Looking back through the dimly lighted corridors of the past, down the
long vista of time, a time when I feared not the face of mortal man, nor
battalions of men, when backed by my old comrades in arms, it may seem
inconsistent to say that I appear before you with a timidity born of
cowardice, but perhaps you will understand better than I can tell you that
twenty-five years in a prison cell fetters a man’s intellect as well as
his body. Therefore I disclaim any pretensions to literary merit, and
trust that my sincerity of purpose will compensate for my lack of
eloquence; and, too, I am not so sure that I care for that kind of oratory
that leaves the points to guess at, but rather the simple language of the
soul that needs no interpreter.
Let me say, ladies and gentlemen, that the farthest thought from my mind
is that of posing as a character. I do not desire to stand upon the basis
of the notoriety which the past record of my life may have earned for me.
Those of you who have been drawn here by mere curiosity to see a character
or a man, who by the events of his life has gained somewhat of notoriety,
will miss the real object of this lecture and the occasion which brings us
together. My soul’s desire is to benefit you by recounting some of the
important lessons which my life has taught me.
Life is too short to make any other use of it. Besides, I owe too much to
my fellow men, to my opportunities, to my country, to my God and to
myself, to make any other use of the present occasion.
Since I am to speak to you of some of the important lessons of my life, it
may be in order to give you some account of my ancestry. It is something
to one’s credit to have had an ancestry that one need not be ashamed of.
One of the poets said, while talking to a select party of aristocracy:
Depend upon it, my snobbish friend,
Your family line you can’t ascend
Without good reason to apprehend
You’ll find it waxed at the farther end
With some plebeian vocation;
Or, what is worse, your family line
May end in a loop of stronger twine
That plagued some worthy relation.
But I am proud to say, ladies and gentlemen, that no loop of stronger
twine that he referred to ever plagued any relation of mine. No member of
our family or ancestry was ever punished for any crime or infringement of
the law. My father was a direct descendant from the Lees on one side and
the Youngers on the other. The Lees came from Scotland tracing their line
back to Bruce. The Youngers were from the city of Strasburg on the Rhine,
descending from the ruling family of Strasburg when that was a free city.
My sainted mother was a direct descendant from the Sullivans, Ladens and
Percivals of South Carolina, the Taylors of Virginia, and the Fristoes of
Tennessee. Richard Fristoe, mother’s father, was one of three judges
appointed by the governor of Missouri to organize Jackson county, and was
then elected one of the first members of the legislature. Jackson county
was so named in honor of his old general, Andrew Jackson, with whom he
served at the battle of New Orleans.
My father and mother were married at Independence, the county seat of
Jackson county, and there they spent many happy years, and there my own
happy childhood days were spent. There were fourteen children of us; I
was the seventh. There were seven younger than myself. How often in the
dark days of the journey over the sea of life have I called up the happy
surroundings of my early days when I had a noble father and dear mother to
appeal to in faith for counsel. There had never been a death in the
family up to 1860, except among our plantation negroes. Mine was a happy
childhood.
I do not desire to pose as an instructor for other people, yet one man’s
experience may be of value to another, and it may not be presumptuous for
me to tell some of the results of experience, a teacher whose lessons are
severe, but, at least, worthy of consideration. I might say, perhaps,
with Shakespeare, “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of
people.”
The subject of my discourse tonight is the index of what is to follow.
I believe that no living man can speak upon his theme with more
familiarity. I have lived the gentleman, the soldier, the out-law, and
the convict, living the best twenty-five years of my life in a felon’s
cell. I have no desire to pose as a martyr, for men who sin must suffer,
but I will punctuate my remarks with bold statements, for the eagle should
not be afraid of the storm. It is said that there are but three ways by
which we arrive at knowledge in this world; by instruction, by
observation, and by experience. We must learn our lessons in life by some
one or all of these methods. Those of us who do not, or will not, learn
by instruction or by observation are necessarily limited to the fruits of
experience. The boy who is told by his mother that fire burns and who has
seen his brother badly burned, surely does not need to have the fact still
more clearly impressed upon his mind by experience. Yet in the majority
of cases, it takes experience to satisfy him. By a kind of necessity
which I cannot at this point stop to explain, I have had to learn some
very impressive lessons of my life by the stern teacher, experience. Some
people express a desire to live life over again, under the impression that
they could make a better success of it on a second trip; such people are
scarcely logical—however sincere they may be in a wish of this kind. They
seem to forget that by the unfailing law of cause and effect, were they to
go back on the trail to the point from which they started and try it over
again, under the same circumstances they would land about where they are
now. The same causes would produce the same effect.
