The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1897-02-06

YOU 90 Tue more you lmpONeTlSn
your farm, and there are stages in
plant growth when the use of either
roller or any other implement is
agricultural suicide. Because these
are facts maintainable against all
argument, and because so many
hundreds of thousands of my read
ers are farmers, wish to make these
out-of- doors truths the starting
point for another Rambling
Thought"
-
Humanity has from time imme-
mortal been likened to a field. vine
yard DC, wherein laborers are need
ed to pillow and to harrow, to reap
and to garner. And the call to thrust
in as the field is white unto the har-
vest has always found increasing
response since the moment when man
first began to understand that the
claims of his neighbor are urgent
upon him the moment his own ALSO
lutte needs have been attended to.
IS
But enthusiasm in relation to
good work has to be combined with
commonsense; it certainly must not
be ahead of it; or we shall find our
selves embarked in another Hateful
Children's Crusade. like that of the
middle ages. Enthusiasm alone will
sink us into helplessness, just as
with the rearing and the straining
of mired horse. To make amply
clear my meaning / will 60 little
further There is hardly commun
ity in which you will fail to find
men and women, working for the
benefit of their race from the purest
motives at the outset. But in al
most as many communities you will
find lines of effort crossing and re-
crossing one another. So eager be-
comes the straining after statistical
pre-eminence-so many garments
made, so many hungry fed, so many
souls saved, &c, that the real object
of the humanizing work, the reach
ing of human hearts, is almost lost
to sight in the rush. Then, here
and there some extra enthusiastic
one instead of trying, or pretend
ing to try, to water where others
have planted, starts his answering
pillow or his drastic harrow right
over the growing crops and stand
ing sheaves of others; excnsing him
self by asserting that their methods
have been wrong. Thus he not only
undoes the work of others but he
wastes his own strength, by doing
at an improper time, thing essen
TALLY proper in its own time and
place.
#4*
So while our voices should I'M
doubtedly be raised in strength
these closing years of the century,
for freedom for all to work as they
will, Wisdom being justified of her
children; there is equal need for Sc
curing certain unity of effort, S o
as to economic the moral strength
of a neighborhood. Eagerness to
work is not alone sufficient, else we
would praise the child that pulls up
corn to see it grow, or that tears
open a drum to see where the sound
comes from. The human race, look
ing backward can truly say, when
l was child Il n / thought as
child" but it is not yet able to say,
''when | became man, l put away
childish things" If it could, we
should see. less pettiness. indirect
ness, and stupidity among those who
claim to be children of Light, and
yet grope in the selfish, narrow
stages of human development.
~
What then shall be said to Your
heart this week? You need in deep
humility to acknowledge to yourself
that the stone-age has passed, when
every mans enemy was the very
next man he happened to meet; that
the iron-age is passing, when men
learn the power OF combination but
use it for oppression; that the
Golden Age is coming, when the CO.
operation of those who love, for the
benefit of those who suffer must be
the rule. If it be true that as
man thinks in his heart, so is he;then
you will promptly be found ready to
sink individual gain and fame,
ready to forego the praise of man,
ready to seek the greatest good for
the greatest number even if your
own personality becomes merged in
the common effort.
~
Would it not be of advantage to
form in your town-what shall l
name it?-a SECT Together society?
Its membership to be made up of
those who in divers ways are work
ing for the uplifting of the race. Its
function to be a sort of clearing
house of ideas, where those who
work give to others the benefit of
their experience, thus economizing
the strength that is now wasted and
the damage that is done by those
who laboriously work out plans for
themselves that others have already
effectually learned. You will say
perhaps, that this is not feasible, be
cause each worker will be on the
watch against giving advantage to
anyone else You may be right, but
if you are, you are voicing the deep
est protest that fallen humanity can
raise against the workers for good.
The poor object of their solicitous
attention is pulled one way and
then the other until he cries out 81
would rather go one way wrong,
than travel twenty different ways to
be right" If the ability to combine
which has been such notable dis
covery among men, discovery that
has led him upward from caves in
the earth to our present highly or
ganized civilization, if, say, this
ability is to stop short when it
comes to moral effort, it were almost
better that it had remained undis-
covered.
80
But am persuaded better things.
1t is not for nothing that we are
passing through our little day on
earth. All nature is vocal of the
value of combination, and of growth
by combination ;all history proclaims
it; and all heights of moral power
and accomplishment are possible by