davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

called "The Ladies' Aid' ana above them all deep and mysterious Presence in the little town, which MT. Wright calls the Ally. This is that popular suspicion, detraction whispering. which works un- seen through the agency of the church, and the Ladies Aid and the elders. The Ally is never asleep when the Ladies' Aid is meeting, and none knows the genius or power of the Ally half so well as that shrewd gentleman, Judge Strong
 Will the minister marry the nurse? Of course he will But there are other con- alterations that come first To begin with, the nurse helps the minister to open his eyes on the anomaly of the ministerial profession. The old doctor has awakened Dams suspicious to the same general effect. The judge and the church get alarmed by a new note in the young mans preaching Instead of what they call "the Jerusalem gospel they hear much upon the simple graces of practical usefulness. Human interests more and more attract the preacher. He digs in the cripple's garden. He helps a doubting farmer to harvest his hay and ever. outworks and wins the scoffer. He goes fishing with the old doctor. His church is filled to overnowing. and there is quickening of life for many. But all this is useless to mollify the Ally.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

well by you. Do you think l would spend 17 minutes on that last partcu- larly brief and lucid sentence if l did not mean well by youD
 I suppose it Is we'll that mankind is not wise; better, indeed for us to cher ish and rightly value that child part that is part of us all-best that at one certain season of the year we reshape our valuations. For there is difference in mems April and November conciu- sions. And season by season, year in and year out, If We live broadly and liberally, November conclusions must give place to April moods. November means the arrvlng-the finish. Also 1t is the unsweetest part of life, I say.
 For he or she who goes through this world with fixed hunger for material things has no more love for this burst ing spring than Kaiser Wilhelm has for the German unrest nor any more re- gard for the wild naked beauty of hya- cinths than Bonar Law has for the opinions of the laborite. Kier Hardie. Men who thank God for green grass when it. appears are even rarer than those females of the species who thank the street railway conductor for courte- sies rendered.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

brotherhood" Judge Strong sows such seeds of distrust and misgiving that Dan can hardly talk to soul without feeling the imperceptibe barrier of thorns In mysterious and inscrutable ways Judge Strong and ths Ally isolate the minister. even while his preaching attracts throngs to the church.
 A crisis comes when the minister pre- vents the judge from foreclosing a mort gage on the lame boy and his mother After that the way of peace between the elders and the minister is forever lost and Dan will presently see himself snubbed by the ecclesiastical family. su- perseded in his own pulpit and served perseded in his own pulpit, and served his resignation written. But being a man, he solemnly thrashes the judge for an insult to the nurse and her psptegee, and goes back to the hills to work d mine for the benefit of humanity and to dwell In peace with the lady of his love.
 In some respects the story lacks the convincing quality. l do not know what church could possibly answer 10 the de- seription Would any church protect thief like Strong to secure his money? When a strong and ruthless man. how ever gets control of any church the re- suit is likely to be cruelty to the minister, unless he also is caitiff, And money is terrible defence. There is, therefore.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

The church Is found guilty by the novel, ist of condemning and neglecting young girl, who in despair seeks to save her virtue and end her hunger by suicide. The nurse, a most unorthodox person in the matter of church attendance, saves the poor girls life and elects to live with her that she may hold her in safety.
 But the Ally cannot allow this and promptly decides that the nurse is no better than she should be. When it is found that the minister cares for the nurse and not for the elders daughter, there is a blaze in the dead timber which burns ominousy. The judge makes it impossible for Dan to continue in the pastoral work either there or else where. And in the end the judge gets the thrashing at the hands of the minis ter which he so very richly merits
 The essence of the book is an indict- ment of the church. How does the church exist? How does it call and dis miss it's ministers? Who makes the at mosphere of a church? What finally de- cdes whether the minister should be dis missed or no2 The answer Is, The Judge Strongs.' An apparently self governing body Is really closely organ ized machine. always tending to fall into the hands of one man. the most astute and perhaps the most contemptible of the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

