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6 Worth Woman's While Thou Knowest. Lord, all the dreams that I have dreamed, The hopes I builded fair, And lifted eager heart to Thee In voiceless prayer— Ihou knowest! Thon knowest how widely differed far From mine Thy way for me, How eyes, with blindifig tears, have turned Too oft to Thee— Thou knowest ’ Father, teach me, and yet again The task that Thou hast set; For naught is left but Thee, and I Would self forget— Thou knowest! And, Lord, where I have failed, let me Help some one else to win, That one whose happy lot I hoped, I once thought, mine had been. To help—let this my portion be— Grant but this only boon; For what I would that 1 had been. That I had done— Thou knowest! The Use of Recreation. Beware of trying to work all the time. The very intensity of your ambition to get on may keep you back. A bow that is bent constantly loses its elas ticity. Take the best Indian bow that ever was made, string it taut, hang it up for a year, then cut the string, and vou will find that the bow will remain in the same position. It has lost its throw ing power; all its spring is gone. So, the brain that is kept tense during all the waking hours soon loses it responsiveness and effective working power.. It fails to fully grasp all the necessary phases of a day’s work. Everyone should put a layer of pleasure, of gen uine recreation, into each day. No day is complete without its period of relaxation. Nothing is truer than that ‘‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”—dull, literally. Those who are everlastingly grinding, who allow themselves no time for recrea tion, amusement, or social life of any kind, are very apt to become bores, because they develop but one side of their nature. We must look upon life as a whole, and prepare ourselves for its different parts. —Ex. Children’s Prayers. The little prayers we teach children and have them say by rote after us are fraught with a deeper reality for their simple minds than we, reciting thoughtlessly, as we sometimes do. are apt to com prehend. The imagination which invests with life the most impossible inanimate thing, even conjur ing up personalities as real to the imaginator as any of actual existence, has it not its own concep tion of the unseen, the truer that it is not hampered with the knowledge which destroys faith? We think children do not understand, and talk to them of Gcd in Heaven as of some existence farther away than fairies or hobgoblins, or any of the creatures which even they comprehend could never have be ing. But little ones properly brought to early friendship with their Father have a clearer under standing than we give them credit for; their fine imagination renders their perception clear, and takes them into a closeness which the more material mind can scarcely conceive. They approach Him with a straightforwardness that is at once a rebuke and a lesson to us, taking to Him the little trials we would not have thought they realized as such. Little Mabel on her way to the mountains was told that she would have to- occupy an upper berth in the sleeping car, and protested so loud that her mother moaned, ‘Oh, you are never satisfied!” The The Golden Age for November 8, 1906. By FLORENCE L. TUCKER. incident passed and would have been forgotten per haps, but arrived at her destination the following night the impression on the baby mind was shown to have been unmistakable. When she knelt to say her prayers, at the close of the usual petitions, she added: “And oh, Lord, p’ease make me shatter tied!” Plainly she had thought it out, and was carrying her trouble to the Source she had herself decided was the only one. And how often may it not be like this? Do we realize the depth of the childish understanding, and the extent of dependence the children feel? Do we make prayer all that it could be to them? Could all things become transparent, no doubt they might teach us many things. It was little Mabel herself who prayed that she might be “shatterfied”; per haps her mother may have done so in secret, but the little petition straight out of the baby heart was of her own prompting. And so, often, do their prayers startle us—ay, and sometimes make us ashamed. Taking People at their Best. One of the greatest lessons in life is to learn to take people at their best, not their worst; to look for the divine, not the human, in them; the beauti ful, not the ugly; the bright, not the dark; the straight, not the crooked side. A habit of looking for the best in everybody, and of saying kindly instead of unkindly things about them, strengthens the character, elevates the ideals, and tends to produce happiness. It also helps to create friends. We like to be with those who see the divine side of us, who see our possibilities, who do not dwell upon the dark side of our life, but up on the bright side. This is the office of a true friend, to help us discover our noblest selves.