River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1917-07-12

| nave uISH0drCoIl0u you anu caused
you to doubt whether you should
ever be able to replace those who
have year by year been consigned to
earth by you. We say that though
you have seen and experienced all
this and more, yet you have stood
by your post. Why? The answer
is plain. You have loved US. You
have wanted to teach that men and
women are made happy here and
souls regenerated and saved for
eternity by faith in Christ as the
Savior of the world. You have al
ways had the wisdom to realize that
this message is one that has been
large enough to occupy your whole
life, that men and women were
hungering and thirsting for that
message on the day you came here,
every day since that time, and today
as much as they did when Christ
Himself taught it.
But must close, and | trust that
it will not seem improper to you If
in closing I employ a little lighter
vein, for | feel that the occasion in
all that it implies and the memories
it awakens may make us too sad, and
yet this is essentially day of re.
joicing. The most conspicuous ex-
ample in our day of those who be-
lieve it a sin to die rich is Andrew
Carnegie. He has fought for years
to shed the dross of gold that seems
to cling to him, and he complains
now at the age of over eighty years
that unthinking associates and finan-
cial circumstances conspire to throw
riches upon him, and thus make it
very hard for him to attain his great
ambition to die poor. We do not
know in how far you share the views
of Andrew Carnegie in this respect,
but we hope that if you do that what
your confrmants through me are
about to do here will not in any ma
terial way hinder you from carrying
out your views.
Now, our dear friend and pastor,
you have no doubt in your long and
experienced life heard a great many
fine speeches and you have looked
back of those speeches to see in how
far they have been followed by per-
formances, and you have seen that
many of those speeches were merely
pretty and empty. However, it is
not my intention to imply or insinu-
uate that you have not yet that faith
in your kind that you would for one
minute doubt the sincerity of my
message from your confirmants, for
| know from my own experience that
you had keen intuition for divining
which one of US had not learned his
lesson. We have felt that we should
|
translate our feelings toward you in
to some tangible form Of expression
Col. VIM. j. Bryan is a person well
thought of. He is a great expound-
er of moral questions. When he
talks his listeners show their appre-
citation at the rate of one dollar a
word and Colonel Bryan furnishes
his own oratory.
In your case today we want you to
have the better of even Mr.. Bryan
We have furnished the oratory our
selves, though it is far from the
Bryan standard, and for each word
your boysand girls have said through
me, we have put one dollar into this
envelope / have in my hand, and |
think have spoken, roughly esti-
mated, about 900 words.
We do not want you to look upon
this token Of our respect and affect
ion as compensation of any kind.
Perhaps you are like most Of US.
There have been some choice books,
some picture or painting that you
have long coveted, a pleasure trip
you and your good wife may have
long planned, maybe some hobby
that has been SO elusive that you
have never seemed to be able to
mount it. All of these things have
been pleasures deferred. May the
little token of respect and affection
we bear you and which | am about
to present you bring some of those
deferred pleasures nearer to you.
Reverend Thorsen, on behalf of
your confrmants, [ now have the
honor and pleasure of rendering you
purse of 5000, and with it our hope