Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 20

Dr. A.A. Willetts lectured on "Suns.h.i.+ne" 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 Suns.h.i.+ne."

Solomon said: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." Never lock the door of your heart against the suns.h.i.+ne 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 appet.i.te 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d of day hangs upon the topmost bough of the tallest tree. You will see a picture no artist's brush can paint. And G.o.d 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: "G.o.d must have loved the common people, else he wouldn't have made so many of them."

Let me ill.u.s.trate the two cla.s.ses 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 d.o.g.g.i.ng 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?"

His reply was: "Well, I always did suffer with cold feet."

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-gra.s.s 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 pa.s.s by, when the feet of his horses and wheels of his fine carriage would dash the dust into our faces. One evening when he pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.senger laughed and crowed.

The palace car was the mother's arms, The whistle a low sweet strain; The pa.s.senger 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 a.s.sure you not very dear; Only this, a hug and a kiss, They were paid to the engineer."

And I said:

"Take charge of the pa.s.sengers, 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: "G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed through, not one but the Crucified Son of G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses 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 G.o.d 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-gra.s.s 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.