The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-06-26
says UNCLE CAV

It's a puny soul that allows its moral
yearnings to waste themselves upon the
empty air. Humanity has high ideals
| to burn and it burns most of them. If
half the energy that is spent cussing
conditions were applied to intelligent
remedies. the glory of manhood come
to its own would cover the earth as
the waters cover the sea. Three-fourths
of us merely yearn and cuss and let
it go at that. More than respectable
proportion of the remaining fraction Of
humanity goes about its business of
lettering conditions in manner that
suggests the need of prayful confer
ence with an efficiency expert.
The redemption of the world from
waste, want and woe, like charity,
must begin at home. After the prob
lem that is peculiarly yours is solved
you have a right to display brotherly
interest in the welfare of your neigh
Dor. If you have solved your own
problem and let your light shine, it's
very probable that you'll find that your
neighbor has been following your ex-
ample and doesn't need a great deal of
help.
Some years ago I was one of a party
who rode down a long dingy, hopeless
looking street. There was but one
bright spot in many squares. At one
end of this avenue of visible despair
was a bright, clean lawn and upon the
porch of the tidy cottage twined
crimson climbing rose. The other day
I rode down that street again. Ninety
seven in one hundred cottages We're
neat, were surrounded by tiny lawns
and upon their small porches the red
ramblers blazed a message of hope and
cheer. / entered one.
Where did you get that magnificent
rosebush?'' asked.
From the lady next door," the good
woman replied I'll be glad to give
you a cutting"
I took it, secreted it beneath my coat
and made the same inquiry again and
again The reply was always substan-
TALLY the same. The original lady
next door, turned out to be the one
who owned the first rose.
Those rose cuttings are planted in my
own garden. When they develop, other
roses are going to bloom in gardens that
shall come into existence because the
first lady next door" expressed her
moral yearnings in green grass and
crimson blooms and worked out the re-
demption of as dingy and hopeless a
thoroughfare as man ever built upon a
prairie where God had set the mercy
of his green grass and the benediction |
of his wild flowers. And when the good
soul who wrought the transforma ton |
passes hence, am going to write the |
story of her useful life for the news |
papers that her example may not be |
wholly lost with her passing.
The turmoil and strife of industrial |
existence, the sins and sufferings of |
society the waste and poverty of the !
underling-aH these appear extremely |
hopeless to him who would grapple |
with the problem in its entirety. But |
he who remembers to make his as
pirations blossom in a rose. to walk
straight and upright before his neigh
bors who lives frugally, though not
meanly, and happily, who does not
despair at general conditions, but gives
them the lie in his own life-he is the
real reformer. the real worker of
miracles.
The woman who made dead dis
gushing street over into thing of life
and beauty and visible joy made her
living over a wash tub. She had only
one little rose cutting that she had beg
ged from a rich woman whom she had
served and brought back to her little
hopeless neighborhood. She had only
this and 25 cents worth of grass seed
and her good gnarled brown hands and
a few moral yearnings that she
wouldn't let go to waste.
And yet the millions who live in their
homes spend their time
cursing the tariff and low wages, re-
extravaganza and vice.
Remember the washerwoman and
her rose and be ashamed, Oh, We of
little faithi-(Copyright 1913. by the
Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.)
Mrs worldley-'If, as you say. your
m Sfer kissed Won against YOUR will WHY 4