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Worth Woman's While
Getting Off With the Car.
As we sat at our window unconsciously taking in
the pleasant view our eye was attracted to two wo
men leaving a street car a block away, They took
so long about it, descending laboriously, first one
and then the other, and swinging around at the
rear. If the motorman, supposing sufficient time
had been given for the stop, had started the car,
one or both must have been thrown. Why, we
marvelled as we watched them, do not people learn
to get off with the car? It were such a simple thing
to remember, and to forget it were certain danger
—at some time. A good per cent of the accidents
and disasters which occur are due to this very
carelessness, and would never have been, with just
a little thougth, a little cultivation of habit—a re
minding of self to step forward rather than to the
rear in leaving a car.
Withdrawing our gaze, and filled with thought of
how typical the little incident was of our attitude
toward life, it fell on a field of grain bending before
the wind. Ah, we thought, the slender stalk of
rye never thinks of standing before such force; it
'goes down with the first show of resistance, to raise
its head safe and unharmed in the next moment!
So with the young oak in the forest—did it at
tempt to hold out against the elements it were
snapped in twain, and promptly there was an end
of it. So with all nature, which breasts the storm
by giving way before it. An incident came to us of
a man climbing the Weisshorn, above the Zermatt
Valley, accompanied by two guides, one of whom
stood aside to let him be the first on top. Exhilar
ated by the thought of the grand view awaiting
him, and unmindful of the high gale that was blow
ing on the other side of the rocks, the traveller
sprang eagerly up, and stood erect to take in the
prospect. But the guide, seeing his danger, pulled
him down quickly. “On your knees, sir,” he cried,
“you are not safe there except on your knees!”
If we could take what comes, simply accept it
without resistance or pulling against! It does seem
that in leaving a car the most natural thing, the
line of least resistance, were with the car. Instead
of that, we go jn exactly the opposite directon—the
slight impetus that (when we’re inclined rearward)
throws us off our feet, would only carry us on did
we go ahead.
It is hard sometimes to be submissive to the hand
of God, to recognize the untoward conditions of
our lives as His will for us; but to bend were better
than to break—to resist Him were to be snapped
asunder more surely than the blade of wheat or the
young tree; to bow before the inevitable is to lift
us up again safe, the stronger even for the encoun
ter.
She Did Not Want to Be Disagreeable.
Think of one out of every eight hundred and fifty
persons in the United States being deaf! More
than eighty-nine thousand deaf people in just one
of the countries of earth!
Don’t you sometimes take your chair out on to
the lawn, and just divesting yourself of every care,
let the sweet soft sounds of the world about you,
the tiny chirp and buzz of insects, the stir of the
breeze in the branches, the twitter and call of birds
the very something that you feel to be the pulsing
of life which you can hear though you cannot see—
do you not, with your feet in the sweet, cool grass
and the green boughs reaching down to you, feel
yourself soothed, made happy in a sort of quiet
eestacy? Or, returning from the wild country spot
you sought as relief from the city’s din, aren’t the
familiar noises grateful to your ear again, the roar
of the streets with their traffic and ceaseless mov
ing, the innumerable sounds of life in all its tense
fullness? The veiy things you longed to leave,
The Golden Age for July 19, 1906.
By FLORENCE TUCKER
how are they now welcome to you! But when are
the familiar sounds so pleasant on the ear as in the
dead watches of the night when we alone hold
vigil? “It is not yet one o’clock,” we say, “or
the street cars would not be running.” And later
on, we know it is about two, for the train is just
coming in . And when the rumble of the first car
ter’s wheels so cheerfully breaks the stillness, we
say, “It is almost day break!”
This thing of sound, sound—it is life itself!
And yet to nearly ninety thousand people all the
fierce joy and pain of life that is given out in cries
or laughter, is as though it were not, except as their
eyes see. The world to them is but a pantomime,
an endless succession of moving pictures. The oth
er day at high noon in the busiest street of a popu
lous city, just at the time when the air is thickest
with all the sounds that stir the blood and quick
en the pulses, we met in passing two deaf mutes.
Down the thoroughfare they came, intent upon the
talk their hands were nervously spelling out, on
their faces the strained look these unfortunates
weai’ when greatly in earnest, and looking neither
to right nor left. Strangers to the place they ap
peared to be, and as our eyes turned to follow them
sadly, we thought. To them it is but half a visit
to the great metropolis—they see, but alas, they do
not hear!
