The reason is simple. The gardener's wife did not cheat her child by giving to balls and late hours the vitality needed by her babies. The woman who loses sleep will make a failure of her children. The man who loses sleep will make a failure of his life, or at least diminish greatly his chances of success. WOMAN SUSTAINS, GUIDES AND CONTROLS THE WORLD Of all events here on earth, the greatest is the birth of a baby. Great battles are fought, won and lost. Nations and religions rise and fall. Great cities flourish to-day, and to-morrow the sand lies heavy over them. And of all these events the eternal Niagara of new babies is the first and essential foundation. He knows little of real life, its greatest happiness, deepest devotion, intensest suffering, who has never witnessed the arrival of a new human being in this life of progress and struggle. There lies the new baby at last, its black face gradually turning pink, its first gasping breaths changing the color of its blood, its tiny fists opening and closing--reaching out for nourishment already, its face tying itself into the first philosophical, cosmos-interrogating knot. Its feet turn inward and its legs are crooked. Its head is so shapeless as to discourage any one but a mother; it has three years of gurgling, ten years of childhood, ten years of foolishness, ten years of vanity--and possibly a few years of real usefulness ahead of it. Some one must be patient, hopeful, interested, proud, never discouraged, always devoted, through all these years. That "some one," the mother, lies there weak and white on the bed. Her forehead and all her body are wet with agony--but she thinks no longer of that. She has heard her baby's first cry, and whether it be her first or her tenth, the feeling is the same. Her feeble, outstretched arms and her hollow, loving eyes are turned toward the helpless little creature. Those arms and that love will never desert it as long as the mother shall live. The mother's weak hand supports the heavy, dull baby head and guides it to its rest on her breast. And that hand which supports the head of the new-born baby, the mother's hand, supports the civilization of the world. THE STORY OF THE COMPLAINING DIAMOND The Rev. David James Burrell, in "A Quiver of Arrows," presents a very interesting parable on the benefit of trials. Here is the parable: Trials are profitable. The rough diamond cried out under the blow of the lapidary: "I am content; let me alone." But the artisan said, as he struck another blow: "There is the making of a glorious thing in thee." "But every blow pierces my heart." "Ay; but after a little it shall work for thee a far more exceeding weight of glory." "I cannot understand," as blow fell upon blow, "why I should suffer in this way." "Wait; what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter." And out of all this came the famous Koh-i-noor to sparkle in the monarch's crown. ----