Hope, an Anchor to the Soul Both Sure and Steadfast

---

The Official Organ of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of North Carolina

Mrs. E. D. Hundley,  Editor, Greensboro, NC

Mrs. Mary Mendenhall Hobbs,  Assistant Editor, New Garden, NC

Mrs. C. C. Gorrell,   Business Manager, Greensboro, NC 

      With the June roses comes the anniversary of the beautiful work of the “Flower Mission” department, when the superintendents of each local Union in every State and Territory of the United States will call together their assistants, and bring from the gardens and the fields flowers of every variety of hue and fragrance, to gladden the hearts of the sick and imprisoned.  Behold the lilies of the valley, the sweet roses of Sharon, with the emerald leaves of the cedars of Lebanon – something white, something bright, and something sweet, mingled in precious bouquets and sent here and there, over all the land, to cheer the sick, comfort the poor, and speak of hope to those who languish in prison. These, with illuminated Bible texts, annexed, will bring light into many a darkened room, recalling visions of childish days spent in fields and woods and by running streams, to many a weary denizen of the crowded cities, where a bit of blue sky is but seldom seen.  Who knows how many hearts may be touched by these lovely messengers, as the prisoner, in his gloomy cell, thinks of the by-gone, innocent days, when he plucked the golden butter-cups in the sweet-scented meadows, or gathered the wee, wild violets by his mother’s side.  Is it not a blessed mission? Can we find one who thinks it had better been left undone?  “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto these, the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto Me, for I was sick and in prison and ye ministered unto Me.”

By E. D. Hundley

        When the world seems just awakening from its winter sleep, when the bursting buds, the springing grasses, and the singing birds tell us the Spring-time is here, when the “lowing herd winds o’er the lea,” when the plough-boy, “whistling for want of thought,” drives his team afield, we look around and see the husbandman preparing for the year’s work. How carefully he selects his seeds, how laboriously he tills the ground, how he watches for whatever might injure the precious grain.  He is up before the sun and often the silent stars look down on his vigils.  He knows that eternal vigilance is the price of success.  If it be so important in the material world to see that the soil is fitted for the seed, and that proper plantings are put forth, cultured, and guarded, that the harvest may be such as the Master will approve, of how much greater moment in the springtime of life is the cultivation of the moral vineyard. We should care for the little ones.  “At morning sow thy seed.” “Sow beside all waters.” The gathering of children into juvenile “Bands of Hope” and teaching them lessons of Temperance, Hygiene, in eating, drinking, and dressing; the love of virtue, of vice – in a word “sowing good seed” in the gardens of their hearts, where otherwise, rank weeds of evil might flourish, is a work so important, that we may well ask ourselves, “What are we doing in this field of Labor?” Happy those who can answer, “Much.”  Then let us “open the door for the children.”  It is said, that the first question an American asks when anything is proposed to be done, is “Will it pay?” Even in that mercenary view of this subject it is worth attention, for says one, “The Band of Hope” leaders, and the Sunday School teachers are really as necessary, and quite as useful to the State, as the magistrates, policemen, and jailers of our land; the more the former increase in number, the less occupation will there be for the latter.  It is a constant scene of inverse proportion that is being worked out on the tablets of the 19th century. Which is the most Christian method of government, the prevention of evil or its punishment when committed?  A problem easily solved by right-thinking minds.  Then let us all

          “Open the door for the children,

               Tenderly gather them in –  

           In from the highways and hedges,

               In from the places of sin.

           Some are so young and so helpless,

                Some are so hungry and cold,

           Let us open the door for the children

                And gather them into the fold.”

By E. D. Hundley

It seems to be the question of age – What shall we do with our girls? And society answers, if not in words, by actions which speak more loudly, “make butterflies of them.”  “Butterflies of fashion,” of whom it has been justly said, their only object is enjoyment, their existence is a blank and their lives add nothing to the progress of humanity.  They are the mere useless consumers of the products of other men’s labors and the whole generation dies and is deservedly forgotten.  Is it not the time for (sensible!) parents to call a halt and ask if this is to be the end and aim of their daughter’s lives?  We say daughter, for it seems to be more exclusively confined to the girls than to the boys, though many of the latter may be classed under the same category.  Think of the thousands of little girls, in this fair land of ours, made in the image of the Creator; for “He made man in His own image – male and female, created He them,” nourished with the most tender care, sheltered from the sunbeams of summer, and hidden from every wintry wind, so raised that, “like the lilies of the valley, they toil not, neither do they spin, and arrayed more brilliantly than Solomon in all his glory,” for what?  Sent to some home school for a few short years, they are soon graduated in a finishing institution, where they are taught to manipulate the piano (often to the distress of their listeners), to paint a few gaudy hummingbirds or butterflies, (fit emblems of their own valueless existences), flitting from flower to flower, sipping the honeyed sweets for a brief moment and perishing miserably in the first sharp shower; moths of the ballroom, they circle here and there around its false and glaring lights, and with scorched wings easily fall a prey to the fortune-hunter.  Soon the father’s hard-earned money comes into the hands of the dissipated man of the world, and the problem of the poor butterfly’s life is readily solved.  Is this over-wrought?  Are not these things happening around us all the time?  Is there no remedy?  Surely, it is argued, a creature so ingeniously fashioned, so bountifully furnished has not been created but for lofty ends.  Let mothers stimulate their children, by precept and example, to live for something nobler, better, than the ignoble fashions of the day.  Teach them, as Carlyle says, “that there is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in work, in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.  Blessed is he who has found his work let him ask no other blessedness.  Older than all other preached gospels was this unpreached inarticulate, but ineradicable, forever enduring gospel,” work and therein have well-being.  “But,” say these white-handed daughters of ours, “Must I spend my life in drudgery, when I have more than enough of this world’s goods to give me all the leisure I desire?”  Dear girls; that is not the point to be considered.  We are responsible beings, and God has so arranged things in his beneficent wisdom, that labor is happiness.  “A mind half-idle is a mind distressed.” You need not be a kitchen-drudge, if you have the taste and talent for success in other things.  All true work is sacred, in all true work, were it but true hand labor, there is something of divineness.  Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.  Sweat of the brow, up from the sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart, which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acts of heroisms, all martyrdoms.  How much better the bee than the butterfly.

