LIFE AND ASPIRATION. And who can say what mighty interests rest Upon the little vowel "o,' Making "truth" "troth;"-they cannot be expressed In words. All weal of life and woe! Without these earth is anarchy. The race Of man becomes no more; The world rolls backward, and upon its face 149 YE 104TH LESSON. Life and Aspiration. If, in early youth, the true purpose of life could be realized in the thought of each boy and each girl, what a magnificent world would our's be! Not necessarily so in respect to brick and stone edifices; for they are not so grand as the true "temple of God"--the minds and hearts of men and women devoted to well-doing. If every one believed that he had a mission-was (as it is the ideal of Christianity) a "son of God"-born for a high purpose-to "leave the world the better, the wiser and the happier for his having lived in it," then would Christ's Kingdom be really come to earth. When Greece was at her greatest height of grandeur, producing her greatest works of art, literature, etc., the many of the inhabitants of her peninsula, colonies and islands, were slaves. But there are today the civilized world over, no chattel slaves. Yet our great men and great women, as a rule, were born and reared in poverty-children of farmers and tradesmen. What is the secret of greatness? It is aspiration. There is an aspiration that should be common-that all should share. What is it? To be a saviour. What is civilization? A state of mind. If one read the New Testament and become imbued with the spirit of its teaching, he is "enlightened." If he go about to act up to this light, he may be termed "civilized.” Civilization is the divine enthusiasm of one that leaves all behind to realize the Christ idealthe culmination of Greek aestheticism-the realization of the transcendentally beautiful. Think of a world of men and women working, like honey bees, for the same end that bees work, i. e., for the good of the common hive or colony--with no thought of self-we then see, with the mind's eye, moral beauty that is perfect beyond what limners can paint a shadow of. I believe that there is a higher civilization displayed in the work of the Salvation Army than is seen in any secular movement-even in art, literature, discovery or invention. The intellect is not the great civilizer; but the heart is. And happiness has her throne in the hearts of the disinterested workers for humanity. One moment of the life of one of these outweighs, of joy, an eternity of idle-seeking, after "a good time." Read the following: "Mrs. W. C will entertain the K. C. B. Whist Club at her home, Eleventh street, this afternoon in honor of Miss C. A, whose marriage occurs the first of October." I would not be a member of such a club nor have my wife or one of my daughters a member, for all the gold ever dug from the mines of this mundane globe! No one is alive at all that is not enlisted in some grand cause for the accomplishment of good-and, above all, for the making of the youth into a nobility or virtuous, manly and womanly fighters for the common weal. How grand is devotedness! What a magnificent movement is that signified by the letters W. C. T. U.! How is she exalted who engages in a great cause like this! The women of this "Union" waste none of their time at whist parties. But woman does not realize her great responsibility-especially the mothers. 150 CONVENTIONALITY AND COMMON SENSE. All depends on mothers. If mothers were as they ought to be, there would be no wrong in the world. Boys must not be left to grow up at random and on the streets. They must be brought up. And this is the work of the mother. Here is where the new woman may come in. Assert her control over her offspring until they become of age. Until she does so, husbands and fathers will be as they are, as a rule today, "no good." Man, in the order of nature, is woman's inferior. He is a pigmy; she is a giant. Her influence is immeasurably above his. She has a vote today more potent than the ballot-and the ballot ought to be hers, and one day will be universally. I would not say nay to her voting at elections; but if every young woman keep inviolate a pledge to shun the society of all young men addicted to strong drink or tobaccothat were a vote that would be counted. And if mothers made a specialty of their calling-did their bounden duty in it-the pronunciaments of ex-President Cleveland, in a late magazine article, had not been pertinent. The editor of a magazine, commenting on it, says truly: "This is an age of specialists and to succeed means to do one thing well. To succeed in being the right sort of a mother means that a woman must make something of a specialty of the business. It is a most absorbing occupation, as every true mother well knows, but in spite of all that, there is no better investment in life than boys and girls trained to a noble manhood and womanhood. We have not heard of any results achieved by any club that could compare with this." YE 105TH LESSON. Conventionality and Common Sense. In choosing what to wear and what to eat, there is need to exercise common sense. Dress for comfort and eat to have good blood. All dress alike in style. What convention has ordered this? Who