Now and then I hear an old man or an old woman say, "Even if I could I
would not live life over." Well, I own I would, provided I could begin
the journey with the knowledge I now have of what it means to live.
While mistakes have been many there are some things I would not
change. I would be brought up in the country as I was. I would play
over the same blue-grass carpet, along the same turnpike aisle, swing
on the branches of the same old trees and listen to the concert chorus
of the same song birds.
Indeed I sympathize with the boy who exchanges the music of birds,
melody of streams, lowing of herds, driving of teams, diamond dew on
bending blade, morning sun and evening shade, with all other sweet
associations of country life for a lodging room in a city, where
church doors and home doors are closed against him in the evening
hours of the week, and all evil places wide open for his ruin. It has
been well said: "The street fair of evil associations in our large
cities begins with the night shadows and grows with the darkness." I
dare say if I could draw aside the veil that will shut in the night
scenes of this city, the revelation would make some godly fathers
tremble for their boys, and pious mothers long to gather their
children about them when the sun goes down, as moor birds gather their
helpless young when hawks are screaming in the sky.
All hail to the Young Men's Christian Association, with its open doors
for young men in the evening hours! All hail to its gymnasium, its
swimming pool, basketball and other sports that develop strength and
furnish entertainment! Away with the idea that all the pleasures of
the world belong to the devil.
A distinguished divine was brought up in New England by a staid old
aunt, who never let him go anywhere except to church, Sunday school
and prayer meeting. When quite a lad she let him go to New York City
to visit a cousin. That cousin took him to see Barnum's circus. It was
his first circus, and the wild animals, the bareback riding, trapeze
performance, clowns and chariot races bewildered the country boy. Next
morning he wrote his aunt, saying: "Dear Aunt, if you'll go to one
circus you'll never go to another prayer meeting as long as you live."
But he did go to prayer meeting and became a grand good man. There are
many innocent springs of pleasure, where youth can drink and not be
harmed.
It may surprise some for me to say, if I could live life over I would
be brought up in the same old state of Kentucky. "With all her faults
I love her still," _but not her stills_. It has been my privilege to
visit every state in the union and I find all the good is not in any
one state, nor all the bad. While Kentucky has had her night riders,
Missouri has had her boodlers, California her grafters, Illinois her
anarchists, Pennsylvania her machine politics, New York her Tammany
tiger, and Washington City her blizzards on inauguration days. God
doesn't grow all the daisies in one field nor confine thorns to one
thicket.
It's been my lot this land to roam,
O'er every state twixt ocean's foam,
But still my heart clings to its home,
Kentucky.
I've traveled the prairies of the west,
I've seen each section at its best,
There's nothing like my native nest,
Kentucky.
No matter through what state I pass,
No matter how the people class,
To me there's only one Blue Grass,
Kentucky.
When my wanderings here are o'er,
And my spirit seeks the golden shore,
Then keep my dust for evermore,
Kentucky.
Not only would I be brought up in Kentucky and in the country, but I
would go to the same Yankee schoolmaster, have the same sweethearts
and marry the same girl, provided she would consent to make another
journey with the same companion. By the way, we were married in
Bourbon County, Kentucky, when she was nineteen and I twenty. About
four years ago we celebrated our golden wedding, and the morning after
the celebration,
She put on "her old grey bonnet,
With the blue ribbon on it."
We didn't "hitch Dobbin to the Shay"
But along the interurban
We rode down to Bourbon,
Where we started for our golden wedding day.
If I could live life over surely I could ask no better age than the
one in which I have lived. We no longer toil over a mountain, but
glide through it on ribbons of steel; telegraphy dives the deep and
brings us the news of the old world every morning before breakfast; we
talk with tongues of lightning through telephones and send messages on
ether waves over the sea; we ride horse-cycles that run, never walk
and live without eating; we travel in carriages drawn by electric
steeds that never tire; the signal service gives us a geography of the
weather, so the farmer may know whether or not to prepare to plow, and
the Sunday school whether to arrange or to postpone its picnic
tomorrow; airships mount the heavens, steamships plough the ocean's
bosom, submarine torpedo boats undermine the deep with missiles of
death, while photography turns one inside out, and doctors no longer
guess at the location of a bullet. All these things have come to pass
within my life-time. What may the young before me expect in the next
fifty years?
