rule of living. There is a large amount of genuine wisdom in the words
of a middle-aged German who, some years ago, spoke as follows, at a
temperance meeting: "I shall tell you how it vas. I put my hand on my
head; there was von big pain. Then I put my hand on my pody; and there
vas another big pain. There was very much pains in all my pody. Then I
put my hand in my pocket; and there vas noting. Now there is no more
pain in my head. The pains in my pody are all gone away. I put mine hand
in my pocket, and there ish twenty tollars. So I shall shtay mit de
temperance."
FATHER MATHEW.
Theobald Mathew was an Irish priest. He was born in 1790, in a great
house in Tipperary, where his father was the agent of a rich lord. The
delight of his childhood was in giving little feasts and entertainments
to his friends. As long as he lived he was fond of this pleasure.
Indeed, when, at the very last, his physician had forbidden him to
receive company, he was found by his brother giving a dinner to a party
of poor boys.
At twenty-three years of age he was ordained, and was known from that
time as "Father Mathew." After a short time in Kilkenny, he went to
Cork, which was his home for the rest of his life. He was not thought
much of as a scholar, nor at first as a preacher; but he had a warm
heart and every one liked him. Thus he passed quietly along until he
was forty-seven years old; and it did not seem as if the world would
ever hear of "Father Mathew."
There was a little band of Quakers in Cork, who had started a total
abstinence, or "teetotal society." They interested Father Mathew in
their work, and, in 1838, he signed the temperance pledge and enrolled
himself as a member.
Very soon every one in Cork had heard of what Father Mathew had done. He
began at once to preach that men ought not to be drunkards, and that
they ought not to use what would make drunkards. The people of Cork had
always thought what Father Mathew did was right; and they thought so
now. In three months twenty-five thousand persons had taken the pledge.
The story of the new movement spread quickly over Ireland, and Father
Mathew was wanted everywhere. Wherever he went the people crowded to
hear him. There were many pathetic scenes at his meetings; for women
came dragging their drunken husbands with them, and almost forcing them
to take the pledge. Men knelt in great companies and repeated the words
of the pledge together. In Limerick the crowds were so dense that it
was impossible to enroll all the names. More than a hundred thousand
were thought to have taken the pledge in four days.
As a result of his work the saloons were closed in many villages and
towns; and, within five years, half the people in Ireland had taken the
pledge. The quantity of liquor used fell off more than half, and there
was a similar decrease in all kinds of crime.
Then came the terrible years of the Irish famine. By the failure of the
potato crop, hundreds of thousands died of starvation or of fever.
Multitudes had to leave their homes to get government work; and hunger
and despair brought a new temptation to drink. Father Mathew's heart
was well-nigh broken with seeing the misery of his countrymen. The food
was taken from his own table to feed the hungry. Every room in his house
would sometimes be filled with poor people clamoring for bread; and,
largely as a result of this terrible strain, he was stricken with
paralysis.
As soon as Father Mathew had partly recovered from his illness he longed
to do something for his people across the sea. In the year 1849 he
sailed for New York. The mayor of that city made him an address of
welcome; and at Washington he was honored by being admitted to the floor
of both houses of Congress. In spite of his broken health, he visited
twenty-five states, spoke in over three hundred towns and cities, and
gave the pledge to five hundred thousand people. He returned home
thoroughly exhausted, and soon had another stroke of paralysis. But
loving friends cared for him; people still came for his blessing, or to
take the pledge in his presence. He died in 1856, and all the people of
Cork followed him to his burial.
It is said that seven million people took the pledge of total abstinence
at Father Mathew's hands; and it is thought that hundreds of thousands
never broke it. There is now a new feeling about temperance in the
English-speaking world. Drunkenness is now looked upon as a disgrace;
total abstinence is becoming the habit of increasing numbers of people
from year to year; and in the production of this changed feeling, this
simple-hearted, earnest Irish priest did more than any other man.
[Footnote: See "Father Mathew, his Life and Times," by F. J. Mathew
(Cassell & Co., 1880), and "Biography of Father Mathew," by J. F.
