TREADING THE NARROW WAY

By R. E. Barrett

Boston

THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING CO. Inc.

Copyrighted 1917

By R. E. BARRETT

Rights Reserved

PREFACE

The chapters in this book are not based on fiction, they are not drawn from imagination, they are not gems that come from culture and learning, but are gleaned entirely from the rugged school of life, and are for the purpose of cheering the down-hearted to a realization that a good life has its just reward, that through continued combat every temptation, obstacle and evil will vanish if a strict observance of God’s law is kept in carefully treading in the narrow way.

DEDICATION

To that dear teacher who urged me to go to school when I was past twenty years of age, and helped to mold in me the true principles of honor.

To a fine Judge on the Bench whose many fatherly talks to poor unfortunates, whose feet had slipped from the narrow way, who helped me to obey and respect the law.

To a splendid intellectual lawyer, one of God’s clean home men, whose guest I have been at many intellectual feasts, to him I owe the avoidance of the saloon and learned the intrinsic value of sobriety.

To my two eldest sisters, one sister-in-law, and my devoted wife through whom I learned the desperate struggle and what it means to live clean.

To a poorly paid self-educated minister to whom I am deeply indebted for the first introduction to my master.

To these in the major part, and a few others, God bless them all, I owe whatever I am to them, to these dear people I affectionately dedicate this book.

R. E. B.

CONTENTS

TREADING THE NARROW WAY

EARLY FOOTSTEPS.

Robert Emmett Barrett was the soothing and patriotic cognomen my father fastened upon me when I first opened my eyes and I looked him squarely in the face. I say my father named me and I honestly think he did. The first two-thirds of the name proves my contention and opens the book wide enough that the reader has no trouble in discerning the nationality of my father. Mother was an English woman and I knew it the first time she called father “Arry.” If mother had had her equal rights in naming me, I might have been a Gladstone; but somehow or other father monopolized mother’s half interest and she finally became disgusted and told him to name me any blooming thing he wanted to. If mother could have foreseen this savage war across the orient, I believe, she would have handled the center name, but the way it stands I wouldn’t shoulder a gun for England and I can’t use my undeveloped oratory against Ireland, and I am about half persuaded to let them settle their own troubles. It being no fault of mine that I am half Irish and half English, I let it go at that and get along with everybody the best I can. It’s hard to separate the halves from the whole, and so, from a perpendicular standpoint, I give the Irish the top half and the English the bottom half; I’d rather let the English have the running half anyway.

So far the name Emmett hasn’t done me much good, I’ve only used it nine or ten times since I had it, thrice at political speeches, a couple of Fourth of July addresses, once on Decoration Day, once at a church wrangle, and a few times when I was mad. I find it doesn’t help me much on bank cheques, they get turned down as quickly with the Emmett signed as without it. If the name is ever going to do me any good I wish it would hurry up and be a progressive or I will be compelled to think father was impartial and talked mother out of her rightful one-half interest.

After the ordeal of naming me had been fairly or unfairly dealt with, I was told I was a free born American citizen and some day I might be President and have absolute dominion over the blue room, where I suppose the chief executive goes when he has the “Blues.” I never considered this encouragement very seriously, for, as I have read in some almanac, there is only one chance in eighteen million, the odds are against the slim chance and it’s sort of a blue skim milk proposition or a church raffle affair, and if it’s the only time that opportunity is going to knock at my door I don’t think I’ll be at home, I’ll let Wilson do the best he can and let some live Republican Progressive have my chance.

If Wilson would only hurry up and get the Government to make those loans they’ve been talking so long about and loan it, at about four per cent, to citizens like myself, irrespective of names and nationality, and not have the principal come due too quickly, but in periods, like twenty year franchises, I believe he ought to have a second term; but if he doesn’t get some loans placed pretty soon I don’t know what hard working men like myself are going to do.

The only thing I ask Wilson to be careful about when he loans the money is the rate. I don’t want to see the rate on loans as high as it was during Cleveland’s second administration.

I borrowed eighteen dollars in 1894 to settle up a partnership fanning deal with a Methodist preacher. It seems that outside of the banks no one had any money, and you had to call on the gentleman banker, get down on your knees and have tears as large as pullet eggs rolling down your hollow cheeks, if you succeeded in your desires. Somehow the bankers knew they had a good thing; they not only got the fat and tallow but they stripped you clear to the bone.

The eighteen dollar note was dated August 28, 1894, and read in part; “With interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum”; and from here on comes the craftiness of the banker: He interlined thus: “From January 18, 1894, if not paid when due.” On October 23rd the same year I paid ten dollars on the note; September the 11th, 1895, six dollars; and December the 5th, 1895 the final payment and accrued interest was eight dollars and twenty-five cents, making a total of twenty-four dollars and twenty-five cents on a loan of eighteen dollars for one year, three months and seven days. What was the rate of interest charged? That banker is retired and worth a hundred thousand dollars; hadn’t he ought to be?

To borrow money under that rate you needed the health of a bear, a cataract of energy, a colossal mind, unlimited self-respect, boundless self-confidence, all impregnated with an iron honesty. That kind of interest makes me feel like the investor, who bought some unseen land from an honest real estate man, and, when he went to look at his property he found it submerged in water. The real estate man told him it could be irrigated, but he had no idea it was susceptible of such profuse moisture. After he gazed at it a while he said “Instead of buying this land by the acre I should have bought it by the quart.” He probably has an unrecorded deed, I have the paid note in my possession, I feel proud I got it paid; but my pride halted suddenly when I got it paid and in all these years it hasn’t advanced much for men who can take a nickle and make it into a dollar so all fired quick. Some time I’ll frame that note with a glass on both sides of it.

Coming back to the early events. I was born beneath the shadows of the Rocky Mountains where the placid and sleepy Platte wound leisurely through the broad meadows and sleeping undeveloped valleys and had abundance of God’s elixir before the day of the great reclamation projects that sapped its mountain waters.

Because I mention the Platte here, don’t get me mixed with that other fellow that has made the Platte famous and was until recently holding a cabinet position on an underpaid salary, he’s no relation of mine and I never knew him until he ran for President. He did the opposite from what I did and took that one slim chance, made three strikes and fanned; I’m glad I let it alone.

When I was six years old and my parents still said what I should do they took Horace Greeley’s advice and went a hundred and six miles farther west. At their destination there was no buildings except the section house, depot and a little building that sheltered the hand car. The entire population was not over a baker’s dozen. I don’t believe there was a quieter place on God’s footstool.

One good thing about those days was the taxes; I think a week’s compensation on the railroad would pay the taxes, County, State and Municipal from 1887 to 1890. How we have progressed in taxes since then! Especially Colorado.

In this little dreary place where I had no associations to lead me astray I took account of my surroundings. I was away out there on the barren plains where the grass curled and burned under the blazing sun, where foliage was scant, where the lonely cactus and prickly pear awaited the step of man to imbed itself and cause more pain, no trees or flowers to whisper words of encouragement, no cheerful forest or shady dells, nothing at all to cause the deeper emotions of a queer nature to assert themselves. Nothing but the broad miraged prairie stretching as far as the eye could see.

No cooling breeze to alleviate the pain on a youthful face or the faces of those careworn early pioneers who blazed the way for future generations, who would erect homes, till the soil, plant trees, and endeavor to further promote civilization, until succeeding generations would reap the pleasure and peace that was purchased through these sacrifices and hardships of their forefathers. We owe to the pioneers such a vast debt of gratitude that we never can pay the the principal with no interest attached, and it’s a different kind of interest than four per cent a month.

After I had grown to manhood and my lot had been cast in other places it was over fourteen years before I saw much of the old scenes, but when returning to the old places I noticed great changes. The town had grown; few of the old places were left and the old haunts and nooks were hard to find.

A dreary and quiet sadness steals over one when looking at his boyhood and manhood earliest recollections, and as I glanced at the old scenes I stood and looked longingly, earnestly and lovingly at the old familiar places. There was the locust grove I helped to plant two decades ago; there was the little stream after which the town was named: there was the old pump which so many times quenched my thirst; there was the exact spot where dearie said the joyful word; there was the old house where our first baby was born; there was the farm patch I used to plow, and the meadow where I pitched the hay. All seemed different and as the pathos of the change surged in my breast I walked away longing for something I couldn’t get, and would never get again.

GETTING THE BACKBONE.

