THE WOMAN OF TO-MORROW

The Woman of
To-morrow

By
Helen M. Winslow
Author of “Literary Boston of To-day,”
“Concerning Cats,” etc.

New York
James Pott & Company
1905

Copyright, 1905, by James Pott & Co.

First Impression, September, 1905

To
My Sisters

CONTENTS

THE WOMAN OF TO-MORROW

I
THE WOMAN OF TO-MORROW

What will she be like, the woman of to-morrow? We know all about the woman of to-day—her virtues, tendencies, shortcomings, her hopes, aims and splendid promise; reams have been written about the woman of the past, in all ages, under all conditions, her limitations, her achievements. But what about the woman of to-morrow? Will she go on steadily, firmly, unswervingly towards the full accomplishment of what we women to-day long for, hope for, pray for, wait for? Will she?

When we look back fifty years and note what has been overcome, what women have achieved in educational, business, philanthropic and sociological lines, we are wont to preen ourselves and to glory in all “we” have accomplished. Fifty years ago the first woman was just beginning to wrest her diploma from the unwilling university. Fifty years ago the first woman doctor was taking her degree. The first newspaper women were making their first attempts at journalism. And scores, yes, hundreds, of avenues, now so long open to women that we do not stop to count them, were not only shut, but nobody was dreaming of pushing them ajar—nobody, that is, but Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone and their friends—and well ridiculed for it they were, too.

But to-day all American womanhood stands on a broad, high plateau, with eager faces turned hopefully to the future. We look forward confidently and with the surety of success, because everything has been made easy for us. Are we too confident? Is there not danger of our forgetting that we are still a long footpath from the millennium and that there is a deal of work to be done before women, collectively speaking, get there? Do we realize sufficiently the duty and responsibility devolving upon us in regard to the betterment of home and humanity? Do we really understand the opportunities which influence begets? And since woman’s responsibility goes hand in hand with her influence, which has always been proportionate to her own merit, while environment and education have been important factors in determining this work, then how great must be her responsibility to-day as compared with that of her sister in former ages!

Mary Lyon used for the motto at Mount Holyoke in the days when our mothers and grandmothers used to come under her care, “Freely have ye received, freely give”—although, for that, the words originated with a Greater than Mary Lyon. There is no doubt about our having “freely received”; are we “freely giving”? There was never a period in the world’s history when women’s work counted for so much, when it was so much needed. Ancient history says very little about what women did in the early ages; but we know they did their part. The model women of Hebrew history were toilers. We see, as one bright woman has said, “a mother’s ready ingenuity saving the life of her baby boy, when the father’s strength was a broken reed. We see her commit the tiny ark to the mercy of the waters of the Nile; we see another woman—a sister—running fleet-footed along the reedy banks of the river, her loving eyes upon the rocking cradle adrift on the eddying stream. We see yet another woman—a king’s daughter—stoop to the river’s edge to lift in her arms the child of destiny. Three women working in unconscious federation—and lo! a race of men is freed and a kingdom builded in the wilderness!”

What the world wants of woman to-day is the utmost development of the positive feminine moral force in her spirit and her life. Woman has been said to be the conscience of the world, and there is profound truth in that. It was the conscience of Blanche of Castile which melted the noblest king France ever had—Louis the Ninth. It was the conscience of the American woman which was the one invulnerable, irresistible, unsilenced enemy of American slavery. That conscience of woman is the tower which society will always need to have developed and regnant within it, and there is no other office so great.

Sympathy in woman comes nearest to the heart of Christ—sympathy for the erring, the sick and suffering. That is one power which she needs to contribute to society. Her sympathy is the heat ray combined with the light ray in the perfect sunbeam, and wherever it goes there flower charities, asylums, and all institutions of human benevolence spring naturally as the bloom of the flowers from the sod which the sun has warmed.

Then, too, there is woman’s courage. We are so accustomed to associate courage with physical strength that we do not always think of it as pre-eminently a womanly grace when the feminine nature has been fully unfolded and trained, but it is. The reckless rapture of self-forgetfulness, that which inspires persons and nations, that which is sovereign over obstacle and defeat, and perils and resistance, has belonged to woman’s heart from the beginning. In the early pagan time, in the Christian development, in mission and in martyrdoms, it has shown; in the mediæval age as well as in our own time; in the Prussian woman after the battle of Jena, when Prussia seemed trampled into the bloody mire under the cannon of Napoleon. Oh, the passion, the forgetfulness, the supreme self-devotion with which woman flings herself into the championship of a cause that is dear and sacred and trampled under foot! It is her crown of renown; it is her staff of power! This conscientiousness in woman, this sympathy, this courage and self-devotion in woman, give her her place in the future civilization of the world and glorify the society into which she is born and of which she becomes the mistress.

We are in need of city mothers as well as city fathers; not until the mother-care has reached out into all departments of municipal life and the incentive to good has become as powerful as the incentive to evil; not until the beautiful and the true are clothed in forms as attractive as the vile and false; not until nobleness and purity of character are requisites demanded of those who fill high public positions—not until then will women cease to have opportunity for efficient, practical effort; not until then will women cease to have a share of public responsibility.

According to Dean Swift, the men of his age asked each other if it were prudent to choose a wife who had a little knowledge of history and the capacity to discuss the more important affairs of the time and the obvious beauties of poetry. The general verdict, he says, was against such attainments in women because their tendency was to make wives pretentious and conceited, and not duly subject to their husbands. I know of but one man to-day who would dare express such sentiments, if he believed them—and but few who can be suspected of cherishing such ideas in secret. For we have not many men who belong in the past ages.

Even in the early years of the last century it was supposed that woman’s mentality could be broadened and exercised sufficiently by the receipt book and the sampler, and it was not till the inventions of each succeeding decade lightened woman’s labor that she had greater time for study. It was this development which brought about the beginnings of the club movement, in the late sixties and early seventies, which gathered in women who desired mental improvement and longed for that life which was more than meat and drink—women who needed an outlook upon the world at large and an inlook upon their own intellectual condition. But mere literary work did not satisfy women who conscientiously believed that influence meant responsibility and were clear-sighted enough to see that in organization was the power to combat the ills of the world and to elevate humanity. Thus they broadened their scope, making their object humanity-lifting. Above all is it to be seen in the mental development of woman herself and in her awakening to the fact that she has powers and capabilities which can be used for the good of humanity.

This rule, given in “What All the World’s a-Seeking,” ought to be daily read over by all women: The self should never be lost sight of. It is the one thing of supreme importance, the greatest factor even in the life of the greatest service. Being always and necessarily precedes doing; having always and necessarily precedes giving. But this law also holds: That when there is being, it is all the more increased by the giving. Keeping to one’s self dwarfs and stultifies. Hoarding brings loss; using brings ever greater gain. In brief, the more we are, the more we can do; the more we have, the more we can give. And thus it is that one becomes a queen among women. Not honor for themselves, but service for others. But notice the strange, wonderful, beautiful transformation as it returns upon itself—honor for themselves, because of service for others.

II
ON INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY

But we must not let our sense of individual responsibility for the general welfare become too keen. When we consider the multiplication of societies almost daily for the amelioration of every possible wrong and the furtherance of nearly every possible good, we seem in some danger of such a result. Not only the average woman, but the exceptional one, is infected by the universal desire to improve the world in general and mankind in particular; and, figuratively, she seems to be going forth morning, noon and night seeking for new evils to conquer. Mrs. Jellaby and her Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Orphans of Borrioboolah Gah was but a caricatured prototype of the passion for organized work among women at the close of the century in which Dickens lived and wrote. We are all in danger of overlooking the best and sweetest in life, as well as its real meaning and essence, in our mad rush after what? Is it the passion for humanity? or is it a sort of contagious fever, the germs of which, having obtained an insidious foothold in our mental and moral systems, work an unconscious change in us from earnest, sincere and reasonably contented women to restless, ambitious and discontented ones?

True, Saint Paul did say that woman was created for the man, and there will always be men—and women, too—who, though they deny the inspiration of every other part of the Scriptures, stake their faith on the infallibility of this alleged prophecy of woman’s perpetual subjection. But the copyright on his oracular utterances expired centuries ago. Some of the new beliefs are not so good as some of the old ones, and these will pass away. Some are better, and these will remain. But the whole truth is that it is fair neither to Saint Paul nor to woman to quote him in fragments. He adds, a very little way further on, “for as the woman is of the man, so is the man also by the woman.” And this almost inextricably mixes up the relations of man and woman; but there does not seem to be any escaping the conclusion that woman’s responsibilities began about at the beginning.

Saint Paul’s opinion as to the attitude and behavior of women in public assemblies is hardly apropos now, and if he were alive to-day he would be the first to admit it. Thucydides antedated the apostle by four centuries, and his remarks to the effect that “Happiest is that woman whose name is least in the mouths of men” are, of course, equally beneath the serious consideration of the woman of to-day, even though they are echoed by so recent and popular a writer as the author of “The Bread Winners.” “A woman’s name should never be in the newspapers more than twice: when she marries and when she dies.” Yet it was but a little while ago that I heard a prominent woman say:

“I wish you and I were living in a little country town somewhere where we could be content to knit and crochet and wash dishes and feed the cat. I know we would all be much happier if we were freed from this ‘divine discontent’ which leads us to fret our souls for that which is naught when we get it.” There might, however, be some trouble in finding the country town where the modern longing to be a factor in the life of to-day has not penetrated. It is not altogether confined to cities, this passion for the general welfare. It is shared by the woman of limited opportunities and crops out in the least suspected places.