Recently I read an imaginary letter, supposed to have been written by
a Wellsley College girl. It was dated one hundred years in the future.
She wrote:
"Father gave me a new airship a few weeks ago. I leave my home in
Baltimore every morning after breakfast and reach Wellsley in time for
classes. We have only thirty minutes in school in the morning and
fifteen in the afternoon. Our teachers are in telepathic touch with
all knowledge and we get it in condensed form. A few days ago, just
after lunch at noon I took a spin up into Canada; the machine got a
little out of fix, so I jumped on a gyroscope and returned in time for
dinner at six.
"Yesterday I sailed over to New York City and took dinner at the
Waldorf-Astoria; had two capsules for dinner and they were delicious.
I read how the people used to sit around tables and eat all kinds of
things. It must have been funny to see their mouths all going at one
time. Then they had stomach trouble--indigestion they called it. Now
we have everything necessary for the human system put up in capsules;
we get up a thousand feet above the earth where the air is pure, so we
ought to live to be two hundred years old.
"Last week my classmate and I took a flying trip to see the Panama
Canal, and while there we decided to take in the Exposition at San
Francisco next day. There we saw many antiquated machines called
automobiles; they used to run around the streets in rubber stockings,
honking horns to warn the poor, then turning turtle they killed or
maimed the rich. In one department we saw an animal with long tail,
and a mane on its neck. They called it a horse and told us that years
ago horses were harnessed and driven about the streets, while the fast
ones were raced for money."
That young woman may be all right about her capsule dinners and
condensed instruction, but one hundred years from now, when on her way
from the west to Wellsley if she will stop in Lexington, Ky., she will
see a horse sale in progress; horses selling from five hundred to ten
thousand dollars that will trot or pace a mile in less than two
minutes, while slow ones will be hitched to dead wagons, used to
gather up those who have fallen from airships and gyroscopes. It may
be that one hundred years in the future airships will be seen soaring
over the cities, delivering packages in parachutes at the back doors
of residences, but the day will never dawn when there will be an
airship, gyroscope, or an automobile that will supplant the
fleet-footed, sleek-coated, handsome Kentucky horse.
Now I come to the more practical, for I do not bring you this talk,
challenging your criticism or inviting your praise of it as a literary
production, but with the purpose of helping some one live as I would
wish to live if I had my life to live over.
First, to the boys before me. If I had life to live over one of my
first purposes would be to seek my calling in life. Do you know half
the failures of life come from misfits of occupation? There are
lawyers starving for want of clients, doctors with patients under
monuments, and preachers talking to empty pews, who might have been
successful in factories or furrows. Cowper was a failure as a lawyer,
he was a success as a poet; Goldsmith was a bungling surgeon, he was a
power with his pen; Horace Greely was a success in the Tribune office,
he was a failure as a farmer and a slow candidate for president.
When U.S. Grant was a very young man his father sent him to sell a
horse to a buyer and instructed him to ask one hundred dollars, but if
he could not get that amount to take eighty-five. The buyer looked the
horse over and said: "Young man, what is your price?" Young Grant
replied: "Father told me to ask you one hundred dollars, but if you
would not give that to take eighty-five." It is needless to say the
calling of U.S. Grant was not horse trading. This same young man
afterwards tried the grocery business and bought potatoes far and wide
to corner the market, but the price went down, the potatoes rotted in
Grant's bins and his grocery effort was on a par with his horse
trading. He then tried the ice market but that became watered stock on
his hands and again he was a failure. Later on in life 'mid roar of
cannon and rattle of musketry the misfit found his element. Here he
was so sure of his calling he made his motto, "I'll fight it out on
this line if it takes all summer," and to the general, who could not
drive a horse trade, or corner the potato market, or deal in ice, one
of the greatest generals the world ever knew surrendered his sword,
and from the highest military position Grant was called to be
President of the United States.
If it is true that "ever since creation shot its first shuttle through
chaos design has marked the course of every golden thread," then every
human being is designed to fill a certain place in life. There are
young women teaching school, getting to be old maids, who should be
the wives of good husbands, and there are some wives who ought to be
old maid "schoolmarms."
We have born architects, born orators, born bookkeepers, born
musicians, born poets, born preachers, born teachers, born surgeons,
born bankers, born blacksmiths, born merchants, born farmers.
