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BV4531 .Hm" """"""' '■'""^ *°'^fllHllllllllll1lllililllJl?llll?illinilfl °"'®'^ addresses .. 3 1924 029 345 067 olin Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924029345067 THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN And Other Addresses TO YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS BY REV. JAMES L. HILL, D. D. AUTHOR OF FAVORITES OF BISTORT. THE CENTURY'S CAPSTONE, MEMORY COMFORTING SORROW. A CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT, THE IMMORTAL SEVEN, THE SCHOLAR'S LARGER LIFE, ETC. 1919 The Stratford Company, Publishers BOSTON CopyrigM 1920 The STEATFOBD CO.. Publishers Boston, Mass. .1^ \J Tli« Alpine Frees, Boston, Mass., V. S. A. Contents CHAPTEE PAGE I. The Worst Boys In Town ... 1 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar mock- iiig. Gen. 21: 23. And as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him ; Go up, thou bald-head ; go up thou bald-head. II Kings 2:23. n. The Clean Sporting Spirit ... 14 If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully. II Tim. 2 : 5. III. Having A Flag and Flying It . . 21 Thou hast given a banner that it may be displayed. Ps. 60 : 4. rV. A Kindergarten for Colts ... 29 Go ye into the village. At your entering ye shall find a colt. Luke 19: 30. y. The Morals of Money .... 38 He will prosper us: therefore — Neh. 2: 20. VI. Team Work 47 Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow : but woe to him that is alone when he falleth : for he hath not another to help him up. Eccl. 4: 9, 10. VII. If I Were A Boy Again ... 59 He shall return to the days of his youth. Job 33: 25. VIII. The Stick Girls of Venice ... 67 Take my yoke. Matt. 11 : 29. CONTENTS CHAPTER IX. Speaking Well And the Lord said, I know that he can speak well. Ex. 4:14. X. Boy Lost They found him not. Luke 2: 45. XI. The First Who Cheered .... Immediately received strength. Acts 3 : 7. XII. Fares, Please So he paid the fare thereof. Jonah 1 ; 3. XIII. The Ever Present Boy .... There is a lad here. John 6:9. XIV. Little Touches Say now, Shibboleth : and he said Sibboleth for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Judges 12 : 6. XV. "Please Slow Down." .... According to the pace of the children. Gen. 38 : 14. Eev. Version. Paul Jr And when Paul's sister's son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle and told Paul. Acts 23 : 16. The Sound and Robust Have No Monopoly The Lame take the Prey. Isa. 23: 33. Becoming A Lady ..... And thou saidst, I shall be a lady. Isa. 47: 7. An Inventory of What We Have . Tell me, what hast thou in the house Y II Kings 4: 2. A Difference In Cradles She laid him in a manger. Luke 2 : 7. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. Why People Cannot They could not because of unbelief. 3: 19. PAGE 77 89 97 106 116 127 136 147 156 166 179 192 197 Heb. CONTENTS CHAPTER XXII. Little Coats for Little Men . His mother made him a little coat and brought it to him. I Sam. 2 : 19. XXIII. Providence Opens the Gate . A little Maid. 2 Kings 5:2. XXIV. Ready, Waiting To Be Heroes . Hast thou seen all this great multitude 1 I will deliver it into thine hand. By whom? By the young men of the princes of the prov- inces. Then he said, Who shall order the battle? And he answered, Thou. I Kings 20: 13, 14. XXV. Something About Debts and Debtors I am debtor. Rom. 1: 14. XXVI. Gates That Open Toward the East And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the East. Ezekiel 43 : 4. XXVII. "Get A Specialty." .... The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire and the women knead their dough Jer. 7: 18. XXVIII. Traveling Incog Thou Shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window. Joshua 2:18. XXIX. That Alarming If If I had not come. John 15:22. XXX. Doing the Handsome Thing . Go with him twain. Matt. 5: 41. XXXI. Eagles Adopt Industrial Education An eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, Deut. 32: 11, 12. XXXII. Some of My Mottoes PAGE 205 213 223 233 246 256 271 277 284 292 302 The preacher set in order many proverbs. Ecclesiastes 12 : 9. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXXIII. The Story of A Book and An Island . 317 The Isles shall wait for his law. Isa. 42 : 4. I have found a book of the law. II Chron. 24: 15. He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Ps. 107: 20. XXXIV. Modem Methods of Christian Nurture . 329 You young men, because ye are strong. I John 2 : 14. XXXV. Fine Words 341 In the church I had rather speak five words. I Cor. 14: 19. THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Chapter I THE WOBST BOYS IN TOWN And Sarah saw the son of Hagar mocking. Gen. 21 : 9 And as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go Up, thou bald-head; go up thou bald- head. II Kings 2: 23. These are the worst boys in town. They are reg- ularly ordained rowdies. They are, as you see, a turbulent, insolent, indecent, shameless set. They are all together become abominable. They are the very image of what we do not want the boys in our neigh- borhood to become. They aimed at a state of fright- fulness and with their deep depravity they are a dan- gerous element in the community. Rushing into ways that are broad that lead to destruction, they are swift witnesses against themselves, for the godly man against whom they direct their Billingsgate, has done nothing to provoke such scurrilous treatment. The ragged gamins mark him as a lawful victim for their jests and ribaldry. Something in their nature antag- onizes against the good. We find the most clubs and stones under the best apple-trees. Like Absalom, who raised a rebellion against his own indulgent, kingly father, they are preparing themselves for their awful end. As every brick of the wall of Babylon was [1] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN stamped with the letter N standing for Nebuchad- nezzar so every one of these guilty, rude, unhallowed youths is stamped with the letter T which stands for trouble. We are not left in any doubt touching the displeasure of Heaven at the rakish manners, the odious, ill-bred conduct of these young scoffers as a frightful, condign punishment fell upon forty-two of them. There are different degrees of good boys, but bad boys who have become Beelzebub's tools, busy with his work, receive it seems their penalty together. When a boy is ill the doctor will say, Let me see your tongue. It is not the seat of the disease, but the tongue is sensitive and for purposes of taste has a very delicate covering, and so while the difficulty is in the system it will be shown on the tongue. When the doctor treats him, he does not prescribe for his tongue but for his deeper malady, and the tongue is eoon clean. Something is the matter with a boy that makes him so foulmouthed. You are sick, sick all over. We can tell just what kind of a boy you are by looking at your tongue. The thermometer does not make the temperature, it records it. A bad tongue does not oc- casion the evil, it only reveals conditions. It is a symptom and shows that something ought to be done for the boy. A teacher took in hand one of the worst boys in town, who was corrupting the school, by using filthy words, and employing a small brush with soap and water she washed out his mouth, and made him [2] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN rinse it thoroughly. This did no good. His trouble was a bad heart. As Mr. Shakespeare says "Reform it altogether." What is needed is a complete moral cleansing. There is a way revealed of thoroughly ren- ovating a boy. His impure language is like a sample hung up in a shop window to tell you what they have to sell inside. So a boy using wicked words has more inside of him just like that. This son of perdition certainly needs attention. His language is bad be- cause he is bad. The rushes never grow without mire. If, conspicuously, there is one who should be banished from our land for our country's good it is the dis- respectful young man. It is sometimes nearly im- possible for him to learn deference to young women simply as such. It generally takes an imtamed, ill- mannered, rude, pert street gamin a good while to find out what aUs him. Mistakes appear in pairs. These sons of Belial, are first profane. They are lower than the North American Indians who, it is said, have no words for cursing one another, or for insulting the Great Spirit. Profanity is believed to be more common in the United States than in any other country in the world. It is certainly more prevalent than in England. A second form of misbehavior usually follows. A girl is a sacred thing. These degenerates do not know it and hence do not respect her for what she is. A man was smitten, we find in the Inspired Volume, because he rather too familiarly handled the sacred ark which contained [3] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the books of the law and Aaron's rod that budded. These unrestrained, vicious miscreants, as we see in the text, have no scruples about filching from any- one's good name. How strange it is that the first boy bom into the world should have been a bad one. He could not at- tribute it to example. He dwelt in the land of Nod, which is the Scriptural way of saying that he was a vagabond. The first city that ever appeared on the round earth was builded by the worst boy ever. He makes us think of Noah's carpenters who constructed an ark for other folks to sail in, and yet were drowned themselves. No peace or comfort could be found by Cain in his city, for he had treasured up wrath against himself and had taken great pains to be wretched. The city was reared probably for defense, and sur- rounded, like Jericho, with a thorny hedge that neither men nor cattle could break down. His mother named him Cain, indicating her anticipation that he would be good and great and even remarkable. Being disappointed, so grievously, in a boy, that worried the life out of her, she named her next son vanity, proving that she expected no good from boys. But Abel proved much better than she now supposed any boy would become, as Cain had been much worse. Abel was one of those mild lads with taking ways, while Cain was surly, walking pitward with his eyes open, for, as St. John says, he was of the wicked one. There were no courts. Adam would not know what to do with him. And [4] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN so the Deity himself cited him for trial, when it is probable that Cain inquired, Is my iniquity too great for forgiveness and atonement? Is there no fine, no suffering that can be accepted? Is there no future for me except to hide myself like a wild beast, instead of living like a human being? In literature, the imprint worn, his life long, prob- ably on his brow, it is assumed, was placed there to distinctly identify him with the world's first enormous crime. This misses the whole lesson. Here we find the heart of our theme. On account of his atrocious character, Cain became so universally disliked, that a mark or sign had to be mercifully set upon his fore- head, and this on his own piteous statement of the need of protection, to keep folks from killing him. It is a real misfortune for the worst boys in town, sowing their wild oats, that business men whose good opinion it would be well for them to gain, look upon them with aversion, and find them such a disgrace, a nui- sance, a menace that their whole thought is one of riddance. A boy will find himself at a great disad- vantage if he starts out to get a position in town where he is met with an all around suspicion and revulsion. Friendship is a great aid to business. A position is sometimes created to give employment to a worthy person that has everybody's confidence and good wishes. In a certain sense we know a man by his friends. Our life depends chiefiy upon the individuals with whom we live familiarly. Where [5] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN for good reasons, people are down on a boy, and will not tolerate him, he, having lost favor, must almost of necessity, slide along the line of the least resistance into the slums. Ishmael felt that he had every man's hand against him. There was also against him the determined face of one woman, "And Sarah saw the son of Hagar mocking." This is the way we feel toward you in our tent, Aunt Sarah. He was a splendid, well-made little animal, pulsing with life, the darling of his doting father's heart, but an independent, unafraid, defiant little rascal. She caught him mocking. He was vigorous, saucy, and very expressive with both his hands and face. His mother disliked Sarah, and he expressed it with signs that are more derisive than words. When bad feeling exists between neighbors the fathers and mothers may attempt to conceal it, and to be very guarded in all their utterances, but a boy feels no such hesitation. He is out and out with it. You wonder how the neighbors feel. Look to the chil- dren. They will let you know. They feel no intimi- dation. How do you know that no love is lost between two families? The boys will show it, and emphasize their expression of it with picturesque gestures. Boys at play make themselves look like Indians. But that is a frame-up by paint and feathers to give themselves a certain appearance. But without the use of ingenuity Nature attends to the features of the profligate, the [6] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN intemperate, and abandoned. When one of the worst boys in town makes faces there is one face in partic- ular that he makes, and that is his own. The charac- ter he makes and comes to wear will show in his face which is like the dial plate of a clock that tells the state and position of the machinery behind. He can give himself a hangdog, guilty look, or he can come to wear an honest, intelligent, unashamed appearance that speaks for itself. The angel said, the son of Hagar would be a wildman. He became the father of the Arabs. The worst boys in town are named after him. Street Arabs. In France they are called Bohemians. You know what we mean when we say of a young man, He is intelligent enough, but is inclined to be wild. The Arabs are courteous, polite and hospitable to a pro- verb, but their character is founded upon that of Ishmael. He is impatient of any curb. He is like a kite that feels that the string holds it down. He antagonizes restraint. He breaks the string that holds the kite. It rocks and flops and falls flat. The string, that held it, helped it to mount to the skies, and was exactly what it needed. The value of the horse con- sists simply in the fact of your being able to put a bridle on him. Soldiering is a school in which a youngster not only gets on the harness for the work of life, but also learns deference to someone appointed to command. This, often, does for boys, more than could ever have been done for them, in their home [7] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN town. This is a new lesson to young America, whose spirit is reco^ized early in life. A canvasser called and asked if the master of the house was at home. The child's father spoke up promptly and said, "He is, but he is sleeping just at present." At Andover, attendants upon the South Church used to line up along the front walk with uncovered heads as Parson French passed into church. There is now a reaction from reverence, which Shakespeare calls. That angel of the world. In the catechism we are taught to order ourselves lowly toward all our betters. "Betters! Betters!" Young America has not known of any betters. "I was bom in an unlucky time," said a lady. "When I was young, I was obliged to respect and obey my parents, and now I am obliged to respect and obey my children." Their malady is acute Americanitis. It is as hard to get this infection out of a boy's heart as it is to get a fox out of his hole. You may dig and dig, but as fast as you are digging away at one end of the burrow he is digging away at the other. In a parlor of a hotel a child became bo ungovernable that a guest sought to quiet him and the boy struck an attitude and began to mock. The mother said, "How smart." The guests said, "How saucy." She would rather have her boy seem smart than to be commended as good. A man feels no in- sult if the statement is made, "You are no saint," while it would breed disturbance to say, ' ' You are no gentleman. ' ' [8] THE WOEST