THE HOME.

White Ribbon, Volume 5, Issue 58, 1 April 1900, Page 10

THE HOME.

That was a wise man who taught “ as a man thinketh in his heart so is he,’ and it is a wise generation which will take heed of the wisdom of the idea contained in this teaching. The mind of man never sleeps: it goes on thinking, thinking, always, and if the result of his thinking is so important, how supremely necessary that the will to think aright should direct it. Which of us stands tor ever a sentinel at the doorway of our thought, refusing to admit the mean and the base and the selfish ? W hich of us is alive to the fact that our moods are the result of looseness in

the habits of out thought ? High and noble aspirations for one day in seven will be little good if for the other six careless apathy prevails. Just here is the crux of our religion, not one single thought can be ignored since action is alway the outcome of thought. Monday's thoughts and Friday’s thoughts must square with Sunday’s, or is confusion as result. How much iiave we mothers understood this truth ? How far have we inculcated it into our children ? Do we realise that by this way is the entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven —that realm of the within which, when it shall be realised, will transfigure the world without ? There are some people we trust instinctively. We cannot say why we should. We feel they will not deceive us. There is more in earth than we dream of in our philosophy. It may be that there is a faculty in each of us which always recognises the high and the good, though to our ordinary consciousness there is apparently no power of understanding or appreciation. Godlike powers we all must have, being akin to Father and Son. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God,” says the apostle. When we have developed the Christ-spirit that dwells within us, we shall be like Him.

A good suggestion for any one who is desirous to guide his thoughts in the right way is, whenever the mind wanders, to give it some good thought and to hold that thought constantly when there is any tendency to drift. This will not generally at first be easily done. It means determination to follow a systematic training of the mind, hut when once the A B C is mastered there is the full University course in view. “ I press forward,” is a good motto, and we shall do well to apply it to all

that concerns us. The past, with its traditions, is a terrible drag to most uf us, and this is tiue of the school or medicine as of other domains. The doctors have held a Convention in Christchurch, and a certain number has urged upon the public the need of vaccination as a remedy against a disease which we have all been taught to think cf with horror. Now, comparatively few of the younger generation living in New Zealand know much of this disease from personal suffering, or from the experience of their friends, so that an alarm is raised against an absent foe, that is, as far ".s New Zealand is concerned. This fear is a survival from our forefathers. Once this horrible disease claimed its victims by the thousands every year. So frightful were its ravages that people were constrained to look to their unwholesome ways of life. The great natural healing agents began to be recognised, and houses were built with due regard to the admission of light anti air. Bathing, an uncommon occurrence with the mass of the people, was seen to be the good friend of health that it is. The sense of smell began to claim the right to be attended to, and filthy rubbish heaps and foul drains began to disappear from the abodes of the socalled better classes. Where these conditions have been observed small pox no longer holds sway. Why, then, does the fear persist ? The answer is easy enough. The conditions of its triumph still exist in every city in Christendom. What visions does the word “ slums ” conjure before our eyes ? We fear, anti rightly so, because we cannot isolate our lives entirely from our brothers, however poor and despised they may be. The sweated wretch in his den, worse than the 1 :*ir of any wild beast, contracts this

filth disease as he sews the rich man’s coat, and Nemesis seizes the rich man in its relentless grasp. Vaccination will not save him, only the recognition of what is good and true for him is good and true for his poor brother. Obedience to the golden rule is the only specific for small pox. As long as the disease exists in the mind it will show forth in the body. That this is true, one lias only to contemplate the facts against vaccination. In the first case it is nonsense to plead that the evils attendant on vaccination would not exist if doctors used pure lymph. Pure Lymph , forsooth, the name is a contradiction in terms. Lymph is the result of some morbid condition of a body, and by no stretch of the imagination can what is derived from impurity, be considered pure. The result of the “ pure lymph ” is to set up disease in the body operated upon, and thus runs counter to a \° r f axiom of truth, that what is healing must necessarily be soothing. Doctors who are convinced by the suffering they have seen it has entailed, are divided against their brother professionals who urge it, affirming that vaccination induces numerous other diseases, and that the evil it has wrought far outweighs any problematic benefits. Moreover, they prove that immunity from the disease is not obtained, as many people who have been vaccinated over and over again have fallen victims to the disease.

Common sense is a very religious thing. It prefers alliance with nature. It knows that if man will be virtuous and healthy, Nature demands that he must recognise the God in man. “ Love one another,” lived in our lives, is a sure precaution against which vaccination will hide its loathsome head in shame.