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6 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.