Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1905-05-15

!
hung on until at last the financial tide
TUNED his way Today he IS one of the
/ wealthy men Of this city. Then you
/ failed as a life insurance agent. Next
Won failed as a book publisher. Then
/ you failed as a commercial traveller.
| You have failed at everything you
/ touched. Yet men no brainier than
you who followed you have made sue
/ cesses in every one of these lines. You
/ dug your foundations: you erected one
fourth. one-half, two-thirds, three
fourths of your walls Then you said:
Let the unfinished towers stand. I
am too discouraged to climb any high
err. will go and dig elsewhere
But | would not halt here. The COM
pleted towers of life are due to grip
and grit. They are due to more than
that. Their foundation stones, their ex-
cavations, their walls, are builded by
character as well. Many a man has
had all the proper mental preparation
for life and perseverance enough in his
makeup to tear down a stone wall with
his bare fingers if it were possible for
him SO to do But, on the other hand.
| many a man has lost all simply be-
cause his character could not stand the
test of truth and justice No matter
how strong and stanch a ship may be,
| if it has no rudder that ship becomes
plaything Of every current and a
menace to all ships sailing the seas.
No matter how swift locomotive, If
it has no indicator to its boiler that
engine is momentarily in danger of
blowing up. No matter how high the
walls of tower lift themselves, if
those walls are not erected on a solid
base and in a straight line they are in
danger of topping over. What the rud-
der is to the ship, the indicator to the
engine, the plumb line to the mason
building the WALL character is to man.
It is his ballast, his sheet anchor, his
safety valve, his protector, his all.
A Sad Example.
Let me illustrate my thought by the
sad and yet brilliant life of one of the
greatest statesmen England ever pro-
duced. Charles James Fox was one of
the greatest geniuses who ever stood in
the British house of commons. At
twenty-one years of age he was ranked
among the ablest debaters and at thir-
ty had not superior or equal in all Eu-
rope. But, though at times he was the
most applauled man in Europe, yet he
never could win the confidence of the
people. They admired his intellect, but
they could not trust his heart. His
daily custom was to rise just in time
| 10 c4ya IN 40 nrli a n
There nightly" as a contemporary
wrote, ''he would build up chain Of
arguments for a bill he was attacking
greater and more powerful than any Of
his adversaries could forge. Then he
would tear these arguments to pieces
as though they were cotton threads"
Read his speeches on the impeachment
of Warren Hastings. Read his mas
: terpiece on the Rejection of Napo-
Icons Overtures." After parliament
adjourned then would come round of
debauch. Gambling with him was
mad passion. He was both spendthrift
and libertine How can he guard his
: kings finances" asked the people,
when he cannot protect his own peck
etbookw Charles James Fox had ev-
cry qualification to make himself the
, political dictator of Europe save the
single essential Of character, the lack
of which destroyed his whole career
for practical good.
But you do not have to go back to
history to prove the truth Of my state
ment that character is one of the great
est builders of the towers of life and
that without true character those tow
ers are always left in a half completed
stage. Who was the most brilliant
young man of your school days with
whom you were associated? Tall, hand
some, fine looking he was. His brain
! became a perfect repository of facts.
/! While you had to sweat and plod and
l groan over your studies he seemed to
. absorb his at a glance. On the football
1 field or the baseball diamond he was
the schools star athlete. The girls all
flattered him. The young men ran aft
q err him. But no one could trust him.
g He was not a true man. "Oh," said the
e world, ''Winfred will go right to the
5 front in life. Success is sure to be his. y
n Was it? No sooner had he left school a
o few years than his name got mixed up
with some shady transactions With
II all bis brains and ability, what became
1t Of him? know and you know. He is
e dead now, suicide; or he is living, a
u social outcast; or he is begging and
K cheating his way through life. Oh. the
magnificent ruins of the half completed
| towers of life we see everywhere
G. around us! These towers should have
it been citadels for defense and safety
n They are mere dungeons for the owls
is and the bats and the vermin of sin tc
a. inhabit
If Fatal Gift.
70 But is there no direct lesson from
le this characterless tower for the womeI
le as well as the men? How is it. c
at woman, with the most brilliant friend
re of your childhood days? You see hel