Without it where would be the progress made by our sex in the last half of the nineteenth century? What would be the position of woman, for instance, had not Lucy Stone been born with the sense of individual responsibility which made of her a saint and an apostle for the uplifting of the modern woman, to whom all femininity, whether suffragist or remonstrant, owes its recognition and its place to-day? She and her immediate followers were, perhaps, the first to develop this divine discontent which is the inspiration and source of much of the modern sense of individuality for the general welfare. And in view of all the good work that is being inspired and carried out by women, who shall be so blind as to deny that it is a part of the great plan of evolution concerned in the problems that beset the opening of a new century?

The banding together of hundreds of thousands of women for various purposes directly dealing with the world’s advancement along the lines of education, temperance, philanthropy, political affairs and good government emphasizes a new phase of this old world’s history. And the fact that the very existence of this state of affairs is owing to the impossibility of the modern woman’s sitting quietly at home and ignoring her part in the general scheme of humanity compels us to own that this sense of responsibility is not to be regretted, but rather to be taken as an awakening of the real woman to a knowledge of what the “eternal feminine” may be made to mean to the world at large.

It is not, therefore, to be deplored, but to be controlled. There is little danger of its becoming abnormally strong in the aggregate; but alas! for her who lets her own sense of what she as an individual owes to society at large, cease to be a purpose in life and become her master. She it is who joins every club within reach and rushes madly from section to class in search of diversion and from club to club in what she flatters herself is the pursuance of culture. She it is who forgets that an hour spent in the silence of her own room or by her own fireside with some book that is really worth while is more profitable than two afternoons listening to mosaics carefully inlaid from bits of the encyclopædia. She it is who leaves her sick and lonely child to the care of hired nurses while she goes gaily from club pillar to D. A. R. post or neglects the great home truth that a smiling, restful wife across the dinner table is the easiest way to convert the ordinary man to belief in women’s organizations.

It cannot be denied, however, that the modern tendency to organize has greatly stimulated this sense of responsibility for the whole human race that is at once a bane and an inspiration to the up-to-date woman. Women are gregarious and imitative. Let us once realize that our friends are active factors in the arena of life and we are immediately fired with a determination to become factors, too. We want to go with the rest of our kind, whether it be in the manner of reforms or bonnets. We will no more be considered behind the times in organization than in sleeves. Therefore, if other women belong to dozens of such societies, why not we?

It is a great compliment to women that they are being so cordially recognized by organizations of men. Their educational associations are inviting our co-operation in the consideration of questions of how best to work out the problems with which they are confronted. From time immemorial men have not asked the help of women in vain. Since Eve’s day we have been making up for her thoughtlessness in allowing temptation to come before Adam (she not having lived long enough to realize that men are to be guarded from, not exposed to, temptation), and in all ages whenever women could be of use to mankind in general they have done their work nobly and well. Our Pilgrim foremothers are not exploited in histories as they would have been had they fought Indians and defied kings. But nobody pretends to deny that they acted fully as important a part as did their worthy husbands and sires. Our grandmothers of the Revolutionary War were no small factors in the establishment of a new republic. The religious history of the world, since the day of Mary, the carpenter’s mother, shows that the sense of individual responsibility is no new development of the modern woman. It has been behind the greatest achievements of the ages.

What has stimulated it and spread it like bits of leaven among the masses is a question for us to consider. Is it because of the facility with which newspapers and magazines and books now reach even the remotest of our borders? It is hardly possible in these days to live apart from a knowledge of what is going on in the great round world. There is scarcely a hamlet in the country unreached by a daily newspaper, and the ordinary workingman to-day knows more of the general trend of affairs than the most learned and far-seeing of our grandfathers possibly could do. What is the effect of all this modern development of progress? of this individual sense of responsibility? The common consciousness of humanity, the sense of our individual need and our individual duty is making itself felt. We are open to deeper and wider impulses; let us see that they are not allowed to die away as mere impulses. One of the inevitable effects of the modern stimulus of organization is a high degree of personal consciousness. We feel the responsibility of the whole “woman’s movement”; we not only have a larger and broader personality and a sense of revolt against any form of injustice, but we feel a wider, deeper love for each other. We are standing together in a concerted movement seeking a common good; and that brings us into a broader charity and a commensurate growth of social consciousness. It is impossible for us henceforth to settle back into selfish living—that is, if we are developing the highest privileges that come to the modern woman. We shall possess our souls in patience and find our balance in a serenity of spirit that will give us a clearer vision and freedom from worry. We may still feel that we are personally responsible for a great deal in the world around us, but we shall not worry and fret over it, and we shall learn the secret of combining earnest, constant endeavor with a sublime unconsciousness to the pin-pricks of existence. We shall see and feel new forces and give way to them in loyal service.

Doubtless this modern sense of personal responsibility is one of the laws of social evolution which has been going on with greater activity than most people have realized during the past quarter century. The increasing individualism of women is one of the striking developments of the present age. For that very reason the radiating diffusion, as one writer has called it, of the clubs seems all the more welcome. Until the individual woman finds her special differentiation, or, in other words, finds her balance, she is in danger of wasting her nervous force in vague gropings after the right thing. Never before have women cared so much for other women, and the result is greater kindliness and helpfulness toward human nature everywhere. The heart of womanhood is alive and stirring as never before; shall we dare say this is not kindling a streak of electric fire that may burn out old prejudices and kindle a new era? We may still be in the groping, vague stage where mistakes are as frequent as the right steps, but it is an evident uplift in the scale of human advancement.

Even in our family life we are letting the old notions go and recognizing the individuality of each member. Children are now allowed to think their own thoughts, and if they have a special bent in any one direction it is encouraged rather than warped to fit an old, set pattern. Young women as well as young men are expected to cultivate outside interests. We realize that it is the duty of every woman of intelligence to take active interest in some social organization and recognize some duty beyond the borders of family life. Just as in the church women have labored together for years to raise funds for some common end—to send forth missionaries to the heathen or pay the one at home—so we have come to know the value of organized effort for the benefit of the school, the home and the individual. The work of women in sanitary commissions and in the temperance unions has shown what may come of the modern passion for outside work. The sense of humanity is growing daily, and though this may crumble and flatten some old ideals, it also puts a new meaning and a new heroism into life.

It depends upon us what we will make the effect on our own lives of this keen anxiety to do something for the world around us. There will always be work enough. There will always be some Macedonia with worthy objects crying earnestly, “Come over and help us.” It depends upon us whether we will take up our work calmly and strongly, careful not to undertake more than we can do and yet not to leave untouched that for which we are best fitted, or whether we will let ourselves become so “cumbered with much serving” that we shall lose the best of life’s harmonies, the inner life of the soul. We are in danger, in our eagerness to be of service and our dread of losing some of the frills of life, of forgetting that we can do no better service to humanity than to develop our own selves into the highest types of womanhood. The world will always stand in need of noble women.

The great trouble with the average woman is that she does not readily find her balance. Who does not recall some rare, sweet nature that while bearing the burdens of life—heavy burdens, perhaps—is marked by a serenity of soul that is as restful to her friends as it is helpful to herself? But alas! who cannot count on the fingers of one hand the number of such women? On the other hand, the women who flutter and hover and tremble and bustle and chatter are far from isolated cases. One is almost tempted to liken them to the sands of the seashore.

It is not that they are not eager to be of the highest service to mankind, but simply that they do not get at the true secret of how. How to be lifted above the personal frets, the personal sense of importance. Perhaps it is the personal element that spoils it; eliminate that and the true cause for fretting and worrying has in a large measure disappeared. Sometimes the question of what needs to be done gets entirely shunted off the track by that other one: What will be the easiest way for me to do it?

The sense of individual responsibility for the general welfare is one of the hopeful signs of the times. We may as well recognize it and that each generation needs more and more some sort of association with each other. We are individuals, but the force which draws us together and keeps us eager to work for a common cause is a need that belongs to the later development of the human race. We need each other and to come together and work together just as much as we need a home where we can sometimes be alone. And this social dependence on one another is, as one writer says, the highest faculty of the highest race on earth.

That is one of the chief reasons why we come together to discuss methods of thought and of work. The women who join clubs because it is the fashion or because of restlessness and emptiness of mind are few; the women who join because of their need of belonging to a throng that can stir and throb and work in unison are legion. We are seeking more or less consciously the higher forms of relation which are the strength of modern life. And this is the result of a prolonged thirst among women for a fuller and truer social life than that provided by the ordinary functions of society.

It scarcely seems necessary to sum up by saying that this sense of personal responsibility for the general welfare is back of all organized work, nor to repeat that it is to us, like life, what we make of it. It is for us each and severally to settle that question. If we take the attitude of master and make of this feeling a servant to do our bidding, well and good; if, on the other hand, we let it master us and become a slave to a vague and general desire to do something for somebody without the slightest idea of how or what, then woe be to us!

III
ON OUR RELATION TO LIFE

How are we seeking to get the most out of life? By selfishly striving to grasp all the good things therein for ourselves? By trying to stamp our own individuality upon everything, by making ourselves a personal power? Or are we realizing that only in serving others can we best help ourselves? “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” And what is a servant? One who works for others. Look over the women of your acquaintance. Is it the self-seeking woman, who sacrifices her dignity in a scramble for prominence and who pushes herself, regardless of the rights of others, into prominent positions, whose name stands for real service and real value in the world? Or is it she who forgets herself and the paltry honors that come with self-sought place in honest, unselfish work and far-seeing, wise and charitable thought for the best good of the whole whose name is written high on “Rolls of Honor”?

