GRAINS OF GOLD

New Zealand Tablet, 23 July 1908, Page 3

GRAINS OF GOLD

A PRAYER. Life seems to be a long, entangled thread ; I gaze upon it with a helpless dread. To unravel it would seem a task in vain, Entailing much of sorrow and of pain. But one must live, and time drags slowly on~; What will the thread be like when youth is gone ! Lord, thou canst help me, take my tangled life, With all its knots of pain and weary strife. Thy magic touch will make it smooth again, Thy loving aid my drooping soul sustain. Courage and power Thou giv'st if we but ,ask ; ■ So, full of trust, I bend me to my task..

Little self-denials, little -honesties, little passing words of sympathy, little nameless acts of kindness, little silent victories over favorite temptations—these are the silent threads of gold; . which, when woven together, gleam out so brightly in the pattern of life that God approves. Life is a building. It rises slowly," day by day, through the years. Every new lesson we learn lays a block on the edifice which is rising silently within us.' Every experience, every touch of another life on ours, every influence that impresses us, every book that we read, every conversation we hold, every act of our commonest days, adds something to the invisible building. Home .is the place of the highest joys; religion should sanctify it. Home is the sphere of the deepest.. sorrows ; the highest consolation of religion should assuage its griefs. Home is the place of the greatest intimacy of heart with heart; religion should sweeten it with the joy of confidence. Home discovers all faults; religion should bless it with abundance of charity. Home is the place for impressions, for instruction "and/culture; ".th&re" should religion open her treasures of wisdom and pronounce, her heavenly benediction. . ' . • *'•. _ An effective home education is provided by a father " and - a mother united by mutual' love and directing all their activities to the fostering of the child and preparing it for the paths on which it should travel, and which are always bristling with* perils of a nature to make parents not only solicitous",' but eager' to undergo any sacrifice rather than send out the child into all the dreariness of the world unequipped for. its life's journey.. The" 6, child's claim and. right to be harmoniously and successfully developed throughout all its faculties and activities', is "one of the • chief reasons why God has given to marriage the two essential qualities of unity and indissolubility.