the experience of Dan Matthews. however largely it must be discounted, that a new type of church is certain to evolve. At present the average church does not ex- ist for the sake of the community, but for it's own sake. To belong to the church becomes an end in itself. To land people into the church Is the chief end of pas- tor officers and teachers, from the prim- ary grade up. That church is the most successful which has the largest enroll ment. And the chief end of the teacher is to see to 1t that a fair knowledge of the Bible story shall be imbibed by the children who will soon be full-hedged church members. Their social debt as Christians is not brought home to them.
 How Dan Matthews turns his mine in the Ozarlxs into effective service of man- kind does not appear. But 1t Is certain that the Christianity of today Is under challenge and is responding. Forms of social service must arise whereby the institutions of democracy may be en- riched and made truly spiritual, and the upward striving of every life encouraged. and so a new alliance formed between the state and the church. honorable alike to both and a vitallzlng process for every citizen, The Dan Matthews of fiction is somewhat bizarre. somewhat meo- drapatic. but I am willing to say he is worth observing.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

to be more careful in conforming to good usage; but, you see
 Father and mother are growing lit tie forgetful in their old days. They would like to make things pleasant for Muriel, and they take very good na- turedly the hints abon. table manners. And they try, but lapse. It is pathetic 10 note fathers consternatfon when unwittingly he pours his tea out in the saucer to cool it-right when guests are at the table. And once he tried to pour the tea back into the cup, but his old hand trembled, and he spilled it.
 It is matter of habit with the old couple
 Mother formed the habit of blowing on her food back in the days when the daughter was at schoe. or the piano and mother had to hurry with the household things.
 Those were days of short dinners.
 And now?
 How should the fond old people know that fine education would give to their girl ways and manners not theirs? How could they suspect they were putting their daughter above them so that in her fancied superiority she would come to look down upon them?
 It fervently is to be hoped they have not discovered,
 Educated?
 Why, if the girl Is really ashamed of her old parents she has not got the B of education. Education should make a woman more woman1y. Ii is not designed to put her on a pedestal above her kin.
 The ingratitude of the girl That father has literally sweat blond to pay the daughters way at school. That mother has died a hundred times in agony and privatsoh and suspense for the girl who Is ashamed of her.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

accepts the pastoral care of a little church in a somewhat deeayed Ozark town. He thinks the church is the only perfect institution on earth.
 It early appears that a most compact group of personalities stands ready to tangle and disturb the threads of Dan Matthews career. There is an old doc tor, Dams most careful. but unorthodox sponsor, and young doctor, who fortli- with loses his heart to Dan. There is village bad man whom Dan knocks into cooked hat to save the life of a crip- pied boy, the crippled boy himself, who works a garden with some success. and the boys very Irish mother Above all, there is the nurse from Chicago. who is to womankind what Dan is himself to mas eulne humanity. distinctly peerless. There is also another young woman, the elders daughter, whose soul has grown into the form of a minister's wife, though she has never had a good chance to persuade any minister that she is all beautiful for him. Dams arrival creates nuttering in that dovecote. Then there is the old lawyer Judge Strong, who is the chief villain of the play. and his felow-eder the father of the dovecote girl Miss Charity Around these drama tis personae we must group a generous supply of females, who make what is
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

Being divine, love abides.
 Love must keep it's own forever and day. It is stronger and sweeter when the wrinkles mar the race of the loved one, when the hair is silvered and the frame is bent than in the younger days of the checks rounded contour and the body's stately carriage.
 Love seeketh not its own. Unselfish ness is it's essence. Love sacrifices, denies itself. IL Is long suffering and kind
 Call you that love which deceives, which lures for it's own desire, which brings dishonor. which turns it's back upon those who should be dear which brings humiliation and shame and re- morse?
 That sort comes up from the depths.
 True love comes down from above.
 Did you ever read Lincoln Steffens' short story "The Least of These?'
 II is about Bailey.
 Bailey is a mission worker with a great pity in his heart for the down and outs of society. In order to help this class he got an appointment as night guard and was promoted to be special deputy jailer.
 A man never got so low down that Bailey would not help him.
 He met men on their own level and was friend. 1hey were never 100 dlrty or offensive for Bailey. He washed them and ministered to them and put them to bed When they got up clothed and in their right minds Bailey helped them.
 r. was a rough ministry.
 Sometimes the poor outcasts would curse Bailey or rebel against his baths. but he was as gentle though firm as any mother, and his gentleness won.
 And then
 When the prisoners had slept a good clean sleep Bailey would probe their
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