Two farmers live side by side; one doesn't seem to work hard, yet
everything is neatness from one end of the farm to the other; his
neighbor works hard, yet the cattle are in his corn, the fences are
broken, gates off the hinges and everything seems out of order. That
man was not made to be a farmer. He should rent out, or sell out, and
go to the legislature, or find some other place he can fill.
Matthew Arnold said: "Better be a Napoleon of book-blacks, or an
Alexander of chimney-sweeps, than an attorney, who, like necessity,
knows no law." There are born shoemakers cobbling in Congress, while
statesmen are pegging away on a shoe-last because their brains have
not been capitalized by education and opportunity. There are born
preachers at work in machine shops, and born mechanics rattling around
in pulpits like a mustard seed in an empty gourd; born surgeons are
carving beef in butcher stalls, while here and there butchers are
operating for appendicitis.
God planted the hardy pine on the hills of New England, and the
magnolia down in the sunny South-land. Let some horticulturist compel
the magnolia to climb the cold hills of New England, and the northern
tree to come down and take its place in the "land of cotton, cinnamon
seed and sandy bottom," and everything in both will protest against
the mistake.
Lowell said: "Every baby boy is born with a calling." With some this
calling is very definite. It was definite with George Stevenson when
in childhood he made engines of mud with sticks for smoke-stacks. It
was definite with Thomas A. Edison, who, instead of selling
newspapers, went to experimenting with acids, and charged a steel
stirrup that lifted him into the electric saddle of the world. With
others it is very indefinite. Patrick Henry failed at everything he
undertook until he began talking, when he soon became the golden
mouthed orator of his age. Peter Cooper failed until he took to making
glue, then his business "stuck" to everybody and he made a fortune out
of which he built Cooper Union for the education of poor boys.
I have a grandson whose calling was indefinite. He was named for his
grandfather, to whom fishing is a fad. During my rest season I go
fishing almost every day. While I make an exception of Sunday I can
appreciate the minister who was a great fisherman. On his way to an
appointment Sunday morning he came upon a lad fishing in a wayside
stream. Halting he said: "My boy, this is the Sabbath day and the good
Book says you should remember to keep it holy." Just then a fish
seized the boy's bait and drew the float under, when the good minister
excitedly said: "Pull, pull. Ah! that's a good one. I'll try that
place myself _some other day_."
Fishing is my favorite sport. My grandson was a baseball fiend and a
football player. He was hurt in a football game and I wrote him,
warning him against his recklessness, and to the admonition I added:
"Twenty-five boys have been killed already this season playing
football; it's a brutal game anyway."
He replied: "Dear Grandfather, I am sorry so many boys have been
killed playing football, but I read recently that last summer two
hundred and fifty men were drowned while out fishing; would it not be
well for you to keep off Lake Ellerslie? You say football is a brutal
game; I submit to you, Grandpa, that the man who takes an innocent
worm or a minnow, strings it on a steel hook, and sinking it into the
water, jerks the gills out of an innocent fish, is more cruel than the
boy who kicks another around for exercise. I need a pair of baseball
shoes, number six and a half; send them by express." He got the shoes,
and I decided _he_ was called to be a lawyer.
Young man, if you get to be a preacher and cannot put force into your
sermon, the world doesn't want to hear you preach, but if you are a
good cobbler it will wear your shoes, if a good baker it will eat your
bread, or if a good barber it will let you put your razor to its
throat. Remember in making your choice,
"Honor and fame from no condition rise,
Act well your part; there the honor lies."
If I could live life over, I would not be content with a common school
education. In my youth circumstances lifted a dead wall against my
hopes, but if given another chance I would somehow press my way to
where higher education scatters its trophies at the feet of youth, for
while it is true some of the most successful men of our country
graduated from the high school of "hard knocks" and universities of
adversity, yet the humblest toil is more easily accomplished and
better done where college education guides.
To college education, however, I would add the education which comes
from rubbing against the world. Some one has said: "For every ounce of
book knowledge one needs a half dozen ounces of common sense with
which to apply it." Douglas Jerrold said: "I have a friend who can
speak fluently a dozen different languages but has not a practical
idea to express in any one of them."
An old woman suffering from rheumatism was asked by a friend: "Did you
ever try electricity?"
She answered: "Yes, I was struck by lightning once but it didn't do me
any good."
In this many sided age one needs to educate muscle, nerves, heart and
conscience as well as brain. That man who is all brain and no heart,
goes through the world with his intellect shining above his bosom like
an electric light over a graveyard.
