The age-herald., 1900-11-25

lost to all power of the tenderer emotions if her pleadings for her own little privileges of precious joy do not stir in him the inn pulse to grant her every reasonable prayer.
 Ah the little things in a young girls life are all the world to her, my beloved; and if the angels ever sing in the hearts of earth's children it is when maidens petition for the innocent joys of titfully fleetine maiden-life. Their pure desires cover all their world; their little loves span all the spaces of their little lives The unharmful things needful in their happiness may not be denied today that they be granted with the morrow, for in maidenhood there is no morrow. On the morrow they shall be wc- men, and the wondrous spell of maiden witchcraft shall be broken.
 They are the divine inspiration of today and the divine promise of tomorrow; and whoso would wound one of these, whoso would not stand betwixt one of these roses in the rosebud garden of girls and any chilling wind that might blow out of the world, he would rob of it's bloom the fair est flower God has planted upon the earth.
 Blessed is he In his own measure of glad ness and peace, yea! even in his religion, who is a lover of little children; and thrice blessed Is he in his own life, however mad equate it be in material measurement who loves maidenhood because it Is maidenhood ana WnO can say tHlS or that OHes cOHlluB to be a woman tomorrow, believes in him today
 Measured against that blessing, all the honors and all the learning and all the hopes are idle as the ripples upon the bosom of summer lake where skins the swai- low.
 Better the trusting and trustful hand of the infantile little saint for whom thrice the buttercups have blossomed and the uT- questioning faith of her for whom the early springtime is far spent, than all the foilies which men call honors.
 To such a man, whatever be his other loves, his motives, his purposes, his striv- ings, this devotion to youthfuness, to iu- nocence, to childish tenderness and maid euly modesty Is and must be free of every taint of self To that extent, if in no other direction, he lives apart from selAshness, and the nearer he approaches these young loves, that nearer he approaches heaven It. self.
 The maiden is the most interesting figure in civilizatio About her is a divine mys- tery, and society hedges her in as a sacred thing. Her environment, her helplessness, her fair name, her angel purity, these things are held holy, and so are guarded by the hearts and the courage, the devo- tion and the valor, of every honest man who walks the earth a responsible being auswerable to God and to organized so- ciety.
 The altar of the bridal is the fixed and holy basis of all the vast plan of mankinds s salvation as man. About this altar is gath cred all organized society, with its laws statutory and implied, written and unwrit- ten. It is the real center of human inter est, as we have endless evidence to demon- strate. According to the ancient faith, the holiest of all human vows Is that of the marriage of man and woman, and accord ing to that faith that VOW cannot be bro- ken or violated by any human power. Thus early, in the very birth of faith, was rear ed the bridal altar inviolate and inviolable; aSd from the Judean hills unto our valley