The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 2 December 1920, Page 45

The Family Circle

CLEAR THE WAY. Men of thought ! be up and stirring. Night and day! Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, Clear the way ! Men of action, aid and cheer them As ye may ! There’s a fount about to stream, There’s a light about to beam, There’s a warmth about to glow, There’s a flower about to blow; There’s a midnight blackness changing Into grey ! Men of thought and men of action. Clear the way ! Once the welcome light has broken, Who shall say What the unimagined glories Of the day ? What the evil that shall perish In its ray? Aid the dawning, tongue and pen. Aid it, hopes of honest men; Aid it, paper, aid it, type, Aid it, for the hour is ripe; And our earnest must not slacken Into play. Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way ! Lo ! a cloud’s about to vanish, From the day; And a brazen wrong to crumble Into clay. Lo ! the Right's about to conquer, Clear the way ! With the Right shall many more Enter, smiling, at the door; With the giant Wrong shall fall Many others great and small. That for ages long have held us For their prey, Aten of thought and men of action, Clear the way ! Chari,ks Mackat.

HIDDEN SAINTS. Many a priest visiting some distant place has marvelled to find all the altar and sanctuary appointments so spotless and all so well in order that he has made it a point to find out who takes care of the sacristy (savs the Pilot). The parish priest with a pleased smile says: "Oh, that is all Sister Mary’s work. She sets the church in order after she finished her day in class. A most faithful woman!” After a long schoolday this tired nun has devoted an hour more to God's House, not one week or a month, hut 365 days a year. They are always pleasant, always ready to do a service, never too tired to console the afflicted. Whether they sleep or eat or rest never seems to matter. Such a gift have these nuns of enduring things silently and finding ways of making things meet. Once in a while when you are in the country on vacation you are surprised to see everything about the little church cared for as if the parish as a body attended to matters. But if you make inquiry you will find out that some quiet woman who has a house of her own to keep up finds time to look after the House of God, too. How many in the average parish ever give even a thought to such matters ? Years ago an eminent Catholic died. He suffered agonies at the last. Everyone respected, trusted and diked him. He was a very busy attorney and public official, his every waking hour was valuable. But it was not until his funeral that his parish priest remarked that in 20 years that man had never missed daily Mass or at last a' visit to the Blessed Sacrament. His friends were astounded: they had never thought him other than an ordinary good Catholic. But God knew. ; .r; + I* will not do a bit of harm to the quality of our faith to study these people who find their greatest joy in life in doing something for God and His Service.— Catholic Bul-

A GUIDE TO PARADISE. . recent number of the Flemish paper, Gazette van Ihtelt , contains some sound spiritual advice in the form of a Guide and Time-table for the Use of- Passengers for Paradisfe.” The directions which this “Guide” contains,- are, of course, not hew, but the arrangement is novel. To the ‘•'passengers for Paradise” it says; # Leave: At any moment of the day or night. Arrive. The hour is fixed by God only, liices of Tickets: First Class— lnnocence and voluntary sacrifice. Second Penance and confidence in God.., Third Class—Contrition and submission to God’s will, important information : 1. No return tickets sold. 2. No pleasure trips allowed. ■c .'L. Children under the age of reason are carried free it sitting on the lap of their mother the Church 4 Passengers are requested to bring no other luegage than their good works.

THE CHURCH. Alone among the, world’s dismantled shrines that once with human hopes were stately rich, This hallowed heirloom .holds her, lofty niche . And keeps the semblance of her ancient lines A toil worn hand that wrought at God’s designs o give the world a truer tone and pitch. So many cycles, that one wonders which Of all our new-cast Oracles combines The Love and Faith to call like Her And dare \\ ith one. vast gesture of surpassing Grace, ( lo claim, as She, the Arctic and the Nile • lo rule as one time ruled from, altar stair, ’ This Mother-Queen, the fortunes of the race, And carved her signet on the cosmic dial. Al. E. 8., in the Missionary.

HOW WE GOT COLLARS. It is just a hundred years since the collar came into being as a commercial proposition (says Tit-Bits ) It has been suggested that the necklace of teeth or claws, or string of beads, with which our early ancestors adorned themselves, was the forerunner of the modern collar. The earliest pictorial proof of the use of the collar proper dates from Elizabethan times, when the ruff was the principal form of neckwear. After this gold and sil\ei vellum fringes were the fashion for a considerable period, these being supplanted by collars similar to those worn to-day, save for the fact that they formed part of the shirt. But this arrangement was an extravagant one. As soon as a collar was soiled, the shirt had to bo shed for washing purposes. this state of affairs was changed a century ago by one Hannah Montague, a blacksmith’s wife. She had a bad time with her husband’s washing, until one day she was struck by the brilliant idea of separating the collars from the shirts. The next morning tin- blacksmith went to work in a collar that tied with strings, instead of being fastened, as before, to the neck of his shirt. From this simple idea sprang the collars we wear to-day.