Young people, do you know you live in a testing world, a world in
which all buds and blossoms are tested? The bud that stands the test
of wind and frost goes on to flower and fruitage; the bud that can't
stand the test goes with the dust to be trampled under foot. Every
cannon made by the government is tested; the cannon that can stand the
test goes into battleship or land fort, the cannon that can't stand
the test goes into the junk pile.
Yonder in Virginia a few years ago, there was a young man who had
everything an indulgent father could give him, but in school his
character could not stand the test, and he exchanged his books for
wine and cards. He married a beautiful young woman, shot her to death
in his automobile and died himself in the electric chair, leaving his
old father in a desolate home with harrowing memories tearing his
heart; while over the life of an innocent babe he hung a cloud as dark
as was ever woven out of the world's misfortune, and sent another life
to wander in painted shame outside life's eden of purity, the barb of
conscious guilt to be driven deeper and deeper into her soul by the
scorn of a pitiless world. All because young Beatty could not stand
the test!
Harry Thaw had everything wealth and refinement could bring into a
young life, but he sacrificed all upon unhallowed altars, and with the
brand of Cain upon his brow, he was cast into a madman's cell. He
could not stand the test.
Lord Byron was Britain's brilliant bard. He could have lived in
England's glory and then slept with England's buried greatness in
Westminster Abbey, if he had stood the test; but at the age of
thirty-seven, when he should have been on an upward flight to greater
fame, he drew the "strings of his discordant harp" about him and over
them sent the bitter wail:
"My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!"
Younder in a cabin a babe was born. When eleven years of age he helped
his mother clear out a patch and raise a garden. Later on he lay in
front of a wood fire, studying lessons for the morrow. Later in life
he went to college, with only a few cents in his pocket. He went to
church and there gave part of his little all in a collection for
missionary work. The next Saturday he earned a dollar with a
jack-plane; at the end of his college term he had paid his way and had
seven dollars left. At twenty-eight this young man was in the senate
of his state, at thirty-six he was in Congress, and twenty-seven years
from the time James A. Garfield rang the bell of Hiram College for his
board he went into the White House as President of the United States.
He could stand the test. Boys, can you stand the test?
During the Spanish American war there was a regiment called the "Rough
Riders." It was made up of picked young men from different states of
the Union. It was this regiment that made the famous charge up San
Juan Hill. At the close of the war, the regiment was mustered out of
service. The Colonel, giving his farewell address, said: "You have
made an honorable record in war, now go back to your homes and make
honorable record in peace."
Sixteen years of that record is made. The Colonel has been President
of the United States for seven years of that time. General Leonard
Wood has gone to the front of the army, and others of the regiment
have become successful professional and business men; but some have
gone to jails and penitentiaries, one died not long since in the
streets of New York City and was buried in a pauper's grave; some are
fugitives from justice.
What is true of that regiment, is in some measure true of every body
of young men and boys I meet. In my presence are boys who will be
leaders of thought and action twenty years from now in whatever
community they dwell. There is a boy before me who will be a
successful merchant, there's one who will be a banker, another will be
a lawyer, others will lead in other lines. But alas! in my presence
now, looking me in the face this minute, there may be a boy, or boys,
who will stain with blood the stony path to despair.
Do you say that no such ignominious possibility hangs over any boy in
this audience? I tell you it is not always the first, but sometimes
the fairest born. I know a man who in his youth drove his father's
fine horses, romped and rested on the richest blue-grass lawn, ate
from spotless linen and lived in luxury, who now eats from the bare
tables of low saloons, and is often given shelter by an old colored
"mammy," who was once his father's slave.
I have in mind a schoolmate, whose father lived in a fine country home
two miles from the schoolhouse. The influence of my schoolmate's
mother was pure as the diamond dew he brushed from the bending grass
in barefoot days. But he left the country home and the last time I saw
him he was a vagabond, begging bread from negro cabin doors. Ah!
mother, you can't tell _which_ boy.
In a large city a few years ago a man stood at the side door of a
saloon at two o'clock in the morning. His clothes were worn and the
matted hair hung about his face. He waited, hoping some one would come
along and give him the price of a drink. Two young men, one of them a
reporter on a leading daily, came down the street. As they neared the
poor fellow, one said to the other: "Did you ever see such an appeal
for a drink? Here, hobo, take this dime and buy you one."