About the year 1889 when I was seventeen years old I commenced on the lowest rung on the railroad ladder and went to work on the section. I was frail physically, and must have been the same mentally, for I never got beyond the third rung. I worked in the days when you spoke for the spring job the preceding fall, and then often your application met failure. In hard times when jobs are few the fellow that has them is blessed with unusual longevity, and whenever some one did pass beyond, his demise was railroad talk for a long time.

When you consider that all through the central west, which had a few years earlier been homesteaded after several repeated crop failures, almost the entire population were looking for employment and the only cash job in the country was a section job, you can realize how desirable and prized a position it was.

I don’t remember how it came that my application was slumbering all through the cold winter with a large number of those half-starved homesteaders who hadn’t raised anything for so many years, received recognition in the spring; but it did and I got one of the plums.

The first time I pumped a hand-car I fully realized the Lord had made no mistake by taking out one of the ribs and leaving the backbone whole. If you ever pumped a hand-car I will pass from this painful mode of travel and let you refresh your own memory and backache.

I got along pretty well, when the “Boss” wasn’t nervous that the road master would come along and want to borrow another fifty dollars on his word without interest, everything went nicely. When weed cutting time, came I gritted my teeth, held my back as straight as I could and whacked away. Besides the excruciating pain in the back that made you feel like you would like to give one long piercing yell, throw your shovel away and run for town, there was the additional pain of seeing the “Boss” sitting on the hand car resting his back. He had the advantage and the authority! I must keep at it and cut the weeds or the wheels of the locomotive would slip, the traveler couldn’t resume his journey, all traffic would stop, and down would go the railroad stock and let out all the water.

It would have been a blessing if the water could have been spilled by some patent process where the weeds were to be cut, but, monopolies monopolize and if the Lord didn’t see fit to have the rain fall in September instead of June no one was to blame, except Grover Cleveland. The Republicans said the country always went to the dogs and dried up when the Democrats elected a President. I was too young then to know much about statesmanship and I wouldn’t want to say for repetition whether or not the Lord and Cleveland were working together or otherwise, but I do remember some one was mighty stingy with the moisture.

If you, my dear reader, have never had the privilege of cutting weeds for a dollar and thirty-five cents per day for three weeks in succession then, for all that’s good and beautiful, take my advice and let the Jap, Greek, or Italian have your place and do the mowing. Either of them can get better wages and any of these dark-skinned brethren will do as much in three days as the white man would in one day and cause the pale face no extra exertion.

The pain in the back caused from close association with a shovel from seven o’clock to twelve o’clock and from one o’clock to six even now, over twenty years afterwards, almost makes me break down and give vent to my feelings in a more noticeable manner than my friend Taft when he was informed that he had carried Utah. If you have ever been tortured with lumbago, you have a slight knowledge of what races up and down the back of a weed cutter. When he bends down he can’t get up and when he gets up he can’t get down. There you are! Humiliated, suffering and mad, knife blade sticking you whenever you move, but you must or bust. You are a free born American citizen but you must lose sight of the special endowment when you are cutting weeds. The constitution may be back of you, but just at present you have got to get back of your own constitution and a “darn” good one too, or you’ve lost your job and that dearly beloved stipend of thirteen and one-half cents an hour.

Being on the low rung of the railroad ladder is the same as in all other departments, the man at the bottom gets the low wages, needs the good back and carries the heavy burden. He don’t need much brain; he is told what to do; how to do it and when. He’s told when to go to work and when to quit. Brains would be a nuisance and, if he had any, he wouldn’t be working on the section. Time has proved that, and the Dago takes his place.

What became of the Irish, Swede, German and Bohemian section men of twenty-five years ago is more than I know. Extempore, an increase of brains did something for him and you don’t find him tramping ties with the Dago. But the man at the low rung hasn’t much choice; he can work or quit. His job is always in jeopardy as he couldn’t save enough in a year to loan out an occasional “fifty” to smooth the feelings of an over auspicious road-master. He’s at the bottom and whatever falls goes down to him and in an undignified way he must carry the whole load, for it can not go lower. The general manager can ease his feelings on the superintendent, and he on the road-master and the road-master can growl at the section foreman, but when the section foreman dumps the whole putrid, half-boiled mess on the unlearned day laborer you can see the urgent necessity of a fine piece of choice workmanship in the middle of the back. You seldom see a man with a front like a wash-tub turned edgewise working on the railroad. There is no room for him! You must be able to see your feet if you cut weeds, and have a stomach that can say “Hello” to the backbone at nine fifteen A. M.

When the winds used to tear loose from the nasty bad lands of South Dakota and come tearing over the semi-arid plains for three days in succession at a velocity of sixty miles an hour it seems the Lord could have improved on man by giving him a gizzard to grind up the accumulated gravel that had been beaten into his daily bread. It came pretty near taking the hide off from me to keep pace with those hungry homesteaders who were afraid of losing their jobs and existence.

I am glad that I had the backbone. The term is applicable in two ways. One is the acquisition of a resilient mechanism in the center of your back, starting at the base of your brain and running down to a certain point or as far as is necessary, and the other is a priceless stamina, determination and a square deal. I am not sorry that I acquired some on the railroad; its a good thing to have in the every day affairs of life.

I hardened my backbone when I worked on the steel gang a few years afterwards, and, if there is such a thing as a steel backbone, I claim some right to its possession through low remuneration and dirty cabbage. Keen retrenchment policies make better satisfied stockholders and also make wages that would embarrass a bumble bee if he were buying a pair of leggings and expected to pay for them.

It takes unlimited backbone for a congressman to vote “Yes” on the prohibition amendment and turn down the easy money of the brewers. It takes backbone for a president to cast custom aside and step into the halls of congress and demand that the party pledges be kept. It takes a better backbone to enter the same halls and take a determined stand on a cause that means better citizenship. It takes backbone if the minister ousts the liberal paying hypocrite who is helping to kill the church with his pocketbook.

It takes backbone every day you live and if you don’t use it in the way it was intended you can’t tread the narrow path and expect to slip into heaven without being recognized. You may do it on earth but you must not try it where you are known. It takes backbone to be a Christian, the earnest conscientious kind, that can lay all jealousy aside, all prejudice and hatred and give the offender a square Christian deal. Unless you can do these things you CAN’T be a Christian, the kind that Jesus told us to be. The other kind is a sham and an out-and-out sinner is far better. True Christianity will not allow one individual to do another of the slightest wrong. The conscience of a real Christian will not allow any ill feeling or the harboring of malice. You know it’s wrong, your conscience reminds you of the wrong and unless you remove that kind of Christianity you can never receive the fruits that come from the narrow way and be a successful Christian. You know yourself if you are a sham so why try to fool anybody and carry a false label.

THE TWO PATHS.

Don’t forget the warning of the Saviour when he says: “Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter thereby. For narrow is the gate and straitened is the way that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.” Travel the path that becomes shining gold, the one that grows lovelier, the one where you are never alone: You’ll need the friend of this path when the heartaches and trials are hard to bear. Don’t chance the other path and sell your soul for pleasure, wealth and damnation.

The journey of life, be it one of success or failure, closely resembles two paths. When we reach the age of accountability we must of our own volition choose one of these paths. Where the paths commence to fork out and go in separate directions we see a sign spread clear across the entrance and it says: “I am the way, the truth and the light.” We study this for a long time and then go to the other side and on the same sign board it says: “Though your sins were as crimson they shall be whiter than snow.” We are young, full of life and can’t really understand what it means but we are ready to start on life’s pathway and there are only two paths to choose from.

We look around and see the broad, open path with no restrictions, filled with the aroma of choice flowers, we meet social companions, have gay parties, they tell us of the pleasures they are enjoying. From this survey and study we note that the broad path looks cheerful and inviting, the narrow one seems straight ahead as far as we can see.

We can notice that the crowd seems to be going the broad way. People in all conditions of life, well dressed, prosperous looking people of wealth and affluence, and the ordinary working people in their customary garb. They look happy and contented, and we decide to take the broad way.

We didn’t notice, until after the start, that the course has a descending grade and we get a long distance on the way before we call a halt. We have seen a great many things that are not elevating and we conclude that after we go a short distance we’ll turn back, start over and take the other path, and though the things that looked so inviting at the beginning are losing their attractiveness.

The demoralizing things we see are pitiful. There is a poor fellow reeling with drunkenness. MY! hear that vulgar, profane language coming from the foul mouth of that young man. There’s a party drinking wine, laughing boisterously and telling stories that are very improper for ladies and gentlemen. There is a poor girl in a calico dress that seems to be alone; her face looks sad and she seems to be watching and waiting for someone. There is a pitiful story in her once pretty face that would cause you to weep if you knew it.