BOYS IN TOWN Fifty-one policemen, assigned to the Chicago juvenile court, received their instructions, from Judge Victor P. Arnold, to ' 'pick out the worst boy in each neighborhood, and hold him responsible for the rest of the bunch. " " The worst boy is usually the leader, ' ' Judge Arnold said. "The other boys admire his courage and will follow him, so we must get him to turn his energies to upholding the law." Judge Arnold recognized just what we find in the text, which for the lack of name we call "The gang." Calamities thus come in groups. Of all the wiles of Satan this wears the crown. It is the working of this spirit that gives us Sodom. The boy is spoiled, by too much friendship. He has the defects of his qualities, like the spots on the sun. His friendly nature, one of the finest of his traits, is his undoing. The best thing perverted becomes the worst. Once, when like the worst boys in town, Bishop Haven was mocking, he was caught with the goods. As he was playing with a party of his comrades old "Aunty" Knight, the col- ored washerwoman of the village went by. Catching a glimpse of her he cried out, "Hullo, boys, guess it's going to rain. Black cloud has just gone along." The old woman looked at him kindly and SEiid, "Why Gilbert, I didn't think that of you." Nothing can take the place of native, instinctive tact. Do not use a sledgehammer to drive a tack. This mild reproof, implying also a compliment to his good-nature, sunk deeply into the boy's heart, and he at once replied, [9] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ' ' You never shall hear it from me again. ' ' Afterwards he called on the old woman and made due apology for his rudeness. "That," said he, "was my conversion from caste." "My rogue always becomes," said Sir "Walter Scott, "in spite of me, my hero. A good authentic biography states that Judge Hoar of Massa- chusetts, and his two brothers, the senator, and an- other, used to be the three worst rascals in Concord. ' ' According to RoUin, the historian, Alexander the Great, having obtained The gold casket ia which Darius had kept his rare perfume, used that aromatic casket for the favorite volume he was read- ing. Into the "edition of the casket" many young, growing scholars, as an expression of admiration and obligation, would place Todd's Student's Manual, a priceless book whose value yet "shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it. ' ' When his father was fa- tally ill, as related in a remarkable biography of him,* the suffering, dying man said to his little son, aged six, "Take that paper on the stand and run down to Mr. Carter's, the apothecary, and get the medicine prepared." It was a half a mile away. The store was shut, it being Sunday, which meant a further jaunt of a quarter of a mile and the boy, being indisposed toward it, turned short about, con- triving what statement he would give his father in place of the medicine, and so said at once, "Mr. Carter says he has none." His father placed his keen eye upon the boy, whose head hung down and who went * Page 29. [10] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN out and cried. This was his last utterance to his father. A little later, being ushered into his father's room, the doctors were all about, his father placed his hand on his head to give him the parental blessing and said, among other last words, "Always speak the truth." Boys are not angels nor professors. Sometimes they get started wrong. Truth-telling, a virtue taught with the alphabet, gets sadly misplaced. The hope is, that the boy will come back, with a good recovery. WhUe we have known boys, according to some plumb lines, to get out of true, yet such is the day star to them that sit in darkness, so like a North Star to any wanderer is a mother's memory, such is the aU-conquering power of the spirit, and such are the angel forces of the world, that not one who was responsible, that we have ever known was irredeem- ably bad. Mr. Earey, who won both fortune and re- nown by giving lessons in the art of persuading the minds of horses, believes it possible to always per- suade their minds to good conduct. In our community the wickedest boy was a living horror and was pronounced incorrigible. His spe- cialties were the most appaUing blasphemy and ex- treme cruelty to his horses. Someone asked him where he learned such infamous language. He said it was not learned. H was a gift. In a religious awakening he found a new heart. Both his nature and his speech were changed. He had all [11] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the old time force and aptness of expression, but every- thing was different. Probably alive today and likely to read these words, he is a popular, very forcible preacher, of the first quality, and is assigned to the hest appointments in the Methodist Church. He bears the impress of resolution and decision, and a holy in- fluence is bridling the strong passions, which are the impelling forces of life. His former turbulence is in subjection. It is a whirlwind imprisoned, which dis- poses him to take things by storm, for touching the kingdom of Heaven we are taught, that the violent take it by force. From the Boy's Brotherhood Repub- lic in Chicago, Joe Wilkins and Manford Haskel vis- ited ten states to find the worst boy in the whole coun- try, the boy 100% bad. When found, he is to be in- vited to come to Chicago, transportation paid, and live at the Boy's Republic, whose citizens are bent upon proving to fathers and mothers, policemen and judges, that the difference between a bad boy and a good boy is the way they spend their surplus energy. In nurseries they have, with shrubs and trees, what they call their wild stock. It is vigorous and thrifty, having great stores of vitality. It is remarkable only for its robust, luxurious growth. They use this wild stock to graft upon. In trimming a rose bush we once cut it in so close that we got below the graft. Then we had to retire it into the shade that it might hide its diminished head. The wild stock was back again, at the bottom of the scale with its inferior, low lifed ex- hibit. It is unfit for a garden until it is grafted. [12] THE WOEST BOYS IN TOWN "I have just purchased a new painting," said a friend to Paul Morphy, the world's champion. It is entitled "T/ie Chess Player." It represents a young man on one side of the board and Satan on the other, and according to the repre- sentation and intention of the painter, the young man was hopelessly checkmated. By the references to this painting, in literature, it is assumed, he is beaten for good and all. But no, there is ground for hope. De- spair, however, is written on the young man's face, while his Satanic majesty laughs in glee. Morphy studied the picture a few moments, then called for a chess board and when he had arranged the men as given in the picture he remarked, "I will take the young man's place and set him free. Often the young man finds himself checkmated in life's game and his face shows distress. But as it is written There shall come out of Sion, a Deliverer. [13] Chapter II THE CLEAN SPORTING SPIRIT If a man strive for masteries, yet he is not crowned except he strive lawfully. 2 Tim. 2 : 5. In the new Delaware and Hudson Station at Cooperstown, New York hangs an oil painting with an inscription which states that there the first base- ball diamond was laid out. This fact was verified by a commission of two United States Senators, and of other high officials who investigated all the facts and united in this decision. There Major-General Abner Doubleday, who was then twenty, blocked out the scheme, and with a crooked stick marked off the grounds and placed the bases and players virtually as they continue to this day. Taking the early trail to Alaska, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, the national game reached Japan and China, and has been formally adopted by them. It has proved just the thing for Australia, also a favor- able diversion, during the world war, for the soldiers Somewhere in France. Twelve thousand men earn their living by it in this country. There are no words to tell its story as a civilizer. A superintendent of schools in the Philippines has said that it has done more to elevate and fashion the natives than the com- [14] THE CLEAN SPORTING SPIRIT bined offices of the army and navy, commerce, and the schools. In a tribe of Indians, or among the South African savages there is no assignment of parts or distribution of activities. Every man is a hunter and fighter, like any other creature. No one has a distinctive fitness or gift peculiar to himself, or a form of work which others cannot perform as well. Hence, savage society does not cohere, nor co-operate, nor succeed. In the national game many an islander, on the other hand, has found himself. He was put into a situation where the highest factors in him were in full play. There was one place on the diamond adapted to him personally. Here he could outshine others and give them points almost instinctive to him. In other positions his associates could outplay him. He learns to take this fact with good grace. The first thing to be eliminated, as his civilization proceeds was the old-time tendency to retaliate. The savage has a mean, lurking disposition to get even with any oppo- nent. Vindictiveness is discountenanced by the clean sporting spirit. Revenge is unworthy. Be a good loser. Be tolerant of your victors and learn how to do it. Engage in more diligent practice and ask them to come again. Thus the great lessons are patience, the value of training, respect for the rights of others, never to take an unjust advantage of anybody, and absolute fairness. It seems that a foreign missionary now uses play as one of his benign agencies. An [15] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN American college advertises that its athletics are now on a high plane and minister to intellectual and spir- itual, as well as to physical development. A professor in the University of Chicago has stated that a game of baseball is better for the youth of a community than lessons in morals out of a book One expert on the necessity of play claims that man has to be young to be civilized, that if he had no youth and no play he would be perpetually a savage. Ten years or more ago George Dunlap, a catcher on the Boone base-ball nine of the Iowa State League, became a Presbyterian Foreign Missionary to Cebu in the southern part of the Philippines. He organized a base-ball nine and coached it. "Don't swear on the diamond, you!" ran an expression on the Cebu field. They have stopped swearing and fifty-four classes of voluntary Bible Study were organized, among the brown skinned Filipino lads in four months. It is obvious to those who reside near any play- ground that the children storm and scold, and even quarrel a good deal during their play, but it is best to allow them to settle their disputes with no outside interference. It is an important part of education. They gradually learn to subdue their passions and to be careful of their speech, for if a child becomes dis- agreeable or violent and unreasonable, the others re- fuse to play with him, and the game proceeds without him. And this lesson he takes home with him, and the force of it ought not to be broken by the parents, [16] THE CLEAN SPORTING SPIRIT but they should let him reflect upon it as he sits in the house and walks by the way, and when he lies down, and when he rises up. It is his education. Play is the best mixer, at the best time of life, for the descendants of the people of four continents that have come to us from over the seas. It is the chosen avenue for the introduction of moral and social virtues. Our national game has performed its greatest office in re- placing the earlier rowdyism and destructiveness. It has created a new atmosphere in the nation. Success in the trades and professions carry certain great re- wards. Once we shrank from offering prizes because of heartburning and jealousy. But boyhood is now openly taught to engage in good natured rivalry and contest, and if a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully. By that is meant, he must play according to the rules of the game. Here is a stubborn youth. Not to play re- veals to him his unfitness for this world. To play operates in just the right method to correct his dis- position. Such an individual will later stand up in the town meeting or in the common council and plead for fair play. Indeed, Where did he learn that ex- pression ? It is carried from the playground into the political forum, and he carries something beside the words, the principle, the practice. A fair chance for aU, Equity in the game of life, or on the field in the game of life, or on the field of life [17] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN are taught. In his sports it was obvious that dishonesty leads nowhere, that unless a game is played fairly it will not last. It will not for a fact be played long. Each one must play according to the rules of the game simply for its preservation. For any continuance of the sport, even for the sake of interest in it, there must be rules and respect for these laws. What better educa- tion is there at a time when we were exposed to the American hazard of becoming lawless and destructive ? There is a code, it is a code of honor. No outside tri- bunal sets up the penalties. The life of the game de- pends on the exact maintenance of the code. As the author of our text expresses it, every man who strives in the game, is temperate in all things, or, as the new version has it, is self-controlled in all things. It would be most beneficial to this country if our government were to officially give support to the rebirth of the athletic spirit that once dominated Grecian life and activity. A young athlete, known to be in need of this moral quality, attributed to the ideal of the clean sporting spirit, his ability to control his temper, to exercise judgment, to think quickly and act decisively. He learned the meaning of discipline, to take orders, and carry them out to the best of his ability, without asking why. Men being in the same boat must pull together. Some one, agreed upon, must act as "stroke." This is a great training for the awkward and the odd. It is discipline for the self- willed and opinionated, to stick by the ship. It has been worth all that sports have cost to [18] THE CLEAN SPOKTING SPIRIT have purged the mind of youth, of its oldtime habit of making excuses. Years ago when a boy did not meet the general expectation he wouhl be- come quite Eloquent in excuses. What he lost on the field he would try to make up in diplomacy. If a man misses a ball he does not now be- gin a long address, having fabricated an excuse. Like the man, not having the wedding garment, speechless- ness is in order. Defeated players are silent. Ex- planations are of no account. Play cannot in any wise, or by anyone, be made the main business of life, else he simply gives an exhibition; and like Gideon's ten thousand who knelt by the stream, he will not be wanted. He who drinks of the brook by the way, as he presses on, and he only will lift up the head. It is the true idea of recrea- tion, a sipping of the brook by the way, and its effect is not better expressed than as a lifting up of the head. The clean sporting spirit maintains a standard, that is now adopted, in traveling exhibitions. Their owners today are likeliest to have been country boys. They emphasize sobriety. It is useless, for a dissipated person, to attempt to stand in public relations. In our new national attitude toward temperance, we are more deeply indebted than many know, to the Medo- Persic laws, that are insisted upon by the ball teams and boating crews, that have also taught the moral value of the victorious spirit. They have taught candidates for honors, no matter what others do, they [19] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN must practice some self-denial. They have made it evident that loafing is not recreation. We can name localities and classes of young men that have a perish- ing need of learning this lesson. "That is the best country," Senator Hoar said, "where the boys are manly, and the men have a good deal of the boy in them." St. Carlo Borromeo was asked, what he would do, if the last trumpet should sound, when he was playing at billiards. "Try