The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-06-30

dluLAS oHo encouraging OL0 SUrOQS W
Cypress the weak-sanctioning the
large fortune when it swallows the
small one; the large company when it
gobbles the little one, and fostering
the trust or combine which destroys
or absorbs the independent enterprises
which would stand against it, and
standing by clapping its hands in
approval when some Carnegie or Van
derbilt, or Jay Gould cuts down the
wages of labor to the starving point,
and then drives the wretched sufferer
into submission with Winchester rifles.
Shameful system! Shameful govern
ment which permits it! Its a burning
lie before God and man, and Gods
omnipotence is pledged to the PROPOSE
ton that it cannot live.
No question can be more absorbing
at a commencement than this:
"What are these youngpeople going
to doc"
To what are their energies, capaci-
ties, preparations tending?
What are you going to do? What
are you going to be?
Young gentlemen, there is in every
walk of life both truth and falsehood.
Learn to know the one and love it.
Learn to know the other and hate it.
There is no task SO lofty as that of a
minister of the Gospel. NO man so
powerful for good in his sphere of duty.
To combat lust and greed and envy
and malice; to sustain love and charity
and pity; to be the advocate of the
pure, the high, the generous; to heel
wounds which others make; to comfort
those who have grief; to bring light
into darkened hearts and homes; to
teach men to spurn unworthy aims
and unclean methods; to lift on high
the colors of the right and preach the
crusade which seeks to recover the
holy sepulchre from those who defle
it. This surely is a grand life. This
surely is the grandest of lives.
But the smallest thing and the falsest
thing on this earth is a false preacher.
What I mean is a preacher who has
ne reverence, no earnestness, no con
ception of his position. A man whose
life teaches nothing; whose words
teach nothing; who gauges a church
by the salary it pays and who smiles
sweetest upon that member who heads
the contribution.
There happened this thing a few
days ago: One of our great churches
selected for the ~episcopate a teacher of
a Tennessee college. The honor was a
signal one. To be the Bishop of Georia
was a splendid elevation. What did
the teacher do? In language beautiful
in it's d~elineation of a noble spirit he
put from him the great promotion, and
consecrated himself anew to the
humber task which duty had marked
as his.
On this broad continent to-day there
lives no citizen who has taught anobler
lesson in a nobler way than Thomas F.
Caller. A ~bishopric? What could a
dozen brishoprics add to the moral
station of such a man? It is just such
incidents which give us hope for the
future, and respect for human nature.
Robert Lee said: 1.-The grandest
word in the language is Duty" Thank
God, there are those who illustrate the
truth, though the great chieftain who
uttered it is dead.
All honor to Bishop GailOr! Towards
you today, splendid exemplar of a
splendid creed, there goes out the adj
miring respect and earnest approval
of all that is best in this land.
Young man, if in your soul springs
the divine purpose to be a minister, be
it-but be a true one, grand in your
conception of duty, brave in denounc-
ing wrong, serence in Encouragement
and trial, and let the flash of your bat
tie axe blaze right along to the front
rank of the brittle.
Do you think of being a lawyer?
Few greater men have lived than the
really true lawyers. Few meaner men
have ever lived than the false ones, and
you can't shoot off a scatter gun in any
given direction without crippling some
of them.
But the true lawyer, who is he? In
ancient history he is the citizen who
would travel on foot from land to land.
endure every p~rivation, incur every
danger, in order that he might study
the laws, customs and manners of
other peoples, and then carry the best
of it all back to his own people and
improve them with it. He gave his