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

be Given by the Pastor-somc Inter
 esting Stories.
 The Rev George H. Ferris, the pastor
 of the Calvary Baptist church
 preached an interesting sermon Sunday
 evening on "The Power of Politeness. ,
 This was the first of a series of sex 1 mons to be delivered Sunday evenings
 at the Calvary Baptist church by the pastor, and 1t is expected that the
 course will prove a very interesting
 one. The text of the sermon last night
 was atken from Proverbs 25: il, and was as follows:
 l Prov. 25: Il: A Wise man once said,
 God made man men that they might
 help one another" The word polite"
 comes from Latin verb that means to
 smooth down the rough edges, and pol
 ish off the Jagged points, until a sur
 face no longer rasps, and irritates and | abrades everything that comes in con-
 tact with it. If you will look in your dictionary you will find an old and ob- solete use of the word, that called a shaft of metal, that had been smoothed and adjusted, and filed down, and sand-papered over, until it was fit to
 enter Into relationship with another
 piece of metal in forming the bearing or joint of a machine, a polite" sur face. We no longer use the word in that sense but confine it to those re- fined, genteel and courteous manners, by which human beings are kept from squeaking and grooming when they
 rub against each other in business or
 social affairs. There can be no doubt
 that God intended that the souls of
 men should work together as gently
 and as peaceably as do the bones in. the
 different joints of the body. Imagine a
 man whose sixth and seventh vertebra
 have had quarrel; whose clavicle is
 all out of patience with his humerus;
 whose radius keeps sticking pins into
 his ulna; whose femur insists upon showing his patella about in most un- kind manner: and whose tibia takes
 sly delight in scratching his os calcis
 until its temperature climbs up about twenty degrees. What lovely time that man would have! Such a man
 would be likely to make sorry work if entered in the hundred-yards dash. And yet this great body polite, with all it's rough roads to travel and its heavy burdens to bear, has been strug- gling on toward the far goal of the ages under just such difficulties as that.
 Blessed are the peacemakers, said Christ. He only stretched forth his hands in benediction over few choice classes of men, and among them we find those people who make 1t their business too oil the rusty joints, and tighten up the rattling bolts, and plane down the slivers and splinters of this old social wagon The French have proverb that "Bossuet proved religion; but Fenelon made us love it. Said of Dickens, When he ! entered a room it was like the sudden of a big fire, by which. every 7, one was warmed" You may stuff | your pockets with tube-roses or migno- nettes, and crush them all out of shape l by flattening your coat so that no one | can detect them, but you will not be in | a room two minutes before some one l will say, Where are the f1owers?" | You may blindfold man and lift him | from the ground and carry him away | off into field of new mown grass, and | try to convince him that he is in an | old hay-loft, but you cannot do it. I do not have to climb a pine-tree to know that one is around. Pollteness Is just the fragrance of character. It Is the soul of man talking through his hands and feet, through his eyes and forehead. through his walk and move nents. There can be no doubt of the ;,&% 4 l )f our late president was due to the | and friendliness of his man lers, and to his ability to send an ap- olicant for office away feeling half glad hat his request had been refused. Senator Tillman, the pitchfork states nan, was once asked what he thought If MT. Mckinley, and he answered, The president embarrasses me with his and his kindness. He is he most loveable man I ever met" Those are strange words to come from he great apostle of the shotgun The nan who sits in the cage with the ti- CTS at the circus will tell you that ven the most ferocious animals know | he power of the human eye, and in heir blind way recognize there an in- .u6uCG SIGdLGI lilhIl tliil Ol toOlll Jl | law. Archidamus, king of Sparta, nee asked Thucydides whether he or | , 'ericles were the better wrestler, and | e answered, When I throw him he | avs he was never down, and he per uades the very spectators to believe i'm" The might of muscle Is not the nly power in this world, and as man ,, ses from the savage state, gets -ashed and clothed and housed, ', oughs off his old wild habits, and be- !. ins to take delight in the amenities nd rewards of civilization, he finds lat a higher energy is to be found in le character than in the fist. I once orked for man out west who was alf civilized. In his dealings with the lys in the office he was a despot, and as invariably ugly, cross, sullen, 7. 'abbed, morose and disagreeable. But n ice let customer come in, and he in ariably put on what we called his . rade manners" He was affable, ge- ', al, friendly, generous and polite. He |. cognized the mercantile value of N ese things, but 1t never seemed to lwn upon his mind that he could con- o ol his business in just the same way. |.