Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1901-01-03
an afternoon airing to an invalid on a

nelgnDOrlng street. You could loan
book with some chapters most adapted
to some particular misfortune. Go
home today and make out list Of
things you can do that will show SYM
pathetic thoughtfulness for the hardly
bestead. How many dark places you
might illumine! How many tears you
could stop, or, II already started, you
could wipe away; How much like
Jesus Christ you might get to be! So
sympathetic was he with beggary, so
helpful was he for the fallen, and so
stirred was he at the sight Of dropsy,
epilepsy, paralysis and ophthalmia that
whether he saw it by the roadside, or
at the sea beach. or at the mineral
baths of Bethesda, he offered relief.
Cultivate genuine sympathy, Christlike
sympathy. You cannot successfully
dramatize 1t. False sympathy Alexan-
der Pope sketches in two lines:
Before her face her handkerchief she
spread
To hide the food Of tears she did not
she'd"
.. A Word of Warning.
So also Is word of warning. A
ship may sail out of harbor when the
sea has not so much as a ripple, but
what foolhardy ship company would
they be that made no provision for
high winds and wrathful seas. How
ever smoothly the voyage of life may
begin We will get rough weather before
we harl or on the other side, and We
need ever and anon to have some one
uttering In most decided tones the
word beware" There are all the
temptations to make this life every
thing and to forget that an inch OF
ground is larger as compared with
the whole earth than this life as COM
pared with our external existence
There are all the temptations of the
wine cup and the demijohn, which
have taken down as grand men as this
or any other century has heard Of
There are all the temptations of pride
and avarice and base indulgence and
ungovernable temper. There is no
word We all need oftener to hear than
the word beware"
The trouble is that the warning word
is apt to come too late. We allow our
friends to be overcome in a fight with
some evil habit before we sound an
alarm. After a man is all on fire with
evil habit your word of warning will
have no more effect than would an ad-
dress to a house on fire asking 1t to
stop burning,no more use than steam
tug going out 10 help a ship after 1t
has sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
What use in word of warning to that
inebriate whose wife was dying from
wounds inflicted by his own hand? As
he held the hand Of his dying wife he
made this vow: Mary, l will never
take another glass of strong drink I'M
til | take it from this hand which
now hold" In an awful way he kept
the VOW, for when the wife was in her
coffin he filled glass with brandy, put
the glass into the dead hand, then took
the glass out Of the hand, and drank
the liquid. Too late does any warning
come to such an one. But many a
man now high up in usefulness and
honor was stopped on the wrong road
by kindly hand put upon the shoul-
der and word fifty spoken. All, yes,
fifty spoken-that is, at the right time,
with the right accentuation, and the
right emphasis.
Speak with Patience.
There must be no impotence in the
warning we give others. We must
realize that but for the kindness OF
God to us we would have been in the
same rapids. That man going wrong
may be struggling with tide of evil
inherited from father and grandfather
and great-grandfater. The present
temptation may be the accumulated
force Of generations and centuries.
NO" you say, his father was a good
man. / knew him." But did You
know his grandfather: Evil habit is
apt to skip one generation, fact rec
ognized in the Ten Commandments,
which speak of the third and fourth
generations, but say nothing OF the
second generation.
; Or the man astray may have an I'M
happy home. and that is enough to
wreck any one. We often speak Of men
who destroy their homes, but do not
say anything about the fact that there
are thousands of wives in America who
by petulance and fretting and incon-
sideration and lack of economy and all
manner Of disagreeableness drive their
husbands into dissipation. The reason
that thousands of men spend their
evenings in club houses and taverns
is because they cannot stand 1t at
home. know men who are thirty
year martyrs in the fact that they are
awfully married. That marriage was
not made in heaven. Without asking
divine guidance they entered into an
alliance which ought never to have
ter with many men you and l know.
They may be very brave and heroic
and say nothing about it, but all the
.neighbors know. Now, II the man go
ing wrong has such domestic misfor-
tune. be very lenient and excusatory in
your word Of warning. The difference
between you and him may be that you
would have gone down faster than he
is going down IL you had the same kind
of conjugal wretchedness.
Art of Doing Good.
In mentioning fine arts people are
apt to speak of music and painting and
sculpture and architecture, but they
forget to mention the finest Of all the
fine arts-the art of doing good, the art
OF helping others. the art Of saving
men. An art to be studied as you stud.