I confess that I have no inexpressible yearnings to try my life over
again, even if it were possible to do so. I have followed the trail of my
life for something over fifty years. It has led me into varied and
strange experiences.
The last twenty-six years, by a train of circumstances I was not able to
control, brought me to the present place and hour. Perhaps it may be
proper for me to say, with St. Peter, on the mount of transfiguration, it
is good to be here.
The man who chooses the career of outlawry is either a natural fool or an
innocent madman. The term outlaw has a varied meaning. A man may be an
outlaw, and yet a patriot. There is the outlaw with a heart of velvet and
a hand of steel; there is the outlaw who never molested the sacred
sanctity of any man’s home; there is the outlaw who never dethroned a
woman’s honor, or assailed her heritage; and there is the outlaw who has
never robbed the honest poor. Have you heard of the outlaw who, in the
far-off Western land, where the sun dips to the horizon in infinite
beauty, was the adopted son of the Kootenai Indians? It was one of the
saddest scenes in all the annals of human tragedy. It was during one of
those fierce conflicts which characterized earlier frontier days.
The white outlaw had influenced the red man to send a message of peace to
the whites, and for this important mission the little son of the Kootenai
chief was selected. The young fawn mounted his horse, but before the
passport of peace was delivered the brave little courier was shot to
pieces by a cavalcade of armed men who slew him before questioning his
mission. The little boy was being stripped of the adornments peculiar to
Indians when the outlaw rode upon the scene.
“Take your hands off him, or by the God, I’ll cut them off,” he shouted.
“You have killed a lone child—the messenger of peace—peace which I risked
my life to secure for the white men who outlawed me.”
Taking the dead body tenderly in his arms, he rode back to face the fury
of a wronged people. He understood the penalty but went to offer himself
as a ransom, and was shot to death. This, however, is not the class of
outlaws I would discuss, for very often force of circumstances makes
outlaws of men, but I would speak of the criminal outlaw whom I would
spare not nor excuse.
My friends, civilization may be a thin veneer, and the world today may be
slimy with hypocrisy, but no man is justified in killing lions to feed
dogs.
Outlawry is often a fit companion for treason and anarchy, for which the
lowest seats of hell should be reserved. The outlaw, like the commercial
freebooter, is often a deformity on the face of nature that darkens the
light of God’s day.
I need not explain my career as an outlaw, a career that has been
gorgeously colored with fiction. To me the word outlaw is a living coal
of fire. The past is a tragedy—a tragedy wherein danger lurks in every
trail. I may be pardoned for hurrying over a few wild, relentless years
that led up to a career of outlawry—a memory that cuts like the sword
blades of a squadron of cavalry. The outlaw is like a big black bird,
from which every passerby feels licensed to pluck a handful of feathers.
My young friend, if you are endowed with physical strength, valor, and a
steady hand, let me warn you to use them well, for the God who gave them
is the final victor.
Think of a man born of splendid parents, good surroundings, the best of
advantages, a fair intellectuality, with the possibility of being
president of the United States, and with courage of a field general.
Think of him lying stagnant in a prison cell. This does not apply alone
to the highway outlaw, but to those outlaws who are sometimes called by
the softer name “financier.” Not long ago I heard a man speak of a
certain banker, and I was reminded that prisons do not contain all the bad
men. He said: “Every dog that dies has some friend to shed a tear, but
when that man dies there will be universal rejoicing.”
