The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-20

happy, to fit them for taking care of Themselves in the cruel years when they shall not have even a foster parent to mother them. In city after city of this
 land women maintain homes for unfor-
 tunate young ones. In one city perhaps they support home and industrial school for crippled children, much of the
 fund, that maintains the school through
 the year being raised from concerts. ba-
 zaars. donations and festivals in the
 weeks immediately preceding Christmas Other Organizations of women annu- ally appeal at the holiday season for the little mothers hapiess girls. and some
 times boys, whose shoulders are bowed and whose child faces are shadowed with responsibility before they are ten years
 old because of taking care of baby broth
 erss and sisters. You will see them on the streets any hour Of the day anus. Ing nock of little ones or tFundling l-baby wagon. and the hadies who are put ting some joy into their lives class the caretaking boys as little mothers, too. Their parents are the wretchedIy poor
 and shiftiess who always have too many children A woman's place Is at home, you say. But what Christmas joy. what joy of any kind. would the numerous
 progeny Of the unfit have if 1t were not for the good women who spend many hours away, from their homes every year to be, mothers and helpers and comfort CTS in place of those who are too iEno-
 rant to realise their duty to their child | fen. z Y. r''. Founding asylums somehow stir the most tender. pitifpI feelings of wo- mans soul and no wonder. The closing ! pf a baby's velvet, soft. cIinging fingers around lgrownup's fingers has sent strange vibrations through the frame of l rough, man before now. With the best | Of care and the tenderest of parents there I fs often due to children perpetual apol-
 ogy for their involuntary appearance in tflis world. What then of the waifs that
 have none fo care for them at all, that would perish of cruel hunger and pain but Tor the tninistrations of the benevo-
 lent? Women understand this with sub l tie instinct and so at Christmas most 9f all, which is celebrated because of the birth of a Divine Child nineteen centu- ries ago, women make happy the inmates lqt founding asylums. orphans homes and children's hospitals.
 l Oh. yes; Christmas is. above all the 1 rest of the year, the day of women and 1 The childs thoughts are of the presents | twill get, the woman's are of the pres- ents she will give. First, there is her ! own family, Every member must be provided for. Are there students of her brood away at college. young people away 1 at work? Plum cakes and baskets of
 such delicacies as can be provided mo-
 where else than at home must be sent
 70 each of, the absent. while those at nome must be equally remembered, Those
 nearest her being taken care of in ad- vance the woman's mother heart goes out to the rest of the world-to the chill dren at first then to the grown people | Tn the homes for the incurable and for
 the aged and to the inmates of hospitals.
 and for these charities young ladies and
 old ones do not hesitate to beg and
 wneeedle and tiatter in the most shame
 less manner. At the Christmastide wo-
 men, young and old and of all races and
 beliefs, beg and hustle and work and
 give, bless them, and Jewish womerf are many a time among the most ac- lively benevolent of all.
 Ministering Christmas angels are the
 devoted women of tAe college settlements
 in the slum hearts of the cities, where
 the children many time are ignorant
 of the meaning of the word country
 as oistinguished from town and literally
 believe that all the. earth is a mass of
 brick walls and gleaming, iron railed
 trolley car streets. If anarchy is ever
 to be enumerated among our foreign population 1t will be largely through such
 work as that done by women in the slum
 settlements of our cities, those who labor
 most of all at Christmastide to fill with light the places made dark by ignorance
 In deed and word sermon these women
 messengers of grace to people of all na-
 tions preach ever, but most of all at Christmas time, the glorious, creedIess religion of human love and charity.
 There was one woman Christmas angel | who ministered yearly to 10000 souls.
 whose ali embracing love was poured out
 upon the just and tSe unjust, who knew no race or creed, who recognized no crime. depravity or unworthiness at the
 sacred giving season, who knew only | that those who hour after hour filed past
 her were made in Gods image. Year af-
 ter year when Christmas came bright. gentle Emma Booth Tucker of the Sal vation Army stood in the center of the
 vast Madison Square Garden. New York,
 and hour by hour passed out dinner bas-
 kets and sweet, inspiring words to those
 who marched by in the dolefuI procession of the miserable. This year the baskets
 will be there, but the Christmas angel
 is no more with her people.
 Lillian Grav