San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-07-11
NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

What! Much of that which you from
an erroneous conception of duty and
relation attempt to make your bust
ness. If there is one truth more than
another that needs to be branded into
the consciousness of this present gen.
Grafton it is this, we NEEDLE too much.
The preacher NEEDLES with the pews
and the pews NEEDLE with the pulpit;
the people monkey with the press and
the press NEEDLES with the people; the
politicians NEEDLE with the government
and the government NEEDLES with the
affairs of the politicians, the ms med
die with the outs and the outs med
die with the ms; the women NEEDLE
with the social affairs of their neigh
bors and the neighbors pay them back
in their own coin; men NEEDLE with the
business affairs of their rivals and, get
it in the neck by way of return.
Not that this generation is any worse
perhaps not as bad, as those which
preceded it, for it is not. There is a
decided Improvement these days over
the days of the colonial periods, when
every one was public property and
meddling was the law of society Of ev-
cry grade. Then government was in
quisitorial and society was inauisitive
and the individual was an Interrogation
point. Every one meddlei with the
business, the family affairs, the church
affairs, the beliefs, the practices, the
cooking, the f1irtations and the love
making of every one else. There was
a.. 10 s,,ls .,ol he hn,,
the church, the society, the business,
the food, the furniture, the clothing of
others that was not made the BUSH
ness of some other.
Fortunately things are not so bad
with this generation, but there is room
for improvement. Meddlesomeness is
the vice of emptiness. The mind that
is full of something else, something
solid and engrossing, something that
takes hold on the energies and life of
the individual, that mind is not given
to meddling with the affairs of 9TH
ers. Read the lives of the world s
greatest and best men AMI you will
find that their distinguishing charac-
teristic was minding their own bust
ness. Jesus would not answer idle
questions, he would not undertake the
Office of judge in the case of the wom-
an whom the self righteousness of his
day brought to him for condemnation,
he declined to offer opinions in cases
submitted to him. These things were
none of his business and he knew it.
This was the spirit of the old philos-
ophers, Seneca, Lycurgus the law ma
ker, Solomon, Socrates, Scion, Buddha
Confucius and the whole list of wor-
thies. The poetry, the carricaturC,
the sarcasm, the satire Of the world
have all found in the busybOdy, the
meddlesome man and the old GOSSIP
the best targets for their shafts. Wis.
dom and wit and worth are never med.
dlesome. They are too much oCcu,
Lied at home. There is enough to at
tend to in minding their own business
and too much to allow time for inter
meddling. This is one reason VIII!
minding other peoples business is de
nounced, it advertises the NEEDLE
some man as a fool, as a man who ha.
no business of his own. 1t pillories
him as a vacant mined simpleton.
But this is not the strongest reason
for denouncing the habit. There Il
no law that is going to force a man in
to the ranks of either decency or de
STABILITY. He can play the role o
fool and the detested to the end of tn
chapter and no one will deny him tn
privilege. But it is a pity to see 9th
erwise nice people spoiled by an owe
anxiety concerning their neight RS
and all because they do not under
stand their real duties. So much ha
been taught, and preached, and print
ed, and discoursed, and argued con
corning our being our brothers keep
er, that many good people actual
think that they ought to NEEDLE in tn
affairs of their neighbors and correc
them.
Did it ever occur to you, my friend
that all the misery in this world coul
be whitfield down to very fine poir
if there were none to NEEDLE with tn
affairs of another? Did you ever cor
slider that Hell is the place where ev
cry ones business is made the bushes
of every meddlesorne devil in that p
Of perdition? Did you ever think ths
in Heaven every one is minding hi
own business strictly and paying no al
tention to how the other fellow is play
ing his harp? All the discord of He
grows out of this meddlesomeness,t TIL
mixing in with that which is not your
All the harmony of Heaven grows frol
the universally of that movemel