Ah, shall we not delight to honor Him since His will is just and holy and righteous altogether?

Home and Children.

"Come, let us live with our children," said Froebel, the originator of the blessed kindergarten system. A thoughtful writer has recently said: "I have an idea that we can make a great deal more of home than we do, and that we must learn to do so. This cannot be done by insisting that women give up their ambitions and scour and scrub more, or rock cradles and fry doughnuts. The point is to get a bigger idea of what a home is, and so be able to live a great deal more of our life at home and in home. I should like to call back the children and devise ways for doing for them much more than we leave for outsiders to do. Complaint is made by some of our best thinkers that we are sliding into socialism. Why not? Our individual life is nearly dissolved into a great public commonalty. As for religion, if we have any, why shall we send the children to priest or pastor? If we are educated, why cannot a large amount of our intellectual life be lived in a family way? I cannot comprehend the reason that sends a boy away from home to learn to read while his parents read the dailies and the monthlies. The dull dreariness of this business is hard to describe. There is not a farm, and there is hardly a cottage, in the United States that does not cover more material for education than the best schoolhouse ever erected. There is geology, chemistry, entomology, botany, physics, all here. Can it be realized? Or must it all lie idle, while the boys and girls are sent off to get what can be picked up at public resorts?

"I do not doubt the value of the schools; I only wonder why we must dull and deaden our homes so completely, and overlook all the rich material every home has so abundantly. Why we may not be mutual investigators is the puzzle. Why may not parents and children study nature together? There is no botany like applied botany. What a fool a schoolgirl is with her botany under her arm, and no application of it to the practical work of making the plants grow in the garden. Applied geology not only explains soils, rocks, streams, land, but it expounds land culture and how to utilize rocks and soils. Applied biology in general makes the farm boy master of the bugs and moths and of the mischievous plants that hinder culture. There really is no life so eminently delicious as where a home is a school. A school does not mean a place where one teaches, but a place where all study. No one should ever get to the end of study. A wise father goes through life with his children hunting after the facts and truths that are written on every leaf and bedded in every spadeful of soil. The real home can easily have cabinets or museums, laboratories for studying chemistry and physics, forges

2

for working at problems in mechanics. It is not expensive to have such houses -not nearly as expensive as it is to farm out your children in all directions and pay for it, and then have spoiled children. Work first for fine homes, and after

that for good schools, churches and public institutions."

Here and Now.

BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

Here in the heart of this world,
Here in the noise and the din,
Here where our spirits were hurled
To battle with sorrow and sin.
This is the place and the spot

For knowledge of infinite things;
This is the kingdom where Thought
Can conquer the prowess of kings.

Wait for no heavenly life,

Seek for no temple alone;
Here in the midst of the strife
Know what the sages have known.
See what the Perfect One saw,

God in the depths of each soul;
God as the Light and the Law,
God as beginning and goal.

Earth is one chamber of heaven,
Death is no grander than birth,
Joy in the life that is given,

Strive for perfection on earth.
Here in the turmoil and roar,

Show what it is to be calm;
Show how the spirit can soar,

And bring back its healing and balm.
Stand not aloof or apart,

Plunge in the thick of the fight;
There in the street and the mart

That is the place to do right.
Not in some cloister or cave,

Not in some kingdom above;
Here on the side of the grave,
Here should we labor and love.

Heroic Acts.

It never occurred to me until yesterday, when I stood by the coffin of Ezra Brown, that he was a hero. I used to watch him sometimes limping down the back lane on his way to the wood lot, and wondered curiously about his circumstances. The aged wife and invalid son at home were maintained by him. He suffered silently and patiently and died at his post of duty, with his axe lying beside him. Nobody ever thought or questioned about Ezra; he always paid as he went. But as I gazed at his seared hands, and noted the wrinkled, aged brow, I wondered if the angels would not have cause to rejoice over the record of such a life.