Seizing his hand his friend said: "No, let's do the job like good
Samaritans. Come in, tramp, and have a drink with us."
The three entered the saloon, the glasses were filled and the tramp
took his and draining it, said: "Young men, I'm very thirsty, may I
have another?"
"Yes, help yourself," was the reply, and the tramp took the second
drink. Then lifting his hat he said:
"Young men, you call me a hobo, but I see in you a picture of my lost
manhood. Once I had a face as fair as yours, and wore as good clothes
as you have now. I had a home where love lit the flame on the altar,
but I put out the fire and to-night I'm a wanderer without a home. I
had a wife as beautiful as an artist's dream, but I took the pearl of
her love, dropped it in the wine glass, Cleopatra-like I saw it
dissolve and I quaffed it down. I had a sweet child I fondly loved,
and still love, though I have not seen her for twelve years; a young
woman now in her grandfather's home, she is deprived of the heritage
of a father's good name. Young men, I once had aspirations and
ambitions that soared as high as the morning star, but I clipped their
wings, I strangled them and they died. Call me a tramp, do you? I'm a
preacher without a charge, a lawyer without a brief, a husband without
a wife, a father without a child, a man without a friend. I thank you
for the drinks. Go to your homes and on soft beds may you sleep well;
I'll go out and sleep on yonder bench in the night wind. A few more
drinks, a few more drunkard's dreams, and I'll go out into the
moonless, starless night of a hopeless forever."
Oh! how I would like to help some boy in this audience stand on his
two feet and with clear brain, manly muscle, and moral courage fight
and win the battle of life. How it would rejoice my soul if I could,
with earnest appeal, throw about some mother's boy an armor of
celestial atmosphere against which the arrows of evil would beat in
vain, and fall harmless at his feet.
Hear me, boys; never was there a day when character counted for so
much as now; never a day when a young man, equipped with education and
stability of character, filled with energy and ambition, was in such
demand as he is today; while on the other hand, never was there a day
when a young man with bad habits was in so little demand as now. The
industrial world is closing its doors against young men who are not
sober, industrious and competent. Even a saloon-keeper advertised
thus: "Wanted--A man to tend bar, who does not drink intoxicating
liquors." How would this read: "Wanted--A young man to sell shoes, who
goes bare-footed."
Young women, just here I have a question for you. If the railroad
company does not want the drinking man, if the merchant discriminates
against him, and even the saloon-keeper does not want him for
bar-tender, do you want him for a husband? Can you afford to wrap up
your hopes of happiness in him and to him swear away your young life
and love?
Some young woman may say: "If I taboo the drinking man, I may be an
old maid." Then be an old maid, get some "bloom of youth," paint up
and love yourself. John B. Gough said: "You better be laughed at for
not being married, than never to laugh any more because you are
married."
If I could live life over there are some things I would not do. I
would not stop smoking as I did thirty-five years ago, because I never
would begin and therefore would not need to stop. I am not a fanatic
on the question, but I believe every father in my presence, who uses
tobacco, will be glad to have me say that which I will now say to the
boys who are dulling their brains, poisoning their blood and weakening
their hearts by the use of cigarettes.
Boys, I believe a cigar made me tell my first falsehood. When I was
fifteen years of age I felt I must smoke if I ever expected to be a
man. Father smoked, our pastor smoked, and so did almost every man in
our neighborhood. My mother opposed the habit, but I thought mother
did not know what it took to make a man.
I heard her make an engagement to spend a whole day ten miles from
home the following week, and that day I set apart for learning to
smoke cigars. I laid in some fine ones, six for five cents, and when
mother went out the gate on her visit, I started for the barn. In a
shed back of the barn I took out my cigars, determined to learn that
day if it required the six cigars for my graduation. The first cigar
was lighted and with every puff I felt the manhood coming; but in
about five minutes I felt the manhood _going_. Just then my uncle
called: "George, where are you?" When I answered he said: "Come here
and hold this colt while I knock out a blind tooth."
Horsemen before me know some colts have blind teeth and to save the
eyes these must be removed. I staggered to the colt, held the halter
rein and when the tooth was removed my uncle, looking at me, said:
"What's the matter with you? You are pale as death."
"Nothing, only it always did make me sick to see a blind tooth knocked
out of a horse's mouth," I replied.
