San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-09-20
THE HOME CORNER
BY JULIA rRUITT BISHOP.
Written for the LIGHT.

Written for the LIGHT.
Yesterday some one handed me
one of those curious little plants
called 'CResurrection plants" The
name is a happy one, suggestive OF
grand possibilities. y little dry
dead ball of leaves, with some dry,
fibrous roots attached; nothing In
it to give promise of life or beauty.
But the lifelesS ball was set in
saucer of water, and after awhile
something stirred in the dead heart
of the plant. A faint green stole
through the brown and shiTeled
leaves. Those GA the outside or
the ball began to stretch out trem-
bling hands, as though they were
groping for light and life. Gradu-
ally the plant unfolded like rose,
all it's messy tilaments clad in soft
est green. The resurrection had
taken place and what had been
death, hopeless and unattractiVe,
was now the beauty and ideality of
life.
Did you ever think how much of
the resurrection plant there is in
great many people? How dry and
dusty they seem, some OF them, as
though their very hearts were "dry
as summers dust" How little
they have in common with their
kind, And the world shoulders
GOODNESS and neglect. They are in
different to part of the world, and
at open enmity with the remainder.
If one would only try the effect of
a little kindly sympathy on these
Ishmaelites of their kind, how
would it be, wonder? There is
way to reach almost every heart. II
one only knew how to find it; and
that way is through warm and
tender human interest. Think of
it ! a life, shut in upon itself with
no friendliness in any face, no love
in any heart. Yet a great many
. people live in that condition, and
even go down to an old age, with
no pleasure in it And they might
have been so different, if only their
neighbOrS had not been so self-sat-
isfied and self-absOrbed.
have always thought that the
resurrection after death is scarcely
more beautiful or grander than the
resurrection which may come in
every life. No life is so noble that
it cannot be nobler; and none so
poor or degraded that it may not
rise again into nobility. Many
poor fellow, bounded through the
public prints, utterly disreputable
and hopeless, with everybody
''down on him" and with nobody
believing in him, has given up in
despair and is headed straight for
destruction. If somebody would
only give him change to try over
again. If some one would but take
his hand and help him up little?
His is human soul, after all, with
human needs for sympathy and
companiOnship. How much a
warm handclasp would mean to
him. Does he get it from you?
Have you ever helped him to start
over, or have you added your voice
to the hue and cry that are driving
him faster and faster along the
downward road?
And then, who believes that
there is a sex in these resurrec-
tions? Can none but men reform?
Is there no hope for the woman
who has strayed into that down.
ward road? Every body immedi-
ately declares that there is as
much hope far one as for the other,
that there are voices of consolation
calling the wanderer back, whether
that wanderer be a man or a
woman. But who believes it after
all? Who gives her a helping
hand, or a word of cheer? How
vain and senseleSs it is to talk of
resurrectiOn,a and then weigh down
the grave of a ruined life with
mountains of GOODNESS. When fem
mime vice struggles back toward
virtue, where is the sympathy that
should hold out helping hand to
lead it over the rough places:
These wretcned lives, for whom
there is neither hope nor repent.
ance. And vet we cOntriVe to make