She who is great enough to lose sight of small, unworthy aims and makes it her chief purpose to help and serve others will always be the one who is instinctively trusted. True greatness and true happiness do not come when we set ourselves deliberately to call them to serve our purpose. It is only by putting our lives in harmony with the great principle of service to our fellow-men that we shall find them. It is of little use to strive to attain popularity, greatness, power over others; it is of infinite use to find out how we can be of service to those with whom we are associated, and then to forget ourselves in such service. Kindliness, helpfulness, service: these three were never more needed than now. The great-hearted, sympathetic, charitable-minded, brave woman is needed everywhere. She it is who is beloved, who makes for peace and righteousness; yes, and for power. And it is easy to see why she is the woman of power.

Let us learn the secret of “putting ourselves on the side of the universal.” Let us work from the heart, giving ourselves with no thought of personal gain. The more we do this the broader will become our vision, the grander our lives; and thus while we are giving ourselves to others the fuller and richer and truer will life be for us; and we shall cease to think whether we are getting our money’s worth, satisfied with the joy of living and the unconscious growth within. Can there be anything more beautiful in life than to become one of those rare souls whose personality is a help to their fellow-creatures; whose very presence is like a benediction, and from whom goes out a silent influence that cannot be defined, yet which every one within its radius feels, even though not a word be spoken? And is there not a way by which this serenity of soul, this illumination, may become a characteristic of every good woman?

The more we are in ourselves the more we can do, the more we shall desire to do for others. There is nothing greater in life, nothing greater in Christianity than this great principle of helpfulness and service and love for others. It is the kingdom of heaven to which we all aspire some time or other, only we do not always realize that it is here and now if we will have it so. And in proportion as we stand for higher conditions and better influences we are an uplifting power to those around us. We cannot do this, however, if we allow ourselves to take narrow and petty views of the lives and motives of others. Only by merging the personal side of things into the larger, universal one; by rising above prejudices and becoming indifferent to the criticisms and opinions of others—so long as we are sure of being actuated by right motives ourselves—do we reach the higher life. Service to others is the great solution to the actual problem of life. Realizing and building our lives upon this great, eternal principle, minor things will not matter.

Think how much more charitable we then shall be toward the faults and failings of others. We may even so accustom ourselves to the larger view of life and service that we shall not readily see shortcomings in those around us; or, if called to our notice, they will not rasp or fret us, because our souls are lifted above the plane where such trials are possible. And, above all, we shall be possessed of that larger charity that sees beneath the surface and knows that we have no right to judge our sister. Have we innate knowledge and infallible wisdom ourselves that we shall decide for another? Can we know of the struggles another woman makes for a better life, or condemn her when she fails? “You may think I am cynical in my speech and impatient in my words at times,” exclaimed one woman to another who had rebuked her, “but you do not know how many times I have overcome that tendency, nor that I am striving daily to outgrow it.”

The limitations of other women are no personal concern of ours. It is ours to do for others, to lose our own pettiness and enlarge our own horizon by giving loyal, loving service, and this includes a broad, universal love to all women, to the world around us—a world, whoever and whatever we are, that always needs us. It may be the world of home, it may be the public schoolroom, it may be the ranks of fashionable society, or it may be the small circle of the small country town, but our love and our service are needed. We are individually responsible for so much.

“From each as she has power to give, to each as she has need.” What a motto! It is so easy to forget that each one has something to give to some one. And what is this giving to “each as she has need”? It is being gracious, broad-minded, tolerant of others, “not easily puffed-up”—nor put out, either; it is by keeping ourselves in a serene, well-balanced frame of mind that will act on others as a bit of bright sunshine falling across a dark corner. We cannot give to others anything better than is in our own natures, and only by keeping them bright and sunny can we shed sweet temper and serenity of soul wherever we go. “How shall we keep ourselves so if we are not born that way?” asks somebody. Cultivate the habit. We have habits of mind as well as of body. Cultivate sunshine and sweetness in ourselves at home, every day and every hour in the day, and we shall have no difficulty in keeping sweet and pleasant everywhere else. Let us each be the woman for whose presence her friends wait as for a benediction of peace.

Do you not know women whose very presence is uplifting, whose very atmosphere is peace? We might all be so if we would set ourselves steadily and calmly to work to find our balance and lift ourselves to a mental plane where outside worries and flurries and tempers and jealousies could not reach us. It would be a work of time, perhaps, but it would pay. And having once arrived at that condition we should help others just as naturally as the sun sheds its life-giving beams on the dependent earth. Let us learn the highest secret of life, self-giving. Not for what it will bring us in peace or honor or happiness, but because we realize how much the world needs disinterested help, and how much more we need to give it. “If you would have all the world love you, you must first love all the world.”

“We buy ashes for bread;

We buy diluted wine;

Give me the tree—

Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled

Among the silver hills of heaven,

Draw everlasting dew.”

A few years ago Mr. Trine took occasion to send out to his friends a little card with the following printed thereon. It helped us all, and therefore I pass it on like so much “sunshine”:

“A SORT OF CREED.

“To live up to our highest in all things that pertain to us.

“To lend a hand as best we can to all others for this same end.

“To remain in nature always sweet and simple and humble, and therefore strong.

“To open ourselves fully and to keep ourselves pure and clean as fit channels for the Divine Power to work through us.

“To turn toward and keep our faces always to the light.

“To do our own thinking, listening quietly to the opinions of others, and to be sufficiently men and women to act always upon our own convictions.

“To do our duty as we see it, regardless of the opinions of others, seeming gain or loss, temporary blame or praise.

“To play the part of neither knave nor fool by attempting to judge another, but to give that same time to living more worthily ourselves.

“To get up immediately when we stumble, face again to the light, and travel on without wasting even a moment in regret.

“To love all things and to stand in awe or fear of nothing save our own wrongdoing.

“To recognize the good lying at the heart of all people, of all things, waiting for expression, all in its own good way and time.

“To love the fields and the wild flowers, the stars, the far-open sea, the soft, warm earth, and to live much with them alone, but to love struggling and weary men and women and every pulsing living creature better.

“To strive always to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

“In brief—to be honest, to be fearless, to be just, to be kind. This will make our part in life’s great and as yet not fully understood play truly glorious, and we need then stand in fear of nothing—life nor death; for death is life.

“Or, rather, it is the quick transition to life in another form; the putting off of the old coat and the putting on of a new; a passing not from light to darkness, but from light to light, according as we have lived here; a taking up of life in another form just where we leave it off here; a part in life not to be shunned or dreaded or feared, but to be welcomed with a glad and ready smile when it comes in its own good way and time.”

IV
ON FRIENDS

Who shall estimate the value of a cheery, breezy, hopeful friend? Nobody can get along without her. She keeps us in good humor, she switches off the bores, she lights us up and keeps things in motion; in her company our spirits rise, our wits grow bright and our tongues loosen, so that we really believe after half an hour’s contact with her that we are in ourselves as brilliant and as happy as she makes us. A friend that can raise everybody around her from a state of practical imbecility to that of a brilliant and beautiful song bird is a being we may all envy. If we would be such a friend ourselves, there is but one way: we must be agreeable at all times, kindly serviceable to every outward call, never see a slight or notice a snub, and never allow ourselves to get into the dumps. “To be warped unconsciously under the magnetic influence of all around is the destiny to a certain extent of even the greatest souls.” We cannot be too careful of our friendships, nor value too highly the love of the good women whom we meet in life.

The late “Jennie June,” Mrs. Croly, said at one of the celebrations in honor of her seventieth birthday: “I am glad to have lived so many years because I have come to know that most beautiful thing on earth, the love of one woman for another—the love of good women for one another.” And truly, if any woman on earth has reason to know it, this “mother of clubs,” who did more than any other one woman to introduce women to one another, ought to from long and intimate experience. Through her pen, that of the first regular, trained woman-journalist in the world, and through her long, active experience as president of the foremost woman’s club in the country, Mrs. Croly did more, perhaps, for the emancipation of women in a social way than almost any other woman of her age, and we may well pause to consider her words for a moment.

It has long been the custom, even among women, to sneer at the love of woman for woman; to say that women cannot be true, cannot overlook peculiarities in other women, have not charity for one another’s shortcomings. But the women who say this to-day are not trained thinkers and observers. The more we associate with other women along any definite line, the broader grows the individual outlook, the more charitable the mental attitude. It is the beginner who believes women are not true to each other, mainly because she hasn’t it in her own heart to be true to others. It is a case where the verdict of the immortal bard is illustrated:

“To thine own self be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

The modern “passion for organization” has done more for the friendships of women than anything else has ever done. It has lifted the ordinary woman from the plane of petty gossip and trivial interest in each other’s every-day affairs, and it has, in part at least, killed out that love of gossip which in times past men have delighted to ascribe to women as their especial prerogative; although for that matter some of the worst gossips I have ever known are men. Long ago, when clubs and societies were first started, the club may have been a promoter of gossip just the same as the sewing bee and the church social were in earlier days. Women were not trained then to think great thoughts, to live on a plane where the comings and goings of their neighbors are beneath them, to take so broad and lofty an outlook upon affairs in general as to be incapable of scrutiny of the insignificant motives of their friends.

