The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1911-02-23

1 49, y .
township with modern implement:
and intricate machinery; yet the
cave.dweller had simplicity oi
life unknown in this age of luxury
and labor-saving devices. The
husbandman in his patch upon the
hillside, as he sowed the seed oil
garnered the grain, may have
heard music in his soul, a melody
unheard by the modern farmer
amld the whir and click of his
reapers.
/ It Is wide space from the foot
path of the jungle to the Roman
road; it is wide space from the
Roman road to the modern rail-
way; yet the dusky savage walked
the primeval forest with a poise
and dignity of manhood seldom
seen in this age of fast travel, and
the hero in his chariot upon the
rough Roman road had a con-
sciousness of triumphant power
such as the screech and clang of
the engine will never give as we
glide over the polished steel.
In manufacturing, in agriculture,
in commerce, in all that tends to-
ward the accumulation of wealth,
great has been our advance. In
the last century we have rushed on
at a pace that is almost bewilder-
ing; we are lost in admiration of
our efforts; and pride ourselves
upon position never before at
tanned. But material greatness
and the increase of wealth are not
the crowning glories of civiliza-
ton. Indeed, these will never be
more than the beginning and means
of conditions which make nations
truly great and their glory lasting.
Our deeds are stupendous; but the
Spirit of the Age is too Mercenary.
When we think of the bitter ago.
mes of civilized life, the tears and
the withered hopes, the bitter real
tiles, the hunger, the crime. the
humiliation, the shame, we are al
most forced to say that after all
] canr balism is the most merciful
way by which man has lived upon
his fellow man.
The gold mines of the West,
where the precious metal is wrest-
ed from the clutch of the rock, are
situated on bleak and barren noun
tains, mountains with neither tree
nor shrub, on whose wlthered
bosom there blooms not single
flower, not even a blade of grass.
It seems that the gold has the same
effect upon Ihe country that hold:
it as upon the man who lives and
labors only for it. It affects the
land as it does mems hearts. L
makes the heart bleak and barren
withers up its flowers of kindness
leaves not a blossom of pity.
Let us not unduly honor wealth
| Let us honor lives of culture anc
refinement, of simplicity and char
ity. Then with want destroyed
with greed changed to noble pas
sions, with fraternity that is borr
of equality, taking the place ol
jealousy and fear which now ARA.
men against each other, with men
tai power loosed by condition
which give to the humblest com
fort and leisure who can measure
the heights to which our civiliza
ton may soar. Wor ds are made
quate to express the thought. Un
der these conditions will be ush
cred in the golden age of whicl
poets have sung and propneti
seers have told IN metaphor. ThI
is the glorious vision that has al
ways haunted man with dreams Q
ftfuI pleasure. This is what b
saw whose eyes at Patmos wer
closed in a trance. This is tn
elimination of Christianity, tn
city of God on earth with its wall
of Jasper and its gates of pearl
This is the reign of the Prince c
Peace.
BARNEY MAYLoNE.