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PINEY WOODS Here, girls, take it from me this is mighty valuable talk Miss Victoria Mumm is giving. I have tried the stenographer’s life from both sides, and it is not always easy to find the tactful path in a busy day, but cultivate the search, faithfully, fearlessly, for the finding is amply worth while: What is office sense? I have asked many times. I often recall with de light a characterization I once heard of a bookkeeper which illustrates somewhat the lack of office sense. The speaker himself I remember with the utmost affection —a quaint, origi nal, gentle-souled man. He had taken a violent dislike to this par ticular bookkeeper. “Doggone him!” he confided to me, “I haven’t any use for him. He’s a good faithful fellow, all right, but he lacks ballast. Be gins everywhere but at the point and is always slopping over.” But what is office sense? In the first place, it is not concerned pri marily with technical skill or training or conduct, though it reacts on all of them. As nearly as I can express my own idea of it, it is a well-blend ed combination of tact, self-forgetful ness, open-mindedness, and the abil ity to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials. Tact implies many things—unvary ing courtesy; the doing of the right thing at the right time in the right way; adaptability to circumstances. Especially it implies the understand ing of good old Doctor Amboyne’s phil osophy of “Put yourself in his place.” Isn’t tact really an instinctive kind ness and thoughtful consideration of THE PASSOVER. Aug. 10, 1913. Time —>1491 B. C. Ex. 12-21 to 31. Place —Egypt. THE GOLDEN TEXT: “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”—Maitt. 2028. SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS. What Should I Do? 1. Trust God's Promises. — Vs. 21 to 23. God’s promises are true and those who have trusted them have found God true to his promises. All who will trust him now will find that he will make good his promises. Mr. Spur geon said that in 1854 when London was visited by Asiatic Cholera, that constantly he was visiting the sick and burying the dead until he “was exhausted, body and soul and felt ill. As I returned home I was led by cu riosity to read a paper that was fast ened to a window of a shoemaker. Upon it were written the words: Be cause thou has made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. This had a won derful and immediate effect upon my heart. I could take the words in faith as written for me, and I now felt We need your renewel —Look at your Label—-Send for our 3 in 1 Offer r /wr tKIrOQEUL - \.VJIT yfpß I >* ' fl f ’il”' ijSsjLjSi. : * ■ I i^sifSjiyy r ♦'SC® ” ^ :l '^ Z - i* J h“W *" ’X *•■»» others which, while it gets results, gets them without friction? And the stenographer needs tact! “'No, I won’t see him —tell him to go to thunder!” requires more skill at interpretation than many a foreign idiom. Or sup pose the boss is wroth over some letter and dictates a “sizzler” that, while it gratifies the desire to “get even,” is a reflection upon the firm’s general policy? If she takes him the letter later in the day with a purely incidental, “Mr. Jones, I thought per haps you’d like to look this letter over before it goes out,” the prob ability is that Ms. Jones, having cool ed off, and being really a decent sort, will laugh and say, “I guess the waste-basket is the best place for it —I just wanted to get it out of my system. Bring your book and we’ll write them another letter.” Chiefly, working tact means: don’t bother the boss when he’s busy; be patient when he’s unreasonable; don’t be officious or too opening anxious to intrude your services upon him. The favors that count most are the ones you do when he isn’t looKing. Self-forgetfulness as an element of office sense has a twofold signifi cance: forgetfulness of self, first, in a SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON By B. LACY HOGE, Richmond, Va. safe and refreshed. Calm and peace ful within, I continued my visits to the dying: ‘1 felt no fear of the plague and remained untouched by it.” (Ps. 91-9 and 10 . Make the Lord thy hab itation. “Dwell in the secret place of the Most High,” and he will shield you from danger and will let no evil be fall you. (Ps. 9LI to 10). II . Be Saved by the Blood.—Vs. 23. God appointed away of deliverance for the children of Israel. If they had refused to accept that way, thinking that some other would do as well or they were safe without the blood, they would have put themselves outside of the protecting covenant of God and the first born would have been slain along with the Egyptians. God has provided away of salvation for us. Christ is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. (John J>29). He is our passover. (I Cor. 5-7). His blood will cleanse us from all sin. (I John 1-7. This is God’s way of salvation for us and if we re fuse and not look to the blood of Christ for salvation, but seek to be saved in another way they put them selves outside of God’s great promise and will therefore be eternally lost. Its the that imaketh atone ment.” “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Lev. 