The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-03-21
FUTILE TO DODGE THE
RESPONSIBILITIES OF SEX
Neglected Opportunities Become Avengers Responsibilities
Accepted Weights Which Turn Into Wngs-You Have
Not Done With Marriage When You Refuse to Enter
Into It.
BY CHARLES FREDERIC GOSs. D. d
Copyright. 1904 by Joseph B. Bowles.

: to rear them, to discipline them and
chasten them and agonize over them!
It is hard to give up our spare bed
room to some dependent old uncle, or
| to have the peace Of our household
disturbed by some querulous old
grandfather 1t is hard to have to
go without books and pictures and
| automobiles in order to shield some
miserable extravagant and ungrateful
relative from the consequences Of his
| own wrongdoing.
But the beauty Of it Is that respon-
sibilities accepted change their forms,
| just as responsibilities avoided do.
They appear at first as weights and
afterwards as wings. The disagree
able burden that presses us down be-
meath its load at last begins to grow
buoyant and, lift us up. It carries us,
instead of our carrying 1t.
Years pass sometimes before this
beatific transformation. We seem
| likely to be crushed by the weary load.
But we have only to be patient and
to wait. For the time will surely
| come when the strength and. grace
developed by the faithful performance
| Of these tasks will become so great
as to make the task itself seem light.
Have you ever observed a mother
carrying a sick baby? Is there not
true sense In which the baby is really
carrying her? It Is the burden, the
| care, the task, the responsibility of
| life that alone can furnish inspiration
for living. Nothing brushes us so
quickly as care-freeness. We can
support the whole weight of the at
mosphere, but not the emptiness Of a
vacuum.
| The solemn experience of the ages
has taught us many truths about duty
which we ought to burn into our
| oroon q NO Sr,er i,eNv
Every duty we omit obscures some
truth we should have known"
ITO run out of the path of duty is
to run into the way Of danger"
1.-THE slightest deviation from a
known duty will sometimes lead us to
the abyss"
''He who is false to the present duty
breaks a thread in the. loom and will
find the flaw in the pattern, when,
perhaps, 1t will be too late to repair
it."
DUTY frowns on you when you flee
from her, but when you follow her she
SMILES
/ ''As birds were made to fly and
rivers to run, SO the soul was made to
follow duty
1 1.-The everyday cares and duties
which men call drudgery are the
weights and counterpoises of the clock
Of time, giving it's pendulum a true
vibration and it's hands a regular mo.
ton. And, when they cease to hang
upon it's wheels, the pendulum nc
longer swings, the hands no longer
work, the clock stands STILL
Nothing, then, can be SO pitiful
futile and tragic as to try to avoid the
responsibilities Of sex! They are in.
evitable; they are imposed by HEAVIER
and they are divinely arranged fol
our highest good. It is necessary fol
us to accept them and to discharge
them nobly. It is the solemn obliga
I ton of men and women to marry, tt
rear children, to make their home al
asylum for the helpless members O.
their family circle, to toll, t
, economic, to sacrifice and, if neces
! sary, to die for others.
Have you been lodging and skulkint
along the pathway of life to avoit
some one ofthese great and graciou
5 obligations? For shame! Come gu
, into the open! Meet that obligation
5 face to face! Embrace it in thine
= arms and press it to thy heart!
2 Can anything be more irrationa
than to be afraid to perform the func
2 lions of nature-to be afraid to live
to labor, to marry, to bear children
! to found a home, to suffer, to die?