Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1877-02-14

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silently apply with sure feeling of
trust; Of being fully heard and fully
answered? Five? Four? Three?
No. Two? Probably no. One?
Even one is doubtful. And yet, mas
much as every soul is born into the
world with the impress of the divine
image, so no soul need have a heart
without sympathy and all those beau
ties of virtue which therefrom bios
som into life.
Success itself is one Of the greatest
destroyers Of self-sacrifice, unless the
mind be noble and the heart large; just
as wealth often closes its doors to the
need of the world, because the thought
less soul has come to be unable to
realize, in its fullness the need that
exists. 81 am rich. and lack naught !;
the distress and misery we hear of
must be an idle tale; ar overdrawn
picture. Thus men cheat themselves.
But, we rich. believe it not. There is
misery and Indebtedness enough and
TO spare, in spite of the purple and fine
linen that screen you from it; much
that is in your power to lessen. But
shillings must not be given for pounds,
or pounds where you should give tens
or hundreds. Take, for example. the
collections in our London churches, on
behalf Of some good and pressing OBJ
iects, as an instance of what is and
what might be done. But the amount
of charity in the world is quite apart
from the question of self-sacriiice.
| People give out of their abundance,
| and much Of 1t is terribly misapplied.
| There is no system in distributing.
Take the great world Of commerce.
How many OF It's members Will 'exer-
else, in even small degree, the spirit
Of self-sacrifice? - am able to do
this thing for A. He will be thou
sand pounds the richer; shall be mi
nus the five hundred pounds it would
put into my pocket, if | did it for my
self. a wants the thousand; the five
hundred to Inc is nothing. But it
does not enter into the principle of
business, and cannot do it. No, l
cannot. If did do it, and the world
knew, it would mock me-" So A does
not get his thousand pounds, and b
pockets his five hundred. A is ruined,
perhaps; possibly drags down with
him wife and children and he never
RECEIVERS his footing. Sorry for him, "
says b, sitting qualms of conscience.
But | couldn't help it, clearly.
Business is business.
And undoubtedly every man should
do the very best he possibly can for
himself in business, but only in fair
ness to his duty toward his. neighbor
| would repeat this and engrave it
with pen Of iron if | could: as job
did those beautiful and awful words
which tell us that though worms de-
stroy our body-for which we toll SO
much and sacrifice so much-yet in
our flesh shall we see God You will
sometimes hear conversation after
this manner: "Why did you not do
SO and so? II would have been better
for you" Yes; but would it have
been better for the opposite side p
"No; but you had the power in your
own hands. To you would have been
the advantages''
The reader had need to steel his heart
against sophistry so worldly, argument
50 ungenerous. 1t may cost little
self-sacriice. but if the heart becomes
warped, the mind narrowed and dis
ennobled, the conscience scared, the
body had better, ere that take place,
be resting quietly in its last home.
We all do fade as a Leaf so much
for the body and the body only; but
the good that men do lives after
them, and the evil is never undone.
Pause and turn back ere launching out
upon that wide road whose return is
so hard. which lays hold upon the soul
with an iron grasp, To be loosened only
10y constant and painful struggles, end
ing, let us hope. in victory; but a vic
tory gained, it may be, only through
death itself.
Not to the persistently selfish will
the grave be without its victory, death
without its terrors and its sting. AS
self-sacriiice is more or less in the
reach of all. so all must seek to acquire
it. Look to the heart: make it green
and keep it so; remember that your
opportunities and your life will not
last forever. you cannot live your
life twice over; it will not return and
enable you to redeem the days that
have been misspent. Now or never
must be said of the opportunities of
to-day; for after to-day its opportuni-
ties, taken or neglected, have passed
into the womb of time and the records
of eternity.
And then, TO go to the reverse side
of the picture. self-sacriice brings It's
own reward. Ii gives happiness far
greater than any wealth or power can
bestow. In the latter case, every
man IN the zenith of success may lay
his head upon his pillow at night, and
confess that it is not without much
vanity and VeNation of spirit ri the