The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1890-04-16


puts a fve-cent piece in his hand, tell
ing him not to cry, so that the boy is
singing before he gets round the corner;
waiting on every body that has letter
to carry or message to deliver; comes
into rail-train, or stage-coach, or depot,
or shop, with smiling face that sets
every body to thinking, IF that man can
with what appears small equipment in
life, be happy, why can not |, possess
ing far more than he has, be equally
happy" One day of that kind of doing
things may not amount to much, but
forty years of that-no one but God
Himself can appreciate its immensely.
There are tens of thousands of such
people. Their circle OF acquaintance is
small. The man is known over at the
store. He is clerk or weigher or dray-
man, and he is known among those who
sit near him clear back in the church
under the galleries, and at the ferry
gates where he comes in knocking the
snow from his shoes and threshing his
arms around his body to revive circula-
ton on some January morning. But If
he should die tomorrow there would not
be one hundred people who would know
about it. He will never have his name
in the newspapers but once, and that
will be the announcement Of his death,
II some one will pay for the insertion,
so much line for the two lines. But
he will come up gloriously on the other
side, and the God who has watched him
all through will give him higher seat
and better mansion and grander
eternity than many man who had on
earth, before his name, the word honor
able, and after his name LII. d. and +.
R. s. Christ said in Luke, the sixth
chapter, that in Heaven some who had
it hard here would laugh there. And
! think q laugh OF delight and
,congrstulation will run around the
heavenly circles when this humble one
of whom spoke shall go up and take
the precedence of many Christians who
in this world felt themselves to be Of 90
per cent. more Importance. The whisper
will 60 round the galleries Of the upper
temple: Can 1T be possible that that
was the weigher in our store% "Can it
be possible that that was the car,
driver on our street?' Can it be pos
sible that was is the sexton Of
our church," Can it be possible that
this is the man that heaved coal into
our CELLAR" II never could have thought
1t. What reversal Of things! We were
clear ahead of him on earth, but he Is
clear ahead of us in Heaven. Why, we
had ten times more brains than he had,
we had . thousand times more money
than be had, we had social position Q
mile higher than he had, we had innum.
cradle opportunities more than he had,
but it seems how that he accomplished
more with his one talent than we did
with our ten;" while Solomon, standing
among the thrones, overhears the whis-
per, and sees the wonderment, and will,
with the benignant and all-suggestive
smile, say, Eyes, it is as told the world
many centuries aQea-better is small
faculty actiSsiy usdd than great ~
unemployed, better is living dog than
dead lion"
The simple fact is that the world has
been, and the world is now, full Of dead
lions. They are people of great capacity
and large opportunity, doing nothing for
the improvement Of society, nothing for
the overthrow of evil, nothing for the
salvation OF souls. Some of them are
monetary lions. They have accumulated
so many hundreds Of thousands Of dol
lars that you can feel their tread when
they walk through any street or come
into any circle. They can by one finan-
cial move upset the money market, In
stead Of the 10 per cent. of their income
which the Bible lays down as the proper
proportion of their contribution to the
cause of God, they do not give 5 per
cont. or 3 per cent, or per cent, or
per cent, or half per cent, or quarter
per cent. That they are lions, no one
doubts. When they roar Wall street,
State street, Lombard street and the
Bourse tremble. In few years they
will lie down and die. They will have
great funeral and long row Of car
riages, and mightiest requiems will roll
from the organ, and polished shaft OF
Aberdeen granite will indicate where
the dust lies, but for all use to the world
that man might as we'll have never
lived. AS an experiment as to how
much he can carry with him, put ten
cent piece in the palm of his dead hand,
and five years after open the tomb and
you will find that he has dropped even
the ten-cent piece. A lion! Yes, hut q
dead lion! He left all his treasures on
earth, and has no treasures in Heaven
What shall the stone-cutter put on the
obelisk over him? / suggest let it be
the mans name, then the date of his
birth, then the date of his death, ther
the appropriate Scripture passage: "Bet
ter is living dog than dead lion."
But thank God that We
are having just now an out
burst of splendid beneficence tina
is to increase until the earth is girdled
with it. 1t is spreading with the speed
Of an epidemic, but with just the op
posite effect of an epidemic. Do you moi
notice how wealthy men are opening
free libraries and building churches IN
their native village. Have you no
seen how men of large means, instead O
leaving. great philanthropies in thei
wills for disappointed heirs to quarre
about and the Orphan Courts to swamp
are becoming their own executors ant
administrators? After putting aside
enough for their families (for "he tina
provideth not for his own, and especial
| ly those of his own household. is wors,