The Press., 1897-09-23
w. c. T. U.
The Atom and the Mass.
BY FRANCES E. WILLARD.


 
 When in New York recently we had talk with an editor, who Is, perhaps, more successful than most others in se- curing a great clientele for his really praiseworthy paper. As he is genius in his way, some of the things he said were jotted down afterwards, and they may prove suggestive of larger charity to some of our good folks who think it Is all wrong to "have one's name in the news paper" The editor said in effect There is q beautiful and pathetic instinct in every human soul, away down deep, that makes 1t desire to know and be known by every other. Perhaps this is prophecy of the time when there will be no more isolation for anybody, and that would go 8 long way toward making the world 8 paradise. Human nature can not deny that sees no good in the desire to be correlated In one's life and work with other people. wish those who make jokes at the expense of the lonely ones
 
 over the letters that receive by thousands every day. One is from an old lady who lives in a log-house away in the Adiron- dacks, and she has picked berries enough to pay the subscription price of our paper for year. She says in closing, I hope you will put my name and this letter in the paper Now that Is not because that women expects to be famous or to gain notoriety, but because she leads life so lonesome, and she knows thereis great, musical, changing, talkative world far away that she will never see. She would like to get the tip of her finger just some- white-ribbon women say, She wants to belong So print a sentence from her letter, and she will keep that and read it over, and be hardly able to believe her eyes when she sees that thought of hers has passed through the magical second birth of types and paper. Many kindly thought will flash along the invisible line between her log-house and my great,
 
 city, and thus my paper will become a factor in building up that solidarity of mankind which every generous heart has predicted and desired since thought be- gan. Besides all this, 1t does the people in cities good to know that there is such an old woman who cared enough for a good paper (of course my paper Is the very best ) to go out into the thicket and prick her fingers and not mind 1t, as she heard the ripe black berries falling into her little tin basin. It helps the mutual comprehension of widely different classes of people, and spreads abroad the light of the better time to come. You do not know how many of these poor people in the woods and on the far-off prairies have senfsI1ls little money for the Armenians and do not not know any single expense connected with thepaper that I have paid soswilingly as the extra that 1t costs to l print their names." There was ring of brotherly good-willing in the editors voice as he told these things, and they touched my heart deeply, perhaps the more because 1 was once one of the loneliest of little girls. We lived twelve years on Wisconsin farm, going there when that now prosperous state was a [ ton. do not not know the year in which ''Graoe Greenwood" announced in her lovely child's paper, entitled, The Little Pilgrims (25 cents a year), which my mother got for me out of her "butter money" that every boy or girl who sent her seven new subscribers should have his or her name printed in the paper. At once conf1ded to my mother that was going to try for that prize. She en- outraged me to do so, and would stand in the road, watching me as I careered over the prairie on the back of'Old Gray a docile farm horse, for she feared lest might fall. con, loving, watchful mothers eyes the most steadfast in the world the most like Gods And yet they clos cd upon the worldy and with them ceased that sense of steadfast security that the heart had always known until her heart was still).
 We'll, I got the names, and with much ado the little letter was composed and rewritten several times before we con- sidered it worthy to go to "Grace Green. wood' A month later the little paper came, and among other names I soon spied mine, but behold Frances was spelt with an 1, and after the impetuOus fashion of that early age, 1t was flung on the floor with the impatient exclamation
 That's a boys name! I've lost the prize!''
 The world is now under shrinking process 1t will hardly be bigger thar an orange after while. Inventors tel us that If will be possible at any time tc see as we'll as hear any person on it's sur. face with whom we may wish to communi , cate. Toward that-sublime event we move faster than moves the chariot of the sun bnA to millions of us it will always b' the gay, fascinating, the far of world, and we should like to know more about it, to be more thoroughly part of 1t, tC ) anticipate the time when Eve shall know ) as we are known" If our instinctive wisl , for this involves "good uses," as tn, 2 Swedenborgians say, 1. e., If our names } ana work, whether through the press ol borne on by the human voice, carry tn, tidings of heart within and God oerhead then let them go whithersoever they will and wherever they go, they shall help tt please and brighten this great world true to ite law, that the atom must ever b. drawn toward the mass by and irratabl attraction, according to the laws o nQffIra which ara fho lpUuo of GOd