270 



HOME AND FLOWERS 



ANTE-BELLUM HOUSE, ON A SUGAR PLANTATION, BAYOU SARA, LOUISIANA 



women reverently thanking God for sun- 

 shine and rain, seedtime and harvest, and 

 "into every corner of whose homes shines 

 the light of Grod by day and by night." 

 The old days in the Sonth was a time of 

 faith, of reverence, of simple honesty. In 

 every land but the South good and wise 

 men are mourning the decay of reverence, 

 of the religious sjoirit. Eeverence is the 

 need of our time, of all times. As long 

 as a healthful reverence for the beautiful, 

 the good and true, for God and the man- 

 ifestations of God, in man remain, we are 

 safe, let creeds change as they may. Now 

 while this religious revolution is working, 

 some land, some people must stand out as 

 a light, must bear the ark of the covenant. 

 In our boasted industrial and commercial 

 supremacy, in our mad rush for the dollar 

 — when we are forgetting that there are 

 stars in the heavens, flowers in the fields, 

 and beauty in the landscape, and virtues 

 of soul — it is well that some land and peo- 

 ple stand a beacon-light, content to live 

 soberly, righteously and godly in this 

 present evil world, and to remember that 

 the kingdom of God and of man is not al- 

 together "meat and drink, but righteous- 

 ness, joy and peace." 



A thriving, pushing, hustling Xorth- 

 westerner, just returning from a trip into 

 Old Virginia and the South, in the course 

 of which an "immense ennui" possessed 

 him, remarked, "Oh, the South is behind 

 the times, out of date, a back number." 

 By which he meant that the material, 

 commercial and industrial interests of the 

 South were not in keeping with that of 

 the Northwest. "But," he added, "^the 

 'New South' is manifesting some life, and 

 is coming up to date." And by the "New 

 South" and "up to date" is meant that the 

 South of toda}^, the new industrial South, 

 "has joined the procession," and has 

 turned her mind to the development of her 

 resources, to business, to enterprise, to 

 money-making. By the "New South" is 

 meant the South of today, busy developing 

 coal, timber and mineral lands, drilling 

 oil wells, building factories, towns, cities, 

 railroads, forging to the front — bringing 

 herself up to date. 



This is all very well in its way, but to 

 the thoughtful observer it is inadequate, 

 one-sided, unsymmetrical. Along certain 

 finer lines of development, such as beauty, 

 culture and refinement, we are sadly lack- 

 ing. Our machine-shops, factories, labor- 



