The Girl Of Strict Ideas She Generally Develops Into A Censorious Old Scandal-monger

The extremely well-behaved yoTing g-irl ivho has never been tempted and who cannot underütand how another eould cominit a folly is ccrtain to become the most censorious of old women, saj-s Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in the New York Press. I{ she does not develop into a cruel, malicious-tongued seandal-monger it will be a wonder. Nothing is so easy as the deseent from uncharitableness to mal ice. As a young girl she prides heraelf upon her love of morality and good behavior: all hor friends speak of her as "sueh a strict girl'' in her ideas. ïsoone would think of nppoaling to her forsympathy or advice in an hour of temptation. but she is respected for her high ideas if feared for her severity. As an old woman she is simply held in abhorrence, and her name becomes a neighborhood synonym for cruel judgment. Critieism of our frail fellow beings is a vice which takas possession of us like a stimulant or a drug, once we eneourag'e it. It may begin in our high moral standard and our hatred of sin, but once it beeomes a habit we indulge in it for the pleasure it gives us. It is a bad habit in the young; in the old it Is intolerable; for nothing renders old age interesting or lovable save sympathy for the young and eharity for the erring. It is strange that we all do not grow charitable as we grow old; as we learn more and more of our frailties and more and more of the temptations and illusions of life we ought to become more and more tender and pitying. One can be sympathetic without encouraging vice and wrong doing or cloaking sin.