The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1886-09-21
A Good Mans Tenderness,

A Good Mans Tenderness.
Boys are sometimes tempted to
think that to be tenderhearted is to.
be weak and unmanly. Yet the ten
derest heart may be associated with
the strongest and most forcible mind
and will. Take, for example, the
story told of him to whom we. owe
our wonderful railway sAk.eln.,
George Stephenson went one day in. IN.
to an upper room-of his house and
closed the window. 1t had been left
open long time because ofthc great
heat, but now the weather was be-
coming cooler, and so Mr.. Stephen
SON thought it would be well to shut
it. He little knew at the time what
he was doing. Two or three days
afterward, however, he chanced to
observe bird flying against that
same window, and beating against
it with all its might, again and again
as if trying to break it. His sym
;pathy and curiosity were aroused.
What could the, little thing want?
He at once went to the room and
opened the window to see. The win
dow opened, the bird flew straight
to one particular spot in the room,
where Stephenson saw nest-that
little birds nest. The poor bird
looked at it, took the sad story in at
q glance, and fluttered down to the
floor, broken hearted almost dead.
Stephenson, drawing near to look,
was filled with unspeakable sorrow.
There sat the mother bird, and un-
der it four tiny little young ones
mother. and young all apparently
dead. Stephenson cried aloud. He
tenderly lifted the exhausted bird
from the floor, the worm it had so
long and bravely struggled to bring
to its home and young still in its
beak, and carefully tried to revive it;
but all his efforts proved in vain. 1t
speedily died, and the great man
mourned for many day. At that
time the force of George Stephen
sons mind was changing the face of
the earth, yet he wept at the sight
of this dead family, and was deeply
grieved because he himself had un-
consciously been the cause of death.
Soon after the great earth
quake in New England in 1927, the
Rev. Josiah Smith, who was then
pastor of the Dissenting church at
Cainhoy, a village near Charleston,
sc, preached a sermon in Charles
ton, with the earthquake as his text,
some sentences of which, when read
in connection with the recent occur
rences in the South, have an odd
sound. 'The God," he said, "who
shook New England can with equal
ease make Carolina tremble." Other
sentences of this discourse, which
was printed in Boston in l730, were
as follows:
We are, perhaps, greater sinners
than they. Though justice has
smote them, and spared us, our
Grimes might be more Crimson than
theirs and our State more danger
GUS. 1t may be, God reserves us
for seyerer Rebukes of Providence.
There is, doubtless, Provision enough
in Nature for an Earthquake in Car
olina. We know not what vast Sub
terraneous Cayerns. We stand over
and what store of nitrous Sulphu-
rious Particles are lodged below us;
to fulfill their Sovereign's viii upon
his. Word or Touch. The Earth
quake which shook New England
had /, almost reached Carolina, or
rather, been felt in the more distant
parts and skirts OF Province; and
very probably, by comparing Times,
Charlestown heard its Roar; what
-sparing Mercy that we only heard
| it.
For more than 150 years after
these words were spoken Charleston
was spared, and then came the aw-
ful roar foretelling such calamity
as not even the imagination of this
colonial preacher had pictured as
among the possibilities. .-Pittsburg
Post