Norwich bulletin., 1917-03-03
THE MAN WHO TALKS

zion in five minutes than they could live in life- time; and some Of them s try to make you think they are the
 whole thing done up in a small .puh, q, dle There are only twelve words: Tn the Golden Rule, but men have ut l teriy failed to make it practical Wno have lived a hundred years. It is not l strange that it is relatively easier 1 to preach than to practice. It has long been said: Words show the Wlt of a man and action shows his mean, ing.n The ostrich became a symbol l of a lack of sense because he hides ] his head for safety and leaves SIS body exposed: but the average man
 action compared with bis good words i never shows the best man to pc pur- dened with wisdom. Those who let | their words be few in the presence or learned men or strangers protect Ineir l own weaknesses and gain knowledge lffrom those who talk. 1t has become 1 proverbial, however, that those who know least talk the most Persons 1 who have nothing to say ana the good sense to hold their tongues main.
 tain a high place in the estimation or 1 others.
 l 1t does not seem from casual ob- servation that .slae is best educated
 who is most useful" While this is | far from being the popular thought, | there is no disputing that practicality | is always a little ahead of mentality, I although they make good yoke mates.
 
 l ing practical may properly be classi- 1 fled with the man who is physically powerful but not industrious. The power of knowledge is not in itself but in action. To know and to do. to direct energy, is to make progress, I to achieve results; but intelligent in ertia is no better than any other kind
 of inaction, unless there is design arsf purpose back of it. There is efficiency ] in knowing when not to act as well as when to strike blow. Some think they must strike when the iron Is hot" but if they strike when the iron
 is cold and keep at it. they will make it hot. As Cowper has observed:
 Mentality may teach us to do noth- ing with considerable skill
 When we are asked: -sWho has de- ceived thee as often thyself?" we are closed up. I came near saying man makes a million promises to himself in a lifetime and does not keep half of them. Mans sins Of omission exceed his sins of commis- sion ten to one; and he seldom lives long enough to stop and think of them. Think of the promptings of conscience he smothers and the good
 resolutions he frames up but does not live up to. "Who has deceived thee as often as thyself?" Just take this
 into your mind and let it sink in Deceit is one of the worst of sins whether practiced upon ourselves or others. because we cannot foresee the consequences of it. If this deceiving ourselves becomes habit it makes a | hypocrite of us, gives us the mask of a saint when we are devils. There are few men who are always true to l the spirit of generosity and love with | in them; and when they crush them selves angels weep, for they realize | the fearful cost of this action to our | selves. We are unmindful of our own peril-of the self-invited conse l quences. What good can I do in the l Ia | has ever asked himself, and ssWho has l deceived thee as often as myself ?'' 1 stands second.
 l More than a century ago it became | a proverb that mine men in ten are | suicides" and in the present century 1 Metchinkon has told us all men are
 -yictims-no man dies a natural death: | and that old declaration of Ecclesias-
 tes: My children die because of their 1 ignofance" was never truer to the | world than it is to-day. Our inordin-
 ate love of good things incites us to
 oxer-eat, and dyspepsia cheeks us in our mad career by changing pleasure
 to misery. Scientists see no reason why man should not live as long as the eagle-15o years-and the average | life of man falls far short of one third of this The causes of disease land un- | natural deaths is traced to intemper- ate-eating and poisonous chemical i mixtures - auto o-intoxication-apd the | I nous Metchinkoff not having by his own estimate lived out half his days A hard working man like Edison lives on sixteen ounces of food 8 day, puts two days work into one by the | union standard, and lives healthily; and most short-day, indoor workers l consume from 36 to so ounces of mixed foods. Nobody can be made to believe he eats too much although it 1 is apparent enough most of us die too soon.
 Nothing truer than this has been written: Those who expect to reap 1 the blessings of freedom must, like ] ting it." There are too many men 1 who from enc pretext or another l make excuses for not doing their part. Some say we must be careful l of these would venture to argue that 1 1t is not the better to start too soon rather than too late. Few men seem
 to realize how much individual free dom depends upon the unity and bravery of all organized bodies or governments whose purpose it is to defend and perpetuate democracy the largest freedom for all the peo- | pie. We have been taught it is the greatest glory of a freeborn people to transmit that freedom to their children This freedom is the free dom of the church, the freedom of Iie press anu lile IISeuoLi oL tio PSo- pie. The true freedom is to do what we ought, and the false is to do as we have a mind to. Those who would do as they have mind to have not sense enough to protect their own 1ib- erty.
 Queer, that many a man whose life has been saved by a doctor thinks his gratitude should pay the bill. Of course, most physicians like to wit ness gratitude and to listen to the as- surance the. patient can never for get him; but he would like to see settlement so that he can forget the patient if he wants to- The prac- tice of forgetting the doctor and com polling him to keep a book of ingrates he cannot forget is far too common. Gratitude is not a virtue when it is made a blanket for vice. Some pa l tients walk around with the doctors money ir their pockets as if they were safety denosit hox of which