Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 2

The audience arose in great numbers. When seated again Mr. Jones said: "Now all you who want to go to the devil, stand and let's have a look at you."

All was silent for a moment and then a tall, lank, lean fellow from the backwoods arose and said: "Well, parson, I don't care anything special about seeing the old chap, but I never desert a friend in trouble, specially a minister, so I guess I'll have to stand with you."

Dr. Frank Gunsaulus told me of a time when he had to laugh under embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances. He was called upon to preach the funeral of a man who had died from the effects of drink. His friends had made a box for the corpse and had placed in the top a ten by twelve window gla.s.s to go over the face, but when the time came to put the top on the box, being double-sighted from drink, they reversed the top and had the gla.s.s at the foot of the coffin instead of the head.

The preacher took his place, as he supposed, at the head of the deceased, when looking down his eyes fell upon a pair of feet. With great effort he kept his face straight and conducted the service. At the close he invited the friends to view the remains. One stimulated friend walked up to the coffin, shook his head and turning to another said: "Don't look at him, Jim. He's changing very fast and you won't know him."

The great preacher is to be excused if he did laught at that funeral.

It's good to laugh, and yet, while I pay tribute to the trait of humor, I would have the undergirding trait of all traits of character, the trait of principle. Though you may use policy now and then, never use a policy you must get off the heaven-bound express train of principle to use.

I don't like that word policy. There is another and better name for the trait I would present just here, and that is _tact_. It means the doing of a right thing at the right time and in the right place. Some young men win first honors in college and fail in the business of life for want of tact. Here is where the Yankee excels. The Southerner is genial, generous and has many traits of character to be admired, but he must doff his hat to Yankee character for the development of tact.

Sam Jones, who rarely ever failed to get the best of whoever tried repartee with him, met more than his match when he ran up against Yankee tact. He was raising money to pay off the debt on a church.

A liberal member said: "Mr. Jones, I have given about all I can afford to give, but if you will get one dollar from that old man on the end of the back bench of the 'amen corner,' I'll give you ten dollars more."

"Has he any money, and is he a member of the church?"

"Yes," was the answer to both questions.

The great evangelist said: "Well, that's easy," and started for the dollar.

Approaching the old man he said: "Brother, I'm collecting money for the Lord. You owe him a dollar. I'm told you are an honest man and always pay your debts, so hand over that dollar."

"How old are you, sir?" asked the old man.

When Sam gave his age at about forty, the old brother said: "I'm nearly double your age, sir, and will very likely see the Lord before you do, so I'll just give him the dollar myself."

I lectured in New England a few years ago when before me sat a Yankee with his two sons. He sat between them and when I made a point which he approved, he would nudge the boys. He seemed to be driving my advice in with his elbows. At the close of the lecture I took his hand and said: "I see you have your boys with you."

He replied: "Yes, I always take the two boys with me when I attend a lecture. I presume when a speaker has prepared himself he is going to get about the best things out of his subject, and will put them in a way to take hold and benefit young men. If I were going to get the same information out of books I might have to spend a dollar or two, when I only paid fifteen cents each for them to hear your lecture."

This trait of tact, however, is moving south, and even the colored race is getting hold of it. An old negro who was born on the plantation where he lived when set free, remained after the war in his cabin and worked for the son of his old master. In his old age his memory began to fail and he would neglect to do things he was told to do. The young man was patient with the old negro for quite a while but finally said to him:

"Uncle Dan, you must do better or you and I will have to separate."

The old servant said: "Mars Jim, I does the best I can. I is mighty sorry I forgits things and I'se gwine to try to do better."

But he grew worse and one evening when he failed to do a very important ch.o.r.e, the young man said: "I told you what would happen if you did not do better and the time has come when you and I separate."

Uncle Dan replied: "I'se mighty sorry, Ma.r.s.e Jim. I was here when you was born, and when you growed big enuf I ust to take you on de mule out to de field wif me, and I members how you ust to take de lines and dribe de ole mule. Den when de war broke out and ole Master jined de army, I stayed here and took care ob ole Missus and you chilluns. I sh.o.r.e is mighty sorry we's got to part, but if you says so den its got to be, but look here, Mars Jim, if we's got to part, whar's you counting on moving to?"

By this time tact had done its work, aggravation had melted into forgiveness and the young man said: "I'm not going to move anywhere, Uncle Dan, nor shall you. We'll both stay here on the old plantation together." That was certainly tact on the old man's part.

A young negro, who craved a ride on a railroad train but had no money, crept under the baggage car and fixed himself on the truck. The train started and when at full speed the engine struck a mule and tore the animal to pieces. Part of the mangled remains was carried into the running gear of the baggage car. The engineer stopped the train and commenced pulling out pieces of mule here and there until he reached the baggage car, when, looking under for more of the mule, he saw the white eyes of the negro.

"Come out, you imp, what are you doing under there?" said the engineer.

Back came the tactful reply: "Boss, I wus de fellow what wus ridin'

dat mule."

The engineer said: "Well, I guess you've paid your fare; climb into the cab and help me run this train."

I commend to you the cultivation of tact, but don't let it lead you into the meanest trait of character--selfishness. To say,

"Of all my father's family I love myself the best, If Providence takes care of me, who cares what takes the rest?"