I am not exactly a lead man, but it may surprise you to know that I have
been shot between twenty and thirty times and am now carrying over a dozen
bullets which have never been extracted. How proud I should have been had
I been scarred battling for the honor and glory of my country. Those
wounds I received while wearing the gray, I’ve ever been proud of, and my
regret is that I did not receive the rest of them during the war with
Spain, for the freedom of Cuba and the honor and glory of this great and
glorious republic. But, alas, they were not, and it is a memory embalmed
that nails a man to the cross.
I was in prison when the war with Cuba was inaugurated, a war that will
never pass from memory while hearts beat responsive to the glory of battle
in the cause of humanity. How men turned from the path of peace, and
seizing the sword, followed the flag! As the blue ranks of American
soldiery scaled the heights of heroism, and the smoke rose from the hot
altars of the battle gods and freedom’s wrongs avenged, so the memory of
Cuba’s independence will go down in history, glorious as our own
revolution—’76 and ’98—twin jewels set in the crown of sister centuries.
Spain and the world have learned that beneath the folds of our nation’s
flag there lurks a power as irresistible as the wrath of God.
Sleep on, side by side in the dim vaults of eternity, Manila Bay and
Bunker Hill, Lexington and Santiago, Ticonderoga and San Juan, glorious
rounds in Columbia’s ladder of fame, growing colossal as the ages roll.
Yes, I was in prison than, and let me tell you, dear friends, I do not
hesitate to say that God permits few men to suffer as I did, when I awoke
to the full realization that I was wearing the stripes instead of a
uniform of my country.
Remember, friends, I do not uphold war for commercial pillage. War is a
terrible thing, and leads men sometimes out of the common avenues of life.
Without reference to myself, men of this land, let me tell you
emphatically, dispassionately, and absolutely that war makes savages of
men, and dethrones them from reason. It is too often sugarcoated with the
word “patriotism” to make it bearable and men call it “National honor.”
Come with me to the prison, where for a quarter of a century I have
occupied a lonely cell. When the door swings in on you there, the world
does not hear your muffled wail. There is little to inspire mirth in
prison. For a man who has lived close to the heart of nature, in the
forest, in the saddle, to imprison him is like caging a wild bird. And
yet imprisonment has brought out the excellencies of many men. I have
learned many things in the lonely hours there. I have learned that hope
is a divinity; I have learned that a surplus of determination conquers
every weakness; I have learned that you cannot mate a white dove to a
blackbird; I have learned that vengeance is for God and not for man; I
have learned that there are some things better than a picture on a church
window; I have learned that the American people, and especially the good
people of Minnesota, do not strip a fallen foe; I have learned that
whoever says “there is no God” is a fool; I have learned that politics is
often mere traffic, and statesmanship trickery; I have learned that the
honor of the republic is put upon the plains and battled for; I have
learned that the English language is too often used to deceive the
commonwealth of labor; I have learned that the man who prides himself on
getting on the wrong side of every public issue is as pernicious an enemy
to the country as the man who openly fires upon the flag; and I have seen
mute sufferings of men in prison which no human pen can portray.
And I have seen men die there. During my twenty-five years of
imprisonment, I have spent a large portion of the time in the hospital,
nursing the sick and soothing the dying. Oh! the sadness, the despair,
the volcano of human woe that lurks in such an hour. One, a soldier from
the North, I met in battle when I wore the gray. In ’63 I had led him to
safety beyond the Confederate lines in Missouri, and in ’97 he died in my
arms in the Minnesota prison, a few moments before a full pardon had
arrived from the president.
The details of this remarkable coincidence were pathetic in the extreme,
equalled only by the death of my young brother Bob.
And yet, my dear friends, prisons and prison discipline, which sometimes
destroy the reason, and perpetuate a stigma upon those who survive
them,—these, I say, are the safeguards of the nation.
A man has plenty of time to think in prison, and I might add that it is an
ideal place for a man to study law, religion, and Shakespeare, not
forgetting the president’s messages. However, I would advise you not to
try to get into prison just to find an ideal place for these particular
studies. I find, after careful study, that law is simply an
interpretation of the Ten Commandments, nothing more, nothing less. All
law is founded upon Scripture, and Scripture, in form of religion or law,
rules the universe.
