The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1908-04-30
Things Worth While.
Life and its Opportunities
We Shall Not Pass This
Way Again and Should
Rightly Make the Most Of
the Talent" that is Given
+. Us-the Joy of Service.

TIC oACAit tilos 10 A~Sh
Us-the Joy of Service.
Harper's Weekly.
What is worth while then? Is it
worth while to spend life in multi
plying comforts and luxuries? After
all, to have the best. OF food and the
best of drink and the finest shelter is
TO put oneself on the level with well
stalled OK or horse. Toaccumulate
money and property, to heap them
up and guard them and keep them. is
to degrade the intelligence to the
level of the bee or ant. All these
things are good; some OF them are
necessary. Food and drink and prop
er shelter, work and gain and i'll
crease of facilities, are the by-pro-
ducts of living; they are necessary;
but who mistakes them for the life it
self must pay for his error as if it were
q sin.
And the life itself? Let us quote
from book we all may be reading in
month or u year from now: "Of a
sudden it came to him that life itself
was beautiful. Not effort only, not
work nor play, success, achievement,
wealth or fame or honor, but life it
self. To live was good. The hours,
the golden hours, were not just emp
ty spaces between two clockbeats, to
fill with acts. They were themselves
apglory. To sit and let the crystal
flood of time pass over him was pur-
est pleasure Not his life only, but
all life was good. To feel the great
and glOriOns stream of the worlds
| life pass on, to be with Nature and
hear her sing. For she goes forward
to music. 1t is not always battle
chant she moves to. In her song
there are all things The shout of
triumph and the cry Of those who
fall are there; but there are also 9th
er notes.-the ripple of the river on its
stones, the murmur of the trees, the
rythm OF the sap that rises in them,
the thunder in the hills. 1t is the
song of infinite harmonies.
This is what comes upon us, with a
misgiving that is almost 81 terror,
when we pause to think that we stand
here in the midst of mortal life and
that we shall not pass this way again.
Life is infinitely beautiful, and we, il
we fail to find it SO, must search for
the defeat, not around us or outside
OF us, but in ourselves. And If in our
chase for gross things and material
things we have outrun the power to
live, to perceive, to enjoy, we must
pay the penalty, for nature is inexor-
able; We pay for our mistakes to the
very last jOt as we pay for all our
sins
! But after all, the outlook is not Sc
black. Mistakes are only steps OF
the stairs up which we are climbing
Every time we recognize one for what
it is, and call it step instead OF q
goal, We move on up. And this gen.
GRAFTON is just in the act of lifting one
foot off the step of materialism to a
step that shall be better worth while
We shall stand next on place where
we shall realize, as the child who has
been burned realizes what fire is, that
| life is not all in the body, but that
lite is happiness. And happiness is
not bread and meat, nor yet is it
sport, nor gayety, nor excitement,
nor rivalry, nor prominence. Happi.
ness is growth and enlargement. He
is happy who sees more, who under
stands more, who effects more this
year than last. He is happy who
finds his perceptions sharpening, his
powers increasing, his sympathies
widening, his helpfulness broadening
He is happiest who includes most life
in himself and radiates most life
around him.
| And how shall he face death who
has grown to full stature in this life?
III. on this chance journey we call NOR
tai life, he has'not only found good.
ness and security and happiness. but
has himself had power to create more
goodness and more security and more
happiness, shall he believe for an in.
stant that all this can be blotted out
Of existence by mere shadow called
death? dying is hard; but death il
easy" wrote n hero as he bled to
death alone at midnight by flicker
ing camp light. The change, like al
strange and new experiences, has its
difficulties and its pains, and ther
comes the new adventure, strange
and thrilling and surely gladder and
greater than the experience we have
just exhausted and cast behind US
Death is nothing but Just the steI
above US.
And there is but one more word &c
this little sermon about what is worti
while: Men who are willful and stu
pid and unworthy of themselves Otter
enough lay all this aside when the,
begin to think for their children
There is truth that is indubitable
as that fire burns, and it is this: A,
we choose to-day, so snail our chill
dren inherit.
What man il willing to leave hi.
child nothing better than mere ma
terial gains? What man does moi
secretly hope that his child will hav.
real happiness? What man woult
not, if he could, give his child some
part of the Joy of the artists percep
tions, some OF the peace of the sage
some OF the strength OF the conquer
or? Well, and the moral of this is, al
Alice's duchess used to say: As ",
choose today, not only shall our lif
be in the future, but SO shall the lif
be which our children inherit. And 81
the main business OF life is to paus
long enough to look around US an,
reflect and choose wisely what i