Maguire, M. P. (London, 1863).]
XXXII.
PATRIOTISM.
MEMORY GEMS.
The noblest motive is the public good.--Virgil
The one best omen is to fight for fatherland.--Homer
Patriotism is a principle fraught with high impulses and noble
thoughts.--Smiles
The revolutionist has seldom any other object but to sacrifice his
country to himself.--Alison
It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends should be true
to his country.--Bishop Berkeley
Patriotism is defined by Noah Webster as "the passion which aims to
serve one's country." As it is natural to love our home, it is natural
to love our country also. As the poorest homes are sometimes most
tenderly loved, so the poorest and barest country is sometimes held in
most affection. There is, perhaps, not a country in the world the
inhabitants of which have not, at some time or other, been willing to
suffer and die for it.
But as we think of our land, we quickly perceive that no body of young
people ever had a more valuable inheritance than that which we have
received; and we are under the greatest obligations to protect and
preserve this land, and transmit it, full of the grandest achievements
and most glorious recollections, to posterity.
This affection is natural, because the town and the nation in which one
has lived, is, like the home, bound up with all the experiences of
one's life. The games of childhood, the affection of parents, the love
of friends, all the joys, the sorrows, the activities of life, are bound
up in the thought of one's native land.
It is not merely natural to be patriotic, but it is also reasonable and
right. Nearly all that makes life pleasant and desirable, comes to us
through the town or the nation to which we belong. Think how many
thousands in our country have toiled for us! They have made roads, and
they have built churches and schoolhouses. They have established malls
and post offices. They have cultivated farms to provide for our needs,
and have built ships that cross the ocean to bring to us the good things
which we could not produce at home. They have provided protection
against wrongdoers; so that if we sleep in peace, and work and study and
play in safety, we are indebted for all this to the town and nation.
When the bells are ringing, and the cannons are firing, on the Fourth of
July, we must not think merely of the noise and fun. We must remember
those who on that day agreed that they would risk their lives and
everything that was dear to them, that their country might be free. We
must also think of those who in times of peril have given themselves for
their nation's good; of those who found the land a wilderness, and
suffered pain and privation while they made the beginning of a nation.
We must think of those who, ever since that time, when ever the liberty
or the unity of the nation has been in peril, have sprung to its
defense.
At the end of the war of the revolution, Washington was at the head of
a mighty army, and was the object of the enthusiastic love of the whole
people. He might easily have made himself a king or an emperor. It was
a marvel to the civilized world when he quietly laid down all his power.
He suffered himself to be twice chosen president; and then he became
simply a private citizen. This seems to us now the most natural thing in
the world; but really it was something very rare, and gave him a fame
such as few heroes of the world enjoy.
There have been heroes in peace as well as in war, men who have
conquered the wilderness, who have upheld justice, and have helped on
whatever was good and noble. And there are also many persons among us
who are unworthy to live in our country, because they are not willing to
suffer the least inconvenience on its account.
Then there are many men who are even so unpatriotic as to sell their
votes. Think of all the cost of money and of noble lives at which our
liberty has been won. Think how, in many parts of the world, men are
looking with longing at the liberty which we enjoy; yet there are those
to whom this hard-won freedom means so little that they do not strive to
further the country's interests in any way.
We must never forget, as we think or speak of patriotism, that such
private virtues as honesty and industry, are its best helps. Whatever
tends to make men wiser and better is a service to the nation. The
country will one day be in the hands of those who are now boys and
girls; and to you, we say, serve it, guard it, and do all that you can
to promote its good.
There is a fine field for the exercise of patriotism in trying to
improve the condition of affairs in the towns and cities in which we
live. We find ourselves in the midst of a conflict between the criminal
classes on the one hand, and the people on the other,--a conflict as
stern as was ever endured upon the battlefield, amid the glitter of
cold steel and the rattle of musketry.