INTTIA L ‘ HOWLER S. ” The errand-boy who inquired for the offices of "The Society for the Prevention of Christian and another who referred to the R.T.S. as “The Religious Tramp Society,” have had many imitators. The Busted Missionary Society might suggest the Baptist Missionary Society, with a difference, and it was perfectly natural for a little girl who sent a pudding to the Y.M.C.A. for Tommy at the Front to imagine the letters stood lor the Young Men’s Christmas Association. A messenger asked a policeman to direct him to the offices of the Cynical Reserve Society when he really sought the Psychical Research Society, but it was far less excusable when an inspector demanded of a class what the letters "W.H.5.8.” stood for, and got the answer, ‘‘not Ho! She Bumps!” instead of West Ham School Board. ” * Probably the boy who asked for the "Fill Our Stomach Society” thought he was going to a soup kitchen instead of the Philharmonic Society.

FROM BAD TO WORSE, the man with the mineral-water cart had had a poor day, but hope revived in his manly breast when a female voice hailed him from the top of the hill. A A Laboriously he wheeled round and climbed the hill again, j glad of any order, however small, to sot against his previous failures.

.“What can I sell you, ma’am?” he said. “I’ve lemonade, ginger beer, cider ” _;-I “Keep ’em,” : the woman : snapped. “I’m particular what I drinks as a rule. I called you back to tell you that your clumsy cart has run over my boy’s clockwork mouse and broken the spring of it, and I want to know whether, as a fair-dealing man, you’re willing to give him a dozen glass marbles, from your lemonade bottles to keep him quiet. If you don’t you’ll hear more of it, ’cos his father’s a policeman!” GOT THERE FIRST. There were several passengers in the non-smoking compartment, one of them a fussy old lady who carried a small dog on her lap. At one station a man got in and sat opposite the lady in question. He had not been there long before he pulled out a blackened old clay pipe and began to smoke. The old lady asked the man to put it out, and he declined; whereupon she took , the pipe from his mouth and threw it out of the window. This angered the man, who nothing daunted, took the old lady’s dog and heaved it after his pipe. Matters grew worse after that, and the situation did not improve until the train arrived at its destination, when everybody was surprised to see the dog running along the platform with the pipe in its mouth. REPAIRS WANTED. A village worthy was dissatisfied with the quality ot milk supplied to him, and complained about it to the farmer. “Bad quality feeding and poor herbage,” was the explanation given. “I don’t think,” muttered the complainant, doubtfully. Then he was suddenly inspired. “Where do you milk your cows?” he asked. “In the farmyard, of course.” “That is when it’s fine. But what do you do when it rains?” “Milk ’em in the cowshed,” came the prompt reply. The worthy paused for a moment, and then looked fixedly at the farmer. “Well, look here; I’ll give you a bit of advice if you want to steer clear of the police court,” ho said, savagely. “I make no insinuations, mind you, repair that cowshed roof!” SMILE RAISERS. “What on earth do you use that very long cigaretteholder for?” “Doctor’s orders.” “Nonsense !” “Yes, ho told me to keep away from tobacco.” He: “A woman is always illogical!” She: “How do you make that out?” He; “She can always remember her birthday, but never her age.” John: “Don’t those bells sound lovely?” His Friend: “I can’t hear what you say.” John: “Don’t those bells sound fine?” His Friend; “It’s no good, I can’t hear you for those confounded bells”’ “Waiter,” said a guest at an hotel, as he inspected his bill before leaving, “there is one item omitted.” “What item, sir?” inquired the waiter. “The manager said ‘Good morning’ to me yesterday, and has forgotten to charge for it!” Screen Cowboy: “What’s become of old Bill Pepper? I ain’t seen him about the studio for a long time.” His Friend; “What, ain’t you ’card? A two-ton block of stone fell on his chest and killed him.” Screen Cowboy; “Ah, I always said ho would have to be very careful with that weak chest of his.” The college-bred daughter reproved her father for dropping his “g’s,” “Have I been droppin’ them?” ho asked, innocently. “There you go again, father-—droppin’. And you say cornin’ , and goin’ and eatin’. It’s humiliating. “Daughter,” said the old man, after a thoughtful pause, “may I drop the final ‘g’ in ‘egg’?”