THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN "A modest Acorn; never to tell What was enclosed in its simple shell! "And O! how many will tread on me, SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. What kind of stone is a pebble? 179 2. Why did the author select a pebble and acorn instead of real persons to talk this way? 3. Just what is the pebble's boast? Why "swelling words"? 4. How many influences did the pebble say it had resisted? Was this not true? 5. What added weight would these words have, had they come from another? 6. How did the pebble greet the acorn? 7. What was the first effect of the salute upon the acorn? 8. What did the acorn finally resolve to do? 9. What then became of the acorn? 10. Explain "the pride of the forest was folded up 11. How was it proven that worth cannot be hidden? 12. What effect did all this have on the pebble? 13. Why now call herself "a worthless thing," "useless and vain, a cumberer here"? 14. What high resolve did the pebble now make? Explain fully. 15. If the pebble were a person, what kind of person would it be (a) in the home; (b) in school; (c) in business? 16. If the acorn were a person, what kind of person would it be (a) in the home; (b) in school; (c) in business? REFERENCES LADY CAREW: True Greatness. MENELLA BUTE SMEDLEY: The Discovery. MACKAY: Song of Life. WILLIAM COWPER: The Nightingale and the Glow-worm. WALTER C. SMITH: The Self-Exiled. THI THE PRAYER SEEKER JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER HIS poem appears in the author's collection of religious poems and gives the last word of the Quaker poet on the subject of prayer. The poem was written in 1870 when Whittier was 63 years of age and five years after he wrote The Eternal Goodness. It is the product of his ripened religious experience, an interpretation of his profoundest religious philosophy. Whittier has given no clue as to the origin of the poem, but it is doubtless founded on the custom, in vogue in his day, which permitted church goers to pass to the sacred desk and place thereon requests for prayers during the sacred hour of prayer. Some asked prayers for favorable weather and bountiful harvest; some, for the healing of the sick; mothers asked prayers for wayward boys; gray-haired fathers, for the safe return of their soldier sons; and many requested prayers for the salvation of a friend or loved one. In this instance, an unknown woman veiled and in black glided softly to the sacred desk while the worshipers were quietly kneeling, and placed thereon a scroll with the simple request "Pray for me," then back into the night, leaving no suggestion of the nature of the burden she bore. Whittier recognizes in the simple legend the clear expression of the sense of personal need, and sympathy with the world of need. He utters the universal request, "Pray for us." The poem clearly sets forth that prayer is an attitude of the soul in which it seeks not to know the specific miseries of others but to realize "that every heart hath needs like these." THE PRAYER SEEKER* Along the aisle where prayer was made, Back from the place of worshipping Back to the night from whence she came, Across the threshold of that door None knew the burden that she bore; Alone she left the written scroll, The legend of a troubled soul,- Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin! Thou leav'st a common need within; Each bears, like thee, some nameless weight, Some misery inarticulate, Some secret sin, some shrouded dread, Some household sorrow all unsaid. Pray for us! Used by the courteous permission of the publishers, Hough ton Mifflin Company. THE PRAYER SEEKER Pass on! The type of all thou art, Ah! who shall pray, since he who pleads . And Heaven bends low to hear the prayer In vain, remorse and fear and hate Beat with bruised hands against a gate And open to the touch of love. He only feels his burden fall Who, taught by suffering, pities all. He prayeth best who leaves unguessed Why cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'erflow, That every heart hath needs like thine. 183 SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. Give clearly the incident upon which the poem is based. 2. What was the simple request made? 3. Why should the preacher be "full of awe”? 4. What at least could the preacher infer concerning the un known visitor? |