The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 4 September 1919, Page 45

The Family Circle

OPPORTUNITY: A MESSAGE OP GOOD CHEER. They do me wrong who say I come no more, , When once I knock and fail to find you in For every day I stand outside your door And bid you wake and rise to fight and win. Wail not for precious chances passed away ; Weep not for golden ages on the wane; Each night I burn' the records of the day, At sunrise every soul is born again. Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped; To banished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come. Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep I lend my arm to all who say "I can." No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep, But yet might rise and be again a man. Dost thou behold thy lost youth, all aghast? Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow ? Then turn from blotted archives of the past And find the future's pages white as snow. Art thou a mourner ? Rouse thee from thy spell; Art thou a sinner ? Sins may be forgiven; Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven. "GOD BLESS YOU!" People who are polite will at least say "Thank you" when a service is done them or a favor granted or obtained for them; there are different forms of expressing thanks or gratitude, but most of them have not so sweet a sound as the "God bless you" falling from the lips of Irish people from Ireland, usually old people, who learned to say those three words in the Old Country. We do not often hear them in this countrynow. To say "God bless you, my child," was a habit with, for example, the late Most Rev. P. J. Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia. If you remember reading about his last hours (says a writer to an American exchange) you know they were his parting words to the persons who were present when he died. But he was simply practising his customary way of saying good-bye. In the Missionary recently there appeared an article entitled "A Convert of Many Years," written by Countess Spottiswood Mackin, president of the Alumnae of Nazareth Academy, Kentucky. The first paragraph is this :—■ "When a child I lived in St. Louis, in the neighborhood of the Catholic church of which the late Mgr. Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia, then a simple priest, was the pastor. Every afternoon Father Ryan was in the habit of taking a constitutional. When he passed my home, impelled by a certain sympathy, which I now ascribe to the grace of God, I ran out of the grounds in disobedience to my nurse, and caught his hand, and would run along by his side for a little way. Upon leaving him, he would say, 'God bless you, my child,' and perhaps he said a little prayer for my conversion." It is a prayer to say "God bless you, my child." Anyhow, the child in the case was converted, and says she is happier every year since she became a Catholic. There must be many people who could tell a similar story about that "God -bless you, my child," of Archbishop Ryan, and of so many other priests who learned the little prayer from the old people they knew when children themselves in Catholic Ireland. The name of

God is not so frequently heard, reverently spoken in the everyday lives of people generally, not even in the homes :of Catholics. If one should often say, "God bless you, my ichild, he or she would probably be considered ''queer' in this smart land and day /f v '^'- -Ju y

