The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1924, Page 53

The Family Circle

PASSION-TIDE. (At Lauds.) Thirty years were now accomplished Of His mortal life below, When at length doth the Redeemer Freely to His Passion go, And, as Lamb for immolation, Hangs upon the Cross of woe. Faint and weak behold Him languish, Quench His thirst with bitter gall: Thorns, nails, lance transpierce His Body, Whence both Blood and Water flow With that healing flood arc cleansed Land and water, earth, sky, all. STEADFAST CROSS! no tree that groweth Ever can with Thee compare; Boasts no forest such another, Branch, and fruit, and flower so fair: Sweet the Wood, and sweet the Nails arc, Sweet the Burden which they bear! Thou alone to bear the Victim Of the world wast worthy found; Ark of refuge on the waters, Lest that ship-wrecked world be drowned; Ark, His Sacred Blood anointed, Poured in torrents all around. Everlasting praise and glory, To the Blessed Trinity! To the Father, Son and Spirit, Equal honor ever be! Praise His Name, 0 all creation— Nature one and Persons three. Amen. —Translated by F.G..M.

LIGHT AND SHADOWS. I have heard the talc of a. girl who' went overseas to a School of Art, Her first exercise was (in a still-life group. She was told to half shut her eyes to block in the shadows, then with open eyes to model the shadows, to clear them here, and deepen them there, delicately to grade them. When the Head Master came around, he found all her cast shadows were like pools of inky blackness, unmitagated dark. “The first thing you have to learn,” he told her, “is to learn I to see. Look again at those shadows which you have made uniformly dark. There is light in every one of them. The verge nearest you is dark, but.beyond it, see the light in the centre. Now, don’t half shut your eyes this time, for you will need to see clearly to perceive the light in the shadow.” As the girl' had no marked artistic gifts, she left the school without winning, the distinction she had hoped for. But she had won something bettor, for certain phrases from the Head Master have stayed with her for life. “The first thing to learn,” said the grave, kind voice, “is to learn to see. There is light in every shadow. You have to see clearly to perceive the light in the shadow.” It was Shelley who wrote the significant line that “poets learn in suffering what they teach in song,’’or as he has expressed the same idea elsewhere in rhyme: “Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.”, Self-sacrifice is the law of every life that rises above the vulgar experience of self-regard. “No lesson can we learn with tears unshed, No blessing can we win with pain unknown; The meaning of our life is hidden deep , In love, alone.” Every shadow has its light every night has its morning; every pang of life has its thrill of.pleasure; every tear has its crystal beauty; every weakness has its elements of strength every loss has its gain. So all through life these balancings run and compensations make the scales equal.’

