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10
IT I HAD THE TIME
If I had the time to find a place
And sit me down full face to face
With my better self that stands no
show
In my daily life that rushes so;
It might he then I would see my soul
Was stumbling still toward the shin
ing goal;
I might be nerved by the thought
sublime,
If I had the time!
If I had the time to let my heart
Speak out and take in my life a part,
To look about and stretch a hand
To a comrade quartered in no-luck
land;
Ah, God! If I might but just sit still
□ □ CHAT □□
Friends, what I wish to talk to you
about today is the child —the children
whom we have always with us —and
who are lovely—or unlovely—just as
we mothers make them, in a great
measure.
Last Sunday was a balmy, sunshiny
day and it was a pleasant, as well as
a rare sight to see so many young
mothers among the children of the
morning Sabbath-school. These moth
ers had been especially invited by one
of the Sunday-school teachers —a gift
ed and influential woman —to whom
the superintendent had turned over
the conduct of the exercises after
class lessons.
She had arranged a program with
the view of interesting mothers and
rousing them to a more active sense
of thefr responsibilities.
The music of the occasion was beau
tifully appropriate, including solo
songs by lovely trained voices, accom
panied by organ and violin. Also a
song by the superintendent, who has
a magnetic voice. The lady who had
arranged the meeting opened it with a
talk based on the Bible lesson of the
day—the beautiful story of Elisha re
storing to life the only child of the
Shumanite woman. One short sen
tence in thw lesson, she made pecul
iarly impressive. It was the four
words spoken by the prophet when,
after strength spent in prayer and the
exercise of vital powers, he had
brought hack life to the child’s rigid
body, and turning to the mother, said:
“Lift up thy son.”
Like most of the sayings in the
Scripture, the words have a deeper
meaning than appears on the surface.
The injunction, “lift up” referred to
the child’s body, but at the same time
it was more deeply applicable to the
three-fold nature of the child—and to
the duty of mothers in rearing their
sons to lift them up morally—as well
as to build up their bodies. “In every
day life,” she said, let your children
have from you an uplift of their entire
natures —an elevating and ennobling
influence —emanating from your teach
ings—your acts and your methods of
living.”
A fine paper, which I wish I could
give you, was read by a lady who had
brought up her sons tO' be honorable
and upright men. What she said, re
ferred in part, to the deep and living
concern which Christ showed for
children and to the solemn injunction
He gave that these little ones should
be tenderly cared for and that none
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think .
R. E. Burton, in Once a Week.
And hear the note of a whip-poor-will,
I think that my wish with God’s
would rhyme—
If I had the time!
If I had the time to learn from you
How much for comfort my word could
do;
And I told you then of my sudden
will
To kiss your foot when I did you
ill —
If the tears aback of the bravado
Could force their way and let you
know —
Brothers, the souls of us all would
chime,
If we had the time!
should seek to despoil them of their
innocence.
Children of Today and of Old
Times.
Christ’s injunction to “feed His
lambs” is being carried out today
more fully and practically than ever
before. All over the civilized world
there is an awakened and increasing
solicitude concerning the child—a
cimcumstance which proves convinc
ingly that the humanity is growing
better as well as more enlightened.
Governments are realizing that only
by giving the most careful attention
to the bringing up of the child can
there be good citizenship and freedom
from the shame and expense of crime,
idiocy and insanity. The child today
has attention and advantages never
dreamed of —even fifty years ago. In
the so-called good old times there
were not only no reformatories and
free hospitals for children, but there
were no parks for them, no public
play grounds—no recreation piers, no
summer excursions, and sojourns in
country homes, no floating sanita
riums and roof gardens for puny chil
dren, no free lectures, enlivened with
music and stereopticon pictures, no
free sewing and cooking classes
taught, often by the very women who
are supposed to' be immersed in soci
ety. The child of the slums in former
times grew up in the filthy disease
breeding streets of that day with no
thought bestowed on his welfare out
side that given by his parents, who
were then left to their instructed
methods, having no one to give them
instruction in the art of buying and
preparing food so as to have it nour
ishing and wholesome. Now there
are free cooking classes to show the
scientific methods of preparing food —
methods that conduce to economy as
well as to health—while in every large
city there is that grand object lesson
towards right living—the settlement.
The latest effort to give children
proper food is the penny lunch. It
was found that many of the school
children were puny in body and back
ward in their minds, and physicians
declared that was due to the'r being
poorly nourished. Ignorant, busy or
careless mothers supplied them with
scanty, indigestible breakfasts and
gave them a little money to buy a
lunch, which promptly went to the
vender of cheap candy and unwhole
some sweetmeats.
It was proposed to furnish inexpen
sive luncheon to the children of the
The Golden Age for March 23, 1911,
poorer districts, luncheon wholesome
and appetizing, but costing in some
cities, two' and three pennies—in oth
ers —only a penny. Through the ex
ertions of good women this is now be
ing done; they themselves preparing
the nice, satisfying lunch of sandwich
and fruit. The improvement in the
looks, the health and mental bright
ness of the children was very soon
noticeable. And as there is a very in
timate connection between the food,
the health, the mind —and the soul of
a human being, the morals of these
children —their tempers and disposi
tions are partaking of the improve
ment in their bodies.
