The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1901-01-04

greatest poet who ever hved--Milton
was blind, that one Of the graudest
musicians of all the beethoven
was deaf. and that Stewart, in some
respects the greatest merchant that
America ever saw, began in his small
store, aiming on bread and cheese be-
hind the counter in u snatched inter-
regnum between customers, he OPEN
ing the store and closing IT,, sweeping
II out with his own broom and beinc
his own errand boy. Show them that
within ten minutes walk there are
stores, shops, and factories, and homes
where as brave deeds have been done
as those of Leonidas at Thermopylae,
as that of Horatius at the bridge, as
that of Colin Campbell at Balaklava.
Tell them what Napoleon said to his
staff officer when that officer de
clared "a certain military attempt to
be impossible. "lmpossible!" said the
great commander. impossible is the
adjective of fools"
Show them also that what is true
in worldly directions is more true in
spiritual directions. Call the roll of
prophets, apostles and martyrs and
private Christians from the time the
world began and ask them to mention
one man or woman greatly good or
useful who was not deprecated and
failed and made laughing stock.
Racks and prisons and whips and
shipwrecks and axes of beheadment
did their worst. yet the heroes were
more than conquerors. With such
things you will illustrate that word
Courage" and they will go out from
your presence to start anew and right,
challenging all earth and hell TO the
combat
There are four or five words which
fifty spoken, might ,oothe and enamel
pate and rescue. Go to those from
whose homes Christ has taken TO Him
self loved one. and try the word ire
union"-not under WiEtry sky. but in
everlasting springtide; not a land
where they can he struck with disease,
but where the nhabitant never says:
81 am sick" not reunion that can be
followed by separation. but in a place
from which they shall go no more out
forever" For emaciation and sigh
ing immortal health. Reunion. or, il
you like the word better. anticipation.
There is nothing left for them in this
world. Try them with Heaven. With
chapter from the great book open
one of the ~ gates. Give them one note
of seraphic harp. one flash from the sea
of glass, one clatter of the hoofs Of the
horses on which victors ride. That
word reunion. or anticipation. fitly
spoken-well, no fruit heaped up in sill
yer baskets could equal it. Of the 1000
kinds of apples that have blessed the
world. not one is so mellow OF SO rich
or so aromatic. but we take the sugges-
ton of the text. and compare that
word of comfort. fifty spoken. to apples
of gold in baskets Of silver.
There must he no Impotence in the
warning we give others. We must
realize that but for the kindness Of
God to MS we would have been in the
same rapids. That man going wrong
may be struggling with tide Ct evil
inherited from father and grandfather
and great-grandfather The present
temptation may be the accumulated
force of generations and centuries.
mo" you say. "his father was a
good man. ! knew him" But did you
know his grandfather? Evil habit
is apt to skip one generation, a fact
recognized 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 un-
happy home, and that is enough to
wreck anyone. We often speak of
men who destroy their homes. but do
not say anything about the fact that
there are thousands of wives in Amer
lea who by petulance and fretting and
! reconsideration and lack of economy
and all manner of disagrceablcness
! drive their husbands into dissipation.
| The reason that thousands of men
| spend their evenings in clubhouscs
and tavernS is because they cannot
stand it at home. | know men who
are 30-year martyrs in the fact that
| they are aNfully married. That mar
riage was not made in Heaven. With
out asking Divine guidance they en-
I tered into an alliance which ought
never to have been made. That is
what is the matter with many mon
you and | know They may he very
brave and heroic and say nothing
about it but all the ueiphbors know.
Now, if the man going wrong has such
domestic misfortune, he very lonient
and eNcusatory in your word of warn
ing. The difference between You and
him may be that you would have gone
down faster than he is going down If
you had the same kind of coniugal
wret chedness.
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. I'm art TO be
studied as you study music for it is
music in the fact that it drives out
moral discord and substitutes eternal
harmony; an art to be studied like
sculpture, for il is sculpture ia the