The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-12-23

| fighter, and was under arms at Is. Be
fore he was 80 he was a general. He
licked the Turks time and again, and
got back all the territory they had
ever Wrested from Greece, and for
time he was as big man as the King.
He ought to have been satisfied with
that and bought little farm and gone
to raising radiSheS and chickens. He
had done enough, and to climb higher
was to invite fall. Up he went, how
ever, not satisfied with good thing
and a big thing, and the result was his
death in the next battle he fought.
Let US glance for a moment at the
| career of Napoleon. There was a man
exactly like G. Hope Jones-bound to
rise. He had it under his hat to do
so, and a ton of bricks couldn't have
/ kept him down. He didn't amount to
much the first few years of his life, and
that's me again, but when he began
to soar everybody had to make elbow
room for him. He went up and up and
up until the world wondered where
he would stop. He turned the politics
of France upside down, licked every
nation in sight three or four times over
and finally had his foot on the world.
That's where he should have halted.
He had reached the top limb and
ought to have had the sense to see it.
He didn't, however. He got a new
hold with his toes and started to go
higher, and down he came with bang
that Jared two hemispheres. His fate
more than any others has been my
safeguard. I have climbed to the
pinnacle where you find me tonight. but
here halt. Let me become candi-
date for congress and my goose would
be cooked inside of sixty days.
We now touch upon the case of
Alexander the Great. Up to the age
of ten he was considered weak in the
top story, same as I was, but from
thence on he led the procession. He
wasn't yet twenty-five when he held
! he oF fV1rr hi c
fathers absence. He wasn't thirty
before he was at the head of an army
and walking over everything in sight.
1t was no trick at all for him to take
$4,000 men and march 500 miles away
and add new country to his own.
Politicians at home tried to put him
in a hole, and enemies in the field
offered big sums for his scalp, but he
got them all under his foot in time
and stood on hill and looked around
for more worlds to conquer
Right there is where Q. Hope Jones
would have put his money into bonds
and gone out into the country to live
the rest of his days in peace. Alex
ander didn't do so, however. He
thought the top of his tree was still
a mile higher, and up he went. That
is, he went to developing theories and
making laughing-sto of himself,
and about the time he brought out the
theory that drinking tadpoles in well
water made nation warlike he was
e~@ASiA iii NAAC S4AlOhOLPOA anu J4S1QGQ
up his life.
One more case. Christopher CoIum-
bus discovered America. It was a big
thing to do at the time. I won't even
go as far as to say that Q. Hope Jones
would have cared to undertake it with
out being guaranteed from financial
loss No one believed that there was
anything on this side of the Atlantic
ocean worth picking up, but Columbus
had an idea in his head, and he worked
for years to carry it out.
A less enthusiastic and perseVering
man would have been discouraged long
before he finally sailed from the shores
of Spain. We know the result. He
went to the top with a bound. When
he reached home he was such a big
gun that even the King and Queen were
jealous of him and felt like taking him
down peg or two. Columbus was
honored until even aldermen took off
their hats to him, and he was enriched
until he was able to buy flour by the
barrel and mutton by the quarter
He had the game all in his own hands,
and several parties stood ready to sell
him nice little farms at reasonable
figures, but he couldn't be satisfied to
discover something or somebody else
and he sailed again, and made such
failure of it that his proud heart was
broken, and he retired to obscurity to
pine away and die
My friends, I could go on for hours cit
ing cases to prove that there is q time
to climb I'D and time to let go. Rise
above your fellow men, but don't try to
get up among the angels. Begin early in
life to look for a good thing, and when
you have got your hands on it have the
sense to stop there and appreciate it.
1t is the man who signs and strives for
three or four good things who will end
In getting none at all.
/ will now pass around the hat for the
usual collection, and should the sum ex-
coed 20 cents shall take great pleasure in
setting aside a portion to endoW a hos
N EgTC OnN NUHADn