Various

“ The child’s words and the circumstances under which they were uttered have often recurred to my mind during intervening years, and I believe that in repeating them I shall have done good service to you, my dear girl friends.
Does not the very thought of that little scene suggest self-examination? Are we not inclined to ask ourselves how much of what we may well call “straw” is mingled with our offerings to God? When we kneel with every appearance of devotion and even our lips repeat the familiar words of praise, is our worship always what it seems to be? ”

“ A single grain of true wheat may be the fruitful parent of grand harvests to come—of a handful of grain at first, each corn of which, fructifying in turn, will yield more and more until, as the years pass on, whole fields of waving gold will mark their increase.
Look carefully, dear ones, for the little grains of true corn in your natures. The little grain of love to God will grow if you let your hearts dwell on the thought of His great love for you. ”

“ If, in looking into our own hearts, we find out the poverty of our worship, the barrenness of our life service, the vast proportion of coldness and indifference when compared with the little spark of genuine love to God and man which finds a place there, we cannot help acknowledging that only a grain of true corn is to be found here and there, amid the poor straw of our daily lives. ”

“ Have you ever seen a clump of L. Brownii in flower? Last July there was a bed of this lily at Kew in full blossom, and as the weather had been remarkably suitable to the plant, and its blossoms had not been injured by rain, the sight of that bed was one of the loveliest sights we can remember.
This lily has lately become more popular than formerly, but it is very far from enjoying that universal admiration which it amply deserves. One reason for its comparative scarcity is its tendency to degenerate, a tendency which we strongly suspect is due to improper culture. ”

“ We know that, in God’s sight, one little act of kindness done for His sake, one spark of love fanned into a flame which illumines the life of a fellow creature who is sitting in darkness and the very shadow of death ”

“ They walked as before through cottage and shed, once more kicking the furniture about. This time one of them found the ladder, went up it, and stepped inside the soupente; but Jean had betaken himself to another hiding-place outside the cottage, and the search bore no fruit. The men entered the wood-hut again, in a perfunctory manner, knocking down a log or two carelessly, and using one to another rough language as to the escaped prisoner, which boded no gentle treatment for Roy should he fall into their clutches. ”

“ As far as we can find out that gentleman is quite unknown to science. Perhaps some wag might suggest that the name originated through ignorance. The man who discovered the lily—or rather who thought he had discovered it, for the plant has been cultivated in Japan for centuries—perceiving that the colour brown was very characteristic of the flower, wanted to name the lily with a Latinised version of “The Brown Lily,” but his classical education, having been somewhat neglected, he knew not the Latin for brown, so he named the plant Lilium Brownii or Browni to cloak his ignorance. ”

“ God’s love is such a generous love. He gives everything to His children. In Christ, God has given to you and me the very best that even He could give. “Shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” ”

“ If we do not think about it we cannot realise it, but when we do, we are so filled with a sense of its vastness, that the living grains of love, gratitude, thankfulness, praise, joy and longing to prove our love by service, all fructify and become the parents of glorious harvests in our future lives. ”

“ I think we may spend an hour profitably, my dear girl friends, in contrasting the fair-seeming part of our lives with that which is real, true, and thorough.
It is good to be real in all things. True to the core. In thought, word, and deed to be the same human being as we wish our friends to think us. On this subject of reality I will tell you a story to begin with.
I dare say most of us joined in harvest thanksgiving services after we returned home last autumn; probably many of you joined in preparing for them, and in arranging the offerings sent by the congregations. ”

“ I have taken the higher and more important part of our subject first, but we will come down to a lower level and speak a little about carrying the same spirit of truth and thoroughness into our everyday work.
I hope we all feel that we ought to render of our very best to God, and to do this with full sincerity of purpose and of heart. Surely the same spirit should enter into all our dealings and intercourse with our neighbour. Whatever work may be entrusted to us, do not let us think how little will pass muster, but what is the best we can do, and then resolve on doing this. ”

“ When the floods rise and storm winds blow, strong foundations laid at the outset of a girl’s independent career will help her to resist and stand firm.
We are a large community of women at Kent House, most of us young and untried, though among the older ones we are glad to number a few lecturers, teachers, and writers, besides nurses from one or other of the great nursing associations of London. Friends in need these last, especially in the winter-time, when chills and other small ailments attack our ranks like foes to be fought and conquered. ”

