The age-herald., 1900-10-21

Dare to be great without a guilty crown: View it, and lay the bright temptation down.
 It is very needful, my beloved, that we pray alway for the virtue of q forgiving spirit and for power over temptation. Day by day almost hour by hour, the | least offending amongst us have need Of | the virtue of forgiveness; for too often in l this wide world women and men who are | least offending are most offended Gentle | ness is ever the mark for rudeness; virtue arouses the resentment of the vulgar; | meekness is a challenge to towards who rant in the similitude of courage. We see the bully everywhere, from boy
 hood to senility and sometimes from girl | hood to age-enfeebled fury. The devil was | a bully to begin with, and every bully since l the beginning has been one of the devils l imps. The bully dishonors helpless women | and expresses helpless children; creates l scandal and brings shame to virtue; com | mits public murder and secret assassina- l tion; wrongs and outra ges and betrays ev cry trust and every sense of honor and jus l tice and purity; steals and lies and forges; | picks pocets and seeks to degrade right;
 the bully is a coward, a blasphemer, an of | fense against high heaven
 | Boy.bully, man-bully, woman-bully-they
 1 are all the unclean and offensive thing l which outrages the world
 | Yet the bully is the thing which we arc l often called upon to forgive; and against | that evil the best amongst us sometimes l ha inn tad tp
 hate in the personal sense as virtue hates | sin spiritually. But the only revenge left l to reputable men and women is forgive l ness. Not every one can forget wrongs
 | imposed; but every one can forgive. l Whosoever holds vengeance to be sweet has never known the spiritual satisfaction l of forgiving evii-workers or evil-wishers. |
 | Lead us not into temptation
 Many and many time it seems bitterly | hard to forgive even little offenses; and to ] forgive real wrongs requires stubborn and relentless purpose. In every life there are
 numberless minor miseries inflicted by in- | dividuals of whom as of right one antici- | pates nothing but constant and watchful , , kindness, loving and cordial concern. Inconsistencies comes from those to WlOH OHe lOOhS lOT cSdSCleSS COlSiutfd- 1 Son
 | Thoughtlessness of speech or conduct l. | worth of goods to what may be called pI- | vate trade. That was 5000 taken directly | from the tax-burdened merchants of Bir- | mingham.
 Another man came here from Georgia | some place, took out a common peddler's | license, and sold in a day or two by house | to house visits over 5000 in household ne cessities That was 5000, and over, belong | ing in all sense of right and justice to l Birmingham merchants who pay heavy | license and heavy taxes of other kinds. | "These two fragrant instances of the | wrongs imposed on Birmingham merchants | are not imaginary; they are known to me 1 to be true. And they are mere instances | in d constant practice of widespread wrong. | Just so long as the merchants of Birming-
 l ham, no matter who they be individually, 1 or what their line of business, deserve trade I in all classes of goods, from bananas to I the richest bridal robe, they have a clear
 | right to the trade of Birmingham, and of
 l! all the people in Brmingham's wider ter
 | ritory who can best be served by coming I to the city. If my house can sell as fine l dress and as finely made for given sum, transportation expenses included, as l New York house, my house has first l claim to sell that dress to any woman in l the Birmingham district.
 1 But 1 am not talking in my own inter- | est. Our own trade is all that we can at | tend to a present; but it is a question of 1 the broad principle of justice. Outsiders l should not be allowed to come here and, | without payment of a cent Of taxes, take | from us the retail trade which we are heav-
 | fly taxed for seeking. 1 discussed this | wrong with our Mayor himself a big mer- 1 chant, and he declares thai there is no law | to protect local merchants against this | wrong. That may be so; but it is easy for l the City Council to enact the necessary
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 i The Mayberry Hardware Company of this