Look on the bright side of life, remembering that very often,
"The trouble that makes us fume and fret,
And the burdens that make us groan and sweat
Are the things that haven't happened yet."
When our two boys were babies our home was a country cottage and our
land possession one acre. Nearby lived a young man whose father left
him a blue-grass farm. His home was a handsome brick house; he had
servants and drove fine horses. Often when seated on the little porch
of our humble home, he would pass by, when the feet of his horses and
wheels of his fine carriage would dash the dust into our faces. One
evening when he passed I said: "Never mind, Anna, some day we'll live
in a fine house, we'll have servants and horses and we'll be
'somebodies'." I thought money would bring happiness, and the more
money the more happiness.
We now live in a good home, have servants and horse and carriage;
we've traveled several times together from ocean to ocean, yet I have
never seen a train of Pullman palace cars that can compare in memory
with the two trains that used to leave that little cottage home every
evening for dreamland.
"The first train started at seven p.m.,
Over the dreamland road,
The mother dear was the engineer,
The passenger laughed and crowed.
The palace car was the mother's arms,
The whistle a low sweet strain;
The passenger winked, nodded and blinked
And fell asleep on the train.
The next train started at eight p.m.,
For the slumberland afar,
The summons clear, fell on the ear,
'All aboard for the sleeping car.'
And what was the fare to slumberland?
I assure you not very dear;
Only this, a hug and a kiss,
They were paid to the engineer."
And I said:
"Take charge of the passengers, Lord, I pray,
To me they are very dear;
And special ward, O gracious Lord,
Give the faithful engineer."
Have some of you had sorrows you could not harmonize with the logic of
life? Leave them with Him who "notes the sparrow's fall." Some one has
said: "There are angels in the quarries of life only the blasts of
misfortune and chisels of adversity can carve into beauty."
Doctor Theodore Cuyler said: "God washes the eyes of His children with
tears that they may better see His providences."
Doctor Gutherie said: "Because I am seventy, my hair white and crows'
feet around my eyes, they tell me I'm growing old. That's not I,
that's the house in which I live; I'm on the inside; the house may go
to pieces but I shall live on eternally young."
"This body is my house, it is not I;
Herein I sojourn, till in some far off sky,
I lease a fairer dwelling, built to last,
Till all the carpentry of time is past.
"When from heaven high, I view this lone star,
What need I care where these poor timbers are;
What if these crumbling walls do go back to dust and loam,
I will have exchanged them for a broader better home.
This body is my house, it is not I;
Triumphant in this faith, I shall live and die."
Since I cannot live life over, since the gate at the end of life's
journey swings but one way, and of all the millions who have passed
through, not one but the Crucified Son of God has returned, why should
I select such a subject for a lecture? When one is on a journey he has
never made before it is well to consult one who has traveled the road
and from him learn the things best to be done, and the places to shun.
For more than three-score years and ten I have been making life's
journey, and for more than forty years have been mingling with the
masses and meeting with varied experiences. To those who are climbing
the hill toward the noon of the journey my advice should be of value.
With those who with me are facing the sinking sun, and the lengthening
shadows falling behind, I thank God for that faith which comes from a
diviner source than human science, that tells us,
"There's a place, called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches,
And all our griefs and pain,
Will be left in the boat, like a shabby old coat,
And never put on again.
"I'm glad there's a place for the redeemed of the race,
In the Land of Beginning Again,
Where there'll be no sighing, there'll be no dying,
And where sorrows that seemed so sore,
Will vanish away like the night into day,
And never come back any more."
It is said "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride." It is useless
for me to wish to live life over or expect an extension of many more
years of borrowed time, but I hope yet that along the shortening path
I may open up here and there a spring that will refresh some thirsty
soul and plant a flower that will brighten the path of some weary one.
It is my desire that I may close the life I cannot live over in the
city where it began, surrounded by loved ones in whose lives I have
lived. I can think of no more fitting close to this lecture than to
use a thought borrowed from another, in paying a tribute to my old
Kentucky home:
On her blue-grass bed in youth
I rolled and romped and rested;
At the altars of her church
I learned in whom I trusted.
'Tis here my honored parents sleep,
A dear sweet babe reposes,
And o'er my darling daughter's grave
Blossom the summer roses.
'Tis here my marriage vows were given,
'Tis here my children found me;
My heart is here, and here may heaven
Fold angel wings around me.
May sacred memories hold me here,
And when life's dream closes,
May I the plaudit "well done" wear,
Then sleep beneath her roses.