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BIRTHDAY
s HE, with her sweet
&: young enthusiasm,
¥% THE! CHRIST CHILDS
8 ATE
PRESENT.
SER
@* he 2)
By MAY C.RINGWOLT.
to Him. Not far away is a great hos-
pital for little children who have
| child of old, and how His birthday | for it rested in fascinated awe upon
ing away the tears, she was soon
skipping along in the sunshine, thinke
ing what a lucky girlie she was to
have two lively legs, and a straight,
strong back.
Agnes remembered the time, be-
fore dear father’s death, when they we
lived in a cunning cottage of their slipped timidly in. For a moment
own om a preity avenue, but now | Agnes stood dazed, as if she had sud-
mother and she-had only one room| gen)y entered fairyland, forthe bare |
at the top of a gloomy house On a] L115 of the room were festooned
forlorn back street. Still, as her feet | 4itn heavy ropes of Christmas greens,
clattered up the dark, uncarpeted | the shades at the windows were
stairs, her heart was full of happiness ! drawn, and all the chandeliers bril-
because she had reached home at, niy lighted, while above the await-
last—for even one room Is home ing manger shone a glorious electric
when mother is there. star. Then, ashamed of being so late,
“Oh, mother,” exclaimed Agnes, | she hurriedly tiptoed to her place,
“I've so much to tell you!” And|the vacant seat beside Clarice.
cuddled ih mother’s lap, an argg about| Clarice met her with a cold stare,
her neck, a hand patting herscheek; | put the gaze of Agnes’ eyes never
Agnes sweetly prattled of the Christ | reached the unkind little girl's face,
was to be kept by giving presents toa vision of beauty in Clarice’s arms.
poor, sick little children left in His| It was a doll such as fairies might
place. “And, mother,” she cried, dream of. She had dark, clustering
“I'm going to give a doll just like [curls, and magnificent brown eyes.
my own dear Peggy! Do you think, | Her cheeks glowed with color, and
Sore
Selfish Men Lose
Righteous Will Be Remembered by Things t
They Have Forgotten.
Fy President Arthur T. Hadley of Yale.
006600060664 [FE is full of things that are worth having, but which Wwe
AODOHOSE
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told them of the|crippled legs and arms, and poor,
first Christmastide [crooked backs, sick children who
— of the Christ|can’t run and play, but have to hobble
Child cradled in
the manger because
there was no room
e Christmas carol of
peace and good will sung by the an-
gels to the shepherds watching their
flocks by night.
Clarice’s face was rapt; her eyes
adoring. Of all the teachers in the
Sunday-school, none was so lovely as
her own Miss Maud. She was certain
that the Christmas angels had the
game shining yellow hair. Did they
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wear those fascinating gold hairpins,
too? One was slipping out from the
goft fluff over Miss Maud’s left ear.
If only she dared tell her! But that
morning she had asked the awful
privilege of holding Miss Maud’s muff
—a, rich sable with a beautiful bunch
of violets fastened to it—and there
was no courage left for further inti-
mate speech. Suddenly the spell was
broken, and Clarice turned with
angry jerk from the object of her
worship, and fiercely scowled at an
inoffensive little girl seated beside
her. %
“Excuse me,” meekly apologized
Agnes, the new scholar.
Clarice drew her light blue silk
skirts away from the dingy. brown
cashmere touching them; held herself
very straight; and, with a superb dig-
nity, sniffed the violets on the muff.
“And now, my dears,” said Miss
Maud, “as you know, Wednesday will
be another birthday of the Christ
Child, and who wants every one here
to give Him a present—just as you
would give a present to your own
little brother on his birthday at
home.” She smiled radiantly. “Do
you wonder how you can do that
when the Christ Child has become a
King in Heaven? I'll tell you. He
left in His place all the poor little
girls and boys in this big world, and-
told us that in giving to them we give
about on crutches or lie in bed all
day. Wouldn't you like to make
their Christmas so happy that they'd
forget their pain?”
Her smile gathered up their eager
nods of assent, as a golden thread
gathering pearls. “I knew you would.
Well, I'm going to tell you a secret.”
She leaned confidentially near. “The
day before Christmas we're to have
a dear little service down here, and
over there on the platform will be an
empty manger, and, as we sing our
Christmas carols, we are going to
march up to the manger and each
put in a gift for some little Christ
child at the hospital. Won't we have
a jolly time deciding what to bring!
Why,.it will be almost as exciting as
if every girlie of you were playing
Santa Claus!”
