davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

these he had leveled in order to afford easy play to his scythed chariots and splendid cavalry. Between this chosen plain and the desert across which Alex ander had come in his invasion was a range of hills.
 While Alexander was on the tired march through the hot sands, Darius was deploying his fresh troops so that every part of his command knew what it was expected to do when once the battle should open. The advance of the army of Darius was composed of the scythed chariots supported by q corps of cavalry, behind which was an array of elephants bearing spears men and last was the infantry, or foot spearsmen. The unearth1y rattle of the chariots speeding across the plain with their extended scythes glittering in the sunlight was expected to strike the advance of Alexander with consterna- ton, of which the formidable cavalry was to take prompt advantage and dash into the ranks, while the ele-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

which shall be to them what the develop ment of the senses was to Helen Keller.
 It is a duty laid upon us who are en- dowed with their full complement of senses, physical and mental. If every one who has been moved by the story of Helen Keller's slow and painful advance in knowledge and all those who have not heard her story but are capable of com pretending it. were to resolve to do some thing to uplift the mental Helen kellers, what a tremendous advance the world would see,
 Phe field is wide and open Choose your corner and cultivate iti
 No need to wait until an actual. con crete case is brought to your attention. Go forth into the highways and by-ways, in city or town OF village and you will find the poor who need ministration
 Lots of us dig our own graves. Speaker Champ Clark of the national House of Representatives says so. He is d wise man in his day and generation, and he ought to know. He makes the statement on the authority of the late MT Spoford, librarian of Congress who was also learned and wlse and he agrees heartily with MT. Spofford
 Nature supplies us with The tools where With we bury ourselves, says Mf. Clark.
 Twenty-four of the tools, all of solid ivory-and all contained m person s head. They are canines, incisors, mo- lars. They are as effective in digging a grave as are spade and shovel and piclSA ax and mattock, says MT. Clark. So he has declined invitations for all dinners and functions except those he feels un- der obligations to attend in his official capacity.
 And in New York they have formed an anti-public dinner society. In fact, they gave a dinner, big and public, to cele- brate the formation of the new organiza- tion.
 But seriously
 MT Spofford and Speaker Clark and others are right when they say that too many of us dig our own graves with our teeth. They mean that we eat too much and do not exercise sufficient care in selecting our food properly.
 Ninety per cent of the ills of man have
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

How comes it that the gates have not been broken down?
 The answer is both ideal and actual
 I.
 In an ideal sense the gates of nell were smashed to atoms strewn in the litter Of outgrown superstitions when Humanity bore the Cross up Calvary and there will ingly died. the just for the unjust. There and then the meaning of life became the knowledge of slaves and children; for the supreme truth was let loose upon tho human conscience, working redemption. Henceforward force is weak, the proudest power the most pitiful. boastfulness naught. The cross is faithful endurance, is passive. patient endurance or shame, rejection. scorn, death. and so is mightier thar the loftiest throne. than the mill lions of armed men. Ever since Calvary the gates of hell have been off their hinges, as any thougttf,h mind may see. We do not always remember what in church. we say that we believe. We do not always bal!eve what we remember having said in church. And yet under meath forge tfulness and infidclty alike. we have an abiding conviction that force and greed and wealth and self will are foolish, childish, ultimately impotent. This is our Fundamental creed
 But morally most peorle squint, having what the Master calls 'the evil eye" We see things mixed. With one optic nerve we estimate and apprize the advantages of selfishness, of having our own way, to our own profit, whoever. suffers Men put their neighbours eggs in their own basket when he Is not looking In such ways do good people increase their own bank accounts. that they may have larger means to push similar enterprises on larger scaleS taking presently the cbicxens and the coop. Thus do vast projects expand, meat trusts, tobacco trusts, land trusts engirding growing cities. and so on, ad infinitum.
 Looking out of that squinting left eye what attraction Is there in warfare against the gates of hell? How can we know that the right eye is trustworthy? Why should we be drawn to tax ourselves for education? What concern have we in the public health? Why should we not strew our ashes in the alley? Let others look out for themselves; we must save our money by these small economies This is our thrift What accord have our interests with a smokeless sky. street sprinkling, clean back yards, decent sur roundings except they be our own? What does 1t matter to us though ne- groes die of tuberculosis and infect others, and they stlll others. even white folks. 50 long as VI and eur children
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

their origin in the stomach and other organs of digestion, say physicians. Tho body is a marvellous n achife Tor the con version of food into life and energy but it must not be perverted from its proper uses. We must not ask It to take care of too much food nor of food that is deficient or redundant in rne proper ele- ments of nutrition.
 If We do we dig our graves with our teeth.
 There is very little danger of a per son eating too little. Nature has a lery effective way of reminding one by the sensation of hunger. that the bodily en- zine needs fuel But. of course, there are false hungers as well as the true sign of distress Of such are the hun gers for stimulaqts, signs of a depra ed appetite
 This matter of eating the proper food, in the right quantity, is one or the high est importance. No man woman can do. his or her good work, can be a truly good man or woman, 1T the digestive ap- paratus Is out of klter. It affects and eolors a whole life.
 In some progressive states there has been started a movement 10 teach chil- dren how and when and what to eat It is not fad. It is based on sound. good practical common sense. The next gen eration will be better and apler and more moral if it attends to this matter of proper eating.
 