And Phoebe Ely, poor, plain, honest Phoebe, who had a mole on her chin and a nose unpleasantly prominent. She had a quiet, unobtrusive way, and when she smiled her face lighted up into something like beauty. We were all glad to see her when she came, and she was never known to outstay her welcome, she was so generally useful. She never considered herself, and seemed unconscious even of

Yet who of us ever dreamed of
She never did any great thing

the deficiencies bestowed upon her by nature. thinking of Phoebe in the light of a heroine. worthy of renown. We talked together about Clara Barton, and gloried in such womanhood, and forgot all about Phoebe Ely's unselfish devotion, until one day word reached us that she was dead. Then one after another took up the cry, and

all bewailed the loss as that of a dear friend. Always plain, simple and retiring, seeking not her own. Eternity alone can reveal the secret of such a life.

Then there was Edward Hamilton, a young man who received an injury in early youth, and who suffered an unusually cruel form of spinal disease. So weak was he that often it seemed his body and soul could hardly hold together. He was patient, sympathetic, thoughtful of those about him, and, though shattered and agonized, had words of praise for his Redeemer upon his lips. He never sat up for a moment and his position was not varied. We always asked after him daily, but he lived so long in our midst that we grew used to thinking of his affliction. One day word reached us that the fetters which bound him here had broken, and that he was with his Saviour in glory. Then we called him a hero, one of Christ's bravest and boldest soldiers, one whose robes were washed in the blood of the Lamb and made spotless.

Little Anna Jeans seemed like anything rather than a heroine. She used to scrub and wash dishes in the house on the hill, and take the hard-earned money home for her drunken father to spend. There were often bruises and stripes upon her slight form, but she never complained. Her dress was so uncouth, and her face so wasted and pinched, that we never thought of caressing her or cheering her with loving words. But the day came when her tasks remained undone, and the news reached us that she had crossed the valley and entered the city of God, eternal in the heavens. Then we thought how we might have lightened her path and grieved that we had not done so. Ah, there are heroes and heroines that the world knows not of.

Life's Best Work.

BY SALLIE V. DUBOIS.

It never pays to do anything less than one's best work. It matters not how obscure and humble the task, true, honest labor is bound to tell. We are apt to look upon certain gifted and wise men as possessed of genius, but the fact is that "They, while their companions slept

Were toiling upward in the night."

"No great thing was ever lightly won." Write the words in glowing characters where the eye may often rest upon them. Most of us are too easily discouraged. The smallest hindrance is enough to check us. When our efforts fail

we quit the race and yield up our rights to others. It should not be thus, since success is bound to crown honest effort, and

"A blessing failing us once or twice
May come if we try again."

Make stepping stones of failures and by them rise to loftier heights. Envy no man a life of indolence and ease, for "a useless life is an early death." There are great possibilities in us, heights which may be attained, talents unburnished, awaiting development. Spend no time in looking for lofty work; the common tasks about us are those which concern us now. The qualifications which fit men for high positions were not lightly learned. Most of them worked steadfastly, eagerly, honestly, during the play hours of those about them.

It is not the feeble strokes that count, nor the half-hearted effort that tells. Ah, there are so many that start out eagerly in the race, with bright, expectant faces and hopeful hearts, but they fall behind, drop out one by one, satisfied to do and to be less than they had purposed. For this reason alone has there been a general acceptance of the term that "there is always room at the top"-so few have the patience of soul requisite to hold out.

How beautiful is life with its unlimited possibilities. Shall we take up the web, weaving a design so wondrously fair that those who gaze find new hope and inspiration? Or shall we allow the frail and delicate web to trail in the dust, slighting our task, disdaining advice, yielding up our place to others?

There are possible heights which we may attain, since great men are only earnest editions of ourselves. To me it seems an awful crime, this yielding up our places, shrinking because the task implies hardships and trials. It does not do to be too reverent; the world is apt to take us at the value we place upon ourselves. If we think we can do nothing, it is very certain that we never shall. An unshrinking determination is an inestimable inheritance. Genius has been defined in two words, eternal vigilance. No one but God can measure the possibilities of the earnest soul. To us has He given minds capable of great things, and we refuse to fall in with His plans for us when we neglect or slight our duties. Look around you, note the men and women with whom you are thrown and make a character study of them. We all possess an individuality which tells what we are, and the world is apt to take us at our true worth. Are you doing your best work? With you it rests whether it shall be done or not. If not done, then it must stand forever in the annals of Heaven-unfinished.