Again Clarice’s smiling face was
clouded by a scowl, and one rude
elbow poked the new scholar’s arm.
“Clarice!” exclaimed Miss Maud,
severely.
“Qhe’s crowding me!” defended a
sulky voice.
Miss Maud looked up at the little
The child’s eyes were lumin-
ous; her face flushed, her lips parted.
«Agnes was so intently listening to
me that I'm sure she didn’t realize
that she was leaning against anyone.
I'm surprised at you, Clarice!” A
cheek hid its shamed crimson in the
soft muff. To have Miss Maud “sure
prised” at you was ignominy itself?
Her tears wet the violets. It was all
Agnes’ fault. She would never for-
give her—never!
And when Sunday-school was over
and Agnes, with a timid smile, asked
if she might walk up the street with
Clarice, that unladylike little girl
slipped her arm through that of her
chum, Anabel, and, whispering and
giggling, stalked by Agnes without a
word.
The tears came into Agnes’ eyes,
for mother would not let her play
with the little girls in the new neigh-
know—you could get the
dressed in time?”
The smile faded from mother’s
lips, and the arm about her girlie
trembled. “My dear: little Agnes,”
she murmured, with a catch in her
voice, “mother is so sorry to disap-
point you.” She paused, then brave-
ly went on.
such a little woman that mother is
You know, dear, for three whole
weeks mother had no work to do.”
“Yes,” chimed in Agnes,
“and it was just beautiful!
me the lovelist stories.!”
mother dear—if I sewed, too, you |there was the cunningest dimple in
dollie | her round chin.
“Agnes has grown to be | lets dangling over: her hands.
going to explain: everything to her. | your little hospital girl be pleased?”
fully whispered back Clarice.
gaily, | don’t suppose I'd give my best doll
We took | away!
long walks, and, in the evening, in: |out a box of jack-straws—“Lady Lu-
stead of the stupid sewing, you told | cile and I simply stopped in.” She
airily tossed her head.
“But, love,” explained mother, with | our way to a Christmas Eve party.”
= HANGING THE STOCKING.
She was dressed in
claret velvet trimmed in white silk,
and wore a claret velvet poke bonnet
with white silk strings and an ex-
quisite white plume gracefully touch-
ing the brown curls on the right side.
And best of all, she had a necklace
of gold beads, and gold bead brace-
“Qh,” murmured Agnes, “won't
“My little hospital girl!” scorn-
“You
Here’s my present”—she held y
“We're on
a sad smile, “when there is no work
there is no pay—no money to buy
anything to eat nor coal to keep us
warm.” “
«We ate every day, though, mother
dear, and most generally always we
had a fire.”
“Yes, dear, because a kind man let
us have all that we needed, and
trusted mother to pay for it when she
got work again. So, you see, Agnes,
the money that mother is making now
does not really belong to us, but every
cent must go to pay our debts.”
A small head solemnly nodded.
«It hurts mother very much not to
give her darling any Christmas toys
nor let her girlie’s kind heart have
its wish about the dollie for the poor
sick little child at the hospital, but
Agnes will try to be a good little girl
about it, won't she?”
The arms about mother’s neck
tightened their hold, but Agnes’
mouth twitched, and she had to blink
very hard to keep back the tears. If
she had no present to lay in the
borhood into which they had moved,
because the children there were rough
and boisterous, and used naughty
words, and she was very lonely. But
she was a brave little soul, and dash-
THE ANGEL AND
tidings of great joy.
THE SHEPHERDS.
Albert Edelfelt.
Jnd the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, Fk bring yom good
Christmas manger, how would the
Christ Child know that she loved
Him? “Of course,” she argued to
herself, “I could ’splain in my prayers
that I had nothing to give.”
But had she nothing? Her face
suddenly crimsoned, and 2a great
lump choked her little throat. There
was Peggy herself!
Without speaking, she got down
from mother’s lap, and darted across
the room to her little bed. There,
propped up by a pillow, sat Peggy in
a stiff pink calico dress... The curls
had all been combed out. of Peggy's
straggling hair; the roses had long
ago faded from her cheeks, and in a
sad accident Perry had parted com-
pany with the end of her nose.
“You dear!” whispered ‘Agnes.
Her lips formed -a determined line.
How could she have thought of giving
Peggy up! What would she do all
day without a dollie to play with?
What would she do at night without
a dollie to sleep on the pillow beside
her? But how disappointed her sick
little girl at the hospital would be
Christmas morning when all the
cther children had lovely presents,
and she found that she had been left
out? + Agnes stooped over the bed,
gathered Peggy in her arms, and
pressed her to her aching heart.
