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Worth Woman s While
“Among so many, can He care?
Can special love be everywhere ?
From the great spaces, vague and dim,
May one small household gather Him?
I asked: my soul bethought of this;
In just that very place of His
Where He hath put and keepeth you,
God hath no other thing to do.”
—Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.
What Would You Do ?
Did you ever think what you would do if you were
to wake some night to find a burglar in the room?
Just getting in at the window, maybe, or already
safely in and rummaging your bureau drawers, or—
terror of terrors!—advancing toward where you lie
numbed with horror, and pointing a pistol at your
head threatening to shoot if you so much as cheep?
It is an absorbing speculation, as you know, if you
have ever given yourself up to it, or listened to a
lot of women telling what they would do.
“Why,” said one, a woman of years, who thinks
she is not afraid of anything; “I would hit him with
my shillalah! I brought it home with me from
Ireland; it hangs right by my bed, and I would just
hit him over the head with it! ”
Summary disposition; He would never again at
tempt to harm her. The wicked Irish landlord
might escape the cudgel in the hand of the blood
thirsty tenant, but the burglar never when she
wielded the deadly weapon.
Another whose timid fears could not get beyond
the window where He w T ould be coming in thought
the best thing to be done was to roll the baby’s
perambulator up close to the window, —when he at
tempted to step inside, into the wheeled thing he
would go, and the rolling and surprise would put him
to rout and instant flight. She did not know whether
she would advise, in houses where there were no
babies, the purchase of perambulators as protectors
—she had not thought of that!!
One of a household of women, all sleeping up
stairs, laid her plans after this wise: If she should
hear him working at the rear door below she would
let fly her shoe at the window and the crash of glass
above as the hard heel struck it would so startle
him He would run away, leaving all in safety. Or
if He had already effected entrance by the front and
was heard stealthily coming up the stairs the shoe
would be thrown through the hastily raised window
across the alley to crash through the neighbor’s sash
—if haply the neighbor’s wife would let him venture
out to face certain danger. Her sister, actually see
ing him one night—either a man or a dog, she was
sure it was a man—was more prompt and direct;
leaning out her casement she cried in a high excited
voice, “Go home!”—clapping her hands—“Go
home, sir! ’ ’ while the shadowy form vanished around
the corner. She was sure it was a man, nor could
ever see why her family should have been provoked
to such uncontrollable laughter at her method of
accost.
A charming girl, an arrant coward, but with some
prudence if no bravery, proclaimed with the utmost
assurance of wisdom that she would lie perfectly
still and hold her breath. He might take everything
she possessed, but she would never stir. Another
more resourceful would throw cayenne pepper in his
eyes, “if she had any!!”
Maturer years would provide for the emergency.
A sweet little lady with a big fearless husband told
of how she had expressed herself to him her appre
hensions in these days of high-handed attack and
robbery, and plans for protecting him. The burglar
wanting money, of cour««, would find Mr. ’s
trousers, and just as he was in the act of going
through the pockets she would quietly rise up and
strike him over the head with a baseball bat which
The Golden Age for May 31, 1906.
By FLORENCE TUCKER
she supposed should be kept hanging close by
against, in colloquial parlance, the need of it. Nor
could she see, any more than could the brave sister
who clapped her hands at the form in the darkness,
why any body should laugh—her husband most of
all.
A nervous woman who sometimes in the absence of
her husband has to spend the night in the house
alone except for a servant in the basement, said she
went to sleep on every such occasion with a police
whistle clasped in her hand. Another had the prof
fer of a friend’s pistol which was left loaded, and
which she placed, carefully done up in a box, unde*
the head of her bed, and carefully avoided to toucn,
being afraid even to sweep around it!
Plainly, firearms are not the instinctive thought of
women in hours of midnight danger. Rather, some
implement like that suggested to the minds of two
little girls left alone one night with a servant, and
who on hearing the approach of a supposed marau
der cried loudly, as a warning to him outside, “Get
the potato masher!”—the wooden pestle appearing
to them the most savage weapon at hand.
What we think we would do can only be imagined.
What we actually do when the danger confronts is
as surprising generally to ourselves as to any. They
tell it in Washington that one evening as Eugene
Field’s daughter left the Government building,
where she had been, and proceeded along the street,
a man accosted her with, apparently, hostile intent,
and instead of doing any of the things a woman
w’ould be expected to, she simply stood her ground,
with, “If you don’t go away and leave me alone I’ll
hit you with this umbrella—l will!” And he was
so amused he went, laughing, which ended the en
counter.
