The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1897-03-18
Some Rambling Thoughts.

How sheep-like many of us act! We
reflect on neither past nor future;
there is for us no glorying in deeds
done by the race, no realization of
our share in public progress; no learn
ing from the voice of History, no
vision of happy peoples yet to be
blessed. Sheep take tn ings as they
find them; MEN force Nature to their
will. Sheep are content if merely
well-fed; MEN do not live by bread
alone. Sheep look constantly at
material things; MEN gaze upward
unabashed even by the shimmering
glories of the throne of everlasting
Might. Let us be mem
~
Try to cultivate a free mind that
will believe in things not seen, in
deeds not shared in, in powers not
possessed by yourself. A tad-pole's
horizon is limited by his unwholesome
puddle, but your horizon is limited
by nothing if you will but curb self
ishness and be sentient being. The
past is all yours. Though often you
forget it, you are lineal descendant
from the earliest ages. The great of
every cline are your kinsmen, bone
of human bone and flesh of human
flesh. Find interests outside of your
self; enjoy the inheritance of great
things already done.
~
Just as learning a dead language
helps us understand English, so the
past interprets the present with its
multiform activities Without such
knowledge life is to us, as with the
unthinking brute, bereft of clue as to
whence or whittier. The blood OF
heroes for righteousness and martyrs
to racial duty courses in human veins.
Such knowledge will thrill man into
the full stature of manhood. Yet the
supreme grandeur of living can be
ours only when doing something def
mite. We may draw inspiration and
pride of birthright from the past; we
must live and act in the present.
#*x
Bunyan's muck heap raker saw no
beauties: selfshness in the essential
duties of life, and appreciation of the
full meaning of life do not abide to-
gether. We cannot serve our race
and worship Mammon. If we flank
ourselves with money-bags, or if we
want to, just for what they may bring
of personal comfort We are condemn
ing ourselves to loneliness and heart
aches. Money never bought friend,
and money never held one. The
Transforming grace OF true woman's
love, it never purchases. 1t buys eye
service; it buys self-seeking syco-
plants. The house of the heart is
empty when such fill it.
#y#
The trained ear can detect sounds
inaudible to the unframed; the
trained eye can see into beauties in
visible to ordinary mortals;the trained
hand accomplishes things impossible
to gross manipulation. The heart
trained to interests outside itself looks
upon a new world. Without interest
in others, a narrow life remains mar
row; with it even sick-rOOm may be
come the centre of world wide influ-
ence. The shepherd tending his won
dering sheep, the miner working amid
dangers, the farmer wrestling with
difficulties, the wife at her IN
paid labors, i all can live trans
formed lives, if they feel their share
in the worlds best interests.
*x*
Whittier describes life as "a cry be
tween the silences." That is lone
some view of it. Your life and mine
are links in an endless chain. We are
the living expressions of the dead
who rest from their labors; we are the
custodians Of the future, if SO be that
we LIVE. How dead the imagination
that cannot understand this. I'm
born sons and daughters are within
you. For them your daily life is pre-
pairing a gloomy or glorious morn.
What that morn is to be we-you and
I-are predestinating by our strength
or by our weakness.
49,
But mark you! To LIVE is to turn
living are antipodal. Likewise, earn
estness and full appreciation by our
fellows are impossible. Human no
bodies have no enemies, but he who
goeth forth with noble purposes is
bound to run counter to the legion
demons of laziness and stupidity, glut-
tony and filth, who cry out Leave
us alone. What have we to do with
tbpcy'; Thpv whose sOulS are TO 90