians are
fast dying out. Too, the prices in the market for
wives are advancing.
When the envoy sets forth on his mission he must
provide himself with ships and cargoes of cattle and
goods of many sorts. For if he go to Africa, as he
will, he will need for every Kaffir girl he buys,
anywhere from three to thirty cows; for a Banzai,
half a dozen goats, or perhaps bullocks, or sewing
needles, or percussion caps. Neangoni parents will
want two skins of a buck for their daughters, but
the Dinkas will demand one hundred cows for a girl
of good family.
Malay wives come high, and are paid for in slaves
or shell money; whales’ teeth are necessary to buy
a Fijian girl; and in Patagonia the father must be
presented w r ith a number of horses and with silver
ornaments. In Tartary the barter is, as well as in
horses and oxen and sheep, in butter and elephants’
tusks; while a Magyar maiden will cost forty florins
and three handkerchiefs. For a Chinese girl there
must be strings of money and silks and shoes. The
Japanese, being very polite, allow the suitor his
own choice oT exchange, but whatever it be, a gift
of money for the father accompanies it.
And of them all not one amongst them is permit
ted a choice—yet woman’s heart is the same the
world over. It is Christianity alone that has blessed
us above our sisters. Remembering our superior
condition, and that in part at least it may be our
own fault if things are not even better with us;
and regarding with pity the thousands and millions
of women for whom, until the light reaches them,
there is no hope, can we complain at our lot? Shall
we not rather make grateful inventory of all the
goods that is ours, and render to God thanks?
Four million dollars for charity! That is what
Helen Gould has given away in the past eight years.
She annually distributes $500,000 in well invested
channels; and not the least beautiful feature of
such loving generosity is that it is in the name of
her father and mother.
Fireside Talks With Parents
By C. H. SPURGEON JACKSON.
A boy bathing in a river was in danger of being
drowned. He called out to a traveler, passing by,
for help. The traveler, instead of holding out a
helping hand, stood by unconcernedly, and scolded
the boy for his imprudence. ‘Oh, sir,’ cried the
youth, ‘pray help me now and scold me afterward.’ ”
The moral to this fable of Aesop is, “Counsel with
out help is useless.”
The family has best been defined as the institute
of the affection. Parents and children are all at
school in this institute. Around the fireside the
affections are in training. The true and loyal
friendships in after years have their foundation in
the stability or character established around the
fireside. A boy or a girl who is not loyal to home
and parents cannot be trusted by teacher or em
ployer.
It is impossible to avert the effect of the training
around the fireside. The deficiencies, that come
either from the lack of it, or from wrong example or
teaching there, increase the burdens of the school
and place at a disadvantage for all time the neg
lected one. The student who is disappointing to
parent, the son or daughter who cannot be trusted
by parent, may with propriety cry out as did the
drowning boy, “Oh, sir! pray help me now and scold
me afterwards.”
There is a point in the experience of every boy
and girl, when the love of truth and honesty is fixed
and the habit of integrity is established. Let a
child pass this point in life without the proper at
tention of parent or teacher to seize the opportunity
to inculcate a love of the principles of truth speak
ing and honest dealing, and the mark of this neglect
will be forever at least in the vision of the unfor
tunate child, or worse, the awful stigma of this neg
lect will become manifest in reputation,—in the
vision of society. A beautiful, though neglected
girl, haunted with this vision of neglect, on ac
count of which her habit of false speaking had
been established, once asked her teacher, “How can
I quit telling stories?” Thousand have secretly
asked the same question. The answer of her teacher
was, “Quit!”
The advice was unquestionably correct from the
teacher’s position, but there must be something
more. A thousand times, doubtless, that girl had
“quit” speaking falsely and a thousand time she
had failed. The admonition to 7 ‘quit” must be
accompanied with help. We often speak of our
having a habit, when, in fact, the habit has us.
ijiKe the boy in the water drowning, or like the
man bound hand and foot, we need the helping hand.
“Oh, Sir, pray help me now and scold me after
wards. ’ ’
Ethics is the rule of right. Morality is the obey
ing the rule of right. The one observes the law,
the other obeys the law.
The first moral obligation of parent or teacher is
to discipline those under him. The primary mean
ing of to discipline is to train to obedience. The
first moral duty, then, of all who are in authority,
is to train to obedience.
“If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.”
Love is the basis for training to obedience. If love
be not in the home, obedience will be wanting there.
The foundation material for the home building is
love. Every virtue has its basis in love. “Love
wOrketh no ill to his neighbor; love, therefore, is the
fulfillment of the law.”
Has Sorrow marked you for her own ?
has disappointment smitten you hard? Re
member that heaven’s angels are sometimes
veiled. God can make even the Valley of Trial
a beautiful mountain height gilded with glow
ing faith and'crowned with happy achievement.