Old Clothes

S you go over your wardrobe in the spring or fall, do not keep any old, useless, or even questionable, garments, for "fear you might need them another year.'

Give them to the ragman, or send them to the county or city poor house. There is nothing that will keep you in a rut of shabbiness more than clinging to old clothes.

It is useless to say that you cannot afford new garments.

It is because you have harped upon this idea that you are still in straitened circumstances. You believe neither in God or yourself.

Possibly you were brought up to think yourself a mere worm of earth, born to poverty and

sorrow.

If you were, it will of course require a continued effort to train your mind to the new thought, the thought of your divine inheritance of all God's vast universe of wealth.

But you can do it.

Begin by giving away your old clothes. There may be people, poor relations, or some struggling mother of half-clad children, to whom your old garments will seem like new raiment, and to whom they will bring hope and happiness.

As a rule, it is not well. to give people your discarded clothing.

It has a tendency to lower their self-respect and to make them look to you, instead of to themselves, for support.

It all depends upon whom the people are and how you do it.

If you can find employment for them, and arouse their hope and self-confidence and ambition, it is better than carloads of clothing or furniture or provisions.

But little children, suffering from cold, or hard-working, over-taxed men and women, will not be harmed, and may be temporarily cheered and encouraged by your gifts.

No matter if you still need your frayed-out garments do not keep them.

Your thoughts of poverty and trouble have impregnated them so that you will continue to produce the same despondent mind stuff while you wear these garments.

Get rid of them, and believe that you are to soon procure fresh, becoming raiment.

Rouse all your energies, and go straight ahead with that purpose in mind.

You will be surprised to find how soon the opportunity presents itself for you to obtain what you need.

There is new strength, repose of mind and inspiration in fresh apparel.

God gives Nature new garments every season. We are a part of Nature.

He gives us the qualities and the opportunities

to obtain suitable covering for our changing needs, if we believe in the one, and use the other.

When I read of a wealthy man who boasts that he has worn one hat seven years, or a woman in affluent circumstances who has worn one bonnet for various seasons, I feel sorry for their ignorance and ashamed of their penuriousness.

Look at the apple-tree, with its delicate spring drapery, its luxurious summer foliage, its autumn richness of coloring, its winter draperies of white! Surely the Creator did not intend the tree to have more variety than man!

The tree trusts, and grows, and takes storm and sun as divinely sent, and believes in its right to new apparel, and it comes.

It will come to you if you do the same.

High Noon

VERY woman who passes thirty ought to keep her brain, heart and mind alive and warm with human sympathy and emotion. She ought to interest herself in the lives of others, and make her friendship valuable

to the young.

She should keep her body supple, and avoid losing the lines of grace: and she should select some study or work to occupy her spare hours and to lend a zest to the coming years. Every woman in the comfortable walks in life can find time for such a study. No woman of tact, charm, refinement and feeling need ever let her husband, unless she has married a clod, become indifferent or commonplace in his treatment of her. Man reflects to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for him.

Keep sentiment alive in your own heart, madam, and in the heart of your husband. If he sees that other men admire you he will be more alert to the necessity of remaining your lover.

Take the happy, safe, medium path between a gray and a gay life by keeping it radiant and bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful, hopeful, interesting subjects. Avoid small gossip, and be careful in your criticism of neighbors. Sometimes we must criticise, but speak to people whose faults you feel a word of counsel may amend, not of them to others.

Make your life after it reaches its noon,glorious with sunlight, rich with harvests, and bright with color. Be alive in mind, heart and body. Be joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness, attractive without being flirtatious, attentive to others' needs without being officious, and instructive without too great a display of erudition.

Be a noble, loving, lovable woman.

It is never too late in life to make a new start. No matter how small a beginning may be, it is so much begun for a new incarnation if it is cut off here by death.

If I were one hundred years old, and in possession of my faculties, I would not hesitate to undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope of bettering my condition.

Thought is eternal in its effects, and every hopeful thought which enters the mind sets vibrations in motion, which shall help minds millions of miles distant and lives yet unborn.

It is folly to mourn over a failure to provide opportunities and luxuries for children. We have only to look at the children of the rich, to see how little enduring happiness money gives, and how seldom great advantages result in great characters. The majority of the really great people of the world, in all lines of achievement, have sprung from poverty. I do not mean from pauper homes, but from the homes where only the mere necessities of life could be obtained, and where early in their youth the children felt it