The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-10-16

| women who seem to have accomplished something in life. If we are honest we must admit that such successes as We I have achieved have been due in no small
 degree to fortuitous combinations of cir | cumstances of which we have taken ad
 vantage and not exclusively to our own merits. aWe have no right to take all the credit to ourselves or to dispise others who have not had the opportuni- ties which have helped us in the race Many of them have been hindered by poverty or lack of educational facilities or ill health. and we show disgraceful h. gratitude to providence if we give our selves airs of superiority
 Circumstance. Make Men.
 Circumstances make men just the same as men make circumstances When I was lately thinking upon this theme my eye voluntarily wandered down a coun- try road to a big white barn where livery Is kept and horses are rented for the day About one of these horses young man was working. Who is he? He Is young man who for years has wanted to be a lawyer But he is the oldest son of a large family of children. His father was a farmer in the east There that fathers health broke down, and he had to come to California climate or he must die. He bought some land here. After a while two years of drouth came on, and he was ruined Then that father was confined three years in an invalid's bed. Then that oldest son had to spring into the breach. The bread of his mother, his father and the children was for years dependent upon that oldest boy and his work. The horses of the farm were merely changed during the drought into the horses of a public liv- cry. If you and I had been in that old- est boys place would we not have done just the same as he did? Would we be where we are today?
 James A. Garfield once seemed to preach the doctrine that there are no difficulties in life too great for a man to overcome In one of his addresses he said: No man who is worth saving can ever be drowned in the troubled sea of life. No matter how far it is from shore, pitch him overheard and he will at least be able to swim ashore" I am not sure that statement of Garfleds is always true. I believe that there may come time when a young man may have too many obstacles to overcome un- til at last he will lose his energy and he will cease to struggle any more. In any case. 1t becomes Us all to consider how much of our success is due to the ad vantage We have enjoyed and never to assume superiority over those who might have succeeded as well as or better than we have done if their opportunities and equipment had been equal to ours.
 Men Make Circumstances.
 Men make circumstances? Not always Some time ago when seated in a railroad train l read newspaper article in ref erence to one of the notorious pugilists of the country. This article went some thing like this "Mr So-and-so will never amount to anything again in the roped arena. Why? Because he has been twice whipped. A man is like a dog; when he has been beaten enough to md that some one else is his master his nerve is forever gone" How true in life is that!i l said to myself. Then l pie tured that noble dog of Jack London's in his Gall of the Wild" He was big lov- able, brave dog. but no sooner was he sent north than he was clubbed until his spirit was broken What then? He whined and whimpered like a freighten- ed puppy. So some men, noble men, brave men in their youth, become fail- ures as midele aged men. Why? Be- cause they are battered and pounded by struggle after struggle anl defeat after defeat They are halted in their pro- gress through life by obstacles practi- cally impossible to overcome until at last their courage and nerve and fight ing manhood practically ooze away. o, man, be not puffed up in your own con- ceit on account of your seeming triumphs in life! You and l in a sense have both succeeded not because we are smarter than all men but because God has given to us chances of success which he has withheld from men who were just as smart and just as diligent and brave and as conscientious as ever we had been.
 Arrogant pride is making necklaces of diamonds 0 reflect her own shriveled and emaciated corm. She carries around with her a looking glass because she thinks her blood is blue" instead of red, her face more beautiful and her eyes more intelligent than all other physiognomies. She never tires of watching her own countenanee. Her smile Is sweetest when she is praisirg her own sweet self But. though arrogant pride adm.res her own looks and her own brain more than the people around her, she has often no right to gather The lilies of innocence to wear as a bouquet on her corsage In her heart there may be the germs of evil and a cruelty as fierce as that which impeled the women of France in the re- voution to surround the guillotne and gloat over the execution of victims as guiltless as themselves. l find that, as a rule she thinks that her own garments are the cinging robes of an angel pure and spotless, while the garments of her fellow human creatures are the rags and tatters of a repentant or an unrepent- ant prodigai.
 All Were Gentlemen.
 It is too often forgotten that arrogance and pride are sins of themselves. The lofty spirit which boasts that it is free from the guilt of others and holds alof from the repentant sinner, whom it sur Veys with scorn, is mot that pride a most heinous sin in the sight of just God? During the darkest days of the French revolution of 1850 a great mob of insurgents and rioters were blockading the Parisian streets. Tt is useless to appeal to their reason. They have no reason," said General Lafayette, the commander of the national guard, which
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