The man or woman of the school committee, working conscientiously that
the boys and girls shall have the best education to fit them for future
life, is a patriot. The teacher who patiently works on with that great
end in view, is the same. If greed or bigotry claims from town, city,
or country, that which will debase her people, every boy and girl,
every man and woman, should instantly frown it down. This is true
patriotism, and the influence of every person is needed for the right.
Every good man in politics wields a power for good. Every good man not
in politics is to blame for political corruption, because by neglecting
his plain duty he adds to the strength of the enemy. Let it be known
that, with you, principle amounts to something; that character counts;
that questionable party service cannot count upon your suffrage.
JOHN ADAMS.
But little has been written of the child-life of John Adams, the second
president of the United States; a man of unflinching honesty, and a
patriot of the noblest order.
The Adamses were an honest, faithful people. They were not rich, neither
were they poor; but being thrifty and economical, they lived with
comfort. Stern integrity was the predominant quality of the farmer's
home into which John Adams was born in 1735. It must be remembered,
throughout his life it was the sturdy qualities of his ancestors that
made him the statesman and patriot whom we know.
The boy did not show much fondness for books. He preferred life out of
doors among the birds and the squirrels, roaming the woods,--living just
the life a wide-awake boy on a farm would lead nowadays.
His father gave him the opportunity of a liberal education, and he
entered Harvard College when he was sixteen years old. It is curious to
note that the students were all enrolled according to social position,
and John Adams was the fourteenth in his class. In college he was noted
for integrity and energy as well as for ability,--those qualities which
the sturdy line of farmers had handed down to their children.
The year he graduated, then twenty years of age, he became teacher of
the grammar school in Worcester, Massachusetts. There he earned the
money to aid him in studying his profession, and the training was
excellent for the young man. He decided that he would be a lawyer, and
he wrote: "But I set out with firm resolutions, never to commit any
meanness or injustice in the practice of law."
There were stirring times in the colonies when John Adams was thirty
years old. The British government imposed taxes and searched for goods
which had evaded their officers. The matter was brought before the
Superior Court. James Otis argued the cause of the merchants; and John
Adams listened intently to all this great man said. He afterwards wrote:
"Otis was a flame of fire.... American independence was then and there
born. Every man appeared to be ready to get away and to take up arms."
Then the Stamp Act was issued. John Adams's whole soul was fired with
indignation at the injustice. He drew up a set of resolutions,
remonstrating against it. These were adopted, not only by the citizens
of Braintree, but by those of more than forty other towns in
Massachusetts; and the landing of the Stamp Act paper was prevented.
Courts were closed, and the excitement was intense. John Adams boldly
said that the Stamp Act was an assumption of arbitrary power, violating
both the English constitution and the charter of the province.
In connection with what is known as "The Boston Tea Party," came the
closing of Boston's ports, because the tea had been thrown overboard,
and the city would not submit to the tax. A Congress was convened in
Philadelphia, and John Adams was one of the five delegates sent from
Boston. He knew the grave responsibility of the time. With intense
feeling he exclaimed: "God grant us wisdom and fortitude! Should this
country submit, what infamy and ruin! Death in any form is less
terrible!"
Jefferson and Adams were appointed to draw up the Declaration of
Independence. Mr. Adams insisted that Jefferson should prepare it, and
he with forty-four others signed it. Mr. Jefferson wrote: "The great
pillar of support to the Declaration of Independence, and its ablest
advocate and champion on the floor of the House, was John Adams. He was
our Colossus."
In various ways, John Adams served his country with unswerving loyalty.
When Washington was chosen president, Adams was chosen vice-president
for both terms, and was then elected president. To the very last he was
always ready to give his word--strong, convincing, powerful as of
old--in the defense of the right, even if he had to stand entirely
alone. And the story of his manly independence will always add to the
dignity of the early history of our nation.
[Footnote: See "Life and Works of John Adams," by C. F. Adams (10
vols.); "Life of John Adams," by J. T. Morse; and article in Appleton's
Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. I., pp. 15-23.]
XXXIII.
INDEPENDENCE.
MEMORY GEMS.