dictate the changeable styles? Is woman's street dress in good taste? Can she pass along the sidewalk and not mop up the filth with her trailing skirt? I am sure all do protest against the tyranny of fashion. Is not the belief universal that a change for the better may be made? Surely America, England, Germany and other states interested in woman's emancipation, will, at some time, soon, at some world's congress of noble women-self-respecting and patriotic-take the subject of dress in hand and formulate a costume lasting and becoming-subject to no change except by convention world-wide. To woman will be yielded the right of the ballot in all American states after a short time, and this step would help to prove her fitness for it. The efforts will not much longer succeed, of conscienceless people holding the foremost places in society, by the display of wealth, building grand residences and paying magazine editors to present pictured representations and fulsome descriptions in writing of their magnificent homes on the "Hudson," wanting in all things homelikemuseums of art-paintings of the "Old Masters' adorning the walls, and costly collections of statues, statuetts, old china, etc., etc. Who have the benefit of the costly collections? Very few. I know several childless rich men who occupy castles costing millions of money, "wrung from the hard hands of peasants by indirection." Doors are the more tightly bolted and barred the larger the house. The latchstring never hangs out for the stranger, though he be "an angel in disguise." If common sense had the mastery, only convenient homes would be built and many children would still play about the doors as of old-a wealth of vastest grandeur. The idle rich must pass their time in some way. They do not read, except it be trash requiring no thought and conveying no instructionfiction, thrilling narratives of impossible events, largely advert sed for SELF-PURPOSE AND THE "NEW TIME." 151 the benefit of the publishers and booksellers. These "novels" soon run their course and are read no more forever-the same presses, having printed other trash of the same sort, that by horn-blowing must be made the rage till the edition is sold-as are those "sold" who buy and read the rotten stuff. "Euchre parties" and "whist clubs" occupy much of the time of this sort of idle people, since only a paucity of brains is required for card playing. "Mrs. So and So has entertained at cards," says the Daily Bugle, and such and such "prizes" were won. I noticed in an evening paper today a news item that filled up the measure of the meanness of the searchers for pleasure among the idle rich. A well-to-do couple of New Jersey's married people sold their only child for one cent, binding it out to foster parents. This class known as money seekers "promote" the building of cities while the toilers build them; but the moral advance is the work of men and women that ignore money-getting. Nature and God, some thinkers declare to be not far apart from each other. Indeed, they are as nearly joined as are husband and wife. We call God "Father" and Nature "Mother"-"Father God," "Mother Nature"-so may we say they are dual and yet one-as two joined in marriage are "one flesh." Is it right to go contrary to nature even though we be devoted to altruistic aims? Can we violate nature and so do God's will? We relinquish home ties and go back to tent life to "save our country," as in 1861 to 1865. The Catholic priesthood forego marriage and home and family that they may work for the moral and religious wellbeing of mankind-and Sisters of Charity do the same! If this be error, it "leans to virtue's side." The principle is grand-self-sacrifice for the common weal! Every man and every woman should forego society and pleasure that their offspring may have their best service. Rich parents, in the North. leave their little ones in the care of nurses while they go to Florida to spend the winter. This is wrong. The mother should keep in closest touch with her young. It is her chief office. But wealth is enervating and luxury is inimical to child-life. Happier are the children of the middle class than of the wealthy. "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord?" They deny God who so neglect their children in the vain search for "pleasure." YE 106TH LESSON. Serious Purpose and the "New Time." The world needs earnest souls, millions of them. It has no need for any other class. It has no need for gamblers, grafters, "social sets," euchre players, globe trotters, receivers of rents from red-light houses and saloons and opium joints, and gambling hells, etc. To "get rich quick" is what allures to gaming. But it is the broad highway to poverty, as all know. If our states and cities were honestly governed by the men honored by the popular choice, there would be little gambling. Vast sums are bet on elections. Even society women receive presents who come out best at progressive euchre parties. Sam Jones well characterized them in his Chautauqua sermon delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, July 1st, 1905. He said: "And you women who play cards for cut glass vases or diamond rings are as much blackleg gamblers