The infidel who ridicules religion is forced to respect the law, which in
reality is religion itself.
It is not sufficient alone to make good and just laws, but our people must
be educated, or should be, from the cradle up, to respect the law. This
is one great lesson to be impressed upon the American people. Let the
world know that we are a law-loving nation, for our law is our life.
Experience has taught me that there is no true liberty apart from law.
Law is a boundary line, a wall of protection, circumscribing the field in
which liberty may have her freest exercise. Beyond the boundary line,
freedom must surrender her rights, and change her name to “penalty for
transgression.” The law is no enemy, but the friend of liberty. The
world and the planets move by law. Disregarding the law by which they
move, they would become wanderers in the bleak darkness forever.
The human mind in its normal condition moves and works by law. When
self-will, blinded by passion or lust, enters her realm, and breaks her
protecting laws, mind then loses her sweet liberty of action, and becomes
a transgressor. Chaos usurps the throne of liberty, and mind becomes at
enmity with law. How many, many times the words of the poet have sung to
my soul during the past twenty-six years:
Eternal spirit of the chainless mind,
Brightest in dungeon’s liberty thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart,
The heart, which love of thee alone can bind.
Your locomotive with her following load of life and treasure is safe while
she keeps the rails, but, suppose that with an insane desire for a larger
liberty, she left the rails and struck out for herself a new pathway,
ruin, chaos and death would strew her course. And again let me impress
the fact upon you. Law is one of humanity’s valiant friends. It is the
safeguard of the highest personal and national liberties. The French
revolution furnishes a standing illustration of society without law.
There are times when I think the American people are not patriotic enough.
Some think patriotism is necessary only in time of war, but I say to you
it is more necessary in time of peace.
When the safety of the country is threatened, and the flag insulted, we
are urged on by national pride to repel the enemy, but in time of peace
selfish interests take the greater hold of us, and retard us in our duty
to country.
Nowhere is patriotism needed more than at the ballot-box. There the two
great contestants are country and self, and unless the spirit of
patriotism guides the vote our country is sure to lose. To be faithful
citizens we must be honest in our politics. The political star which
guides us should be love for our country and our country’s laws.
Patriotism, side by side with Christianity, I would have to go down to
future generations, for wherever the church is destroyed you are making
room for asylums and prisons. With the martyred Garfield, I, too, believe
that our great national danger is not from without.
It may be presumptuous in me to proffer so many suggestions to you who
have been living in a world from which I have been exiled for twenty-five
years. I may have formed a wrong conception of some things, but you will
be charitable enough to forgive my errors.
I hope to be of some assistance to mankind and will dedicate my future
life to unmask every wrong in my power and aid civilization to rise
against further persecution. I want to be the drum-major of a peace
brigade, who would rather have the good will of his fellow creatures than
shoulder straps from any corporate power.
One of the lessons impressed upon me by my life experience is the power of
that which we call personal influence, the power of one mind or character
over another.
Society is an aggregate of units. The units are related. No one lives or
acts alone, independently of another. Personal influence plays its part
in the relations we sustain to each other.
Do you ask me to define what I mean by personal influence? It is the sum
total of what a man is, and its effect upon another. Some one has said,
“Every man is what God made him,” and some are considerably more so. That
which we call character is the sum total of all his tendencies, habits,
appetite and passions. The terms character and reputation are too often
confused. Character is what you really are; reputation is what some one
else would have you.
Every man has something of good in him. Probably none of us can say that
we are all goodness.
I have noticed that when a man claims to be all goodness, that claim alone
does not make his credit any better in business, or at the bank. If a man
is good, the world has a way of finding out his qualities. Most men are
willing to admit, at least to themselves, that their qualities are
somewhat mixed. I do not believe that the good people of the world are
all bunched up in one corner and the bad ones in another. Christ’s
parable of the wheat and the tares explains that to my satisfaction.
There is goodness in all men, and sermons even in stones. But goodness
and badness is apt to run in streaks. Man, to use the language of
another, is a queer combination of cheek and perversity, insolence, pride,
impudence, vanity, jealousy, hate, scorn, baseness, insanity, honor,
truth, wisdom, virtue and urbanity. He’s a queer combination all right.