—Ex. •• Hallowe’en on a Southern Plantation. (Continued from last week.) When the merriment was at its height Mr. Allison entering the hall where an old-fashioned reel was being danced, announced, at its finish, that a little diversion without awaited the guests; it would be furnished, he said, by the plantation negroes who would carry out an old custom in the Island of Lewis, where at Hallowtide, the inhabitants sacri ficed to the Sea-god, Shamhna, or Shony, as it has been corrupted. Tn old days they gathered together at the church of St. Mulvay, each family bringing provisions and a peck of malt which was brewed into ale, and after the sacrificial ceremony the evening was spent in the fields. It was a happy party that trooped gaily on to the lawn where scores of dusky faces were lighted by the torches which are the accompaniment of “Soule ing,” and followed the leaders down to a point on the river’s bank which was low and shallow. Here Tim waded waist deep into the stream, and pouring a cup of ale on the water, called upon Shony to prosper the people through the coming year, after which they all repaired to the little chapel where a single candle was burning upon an altar, and standing silent about it for a little, at a signal from one it was blown out, and they went—not to the fields, but to a grove at the left of the house where long tables had been spread with wholesome food as well as fruits and nuts, provided by the master, as was his custom. In the long dining room lighted by a blazing wood fire in the wide chimney, and numberless Jack-o’-lanferns made from golden pumpkins, was presented a feast such as not even Allison Hall had ever offered its guests. Added to the Hallowe’en menu which Pomona had thought included in other years every known thing suitecT to tlie season, was a dish of “call-cannon,” and a drink called “Lam asool,” neither of which had she heard of before. The “Lamasool,” a delicious concoction of roasted apples and ale, took the place of the cider of hith erto feasts. “Call-cannon’’ which is an indispensable feature of the evening meal at Hallowtide with all good Scotch and Irish wherever found, is made of mashed parsnips and potatoes and chopped onions. It is served in a deep bowl filled to the brim and placed in the middle of the table; in the center is a well filled with melted butter, and somewhere in the howl a gold ring. On this occasion it was necessa rily a very large bowl, and as Mr. Allison served each guest with a portion he explained that in some lucky one’s plate would be found the ring which promised marriage to the finder within a year. Mona’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes like stars—if Dick were coming he must soon be here! Marie had been covertly watching her all through the evening. As the plate of “call-cannon” was handed her she contrived to pass it on to Pomona— in it her eyes alone had discerned a tiny bit of shin ing rim, and as presently the shout went up, “Mo na has the ring! Mona has it!” her joy was keen est of any. “Oh, it is too bad,” cried the young hostess, “that I should have the ring at my own party!” But Marie noted that her color deepened and her breath came quick. It was a quarter of twelve when the last car riage disappeared down the avenue. Pomona slip ped quickly away—Dick had not come after all, and she could not bear it a moment longer. Through the dining-room window, and in the shadow so as not to be observed, down to the summer house she went. Mother had told her this very morning of such a beautiful test—and best of all, it was sure to come true! Selecting two of her dear roses, the two with the longest stems, she sped swiftly to the house again, and quickly up the stairs to her own room. The roses must be named, one for her lover and one for herself, and as she twined their stems together and repeated the spell-binding lines, look ing intently at the lover’s rose, his would turn a deeper hue; by her bed she must kneel, having spok en to no one since the roses were gathered. Not waiting to disrobe she dropped down by the bedside, her dew-drenched skirts clinging about her slippered feet: “Twine, twine, and intertwine, Let my love be wholly mine. If his heart be kind and true, Deeper grow his rose’s hue!” She could not tell if it grew darker or not, the tears were too thick. She brushed them away, and looked again. A second time she said them, and a third, for the third time is the charm—“ Twine, twine”—and waited— A half an hour later Mrs. Allison knocked softly at the door of her daughter’s room. Receiving no response she pushed it gently open and tip-toed in. Kneeling beside the bed, her outstretched hands still clasping the crimson roses, an undried tear on her cheek, poor, overwrought little Mona had fallen asleep. With a little sobbing laugh the mother stooped over her. “ Mavourneen! ” she murmured sweetly, while a shining drop from her own eyes mingled with the other. “Mavourneen, Dick has come! He has been talking with Father, and is waiting for you now down by your rose-bush. It is late, but Father is smoking on the verandah, so you need not mind. ” Pomona’s hands trembled in her mother’s loving clasp, and the tears were coming now like soft rain. Together they rose, and with their arms about each ■other went down to the verandah. Mother stood close to Father as the two watched their child pass from the light of the hallway into what darkness she knew not, nor cared, since Dick was at the other end—watched her pass from their care into the keeping of another love than theirs—and he turned and pressed his face to the hand resting on his shoulder. “Our little girl!” he said. “If the boy had not gotten here—But he did!”