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Show I "Little Children, Love One Another." So spoke the beloved desciple long ago. The words are music in the ear and melody in the heart today. They j are the fragrant breath of charity, and i charity never falleth away, i St. John was then an old man; his voice was weak and his eye was dim. I Sunday after Sunday he would preach ! the same old sermon. "Little children, j love one another." The more thought- loss of his disciples complained and j clamored for something new. St. John only said with more exquisite tender- j ness, "Little children, love one an other." Then he explained to them t that he who loveth his neighbor hath I fulfilled the law. He told them that this pithy, pregnant sermon was caught from the lips of the great Victim Vic-tim of love." iThe Divine Child knew what was In man. He knew that the eloquence which it is not in man to resist, an eloquence more fascinating than ever r fell from tongue of man or angel, is the ' cry from the heart of a child. Hence j It Is that He emptied Himself, taking I the form of an infant. He could have I had ten legions of angels bowing be- ! fore His gorgeous throne; instead His " peasant mother wrapped Him in swad- dling clothes and laid His in a ! manger. He cried as other infants cry. j He cried with them and He cried I alone; with them He cried as the piti- j less biting air stung His tender, deli- v cate flesh, and He cried alone because i the chilly atmosphere of uncharitable- f ness cut Him to the heart's core, and i His cry had little anger and much sor row, and its burden runneth thus: "Little children, love one another." It is hard to forgot the cruel and the bitter word that wounded as it fell; it is hard to break the cold chain of eilence forged by neglect; it is hard to pluck the deep roots of an old chcr- lshed grudge from the heart. We have jv tried to wrench the ravenous, cancer- I ous root; we have tried to break the chain that clanks so harshly; we have J tried to erase the corroding word but j" the word still burns and the iron of j the chain reivains iii the Mood .and the . foul cancer feeds fat on the vitals of our peace. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. Let all the bitterness and bickering be put away with all malice, especially from the home. Homes were our first V churches; households our first eongre- V gations, and in the beginning God , made the father of the family the fam- ily's priest. The hearthstone was sacred as the altar. These memories etill cling to the home. Anger is as unseemly there as it would be at the altar. When we were boys our mothers used to quell our quarrels by the music of a nursery rhyme that is not without reason : "Birds in their little nests agree. And 'tis a shameful sight. When children of one family Fall out and chide and fight." A friend should bear a friend's infirmity. in-firmity. Charity is patient, is kind, is not moved to anger. "Have you not love enough to bear th me when that rash humor which my mother gave me makes me forgetful?" Anger which resteth in the bosom of a fool is a boomerang: it returneth to plague its father. Conceit is worse than consumption, con-sumption, but it is easier to live with the conceited than with the angry man or woman either. Conceit is a brand 1 of insanity, a congenital Imbecility that ,4 1 I is as incurable and as harmless as a ) robust wart on the apex of a man's ' nose. But anger is a naked nerve, a live wire, a nitroglycerine pill. It is a case of "touch and go." It makes the home a powder magazine. Tou may ,u wear a diver's rubber suit, but you ' can't duck the shooting sparks, thfck j I as summer flies, that dart from the j eyes of the anger ridden. When the art of self-defense hns caught up to the art of offensive warfare all spitfires will be kindly, but firmly segregated, and gently compelled to live together fin peace in a fertile, but fortified far off island. Meanwhile a sense of humor, if developed, would be the handmaid of charity, as a specific for biliousness. A wet hen too dense to I prodigy compared to the fire-eating peace hater. A blind bull butting a " hay stack is a model of well poised self-control compared to the son or daughter of Eve who frets and flares becauses a mosquito plies Its legitimate vocation. In this matter of mutual charity there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent. Silence, like solitude, soli-tude, is often the mother country of the strong; sometimes it Is a howling waste; the playground of savage beasts and vicious demons. Silence can cut a gash deeper and wider than ever was made by the scourge of speech. Lockjaw Lock-jaw may hide folly; It may hide Jealousy, Jeal-ousy, envy, unspeakable bitterness too. Buddha, a popular idol with feather-headed feather-headed faddists today, left his young wife and child out of love for solitude. He should have been arrested lor wife desertion, and if he did not want to talk to his wife, at least he should have been compelled to support her. In the family circle there is no legitimate place for wise, contemplative Buddhas. If any man will not talk, neither let him eat. Hunger will soon find him a tongue. Charity flows into speech of pen or tongue, oh hand clasp or kindly look asspontaneously as the rose sheds its fragrance on the summer air. "Do not wait with grace unspoken. While life's daily bread is broken, Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies." " Charity, the mutual love of little children and of God, begins at home, but it should not end there. Christ became a little