It’s funny, the plans we lay in times of safety or
only conjured-up dangers, and then the fight we
really put up, as ludicrous on the one hand as the
scheme of the perambulator, and impotent on the
other as Miss Field’s umbrella would have been.
Peace.
With eager heart and will on fire
I fought to win my great desire.
“Peace shall be mine,” I said; but life
Grew bitter in the endless strife.
My soul was weary, and my pride
Was wounded deep. To heaven I cried:
“God grant me peace or I must die.”
The dumb stars glittered no reply.
Broken at last, I bowed my head,
Forgetting all myself, and said:
“Whatever comes, His will be done;”
And in that moment peace was won.
—Henry Van Dyke.
Frankness and candor are two assets of character
the value of which cannot be computed. The dis
position to be secretive will advantage you little, and
bring upon you oftentimes suspicion when least de
served. Honesty is open and above board, and the
penalty for the appearance of anything else is the
imputation of deceit. Confidence once lost by any
one act, your lightest deed ever after is liable to
question when given the look of secrecy. None but
a small mind has need of habitual concealment and
keeping to itself its most ordinary movements, and
the habit is born of cowardice if not insincerity or
dishonesty.
To learn to bear and forbear, to prefer to lose the
argument rather than the temper, to be willing to
suffer a great wrong rather than do the least wrong,
to give way to the unfortunate temper of others
rather than to gain a point at he cost of a war of
words—a few such plain habits would prevent a
world of trouble, and spread joy and happiness
through scenes where every blessing may be poisoned
by the corrosion of imbittered feelings.
A Prayer For Deliverance.
“Lord, who knowest all things, and lovest all men
better than they know, Thine is might and wisdom
and love to save us. As our fathers called unto Thee
and were holpen, and were led along the ways Thou
seest good; so, in all time of need, from all evil, the
evil of our time and of our hearts, deliver us, good
Lord. From all perplexity of mind, from loneliness
of thought and discontented brooding, from wonder
ing what Thou woulds’t have us do, deliver us, Lord.
Especially from whatever sin besets us, save and
deliver us with might, 0 Lord. From all bereave
ment, sorrow and desertion; from all things that
separate us from each other and from our God;
from all evils we have prayed against, and from all
we have not thought of, deliver, 0 Lord, thy ser
vants, whose hope is in thy goodness forever.”
The Art of Forgetting.
Cultivate the art of forgetting. Forget those
things which are behind, in so far as they may
hinder earnest reaching forth unto the things which
are before. Forget your wrongs, your discourage
ments, the slight which you have suffered, the wor
ries which once troubled you, but forget not the
Lord’s benefits. By a wise selection of the fittest
take your helpful memories with you, and so far as
possible leave the hindering ones behind.—Advance.
History records a time in England when woman’s
dress became a matter for legislation, and now at
Nordhausen, Prussian Saxony, the town council has
issued an ordinance prohibiting women from allow
ing the trains of their dresses to trail in the streets
as a measure for the protection of health, and for
the prevention of tainting the air with dust; and a
fine of $7.50 has been set for infractions of the ordi
nance.
The Cure for Scandal.
It is told of Hannah Moore that she had a good
way of managing tale-bearers. It is said that when
ever she was told anything derogatory of another her
invariable reply was: “Come, we will go and ask
if this be true.” The effect was sometimes ludic
rously painful. The tale-bearer was taken aback,
stammered out a qualification, or else begged that no
notice might be taken of the statement. But the
good lady was inexorable. Off she took the scan
dalmonger to the scandalized to make inquiry and
compare accounts. It is not likely that anybody
ever a second time ventured to repeat a gossipy
story to Hannah Moore, says Modern Women.
Influence is the greatest of all human gifts, and
we all have it in some measure All the
fruits of friendship, be they blessed or baneful,
spring from the root of influence, and influence, in
the long run, is the impress of our real character on
other lives. —Ex.
Success.
One man acquired the world’s acclaim
And climbed to place and power,
With selfish aim, and won a name
That lived a noisy hour.
Another walked in lowly ways
Wherein Self disappears,
And lo! the praise that crowned his days
Endures through all the years.
. —Walter Hurt.