After working together for others, women begin to recognize in one another the loftier ideals and higher ambitions. When we are lifted upon the peak of high living ourselves, we are not so isolated as perhaps we once thought we should be; on the contrary, we are able to see many others who are striving to reach the summit of high thinking and worthy endeavor. Women have needed this outlook in ages past, while they are but just coming to their own, and although we may have reached the state where we are able to endure our own company, and to find comfort in the inner life, we need the friendship of others; we need the sunshine of good company to bring out the best that is in ourselves.

We may think we can do without other people, or that we do not care what other women think of us, but we all know that we do and that we depend on one another for help and for comfort. If we are inclined to too much introspection or to looking upon the dark side of things it is well to take pattern after Dr. Johnson and “live in a crowd of jollity,” at least so far as to get out of our own solitary chambers and fling ourselves into something which is their polar opposite. The ordinary woman needs contact with her intellectual mates in order that she may get out of the small round of her daily sympathies and interests. Dr. Johnson was the greatest hypochondriac in the world, but when once aroused by stimulating contact with the wise and the erudite, the change was like that in the forlorn, drooping eagle in a cage to the same bird when free to soar into the limitless space above.

It is this need that is bringing the rich woman into closer association with her poorer sister. This mutual contact is helpful. The one learns that riches do not buy brains and refinement; the other finds out that poverty does not preclude the possibility of richness of intellect and gentle manners. If one wears Paris gowns and another is severely plain in her costumes, there need not be any difference in the attire of their ideas. The one sees that an unfashionable garment may clothe a body containing a mind that is above rubies, that “the rank is but the guinea’s stamp—the man’s a man for a’ that.” The other discovers that her next neighbor, whom she considered a toy of fashion, has a soul and some lofty aspirations. Companionship with other women renders a woman more lenient, more sincere and more sympathetic. The pettiness of personal aims is dying out in the presence of humanity’s needs.

We should not forget that a barbed wire fence shuts out more than it shuts in. Social barriers cannot set aside mental and spiritual harmonies, for the force of personality is becoming the supreme force, before which custom and conservatism must yield. The standard by which all must judge each other is high, unselfish womanhood. The result of woman’s individual growth is nowhere more apparent than in the home, the corner-stone of civilization, and in her friendships.

Mrs. Croly declared that the passion for associated effort was far greater than any one woman, and that no woman who sought only her own personal aggrandizement could possibly have more than a transitory, fleeting fame. How true her words have proved can easily be computed by any of us. We all know women who, through personal machination or what is even more contemptible, the unscrupulous use of their friends, have risen to high positions; but who let ambition get the better of their judgment, and consequently, though clinging tenaciously to place and grasping violently at position, were finally engulfed in the sea of oblivion.

But, happily, these women are fewer and fewer as the years roll by, and consequently the limitations of self are giving way to the largeness of a universal idea.

To enter upon any labor worthy the honest effort of any earnest woman with the selfish spirit dominant within, is not only to fail ultimately by the personal measure, but to degrade the work itself to the level of the spirit in which it was undertaken; to enter upon the most unpretending labor simply because of duty, nobly because of the possibility for others, is not only to beautify the worker, but to glorify the work.

A soul so narrow as to know no broader horizon than is measured by its own puny pleasure or purpose, ideal or method, can never be long in the ascendant, and ultimately receives as it deserves the condemnation of the larger, better world; the life that has no definitely fixed ideal toward which it is stirring, no divinely conceived mission which it is struggling to fulfil, can expect no less than the hearty contempt of an honest humanity. Shall we not endeavor, each of us, to become the radiating centre of kindliness and good will and helpfulness? It is hard to do one’s best and then to be troubled with a haunting fear or a real consciousness that some one else would have done that particular thing better. It is harder yet to do one’s best, to work from the purest motives even, and then to feel that one’s friends are looking on with critical eye, or, at best, with cold approval. Why not say the appreciative word and give the sympathetic hand clasp wherever we can?

Harder even than death is it to find some dearly loved friend grown cold and indifferent; to find instead of the loving sympathy that has seemed a strong fortress in the past, only a distant formality, a chilling frost; or to find, worse than all, disloyalty in place of truth. Nothing is more heart-breaking than to find a love grown cold, especially if that love is one in which we have trusted and believed for years. Such things happen. We find in place of the sympathy and affection on which we have relied without question some sudden failure in time of stress. The sympathy we have accustomed ourselves to lean upon disappoints us. The hollowness of insincerity rings through the formal attempt to simulate affection that is no longer a vital thing. And when this experience befalls us—God help us.

No; death is not the worst thing that can happen to us or to our friends. I sometimes wonder if it is not the best; if we do not do wrong in wishing back those who have gone a little before us to the silent shore. Death is a mystery, but it may be the best part of life, after all. We cannot tell.

We say we believe in immortality; that we believe the future life will take us far in advance of this; that we are to be infinitely happier, infinitely better and infinitely more useful there. Why, then, are we afraid to go forward into it? Why do we grudge our friends that experience? And why—since we believe in infinite love and the life of the soul hereafter do we mourn the death of any human love when we are sure of God’s love and that of the friends who have gone before?

There is a poem of Edward Rowland Sill’s that has long been a favorite with me. Perhaps it may bring a comforting thought to some other who reads it here:

What if, some morning when the stars were paling

And the dawn whitened and the east was clear,

Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence

Of a benignant spirit standing near,

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,

“This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair;

Daily its sea and shore, this sun and shadow,

Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air?

“There is best living here, loving and serving,

And quest of truth and serene friendship dear;

But stay not, spirit. Earth has one destroyer,

His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here.”

And what if then, while the still morning brightened

And freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,

Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,

And take my hand and say, “My name is Death”?

V
ON ENEMIES

Marcus Aurelius says: “No man can do me an injury unless he can make me misbehave myself.” An older authority than he said: “Love your enemies.” And a good way to love them is not to recognize them as enemies. The old Roman was right—as usual. The greatest harm any one can do us is to disturb the harmony of our souls. There is a serenity which is like an armor. It protects us from the stings of petty jealousy and the stabs of secret foes. Reports, false or true, of these things may come to our ears, but we shall possess our souls in large patience and refuse to be ruffled in spirit or worried by small fears. We shall not “misbehave ourselves.”

My mother—the best and wisest woman I ever knew, God bless her!—used to tell me that the person of whom it could be said, “He or she has not an enemy in the world,” never amounted to anything. Few who accomplish any real good in life escape the attacks of the envious. No matter how disinterested our purpose or how high our ideal, somebody is going to misunderstand; somebody is going to impute a selfish motive. Experience with the world will teach us to expect and make allowances for these things; but we need not be soured by them, nor lose sight of our own standard, provided it be a right one. Only by lowering our own ideals, by giving way to jealousy, envy, fear or discouragement can we really be touched by these outside things. Let us keep single to the purpose of pressing straight forward to the goal of right living and right thinking, not expecting every one to understand or even appreciate our motives, and our enemies can do us no real harm.

To be worried and fretted by little things; to live in a constant atmosphere of anxiety about what may or may not be said of us; to be continually dwelling upon the personal impression we are making on others; to be forever thinking of ourselves and never enlarging our vision to the greatness of humanity; to dwell upon the littleness of some people and forget the nobleness of others; these are the things that belittle us and keep our souls from growing. It matters not who or what are our enemies from without, so long as we keep free from those within. And when it comes to that, if we attend diligently to shutting the door on those within ourselves, we shall have no time for recognizing our foes from without. We need the spirit of serenity and sweetness and patience with our fellow-creatures; and to practice all these virtues. We need more toleration for the opinions and the expressions of opinion from others. We need to cultivate broader views; to remember the difference in environment among women; to remind ourselves that heredity and training in one part of the country may differ widely from the same things in another section; and to educate ourselves up to a standard where we can see that another woman is not necessarily wrong because she cannot see things in just the same light, nor believe just the same way that we do.

One of the greatest things any movement can do for women is to develop their sense of proportion. As the individual develops and broadens her sympathies by doing for others, the small personal side of life fades into the background; the weightier interests of humanity are grasped by degrees, and the better qualities of womanhood come out in bolder relief. In this evolution we are growing up to a point where petty jealousies will never be recognized and small enmities will have no place. Self-development and a new sort of self-possession is what we need.

“Human nature is so constituted,” some one says, “that it cannot see one person rising above his fellows without experiencing the pangs of jealousy. No sooner does one of us rise, either by force of our own abilities or by a combination of outside circumstances, than do some whom we had once called friends set to work to pull us down, to belittle our influence and to malign our motives. Human nature cannot stand success in other people.” Some human nature cannot, perhaps. But there are as many kinds of human nature as there are people in the world. We talk as if human nature was one solid lump of which everybody is fashioned, and consequently we must all be alike at heart—as a bushel of peas. Thank God there are more kindly natures in the world than unkindly, and a hundred good friends who rejoice at our success to one who gives it grudging favor. The world is a much better place than we give it credit for being. The trouble is we make more fuss over the one enemy than we do over five hundred friends, staunch and true. There is lots of lovable, kindly, faithful, generous human nature lying around loose. It is easy to forgive our enemies by forgetting that we have them. It is easy to make good cheer for others by keeping it first in our own hearts. The selfish inlooking soul is never happy; the broad-visioned worker for humanity may always be so. Which shall we choose?

Let us look out and not in; let us forget the annoyances of life and recognize only the kindness and nobleness of humanity; let us give generously of ourselves, seeking nothing in return.

We worry too much about what somebody has said or may say against us. Some petty criticism which should be beneath our notice keeps many a woman tossing on a restless pillow half the night.

Said a white sister for whom old Aunt Hannah was washing:

“Aunt Hannah, did you know that you have been accused of stealing?”

