The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-11-26

W VIC Ec8focnSe VI y m80 OF I9e name or
Hefsd. bat il was doubly appropriate b.
cause OF the massacre Of the innocents.
In that schoolhouse we were compelled to
nit upright for eight hours. What an
undertaking.! And hours were longer
then than now. We had various kinds of
punishment In that school too. One was
to strike the boy on the head, thus slim
ulating the brain. and another was to
take the culprit over the schoolr.aster's
knee, so that information came to the boy
from both directions.
some Marvellous Changes.
How things have marvelously changed!
We used to cry because we had TO go TO
school. Now children cry il they cannot
60. Many of them can intelligeutiy dis
cUss political topics long before they have
seen a ballot box or, leased by some po-
etc muse, can compose articles for the
newspapers. Philosophy and astronomy
and chemistry have been so improved
that be must be a genius at duIlness who
knows nothing about them. On one shelf
Of q poor mans library Is more practical
knowledge than IN the 100000 volumes
Of ancient Alexandria, and education is
possible for the most INDECENT, and no
legislature or congress for the last fifty
years has assembled which has not had in
it rail splitters and farmers and drovers
or men who lave been accustomed to toll
ing with the hand and the foot.
The pen which Moses dipped in the
light OF the first morning and Jeremiah
filled with tears and Ezekiel thrust in vi
sions Of fire and Matthew touched with
the blood Of a cross and St. John dipped
in the splendors Of beatifc ~glory-that
pen has wrought marveis for all classes
Of our people. Today you libraries and
colleges and schools and publishing
houses and churches celebrate the ever
growing conquests Of the American pen,
and our prospects are all the time bright
ening.
Who these many years hath turned
back from our land the violent plaques
which have swept with their train of ter
rors through other countries? Who hath
grown in our fields harvests richer than
Sicilian or Russian grainields? Who
hath lifted marsh after marsh and built
town after town until every CLEAN on the
wave of the lakes is answered by the
CLEAN Of city towers and the roar Of the
ocean at one side of the each harbor has
been answered by the din Of a great me-
~tropolis on the other-160,OOO miles Of
coal running side by side with 10000
SQudIc LILIES u HULL, Tue " " pIy Out
the coal, the coal to forge and smelt the
iron? Make this calculation for your
selves if you can make it: If England's
coal bed, 80 miles long by 8 miles wide,
can keep, as it does, 100000 spindles
at work in that small island, what may
we not expect Of our national industries
when 1000 o square miles Of coal lands
shall unite with the 100000 square miles
of iron, both stretching themselves up to
their full strength and height-two world
shaking giants?
The Glorious Prospects.
The grainfelds have passed their har-
vests above the veto of drought and del
uge. The freight cars are not large
enough to bring down the grain to the
seaboard. The canalboats are crowded
with breadstuffs. Hark to the rushing
of the wheat through the great Chicago
corn elevators! Hark to the rolling Of
the hogsheads Of the Cincinnati pork
packers! Enough to eat and at low
prices. Enough to wear and of home
manufacture. If some have and some
have not, then may God help those who
have to hand over to those who have not!
Clear the track for the rail trains that
rush on bringing the wheat and the cot
ton and the rice and the barley and the
oats and the hops and the lumber and
the leather and everything for man and
everything for beast.
Lift up your eyes, o nation Of Gods
right hand, at the glorious prospects,!
Build larger your barns for the harvests.
Dig deeper the watts for the spoil Of the
vineyards. Enlarge the warehouses for
the merchandise. Multiply galleries of
art for the pictures and statues. Ad-
vance, o nation of Gods right hand, but
remember that national wealth, if III
sanctifed, is sumptuous waste, is moral
ruin, is magnificent woe, is splendid rot
%tenness, is gilded death. Woe to us for
the wine watts if drunkenness wallows In
them! Woe to us for the harvest if greed
sickles them! Woe to US for the mer-
chandise If avarice swallows it! Woe
to US for the cities il misrule walks them!
Woe to the land if God defying crime de-
bauches it! Our only safety is in more
Bibles, more churches, more free schools,
more good men and more good women,
more consecrated printing presses, more
Of the glorious gospel Of the Son OF God,
which will yet extirpate all wrongs and
introduce all blessedness.
But the preachers on Thanksgiving
morning will not detain with long SER
mons their hearers from the home group.
The housekeepes win be angry if the
guests do not arrive until the viands are
cold. Set the chairs to the table-the
easy chairs for grandfather and grand
mother if they are still alive, the high
chair for the youngest, but not the least.
Then put out your hand to take the full
cup Of thanksgiving. Lift it and bring
it toward your lips, your hands trembling
with emotion, and if the chalice shall
overflow and trickle a few drops on the
white cloth that covers the table do not
be disturbed. but let it suggest to you the
words Of the psalmist and lead you
thankfully to say, "My cup runneth
overt"
Copyright, 1901, Louis Klopscb. N. u
PNN