The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 15 May 1919, Page 45

The Family Circle

THE RETURN. Golden through the golden morning Who is this that comes ? With the pride of banners lifted, With the roll of drums. With that self-same triumph shining In the ardent glance. That divine bright Fate-defiance That you bore to France. You ! But o’er your grave in Flanders Blow the Winter gales, Still for sorrow of your going All life’s laughter fa-ils. Borne on flutes of Dawn, the answer “O’er the foam’s white {rack, God’s work done, so to our homeland Comes her hosting back.” Come the dead men with the live men. From the marshes far— From the mounds in No Man’s Valley, Lit by cross nor star. “Come to blend with hers the essence Of their strength and pride, All the radiance of the dreaming For whose truth they died.” So the dead men with the live men Pass an hosting fair, And the stone is rolled forever From the heart’s despair. —Eleanor Rogers Cox in the Century Magazine. THE CATHOLIC WOMAN’S SUCCESS. At this particular time in history, more than ever before, as Rita Connell McGoldrick says in the Quarterly Bulletin of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae, the Catholic woman faces her greatest opportunity in history. Nothing is better fitted “to nurture the new spirit that is about to be born to a heart-torn and bleeding world” than her influence and gentlernotherhood. But it is her convent training. she adds, that will enable her to rise fully to her magnificent responsibilities;— , “It will help her to set the example by her charity of speech, her modesty of manner and of dress, her respect for poverty, her swift compassion and sympathy for the suffering, her prayerfulness and her faith, to a world that is more than ever before ready to be convinced that womanhood is the fountain-spring of all good, that good women are capable of the most heart-breaking sacrifices, that they are capable of sharing the burden equally with man, in war times in his absence, or in his home in times of peace. Her example will shed an influence all about her. In this capacity she will achieve a success far above the material and social triumphs of those whose lives are not enveloped by the spirit of sacrifice. “To the little Belgian mother, destitute and alone in some barren corner of her poor country, cherishing her children and teaching them to pray in the midst of wreckage and hardship, surely success in its sweeter form has come. She has developed her own possibilities to their limit of noble self-sacrifice. She has time for those about her. Discounting the comfortless externals of her life, she has time for God. “This is what success means to the Catholic women —not social position, brilliant marriage, political prestige, but victory over self with duty done effectively and valiantly. It means the attainment of an ideal that holds all of charity and the .willingness to help. It is a development of soul with nothing of malice or

resentment. ,It is a never-failing sense of high-minded-ness and honor. It is a constancy, in' .prayer, that heart and mind and soul be properly directed in the work at hand, so that the last milestone of life’s tedious roadway will find the girl graduate a developed woman of rare virtue, who has left her footprints indelibly behind her, and whose spirit and example will be the incentive for other tired wayfarers to •* carry on.’” This is the true conception of what success should mean to the Catholic woman. HELPING MOTHER. “Mother, may I help you?” Girls, if you knew how much your mother appreciates words like those you would often say them and as often carry them into execution. It is not so much for what you are able to do that your mother will be pleased, but on account of the thoughtfulness that prompts your question. And you know mother has to work hard, often, and long. She is only human, even if she is your mother, and she becomes tired sometimes, and a little help is a grateful relief. How proud she must feel to see her little daughter cheerful and eager in her desires to proffer aid. Mothers rarely complain of the labor and trouble they endure for the sake of their children. They seem to leave the complaining to be done by their boys and girls. And how they oftentimes complain ! It is only an easy task that mother asks them to do, but to judge by the amount of complaints they make you would be led to imagine that they were commanded to move mountains. Help mother all you can. That is a duty you will never regret having fulfilled. THE HURRIED GIRL. I know a certain little girl Who’s always in a hurry; When there is work that she must do She gets in quite a flurry. She worries over all her tasks, So very hard she takes them; She hurries ’round and upsets things, Or knocks them down and breaks them. I often wonder why it is She has to hurry so. Perhaps because she leaves her work Till it has time to grow; And when it’s very, very big, Flies at it hurry-scurry. If she would just do things on time, ’T would save, oh, save, so much worry! AN INTERESTING SPECTACLE. An amazing instance of military red tape is given by the London Daily News;. “In a certain camp,” says a correspondent, “a huge hut was in course of erection. When the armistice came the Government informed the military that building must cease, and the hut be taken down. The contractor had received no orders to discontinue building. The result was the interesting spectacle of soldiers taking down the hut at one end and workmen erecting it at the other. Which snake swallowed the other I cannot say but the incident seems worthy of record.” THE OLD, OLD STORY. “Miss Willing,” began the young man, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, “are you fond of stories?” - “If they are new, Mr. Woodby,” replied the fair maid, “I simply dote on them.” “But the one I was going to tell you, Miss Willing, is not new,” said the young man. “It is, T might say, Miss Willing— or, Clarathe old, old story, but) ; ” /

-“Oh, never mind, George,” she interrupted. “Even if it is a chestnut, I'm sure I never heard it. Go on, please.” ( . A WORD OF THANKS. The following extract from a letter of thanks is cherished by its recipient. The beautiful clock you sent us came in perfect condition, and is now in the parlor on top of the book-shelves where we hope to see you soon, and your husband, also, if he can make it convenient. CAPPED THE LOT. Over a glass of—er— milk the old sea-dogs were swopping yarns. “I remember one time,” said the one with the scarlet nose, “we ran into a hurricane. The cook was in the galley cooking salt home, what the owners called beef, and raising a dickens of a steam. But that there hurricane was so cold that it froze that steam solid, with poor old cookie in the centre, and it took us three hours to dig him out.” “That so?” replied the one with the wooden leg. “Minds me of an Arctic voyage I went once. The cold was so ’orrible that it froze the bo' sun’s shadow to the deck, and we had to hack it loose with a chopper before he could move. “And another time ” he went on, reminiscently. But his friend had vanished. SMILE RAISERS. Husband; “Have you brought your opera-glass?” She: “Yes, but I cannot use it.” Husband; “Why not?” She: “I have left my bracelets at home.” He; “Most girls, I have found, don’t appreciate real music.” Second He: “Why do you say that?” He: “Well, you may pick beautiful strains on a ~ mandolin for an hour, and she won’t even look out of the window, but just one honk of a motor car horn, andout she comes!” Uncle Jack, who was visiting them, wished to talk to Mary’s father at his office. He could not find the telephone directory, and thus appealed to three-year-old Mary for information regarding the ’phone number : “Mary, what does mother ask for when she talks to daddy at his office?” he inquired. Mary was wise for her days. “Money,” she lisped. One morning Mr. Smith was heard talking to himself while making his morning toilet in a manner that denoted much perturbation. “I wonder,” said Mrs. Smith, “what’s provoked father now?” “Oh, it’s nothing much, mother,” answered little William. “I just put a tube of sister’s oil-paints in place of his tube of tooth-paste.” Mrs. A.: “Your husband'told my husband that his word was law at home.” Mrs. B. : “Yes, it’s one of those laws that are never enforced.”