the stubborn soil I cannot guess. All of the lore of Lubbock, or Thoreau, or Burbank have not forwarded me any in the mystery.
 Theories of sun and moisture only leave me vexing over the first genera tion Though the oak shadows and contents me through the hot months, the problem of the acorn will not let me be.
 Perhaps the one knowable fact about man-erect Is that he is not civilized. Perhaps the one saving part of a man is not, indeed, the hunger that bids him acquire and absorb books, scenes, but rather that half wild animal sense that lunes him away from eities-that sense
 that bids him shun novels as he would the very devil, and go bathe in the sea that belief that comes in rational min utes that it is not so important that he should defeat his neighbor for an office, or get the best of his neighbor Tn q bargain, or even get all the acclama- ton of his precinct or state or nation;- none of these so important, perhaps, that he should get his garden hoe, an empty tomato can, dig him a plentiful supply of angle worms, and go "bream- ing Understand me we'll, for I mean
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

Do you get my drift?
 I am not even sure that he Is least wise of men who puts away so-called ambition-the strenuous stride and leap toward what men call success. And In making that announcement I am laying myself open to a charge, not of preach ing orthodoxy and spiritual values. but gross heresy, Cor grass heresy-no mat ter-the "a" and the 70" boxes touch each other on the lynotype keyboard am as sure that one cannot resolve on thing like this in world of massed men, going mllitantly at each others throats and purses;-as sure that one cannot make this resolve in April and hold fast to that resolve until the fol- lowing April. as I am sure that this Is the fourth month and that gardens are abloom.
 And unless you believe in the spirit stuff of spring and all these heresies hold, I cannot be friends with you today, nor yet this spring. Time enough there is in the biting months of winter for confab in stuffy shops and offices of how best to outwit my poor devil of neighbor In the matter of rents. or trade, or bar gains of any sort, or insurance, or but ter. or eggs. :. But now it is April and who chooses to be orthodox in
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14
"HE celebration of Abraham Lin
 coins birthday brought up the old y ouery "What made him great?'

"HE celebration of Abraham Lin
 coins birthday brought up the old 1 query, What made him great?' Henry watterson says in his lecture on Lincoln that the man was inspired just as Moses was inspired. Which sounds well, but is rather indefinite.
 Was it heredity, environment or will power that made Lincoln great?
 He had something from heredity-a great mother-and something from vironment-hardships obstacles, opposi- tion. But
 He also had much from his own strong will power. and his will power was shaped by his ideals Where did he get his ideals? Let's see.
 When Nancy Hanks Lincoln was dying In that log cabin in Spencer county, h. diana. she put her hand on the head Of her wilderness boy, years of age, and said:
 I'm going away, my boy, but l want you to remember that your mother wants you to be a good and useful man.
 There's the beginning of Lincon's ideals.
 How many times in his after life that boy felt upon his head the hand Of hls dying mother and heard her words we may not know, but we do know that III his boyish heart he made the high re-
  come true, because he said:
 All l am in life l owe to my angel mother"
 Pluck, spirit of endurance, application, plus mothers hand made Lincoln great. When Nancy Hanks Lincoln died Thom- as Lincoln cut down a poplar tree and sawed out by hand the lumber which he nailed together for her coffin.
 And
 Standing by the side of the grave when the form of that woman of the hazel eyes and melancholy face was lowered by the few neighbors stood Abraham Lincoln, hatless, barefooted. freckled, ungainly, holding his little sister by the hand Sorry beginning for a great life?
 Yes, but
 The sound of a voice that was still and the touch of vanished hand helped to fashion the ragged boy into what he after ward became
 mothers hand. mothers voiee--don't t forget to look for these in every life.
 I'm just ashamed of father and mother when we have company. rath- sr will eat with his knife, and he 9ours his tea out in his saucer. And mother has a habit l simply can't break her of She blows on her food 10 cool it"
 That was the plaint of young wom m made To her intimate girl friend.
 B. means of stinting themselves of comforts her parents had kept her in m expensive finishing school for sev- sral years until she was graduated.
 Now she was ashamed of them.
 And they proud of her.
 Of course father anc mother ought
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

