Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-01-08

LESS FROM a REFoRMAToRY.
"out in JeffersonvilIe, Ind. there are
500 inmates in the reformatory; ss6 OF
them never attended Sunday school, iOs
had no trade. 252 Of them were employed
at the time they committed the crime for
which they were punished, s12 used liq-
uor. s74 smoked cigarettes s25 had not
reached tho 4th grade in the public
schools, only 20 had ever been in high
! school, none had ever graduated from
| high school. Judge Fawcett, down In
Brooklyn, N. Y, in sentencing boy not
long ago said: In the 1ve years have
| been on the bench / have sentenced 200
| persons, and not one OF them was a
member OF a Sunday school. II you
want to crush the sources of reforma-
tories on the head, you can do It with
| Christianity, but one of the worst
sources of juvenile crime is the lack OF
Christianity in the home.
Susanna Wesley was the mother of 10
| children, and she held them for God.
| When asked how she did IL she replied;
BY getting hold of their hearts in their
| youth, and never losing my grip
'I believe II the motherhood of this
| country were no better than the man
hood, God would dump the whole thing
IN neil and quick stop 1t.
You listen TO me. You will never save
Philadelphia from intemperance II you
run booze Joint in your home and keep
beer and wine In your cellar and on ice
in your sideboard. You will never save
1t from degradation IL you run booze
Joint in your home. have had mothers
come TO me wringing their hands and
say, MY God can't you save my boyl
lie is a drunkard.' How old is hep Be
tween II and 20 or 22.' DO you keep beer
In your home, or liquor7 Yes nine
times out of TO- And then they come to
me with that plea. You will find liquor
In their homes and that Is the reason
the boy is a drunkard. / believe the
greatest work done in this world is done
by the true mothers. God did great
work with matter, but God did greater
work by his mother The mother OF the
Wesleys did more for this world than
some great monarch whose Image is
carved In marble and cast in bronze or
painted on canvas. tell you the train
ing~of Martin Luther, John Bunyan. Call
vim and Lincoln is greater work than to
be Caesar, Charlemagne. Alexander the
Great To launch a boy or girl on life
for God is a greater work than to launch
battleship.
MAKE HOME ATTRACTIVE.
Don't shut the door lest the sun fade
a little patch of the 65-cent ingram Garnet.
Don't pull the blinds and turn the homo
into gloom. Don't repress the merry
laughter that will shake the cobwebs out
of the corner. If you want to ruin your
home let children understand that all
mirth shall be left out Let them re-
gard It as a place in which to eat and
sleep and they will be swept along.
Young people must have fun. They must
have good time. Then, in Gods name
make your homes as attractive as you
can for them, so they won't want to go
away.
Let the fire burn, let the lights blaze.
hate to go into n 20-foot square room,
lighted by 16-candle power light. It is
the poorest economy in the world to have
dim, dingy home, or dim dingy
church.
"One-half hour in the family circle will
iron out the difficulties of the day. The
time will come too soon when the family
circle will be broken, the time will come
too soon when you will long for the touch
of vanished hand the saddest time IL
when the home is gone. l tell you peo-
pie in old Philadelphia we are drifting
away from the old-fashioned home.
Fathers are busy, mothers give their
children to the care of servants, whose
only interest is in the dollars they earn,
and they spend five nights week at some
opera, or some card party or bridge whist |
club. You can clothe your children in
silks and satins, bedeck them with French
ribbons until they outrlval French mill-
merry store. and yet they are orphans,
though you still live. Show me your chill
dren, show me the company you keep, |
show me the nature of the books you |
read, and though I have never been in
your home, ] will write you a perfect his |
tory of 1t, and will tell you how 1t came |
out.
IF 1t had not been for the expostulation |
of the mother of George Washington, |
George Washington would have become a
midshipman in the British navy, and the
name of that capital yonder would have
been some other. John Randolph said in
the House of Representatives: IF 1t had
not been for my Cody mother, 1, John
Randolph. would have been an infidel'
Gray who wrote the 'Elegy on a Country
Graveyard, said he was one of a large
family of children that had the mlsfor-
tune to survive their mother And be-
lieve the ideal mother is the product of
civilization that rose from the manger OF
Bethlehem"