And those mixed elements of his nature, in their effects on other people,
we call personal influence. Many a man is not altogether what he has made
himself, but what others have made him. But a man’s personal influence is
within his own control. It is at the gateway of his nature from which his
influence goes forth that he needs to post his sentinels.
Mind stands related to mind, somewhat in the relation of cause and effect.
Emerson said, “You send your boy to school to be educated, but the
education that he gets is largely from the other boys.” It is a kind of
education that he will remember longer and have a greater influence upon
his character and career in life than the instructions he gets from the
teacher.
The great scholar, Elihu Burritt, has said, “No human being can come into
this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human
happiness.” No one can detach himself from the connection. There is no
spot in the universe to which he can retreat from his relations to others.
This makes living and acting among our fellows a serious business. It
makes life a stage, ourselves the actors—some of us being remarkably bad
actors—and imposes upon us the obligation to act well our part. Therein
all honor lies. And in order to do this it behooves us to stock up with
the qualities of mind and character, the influence of which will be
helpful to those who follow the trail behind us.
Another plain duty my experience has pointed out is that each of us owes
an honest, manly effort toward the material world’s progress. Honest
labor is the key that unlocks the door of happiness. One of the silliest
notions that a young man can get into his head is the idea that the world
owes him a living. It does not owe you the fraction of a red cent, young
man. What have you done for the world that put it under obligation to
you? When did the world become indebted to you? Who cared for you in the
years of helpless infancy? Who built the schoolhouse where you got the
rudiments of your education? The world was made and equipped for men to
develop it. Almighty God furnished the world well. He provided abundant
coal beds, oceans of oil, boundless forests, seas of salt. He has ribbed
the mountain with gems fit to deck the brows of science, eloquence and
art. He has furnished earth to produce for all the requirements of man.
He has provided man himself with an intellect to fathom and develop the
mysteries of His handiwork. Now He commands that mortal man shall do the
rest, and what a generous command it is! And this is the world that owes
you a living, is it?
This reminds me of a man who built and thoroughly equipped a beautiful
church, and presented it as a gift to the congregation. After expressing
their gratitude, a leading member of the church said to the generous
donor: “And now may we request that you put a lightning-rod on the church
to secure it against lightning?” The giver replied: “No. I have built a
church wherein to worship Almighty God, and if He sees fit to destroy it
by lightning, let Him strike.”
There was a church struck by lightning in New Jersey, where the big trust
magnates met for worship, and the Lord is excused for visiting it with
lightning. No, the Lord is not going to strike down your good works at
all. He has laid out an earthly Paradise for each of us, and nothing is
due us except what we earn by honest toil and noble endeavor. We owe the
world a debt of gratitude we can never repay for making this a convenient
dwelling-place. We owe the world the best there is in us for its
development. Gerald Massey put it right when he said: “Toil is creation’s
crown, worship is duty.”
Another important lesson life has taught me is the value, the priceless
value, of good friends, and with Shakespeare I say: “Grapple them to thy
soul with hooks of steel.” Some sage has said: “A man is known by the
company he can not get into.” But truly this would be a barren world
without the association of friends. But a man must make himself worthy of
friends, for the text teaches us that “A man who wants friends must show
himself friendly.” What I am today, or strive to be, I owe largely to my
friends—friends to whom I fail in language to express my gratitude, which
is deeper than the lips; friends who led us to believe that “stone walls
do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage;” friends who understand that
human nature and sincerity are often clothed in prison garb; friends who
have decreed that one false step does not lame a man for life.
Oh, what a generous doctrine! And, although unwritten, I believe God has
set his seal upon it. Honest friendship is a grand religion, and if we
are true to ourselves, the poet tells us, we cannot be false to any man.
However, I am forced to admit that there are many brands of friendship
existing these days which had not birth in our time. For instance: A
number of men have visited me in the prison, and assured me of their
interest in a pardon, etc. They have talked so eloquently and earnestly
that I thought I was fortunate to enlist the sympathies and aid of such
splendid men. After the first or second visit I was informed as gently as
possible that a price was attached to this friendship; how much would I
give them for indorsing or signing a petition for a pardon? I remember
how I glared at them, how my pulse almost ceased beating, at such demands.
