Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

of right versus practicability, the wise old saying, 'Where there is a will there is a way,' will prove itself true, and the blessing of the Lord will surely rest upon every effort to gain for one's self and others the most good from the right use of sacred times and seasons. Try for one month the plan of coming to this ' day of all the week the best' rested in body, strong in mind, calm and peaceful in spirit, and thus be able to answer 'Yes' when the question comes to your soul, ‘Are you ready for church?'''

The Dear Little Heads in the Pew.

In the morn of the holy Sabbath

I like in the church to see
The dear little children clustered,
Worshiping there with me.

I am sure that the gentle pastor,
Whose words are like summer dew,

Is cheered as he gazes over

Dear little heads in the pew.

Faces earnest and thoughtful,
Innocent, grave and sweet;
They look in the congregation
Like lilies among the wheat.
And I think that the tender Master,
Whose mercies are ever new,

Has a special benediction

For the dear little heads in the pew.

Clear in the hymns resounding
To the organ's swelling chord,
Mingle the fresh young voices,
Eager to praise the Lord.
And to me the rising anthem

Has a meaning deep and true;-
The thought and the music blended,

For the dear little heads in the pew.

When they hear "The Lord is my Shepherd,"
Or, "Suffer the babes to come,'
They are glad that the loving Jesus
Has given the lambs a home,

A place of their own with His people;

He cares for me and for you;

But close in His arms He gathers
The dear little heads in the pew.

So I love in the great assembly,
On the Sabbath morn to see
The dear little children clustered
And worshiping there with me;
For I know that the gracious Saviour,
Whose mercies are ever new,

Has a special benediction

For the dear little heads in the pew.

THERE is no harm, by the bye, in providing for the entertainment of very little children during the hours of public worship, by keeping in the pew a story-book, or a Bible history with pictures, or a pad and pencil, so that they may quietly employ themselves, when the sermon is going on above their little heads. Only little children will require this resource. Older ones will not find an ordinary

[merged small][graphic]

CHAPTER XXIV.

Mothers and Sons.

KNEW a mother years ago who, living in a place where hired help was simply not to be had, even if her means had allowed her to engage it, did her own work with the aid of her husband and her boys, and in addition prepared the sons for college. I used to receive her long, bright chatty letters from the little far-away inland town, where her home was a haven of peace to my thoughts, oftentimes written by snatches as she waited for the loaves to brown in the oven, or taken up when she laid her mending aside for a moment's rest. She sometimes told me of the blue-eyed laddie at her knee reciting his Latin grammar, which was propped up before her as she washed dishes and made bread, or explained an incoherent sentence by the fact that her husband had called her into the study to listen to a report he was about to send to a ministerial committee, in the very mid-current of her friendly letter.

A hard-working, cheery, useful life was hers, far-reaching in its influence, too, as the lives of good mothers always are. Now that she has gone, her sons, trained in pure and noble ways, are repeating her in countless blessed endeavors -sons, perhaps rather than daughters, carrying most of the mother with them through this world.

untrue.

To speak of the mother-brooding which enfolds the opening years of a man's life as the dearest experience which life will ever have for him may be in a sense Man goes through many experiences and tastes many a cup divinely brewed. There are for him sacramental days which lift him almost to the plane of heavenly joy all along the road here and there in his progress. The day when he decides for Christ against the temptations of lower ambition and mere temporal advantage is one starred forever after in happiest memory. The day when he finds his ideal enshrined in a fair woman, and she returns his love in sweet trustfulness and gracious surrender, is henceforward a glad anniversary.

The day when the cry of the first-born is in the house and the sweetness of heaven haloes the mother's face is set apart as a day of the solemn feast, of the crowning and the laurel. But yet always, and more and more as time goes on and youth yields to the pressure of lengthening age, the heart of the son goes yearning back to the golden dawn when his mother made his childhood a dream of delight.

There is something of the woman nature in every complete man as the finest and strongest women have in their souls, too, a strain derived from their fathers. Each sex complements the other in a mysterious but evident exchange of gifts and graces, so that a wholly feminine woman, could we find one, would hardly please us, and would probably be of somewhat tenuous fibre, while a wholly masculine man might have too arbitrary, not to say inclement and even brutal, a nature. In the highest types of men and women we find the human element compounded of the best in both halves of the race, and daughters are often most like fathers and sons like mothers, from a law which goes deep into the primitive conditions of being.

The mother who would have her sons grow up worthily must count not her life dear in the years when they are under her moulding hand. She must take an interest in whatever engages them, from the era of balls and tops to the era of falling in love. Never to lose a boy's confidence is the wisest counsel which can be given a mother. But how is she to attain this end? Only by putting her boys first and keeping them first. Only by subordinating other engagements, of pleasure, of society, of church work, of philanthropy, to the more important engagement she has in the nursery, the playground and around the evening lamp. Her boy's associates and comrades must be hers, too. She must share his life and know his aims, and keep with him hand in hand.

A woman whose sweet face rises on my thought has done this thing for her boy, though she has been handicapped by continual bondage, literal bondage, to a couch of pain. During the long years when she has been unable to walk a step, or to turn in bed without assistance, her indomitable will has kept her from casting a shadow on the wholesome sunshine of her boy's youth. She has kept pace with him in his studies and in his games, has been able brightly and constantly to stimulate him in the best ways, has given him a saintly ideal of what womanhood may be when tried in the furnace and seven times refined.

If a woman worn with bodily pain and spent with weakness may do much, what may not one accomplish whose life is unfettered and who may go and come as she chooses? Under God, a mother may make her boy what she will.

Here is a good bit of advice: "An active boy must have some chance to let off his extra activity. If a boy does not have this opportunity legitimately he becomes moody and restless, and is likely to vent his superfluous energy in some unlawful manner. It is a great mistake to repress the energies of boys, or, for that matter, of girls. The active games to which boys naturally turn are not merely for exercise; the boys must work off their extra power. What is often considered mischief is nothing but the inevitable blowing off. They will outgrow it, and their natural energy will soon enough be piped, like the natural gas of the coal fields, and made to be useful. Their invention in mischief is only the prophecy

« PreviousContinue »