Look at that old man with a gray beard; he has been a powerful man in his day, his well built physique tells that. He’s a man of more than ordinary intelligence, his features show fine breeding. He must have got on the wrong path from not noticing the sign board, he seems out of place here. I thought so. He is turning back! My! how he stoops as he commences the ascent. But he is sticking to it. There he is telling a younger man of the mistake he made and is trying to persuade him to accompany him back. Well, isn’t that splendid! They’re both going back. It must have been that last remark that the elder man said to the younger man that persuaded him. “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world.”

There is a whole crowd about to start back; are they going? No, they listen to that well dressed fellow over there smoking a cigarette, and holding up that beer bottle and he has influenced them to go a little further. It must have been that last remark he made when he told him there was going to be a beer drink and a free dance at Switzers that persuaded them.

They go on and on; they are commencing to look ragged and worn out; the roses have flown from their cheeks: their eyes are no more full of lustre and keenness; the gray hairs are showing, the step is not so firm, but still they go on. Now they are old, they have lived so fast and reckless that they haven’t hardly got the strength nor the inclination to start to climb that long hill that took forty years of the best part of their lives to descend. It seems an impossibility and they do not desire to consider it.

Look at that poor woman over there. Listen to the poor soul as she is down on her knees and the tears are falling like summer rain. Listen to her broken, sobbing words. My, isn’t she the most pitiful, dejected and forlorn looking creature you ever saw! Hear her as she sobs “Lord, I saw the sign but oh I was so foolish, I didn’t heed it but I remember it and dear Lord hear me, I’m old, feeble and poor, I am friendless and I have sinned and broken Thy laws. Oh take me as I am. Amen.”

Who is there beside the blessed Jesus that can pick up this poor unfortunate daughter as she now stands before the bar of sorrow and despair awaiting her dues? She was given and entrusted with a pure and innocent life in infancy but she was frivolous and sought after wealth, power, position and the many other transitory and fleeting things. She took her clean, innocent life and so soiled and stained it that it would be unrecognizable to any one but he who gave it, and now, when it is filled with barrenness, she comes to her maker with her wasted life, when in all candor and sense of fairness she could expect nothing in return, but he says to her “Though your sins were as crimson they shall be whiter than snow.”

Then we see the other path that was trod by the bleeding feet of the lowly Nazarene. We know the anguish and pain he suffered; we think of the fiendish death he died that he might say to a sinful people; “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

This narrow and straight path may not be so beautiful at the beginning as the broader one. We think if we follow it all joys and pleasures are gone. But what a mistake, for each day that we travel, it becomes prettier, the flowers are sweeter, the trees are greener, the skies seem bluer. We find temptations and trials but we have some one to lean on, and there is a sweet peace and enjoyment known only to his followers. It makes it easy to pass the saloon and enter the church. The Lord is in that little church and his servant there knows every man, woman and child for miles around. See them cluster around him; he loves them; each day he lives he does some one a kindness. He listens to your sorrows and heartaches; his joys are your joys and never a word or thought but one of goodness and kindness has he for anybody. He looks tired today; he spent an all night’s vigil at the bedside of a sick friend. Did you see him when he stopped and caressed that little girl who had broken her doll? It meant something to her and he has won her everlasting gratitude. See him talking to that young fellow over there who is wavering and unable to decide which path to take. Notice his warm and friendly attitude and see, he has won his confidence and has got a promise from him. See that sweet-faced, light-hearted maiden, he has just come from her home and she has consented to lead a better life.

Look there, will you! He is helping up that poor man whose feet slipped from the narrow way and he is taking him home to the broken-hearted wife. See the sadness on his dear old face as he gives what comfort he can to the poor woman; he’s back again the next day and is talking to them both. “Yes,” they said from now on they’d cling close to the marriage vows. Don’t they all look happy and pleased. There he is again talking to a poor man who has been unsuccessful, he worked hard, lived pure but went too heavily in debt and can’t meet his obligations. Worry is making him sorrowful and shortening his days, but the dear pastor with his hand on his shoulder and his warm words of sympathy has a telling effect and the heavy clouds are leaving his countenance and as they part, each understands the other. The cordial, glowing hand-shake is given and both have received good. There he goes again; he’s just married a young couple and is advising them, he is telling them not to be down cast when a snag comes along but to work together, tread the narrow way, keep faith in God, and He will bless and prosper them.

There is pain in his heart today; he has just come from the home of broken-hearted parents who have laid away in the silent city their first born. In his great love for them he has told them about Jesus, the sorrowful life he lived, the great pains and heartaches he endured, and he did it all for them. As he leaves they love him as a father and a sweet peace has descended upon them and the wound commences to heal.

The greatest need in keeping in the narrow way is in sincere and earnest prayer accompanied by a tenacious faith, is the only source that leads to the full and sweet companionship of the blessed Jesus. The every near realization, what God can accomplish for us fulfills the truth that the ever listening ear of a just and righteous master has ample succor for a burdened and heavy heart. Faith without something to justify its establishment, though it be ever so great, is in reality groundless and contains no true merit, but honest prayer for honest motives and coming from a desirous heart is the great medium through which sinful mankind, so prone to err, is brought into a close relationship with a wise and prudent God, a God who willingly compensates every effort whose basis is a true and unselfish heart.

Trust God fully at all times and pray with such sincere, fervent and unselfish motives as is only needed to replenish a pure and unspotless desire. When prayer is answered, as God sees fit to answer, we can discern its force and effect in our hearts from the knowledge and fact that a change has taken place and a deep feeling of keen satisfaction has fully satisfied a craving want. If this were not so the prayer alone without any manifestation from a true and living God, would be worthless. A long composition of nicely polished words spoken to an idol could in no wise be called a prayer. The densest mind could surely realize that no sympathy lies in anything not able to comprehend a feeling. Silence would be better and is more valuable. It is better to keep still than to say something that would cause some one to err or stumble.

GOD’S INTENTION MAN’S PREVENTION.

God’s handiwork and its beauty is manifest wherever the eye rests. The towering mountain peaks, the great boulders, the babbling brooks, the peaceful valleys, the green grass, the beautiful flowers, the shady dells, all speak of his master hand. The moon-beams playing on the still waters, the sunshine streaming through the golden clouds, the perfect poise and artistic shape of the trees growing on the mountain side among the jagged rocks where the hand of man never trained or cultivated them. There they stand as sentinels waving to and fro by the gentle breezes and tell of His wonderful works. The wild flowers growing side by side in the shady dell, each a different color, whisper His wonderful plan. The little brook dancing and playing in and out among the deep chasms chiseling its narrow passage among the granite, jumping over big rocks, rolling little pebbles, it steals here and there until it spreads out on the great plains and fertile prairies into a rushing river hurrying on its way to the ocean. The beautiful sun-set casting its long stream of golden beauty over the western sky mocks at the skillful artist when he tries to imitate its marvelous shades and tints. The moon breaking through the silvery clouds and showering the heavens with beauty and grandeur rests its glory on the evening dew, and the millions of diamonds glitter and glisten in a splendor and elegance far beyond the hand of man. The many stars hanging like precious gems upon a great pedestal twinkling and sparkling tell the same story of His wonderful handiwork.

God was not satisfied with all these marvelous things and, though they are perfect, good and beautiful He must surpass them. He must have a crowning effort to all their glory. So to defy imitation He brought forth His masterpiece and called it man. The incomparable and unsurpassable, the grandest achievement of his architecture. In his wisdom He provided everything for his needs and comfort. Sunshine to warm him, darkness to rest him, trees to shade him, give him fuel and shelter, birds of song to cheer when weary with labor, flowers to beautify, soil to produce whatever he sowed, rain and sunshine to mature it, meats of all kind to nourish him, fruits, fishes, grains, honey, milk and everything necessary for his growth and sustenance, He made him pure, clean, strong, and beautiful, just a little bit lower than the angels. He furnished man everything to start with. It was no disgrace if his hands were blistered and dirty if they were stained by honest toil, he fought hardships and privations, he was the hardy pioneer blazing his way for home and country, raising his children near to nature’s heart and cleanliness. He gave to posterity strong, hearty, rugged men and women, he lived honorably, his labor was rewarded and he died ripe in years as a fitting tribute to his great achievements.

Time rolled on! Years became centuries! Methods changed and the great plan of God was lost.

Greed, avarice and monopoly commenced to steal the bread from the infant’s mouth; the keen and bitter struggle for existence is in full sway; the great land of liberty and opportunity no longer can put forth her boast and call and call for him to come, build homes, prosper, live well and accumulate.

