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6 Worth Woman's While May every soul that touches mine— Be it the slightest contact—get therefrom some good, Some little grace, one kindly thought, One inspiration yet unfelt, one bit of courage For the darkening day, one gleam of faith To brave the thickening ills of life, One glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists, To make this life worth while, And heaven a surer heritage. —Anon. Taking Our Meals Out-of-Doors. Have you brought out your porch table yet, and begun to lay your breakfast on the back verandah and your tea on the grass under the trees? It is chief of all the luxuries of summer, the season of all the year when Nature has made it so that man, with the rest of the animal world, can live out of doors, and has invited us with such wealth of beauty we are all but driven from our confining, soul-cramp ing walls into the open, there to expand and take in with the pure, sweet air, the exhiliration, the in spiration which nothng but actual contact wth the physical world can give—the grassy sward or brown earth under the feet, the leafy canopy and blue sky overhead and green growing things where we can feel their breath and reach out and touch them. They whose habit it is to rise late and take the morning meal in a room that all night has been closed and but a short time opened, can have but faint conception of the sweetness of a June morning at six o’clock with the sun already strong and be ginning to dry the earth of the fragrant dew, shin ing brightly upon a cheerful table laid in the de licious freshness of the porch, or better still, in the yard. Things have a different sort of look from' the hour and the environment, and the most indifferent appetite rouses to the delights of brown toast and butter and fresh fruit and cream and the tantalizing odor of coffee—coffee made as only it ought to be drunk, free of caffein, delicate and fine and not hurtful. Okie approaches such a table with a pleased sense of something that makes the day good, and leaves it refreshed and not burdened, as some times is the case with breakfast taken with indif ference in an atmosphere containing little of the ozone of pleasurable excitement. And this is just what unconsciously and without effort or will of our own we get from the out of doors—a physical and mental pleasure, which more than anything else rights and aids digestion, and makes of a perfunc tory habit a pleasure and a good. The birds, the soft breeze in the branches, the stir of lately awakened life everywhere, the. drew-wet spray of bloom in the center of the table, not any one of these is it, but a subtle something we cannot just name acts upon vs and like a powerful tonic surely builds up in the places where we were run down. Not all at once certainly, but when it has been tried a few weeks where else did the improvement come from? “Oh,” exclaimed a woman of our acquaintance the other day, “I am so much better! I have been spending a month with some friends in the suburbs where we almost lived out of doors. We have been eating out of doors!” She was enthusiastic, and sure that her health was improved, and we could but smile in sympathy, for we knew what it was to “eat out of doors.” A charming woman who is very fond of having her friends with her, shows the rarest good sense and taste in the simple hospitality which in summer she extends to all in turn. Having but a tiny cot tage with a bit of old-fashioned garden in front, she is necessarily restricted, but what the house lacks the garden makes up. Here, surrounded by masses of bright annuals, with views of rolling fields and purpling woods beyond, her little table is dain tily spread, and if you have the good fortune to be her guest, and lingering over her delicious tea watch the glorious sunset and the soft settling of the moun- The Golden Age for June 21, 1906. By FLORENCE TUCKER tain twilight, and afterwards the recollection re mains with you as with us, —when you come to recall what few and simple things composed that modest little repast, what utter absence of pretense there wes, yet what true elegance of manner, what sincere hospitality, you marvel that there is not more of this sort of entertaining—that you do not do more of it yourself. The quiet little meal she serves, inside would be only pleasant, outside it is an experience to remember. A family we know—father, mother and eight chil dren—use the back porch for a summer dining room and eats here the season through, and such happy, healthy children these are, sound of body and tem per. Another family where there are only grown ups, is fond of leaving the porch for the lawn for the early evening meal. As this family is small, a little square table., as light and convenient to handle, is made to answer, and this is carried out to the most attractive spot—sometimes near a spicy, spreading fig bush, often under a great beautiful sycamore, or when there is danger of a shower, quite close up to the porch, that it may be but a moment to get safely to cover. This meal is like a little outing. The ta ble if small and crowded is laid with care, the best silver and china, and flowers—in the absence of the latter, clover heads and flowering grass are even used—and the members of the household gather to it with evening paper in hand, with book, and with pleasure, reading the news of the day and chatting as they linger until the shadows begin to fall. Here, too. the meal is as befits the season—cold breads, cold vegetables, cold tea, sandwiches, and fruit or some light chilled dessert. Who would choose hot food on warm summer evenings? And what housewife does not prefer to prepare the day’s dishes as far as possible in the early