What injustice to the public to petition a man out of prison for a price!
If a man can not come out of prison on his merits, let him remain there.
I hold, too, that if there is honor among thieves there should be among
politicians and pretentious citizens. I hate a liar and a false man. I
hate a hypocrite, a man whose word to his friend is not as good as gold.
My friends, there is just one thing I will say in my own defense if you
will so far indulge me. I do not believe in doing under the cover of
darkness that which will not bear the light of day. During my career of
outlawing I rode into town under the glare of the noonday sun, and all men
knew my mission. Corporations of every color had just cause to despise me
then. But no man can accuse me of prowling about at night, nor of ever
having robbed an individual, or the honest poor. In our time a man’s word
was equal to his oath, and seldom did a man break faith when he had once
pledged himself to another.
What I say to you, fellow citizens, I say not in idle boast, but from the
soul of a man who reverences truth in all its simplicity. Think of it—a
price for a man’s proffered friendship. On my soul, I do not even now
comprehend so monstrous a proposition, and, believe me, even the
unfortunate creatures about me in prison looked more like men than your
respectable citizens and professional men with a price for their
friendship.
I should like to say something to the ladies who have honored me with
their presence. But as I have been a bachelor all my life I scarcely know
what to say. I do know, though, that they are the divine creatures of a
divine Creator; I do know that they are the high priestesses of this land;
and, too, I say, God could not be everywhere, so He made woman. One
almost needs the lantern of a Diogenes in this progressive age to find an
honest man, but not so with a good woman, who is an illumination in
herself, the light of her influence shining with a radiance of its own.
You will agree with me that the following lines contain more truth than
poetry, and I bow to the splendid genius of the author:
Blame woman not if some appear
Too cold at times, and some too gay and light;
Some griefs gnaw deep—some woes are hard to bear.
Who knows the past, and who can judge them right?
Perhaps you have heard of banquets “for gentlemen only.” Well, it was
upon one of these occasions that one of the guests was called upon to
respond to a toast—“The Ladies.”
There being no ladies present, he felt safe in his remarks. “I do not
believe,” he said, “that there are any real, true women living any more.”
The guest opposite him sprang to his feet and shouted: “I hope that the
speaker refers only to his own female relations.” I never could
understand, either, when a man goes wrong it is called “misfortune,” while
if a woman goes wrong it is called “shame.” But I presume, being in
prison twenty-five years, I am naturally dull, and should not question a
world I have not lived in for a quarter of a century. I tell you, my
friends, that I know very little of women, but of one thing I am morally
certain: If the front seats of Paradise are not reserved for women, I am
willing to take a back seat with them. It seems to me that every man who
had a mother should have a proper regard for womanhood. My own mother was
a combination of all the best elements of the high character that belong
to true wife and motherhood. Her devotion and friendship were as eternal
as the very stars of heaven, and no misfortune could dwarf her generous
impulses or curdle the milk of human kindness in her good heart. Her
memory has been an altar, a guiding star, a divinity, in the darkest hour
when regrets were my constant companions. It is true that I was a mere
boy, in my teens, when the war was on, but there is no excuse for
neglecting a good mother’s counsel, and no good can possibly result. I
was taught that honor among men and charity in the errors of others were
the chief duties of mankind, the fundamentals of law, both human and
divine. In those two commandments I have not failed, but in other
respects I fell short of my home influence, and so, my young friends, do
not do as I have done, but do as I tell you to do—honor the fourth
commandment.
There is no heroism in outlawry, and the fate of each outlaw in his turn
should be an everlasting lesson to the young of the land. And even as
Benedict Arnold, the patriot and traitor, dying in an ugly garret in a
foreign land, cried with his last breath to the lone priest beside him:
“Wrap my body in the American flag;” so the outlaw, from his inner soul,
if not from his lips, cries out, “Oh, God, turn back the universe!”