What changeful conditions today from then! We boast of our great enlightenment and yet we are like the drowsy cat under centuries of domestication. As soon as the raw meat is put before us all the centuries’ training is cast aside and we are ready to do acts of barbarians. Instead of being able to arbitrate and handle all questions of war through peace tribunals we cast aside the brotherly teachings of the great book, increase the standing army, build more warships, enlarge the navy, and be ready for war, ready to shoot our brother, ready to destroy his home, leave his children penniless and fatherless, a widow to struggle and mourn, posterity to be enfeebled, a gigantic debt to stagger many generations unborn, a country bankrupt and all teachings of love and better citizenship disgraced.

No wonder our people are discouraged and feel we are slipping away from the preamble of our great Constitution! If this age and this country can not handle all questions, national and international, and extend the fullest measure of brotherly love where peace is needed; what age or country can?

I think it may be America that will be called upon to lead other nations and have them cast aside their war preparations and prepare for peace. In every crisis through which this country has passed we have been fortunate, thank God, that the right man has always been found. We have had our Washingtons, Lincolns, Websters, McKinleys, Wilsons, and hundreds of others and in every instance when some great problem has had to be solved, either in this country or abroad, in either science, statesmanship, literature or art, no matter how perplexing, difficult or intricate, American brains and ingenuity, in the vernacular of the day, has brought home the bacon, Swift’s premium, if you please!

I have always felt deeply sorrowful for the man who studies long and ardently with a bowed head resting upon his hands. His whole soul seems to be calling for the fine sympathies that can only be rendered from the loving teachings of the Nazarene. He is calling for the tender affection that is keenly necessary to right him just before that sullen burning wave of despondency casts him into utter gloom and sorrow. O Christianity! Christianity! amid wealth, society, culture, influence, peace, advancement, laws, legislators, and boasted liberty where art thou?

Visit the parks of any cities, towns or small villages and you can find sitting on the benches man after man who is unable to solve the problem of an honest existence. There he is, honest, clean, and worthy of good citizenship, unable to find labor that will keep him an honor to society. What will become of him in this land of boasted opportunity and liberty? Plenty for all; but monopolized and organized until the laboring man is almost ostracized. Look at his countenance, clear cut, manly and open, haggard, yes, but from what? From worry, loss of sleep, lack of food, responsibility of a family without funds, etc. But withal you find no look of dissipation, no odor of liquor, no foul language, and still with all these excellent qualities of meritorious citizenship he is sinking. How long will he stand it?

Were you ever in a condition of this kind when any way you turned you were outfigured. How long can a man have a thorn like this continually getting deeper and deeper into his flesh before he will make a grasp for it, and endeavor to release the pain? Where is the cause? What is wrong with our wide heralded economic system? This condition being true of the man with a family how alarming to the young man of today without a family? Show me any incentive or inducement for the common ordinary man of today without funds to cause him to establish a home and rear a family under the grand old Stars and Stripes, and I’ll show you a man that loses worse than a bankrupt in the finer sense of the word.

Without the establishment of homes this nation can not stand. No matter how frugal a man is, no matter how economical his habits you can give him the most promising part and he can not marry and rear a family because at every angle he is beaten. What is he going to do? Free land is almost gone, food stuffs are high, all his needs are expensive; how can he make it? Every line he wishes to enter is crowded! Reason for yourself and see if this is not true.

When you talk of large families, who raises them but the poor people and this will soon be eliminated. If the poor man raises one child he is doing more than his duty to society than the rich man. The expense is such a night-mare and horror to a common, ordinary and honest man to provide the necessaries of life for his family that I sometimes shudder and feel sorry that I caused children to be born, fought for a home, paid my debts, and lived clean. I wouldn’t want to do it again for my country, and I love her as I do the man of Galilee.

I fear America is no longer another word for opportunity as was said by the beloved Emerson, unless she helps him to establish homes on the public domain by loaning him money at a low rate on long time periods and keep him at work and help him along and not foreclose when he is doing his best to win. He’ll win, give him a chance.

What Emerson said may have been true at an earlier period it was so intended, but the plan was lost sight of and the great greed for wealth was accomplished to the detriment of the majority who have been obliged to make their living with their hands. It is a sad fact but true that there is a revolution slowly kindling in the breasts of the laboring class of people against capital; God grant that in some way the fire can be put out.

I have sometimes thought what’s the use of living. The sorrows and pains outnumber the joys by a large margin. You slip down the hill of pleasure without any exertion, but to climb the mountain of morality is a gigantic task, for every step is a struggle, and after you have fought and won nine-tenths of the journey one misstep and you slip to the bottom and the whole climb is before you again. It’s fight, fight all the time, continually and forever! It robs you of nature’s rest, steals away your ambition, stirs up hatred towards those in easy circumstances and causes conditions of unrest and strife.

Is life worth the gigantic struggle to overcome the perplexing difficulties and endeavor to live honest and clean and not slip down the path of despair where the great majority seem to be going. I say it is! “For, what do you profit if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul.”

Let your mind ponder over the story of Lazarus picking up the crumbs from the rich man’s table and you must conclude the starving beggar gained uncomparable joy and satisfaction to the rich man’s torment when the two men’s lives were carefully weighed on the scales where God predominates and not the sugar trust. It pays! It pays in a thousand different ways!

There is something to a man that lives an upright life in the church and in the world. He is a valued asset to any community, he may be poor but he has character, and this is something money can not buy. It takes a good life to make a man. A fellow that is rich and lives solely for the pleasure of his money is not a man.

One time I mused thus: If it could be so, just for the shortest duration of time, while temptation was the strongest and the fierce conflict was raging, if I could be blind, absolutely blind till the strong temptation had passed and then let me see again and have my first sight catch the last glimpse of the golden sun as it dipped behind the western horizon, leaving behind a long stream of golden beauty stretching out in its grandeur to kiss the evening sky; even if a scene like this could erase the temptation and the blindness prevail during the surging of the conflict, how could my faith be increased by not having the moral courage and strength of character to withstand the evil? It’s the casting aside of temptation by the sheer strength of the will power that makes the struggle easier, the way grow brighter, and the victories grander. If God would allow such a condition once, we, in our weakness, might ask again and again and instead of growing stronger we would grow weaker. It is the heroic fighter who has won his laurels when the bullets of evil whizzed all around him that you like to go up to and pin the medal on.

THE SADNESS BEHIND THE VALE.

A life of self-denial and sacrifice is the grandest object the sun shines on. There is nothing under the azure skies of heaven so worthy of true merit as the pure, unspotted and unselfish heart of a sacrificing mother. How my heart aches for the poor, worn and tired mother whose whole life is confined in four walls with three or four children, laying claim to her entire time and attention. You do not find these kind of women saturated with society; they are not fanatics on woman suffrage nor are they riding through the streets in a limousine with a good-for-nothing yellow-nosed pup sitting beside them. In common decency how can any woman with any affection or mother love center it upon such an object as a despicable, worthless pug-nosed cur. If it was a dog like a Shepherd, St. Bernard, Newfoundland, and many others, there would be a little better taste shown, but when it is confined solely to the mongrel whelps and Teddy bears I think it is high time to pick up the Bible and read the thirty-second chapter of Isaiah from the first to the twelfth verse inclusive. Lord, but it is pitiful to see such things committed when there are thousands and thousands of poor little homeless girls and boys starving to death for some one to love them, give them a home and then see a poodle woman and her poodle dog go rushing by.

For a long number of years I have had the pleasure of being acquainted with one of God’s self-denial mothers. If this earth contains anything sweeter and the next world anything better the mind of man so far hasn’t been able to conceive it nor the Bible to reveal it. In her early womanhood and all through her life she has been frail, small-boned, short of stature, delicate, and very unmuscular. Her’s was not the physique to struggle as she has against life’s tremendous battles, but she took up the burden cheerfully, looked every difficulty in the face squarely and openly and lifted her voice to the ever-listening ear and overcame every obstacle with gentleness and love. When heartaches, pains and sorrows seemed so heavy that human endurance could no longer stand the strain and tension, she would, through the channels of her wonderful self-control, step from beneath the heavy clouds of trials and sorrows out into the sunshine of God’s holy love and stand master and conqueror of every trial. The loyal battles she has swept with victory are worthy of such praise and eulogy that the human mind can not find words choice enough to meet it.

