The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-07-01

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 vapor and the mists of early childhood, upon which were photographed and re- | fiected the dreams of youthful ambitions, have been condensed into the common puddles of everyday life. Oh you say,
 how my early hopes have misearried. From living among the clouds 1 have dropped to be nothing but a snail crawl ing in the dirt. Bitter, bitter, are the
 waters which have been condensed from
 the mists of our early dreams photograph
 ed is the mrages of the nursery and the
 school room
 Yes, my brother, it is certainly sad to see a Paul Potter exhausting his genius as a sign painter. Perhaps you have been to Europe and have stood before ''The Jewel of The Hague" It Is the picture of the farm lands There under a tree are lying a cow a goat, a mother sheep and a lamb But above them all stands
 the magnificent proportions of the male offspring of that COW. Strong, powerfully formed he is. From the looks of the ani-
 nal he must be about a year and a half
 old. Instead of the mother protecting him,
 he now stands as the protector of the mother. All the artistic world has sat be-
 fore that picture as before a shrine. Yet
 Paul Potter painted "The Jewel of The
 Hague" for q tavern sign. For years
 it swayed backward and forward, beck
 oning the traveller to come and find rest
 and refreshment behind the open doors.
 There are many Paul Potters. There are
 many men and women who have had
 beautiful and inspiring earthly dreams.
 but they have never been able to make
 those dreams materialize. The yapors
 which photographed those mirages of
 early childhood have been changed into
 the common puddles of prosaie, ordinary
 life.
 But have you and I a right 10 suppose
 that the work of any Paul Potter has
 gone astray and been uselessP Let me
 mention a few of the Paul Potters of
 your life. There was your mother. She
 was what might be called a household
 drudge" Was her life failure? She spent
 far more time in washing dishes and with
 the sewing needle In her hand than you
 do. Her family was larger. Was her life
 a useless, humdrum one? Then there was
 that proprietor of the village store near
 your fathers farm. Most of his life was
 spent without a coat and in his shirt
 sleeves; but were not his quaint words of
 wisdom carried far up and down those
 valleys? Was not his helping hand ex-
 tended to every one? And were not the
 words he so often gave to his customers of
 God bless you" the means of spiritually
 blessing hundreds upon hundreds of lives? And there was your old nurse. Was
 her life a failure? Henry Ward Beecher
 once declared that one of the greatest
 gospel teachers he ever studied under
 was an old black man, who used to work for his father and who used to sing to him the gospel songs and tell to the tow headed boy Henry the Bible stories which ever after were so precious to him. Do you mean to tell me that your opportuni- ties Tor working for God and man are not
 as great as those of the old black man who used to work in Lyman BeecherS S parsonage and who helped start Henry Ward Beecher out on his world wide min istry?
 Farragut's Opportunity.
 Then most people have no right to com plain about their insignificant positions, because they are not yet through with life, and they do not know what positions
 of consciousness they may yet be called
 upon to fill was intensely interested the other day in reading about the SUI
 preme moment of Farragut's life. That
 moment was when in command of the
 Hartford he was leading his ships into
 Mobile bay. The monitor Tecumseh was
 at the head of the line. She struck d
 torpedo in the most dangerous part of the entrance to the bay and almost in- stantly disappeared. Soon the next boat
 in line, the Brooklyn, began to back water away from the dreaded torpedoes and was backing upon the admirars flagship. All seemed lost But suddenly Admiral
 Farragut lifted hs trumpet and called -Four bells, Captain Drayton; go aheadi" Instantly the flagship moved ahead, and
 all the other ships followed. As the ships passed into the harbor the men could
 hear the torpedoes pumping upon the hulls. But they were dumb torpedoes and exploded not. All America and the whole civilized world at once hailed Admiral Farragut as one of the boldest naval heroes. But Famagut when he entered Mobile bay was an old man. as General Havelock was an old man when he led | his troops on for the rescue of Lucknow | For nearly three-score years these men l had to live in obscurity before their great | opportunity came. As unknown men they | worked and plodded. No one seemed to | take notice of them. But when the
 greatest opportunities of life came in ! their old age at once they grasped them ! and leaped to the front. Young man. | you have no right to complain about the | humdrum work of an ordinary life if | these heroes did not complain. You do not know what God has ahead for you. | Do your work well in obscurity, so that i when the great opportunities of life come
 later you may be able to grasp them
 as did Farragut and Henry Havelock.
 Iris true,' you say, that l have i tasted the bitter waters of the wrecked | ambitions of early childhood. but in one sense I have outlved them. It is surpris- | ing how time will blunt the keen edge of even the sharpest of griefs Just as we can forget the plains of the sicknesses of childhood, we can forget about the mis :
 carried hopes and the faded visions of our youth Now, all l ask of the world
 is a fair honest show. That the world seems unwilling to give me. No matter
 how much I try to do right the fault finders, the misrepresenters, are always around Like Socrates. who was compell-
 ed to quaff the deadly hemlock l am con strained almost daily to drink of the poisonous springs of contention and slam der. Truly, like the psalmist l can cry
 out. My tears have been my meat day and night, while they tmeaning my e1e-
 mes) say unto me, Where is thy God%
 Yes, my enemies doubt whether God ! loves me, and l am myself almost ready