Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 3

And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, Silk it in your hand remains."

The decision to throw over the tea in Boston harbor, to write "Charles Carroll of Carrolton," and the courage to say, "Give me liberty or give me death," gave us this government by and for the people.

"If you come to a river deep and wide, And you've no canoe to skim it; If your duty's on the other side, Jump in, my boy, and swim it."

Have the courage to stand for what you believe to be right. You may have to go ahead of public sentiment at times, but you will be rewarded in having your conviction and conscience with you.

A number of years ago in Boston, I gave a temperance address on Sunday afternoon in Music Hall. At the close of the lecture a friend said to me: "You said some good things but though from the old bourbon State of Kentucky, you are ahead of public sentiment in Boston."

I replied: "Public sentiment does not always indicate what is right even in Boston. On your beautiful Commonwealth Avenue yesterday afternoon I met an elegantly dressed lady, I suppose a wealthy one from her jewels and dress. She had a poodle dog in her arms, with a blue ribbon on its neck. Yet, the same woman wouldn't be caught carrying her six-weeks' old baby down the street for any consideration."

Such is public sentiment in fas.h.i.+onable society in our cities, and yet the highest type of the world's creation is a pure, sweet mother with a babe in her arms, and another holding her ap.r.o.n strings. I think it would be a blessing to home life if an avenging angel should go through this country, smiting every English pug and poodle dog bought to take the place of babies. In their places I would put bright-eyed, rosy cheeked children to greet fathers when they return home from their day's labor.

Battle for the right, remembering that far better is a fiery furnace with an angel for company, than wors.h.i.+ping a brazen image on the plains of Dura.

Some young man may now be saying in his mind, "For me to always stand for the right would be to meet difficulties at every step of the way."

Don't get alarmed over difficulties. Half of them are imaginary.

I made my first trip to California thirty-five years ago. One morning I stood on the eastern edge of the plains with a sleeping car berth at my service and a through ticket to San Francisco in my pocket, while the iron horse stood there all harnessed and ready for the journey.

Wasn't I in good condition for the trip? Yes, but I saw trouble before me. One can always see trouble who looks for it. I had never been across the plains and before the time for the train to start I walked to the front of the engine and looking along the track as it reached out across the prairie I saw trouble. What was it? Why, six miles ahead the track wasn't wide enough. Yes, I saw it. Then on six miles more the rails came together, with my destination nineteen hundred miles away. Soon the train moved and as we neared the difficulty, the track opened to welcome us. Not a pin was torn up nor a rail displaced. Again I looked ahead and a mountain was on the track, but before I had time to get off the mountain got off. Next came a precipice and the engine making directly for it, but we dodged that and I concluded our train had right of way, so I stuck to the Pullman car and went through all right.

Ever since G.o.d made the world principle has had right of way. Get you a through ticket, get on the train, battle for the right and you'll come out victorious in the end.

Napoleon said: "G.o.d is on the side of the strongest battalions." He entered Moscow with one hundred and twenty thousand men. Snow began to fall several weeks earlier than usual, the highways were blocked, frost fiends ruled the air, the great French army was broken into pieces and Napoleon had to fly for his life. G.o.d taught Napoleon as well as the commander of the great Spanish Armada, that victory is in the hands of Him who rules weather and waves.

The next trait I would mention is contentment. Many persons make themselves miserable by contrasting the little they have with the much that others have, when if they would compare their blessings with the miseries of others it would add to their contentment. Let me give you an old but a good motto: "Never anything so bad, but it might have been worse!"

It is told of a happy hearted old man that no matter what would happen he would say: "It might have been worse." A friend, who wanted to see if the old man would say the same under all circ.u.mstances, went into a grocery store where he was seated by a big fire and said:

"Uncle Jim, last night I dreamt I died and was sent to perdition."

Prompt the reply came: "Well, it might have been worse."

When some one asked, "How could it have been worse," he answered: "It might have been true."

Doctor A.A. Willetts, "the Apostle of Suns.h.i.+ne," used to say: "There are two things I never worry over; one is the thing I can help, the other is the thing I can't help." "Count your blessings," was a favorite expression of the same beloved old man.