among the giants of Alabama. To be legislator in those days meant much TOT the people filled the seats of legislation with their choicest spirits
 MT. Saunders was not hantering mien' but he relied on the strength of his logic into which he quietly injected a personal conviction so overpowerng that 1t would seem that no position could be more im- pregnable, and thus it would look till it came to fall under the iconoclastic manip- ulation of his formidable opponent 10 be able to have those days of partisan tempest reproduced in type would be to thrill thousands at this late time.
 As chairman of the Judiciary committee in the house. the service rendered by MT. Saunders was fundamental to the interests of the state Nor was any one more pro- foundlv interested in the educational af- fairs of the state as was shown by ms share in the establishment of the state
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

Another harebrained youth, smitten by girl who rejects him, follows the girl, nags her, makes her life tor ment, then kills her
 It is called a love" tragedy
 A weak -souled woman whose vanity is played upon or whose trivial griev- ance is fostered by an affinity" is per suaded to leave her husband and chill dren and run away.
 It is called love story"
 Or man of family deserts a goon wife and children. leaving a heritage of shame, aud goes philandering with some foolish miss whs nas infatuated him.
 He is blinded by love-
 To paraphrase the utterance of Mme. Roland. 70 love, what crimes are com mtted in thy namel' Many so-called love affairs are libels on love.
 Love is more than infatuation. Love is more than passion or desire Love Is, first of all, clean. And love will pro- tect its own and not XIII it. Love will die to save the loved one Love puts above all else the happiness of the loved ct the sacrifice of self. It is the di vinest thing known to humans.
 Love seeks not its own.
 It flches nothing from honor
 Ii rejoces in purity.
 It endures forever
 Love is more than sentimenta lity It's language Is not the speech of the silly so-called love letters" read for the delectation of the multitude in tho divorce courts.
 The speech of genuine affection may sometimes be betrayed into the word of extreyaganee CT .mpnlsive eSDrcs sion, but it is never the iangua ge of in- sincerity, The stuff of which many love speeches are made is the verlest froth on the cup Of as>-ction.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14
BILL VINES ON ALABAMAS NEW CONGRESSMAN

have evver herd urged against Dr. John, and he admits it.
 Dr. John is married and has four children, and while he has been edu- eating boys all ovver the state to grow up and vote for him, if he gets enny frum his own fammily he had better begin to advercate Votes for Wimmin, for his air all gurls.
 He is also an author; while Super intendant of Educasion for the State of Alabama, anuther polysical job, which the Doctor anneexd with grate ease, he wrote the "Byennial Report of the Departmint of Educasion of Alabama which at the time was among our best Cellers and was quite an interesting peece of Fixion, and he also issued several phamlits on edu- casional matters which no doubt air
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14
HEART TO HEART TALKS-By Edwin A. Nye

