The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-12-16

death was the direct result of not then
giving her parents her confidence. NO
daughter no son, should make friends IN
dependent of the parental sanction.
And why should you young people not
introduce your friends to your parents?
Are your fathers and mothers foolishly
Jealous? Like miser, do they wish to
keep you from loving any one else or as
sociating with any other people but them
selves? If you make the right Kind or
friends, are they not glad? Is their nome
a prison of solitary confinement? When
you, as a loving son, would bring nome a
desirable friend does not your mother
always have place for him at the table?
Does she not always gladly welcome your
boyhood associates? Why should honey
bee live with wasps and serpents when
she can have the companionship of other
bees in the maternal hive? Can dove
have her wings covered with silver and
her feathers with yellow gold when in the
befouled company of buzzards she is
feasting upon carbon? Neither can a
child lead a pure life and grow spiritually
strong and come to an honored old age
when her associates are the bestial and
the impre and the bad. TO the right kind
of friends thy Christian parents are al
ways ready to extend a glad, loving
home greeting. Beware, young man,
when thy associates cannot be the friends
of thy father and thy mother
| But our young people should not stop
| here in yielding their wills to the par
| entail guidance They should be willing
| to press toward the prizes of the nlgh
| calngs Of life which their parents are
| continually holding up before their eyes.
They should be willing to do as young
| William Pitt did when his father, the
| great Earl of Chatham came to him and
| said: William, you should not be salts
| fed with going through life as an ordl-
nary man. You should say: | am going
| to fit myself to be the prime minister OF
| England. l am going to fit myself TO
| government a great nation. l am going
| to At myself to be a potent factor IN
| settling the International politics of
Europe. Therefore | will put aside all de-
! slrcs which will swervc me from my main
purpose of life, and | will study, study,
| study. | will work. work, work. and
will never be satisfied until | achieve
| that end. My friends, when our boys
! and girls start out with great and
noble purpose in life and at the same
| time If they will carefully look after their
physical health they are travelling the
surest road to a long life of earthly In
| huence.
There is a mistaken idea abroad that
| hard mental labor will shorten our lives.
| Some of the longest lived men have been
men of intense mental application. Goethe,
Palmerston. Gladstone, Disraeli. Momln-
| SEN Michael Angelo, Hugo, Humboldt,
Isaac Newton, the Herschels, both father
and son, and hosts of other whom L
| might name all lived to be old. These
| men not only lived to be old, but they
were continually branching out into new
fields of mental labor clear up to the end.
Just few months before Hannah More 8
| death she started a new work. After she
| had sarted 1t she wrote to her old friend,
| Wilberforce, these words; 1.-The night
| cometh. But it is a comfort to me to
think that though / may be dust and
| ashes within a few weeks, yet by that
| time this business will be in actual mo-
ton" When the death angel perched at
| the study doors of thousands upon thou
sands of our great men and women ne
always found them busy. And methinks
he postponed calling many of them Tor
years because the very intensity of their
work not only kept them at their tasks,
| but kept their physical faculties bright
| and active.
| There is no power this side of heaven
which will make a man triumph over
| his physical ailments and overcome ms
| troubles and trials so surely as the m
| SEPARATION of some high purposes OF HE
which will never allow him one moment
said Brututs to his friends in the great
| Shakespearean tragedy. No, Brutus,
| answered Ligarlus to the assassin or Gaze
| sar III thou hast any noble enterprise
| on hand | am we'll" That means ION,
| Brutus II thou hast some work for me
to do-some worthy prize for me to strive
| after-that high aim of life Will rouse my
! tagging entergies and | can do the work
| OF a giant
! But" you say, 'how do you know
| that my parents are true Christians and
| that they are begging me TO reach out
for a higher mental and spiritual life?
Perhaps they do not inspire me Alright,
4 and that is the reason | am not doing s
they advise and am satisfying myself
! with small things" when you preach
that sermon" said my aged friend to
me, ''be sure to emphasize the fact that
parents may be Just as neglectful In
pleading with their children for the high
or educational and spiritual life as the
children themselves are in not seeking
it," Perhaps you are right, my friend,
but l think such conditions are eXcep-