to make a good hit, ' ' he replied. If it be innocent recrea- tion, do it as well as possible and enjoy it, without shame or fear. Some one described civilization as the process of womanizing man. We do not so apprehend the Bible spirit. When the door of the sepulchre was opened for David, and his grave clothes were ready, when at his desire the crown had already been placed upon the head of the wisest of men, the sweet singer of Israel exhorted Solomon, not to show himself a proverb maker, not a king, not a law-giver, not a warrior, not a statesman, but the precept is, Show thyself a man, displaying the fine qualities of a man, living up to the manly standards in all the acts of life. So Solomon understood him and he sat on the throne of the Lord, and prospered and exceeded, all the kings of the earth, for riches, and for wisdom. And all the earth sought to Solomon to hear his wis- dom which God had put in his heart. [20] Chapter III HAVING A FLAG AND PLYING IT Thou liEist given a banner that it may be displayed. Ps. 60: 4. When Commodore Perry entered the harbor of Yeddo in Japan he placed the American flag upon the capstan of the ship, gathered his sailors about him and sang the Old Hundredth Psalm. What flag is this ? It is the glorious ensign, whose broad stripes and bright stars were seen, by the dawn's early light on Thursday morning, September 15, 1814, so gal- lantly streaming, with fourteen stars over the ram- parts of Port McHenry. Por every present star in all its ample folds 5,500 soldiers of the Eepublic have died; for each star 6,000 brave men have been wounded; for every distinct star four generals have yielded their lives. With every passing day 150 valorous men who once swung into line under its starry spell and marched away to the music of the union are now, at the river of death "mustered out" of the grand army and "mustered in" to the grander, greater army of the redeemed in heaven. What flag is this? It is the symbol of 2261 battles in the Civil War, which it entered with 34 [21] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN stars. It is the most graceful, beautiful banner in all the world. It represents the greatest sacrifices, the most striking providences ever exhibited in any country. Carried in 1777 by Washiagton's army, it flung its matchless beauty to the breezes when he repulsed Comwallis on the banks of the Assumpsic, it floated in the smoke and roar of the battle of Brandywiae, fluttered in the breeze when Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, witnessed the unparalleled suffering at Valley Forge, the capitulation of Corn- wallis at Yorktown, the ebb of the tide of rebellion at Vicksburg, the beginning of the end at Gettysbiirg, and the capitulation at Appomattox where, by the terms offered, we did something more and better than conquer our enemies. We won them. What flag is this? It is a standard not found, on exhibition, in any war museum of the old world, as a trophy captured in battle. It is not the red flag of anarchy, nor the black flag that fights to a death and which gives no quarter, least of all do we show a white flag, with its loss of spirit, absence of principle, peace at any terms, sur- render. It is "Old Glory," being first so named by a man from Salem, Capt. William Driver, and meeting with such popular favor that the name has followed the flag into every port of the civilized world. ' ' Show the flag," was Dewey's admonition to Capt. C. L. Hopper. "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee that it may be displayed because of the truth," [22] HAVING A FLAG AND FLYING IT "Up with our banner bright, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblem from mountain and shore." In the name of our God, we have set up our banner. There are many persons who will remember the engagement after the Civil "War made by Sergeant Bates, who had been a Union soldier, to carry the stars and stripes through all the States that had been in insurrection. He agreed to travel on foot, to go imarmed, to advance only by day, and to carry the flag aloft, and to keep it flying. His triumphal progress reached its finish at Washington in a burst of cheers. He had started at Vicksburg, and passed over many battlefields, met many citizens who had been wildly discordant, but still was met outside the cities with bands of music, and was given an ovation. Without any exception he was greeted with tokens of respect, where it had been predicted that he would meet frowns and insult, and possibly bodily injury. People have a liking for the imterrified. They enter into the spirit of loyalty, although often they would replace the object of it. The whole nation took pleasure in President McKinley's devotion to his invalid wife. While she was admirable, their ad- miration was directed to his expression of gallantry, and of the tender passion. That is the way we like to see a man carry himself. Many eyes were wet with tears at the sight of a little child that with perfect ingenuousness, and unconsciousness, being arrayed [23] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN for the night, dropped on her knees in the Pullman ear by the side of the berth. Strong men would have given up their lives, if God had needed an earthly- agency, to defend that little believer in prayer. Her sincere petition would be answered if strong men could be used as instruments in effecting it. Just as this sentence was being written, word has come that at an evening entertainment. The Star Spangled Banner being sounded, all present arose, except one man. Before sunrise his windows were painted yellow. This custom of rising, when the orchestra swings into the national air, devel- ops patriotic feeling. This is a saving grace. In case our country is menaced, pure sentiment is the biggest force we have. It will be heard from in every contest. The man who sat, did not know how mean and ugly he was imtil he was discovered to himself by a com- parison with the standard feeling. If, however, he had belonged to another nation and had been at home in it, and then had arisen at the summons of a national air, he would have been a good brother, to a real Amer- ican. The point is. Have a flag. Do not go along without some ideas, convictions, principles. Stand for them. If need be, die for them. On proper occa- sion exalt the flag. Let it break out upon its native air. A being is less than a man who will not, on appropriate occasions, show his colors, stand and be counted, and thus respectfully demonstrate what side he is on. That man needs forgivenuess for one of the sins of omission, who omits this duty. He might [24] HAVING A TLAG AND FLYING IT be free from gross sin, and be guilty of the sin of not being positive. We have never gone low enough to say, America for Americans, for a better sentiment is, seeing the world is wide, Americans for America. Everyone sitting on the fence ought to find it a barbed wire fence. A weak-kneed, afraid-to-take- sides, try-to-please everybody, opinionless drifter brings to mind, the immigrant who wanted to be naturalized as a citizen. But instead, spoke of being neutralized. Both the measles and small pox are dangerous maladies unless they come out. A street car conductor is said to have resigned his position and to have entered a profession because, as he said, he was Tired of standing up. Failure to confess openly, thus quenching the spirit, has this result. Other suggestions of duty will not come to anyone until these are first discharged. Se- crecy, in the matter of discipleship, is damaging to the whole character. Few things are so injurious, as to have settled convictions and fail to act openly and re- solutely on these convictions. A person who thinks he has faith which is not strong enough to come to some form of expression probably very much overestimated what he has. More is expected of a man, than the fact, that he is a Christian, should only leak out. ' ' Before men," "before men," said the Saviour. "That they may see. ' ' It must have a baleful influence on any per- son, for example, to be married and not to acknowl- edge one's relations openly. The reflex influence, on [25] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the persons themselves, if they should try to say that it is no one's concern but their own, would be blight- ing. It would not be a fact : No one would suffer as much as themselves. AU the relations of life are dis- tinctly ennobled, by the fact, that in each of them there are some noble, open, generous souls that speak of the objects of their affection with such eloquent ad- miration that the world listens and approves, and marks up those relationships a little in the general estimation. There is an inward suicide, more awful than the destruction of the animal life; an inward ruin, more mournful than any wrought by the con- flagration of cities, or the desolation of cyclones. Just before a soldier is shot for desertion, or other high crimes, a non-commissioned officer cuts off all his mil- itary buttons. With some high-born natures, this is said to bring on a deeper eclipse than the coming death. To stand in the middle of a hollow square while a corporal cuts off the buttons, one by one, to utterly detach the insignia of one's own country, to cut off the expression of one's relations to his native land, to detach him, from what, all others love and serve, to thus lose all with no chance to replace, this, is the second death. Turn now to a religious meeting where testimony is being given spontaneously, promptly, and obviously from the heart. Mr. Philip J. Hasentaub, of Jackson- ville, IllLQois, rises and begias to move both fingers and arms gracefully and energetically, and to gesticu- late freely. He is a deaf mute. His heart abounds [26] HAVING A FLAG AND FLYING IT with love to God, and he does not want to be denied, the privilege of testimony. See him labor. Witness that earnestness of expression. See him bravely encounter the disadvantages, where there is a strong conviction and affection and impulse moving toward utterance. It is a great inward constraint. He de- sires to bear witness to some of his experiences of grace. He is translating the operations of the spirit, as he has known them, in a human life. Although he is dumb, a living, earnest, religious man cannot be dumb. Silence might be ruin. Those who are present will not live long enough to forget the sight when Bible verses and religious sentiments were being given and a deaf and dumb man stood and with his manual, chiefly of expression and gesture, interpreted the stanza of the hymn containing the words, "E'en Though It Be a Cross That Raiseth Me." He made a quick sign of a cross and then put both palms under it and like St. Stephen, looking up steadfastly into heaven began to lift in the direction he was looking. Everyone was struck with his preternatural appear- ance. Though dumb, he had eloquence. Though speechless he had more than sublime pathos. We have heard of the elevation of the cross. In his hands we saw it. The effect was inconceivable. Webster de- fines speech as consisting in action, God-like action. Demosthenes lays great stress on delivery, but if the dumb man had been an angel of light he could [27] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN hardly have made his rhetorical figures more vivid or effective. To see humanity at its highest we turn to Captaiu John W. Philip, who commanded the Texas in the battle of Santiago, July 3, 1898, in which he attaiaed immortal fame. After every vessel of the Spanish squadron had been destroyed, and victory had perched on the American banner, after requesting the boys not to cheer, as their enemies were dying, thus showing sublimity of nature that merits comparison with the chivalry of Sir Philip Sydney and the magnanimity of Grant at Appomattox, he summoned his officers and crew to the quarter-deck and reverently said: "I want to make public acknowledgment here that I be- lieve in God the Father Almighty. I want all you officers and men to lift your hats, and from your hearts offer silent thanks to the Almighty." There was a moment of absolute silence, all hats were off. The nation applauds the act of reverence, and this open, outspoken recognition. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory. The tumult and the shouting dies — The captains and the kings depart — Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, A humble and a contrite heart. [28] Chapter IV A KINDEEGARTEN FOR COLTS Go ye into the village. At your entering ye shall find a colt. Luke 19 : 30. On visiting our second largest state, equal in size to England, a state of abiding snow and continual summer, a state with a Golden Gate, also with stu- pendous cataracts and prodigious trees, the Italy of America, I found a memorandum. Be sure to go to Palo Alto. From my English ancestry, and from habit as weU. as inheritance, I cannot help admiring the intelligence, beauty and superb action of a high- headed, spirited steed. I am so human, as to have be- come infatuated with the friendship of a choice courser, such as we find among the best horses in the light-harness class. A noble specimen of this race is not only docile, but affectionate, and capable of a deep and lasting attachment. He has a real craving for human notice. He dislikes to be left in any solitary position. In his wild state, he is never alone. He will turn his well-shaped head, fuU of character, with clearing intelligent eye, of the speaking Mnd, toward you for a caress. Such a warm blooded sensitive horse wUl always exhibit, ia ways of his own the friendly re- lationship that exists between him, and his owner. [29] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN The late Sultan of Turkey wept aloud as he heard of the death of his favorite Arabian Charger. In front, marched a regiment, with muffled drums, an oration was made and a salute fired, at the burial. This is an excess of feeling, which, in a very much more moderate form, some other persons might share. As we were driving from the I'ailway station at Palo Alto in California the driver turned and in- quired, "Do you wish to go to the Kindergarten?" Kindergarten indeed! I was not a school-teacher. I had been, when we taught the infants their letters from Webster's Spelling Book and used exactly the same blue-covered text-book with the adults, who guided by a crack in the floor, lined up to spell, last thing each day, and then these individu- als, beginning at the head of the class, said. One, two, three, four down the long line to identify their new positions which were changed each day by diligent study and ambition on the part of the brighter schol- ars to get above the dullards on misspelled words. This kindergarten was for colts. I liked it clear down to the ground. These little, lithe, lank, knowing creatures all wore halters. Twice only did Jesus ride. The colt in the text, whose name is linked, forever with that name that is above every name, was tied as well as his mother. The colts were backed and handled and turned by their halters, naturally, easily and early and were thus halter-broken without knowing exactly how it hap- pened. It was said thus that the oldest horses at the Leland Stanford farm never had heard an unkind or [30] A KINDERGARTEN FOR COLTS harsh word. For swearing at them a man would be discharged. There is nothing to swear at them about. In little light baby harnesses they are attached to the arms of a sweep, such as is used in giving horse-power to a mill or machine, in which a horse travels round and round in moving a building, and as the sweep is light and unattached the colts are so hitched that they can only go one way, without chance to turn they run round and round, and are broken to harness, getting their merry exercises before they know that they are being trained for the road at an age that would have seemed a travesty but a generation ago. As in the text, the colt and his mother are treated with equal terms, as Matthew distinctly says that they brought both the colt and his mother to Jesus. I like to see both generations together in Christian service. We were all taken up with the bright faced, animated, gazelle-like creatures, with their large, soft, black, shining eyes. Stationary with surprise, and interest and pleasure, we were awakened by the guide. Don't you want to go to the miniature track ? "To what ? ' ' "To the