The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-09-14
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

I cities are too dependent on others, and thereby lose the ability to do many things which the man in the country has to do for himself or go without
 This was brought forcibly to me re- gently on spending the night with 9, man with Ave children and only one of them big enough to in any way help, and yet who, without hiring any hand, was making crop all by himself
 l had spoken at village church, and after the service was over kindly faced mother and young daughter came up and invited me to spend the night in their home. had asked if there was hotel or boarding house in the place, and was told that there was none
 1 It seems the little town was run on the Bob Toombs plan, for years ago ! in Washington. Ga, that old aristocratic hotbed of secession--a movement was started to build hotel. Someone ap-' preached General Toombs and asked him how much stock he would take Not cent!" replied the fiery Georgian.
  Knowing his public spirit tsso shocked the promoter of the new enterprise that will you give me your reasonT Ger tainly, sir" replied the hospitable Wash irgtonian. Any respectable man who comes to my home town fs welcome in my home, and if he isn't respectable we don't care whethey he stays overnight or not"
 It seems had gotten into such place. went to bed and did not see my host table in his working clothes, every inch a man. Just the type of the self-respect- ing and self-supperting farmers of New England, who fired the shot which was ! heard around the world"
 1 l do not know why but am a heaven born confidant. If had not gotten into the Baptist pew, am sure I would have made a good father confessor, which re- minds me of the fact that in one oi my pastorates, where there was no Cath. l olic church, an Irish barkeeper used to come to my church nearly every Sunday 1 night and sit on the back seat.
 1 Every Monday morning we would meet 1 at the postoffice, and his invariable greet 1 ing was, "And faith, aru-Brother Bar nett, it is a Catholic priest ye should be- One Monday, when the community ,,ae ecf fpe e npo ba said: And faith, and Brother Barnett, won't you pray for rain "Mike,' said I, it would give me pleasure to do so, but you don't understand the situation. I am merely the pastor of a local church. if you want a rain shower call on your own priests, for your church is organ ized throughout the world It was then I learned that man is wasting his time 1 in trying to put one over sunny son of the Emerald Isle, for, quick is a flash of lightning. he came back at me. That is the reason asked ye, Brother Bar nett, it is a local rain I want
 l We'll. as I started out to say before l get to rerniniscing. my host, whose name I did not know, and I am sure he didn't know mine, for he kept telling his wife or little daughter to pass the stranger something, but before the meal was over I had learned his age, his birthplace, about his hard struggle as the son of a poor mountain farmer in north Georgia, how he had only had few months schooling, in a school where he had sat l 1to vstith hoa ri learned his letters and how to read. He made it as plain as if I was seeing it roll before my eyes on the screen. ! Now, here is the thing which heartened me. The man in front Of me was the real thing-the kind of stuff which has made this country what it is, and is going l to show to the world the breed which American democracy produces, for it's the sons or grandsons of such men who are meeting the picked troops of the au-
 tocratic Hohenzollerns, and not only
 holding them, but making them show their heels as they hot-foot it back to- 1 wards Berlin. We need not fear that Americans will ever degenerate as long as his type survives; or that democracy will perish from the face of the earth, or
 that culture will die out of the land.
 Here is what he has done with his own hands: He Is "a renter and yet, on IT acres of poor land, he has not only made a living, without any outside help, for a family of five, but has been able in few years to lay up enough to buy a | fa ~
 for one
 When I am in such a home, where there are boys and girls, always try to instil it into the parents to give their ,l children as good an education as possible. opened up on my host along my usual lines, and he became almost transfgured as he talked of what he aimed to do for
 his little family in the way of schooling.
 He showed ss fine spirit as I have ever come in contact with anywhere. ] Pointing to his oldest. 12-year-old lad, who had worked by his side all summer, he said: "I have done told him that when school opens he must go, and not miss.a day, even if have to hire help to gather my crop; for he is in the eighth grade, and I want him to finish and then go through the county high school, for l mean to see that he has chance to be somebody" Then came the pathetic thing, for. singling out his l0-year-oid girl, he went on telling how she was taking music lessons but her teacher had moved away. h,,t if nn raxy one