Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1903-09-10
AS BEST WE CAN.
There Are Conditions and Condi
tons: Some We Make and Some
Are Made for Us.

The things of peace and comfort
and happiness that we miss, we
can't have, you know While the
mill may never grind with the wa.
ter that is past, there have been days
when the sunshine fell soft and ten.
der upon the stream of life hurrying
away to the wide sea that is charted
for all them that are of the faithful.
While the things of the world are
much as we make them for our
selves, there are many conditions
made by others which we cannot
avoid and which we meet as best we
may.
Speeding in a palace car across an
old battlefield, wherein mighty
armies Of men did two score years
ago fight in the most terrible con-
fict Of all the ages, two travellers the
other day looked out upon the new
wilderness that has sprung, from the
blood of the brave, and each busy
with his own thoughts and weary of
many things was silent. The elder
had fought there and made history
for the younger to read as glorious
achievement. Betwixt the two no
word was spoken until there flashed
in a low valley an abandoned old
mist by which flowed a brawling
brock shaded by the blood-nurtured
vi. ginian trees.
land the mill will never grind
with the water that is past" the
younger traveller unconsciously quot
ed.
But the water is still fowing;"
the cid soldier said. "The mill is
decayed and falling away piece by
piece, but the brook still is brim-
ming, as was true before it was red
dened by the blood of brave men.
Maybe it is driving new mills UP
and down the valley, which we
could not see," and citing the page
of a volume that told of the old mill
in war, the soldier who fought there
became silent again and his compan-
ion was deep in the lesson taught.
The brave cid soldiers lesson to
his young friend is a lesson for us
all. While the opportunities that
are past are lost forever, the stream
still is flowing, flowing, flowing.
Every hour it brings an opportunity
for a good deed, for charity, love,
self-denial, and moral and material
advancement.
Nature has hidden under a forest
of forgetfulness the rougher aspects
of the ba~ttlefields of all our warning
yesterdays.
To-day is a new day, and the
stream Ct opportunity is full and
strong and clear, powerful for all
our worthy enterprises of head and
heart and hand, and flowing music
ally I'd success in all worthy under
takings bravely assumed.
There is still beauty and strength
and hope in the water flowing
through life's old battlefields, and
while it may murmur by ruined
mills there are new mills for it to
turn, and the turning may grind out
plenty, honor, love and peace.
In days that are darkest, things
are not what they SEEM. The shapes
that appal US most are but thin
shadows Of ourselves.
The hope of the faithful is unafraid
and ever beautiful-as beautiful by
comparison in the realm of real life
as a young girl passing to woman's
estate. Behold her, all in white and
belted in the pink of the dawn when
the, cool and enhancing shades of
the night are fallen! Hebe and
Phyche in one, with the dash of
bounding Aurora. In the laughter
of innocence her white teeth CLEAN
ing, her shady eyes glistening in
merriment and her shadowy hair,
fluffy and waving, tossed by the
regal head in the soft breezes, first
born of the night-wind's soothing
whisper. Her gentle speech and Won
drous laughter ripping and trilling
>and rolling "like a sigh from the
great heart of midnight" as the no.
BILE Hugo said, drawing and compell-
ing alteration she swayed in the
shade by the quivering nighttime
flung, and the world might have
stood there and said, This is Hope
and Life and Love in one!
So shall we who are of coarser fab
rio, materially and spiritually, &C.
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