child for every man of woman born. The outstretched arms on the cross embraced the world. Now especially is it true of every man, layman lay-man and priest "for Christ we are ambassadors," am-bassadors," Christ as it were scattering scatter-ing consolation through us. Christ gave His heart's blood out of pure charity. He kept nothing for Himself. He died naked on a naked cross and a charitable friend had to bury him. Being rich, for our sakes He became poor, that through His poverty we might be made rich. The gift of the charitable giver is a mighty prayer. It brings the Almighty to His knees; it covers a multitude of sins; it is a wise investment, yielding fruit a hundredfold. hundred-fold. Professionals will sometimes de- j ceive you. Actors and masqueraders you can't avoid, except you leave the world. There Is none of that uncanny caution In Christ. He knew that His blood would not be respected by many. He knew that He was throwing pearls to swine when He poured His. heart's treasures into the lap of the scorned, but He poured it out all the same. What is given for God's sake is never lost. Afater a time it will come back a smiling harvest of golden plenty. Little children, love one another, not in word only, but in deed and in truth. Some children will be sick from overeating; over-eating; some children will go hungry to bed or sit at the rich man's door and tell their sorrows to the passing wind. Some women will be luxuriously clothed; others some ashamed to go to Mass; ashamed of unmerited shab-biness; shab-biness; some men will pour money lavishly lav-ishly over the bar of the saloon who shun the poor box as they would a morgue. Sly brethern, these things ought nto so to be. Christ, the restorer re-storer of justice, of social equilibrium, is watching and waiting. His last words are a trumpet call to rause us to open-handed, free-hearted kindliness to His poor. "Come ye blessed of my Father. I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you covered me. Sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. As long as you did it to one of these my least brethern you did it to me." Little Children, love one another. St. John's Calendar, Brooklyn. A Pair to Beware of. Oh, old Mrs. Gossip and Miss Tittle-. Tittle-. tattle Are a pair who can more mischief do Than is oft done in battle, when big cannon rattle And the smoke dims the sky's" white and blue. Through town and through city, o'er grass and o'er heather, With unwearied footsteps they stray; Apart or together, in all kinds o? weather, wea-ther, They're seen both by night and by day. Dear friends have been sundered by nod, glance or story, By laughter or sigh or the twain; And youth in its glory, and age gray and hoary, Have alike at their hands suffered pain. These ladies discourse in the tongues of all races. The garb of all nations they wear. If you e'er see their faces in high or low places, Of them and their mischief beware. E. Beck. Ashamed of Mother. It is a sorry day for the girl when she feels herself superior to her mother, and considers herself called upon to apologize for her bad grammar, msi-pronounced msi-pronounced words, foreign accent or slips in her speech. When a girl becomes be-comes so small and contemptible that she is ashamed to appear in public with her mother, because she is old-fashioned and dowdy in appearance, her " hands brawny, her face prematurely wrinkled wrin-kled and her form bent by long years of drudgery for her children, she is indeed in-deed to be pitied. She has fallen below contempt. The girls who are ashamed of their hard-working mothers are few, happily, compared with the vast number who appreciate and endeavor to repay their mother's sacrifice. Still, there are too many of them girls who do not even darn their own stockings, mend their own clothes or make their own beds. I have in mind a mother who is constantly con-stantly making sacrifices in order that her daughter may make a good appearance. appear-ance. She wears her old cloak and shabby bonnet another year; she remodels re-models for the second time and tries to freshen up the gown which should have been discarded last year,, so that the young girl may have new ones and appear to as good advantage as other girls of her age. She drudges from morning till night, and often far into the night, so that her daughter may have more leisure to practice accomplishments accom-plishments or to have a good time. Anything is good enough for the slave mother. When the tired hands should be at rest they are busy working with some dainty laundry work, or plying the needle on some pretty thing for the girl's adornment when she shall make her next appearance at a dance or a reception. The daughter, meanwhile, is gossiping about the neighborhood, or is at the theatre or some other place of amusement, or perhaps she sits by reading read-ing a silly story or strumming on the piano. Fedestrians on a prominent street yesterday were treated to a funny incident, in-cident, in which the wit of a ragged newsboy turned the uppishness of a richly dressed woman to chagrin. The woman was shopping where the sidewalks are occupied in part by venders ven-ders of small mechanical toys. She led a poodle beside her and the dog continually pulled at the leash. The dog finally remained motionless, when its mistress gave a particularly vigorous vigor-ous and vicious tug at the tan-colored strap. Just then the newsboy came along, and joy could be seen in his squinting squint-ing eyes. Watchins the dog for a moment, mo-ment, he said: t "It'll go if you wind it, won t it, lady?" |