Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1906-1908, 1908-05-15
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THE RICHES WITHOUT COST.

Come buy wine and milk without
money and without price"-Is. w., 1.
Did you ever stop to think that all
the best things in life come without
cost to ourselves? They are given
freely. The things that in their value
are without money and beyond price
are also in the method Of their acuuisi-
ton without monoy and without price.
Every life is rich in the measure that
it has discovered and possesses these
treasures.
A man may pay many thousands of
dollars for the painting of a sunrise,
and yet it never will be nearly so beau
tiful, so inspiring, so valuable as the
sunrise itself, a spectacle which the
poorest may enjoy without the expendi-
ture Of so much as cent. All our
works of art, costly as they may be,
are but limitations of the originals
which, while far exceeding them in
beauty, may be ours for the taking.
The real pleasures of life are not to
be bought. Amusement is for sale; but
joy comes without price and without
bargaining There are no figures set
upon happiness; it springs up in the
pathway like a flower the seed of
which has beeen waited from some 9th
er world. The quiet, deep joys of life,
benson like, fall from heaven upon
our hearts. None can command them,
none can corner them.
You may purchase assistance and in
terest, but affection and love come
unsought, unsolicited, unbought. What
wealth have you greater, more worth
to you, than the tender kindness, the
sympathy, the spirit Of self-giving that
goes out to you from other lives? These
assets are not on our office ledgers,
but on the great ledgers of life from
which our final balances are struck
they are writ large.
When we make up the inventory of
our lives, if our hearts have any appre-
citation Of true values, if we have learn
ed to distinguish between life's tools
and it's product, we find that those
things we could least afford to lose
are those that have come upon us with
out our labor, perhaps without our de-
serving, always beyond our powers of
purchase.
How foolish then are we, who have
the greatest, the enduring treasures
by simply taking them, if we waste
our powers and our time in striving
after the things that are not worth
while. There are at least two ways Of
living-one is to try to make enough
money to be able to buy pleasure or
affection or whatever you may most
desire, the other is to keep the life
ever open to all the joy and love and
enriching that is about it,
This world is full of beauty. We
make it ugly. But we cannot alto
gether succeed in hiding all its beauty,
and the open eye and appreciative
heart STILL without going far afeId,
may catch glimpses and often behold
the full glory Of field and flower and
starry heaven.
How deeply must we pity the life to
which the beauty of the world brings
no enriching, he who does not take a
/ deep breath and feel a thrill of pleas
sea. And all the prodigal beauty of
this world is but message to Us of
the greater love Of the life that up
holds it all, of the riches Of him that
! inhabiteth eternity.
And fairer yet than field or flower,
treasures greater and more enduring
are ours for the taking the appreciat-
| ing, in friendships, human love, and
companionships. The peace that broods
from mothers face, the strength of
a fathers life, the light in our chill
| dren's eyes, the joys of home and
| heartside-are not these the best rich
es Of life?
What would we think Of a man who
maintained an orchard for the sake of
the soil, or the grass or the firewood
in the trees? Yet are we not even
more foolish who seem to live only for
the means of life; for its agencies and
not for its ends. We prize the soil, we
treasure the trees we toll for leaves
and twigs and slight the fruits of life,
humanity, character, love, friendships.
Sometimes we say life is getting
more complex; it's demands are becom-
ing greater. No man can be rich with
out immense material resources. How
foolish it all is. LIES essential de-
! mands are still few and simple; life's
real riches are within the reach of all.
We have but to lift up our eyes, to
open our hearts.
The darkest fate that could come to
any is TO be so immersed in the strug-
gle for things, so absorbed in the means
of making a living that we are blind
altogether to the meaning of life itself,
and SO lose altogether the enduring
riches, the lasting, sustaining joys, the
fair fruitage of life.
MAN SHOULD DISCOVER.
By Rev. John r. Mackay, PHI. D.
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