The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-01
DIR. STAGES RECENT TRIBU'
By CLYDE w. ENNIS

At the funeral Thursday of the late James A. Going there was delivered in the space of a very few minutes one of the most brilliant eulogies of man heard in this city in many years. The Rev. pr. John w. Stagg was the speak er and he was talking about goodness.
 In his remarks there did not appear the name of the late pioneer in single in stance, but all who knew of his works, and the relations between the departed and the speaker, knew of whom he was speaking.
 The remarks of Dr. Stagg, of which
 there has been wide comment among those who heard the eloquent minister at that sad occasion, were as follows:
 "It is not the single act, no matter how brilliant, that gives man his pro- portions. It fs the sequence of acts
 just as it is the sequence of points, In the realm of mathematics, that makes the long line. In the analysis of meta physics each single point is to itself, put in its effectiveness on life 1t is the line that enables men to do their work, and the line is made from the losing of each single point in the purpose for which one is placed against the other.
 Those who study men profoundly have learned that it is the tendency of life that gives 1t its higher meaning. There is perpetual progress toward per- lection, without the slightest probability of ever attaining 1t, that not only makes an excellent argument for immortality, but the reaching out after which gives also dignity to the toll for bread and all the endeavors of an earthly exist ence It is this that enables us to live life man-like.
 Plenty we hear of those attainments that bring us wealth, or give us power, or make us famous. They are too much in the public print and too often on the lips of men. Too little we attend to that which builds in us character and makes us godlike. Both are good and have their place; by the one civilizations are builded, life is colored and vision is given to men; by the other natures are influ- enced, dispositions are changed, vicious ness is shamed and the Kingdom of God is builded within men. The one we try to perpetuate in the bronze and in the mar ble. The other God perpetrates in that unseen force, ignoring ages and descend
 
 time, changing civilizations and recasting them for higher aims. It is the effect of this force that is impressive and teaches men to observe that as history makes It's page which records the up- ward move of the worlds life that 1 Strong men are like the wind. Weak
 men are like grass. The wind blows and | the grass bends.''
 "The world is appreciating more high | ly with each sucCeedinp year that "A good name Is rather to be chosen than great riches.' To move among men, in church and in state, in the home and on the street, and witness that you seek a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, is to exercise an influence that will establish the city whose builder and maker Is man. Right eousness counts not alone for the here after, but for the now. The danger to any civilization is not that it will lose
 Its life through pestilence or famine, | but that it will lose it, by first losing
 reverance for the holy and the good.
 To be afraid of nothing in the heavens
 above, or in the earth beneath, or in
 the waters under the earth-but to do wrong-is the heritage of those who
 reverence righteousness and value char
 acter. This is the strength in which men
 do their work, whether In the day when
 the city is In sackcloth and ashes, or
 the streets are full of laughter; whether
 the church of God, in poverty and in weakness, or in plenty and in power,
 struggles with the worlds sin. Obstacles count for nothing the darkness on the
 hither side of the mountain Is proof positive that the sun Is shining on tho yon' side; the waste place may be wide
 in its stretch and the eye may be strain-