Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1898-01-05

wheel, or the spread of a ships sail,
| may go all around the world,
and thus be fulfilled the prophesy,
There shall be no more sea-"
But the durability of the corals
work is not at all to be compared with
the durability of our work for God.
The coral is going to crumble in the
fires of the last day, but our work for
Gcd will endure forever. No more dis
couraged man ever lived than BeethOv-
en-, the great musical composer. I'm
mercifully criticized by brother artists,
and his music sometimes rejected.
Dear for twenty-five years, and forced.
on his way to Vienna, to beg food and
lodging at a plain house by the road
side. In the evening the family opened
a musical instrument and played and
sang with great enthusiasm; and one
OF the numbers they rendered was so
emotional that tears ran down their
cheeks while they sang and played.
Beethoven, sitting in the room, too
deaf to hear the singing. was curious
to know what was the music that so
overpowered them, and when they got
through he reached up and took the
folio in his hand and found 1t was his
own music-Beethoven' Symphony in
A-and he cried out, II wrote that"
The household sat and stood abashed
to ind that their poor-looling guest
was the great composer. But he never
left that house alive. A fever seized
him that night, and no relief could be
afforded, and in few days he died.
But just before expiring he took the
hand OF his nephew, who had been sent
Tor and arrived, saying. After all,
Hummel. must have had some tai
ent." Poor Beethoven! His work
still lives. and in the twentieth GEN.
fury VIII be better appreciated than 1t
was in the nineteenth; and as long as
there is on earth an orchestra to play
or an oratorio to sing, Beethoven's
nine symphonies will be the enchant-
ment OF nations. But you are not
composer. and you say there is nothing
remarkable about you-only a mother
trying to rear your family for useful
ness and heaven. Yet the song with
which you sing your child to sleep
will never cease its mission. You will
grow old and die. That son will pass
out into the world. The song with
which you sang him to sleep last night
will go with him while he lives, a con-
scious or unconscious restraint and IN
spiration here. and may help open to
him the gate of glorious and trium-
plant hereafter. The lullabies Of this
century will sing through all the GEN.
turtles. The humblest good accom-
plished in time will last through eter-
nifty. / sometimes get discouraged, as
| suppose you do, at the vastness of
the work and at how little we are do
ing. And yet, do you suppose the
rhiZopod said, There is no need Of my
working! / can not build the Cordil-
leras." Do you suppose the madrepore
said: There is no need Of my work.
ing; / can not build the Sandwich Is
lands" Each one attended to his own
business; and there are the Sandwich
Islands, and there are the Cordilleras.
All. my friends, the redemption OF this
world is a great enterprise. l did not
see It's close. am only an insect as
compared with the great work to be
done but yet I must do my part.
HELP build this eternal corallum I will.
My parents toiled on this reef long be-
fore was born. pray God that my
children may toll on this reef long
after am dead Insects all Of us, but
honored by God to help heave up the
reef Of light across which shall break
the oceans immortal gladness. Better
be Insignificant and useful than great
and idle. The mastodons and mega
theriums of the earth, what did they
do but stalk their great carcasses
across the land and leave their skele-
tons through the strata, while the cor
allines went on heaving up the islands
all covered with fruitage and verdure.
Better be a coralline than a masto-
don. So now am trying to make enc
little corallire. The polyp picks out
of the wave that smites it carbonate
Of lime, and with that builds up its
own insectile masonry. So out of the
wave OF your tears take the salt; out
Of the bruise | take the blue, and out
of your bleeding heart l take the red;
and out of them altogether l take this
coral, which l pray may not be dis
owned in the day when God makes up
his jewels.
Little things decide great things.
All that tremendous career Of the last
Napoleon hanging on the hand of
brakeman who, on one of our American
railways, caught him as he was fall
ing between the cars Of flying train.
The battle of Dunbar was decided
against the Scotch because their
matches had given out. Aggregations
Of little things that pull down or build
up. When an army or a regiment
come to bridge they are always COM
manded to break ranks, for their sim
ultaneous tread will destroy the
strongest bridge. A bridge at Anglers,
France, and bridge at Broughton,
ENGLAND went down because the reoi-