The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1911-02-10

Why should hearts spend years on
earth growing into one, knitting life into
life, blending soul into soul, for union
that is not to reach beyond the valley
of shadows? Husbands, you are the
head of the home, why not be the head
of the home for eternity?
The life of the world is strenuous. and
the door of the home should shut out the
storms and the stress, but should
not shut out new and wholesome inspr-
ing influences. 1t should stand wide in
hospitable welcome to friends The
home life that is narrow and selfish is
dull and enervating.
Invite your friend to church. You
invite him to your home, you invite him
TO your lodge, you invite him to your
political meetings. your parties, your
lecture courses and your entertainments,
why not invite him to your church? Tell
your pastor to preach a little better and
the choir to sing little more sweetly
next Sunday and then invite your friend
to your church home to worship with
you.
AS king over the stalwart oak and
lofty pine, the fig tree would have been
a dead failure and as much out of place
as some Of our politicians in Congress,
but for bearing figs the oak and the
pine are its interiors. Bearing figs is the
grandest thing in the world for the fig
tree 1t shines in its own sphere. but
stripped of its fg-bearing power it has
no excuse for existence. Some times
a mother who reigns majestic queen IN
her own household, forsakes her quiet
sweetness of home rule for a noisy,
rough, public career for which she has
not the slightest qualification. OF course
there are no such mothers who are
readers of this paper, but we have seen
them and SO have you.
**
Honest poverty should be respected
and not scorned. 1t was in the homes
of the lowly that we oftentimes found
Christ when upon the earth, and in our
day it can be truly said that we meet
Him there oftener than elsewhere.
%%
Nineteen hundred and ten has now
passed into history. No year in the
history of the world has left to our
young men brighter examples of the old
maxim that Honesty is the best policy"
No other year has seen the downfall of
so many men holding high positions in
society, in financial circles and even in
the church. Men who lived in palaces
and were next to being worshpped by
their fellow men at the dawn of 1910, were
behind prison bars when the old year
bid them farewell The heads of many
of our great insurance companies and
banking houses have in their desire to
'get rich quick" stepped aside from the
path ofhonesty, with the result that never
fails 10 follow such a course. and the
new year finds them dishonored and
disgraced.
The first word that a child utters is
very apt to be Mother" and the old
man in his dying dream calls Mother" )"
Mother" 1t matters not whether she
was brought up in the surroundings
of city and in affluent circumstances
and in fine home, and was dressed
appropriately with reference to the de-
mands of modern life, or whether she
wore the old time cap and great round
spectacles and apron Of her own make,
and knit your socks with her own
needles, seated by the broad fireplace,
with great black logs ablaze on a winter
night. 1t matters not how many wrinkles
crossed and recrossed> her face, or how
much her shoulders are stopped with the
burdens of a long life, if you painted
Madonna hers would be the face.
What a gentle hand she had when
we were sick, and what voice TO soothe
pain, and was there any one who could
so fill up room with peace and purity
and light? And what a sad day that
was when we came home and she could
not greet us, for her lips were forever
still.
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules
the world" This Is a saying as old as
| the hills, but were it true Our great men
in our great cities would not be on trial
and s,snt to prison pens for doodle"
and .'Sra,atp Wnen the hand that rocks
the cradle rules the world there will be
school house on every hill top and
no saloon in the valley"
~
In the race Of life, in the contest OF
physical endurance, in the moral tests
that come, the child has not fair chance
who has sprung out of the mud of the
streets. To know the breath of lilacs
and the rustic of autumn leaves, TO be
- ,,,tl, Iarly IN hotba faat -,