The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04


 effect of such a reply. It matters not that it Is itself unanswerable. It can not keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for eYadlng duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars of heaven.
 We take refuge, then, behind duty that is obscure, difficult, contradictory. And these are certainly words to call up painful memories. To be man of duty and to question ones route, grope in the dark, feel oneself torn between the contrary solicitations of conflicting calls, or, again, to face duty gigantic, overwhelming, beyond our strength what is harderl And such things hap pen. We would neither deny nor con test the tragedy in certain situations or the anguish of certain lives. And yet duty rarely has to make itself plain across such conflicting circumstances or to be struck out from the tortured mind like lightning from a storm cloud Such formidable shocks are ex- ceptional Well for us if we stand stanch when they come But if no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the whirlwind, that a wayfarer stumbles at night on an. unknown road or that a soldier caught between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhu- man moral conflicts. To succumb un- der the force of numbers or obstacles has never been counted disgrace.
 So my weapons are at the service of those who intrench themselves behind the impregnable rampant of duty i'll defined, complicated or contradictory. But it is not that which occupies me today; it is of plain-I had almost said easy-duty that I wish to speak.
 We have yearly three or four high feast days and many ordinary ones. There are likewise some very great and dark combats to wage, but beside these is the multitude of plain and simple duties. Now, while in the great en- counters our equipment is generally adequate it is precisely in the little emergencies that we are found want ing. Without fear of being misled by paradoxical form of thought 1 af- firm, then, that the essential thing is to fulfill our simple duties and exercise elementary justice. In general, those who lose their souls do so not because they fail to rise to difficult duty, but because they neglect to perform that which is simple. Let us illustrate this truth
 He who tries to penetrate into the humble underworld of society is not slow to discover great misery. physical and moral. And the closer he looks the greater number of unfortunates does he discover, til in the end this assembly of the wretched appears to him like greet black world, in whose presence the individual and his means of relief are reduced to heiplessness. It.is true that he feels impelled to run to the succor of these unfortunates, but at the same time he asks himself, tainly heartrending. Some, in despair, end by doing nothing. They lack neither pity nor good intention, but these bear no fruit. They are wrong. Often man has not the means to do good on a large scale, but that is not reason for failing to do it at all. So many people absolve themselves from any action on the ground that there is too much to dol They should be re- called to simple duty, and this duty in the case of which we speak is that each one, according to his resources, leisure and capacity, should create re- lations for himself among the worlds disinherited. There are people who by the exercise of little good will have succeeded in enrolling themselves among the followers of ministers and have ingratiated themselves with princes. Why should you not succeed in forming relations with the poor and in making acquatntances among the workers who lack somewhat the ne- cessities of life? When few families are known, with their histories, their antecedents and their difficulties, you may be of the greatest use to them by acting the part of a brother with the moral and material aid that is yours to give. It is true you will have attacked only one little corner, but you will have done what you could and perhaps have led another on to follow you. Instead of stopping at the knowledge that much wretched- ness, hatred, disunion and vice exist in society you will have introduced a little good among these evils. And by however slow. degrees such kindness az yours is emulated the good will sensi- bly, increase and the evil diminish Even were you to remain alone in this undertaking you would have the as surance that in fulfilling the duty plain as a child's, which offered itself you were doing the only reasonable thing. If you have felt 1t so you have found out one of the secrets of right living.
 In it's dreams mans ambition em braces vast limits, but it is rarely giv en us to achieve great things, and ever then a quick and sure success always rests on groundwork of patient prep aration. Fidelity in small things is a the base of every great achievement We too often forget this, and yet n' truth needs more to be kept in mind particularly in the troubled eras of his tory and in the crises of individual life In shipwreck a splintered beam, al oar, any scrap of wreckage, saves us On the tumbling waves of life, whe everything seems shattered to frap ments, let us not forget that a singl . one of sfhaeal poor tdfs may bocOnne oIl