There are more bright days than cloudy ones, a thousand song birds for every rain-crow, a whole acre of green gra.s.s for every grave, more persons outside the penitentiary than inside, more good men than bad, more good women than good men; slavery, dueling, lottery and polygamy are outlawed, the saloon is on the run, the wide world will soon be so sick of war that universal peace, with "good will among men," will prevail, labor and capital will be peaceful partners and human brotherhood will rule in righteousness throughout the world.

"O, this is not so bad a world, As some would like to make it, And whether it is good or bad, Depends on how we take it."

f.a.n.n.y Crosby, whose gospel hymns are continually singing souls into the kingdom, when but six weeks old lost her sight and for ninety-two years made her way in literal darkness, without seeing the beauties of nature about her, the blue sky with its sun, moon and stars above her, the faces of her loved ones, and yet at ninety-two she said: "I never worry, never think disagreeable things, never find fault with anything or anybody. If in all the world there is a happier being than myself, I would like to shake that one's hand." No wonder out of such contentment came such songs as, "Jesus is calling," "I am Thine, O Lord," "Safe in the arms of Jesus."

How different the cultured young woman, with all her senses preserved, who after pa.s.sing through a flower garden where perfect sight had feasted on the beauty of the scene said:

"To think of summers yet to come, That I am not to see; To think a weed is yet to bloom, From dust that I shall be."

Poor soul! Instead of enjoying the summer she had, she was coveting all the summers between her and eternity. Instead of thanking G.o.d for the immortality of the soul when done with the body, she was disappointed because she couldn't carry the old body along with her.

Don't let these things trouble you. Live one summer so you will be worthy to breathe the air of the next if you live to see it; take care of your body so it will make a decent weed if G.o.d chooses to make one out of your remains.

Enjoy what you have, don't covet what you have not, thank G.o.d for your home on earth, follow f.a.n.n.y Crosby's receipt for contentment and you will be happy enough to shake hands with her in the "Land of the Leal."

Before I close would you like to have me point you to greatness? In attempting to do so, I would not point you to Congress hall or Senate chamber. You can find greatness anywhere.

That was greatness when John Bartholamew held the throttle of an engine going over the Sierra mountains, with a train load of pa.s.sengers depending upon his skill and caution, and swinging round a curve he saw the wood-work of a tunnel before him on fire. To attempt to stop the train then, would be to halt in the flames. He threw on more steam and sent the train whizzing through the furnace of fire.

Pa.s.sing out on the other end he was badly burned, but still held the rein of his iron horse. A poem dedicated to this brave engineer closes with the verse:

"I 'spose I might have jumped the train, In thought of saving sinew and bone, And left them women and children To take the ride alone.

"But I thought on a day of recknin', And whatever old John done here, The Lord ain't going to say to him there, 'You went back as an engineer.'"

History of life on the ocean tells us of a s.h.i.+p doomed to go down with four hundred human beings on board. The pumps were not equal to the task of holding the water down to the safety line. The captain said: "We will draw lots for the life-boats, one hundred and twenty will go in them and the remainder must go down with the s.h.i.+p."

One after another drew his lot. A sailor, who had drawn the lot of death, walked to the railing and said to a comrade in a life-boat: "When you reach the sh.o.r.e, see my wife, tell her good-bye for me and help her in getting my back pay, for she will need it," and he stepped back and took his place with the doomed.

Finally the old mate thrust in his brawny hand and drew a lot for the life-boats. He stepped aside to watch those to follow in the drawing, when a very popular officer of the s.h.i.+p drew his lot. He was doomed to go down with the s.h.i.+p. Though a brave man, the thought of his loved ones at home overcame him, and dropping upon his knees he said: "O G.o.d, have mercy upon my wife and little children."

The old mate went up to him and taking his hand said: "We have been in many storms together and have been good friends for years. You have a wife and three sweet little children, while I have no one that will rejoice at my coming, nor will any one weep if I never return. It might have been my fate to go down instead of you, and it shall be.

