My maternal grandparents, Henry and Dorothy Hess, are in the 90s now.  They met as teenagers living on neighboring farms in Pennsylvania, married in 1934, and have lived long and productive lives!   Now they are passing on what they can to their children and grandchildren.  My mother visited them for two weeks while she was here in Florida in February, and brought back a box full of lovely old books for me! 

Among these books, I was so glad to see my old "friend" -- Lives that Inspire by Beatrice Plumb -- which I had borrowed many years ago and rather reluctantly returned.  That volume introduced me to my favorite American poet, Edgar Guest.  You've seen his poems in The Book of Virtues, haven't you?  If not, check out these links: http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/guest01.html and  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Guest) 

Two other gems, new to me, though far older than me (and even my mother), were the Bess Streeter Aldrich Treasury and a very small aged volume called What Is Worth While? by Anna Robertson Brown.  

In the Bess Streeter Aldrich Treasury, I found a true classic, A Lantern in Her Hand, which traces the life of old Abbie Deal, pioneer settler near Lincoln, Nebraska, through her 80 plus years of life.   I wish I could convey to you how well-written this novel is as literature (filled with symbolism, profundity and a finely developed plot), as history (progress through the decades from pioneer times through the 1920s), as inspiration for mothers in 2006 (who are trying to invest in their children through much sacrifice, and hoping that they somehow "get it" -- the "it" being what is really important in life, not the "it" on the eBay commercials!  Unfortunately, I don’t they did get it.)  Fortunately for you, I've discovered that this book is still in print! Do "get it" -- please! You can find it at www.ChristianBook.com for about $6.  My public library system (Seminole County, Florida) carries this book at some branches, too.  If yours doesn't, try asking for it on Inter-Library Loan.  A Lantern in Her Hand is such a worthy fiction counterpart of the next book I want to mention.  I’ll give it a section by itself, though!

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What Is Worth While?

By Anna Robertson Brown

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The other esteemed title from my Grandma's shelf is What is Worth While? by Anna Robertson Brown, PhD.   Written as a speech for college alumni in 1898 by a rare Christian woman with a doctorate degree, it is a jewel!  This profound little book, reprinted dozens of times over several decades, spread far and wide the message of making your life count for eternity.   My grandmother received it as a Titus 2 gift from her mother-in-law, Mary Graves Hess, for whom my mother and my oldest daughter are both named.  I love the fact that this has been passed down from generations of mothers!  It is so fitting, as you will see.  Here are a few excerpts:

~*~

The question of life is not, How much time have we? -- for in each day each of us has exactly the same amount: we have "all there is."  The question is, What shall we do with it?  Shall we let this priceless gift slip away from us in haphazard deeds, or shall we adopt some plan of saving and of systematic doing in our lives?  What shall this plan be?  How shall we determine what things are worth giving time to?  Let us think about this question.  In our thoughts, let us not forget one point, -- time spent in being interrupted is not time lost.  A strong thinker once said, "No one knocks at my door who is not sent by God."  We are spending time well when we are paying it out to God, to buy the things he means our lives to own, whether he is putting before us a duty to be done, a friend to be won, a small service to be rendered, a child to be consoled, or a house to be set in order.  There is time enough given us to do all that God means us to do each day and to do it gloriously!  How do we know but that the interruption we snarl at is the most blessed thing that has come to us in long days?  But in all our lives, though time is given us to eat, drink, sleep, work and play, there is no moment given us to throw away.

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Let us not try to escape our work, nor to shirk it.  Above all, let us not fail to see it.  As long as we live we have a work to do.  We shall never be too old for it, nor too feeble.  Illness, weakness, fatigue, sorrow, -- none of these things can excuse us from this work of ours.  That we are alive to-day is proof positive that God has something for us to do to-day.  Let us ask ourselves as we arise each morning, What is my work today?  We do not know where the influence of to-day will end.  Our lives may outgrow all our present thoughts, and outdazzle all our dreams.  Every day is a test-day; every hour is an examination-hour.  God puts each fresh morning, each new chance of life, into our hands as a gift, to see what we will do with it.

~*~

Let us lay hold of common duties and relations.  Let us lay hold of the tenderness that belongs to them.  Shall we miss all the divine sweetness of life in order to have a career?  Shall we shed home, family, relatives, and domestic duties, in order to learn Sanskrit, ethnology, philology?  Not all college-bred women think how that sounds when, led by no pressure of bread-winning which impels them to seek higher advantages, but simply by an absorbing ambition, they leave their father or mother, or both, in a lonely home.  Let us consider life at all points before we rush into a new phase of it, from which, once in, we may not soon withdraw.... We must love our mothers more than Greek dialects.  If the instinct of daughter, sister, wife, or mother dies out of a college-bred wman, even in the course of a most brilliant career otherwise, the world will forget to love her; it will scorn her, and justly.  If she does not make her surroundings home-like wherever she is, whether she be teacher, artist, musician, doctor, writer, daughter at home, or a mother in her household, and if she herself is not cheery and loving, dainty in dress, gentle in manner, and beautiful in soul as every true woman ought to be, the world will feel that the one thing needful is lacking, -- vivid, tender womanliness, for which no knowledge of aysmptotes or linguistics can ever compensate.  It is better for a woman to fill a simple human part lovingly, better for her to be sympathetic in trouble and to whisper a comforting message into but one grieving ear, than that she should make a path to Egypt and lecture to thousands on ancient Thebes.