enough to fill time and eternity with the beatitudes of God, the joy of angels and the praise of men. Henceforth let your life be such as the poet sweetly sings: I live for those who love me, For those that know me true, For the heaven that smiles above me, For the cause that lacks assistance, THE FRETFUL WOMAN. HAT was a strange plague we read about TH in Leviticus: It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house. It first appeared in a little green or reddish spot, growing on the wall of the house. The person living in the house had then to go to the priest and say to him: "It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house." Then the priest came and examined the discoloration, and if it bore a suspicious appearance he ordered the house to be locked up for seven whole days. If at the end of that time the spot had spread, the part of the wall in which it showed itself was taken down and carried away and built again with new stones and declared safe to dwell in. If this treatment did not succeed in getting rid of the mischief, the priest knew that it was the plague, and all the stones were carried away to a distance. If after all this care had been taken the spot appeared again, then they knew it was no use trying further that way. This was the "fretting leprosy," as it was called, so the house was ordered to be pulled down and all its materials carried away into an unclean place, and a new house was built in its stead with entirely new stones. We still have plagues in our houses. Something different from the "fretting leprosy," perhaps, and yet something like it, too. Many excellent people pass numberless hours of sadness and weariness of heart, because they have failed to adopt the true philosophy of life. They wait for happiness instead of going to work and making it, and while they wait they torment themselves with borrowed troubles, and cross bridges to which they never come. If you are at home to "the blues," they are sure to call. They have a way of calling anyway with a formal invitation. As Frank L. Stanton writes: 66 Whar'd they come from? Day by day, Just a trudgin' up the slope - Something is wrong all the time with some people, because they make it so. They never have any pleasure because they never get ready to enjoy it. They really enjoy poor health. They are as prone to grumble as the poor woman who, being asked if she were satisfied when a pure water supply was introduced into her city, said: "Not so well as I might; it's not like the water we had before; it neither smells nor tastes." The grumblers' lot is harder than falls to other mortals; their home is the worst of anybody's; their street is getting worse every day; they have more trouble than anybody else and always expect to have; they are never so happy as when they grumble, and if everything worked to their satisfaction, they would still grumble because there was nothing to grumble about. While we are perfectly willing that the grum bler should go to heaven at death, everybody is heartily glad to get rid of him or her on earth. The most lovable people have their nervous days, their fretful days and their days of being generally out of sorts; but this is one thing; or even reprimand where reproof or rebuke is a duty, but it is quite another to keep up an intermittent, never-ending, still-beginning patter of fault-finding, fretting and nagging, keeping up such a scattering fire of small shot in the way of sarcasm and complaint day by day. A wasp, dangerous as is contact with it, is a comfortable housemate in comparison with a fretting woman. A wasp only stings when disturbed, but an habitual fretter buzzes if she doesn't sting. Nothing goes right with fretters. Even the common movements of Providence are all wrong. The winds are everlastingly perverse, blowing dust in the face or not fanning them as they should, too wet or too dry, the seasons roll on badly, the climate is vicious, and when you greet them on the most beautiful sunshiny morning with "A fine day, is it not?" they will dolefully |