The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-28
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
As You Sow So Shall You Reap.
ny DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman writer.

You have heard a thousand sern. ons
preached from the text "As you SOW so
shall you reap"-a1l about the wages
of sin being death; and the man who
drank dying in the gutter; the gambler
committing suicide after he had lost
his last dollar. and the broken law in
evitably taking its toll OF the wrecked
souls and bodies of humanity.
And it's all true, horribly, bitterly,
tragically true. but did you ever think
that the reverse action of this stern
law of God and nature is also true?
AS you sow SO shall you reap, good
as well as evil, lilies as well as thistles.
The man who Is industrious and
thrifty in his youth is as surely well to
do in his old age as the man is poor in
his old age who was waster, n spend
er and a loafer in his youth. The man
who has lived clearly, and abstem-
iously, and taken intelligent care of his
health is as sure to be hale and hearty
in his seventies as the man wh0 has
burned out his stomach with alcohol,
ton, is certain to be either in his grave
or doddering and senile.
The beginning of our lives is made
for us by chance. Our parents and
our situation in the world in youth are
wished upon us, but we make our mid
die life and old age for ourselves, and
that is hard or comfortable, filled with
love and companionship, or empty and
lonely according to the way in which
we have lived.
For age is when we gather in the
harvest of the years, and as we have
sown so do we reap.
The trouble with US poor mortals is
that we are always expecting miracles
to be wrought in our behalf. We can
see how the law of cause and effect
must work out for other people, but
We expect it to be suspended in our
own particular case. and that we will
be allowed to escape the penalty of our
folly and our weakness.
We shut our eyes to the fact that
no spiritual Burbank has yet arisen
who can take the thorns out of the
cactus of mean, and selfish. and hate
full traits of character. and make them
palatable and nourishing diet for
love and friendship to feed upon.
We should think a farmer a candi-
date for lunatic asylum who expects
to gather in a heavy harvest of corn
from a field in which he had not
planted single grain of seed. We
alienist for a gardener who rallied
against fate and considered himself a
martyr to ill luck because he. could
not gather roses off thorn tree.
But that is about what We demand
of life. We want to reap where We
have not sown, and have flowers burst
into miraculous bloom in places
where we have not set seed or bud.
Take the matter of success. for in
stance Riches and honors are in
variably the harvest of long. and
faithful toll and sweat, but it is the
hardest thing in the world to con-
vince the young of that That is why
there are SO many people who are
failures.
I They are not willing to bend their
: back to the plough and properly pre-
1 pare the soil in which to plant the
seed of their ambition They want to
reap all of the rewards and emolu-
ments without any work.
The whole secret of success is COM
prised in knowing more about your
! job, and doing it better than other
! people do. The man or woman who
/ does that can invariably command
their own prices for their labor and
are celebrated in the market places.
They are the school teachers, the rail-
/ road brakemen, the coal miners. the
poor country lawyers, who become
Wilson's, and Geddes, and Lord Rhon-
dhas, and McAdoos.
| You can't convince the average young
| ster, however. o. this. He thinks sue
1 cess is a matter of luck, instead of ef-
! fort, and he's always looking for light
ming to strike him without the effort
f, of even running up lightning rod.
He goes blithely along sowing wild
oats, and curses some malfgn destiny