The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1896-11-05
Chapel Services.

Services were held in the prison
chapel Sunday. The opening anthem
"Onward Go" was sung by the choir,
and was we'll rendered. The scripture
lesson was taken from the fifth chap
ter of Matthew. Prayer was followed
by the congregation singing the hymn
Exempted and Tried" and the choir
following with "Song of The Soldier"
The chaplain took his text from End
Timothy ". 81. "For am now ready
to be offered and the time of my de-
parture is at hand. l have fought a
good fight, have finished my course,
l have kept the faith Beginning by
sketching the life and times of st.
Paul, the chaplain preached an able
sermon from the lesson taught by his
last words.
We are always interested in the last
words of a dying man. They speak
his thoughts as he passes from this
life to the next. and as he utters them
we listen with awe, and treasure them
as sort of memento in after life. The
last words of Alexander, when asked
to whom he would leave his domin-
ions, were "To the most worthy" they
were spoken more than two thousand
years ago, but they are remembered
today simply because they were his
last known words. Socrates passed
from this world telling his friends that
he would meet them in another life.
Napoleon, dying while a tempest was
raging, was again at the head of the
armies of France, giving his COM
.mands and again living over his
stormy career. st. Paul had run his
course and was about to take his de-
parture from this life when he said:
II am now ready to be offered" He
had fought a good fight against his en-
emies and the enemies of his God. He
had fought, suffered and been perse-
cuted for the right; temptation had
assailed him in vain, ridicule had but
strengthened his cause and persecution
ennObled his virtues. St. Paul has
passed away but the words he spoke,
the truths he fought for and the great
ideas he struggled to maintain still
live. Like the tree bending to the
storm, mankind still bows to the words
of St. Paul and the Great Master he
served.
In this world there are two great
contending forces-the ideas within
and the ideas without. One is wrong
struggling to enter within the soul to
destroy its purity; the other is right.
the guard that withstands it's attacks,
the guardian angel, the intellectual
and moral protector of spiritual life.
The history of mankind is the story of
war, of blood and of woe. Right and
wrong have ever striven for the mas
terry and every struggle this world has
witnessed has involved these two ideas.
Gettysburg was the meeting place of
two antagonistic civilizations, each be-
lieving itself right and the other wrong.
Not only among men does 1t rage but
among the lower animals. Thoreau
says that he witnessed battle between
two species of ants in which battalion
fought battalion, army was arrayed
against army and general against gen.
eral. The robin preys on the worm
and the hawk on the robin. So it has
been through all stages of progress,
through all development and through
all moral and intellectual advance
ment, the forces of right against the
forces of wrong. But in this strug-
gle, ever raging, ever present and
ever forming for new lines of attack,
right has steadily advanced, beating
back wrong and contesting it's every
claim and every stronghold. With
most of us the trouble is that we live
in the past and future and not the