“ There is but little reason in the naming of any plant nowadays, and the foolish and unscientific methods of naming plants after some person who has discovered, or described, or who has often done nothing more than bought a specimen of the plant, is unfortunately very rife. Scientists have tried and are still trying to put down this absurd nomenclature, but they are thwarted in every way by gardeners and others. Mr. Jones, Nurseryman, has just flowered a lily. He does not know its name. What does he do? Does he trouble to find out if the plant is known to science? ”

“ In the work-room too, where so much of the character and success of the employer depends on the thoroughness and conscientiousness of the workers.
Do not give the mother, the mistress, or the outside employer cause to complain that you put no heart into your work, or that, if you can do it without immediate loss to yourself, you will bestow less pains upon the portion which is below the surface and not likely to be so carefully examined as the rest. To act in such a manner is to render the merest eye-service. It is giving straw from which nearly all the golden grain has been taken away. ”

“ The trembling voice broke into a sob that was more eloquent than the simple words which had however gone home to the hearts of the elder ones present.
“You are right, Nelly darling,” said one of these as she drew her little friend to her side and kissed her tenderly. “There must be no ornamental shams amongst our thank-offerings to God. We should not like our neighbours to know that a portion of the fringe ought to be labelled ‘Only straw,’ should we?” ”

“ It is true that one very rarely sees an umbel of more than ten blossoms, but a plant bearing only this number is a very marked feature in a garden.
This lily differs from every one of its colleagues in many points. Its bulb which we figured in our first part is very characteristic. About the end of October the white lily begins to throw up an autumn crop of leaves. This alone marks it off from all other lilies, for though one or two species do sometimes send up a stray leaf or two in autumn, none of them do so regularly. ”

“ Lilium Brownii.
Japan is the home of lily culture. Not only are the Japanese Islands rich in native lilies, but their inhabitants, imbued with a love of flowers, which to our Western minds is almost incomprehensible, have introduced into their country all the prominent plants of Eastern Asia. And with a knowledge which we possess in but a small degree, they have modified and beautified both their own plants and those that they have introduced from foreign countries. ”

“ We may not lose time. The light grows fast.”
Jean pulled down and hauled aside logs and masses of wood, making a kind of little cave or hollow far back, where Roy could creep in and lie close to the wall. Jean wrapped round him an old coat, for warmth; and then, when he had laid himself down, threw light black rubbish over him as an additional security, before carefully heaping up anew the logs and faggots, till not the faintest sign remained of any human being beneath. Jean did his utmost to deface all tokens that the wood-pile had been disturbed. ”

“ There was but one spike of blossoms in 1895 when we first saw it. Next year it produced one solitary flower, but since that period it has entirely disappeared.
Why this lily has never become wild in England is not very obvious, for though it never seeds in our Island, it very rapidly increases by off-sets formed round the bulbs, and hundreds of these must be thrown away yearly.
Perhaps it is that the lily is not really hardy in our climate, and though it will flourish when tended in the garden, it is unable to hold its own in the strife with our native plants. ”

“ Where the white lily will grow, it is one of the loveliest of garden plants. Always better where it has been long established and undisturbed for years, it is in old gardens that this lily is seen in perfection.
Unlike the lilies we have already considered, the Lilium Candidum bears from four to thirty blossoms on each stem. ”

“ Seeing then that God has given us the best gift of all, and that all good things are promised us on the one condition that we walk uprightly, does it not become us to expel all that is false from our worship and our lives? ”

“ But it is a significant fact that although we have explored at least nine-tenths of our planet, and have tried almost all vegetable productions for the treatment of disease, we have not yet discovered one single specific for any disease. We see there are something over ten thousand ways by which a man can lose his life. We suppose therefore that we are to discover ten thousand trees with ten thousand separate actions. True, the vegetable kingdom has given up many valuable drugs, but not one single specific has it supplied to us. ”

“ The evening sunshine threw a golden glow over woods and mountain, valleys and chestnut woods, and in one of those huts I saw a woman—a working woman past the first bloom of youth—alone, noted for her skill in needlework, one of dignified, calm, and modest demeanour. ”

