Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-10-08
A REFLECTION,


Sometimes men seem lifted into for
tune by strange coming together of
| happy events just suited to their needs;
at other times thwarted on all sides by
unsuitable and inharmonious facts
which seem to congregate perversely.
Often the failures and tolls of others
| sown in the earths grow up and bloom
into happy conditions for the fortunes
| of others. ''Other men have labored,
/ and we have entered into their labors"
| Pioneers and forerunners seem to fail,
! as fallen trees do, thrown down and
| buried under water and silt; whereas
! they are but stored up in minds from
which afterward they give light and
warmth to those who come after them.
| The solemn reflection in this matter is
| that so much of our environment de-
ponds on other human actions, and is
included in education. One
child is born into the midst
of vice, and another into
home of virtue One comes into
stormy. or sordid. or lifeless house;
| another into a bright. cheerful ami
| mated abode. enlivened with company.
counseled with conversation, instructed
charmed with music. To such a home
friends come. and not only in abund-
ance, but of kind like to the home.
Who can measure the difference they
make. or how. as a part of the condi-
tons which work so nightly with the
organ SIN, they effect to build up and to
strengthen? or evil comrades, how they
weaken or destroy? Let it be taken as
plain. therefore, that although on the
one side it be grand. with Glanvil, to
say that man Yields not to the angels,
nor unto death utterly, save through
the weakness of his feeble will" yet on
the other side. the will has not its play
all alone. but is force working and
wrestling with other forces. as the OPP
Grafton of a living organism which can
cultivate it's life only in the atmosphere
and climate which belong to it. There
fore circumstance has much to do with
character, and they who reverence
character will look to the circum-
stances.
This leads to a thought which takes
firm hold of the soul, for it is manifest
from the progress of the race that all
the conditions together make an envir-
onment favorable to virtue; for else,
how could mankind improve? Here.
then, we come upon the thought OF the
domain of holy power, the thought
of God, whose life and rule are the
environment in which goodness has it's
help.
Some practical thoughts throng. 1t
is not too much to say that host of
people in the world escape doing ill by
simply doing nothing. Idleness for
them is safety. And mere timidity may
seem like virtue, because only it has
not the boldness to be bad. As to
charity and judgment let us not feel
too sure that our own goodness is vr-
tue; for who can say how much it may
be happy circumstance We know
not, indeed, how higher powers NAV
see and Judge us, as we Judge in the
education of brute creatures; nor how
small our virtues may appear against
the less and yet greater goodness of the
more exposed. while we have been shell
tered so safely. We should be careful
to ponder what our environment is. as
related to our own special traits. If we
are conscious OF some tendency, as we
may be If we examine ourselves,
and then, if our conditions further
tend to excite the same and in
crease it, We must the more repress. or
at least, govern it. For if it be bad,
we must fear its power; and if it be
good, its excess may lie ungainly. But
If on the other side. we are conscious
of inactivity in some useful faculty,
and the things about us tend to repress
it still more. then we should the moro
sedulously cultivate it and work at it
that we may bring forth its usefulness
in spite of the i'll cond tons; for this is
the dignified province of the mind and
of the will-of the mind. to Judge of
the influence of our conditions; of the
will, to apply the advantage, or to
counterfeit the disadvantage. Thus
may we keep watch over appetites.
over boon companions. over wanton
acts of fiery Imagination, ovor mental
worth surrounded with trifling COM
pany over avarice and seliishness
breathing the atmosphere of accumula-
ton where wealth usurps the honors
that belong only to character. In fine.
as gardener mixes soils for his plants.
the proper soil for each plant, so to be
able of set purpose to combine in our
surroundings the elements needful to
our constitution-this is wisdom. good
ness and power; for it requires refiec-
ton. resolution and a single eye.-St.
Louis Globe-Dem0crat.