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Rose M. de Vaux-Royer

NE of the principal interests in life's training school should be the art of directing the thought impulse or forces in a purposeful manner. After the storm, nature asserts itself and goes on rebuilding. There is always force enough back of each individual form of life to carry it on to its ultimate intent.

We interview the cruder orders of nature and find that everything God-made will stand the closest scrutiny, from the tiniest-petaled flower to the growing oak or man himself, materially considered.

But man's mind, how woefully untrained-always loudly lamenting his injustices, portraying a regretful past, instead of holding silently to the thought he wishes to see expressed as his future condition! How does the artist produce and bring his ideals into materialized form and objective utility? In the silence are the wonders of the universe performed. The poppies of the foothills, in their luxuriance of growth, their abandonment of beauty, or the hot-house product placed under a microscope, betray only the perfection of God's handiwork. Inherent within us is that same mind tending toward perfection. cultivate our plant gardens, but how about the gardens of the soul? The spirit has been obscured in letter and creed.

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Selfishness is like unto an ulcer. If evil is contagious, so is goodness—which is a positive force. Let us erect within our thought the idea of Goodness to the exclusion of all else. If we could only get into closer communion with Goodness, nearer to God, to Righteousness, to Truth, to the Great Center of Being, with more Faith and more Love! I believe, as we each send out this strong uplifting thought, we affect the etheric vibrations and become potent in creating a spiritual atmosphere corresponding with our desire, and so we become creative agencies for that which we allow to express mentally through our mechanism. This may be the scientific explanation of Prayer.

However fallacious one's accepted theory or plan of life, the law moves on mercilessly, unchanging, and for the one not wholly enlightened he alone is robbed of that fuller realization-the nearness to Truth in concrete form as reflected results for after the order of the workings of his mind is a man's life fashioned.

The higher forms of power give refinement of expression, beauty to the face, finer contour for the outer embodiment of man, and a deeper feeling that attracts by its inexplicable charm of sincerity. And this power may be cultivated according to the order of thought we indulge in. Some people think; other think they think. Let us purify our own channels of thought and welcome a contagion of culture, of character and concrete ideals-for God has placed a pedestal for each of us to occupy.

Can we not see God's face in the stars?

Do we not know that these creations are for Good alone? Evil comes and goesit has its flitting history-but Good remains always. The permanent values are ours at all times to command.

In the fullness of time, when the solution of the spiritual mysteries that govern man's destiny shall have been made. a little clearer in the now seeming incomprehensible scheme of things, we shall then know that each small effort in the right direction has been registered with its manifold results in our favor-as we proceed in a freer spirit along the common human pathway toward the everlasting secret.

SURSUM CORDA

Oh, Father of Lights, Who causest the spring to follow the cold and dark sea

SASSAFRAS

Been sassafras 'round here today, as cer-
tain as you're born,

A-smellin' like Christmas come in May
er plowin' fer early corn.
Sweet sassafras that starts to flow

When spring jest kicks the kivers,
Unlocks the lilacs on the hills

And loosens all the rivers.

Been sassafras in some boy's hand, the fresh-peeled bark like wine

Of mornin' in some faery land of boy-
hoodtime divine.

Sweet sassafras to cut and chew
And bile it in a caddy

'Fer tea to make yer soul feel new-
I'll have some sugar, daddy!

Been sassafras all fresh to boot, or I beg'n to dream;

son, Who sendest clear shining after rain, Dup up to git that pungent root and then

drawed out 'ith steam.

Sweet sassafras, and with it come
A saucy blackbird, flirtin'
With sweet Miss Spring who takes her
thumb

Who makest green things to grow up from the earth, and the song of birds to be heard in the land; Thou hast placed us in the midst of much beauty, Thou hast made Thy world fair and full of wonder, Thou hast bidden us serve Thee with gladness; preserve us from ever casting over others any shadow of our own troubles; grant us to keep a sunshine in our thoughts that may brighten Just feelin' the spring creep up the air to

theirs; lift Thou up our hearts, that we, like our risen Lord, may seek those things which are above, and evermore truly rejoice in Thee. Amen.-People's Home Journal.