My uncle said: "You better lie down on the grass until it passes off,"
and I did.
But I kept on after that until I learned to smoke like a man. When
years had passed and I became editor of a paper it seemed to me I
could write better editorials with the smoke curling about my face.
One morning I finished my breakfast before Mrs. Bain had half finished
hers. Lighting my cigar I stood by the fire chatting and smoking until
the stub was all that remained. Then, as was my custom, I walked up to
kiss her good-bye when she said: "Good-bye. But, I would like to ask
you a question. How would you like to have me finish my breakfast
before you are half through yours, light a cigar, smoke it to the
stub, and with tobacco on my lips and breath offer to kiss you good
morning?"
I said: "You don't have to kiss me," and with this I left for my work.
On the way her question seemed to be waiting my answer, and I gave it
in a resolve that she should never again have cause to repeat that
question, and with my resolve went the cigar.
About this time a co-worker joined me in the same resolution, which
helped me to keep mine. After tea that evening Mrs. Bain said: "I did
not know you were so sensitive, or I should not have said what I did."
I did not tell her then of my promise, lest I should fail to keep it.
Thirty-five years have passed and not a single cigar have I had
between my lips since that morning.
Boys, take one five-cent cigar after each meal, add up the nickels for
one year, put the money at interest, next year, and every year do the
same, compounding the interest, and in thirty-five years you will have
thirty-five hundred dollars--the price of a home for your old age.
I do not hope to convert old smokers, but if I can persuade one young
man in this audience to throw away the cigarette, never to smoke one
again, then I will have honored this hour's service.
If I could live life over I would take the same total-abstinence
pledge I took fifty years ago and have kept inviolate to this day. I
would take it, not only because of its personal benefit to me, but
because of what it has led me to do for others.
It is said reformers never expect to see the bread they cast upon the
waters; inventors may, but not reformers. Yet I have lived to see my
bread come back "buttered" in my old age.
I have lived to see thousands of men and women to whom I gave the
pledge in their youth, wearing it still as a garland about their
brows, and their children, by precept and example of parents, keep
step with the onward march of the temperance army.
I have lived to see more than one hundred counties of Kentucky, in
which I established Good Templar Lodges, when bottles were on
sideboards in the homes, and barrooms in almost every crossroad
village, now in the dry column.
I have lived to see seventeen states under prohibition, fifty millions
of people of the United States living under prohibitory laws, the
Congress of the United States giving a majority vote for submitting
national prohibition to the people, and the great empire of Russia
going dry in a day.
Sweet is the "buttered bread" that is coming to me after these many
years since I cast my bread upon the waters, when days were dark,
discouragements many and faith weak. I am waiting now for another
slice of this "buttered bread" about the size of old Kentucky dry.
If I could live life over I would put a better bit to my tongue, and a
better bridle on my temper. An Englishman said: "My wife has a temper;
if she could get rid of it I would not exchange her for any woman in
the world."
Two men meet and have a misunderstanding; one flies into a passion,
shoots or stabs, while the other stands placid and self-contained,
preserving his dignity. The world calls the first a brave man and the
latter a coward; but Solomon declared the man who rules himself to be
"greater than he that taketh a city."
Oh! the tragedies that lie in the wake of the tempest of temper. On
the dueling field such men as Alexander Hamilton went down to death
for want of self-control. Andrew Jackson killed Dickerson; Benton of
Missouri killed Lucas; General Marmaduke killed General Walker. Pettus
and Biddle, one a Congressman, the other a paymaster in the army, had
a war of words, a challenge followed; one being near-sighted selected
five feet as the distance for the duel, and there educated men, with
pistols almost touching, stood, fired and both were killed.
Senator Carmack of Tennessee, criticised Colonel Cooper as a machine
politician. Cooper said: "Put my name in your paper again, and I'll
kill you." Young Cooper felt in his rage that he must settle the
trouble. Did he settle it? The bullet that went through the heart of
Carmack went through the heart of his wife, threw a shadow over the
life of his child, and draped Tennessee in mourning. Did he settle it?
He started a tempest that will howl through his life while memory
lasts and echo through his soul to all eternity. Oh! that men would
realize that to walk honorably and deal justly insures in time
vindication from all calumny.
