Year: 1871

BY REV. z. z. HALE.


There is good deal of the life of boy.


and girls which passes when they are with


other boys and girls, and involves some


dlfticnlties, with great many pleasure:


all its own.


1t is generally taken for granted that Il


the young people are by themselves all


will go well. Ard if you boys and girls


did but know it, msny very complimenta.


ry things are said about You in this yery


after. "Children do understand eacn


other so we'll" Children get along 50


well with each other" "I feel quite re-


lieved when the children find compan-
ions" This sort of thing is said behind
the children's back, at the very moment


when the same children, quite strangers to
each other, are wishing that they were at
home themselves, or, at least, that these
sudden new companions were.


There is well-studied picture of this
mixed-up life OF boys and girls with other
boys and girls who are quite strangers to
them, in the end of Miss Edgeworth's
Sequel to Frank" book which I cannot
get the young people to read as much as
wish they would.


Of course, in the first place, you are to
do as you would be done by. But when
you have said this, a question is still in
volved. For q minute you do not know
how you would be done by; or, if you
do know, you know simply that
you would like to be let off from the
company of these new-found friends.


4" If l did IS would be done by" said
Clara, d" l should turn round and walk to
the other end of the piazza, and | should
leave the whole party of these strange
girls alone. was having q good time
without them, and dare say they would
have better time without me. But papa
brought me to them, and said that their
father was in college with him, and that
he wanted that we should know each
other. So could not do in that case ex-
actly as | would be done by, without dis
pleasing papa-and that would not be do
ing to him at all as l would be done by"


The English of all that is, nv dear
Clara, that In thst particular exigency on
the piazza, at Newbury, you had a nice
book, and you would have been glad to
have been. left alone; nay, at the bottom
of your heart would be glad to be left
alone good deal of your life. But you
do not wish to be left alone all your life.
And if your father had taken you to Old
Point Comfort for a month, instead of
Newbury, and you were as much a strang-
er there as this shy Lucy PeIcival is to
our Northern waysat Newbury, you would
be very much Obliged to any nice Vir-
ginian girl who swalow down her dis
like of Yankees in general, and come and
welcomed you as prettilv as you did the
Percivals when your father brought YOU
to them. The doing as you would be done
by requires study Of all the conditions
not of the mere outside accident of the
moment.


The direction Familiarity given is, that
we should meet strangers half way. But
l do not find that this wholly answers.
These strangers may be represented by
globules of quicksilver, or, indeed, of
water. on q marble table.


Suppose you pour out two little glo-
bules of quicksilver at each of two points,
like these two. Suppose you make
the globules Just so large that they meet
half way, thus, 90. At these points
where they touch they only touch. 1t
even seems as if they were q little
repulsive, so that they they shrink away
from each other.


BuE if you will enlarge one of the drops
never so little, that 1t shall meet the other
q very little beyond half way, why the
two will gladly run together into one, and
will even forget that they ever had been
parted.


That is the rule for meeting strangers.
Meet them little bit more than half way.
You will find in life that the people who
DO this are the cheerful people and happy,
who get the most out of society, and, IN
Iced, are everywhere praised and loved.


"But am sure do not know what to
say to them" says Robert, who, with
yood deal of difficulty, has been made to
read this paper thus far.


My dear Bob, have l said that you must
talk to them? know you pretended you
could not talk to people, though yester-
lay, when was trying to get my nap in
The hammock, certainly heard good |
leal of rattle from somebody who was fix |
ng his boat with Glen Waters in the |
wood house. But have never supposed |
hat you were to sit in agreeable converse
ion about the weather, or the opera, with |
,hese strange boys and girls. Nobody but |
Drigs would do that. and am glad to say |
you are not a prig. But if you were turned /
nHon two or three boys, as Clara was on /
he Percival girls, good thing to say
would be:


"Would you like to go in swimming?"
,r, How would you like to see US clean /
,ur fishP or, 81 am going up to set
mares for rabbits; how would you ike to
yo|


Give them piece of yourself. That is 1
What mean by meeting them more than
lalf way. Frankly, honorably, without
is to say, like a gentle
nan; share with these strangers some
part of your own life which makes you
lappy.


Clara, there, will do the same thing.
She will take these girls to ride, or she
will teach them how to play "copack," or
he will tell them about her play of the
Sleeping Beauty, and enlist some of them
o take parts This is what / mean by
Meeting people more than half way
Hozlth'S C0f1DdniO1