The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-04-01
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Look on the Brighter Side of Life, Says
Arp.
Constitution.


atlanta Constitution.
Outside of revelation, there is sure
ly sufficient proof Of original sin and
moral turpitude in human kind. IT, a
man could be lifted up in q balloon
high enough to see the earth roll.
under him and could keep his position
until it had turned a time or two upon
it's axis, the scene that would pass
his vision would be proof enough.
What a horrible revelation of war and
bloodshcd and suffering would pass
beneath him in almost every part of
the earth! W boast Of modern civil
cation, but has every advance to be
baptized in blood? Suppose a man
could see at one time all the present
misery of the world and all the crime
that caused it, could he endure the
awful picture? Would it not paralyze
his soul and obliterate his power of
vision and make him a maniac? Every
day we read Of these horrors and shud-
der, but they IRE afar off and we have
become almost hardened to them by
their daily repetition. If familiarity
with danger breeds contempt, for it so
does, a daily recurrence of crime and
suffering and grief breeds Indifference.
Unless We see it with our own eyes
we are not greatly affected.
The weeping prophet exclaimed:
ooh, that my head were waters and
mine eyes a fountain Of t%earsl'' but
there is no prophet to weep nowadays.
We have no time to weep. The poet
says:
"Man's iphumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn"
and if we could actually see every
battlefield and all the blood and agony,
| and into all the prisons and chain
gangs and into every hovel and garrett
and dark alley where the poor do con"
gregate, and into the hearts of all the
mourners at all the funerals, we would
never smile again. The memory Of
them would haunt US ard We would be
more than willing to. quit this horri-
BILE world and take cur chances in
another.
But we will let the preachers talk
about this. We must look on the
brighter side. There is no comfort in
bordering and %lamenting what is 60
ing on in Turkey and Abyssinnia and
Cuba, or over the long continued quar-
rels at Washington, or the shameful
broils in Kentucky, or the daily crimes
and murders and suicides and lynch
ings that fill the newspapers. Now is
the blessed springtime, when all ma
ture is smiling upon us. When the
flowers are blooming and the grass is
springing and the birds are singing.
Even the beasts Of the field and the
fowls in the yard are happy, and every
created thing ave man seems to re-
joice in the goodness Of the Creator.
What is the matter with man, any
how? Woman is not 50, nor are the
little children who play and sport
around US. The poet says:
Every prospect piease5
And only man Is vile"
But after all, there is comfort in
knowing that there are some good
men. Yes, lots of them. You can
pick them out in town and city and
country, and a great traveller who has
been all over the world anG mingled
with Gentiles and Jews, and Arabs
and Hottentots, and the heather
Chinee, says he found good, kind
hearted people of every tribe and ma
ton and religion on the globe. He
said a traveller could never be a secta-
rian or be intollerant, like many of our
so-called Christians are.
Last Sunday I went in tie country
with a friend to visit an old lady who
is on her last bed. She has lived
eighty-three years and I reckon never
had an evil thought in her life. She
was pleased to see us and5the Dearness
of death gave her no alarm. "For the
sake of my grandchildren" she said,
II would like to live a little longer to
help them and guide them in the right
way" Her Bible was printed away
before the war and had been patched
and pasted and mended urti, it would
hardly hold together, but she knew a
good deal by heart and told us what
portions of it were her greatest com
fort. These old-fashioned mothers
are the best people on earth and when
they have passed through all the per
lis of motherhood they seem to o%utlive
the men. There are three times as
many old women in this town as old
men and they are most all of them
widows. I would rather insure the
life of a woman of forty-fve than that
of a man of thirty. I would get the
premiums longer. The old-fashioned
men lived longer than they do now.
They had simple habits and limited
desires. I mean the well-to-do men
who lived in comfort. The old presi-
dents, leaving out Washington, whose
death was not far from old age, out
lived the modern ones. John Adams
lived to ninety-one and his son to
eighty-one. Jefferson was eighty
three, Madison eighty-ive, Monroe
seventy-three and Jackson seventy
eight. This makes an average of
e%ighty-two years, which is very IN
common. The average of all the
presidents is only sixty-eight years.
In looking over their records [ was
surprised to find that three of them
died on the 4th of July and that JEFF
ferson and Adams expressed a desire
to die on that day. Whether Monroe
did or not the biography does not say.
I have no doubt that he did, for that
day was very dear to the patriots of
that time and their wish was father
to their fate. 1t amounted almost to
will power, for the chance for a man
to die on that day was only one in
365-and the chance for three presi-
dents out of six to die on that day is
almost beyound computation. Could
it have been chance or was it their
spirited devotion to the day and the
declaration that gave birth to a great
nation?
Neither Polk nor Pierce nor Harri-
son mol Johnston nor Grant saw his
three score and ten. But eve since
4