Pansy's Sunday Book

by Unknown

A RECIPE FOR A HAPPY DAY.

“At the very beginning of the day take a large amount of good nature, and double the quantity of determination to make the best of things, a heaping measure of bodily vigor, and mix well in the mortar of gratitude with the pestle of the remembrance of past mercies. A season of prayer and praise is always necessary to the proper mixture of these ingredients. Then add to this a considerable, but not too large, portion of well-regulated tongue, a slice of charity that thinketh no evil and is not easily provoked, a portion of hopefulness for the future, and a large measure of faith in God and fellowmen. Season this with the salt of shrewdness and thrift, and sweeten with plenty of the sugar of love for all God’s creatures. Put in a large handful of plums of parental or filial affection, and a number of pieces of neighborly friendliness; and somewhere in the day conceal one special service for the Lord’s poor. Slide this good deed into the mixture quietly, without saying anything about it. Do not use any of the sour milk of disappointed hopes, or brooding cares, for this will spoil the whole; and while there should be a pinch of the pepper of fun, and considerable sweet oil of joviality, do not use any of the mustard of backbiting, or the table sauce of slander.

“Let the mixture boil gently, but do not let it boil over, for the delicate flavor of the ingredients is injured by too much heat.

“This recipe has been tried in a hundred thousand households, and has never been known to fail.”

There are many more recipes quite as unique and as helpful as this.

Then follows a series of “Golden Rule Sermons” on all sorts of important topics, such as “Getting Muddled with the Unimportant,” on “Living as we Sing,” on “Poor Excuses,” and the like. Finally there are letters addressed to “Grandmother Lois,” “Mrs. Neataswax,” “Miss Youngheart,” “Mrs. Vitriol,” and a host of other people whom we have met.

From one, addressed to “The Birds that can Sing, and won’t Sing,” I want to quote a little:

My dear Birds:

“I watched you last Wednesday evening in the mid-week prayer meeting, and none of you moved your lips, even when we sang ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Jesus, Lover of my Soul.’ The singing was weak and languid and thin, when your voices might have put body and life and strength into it. I know that you can sing if you have a mind to, for do I not hear you every Sunday in the church choir?... Did I not hear you sing, too, at Miss Flora McFlimsey’s birthday party the other evening? Yes, indeed; you gathered around the piano, and the way you warbled forth the glees and college songs did my heart good. But there you were at the church prayer meeting, members of the church, members of the Society of Christian Endeavor; you had promised more than once to do your duty faithfully, and yet you kept still, simply because the singing wasn’t very artistic, or because somebody behind you ‘screeched so,’ as you inelegantly expressed it, or because the old deacon on the front seat dragged, and ‘put you all out.’ Now, my dear birds, pardon the plain words of an old man, and your pastor at that. The prayer meeting singing is just as important a part of worship, and just as acceptable in God’s sight, as your choir or solo singing with all its frills and furbelows. The ‘screecher’ and the old deacon are both doing the best they can; and if you did the best you could their voices would not be so prominent, and the music would be far better. Then, too, do you not think it indicates a little touch of conceit to sing only when your voices will show off to advantage, and let the poor prayer meeting suffer for lack of them? I am sure, my dear birds, that you never thought of the matter in that light, for after all you mean to be conscientious as well as tuneful birds; and I am quite confident that when, next Wednesday evening, I give out ‘Rock of Ages,’ you will ‘raise it’ on your clear strong voices, and give the prayer meeting such a start and uplift as it has not had for many a day.”

I did not mean to quote it all, but it was so good I could not find a place to stop. I think you will enjoy it, and so will mamma, or your older sister, or indeed any one who loves to read bright, pure, helpful thoughts.

The book has about two hundred and fifty pages. I really do not know how much it costs, but your bookseller can easily find out for you.

Pansy.

THE HARD TEXT.
(Matt. xviii. 2.)

NOW does this mean that all children are good Christians, and are surely in the Kingdom of Heaven? But you know many who are not good. They are profane; they break the Sabbath, and all the other holy commands of God. Some are so very bad that their parents send them to reformatories, which are a sort of prison.

Some years ago a boy by the name of Jesse Pomeroy, when he was quite young, began to torture children when he could get them into his power. As he grew a little older and stronger he would get children away from home and lead them out into some desolate place, and bind them to a tree and do dreadful things to them.

It is thought that this wicked boy caused the death of several children.

There are more Jesse Pomeroys. Jesus did not mean that all children are perfectly good. Indeed every one—children, too—must be born again—that is, converted—to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

What, then, did Jesus mean in this verse? Why, simply that all must “humble” themselves; must repent and trust in him to be saved. Every true child is ready to do this, much more so than grown-up folks.

Grown-up people do not like to confess that they are sinners. They—most of them—refuse to humble themselves, as most very young folks do.

Now have you really humbled yourself?

L.

’Tis easy to be gentle when

Death’s silence shames our clamor,

And easy to discern the best

Through memory’s mystic glamour;

But wise it were for thee and me,

Ere love is past forgiving,

To take the tender lesson home—

Be patient with the living.

—Selected.

ABOUT ST. LOUIS.
BY THE PANSIES.