“Yes, I hearn about it,” said Aunt Hannah, and went on with her washing.

“Well, you won’t rest under it, will you?” said the sister.

Aunt Hannah raised herself up from her work, with a broad smile on her face, and looking up full at the white sister, said:

“De Lord knows I ain’t stole nuthin’, and I knows I ain’t, an’ life’s too short for me to be provin’ and ’splainin’ all de time; so I jest goes on my way rejoicin’. Dey know dey ain’t tellin’ the truf, and dey’ll feel ashamed and quit after awhile. If I can please de Lord dat is enough for me.”

Let us remember this, and be satisfied with pleasing the Lord. And let us not be too critical of others. Says Marcus Aurelius:

“How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says, or does, or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure.”

There is always danger of forming ourselves into a mutual admiration society, and nothing is more of a hindrance to progress. Self-satisfaction is fatal to self-development. And here our enemies may have been all actual benefit to us, in order that we might not think more of ourselves than we ought to have done.

Somebody once sent me a printed motto which I keep over my working-desk, and read often. I do not know who, seeing it, recognized in it a message for me, but I pass it along to you. It is called “The Foot Path to Peace,” and is signed by Henry Van Dyke, whose writings show such a wonderful appreciation of nature as God’s best minister. It reads as follows:

“To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and every day of Christ, and to spend as much time as you can with body and spirit in God’s out-of-doors—these are little guide posts on the foot path to peace.”

There is a whole sermon in it. “To be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts”—how many of us do this? Think what a different atmosphere we should breathe, how much pleasanter our outlook on life if we made this our rule. Again, “think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and daily of Christ,”—there is another “guide post on the foot path to peace” which it is worth our while to linger over and study. It is too easy to think often of our enemies, to poison our lives and vitiate our whole moral atmosphere by dwelling upon their faults.

The truth is they are not worth our thinking about—unless we can do so kindly and helpfully. We take our hosts of friends as a matter of course and seldom congratulate ourselves that we have so many and such excellent ones; but our one enemy! Alas! we let him or her sully our spirit with all uncharitableness. She is not worth it. A high, clean soul is infinitely better.

Let us walk together in the foot path to peace. We can find it if we will; we can make for ourselves all these little guide posts along the way. And we shall be much the better women and much better fitted for life.

We have always before us the individual problem. We can solve it, not in crowds nor in co-operation, but by wrestling with all cowardice and meanness and narrowness and pettiness, and by looking up “to the stars” and beyond them. Let us try.

Above all, let us love one another, and not hesitate to say the loving word. Flattery is poison, but sincere approbation is a wholesome stimulant. Let us speak the simple truth. A foolish reserve often makes us withhold it. It seals the lips to the expression of the heart. It is like locking the gate of a garden where roses bloom. Let their beauty and perfume be freely given. True love never harms; it helps and ennobles. For love is the fulfilling of the law. “Love your enemies.”

VI
ON MRS. GUMMIDGE

“Yes,” sighed that immortal woman, “I’m a lone, lorn creetur’ and not only everything goes contrary with me, but I go contrary with everything. I’d better die and be a riddance.” We all know Mrs. Gummidges. They exist to-day in the family, in public life, in literature. Worse yet, there are Mrs. Gummidges of both sexes.

If you venture some remarks during a discussion which call forth praise from all the rest, Mrs. Gummidge looks superior; she regrets that you should have been guilty of misstatement; or she notes a discrepancy between what you say to-day and some other thing you said last year; and how came you to fall into error when the magazines or the newspapers have given such frequent opportunities for you to keep right? And after making you feel too small and insignificant even to have an opinion of your own, much less to express it, she remarks that she does not suppose other people notice your errors, and that she only mentioned it because her own critical acumen forced her to.

“Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful disposition,” says little David, “and she whimpered sometimes more than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for her, but there were moments when I thought how much more agreeable it would be if Mrs. Gummidge had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stayed there until her spirits revived.” Alas! but our Mrs. Gummidge, if she had such an apartment, would refuse to seek its solitude and there bury or nurse her griefs; for she belongs to that class who are gregarious. She insists that her whole world shall share in her discomforts, bear her woes, carry her burdens.

Mrs. Gummidge, in short, was the queen of pessimists. True, after being a lone, lorn creetur’ for many years she developed after the most surprising fashion into a cheerful, busy worker. But so does any confirmed pessimist when he or she realizes that there is honest, earnest work cut out for his or her hand and no other. Those who discourse the most fluently of the anguish and bitter woe of life are seldom those who have felt the iron of sorrow in their own souls. They have more often been soured by little disappointments, tormented by the pin-pricks of a superficial existence; they know little of the heavy griefs which discipline the soul.

We have been taught to believe that in the wise economy of nature nothing superfluous has been created. But it certainly seems as if pessimism, as a confirmed and habitual state of mind, is a quality of which the world has no need. You and I have no right to drag our “lone-and-lorn-ness” before our little public and make other people miserable when we might make them happy. The confirmed pessimist is as much in need of missionary work as ever was the wild Hottentot or the Fiji Islander. I learned a hymn in childhood which was calculated to impress upon the juvenile mind the power of a spoken word by showing how a word once spoken is gone from us forever, but will go on for ages exerting a positive influence. The logic of this hymn may have been far-fetched, but I think if people were more generally brought up on it there would be a noticeable diminution in the amount of useless talking done in the world.

What right have we to say words that shall depress or discourage the hopes of other women? Hundreds of women lead lonely lives at home because they are so busy with material things that they have no time for “high thinking.” What right have we to utter careless words which shall fail to raise their standards and quicken their desire for higher living? The prophets of old felt that they had a message to bear to humanity and their hearts burned within them until they uttered it. So ought all good and earnest women to feel; and we may at least be sure we send forth no depressing or unhealthy influences. “Of one thing I am sure,” says a writer who has brought comfort to many women, “that I have never written anything without a prayer in my heart that somewhere or somehow a human soul might be the better for it. After all, we only hold the pen. The dear God guides.” And this may apply to all of us, if we will.

I like Margaret Deland’s definition of happiness as “thinking straight and seeing clear, and having a true perception of the value of things,” but before reaching this high mental standpoint we must have many a bonfire of what is narrow and feeble in us. A well-ordered home and a mind filled with noble thoughts—what better equipment can we have for the discouragement of Gummidge-ism? Perhaps the multiplication of these is responsible for the fact that we are gradually outgrowing the old habit of criticising each other, and learning to see and love the good qualities in other women; we are even mastering that more difficult task of learning to shut our eyes to their shortcomings in the remembrance that none of us is perfect and that even we ourselves have our limitations. And so we learn the great lesson of forbearance and charity, and we become able to take our friends at their best.

The woman who is truly refined or who is attaining unto real culture will not air her grievances in public places. There is a type of the feminine gender that delights in holding forth on the subject of her family or her neighborhood troubles in the street cars, and who enjoys the more or less sympathetic attention of her fellow-passengers. But nobody would be guilty of describing her as “truly cultured and refined.” There is a kind of culture that is better than the ability to appreciate Charles Lamb, or even to follow one’s favorite authors in delicious dreams where eternity is entered and the fortunate aspirant is admitted to the society of the Olympians. Very true, it cannot be acquired by cramming with the lyrical or dramatic endings of Shakespeare’s lines, or the styles of great artists whose names are difficult to spell and terrifying to pronounce. It is something deeper, less selfish and more productive of good to the world around us.

It is in our power to make our lives a beneficence to those who come within our circle. Whether we will or no, the club movement is proving such a beneficence. Let us resolve that we will enlarge our vision, that we will broaden our sphere, that we will deepen our love to humanity, that we will be true to our best selves.

Let us see to it that our hearts beat true; that they beat with sympathy and love and sisterly charity; that they beat with high hope for the future and a growing desire to help, and not hinder the work of making the world a better place. God gives his prophets now as of old a message to his people. Life with too many women is a treadmill. They need all the stimulus they can get. If we realize how the things we say and the things we do as individuals affect others, we should try at least to guard our lips. We little think of the wounded souls near us ready to drop the burden of life because of the dreary lack of a friendly word; we are not conscious of the bereaved heart within our own radius, perhaps dumb with despair; we do not realize that eager hearts are waiting silently for some message of love and comfort; and so we are careless and blind and cynical; and so we neglect our opportunities to be “God’s messengers.”

In our anxiety to avoid being a “mush of concession,” as Emerson puts it, let us not be that most uncomfortable person, the Chronic Objector. I suppose it is true that sometimes we are pessimistic from physical causes. Young people are usually inclined to morbid speculations. I remember the sensation when I was young. I thought it came from a deep appreciation of life’s mysteries; in reality it was the need of spring medicine and liver pills. At a very early age I sought to give vent to pent-up gloom and despair in blank verse patterned after Milton at his best; but I committed the folly of repeating the first stanzas to my older brother, who ridiculed me so unmercifully that my poetic pessimism was nipped in the bud. Blushing with mortification I sought to distract his mind from my poetry by playing at “see-saw” with him; but he persisted, when his end of the board was uppermost, in screaming out my beloved though gloomy stanzas in a derisive tone. It was very hard to bear. But the world owes him a debt of gratitude—and so do I.

None of us is so humble that cheerful optimism is not in some sort a duty. Not that we should go to extremes; and the out-and-out optimist is seldom a good observer. But we should not indulge ourselves in sarcasm, nor gloomy forebodings, nor in saying things that may be stumbling blocks in the way of weaker sisters.

