The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-10-27

though Esther had wanted him only,
but said casually, Bring your friend |
the king along as an afterthoughtf
Then Hannah. after he had worked his
story up to dramatic climax. put in /
of all life with the words:
Yet all this availeth me nothing, SO
long as see Mordecai. the Jew, Sit
ting at the kings gate.
Here was the sand in the sugar OF I
his happiness This is was that put
Haman under the spell Of the one
thing lacking.
We All Have Our Mordecais.
We each have our Mordecai. 1t sits
ever at the gate of our unsatisfiedI
longing. 1t is the hunger for more.
Our Mordecai is the possession cur!
heart so Graves that life without it, at
times, seems dull, drear, hopelessly
empty. 1t concentrates all desire in al
word. 1t is the focus of every ray of
our deepest thinking. 1t is the great!
sea into which flows every river. rivu-
let, and rill of our restless yearning.
In the garden of Eden it was an apple;
with Alexander it was more worlds to-
conquer Between these two the
seemingly most trivial and the great
est goal of ambition, lie all the Morde-
! Gals of life.
Our Mordecai may be some great
JOY or ambition toward which we ex-
tend empty beseeching arms, or some
torturing sorrow, pan, tr memory
from which we long to be delivered.
The one thing lacking is always the
next milestone on the road to happi-
| ness, and we think If we could only
reach that we should sit down and
rest calmly and be radiantiy satisfied
1t is ever the human craving for a
new freedom, freedom of possession
or dispossession. And when one Nor
decai enters the city of fulfilled desire,
a new one sits down in his place.
/ Wealth is the Mordecai of countless
thousands In a garb of gold he rests
at the gate of our ambition. We may
seek to WOO and win him by years of
consecrated absorbing ervice, or to
capture him by some sudden bold as
sault of graft and dishonesty. We NAV
let the thought of his entering cur
life dull our eyes to the glory of our
! present possessions and deaden our
ears to the finer music of living, as we
/ hear in imagination the amending
clink of the coins of gold dropping in
to the Golfers of our desire.
i We may pay too big a price for the
conquest of this Mordecai. We may
sacrifice friends, honor, love, the 10y
of living on the higher planes of life
and find finally that this Mordecai
possesses us, not we him. We NAV be
come his slave instead OF his master
In the silence of the night when the
soul has been swept clean for a mo
ment by the breath of SOM high in
spiration, we may realize we have beer
fooled by d beggar in dress of golt
and this Mordecai is not worth while.
We may long for fame. We may fee
that if our name was on thousands o
tongues like the name Of popula
brand of cigars, our words quoted witt
the signet of authority, our portrait
, sold in the shops, and our biograph,
. in every work on successful men the
j, the roseate dream of our life would b
/, a glorious reality.
n But when it does come it does no
c long satisfy. 1t soon pals; the aduls
# tion that once trickled sweetly an
I, | meltingly in our ears grove ine;n;d
q the scent of the burning incense stifle
Q US; conspicuousness reveals its thorn.
There seems one note missing, and W
may not be able to tell what il is, bu
without it the music must be jangl,
;, We are again under the spell of til
= one thing lacking.
q Our Mordecai ever keeps us frol
10 happiness. Sometimes ii is the exis
- ence of some one who blocks the pat
o of our progress, some one possessin
4 what we desire sitting stolidly in ii
! way of our ambition, and We may gu
% render all that is best In our natul
20 to have him removed This Mordeca
- breeding Jealousy, envy and injustic
Inl may transform even our dearest frief
10 into our deadliest foe, and we may sa
l6 rlfice him TO the compelling hunger
moment, something worth far lie
III than he. We may realize later that