Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-02-21

steps Of chrysoprases. For God in his
words to Job calls me to look at the path
of foam in the wake of that ship, and ]
tell you it is all a-gleam with splendors
OF kindness done, and rolling with il.
lumined tears that were wiped away,
and a-dash with congratulations, and
clear out to the horizon in all directions
is the sparkling, flashing, billowing phos.
phorescence of a Christian life. "He
malleth path to shine after him."
And here l correct one of the mean no,
tions which at some time takes posses.
sion of all of us, and that is as to the
brevity of human life. When / bury
some very useful man, clerical or lay, in
his thirtieth or fortieth year, say,
"What a waste of energies! 1t was
hardly worth while for him to get ready
for Christian work, for he had SO soon
to quit it." But the fact is that may
insure any man or woman who does any
good on a large or small scale for life
on earth as long as the world lasts. Sick
ness, trolley car accidents, death itself,
can no more destroy his life than they
can tear down one of the rings of Sat
urn. You can start one good word, one
kind act, one cheerful smile, on a mis-
sion that will last until the world be-
comes a bonfire. and out of that blaze il
will pass into the heavens, never to halt
as long as God lives.
WHAT ORDINARY PERSONS CAN DO.
There were in the seventeenth century
men and women whose names you never
heard of who are today influencing
schools, colleges, churches, nations. You
can no more measure the gracious re-
suits of their lifetime than you could
measure the length and breadth and
depth of the phosphorescence last night
following the ship of the White Star line
1900 miles out at sea. How the courage
and conservation of others inspire us to
follow, as a general in the American
army, cool amid the flying bullets, in
spired trembling soldier, who said aft
erward, 81 was nearly scared to death,
but saw the old mans white mustache
over his shoulder and went on" Aye,
we are all following somebody either in
right or wrong directions.
A few days ago l stood beside the gar
landed casl1et of gospel minister, and
in my remarks had occasion to recall a
snowy night in farmhouse when l was
boy and an evangelist spending a
night at my fathers house, who said
something so tender and beautiful and
impressive that it led me into the king
dom of God and decided my destiny for
this world and the next. You will, be-
fore "a hours go by, meet some man or
woman with big pack of care and trou-
BILE, and you may say something to him
or her that will endure until this world
shall have been so far lost in the past
that nothing but the stretch of angelic
memory will be able to realize that il
ever existed at all.
am not talking of remarkable men
and women, but Of what ordinary folks
can do. am not speaking of the phos-
phorescence in the wake of Campania,
but of the phosphorescence in the track
of a Newfoundland fishing smack. God
makes thunderbolts out of sparks, and
ont of the small words and deeds Of q
small life he can launch power that
will flash and burn and thunder through
the eternities.
How do you like this prolongation of
your earthly life by deathless influenced
Many babe that died at months Of
age by the anxiety created in the parents
heart to meet that child in realms se-
raphic is living yet in the transformed
heart and life of those parents and will
live on forever in the history of that
family. If this be the opportunity of or.
binary souls, what is the opportunity Of
those who have especial intellectual or
social or monetary equipment
Have you any arithmetic capable of es-
timating the influence of our good and
gracious friend who few days ago went
up to rest-George w. Childs of Phila-
From a newspaper that was
printed for 80 years without one word OF
defamation or scurrility or scandal, and
putting chief emphasis ON virtue and
charity and clean intelligence, he reaped
a fortune for himself and then distrib-
uted vast amount of it among the poor
and struggling, putting his invalid and
dBGu T6pOIlCIb Oh pCAlolOuhb uhJll NE
name stands everywhere for large heart
edness and sympathy and help and high
est style of Christian gentleman.
In an era which had in the chairs of
its journalism a Horace Greeley. and a
Henry j. Raymond, and a James Gordon
Bennett, and an Erastus Brooks, and a
George William Curtis, and an Irenaeus
Prime, none of them will be longer re-
membered than George w. Childs. Stay
ing away from the unveilingo of the mon
1ment he had reared at large expense in
our Greenwood in memory of Professor
Proctor, the astronomer, lest ! should
say something in praise of the man who
nad paid for the monument. By all ac-
a representative of the high
est American journalism.
If you would calculate his influence
FOR good, you must count how many
sheets of his newspapers have been pub
ished in the last quarter Of century,
and how many people have read them,
md the effect. not only upon those read
,rs, but upon all whom they shall infiu-
nee for all time, while you add to all
hat the work of the churches he helped
,,,;Id a,,1 of fha institutions of marcy ha