The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-12


 When I returned to my home this summer l found that the humid weath- | CT had swelled the front door so that had to jerk it with all my might to gel it open, and slam 1t so 1t could be heard
 in the next block to get 1t shut, and | thought, If the weather will swell an
 old door until it gets in that condition what must be the effect upon the hu-
 man soul of living in an atmosphere of | envy and suspicion, and hate and jeal- ousy, and indifference and cynicism.' .'' | Take my advice, and go out calling
 some day on a few people who are al | ways complaining, and finding fault, | and speaking i'll of their neighbors, and l saying disagreeable things, and see how soon the doors of your mind and heart begin to swell up, and squeak, and groan, and wheeze on their hinges. l was brought up in farming region, | and every fall we used to hitch up and go to the county fair There you would find on exhibition the largest pump kins, the finest potatoes, the plumpest wheat, the fattest cattle, and the most luscious fruit that was to be found in all that region. Everything was the best there was and the farmers en- tered into a good natured rivalry to see who could surpass all the rest in the ripeness and largeness and luscious ness of his fruit, Suppose they adopt ed a different course. Suppose they adopted a different method. Suppose they filled up their exhibits with sam- pies of stumps they had pulled out with boxes of sand from fields that grew no grain; with big Canada this ties that infested their lots; with bot ties of water from swamps reeking with malaria; and with rusty wheat, and stunted corn and rotten potatoes, and wind-falls from the orchard. How many people would want to go to that fair? And yet there are people who think they are not honest unless they put the disagreeable side of their na- ture to the front. The more offensive they are, the more they irritate the more levers they stir up, the more do they congratulate themselves that they are upright and true They are like one who pulls up the stinging nettles, and foul-smelling jimson- blossoms. and the mal-odorous mayweed and the vile burdocks, from his garden in order to make a nice bouquet of them for the parlor mantle. Did not they all grow there? Let us be honest about it, even if we have too cultivate these things!
 I don't believe that it is a sign of dis honesty for a man to have a lawn in front of his cottage, and a rose bush in the front yard, and a honeysuckle-vin climbing up over the front porch that sends down It's fragrance upon every one who enters; and I do not believe that 1t Is wrong to be agreeable, and gentle and kind, and considerate, and anxious to please every one who comes near us.
 Wherever the traveller goes in Ant werp he hears the sound of the chime of bells echong from the spire of the great cathedral If he wakes up in the night, if he Is hurrying through the street in the daytime, if he winds his way about among the noisy trucks down by the docks, every fifteen min utes there comes stealing through the l
  gloomy thoughts as night flies from the | stern hills in the morning. That lit- tle rippling movement over the bels hat simple congeries of sound waves oulsing through the air, has driven nore care and sadness from the human leart than many mighty organization if proud ecclesiastics. Think of the joy | bearing power flung out into the air like he sweet strains of a symphony, from bright and cheerful soul, radiant wit all that is gentle and kind, and help ul and true, and believing and noble, md sympathetic! Think of the and misery and crime, hat must be scattered through the world like thistle-seed by a soul that is irritable and proud and envious and uspicious and obstinate, and arrogant nd cynical, A man said to me the ther day of a mutual acquaintance: O, you must not mind him. His bark worse than his bite" Indeed! We'll yhat do I care, when some cynic is narling at my heels that he really does | ot intend to nip me, but is just growl- 1g and showing his teeth because he | such a straightforward and honest erson? He makes me miserable by is barking, and if he does not reform is manners I will put on pair of cop ar-tCcd shoes the next time I go out. ] here are people who pride themselves lat they never mince their words; and hose offensive and disagreeable good :. ess, instead of being an incentive and I inspiration to men, makes them ate righteousness, and arrests their in life of virtue. A DOT lpine has a perfect right to be DOT {, , lpne, and to cover himself all over ith prickly quills if he wants to; but ! must stay out in the woods and keep 1 with himself, for the moment } tries to enter polite society, he will clubbed out. The Lord never in- nded that an upright man should be |