How much better to live a self-contained life—to maintain a steady poise of character so that we shall be able to enjoy to the fullest the winter’s work and the summer’s play. To be mistresses of ourselves, to be calm and serene under all provocation, to be restful in ourselves and therefore to others, to keep the love of God in our hearts simply and humbly is to make of life a well-spring of joy, and to make of ourselves a blessing and an inspiration to those around us. There are so many tired souls, so many discouraged hearts, so many narrow-visioned ones, so many weak ones that need the sunshine and courage and light and strength—how dare we indulge ourselves in weakness or in discouragement?

When we are all through with life and the affairs of this world are only a scroll of the past, if we shall find that a pathway has been smoothed for somebody or a burden lightened for some one else; if we shall find that even one sorrowing, heavy-hearted woman found comfort and the source of all comfort from any word or any effort of ours, shall we then ask—“Was it worth while?”

Let us make a little set of rules that can be easily learned and less easily lived by. First, then, that we will seek the peace and the strength that come from Mother Nature—for that is the sort that will make better women of us.

That we will make our lives henceforth more profitable than ever.

That we will begin by doing everything required of us whether it happens to be agreeable or not.

That we will make all days brighter for everybody because of our presence.

That we will seek out the poor, the unacquainted, the shabby and retiring people and make them glad they belong to the same world as we do.

That we will, in everything, be true to ourselves; for then it shall follow, as night follows day, that we cannot be untrue to any other woman.

That we will learn the gentle art of saying nothing uncharitable of any person, no matter how great the provocation.

That the spirit of the right life means a broader charity, a greater tolerance and a more universal, practical love for humanity; and that if we are not learning all these we are missing our opportunity.

We might as well finish up with Saint Paul: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Good for Saint Paul; old bachelor though he was, he had the requisites necessary to make a good all-round woman himself. And were he alive to-day, he wouldn’t say a thing about silence in the churches, either.

VII
ON MENTAL ATTITUDES

The charge is made against American women, and it is too true, that we lack repose of manner. How can we show that in our manner which we lack in our natures? And how can we possess repose of the soul when we never allow ourselves a minute to catch up with ourselves, to commune with the silent forces of nature, to inhale the strength and calmness and courage that we might exhale again in the fragrance which we call, in the rare instances when we behold it in others, repose of manner? Life for the most of us is an insane scramble to catch up with things—and not half the time do we know or care whether they are things worth catching up with; nor are we satisfied if we succeed for a moment in reaching them. Once in a while the futility of the chase comes over us in a brief gleam of reason, but others around us are hurrying through life after the unattainable, and we forget and scramble on, too, in unconscious emulation of the old Scotch saying, “The de’il take the hindmost.”

If our whole existence is made up of excitement—no matter whether we term it that or disguise it under the name of endless activity, how shall we establish that serenity of soul without which the real nature cannot expand, nor the reality of noble womanhood become the guiding principle of life? Those feverish mentalities who demand front seats at the great pageant of life with a constant change of scenes, do not know true serenity. They are infected with the malaria of inefficiency and crave excitement as an ague patient craves a quieting draft. They miss the delight of relaxation and have no conception of the joys of quiet leisure. Self-communion is unknown to them and they are utter strangers to themselves. They are in a whirl that sucks them ever onward and downward. Serenity is an unknown word to them and they know it not, either at home or abroad; while to be alone with their own thoughts is a discomfort they cannot endure.

Emerson says our real life is in the silent moments, and many of us have realized this during the vacation season, when we have stumbled upon serenity in country byways, by the seashore or in the solitude of city homes, when “everybody” has gone away. Stevenson declares that gentleness and cheerfulness are the greatest virtues, and above all other morality. There are thousands of women who do not know how to rest, who cannot enjoy the silent moments. Blessed be she who knows that the inner life does not receive its highest pleasure from the doing of things; who finds definite joy in accessions of serenity, whether these come in the silent hours when the grate fire is dying, or during the mid-day rest or in the pauses in conversation.

What should we do if we were suddenly isolated? Be oppressed with intolerable loneliness at first, no doubt; and then we should begin to think. I sometimes think it would be a blessed thing if every woman were obliged to go into retreat occasionally, as the good Catholics do. The silence of a quiet room where she could be undisturbed and could spend a few days in thinking out the problems of life, even if she were not spiritually inclined enough to seek a higher communion, would be of inestimable benefit to the average woman. There is such a thing as too much of attrition with other human beings. A stone that rolls ever about restlessly in the rushing waters of a strong current becomes polished off to look and feel like every other stone in its neighborhood. So we lose our individuality and come to have no atmosphere of our own.

There are women who can never endure their own company for the space of half an hour. Their one desire is to avoid themselves—to hide from themselves in the company of others. Of such we are not talking, although they are not utterly hopeless; since it would not be impossible that loneliness or isolation from their kind should develop the habit of thinking, even in them. But to the woman who wants to be individual, who wants to be an inspiration and a help to others—if she only had time—I would urge the appropriation of just a little bit of time every day or every night for getting acquainted with her real self, for the cultivation of her power of thought.

In this way we may minister to the inner needs of the soul, develop love and patience and the helpful instinct which makes of women what God meant them to be: His messengers to humankind. Just as the observance of the Sabbath is a wise thing from a physiological point of view, so is self-communion and its breathing-spaces a blessing to the intellectual world.

Not that we should cease our activities utterly, or take time for morbid contemplation of our own peculiarities or tendencies. There is a great deal of work to be done, and work that seems to be meant for our own hands and no other. Only we must learn to discriminate between actual service and aimless work that accomplishes nothing, even for ourselves. And service should enrich the giver before all others, should it not?

Again, serenity is not idleness. The most effective workers are those who are never flurried and hurried, who do not lose their balance in the turmoil of every-day living, nor rush about in fussy excitement. We must be sure to do something—much, for others, and we shall find our days crowded full as they grow shorter by the almanac; but it is our own fault if we get flustered and worried, if we allow our activities to destroy our serenity of soul or hamper the inner life.

This atmosphere of poise in which the nicely adjusted balance of our powers may be maintained is a habit—a mode of life. It is often a matter of temperament, but it may be acquired and nobody needs it more than she who is born without it. Some are blessed by the fairy godmother with happier dispositions than others. Still there is no despair for any of us; if we have not the temperament which makes for happiness, it is our first business to acquire it. Why go through this world perpetually disgruntled when the world will concede so much to a smile?

Let us then develop this sort of spiritual capital as the main necessity of life. Let us not toil unprofitably nor become engulfed in activity for its own sake. Let us measure out for ourselves only just so much of play as we can do well without losing our balance or frittering ourselves away uselessly. It will take more self-denial for some of us than to go the other way. It is always easier drifting with the tide than resisting it—even though it be towards the whirlpool.

A woman with no atmosphere is one of the most uninteresting objects in the world. A woman should be an individual; more than that, she should possess a distinct individuality. She should suggest to those with whom she comes most in contact something bright and beautiful or soft and restful. How can she, if she be uneasy, restless and strenuous? Certain women come into a room or a house like an inspiration; they suggest an exhilarating breath of June air, or the great calmness of a starry night. Such women are worthy to be called God’s beneficences. They are like the beautiful rose tree, scenting the atmosphere with fragrance and making all the world aware of June and summer and all bright things. And unless we do sometimes “chant in thoughts and paint in words,” even though it be in our secret soul of souls, we can never hope to be numbered with such. We forget that a wise prophet once said there is a time to think, as well as a time to work and a time to sing and a time to dance. And we need to stop and think more than we need to do any of these other things.

Ruskin’s words should be emblazoned on a card and hung before the eyes of every restless woman. “And to get peace, if you do want it, make for yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. Those are nests on the sea, indeed, but safe beyond all others. Do you know what fairy palaces you may build of beautiful thoughts, proof against all adversity? Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us; houses built without hands for our souls to live in.” Why not take this for our rule, and devote some little time every day, say a half hour at dusk or even at night after the house is still, to building ourselves nests of pleasant thoughts? Surely it would pay.

It rests with the individual woman whether she will be like a rose tree full of brightness and fragrance, a help and an inspiration; or whether she will waste herself in a mad endeavor to keep up with the pell-mell, hop, skip and jump of modern life. Shall we stop occasionally long enough to plant the seed germs that will blossom later into flower and fruit? Or shall we degenerate into mere replicas of other women who wear good clothes, do and say the conventional, commonplace thing, and are as uninteresting as a sunset without a flush of color?

No; let us give ourselves pause. Let us take stock of ourselves and see if we are making the most of our talents, “building for ourselves fairy palaces, proof against all adversity.” And let us not do it for ourselves alone, but that we may give others that “which care may not disturb nor pain take away.”

And let me whisper a way to keep in the attitude of serenity. Commit to memory some helpful verse and say it over to yourselves whenever you have time, or, more important even, whenever you get cross. If you cannot pin it to your memory, pin it to your mirror, or on your pin-cushion, if you are so old-fashioned as to use one.

I will tell you a secret. On my mirror is hung a ribbon banner with the following printed thereon:

MY SYMPHONY

To live content with small means;

To seek elegance rather than luxury,

And refinement rather than fashion;

To be worthy, not respectable;

And wealthy, not rich;

To study hard, think quietly,

Talk gently, act frankly;

To listen to stars and birds,

To babes and sages

With open heart.

To bear all cheerfully,

Do all bravely, await occasions,

Hurry never;

In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,

Grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

—William Ellery Channing.