V ;•■ J - A SONG OF SPRING. y. %j : ."'■.•' Come, let us sing 4 , \ Of bonnie Spring, o> Of bees and butterflies; V Of laughing rills, And daffodils; Of tenderj' brooding skies. .-.-.' The violet, :■ :; H. All dewy wet, Hides shyly by the wall; And in the trees, .Rocked by the breeze, The wee brown mothers call. From hill and plain, From wood and lane, 'i Come tender whisperings; Oh, we will sing Of bonnie Spring, And of the Hope she brings ! —Mary M. Redmond. A WORTHY EXAMPLE. A Catholic schoolboy is now Governor of New York, and he is one of the best beloved citizens of the State. His example and career are worthy of imitation on the part of every boy. Being a Catholic showed that he has overcome more obstacles in the way of his success than if he had not been one. He didn't have to hide his religion, either, but gloried in it. "Thank God," said Judge Dodd recently, "we have a Governor who is not afraid to bless himself in public." j BEAUTIFUL SPRING. Oh, dear to our hearts are the sad days of springtime, when the annual house-cleaning recurs to our view ; when we sleep on the sofa, and eat off the mantel, in an atmosphere strongly suggestive of glue; we think of the stove-pipe, the soot that came with it, and the sweet expression so fluent and fine. But the saddest and most bitter of all recollections is the dusty old carpet that hung on the line. SAFETY FIRST. Our little boy was sent to the store by his mother for half a dozen eggs and some sugar. When he returned his mother discovered he had brought the sugar, but instead of the eggs he had brought lemons. She asked, "Didn't I tell you to bring eggs and sugar?" "Yea, you did, mother," answered the little fellow, "but I was afraid the eggs would break, so I got lemons." MORE THAN ONE BARGAINED FOR. ,' Here is an amusing example of the ambiguities that lie hidden in our English tongue. A lady wroteto an army officer as follows: "Mrs. Smythe requests the pleasure of Captain Bunker's company at dinner." The©next day she received this note: "With the exception of three men who have the measles and one who is confined to barracks, Captain Bunker's company accepts Mrs. Smythe's kind invitation with pleasure,]" THEY MIGHT MOVE. Being economical is an excellent virtue, but old Skinflint had practised this quality to such an extent that with him it had become almost a vice. His wife was sometimes driven to the verge of distraction by his meanness. The climax came when they moved into a new house. When old Skinflint was out, his wife thought she would re-paper the walls of the drawing room so as to make it look attractive and pretty. But when; Skinflint saw it he nearly had a fit. ~ J, "I don't dislike the pattern or the color," he gasped, purple in the face with rage, "but I do object to the way you have put it on. . You extravagant ■ woman!" he cried. : "How dare you paste it on?"

"Why, how else could I have done it?" meekly answered his wife. ? "How ; else!" he retorted. "You should have tacked it on. . You" don't suppose we . shall always live in this house, do you?" ■'--.■.-%. i/a^ss*■■■>: -:>-.;..* --.; IN THEIR MOVERS' FOOTSTEPS. " There are numerous instances in history in which parents possessing uncommon; gifts are supposed .to have passed them on to their children. This is especially the case in regard to musical talents. The mother of Schumann, for instance, had great musical ability. Chopin received his wonderful gift and also his delicate constitution—from the maternal side; Gounod's mother was exceedingly fond of music, while the mother of Spohr, the German composer, was an excellent judge of music and a fine critic, without being herself a musician. Sir Walter Raleigh declared that he inherited from his mother the . politeness of deportment which ever distinguished him. Goethe pays frequent tribute in his writings to the character and culture of his mother, as does also the poet Wordsworth. ■Sidney Smith believed that he inherited from his mother his rare conversational powers and quickness of repartee. It is well known that the mother of Edward Gibbon, the historian, was a great reader, and cultivated the same taste and habit as her son.

The mother of Charles Darwin made herself acquainted with all the branches of natural history, and entertained a great fondness for animals. This record seems to show that maternal talents and tastes are frequently transmitted to sons it is also claimed that the gifts of the fathers usually descend to. the daughters.

SMILE RAISERS. "Please, mum, there ain't no coal left in the cellar. "Why on earth didn't you tell me before?" "Because there was some then." Teacher: "Now, Johnny, can you tell me what became of Noah and the ark?" Johnny: "The baby sucked all the paint off'n Noah, and Pa stepped on the ark and smashed it." Jester.(in street car): "Has anyone here dropped a roll of bills, with a rubber elastic around them?" "Yes, I have!" cried a dozen at once. Jester (calmly): "Well, I've just picked up the elastic." Schoolmaster: "I have an impression in my head. Now, can any boy tell me the meaning of impression?" Small Boy: "Yes, please, sir. An impression is a dent in a soft place." i Little Jane had been sewing for her dolly for about an hour. Finally she looked up and said: "Mamma, don't you know, I started to make dolly a pair of slippers, and they turned out to be a hat!" After a strenuous day's shooting Giles returned to the house alone. Now, Giles was only an amateur at the game, and this fact was well known to the anxious host. "Have you shot anything?" he demanded of Giles, expecting to hear the worst. ■ ._■ "Don't know," replied Giles. "We'll have to wait until the rest of the party come in, and then we can call the roll!" 4?