I give below my own paper, read on
the interesting occasion of our al
most impromptu mothers’ meeting:
The Mission of Mothers.
It is possible for the poorest wo
man in the land to possess a kingdom
richer than that reigned over by
Queen Wilhelmina, of Holland —the
kingdom of her children’s hearts.
In the kingdom she should reign su
preme. No nursery governess and no
teacher —though greatly helping her
in her work —can lift it out of her con
trol without detriment to the child. Yet
too often she fails to realize what a
rich woman she is and loses her king
dom, the hearts of her children —and
her crown —the diamond crown of
motherhood.
“I don’t know what we would do
without a nursery governess,” said
one business man to another, as they
sat at a restaurant table waiting to
have luncheon served them. “Miss
Springer takes all the trouble of the
young ones off our hands. My wife
has so many social claims upon her,
and I am so immersed in business
that really we have not time to get ac
quainted with our children. But we
have every confidence in Miss Spring
er.”
“No governess or teacher can take
the place of the child’s parents, par
ticularly the mother,” said the other
man. “No one else can so well under
stand the child’s nature and give him
the love he needs. My mother was all
in all to us children,” he went on.
“We were very poor, but we did not
feel the sting of it because our mother
always seemed happy with us. She
was always planning some simple lit
tle pleasure for us, if it was only mak
ing picture scrap-books or cutting and
baking little rabbits and birds out of
biscuit dough, or telling us stories as
we sat together in the twilight. Then
she w r as always encouraging us to look
for better things—always hopeful of
the great things her children were go
ing to do for her and for themselves
when they grew up. The humble
luncheon we carried to school was
always wrapped in a clean, white bit
of cloth, that it might seem attractive
to us, and one of the most touching
recollections of my childhood is of see
ing my mother patiently washing and
ironing those pieces of cloth for our
school lunches. Dear little mother!
the greatest satisfaction to me in hav
ing made money is that it enables me
to give her comfort and rest in her
latter days.”
The face of the busy, successful
lawyer grew dreamy and pensive. The
fragrance of the little bunch of violets
he had bought of a boy in the street
and pinned on the lapel of his coat
had carried him back to the old home
and to the mother who had made it
happy, and who was happy herself in
that she possessed a kingdom in the
hearts of her children,
D Try This Home-Made
:: Cough Remedy
———■—
D Costs Little, But Does the Work
<>- Quickly, or Money Refunded.
4-
Mix one pint of granulated sugar
with y 2 pint of warm water, and stir
for 2 minutes. Put 2V2 ounces of Pin
ex (fifty cents’ worth) in a pint bot
tle; then add the Sugar Syrup. Take
a teaspoonful every one, two or three
hours.
You will find that this simple rem
edy takes hold of a cough more quick
up than anything else you ever used.
Usually ends a deep-seated cough in
side of 24 hours. Splendid, too, for
whooping cough, chest pains, bron
chitis and other throat troubles. It
stimulates the appetite and is slight
ly laxative, which helps end a cough.
This recipe makes more and better
cough syrup than you could buy
ready-made for $2.50. It keeps per
fectly and tastes pleasant.
Pinex is the most valuable concen
trated compound of Norway white
pine extract, and is rich in guiaicol
and all the natural pine elements
which are so healing to the mem
branes. Other preparations will not
work in this formula.
» This plan of making cough syrup
with Pinex and Sugar Syrup (or strain
ed honey) has proven so popular
throughout the United States- and Can
ada, that it is often imitated. But the
old, successful formula has never been
equalled.
A guarantee of absolute satisfaction,
or money promptly refunded, goes
with this recipe. Your druggist has
Pinex or will get it for you. If not,
send to The Pinex Co., 236 Main St.,
Fort Wayne, Ind.
The Black Sheep.
Every child is a study—a book more
fascinating than any novel. To w r atch
the unfolding of character, and to as
sist in its development, is one of the
joys of motherhood. No two children
are alike. Some need far more care
and forbearance than others. Only
the mother can discern the different
characteristics of her children, and, by
fostering good qualities and suppress
ing evil ones, can mold the child’s na
ture into symmetry.
Some children are strangely per
verse and wayward, and require all
the loving forbearance and gentle
firmness of a wise mother. These are
the “black sheep” of the family. It
often happens that these black sheep
are the possessors of that brilliant, yet
handicapped, quality we call genius.
The future great man is often a child
crank, but it takes such cranks to
turn the world, and, unless under
stood and guided by the mother, the
fine, sensitive character may easily be
warped. The most wonderful man of
today—Edison, the wizard of electric
ity—tells us in his biography that it
was solely owing to his mother that he
was not the black sheep of the family.
As a lamb, he w r as far from resem
bling the snowy-fleeced lambkin that
followed Mary. He says he was the
dunce of the school. He was nearly
always late; he was a dreamer and an
idler. The teacher scolded and pun
ished him; his father looked on him
as a ne’er-do-well. Only his mother
understood him and sympathized with
him.
Al
