The Winslow mail., 1915-07-23
WINDING ONES OWN BUSINESS,


press their of1cious offers of assist
ance IN season and out of season with
an energy, zeal and a persistence
which If applied to the conduct OF
theirSown affairs would result in q
finished product well worth while.
But it is to be noted that in most
cases persons who neglect their own
business in order to mind anothers
pots and kettles do so from no mo-
tive of self4sacrifcing generosity.
They do 1t because there is credit to
be obtained; because they will there
by exalt themselves and become con-
splcuous; because men will laud, mag
Nifty and honor them for their altru-
Ism and their public spirit. Generally,
one does not get much credit for
putting ones best efforts into the
home and the family. Your own FAM
lily somehow seems to take your devo-
t1on as a matter of course. They
usually regard the father as merely
discharging just obligation, in sup
porting his wife and his children.
They are not properly demonstrativa
and enthusiastic over a fathers num-
berless acts of self-sacrifice and self
effacement. A father, of course, has
the right to expect that his children
shall be duly impressed every time
he spends two dollars to buy them
shoes; the loving wife should proper
nfI WI hS1c 1o ND
pays the grocery bill or settles the
iceman's reckoning or gives the milk
man something on account. But ordt-
narily the members of ones own
FAMILY have a most discouraging
habit Of taking all these things for
granted and of being demonstrative
only by way of protest when the we'll
spring of fathers generosity runs
dry. They are not as grateful as they
should be to the father, who has to
work SO hard and do without so
much to put bread in their mouths
and opera tickets in their hands.
Of course with the mother the case
Is different. The mother does not de-
serve any particular credit, as the
father does. All the mother has to do
Is to sit at home playing bridge or eX-
pecting callers. Her principal Occupa-
ton is to spend the money that the
father earns, and where and how she
manages to spend so prodigious a sum
is one of life's greatest mysteries.
Since the mother is incapable of ap-
preciating the fathers sacrifices, and
since the children IRE not properly
grateful, the father is driven abroad
for his true valuation, and must go
beyond the four walls of his own
home in order to be properly appre-
ciated. This is why a great many men
don't support their families properly,
but somehow or other do manage to
find time for everybod's business but
their own. 1t ministers to their own
vanity and egregiOus self-conceit to
pose as philanthropists, diffusing BEN
evidence abroad, however unappreci-
ated they may be by those in the
shelter of their own vine and fig
tree.
On the other hand, there are people
who content themselves with the idle
query, "Who then is my neighbour"
without making the slightest effort to
find out. They do not sufficiently con-
cern themselves in their neighbor's
affairs, even supposing that they have
been ct the pains to learn who their
neighbor is They are callously indif-
ferent to the claims of charity. They
make the perniciOus activity of the
busybodies who have just been de-
scribed their excuses for listening
with folded haands and impassive
faces to the plea of the poor and
him that hath no helper" They say:
There is Mr.. Poser, who starves his
family to feed the heather, and is
SO preoccupied with public business
he neglects his private affairs | hope
/ may never be like him. No, l am
very sorry; but l think charity be-
gins at Jerusalem, and my benevo-
lence begins and ends right here in
my own home"
The latter class and the former
represent the opposite extremes. There
is a happy medium somewhere be-
tween. To discharge ones first and
foremost duty-that of making a fam
lily "the happier on the whole for his
presence'-one has not necessarily
to turn deaf ear to those invoking
aid for their INDECENT selves or for
benevolent enterprises in which they
are concerned. That man or woman
lives a disproportioned, a lopsided
life, who knows no middle course be-
tween being a gifthorse for the whole
community to ride and lending
hand upon occasion to help the lame
dogs of various charities over the
stiles of hard-hearted popular indif-
ference. One can mind ones own bus
mess and still take a legitimate in
terest in the prosecution of another's
enterprise, and unless we can do both
we have not learned to live "as ever
in our great ''Taskmaster's eye."-
Philadelphia Ledger.