The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1871-04-06

suppose was never allowed 70 come n
q temDtatiOn under that old Whit
coat Of his. I remember that JOhT
Bryant, Of Princeton, Illinois, told
: me that when his brother, William
2. Cullen Bryant, adopted Spartan hab'
its-Omitting, Of course, stealing, be
> would take a piece of bread aud cheese
with water for his breakfast. do some,
: thing that had work in it before hC
came down 10 his newspaper Office
!. work at his Office all day, and then 90
back at night to the same sort Of sup
= per. ] have no doubt that William
Cullen Bryant owes his long life tC
! being cOntented with his pOrridge
! Said Lincoln to a friend who
5 came to the White House: Il
should be glad if you would stay
: and dine with me, but / have no idea
what we are going to have for dinner,
because when Mrs. Lincoln is away
I lust browse around" And this was
the reason for his being the man he
was. And so, turn where you will,
you encounter this truth, that to make
much or sure of yourself, you must
make sure that you are clear grit (;
first of all, in being able to say no to
these good servants but bad masters,
your passions and appetites, and it
is not hard tO see here again the line
between the false and the true.
When an Irish gardener was shot
by an Irishman from another country,
he refused surgical assistance on the
ground that he wanted to die in order
that the other man might be hung
He had his wish; he not only died, but
his assassin was strung up. This was
clear grit, but not the kind that we
would care TO initiate. 1t is related
that in an old French town where they
depended upon wells for their supply
of water, a father had child very
sick of fever during a season of severe
drouth. The agony he suffered in see
ing his child suffer was terrible. Sub
sequently he became very rich, but
when he died many years afterward
it was found that he had left his en-
tire fortune as a fund from which to
supply the town with an abundance
of pure water. This is the enthusiasm
of the heart for some great purpose
He was miser and a martyr together
and so, when the poor soul went out
of him, his very deformity was his
glory. Still there is a higher quality
of grit even than this of the miser.
England wept over Peabody, and Vic
toria hOnOred him with tokens of her
regard, but yet there was q greater
than he, who was not so widely mourn
ed, and whom the Queen did not in
| vite to her palace. Prof. Tyndall has
said that when young man, Faraday,
who could have made fortune, and
was then in the receipt of a large in
come, gave up all to devote his life to
scientific investigations through
chemical experiments. He thus died
poor, when he might have left a mill
/ lion. I would not disparage the
/ benefactions of Peabody, but Faraday
gave up what he might have made
one beQueathed his money, the other !
sacrificed his love. 1t was not be- |
cause he was Indifferent to wealth, /
but because he was possessed Ofenthu- I
siasm for science. In one ofthe terri 4
BILE cOlliery accidents in Yorkshire, |
where I formerly resided, an incident |
Illustrative OF clear grit occurred. The /
inundation of bilgewater in a mine |
drove the wOrkmen back into the pit. I
They were mostly Methodists and 1
had the Christians faith. There was
one exception, however, dOg-fancier
and man of wild irregular life
There were also small boys in the .
party, and after they had been confin-
ed some twelve bours. the boys began
to cry out from hunger and cold. 1t
so happened that the dOg-fancieT had
in his lunch can a little food, the only
thing edible in the cavern, and which /
ifeaten would remove one of the few re
manning chances of escape from star
vatiOn. Still this rough man, accus-
toned to find pleasure in the batting
of dogs, could not harden his heart !
against the cries of those children,
and he not only divided his portion
between them, but wrapped the small
Ter one in the rough coat next his
heart. He could neither sing nor pray
like the Others but he could not put
aside the appeal of helplessness. The
party were afterward saved by mir
acle; and when revisit Yorkshire, as
l hope to do, 1 mean to find out tuis
honest dOg-fancier, who l have no
doubt, is just as rough, and is ''gOing
to the dogsn just as fast as ever: and
grasp his hand for this exhibition of
clear grit.
Thus, too, in the SepOy rebellion in
India, the rebels where given their
choice of ofrenOuncing their religion or
being put to the most painful and ig-
nominious of deaths, and it is believed
in England that not one of them re-
nOunced his faith, Sc, too, have Eng
lish soldiers, though rough and wick
ed, refused, under similar circumstan-
ces to make a like remuneration, but
died with their cross rather than the
crescent before their eyes. Itwas clear
grit that made Quaker Allen, in l776,
say he would use no more sugar in his
tea until the Slave trade was abolish
ed; and on the afternoon of that day
when the event occurred, he said to
his wife, "Mrs. Allen, please put a
lump of sugar in my tea" The prize
of the French Academy was once Civ
en- to an old negro woman in Mar
seilles for perpetrating the noblest
deed of the year. Her master had be-
come Impoverished, and she had for
Rany years supported him without
his knowledge or that of any one else,
by her scanty earnings, eked out from
day to day. The fact was discovered
after the masters death by accident.
All at once it impressed the French
people that this work of self-denial
and humanity by the humble negro
woman was indeed the noblest hero
ism, and deserved the prize.
Clear grit in this three-fOld form of
austerity, unselfishness and enthusi-
asm is what we need. We also need
clear grit to meet the emergencies we
are constantly deplering in our public
life. The trouble lies in the fact that
we do not feel that enthusiasm for
our country now that we did during
the war, but our civil life demands it
as much as the trials of that period
We need, in fact, as much clear grit
in fighting rOgues as in fighting reb-
els. We must fall back on the penal
code of Switzerland in olden-times,
when breaches of trust and bribery
were most severely punished. When
your ministers preach at that sort of
thing, and you know certain man
to be guilty, you must stop him on {
the street and speak to him. A long
time ago a minister who had two dea-
cons in his congregation given to sim
full ways preached a very practical ser
mon, but without thinking of them
During the delivery of his discourse
he took occasion to say, "Liar, stand
on your feet, and to his amazement,
one of the deacOns stood up and re-
manned standing until the eXhOrta-
tiOn was concluded. 1t so happened
that the next paragraph commenced
with these words: "Let these addic-
ted to double dealings stand forth. -
The deacon who had already arisen
looked over to the other deacon and
whispered, "You had better get up, 1
did,
Hardness, usefulness, enthusiasm
we must have, or the glorious days of
our Republic are numbered. A Tevo-
lutionary traveller from New England, Z
jOurneying through i'll the interior of
Pennsylvania, noticed the Dutch YO-
men engaged in menial labors in the
fields, and although we should be
as thankful,a he was, that our women
are not compelled to perform such
tasks, we must have some mental
equivalent for this physical hardness,
to make the daughters of the land
what their mothers once were.
A cotemporary takes the Free Trade
League to task for demonstrating
against the repeal of the duty on tea
and coffee, and finds an ''incOnsist-
encyv in this. This, it seems to Us, is
perfectly consistent. The Free Trad