Their clothes were rags and tatters,
With broken shoes they were shod,
But they sang with cheery voices,
And danced to the player's nod.

They didn't mind the biting

Of the nipping, frosty air,
They heard the sound of the music
And danced away their care.

Sweet little lads and lassies,

It comes to me as I look,
That we all might be the better
For a leaf from your happy book.

Thanksgiving.

"Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men ! ”Psalm cvii. 31.

Dear Lord, are we ever so thankful,

As thankful we should be to Thee,

For Thine angels sent down to defend us
From dangers our eyes never see;
From perils that lurk unsuspected,
The powers of earth and of air,
The while we are heaven protected
And guarded from evil and snare?

Are we grateful, as grateful we should be,
For commonplace days of delight,
When safe we fare forth to our labor,

And safe we fare homeward at night;

For the weeks in which nothing has happened

Save commonplace toiling and play,

When we've worked at the tasks of the household, And peace hushed the house day by day?

CHAPTER XXXII.

Fault-finding.

AKE us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines," is an injunction of Holy Writ. Among the prowling foxes which ravage the vines of home comfort, first and foremost is that wretched habit of fault-finding, into which we drift almost without knowing how or why. It is like going down hill, this fault-finding-we start and there is no stopping us; we go on from bad to worse.

A fault-finding husband ruins the happiness of his wife; a fault-finding wife, nagging and scolding on every occasion, drives her husband out of the house. Fault-finding parents make about the children an atmosphere of a pitiless hail storm, and children soon catch the prevalent tone and in turn find fault with one another. The habit has its root, as most bad habits have, in selfishness. Once indulged it becomes easy to yield a second time to the temptation to say that this or that thing is not what we wish, to be querulous and hateful in manner, to be satirical and bitter in word.

Singularly, the table is often the arena for the persistent fault-finder. The steak is either tough in the first place, or else it is not the right cut, it is too well done or it is underdone. The potatoes are soggy, the bread is not up to the usual standard, the dessert is just what you do not like. I heard of a little girl not long ago who did not think rice pudding a dessert worth eating, and so one day when she was saying her prayers she thanked God for everything she had had that day except the rice pudding. Now there are people who not only do not thank God for rice pudding or for some other thing which they do not like to eat, but they also are so rude and ungrateful that they make everybody uncomfortable by objecting to the ill-timed or ill-chosen viand when it is quite too late to get anything else. All children should be taught at the outset to eat such things as are set before them, and it should be a fixed rule in home life that no one is to show irritation or anger at a meal.

Nothing is worse for digestion than a lack of cheerfulness, and cheerfulness is impossible where people are in a surly and morose mood. If anybody is to be reproved do not let it be at the table. The mother can speak privately to the child in a way that will not call attention to the little fault of manner; but by no means should a reproof be so administered that the attention of all at the table is turned upon the unfortunate offender.

If the carving knife is dull, as, alas, carving knives are often bound to be, let not the man of the house vent his displeasure upon the whole family because of this distressing occurrence. Rather let him carve as well as he can without interjecting remarks about the knife being as dull as a hoe, or the probability that somebody has used it to cut bread or saw wood, or do some other thing for which carving knives are not intended.

What folly it is to make life a burden for anybody by constant fault-finding! Once in a while friends say to one another, "Tell me my faults." Nobody does this conscientiously. The fact is, we do not want our friends to tell us our faults, and this is proved by the quick resentment with which people receive the candid announcement that a friend has discovered a fault in their character.

Occasionally a parent or a teacher must speak words of criticism, but when this is necessary let it be done in private and with the utmost kindness and gentleness; and on no account let any fault-finding to child, or servant, or friend, be done in public. The hasty word may leave a sting which will not soon be healed. We may quite wisely take to ourselves the lesson in the simple verses which follow: If I had known in the morning

How wearily all the day

The words unkind would trouble my mind

That I said when you went away,

I had been more careful, darling,

Nor given you needless pain,

But we vex our own with look and tone
We may never take back again.

For, though in the quiet evening

You may give me the kiss of peace,
Yet it well might be that never for me
The pain of the heart should cease!

How many go forth at morning

Who never come home at night!

And hearts have broken for harsh words spoken,

That sorrow can ne'er set right.

We have careful thought for the stranger,
And smiles for the sometime guest,
But oft for our own the bitter tone,
Though we love our own the best.
Ah, lips with the curve impatient,

Ah, brow with the shade of scorn,

'Twere a cruel fate were the night too late

To undo the work of the morn!

It hardly seems worth while to say it, and yet I venture, because there is here and there the need of a sort of caution about finding fault with those older

than ourselves.

Old people have their little ways, and sometimes these ways are trying to younger ones who have not the traditions of the former generation, and who have little patience with the fixed ideas of their predecessors.