THE biggest thing in St. Louis is the bridge by which you get to it. It has three arches, each over five hundred feet long, and it makes a road over fifty feet wide. My uncle says it is a big thing, and he knows, for he is a bridge builder. There is a tunnel under it, and a railroad track. I rode into St. Louis once through this tunnel; it is a mile long. It is lighted with electricity, and they say it has ventilating shafts; but they don’t give you much air to breathe, that I know. Father had to fan mother every minute, and we were afraid she would faint. I think I should have found it hard work to breathe myself, if I hadn’t been so dreadfully worried about mother that I forgot all about it. But for all that it is a splendid thing—the tunnel is, I mean. The piers of the bridge are built on a rock, and they go down more than a hundred feet below the surface. This bridge cost over six millions of dollars. I could tell you more things, for I staid in St. Louis a whole week, but mother says my letter is long enough.

Willard J. Mooney.

All the Pansies tell how the city they are writing about got its name. I cannot find out about St. Louis, but I know the first settlement there was made by Pierre Laclede Liguest. I was wondering if they did not put pieces of his queer name together, and make a word which in time came to be St. Louis? Anyhow, I am glad they did not name the place for him, it would have been so hard to pronounce. That is only about a hundred and thirty years ago. St. Louis did not grow very fast; for a long time nobody thought it was going to be a city, and fifty years ago there were only about sixteen thousand inhabitants; but it has grown fast enough since. There are more than five hundred thousand people there now, and large, beautiful buildings, and everything which helps to make a city handsome. It is hot there, though; at least my auntie thinks so. She used to have to wait three hours in a St. Louis depot for a train every time she came home for her summer vacation, and went back in September, and she says the warmest she has ever been in her life was during those hours; and she never in five years struck a cool day! So she says she cannot help thinking that St. Louis is always warm. But probably if she had been there in January, instead of June or September, she would have thought differently. Women are apt to think that things stay always just as they happened to find them.

Robert Campbell.

THE COURT HOUSE.

The prettiest place to go to in St. Louis is “Shaw’s Garden.” It has other names, “The Missouri Botanical Gardens,” and “Tower Grove Park,” which is a piece of the gardens, but when I was there everybody said “Shaw’s Garden.” The land was presented by Mr. Henry Shaw, an Englishman, and he used to keep the lovely great park in order at his own expense; I don’t know whether he does now or not. There are more than two hundred and fifty acres just in Tower Grove Park. I have never been to Central Park, that some of the Pansies told about, but I do not see how it could be prettier than Tower Grove Park. There is a statue of Shakespeare, and another of Humboldt in the park, and they cost over a million of dollars. I don’t see why; I didn’t admire them very much; but that is what the gentleman said who went with us. There are a great many other parks in St. Louis—about twenty, I think—but none are so beautiful as this; and the Botanical Gardens are said to have the finest collection of plants of any city in the United States. My brother Roger says that cities always say such things about themselves, and that he doesn’t suppose it is finer than can be found in New York and Chicago, but that is what they told us.

Nellie Shermann.

I read a description of the St. Louis Court House which was very interesting. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, and has a splendid dome whose lantern can be seen as much as twenty miles away. It cost a good deal over a million dollars—the building did, not the lantern. Aunt Kate told me to put that sentence in: I don’t see why; of course you would know that a lantern did not cost all that! I like handsome buildings; I am going to be an architect.

I study all the different forms of buildings; I like the Greek cross style very well, but I don’t know how it would look for a private house. Aunt Kate says all that has nothing to do with St. Louis, but I don’t care. You don’t mind my telling what interests me, do you?

Arthur Blakeman.

There is a building in St. Louis called “Four Courts,” named after the “Four Courts” of Dublin. But I think it was queer to name it Four Courts, and then have only three courts held in it. It is a stone building, and cost a good deal of money. Stone buildings always do; I suppose that is because they last so long; things that last always cost a great deal. I have hunted and hunted to find something interesting about St. Louis that everybody else would not be likely to tell, and the only thing I could find was this about the Four Courts. I don’t know as that is interesting, but it is the best I could do.

Mary Blakeman.

THE DENISON HOUSE.

They have a splendid Public-school Library in St. Louis. My father said when he was there ten years ago there were over fifty thousand volumes in it—books to help teachers and scholars. My father says he thinks other cities might copy after them in this. Colleges have libraries on purpose for their students, why should not public schools?

Will Vandenberg.

THE CUSTOM HOUSE.

They have a splendid Custom House and Post-Office in St. Louis. Father says the building cost half a million. He was there when it was being built, and he says there is something grand-looking about it. And father says they have splendid schools there; not only public schools, but lots of private ones. The Washington University is there, and so, of course, is the St. Louis University; and they have the finest kindergartens there, I think, to be found outside of Germany. My uncle says I might as well leave that sentence out, for the kindergartens in the United States are better than those in Germany. But I am not going to leave it out; I don’t like crossed-out lines in a letter, and I haven’t time to copy this. Besides, lots of people think that things in other countries are nicer than our own, of course.

Charles J. Prescott, Jr.

Rita was riding on a road that went winding up hill and down dale, when she remarked, “Well, I never did saw such a curly road.”