Poverty with all its worry can not engulf her, for she has that faith that there will be a way provided and she determines, and the mountain is seen moving in the distance. No time to partake of many pleasures is her lot; she must study her every day cares, rear her children, school, clothe, and provide for them. Many times a tear stands where joy should be. It is beyond all understanding why her cross should be so heavy when every atom of her strength has been used to make the world better, but no matter how heavy the load is, how painful the head might ache, or how discouraging the teacher, the present every day conditions must be met and the sooner begun the sooner ended. Every minute is occupied or the accumulation of wasted time makes the burden heavier.

The hands work and the mind works. Neither can rest and accomplish the needs, and while the hands iron and bake and wash, the mind is occupied on what the hungry mouths demand, and how an old coat or vest or an under garment can be made into an article of service.

These are the kind of women worth while; these are the kind that more than do their part in sustaining a great government. Her lot is not a pleasant one, but she hands down to posterity a better and more substantial foundation for better government than any class of women in our nation; her life is an open book where the entries are made on each day’s pages. On page after page you can see where the tears have fallen, where the struggle has been so keen and bitter that hope had almost fled; but turn the page and you will find renewed hope. The ever-listening ear has heard the words bathed in grief and the answer came, “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.” How a few dollars from some good-hearted philanthropist would ease the way for this poor little struggling woman. Why is it when she has reached the point in life where she should expect the most the least is at hand? She has passed the thirty-eighth mile post, with the odds strongly against her. The system is torn down more rapidly than it can be built up. Everything seems to combat against her and endeavor to overwhelm her, but sorrows, discouragements, trials, hardships and heartaches with their utmost collective strength have not been sufficient to thwart or encompass her. Every one has been defeated, the cost has been gigantic, it has stooped her shoulders, chiseled deep creases in her brow and cast snow among her locks, robbed her of comforts due her and strewn old age where youth should be. The sad face still smiles and with an unconceivable determination she meets every foe in the great battle field of life and crushes them.

She does it from close application of that wonderful story of love that is found in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew from the third to the twelfth verses inclusive. The greatest solace to aching hearts the world has ever known. The struggle would have never been met and conquered if she had depended on her own strength, she needed a higher source to guide her and in every struggle the lowly man of Galilee stood beside her and when the cross became so heavy that she stumbled and was ready to fall, his loving arm was ready to shield and sustain her.

With all her pains and trials there came into her life one night the greatest sorrow of all, and although the load she had carried far overtaxed her strength she had to bear another and heavier one. Her little sweetheart boy of nearly two years old came toddling in one day with the cruel marks of a fatal sickness on his sweet little face, and after three days and nights of long vigil the tired mother laid down to rest, and as she slept on a pillow bathed with tears the pure little innocent soul was gathered into the arms of angels and carried away. Years have passed, but the pain lingers and when the thoughts go back to the silent form in the little white casket the tender heart of this pure woman is so engulfed in sorrow that it seems it is entirely beyond all human endurance and patience. It is then this still, small voice she has known so long, again speaks and says: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

GRATITUDE.

Few people care to listen to your sorrows, trials and burdens if you are not succeeding. If you succeed, everybody is grabbing for the stock no matter how well filled with water it is. They point with pride at the successful man as he saunters by; he can do a great many things that are shady, but on account of his success and prominence they are hushed up and never rise above a whisper; he’s dined and wined; gets cut prices on everything he consumes; rebates from the railroads and special privileges in the churches. But take the poor fellow that each day’s debts eats up his pay roll and we never hear of his fine qualities until we read his obituary.

If you will take a few leisure moments and look up the meaning of the word “gratitude,” you will find that there are few words that surpass it in quality, love and kindness. It clusters near the soul and is properly a virtue. In this life it is very hard to be misunderstood and undervalued by those we love, but this too in the journey from the cradle to the grave we must learn to bear without a murmur, for it’s a tale often repeated.

Any one who has given their time, talent and attention serving the dear people, either as a Town Trustee, member of the School Board, Mayor, or any of the petty offices of small towns and villages, used his best judgment in endeavoring to meet every issue honestly, fairly and squarely, wins for his gratuitous services the everlasting displeasure of his constituents.

No matter how hard you strive or how honest you may be there come up little intricate issues where there is no middle course and no matter what stand you take some people charge you with graft and dishonest motives. Any one who can serve for one term and is so unfortunate and foolish as to accept another, has acquired a character so colored that it takes from ten to fifteen years in our best Sunday Schools to wash out the stains.

Don’t ever feel elated or think you are popular because you are elected and people call you alderman, for the first thing they will do will be to slip out that pleasant, sweet sounding word “Alderman” and put in “Grafter” with the thumbscrews set. They’d call you a grafter if they personally know the treasury had been depleted for fifteen years. My, the pleasures of a gratis councilman!

I have heard of people losing their minds for long intervals and then suddenly regain them and I have often wondered if they had been favored with an aldermanic pleasure and the mind commenced to slip into space, I wonder if when the cog alderman appeared if it wouldn’t cause such a jolt that it would clear the whole mental atmosphere. Perhaps there is one redeeming feature and if it wasn’t for some consolation the pictures and scenes would be so indelibly impressed that you would be able to recall them long after you’d said “Amen.”

The spirit of revenge and retaliation were never very deeply imbedded in my make up. The seed being lightly sown I used the harrow instead of the cultivator and got it out. I am glad I did; it has helped me to get a good night’s rest instead of fondling and caressing discolored orbs that might have come in sudden contact with solid and knotty obstacles.

I bought a small business one time from a devout Presbyterian; I had the greatest confidence and trust in him, which I had a sad right to have. If false colors are carried we must find it out because they carry no notice to warn us. Well, anyway, he spread the tempting menu of his careful preparation in great shape. He was pleasant, courteous and very entertaining. The way he figured up the invoice you’d thought mathematics was his specialty. His tongue kept pace with his pencil and after everything was figured up he brought up the “Bonus Good Will” part and I really thought he was letting me do him a favor by giving him one hundred iron men. You see I wanted his good will along with everybody else’s.

I am glad I learned about this “Good Will” business. All told “Good Will” and “Bonuses” have cost me nine hundred and thirty-three dollars thirty-three and a third cents. Don’t try to fool me on “Good Wills” again; they’re a drug on the market, very unsaleable and unpopular to your humble servant.

After I paid the “Good Will” price and everything was agreeably settled I started in with my maiden business. Going through the bags and some other stuff in the back room a few days afterwards, I discovered bags invoiced and paid for at one hundred pounds shy. “Shy,” I said, and he a Christian! This taught me that there are eighty and ninety pound Christians. The loud smelling, decaying and life moving gunny sacks contained prepared meats for poultry. I quit in disgust and went into the front department; a fellow stepped in and said, “How is business?” and I answered “Rotten.” A frank acknowledgment of a painful truth.

Other things ran about the same; the horses were sold as unblemished, sound as a dollar, etc., and mind you, he a Christian and ministers dropping in every few days and talking and planning how to increase the congregation. My, I’m glad I used that harrow! When I sold out the business, I marked down experiences one thousand dollars. I felt pretty blue after I had lost the thousand bones I worked hard to get, and it used to be when I got the blues I eased my mind with graveyard poetry; pardon me for inserting it here.

A friend came to me one time and said he was in pressing financial straits and asked me to loan him fifteen dollars for two weeks. I granted the request and the loan was made. I thought I was familiar with the calendar and knew when two ordinary weeks ended, but those two weeks were the longest I have ever known. Fortnight after fortnight passed and no end came. Long and endless weeks of this kind might be all right for the man facing the electric chair, but they had no solace for an individual anxious to get married and needing the husky “Simoleans” to furnish a cage for his waiting bird.

One day I met the overdue biped and I said, “How about it?” I was young then and I thought I could glide in as easy this way as well as any phrase I had in my limited vocabulary. “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I know you are about to plunge in the matrimonial sea and I have a proposition to offer you. I have a good standard make of organ that I don’t need and if you will give me forty-five dollars and forget about that previous fifteen we will call the transaction closed and drop the curtain.”

“All right,” I said, “here is your money.”

That organ may not be in existence yet, but it’s in my memory fresh as ever. I couldn’t play it, for it was all I could do to carry a tune when it was tied in a bag. I had no wife to play it and I couldn’t keep it and get married, I was in a desperate condition one day when I walked into a hardware store, that is a store, you know, where they keep ware that is hard, frying pans, dish pans, bread pans, etc., you know what those things are for. “Well,” I said to the village wit behind the case, “I’ll trade you that organ for enough household paraphernalia to cook with, take care of enough viands and stuff or whatever you call it, to keep two people about to start out together; each now separate and apart but very anxious to be united.” “Agreed,” he said, “hand over that list you’ve got with the articles on and I’ll have them ready in a short time.”

