WISDOM WHILE YOU WAIT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11026, 14 March 1914, Page 6

WISDOM WHILE YOU WAIT.

. More people grow too lbok old through being discontented than through hard work. • » » * • LIVE IN EAItNEST. I meet with a great many persons in the course of the year, and. with many whom I admire and liko; but what 1 feel daily n!6re and more to need,_ as life every year rises more and more "before me in its true reality, is to have intercourse with those who take life in earnest. It is very painful to me to be always 011 the surface of things; and'l feel literature, science, politics, many topics of far greater interest than.mere gossip of talking about the weather, arc yet, they are generally talked about, still upon the surface—they do hot tciuch the real depth of life. It is not that I want much of what is called roligious conversation—that, 1 believe, if often 011 the surface, like other conversation—but I want a sign, which one catches as by a sort of masonry, that, a man knoivs what he is about in life, whither tending, in what cause engaged; and when I find this it seems to open my heart as thoroughly as when I was twenty years' youiiger. —Dr Arnold.

" LOVE WILL LAST." If Sleep and Death be truly one, And every spirit's folded bloom Thro' all its intervital gloom In some long trance should slumber on

Unconscious of the sliding hour, Bare of the body, might it last, And silent traces of the past Be all the colour of tho flower:

So then wore nothing lost to man, So that still garden of tho souls In many a figured leaf enrolls Tho total world sinco life began:

And love will last as pure and whole As when he loved me here ill Time, Aiid at the spiritual prime ' Rewaketi with tHe dawning soul. t 'Tennyson.

• * ft . * • In his wonderful " Life of the Bee," Maeterlinck tells us at least one thing to which we may do well to take heed. At one time, he says, it was almost impossible to introduce into a hive an alien queen. The myriad toilers would at once assume that she was an enemy, and set about her destruction. But now tho apiarist introduces the new qtteeti in an iron cago with a door skilfully constructed of wax and honey. The bees immediately commence to gnaw their way through the door to murder tho intruder, but in the tedious process they are compollel carefully to observe the royal prisoner. • By the time the waxen palisade is demolished they have learned to love her, and finish up by doing her homage, and becoming her devoted slaves. So true is it that the forbidding may eventually become the fascinating; the repulsive may end in the romantic; the sombre shadows may dissolve into radiant reality- , • • » » •

. Don't forget, if other people are unreasonable to-day, you may be unreasonable to-morrow, so it's just as well to make allowances.

Keep your face with sunshine lit; Laugh a littlo bit. Gloomv shadows oft will flit If von have the wit and grit "Just to laugh a. little hit. " Cast out the scorner aiiflcontentlou shall go out." - % ■# • • •'•p ® INTEMPERANCE. Tho prevalence of intemperate.habits in a country diminishes both tho number of days* in the week and the number of years in his. life during which the breadwinner is earning full wages. Temperance increases a. mans poneis, and "encrally his will to wavo.—Piofcssnr Marshall ("Economies of Indus- . • " Of all the griefs that harass the distrcst, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest." —Johnson. • • • * * It seems a small thing to lose one's temper. Bub really it means losing one's hold over the. brute part of one's nature. .Irritation and rago are unreasoning, brutal and ignoble. It- is unwise' ,to say the. least, to allow them to take tho upper hand even lor a moment. # • « » » OItOAVTH. One of the hardest lessons fur the ordinary human heart to learn is that growing means outgrowing, ami that going forward always necessitates lcav-

ing some things behind. Customs servo their purpose and pass. Things outlive their usefulness ana no longer meet the needs for which they were created, the very needs themselves may have vanished ill new conditions, hut there ore .always some timid souls who se© disaster in change, and insist upon holding fast t<> the old because it has been good in its time. Candles wore valuable in their time. They made cheer in many a (comfortable old home, and the church of our fathers knew many a blessed service held at "early candlelight," lint they would bo poor illumination in our modem homes and churches. Is the light of the present liot light because it is different and of tenfold power? There were methods ot work, statements of belief, old usages that sufficed for the past, but arc no longer adequate to the growing world and its greater demands, js the truth any less truo because it takes new forms with increased knowledge?

Relations are often mute unexpectedly nice—if well managed. And ono of the most successful methods of "managing" is to occasionally show a little appreciation and admiration.

•' * . * * * Happv ho With such a mother! Faith in wo-

mankind ; . Beats with his blood, and trust in all tilings high , Comes easy to him, and though lie trip and fall He shall not blind his soul with clay. —Tennyson.

1 It is only when we ourselves are really trying to improve, and find how hard it is to live up to our intentions, that we grow broad-minded enough to give other people credit for meaning well, even if in our own opinion they do not do well.'

Old wiiie ill new bottles is far preferable to new wine in old bdttles, and an old man with hope is a finer figure than a young man with caution. • *' -. * * * . PESSIMISM.

Pessimism' is more than a symptom. It is a disease. It shows that the one who is afflicted with it has not been thinking of his God or reckoning with the Divine in his estimate of life. This means the sickness of tho mind and the disease of tho soul. Radical troatinent is the only right course under such circum&tances. Tlie serious condition ot the patient must be recognised first of all. Ho very likelv does not know that he is sick,, biit this trouble is none the less radical. The nicmient that we detect the signs of the dismal malady h ourselves let us hurry to the best doctor of souls at once. We are in a serious condition. Pessimism is a disease'. . « * » * • IDEALS. A human being without ideals is as worthless as a shij> .without a ruddeT. As surely and' confidently as does the rudder guide the ship, so d 6 clea-n, definite ideals guide and shape and complete a successful career. There is never any progress without an objective pointIf you are building a business, and have carefully formulated honest ideals towards which ~you are to proceed) there can be small question as to your success. Failure may mark the way, but your ideals will keep you in the right direction, where ultmiate winning is certain to be reached. As .soon as you learn the ideals of a riian, you know the man. . » *,»*■*

There is really no consolation in remembering that things might be worse while they obstinately decline to be any better.. ... .' ..