The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1918-07-09
IN SPITE OF DISABILITY

frail, and sufferers, or bereft of sense
organs, who marshalled their forces
in spite of disabilities, and played
vast parts in the battles of human
life. The lessons of their successes
show that great glory is hidden in ev-
cry mind, regardless of bodily decrep-
itude-that there are few forms Of
disability or ailment over which man
cannot triumphant those who fail
to make good" do so because they do
not courageously pursue the real bus
mess of life.
Striking examples of success by
those who had been deprived Of
either sight or hearing, or both, are
seen in Laura Bridgman, Helen Keller
Fanny Crosby, Francis Huber, John
Milton, John Kitto, Henry Fawcett
William Hickling Prescott, Francis
Parkman, Thomas P. Gore and others
who did not
Bate jot
OF heart or hope; but still bear up
and steer
Right onward,
To the healing and strengthening
tolls"
which proved them to be of heroic
wisdom worthy of all admiration.
1t was the opinion of the English
critic and poet Coleridge, that Bacons
Novum Organum, and Rants Critique
of Pure Reason, and Spinoza's Ethics,
were the three greatest books writ.
ten during the Christian era. 1t is in.
teresting to note that these noble con-
tributions to human knowledge were
the products of men of feeble health,
those who reached the goal of great
ness at every step by disease and
suffering.
Bacon, frail in youth, to which was
added the disadvantage of poverty,
and in later years beset by sickness,
calumny and humiliation, remained
steadfast to the cause of human adj
vancement. He spoke from personal
experience in declaring "a cripple in
the right way may beat racer in
the wrong way"
Kant lived eighty years of harass-
ing debility and pain. He used his
intellect to minimize the effect of ill
health, declaring: 81 have become
master of it's influence on nv
thoughts and actions by turning my
attention away from this feeling al
together, just as If 1t did not con.
Germ me-" He made his body an ODE
dent instrument of his mind and by
so doing mastered pain.
Spinoza's i'll health instead , of
breaking his will strengthened It.
The value Of his Ethics" to the sick
of body and mind has been of much
service to the world. He encouraged
the invalid to persist for the will to
live, the competence to be, is the
root of all action, and of all that
makes the world alive" The list of
those who started in life handicapped
with frail bodies, deformed, or else In.
heriting grave maladies, but whose
minds were of Titanic mould. is a
long one.
Except that Adam Smith was mas.
ter of his fate" he would not have
laid the foundation for political econ.
omy In his Wealth of Nations" nor
could have John Richard Green given
the world his wonderful histories ey.
cept for a Spartan spirit a truth also
as to blind Parkman and Prescott
Voltaire came into the world appar.
emily dead and his life of "a wears
was struggle against multitude of
ills during which he produced more
than seventy volumes of printed mat.
ter.
Alexander Pope was confirmed IN.
valid, yet his valiant spirit made him
the acknowledged head of English
literature of his day. Blaise Pascal
Isaac Newton, John Bunyan. John
Harvard. Horoation Nelson, James
Watts, William lit, Heinrich Heine
Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer
Daniel Webster, Robert Hall, Harriet
Martineau, Elizabeth Barrett Brown.
ing, George Eliot, Frederick Schiller
Thomas Carlyle, Leigh Hunt. William
E. Charming, William Cowper John
Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson and
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler are a few
OF the army of those who exalted snir.
itual self over bodily self and show.
ed by their achievements that the diff.