GRAINS OF GOLD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 19, 13 May 1909, Page 723

GRAINS OF GOLD

AN ANGEL UNAWARES. Suppose for every act of love and duty An angel in the path of life should lay A lovely rose of sweet perfume and beauty — Ah, even then, how bare would be the way ! Suppose for every kindly word unspoken, For every fault which careless hands had done, For every resolution made and broken, A thorn beneath our erring feet had grown. Ah I then the way would be one stretch of anguish, With only here and there a flower to cheer; — Our feet would falter and our spirits languish, And life would be a burden hard to bear. But seldom are we outwardly rewarded According to the deeds which we have done. ' The ptire in heart ' are by the world discarded ; The wicked harvest where the good have sown. And yet to every heart in darkness hidden There comes an angel, whom we cannot see, Who strives to keep us from the paths forbidden, And in the narrow way where faith may be. His name is Conscience, and he brings us roses — Sweet roses, borrowed .from the brow of Peace, Or thorns on which remorseful thought reposes, Regrets whose sharp tormentings never cease. Then let us strive temptation's storm to weather, Let every thought and every deed improve, Till Conscience finds no cruel thorns to gather, But crowns the soul with joy, and peace, and love.

That time is the worst employed which we give up to regrets, unless we learn from them lessons for the future. Ah! there is no telling, but perhaps we might not sow quite "as recklessly if we would only bear the reaping time in mind. The fountain head of social good or evil, of vice or crime, or of honor and virtue, is in the home; and the -wife and mother make and unmake the home. — Bishop Spalding. None of us is so humbly . placed that he may not do something in behalf of Catholic truth. The philosopher Balmez gives us the motto: 'Truth is. Catholic; proclaim it ever, and God will effect the rest.' There is no more effective way to advance the interests of our holy religion and to hasten the coming of x the golden age that would follow the evangelisation of the world than by encouraging good, wholesome literature.