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PICTURES OF SILVER.
In the season of snow at the end of the day,
When the shadows wax long and the shadows grow
gray,
And the light of the day is beginning to wane;
The pictures of silver appear on the pane.
When the fir trees like prophets frown down on the
vale,
And the lamps in the windows of heaven seem
pale,
And the cloud in the west bears a crimsoning stain,
The pictures of silver are seen on the pane.
A flower and a satyr, a shrine and a saint,
And visions as varied and fancies as quaint
As ever the mind of a genius conceived,
The wand of the Frost in an hour has achieved.
Come sculptor, come poet, come artist, come all;
Ere the lamps shall be lit, ere the curtains shall
fall;
And view while they linger untarnished by time,
The pictures of silver that gleam in the rime.
Old Winter is lusty in spite of his age,
With the eye of a dreamer, the soul of a sage;
And dearly he loves, as the dull moments pass,
His dreams to portray on the window’s frail glass.
ARTHUR GOODENOUGH.
Brattleboro, Vt.
CHAT.
Glad are we to welcome an old friend of the House
hold in the Sunny South days, Carol Elmore, who is
Mr. Lacey, the well-known character impersonator,
singer, actor, poet. He writes his own songs and
has published a volume of poems. He has traveled
all over this country, Mexico and Canada, under the
auspices of the International Lyceum Association,
appearing in clasic roles, as interpreter of Shake
speare characters; also in humorous scenes from
standard fiction. Now he is giving his versatile tal
ents to advance the cause of Christ. He is traveling
with a well-known evangelist, and drawing thousands
to hear his songs and witness his fine and subtle im
personations.
He has always been the apostle of good cheer and
his plea for Christian optimism is characteristic. The
days of the grim and gloomy Christian are in the
past. One rarely meets now with the type, once be
lieved to be the only true illustration of religion.
They carried about faces that curdled the milk of
human kindness in secular men and women, and
made children hide aw r ay in corners when they came
for a pastoral visit. For some of these stern and
grim personages were preachers, zealous for their
Master’s cause, but with a mistaken way of carry
ing out their mission, away wholly unlike that of
the gentle and sympathetic Christ.
There has been a great change for the better; re
ligion is now understood as a possession which adds
so much to a man’s happiness that it makes his face
beam and his heart expand with kindly interest in
his fellow beings. The very hymns show the change.
Few of these are in long metre, and seldom does one
hear the song, “Hark from the tomb a doleful song”
Enlightened belief in immortality takes away the
dolefulness from the tomb.
Tessa Roddey, I am glad you have taken up the
prematurely dropped discussion of old books and new
books. Now, we shall probably hear from
Julia Coman Tait again. I think, Tessa,
your friend was a good deal in the right
as to new books. These new books have the
warm pulse of life. They “catch the manners liv
ing as they rise.” And some of the late novels are
fine. They give vivid, subtly real pictures of life.
The analysis of motives, the portrayal of the sure
consequences of mistakes and errors,’ is fraught with
practical lessons which impress all the more that
they are suggested and do not come in form of hom
ilies.
Next week, I will tell you about some delightful
new books I have recently read, one of which is now
on the press, that will make admirable winter even
ing reading for the family. I want us to try to make
this department instructive, as well as entertaining.
Another thing: will not each of you show your ap»
predation of the Qoldep Age by recommending it to
FHE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think.
The Golden Age for November 19, 1908.
your friends “and trying to put in at least one more
family? To each one sending a year’s subscriber be
fore New Year’s, I will send a dozen pretty post
cards, and to the ones sending two subscribers, for a
year, by that time, I will send a nicely bound book.
Os course, the subscription money must accompany
the name and address. I make this personal offer
to you on my own responsibility, and because of the
interest I take in The Golden Age. Besides this lit
tle premium, you will receive the regular commission
allowed by The Golden Age Company for each sub
scription sent in by one who is a subscriber to the
paper.
XKiXftb ®ur Correspondents
THE OCCULT IS THE NATURAL.
Dear Household Mother: In referring to spiritualis
tic phenomena in your Chat in The Golden Age of the
15 inst., you say, “these things will one day be seen
to proceed from natural powers.” Now, dear Mother,
isn’t everything natural when we come to under
stand it? It is only the things we do not under
stand that we speak of as supernatural.
When the gentle Christ raised the dead and opened
the eyes of the blind, he did it by natural laws. And
you remember, in speaking of Lazarus, he said, “He
is not dead, but sleepeth,” and he said to his disci
ples at another time, “And greater things than these
ye shall do.”
Life, in all its various manifestations, is a miracle;
and I never see a flower unfolding its tender petals
to the kiss of the sun that I do not have a longing
thrill to know and understand the mystery of that
flower’s growth—the great beautiful mystery of it
all!
But as the world grows better and we learn the
great law of divine love and tenderness to all things,
we will grow into a knowledge of these things. Our
brains will be different and so we will have better
machines through which the soul may manifest itself.
That there is fraud in psychic phenomena none
can deny, but isn’t this true of everything under the
sun?
For many years I have studied and investigated
along these lines of thought, and I have no need
of proof of “life after death,” even though this di
vine truth were not implanted in my own soul —as it
is in every soul.
Concerning Eusapia Palideno, I would say she is
said to be only an ignorant peasant woman; this
being so, it is not surprising that she might, through
vanity, be led to make the most of her publicity.
