The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1890-04-10

LitTb, tHCOuEdRtS a hhhhf
gives Scripture passage in consola-
tion to some bereft woman, picks up a
child fallen in the street and helps him
brush off the dust and puts five-cent
piece in his hand, telling 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 a mes
sage to deliver; comes into a rail-train,
or stage-coach, or depot, or shop, with
smiling face that sets every body to
thinking; "Ii that man can, with what
appears small equipment in life, be
happy, why can not /, possessing 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 it's immensity.
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 knocking the
snow from his shoes and threshing his
arms around his body to revive circula-
ton, on some January morning. But II
he should die tomorrow there would
not be a 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, if some one will pay for the in
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 a better mansion and grand
er eternity than many man who had
on earth, before his name, the word
Honorable, and after his name LID.
and +. r. s. Christ said in Luke, the
sixth chapter, that in Heaven some one
who had it hard here would laugh there.
And / think laugh of delight and con-
graduation will run around the heaven
ly circles when this humble one of
whom l spoke shall go up and take the
precedence of many Christians who in
this world felt themselves to be of
ninety per cent more Importance. The
whisper will go round the galleries
of the upper temple: ''Can it be pos
sible that that was the weigher in our
store?'' 'Can it be possible that
that was the car-driver on our street?"
''Can it be possible that was the sexton
of our church," Can it be possible that
is the man that heaved coal into our
cellar?" Il never could have thought
it. What a 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 he had, we had a So
cial position mile higher than he had,
we had innumerable opportunities more
than he had, but it seems now that he
accomplished more with his one talent
than we did with our ten;" while Solo
mon, standing among the thrones, over
hears the whisper, and sees the wonder
ment and will, with benignant and all
suggestive smile, say: "Yes, it is as L
told the world many centuries ago-bet-
ter is small faculty actively used than
great talent unempl Dyed" 'better IS
a living dog than dead lion"
But thank God that we are having
just now an outburst of splendid benefi-
cence that is to increase until the earth
is girdled with it. 1t is spreading with
the speed of an epidemic, but with just
the opposite effect of an epidemic. Do
you not notice how wealthy men are
opening free libraries, and building
churches in their native village? Have
you not seen how men of large means,
instead of leaving great philanthropies
in their wills for disappointed heirs to
quarrel about, and the orphan courts to
swamp, are becoming their own exec
utors and administrators? After put
ting aside enough for their families
(for she that provideth not for his own,
and especially those of his own house,
hold, is worse than an infidel"), they
are saying: "What can do, not after
l am dead, but while living, and in full
possession of my faculties, to properly
direct the building of the churches, or
the hospitals, or the colleges, or the
libraries that 1 design for the public
welfare, and while yet 1 have full capac-
ity to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing
the good accomplished? There are bad
and good fashions, and whether
good or bad, fashions are mighty.
The simple fact is that the world has
been, and the world is now, full of dead
lions. They are people of great capaci-
ty and large opportunity, doing nothing
for the improvement of society, nothing
for the salvation of souls. Some of
them are monetary lions. They have
SO many hundreds of thou
sands of dollars that you can feel their
tread when they walk through any
street or come into any circle.
They can by one financial move up
set the money market. Instead of the
ten per cent of their income which the
Bible lays down as the proper proper
tion of their contribution to the cause
of God, they do not give five per cent,
or three per cent, or two per cent, or
one per cent, or a half per cent, or a
quarter per cent That they are lions,
no one doubts. When they roar, Wall
street, State street, Lombard street,
and the Bourse tremble. In a few
years they will lie down and die. They
will have a great funeral, and a long
row of fine carriages; and mightiest re-
QUEENS will roll from the organ, and
polished shaft of Aberdeen granite will
indicate where their dust lies, but for
all use to the world that man might as
well have never lived. As an expert
ment 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
a~1 - Amo