VIII
ON THE ESSENTIALS OF HAPPINESS

“That’s a pleasant cemetery, isn’t it?” asked somebody of an old lady on a railroad train one day.

“I don’t know,” was the answer, “I am not looking for cemeteries. I am looking for flower-gardens; I find lots of beautiful ones, too.”

There was a whole sermon in the old lady’s remark. How often we go through life watching out for cemeteries, forgetting that flower-gardens are much more numerous as well as far saner, pleasanter and healthier. We get into such a habit of noticing the uncomfortable conditions of life and ignoring the other kind that are always so much more plenty, that we forget our mercies. A teacher once told me of a school-boy who was so optimistic in his attitude toward life that he never saw the unpleasant side of things. If he is given ten problems, and after laboring patiently all the morning over them, seven are incorrect, he smiles triumphantly and says, “Well, I got three of ’em right, anyhow.” Would that there were more of him!

It all depends on our view of life. Happiness is a condition of the mind; we are happy if we train ourselves to think so; not to expect too much of life or of other people, and to keep the sun shining in our heaven. On the contrary, if we allow ourselves to worry and fret, to miss the joy of little things, to lose sight of all the greatness and nobleness that come into every-day life (if only we train our eyes to see), we can easily lose the best happiness in the world, that of realizing the beauty of humility, unselfishness, good temper, right living, high standards and purity of heart that lies all around us. There are plenty of mental and moral flower-gardens on every side, if only we are not blind, if only we do not look for cemeteries.

Now, let us make up our minds whether we care to be happy all the time or not. “Why, of course we do; how foolish such a question!” Then let us see how small a matter happiness is, and then decide whether it is worth having. If your definition of happiness is an ecstasy, a delirium of joy, a flood of emotion that shall engulf you in an occasional paroxysm, you might as well give up asking for a steady diet of happiness. But after we arrive at years of discretion we generally know that waves of delirium do not constitute pure happiness. It is not until we cease looking for impossible sustained attitudes of mind that we come to realize what happiness is. Not until we have lived long enough to accept the possibilities and let go of the impractical.

The clouds are a blessed place for our heads, but the earth is the only legitimate place in this incarnation for our feet. Antæus, you remember, who had such victory in wrestling with Hercules, was the son of earth, and it was not until Hercules succeeded in getting him off the earth and into the air that he was able to throttle him. It is very important that woman should pay a good deal of attention to her circulation to prevent her feet going to sleep or her head getting giddy.

We talk altogether too much. Hundreds of women (to estimate it modestly) chatter from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close them after everybody else is tired out for the night. They cannot bear to be alone for a moment, facing the emptiness of their own hearts and brains, and so they talk, talk, talk the precious hours away, without ever saying anything. Oh, what would I give for the hours these women waste in talk that amounts to nothing but fruitless sound?

Again, we read too much. Every new volume of history, essay, science (in easy doses), bibliography, and especially of fiction, filters through our minds like water through a sieve. We take in an enormous amount of fuel, but it all goes up the intellectual chimney in smoke. Reading does no good unless it teaches us to think and gives us something new to think about. If we read so much that our intellectual powers become inoperative, to what end is it? We need to think more; and to think to any purpose we must learn to face ourselves alone. And it is only by seeking and finding our true selves that we can come into a full comprehension of what a full, wide every-day sort of thing true happiness is, and how easily it may be obtained, after all. We may have flower-gardens in our own souls, an’ we will.

Said the Rev. Dr. Burns: “To simply perpetuate low aims, frivolous characters, mammon-worshipping beings, is to curse rather than to bless. This is not the end nor kingdom to which woman has been called. A message has gone forth—not to a favored one, but to every woman, whatever may be her position. Some are faithfully and heroically striving to obey the command; others are indifferent. They are asleep. But sleep must give place to work, indifference to interest, selfish ease to self-sacrifice. Littleness, worldliness, must all give way to the execution of the command.

“Knowest thou, O woman, that thou art come for such a time and work as this? If indifferent, thou wilt sink into insignificance and another will take up the crown and sceptre which might have been thine.” Donald Mitchell says: “Man without some sort of religion is at best a poor reprobate, a football of destiny.” But a woman without religion is worse. She is a flame without heat, a rainbow without color, a flower without perfume. That sweet trustfulness, that abiding love, that endearing hope which man needs in every scheme of life, is not then hers to give. But let the love of Christ take full possession of a woman’s heart, and under its inspiration let her grow in purity, in character, till at last she come to a perfect woman, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”; then from all human lips, and from Him who sitteth upon the throne, will come the benediction, “Blessed art thou among women.”

Man hunts after God with his understanding and fails, often, to find Him; science reaches after God with its lenses, and its face seems like a blind man trying to help his sight by using a glass eye; logic tries to soar toward God, and waves its wooden crutches in mimicry to witness; woman sees Him, feels Him within, discerns Him above, sees Him in Christ. She feels Him in the deepest experiences of life, and then she sees Him in all the providential history of the world, in all creation. It is by the heart of woman filled with the Divine power and beauty that the world is to have everywhere and retain immortally the vision of God. One of the most foolish questions ever asked is: “What is going to be the sphere of woman when she is so educated?” The sphere? If she don’t make her own we may stop prophesying. You see the little ridge among the mountains, a thread of water, and you see it arrested by rocks, and you see more and more as it fills the chasm behind them till it cuts its way across the rock, and through the rock, and at last you go into the gorges and see the mighty chasms that have been cloven through the rocky hills, and there is the power that has done it. That little stream has made its sphere.

If we were all thoughtful, high-minded, serious, charitable, broad-minded, loving, tender, patient, self-sacrificing, forgiving and Christ-like; if we lived the best of which we are capable every day of our lives, “you in your small corner and I in mine,” what a power for good would we be!—not possibility, but power. Whose fault is it if we do not accomplish all we might?

Again, we put such false estimates on life. Lady Henry Somerset once said: “It would be interesting to analyze how much real happiness comes to the man who has made or inherited a large fortune, and feels it necessary to live in what is called ‘adequate style.’ He builds himself a palace, engages a troop of servants, begins to collect pictures, furniture and objects of art, and he little knows that he is heaping upon himself a world of trouble. A man with a moderate income, who has no requirements beyond those which he can well supply, who lives in a house where his things give him no anxiety, but in refined, tasteful and simple surroundings, who can afford to see his own friends because he cares for them, and not a host of people who have to be asked because it is the right thing that they should be seen at his house, is the really happy man.” When shall we learn that it is not the things we possess, but the thing we are that makes or unmakes our life?

It is only in the last hundred years that we have come to judge men and women in proportion to their personal contribution to humanity. Now we see that our aim must be to live, not to make a living; that we must get our culture out of our work, instead of leaving it till we grow too old or too rich to work; that we must make our work a medium for self-expression, and finally that we must make it an opportunity for serving others. Vocations tend to become matters of such routine that it is often hard to see any ideal or inspiration in them, and this holds true of much more of women’s work than of men’s. There’s so little inspiration, so little of the outlook into the bigger world.

Again, it is so much easier to see the deadness in your own life than in other people’s. We see their brilliant achievements; we don’t know anything about the drudgery that has gone to produce them.

This life is no lottery. Nothing worth while comes without work. What comes easily goes easily. That which seems to be done most easily is bought with the hardest work. There is no royal road to anything worth while. We have to do many things that seem like the merest drudgery; but to do any blind, dead work loyally and faithfully without protesting is to build character and to get culture. For what is culture but patience, fidelity, quiet wisdom, loyalty to trust—those simple, primitive qualities on which human life is based? And when trouble comes on us, to whom do we go? Sometimes to our physician. Sometimes to our minister. But often we go to some woman who has lived quietly and brought up her children, but is able to give us the help that comes from a hand-grip with life.

Here’s a verse for you:

“Somebody did a golden deed;

Somebody proved a friend in need;

Somebody sang a beautiful song;

Somebody smiled the whole day long.

Somebody thought, ‘’Tis sweet to live’;

Somebody said ‘I’m glad to give’;

Somebody fought a valiant fight;

Somebody lived to shield the right;

Was that somebody you?”

“There are,” says Margaret Deland, “as many opinions of happiness as there are people in the world, but the first and most important distinction which we must make is this: happiness is a spiritual possession and is independent of material things. Happiness is thinking straight and seeing clear and having a true perception of the value of things.”

It takes us a long time to find out that happiness is a state of mind which can be cultivated rather than the result of conditions outside ourselves. The little child does not know that it is seeing its happiest days, the school-girl does not understand how happy she is, the young mother seldom realizes her own happiness; they are all looking forward with eagerness to some happiness to come. Contentment is the truest happiness, and yet if we were always simply content with our lot from babyhood up, where would be the world’s progress? It is the eager reaching forward for something better that brings progress, which, alas! is not always synonymous with happiness.

But it is our duty to cultivate happiness, just the same. We can form the habit of cheerfulness and hopefulness and a courageous spirit which shall become, in time, the very essence of happiness, or at least a very good substitute for it. The woman who goes whining through life, the woman who is envious or self-conscious or unloving may fasten herself into a steel armor of endurance of this life, but she cannot hope to be happy; but the woman who accepts gladly the work close at her hand, and thanks God for it, plants sunshine in her own soul and radiates happiness from the heart.