miniature track," Under a spreading amphitheatre we found a little care- fully-prepared circuit. In the center of the ring stood the master of these little trotters with a whip, of which he made only a good deal of display, as the little thoroughbreds, showed their inherited gait. They were all carefully booted, lest from awk- wardness while so young and growing they should in- terfere, which would make them reluctant to go again [31] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN at top speed. They were taught to let themselves right out and never to break. This sharp exercise, quickly over for the day, after a burst of speed, as each colt passed out at the gate, he was handled by two strong men, who rubbed him dry. If a youngster does not show quality when four months old, he is disposed of simply as a commonplace farmer's colt. He has no standing on the Leland Stanford farm in the costliest and rarest yard of colts in the world. Once it was the custom not to break a horse until he was three, and sometimes even four years old. But now their train- ing begins at the age of that number of months, and any particular value in one of these little bloods is ex- pected now to reveal itself to a practiced eye in the initial stages of his career. Breaking a horse was once a great sight, and a neighborhood event. It sometimes, too, broke his spirit so that he lost his metal or fettle. It is plain, too, that a boy reveals his dis- position, character, and inherited qualities much earlier in life than many persons have been ac- customed to suppose. The earlier a boy's training begins, the likelier he will be to rise out of a low, com- mon-place sort of life. The church has her forms of kindergarten, and every week that is passed outside of it is so much lost time. The best developments are obtained where the attendants are young. If this training is lacking when one is young and susceptible, that part of his development can never be as well sup- plied later. Training must come at the time for train- ing. The children of this world are wiser in their [32] A KINDERGARTEN FOR COLTS generation than the children of light. They begin early a work of steady formation, whereas once in the church we somewhat overlooked formation, and put our religious energies into reformation. They de- termine values in their young subjects when they are in the kindergarten stage, and in that period, exactly, moral and spiritual values can best be fixed. On the way across the continent, as it grew tire- some as the night came on to try to read by the even- ing light, I went into the lounging room of the Pull- man sleeper, and was attracted by a young man in athletic garb, with whom I fell into a talk about a race he was to enter at Cleveland. He said he was a manu- facturer of bicycles and sometimes rode one for an ex- hibition of speed. At a certain turn of the conversa- tion he took the ground that a person could not become an expert rider who drank liquor. "Then you do not drink f" "No, I learned to resist when I was little." "How was that?" "Well, my mother had eight boys and my father was a drunkard. When he would come home intoxicated my mother was in great grief, and used to look at him and then her spirit would brood over us boys. I can see her now as she, with breaking heart, looked at him, and then wistfully upon us. Then with a mother's resolution that something must be done my mother said, 'That is enough. I'll teach these boys to say No. ' So just as soon as any of us be- gan to talk, mother would pick us up and stand us on the table and say, 'Now what is mama's boy going [33] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN to say when anybody asks him to drink liquor? Say No.' Then the little fellow would say 'No.' Then she would exclaim, 'Use more voice. Shout it louder' and the boy would shout it louder. Then as we grew older, when she would hear of the foolishness and cruelty and woe of a drunkard she would tell us about it and say, 'Now get up on the table. What are you going to say when you are asked to drink liquor,' and the answer would come with vigor, 'No.' And it is so now. If a man even talks about liquor I find that my mouth begins to form at once to say 'No,' and if he asks me to drink I say it so loud that the man, who tempted me, is startled and eon- fused." No is one of the shortest words and yet it is the hardest for some natures to pronounce. It needs to be practiced. The resolution to utter it needs to be mastered far in advance of its use. Many a man knows the sorrow that intemperance brings to a helpless family. It isn't in- formation, or education, or experience, or even con- science that he lacks. What he thinks is well enough ; sometimes, he will advise others, to let drink alone. The man lacks stamina, discipline, the moral force to say ' ' No. ' ' William James points out the fact that it involves a greater degree of inner work, to say a de- ciding No, than a deciding Yes. When you say "No" to the tempter, say it with a firmness and accent that will make him feel that you refuse finally. [34] A KINDERGARTEN FOR COLTS Dare to say "No" when you're tempted to drink, Pause for a moment, my brave boy, and think ; Think of the homes that, now shadowed with woe, Might have been heaven, had the answer been "No." I believe in the work of the kindergarten. I knew of a boy who had the bad habit of saying, "I don't care. ' ' His mother would say to him kindly, ' ' I fear my little boy will be late to school, ' ' and he would say, "I don't care." "Why, look, my little boy has left his hat in the middle of the floor." "I don't care." Finally she drew him to her and said: "Mamma is grieved that her little son has formed this bad habit of saying 'I don't care,' " so she asked him to write out the words on a large piece of paper, "I don't care." Then she led him to an old well which had fallen into disuse. They wrapped a stone up in the paper, and the mother said: "Now let us drop 'I don't care' into this deep well and then go away and leave it there forever. " They did it. The boy dropped it. He never employed it again. That is the way for a boy to drop a sin. Drop it. Leave it. Forsake it. When in the kindergarten stage of life some little boys learned a New Testament lesson in their play. The game was Fox and Geese. A great circle was trodden in a field of snow. At its center was a goal. The fox could only take his prey when on the cir- cumference, or on one of the paths leading to it. While by his tracks a boy was marking out these paths that run out to the rim like the spokes of a wheel from [35] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the hub, he would turn his eyes and look over his shoulder while advancing, thus glancing backward to see what kind of a path he was making. Suppose a chauffeur, when driving his automobile should keep straining his eyes over the way he had already come. By half turning around, as he trod out his path, the boy gave a twist to his course in the snow. It was found better, in tracing a path, to begin at the rim and fix the eye steadfastly on the goal, and to move unswervingly toward it. "Fellows, quit looking down at your feet," shouted a young drill master to his new recruits, "eyes to the front, your feet will follow your eyes." The New Testament prescribes this way. Looking unto Jesus. Those who omit, look- ing unto Jesus have, as the Bible says, made crooked paths. Remember Lot's wife. The angels hastening her laid hold upon her hand. She made a fatal error, she looked back. In its effect on character, the effect of looking back is much the same today as it was then. Let anyone, on whom the vision has shone look backward, instead of forward, and he becomes like Lot's wife, paralyzed and unmovable. If St. Paul, having seen the vision, had looked back, he would have been good for nothing. The method he adopted alone is safe. The vision appeared and immediately he endeavored to go. "Who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. Boys in the kindergarten stage often give pointed lessons to one another. This was proved in the case [36] A KINDERGARTEN FOR COLTS of the blind man who, with a staff in his hand, was feeling his way along the street. Having lost his count of his steps, he became confused. The boys playing in the street, knowing his destination, began to shout, "Turn to the right. Not so much to the right. More to the left. Left, I say." Then certain leaders among them became contentious. "Do be quiet. Let me do the directing. ' ' The bickering con- tinued until, with a quick, unerring instinct, one of the boys ran to the gate toward which the man was groping, and called, "Come right to me." Come is better than go. An invitation is more welcome than contradictory advice. It is the Redeemer's way. Come unto me. I am the door, and if, by me, any man enter in, he shall be saved. [37] Chapter V THE MORALS OP MONEY He will prosper us : therefore — Neh. 2 : 20. A lady teacher, in government employ, in the Philippines, while on her vacation in this country, has said that the great need of the natives seems to be a national hero, the spirit of whose deeds might inspire in them a national character, which would make self- government effective. The moral value to a nation of a renown such as "Washington's and Lincoln's and Mc- Kinley's is beyond all computation. In his dream Jacob beheld a ladder set up on the earth. It rested on the ground and thus afforded a low beginning. George Peabody, born in Danvers, having poverty as his por- tion, placed his foot upon the first rung of this ladder before he could elevate himself to the second. He had about him a peculiar charm of manner, a fine address, and the persistent germ. When twelve years old he paid for his lodging and breakfast at a country tavern by sawing wood. During his life he gave away $8,000,000, and by his will distributed $4,000,000 more for purposes of education and the betterment of soci- ety. The evidence, that our civilization smells of paint, lies in the fact, that he was the world's first philanthropist. While his entire fortune is just the income of Mr. Andrew Carnegie for six months, the [38] THE MORALS OF MONEY outstanding feature of Mr. Peabody's life was not in what he gave, but in what he taught. His contribu- tion to the world makes a record, at the point, where the poor islanders find their lack. He became an in- spiration to others, led the way, and set the step for millionaires yet to be. The list of those that hit the trail, which he made suggestive, is too long to cata- logue. "You seem to have the faculty, sir," said Washington to Putnam, "of infusing your own spirit." Franklin set his foot on the lowest rung of this ladder set upon the earth, as a printer's poor ap- prentice. He reached the other rounds as philosopher, early founder of libraries, statesman, author of Poor Richard's sayings, and the real founder of a conspicu- ous feature of New England life, which is its thrift. He thus became the originator of a second character- istic of New England, which is a determination that the children in the family shall have an education. This was out of the question, except as the where- withal came from the people's hard earned savings. By his incitements, more than any other individual he put his stamp upon the people. Johns Hopkins, be- coming a grocer at the age of seventeen, set his foot on the first round of this ladder, set upon the earth whose top reached to Heaven where the Lord stood above it. He declared that he had a mission from God to in- crease his store. He had the grand purpose to gather many millions and what he gathered he freely be- stowed, four millions of dollars for a hospital, three millions for a great university, and ultimately two [39] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN millions more for these institutions and a park. This was in accord with the magnificent purpose which he planned early in his business career. Because of this he takes his place as the ideal philanthropist. He exalted stewardship. He accepted it as his mission in the earth. It was never absent from his thoughts and plans. A gentle- man who had long resided in Italy has declared that no Italian workman, looking at a person of wealth and power rolling by in his carriage, ever dreams that he can, by any possibility, attain such a posi- tion himself. Unlike the Italians and unlike the islanders, we have not only our national heroes like Washington and Lincoln, our orators, like Web- ster and Choate, our inventors, like Cyrus Field and Edison, our merchants, like Stewart and Marshall Field, but we have examples that stand close to the boys in every profession and trade. The Pilgrims have supplied to us what the islanders lack, hav- ing been to us our primal inspiration. In giving the reasons for leaving Leyden for the "northern parts of Virginia," Governor Bradford puts, in the first place, The compulsion of the dollar. Few people from England would join the colony in Holland because of the difSculties in makiag a living. They supply our great incentive to freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, but they wanted the freedom of faith under conditions, in which they could live, and attract others to their [40] THE MORALS OF MONEY number, and hold them when once they had cast in their lot with them. The Italian and the Swede come here to make a living. Robinson Crusoe was cast upon an island, poor, wet, hungry, homeless, and beaten by the sea. He became a man of establishment, of retinue, of possessions, and that blamelessly. What was wrong in his bringing up goats and fowl, and laying up grain, and in building a better house ? De- sire is an intense working power. It underlies all ef- fort and activity. If nobody wanted anything, what would anybody have 1 A person does not become re- ligious by not producing anything. A better religion is to produce in order to give. Acquire to bestow. It is God who gives power to get wealth, and if men acquire money in the right spirit, the means where- with to do good may become a sacrament. It was a close approach to this when Queen Louisa, and she was as beautiful as she was young, religious, and wise, en- gaged in person to answer the letters that had been addressed through the post office to the Christ child. A father and mother, having been very unfortunate, told their little ones not to expect any Christmas that year. The children, believing that the Christ-kind, or Christ-child, provides the tree, sought his aid in their own way. In high spirits they were on Christmas Day, to the greater distress of the poor parents. At last, the door-bell rang, and a servant entered with a gay tree, and parcels addressed to each of the family. The boy exclaimed : "I wrote to the good Christ-kind, [41] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN and he has sent them." The postmaster, finding the letter thus addressed, had sent it to the palace, in- quiring what should be done with it. "Queen Louisa read it, and, as a handmaid of the Christ-kind, she answered his little children. As she engaged in Christmas shopping, a citizen's wife recognized her, courtesied, and withdrew from the store. We are helped to visualize the Queen's loveliness by recalling Richter's painting of her radiant, angel face, as seen in the much-copied picture of her as she is descending the lower steps of the stairs. ' ' Stop, dear lady, ' ' said the Queen to the citizen's wife, "we must not drive away customers from the store." The Queen found that the woman had a little son about the age of her own, and purchasing some toys said, ' ' Take these, dear lady, to your crown prince, in the name of mine." Although Her Majesty's allowance for charity was ample, her warm heart was so ready to respond to the trials of the needy, that she sometimes overdrew it. There were debts from the former reign, so Queen Louisa's many charities seem to have been the only extravagance permitted. The court treasurer felt it his duty to tell her she gave too much, and he also mentioned it to the king ; but the next time that Louisa opened her money-drawer, it was to find it refilled. "Oh!" she said to the king, "some invisible being has filled my drawer again." He replied affectionately, and in the conversation following connected two favor- ite texts, as in Luther's version: "The blessing of God maketh rich without trouble," and "The Lord