Funny, isn’t it, how the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, but how about the one ready to be shorn when there isn’t even a zephyr blowing. Well, the deal was transacted, exchange made, and that is how I got my household goods when I married dearie. The financial report read like this: Actual cash in organ, sixty dollars; actual worth, forty-five dollars; second actual value in organ, forty-five dollars; actual value of pots and pans twenty-five dollars, experience and pleasure of making a two weeks’ loan, thirty-five dollars. This was not putting a premium on “Bliss” for a fellow just getting ready to carry the matrimonial load.

The weight would have been some lighter if that weasened faced Dutchman had not worked off on me a left handed frying pan for a right-handed bride, and was so extremely liberal on the good deal he had made that he threw in a second hand mouse trap when the new ones sold six for a dime. This was the first time I saw tears in my wife’s eyes. The fountain was opened and they flowed freely. Those tears were trivial to the tears we’ve in shed later life, but those first tears moved me to almost unconsolable grief and the emotion caused a flow of poetry. It’s not very long and will not tire you much, so I will slip it in here as a filler.

When I was a County Clerk and exceedingly busy pushing the quill over the big records, a M. E. Minister came in one day and accosted me with that word that arouses confidence. Brother, he said, we are figuring on a short order annex to the church, (remember that word SHORT?) and we, of course, couldn’t slight you and if you will kindly donate as liberally as possible the Lord will bless you abundantly, for you know he loves a cheerful giver, and etc., and etc. Well, I responded. When you get your subscription list in these parts drop in and I will help you.

I know what an annex to some of the churches without or with cook stove means. It seems nowadays, as the prophecies are being filled, some churches deem it necessary to feed the stomach before the soul, realizing, I presume, a full stomach is a twin brother to a big heart. They beg the food and the utensils to serve it in from uncheerful givers and then dispense it cautiously and sparingly, the more sparingly the more money for the Lord. When the ice cream is served they forget all about scriptural measure of “Heaped up and running over” and run it under. If one dish of scriptural measure can be stretched into four dishes of worldly measure, there is forty cents instead of ten. High finance, you see! I’ve often thought a society of this kind that would squeeze down the measure on ice cream procured at a minimum cost, would bear watching if they were running a milk wagon with a pump near. If any one else gets money in this way they call it an unearned increment. What would Jesus call it? I really would be afraid to express my thoughts at that kind of a meeting for fear they’d request the parcel post.

In a few days the brother dropped in and hoisted from his inside pocket the subscription list and handed it to me. I glanced over it casually, as is natural in such cases made and provided, to see who were the cheerful givers. After concluding what I thought was a liberal donation and really beyond what a man of my means should give I put down forty dollars and handed the paper back to him. The ungentlemanly gentleman took it and looked at it and said, “Well, we expected much better than this from you.” You know what feelings ebb and flow within you when you get a snub like this. I could feel the Irish blood chasing the English blood at a hazardous speed, but I said nothing and was glad again of the early use of that harrow.

JUST POEMS.

Such High Taxes, Gee-Whilaker.

Meadow larks, as you have undoubtedly noticed, warble many different songs. They sound like this to me: One says, “Here is your homesick girl.” Another, “Light the light, it is gone down.” Another, “Here is your English preacher.” Another, “The smeeking smock bird,” and others, from which the following poem is written, say, “Such high taxes, Gee-whilaker.”

SALLIE’S LOYALTY.

That’s Sallie over there in that potato patch. She has been endeavoring to tease from mother earth enough tubers to supply the family through a long winter. Nature in this and many other instances has been unkind. The rain waited too long and the one supply of food that fills so large a place are small as marbles, nevertheless this dear soul laboriously gathered them and is carrying them, pail at a time, and storing them away for a long, cold winter. Though the tubers are small and puny, she has a way of cooking them with such marked success that they would tickle the palate of a king and he’d be passing his plate the second time.

Sal does the housework, the buying of supplies, cares for the chickens, plants the garden, does the sewing, picks up the paint brush when necessary, and does about everything that anyone can do. She is past fifty years of age, most of them hard and bitter years. They have not been the kind of years where the goal has been worth the trials and bitterness. The streaks of silver are beginning to show in her dark hair, she is small in physique, clean limbed, lithe, resourceful, determined, and intelligent. Her schooling in the practical side of life is an attainment any one should be proud of. She is one of the most wiry and courageous women that has ever lived such a grand and noble life and kept the sad, dreary and lonely part locked up in her unselfish heart.

Behold her as she is, one of God’s purest gifts! Her life is clean, wholesome and grand and of such a sweetness and beauty that mocks to scorn any imitation of the artist. For eight long years she has cared uncomplainingly for the aged, widowed mother as her almost sole benefactor of aid and cheer in the home. She has sacrificed, schemed, planned, worked, and struggled in a way that is worthy of our greatest financiers, diplomats, or statesmen. She has fought within her own heart far greater battles and carried away the victory to a more deserving reward than many a soldier on the battlefield. She has denied herself in order that she might give the fullest measure of devotion to a dear old mother who is slipping slowly, slowly to that great home of rest and comfort.

God bless you, Sallie, in your old age, when the silver streaks no longer glisten in your hair and it is all turned to the whiteness and purity of snow; when your poor, tired aching limbs from their long years of toil no longer yield to quick response, when time chisels its deep furrows in your brow and your keen eye loses its lustre and grows dim. I hope God will reward you with the choicest gifts of his kingdom, and when the final summons is made and you stand in the open doorway of his love, bathed in the purity of the sparkling dew in the evening time of life, may the sweetness of your character come wafting gently in the fulness of its beauty and dwell amidst all that is holy, sweet and sacred.

SUNSHINE.

In endeavoring to entertain you in this chapter I wish I might have the wit of a Nasby or come Nye the Mark; but not having the brilliant talents of either of these illustrious wits who cracked the ribs of so many people I hope you will bear with me patiently as I proceed to give to you some rays of sunshine I have been picking up for the last twenty years from all classes of people.

A fellow said to me one time I’ll tell you a panacea for every ailment. I have taken it for years and you don’t need a skilled Pharmacist to compound it. This was the simple remedy: Trust in providence and keep your bowels open. I thought it was a pretty good prescription and if applied carefully you would never have appendicitis or a good many other complaints. Of course, he said, some people ask too much of providence. I hardly think it fair to ask the Lord to furnish you the land, the patch of potatoes, a pail to put them in, a spade to dig them with, and then get down on your knees and in funeral tones tell him you are out of spuds and would like a mess for dinner with the jackets off. Don’t ask too much.

It is better to whistle than to groan. It will make some heart lighter to hear you whistle than to groan. If you can’t whistle a tune sizzle something through your teeth, there’s cheer in it for some one. No matter how worrisome, difficult or perplexing the problem is, don’t worry or brood over it. Whistle if you can, sizzle if you can’t. It will keep you from getting meloncolic; colic that comes from something besides eating too many Colorado watermelons with the accent strong on the water.

I’ve known people whom you’d think from all appearances they hadn’t a care in the world, the sunny side was always exposed and unconsciously they would be dropping encouraging words, doing kind deeds, lending acts of assistance, and doing everything to lessen the other fellow’s burden. They didn’t tell any one that they didn’t know where their breakfast was coming from, but somehow or other they would get hold of some patent breakfast food and eat it in its native state if no cow was at hand and then they were all right until the next meal, luncheon, I believe is the proper society word.

It never pays to be stingy with eulogies or encomiums. A little praise has caused many a breast to heave with gladness and chase away gloom. The cost is small, thank God it’s outside of the trusts. So don’t be backward in using it at every opportunity you meet. If the sermon is good, go up and tell the semi-paid man behind the pulpit, it won’t kill him. He may be surprised, but keep at it until he gets used to it. If brother or sister so and so has made a misstep and you are an unbeliever or not, don’t break your neck in rushing to your neighbor and ah, ahing it all over town. Let two thoughts get into your head at once and let the better thought prevail, and instead of helping stain the character of a poor unfortunate, make it your business to use your good advice, if you haven’t any then keep still.

When a church member steps from the narrow path, why has everybody such a sudden interest? Why does it cause such a loosening of tongues? The Bible says, “he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone.” If any one but Jesus was without sin why not advertise it. Give it to the Post and use the red letters on the front page. The way I look at the parable quoted by Jesus is that if a stone is thrown some one has to throw it, it may be thrown with intent or carelessness, but in either event the stone has been thrown and some one will be struck, so the best way is not to throw the stone, if you have to throw something, go into one of the leagues and then don’t throw a stone. Throw a baseball, but don’t hit the umpire.

