The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-06-10

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good in some way Have you ever
! talked with mechanic at his Worh
| or a laborer in the fields ana not
! found tina. each of these men nad
talent that you had not, knew some
thing you knew not?
We cannot all be Napoleons or
Washingtons, but we can be alive,
patient, work hard, be rigidly honest,
hope for the best and II we fail TO
win fame or the applause of the null
titude we can die with the conscious
ness of having done our best which IS
| the highest success to which man
may aspire.
What matter il the world judges
merit by worldly success? The stand
ards OF the world are too often raise
and hollow Too often they rest upon
financial gains, which when attained,
cover multitude of sins. Every day
there are battles fought and victories
won that the world knows nothing
about. All the heroes are not at the
battles front or the mountains
heighth. In this world, earthly achieve
ment can never be taken as the criter-
ion OF excellence.
Was This Life Successful?
Was the divinest life ever led on
this earth a success, humanity speak
ing? A certain foreign country many
years ago was much run down. Their
rulers had been weaklings and they
were trampled and oppressed by their
insolent conquerors. But with all
this, they did not despair, and when
finally one Of royal blood was born
to them all their hopes centered on
him. Then would their ancient laws
be revised, their nation rule the world
and their king be king Of kings. Such
was his mission in their eyes and
likewise in their eyes he failed for he
came not as conqueror, no. with the
pomp and glory and OF royal king,
but eating with the poor and lowly.
and healing the sick and lame Of their
diseases. This man of royal lineage
with the world before him, failed in
his mission in the eyes of his people
and nineteen hundred years ago suf-
fered a shameful death upon the cross.
But do we today count that life a
failure, and are we entitled to pro-.
nounce our fellow man humbly trying
to copy that life failure because he
has not like some won applause and
the earth ring with his name?
What encouragement. can we bring
to the second fiddlers. to the every
day men who never shine in the world
ly armament of applause, but never
receive the braves of the multitude;
those who are quick to crown the
victor's head but have never felt .he
laurel on their own brow? We must
tell them that the world will be blind
indeed if it does not reckon among its
great. such martyrs as miss the palm
but not the pains OF martyrdom;
heroes without laurels, and conquer
ors without jubilation or triumph.
We must tell them that real worth
is to be found in the realm of en-
deavor as we'll as achievement, that
the real triumph Of life is to be meas
ured by contribution, which their work
has made to their character. The dull
honest worker who mas made the
acquisition of fine nobility goes
home with the finest prize.
Only True Success
And this is the only true success.
Often, as we reach with greedy hands
for what we falsely term success,
when at last we grasp the object of
our desires it is but mocking phan-
tom; the golden apple of our dreams,
dead sea fruit.
And, so is not some humble .iller OF
the soil, some petty humdrum clerk,
who nobly fulfills his simple duties,
greater than that man who on the road
of selfish ambition find that the high
er 1t ascends, the more difficult it be-
comes, until at last 1t terminates in
some elevation too narrow for safety,
too steep for safety, too sharp for re-
pose, and where the occupant above
the sympathy of man resembles in the
solitude Of his sufferings Prometheus
chained to the Vauvasian rocks.
Nor must the little duties of life,
the petty round of irritating concerns
appear cheap or sordid in our eyes.
They may be covered with the glory
of unselfishness.
Every day Is as we find 1t or as we
make it. Here is task for us all so
beautifully expressed by Robert Louis
Stevenson:
To be honest, to be kind, to earn
a little and to spend a little less. to
make upon the whole family hap
pier for his presence. to renounce
when that shall be necessary and not
to be embittered, to keep a few
friends, but those without capitulaticn,
moreover on the same grim conditions
to keep friends with himself; here is
a task for all that man has Of forti.
tude or delicacy.''
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