The true northerner., 1900-06-27

out OF the attic Wlnu0Wb OF the minu,
the great questions of life, sit around the
hearthstone of the heart, all these great
questions are in the hands of these young
people here. For instance, is there any
thing that can really have more to do
with your happiness or misery than what
work you are going to do in the worldy
What part of the worlds toll are you
going to take upY Are you going to be
doctor, lawyer, merchant, chiefY What
are you going to do for a living? Did
il never occur to you that it Is the boy
that selects the vocation, that the man
will follow; that it is the boy who
picks out the profession that the man
will take up-and generally it behooves
the man To keep up with it. Sometimes
we can change our position in life and
succeed, but not generally. We had bet
ter follow where the boy led us.
Then there is another question. What
woman are you going to marry What
man are you going to marry? Now that
is question generally whispered about
in the corner and giggled about
in the school yards and tattled about in
society, but it is great question, so far
as our happiness is concerned. They tell
me if you get the wrong woman, it is
about as near perdition as you can get
this side of the pit, and so if you get the
right woman it is about as near paradise
as you can get this side of the pearly
gates. But right or wrong, bought or
purchased, it is the boy, uncallow, un-
fresh boy that selects the woman the man
has got TO live with; it is the girl, the
silly, giggling, inexperienced girl that
picks out the man the woman must
put up with.
Then there are the questions the
preacher talks to you about. What are
you going to do with the finer claims of
| lifeY What are you going to do with
duty, with destiny, or how control all the
wild wolves that inhabit every human
heart? and all of those things that reach
out beyond this life and into the life of
the hereafterY Nine people out of ten
who settle that question right settle
it in youth.
You say you know such and such
man. He is your neighbor; you have
lived near him for ten years. Do you
ever stop to ask yourself what you know
about him? He is here tonight, .one of
your old neighbors. Don't look at him
! just look at me, and tell me candidly, do
you know the color of his eyes? You
have known him 10 years, 20 years. Are
you quite sure how he parts hair? Do
you know what kind of coat he has on,
what kind of neck tie? Do you know
what sort of trousers he wears, what
sort of waist-coat? Yet you know him
SO well, if you saw him turn a corner,
just got a glimpse of him, you would
know him, you would recognize his foot
fail, his voice in congregation, and you
would know him by that indescribable
something that we call the flavor of his
personality, and that became favored
only in the period called youth. | saw a
woman once who was making ielly,l and
as she made glassful, she dropped in a
geranium leaf 1t would flavor the whole
glass What the geranium leaf is to the
glass of Jelly, youth is TO the whole life
! So If you are Judge of human nature
you can tell where a man was brought
! up or some dominating influences under
which he was brought up. For instance,
there was a man over there brought up
amongst girls, five or six girls. When
you come to see how you know it, it is
not by any reasoning of your mind that
| you come by that conclusion, it is Just
the air about him-very good air, too. You
go into the senate of the United States
and listen to those august millionai-I
mean statesmen as they rise TO speak, you
can tell where every one of them came from.
There is one man that gets up and talks,
and in three minutes you say he is from
down east. When a man is from down
east, he never gets over it. There is a
man from Boston, down 10y the coast; he
hasn't any eastern twang; he hasn't any
particular speech, or coat, or manner.
He has lived in many places and been in
many foreign countries and flatters him
| self that he has become cosmopolitan,
and yet you know he came from that
country, and spent his boyhood in that
! place, just as well as if you smelt the
Goldfish on his hand. That man gets up
and talks, and you say he came from the
West, from Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas;
on some of those big farms, that is where
he was brought up; he drove mules when
he was boy, and got up at four o'clock
in the morning and did chores. You
don't know why you say that; he has
probably been living in the city for many
years, in flats, and he hatters himself
that the smell of the soil is not on him
any more. But you can tell it by that
subtitle air about him, just as if you saw
the milk on his boots. You observe a
man whom you know was brought up
among books-in his fathers house were
many books. He has read everything
has been an omniverous reader.
And so l say it is of all the great men
of America, of all our statesmen and
warriors whose faces have become
familiar to US in the public prints or in
the text books. There is no face so
deeply imprinted upon the hearts of the
people. not only in this country, but in