Wherever you can place a rose where a thorn has been, do it. There is both fragrance and class to a rose, something sweet, cheerful and pretty; but the fellow that can find any redeeming qualities in a thorn is not the person that can stand inspection. Where could you put him where he would be an improvement? You can’t progress unless you make use of the things progress is found in. Pluck the rose every time, leave the other alone.

Don’t wait ’till it’s time to erect the tombstone before you pay tribute to your dear friend. One small flower is worth more to the living than tons piled on their caskets. Some poor fellows never get tomb stones, head stones or anything to mark their graves. How much better you feel if you have never put a pebble in any one’s path as an obstruction to their progress than if you had been rolling boulders and now see your mistake. You can’t afford to do it. Pay your little tributes all along the journey of life. Be as careful dropping pains or sorrows as you would dropping pearls.

Don’t wait ’till your father, mother or wife dies, then lie about them on their tombstones. You only have one father and one mother; be careful and think some before you pour out any derogatory statements or cheap invectives concerning them. Your wife is entitled to a great many compliments you never gave her. The reverential words on the slab in the cemetery isn’t going to fool any one, and have them to believe, as you would wish, that you did the fine thing, when really you are to blame for stealing from her about twenty years of her life time. You’ve caused hollow cheeks where roses should have been and you stole many pleasures from her and enjoyed them all by yourself. Too much swine in your nature to make people think you were sincere in your profuse epigram on the tombstone.

So many people think they are endowed with a peculiar and special sort of wisdom and are able to fool their fellow men so successfully that they try it on the Lord. Here is where they make a fatal mistake, for the Lord certainly knew what he was doing when he made countenances. The newspaper’s most clever ads are no comparison to the clean, open ads the Lord puts on faces and the clear unfrosted windows where you can look far into the soul.

You can’t break man’s laws without being detected. If you are a sneak criminal, inebriate, crook, lascivious, immoral or any other of the degrading types in the category of a false man, the warning is openly and clearly displayed on your countenance. You can’t fly false colors and succeed, for sooner or later you pay the penalty to the last farthing. When you hear the remark “I don’t like his looks,” there is something shown in the countenance to verify the statement or no accusation would have been made. Be a man and your face will do the advertising.

Don’t be afraid of censure or criticism or let it keep you from helping the fellow that is down. God gave us religion for that purpose. It’s something to use every day in the week and not a specialty for the Sabbath; the more you use it the brighter it gets. Anything you don’t use and keep polished loses its usefulness and becomes rusty. Use it whenever you can and you’ll be surprised the confidence you gain in people’s hearts. It’s the greatest purifier in the world, that’s why God gave it to us. He knew what he was doing. It’s the only thing in the world that will lift up the fallen woman, the drunken man, the horse thief, the blasphemer and all others when every hand is turned against them. It’s a panacea for every evil. It’s the only thing that will take humanity with all their sins after they are entirely forsaken and down at the threshhold of hell and make them better. It will take them in the eleventh hour when they come sneaking in at the back door with characters stained as black as night and every law has been transgressed, but as they plead piteously for forgiveness, their petition is heard and all their sins are blotted out and the Lord gives them another chance. He stoops down in his great mercy and love and gives them that peace beyond all understanding. He raises them up and helps them reach for the cross when no hand is extended to help them.

At every opportune chance laugh long and heartily, nothing is better to cheer and comfort, and while it is doing the other fellow good you are getting the cheapest medicine on the market for your digestive organs. Try it after you eat some boarding house pancakes an inch think. You have lots of things to smile for. There is always some one else worse off than yourself. You see them everywhere. If you have a large family your neighbor has a larger one. If you have none at all pity your neighbor who can’t figure out some way to get rid of his mother-in-law without losing his wife. If you are able to hobble around, have a heart for the fellow in the wheel chair and the fellow that has to stay flat on his back and never sees the sun rise.

There are two kinds of sunshine; one is entirely dependent upon the individual and the other was inaugurated shortly after creation. Each is necessary to fill the divine plan. While one kind is periodical in some people, the other is always at hand unless clouds intervene. God’s sunshine is unexcelled and is a marvel in itself for warmth, beauty, cheerfulness and grandeur. The rising and falling of this wonderful orbit body is said to start and finish the work of man, as he was supposed to labor and scheme from sun to sun.

This plan may have been popular and proper before the day of the multi-millionaire, but the time is too short for the present day man, and in order to pay the necessary obligations to exist the twilight at both ends must be consumed and then reach in and grab several hours of darkness. The housewife may have to sew and rock the baby and prove her contention that her work is never done, but it’s up to the Governor, the old man, Dad, or any other name you may call him, to keep the flour in the bin, coal in the bucket, shoes on the children, and an endless number of other things. He’s the lad that must fix it up with the banker when the note is renewed. He must through some devised method dress the kids in schools as good as his more prosperous neighbor, or there’s snobs and tears. He must provide something besides the proverbial soup bone that one neighbor could borrow from another through the winter months. He must buy the latest books, procure lyceum and chautauqua tickets, pay the preacher, the ice man, the milk man, the water man, light man, and dig continually for charity, and thus you see the sun to sun theory has the bottom torn out of it.

Dad is never still long enough for the birds to build nests in his goatee and set three weeks. If he slackens up you notice a visible reduction in your pancake pile. The Lord didn’t make the suns far enough apart for dad or some other people. I worked for a farmer one time that used to start out with a handmade sun about two-thirty A. M. and never ceased till ten P. M. The meals always bothered me; I couldn’t tell if it was breakfast the next morning or two suppers. If God’s sunshine meets man’s sunshine and the two mix properly, you’ve got an individual that is a continual pleasure, one whose existence is exhilarating. He whistles and sings and smiles and laughs and gets out of life everything that is good, and everybody likes and knows him.

I was never so ashamed in my life as I was one time when I had encased in my left cheek a quid of tobacco the size of a hen’s egg. I was carrying on nonchalantly a conversation with a depot master, and the saliva was gathering so rapidly, it wasn’t long before I could only grunt. I always disliked to ruin a floor with expectoration and was also embarrassed by the presence of the agent’s boy, a little fellow of four years, but my mouth was so full and my cheeks so inflated that leakage was starting and I was forced to eject it or swallow it. I chose the former and let it go. It sounded like the distant booming of guns and the space required to contain it on the floor was unbelievable. If its dimensions didn’t cover a foot square outside of the innumerable rivulets in every direction, I’ll buy my wife a twelve dollar Easter bonnet for a Christmas present. The little boy looked at it and said, “My, that’s a big one!” I sneaked out crestfallen, abashed and ashamed, but didn’t have the sense to quit for some years afterwards, when the preacher said something about the ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

TEMPERANCE.

The cause of temperance is one that has been close to my heart for twenty years. Taken from the logical standpoint of protection to the home, sound saneness, improvement in morals, an enhancement of citizenship, it is the second paramount issue of the age. Take away liquor, stop the traffic entirely, and you reduce seventy-five per cent of crime. The empty whisky-bottle is the greatest curse that ever existed. When it is standing filled in front of some bar-room mirror, it is harmless, but when it is empty it signifies that it has been drank by somebody and has been the direct cause for all that has followed.

Trace it up and you will find sorrow, misery, heartaches, remorse, disgrace, shame, humiliation, want, poverty, destroyed homes, cruelty, hatred, anger, revenge, and murder. Rags, vulgarity, dishonor, wasted lives, and deceit. Ruined sweethearts, broken-hearted wives, disgraced parents, and hungry, shoeless children. Disease, filth, white slavery, prize fights, tangoes, rottenness, and shame. Keeley cures, jails, penitentiaries, poorhouses, brothels, cabarets, and insane asylums. Thieves, robbers, safe blowers, beggars, pick-pockets, delirium tremors, and death. Leave it alone!

Some people say there is no harm in it; there isn’t if you leave it alone. You can take a loaded revolver and lay it alongside of a well-filled whisky bottle and they will get along side by side peacefully as long as time exists. Each one separate and apart are harmless; but let a sane man come along and drink the whisky, pick up the revolver, and what happens? Every nationality without distinction to race or color, Irishmen included, will run for safety.

