The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-08-09
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS
BY MEMO.
(copyrighted.)


(Penned by layman in the spare mo-
ments o.. a busy. career and dedicated
te-a better understanding of HE and its
varied opportunities.)
A doctor finds ii comparatively pleas
ant and very easy to write nauseating
prescription. for to the patient alone be-
long the distress and disgust at swal-
lowing it. So it is a simple matter to
sit here in my armchair and scrawl
moral prescription for those weak and
falling ones who find themselves lack
ing in good influence over their fellows.
But the likeness to the doctor ends here.
for the writer and the reader are both
interested in the remedy. The physician
patient writes 1t down. then, in one word,
a compound: "self-conquest."
Such a clearly defined remedy. Almost
as simple as bathing in the pool of Sill
Dam for blindness. or in the Jordan for
leprosyl In that compound word, how
ever, lies an infnitude of power; just as
within the lifeless coal lies dormant the
fierceness of prehistoric sunshine; or
within the sparkling water. the energy
of steam; or within the summer zephyrs.
the marvellous descriptive force of cleo
tricty To release the power of each,
proper environment is needed. To set
free the might that turks within self
conquest the suitable environment is a
human heart; and that heart, yours. one
is tempted to indulge in the stilted phras-
eOlogy of the Quack medicine purVeyor
and STYLE this remedy a panacea. 1t. is
a heart tonic so valuable and so lacking
in harmful reactions that 1t cannot be
abused by too much use; so unanected
by latitude that its cures are equally
apparent in the snow hut of the Lapland-
er and under the palm-thatched home of
the Carib; so adaptive that both sexes,
the old and the young the mighty and the
humble, the weil-fed and the hungry, the
wise and the foolish, the saint and the
sinner-all derive benefit from free use
of this one unfailing remedy.
With human beings, unlike the animals,
obedience to the dictates of instinct, in
Variably leads astray, and exposes our
natures to the virus of pride, selhshness,
gluttony, and sensuality. While these
poisons are creeping through our veins
and doing to DEATH as it were, the war
riors for good, the white corpuscles of
our moral blood we have no power. We
may for awhile by our disappearing eX-
terror, deceive our neighbors as to our
heart condition; we may even throw con-
venient dust in our own spiritual eyes,
but when some supreme moment of life
comes then shall we fail, and ignomin-
iously, Just when failure is most serious;
the decayed mast snaps in a gale the
bridge yields at the moment that hu"
man freight is trusting to II.
Reforms and churches-one needs must
mention both, since they are not synonyms
are made up of individuals and the alti-
tude or degradation of those individuals
is the measure of the power of both the
reform and the church. NO wild yielder
to lust is n gain to the membership of the
age of consent reform; no self-seeker is of
advantage to the bands of the wretched
who are waiting for their rights; no
church member who with one hand grinds
the face of the poor, and with the other
applies the moral vaseline of a generous
contribution to soup-kitchens and mis-
sions, is of value to the church that
throws its simple trusting and statisti-
cally anxious arms around him. The
trite old Illustrations of water being una
bic TO rise above its level, and the chain
being no stronger than its weakest link,
apply here. Let us not be deceived. 1t is
character that tells in this world and no
comes from yielding unquestioning obedi-
ence TO our instincts. On our human side
We have the powers of reason, of aspira-
Jion, of development, of growth. But so
long as we grovel in mere physical i'm
pulses, whether they be of acquisition
of Incidence, or of observation-disclosures
seeking Of every 'kind-we turn our backs
upon everything that is grand in human
nature and remain on the level of the
monkey, or the sloth, or the barnyard
FOWL. In truth we are worse than they
because our instincts are given us to be
placed under our feet and used as step
ping stones to power, instead of serving
as mere runwayS 10 mire.
The way to possess power without is to
have 1t within. The way to be strong in