More than ever women are learning to find and give out their happiness in the home. I once heard some excellent advice given by a speaker on domestic science: “I hold that it is the duty of every woman to make of her own body the strongest, best machine possible; and I believe that one of the great lessons to be taught to the women of America to-day is care of themselves. I wish I could reach out, not only to all the girls in the land, but to all the mothers as well, and could say to them, ‘It is your duty to your family, to your neighbors, to your Maker, to give yourself the strongest body possible.’

“I wish the mothers would hear this, and could understand that the work which gives them too little sleep, or allows them no time for quiet eating of their food, which crowds them daily with nervous anxiety as to whether or not the work will all be accomplished, is the work which fills our insane asylums with broken-down women, that makes our mothers unable to give to their daughters the love, the care and attention that girls need in their growing years. A great good might be accomplished if it could be proved to women that kitchen utensils cost less than coffins, and that money paid for necessary help in the household is more profitable than money paid to doctors and nurses.”

No mother has a right to wear herself out physically so that she cannot be the central sun of the little system known as the family. My mother’s cheerfulness and courage and faith in God are my richest inheritances, and if I have any faculty for happiness it is owing to her wonderful example. The average woman worries too much and fails to hold herself in the atmosphere of peace which is her rightful sphere if she chooses to enter in and possess it. “The art of growing old gracefully” is mastered when a woman realizes what true happiness is, and growing old has no further terrors for her.

There are plenty of shadows to be seen if we fix our vision on them instead of on the sunlight beyond and around them; but why not fasten our gaze on the glowing, life-giving sunshine instead? There is sorrow and grief in the world and some of it has come first or last to you and me; but why let it darken all our days, when Infinite love surrounds us and will give us everlasting peace if we but claim it? Adversity may come, but it cannot take away the serenity of the soul. Let us see to it that we fortify ourselves with that inner sense which constitutes true happiness.

“The duty of happiness” is something we owe to our own souls as much as to those around us. Let us find that centre of the whirlpool of life where perfect calm ever prevails.

“Let nothing make thee sad or fretful,

Or too regretful,

Be still;

What God hath ordered must be right,

Then find in it thine own delight,

My will.

“Why shouldst thou fill to-day with sorrow

About to-morrow,

My heart?

One watches all with care most true,

Doubt not that He will give thee, too,

Thy part.

“Only be steadfast; never waver;

Nor seek earth’s favor,

But rest.

Thou knowest what God’s will must be

For all His creatures, so for thee

The best.”

IX
ON WORRY

“In my life,” said a woman, “I have worried much, but never have I worried about the right thing or the right situation. The thing to worry about always turned out something different from what I spent my energy upon. One day this view of the worry question occurred forcibly to my mind, and the ridiculous waste of time and strength appalled me. I have never had a worry since.”

Another woman whom I know came to a realization of the same truth a few years ago in much the same way. She worried all the time about something—and there is always a Something to be worried about if we give way to it. She found one day that this habit of crossing a bridge before she came to it—and perhaps it would never be come up to—was making her old before her time. She realized suddenly that she was living at a tremendously high tension—that she was in a perpetual hurry—that she could no longer enjoy a good play or a good book or a good concert without a guilty look every now and then at her watch—that she could not even ride in a horse-car without bracing herself, as if by that she could propel the thing and reach her destination sooner.

And then she realized that she was wasting Life—that she was missing half of all the daily beauty that lay around her, and that existence had become for her merely tension. Just then Annie Payson Call’s “Power Through Repose” fell into her hands, and she decided to adopt a new motto, “Relax.” She stopped worrying, teaching herself to remember that worrying helps no cause and no event, until she actually comes up to it, and then it is too late. She began to look for enjoyment and beauty in the little things of life. She began to relax, even on horse-cars. To-day she is the embodiment not only of calmness, but of courage. She has forgotten that she ever had nerves. She is happy. She relaxed.

In that way we can keep our youth and defy wrinkles. Doctors can tell you—if complexion beautifiers won’t—that ninety-nine hundredths of the wrinkles and the unwelcome crow’s-feet on women’s faces are caused by Worry. So are one-half the illnesses—wherein lies the power of mental and “Christian” science. We can imagine ourselves into heaven if we will, or we can worry ourselves into that other place—unmentionable in polite circles—but we cannot reverse that process. The spirit with which we accept life makes all the difference. We can take up burdens groaning, “Oh, how shall I ever bear you?” or laughing, “Don’t think you can get the better of me.”

Most women live in a state of mental turmoil the greater part of their lives. Self-poise seems to be the rarest of virtues among women. We allow ourselves to be continually stirred up over trifles, to be annoyed by things not worth minding. We allow petty criticisms to burn into our very souls. A disparaging word, a thoughtless remark, the slightest opposition to our pet scheme, are allowed to disturb the unruffled peace that is our birthright, and we either suffer agonies in silence or we let ourselves down to undignified wrangling.

Or, if we have no immediate cause for trouble outside ourselves, we worry. As Helen Watterson Moody neatly puts it: “Women are disposed to take things too seriously and to dissipate vital force in that nervous debauch known as worrying.” And she very wisely goes on to say that every woman ought to be obliged by some law to spend an hour or two a day absolutely alone and unrelaxed, that the whirling mind and quivering nerves might hush themselves with the blessedness of silence.

Self-poise would be the natural result, however impractical the proposition may appear. Some women are born with the gift of self-poise; but most of us have to acquire it or, worse, get along the best or the worst way we can without. It is never thrust upon us.

Once in a while we come across a woman who is blessed with it; and oh, what a comfortable creature she is—comfortable and comforting. Trying situations and trying people are as nothing to her. Some one has likened this power to keep one’s poise to an oil which makes the machinery of life run smoothly. Better than that, it is an elevated plane that holds those who walk thereon far above the mire of petty smallnesses of wrong living and thinking.

There is a man in Boston who has, naturally, a quick, irritable temper, but who is noted for his uniform gentleness and patience in dealing with the hundreds of people with whom he comes in contact every day. In his office hangs a placard with the following inscription, which I recommend to housekeepers, mothers, business women and everybody else. It runs thus:

“An American poet has said:

“‘It’s easy enough to be pleasant

When life flows along like a song;

But the man worth while

Is the man who will smile

When everything goes dead wrong.’

“P.S.—This applies to women also.”

After all, it is a question of mind-discipline. Let us once realize that we lack this power over ourselves and determine to acquire it, and we are in a fair way to be sweeter and better.

There might be classes established for the teaching of self-poise to all the wrangling women, all the sensitive women, all the over-ambitious women, all the selfish women. But, dear me! how many of us could say we are beyond the need of joining? And, besides, there are no Marcus Aureliuses in the teachers’ bureaus, just now, either.

We are placed in the scheme of life just where we were meant to be. Now, then, let us live it out. What is meant for us to do, let us do; but let us not worry over what is not meant for us. It depends on us whether we take this for a world of honest, cheerful work, or a world of hard labor. It is all character-building. Ever think of that? All character-building.

All the world needs of us, all God asks of us, is that we live out our own lives truly, faithfully, earnestly and the best we possibly can. It is for us to find out how—not sit down or hamper our work with worrying about the how.

There are two ways of walking through the world—plodding dejectedly along with our eyes on the muddy road, seeing only the obstacles in our way and feeling only the burdens on our backs; or holding our heads high, seeing the beautiful broad sky above, smelling the scent of flowers, tasting the delights of living and feeling the love of God. Which shall we choose?

A pleasant face carries joy and sheds sunshine. A worried, harassed countenance may make a whole roomful miserable. Every happy thought lends a pleasant line to the face, and there is no excuse for looking otherwise. All girls are more or less pretty at twenty; but it has been her own fault if the woman of fifty has not the best kind of beauty—that indefinable sweetness of graciousness that reflects itself in every feature of the face. Happiness is ours if we will but reach out for our small share and make the most of it. But if we reject it, saying, “What have we in common with thee?” we deserve to be miserable, and we are. More than that, we are disagreeable to other people; and in this world that is a thing we ought to consider.

Nothing that other people say or do can affect us much unless we let it, and it is much easier not to be troubled by outside worries—and all worries are outside our true lives—than to nurse trouble.

Did you ever try to help a person who will not be helped? To shed sunshine into a soul that will not empty itself or be emptied of shadows? Is there anything more discouraging? But after all, the best thing we can do for our friends is to be good and fine and true. Nothing tells like living. “The kingdom of heaven” is within. When we truly desire the best, we lose the certainty that it is revealed only to us and to those who agree with us.

God opens a great fountain of truth, that shows itself in many springs; we hold our cups for its waters of life, and our cups are of many shapes, molded by our own hands and decorated with our own thoughts; but they all hold living water, and the shape or pattern of the cup signifies nothing. If we keep this thought in mind, we shall not be overmuch disturbed that we cannot rule our world. As time goes on we change our cups; we learn to make them of larger mold and of more beautiful pattern, but however much we may draw from the fountain, its flow does not diminish, and no one is denied the water of life.

It is of no importance whether you or I see first the vision for which the world waits. The important thing is that we do not insist that others shall see it before their time. Emerson says: “God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden, that we cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time that we saw them not is like a dream.” We wait for the child. We are tenderly patient while he stumbles in learning to walk, patient also when we find that he must develop his character by his own experiences, and not by ours. Let us be patient with each other and with the world.

Nobody can make us happy. It all depends upon ourselves; and by the same token nobody can make us unhappy. What will you take from life’s menu? a strengthening feast of joy and sweetness, or the blighting, unsatisfying fare of bitterness and discouragement? It’s just for you to choose. And always remember that your song may cheer some one behind you whose courage is sinking low.

“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,

His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;

Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.

“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;

God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;

Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”