Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-09-14

mistic merchant, and you say, What
do you think of the commercial pros
pects?" and he says: GLORIOUS. Great
crops must bring great business. We
are going to have such an autumn and
winter of prosperity as we have never
seen. ("
On your way back to your store you
meet a pessimistic merchant What
do you think of the commercial pros
pects?" you ask And he answers
/ ''Well, l don't know. So much grain
will surfeit the country. Farmers have
more bushels but less prices, and the
grain gamblers will get their fist in.
There is the Mckinley bill; and the hay
crop is short in some places, and in the
southern part of Wisconsin they had a
hailstorm and our business is as dull as
! it ever was"
/ LOOK UPl LOOK UP! TRUST IN GODl
You will find the same difference in
! Judgment of character Aman of good
reputation is assailed and charged with
some evil deed. At the first story the
/ pessimist will believe in guilt. 1.-THE
! papers said SO, and that's enough.
/ Down with himl" The optimist will
say: 81 don't believe word of it,
don't think that a man that has been
as useful and seemingly honest for
twenty years could have got off the
track like that There are two sides to
this story, and I will wait to hear the
other side before [ condemn him."
My nearer, if you are by nature a
pessimist, make a special effort by the
grace of God to extirpate the dolorous
and the hypercritical from your dispo-
sition Believe nothing against any
at least two witnesses of integrity. And
if guilt be proved, find out the extenuat-
ing circumstances if there are any.
And then commit to memory SO that
you can quote for yourself and quote
for others that exquisite thirteenth
chapter of First Corinthians about char
ity that suffers long and is kind and
things. By pen, by voice, in public
and in private, say all the good about
people you can think of, and if there
be nothing good, then tighten the
chain of muscle on the back end of
your tongue and keep the ivory bars of
teeth on the lower jaw and the ivory
bars of teeth on the upper jaw locked,
and the gate of your lips tightly closed
and your tongue shut up.
What a place Brooklyn would be to
live in, and all the other cities and
neighborhoods to live in, if charity
dominatedl What if all the young and
old gossipers were dead The Lord
hasten their funerals! What if title
tattle and whispering were out of fash
ion! What if in ciphering out the value
of other peoples character in our moral
arithmetic we stuck to addition instead
of subtraction Kindnessl Let us,
morning, noon and night, pray for it
until we get it. When you can speak
good word for some one, speak it. If
you can conscientiOusly give a letter of
commentator, give it, Watch for OPP
portunities for doing good fifty years
after you are dead.
All my life has been affected by the
letter of introduction that the Rev. Dr.
Van Vranken, of New Brunswick The
illogical seminary, wrote for me, boy
under him, when l was seeking a set
Element in which to preach the Gospel.
The letter gave me my first pulpit. DIR.
Van Vranken has been dead more than
thirty years, yet 1 feel the touch of that
magnificent old professor. Strange
sensation was it when l received kind
message from Rev. Thomas Guard, of
Baltimore, the great Methodist orator,
CT of htc Ino+h Of
the eternal world2 Oh, no, by way of
this world.
did not meet the friend to whom
he gave the message until nearly two
months after Thomas Guard had as
cended. So you can start a word about
some one that will be on its travels and
vigorous long after the funeral psalm
has been sung at your obsequies. Kind
nessl Why, if fifty men all aglow with
it should walk through the lost world,
methinks they would almost abolish
perdition.
INSPIRING EXAMPLES OF KINDNESS.
Furthermore, there is kindness of ac-
ton. That is what Joseph showed to
his outrageous brothers. That is what
DdNIu SI1ONSO W IOI Ills
father Jonathan's sake. That is what
Onesiphorus showed to Paul in the Ro-
man penitentiary. That is what Will
liam Cowper recognized when he said
he would not trust q man who would
with his foot needlessly crush a worm.
This is what our assassinated Presi-
dent Lincoln demonstrated when his
private secretary found him in the
Capitol grounds trying to get bird
back to the nest from which it had
fallen, and which quality the illustrious
man exhibited years before which hav-
ing some lawyers in the carriage on
the way to court passed on the road a
swine fast in the mire, after awhile
cried to his horses, ''Hol' and said to
the gentlemen, II must go back ana
help that hog out of the mire." And
he did go back, and put on solid
ground that most uninteresting quad
ruped.
That was the spirit that was mani
tested by my departed friend, Honor
able Alexander III. Stephens, of Georgia
(and lOvelier man never exchanged
earth for heaven, when at Washing
ton. A senator's wife, who told my
wife of the circumstances, said to him,
''Mr. Stephens come and see my dead
canary bird" And he answered, ''No,
l could not look at the poor thing
without crying"
That is the spirit that Grant showed
when at the surrender at Appomattox
he said to General Lee, GAS many of
your soldiers are farmers and will need
the horses and mules to raise the crops
to keep their families from suffering
next winter, let each Confederate who
can claim a horse or mule take it
along with him.
That is the spirit which last night
ten thousand mothers showed to their
sick children coming to give the drink
at the twentieth call as cheerfully and
as tenderly as at the first call Sup
pose all this assemblage, and all to
whom these words shall come by print
er's type, should resolve to make kind |
ness an overarching, undergirding and
all pervading principle of their life, and
then carry out the resolution, why, in |