* * * * *
A group of young girls stood about the door of the schoolroom one
afternoon, whispering together, when a little girl joined them, and
asked what they were doing.
"I am telling the girls a secret, Kate, and we will let you know, if you
will promise not to tell any one as long as you live," was the reply.
"I won't tell any one but my mother," replied Kate. "I tell her
everything, for she is my best friend."
"No, not even your mother, no one in the world."
"Well, then I can't hear it; for what I can't tell mother, is not fit
for me to know."
After speaking these words, Kate walked away slowly, and perhaps sadly,
yet with a quiet conscience, while her companions went on with their
secret conversation.
I am sure that if Kate continued to act on that principle, she became a
virtuous, useful woman. No child of a Christian mother will be likely to
take a sinful course, if Kate's reply is taken for a rule of conduct.
As soon as a boy listens to conversations at school or on the
playground, which he would fear or blush to repeat to his mother, he is
in the way of temptation, and no one can tell where he will stop. Many a
man dying in disgrace, in prison, or on the scaffold, has looked back
with bitter remorse to the time when he first listened to a sinful
companion who came between him and a pious mother.
Girls, if you would be respected and honored in this life and form
characters for heaven, make Kate's reply your rule:--
"_What I cannot tell my mother is unfit for me to know."_ No other
person can have as great an interest in your welfare and prosperity as a
true, Christian mother.
Every girl should always remember that a Christian mother is her best
earthly friend, from whom no secret should be kept.
HIGHEST aim and true endeavor; Earnest work, with patient might; Hoping,
trusting, singing ever; Battling bravely for the right; Loving God, all
men forgiving; Helping weaker feet to stand,--These will make a life
worth living, Make it noble, make it grand.
[Illustration]