ll exert a specific influence upon every
disposition within its zone. The children of a cheerful mother and home
will radiate happiness, contentment and love. The husband of a cheerful
wife will carry into life's struggle a more just, a more equitable, a
more humanizing influence as a direct, concrete result of that
cheerfulness, and who can tell into how many other homes the spirit of
cheerfulness will be carried as a consequence of the justice, and
equity, and charity of that husband and father? To return after a day's
work and worry to a fireside, to a home, in which cheerfulness is the
radiating element is to inspire contentment and peace and thankfulness.
Out of the joy of thankfulness, out of the satisfaction of peace, and
the fulness of contentment, the kingdom of Heaven is born, and when
human hearts feel like this they are living near the borderland of great
possibilities. The cheerful wife and mother needs little advice. She
does, however, need our love and the knowledge that we are true to
ourselves and that we are fighting an honest fight. She will be happy in
that knowledge.

THE INDIFFERENT WIFE AND MOTHER.--The home over which an indifferent
wife and mother presides is a "happy-go-lucky" home. There is something
radically wrong in the make-up of a woman who is wife and mother and who
is indifferent. It is not a natural condition, and it is frequently a
product of simple ignorance. Such a woman may be exceedingly amiable and
charitable; she may take an active interest in church and social
affairs, and may be regarded as a kind and model housewife. Her
interests are outside the home, however, and since the home is a place
of apathy and indifference she feels she must "keep busy" elsewhere. She
is out of touch with her husband and his affairs, and the children "get
along somehow." If they come in for meals and report for bed that is all
"any one can expect." There is seldom any acute friction, because every
one is indifferent and selfishly attends to his own affairs.

Such a home is devoid of the domestic atmosphere. The mother touch is
lacking: sentiment and love have long ago taken wings: the temperature
of the place is cold and forbidding. The children "exist" and may be
healthy animals, but their souls are empty and there is no comradeship
or affection in their make-up. They do not know what human sympathy
means, and they either grow into successful machines, or indifferent
citizens. As human beings the