What a Young Woman Ought to Know Part 16

And you, bonnie bride, on this glad wedding day, In the midst of the curious crowd, Do you fancy that life will be always so gay?

Can you work, can you wait, do you know how to pray, Can you suffer, and not cry aloud?

Can you watch out the hours by sad beds of pain?

Can you bear and forbear and forgive?

Can you cheerfully hope e'en when hoping is vain, And when hope is dead, and to die you would fain, Can you still feel it right you should live?

O, touchingly solemn and tender the hour, So full of deep meaning the vow You have uttered. And sorely you need Divine power To guide you and guard you in suns.h.i.+ne and shower, For trouble will come and love's delicate flower Be crushed, you can scarcely tell how.

And yet, dear heart, there is nothing that has such unconquerable vitality as love; but it must be true love, not self-love, not sentimentality, not pa.s.sion, not any of the spurious emotions that masquerade under the name of love, and which wither with the slightest adverse wind.

Love is not an exotic, growing only in the conservatories of wealth.

It is a hardy plant, covering desolate places with verdure, glowing amid the snows of mountain peaks, blossoming by night as well as by day, hiding defects, clinging to ruins, enduring drouth and heat and cold.

I know a woman who says that there should never be marriage where there are unpleasant peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, or even mannerisms; but should we act on that principle, few would marry. Love is sometimes said to be blind in the days of wooing, but wearing magnifying gla.s.ses after wedlock. True love is never blind, but he is capable of judging of true relative values, and will count as naught the slight defect when measured by the overwhelming perfection. Who has not seen men devoted to wives who were homely or peculiar, but who were genuinely pure and true?

"I don't care," said one woman, "if my husband is bald and cross-eyed, he has a heart of gold."

True love is not blind, but with a deep, keen insight looks through the encasing garment of human imperfections, and sees within the divine ego, and because it recognizes the true inner self that is worthy, hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth.

THE END.

Offices _of_ Publication

-- IN THE UNITED STATES. The Vir Publis.h.i.+ng Company, 200-214 N. Fifteenth St., Philadelphia, Pa.

-- IN ENGLAND. The Vir Publis.h.i.+ng Company, 4 Imperial B'l'd'g's, Ludgate Circus, London, E.C.

-- IN CANADA. Ryerson Press, Cor. Queen and John Sts. Toronto, Ontario.

"What a Young Girl Ought to Know."

BY MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.

Condensed Table of Contents

PART I

The origin of life--One plan in all forms of life--How plants grow from the seed--They feed on the soil, grow and mature--How the plant reproduces itself--The flower, the pollen, the pod, the seed--The office of bees and insects in fertilization.

PART II

Fishes and their young--The parent fishes and the baby fishes--The seeds of plants and eggs of fishes, birds and animals--How fishes never know their baby offspring--Warm blooded animals--Lessons from birds--Their nests, eggs and little ones.

PART III

Animals and their young--The place which G.o.d has prepared for their young--Beginning their independent life--Human babies the most helpless and dependent of all creatures--The relations of parent and child--The child a part of each parent--Heredity and its lessons.

PART IV

The value of good health--The care of the body--The body a temple to be kept holy--Girls should receive their instruction from their mothers--The body the garment which the soul wears--Effects of thoughts upon life and character--Value of good companions, good books and good influences--What it is to become a woman.

"What a Young Girl Ought to Know"

WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY

Francis E. Willard, LL.D.

"I do earnestly hope that this book, founded on a strictly scientific but not forgetting a strong ethical basis, may be well known and widely read by the dear girls in their teens and the young women in their homes."

Mrs. Elizabeth B. Grannis

"These facts ought to be judiciously brought to the intelligence of every child whenever it asks questions concerning its own origin."

Mrs. Harriet Lincoln Coolidge

"It is a book that mothers and daughters ought to own."

Mrs. Katharine L. Stevenson

"The book is strong, direct, pure, as healthy as a breeze from the mountain-top."

Mrs. Isabelle MacDonald Alden, "Pansy"

"It is just the book needed to teach what most people do not know how to teach, being scientific, simple and plain-spoken, yet delicate."

Miss Grace H. Dodge

"I know of no one who writes or speaks on these great subjects with more womanly touch than Mrs. Wood-Allen, nor with deeper reverence. When I listen to her I feel that she has been inspired by a Higher Power."

Ira D. Sankey

"Every mother in the land that has a daughter should secure for her a copy of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know." It will save the world untold sorrow."