Or you, wife and mother, beginning to bend down and "feel old" although you are just beyond thirty. Perhaps you tell yourself: O, had I only thought then that he was as he is--but I did not know. And the children, yes--God knows, they are like him--naughty and hard to manage. Instead of staying at home to help a little with the children in the evening--he just simply skips out.---- Hush--wait a while! In what way did you tell him this when you asked him last to stay at home? Did you throw your arms around his neck--did you _smile_ at him, saying: My dear, stay home with us tonight? It's no use, you say--but "it's no use" is, absolutely, a term which cannot be found in the vocabulary of Christians nor in the life of Christians--nor in yours if you are a Christian woman. It helps very much to do what is good while praying--perhaps not _when you_ want it, perhaps not the way you want it. But it will surely help if during the new year you look for just that in your husband which you loved when you were young--if you let your eye dwell upon it, cling firmly to it in your thoughts, carry it into your prayer--embrace him and smile at him as in the bygone days of youth. Where love has been sown, the harvest is as dependable as is that of the wheat in the field--it is only in some cases that it proves a failure. And even though yours might seem to be just such a case where your love did not sustain him--then the love which you have sown will sustain you and your little ones--and in the course of the year your home will reap at least thirtyfold. We always gain by sowing love--also in cases where we must needs acknowledge that our love, like the seed that fell by the wayside, bears no fruit in those upon whom it descended. But in the large majority of homes the seeds of love will fall into fertile ground, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty and some a hundred. When only we have learned how to embrace the dear ones at home and to smile as the angels smile, then we will also be able to smile at others--but first at home. And a year in which we have tried with earnest diligence to learn the art of seeing what is good in life, to dwell upon it and to smile at our fellow-beings--as the angels smile--is a good year, rich in the grace and blessings from above. * * * * * I had just officiated at the funeral of a woman, the mother of many children, when a man said to me, "Well, now she's got a velvet-lined coffin, but while she lived she was hardly able to get a calico dress." And that was not because of poverty. What if her husband had given her a velvet dress while she was living! Then she would have taken pleasure in it, and he would have received her gratitude. The beautiful casket she could not enjoy--and could give him no thanks for it. But _you_ don't behave like that, do you? * * * * *