 You and I and -~sry other living man and woman ask the world for food and clothing and shelter and education and amusement. In return We must give to the world, directly or ipdirectly. some- thing which the world w~ets. Otherwise the bargain is one-sded. We give more than we get, and we defraud our fellow beings.
 In some spheres of life the balance is held very rigidly and the contents of the two pans are measured and weighed with the utmost accuracy Tn others tho bal- ance is not so delicate.
 In business. for example. the lines are sharply drawn Value for value is the rule.
 Now, in a certain line of trade there were recently men who were pessimistic
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08
GO TO- CHURCTI-A

against it." The business of the church that He has founded isy>to push the battle right up to the internal gates. The walls of hell are of adamant. They can hardly be battered down. The vul- nerable place is the gate
 Now l make no apology for averring that there are even now gates of hell extant in the world. They have been assaulted and have sometimes been al- most carried by the invading hosts: but the task Is not finished. Their garrison Is constantly reinforced, and the attack ing armies have toe frequently quar- reled in the hour or triumph or gone to sleep in the midst of siege half won. They began by making war on war, Killing darkness with light, con- quering lust with love, making power the reward of service, banishing greed with meekness, but they did not go on. They turned to make war on each oth- CT, threw the reins on the neck of de- sire, grasped at office and thrones, took nold Of wealth with their own eager hands. Gates are for such traffic
 In spite Of the congregations of tho nysterica1 which discounts the truth, even in this woman's Paradise that we call America women are still exploited and enslaved, while no man cares greatly. Even here, in the land found- ed for equality. money throttles the souls Of the poor. Even here, in the nome of social intelligence, children are murdered in body and mind for the sake Of dividends. Even here amid thousands of schools we let children grow up in moral ignorance and stupid vice Even here, in this continent first sought by white men as a place to serve God and man, these wrongs are doneAand tntolerable temptations thus laid on millions Of young hearts Even in America houses are built and cities plated not for healthy homes, but for rapacious investment companies
 We have not crushed the gates of hell where they impinge upon social life, industrial life, business life. polit- ical life. That great fortress, Suspicion, still resists attack and defends the gates, while it protects and encourages all who are making the easy descent Indubitably in the lives of men and women, aye, even in the lives of chill dren. the gates of hell are a grim and evident reality, impervious to fury or ridicule. They have bastions, Redans. forts, batteries. pushed clear across the world, and into the heart and ex- perience of every man. They dominate the world without because they so largely dominate the world within. The
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

with sharo knives who ripped out to meet the chariots. grasped the bits of the horses. either killed them or cut the traces, all of which was the work of a short time. and the few that were left sped onward the ranks of Alexander opened to let them pass only to be cap tured at the rear. Thus in the outset, Darius found himself foiled. for the cavalry which came next was no match for the skilled laneers ef spearsmen of Alexander. The Macedonian army fol- lowed up the confusion. which came to Darius and not to Alexander, the cavalry was thrown into confusion and routed, .rnd this in turn, disordered the infan- try, and within a short time. the entire rmy of Darius was completely routed. Foreseeine this result, Alexander had arranged for the capture of the Darius. but the Persian had himself arranged for such a possible contingency, and on a fleet-footed horse had fled leaving his family and army at the mercy of AleXan- Ger
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

fresh and the Persians were sluggish
 The night before the battle, the camp fires of Alexander streamed along the summits, while on the plains below there was darkness, and ar entire army was crouching expecting every hour to be attacked. With the peep of dawn. Alex ander and his generals were abroad ar ranging the line of battle. while the troops brealIfasted. and were ready for the assault. The Persians still in line. as they had been all night. heard the trnmpets of the Macedonian hosts sound ing the march along the hills. and soon saw them coming leisurelv to the combat. The charioteers were already standing in their chariots, while the horses were champing on the drawn bits. ready to dash into the teeth Of -Alexanders front line.
 When the Macedonian army reached the edge of the plain at the base of the hills rae army of the Persians moved to the ettack. but for the swift ehariots Alex ander had prepared a long line of men
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

