Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-02-22

law. By that I mean that through a
technicality lie Is willing to become
moral criminal, usurer, swindler
destroyer, vampire, if lie can only
do it and escape the fine tooth comb"
OF the law.
Actions Rarely Lfe
There goes or OLD proverb, AT times
nothing is falser than figures and moth
ing more unjust than exact legal JUS
tice." So at times we have seen men
become thieves though they could not
be arraigned in the criminal court
We have seen men become liars though
by the language Of action they
could not be proved perjurers before
any legal tribunal. One day, about a
year before Abraham Lincoln was nom
mated at Chicago, a Mr.. Lord entered
the law office of Lincoln 81 Herndon
and heard conversation between
Honest Abe and one of his clients.
This conversation closed in the follow
ing way: Yes, we can doubtless gain
your case for you. We can set the
whole neighborhood at loggerheads.
We can distress a widowed mother and
her six fatherless children and thereby
get for you six hundred dollars, to
which you seem to have legal claim,
but which rightfully belongs, it APP
pears to me, as much to the woman
and her children as it does to you. You
must remember that some things le-
gally right are not morally right. We
shall not take your case, but will give
you a little advice, for which we shall
charge you nothing. You seem to be a
sprightly, energetic man. We would
advise you to try your hand in making
six hundred dollars in some other
way" I cannot express my thought
that some things are legally right and
not morally right better than by rest
ing it with the blunt words of one
whose language Of action never in
tentionally gave utterance to a lie.
A Message Of Hope.
When some one asked the great
Athenian orator what were the three
most effective essentials for successful
public speech, Demosthenes answered,
First. action; second. action; third, ac-
ton" So let the lesson Of the text be
translated into your lives. Let your
actions. public and private, be of such
character that your influence will be
one that stimulates, ennObleS and spir-
itualizes the lives of others. In secret
and in the eyes of men SO act and so
live that your associates, your neigh
bors, the community and the world will
be the better for your having lived. By
your Christian example you may lead
others to become Christians. By your
gospel handshake you can win souls
for Christ. By your welcoming and en-
uraging eye you can cheer up the
oppressed and the downtrodden. By
your gestlring finger you can point out
the right path wherein the sinner can
forsake his sin and walk hand in hand
with G d.
My fathers life demonstrated the
power Of the language of action" be-
cause in his public ministry he never
made close affiliations with any one
man or class OF men who were trying
to tear down the great bulwarks OF the
gospel After Cardinal Manning was
dead these words, which he had spoken
into the records of a phonograph, were
repeated at mass meeting gathered in
London for memorial of his life: Il
hope that no word Of mine, written or
spoken in my life, will be found to
have done harm to my fellow men
when l am dead" If my father was
to come back to life, we would find
that this sentiment was his hope while
he was upon this earth. and this senti-
ment IS now his hope while he is in
; heaven. He always tried to preach a
safe and a cleansing gospel. His Ian
guage of action was right upon the
temperance question, right upon the
Sabbath question, right upon Gods
word right upon the Fatherhood CT
| God and the brotherhood Of man. He
not only preached God with the lip,
| but he also lived God in his daily life.
My brother, my sister. always let
your influence be cast upon the safe
side of every debatable moral question.
Let your Language of action" always
in Christ's name be a message for
hope and never guide leading toward
eternal death.
copyright, 1904, by Louis Klopsch.i