* * *® * * * x
It was the day before ©Ohristmas,
and the children had sung all but
their last carol which they were to
sing as they marched to the manger
and laid down their gifts one by one.
The door softly optned, and a little
brown shadow of a girl with a small
“Form in line, my dears,” inter-
rupted Miss Maud, briskly. “Yes,
our class comes last, but you must
sing all the time we’re marching.”
PV YVYIYVeY
1.
o Oe d.
POV V
shall never have if we devote our time to thinking about
them. ’ :
Happiness is worth having, but the man who spends his
days planning how to be happy defeats his own end. Pub-
lic office is worth having, but the man who occupies his life
scheming how to get office loses the chance of public ser-
vice. which makes that office honorable. Culture is worth
having—almost infinitely worth having—but the man who
sets out to make culture his primary object usually ends by being either a
prig or a sham. Somehow or other the conscious seeking of a good thing, if
kept up too long and too constantly, interferes with the chance of obtaining it.
What Christianity does is to put a man in the way of realizing the right
kind of ambitions instead of the wrong kind. It warns us against seizing the
shadow and letting go the substance. It gives us a scale of values which
helps us against mistakes of judgment. : :
A man with whom ambition is the dominant motive—a man, who, in the
language of the text, seeks great things for himself,—is liable to three kinds
of mistakes; mistakes of dishonesty, mistakes of selfishness, and mistakes of
judgment. His life may be insincere. His life may be selfish.
POPOPPPV
ALLEL SA
PPPOVYVY
--- A hundred minor acts of courtesy are unnoticed by thé man who does
them. If he is trying to judge his own character he thinks chiefly of the in-
stances where he has consciously sacrifieed his own interests in order to do
something for others. But if the world is judging his character it will think
less than he does of the $100 which he did or did not put into the contribution
box on Hospital Sunday, and more than he does of the hundred times that he
left his neighbors a dollar richer because he nad a habit of doing business
fairly, or the hundred times that he cheated his neighbor out of a dollar by
business habits which he, in his own mind, gives no ‘harsher name than
shrewdness. The better the world is the surer it is to take these last things
into account. : ® :
If there is one moral lesson which the Gospel iterates 4nd reiterates, it
is the importance of these unconscious eourtesies or discourtesies, these un-
1 conscious honesties or dishonesties.
; In the Day of Judgment the wicked will be condemned not for the great
sins which they have committed, but for the little serviees which they have
1 1eft unrendered. The righteous will be distinguished not by the great deeds
which they have remembered, but by the little deeds that they have for-
gotten.
The one thing that grows greater as time goes on is the heroic character
which men have achieved by not seeking great things, but simply doing daily
duties without knowing it until they hvae achieved the power to meet any
emergency that might arise. \
dofeteeieioiolaoloini
Fiemme a
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HAT a great misfortune this is, the habit of considering the
weather!—of thinking that we must consider the weather.
It is largely due, is it not, to clothes? No mention is made
of rain in the Garden of Eden; put we must not, therefore,
contend that rain was disagreeable and omitted; we must
recollect that Adam and Eve did not need to consider rain;
furthermore, in blessed ignorance, they did not know that it
was anything to be considered.
To mind the rain no more than the May sunshine, but
to plunge into it and let the drops pelt as they will; to accept snow without a
thought of discomfort, but, rather, to enjoy the thronging presence of it; to
pursue one’s daily stint regardless of whether the sky be dun or blue,—this is
a state which we, especially of the cities, long, long have lost.
We regain it, some of us, in the wilderness camp, where we hunt, or fish,
if the day be dark or if the day be bright. And where we find that the dash
of the soft rain on one’s face is not death, after all; that wetness and dryness
The children’s voices caroled joy-
ously as thé procession pressed for-
ward, but one little singer was mute.
She was the last in the line, a little
brown shadow of a girl with a small
pink object hugged to her breast.
Miss Maud stood by the manger, DOW
heaped with all sorts of playthings,
and nodded and smiled as each wee
member of her class approached.
Puzzled, she watched Agnes pause,
look at the manger with frightened
eyes, and hesitate. Then she saw
the small pink object lifted to the
child’s lips, and heard the sound of
a smacking kiss of farewell before
trembling hands laid a doll with
straggly hair, faded cheeks and a
broken nose among the new toys.
“Why, my dear,” cried Miss Maud,
putting her arms about Agnes, “what
is the matter?”
A great sob shook the tiny figure.