A well-educated young man with brilliant prospects, neatly attired, attractive, and of fine, honorable parentage, was passing a saloon one day when a friend standing in the doorway invited him in. He had never been in a place of this kind in his life. His parents had taught him, friends advised him, and a sweet faced girl had warned him. Conscience told him to decline and go on, but, like millions of others, he heeded the invitation and stepped in. “Come up and take something,” the tempter said. “No,” he said, “I never drink.” “Come on,” urged the tempter. “It won’t hurt you.” “NO,” he said; “it’s beneath the dignity of a true gentleman and it would break my mother’s heart.” “Ah, come on, don’t be a kid,” he urged, and still the boy said no. After continued and repeated solicitation he finally yielded and drank his first glass.

Alas, the fatal mistake was made. Years of careful training were swept aside. Hopeful aspirations of his mother when she looked on his innocent face in the cradle were all for naught. Solemn advice from a kind father was lost sight of, and the deed was done. That first drink fired his brain. Others were taken and his eyes shone, the house treated, and the once quiet, manly lad was loud and boisterous. Self-respect was cast aside and foul utterances flew fast and thick from a once clean mouth. The end came. He reeled in drunkenness and fell to the floor in a gibbering drunken stupor. He was put to bed and when sober he felt the shame and remorse so keenly that he was at the point of self destruction. He thought of his mother, his father, the dear little sweetheart, and his friends. He was so afraid they would all hear of his ignominy that he kept secluded. He couldn’t bear to face them, tell all and start anew.

The humiliation was more than he could stand and he slipped farther and farther down the steep and rapid descent to hell. Back in his cheerful and once comfortable home a dear old mother sat waiting and watching year after year the lamp was kept burning. A kind old father sat with bowed head thinking and thinking. A dear little girl was weeping and weeping, and still he didn’t come. Where, O where was he and why didn’t he come? Alas! how sad as he sank lower and lower. Drunken brawls were common, nights spent in revelry very often; the dissipation was telling, his once clean countenance was haggard. His step was languid, lethargy was settling upon him, and his whole being was repulsive. His character was no longer clean and a thing of beauty. Brothels caught him and God’s penalties were discernible for the violation of his laws. Decent men shunned him and pure women scorned him, but still the light was kept burning. The mother watched, the father waited, the sweetheart prayed, and the friends yearned; but down, down, down he went. Even dogs hurried by him, the filth and disease was nauseating.

The years sped quickly and there he is clear down at the bottom, an object of disgust and scorn. Behold him, beneath the mass of stale and putrid slime, a castoff, friendless and penniless vagabond. Beneath the most loathsome and foul degeneracy conceivable; even beneath the filthy sewer. He lay on a bundle of rags in a drunkard’s hut. As he moaned and groaned, an old friend passing by heard him, stepped in and stood looking at him. With tears streaming down his cheeks the boy looked up and said, “my life is ebbing, I am at the border line, my career is wasted; I am a drunken, despised and worthless sot, friendless and alone. I can see nothing ahead but the blackest despair. Oh my poor old mother, my poor old father, my dear little sweetheart, My Sav—oh—oh.” Another spell grasped him and as he tossed and shrieked and moaned, grappling with the demon, writhing in mental anguish, terror clouded his countenance, his eyes rolled, his limbs jerked, the mouth dropped open, the tongue protruded, he clutched until the blood trickled from the torn flesh, a loud, gurgling, terrifying scream, and he was dead. Died with the delirium tremens caused by the rum demon. As the old friend wiped away the tears and stood looking at his pitiful form he noticed in one of his torn and ragged pockets a slip of paper. He pulled it out and read:

How can America, the foremost nation of the world, that has long boasted of liberty and advancement, allow the liquor traffic to continue when the condition it causes are so critical. It is stealing away her brains, increasing her crime, lowering her moral standing, demoralizing her citizenship, and giving to posterity a weaker race and causing such poverty, misery and unhumanitarian distress. Can this enlightened nation afford its continuance and let it remain when it has a grasp so powerful that it is endangering its very vitals? Can America, with her unsurpassed institutions of learning, her brilliant and scholarly statesmen, her great mineral and agricultural wealth yet unfound and developed, allow a traffic so alarmingly demoralizing as to let her constitutional principles decline? Can she sit still, under her broad and world famed methods of progress, and allow such a traffic, that devastates from every source, for a revenue wrung from women’s tears, that is so rapidly depreciating her citizenship. Is she prudent? Is she applying the Christian principles of her constitution to obtain revenue from a traffic so nefarious and debauching? If she realizes the danger ahead why delay an amendment that enhances citizenship and principle.

EVERY DAY PHILOSOPHY.

Look out for the man whose face shows it pains him to say “Good Morning.”

Never be afraid to trust the man whose dog meets him with a bound.

The mad rush to join the appendicitis club and sing in the choir invisible has lost its popularity, both for the good of posterity and the pocket book.

Some people take a great deal of liberty with the English language, when they speak of work.

Stick to the boys who borrow a five occasionally and pay it back; rather than the fellows who love you like a fly does molasses when your roll would choke a lazy mule.

It’s cheaper to buy your coal from your regular dealer and take short weight, than to steal it from the railroad and pay court costs.

It’s an ice cold fact that the fellow who is continually condemning others’ faults and pointing with pride to his own great meritable achievements, is not entitled to a premium for sincerity.

It’s often the sour, surly looking man that goes down in his pocket and gives you his last quarter, when hunger is beating a fast tattoo against your breastworks.

Because a man joins the church and becomes a pious and strict respecter of Sunday observance, don’t cast all caution aside and let him sell you gold mine stock on Monday, unless you know something about the mine.

Some men tell you the wonderful things they have done from the corner store dry goods box and then let their wives earn the living over the wash tub.

Many a man has nearly grasped St. Peter’s hand, when his wife’s razor edged tongue drove him clean down to perdition.

The fellow who is always harping hypocrite and hurling cheap invectives against the church isn’t the man to arouse confidence, the only one he helps is the devil.

Take away profanity from some men’s conversation and you haven’t enough left to know what they said.

When a man buys an Auto or a Ford on credit and lets the whiskers grow on his coal bill they say he’s got the fever. I don’t think it could be the brain kind.

If money and whiskey would lose their influence in the courts, juries and legislatures would go to sleep and jail doors rust on their hinges.

When the Lord turns his X rays upon the people, the churches will fill so rapidly that Easter bonnets and dress suits can be picked up anywhere.

I know a wealthy man by the name of Moore who never was satisfied.

Obituaries are not a safe guide to the real truth.

Recollections become dim on the witness stand.

It’s better to faint in the arms of truth and die in poverty than to lie for the lap of luxury and die disgraced.

A drunken man’s breath is preferable to the wagging tongue of a gossip.

Any man could live with a woman who has the patience to bathe in a wash tub twenty-one inches in diameter for seventeen years without complaining.

Marry in haste and repent in alimony.

It’s a sad fact that many a man has missed his calling and there is elegant material for day laborers among the professions and vice versa.

If it wasn’t for $$$ a great many people would be wearing the stripes.

Some men are so economical they go without socks to buy whiskey.

If some women were better cooks there would be less dyspepsia and fewer divorces.

If too many cooks spoil the broth, could too many church denominations spoil the man?

The longer you use the Christ-like religion the better you like it and the better it makes you.

The man who makes careless remarks about women does not possess the fine attributes of a gentleman.

If religion cost money, how some church members with bible names would grab for their purses when the lights go out.

Religion and sympathy cost nothing, but you’d think they were diamonds the way some people use them.

The first marriage is for love, the second for convenience, and the third a cold business proposition. Don’t try for a four-bagger.

The cleanliness of the tea towel is a safe criterion to a good house-keeper.

The great jewel “Consistency” cannot be bought with money.

Some people are so hard hearted, onions would have no effect at a funeral.

If you don’t like the taste of life’s medicine, be your own doctor and change the ingredients.

If some weak-kneed marshals and sheriffs would do their duty, there would be less bootleggers.

Some women join the ladies’ aid and use the lemon extravagantly.

Many a woman can hardly keep from yelling “Hallelujah” when her husband dies.

If some mothers don’t spend more time with their children and less with politics this country will be over-run with pick-pockets.

If all mis-mated marriages were suddenly annulled, it wouldn’t take an expert mathematician to count those left in wedlock.

If it wasn’t for their money, thousands of women would leave their husbands.

Whiskey has killed more men than all the surgeons.

Lay the rod on the child before he gets too strong.

Better be a lady waiting than marry a sot.

Honesty stops millions from becoming millionaires.

Women born in Alaska seldom get married; too long in cold storage.

The undertaker’s sympathy never interferes with his profits; he gets the last crack at you and you can’t kick.

Many a woman, who never had an extra pair of hosiery at home, loses sight of economy, after her marriage, and plunges into extravagance so heedlessly that her husband gives up in discouragement.