gives [42] THE MORALS OF MONEY his own in sleep,": — or while they sleep. "With great vividness I remember My first one-dollar hill. It seemed very beautiful to me. No other en- gravings looked like those that embellished its comely face. Being in constant fear lest I should lose it, I kept it locked up in an old hair-covered trunk. Sev- eral times a day I used to get away upstairs that I might look at it, and be sure that it was there. On one or two memorable occasions I carried it out and showed it to the boys. The pocket-book in which it was secluded — a gift from my grandfather, who kept store — was of new leather and quite redolent, and the smell of it made me very happy. After holding my possession in reserve for some time, the question arose as to what I should do with the money. My father was very much interested in building a church. After the larger sums were all subscribed, a telling appeal was made for little gifts. Each child was asked if he could not contribute enough to pay for a brick. I be- gan to be in pain. As quickly as a robin, when danger threatens, thinks of her little pets in the nest, so did my thoughts instantly fly to that dollar at home in the trunk. Should I give it? That was the question. My father saw that I was troubled. A hard fight was going on. Well, I gave it. I remember perfectly where I stood in the room when I parted with it. I felt the loss severely for several days, but as often as I was present when the meeting [43] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN house was talked about, I felt as though I was one of the chief owners, and was glad, on the whole, that the generous impulse triumphed. Presently I noticed that I was picking up pennies, on the whole, rapidly, from blacking my father's boots and from piling up wood in the shed. Family tradition has it that my father allowed himself to become superlatively inter- ested in my handling of that dollar. He is said to have declared that as often as I gave it away, con- scientiously, he would devise ways by which, from un- expected quarters, it would again make its appear- ance. If I had been quicker to discover this deter- mination on his part, I am now thinking what a free hand I might have carried in the matter of giving. Other churches, I could have helped, and, if need be, repeatedly. To some poor families, that to this day I remember, I might have given a portion of my treasure, only, in a few months, to find it perfectly restored. Doubtless my father preferred to have me give the money and have the experience of it than to bestow it with his own hand. Now I am coming to believe that during a life- time men would have more money to spend if they gave more money away. There is some evidence that God continues still His sovereignty over temporal af- fairs. "God dealeth with you as with sons." No one doubts but that there are business chances and open- ings and combinations which may be termed provi- dential. If these, at any time, begin suddenly to make in a man's favor, they will affect his circum- [44] THE MORALS OF MONEY stances and fortune more favorably than his industry and parsimoniousness possibly can. This fact grows interesting to us personally when it is shown that, fortunately, in instances easily authenticated, it is susceptible of proof, that in monetary matters there is a mysterious process, analagous to that in nature, which tends to keep The basin of a huhMing spring just about so full, despite the stream that is running from it. Indeed, it can be shown that as a matter of good policy, considered simply in terms of the pro- ducing power of the spring, it is not well to keep, be- yond a given point, the water from flowing off. I have a personal knowledge of a few men, the amount of whose fortune seems to have been set, as if by divine decree, and while attempts to store for them- selves, beyond the limit have proved unsuccessful, as often as they have dropped their fortunes down from that score by benevolence a mysterious reinforcement has set in. A man whose friendship I enjoy says that he has been made to recognize this principle in the conduct of his affairs. He declares that, related as he is to the water supply, he can as well as not turn a faucet and give ' ' a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple," get some incidental pleasure out of doing good, and still find that the water pipes fill again, and stand ready for service. "From that day it seemed as if everything I touched was prospered," said the lamented "William E. Dodge, as he referred to the fact that out of limited [45] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN means, in his boyhood, he helped Henry Obookiah, who came to this country from the Sandwich Islands, and who was placed in the same school with him at Corn- wall. And so, too, as I chance to know, that the late E. Eeddington Mudge, out of money already acquired, purposed in his heart to rear for a company of wor- shippers in Lynn the walls of the already famous St. Stephen's Memorial Church, and to this end, de- posited two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, only to be constrained to testify that no sooner was this void in his fortune made, than unexpected and un- usual sluice-ways of Prosperity opened right toward him, so that before the builders brought forth "the headstone thereof, with shoutings, crying Grace, grace, unto it," every dollar had been replaced. I remem- ber, also, to have read that, when a child, Alexander the Great, "was checked by his governor, Leonidas, for being over-profuse in spending perfumes, because, on a day being to sacrifice to the gods, he took both his hands full of frankincense and cast it into the fire, but afterwards, being a man, he conquered the country of Judea (the fountain whence such spices did flow) and sent Leonidas a present of five hundred talents weight of frankincense to show him how his prodi- gality made him thrive the better in success, and to ad- vise him to be no more niggardly in divine service." The very best getting is in giving. The surest way "to have a large harvest is to have a large heart." [46] Chapter VI TEAM WORK Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Tor if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he f alleth : for he hath not another to help him up. Ecel. 4:9, 10. In St. John, New Brunswick, as a company was intently watching a closely contested game of base ball, a young man leaped pretty nearly clear of every- thing and ejaculated something that he was too much excited to articulate distinctly. His cords and eyes were strained and his face was almost painful, in its wild expression. He seemed disturbed that others did not share in his agitation. With one hand he would clinch the lapels of the man near him, and with the other point to the last player crying with quick, excited breath, as soon as he could command his utter- ance with a good deal of voice, — He made a sacrifice ! He made a sacrifice! a Sacrifice! To keep the girls with us we will state the case in a general way and say, that the player made a great demonstration where he had no chance of gaining a base, thus giving opportunity to another man to spring and fly in an unmeasurable fraction of time, from the [47] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN third base, and reach home. A player took defeat, a lower rating, a form of disgrace, in order that his brother might score. Foot-ball, basket-ball, polo, and most other sports, particularly our own national game, are all played with the goal as the end in view. "Word was passed along, — Don't die on third. The score was a tie. Two men were out. A man died on second that another might live. One man merged his interests and reputation and ambition in the good of the whole, in the success of the team, in the great victory. Self-abnegation was his part. He made himself of no reputation, did not count his life dear to himself that another might be crowned. That is team work. Others depend on us for success. What they gain is our contribution. One soweth and an- other reapeth and others enter into their labor. That brilliant score telegraphed to remotest cities was an- other man's achievement. Hats off to the man who gains the home base ! Take the roll of a book and write therein the name of him who made the score, but secret things will be revealed. After this the judg- ment. He that abased himself shall be exalted. A baseball player in the Boston nine was expelled not long ago for indifference to the game. He must not have an ambition only for personal success regard- less of what befalls others. When he takes a side he must not say, ' ' I, mine, me, ' ' but ' ' Ours. ' ' Winning ball can be played in no other way. A crew must stand for co-operation and self-sacrifice. They must [48] TEAM WORK stick together like brothers, and be built like a watch. An employer agreed with his hired man upon a place where they both would leave a key to the bam, so that they could both find it and use it. Presently the proprietor sought for it in vain. "Oh," said the em- ployee, "I afterward thought of a better place to put it." His notions as an individual took precedence over a common understanding and a spirit of coop- eration. There is a vast difference between force that is embodied and organized, and the same amount of force exactly, that is lying around loose. Force needs to be handled and directed, to be made effective. It will not do for one musician out of humble modesty to play more softly than his part requires, nor will it do for another, in order to draw vain attention to him- self, to blow blasts so loud as to mar the general effect desired. Each must play his part, so that it will fit into perfect harmony, despite his humility, despite his pride, thinking not of himself, but only of the glorious symphony to which he is chosen to contribute. On a familiar baseball field, as the members of the nines were not aU present, for the sake of exercise and practice, a free-for-all game of one-two-three was started. On putting out the man at the bat, he would be relegated to the remotest point in the left field, and from there, would advance again by stages, as men were put out, to the bat again. As the game was shaping up, a boy, eager for sport, approached the [49] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN bat, but was observed to be afflicted with a degree of lameness that was clearly prohibitive and yet he had a keen ambition to play. Some of the lads present forgot themselves so far as to say to his face, "Oh, you can't play, you can't run, you're lame." Instantly a manly youth having a good mother at home who would be proud of him for doing it, stepped toward the plate. "Oh, have a heart. Don't throw his lame- ness at him. This is not the first time he has heard of that. He cannot help it. It was no fault of his. Let him go to the bat, I '11 run for him. ' ' Instanter, the ball being well hit, the good mother's boy, standing all braced and alert, and strained to go, bounded like a gazelle for the first base. It happens to be the particular form of team work of which the church stands in perishing need. Here are the beautiful flowers in church, and there is the hospital, and further away are some of our own mem- bers, who are in beds of sickness or in easy chairs of wellness. It would be a living lesson to the latter particularly to receive flowers from the church. But I cannot go clear over there, and then there. The lameness is in the upper part of their anatomy, in the second story, under their hat. They think they can't. Well, then, they won't. I'll run for you. There is an unusual person present who ought to have a particular invitation to attend our social meetings, but I cannot be running around on such errands. I will pencil a note on the back of an envelope and have [50] TEAM WORK it handed in to be read from the pulpit to meet such cases. Here is the church spirit. I '11 run for you. You look at your feet when you reach home, and just see the extent of your unused resources. Such feet. Yet unemployed. Pall you must under the precept, To whom much is given, of him shall much be required. The fact that a boy, though actually lame, came to the bat, to share in the game, indicates a fact that mothers sometimes underestimate. They do not realize that a boy lies awake nights ; anyway in all his waking hours he ceases not to scheme to get upon the team. It appeals to him as the courtroom does to a lawyer, a good pulpit to a minister, and a brilliant match to a society belle. The gang spirit is in him. He wants to be one of the boys. The team has its ex- citements, its sports, its close contests, its victories, and its plaudits. Seeing in a college paper that in a football game a man had made a sacrifice, a letter was sent to him at his chosen place of study, enclosing a stamped en- velope, this is spoken of only because it is unusual, asking him to recite in brief what was meant. It had reference to a wedge-like formation of men advancing the ball and making their way across the field. The student, who had the name of a great politician which would be given, except for a desire to keep together and not become detached by our political differences, in the football game went down at the apex of the approaching V, or to be more classical, the Alex- andrian phalanx, which had the effect to bring down [51] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the first man and between them others, and so on until, in the melees the machine-like movement ended in a sort of terminal moraine. Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, and here shalt thy proud steps be stayed. A witness described football as the game where they carry the ball and kick one another. He said he did not know when a ball was kicked properly, but that he did know when a man was kicked im- properly. In athletics the great thing is to pull to- gether. While men are taught that they should watch the ball and play closer, yet, for study, it is greatly suggestive to find also that a defensive play never won a football game. The glory of team work is in its act- ive, aggressive spirit and policy and actual practice. What a loss would be incurred if he should remove the esprit de corps, the pleasure, the enthusiasms that have come to young people from agreeable organiza- tion. A little girl came up to her teacher and said, with child-like open-heartedness, "I want to belong to something." Even the teacher did not understand her, nor did she understand herself. An organization has addi- tional drawing power if it has in it what people sometimes call, tone. It is suggestive to notice how soon a new generation dislike reference to themselves as children. They are too little to be big, and are too big to be little. One of the first young men to display gal- lantry somewhere in France was once in church classed as a child. He resented it, claiming for himself that he wore youth's shoes. The very atmosphere of these later [52] TEAM WORK days seems to stimulate people toward alliance. It is an infection that the boys catch in their youthful, im- mature devices and projects. With girls it is the bud- ding of the instinct that inclines their mothers to join Woman's Clubs, The Woman's Belief Corps, and the various charitable and other organizations which are useful, but which, at the same time, are also social. It takes a little girl, sometimes, to say right out what others think. Here is the feeling that causes the fathers to become affiliated with other gentlemen of their party, profession, or kind. The best thing with which to start social feeling is a team. We must even cultivate the spirit that desires to belong to it. Thft refrain which should spring spontaneously to the lips, beating in every heart, should be : " I 'm glad I 'm in this army." Said Henry Clay, "I hear the sound of the coming millions. ' ' The common thought would be that the boy makes the team, but it is just as true that the team makes him. It enforces a strict discipline including, in some cases the matter of diet. In some institutions the team sits at a separate table and eats nourishing, but only plain food. But he glories in it, seeing he is on the team. In its work it is not only a force. It is also a field. The best thing about a team is its process of leveling up. Those in a group who have the highest attain- ments intellectually, socially, or