The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-01-06

- letting go," whether the thing be 1 a bad business. wildcat speculation, q 1 foolish investment a dangerous friend ship or sinful hahit The text Is Mat
 thew vii 1G. Do men gather grapes Of
 thorns or figs of thistles?"
 An absurd question Of course d man
 cannot gather. grapes of thons or figs
 from sthstles. Any more than sitting
 hen can hatch out a brood of twenty chickens, when. she has only half dozen eggs in her nest We have learned that
 nature has it's laws and that they are
 invariabie. Walnuts will not produce
 peach trees Apple seeds planted in
 garden will not change themselves into rosebushes and geraniums and begonias.
 Even things that look alike or similar
 to the eye differentiate themselves in operations The margold and the Califor- mia poppes aitd the blossoms of the ordi- nary squash have their garments dyed with the same shade of yellow, but a squash seed mill not produce California poppy any more than a morning glory seed can be changed into one of those beautiful ice plants you see growing l along the Pacific coast. In other words. God has decpeed there are certain things which it is impossible for a man to do. And yet we find men everywhere at tempting such things. They try to achieve the impossible. l think that man can have no more valuable. capaci- l ty than that of knowing what is im- 1 possibe--fmpossbles in itself or impossi- l ble for him. l would not discourage any l one who Is striving to accomplish great things but when once you see that an | achievement cannot be won urge you to Iaba ndon the effort without delay. There l comes a time in life when we should let l goH as well as there comes other times l in life when we should hang onY and never loosen our grip until success IS l ours.
 l Some months ago the time for my sum- l mer vacation drew near. Then my old l longing to get away from the city and back. way back, into the country took 1 possession of me. Hardly had we ar l rived at my summer cottage than a l party of three of us started out on a hunting trip. The wagon was packed with food. The guns and ammunition were put in, and away we went. Where are you going to take us?" l asked the driver. "To my old ranch.' was the re- 1 ply After the first days hunt was over and we had gathered about the blazing | fire the driver told me story. First he l l Look at those clumps of trees dotting the mesa here and there and every where" said he. "A few years ago each one of those groves represented pros | porous farm. We had our church. our school and as fine harvest fields and l lemon orchards as any one might wish 1 to see We expected the Southern Pa l cfic railroad to run through this valley. l We expected water to be brought from 1 the Poma reservoirs, twenty-six miles away, to rrigate this land. l refused 1 5000 for these bare fields upon which we l are camping tonight, now uninhaDlted l save by the rattlesnakes which we heard l today and the deadly tarantuas. But l did not know when to stop. The South ern Pacific did not come through as we 1 expected. The water was not brought 1 down from Poma reservoirs. Then came 1 the four or five years of drought. We l farmers were literally burned and starved | out.- Family after family left this re- l zion. I was the last to go. Today there
 is not living family for miles around. l Here are only the broken fences, the i tumbled down houses, the snakes, the poisonous spiders, the rabbits, the birds and the coyotes, But l still hoped. l l struggled on for twelve long years. Then, | like the rest. I had to leave and go else- l where. Twelve long years of work went 1 for naught."
 All for Naueht.
 Did you ever hear a story more pathet 1 ic2 For twelve long years that man had worked among those hills. The campfire | that cooked the game we killed that aft ernoon. the campfire about which we l were chatting that night, was fed by the l shingles. the beams and the boards of his | old home. The water holes near which
 we hunted had been dug as reservoirs by l his hands. We mere camping that night upon the ruins of dozen long years | of labor Yet as I lay upon the ground | a short time after this story was told,
 trying to go to sleep, l could not get this 1 thought out of my mind: How many
 men there are hanging on to certain l line of work which is improbable and | doomed to certain failure" Then as
 rolled over I said to my friend under the
 blankets by my side: MT Brown, there
 is a weighty lesson here, There is time | to let go just as there Is time to hang on." Early next morning. when, with gun over my shoulder, l went off alone to hunt. every bare bush. every deserted 1 farm, every crumblng fence. kept call ing: "Let go! Let go When you are attempting the impossible. have courage | enough and manhood enough and faith
 in God enough to let go." This is the
 reason l have selected the theme for this mornings discourse.
 The lesson of those deserted fa-r1 lands bids you to let go that foolish real estate | or mining or stock investment you made
 many years ago and into which you are
 gradually sinking the savings of a life | time of work. It says to you, Man, let
 go that foolish financial enterprise. even
 though you have spent $500 or 5000 or
 $5000 in it." It says Let go, even
 though to do it you have to confess that
 you are not worth a dollar and are start
 ing out in the struggle of life just as
 poor as you were twenty years ago. when
 you left college and went out into the
 great wide world to earn bread for your
 self and your loved ones.' Because a
 man has been wrong In the past and has
 made losing investment that Is no
 reason why he should continue to be
 wrong now and send more good dollars or more of his savings to be swallowed
 up in the same way. But though all men
 should learn financial lessons by a sue
 cession of failures, some will never learn
 that they have their financial limitations any more than some men will ever learn that they have their mental and their
 spiritual limitations
 Foolish Investor.
 Here, for instance, Is good country l or city doctor In the community in
 which he lives he is universally respected.
 He makes good living. He has money
 enough to meet all his necessary wants.
 But he makes up his mind he ought to
 be rich He feels he can be rich if he
 will only invest his savings In the far
 west or in the far east or in some bus
 mess in which he is an entire tender
 foot" A broker or a mining agent hears
 of his desire and says to him: Doctor,
 we have a mine out in Montana. 1t is