The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-09-23

49,
under the shadow of h great elns.
You take me down to the artificial
lake, the spotted trout floating in and
out among the white pillars Of the pond
lilies. You take me to the stalls and
kennels where you keep your fine
stock, and here are the Durham cattle
and the Gordon settlers, and the high
stepping steeds, by paving and neigh
ing, the only language they can speak,
asking for harness or saddle and a
short turn down the road. Then
We go ack to the house, and you get
me in the right light, and show me the
Kensetts and the Bierstadts on the
wall, and take me into the music room
and show me the birdcages, the
ries in the bay window answering the
robins in the tree tops. Thank you, I
never enjoyed myself more in the same
length of time. Now, why do We not
do so with the characters of others,
and show the bloom and the music n
the bright fountains? No. We say:
Come along and let me show you
that mans character. Here is a green
scummed frog pond, and there's a fl
thy cellar, and 1 guess under hat
hedge there must be a black a
Come and let us for an hour or two
regale ourselves with the nuisances."
COVER OVER THE FAULTS.
Oh, my friends, better cover UP the
faults and extol h virtues, and this
habit once established Of universal
friendliness will become as easy as it
is for a syringa to food the air with
sweetness, as easy as it will be fur
Their on in the season for a quail to
whistle up from the grass. When we
e something bad about somebody
whom we always supposed to be good,
take out you lead pencil and say:
1T nt ~ caaf Do&xr1 1o~+ Lo+
baleful story against that mans char
acter I will take off from it % per
cent for the habit Of exaggeration
which belongs to the man who first
told the story; then I will AXE off 25
per cent for the additions which the
spirit Of gossip in every community
has put upon the original story; then
l will take off % per cent from the
fact that the man may have been put
into temptation. So I have taken off IS
per cent. But I have not heard his
side of the story at all, and for that
reason l TAX off the remaining % per
cent. Excuse me-, sir, I don't believe a
word of it,"
But here comes in a defective
maxim, so often quoted, where there
is SO much smoke there must be some
fire. Look at all the smoke for years
around Jenner, the ~introducer of vac
N1lu hC SlIIohC oIOQIlu
Columbus, the discover; and the
Savonarola and Galilee and Paul and
John and tell me where was the fire!
That is one of the satanic arts, to
make smoke without fire. SANDER
like the world, may be made out of
nothing. If h Christian, fair mind
ed, common sensical spirit in regard
to others predominated in the world,
we should nave the millennium in
about six weeks, for would not that
be lamb n lion, COW and leopard,
lying down together? Nothing but the
grace of God can ever put us into such
a habit Of mind and hear, as that. The
tendency is in the opposite direction.
This is the way the world talks: I put
my name on the back of a mans note,
and l had to pay for it, and I will new
er again put my name on the back of
any mans note. / gave a beggar 10
cents, and five minutes after I saw him
entering a liquor store to spend it; I
will never again give a cent to a beg
gar. 1 helped that young man start in
business, and 10, after awhile
he came and opened a store almost
next door to me and stole my custom
erS! 1 will never again help a young
man to start in business. I trusted in
what my neighbOr promised to do, and
he broke his word, and the psalmist
was right before he corrected himself,
for "all men are liars" So men be-
come suspicious and saturnine and sell
fish. and at every additional wrong
done them they put another layer on
the wall Of their exclusiveness and an
other bolt to the door that shuts them
out from sympathy with the world.
They get cheated out of 81, 900 or mis-
interpreted or disappointed or betray-
ed, and higher goes the wall and faster
goes another bolt, not realizing that
while they lock others out they lock
themselves in, and some day they wake
up 20 find themselves imprisoned in q
~dastardly habit. No friends to others,
others are no friends to them. There's
an island half way between England,
Scotland and Ireland called the Isle of
Man, and the seas lash against all
sides of it, and I am told there is no
more lovely place han that Isle Of
Man. hut when a man becomes insular
in his disposition and cuts himself off
from the mainland of the worlds SYM
pathies, he is d~espicable, and all around
him is an Atlantic ocean of selfishness.
Behold that Isle Of Man.
THE POISE OF THE HEAD.
Now, supposing that you have by a
divine regeneration got right toward
God and humanity, and you start out
to practice my text. "a man that hath
friends must show himself friendly"
Fulfill this by all forms Of appropriate
salutation. Have you noticed tina the
head is so poised that the easiest thing
on earth is to give a o or %recogni-
ton? To swing the head from side to
side, as when it is wagged in derision,
is unnatural and unpleasant; to throw
it back invites vertigo, but to drop the
chin in greeting is accompanied with
so little eXertion that all day long and
every day you might practice it with
out the least semblance Of fatigue. So.
also, the structure of the land indi-
Gates hand shaking; the knuckles not
made SO that the fingers can turn out,
but so made hat the fingers can turn
in, as in clasping hands, and the thumb
divided from and set aloof from the
fingers, so that while the fingers take
your neighbours hand on one side the
thumb takes it OF the other, and,
pressed together, all the faculties Of
the hand give emphasis to the saluta-
ton. Five sermons in every healthy
hand urge us to hand shaking.
| Besides this every dav When Won Sta rf