Oh, wasn’t Arthur Goodenough’s Good Night poem
just beautiful?
ITALY HEMPERLY.
WHAT MAN HAS DONE, MAN CAN DO.
(A Plea for Christian Optimism.)
In generalizing for a few moments on the some
what hackneyed theme of the “silver lining” and the
brighter side of things, I want to steer clear of the
alluring coral reefs and beacon lights of the moral
ist. The very fact that we can have sunlight and dark
ness in equal ratio, with the balance on the side of
the orb of day, in that all the elements of life
and growth are contained therein, seems to be
preponderant evidence that optimism is Heaven-born,
and those who smile have found easy sailing and a
fleet of many million ships on its placid seas.
There is so much of the element of grumbling, and
it is so easy to whine, on the other hand, that those
who are forced to languish underneath the lengthen
ing shadows of pessimism seek an intoxicating re
lief when the potion of smiles is dispensed, and the
poet, painter and singer who seek to immortalize
the optimistic side of life find many adherents with
out giving God the credit for the joys and hopes that
spring eternal in the human breast.
Thus, those who dream on “flowery beds of ease”
do not always find “tongues in trees, songs in the
running brooks, sermons in stones and good in every
thing.”
And,, so, while the text of this little idle-hour spray
of thoughts might be “God’s in His Heaven, all’s
right with the world,” let us not forget the infinite
Being who “holdeth the stars in His hand,” and in
whom we live, move and have our being, like so
many moralists, who, in their Pharisaic egoism have
outgrown the church of the Christ,
Optimism is not an element of glittering gener
alities, but of psychic force. “As a man thinketh,
so is he” is no truer than the maxim, “What man
has done, man can do,” and this is the principle that
1 would plant, sound and deep. Without a sublime
faith in the ultimate triumph of all things good—a
faith that bares the blades of the broken-mailed
brigades, and that leads men to do and die, we
will see emblazoned all around in ineffable fire,
“Failure —failure.” The doubter never accomplishes
things. And ninety-nine per cent of our doubting
Thomases are pessimists.
Not only is the spirit of optimism born of this
undying faith, but the secret of personal power is
there. One of my former classmates, and a bosom
friend of my barefoot days, has risen to eminence
and business power in the east, through sheer faith
in his powers and native determination. Had he
consecrated his soul to the better spiritual purposes,
his life would be a complete success, for pecuniary
gain always follows in the ratio of man’s needs
when good judgment is combined in the management
of affairs With high spiritual purpose. Look about
you. You cannot find a consecrated, level-headed,
unfanatical Christian man or woman who is not a
substantial success, and far happier than the restless
rover on the sea of Doubt and Error.
His Velvet Slippers.
And then, optimism makes one buoyant and vi
brant with life, and love, and joy. It gives the pas
sion for doing things that makes the ideal soul-win
ner. The words of the Christ, “Go, preach,” meet
readiest response, for who is there who has not
felt the hungering to help some one, and a longing
to carry a message to some kindred soul? So long
as the fire of hope kindles in the heart, so long will
there be this desire to love and lift in the lives of
God’s creatures, it is the element Heaven-sent; the
low desires of the sensual and glutton are found only
in those w'ho have been dragged into the mire of
depravity, or who have fallen through sheer weak
ness. It is not —it cannot be —the native principle
in man, who was created just a little lower than God,
all the arguments of the perverted iconoclast as to
“man’s inhumanity to man,” and the lure of sin to
the contrary notwithstanding. Sin does not allure
—it is the glamor that surrounds it that attracts,
and Satan never thinks of presenting a cup of poison
without first offering a beautiful garland of flowers.
His cloven hoof is always neatly shod in velvet slip
pers. Vice is repulsive to humanity; we do not fall
into it naturally—the tinsel of the beautiful must
first clothe it.
Then, since it is but natural to love to be good,
to do good, and to look up and lift up, would it not
seem but the normal portion for every man and
woman to be a soul-winner? “Count that day lost
whose low-descending sun views from thy hand no
worthy action done.” When we learn to ever look
starward, the pitfalls and quagmires will cease to be
realities. . Enthusiasm, vibrant and universal, will
dominate, and we will talk of the good things that
come from the heights, as we now discuss the mater
ial things of life —politics, the weather, the latest
fashions, etc. We shall sing with the sweet Psalm
ist of Israel, “I will life up mine eyes unto the hills,
whence cometh my help.” And the world shall be
far the better for our having been a part of it.
Next to a prayer to the Father daily to empty me
of self —to forbid that I should glory save in the
cross of the Lord Jesus —I would sing this little
verse:
“I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
“I would be friend of all —the foe, the friendless —
I would be giving, and forget the gift;
I would be humble, for I know my weakness —
I would look up, and love, and laugh, and lift.”
And were I to open a college of Optimism, I would
suggest as the preparatory course, the silent hour of
prayer. Give us praying Christians, and we will
show you legions of faces that beam with the hope of
the better life and pulse with the exuberance of vital
ity—legions of hands that work for Jesus and feel that
walk not in the ways oi the ungodly—legions of
hearts that beat fast and strong for humanity, for
the soul that is sinking, for the eyes that are lead
ened, tor the fatherless cjiild and the widow on the