Do you know him or her?
 And would you not give a great deal to be able to meet yourself as you meet other people and see yourself as they see you?
 70 wad some power the giftie gie us said Burns, "to see oursel's as ithers see us"
 We cannot meet ourselves face to face as we meet others. The mirror shows only the outside of us. But we have or may acquire the mutual ability to meet and study our real selves and get acquainted.
 You,
 Are you what people think you are, or better than you think. or worse?
 DO you ever step to one side, as 1t were, and watch yourself go by?
 We try to find out from others what they think of us but they will not tell Us. In fact, they will take pains some times to deceive us as to what they think of us.
 Why should you not take the invoice yourself?
 Why not make the inventory at first hand and add up the figures just as they are? Why not credit yourself up with all the good qualities you know you are possessed of and charge yourself up with your weakness and faults and failings?
 You know better than any one if you will take time to think, what are your strong points and your weak ones.
 If you make the inventory do not de- ceive yourself or leave out any of the qualities. good. bad or indifferent. Self deception is the worst sort Of deception
 One thing is sure:
 When you are done and have made the footings you will think less Of yourself anl more of others. Their faults will
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

hearts, like a kind surgeon probing a wound. until he found the tender place.
 He touched the spot tenderly, quickly. and then he was ready to take up any question in which they were interested. He did not force religion or the Bible upon them if they didn't want to talk about those matters.
 Bailey was wise.
 He put into the mental stomach of those poor creatures, as he put into their phys fcal stomachs whatever of wholesome, nourishing nature they could keep down.
 Bailey knew.
 And when the jail sentences were up Bailey helped the prisoners to find honest work and get upon their feet. He hired a house where he lodged the fallen men. He never despared of them Whn they left the city his letters followed them.
 Herein is love.
 We try to reform men by punishlng them. We Il, of course. because we cannot dig iish between hatred of the crime an red of the criminal.
 Bailey couIu distinguish.
 Love never fails. It is the only thing in all the world that does no: fail. And the world Is dying everywhere for little bit of It.
 Bailey loved men. not theoretically, not generally. but specifically.
 Therefore he worked miracles with men the miracles of love.
 Has it ever struck you that there is mysterious individual going around, walk ing the streets chatting. laughing. grum- bling arguing, and that all your friends know him and have long since added him tip and come to definite conclusion about him without saying more than chance. cautious word to you. and that persons is you ?--Arnold Bennett.
 Xntlf
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

His qualities soon marked him for dis tinguished leadership in the legislature to the attainment of which leadership he came, not by self seeking but by dnt of his recognized power. He had served as a legislator before 1S40. but at that time, he rose to the first place in the ranks of his party.
 There was necessarily inseperabe from his bearing the consciousness of that which would have affected any man, with the sway of strong political organization of which he was the recognized leader Self assertion becomes easy when there is lit tie to be apprehended from opposition The dominant democracy in the lower house of the Alabama legislature might have occasioned tranquility in the leader even though it had not been natural ATr Saunders not only held the whigs at bay, but in awe. Nor was this the re-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

"A child said, What is the grass.
 fetching 1t to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? for I do
 not know what it Is any more than
 he"
 " HAT seems to me near approach
 to final values--a sort of fixing A and a solution of the miracle in the mere acknowledgment of unknow- ing. When you become prey for the undertakers you may get somewhat for warder toward solution of the prob lem of what the grass is; mixed with the sweet earth yourself, you may in deed become a finer soil expert and a more thorough student of plant life than any of those specialists sent out by the departments at Washington.
 But certain times there are when an elyses, specifications are of no avail particularly in April when all the seem ingly dead and barren soil gets it's dra- pery of green.
 Today there were trooping leaves of grass along the hard pavements of Fifth avenue, as doubtless there were along all our other avenues and streets (for nature shows little or no favoritism in her benefactions)-and however these tender sprays throbbed or burst through
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

tie reeder that the Chairman of the Dimmycratic Eecutive Committee of Cleburn County is Sum punkins, es- pesially when that Chairman is Dr. John Willyum, for rite immediately after that he was elected Mayor of Edwardsville, and Edwardsville of course you know all about Edwards vile, at least I hope so for I don't, but enny how, following this in dew and Ansient form he was elected state senator frum the Seventh Alabama district, and again two yeers later on, and while in the senate, he served as Chairman of the educational commit tee. In 1903 he was a member of the
 State Text Book Commission, and if he hadn't admitted that Adkins would rot have been in the Rase we all. This is the gravvest offese we