spiritually, engage unconsciously, but actually, in lifting up the less fa- vored. What anyone has received by way of native en- [53] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN dowment, or by way of acqmsition, he holds in trvist for all others. Somehow those who walk much together do get one another's step. What exists in one is a blessing to others, not only as an example and inspir- ation, but as an actual impartation. The best men among them, those governing their tempers, those using the best speech, those having the best ideals, are lifting all the while on the others. If a coun- try boy should go to college and find a place in the suburbs with a farmer, to work his board, he would not gain a college education. He needs association with those who themselves need association with him, for fine manners, for graces of utterance, for scope in thioking. During these formative years the students pay tuition to the college and educate one another. The queen bee does not rule the hive as is commonly supposed. It is the spirit of the hive that governs. Some of us belong to a denomination — greatly honored and beloved, in which we are much more successful as individuals than we are as a collective force. There has been the relative decline of the leader in religion, as there is in politics. Nothing is so plain as the un- satisfactoriness of mere personal authority. The growing intelligence and power of the people, who form their own opinions, and guide their own actions are both in less need of leadership and more impatient of it. It is a great gain when men, by being welded together in team work, so act in unison that long after their graduation, they play the part of big brother to the new graduates that, at the outset of their careers, [54] TEAM WORK are struggling to their feet. To this unity of feeling and action our divine Saviour points as the plainest evidence that He is sent by the Father. The antiquated mode of operation is shown in tlie use of Esquimaux dogs. Each one is tied to the sledge by a separate rope. Each dog goes chiefly according to his own inclination, and it might be left to one to try to pull all the load. Many persons have been witnesses to their back-biting, and to their noisy dis- sensions. The next thing is more difficult of state- ment than any that has been named. It is almost indefinable. Anyone who has served a church will recognize here a fact. "When some persons are first brought into relation with the church, they are socially awkward. They do not work well with others. They cannot Mend. They do not puU even, when hitched up. The first great man developed in this country, before Pil- grim days, the hero of the earliest settlement. Captain John Smith, illustrates what I am seeking to say. He could not work with others. He must be "It." He wanted to control things alone. He could not share responsibility and recognize others as his peers. When he begins, everybody else must be sub- ordinated and let him have all the responsibility, and aU the glory of the result. If temperance people could have unity of action, as there are more, who are at heart against the saloon, than for it, we could sweep it off the face of the earth. Why cttmbereth it the ground? Only for lack of team work. That only. [55] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Stonewall Jackson, so needful and so helpful to the Confederate cause, was shot by his own men. Tem- perance people are guilty of this fatal error. They are against the saloon, but differ about candidates for office, about drug stores, about the employment of detectives and the testimony of spotters, and the use of local, or state police, and are so bitter in their an- tagonisms, that they have no more dealings with each other than the Jews had with the Samaritans. There is no more agreement than among the clocks in a farm- ing community. We shoot our own men. Up in the north country, in a town of the middle west, the school boys used to play a game, when the first warm day of winter melted the snow to the point where it packed well. One boy would start rolling a small snowball until it grew too large for him. A companion would help him, then another and still another until the ball was five or six feet in diameter and a great crowd of laughing boys was exerting every nerve and muscle. The sort of work which a man does as a member of a group is a great deal better work than the work he will do working alone. Dr. Richard C. Cabot says that only the poor and the very rich get first rate medical treatment when they are sick, that his best work is done in the morning in the hospital for nothing, and his less satisfactory work is done in the afternoon for pay. In the hospital they have men "skilled in the different branches of medicine, and each man on the staff does only the work in which he shines. [56] TEAM WORK Physicians can do their best in a group, and the bene- fits of this team work, the poor get at the hospital, and the rich obtain by hiring a group, a team, and no liv- ing man should have the service of anything else. As Dr. Cabot shows, nothing less than team work meets the need in any matter of life and death. On this team work, a doctor limits himself to that part of med- icine that he knows, and so does not have to do any guess work. As all the advantages are in the team work, medicine becomes thus a public service. In a crew doctors can work together smoothly. No human being today is wise enough to understand, much less to treat, the whole human body. One practitioner can do certain things well, but he can't do the rest. It is useless for him to try to cover the whole ground. When they have team work they can go after a disease and treat it aggressively and hunt it out, instead of having the disease active and the doctor and the patient on the defensive, when it is said, "I cannot hope to cure you. The best I can do is to make you comfortable. ' ' No one man alone can win. "Let not the solitary man," says Goethe, "think that he can accomplish anything." No man can be great alone. No one can get rich alone. No man can be a Christian alone. "When bad men combine," said Burke, ' ' good men must associate. ' ' The saloon is al- ways the saloon. It is always united. It has no quar- rels. The larger dealer stands by the small dealer. People may denounce machine politics as they please, [57] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN but organization beats disorganization every time. Guerilla warfare always succumbs to concerted action and discipline. In the great battle of emperors at Austerlitz, Napoleon won solely because he had, by or- ganization, welded his army into a thunderbolt. With outward circumstances wholly averse, the colony of Pilgrims at Plymouth succeeded by making a common cause. Thus striving, they founded a nation. f5Sl Chapter VII IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN* When Sir Walter Scott was a boy, lie saw a dog coming toward him and thoughtlessly threw a stone at him. It broke his leg. The poor creature crawled up to him and licked his feet. This incident gave our great author the bitterest remorse. He never forgot it. Our ancestors, like the Pilgrims, like the native Americans, had a great deal of the hunter in them, and we have inherited this trait from those who kept their muskets loaded and primed. Ten dollars, years ago, came to me unexpectedly, and with them I bought a fine, double-barreled, handsomely-marked shotgun. As I needed practice and would be glad to become a fair marksman, I took to the woods and began shooting left and right at everything in sight. I feel a sting of conscience now as I recall my action. It was not right. It was inhuman. It was inexcusable. I am truly sorry for it. Taking my eyes, and ears, and heart with me, I now love to go hunting without a gun. If I were a boy again I would be more kind to dumb animals. Near my earlier residence, a remarkable intelli- gent Newfoundland dog came, as a waif, to the door * He shall return to the days of his youth. Job 33 : 25. [59] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN of Mr. Daniel P. Weir on Margin Street. He was so kindly cared for that lie made Mr. Weir's house his home, by adoption. One Wednesday afternoon, while skating on thin ice, the man 's son Elmer broke in, and was drawn under by a powerful current. The dog saw the accident and without losing any time in ask- ing useless questions, or scolding the boy, or calling out to people to do their duty, he ran at once to Elmer's assistance, and, by jumping on the ice, Rover soon had a large space broken about where the boy lay, and then, diving quickly, brought the lad to the sur- face and carried him ashore. Some men, who were in that vicinity, tried to reach the boy, but gave him up because the ice about him was so thin and treacher- ous. But A man is not a dog, and but for the dog the boy must have drowned. Dogs and horses have much more intelligence than I once supposed. One of these creatures, that has been used to a monopoly of attention will be noticeably jealous, indeed he will seem neglected and mortified if another receives what has hitherto been paid to him. He will seem absolutely wounded by such de- sertion. If I were a boy again I would be more kind to dumb animals. If I were a boy again I should try to be more willing to admit that I might be mistaken. I often hear boys now violently dispute and argue. Some- [60] IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN times I see them contradict until they both grow angry. Now, of course, it is plain to older people that both of those boys cannot be right in the opposite po- sitions which they have taken, and one of them is sim- ply mistaken. Now a boy does not want to admit that this is possible. He is usually very positive that he is right and that all others are wrong. He thinks that he knows all about it. When some older person is in doubt and asks an honest question, a boy will answer right off and be very certain. When he was eight years old, Dr. Washington Gladden tells us that he was travelling from central Massachusetts to western New Jersey and crossed the river at Albany. "WTiy," said a gentleman, "that is the Hudson river." "Oh, no, sir!" I replied, politely, but firmly, "You're mistaken. That is the Connecticut river." "The gentleman smiled and said no more. I was not much in the habit, I think, of contradicting my elders, he goes on to say; but in this matter I was perfectly sure that I was right, and so I thought it my duty to correct the gentleman's geography. I felt rather sorry for him that he should be so ignorant. One day, after I had reached home, I was looking over my route on the map, and lo ! there was Albany standing on the Hudson River, a hundred miles from the Connecticut. Then I did not feel half so sorry for the gentleman's ignorance as I did for my own." Sometimes we can feel almost a pity when we see a boy's confusion and embarrassment and mortification when it is discovered [61] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN- to him tliat he is all wrong in a matter where he stoutly affirmed that he was surely right. And so let me say to my little friends, the children, "Let us al- ways be ready to learn from others. ' ' It takes a long time to learn some things, and so you need to begin while you are very young. If I were you, I would try to be willing to admit that I might be mistaken. If a boy will see himself as he is, in his studies and in work, he will find that he does not, and indeed can- not do different things equally well. When travelling a boy will sometimes get easily "turned round" and finds difiBculty in keeping the points of the compass. He cannot tell his direction as a homing pigeon can, but of course A boy is not a pigeon. Some boys are not naturally good penmen and give very indifferent promise of any great achievement in this art, while other boys, with less help, write legibly and, in the use of a pen, are free and ready with all the flourishes. When a person has a good deal, or on the other hand, is lacking, in the matter of such stock as is sold on the market, he is said to be long or short touching that item. Many a boy is short on drawing, and the truth is he was always so. He was born so. Another boy, who without effort can entertain those who sit near him in school with drawings, his original real creations, and with his caricatures may be bom short on spelling or grammar. A man seldom attains real distinction except in one thing. On some of the [62] IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN other matters in which others become conspicuous he was horn short. If a person is bom so he must face the stern fact. His distinction will come on the things which he can do well and become superior, and a boy ought to know where his superiority lies and tax it. But in that particular in which he is born short the deficiency must not be allowed to become too glaring. A boy must reckon seriously with this matter. If it is in spelling, or in the incorrect formation of sen- tences, or in any exhibition of low life or bad morals, a boy should have a knowledge of the serious fact, and should labor with particular diligence to make amends. If the wind, or current strikes the side of the boat near its bow, the man on the lee side has the laboring oar, and must play up the current, as the wind and time give him heavy work rowing up, Vp with all his strength, while his seat mate can almost rest on his oar. If a person were as lopsided in his physical stature as he is in his mental makeup, it would pass for a deformity. The Bible's plain requirement is that mind and heart and character shall have a good, all around develop- ment, that the man may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. If I were a boy again I would give more diligent attention to those branches in which I was born short. I know a man who was born short in the matter of one qualification for a successful life. Yet in association with him the deficiency would hardly be detected. He knew what it was, and every day, his life long, he kept it in mind to effect a remedy. [63] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN If I were you, and went to school I'd never break the smallest rule, And it should be my teacher's joy To say she had no better boy. And 'twould be true, If I were you. If I were you, I'd always tell The truth, no matter what befell; For two things only I despise, A coward heart and telling lies; And you would, too. If I were you. If I were a boy again I would remember that the mind does not remain the same after a person has read a good book. If a boy, as he goes along, should take out and read thirty excellent books they would mark him noticeably as an intelligent boy, and he would show them by his talk. Looking back over his life and reviewing his friends, he would find that in some of the choicest cases the books he had read, had brought himself and his friends together. These thirty books, in a certain sense, would be the boy. They would supply such a factor in him, that any person, who is much with him, would not only notice them in him, but would observe that he himself was profited by association with the boy that read the books. If I were a boy again I would not spend so much time on fugitive literature. I would instead read fine books. When you are spending a few days at a country hotel, or in a summer camp, notice the [64] IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN men pick up, and then pick up again, and read some chance saffron colored newspaper that some guest has left. Their minds are hungry. They are not nearly as well fed as their bodies. Opportunity to read books comes at different times to different persons. As this matter is so vital to improvement, and as life 's duties may be prohibitive on certain days, and as both mind and spirit have their moods, let me recommend the observance of a Scriptural period, and resolve on three hours of reading in a fine, instructive book each week. This is less mechanical and an atonement can thus be readily made if one is prevented from his happy half hour on some of the days. Give a man a taste for reading good books, and the means of grati- fying it, and the best single contribution to educa- tion and intelligence is assured. There is no tonic like a hook. I can remember my several vacations in terms of the books I read. They mark events never to be effaced. Currents are thus set in motion that change the course of many a life. I find great pleasure now in re-reading the books I read when a boy. They fascinate like old songs. Those first books came at me with such force and freshness of impression that I find I remember the positions of the paragraphs on the page. The savor of such books is like the smell of fruit. If I were a boy again I would stop once for all the enfeebling habit of dawdling over a book. It enervates the mind and comes from reading ephemeral literature that does not deserve the name [65] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN of literature at all. It shows that the real reading habit is not developed. If I were a boy again and found in my possession any bad books I would throw them in the furnace. I wish we could make a fire of them all. I would exult to see the smoke of them ascend like that of Sodom and Gommorrah. I would not want to be found dead with a bad book in my trunk, in my possession. God can read. [66] Chaptke VIII THE STICK GIELS OF VENICE Matt 11: 29. Take my yoke. Who are those handsome, graceful brunettes that have, across their shoulders, a spar of wood, long as an alpen stock having tackles from its pro- jecting ends to which burdens are attached? They are called ' ' the stick girls of Venice. ' ' In that quamt city built right up out of the shoals of the Adriatic, there is "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. ' ' Hence under a summer sun, in a hot coun- try, these courteous attractive girls are welcome as the gracious carriers of water. Their pitchers, or rather urns, are more easily borne by reason of this shaft or contrivance, or harness, or ox-collar that is worn to ease their load. Instead of stooping as they travel with heavy weights, they stand up conspicu- ously straight. They shoulder their load. The yoke is easy and the burden is light. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. We ialce for our type a minister's son. At ten years of age, his father having died, he must help his widowed mother. He is employed to drive the wagon of a grocer. At thirteen he is hard at work hoisting ice. Boy-like, a railroad attracts him and [67] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN he applies for work to a superintendent who intro- duced him to the broom to sweep out and dust the cars. How could any boy begin more modestly, or be less assisted, no influence, no favoritism, no rich or powerful relatives or friends. A burden abso- lutely unavoidable was appointed him in the early school boy period of life. So we see him shoveling gravel on a night construction train. Next we find him inspecting ties in the roadbed, his wages being advanced to a dollar a day. On becoming brakemau he pays $18 a month for his board and lodging, sends $20 home to his mother, and has $2.00 a month for luxuries. Across his cheerful path comes a comfortless, dejected, sour-visaged man who, meeting him said, "Well, Herbert, I suppose you think your fortune is made now you have become a brakeman, but let me tell you what will happen. You will be a brake- man four or five years and then they will make you a conductor at about $100 a month, and there you will stick all your life." "Do you suppose," he re- plied, "I am going to be satisfied with remaining a conductor? I mean to be president of a railroad." Soon after this the story having been passed around, they began to call him President Vreeland, and the instructions and packages sent to him would be so marked. One day he received word that the super- intendent wanted to see him, and on presenting him- self was asked, "Are you the good-looking brakeman who was on that special train yesterday who shows his teeth when he smiles?" He said he certainly was [68] THE STICK GIRLS OF VENICE on the special when the president and directors passed over the road to inspect its physical condition, but he did not know about the matter of the teeth. For a fact it appeared the day before that he knew all about the road and was asked many questions touch- ing it. He had walked over parts of it, as we have seen. Railroads, especially small ones, often change ownership. After such an occasion he received this letter, "Mr. Herbert H. Vreeland, Dear Sir: At a meeting of the stockholders you were unanimously elected a director of the company. At a subsequent meeting of the directors you are unanimously elected President and General Manager, your duties to com- mence immediately." What sustained this hard working filial, self- denying, ambitious, resolute boy and young man in cold and rain,- in privation and unceasing toil in ex- cessive weariness, and in beariag the derision of those who lacked his purpose to be and to become? His hopes. Alexander having conquered kingdoms divided them among his generals. And what do you retain for yourself ? My hopes. ' ' We are saved by hope. ' ' When a patient gives up hope his collapse follows. Burdens are inevitable, loads are unavoidable, tasks are not un- desirable. In carrying them take my yoke. Take the means of sustaining them easily and pleasantly. Hope will meet your need. That is what you want. What in itself was unbearable already sits easier. It does not pull down so insufferably. The burden is light. A good [69] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN way to judge of a thing is to make it a negative quan- tity. It would be cruel to make the unquestioning oxen turn the furrows in a field, or drag home the great heavy loads from the meadows without a yoke that makes the best of their condition. It is not an im- position. It is a welcome, needful, opportune con- tribution, and without it you are like men trying to build a house without tools. The Indians have been for a long time in a field with no harness, no tools, no engines. They were unacquainted with the plough and without skill sufficient to draw any service from the lower animals. To use a yoke marks a decided step in civilization. It is a degradation of labor for boys to enter upon it without those mighty hopes that make them men. Here is the difference between life weariness and life freshness. The one goal of the Hindoo is to escape from life. Hope is a gospel that does not dispose of the lead, but supplies a yoke that fits us and ministers the contagion of a strange joy by which hard things are made easy, and heavj' burdens become light. "Wearing the yoke our life labor is not only pleasant, that is not enough to say of it. It is effective. A cheerful, hearty, hopeful worker is the one most likely to do his work well. Name something that will do as much for a man, for a soldier, for a church, for a young person of either sex, as a good, healthy, resolute, undying, revivifying hope. It is the best tonic for mental and spiritual lassitude. It is nature's great invigorator in an epidemic of discouragement. It is a master key which [70] THE STICK GIRLS OF VENICE not only opens particular doors, but carries you through the whole house. The light of hope scatters despondency. A real dullard, not having perception enough to appreciate, or recognize, the gigantic power of hope, attempts to teach in priat that William Carey, the real founder of missionary enterprises, although desperately poor, heavily burdened, ought to have reversed the order in his motto and to have said, "Attempt great things for God, and expect great things of God." Oh, no, no! His order was right. A man attempts because he expects. If he expects he attempts. Our beloved church greatly honors John Newton by the use of an inordinate number of his hymns, as the book in use shows, for example these, "Safely Through Another Week, One There Is Above All Others While with ceaseless course the sun How sweet the name of Jesus sounds Come, my soul thy suit prepare Glorious things of thee are spoken Amazing grace, how sweet the sound Quiet Lord my froward heart — " and fully as many others. As a youth our author was inclined to eat the bread of idleness. He led an easy life, he was dis- posed only to swim with the stream. He was dilatory, dreamy, unawakened. He was distinguished only, as he affirms, by his habitual indolence. It is interesting to see him [71] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN struggle with language in his attempts to put in words his experience in an affair of the heart. He says that novelists are thought to use too much color in painting the ardent passion that is felt when the affections are touched. He states, that in degree, his feelings, for a fact actually equaled all that the writers of romance have imagined. He declares that this violent and commanding passion never banished its object for a single hour together from his waking thoughts. It was unalterable. It never abated, nor lost its influence in his heart from its first hour. It roused him from the do-nothing habit which he had contracted, and which seemed confirmed. It gave direction to all his views and hopes and exertions. He considered everything he was concerned with in a new light. Self -transformation at first, and achieve- ment appeared so impracticable and impossible, and he thought of work with such revulsion that his only restraint from suicide consisted in the fact that he could not bear to have her, he loved, think meanly of him when dead. His reluctance to an active life was over-powered. He became indiistrious. He attained greatness and usefulness. As we have seen, he has assured earthly immortality. His beginnings were encompassed with embarrassments and difficulties. He was ill-conditioned and often at his wit's end. He was not out of the woods for seven long years. His mind was vagrant and needed discipline, which was a good thing for him. It is an indispensable factor in a well-ordered, well-directed life. His work was [72] THE STICK GIRLS OF VENICE grievous. His task was formidable, oppressive, in- surmountable. How can a person pick up and bear, through a long period, a task like his? Take m,y yoke. It is love. It will give you patience, persistence, endurance, success. Under severe oppression "Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had to her." Women are often heard to exclaim, "I would not once have believed that I could have carried the load that my circumstances have imposed upon me." You could not unaided. You had the yoke. It assists in the task. It stands for the difference and here you are with an insufferable work all accomplished, and a great surprise to yourself. "With the aid of that ex- pedient you have done the impossible. Do you allow yourself to be ruled by your likes, or by your dis- likes? Is the emphasis on what is distasteful, or on what you enjoy? Which is it that most influences your attitude and your spirits ? In the twelfth volume of a series of books called The Library of Oratory is the Inaugural Address of President Eliot. His fib-st sentence refers to the arduous labors to which he is called. His task seems beyond his power. His unaided nature would recoil. New great departments in Harvard are to be created and financed. He seems to be commissioned to build bricks without straw. "He bends to take up this weighty charge with a deep sense of insufficiency." Heed the text, Take my yoke. And his next sentence [73] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN shows that it was this yoke literally that gave him "youthful joy and a good courage." The yoke he took we name Example. "High examples," he ex- claims, "will lighten the way." His exalted office has been filled by his predecessors successfully. ' ' Others have done it. ' ' This is the yoke that is used most widely. It is inspirational. Example is every- thing. Example is the school of mankind. A maTi cannot drive a horse that has never seen one. Immi- grants come to our shores and begin at the lowest rung of the ladder. Others have climbed. Astor and Car- negie, also those whose names are blazoned on the marble palaces of Broadway and Fifth Avenue have succeeded. Others have made good. Take our little sister Essex. What a shining galaxy of men that town has pro- duced. Every boy must feel, Others have risen here to honor and usefulness. Why should not I? Both men and women have hard tasks and anxieties and experiences awaiting them. Others have met them, others have been successful. What man hath done man can do. Take my yoke. Example is most effec- tive when it is repeated. If the neighbors, all per- sons show good gardens then a good garden is a possi- bility. If others are good players it makes you locate your deficiency just where it needs to be placed. The transfigured yoke is Christ's heavenly example. "Follow me." "That we should walk even as He walked." "When he was reviled he reviled not [74] THE STICK GIRLS OF VENICE again." Blessed Redeemer, Holy Saviour, Teacher sent from God, "be Tliou our pattern, Tliou our guide. Make me bear more of Thy gracious image here. ' ' And now comes a woman from Byfield and Ipswich passing through Salem on her way toward the Berkshires to "hang a school on the brow of the mountain." Public sentiment in her day drew the line on women as innovators in education, and did not believe in a cultural movement led by a girl. Dark, portentous clouds hang over Mt. Holyoke. Mary Lyon is brain-weary. She buried her face in her hands and rose again to her well nigh insupportable burden as if God had measured for her a heavier load than, unaided, she could bear. Take my yoke. Oentle, resolute spirit. It is faith. It removes mountains. It does the work of heroines. It is the world's chief power. It lightens labor. It faces death. Faith in a principle makes a soldier invincible. Have you burdens? As the Saviour says. Where is your faith? Take my yoke. To believe is power; to doubt is impotence. According to your faith, be it unto you. The camel at the close of day Kneels down upon the sandy plain, To have his burden lifted off. And rest to gain. My soul, thou, too, shouldst to thy knees. When daylight draweth to a close, And let thy Master lift the load And grant repose. [75] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Else how could'st thou, tomorrow, meet With all tomorrow's work to do, If thou the burden all the night Dost carry through ? The camel kneels at break of day. To have his guide replace his load Then rises up anew to take The desert road. So thou, shouldst kneel at morning's dawn That God may give thee daily care; Assured that He no load too great Will make thee bear. [76] Chapter IX SPEAKING "WELL. And the Lord said, I know that he can speak well. Ex. 4:14. It is about the last word in high praise, and makes the record, to have One who has perfect ideals and standards, and has acquaintance with every mas- terpiece in the varied languages, and with all persons that make any attempt at oratory, say of a man, I know that he can speak well. Honorable mention is usually very creditable and very welcome. But it must have been a supreme encouragement, as pleas- ant as it was unexpected, to have the Judge of all the earth make a direct, distinct reference, not only to a man's public address, but also to its excellent quality. In vigor and energy Moses must ever re- main unequalled among the children of men. And here is the implication that his brother could not only say the thing to be said, but could say it gracefully and effectively, and when we thiuk of Miriam, who was both a singer and speaker,* we are astonished to find such rare gifts scattered in one family. This approbation of Aaron's address is based upon an occurrence in which he exhibited his natural, or his * Ex. 15 : 20, Num. 12 : 2. [77] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN acquired gift for speech. We wish we had some account of the occasion, and most of all that we had the discourse that brought to him the divine com- mendation. We explore the pages of history and search the sacred records in vain to find it. It is obvious from the text, that the same Father in Heaven that regards the fall of the sparrow, notes whether a man speaks ill or well. As all Scripture is profita- ble that we may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works, it is worth our while to determine what the elements of discourse must be that are likeliest to merit the Creator's commendation. The first unquestionably is the accent of con- viction. There is no successful speaking without it. A man may have the gestures of Delsarte, the fluency of sand in the hour glass, the range in words of Burke, or Rufus Choate, the melody of Whitefield or Everett. Yet if he has not the passion of conviction he is like Samson, shorn, weak like any other man, who wist not that the Lord was departed from him. A man cannot be earnest at will. It would be an affectation than which nothing is more insipid. A man may be entertaining without sincerity; He cannot he impressive. A speaker must say what he means and mean what he says. He enters upon an address because he has something to say, and not because he is invited to say something. George Pox, of whom our William Penn said, "His presence expressed a religious maj- esty, ' ' had a wonderful power in speaking because his [78] SPEAKING WELL sincerity was unquestioned. He possessed extreme fascination over the masses because his conviction of the truth of Scripture, to which he says he had great openings, was so decided that he invariably bade men tremble at the word of the Lord. The plainest person agitated with the passion of conviction affects us more than the greatest speaker without it. It is suggestive next to observe that measure St. Paul adopts when, in a crisis, he must speak for his life. He knew the hiding of his power. He falls back instantly and solidly upon a plain statement of his experience. "I think myself happy, King Agrippa." This animates us like a trumpet. It in- dicates confidence and victory. When a man begins an oratorical effort, saying, "I think myself happy," the conditions are right, the atmosphere is favorable. We are to hear him at his best. We shall witness the full expression of his strength. He makes past events live again. He spoke as one inspired. