The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1910-02-17
HOW TO WATCH.

In one OF the very pleasant and
profitable stories Of Miss Ellen
Fowler she makes an elderly wom-
an say something like this: 81 used
to think that when one reached q
certain age there was no more dan
ger from the attacks Of the evil one
But 1t isn't 50. find he has tempta-
tions for us suited to all ages and
sizes. like ready-made clothes"
There was never a truer word.
From the time that we know any
thing, on to our dying day. the mot
to for every one of US may we'll be
Watch"
And the more secure one feels the
more danger there La likely to be.
Let him that thinketh he standeth,
take heed lest he fall"
We realize this the most keenly,
perhaps, when we see that conceited
persons are often the most defective
while the ablest and best are likely
to be the most modest.
A few months before the death of
James Russell Lowell he confided to
an intimate friend his belief that his
work had been greatly over-praised.
Il am ashamed of nearly all of it."
he said sadly. Nothing that have
done will live-and yet I did my
best"
How often We find commonplace
people who think that their works
are wonderful! They think that
they stand-yet they fall.
This foolish belief in our own
mental projections is even more uni
Versal in the moral world.
Thus, in small New England viii
lage. a minister once preached a
searching discourse upon the failure
which men often made to square
their deeds with their professions, in
timating that there were those pres
ent who might well take the lesson
to heart. As the congregation pass
ed down the aisles a certain Jona-
than Skies. a prominent church
member, sitting on one side of the
church, pointed to one on the other
side, and whispered to a friend, Il
guess Stillman Peck felt pretty mean
this morning. Anybody could see
that that sermon was aimed right at
him." while Stillman Peck was say
ing also to neighbor, you
wouldn't have thought that lothian
Skies would have had the face to sit
through that sermon. 1t fitted his
case to a T, and he must have
felt it,
1t was only another example of
the mote and the beam; and it be-
hooves us all to try ourselves from
time to time. and see If the sins of
which we often accuse others are not
also deforming our own lives; or. if
not just those sins, others quite
as bad.
There is nothing more astonishing
than the rosy light which is shed
around our own pet sin, which, when
committed by another, looks gross
and revolving.
One of the most beautiful of our
modern religious poems, familiar
doubtless to many of our readers,
deals with this great subject. We
are hidden TO watch at the eventide
when I'VE have time to sit in the
twilight, in the rays of the sinking
sum-" at the midnight when
The fire burns low and red
And the watch is ticking loudly be-
side the bed;
At the cock crow when the night is
dying slowly
Along the sky.
And the sea looks calm and holy,
Waiting for the dawn of the golden
That draweth nigh.
And SO on. until the last beautiful
stanza:
So I am watching quietly every day.
Whenever the sun shines brightly
rise up and say,
Surely 1t Is the shining of His face"
And look unto the gates of the High
place
Beyond the sea.
For I know He is coming presently
to summon me.
And when a shadow falls across the
window of my room
Where I am working my appointed
task.
I lift my head to watch the door and
ask
II he Is come.
And the angel whispers sweetly in
my home,
"Only a few more shadows and He
will come"
Christian Herald.
THEY DID NOT QUITE STRIKE TT.
SchOoIhov errors in examinations