are not infected? When did we ever think to cheer city official for doing his duty or a social worker for her sacrifice, Why should we give words of praise oi checks on our bank? The money laid by for attractive investments-why should we invade it for ''visionary'' ends? And are not all ends visionary which the squinting left eye cannot see? Every where, even in Jefferson county. are scores of wealthy men who hold the means to do infiite service to their com munity, but their left eye squints and the gold pile glints. and the right eye, seeing other things, appeals to a strangled heart with visiohary emotions.
 Certainly the established truth is that nothing pays but sacrifice. Not what we put into hospitals and schools alone, but what of our own selves we invest in human welfare for love and hope is our contribution to the battle at the gates of hell. And that pays everlasting divi- dends. But it must be more than money. Wonder, close by you, is the False Sys- tenn, the smugly ordered Cosmos of greed and power, tyranny, repression. enslave- ment, where souls and bodies are the price of other mems success. Within that organization are men and women who,
 
 dren, are preyed upon by demons such as Dante describes; but not mythical de- mons. Some are demons of poverty. some demons of affluence. but all their victims bear the mark of the beast on forehead and hand. Beautiful women. magnificent men. children of tender years. youths and maidens of excellent beauty and wit are actually. evidently. within those huge gates. prisoners of entrenched usage, prisoners of real hell. For them the anguish of burning heart, the bangs of disillusion. Their ideal is the very curse that binds them fin these burning chains. so that their world seems to them the only conceivable world. And yet there is not one of them-not one in all the land-but knows at bis hearts core that all this>fs wrong, a Babylon of in- iquity. ignorance, folly. boastfulness. Even on our squinting left eye will some times fall the outline of the cross. the vision of One wounded in the house of his friends. of One rent with torture until death. of an empty tomb where they laid Him.
 Only because we forget these realities or find it impossible to break away from our own chains. do the gates of falsehood and death so long hold together. Their hasps and lock are in our divided hearts Their weakness has long been manifest. even to their garrison. But the church
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

has been divided in its mind, and is still
 divided. Enough dynamite has been gath. cred during past generations in every land
 to blow the gates and their foundations
 into thin air. Ideally speaking, the
 church, one and indivisible, may now
 march clear across the confines of hell
 and set loose every soul and body and mind there tortured and ehsaved. The kingdom might come, the will of God be done, except for the divided mind of "all who profess and call themselves Chris tians." The word of authority was spoken long ago, and was written In blood, un- speakably precious.
 So does the Ideal suffer by the actual! Alas, the divided hosts of Christendom, Here Is the explanation of all historic sieges that have eaten up long years, the sieges of Troy, Acre and Hell. The besiegers were divided. do not here indicate the sectarian divisions of the church, but the inner divisions and spiritual schisms of men and women who belong to the churches. It is the schsm Of the flesh from the spirit, of the im- mediate from the Ideal. choice of the profits while we praise the prophets. God does not fit into the scheme of pleas ure ana lndolence and the social climb. So few ever succeed in making love serve the ends Of business, or the methods of business serve the ends Of love. The flesh must bow to the spirit interests must be blent at the place of sacrifice on some Mount Morlah of every soul, But till we make business a servant of the common welfare. and pleasure the min ister of devotion. the siege of the gates of hell will still be half-hsarted. There. indeed, Is the modern crusade, the holy spulchre which our modern life must capture from the diabolic powers. But to that siege we take pianos and tangos fashion plates and salacious shows: we build palaces when the war demands that we live in tents. It behooves us somehow to make fashion plates and tangos. shows and pianos. cards and confectionery. the instruments of war on tho sates of hell, or else our children and theirs shall be captured and the siege drift hopelessly on.
 The divided hosts are simply divided hearts. Churches are what we make them by our half-heartedness. Christ awaits his crowning. humanity come to its own. in the gate of his enemies; but here. in the very eye of the Master, we traffic in gew-gaws and leave to fanatics and future generations all the pick and shovel work Under fire? Nay. not we, And the young men and maidens drift
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08
vVTHEN father comes home
 A/ Does his homecoming bring M to the household or dnes his

vVyHEN father comes home
 N/ Does his homecoming bring joy
 W to the household or does his ar rival act like the passing of cloud be- fore the sun?
 Father has worries and troubles in his office downtown maybe. or fathers team in the field pulling the blow is balky- the principle is just the same.
 If father is a real, consfderate daddy and husband he will hot blame these things on the innocent family at home or try to make them pay for his vexa- tions.
 One wife and mother writes:
 'As wife and mother I have pro- test to make which I think every home maker will indorse. I protest against men bringing their business grouches home with them. A man is i'll treated or both cred or overworked at the office or the store. He dare not show his resentment there. So he saves 1t ans comes home cross or surly or glum. In other words, he does not punish the people respon- sible for the grouch. but vents it on his wife and children, to whom his home- coming ought to be the brightest event of the day. They look forward to 'papa's return only to find him surly and un-
 
