Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1872-03-15
For the Benefit of Useless People.

THE blind preacher, Milburn, in advis-
ing young man who had also lost his
sight, charged him, above everything else,
never to pity himself The advice was
very excellent, not only for the blind
young man, but for all of us who have
any burdens to bear; as who has not that
lives in a world with an atmosphere, and
| consequently with storms, miasms, dis
ease, accident and death?
1t seems part of human nature to
cOmmiserate suffering and to pity the
sufferer, especially when the pitier and the
sufferer chance to be one. And so when
we feel ourselves afflicted we grow NOR
bidly tender of ourselves, and give way
to querulousness, or become mOrose and
discontented, or we get headaches and
commit suicide, according to our temper
aments. We pity, and therefore humor
ourselves. We indulge all our little ca
prices and nervousness, and cultivate
in ourselves a degree of petulance and
general disagreeabeness which we would
tolerate in nobody but dear invalid.
Another effect of self-pity, and a still
more common one, is the abandonment of
all effort under the idea that invalids or
people otherwise afflicted are of no use
in the world. And this is all the more
unfortunate in that the conviction makes
the fact, and the person who sets himself
down as of no use in the world is very
apt to be so in very truth.
Now, we have great sympathy for peo
pie in any way stricken in body, and for
this very reason we write these words for
their benefit. We have letters almost
every day from people of the sort, and
the burden of all is the same: II am of
no use in the world" We sincerely and
earnestly sympathiZe with the sorrow of
such people. We are sorry they are af-
| tlicted, but we are still more panied to
/ know that they pity themselves, because
that very self-pity is by all odds the worst
| of their ills. And so we write these
words by way of encouragement, and not
/ of censure, in the hope that some one of
| such may learn to believe himself even
/ yet of use in the world. We know well
/ enough that anybody can bear the tooth
ache but him that has it" and we do not
argue that invalids eXaggerate their suf-
] ferings. We only say they may, if they
will, make themselves of use to them
selves or to somebody else, in spite of
their helplessness of body.
In their patience and gentleness many
severe sufferers teach lessons they could
everhave impaired but for their ailments.
Their helplessness serves to soften those
about them, and to cultivate in them a
habit Of selfsacrifice and helpful dispo'
sition they would never otherwise have
developed In a thousand ways these
people influence their friends for good
and who shall weigh the value of such q
life-work until He that cOunteth the hairs
of our heads and lool4eth even after the
sparrows shall make up the account? But
even in other and more direct ways, peo
pie stricken in their bodies may often
make themselves wonderfully useful in
their day, if they only resolutely set out
to accomplish what they may, without la
menting what they might, have done. We
never see the blind man begging on the
street corner, with face which
prolonged self-pity has wrought into
an animated book Of lamentations, with
out contrasting him with the blind profes
sOr we once knew, who, spite of poverty
aud sightlessness had worked his way tC
chair in a college, where he lectureC
upon mental and moral philosophy to thC
upbuilding of hundreds of young men
who, were never conscious of the work
4 er's blindness, except as he would slip hi
arm into theirs for a stroll through thu
streets. We never see the onearmeC
soldier grinding an organ and beggins
pennies in the streets that we do not re
member the one we saw following pillow
in Illinois, who had managed to buy anC
pay for a farm by his own eXeytions, anC
was bringing mp a houseful of sturdy boy
and girls TO be so many brave earnes
workers in the world We pity the organ
grinder; not so muCh because he has los
his arm, as because he consents TO be
beggaE We love and honor the one
armed farmer, not because he has lost hi
arm, but because, having lost it, he ha
manhood enough to make the most of tn
one hand left him.-HGiytA dEdlIlOme.
An exchange recently advertise,
'black stockings of all colors."