Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1897-04-29

something about himself that he
never suspected before, and its always
we'll to throw out skirmisher or two
against the new enemy.
"But you broke all your old re-
solutions last year?" So did I, my
son, so did l. Broke some of them
when they were so new you could
smell the varnlsh on them. Some
times | could sit down and cry-if l
could be certain that nobody could
hear me-when l see how easily |
break a resolution that / worked 10
long and so hard to make. But you
can't cry and work at tho same time;
so | mop away the tears with my sleeve,
run out my tongue to catch the last
belated straggler sliding down my
cheek, and set to work to splice the
broken resolution. And I'm not sure
that the mended place isn't the
strongest part of it-because know
where the weak place is, don't you
see, and I'm not gong to have it
break there again if | can help it.
True, there isn't so much gloss and
gliding about it as there was on the
new one; but in time it comes to have
a weather worn, battlegrimed look
about it that as rescuring as the seam
ed and grizzled face of vetran.
Now, If in the course of the coming
twelve month, or six weeks or during
the next day or two, or, say this after
noon, you should fail to keep one or
two or half dozen of the FIVE or six
resolutions you have written so nicely,
you mustn't get discouraged and quit
trying. If a fellow who falls refuses
to get up he will never fall again.
That is true. But then, he will never
go anywhere. That is just as true.
I'd rather see you stumble along all
your life, and at last make goal with
more contusions and abrasions on you
than your system has room for, than
to see you lie still where you were
first downed. II you don't get up
you are dead youth; to all intents
and purposes.
Do you play football, my son? "a
litsle?" Well, a very little would be
enough for my old bones. Then you
known while a. run of twenty FIVE
yards is a good thing, gain of one
yard isn't to be despised. And, if it
happens when you are only two feet
from the goal line, it's as good as a
forty YARD run. Oh, there are num-
berless stumbles and falls and hurts
and struggles and dlsappointments
and discouragements on the celestial
side Of Slough of Despond-in fact,
about all the troubles you are going
to have on that side. Aud if l we're
you wouldn't stay in the mire of the
slough to escape them.
And be sure you make your good
resolutions radical and strong in the
first place. Don't put an ''if" or "but'
in them. God won't help you to COM
promise. He won't help you to lop
off half sin. When you repent,
don't sidle, Turn clear around and
face the other way. Tell me, did you
ever know anybody lying by resolv-
ing that he would only lie half as
much this year as he did last? He is
sure to lose his count and apt to lie
twice as much. Did you ever know
anyone to improve his manners and
morals by writing in his diary ere
solved, that | will be tolerably bad
this year, but not quite so bad as l
was last year."
So make your resolutions strong as
you can, honestly intending to keep
every one Of them. And when you
break them, or when, as some times
we are tempted to think, they just
break themselves, makes the same
ones over again and make them
stronger. By and by they'll become
too strong to be broken. When .