Abraham Lincoln was called the "Illinois baboon" by a leading journal,
but Mr. Lincoln placidly read the charge, and told a joke as a safety
valve for whatever anger he may have felt. One hundred years go by and
the President leaves Washington and goes on a long journey to stand at
a cabin door in Kentucky, there to pay tribute to a man who "never
lost his balance or tore a passion to tatters."
I stood in front of the great Krupp gun at the World's Fair, and as
the soldier in charge told me that one discharge cost one thousand
dollars, and it could send a shell sixteen miles and pierce iron
plated ships, its lips seemed loaded with death and it spoke of war
and bloodshed and hate.
A little later I entered the Hall of Fine Arts and looked upon that
impressive picture entitled, "Breaking Home Ties." The lad is about to
go out from the roof that has sheltered him from babyhood, to be his
own guide in the big wide world. His mother holds his hand as she
looks love into his eyes, and gives him her warnings and blessing; the
father, with his boy's valise in his hand, has turned away with a lump
in his throat, while even the dog seems to be joining in the loving
farewell.
Turning away from that picture, the thought came: Ah! that means more
than Krupp guns. It means the coming of a day when love shall rule and
war shall cease, when reason and righteousness shall be the
arbitrators for differences between nations, when owls and bats will
nest in the portholes of battleships, and each nation will vie with
the other in warring against the kingdoms of want and wickedness.
When a man requested Bishop McIntyre to preach his wife's funeral
sermon, and told him of her many beautiful traits, Bishop McIntyre
said: "Brother, did you ever tell her all these sweet things before
she died?"
Just here Sam Jones would say: "Husbands, go home and kiss your wives.
Tell them they are the dearest, sweetest things on the earth; you may
have to stretch the truth a little, but say it anyway."
A few years ago, just before the Christmas holidays, I wrote my
daughter, saying: "I wish you would find out from your mother what she
would like for a Christmas gift. However, don't tell her I wrote you
to do this. Also suggest something for the grandchildren that I may
bring each some little remembrance that will please them." I closed by
saying:
"The sands of my life are growing less and less,
Soon I'll reach the end of my years,
Then you'll lay me away with tenderness
And pay me the tribute of tears.
"Don't carve on my tomb any word of fame,
Nor a wheel with its missing spokes,
Simply let the marble tell my name,
Then add, 'He was good to his folks.'"
Boys and girls, don't speak back to mother. You love her and don't
mean to offend, but it hurts her. She was patient with you in your
infancy; be patient with her in her old age. From her birth she has
been your loyal, loving slave. She will go away and leave you after a
little while, and oh! how you will miss her when she's gone. Deal
gently with her now; speak kindly to her and when she's gone memories
of your love and kindness to mother will come to you like sweet
perfume from wooded blossoms.
Young lady graduate of high school or college, do you realize what
your father has done for you, and the sacrifices he has made that you
might have what he has never had--a diploma? Go, put your fair tender
cheek against the weather-beaten face of your father, print with rosy
lips a kiss of gratitude upon his furrowed brow, and tell him you
appreciate all he has done for you.
I have been talking to you an hour about what I would do if I could
live life over. If I had life to live over would I do any better than
I have done? If I am no better now, than I was five years ago, if I am
to be no better five years hence than I am now, then I would do no
better if I had another trial.
However, I cannot live life over. The sand in the hour-glass is
running low and when gone can never be replaced, and I am not much
struck on old age. It is said to have its compensations, in that the
"aches and asthmas of old age are no worse than the measles, mumps,
whooping-coughs and appendicitis pains of youth." Righteous old age
should be better than youth. The ocean of time with its breakers and
perils face the young, while for the righteous old the storms are
past, and they are
"Waiting to enter the haven wide,
See His face, and be satisfied."
I cannot help these grey hairs or the wrinkles on my brow, but I can
keep my heart young, and I _do_. I enjoy the company of old people,
but delight more in associating with the young.
Dr. A.A. Willetts lectured on "Sunshine" sixty years ago. In his
ninetieth year he was still lecturing; had he lectured on shadows he
would doubtless have died many years before, and never been known as
the "Apostle of Sunshine."
Solomon said: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." Never lock
the door of your heart against the sunshine of cheerfulness, and
remember it is not the exclusive blessing of youth but blooms in the
heart of any age. With some it seems to be an inheritance. It kisses
some babies in the cradle, and the radiance of that kiss lingers
through three-score years and ten; while others are born cross, live
cross and die cross. A babe of this latter kind came into a home and
kept up its wailing for several days. The little six-year old boy of
the home said: "Mother, did you say little brother came from heaven?"
