Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-07-11

But here comes In q defective maxim, 90
often quoted: "Where there Is 30 much
smoke there must be some fire. Look at all
the smoke for years around Jenner, the intro
ducer of vaccination; and the smoke around
Columbus, the discoverer; and the smoke
around Martin Luther, and Savonarola and
Calico, and Paul. and John and Christ, and tell
me where was the fire. That is one of the
Satanic arts TO make smoke without fire
Slander, like the world, may be made out of
nothing. II the Christian, fair minded, COM
mon sensical spirit IN regard to others pre-
dominated In the world, we should have the
millennium in about six weeks for would not
that be lamb and lion, COW and leopard lying
down togetherf Nothing but the grace Of
God cen ever put us into such a habit o:
mind and heart as that. The whole tendency
is in the opposite direction. This Is the way
the world talks: 'Iput my name on the back
Of a mans note, and had to pay il, and / will
never again put my name on the back Of any
mans note. / gave beggar ten cents, and
five minutes after saw him entering liquor
store to spend it. l will never again give a
cent to a beggar. helped that young man
start in business and 10, after q while, he
came and opened a store almost next door to
me, and stole my customers. will never
again help young man start in business.
trusted in what my neighbor promised to do,
and he broke his word, and the Psalmist was
right before he corrected himself, for all
men are liars.'" So men become suspicious
and saturnine and selfish, and at every addi-
tional wrong done them they put another
layer on the wall of their exclusiveness, and
another bolt to the door that shuts them out
from sympathy with the world. They get
cheated out Of a thousand dollars, or misin-
terpreted, or disappointed, or betrayed, and
higher goes the wall, and faster goes another
bolt, not realizing that while they lock others
out, they lock themselves in; and some day
they wake up to find themselves imprisoned
in a dastardly habit. No friends to Others,
others are no friends to them. There's an
island half way between England, Scotland
and Ireland, called the Isle of Man, and the
seas dash against all sides of it, and am told
that there is no more lovely place than that
Isle of Man; but when a man becomes insular
in his disposition, and cuts himself off from
the main land Of the worlds sympathies he
is despicable, and all around him Is an Attain
tic Ocean Of selfshnesS. Behold that Isle of
Mani
Now, supposing that you have, by divine
regeneration, got right toward God and hui
manity. and you start out to practice my
text: "a man that hath friends must show
himself friendly" Fulfill this by all forms Of
appropriate salutation,. Have you noticed
that the head is so poised that the easiest thing
on earth is to give nod of recognition? To
swing the head from side to side, as when IL
is wagged in derision, is unnatural and un-
pleasant; to throw it back, invites vertigo;
but to drop the chin in greeting is accom-
panied with SO little exertion that all day
long and every day you might practice it with
out the least semblance Of fatigue. So also
the structure Of the hand indicates hand-shak-
ing; the knuckles not made so that the fingers
can turn out, but SO made that the fingers
can turn in, as in clasping hands; and the
thumb divided from and set aloof from the
fingers, so that while the fingers take your
neighbours hand on one side the thumb takes
1t on the other, and pressed together, all the
faculties Of the hand give emphasis to the
salutation. Five sermons in every healthy
hand urge us to hand-shaking.
Besides this, every day when you start out.
load yourself up with kind thoughts, kind
words, kind expressions and kind greetings.
When man or woman does well, tell him so,
tell her so. II you meet some one who is i'm
proved in health, and it is demonstrated in
girth and color, say: "How well you lookr'
But if, on the other hand, under the wear and
tear OF life he appears pale and exhausted
do not introduce sanitary subjects or say
anything at all about physical conditions
In the case Of improved health, you have by
your words given another impulse toward
the robust and the jocund; while in the
Ss1oe " ono iaLhnS HeaIuu you nuVe aTresb1u
the decline by your silence, by which he con-
cludes. 'EIf were Seally so badly off. he
would have said something about it." We are
al, especially those Of q nervous tempera-
ment, susceptible to kind words and discour-
aging words. Form conspiracy against u.s.
and let ten men meet us at certain points on
our way over to business, and let each one
say: "How sick you look" though
we should start out well, after meeting
the first and hearing his depressing salute,
we would begin to examine your symptoms.
After meeting the second gloomy accosting
we. would conclude we did not feel quite as
well as usual After meeting the third, our
sensations would be dreadful, and after meet.
ing the fourth. unless we expected conspir-
acy, we would go home and go to bed and
the other six pessimists would be useless sur,
plus OF encouragement. My dear sill, my dear
madam, what do you mean by going about
this world with disheartenmentsP Is not the
supply of gloom and trouble and misfortune
enough to meet the demand without your
running factory of pins and spikes? Why
should you plant black and blue in the world
when God SO seldom plants them? PLENTY
Of scarlet colors, plenty of yellow, plenty Of
green, plenty of pink, but very seldom a
plant black or blue. never saw black.
flower, and there's only here and there blue
bell or violet; but the blue is for the most
part reserved for the sky, and we have to
look up to see that, and when we look up no
color can do us harm. Why not plant along
the paths of others the brightnesses instead Of
the glooms? Do not prophesy misfortune. If.
you must be prophet at all be an Ezekiel
and not Jeremiah. In ancient times proph-
cts who foretold evil were doing right, for
they were divinely directed; but the proph-.
cts OF evil in our time are generally
false prophets. Some of our weather wise
people are prophesying we shall have sum-
mer OF unparalleled scorch. 1t will not be
that at all. think we are going to have q
summer of great harvest and universal
health; at any rate know as much about it
as they do. Last fall all the weather proph-
cts agreed in saying we should have a win
ter OF extraordinary severity, blizzard on the
heels of blizzard. 1t was the mildest winter
| ever remember to have passed. Indeed,
the autumn and the spring almost showed
winter out OF the procession Real troubles
have no heralds running ahead of their SOM
Der chariots, and no one has any authority
In our time to announce their coming. Load
yourself up with helpful words and deeds.
The hymn once sung in our churches is unfit
TO be sung, for it says:
wo should suspect some danger near
Where we possess delight.
In other words, manage to keep miserable
III oAo tlile: 1ue olu song sung at tne pianos
quarter of a century ago was right: "Kind
Words Can Never Die" Such kind words
have their nests in kind hearts, and when
hey are hatched out and take wing they cir
lie round in flights that never cease, and
portsman's gun cannot shoot them, and
Itorms cannot ruffie their wings, and when
hey cease fight in these lower skies of earth
hey sweep around amid the higher attitudes
,f heaven.
Oh, what glorious state of things to have
lhe friendship Of Godl Why, we could afford
20 have all the world against us and all other