Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1905-01-07

inventory, not or your mlSIOrtunes, Out
of your blessings Find out all the
bright things you know about your life.
Repeat them over and over and over to
yourself. Get faith in God and iu
yourself. Then your associates will get
faith In you. BY their increased labor
you will get faith in them. Then, to-
gether with faith in each other and
faith in God, you will go forth with re-
newed zeal for the seed planting and
the multitudnous harvest will surely
come Never let your associates know
that you have lost faith in yourself.
The poorest song farmer ever sung in
the time of sowing and seed planting
is the pcssimistlc song of old, which
will destroy the enthusiasm Of every
farm hand:
Thirty days hath September, April, June
and November;
From January up to May 1t raineth
every day:
All the rest have thirty-one. without
blessed ray of sun,
And II any Of them had two and thirty
They'd be just as wet and twice as
dirty.
"Well," says some one else afflicted
with New Years timdities, Il not only
have lost faith in myself and in my
associates, but l have also lost faith
in the good deeds which | try to do
for the lost and the needy. | am not
an angel. | make no pretense OF being
a perfect man, but l do try to do some
good in the world. Almost all my
good intentions have gone for naught
l can understand the disappointment
of men who have made honest but
futile attempts to help people, for the
more you do for some people the less
those people seem to be willing to do
for themselves. / do not want to lead
q purely selfish life, but | do not in
tend to be bled for nothing" The de-
sire not to throw away our good works
il rational. When we plant seed we
certainly want to reap the harvest.
There are many discouragements in
philanthropic labors. The wife OF
prominent New York millionaire once
said to my mother: Mrs. Talmage, |
do not like to do q deed of Christian
philanthropy with any one. When l
do 1t | never want any one to know
who is doing 1t. If $500 is necessary
to be raised and l give $499, leaving II
to some one else to give at least the
other dollar, there is no surprise. The
only surprise expressed is that did
not give the $500 instead Of the $499.
The more you do for some people the
less they try TO do for themselves"
This is unquestiOnably true, but, though
some seed sown in Christian philan-
| thropy seems to be thrown away, that
does not prove that the seed planting
| is not worth all the labor it costs us.
What would you think Of a farmer
who should say to you, Il will not
plant kernel Of corn unless | am pos
itively sure that from this kernel will
grow a stubble of corn, or a grain of
| wheat, barley or buckwheat unless
from this very seed | shall get my
thirty or sixty or hundredfold re-
| turn?" Why, you would laugh such q
farmer to scorn. You would say tc
him: you 90 not know the first 4 B c
| of agriculture. A planter can afford
to lose a thousand seeds if he can get
a harvest from the remaining seeds he
plants" Yet all through life you can
| find men who estimate their successes
| and failures not by the glorious re-
| turns they receive from a few good
seeds well planted in good ground, but
by the failure of the good seed which
has inadvertently fallen in bad soil.
why Not Help Him.
Why don't you help that young man
who has just landed in town and is
stranded? | grant that he has been
wayward boy, that his life is not what
it ought to be, but in spite Of that, why
don't you help him? You know yor
can give him a position if you Will
"Oh," you answer, what is the use
I have tried to be a friend to young
men in the past, but l am done now
with turning my business house into
Christian mission. | draw the line
sharply between business and philan
thropy. | do my Christian work II
church. but not in my store. | run the
latter on business principles. when
young man comes to me for work hC
has to have good recommendations oi
will not employ him. Why, sir,
have befriended four young men IL
the past! even went so far as to try
to send one of those young men through
college because he was the son OF ar
old chum of mine who is now dead. AL
four turned out badly. They were un
grateful dogs at that! You cannot
make something out of nothing"
A life Of nothlngs, nothing worth
| From that first nothing ere its birth
To that last nothing under earth.
Yes, | grant that your good seed II
the case Of these four young men may
have been thrown away. But would il
not be worth while to have four, five
or even ten such good seed paintings
amount to naught if only the eleventr
"seed" took root in some young mans
heart and saved just one young man.
Would not the satisfaction you gel
from having led one young man to bt
saved fer Earist compensate you FOL
all your wasted labor upon nineteer
young men who were not saved? Goo
will not reward you according to the
success Of your labors, but according
to the efforts you have honestly made
whether they have succeeded or failed
Do your duty and leave the result t(
God
Oh, missionary worker in the New
York slums, what is the good Of YOU
rescue missions and your testimony
, meetings night after night? You know
| ;ust as well as I know that nlne-tenth'
Of all your professed converts will be
come backsliders. That young woman
who now arises with tears in her eye:
| and says, THANK God, l have beer
saved from sin," may tomorrow b'
treading again the old path Of wicked
ness. That man who signs the pledg'
l.. l. -, vnol-