Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-07-22
Take the sunnv Side.

Take the sunny side of home. The
home Is the sunniest side OF every great
people. Without devotion to home
there can be no devotion to country.
The home is the cradle OF patriotism; it
is the fountain of happiness not only to
individuals, but to nations as well, and
it is the one spot of earth that should be
guarded from needless shadows. Enough
must come to each, even when most
faithfully guarded by all the multiplied
Office of love; but few there are who
make their homes what they could or
should be.
Take the sunny side Of faith. The
donbting. distrusting. unbelieving are
among the most unfortunate and pitiable
OF all classes of people. Have faith in
yourself, In your fellows, in your home,
in your religion, in everything that has
capabilities for good. Deceit is a preva-
lent vice, and it will often grieve you,
but it is vastly better to mourn over dis
appointment than 10 allow general dis
trust to make you generally miserable
with yourself and all about you We
thoughtlessly call ours an age of uu-
belief, but it is not more so than the
ages of the past Some lament that
the infdel and the scoffer are bolder,
and have greater following than in what
we cali the better days of our fathers,
but it is not so. Paine, Franklin and
Jefferson were men of like religious
views. They were honored as patriots.
and two of them made their names i'm
mortal among the founders of free gov
ernment and one of them doomed his
name and memory to execration for max
ing his boasted unbelief a fountain of
blasphemy. There is to day. less open un-
belief than there was a century ago, and
what we have is brought into promi-
nence by the freedom of disputation and
the universal publicity which obtain in
our times.
Take the sunny side Of religion. The
time was when to publicly accept the
religion of our civilization was to accept
public reprOach and often to invite mar
tyrdom. There was then no sunny side
TO religion. save the hope of the better
life beyond; but in this enlightened age,
our religion is the common law of our
State, and follows the flag of our nation
to the remOtest region of the world. 1t
is so highly respected that men defile it
by hypocrisy to dignity their positions
in society. There is everything, there
fore, to make religion the sunshine of
life, but how many there are who cloud
religion with repulsive deformities.
There are some who mistake dys-
pepsia for religion, and how hor.
the delusion that they are, in
some way or other, doing Gods service.
They see sin in every smile, in every en-
joyment, in every ray of sunshine that
peeps into the home or the social or bust
ness circle. The sunny, dimple faced
child is taught by them TO look upon re-
ligion as one of the mournful things of
earth, and to wonder why a merciful
God made the worship of Himself such
a ghastly word. IT such people could
worry their way into heaven and take
thtir religion with them. they would
silence the song of the redeemed and the
pearly gates would have to be guarded
with flaming swords to keep the children
of the angelic throng from playing
tIuant.
Take the sunny side of death. Sooner
or later it must come to all, and at the
latest it is only few swiftly passing
days distant. Kings and potentates
have no refuge from the summons of
the dreadful messenger Death is the
great leveller of man, and dust to dust
the heritage of all. Why, then, should
we shrink from its contemplation? Why
Danish it from our thoughts with shud-
derH 1t is not rational to permit death
to shadow our lives; nor is it rational to
turn in terror from what must as surely
come as to mOrrow's SUM-. Those who
are suddenly chilled day after day by the
thought of death either shadow their
lives by misdeeds, or reject the philoso-
ply that should make every well ordered
life wait serenely for its end. The ra-
tional apprehension of the upright man
is, not that he may fall too soon in the
race. but that he may linger too long and
outlive everything but hope Colonel 4.
K. NcClureS address at Lehlgh Uni9er-
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