The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-10-11
Wisdom of Moderation.


 Wisdom of Moderation.
 That the Pauline idea2 Mo- my friend. you are wrong. When Paul said, Let your moderation be known unto all men, he was not, as Bishop Villiers once eX- pressed it, alluding to the qualification of our desires generally, but especially tenn perance or self restraint in our relation to others, in our abstinence from anger and harshness and vengeance.' He is saying, as the revised version translates the sentence, Let your forbearance or gentleness be known unto all men," To- day instead of preaching upon what you should eat and drink and wherewith you be clothed and how much exercise you should take I shall preach upon how you should smile and talk and shake hands
 and forgive and love. This sermonic theme is not how we should live, but how
 we should be willing to let others live. Be patient, in the first place. even with the irritating idiosyncrasies and the of
 fensive mannerisms that are found in
 almost every one with whom we come in
 contact. Be patient with their peculiari- l ties, especially if they are nonessentials
 in reference to the honesty and noble 1 characteristics of a man. Be patient es-
 pecially because wrong types of marked i Individuality if harnessed in the right
 way, will often mean great success for US
 and for those whom it is our privilege to
 influence
 A strange law decrees that insanity l is sometimes the handmaid of genius. 1 The inspired eye. which afar off can
 discover a star, is often so nearsighted that it cannot see a diamond gllttering
 close at hand. Samuel Johnson once said l in referance to the blind poet of England, Milton, madam, was a genius who could cut colossus from rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry stones." Joseph Cok was the intellectual and the mental and spiritual Hercules who stood year after year in old Boston forging scriptu- ra1 thunderbolts and damming back the pernicious and dangerous teachings of the leaders of anti Christian doctrines. Yet Joseph Cok, great as he was, would have
 been utterly unfitted for an ordinary pas torate. His last days were passed in a sanitarium, in a place consecrated to the
 work of caring for mental incompetents Joseph Cooks brain was a magnificent
 piece of mental machinery, that, like
 other delicate machinery, was easily thrown out of gear. Thus we find that the greatest poets and musicians and arr tist and sculptors, statesmen, dramatists, lawyers physicians and ministers have sometimes been men of startling weakness as well as of startling strength. Like Atlas, their shoulders were big and strong enough to carry a world upon their backs.
 Like Alfred the Great their fingers were too clumsy and forgetful to care for a fire which the wife had detailed them to
 watch while she was looking after the
 other household cares. Geniuses arc often
 most exasperating I always had a great
 deal of sympathy for Xantippe, who has
 been branded as the female arch scold of the ages Perhaps she had right to
 scold She was married to Socrates, the greatest genius of all Greece.
 The startling characteristics good or bad. which can be found in the ten talent men on big scale can also be found in | the one talent men on a small scale. In the ordinary walks of life everywhere are people cursed or marred with various im- perfections. They are good people in one
 sense, but bad in another. We define | them as ''peculiar" people. We call them 'peculiar' because through each runs a mental or physical weakness, as a mineral vein runs through the rocks of a mighty mountain. We say: T like So-and-so, but
 he has one fearfully irritating character | istic. He will muss up a room every time | he enters it." Or you say: q like Mrs So-and-so, but every time she calls she makes some nettlesome remark that l stings like brier bush. When she comes l to visit me I am always glad to welcome her When she leaves l am always glad | der to see her go. She is never with me | ten minutes without making me unhappy. | She says something dsagreeable about | my dress, my house, my children or my | husband. Yes, I feel and know that Mrs. | So-and-so is a good woman and that she 1 loves me- but she has the tanta1izing fac
 ulty of always unintentionally saying 1 something mean"
 l An. yes All of us have had such bitter l experiences as these from the irritating
 peculiarities of our friends. So Paul comes I to us today in the words of my text He l says: My brother, you must be lenient and gentle in your dealings with the faults | and failings of others. You must be yield I ing as the wave of an incoming tide is 1 yielding It first breaks itself into pieces 1 and then eraws up and fits itself into all l the hooks and crannies of the seashore.
 You must be yielding in the nonessentials, l so that you can cause your life to be suc- | cessfuIly fitted into the peculiarities of l others, as one factory wheel will fit into
 the cogs of another wheel"
 FrankIn's Gospel.
 Would that we might always practice Benjamin Franklin's gospel of modera-
 ton! His toleration of the nonessentiaIs
 of life was never more grandly demon- strated than in the last great public ser vice which he rendered to his country. yVhat, oyer eighty Veara of aUa l,a ,oo,1 T..