“ There is a variety of this species, called Purpureum, in which the flowers are upright. In this type the upper flowers look upwards, the middle ones are horizontal and the lower flowers droop. Although the variety is called Purpureum, the flowers are by no means always purple, but vary from pure white to deep violet.
Beautiful as this lily is when seen in perfection, we cannot regard it otherwise than as a fraud. It is one of the most difficult to grow; it is very liable to disease; it rapidly degenerates, and it is expensive. ”

“ We have grown it in such a soil and also in a strong, well-manured, peaty loam—a soil as different from a light sandy soil as can be well imagined. Those lilies grown in the light soil became diseased and died without flowering. Those in the heavy soil grew strong and very tall, never showed any trace of disease, and each spike produced two perfect blossoms.
The depth of the colour of the exterior of the blossoms varies with the amount of light in which the lily is grown. Specimens grown indoors usually have a pure white exterior. ”

“ We know the endless joy a child finds in playing “little mother.” She never tires of dressing and undressing her doll, of setting up a washing day for its garments, or smoothing them with a tiny iron—under supervision. ”

“ We cannot, alas, tell you how to grow this lily to perfection, for the simple reason that we cannot do so ourselves. We can only tell you how not to grow it and how we have obtained moderate success.
The bulbs must be planted early in autumn. It is best to plant them in late August or early September. If you defer planting till December or later, the bulbs will not produce an autumn crop of leaves, they will not send up a flower spike next season, and will probably lie rotting in the ground. ”

“ Disease then commences and kills all your lilies with rapid strides, so that out of one hundred spikes you may get perhaps three half-rotten flowers. This has been our experience of growing this lily in the orthodox way, and we have lost very many hundreds of flowers through following the generally received opinions.
Lilium Candidum makes a fairly good pot-plant, if the pot in which it is placed is very deep.
This plant is grown in nearly every cottage garden, and is very cheap to purchase. About ten shillings a hundred is the ordinary price of the bulbs. ”

“ It is both a happiness and an education to come into close personal touch with fresh young lives whose work will so greatly affect the well-being of England in the near future. For in each life there lie elements of the eternal and the divine, capacities for good or evil. ”

“ It is, however, very remarkable that even in the eastern counties, where beautiful brick was to hand, we scarcely ever find this material used for churches. There was evidently an idea prevalent in the minds of our forefathers that churches should be built of stone, and houses of brick, and this prejudice, to a great extent, prevails to the present day, and is very curious because it does not pertain in any other country in Europe. I think nearly all girls and women dislike brick churches, yet why they should do so it is difficult to understand. ”

“ Do not you and I know that often, when the knee has been bent and the head bowed in apparent reverence, and when our lips have moved in prayer or response, or our voices have rung out tunefully in psalm or hymn, our hearts have had little share in our seeming worship? ”

“ In typhoid fever it is always present at the beginning of the disease. Under this class of headaches from abnormal states of the blood must be considered the headaches of Bright’s disease, of anæmia, and of indigestion and biliousness. 3. Headache due to mental fatigue. According to which of these causes is at work, the seat of the headache will vary. If the head aches on top, anæmia is the probable cause. Aching of the back of the head is often associated with errors of refraction of the eyes—an extremely common cause of mental fatigue and headache. ”

“ But we can get a strong tonic treatment without drugs in the following way:—Eat well of highly-nutritious food, plenty of meat and green vegetables, custards, milk, etc. Avoid food which fills you up without giving you sufficient nourishment, such as excessive quantities of starchy food, dried peas and beans, soups, etc. Eat as much as you wish. For drinks, the best are milk or milk and soda. Beef essences taken as stimulants are sometimes useful. Cod-liver oil, maltine, cream, etc., are also very helpful. These are definite foods and not drugs. Tea and coffee may be taken in moderation. ”

“ There is a large magazine at Turin where the produce of their labours is gathered and sold by trustworthy persons, and is patronised by Government and by the population, for their goods are excellent in quality and fair in price, and there is a general preference for the work of these pure and innocent women. The house in Turin alone spends eighty thousand francs a year. ”