The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1894-02-16
MUST FACE DANGERS.
THUS OUR SOULS GROW AND OUR
MISSIONS ARE FULFILLED.

Reflections ON the Uselessness OF Shallow
Water Explorers-Where Should the
Blame Rest For Many Failures?-The Re-
sponsibiIity of Paternity.
What would be thought of a ship that
was launched from its docks with flour
ish of music and flowing wine, built to
sail the toughest and deepest sea, yet
manned for an unending cruise along
shore? Never leaving harbor for dread
Of storm. Never swinging out of the
land girt bay because, over the bar, the
waters were deep and rough. You
would say Of such a ship that its captain
was a coward and the company that
built it were fools.
And yet these souls of ours were
fashioned for bottomless soundings.
There is no created thing that draws
as deep as the soul of man; our life lies
straight across the ocean and not along
shore, but we are afraid to venture; we
hang upon the coast and explore shall
low lagoons or swing at anchor in idle
bays. Some of us strike the keel into
riches and cruise about therein, like
men-of-war in a narrow river. Some of
US are contented all our days to ride at
anchor in the becalmed waters of self
ish ease. There are guns at every port
hole Of the ship we sail, but we use
them for pegs to hang clothes upon or
pigeonholes to stack full of Idle hours.
We shall never smell powder, although
the magazine is stocked with holy wrath
wherewith to fight the devil and his
deeds. When l see a man strolling along
at his ease. while under his very nose
some brute is maltreating a horse, or
some coward venting his ignoble wrath
upon a creature more helpless than he,
whether it be a child or a dog. l lnvolun-
tarily think of a double decked whaler
content to fish for minnows. Their
uselessness in the world is more appar-
ent than the uselessness of a Cunarder
in a park pord.
What did God give you muscle and
girth and brain for if not to launch you
on the high seas? Up and away with
you then into the deep s%oundings where
you belong. . belittled soul! Find
the work to do for which you were fit
ted and do it, or else run yourself on
the first convenient snag and founder.
Some great writer has said that we
ought to begin life as at the source of a
river, growing deeper every league to
the sea, whereas, in fact, thousands
enter the river at its mouth and sail
inland, finding less and less water ev-
cry day. until in old age they lie shrunk
and gasping upon dry ground.
But there are more who do not sail
at all than there are of those who make
the mistake of sailing up stream. There
are the ome who devote their lives
to the petty business of pleasing worth
less men. What progress do they make
even inland? With sails set and brassy
stanchions polished to the similitude of
gold, they hover a lifetime chained to
a dock and decay of their own useless
ness at last, like keels that are mud
slugged. 1t is not the most profitable
thing in the world to please. Suppose it
shall please the inmates Of a bedlam
house to see you set fire to your clothing
and burn to death, or break your bones
n by n upon a rack, or otherwise
destroy your bodily parts that the poor
lunatics might be entertained. Would
it pay to be pleasing to such an audi
ence at such a sacrifice? We were put
into this world with a clean way bill
for another port than this. Across the
ocean of life our way lies, straight to
the harbor of the city of gold. We are
freighted with a consignment from
roomage hold to keep which is bound
to be delivered sooner or later at the
great Master s wharf. Let us be alert,
then. to recognize the seriousness of our
own destinies and content ourselves no
longer with shallow so%undings. Spread
the sails, weigh the anchor and point
the PROV for the country that lies the
other side of a deep and restless sea.
Sooner or later the voyage must be made;
let US make it, then, while the timber
is stanch and the rudder true.
When you look at a picture and find
it good or bad, as the case may be, whom
do you praise or blame, the owner of
the picture or the artist who painted it!
When you hear a strain of music and
are either lifted to heaven or cast into
the other place by its harmonies or its
discord, whom do you thank or curse
for the benefaction or the intiiction,
whichever it may have proved to be-,
the man who wrote the score or the mu-
sic dealer who sold it? You go to a
restaurant and order spring chicken
which turns out to be the primeval fowl.
Who is to blame, the waiter who serves
it or the business man of the concern
who does the marketing? And so when
you encounter the bad boy, whom do
you hold responsible for his badness,
the boy himself or the mother who
trained him? 1 declare, as | look about
me from day to day and see the men
and women who play so poor a part in
life, it is not the poverty Of their per-
Torrance that %astonishes me so much
as the fact that it is as good as it is.
With the parents that many boys and
girls have and the training they receive
| am perfectly amazed that they ever
attain to eve half way respectability.
Did you ever stop to think, l wonder.
--l-A = ID