Keep out of the crowd, if you have to get above it.--M. C Peters
The freedom of the mind is the highest form of independence.--G. B. Fisk
A country cannot subsist without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.
--Rousseau
The spirit of independence is not merely a jealousy of our own
particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others.
--S. Baring-Gould
The love of independence is not only instinctive in man, but its
possession is essential to his moral development.--George Eliot
A great many persons carry in their minds a very mistaken idea as to
what constitutes a truly noble life. To live is not merely to exist; it
is to live unbiased and uninfluenced by low and belittling human
influences. It is to give breadth and expansion to the soul; first
through a clear discrimination between right and wrong; and then in
living up to the right. Full manhood, the full realization and fruition
of all that is best and greatest in man, depends upon freedom of thought
and independence of action.
Some countries have given especial attention to the cultivation of this
trait. For example: It has been pointed out that "among the bestproducts
of Scotland has been her love of independence. A ruggedness
of spirit has marked her children. Strength stamps her heroes. The
gentle Burns was as strong as Knox,--not in character, but in the
assertion of 'A man's a man for a' that;' and a great many of Scotland's
noblest sons have been brought into public notice through the
manifestation of their strong personality."
Vast numbers of men and women ruin their lives by failing to assert
themselves. They sink into the grave with scarcely a trace to indicate
that they ever lived. They live and they die. Cradle and grave are
brought close together; there is nothing between them. There have been
hundreds who could have rivaled the patriotism of a Washington, or the
humanity of a Howard, or the eloquence of a Demosthenes, and who have
left behind them no one memorial of their existence, because of lack of
lofty courage, sublime moral heroism, and the assertion of their
individuality.
The world's greatest things have been accomplished by individuals. Vast
social reformations have originated in individual souls. Truths that
now sway the world were first proclaimed by individual lips. Great
thoughts that are now the axioms of humanity sprang from the center of
individual hearts. Do not suffer others to shape your lives for you; but
do all you can to shape them for yourselves.
Sydney Smith insisted upon this quality of manhood and womanhood as
indispensable. He said: "There is one circumstance I would preach up
morning, noon, and night, to young persons for the management of their
understanding: Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your
own line of talent. Be what Nature intended you for, and you will
succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse
than nothing."
It is a good thing for a boy to wait upon himself as much as possible.
The more he has to depend upon his own exertions, the more manly a
fellow will he become. Self-dependence will call out his energies, and
bring into exercise his talents. It is not in the hothouse, but on the
rugged Alpine cliffs, where the storms beat most violently, that the
toughest plants grow. So it is with man. The wisest charity is to help a
boy to help himself. Let him never hear any language but this: You have
your own way to make, and it depends on your own exertion whether you
succeed or fail.
Sherman once wrote to General Grant, "You are now Washington's
legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous
elevation; but if you continue, as heretofore, _to be yourself_,--
simple, honest, and unpretending,--you will enjoy through life the
respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human
beings."
Of course we must guard against the error of carrying our sense of
independence too far. Wordsworth hit the truth when he said: "These two
things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together,--manly
dependence and manly independence,--manly reliance and manly
self-reliance."
Still, after all is said, we do need more healthy independence. Looking
out upon society, we see how slavish men and women are to fashion and
frivolity. Society life is largely a surface life, spoiled by fear of
gossip. Young people need to take clearer views of this matter, and to
stand by their own convictions at any cost. The question to be settled
by most of us is, Shall I steer or drift? Our advice is, by all means
have a lofty purpose before you, and then remain loyal to it.
Some boys think independence consists in doing whatever they please.