«Tell me all about it,” comforted
Miss Maud. .
And Agnes brokenly confided the
whole story.
how mother’s money belonged to
somebody else, and how she had noth-
ing to give the Christ Child except
her only doll, neither of them noticed
a little listener who drew nearer and
nearer. -
“No, no,” cried Agnes, “I wouldn’t
take her back.s I want the little hos-
pital girl to have her—she’ll ’preciate
Peggy’s crippled nose, won’t she?”
Agnes forced a smile through her
tears. “Only,” she faltered, “it will
be so—so lonesome without any
doll—ie.”
Something tugged at Miss Maud’§
skirts. She turned, and with a start
of surprise, looked down into Clar-
ice’s eager face.
“I’ve lots more at home, you
know,” she whispered. And, laying
Lady Lucile in Agnes’ astonished
arms, Clarice ran after her chum,
Anabel.—The. Interior.
[For Family of Twos
Oyster Soup, Gherkins.” Roast Dury
Apple-and-Celery Salads *
Potatoes, Scalloped, with Grated Onion
Squash. Plum Pudding, Hard Sauce.
pink object hugged to her breast
8
bop os or
dangerive Oranges. Grapes. Coffee,
Nay — =
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i ‘Gou_is Born His Dap
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ch is Uhrist THe Lio
PO.
But as she explained i
are merely relative terms.
All the centuries of fussing and fuming with the weather have not affect-
ed the weather one partiele; it still rains, and snows, and sleets, and blows,
just as dictated by circumstances. Therefore, what’s the use? Are your
puny diatribes, or mine, of any greater potency than those of others gone
before? Evidently not; accordingly, try the plan of being friendly with the
weather—of agreeing with it instead of fighting it—and, ’pon my word, pres-
ently it will be agreeing with you.—Lippincott’s.
o og oddly : oc
[De Burn Aimost as Fast
As We Build
}
gy F. W. Fitzpatrick. Sts
HE cost of fire and its accessories, in round numbers, is Just
about an even $600,000,000 a year. It may be but a peculiar
justment, that with all our phenomenal growth and the tre-
mendous boom and vast amount of building carried on in
some years, the most active year we have ever had in
building construction netted just $615,000,000's worth of
buildings and alterations during the twelve months. So
that with all our vaunted activity, we produce in money
value only a trifie more than what we destroy. Worse than that, in the first
month of the present year our losses by fire were over $24,000,000, and during
the same time we expended but $16,000,000 in new buildings and repairs. Our
average fire loss is $19,000,000 a month—a “normal” month. But the confla-
gration risk is such that we nave “abnormal” months with startlingly normal
regularity. In February of 1904 Baltimore raised that month’s figure to §90,-
000,000, and in April of 1906 San Francisco added $350,000,000 to the “normal”
month’s loss. In five years’ time the total has been $1,257,716,000. No other
nation on earth could stand the drain, and even we are beginning to feel it.—
McClure’s Magazine.
Gegelege ele RdeR fel deielodolrdololeiolod doled
Cmte pr ym
Pharaoh the Oppressor
This Is the Rameses Who Looms Over the
Egypt of To-Day.
POV VOVIVIPT
2000 00a se
POPIPIOIVIVY
By Robert Hichens.
. - 2
———— | a cloud, a great golden cloud, a glory impending that
L will not, cannot, be dissolved into the ether, he (Rameses)
loomed over the Egypt that is dead, he looms over the
Egypt of today. Everywhere you meet his traces, “every-
——————-1] where you hear his name. You say to a tall, young Egyp-
tian: “How big you are growing, Hassan!”
> He answers:
and I shall be like Rameses the Great.”
wen Or you ask of the boatman who rows you: “How can
you pull all day against the current of the Nile?’ And he smiles, and lifting
his brown arm, he says to you:
Great.”
This familiar fame comes down through some three thousand two hun-
dred and twenty years. ‘Carved upon limestone and granite, now it seems
view of itself upon the minds of millions.
Pharaoh who oppressed the children of Israel.—The Century.
i
§
§
i
g
3 We and the Weather §
> By Edwin L. Sabin. S 3
coincidence, or perhaps it is an unconscious economic ad- ,¢
pal Ppumpresmnind §
“Come back next year, my gentleman, °
“Look. I am as strong as Ramesges the
a
engraven also on every Egyptian heart that beats not only with thle movement .
of shadoof, or is not buried in the black soil fertilized by Hapi. Thus can
inordinate vanity prolong the true triumph of genius, and impress its own”
Thais Rameses ik believed to be the
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