“What seems so dark to thy dim sight May be a shadow, seen aright, Making some brightness, doubly bright.” Who was it that said God wanted a grand poem from Milton, and therefore blinded him that he might be able to,,' write it. The blackness about him was just the canvas which God gave him to cover with forms of light and music. ■ “Is this the parable? this' the ending? That nothing lives for us unless with a foil That all things show by contrast and blending, Pleasure, by Pain, and Rest by Toil? Strength by Weakness, and Gladness by Sorrow Hope by Despair, and Peace by Strife; The Good by the Evil, the Day by Morrow; Love by Hatred, and Death by Life?” Darkness shows us worlds of light we never see by day for only night reveals to us the glorious radiance of the stars. God brings good and beauty out of evil, and sometimes what we call evil is not so’ evil in the reality as what we in our - ignorance would put in its place. These perplexities cannot always be explained. Many times what we fancied was hurtful has been of the greatest service; what we flinched from has made us happier; what wo dreaded has come and gone, and left a blessing behind it, Ma a. time what we have longed for has been denied us, and the denial has made us happier than if we had obtained it. “I mourned because the daffodils were killed Ry burning skies that scorched my early posies, But while for these I pined, my hands were filled with roses. Half broken-hearted I bewailed the end Of friendship, than which none had once seemed nearer: But whilst I wept I found a closer friend and dearer.” Light and shade play their part in all the beauty of earth. Literally, in Nature and in Drawing, where they arc foils of each other. There is a wondrous difference between the mere outline of an object, and the shaded rendering of the same object. The latter teaches us more than the former. In Nature, we have the beauty of light and shade on mountain sides, streams, leafage of trees, dancing waters, and forest floors. Milton gives us his appreciation of the contrast in his memorable phrase “the chequered shade,” whilst Tennyson tells us of “the little breezes that dusk and shiver on the wave that runs for ever.” Mrs. Browning also in her poem “The Waves of Shadow” sings with her own inimitable charm: “How the sunshine overhead Seemed to trickle through the shade.’ - ’ Figuratively also, light and shade are revealed in their desirable beauty by the soft modulation of the human voice and in music. Who is there that has not been as much moved by the sadness of the Moonlight Sonata as by the stirring call of a triumphant strain? In' character too, we are mutually attracted by the. grave and the gay, the light-hearted as well as the cannily-disposed. In Life itself, light and shade are represented by Joy and Sorrow, closely inter-related, and dependent for full completeness one-on the other. “Sorrow’s crown of sorrows is remembering happier things,” sang Tennyson; and no one who has not sounded the depths of sorrow can fully appreciate and taste true joy. Light and shade are favorite figures of speech in the Bible where: we find the phrases—“ Thy word is a. Lamp unto My feet,” “The Lord is my Light,” “I am the Light of the world,” followed by other phrases where God is the Rock under the shadow of which His children may seek refreshment and shade from the ■ glare of the noon-day—-“He shall overshadow thee with His shoulders; and under the covert of His wings thou shaft find rest.” ■ . “No v mortal life but has its shadowed times —Not one. ; A Life without shadow could not taste the full sweet • glory of the sun. ■ • J No shadow falls, but there, behind it, stands the Light. Behind the wrongs and sorrows of life’s troublous ways stands Right.”— Loreto Home. (In the Catholic Herald of India.)

GOD’S TREASURES. ;. > r“ : . I love the clouds which show the dawn is nigh, Pink roses blown across a brigt’ning sky; And the light laughter in the morning air, The breath of angels seems, to . linger there. I love to see the golden maid of noon — Her form is slender as the sickle moon And the slow bee, with many a dainty sup, Drain the warm honey from a buttercup. I love to see the flower of night unfold A purple pansy with a heart of gold And the sweet stars which strew the happy sky, And whisper, each to each, of God on high.

THE REASON. The manager had forgotten his penknife, and everybody else, it seemed, had forgotten theirs. Finally he called the office boy, who was able to furnish the desired article. “How is it, Tommy,” asked the manager, “that you alone, of my office staff, always seem to have your knife with you?” “I suppose,” replied the boy, “it’s because I can’t afford more than one pair of trousers.”

\ A RIDICULOUS RHYME. The little boy was fond of nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and was always asking questions about them. One day he asked his mother; “Why didn’t the man in the nursery rhyme put up a notice to ‘ Keep off the grass ’? Then he wouldn’t have been cruel to the maiden.” “Which man, dear?” said his mother* “and to whom was he cruel?” “Well,” said the little fellow, “nurse often tells me about the man all tattered and torn who kicked the maiden off the lawn

SMILE RAISERS. Teacher: ‘‘What is a geyser?” Little-Boy: “A waterfall going upways.” V Jack; “My sweetheart is the hest-looking girl in. town.’ Toni: “Quite likely. Mine lives in the country.” * Johnny; “My father’s a policeman; what does you] father do?” • Jimmy: “What ma tells him.” “Your cousin’s medical practice, I suppose, doesn’ amount to much yet.” “No. We relatives do all we can, but of course w< can’t be sick all the time.” * Two men decided upon a ; fishing match for a stake o half a sovereign. One of them thought he had a bite, and being over-anxious, had the misfortune to fall into th river. ' “The bet’s off, Jim!” shouted his rival, promptly “None of yer divin’ in after ’em ¥ A small boy asked his father to give him sixpenc 1 so that he might see a new film picture featuring a se serpent. 'r “Wasteful boy!” exclaimed his father, “wanting t waste a tanner! Take a magnifying glass into the garde and find a worm.” Our prescription department is our pride. ’ Beoaus it is the important part of our business and at all tinu receives our most careful attention. We fill so 'man prescriptions that our stock is always fresh and pure.' W have direct shipments from England always arriving. 8 send your prescription to Baxter’s Prescription Pharmacy Stafford Street, Tim am. v. 1 .