They think it is smart to be "tough." A story told by Admiral Farragut
about his early boyhood, aptly illustrates this phase of young America's
independence. He says: "When I was a boy, ten years of age, I was with
my father on board of a man-of-war. I had some qualities that I thought
made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt; could drink as stiff
a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn; and could smoke like a
locomotive. I was great at cards; and fond of gaming in any shape. At
the close of dinner one day my father turned everybody out of the cabin,
locked the door, and said to me: 'David, what do you mean to be?' 'I
mean to follow the sea.' 'Follow the sea! yes, to be a poor, miserable,
drunken sailor before the mast; be kicked and cuffed about the world;
and die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime.' 'No,' said I, 'I'll
tread the quarter-deck, and command as you do.' 'No, David; no boy ever
trod the quarter-deck with such principles as you have. You'll have to
change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.'
"My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and
overwhelmed with mortification. 'A poor, miserable, drunken sailor
before the mast!' That's my fate, is it! I'll change my life, and change
it at once! I will never utter another oath; I will never drink another
drop of intoxicating liquor; I will never gamble! I have kept these
three vows to this very hour. That was the turning point in my destiny."
A great many men begin to lose their individuality of conviction the
moment they begin life's business. Many a young man has sacrificed his
individuality on the altar that a profligate companion has built for
him. Many a young man who knew right, has allowed some empty-headed
street-corner loafer to lower his own high moral tone lest he should
seem singular in the little world of society surrounding him. And many a
lad whose life promised well at the beginning, has gone to the bad, or
lost his chance in life, because he never learned to say "No!"
In the Revolutionary War, after the surrender of General Lincoln, at
Charleston, the whole of South Carolina was overrun by the British army.
Among those captured by the redcoats was a small boy, thirteen years of
age. He was carried as a prisoner of war to Camden. While there, a
British officer, in a very imperious tone, ordered the boy to clean his
boots, which were covered with mud.
"Here, boy! You young rebel, what are you doing there? Take these boots
and clean them; and be quick about it, too!"
The boy looked up at him and said: "Sir, I won't do it. I am a prisoner
of war, and expect proper treatment from you, sir." This boy was Andrew
Jackson, who afterward became president of the United States. Boys with
such a spirit make noble men.
Exaggerated individuality makes a man impracticable. But the danger of
our times is to copy after others, and thus destroy our force and
effectiveness. Live, then, like an individual. Take life like a man--as
though the world had waited for your coming. Don't take your cue from
the weak, the prejudiced, the trimmers, the cowards;--but rather from
the illustrious ones of earth. Dare to take the side that seems wrong
to others, if it seems right to you; and you will attain to an order of
life the most noble and complete.
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
For the last one hundred years, one of the first historical facts taught
the youth of American birth, is that Thomas Jefferson wrote our famous
Declaration of Independence. His bold, free, independent nature,
admirably fitted him for the writing of this remarkable document. To
him was given the task of embodying, in written language, the sentiments
and the principles for which, at that moment, a liberty-loving people
were battling with their lives. He succeeded, because he wrote the
Declaration while his heart burned with that same patriotic fire which
Patrick Henry so eloquently expressed when he said: "I care not what
others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."
In all nations men have sacrificed everything they held dear for
religious and political freedom. Their names are justly written in the
book of fame; but in the front rank of them all, we place the brave
signers of the Declaration of Independence, with Jefferson in the lead.
The acceptance and the signing of this document by the members of the
Continental Congress was a dramatic scene, seldom, if ever, surpassed in
the annals of history. As John Hancock placed his great familiar
signature upon it, he jestingly remarked, that John Bull could read that
without spectacles; and then, becoming more serious, he began to impress
upon his comrades the necessity of all hanging together in this matter.
"Yes, indeed," interrupted Franklin, "we must all hang together, or
assuredly we shall all hang separately."
The Declaration of Independence placed the American colonies squarely
upon the issue of political freedom. Its composition was a master-stroke
which will continue as a lasting memorial to the head and heart of its
author.
[Footnote: See "Thomas Jefferson," by J. T. Morse, Jr. (in American
Statesmen Series), and "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson," by Sarah N.
Randolph, his great-granddaughter.]
XXXIV.
THE IDEAL MAN.
MEMORY GEMS.
From the lowest depth there is a path to the highest height.--Carlyle.
A man seldom loses the respect of others until he has lost his own.
--F. W. Robertson