Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1898-11-27
A Preacher Among the People.
PATIENCE

| learned, Detter tnan many OtnerS, Cne
lesson Of patience. Not Indifference
but patience. She was ever cultivat-
| ing. encouraging and correcting her
children, but never seemed to be sur
prised or perturbed by some sudden
outbreak or mischievous prank on
/ their part.
/ When asked concerning her marvel
Gus self-control under what was
fsometimes very great provocation, her
reply was: "The time for ripe figs
! has not yet come. do not expect
them- and therefore am not disap-
pointed because they do not appear"
But when the time for the ripe FRUIT
of mature thought and action did
come, not one of that mothers sons or
daughters ever failed her. Never idle
and yet never hurried and fretful;
never careless about the training of
her children. and yet never expecting
a child to be o.ner than a child, sne
was the envy, but at the same time,
the inspiration Of all the mothers who
| were fortunate enough to know her
Il would be well for all of us if we
could learn the lesson she had learned
so WELL The conditions attending our
| lives are constantly varying; but
there is hardly time or circumstance
in which 1T cannot be truly said to us:
,'Ye have need of patience"
= Easy and hasty' achievements, like
qufck-growth, are usually the least
durable, and yet, in the very face of
this well known fact, we are constant
ly lamenting our plodding gait. When
nature sets out to make an oak, she
does not try to do the work in sim
gle day. The process is slow and we
are told that not only the sunshine
and summer rains are needed, but that
colo and storm serve purpose in the
work. And it seems the processes
whereby the perfect man is raised up
are much the same. He is faithful
that promised, but it is not given unto
us to specify the time of fulfillment,
therefore, we frequently have need of
patience, otherwise we may stand in
the way and render the promise void
l remember now, with more or less
amusement, an experience which l had
a good many years ago. In moment
of boyish enthusiasm l resolved upon
having grove OF naples in front of
the house in which lived. l gathered
the necessary amount of seeds and
proceeded to the planting. My exper-
iment might have terminated as /
hoped, but for the fact that | had not
learned that patience, as well as SOIL
seeds, and sunshine was necessary
factors in growing such a grove as l
desired. 1 wanted my grove, like
Jonah's gourd, to come up in a night,
and because it did not, proceeded the
next morning to dig up all the seeds
to see whether or not they had begun
to grow. l kept repeating that opera
ton from time to time until l killed
the germs of the seeds and thereby
made the promise of no effect.
needed somebody then to teach me
the important lesson of patience.
And l am not sure but that is the very
lesson we need to be learning all along
the journey of our lives.
We go up to the pinnacle of the tenn
pie or the mountain top in our youth
and as we look around and contem-
plate the various possibilities that
present themselves, thedevil of impa-'
tience whispers in our ears and sug-
gests short and easy ways to fame and
fortune, and even though sacrifice of
principle is involved i'm his proposi-
tion, great many yield. They allow
themselves to be pursuaded that there
is shorter road to success than that
which many others have travelled
with safety, and SO turn aside from the
beaten path of honesty, hoping the
tempter's promise will be fulfilled. But
sooner or later they learn, in some sad
way, that they have been deceived.
The desire of the young to begin life
where successful men and women quit
is widespread and mischievous in it's
effects. No one can become master
in any department of the worlds work
without serving an apprenticeship.
The sooner this fact is universally
learned and applied the better it will
be for us all.
= we always noticed great, success
Is mixed with trouble more or less"
is largely question of working
ND waiting, Not long ago heard
'ome young students bewailing their
ct and making themselves miserable
because they knew so much less about
than their teacher In
MS case the time for ripe fruit had
come, but in theirs it had not. They
we're anxious to have the tree mature
and bear mathematical figs in a few
hours and because it did not, they were
II -