Always look at the sunlight and forget. the shadows. Memories of what might have been do very little good. Be more than worthy of the job you hold; you'll then be worthy of the place higher up. -0. L. Dickeson.

To flit right back the curtain.

Been sassafras 'round here somewhere, or only me again

take the hearts of men.

Sweet sassafras, there's nothin' like
In all the world to fill you
With wantin' to hoof it down the pike
And let the catbirds thrill you.
-Maryland Musings in Baltimore Sun.

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K

George King of Greece Exactly Half a Century a Monarch

ING GEORGE I. of Greece was assassinated precisely fifty years to a day from the date of his election to the kingship by the National Assembly at Athens on March 18, 1863. In that half centurythe longest rule of any monarch in the Old World, with the exception of Queen Vitcoria of England and Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-the 17-year-old Danish prince, who had been taken literally from the masthead of an English man-of-war and transformed from a British boy midshipman into a king of a distant nation, whose language and culture and customs were alike strange to him, had grown, if not to love his alien people and to be one of them, at least to link himself whole-heartedly with their national destiny and to lead them as a true Greek King into a more glorious fu

ture.

His death will cause mourning in half the courts of Europe, for he was the son of King Christian of Denmark, who was the father of the Queen Mother Alexandra of England and of the Dowager Empress of Russia. King Haakon of Norway is a brother of the dead monarch, and the wife of the Crown Prince Constantine, who succeeded to the throne, is the sister of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.

In 1867 King George married Queen Olga, the eldest daughter of the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, brother of the late Emperor Alexander II. The royal house of Greece was thus linked with two of the most powerful ruling families of Europe, for George himself

was a brother of Alexandra, the present Queen Mother of England. There were five sons and two daughters of the union. The prestige of the Greek royal family was further increased by the marriage of Prince Constantine, the Crown Prince, to Princess Sophie of Prussia, a sister of the present Emperor of Germany, October 20, 1889.

Few tourists in Athens would suspect that the elderly man whom they were apt to find sipping coffee in one of the cheap restaurants of the city was the country's King. His attire was of the plainest, with slouch hat and gray coat and trousers, unusually uncreased. His entrance into the coffee house inspired no further demonstration than a nod of recognition from a few frequenters of the place and a hurried bustle of the proprietor as he hastened to offer the King a seat or strike a match for his cigar. The King, as a rule, buried himself in a newspaper or watched with interest some game in the street in front of the restaurant.

Until comparatively recent years he was a very poor King financially. Great Britain, France and Russia contributed $20,000 a year to his civil list, making him a King openly in the pay of foreign governments and dependent on them for half his income. He half his income. He got little out of his job as King of Greece, but is said to have reaped a rich harvest by speculating in American grain at the time of the Turkish-Russian war at the advice of his friend, General Meredith, it is said.

"I am sure if I were rich," he once remarked at Aix-les-Bains, "I should be a very ordinary King."

MARRIAGE AND HEALTH

The Rev. Hugh V. Wilson, of St. Gregory's Protestant Episcopal Church, Passaic, N. J., is so fully convinced of the importance of eugenics that he has announced that hereafter he will only unite in marriage such couples as can present, along with their marriage license, a certificate of physical and mental health indorsed by a reputable physi

cian.

Progressive men are beginning to realize that the asset of bodily and mental health is indispensable to married happiIndeed, the masculine party to a marriage contract is expected, nowadays, to come up pretty briskly to the notch of an efficiency standard. He must be able to financially provide for a wife, he must be personally acceptable to the lady of his dream, and now he is expected to be physically and mentally sound.

All entirely wise and reasonable demands. But what about the girl? She is not expected to make good financially, except as an intelligent dispenser of moneys. There are few women who have difficulty in inspiring men with interest and affection, but the great place where women fall short is in the matter of health. Girls live and dress so unhygienically that the result is almost certain to be wrecking of health and beauty.