There is another subject I want to say a word about—one which I never
publicly advocated while in prison, for the reason that I feared the
outside world would believe it a disguise to obtain my freedom. Freedom
is the birthright heritage of every man, and it was very dear to me, but
if the price of it was to pretend to be religious, the price was too high,
and I would rather have remained in prison. Some men in prison fly to it
as a refuge in sincerity—some otherwise. But to the sincere it is a great
consolation, for it teaches men that hope is a divinity, without which no
man can live and retain his reason.
But now that I have been restored to citizenship I feel free to express my
views upon religion without fear that men will accuse me of hypocrisy. I
do not see why that word “hypocrisy” was ever put in the English language.
Now, I am a lecturer, not a minister, but I want to say that I think it is
a wise plan to let the Lord have his own way with you. That’s logic. The
man who walks with God is in good company. Get into partnership with Him,
but don’t try to be the leading member of the firm. He knows more about
the business than you do. You may be able for a time to practice
deception upon your fellow men, but don’t try to fire any blank cartridges
at the Author of this Universe. There are a great many ways to inspire a
man with true Christian sentiment, and I must say that the least of them
is sitting down and quoting a text from Scripture. Religious men and
women have visited me in prison who have never mentioned religion, but
have had the strongest influence over me. Their sincerity and conduct
appealed to one more strongly than the bare Scripture. I can see in
imagination now one whom I have so often seen in reality while in prison.
She was a true, sweet, lovely, Christian young lady. I remember once
asking her if all the people of her church were as good as she was. She
replied, honestly and straightforwardly: “No; you will not find them all
so liberal toward their unfortunate brothers, and every church has its
share of hypocrites—mine the same as others. But God and the church
remain just the same.” There are some don’ts I would call to your
attention. One of them is, don’t try to get rich too quickly by grasping
every bait thrown out to the unwary. I have been in the society of the
fellows who tried to get rich quickly for the past twenty-five years, and
for the most part they are a poor lot. I do not know but that I would
reverse Milton’s lines so as to read:
’Tis better to sit with a fool in Paradise
Than some of those wise ones in prison.
Don’t resort to idleness. The boy who wears out the seat of his trousers
holding down dry-goods boxes on the street corners will never be president
of the United States. The farmer who drives to town for pleasure several
days in the week will soon have his farm advertised for sale. An idle man
is sure to go into the hands of a receiver. My friends, glorious
opportunities are before us, with the republic’s free institutions at your
command. Science and knowledge have unlocked their vaults wherein poverty
and wealth are not classified—a fitting theater where the master mind
shall play the leading role.
And now, with your permission, I will close with a bit of verse from Reno,
the famous poet-scout. His lines are the embodiment of human nature as it
should be, and to me they are a sort of creed. He says:
I never like to see a man a-wrestling with the dumps,
’Cause in the game of life he doesn’t always catch the trumps,
But I can always cotton to a free-and-easy cuss
As takes his dose and thanks the Lord it wasn’t any wuss.
There ain’t no use of swearin’ and cussin’ at your luck,
’Cause you can’t correct your troubles more than you can drown a
duck.
Remember that when beneath the load your suffering head is bowed
That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud.
If you should see a fellow man with trouble’s flag unfurled,
And lookin’ like he didn’t have a friend in all the world,
Go up and slap him on the back and holler, “How’d you do?”
And grasp his hand so warm he’ll know he has a friend in you,
An’ ask him what’s a-hurtin’ him, and laugh his cares away,
An’ tell him that the darkest hour is just before the day.
Don’t talk in graveyard palaver, but say it right out loud,
That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud.
This world at best is but a hash of pleasures and of pain;
Some days are bright and sunny, and some are sloshed with rain;
An’ that’s jes’ how it ought to be, so when the clouds roll by
We’ll know jes’ how to ’preciate the bright and smilin’ sky.
So learn to take things as they come, and don’t sweat at the pores
Because the Lord’s opinion doesn’t coincide with yours;
But always keep rememberin’, when cares your path enshroud,
That God has lots of sunshine to spill behind the cloud.