hours before the heat becomes so burdensome? Summer offers such a plentitude of good things. What we shall have for dinner is not the vexing question it is at other seasons. Rather, are we in danger of hav ing too much, too great a variety—and the most of it hot! Hot breads, hot puddings and pies, as well as the whole scale of vegetables and meats. And how much simpler and how much better once you accustom yourself to it, to have vegetables cooked in the early part of the day and set away; to have cold joint or fowl, and fruits cool and juicy as nature provides them ready for our use, not cooked unnecessarily into forms less attractive and far less wholesome. Greater quantities of warm food will be taken, and so the stomach overloaded before we are aware, and when this is accompanied by ice cold drinks, as is apt to be the case, the unwisdom and the harmfulness are too apparent. For every reason the out-of-doors is preferable. It somehow doesn’t occur to you to carry a steaming meal onto the lawn. We move unconsciously by suggestion, and the two do not in any way connect themselves. If you have not tried it, make the ex periment of inviting the family to a table with green grass for a carpet, and for a ceiling green leaves, with little patches of blue visible through the sky lights, and witness their pleasure; then consider the benefit to health, the pure joy to all—and wonder with us how in the world people can go on cooping themselves up inside walls when they might be out enjoying what was meant them to enjoy so. Else why do we have summer? Emerson says in effect, “The virtue you would like to have, assume it as already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in the character of the part he plays.” No matter how great your weak ness, or how much you may regret it. assume stea dily and persistently its opposite until you acquire the habit of holding that thought, or of living the thing, not in its weakness, but in its wholeness, in its entirety. Hold the ideal of an efficient faculty dr quality, not of a maned or deficient one, The way to reach, or to attain to anything is to bend oneself toward it with all one’s might, and we ap proximate it just in proportion to the intensity and the persistency of our effort to attain it. If you are inclined to be very excitable and ner vous, if you “fly all to pieces” over the least an noyance, do not waste your time regretting this weakness and telling everybody that you cannot help it. Just assume the calm, deliberate, quiet, balanced composure, which characterizes our ideal person in that respect. Persuade yourself that yon are not nervous or excitable; that you can control yourself; that you are well balanced; that you do not fly off on a tangent at every little annoyance. You will be amazed to see how the perpetual hold ing of this serene, calm, quiet attitude will help you to become like your thought.—Success. He Would Not Compromise. In 1845, when traveling as a circuit preacher, the Rev. W. H. Milburn was sent from St. Louis to Wheeling, West Virginia, on the boat were several congressmen going to Washington, some of whom shocked the young minister by their reckless speech and habits. One of the days of the long river journey was Sunday, and Mr. Milburn was asked to preach. The offending congressmen were present to hear him, and at the close of an appropriate discourse he ad dressed them directly, and solemnly denounced thir action in the plainest language. He told them that he had supposed that the representatives of the na tion at its capital were representatives of its char acter as well as of its intellect, but “If I am to judge the nation by you,” said he, “I can come to no other conclusion than that it is composed of profane swearers, card-players and drunkards.” The same day Mr. Milburn was waited upon in his state room by a gentleman who presented a purse—about seventy-five dollars—from the con gressmen, in token of their “sense of his courage and faithfulness,” and desired to know if he would allow them to present his name at the opening elec tion of chaplain to Congress. Blind Chaplain Milburn obtained this honorable post through his fearlessness in his sacred profes sion and his loyalty to truth and duty.—Youth’s Companion. We were told today a touching incident of the picnic given in this city a short time ago to the poor children, the little ones who have no fathers and mothers, or none who can give them much of the pleasures, or even the comforts, that it seems to some of us older ones childhood wherever found ought to be entitled to. It was a lovely picnic. About three hundred little people were served by many willing hands, and long tables were laid beau tifully. At each place were two nice meat sand wiches and two little cakes and a glass of lemonade and a plate of most beautiful ice cream, and a little bag of candy (the very best candy too, fresh and wholesome), and by the side of it all a folded paper bag. The bag was for the child to put anything into it that he did not wish to eat just then. It was about one of those bags the lady was tell ing us. She was one who saw that the children were given everything and made happy—a sweet lady with beautiful white hair and a lovely, kind face. One little girl about three or four years old she noticed holding on to her bag of lunch with earnest and unyielding grip, and spoke to her kindly. “Why don’t you eat your dinner?” she asked. “Why,” cried the child, in surprised and indig nant protest, “I’ve got a baby at home!” We laughed when she told us—but we would rath er have cried. Her “baby at home!” Was ever anything more touching? Was ever unselfishness more simply, more beautifully or more faithfully portrayed? Dear little thing!