A bird singing in a near tree charmed us, thrilled
our soul to keenest joy. We turned to one whose
hearing is but poor, “Do you hear the bird sing
ing?” “No”—he smiled—“it is years since I’ve
heard the birds!” And then the song seemed to
be hushed, and a cloud to have dimmed the sky,
as it fell on our heart, this consciousness of what
so many of God’s creatures are denied.
But never did we so realize it until it was our
fortune to 'have a neighbor who was almost stone
deaf. We used to sit and look at her as she sat on
her porch gazing out on the pasers-by, the carriages
and wagons and wheels, and the endless succession
of cars which so diverted her. No sound of any
could she hear, and no thoughts were suggested ex
cept through her eyes—of all the words of all the
people so near about her she could catch not one.
A friend dropping in for a little visit could reach
her only with straining through a trumpet, and—
alas! that she should feel it so—“ Not many people
like to talk through a trumpet,” she said.
You might ring her door bell, and ring and ring,
with the message she would like most of all to have,
and though she sat just inside, she would never
hear; her own telephone rang, but in vain for her—
ah, and the voice of her own child calling from
outside to be let in, was lost in the dead silence!
Often she slept in the house alone, and had one
forced his way in at midnight to rob and murder,
she would never have heard; had the flames roared
about her and the roof fallen in, she would not
have known until she saw and felt. She was a
brave woman—aloneness had no terrors for her—
but bravest of all, when she sat with her own blood
friends around her, and saw their pleasant talking
together, their interchange of interest and sym
pathy, and comprehended not one word except as
some one paused to explain; yet with no impatient
questionings, or demands to be told things. We
have seen her sit as the laugh went round at some
sally, and smile as pleasantly as though she knew
what it was about.
Such dignity, such control, such utter unselfish
ness we have rarely known—it was heroic. Fancy
yourself like that, and you will realize how impos
sible.
We spoke of it once, and told her how passing
wonderful it was to us that she could do it, and her
answer was this:
“I have always felt that it was bad enough to
be deaf—and I didn’t want to be disagreeable!”
Ah, what lessons they teach us, these who have
been bereft of our commonest blessings! Perhaps
sometimes we think we are self-denying, or imagine
that most beautiful virtue of consideration to be
ours, but never can we realize our own shortness
until we measure with one who has lost what we
still have—and yet has what we have not.
Catherine Von Bora’s Wedding Ring.
Any who have been so fortunate as to have read
the chronicles of “The Schonberg-Cotta Family,”
that delightful old story of Martin Luther’s life,
and his love for the beautiful Catherine von Bora,
must be pleased at this description of their wed
ding ring:
“Martin Luther’s wedding ring was discovered
in 1529, in a second-hand shop in Geneva, by Mme.
Michael Girod, and is now at Waldenberg. It is
made of silver gilt, and is believed to have been
designed by the celebrated painter and goldsmith,
Lucas Cranach, and probably was wrought with his
own hands, for he was one of the three men se
lected by Luther as witnesses of his marriage. The
design is complicated, and includes the several sym
bols of the Passion.
“In the center is a figure of the crucified Sa
vior; on one side is the spear with which His side
was pierced, and on the other side the ladder
used at the crucifixion. The pillar to which He was
bound and scourged. There is a leaf of hyssop,
the dice with which the soldiers cast lots for His
garments, three nails, a crown of thorns and other
symbols connected with the last act of the- Atone
ment, so grouped as to form a cross with a tiny
ruby at the joint, which represents a drop of blood.
It is inscribed, HI. Martino Luthero—Catharine
Bora, 13 June, 1559.’ Luther’s bride was Catherine
von Bora, one of nine nuns, who, under his influ
ence, resigned from their order and became Pro
testants.”
Who Is My Neighbor?
Thy neighbor? It is he whom thou
Hast power to aid and bless, V
Whose aching heart or burning brow
Thy soothing hand may press.
Thy neighbor? ’Tis the fainting poor,
Whose eye with want is dim,
Whom hunger sends from door to door;
Go thou, and succor him.
Thy neighbor? ’Tis that weary man,
Whose years are at their brim,
Bent low with sickness, cares, and pain,
Go thou, and comfort him.
Thy neighbor? ’Tis the heart bereft
Os every earthly gem;
Widow and orphan, helpless left;
Go thou, and shelter them.
Thy neighbor? Yonder toiling slave,
Fettered in thought and limb,
Whose hopes are all beyond the grave;
Go thou, and ransom him.
Where’er thou meet’st a human form
Less favored than thine own,
Remember ’tis thy neighbor man,
Thy brother or thy son.
0, pass not, pass not heedless by; - - -
Perhaps thou canst redeem c
The breaking heart from misery;
Go, share thy lot with him.
—Selected,