The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-03-14

How Sheepllke 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 or our
share in further progress; no learning
from the voice of history, no vision OF
happy peoples yet to be blessed. Sheep
take things as they find them; men
force nature to their will. Sheep are
content if merely we'll fed; men do not
live by bread alone. Sheep look con-
stantly at material things; men gaze
upward unabashed even by the shlm-
lnering glories of the throne of ever
lasting Might. Let us be men!
Try to cultivate free mind that will
believe in things not seen, in deeds not
shared in, in powers not possessed by
yourself. A tadpoles horizon is linn
tied by his unwholesome puddle, but
your horizon is limited by nothing IL
you will but curb selfishness and be a
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 ana
flesh Of human flesh. Find interests
outside of yourself: enjoy the inherit
ance of great things already done.
Just as learning a dead language
helps us to understand English, so the
last interprets the present with It's
lnultiform activities. Without such
knowledge life is to us, as with the
unthinkng brute, bereft of clew as to
whence or whittier. The blood of ne
roes for righteousness and martyrs TO
racial duty courses in human veins.
Such knowledge will thrill a man into
the full stature of manhood. Yet the
supreme grandeur of living can be ours
only when doing something definite.
We may depress inspiration and pride
Of birthright from the past; we must
live and act in the present.
Bunyan's muck-heap raker saw no
beauties selfishness 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 our
selves with money bags, or If we want
to, just for what they may bring OF
personal comfort we are condemning
ourselves to loneliness and heartaches.
Money never bought a friend, and
money never held one. The transform
ing grace of a true woman's love it
never purchases. 1t buys eye service;
it buys self-seeking sycophants. The
house of the heart is empty when such
fill it.
The trained ear can detect sounds
inaudible to the unframed; the trained
eye can see into beauties invisible 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 narrow; with it
even a sick room may become the CEN
ter of world wide influence. The shep-
herd tending his wandering sheep, the
miner working amid dangers, the
farmer wrestling with difficulties, the
wife at her unpaid labors-all can live
| transformed lives if they feel their
share in the worlds best interests.
H*H
Whittier describes life as "a cry be-
tween the silences' That is a lone
some view of it. Your life and mine
are links in an endless chain. We are
the living expression 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. Unborn sons
and daughters are within you. For
| them your daily life is preparing
gloomy or a glorious morn. What that
morn is to be, we-you and I-are pre-
destinating by our strength or by our
weakness.
But mark you, To live is to turn the
back on inaction; sloth and real living
are antipodal. Likewise, earnestness
and full appreciation by our fellows are
impossible. Human nobodies have no
enemies but he who goeth forth with
noble purposes is bound to run counter
to the legion demons of laziness and
stupidity, gluttony and filth, who cry
out Leave us alone. What have we
to do with thee?" They whose souls
are to go marching on with armies
whose footsteps never yet have echoed,
must face contumely if they try to lift
humanity one niche higher.
Unhappily for the world is it for
man to attain his full ambition. He
ceases his efforts; inaction is death.
Better far to have the full fruition of
effort always just evading the hand, and
thus reckoning to further deeds Let
there be no contentment with one good
thing done; but have each purpose
merely a part of something greater:
just as with the universe made up of
numberless stars, all grouped into solar
systems, these included in the vast ag-
gregation itself, and that in turn push
ing onward through space to some
thing yet neither seen nor foretold, nor
imagined.
Poverty is no bar to breadth of mind
or of helpfulness. The poor have al
ways given proportionately more to
each other than the rich have bestowed
upon them. The widows mite is no
solitary instance in the world Ard az
for giving, whose pleasure is greaest?
they who give and are CLAY to have
money take the place of fellowship, or
they who suffer in order to help? Real
giving means sharing. Or as the mas
ter says in Lowell's poetry:
For the gift without the giver Is bare
Who gives himself with his aims, feeds
three
Himself, his hungering neighbor and Me-
Do not train your little ones to think
| that the main object OF life is to pass
expediously and silently by the world
as foe to grace. We are here. to live
| right where we are. and now, setting up
! righteousness and striking down wrong.