The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-07-25
Water, water everywhere.
But not a drop to drink"

During the late long 4eated term in
June it was alarming to read from the
weather bureau that the world was slow
~ but surely drying up. and the rain
fall was decreasing every year. What an
awful calamity is to come to somebody
some time! God grant that it may not
come in our day, nor our children's nor
children's children! God grant that it
may not come at all! But the Scriptures
! do say that this world shall be burned
up. and | heard Professor Proctor, the
great astronomer deliver a lecture on the
Birth Growth, Maturity, Decay and
! Destruction of a World that made the
hair almost stood end, for he proved
that the world has passed its meridian
and was now on rapid down grade of
decay, Rapid, rapid, did ] say? Yes,
rapid for a planet, but it may be mil
lion years distant" That let's us down
easy, and that night the younger people
danced and the sports played poker as
usual. Just postpone the judgment out of
sight, and human nature will take the
chances.
But the blessed seals that hold the
rain in the heavens have at last been
opened, and once more man and beast
and nature rejoice in temperate at
mosphere and a moistened earth. 1t was
distressing to read Oh the sunstrokes and
| the suffering in the great cities, and to
| think of the little innocent children and
| the invahds in the garrets and crowded
rooms of the tenement houses. Oh when
will the good things of this world be
equally apportioned? Many of us have
far more than our share but we are still
ungrateful and long for more. My opin
ion is that independent of all revelation,
there is obliged to be another life in an
other world just to equalize things. Son,
remember that thou in thy lifetime re-
ceivedst good thing and Lazarus evil
things, but now Lazarus is comforted and
thou art tormented." That is a good text
for us all to ruminate about once or
twice or thrice in a while. | tell you, my
friends, it is a fearful thing to be rich
and selfish Pm afraid to risk it, But
sometimes do catch myself wishing that
| had rich old bachelor to die and
leave me pile of money to frolic with
in my old age Or that Mrs. Arp would
realize her part of that Holt estate in
England. Good gracious! she should
have carriage and a pair of Kentucky
church. But it is an old proverb that if
wishes were horses we would all take a
ride. And there is an old Persian fable
that tells how an old man one night as
he and his old wife were brooding over
their poverty and wishing for different
things, genus came in and told them
they might have three wishes, and he
would grant them. or course, they were
l. nj I'll
man was hungry, he wished right away
for a plum pudding. Immediately it was
set before him in a silver platter and this
foolish wish made the old woman so mad
that she exclaimed, II wish that it was
hung on your nose" Presto, quick the
pudding jumped up and was fastened to
the old mans nose. They had but one
wish left, and the old man had to use
that in wishing the pudding loose again.
And so the good genus left them as poor
as they were before he came l suppose
that fable was designed to teach us that
it is better to trust the Lord and be
content with our lot. Nevertheless, most
of us would try the genus if he would
come.
Once more let me write of John Quincy
Adams and his beautiful poem. have
received it from just score of good
friends, but only two of them have the
full poem of twenty stamps of eight
lines each. Some of them have fourteen,
some twelve, and one only eleven. One
from Mrs. Holloman, of Eatonton, has
mot the last stanza, beginning
These are the wants Of mortal man,
l cannot need them long"
But has instead stanza that / do not
find in any other copy. Which is the re-
yised version do not know The poem