AN APPEAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16549, 13 May 1914, Page 12

AN APPEAL.

! THE SUNLESS FLOWERS. ) j j OPEN ATR HOME FOR CHILDREN. , j (By SIDNEY VERNON HALL.) ' Tlio hot. crowded classroom was si- ; lent, save for Hie ticking of the clock. | It was the weary cud of tho day, and there was no response to tho teacher’s question. Suddenly a hand was raised, and tho tiniest girl of all. with a sweet, serious face, and grey eyes that look- : cd up from under ihc dark lashes, rose with the air <u one who has something very important to communicate. Please, teacher, my mother always calls me ‘ dear ’ in tiro mornings.” Unexpected— yes; not bearing in the least upon the question in hand, but it sent a thrill, a breath of home and love' through tho room. Many wistful I eves were turned upon the littio speakj er, so earnest in her simplicity; some smiled; about tho mouths of others crept a sad littio touch mat was pitiful to see, but some looked at her blankly, with wonder in their eyes. Happy little girl, rich in home comfort and mother loj-c, her face aglow with tho light of health. Tho sad faces belonged to those who had no mother to*call them “dear”—who had come one morning to school with a black ribbon against the pale fuco or round tho print sleeve. But the wondering eyes were tho most pitiful of all—eyes that did- not know tho sinilo of lovo, whose hearts had never leaped at tender homo accents, and who now wondered vaguely what sho meant. Here was something they knew nothing about. Poor little mites! The “won-der-children” of tiro world, wondering at an accent of lovo that seemed an expression from another sphere. One could 6ce the homes of some of them; their speech, their clothing, their u'hkempt hair and other signs portrayed them—sordid homes, wliero the fresh, sweet child-soul had its beauty, its purity, its natural tendencies to good, crushed out of existence—starved in tho very things that are tho springs of tho higher life—stunted and thwarted in their growth. No, it is not their fault that tho blight eats into tho littio souls that onco camo as gifts from heaven into a world that was cold, into homes that heeded not heaven’s gift. Was it into the face of one of these that the “ Roadmender ” tells us, a rough man of the streets, hard and seemingly callous, looked and saw the face of God? Tnko heed of this small child of earth; 110 is great; ho hath, in him God most high; Children before their fleshly birth Arc lights alivo in the blue sky. In our light hitter world of wrongThey eomo; God gives them awhile; His speech is in their stammering tongue, And His forgiveness in their smile. Their sweet light rests upon our eyes, Alas! THEIR RIGHT TO JOY IS PLAIN. IF THEY ARE HUNGRY, PARADISE WEEPS, AND, IF COLD, HEAVEN THRILLS WITH PAIN. THE WANT THAT SAPS THEIR SUNLESS FLOWER Speaks judgment on sin’s ministers; Man holds an angol in his power; All! 1 deep in heaven what thunder stir a When God seeks out these tender things Whom, in the shadow where we sleep, He sends us clothed about with wings And FINDS THEM RAGGED BABES THAT WEEP. Some there are whose faces are pinched, not because no one cares very much, but because they aro the constant associates of sickness, perhaps of a mother who herself is “down” with some, fell diseaso that makes of life a weariness and prevents her caring for her children. In tho veins of “such littio ones, the bright, rich blood rarely bounds with the wild, free joy of living so characteristic of healthy child-life, and often the child’s face, as well as tho mother’s, becomes worn and sad with care—an unconscious, wistful appeal for it knows not what. Suppose we could, for the sake of both mother and children, transplant these little ones for a few months or a year to a happy, healthy environment, where the hills would be their nursery, tho sunshine their doctor, the winds, the bees, the blossoms, tho birds and tho fairies their playmates, even school would be in the open air, and, joined to all these factors of brightness and health, a happy home life with kindness and lovo and care. What would be the result ? A healthy, vigorous start on tho road of life; a robust, instead of a delicate constitution—indeed, often, lifo instead of death, and lifo that is a strength instead of a burden to the nation; while to the child itself it would mean inlinito possibilities, unceasing development and unfolding power, vision, energy to fulfil his work as a man, as a citizen, as a patriot—strength for the battle of lifo. ! Is it not worth doing? It is more than thirty years since ' one who had seen the vision penned the following words, but they are the < expression, too, of the men and women to-day into, whose hearts has come a e dream of reinvigorated, recreated child- i hood —a dream which it is “in their 1 hearts” to make real. i “ You have heard it said that flowers 1 only flourish rightly in the garden of someone who loves them. I know 3 you would like that to ho true; you 1 would think it a pleasant magic if 1 you could flush your flowers into brigh- } tor bloom by a kind look upon them; nay, more, if your look had the power, I not only to cheer, but to guard; if you could bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare; if you could bid tho dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to the south wind, in frost: ‘ Come, thou south wind, and breathe upon my garden, that ill© spices of it may flow out.’ This you would think a great thing. And do you not think it a greater thing that all this (and how much more than this!) you CAN do, for fairer flowers than these flowers that could bless you for having blessed them, and will lovo you for having ] loved them—flowers that have thoughts > like yours, and lives, like yours, 'and < which, onco saved, you save for ever? .< Is this only a little power? i “ Far among the moorlands and the

rocks—far in the darkness of tho torriblo streets, those feeble florets arc lying, with all their fre-sh leaves torn, and their stem broken—will you never go down to them, nor set them in order in their littio fragrant beds, nor fence them, in their trembling, from tho fiorco wind? Shall morning follow morning, for you, but not lor them, and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic dances of death; but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living hanks of wild violet and woodbine and rose?” Again, is it not worth while—the effort to go down among these sweet human flowers, and place them where they will have a chance? —worth while to take the little sickly ones from homes where disease is or has been present?— Will you help in this work of brightening and lifting child-life. , Have you a little time and interest to spare to look into this matter—-the question of an Open Air Homo for Children, which is now being promoted in Christchurch by Nurse Rockford and others?