as your son, who in years to come may follow your example and become a diamond flashing faro dealer in Chicago and end his own life in some gambling hell." When so many young men and young women are hurrying to their ruin, how careful ought home people be! How determined in the right! But "social sets" have little common sense let alone wisdom, patriotism or prudence. What do they care for the rising generation? What for anything that bears the semblance of serious purpose for good in any way? This world has no use for such people and the other world will hardly find place for them in the "seventh heaven" that St. Paul had a vision of. Let every man and every woman live to some good purpose and so help "Ring in the Christ that is to be" that Tennyson anticipates in the above line of his inimitable verse. Our fathers, who landed at Plymouth in 1620 and those who followed them to the shores of New England, and the glorious men who won out at Nasbey and Marston Moore-the men whom Cromwell led and Vane and Milton represented-these had a distinct view of the "New Time;" so had the followers of Knox and of Fox-so have all earnest souls, like Bunyan and Wesley and Whitfield and Savonarola and Tolstoi. Such people, with such minds and hearts, are God's missionaries of righteousness preparing the way of the Lord making his paths straight for his second coming: When Jesus comes, as John portrayed, And all his glory is displayed, The New Jerusalem foretold With gates of jasper, streets of gold Will live in perfect unity, And isolation be unknown As move the planets, and one soul But now we may approximate MARRIAGE AND DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. 153 See every soul a priest and king And never one an underling, And all the poor come to his feast, YE 107TH LESSON. Marriage and Domestic Happiness. "We must educate or we must perish by our own posterity," said a fervent orator of our father's day. But now it appears that with the advance of the "higher culture" the birth-rate slackens-grows less proportionably to population; and posterity is threatened with extinction. What is the matter? Why this decadence? A wrong education surely, for we are as we think and our thought follows in the path of our teaching-as a rule. We hear of "original thinkers," and there are such or the world would make no advance. We want, in our colleges and common schools, teachers of domestic science. The school curriculums should place marriage as pre-eminently a childrearing institution and the wife in supereminent position-the highest office known on earth; because the most essential, useful and responsible, and established not by convention as was that of President or King, but by nature. It must be taught that, when a woman enters upon the married state, she has assumed an office and responsibility that are of so transcendent an importance that no other station in life is equal to it, not even that of commander in chief of armies or admiral of navies. But a mighty responsibility belongs to men also. Read the following contained in this morning's (May 30, 1905) press dispatches: "Davenport, Iowa, May 29.-(Special.)-Mrs. Julia Paulson, the wife of a DeWitt barber, took her three children to Silver creek, about three miles southwest of town, early this morning and threw them all in, drowning two of them, then followed herself. The third child, the baby, was found alive, lodged in the mud of the creek, by its father shortly after the terrible catastrophe. At the inquest held this morning by Coroner Hullinger it developed that Paulson had come home the evening previous, after having been drinking.” Great God Almighty! why in this world of ours is the liquor evil tolerated by a people even half civilized! Is the home thus to be destroyed?-the wife to be driven to do a deed like this! Why establish schools and colleges and endow professorships to teach the youth, if the evil of the drink hells is still to be maintained, and that contrary to all law human and divine! Do we not see just what an inferno of misery the demon drink had made of that sacred home! O mother, mother, what philosophy instilled in thy mind could have rendered thy heart invulnerable to the diabolical assaults of a drunken husband's and father's ungodliness! I pause appalled before this terrible tragedy. I pray that no mother or wife may ever again be subject to such an environment as drove the wife, Julia Paulson, to despair. Yes, it is a great reformation that must come in before ideal marriages and ideal home-life prevail generally. Boys must learn wisdom beyond what now is taught them on the street, in day school, Sundayschool, church or by the example of parents before society may be regarded as civilized, which it is not now in city or country, in America or in Europe or anywhere else on our mundane earth. Mankind at best are savages in so far as their social condition is concerned today and can be only savages while husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, come home in the evenings "having been drinking" and often do not reach home before morning. This truth is patent to every man who has any brains and no sane person will be found to dispute it. |