The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1899-03-23
iltteit for The Prison Mirror.
WILL POWER,

10 thine own self be true, and it
must follow as the night the day, thou
canst not then be false any more"
Shakespeare, about the greatest Judge
of human nature the world has known.
gives us keynote to what we should
| be, in his first words, be true to YOUR
SELF. 10 be true to ones self, one must
have will power, for without it we are
false to ourselves and to our fellow
man.
There is IN this present "vale of
tears" a great number of men, who,
when misfortune comes to them, are
sure to cry out, if they are drinkers,
that it was rum that got them into mis-
fortune; and then comes some of our
over jealous reformers and make big
noise, and to use an expression of
Dlcklns' cry, "put it down, put it
down." and the more noise they make,
the faster the drinker puts it down.
My individual opinion about the mat
ter - perhaps it's not much - is, that
rum is not as much to blame as the
man himself That article, which a
good many of us call will, must be
lacking
If the reformers would give as much
time to tie man without will power, as
they do to things wich are Of no benefit
to him, and teach him that to have will
power, is to have freedom from his
passions, there would be quite a drop
in tie sale of liquor. A man that has
strong will, one that he can control
his habits with, need have no fear of
rum or of any other of his passions.
| | do not wish to have the meaning of
my words misconstrued at present,
will admit that rum, opium, morphine
and cocaine are in sense a part of his
misfortune.
| Let us take the individual himself.
| The Creator gave to every born mortal
will; that is to say, a conscience. by
which he is to discern good and evil,
Now if man takes to drink - as a
good many dot is not, as he thinks, the
drink which got him into misfortune,
but himself; for knowing that it was
wrong to get drunk, and if he heeds not
the warning, he must face the coDse.
quences, for he, who hesitates, is lost.
There is no use in saying that drink
was the cause of our misfortune, for it
was not, let us be men and own up that
our passions are stronger than our will.
Confession is good for the soul.
Some say it is impossible for them to
give it up. Such people as they, land it
would be doing them aud society lot
of good) should be kept in an insane
asylum, where they belong. This world
is for those who have push, pluck
and perseverance,; and as the prOverb
says, where there's will, there is a
way. Prohibition and all reforms,
which tend to give the fallen man a
chance to gain good standing for
himself, are very good; but if a man has
no will to help make better man Of
himself, prohibition and all the re-
forms together are dead factors in his
case.
Rum, opium and morphine and the
other stuff which some men are addicted
to, are useful articles for drugs, but
like anything else, if taken too much
of, are hard on the system of the taker.
1t is possible for us to overcome our
vices, and if we cannot, then we must
face the inevitable; but it is possible
for us to overcome our vices, and that
can be done by will power.
Some of the greatest men ever born
are noted for their will power. Alexan-
der the Great as child showed that he
had will Of his own, which sometimes
was not very pleasing to his father
Phillip. Homer, during his blindness
also had powerful will; Napoleon
during his passage over the Alps dis.