Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1880 — A PLEA FOR CHEERFULNESS. [ARTICLE]

A PLEA FOR CHEERFULNESS.

Truly “tho (««J uvtitcfli, VOO, 1 fear), have eaten soar grapes, and the children’s teeth are all set on edge,” was our mental comment a few days since upon visiting a school where were assembled 60 or 60 children; 60 or 60 children, with scarcely six really merry, joyous ones among them. There were boisterous children in sufficient numbers—a boy may slam doors or beat a drum, and yet wear as anxious a look upon his young face as his father doee on ’Change when wheat is falling just after he has bought.

Review the faces and maimer of the children you know and see if you are not surprised at the absence of joyousness and genuine merriment And what can be a sadder sight than a little envious, jealous, anxious child? What a prophecy of an unlovely, unlovable, useless life is such a childhood, and whose is the fault that there are so many of .these anxious little oneB? Do we not owe a sacred duty to these little ones, to investigate the laws affecting tee happiness of those children committed to our care ? Can a father and mother'exhaust every energy, suppress every generous impulse,' crowd out all sentiment, poetry, music and beauty from their daily lives, in order to rise in the world upon a mere money foundation, and hope to transmit to their children generous, loving dispositions?

That was a startling confession of a mother who, in her agony, admitted that she had made her boy a thief. When questioned as to her meaning, she explained that the little waif was unwelcome. Her husband denied her the money for preparing the first little wardrobe, aad so, with a deep sense of wrong, she would go to his puree while he was sleeping and take the money she needed. We have heard some Christian women tell unblushingly of ways and means employed for obtaining money for church fairs and charitable purposes, which were nothing less than gaining money under false pretenses. Start out to-morrow with a subscription paper for a charity dinner. Go to tee wealthiest women you know and ask them to give you either a dollar in money ora cake or meats that can be prepared at home at a cost of $2, and see how many will give you the money outright. Why do they prefer to take the trouble to make tee more expensive article? Because they must ask their husbands for tee money, while the groceries can be ordered and no one be any the wiser. Mothers who feel that they are pensioners, mothers who will thus take advantage of their husbands, will never give to tee world a race of grand, upright, nohle men.

The wife it entitled to be the equal partner. She should either accept that situation and counsel frankly, upon all matters, or if she prefers to be entirely dependent and treated aa a child, she should, like an honari child, give a faithfal. honest record of her dealings. The Halifax Journal tells this good ** Jof the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon: I walked don my garden some tune ago, when the newer* were nicely out, and saw a big dog; and, aa 1 was sore he knew nothing of gardening, 1 threw my stick at him, and gave him some recommendations to ‘go home,* To my intense surprise and shame, the dog picked up my stick, and wagging hia tall, dropped the staff at my »• •together. I »*td to him ‘Good dog;’ I told him he Couldl come again whenever he liked, it be was a dog of that kind. I felt that I was the worse dag of the two.”