Choose the Most Important.
WORK ! work ! work ! How American women do work ! said a young German girl who has come to be our neighbor. "Germans are so different. They are not lazy. They like to work ; but they rest a little. Americans never rest." These days of house-cleaning and fall sewing, of pickling, drying, preserving, canning, etc., may well suggest a few sober thoughts. Yes, if women took more time from their work in which to think and plan, I believe life would go on far more easily and pleasantly. Sit down a minute, tired mother, and think if there are not one or two things which could be put off or even omitted entirely ; and no one the loser. You have not ceased "buzzing" since you rose from breakfast. Stop a minute, and help poor little Annie with her algebra, and let that fifteenth ruffle go which you are trying to find time for putting on her new dress. She is pretty enough without it. The children say, and you think yourself, the parlor is so much the pleasantest room in the morning ; but then you've never time to sit there mornings, and if the little folks do, the carpet and furniture will be injured. Think now, which is dearest, the carpet or the children? By and by these loving birdlings will have flown from the home nest. Which then will you most prize, the memory of those summer mornings in the cool parlor, or a set of spotless furniture, no longer in danger of injury from childish fingers? Thoughtlessness causes many of our mistakes, and when one is laboring at full speed "from dawn till dewy eve," the mind is not in a frame for calm reflection. Far better for nerves and brain and heart would be less work and more thought, and, as we cannot do everything, choose the most important. --Christian at Work.