You take my lot, and I'll take yours."

The offer was refused, but the mate forced his friend into a boat saying, "Good-bye, I'll die for you like a man."

The greatness of this world doesn't all belong to your Solons, Solomons, Was.h.i.+ngtons, Napoleons, Grants, Lees or Gladstones, but yonder in the humbler walks of life are heroes and heroines, who in the final reckoning day, will pale the l.u.s.tre of some whose names are engraved on marble monuments and whose praises are perpetuated in poetry and song.

If you ask me to point you to greatness I do not direct your minds to historic heights, but that you may win your share of greatness I close this address by saying, wherever your lot in life be cast,

"In the name of G.o.d advancing, Plow, sow and labor now; Let there be when evening cometh, Honest sweat upon thy brow.

Then will come the Master, When work stops at set of sun, Saying, as He pays the wages, 'Good and faithful one, well done.'"

II

A SEARCHLIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

But a little more than a century ago, the old world laughed at the new. Writers of the old world called our American eagle, "a paper bird, brooding over a barren waste;" yet in what they then called a barren waste, railroads now carry more of the products of the earth, than all the railroads of all the lands, of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

When New England people believed there would never be anything worth having west of the Connecticut River, what if some seer had prophesied that in nineteen hundred there would be a city on Manhattan Island named New York that would rival London, two southwest, Baltimore and Was.h.i.+ngton to equal Venice, Philadelphia to match Liverpool, Pittsburg and Buffalo to surpa.s.s Birmingham, and beyond these a city called Chicago, which in grit and growth would beat anything the old world ever dreamt of; while on still farther west, would be a State named Iowa, in which in nineteen hundred and fourteen, would be produced enough cattle to beef England, enough potatoes to feed Ireland and hogs to "beat the Jews."

What if he had continued; that in the libraries of the barren waste, there would be ten million more books, than in the combined libraries of Europe; that its college students would outnumber the college students of England, France and Germany combined; that its wealth would be great enough to purchase the empires of Russia and Turkey, the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, with South Africa and all her diamond mines thrown in, and then have enough left to buy a dozen archipelagoes at twenty millions each, and still have the wealth of the republic growing at the rate of five millions of dollars every twenty-four hours. What a land in which to live! Think of it; less than a century and a half ago, Liberty and England's runaway daughter, Columbia, took each other "for better or for worse, forever and for aye" and started down time's rugged stream of years.

George Was.h.i.+ngton, then Chief Magistrate, performed the ceremony, and what he joined together time has not put asunder. It was not a wedding in high life, such as shakes the foundation of fas.h.i.+onable society today, but rather more like the swearing away of a verdant country couple, in some Gretna Green, with no other capital than youth, health and trusting confidence. We have had some domestic discords; once a very serious family row, but I of the South, join you of the North, in thanks to G.o.d, the application for divorce was not granted, and we are still a united republic.

The memories which followed that civil strife were so bitter, doubtless many of you northern brethren believed the men who surrendered at Appomattox were not any too sincere, and if we should ever have war with any foreign country, the north, east and west would have to furnish the patriotism, for the South would never again march under the stars and stripes. But when the Spanish-American war broke out, the first boy to pour out his heart's blood for his country's flag, was Ensign Bagley, of North Carolina. The young man who penetrated the Island of Cuba, 'mid Spanish bayonets and bullets, and searched out Cevera and his fleet in the harbor was Victor Blue, the son of a Confederate soldier. The young man who sank the Merrimac, Captain Richmond Pearson Hobson, was the son of another Confederate.

Our Consul in Cuba, whose patriotism no one ever doubted, was General Fitzhugh Lee, and the old man who planted the flag in the tree-tops around Santiago, and led two negro regiments into the battle, was fighting Joe Wheeler of the Confederate army.

If I were to close here, what an optimistic picture would be left in the glow of the century's searchlight. But alas! we have unsolved problems of imperial moment, and my purpose is to throw the searchlight upon a few of these unsolved problems.