17-11; Heb. 9-22). The Lamb did not save THE GOLDEN AGE FOR JULY 31, 1913 lack of sensitiveness; second, in the willingness and ability to make others forget one, or, as it has been more aptly termed, “the gift of self-efface ment.” How many stenographers suf fer from over-sensitiveness! This would not be so bad if the unfortu nate superior did not have to suffer too. A man with his head full of perplexing matters scowls at the sur rounding landscape, and instantly the stenographer is filled with dismay— of course, he is thinking of some of her short comings! Or he speaks with a passing irritation born of some thing utterly aside from the matter in hand, and she is forthwith saucy or sulky or sad, and so adds material ly to his discomfort. Our supersensi tiveness is so palpably vanity as to make us ashamed when we analyze it. And if the scowl and the irritation really are aimed at us, we most, like ly deserve them, and if we have done wrong, what right have we to refuse to take our medicine? If we do not deserve them, then we can add to our self-esteem by being martyrs occa sionally; it is in a good cause —the development of our own character. As far the second phase of self-forgetful ness, it is its own reward, for here the children of Israel by being inno cent and spotless or by its example, but it saved them by its blood. When the Lord saw the blood, he passed over them and would not suffer the destroyer to come in and smite the first born. So Christ does not save us by his innocence or his purity or by his example, but he saves us by his blood. When God saw the blood the first born was safe. (V. 13). When the first born saw the blood he knew he was safe. (V. 13). God seeing the blood gave them security; their see ing the blood gave them assurance, be cause they believed God’s word. The blood of Christ makes us safe. The word of God makes us sure we are safe. The first born behind the blood was safe no matter what his past life had been, no matter how bad he had been, and no matter how weak he might still be. Those not behind the blood were slain no matter how good they had been or how strong they were now. The blood and only the blood of Christ is what God looks for. The blood and nothing but the blood will save the sinner. (Cor. 1:20; Rev. 1-5; I Peter 4-18 and 19; Gal. 3-15; Rom. 5-9). Christ made the atone ment on the cross. (I Peter 2-24; Gal. 3-13; Matt. 20-28). The blood has been shed, but this is not sufficient. By faith the blood must be applied. SKETCHES By MARGARET BEVERLY UPSHAW lies one of the greatest of joys of service. To have a man completely oblivious of you, so that he thinks aloud readily in your presence, to hear his brain work, to watch his charac ter reveal itself —this is fascination. When a stenographer is in sympa thy with her chief, is interested in his work, and gives herself wholly to the task in hand without any outward indication of her own individuality, es pecially if he is a man of mental power, there is a delight no less than thrilling in following him through the course of his thoughts. Open-mindedness is eagerness to learn from every possible source; grace to accept suggestions and be grateful for them even when they hurt; willingness to respect other points of view besides one’s own. We can learn something from almost any one. “How in the world does that girl endure so gracefully that grouchy old bear?” “How can this girl get out so much work with so little apparent effort?” “Why does that girl make every one like her, even when she falls short in many ways, while this girl is disliked in spite of her proficiency?” Then we can learn from things; things inconvenient and imperfect are incentive to the origination of im provements; we have done this way today, tomorrow we will try the other and weigh the results. We can read of other people’s way, and compare and classify. We can watch for ev ery slight indication of how our su perior wishes a thing done, and when he has shown us either openly or (Rom. 3-25; I John 1-9; Rom. 10-9 and 10). The lamb slain and the blood in the basin J was not sufficient to pro tect the first born. The bunch of hyssop must be dipped in the blood that is in the basin and applied to the lintel and side posits. (Vs. 7 and 22 . Only those under the blood could eat the lamb, and only those who are saved by the blood can feed upon Christ. 111. Keep God’s Ordinances. —Vs. 24 to 31. God gave to the children of Israel an ordinance to be kept for a memor ial when they came into the land. (V. 14). It was after their deliverance from death and Egyptian bondage by the blood that God gave them the or dinance of the passover. (Vs. 42 and 43). God informed Moses who should keep this ordinance. (Vs. 43 to 49). None of those saved by the blood could keep his ordinance until the sign and seal of God’s covenant, circumcision, was placed upon them. (Vs. 48 and 49). God gave to us an ordinance for a memorial of the slaying of our passover. (Luke 22r19; I Cor. 11-26). We must be saved by the blood and the sign and seal of God’s covenant, Baptism must be placed upon us be fore we can keep the ordinance. (Col. 2-11 and 12; Rom. 6-3 to 5; Mark 16-16; I Cor. )l-2; II Thes. 3-6. 9