By E. D. Hundley

      When John Howard Payne wrote that sweetest of all Lyrics, “Home Sweet Home,” it was asserted that he never had a home.  But I think away back in his early childhood he nestled in some little cot, beneath the hill, where the roses clambered and the birds which sang in the trees, “came at his call,” and in after years when a lone and weary wanderer, amid the jarring and unsympathetic world, the beatific vision came back, inspiring him to write that simple song which will go sounding down the ages so long as the English language is sung or spoken. Someday a poet will rise and sing just such a refrain in praise of the “Home Builders.” The desire for home-making seems inherent in the nature of women; watch the children at play, the little girls and boys.  She is busy arranging and decorating the doll’s house, planting flowers, and training vines, while he digs the miniature well, and fences in the whole premises, vaunting himself as a home protector.  I have watched them for two generations and “history repeats itself.” This is as it should be and is evidently designed by the great Architect.  No woman is so happy as the wife and mother, beloved and honored by husband and children, the presiding genius of a cozy home.  How sweet the picture of a happy home, when the twilight – that dreamy time between daylight and darkness – falls, the tired bread-winner turns with thankful heart, toward the loved ones, knowing he shall find a “light in the window,” and soft eyes which watch his coming and which grow brighter when he comes.  He can hear the little feet come pattering to the gate, and the welcoming kisses of the innocent ones are sweeter than the night dews which fall on “hoary Hermon.” ‘Tis Paradise regained, the smiling wife by the well-swept hearth, where the cheery fire-light glows, the singing kettle on the hob, the prattling babes with joyous laughter, the kitten purring on the rug, the savory meal, the looks of love and welcome, while the happy husband and father,

             “Smiles by his cheerful fire and round surveys

               His children’s looks, that brighten at the blaze;

               While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,    

               Displays her cleanly platter on the board.”

     If the despoiler came to threaten this fair shrine of love and devotion with woe and destruction, what must this home-protector do?  Would he sit still, with folded hands and say, “It is bad, but there is nothing to be done?”  Verily not – but with sword in hand, would destroy the monster and save the wife and little ones at peril of his own life. 

     The fair homes of the land are in deadly peril day by day – the home- builders, the house keepers, toiling to make all lovely and inviting, tremble to hear the “Red Dragon” as he stamps along the street.  Some neighbor’s home is made desolate by the ruthless invader.  When shall he enter our door, tear down our tender vines, scatter our blossoming flowers, and turn the sweet Eden of our home into Paradise lost?  Where are the home-protectors?  The home-guards?  Are they sleeping at their posts?  If Eve must dress the plants of this latter Day Paradise, Adam must stand with flaming sword at the gate, nor suffer the deadly serpent any more to invade its sacred portals.

By E. D. Hundley

 What shall we do with it?

        Standing between the old man and the new year, it will be wise to cast a retrospective glance over the twelve months which have rounded their circle at the midnight bell of the old, old year.  What have we done as a Union, in our own lines of work?  Wherein have we succeeded and wherein failed?  We can assuredly see much left undone, and we might sigh with the poet – 

                  “Of all sad words of tongue or of pen

                   The saddest are these, it might have been.”**

        But let us not despond, the lessons of the past are profitable only as they teach wisdom for the future.  And we may reflect that it has not all been failure.  We have done some good work, much good work – and so we “thank God and take courage.”  And now that the gates of the new year are “standing ajar” let us enter in and find them on “golden hinges turning.”  Looking toward the dim future with unfaltering gaze and brave hearts, let us take up the burden of the untired cycle and with prayer and praise, “press forward to the mark of our high calling.”  

We have twenty-seven Unions and sixteen heads of departments, a great gain on last year.  Among our departments none seems more beautiful than the “Flower Mission.”  It is a mistake to suppose that its work has reference only to spring and summer, for then the flowers bloom for all the world except to the poor of the great cities.  Now, when wintry winds are keen, when the leafless trees stand bleak and bare against the cold gray sky, when the birds have hushed their songs and flown to summer climes, let us remember the sick, the needy, and the prisoner, and let all who are fortunate enough to have hot houses or even window plants, unite with the “Flower Mission” in taking something bright and sweet to those who linger on beds of languishing, and in the name of Him who permits the sighing of the prisoner to come up before Him, soothe and comfort as best we may, God’s poor and suffering.  This seems to be the very harvest time of the “flower work,” and the new year, beginning with flowers, may with God’s blessing end in ripened fruit of deeds well-done, so may the bells – 

              “Toll for the old year’s record of wrong,

               Wail for its losses, in agonized song;

               Chant a glad pean* for victories won,

               And an anthem of hope for the days that will come.”

By E. D. Hundley

 *See Glossary

**From the Poem, “Maude Muller,”

   By John Greenleaf Whittier