"Yes, dear; why do you ask?"
"Well, no wonder the angels bounced him," the boy replied.
I know a woman who is forever telling her trials. If you do not listen
to her story you must read it on her countenance. Nearby is another
who has lost her parents; indeed all her near relatives are gone; not
a flower left to bloom on the desert of old age. Yet, she hides her
sorrows beneath the soul's altar of hope and meets the world with a
smile. Doubtless the first woman wonders why she is so slighted and
the company of the other courted. She should know it is for the same
reason that honey-bees and humming birds light on sweet flowers
instead of dry mullien stalks, and mocking-birds and canaries are
caged instead of owls and rain-crows.
Some persons seem to relish the "cold soup of retrospect" and persist
in picking the "bones of regret," without any appetite for the present
or promises of the future. Beside one of these I would place a
happy-hearted soul, who laughs through the window of the eye and on
whose face you can read,
"Let those who will, repine at fate,
And droop their heads in sorrow,
I'll laugh when cares upon me wait,
I know they'll leave to-morrow.
"My purse is light, but what of that?
My heart is light to match it;
And if I tear my only coat,
I'll laugh the while I patch it."
I know a millionaire, who controls numerous industries, whose wife
must apply cold cloths to his head at night to induce sleep. I know
another man not so well off in this world's goods, whose wife must
apply the cold water to get him awake. Care is often pillowed in a
palace, while contentment is asleep in a cottage.
At the close of my lecture at a chautauqua several years ago, a
gentleman said to me: "Sir, we live in a very humble cottage in this
town, but there is a big welcome over the door for you and we want you
to take tea with us." I accepted the invitation and soon was seated on
the porch of the small cottage home. While my host was inside getting
a pitcher of ice water, I looked across the way and there was the home
of a railroad king, his wealth numbered by millions, and the grounds
surrounding his home were rich in flower beds, fountains and forest
trees. My host, pouring the water, said: "You see we are very
fortunately situated here. Our little home is inexpensive and our
taxes very light. Our rich neighbor across the way employs three
gardeners to care for those grounds; he pays all the taxes, has all
the care; they do not cost us a cent, yet we sit here on our little
porch and drink in their beauty." There was a philosopher.
John Wanamaker can pay $100,000 for a picture, which he did some years
ago, and hang it on the walls of his mansion home, but you go out in
the country in the springtime, get up in the early morning while the
cattle are still sleeping in the barnyard and the birds silent in the
trees, watch the rich glow of the day god as it comes peeping through
the windows of the morning, then see the birds leave their bowers, the
larks to fly away to the fields, the mocking-bird to sing in the cedar
at the garden gate, the robin to chirp to its mate, and you will see a
picture which will pale that of the merchant prince.
Or go out on a summer evening just after a rain storm, when nature
hangs itself out to dry; when the golden slipper of the god of day
hangs upon the topmost bough of the tallest tree. You will see a
picture no artist's brush can paint. And God does not hang these
pictures on a wall twenty feet by ten, but on the blue tapestry of the
sky for the world's poor to admire "without money and without price."
Abraham Lincoln well said: "God must have loved the common people,
else he wouldn't have made so many of them."
Let me illustrate the two classes of people to which I have referred.
An old man who dwelt in the shadows of life said: "My life has been
one continual drudgery and disappointment; for fifty years I have had
to get up at 5 o'clock every morning while others enjoyed their sleep,
then all day in the harness of oppression I have had to work with bad
luck dogging my footsteps."
His daughter, thinking to cheer him, said, "Father, don't get
discouraged. You have one comfort anyway; it won't be long till the
end of toil will come, when you will have a good long rest in the
grave where no misfortune can reach you."
"I don't know about that," replied the father; "it will be about my
luck for the next morning to be resurrection day and I'll have to be
up at daylight as usual."
Another man, who always looked on the bright side of life, and when
anything went wrong always looked up something good to match it,
happened to lose a fine horse. When friends expressed sympathy he
said: "I can't complain; I never lost a horse before." Then his crop
failed and he said: "After ten years of good crops I have no kick
coming because of one failure." Finally, poor fellow, a railroad train
ran over him and both feet had to be amputated at the ankles. A friend
called to see him and said: "Jim, what have you to say after this
misfortune?"