 'Their happiness depends on him. They are probably the only people on earth who care deeply whether he lives or dies, yet it is on these home folks that he wreaks punishment by cranlxiness for the bothers put down on him by people down. town who do not care for him and whom he could not hurt if he tried. He hurts the innocent people who love him in- stead of those who deserve it. Think 1t over, husbands
 Here's a true human document" Not much can be added to it or subtracted from 1t without hufting it's substance Like all real literature. it rings true
 Only perhaps the wife and mother might have elaborated on that one point Their happiness depends on him." How many husbands and fathers, wage-earn- CTS and other business men. fail to real ize that the happiness of their fami- lies depend so much on their ways and whims!
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

A MONO the purposely obscure say
 "A ings of Jesus, which are well 4 A called cryptic, or. hidden, say runs. "On this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." In connection with "go- to- church Sunday that passage came to my mind, and by way of again testing the traditional understanding thereof have again looked in Bengels Gnomon, and found the place where he says that the gates of hell confront the church, which is quite without de- fensive walls, but which nevertheless they cannot subdue. Again. the most recent commentary within reach, the New Century Bible," beirg consulted, proved absolutely to miss the point, for it is so preoccupied with controversy about Peter that it has no attention at all for the dominant idea, T will con- struct my church." Bengel apparently conceives of the gates of hell as ser ried and battlemented fortifcation, squarely established in the earth by internal powers. while the church stands before 1t defenseless, loosely constructed. open to attack, yet not prone with fear, assaulted but not con- quered, "cast down but not destroyed" And there ie much wisdom in this read ing of the words.
 On the other hand, clever writer in Chicago paper has this to say:
 The gates of hell are not to pre- vail against the church of God. This does not mean that the church is to withstand their assault. The gates of hell are not moved up against tho gates of heaven. It means that the gates of hell are not to withstand the assault of the church of God. The church is not on the defensive. She is to batter down the gates of he'll"
 The ordinary mind. however, refuses Ito follow these very brilliant Chicago flights. Most of us feel that there Is sort of confusion of ideas in the phrase, ''the gates of hell shall not prevail" Gates are for defense, but prevailing Is offensive. But as matter of fact the word "prevair' gives here wrong tinge. The original verb means no more than that the gates cannot successful ly bear the shock of battering ram and sS in the service of the church. And so we come into line with the idea pre- sented by the brilliant Chicago writer. The Master Is promising to establish a nightly spiritual engine confronting the far-spreadtng gates of hell. He ex-, pccts to. eee those gates succumb to it's enooMata Ehsy shall not provO strong
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08
HEART TO HEART TALKS-By Charles N Lurie

It is a sacred obligation, assumed with the estate of husbandhood and father hood, even if not expressed in the mar riage vows. to do all that lies within a mans power to make hfe cheerful for the home folks" Supplying food, cloth- ing and shelter even in abundant meas- ure Is not fulfilling all a mans duties.
 The poet Burns put It well when he said:
 To make a happy fireside cline
 To weanS and a wife
 That is the true pathos and sublime
 Of human life.
 If you must worry
 At least choose something new to worry about. Do not let the old acid eat up the container of your soul. Too many of us permit the old worries. which should have been neutralized by the alkales of hard work and a cheerful spirit, to cor rode our lives
 New worries are bad enough: old ones are worse. And so many of the latter are unnecessary.
 Here is what a recent writer says on the subject.
 An investigation will convince you that you are worrying about the same things that worried you three, four or five years ago."
 Consider your worries candidly, in the light of reason. Isn't it true that you keep on worrying. over the same old things turning them over and over in your mind?
 Of course this is not meant for you If you are one of those who enjoy worry ing who are not happy unless the shadow of impending disaster darkens your life You are then mentally i'll and need a physician.
 In some places when the women mem- hers of church need funds for church purposes they hold a s'rummage sale" They clear out all of the old stuff which has accumulated in their homes, get it all together and sell it, either at private sale CT to the highest bidders.
 Why not hold 'rummage saie'' of your old worries?
 No one would buy thcn-every one has enough worries of his own? Certainly, my good sir or madam. But that need
The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-08

and the ability of his commanders. He also realized that defeat meant absolute disaster, for there was nothing else left him in case of failure. Behind him lay wide desert of seven days march. two immense rivers, the Nigris and the Eu- pirates. and he was fully 800 miles from hls home, in the land of an enemy
 No conditions even approximating those under which Alexander was. ever befors were encountered by a commander and none such have since been presented. With him it was victory or destruction But his troops. though wearied. were confident of the skill of their young eon1- mander, and they met the enemy on the plains of Arbela with unfiinching conn- dence. After the first onset. when the Macedonians completely foiled the Per- slans by disabling their chariot line. on the success of which Darius was chiefly reliant. there was no doubt in the ranks of either army of the final result. The Macedonians swept the field, and Darius disappeared from history.