Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-07-02
Destiny And A Boy

The international Sunday School
of Paur'-Acts 21:39; 22:3, %: 2
Tim. 3:14, Is; Deut. 8: 40.
Shall we start our stirring story
today-the biography OF a boy--fr ON
a carved marble pillar that / Treasure
in my home. because it is dug from
the ruins of the old. old city which
was the birthplace of the by, Saul
of Tarsus? This fragment Of an
Tient stone is precious because the
touch of a great life is upon L. For
80 personality enriches and enligEt-
ems everything.
Somebody asks. as he turns over
the days newspaper. WHAT 60 you
know about the new fighting he
tween the Turks and the French.
and the Turks and the Christians. in
this place called C:licia?" His
Ecighbor shakes his head negatively,
as he ~oevotes hiE. self to the more
familiar theme Of the big prize fight.
t;ut il the remark had been. II See
that there is mere trouble in the
Apostle Paul's home town of Tar
sus. it would have been received
with interest. you don't mean to
say that the old city of Tarsus is
still on the map? And that it is
one of the central sore spots of the
Near East? Well we'll! What do
you know about that? Why, /
studied about Tarsus and Paul when
l was a kid in Sunday school,"
The biggest fact about any COM
munity is hat a certain man vas
born there. Chambers of Commerce
may boost a town. but only boys and
girls grown great can really put 1t
OF the worlds map. A surprising
number of our soldiers in France
visited tho little town of Domremy.
simply because it was the birthplace
of Joan of Arc. The centuries max"
pilgrimage to the early homes of the
great. The log cabin in which
Abraham Lincoln was born is now
enshrined within a beautiful marble
building on the spot where he once
played in happy poverty. The old
world is holy ground because dot
ted with the memorials of the great
ones of history. Bethlehem, Naza-
reth and Jerusalem are the centers
of perpetual pilgrimage because
Jesus once dwelt there. We wonder
how many of the boys and girls
who are taught this present lesson
on Saul of Tarsus will themselves
be the means of making their home
towns famous?
The Boy Who Counts
My neighbor is a gentle ornithol-
ogist, but his five year old son de-
spoils birds nests! Also. he climbs
the difficult trees of the neighbour
hood: 1 heard him up in the cherry
tree by my study window a few days
ago, and we had a talk about the
trees he climbs. He disdains the
aocv nnnc ond &c LanI1occ 80 lirty
hands and TORI clothes. THAT Benny
is a little rascal" declared an au-
thority on boys, recounting some of
his mischevious pranks and his pow
err over his playmates; but. as she
spoke, her eyes sparkled with adj
miration. She would not have him
otherwise, for his traits all spell per-
sonality. l am counting on Benny to
be a climber in life. He will do the
unconventional, and often shock Mrs.
Grundy-unless the wrong sort of
teachers iron him out in the mean
time-but he will emerge a real man,
a doer in life. Perhaps I may live to
boast that Il knew him when he was
a boy"
AS 1 walked through an old Ro-
man a1ch in the city of Tarsus. thc
first thought was Paul walked I'M
der this very same arch when lie
was a boy Doubtless he was proud
of it, as II of the beautiful sights of
lis city; for Paul knew how to
boast-fie uron him!-and ten thou
sand speakers and writer's have crib
bed his phrase, "a citizen of no mean
city," The Tarsus slogan, thanks
to him. is better known than that
of Chicago, or any other modern
municipality. .
We do not know much about
Paul's boyhood in this Roman uni
versity city; but we do know that,
like my little neighbor Benny, he
must have been a personality. He
was an originator and an initiator,
a leader of his boyhood gang" We
do not any longer have to whisper
the great truth,-once a heresy
among professional educators,-that
it is not the prim and proper and
everconforming boy who amounts
to most, but the n with PERSONAL
ity and daring and originality. Fool
ish parents and teachers seek to
compress children into a common
mold; the wise encourage the devel-
opment of individuality and self
reliance.
After all these centuries, let us
offer this little tribute to the men,
DRY of the parents and teachers of
the boy. Saul of Tarsus; they also
were great, for he mirrors their
greatness. Behind every achieving
life is some unknown person or per-
sons who helped make it possible.
A Country Doctor Hero
On the platform at Princeton
Junction. last night, I fell into talk
with a man wearing a smile that
went deeper than his many facial
wrinkles. We talked all the way to
Philadelphia. 1 had seer him say
the Princeton station, and l surmis-
ed the story before 1 heard it,
OF course, he was happy, with that
matchless happiness which is like
no other joy that life ever brings
the happiness of a father whose son
is doing well. in character and in
achievement. 1 heard all about it;
the boy is a modest Christian, of no.
Bile character-that, first of all, was
the fathers pride. Later came a re-
cital of athletic prowess and of boy
hood success and traits. How the
face of the father glowed, as we sat
slouched back IN the seat of a night
train, and the conversation ran on!
More than one millionaire would
give his last dollar to possess such
a son as the boy who had hidden his
dad goodnight at the train.
Still, 1 am bound to say that my
admiration went out to the father,
rather than to the boy. Happily. l
know many such students; they +
a pride and a delight and a hope of
our time, with its p~erplexities. The