In the days when there was a community hea.r.s.e in a country neighborhood, and carpenters made the coffins, a young man, who was ashamed of the old worn-out hea.r.s.e, went about soliciting money to purchase a new one. Presenting the purpose to an old man of means, he received from this selfish citizen the reply:

"I won't give you a dollar. I helped to buy the old hea.r.s.e twenty years ago, and neither me nor my family have ever had any benefit from it."

Against this trait of selfishness I place the most beautiful of all traits--sympathy. I would rather have the record of Clara Barton in the great reckoning day than that of any statesman whose portrait hangs in a hall of fame.

During our Civil War she went from battlefield to battlefield, and was just as kind to the boy in gray as she was to the boy in blue.

After the Civil War Queen Victoria desired to communicate with Clara Barton regarding the same mission of mercy for the German army, where the Queen's daughter was then engaged. But Clara Barton was already on the ocean, and soon after was in the war zone with the German army.

She was with the first who climbed the defenses of Stra.s.sburg, where she ministered to the wounded and dying. At the close of her work there she took ten thousand garments with her to France. There she waited till the Commune fell and again she was with the first to reach the suffering. In our own war with Spain she went to Cuba, and though then past sixty years of age, she stood among the cots of our wounded and sick soldiers, soothing their sufferings and cheering their hearts.

Still later on in storm-swept Galveston, Texas, she fell at her post of duty and was borne back by loving hands to her home, where she recovered and again resumed her work of love and mercy, to carry it on to the end of her long and useful life.

No wonder the King and court of Germany bestowed upon her medals of remembrance; no wonder the Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Baden placed upon her the "Red Cross of Geneva;" and in the great day of reward, He who bore the cross for us all will place upon Clara Barton the crown of eternal life.

When my wife was president of the House of Mercy, in Lexington, Kentucky, a home for the rescue of fallen girls, she went in her carriage to a dentist with one of the unfortunate inmates.

Soon after a business man of the city said to me: "I hardly see how you can give your consent to have your wife do such work. I saw her recently in her carriage with a girl I would not have my wife seen with for any amount of money."

My reply was: "I would rather my wife should go through the golden gates, bearing in her arms the spirit of a poor girl, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the h.e.l.l of a harlot's home, than to be the leader of the fas.h.i.+onable four hundred of New York City."

There is a beautiful story told of one of the most influential and wealthy men of England. He inherited fame as well as fortune, had an Oxford education and early in life he was elected a member of Parliament. One evening he sat in his fine library, watching the wood fire build its temples of flame around the great andirons, and as he heard the beating of the wild winter storm against the window pane, his heart went out to the homeless hungry poor of the city. Ordering his carriage he went to the city mission and asked for a helper, and then drove to London Bridge, under the shelter of which the penniless poor gather in time of storms. He took them two by two to shelter, gave them food, and cots on which to sleep, and then returned to his princely home. We are told that for years after, when Parliament would adjourn at midnight, this young man would go through the slums on his way home, that he might relieve some poor child of misfortune.

On Sunday afternoons, while aristocracy lined the boulevards, this son of fortune would take his physician in his carriage and go through the slums, seeking the sick and suffering. One afternoon, while he stood outside a tenement door, awaiting the return of the doctor from a visit to a poor sick soul inside the tenement, he became deeply moved by the ragged children playing in the gutters and reaching into garbage barrels for crusts of bread. He said: "Ah! here's the riddle of civilization. I wish I could help to solve it; perhaps I can."

He began the establishment of "ragged schools" and into these ware gathered thousands of poor children. Then followed night schools for boys who had to work by day. To these schools he added homes for working women, and for these women he persuaded Parliament to give shorter hours of service. He tore down old rookeries, built neat dwellings instead, beneath the windows planted little flower gardens, and rented them to the poor at the same price they had paid for the rookeries.

When he began to fade, as the leaf fades in its autumn beauty, and the day of his departure was at hand, he said: "I am sorry to leave the world with so much misery in it, but I have lived to prove that every kind word spoken, and every good deed done, sooner or later returns to bless the giver."

As the end drew near he said to his daughter: "Read me the twenty-third Psalm, for 'though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.'"

A few days later Westminster Abbey was crowded with England's n.o.bility to do him honor. When the funeral procession reached Trafalgar Square, thousands of working women stood, with uncovered heads and tearful eyes, to pay their tribute. Children came from the "ragged schools"

bearing banners with the motto: "I was naked and ye clothed me." From the hospitals came the motto: "I was sick and ye visited me," while the working girls came with a silk flag on which they had embroidered with their own fingers: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me."

Thus loaded down with the fruits of the Spirit, Lord Shaftsbury died, and yet lives in memory as the n.o.blest embodiment of Christian charity.

That's sweet music when nature hangs her wind-harps in the trees for autumn breezes to play thereon; that must have been sweet music when Jenny Lind so charmed the world with her voice, and when Ole Bull rosined the bow and touched the strings of his violin; that was sweet music when I sat in the twilight on the stoop of my childhood's home and heard the welkin ring with the songs of the old plantation; but the sweetest music in this old world is that which thrills the soul when spoken in "words of love and deeds of kindness." Cultivate the trait of sympathy. The good things you are going to say of your friend when he's dead, say them to him while he's alive. Take care of the living; G.o.d will care for the dead.

To the trait of sympathy I would add two grand traits--decision and courage.

"Tender handed touch a nettle.