Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1906-09-14
LOVES WASTES.
By Henry F. Cope.

By Henry F. Cope.
ITO what purpose hath this waste
Of the ointment been e?''-Mark
xiv, 4.
Love is foolish thing to the man
who has none; it is wasteful extrava-
CANT, fruitless. Yet the riches of life
spring from the wastes Of love. Frigid
pharisees always are ready to sit and
calculate what might have been done
heart flung away. If they had fed the
poor of all the orient with their pen
MES the deed would have been forgot
ten long ago; it would have borne far
less fruit than the act of the woman
that looked so like folly to them.
To the calm economist love makes
many mistakes; but heaven sees her
prodigality is but seed sowing. The
harvest lasts through the ages 1t is
not the good we do with calculating
nicely that counts for most; that is but
charity. Never until love lays hold of
our lives and we fling away some
things that men say we should prize
do we know the joy of giving.
The world forgets the wise things 1t
has done-the things that seem wise
at the time Of their doing. The world
remembers the foolish things, those
that men despised, counted quiXotic,
impulsve, and wasteful. 1t is a good
deal more likely to remember Joseph's
love for his brothers than all his eXecu-
tive ability in storing corn in Egypt.
The day will come when we shall
honor men not for their profits in the
| business Of living-of these we may be
ashamed-but for their gifts to life );
when we shall know that there is no
living without giving: that he alone
finds life who loses it that the meas
ure of success is not the things of
which we may die possessed, but the
things of which our living has made
the world to be possessed.
It is selfishness that makes a man
a moral pauper. No matter how sue
cessful he may have been in acquiring
riches, he goes out Of this world NOR
ally destitute if he has failed to lose
some Of his life, to scatter some of HIM
self as seed sown for the future. He
may wax fat and arrogant now, but
none shall hang his head lower when
| life is shown in its real values. God
| pity the man who has enriched his sub
stance by impoverishing his SOUL
And just there lies the secret of it
alI---the great advantage of loves
wastes comes back to the giver. A man
| is impoverished not by what he gives
away, but by what he withholds. He
| is wasting his substance in the worst
| way who is seeking to store it all up
| for himself The flowers cast their
seeds with prodigal hands; the strict
economist finds waste written all over
nature; he knows not that that is the
| secret Of her wealth.
The heart grows rich by it's losses :;
| and as soon as we have learned that
the heart is the true measure of the life
we begin to find our wealth not in get
ting but in giving. Many a man has
gone down to death labeled a fool by
this worlds wisdom because he has
been too generous to accumulate any
thing, who yet has taken more out of
life than all his critics put together
From the viewpoint Of the infinite,
the wastes, the follies, and the losses
of true love are more than justified
The odor Of that ointment has come
down through the ages. 1t has prompt
ed to Il thousand generous deeds; it
has taught man to spurn the calculat-
ing of profits and losses when some
great purpose appealed to him. 1t has
enriched the world with an ideal,
something always and eternally worth
more than all things real.
Whose feels a fine impulse. sucn as
stirred in the womans breast, If he be
wise, will not check or deny it. 1t is
better to do the most foolish thing in
love than the wisest in calculating self
ishness. The choice things of our lives.
the memories we cherish, and the
things that remain to cheer our often
dropping hearts are the fruits of Just
such deeds they are like flowers.
sweet immortelles, springing from the
seed lavshly scattered by love