It may be a matter of passing interest what vagaries of fashion women accept or cast aside. Women find in change of dress the variety essential to their spirit, that men find in business affairs and outside interests. If feminine costume ventures are extravagant and silly, well, many of men's business ventures are senseless and unprofitable, but when it comes to safeguarding health, ignorance

or carelessness is inexcusable. Uncivilized women have about the same strength and endurance as men. There is no in

herent fragility about women. They only need safeguarding, and it is the carelessness of mothers that is responsible for We heard a many of the breakdowns. mother say she was so thankful to a stranger who had induced her debutante daughter to wear rubber shoes upon rainy days. Think of a mother needing any outside influence to enforce her will with a daughter in a matter so vital to health as the protection of the feet from chill! We see young girls coddled in conservatory heat within doors and then see them going forth at midnight, after the exhaustion of hours of dancing, into the penetrating cold of night air with nothing over their heads and but little about their throats. Many girls are not sufficiently encouraged to exercise out of doors and often are not adequately fed. Slipshod meals wreck the health of men and women alike. It may be tiresome to mothers to supervise the routine of meals and insure their being wholesome and palatable, but life is largely a matter of routine, and whether of tiresome or cheerful routine is much as the individual chooses to make it. Girls are like flowers, and no gardener is to be commended who raises sickly plants.

By all means get the girl an Easter bonnet, but, mother, see to it that only a cheerful, blooming face peeps from beneath its ribbons. Your girl will certainly need health, if not a health certificate, if she essays any business vocation in life. She will probably soon be asked for a mental and physical health certificate before entering upon woman's greatest of all vocations, that of aspiring to wifehood and motherhood. - Frocks and Frills in Baltimore Sun.

WORLD HELPED BY ITS

DREAMERS

Keep on dreaming, by all means. That's the advice of a successful man. He tells you why, too.

If Newton hadn't dreamed, we might still be wondering why it is that an object hurled from the earth returns to it, though having no power of its own to stop going in one direction and begin to go in another.

If Franklin hadn't dreamed, the world might still be waiting for some one to show how the awful energy of electricity could be made to give men commercial service instead of merely terrifying

them.

If Jefferson hadn't dreamed, some one else would have written the Declaration

of Independence, and if Washington hadn't dreamed, a name other than his

would be glorified in American citizenship.

Dream and work-work till your brain has solved your problem and made your dream a reality. Without dreams, work is mere drudgery; without work, dreams are mere folly.-G. N. Briggs.

STRENGTH

Man is ever in search of strength. It is the strong man that wins. It is the man with power that scales the heights. To be strong is to be great, and it is the privilege of greatness to satisfy every desire, every aspiration, every need. But strength is not for the few alone; it is for all, and the way to strength is simple. Proceed this very moment to the mountain tops of the strength you now possess, and, whatever may happen, do not come down. Do not weaken under ad

versity. Resolve to remain as strong, as determined and as highly enthused during the darkest night of adversity as you are during the sunniest day of your pros perity. Do not feel disappointed when things seem disappointing. Keep the eye single upon the same brilliant future, regardless of circumstances, conditions or events. Do not lose heart when things go wrong. Continue undisturbed in your dreamed, wireless telegraphy would not original resolve to make all things go now be saving lives at sea.

If Lincoln hadn't dreamed, slavery might now be threatening the permanency of the Union, and if Bell and Edison hadn't dreamed, the telephone and phonograph might still be among the unworked miracles. If Marconi hadn't

Dream on, then-but work. Newton worked night and day until his problem of the law of gravitation was solved to his and to the world's satisfaction. Franklin worked tirelessly in the face of obstacles greater than any one shall ever know. Jefferson and Washington worked-though there was so little to encourage and so much to dismay. Lincoln-well, read the wonderful story of him and learn what real work means. Edison worked-and still works -more than the humblest laborer in any Edison plant.

right. To be overcome by adversity and threatening failure is to lose strength; to always remain in the same lofty, determined mood is to constantly grow in strength. The man who never weakens when things are against him will grow stronger and stronger until all things will delight to be for him. He will finally have all the strength he may desire or need. Be always strong and you will always be stronger.-C. B. Larson.

Never think any matter so trivial as not to deserve notice.

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