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be powerfully affected. "I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know." This is not open to any disputation. You cannot disprove it any more than you can an affection. It is established as a fact. Paul's testimony to the vision he had on the Damascus Road created the civiliza- tion of the whole Western World. Look in thy heart and speak, and you have the field to yourself. This suggests [79] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the method that will be employed if ever the masses are turned to righteousness. It has spontaneity which is the main charm of spoken words. It has the human mingled with the divine note; and is shown to be used with overmastering results by the most forceful speakers. No amount of simulated animation or enthusiasm could secure these magnetic effects. Some eminent statesmen, like Senator Buck- ingham of Connecticut, and Governor Briggs of Massachusetts, first learned to meet audiences in little meetings for prayer and testimony. Robert CoUyer, a remarkable orator, a great preacher, had finished all the schooling he ever received when he was in his eighth year. As a result of a great sorrow he found his way into a Methodist meeting house and began to express what he felt. Prom a few words uttered standing by his seat in the meeting, he began to preach. It became the custom to go through the vil- lage ringing a bell, when he was to address the meet- ing, to call the people together. The first thing noted about Peter and John was that they were unlearned and ignorant men. Then why attempt to speak? They are irrepressible. "We cannot but speak." Their experience cannot remain as a fire in their bones. It must some way utter, or as the word means, outer itself. It must come out. They felt like Joseph, the son of immortal memory, when he saw his brother Benjamin and could not speak to him. We have here evidence of a quality which we call soul. Passion is more moving even than the cold classical charaeter- [80] SPEAKING WELL istics. It is said in print that President Gilman waa so much impressed during his Yale career with the severity with which public effort was repressed in insisting that it was foolish for young men to come into the limelight before their training was further advanced, that he determined, on assuming charge of Johns Hopkins University, to put the young men of that institution into active public work as soon as they had been trained sufficiently to do it well, and the lead of that institution in political and other pub- lic fields, and a large part of its present educational power are to be traced to the public work which its students have already produced. While young, they have acquired world-wide fame. An outstanding factor that would give Aaron power in speaking would be his sense of what stood behind him, for whom he spoke, the high source and importance of the ideas he represented. Martin Luther's courage and energy and overwhelming utter- ances came straight from his consciousness that he was not speaking for self alone, but for Christendom that was groaning imder the infamous practice of the sale of indulgences, and under the reign of sheer superstition. He felt that he was pleading the cause of the Almighty himself. It is not Luther alone that strikes. It is all that is behind him and that is irresistible. When we go to conduct evangelistic services in [81] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN strange places, it is the practice to take with, us some strong spirits who think as we do, for whom also we speak when we set out our experience of the doctrines of grace. When we voice our feelings we utter also theirs. The sympathy they feel is a factor with us. It will be found for a fact that currents of influence are thus set in motion which are effective. Not Peter alone, but Peter standiog up with the eleven produced the startling effects at Pentecost. Eobert Bruce felt within himself the might and courage of the whole nation, when, as champion of Scotland, he fought with resistless valor at Bannockburn. Washington stated a forcible truth, with great aptness when, before the battle of Long Island, he told his suffering soldiers to keep up heart against their ene- mies, for their cause is bad. Their men are conscious of it. Many of us have heard a messenger of God who made us feel that he was backed by the weight of the universe and by the divine spirit. He seemed almost more than human. It was the weakness of Napoleon in his last days as Leigh Hunt pointed out that no great principle stood by him. There is one element in speaking well, like Aaron, that invites cultivation, and that is The art of putting things. In this matter Lincoln was a master. The perora- tion in his crowning utterance at Gettysburg is immortal by it. It has a rhythm approximating the rhythm of poetry. It is the throb of strong feeliQg like that in the Bible, preserved by the trans- [82] SPEAKING WELL lators in the King James Version. At Springfield, Illinois, his opponent, Douglas, was crushed. It was done by one sentence, direct, compact, and pungent, well put, and, as Douglas himself said, "in a per- fectly courteous manner." The Springfield Journal next day used the words, "Lincoln quivered with feeliag and emotion." He seemed overwhelmed with the magnitude and grandeur of his theme and he spoke with such impassioned earnestness as to storm the hearts of his hearers. He straightened himself out, as one man said, like a jack-knife, and an aged man declared, "He seemed to be about twenty foot high" and at one stroke so stated the case of Douglas that he could not deny it nor, on the other hand answer it. He said he would reply in the evening. When the night came he was not there and the prom- ised remarks were never made. "I never went to school," said Lincoln, "more than twelve months in my life. ' ' No man gets the art of putting things by educa- tion alone. Lincoln's stories show that he had taught himself to grasp the idea firmly and stand it out viv- idly. He acquired the power of seeing when he began a sentence, all through it and of knowing what the end is to be. Lincoln when alone read aloud. He was educating his ear to the melody of words and felicity of expression. As a boy he threw himself into debates in which he would, in turn, represent both sides, and with such ardor that his father for- bade them during hours for work, for, as his father [83] THE WOEST BOYS IN TOWN complained, when Abe begins to speak, all hands flock to hear him. Lincoln's ancestor landed at Salem. He himself, born as lowly as the son of God, in an environment of abject penury, as a boy, in the uni- versity of hard knocks, took two elective studies, ways and means, and the art of putting things. With hardly an exception every great orator recites how and when he gained his practice. Many boys act as if they needed none, anyway they do not get it. Nor can they hide behind the excuse that they have no gifts, for they have never thoroughly tested them- selves in a fair field, and it is for a trial of their powers that this plea is being made. The prizes in all departments of life, large and small, are won on a very small margin of superiority, which is chiefly mental. We notice with curious interest the difficulty the judges have in deciding who is most deserving, showing that it takes but little to turn the scale toward him who gains the prize. He has done what you could have done, but did not do. Here is the incite- ment for a young person to add to his power even the slightest increment, and he captures everything. After much labor, after some patience, after keeping up courage, when success comes, it appears suddenly ; as good fortune did to the old gentleman who lost a horse. "Do you know that I hunted for that de- praved creature for three weeks and could not find hide nor hair of it ? But all at once, one day, I found it, and when I found it I found it in a minute." A [84] SPEAKING WELL boy ought not to go forward into citizenship and responsibility for affairs in a government by the peo- ple without giving himself training in the art of put- ting things. All honor to the Irish men that in such numbers come to office among us. Its reason being that they have their Phillips debating societies and deliberately train themselves for office. This is the explanation of the undue prominence of some of the humbler localities in municipal affairs. The east side of New York is A spawning ground for debate and deiating clubs. If boys organize these little lyceums other boys are drawn into them. Witnessing debate, new partici- pants are stirred up, and a fresh spirit of improve- ment is developed and some new ideals become pop- ular. There are said to be more boys on the east side in New York in debating clubs than in boys' basketball teams or baseball teams on which too we place great value. These boys have old heads. They lack gaiety, buoyancy of spirits, which is a mis- fortune, but they have instead a quality of earnest- ness. The best private practice in the art of putting things is found in the use of Aesop's Fables. The author was a negro, an Ethiop, deriving his name from that fact, but he had the art of putting things and the higher schooling is, to hastily read one of the fables, not slowly enough to commit its parts to memory, but sufficiently only, to get its main point, and then seek yourself to state the point and after [85] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN that what "this fable teaches." One will acquire an art that universities cannot bestow. In the gift to the world of the kindergarten Frobel made a con- tribution that is beyond computation in money. There is not money enough. His system is a world better than his accoimt of it. His misfortune is a lack of expressing, even half clearly, or forcibly, or attractively, his ideas. His supporters and the staunchest advocates of his system would not send out statements of his ideas couched in his words, as neither his written or spoken sentences contributed anything to make his ideas popular. With no fault in his sys- tem of education, its extension was impracticable, by him, because of an absence of ability in his nature to clearly and happily state his case. He did not realize at first that this was necessary, or lacking. Knowledge undigested is sometimes a hindrance to impressive speech. It is the opening of an address that chokes off half the hearers. The silver ought to be found first thing in the fish's mouth. In show- ing a picture do not stand close in front of it and be yourself the means of obscuring it. A lady accounted for the difficulty a young man had in participating in meeting, by saying, "He has not got by himself yet." So long as a person is conscious chiefly of self he cannot speak well nor be a blessing. Next after Nathaniel Bowditeh and Joseph Choate, lately de- ceased, the greatest mind Salem has produced, Nath- [86] SPEAKING WELL aniel Hawthorne, deploring his own deficiencies, uttered this lament, "God may forgive sins; hut awk- wardness has no forgiveness in heaven or in earth." If one begins young, this faultiness can be overcome, by public declamation, a form of practice now egregiously and wickedly neglected. If young men would be graciously assisted, by the angel forces of the world, they should choose topics that place them in an aittitude to speak for the right, for the absent, to defend the friendless, the poor, the enslaved, the enchained, the prisoner, the lost. There is many a cause that actually needs a true spokesman. Having talents for speech, a young man ought to show it by some more popular method than his silence. A good speech, well-spoken, is part of the necessary de- fence of truth and the right. For example, looking at the matter only as a test of extemporaneous ad- dress, a man will rise higher and do better, sounding a clarion note, uttering a bugle call, not as a dream- ing pacifist who assumes that one side in a strife, is as good as another, nor as a trimmer in politics, nor a time server in morality, a weathervane in friend- ship, nor as a hypocrite in religion, but rather in praise of the right and blame of the wrong. Public speakers ought to feel, that, it is not the people who are at fault, in not being convinced, but the fault lies at the speaker's door. This gives alertness and reach, and insight to the mind. People can have tem- perance if they can get the votes, and as they have [87] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the right of the argument they can get the votes if they can state their case and convince the people, who, as we see about us, are Waiting for leadership. Instead of standing up in a public place and think- ing aloud, it is better to have directness of address to the audience at the time present. The aim of ex- pression is impression. Many of the elements inter- ring into it can best be supplied long before the issue is joined. Some men are too rich to be interested in public affairs. Public spirit is a great incitement to speaking well. Great events promote it. Animated by human interest, a compact, vigorous readiness of speech is often needed for protection of unfriended truth, and the vindication of imperilled right. Our text and theme require us to question the facts in a beautiful sonorous sentiment and Ever the right comes uppermost, And ever is justice done. The commonest observation has recently taught that the right never comes uppermost until some one in- terposes for it and helps it up, and justice ever re- quires painstaking care to see that men are compelled to observe it toward those unable to help themselves or to make appeal. Our clients are those who cannot speak for themselves. The greatest gainers by a powerful, effective address are the wronged, the down- trodden, common humanity, patriotism, and our holy religion. [88] Chapter X BOY LOST They found him not. Luke 2:45. On the morning of the third day of the search there were five hundred men, it is said, looking for a boy that had become confused and lost in the thick woods of New Hampshire. His father was felling trees and his little son persuaded his mother to per- mit him to go to his father and return with him as he came home from his work. On reaching the door, when the day was done, the mother said, with un- feigned alarm, "Where is Jacob?" The father had no knowledge of him. He had not seen him. Talk not of distress, until such a scene as that desolated home presented has been witnessed. On the frontier, which has a knowledge of the peril, they have for a familiar song. Wake the boys to look for Nellie, Stay not for the dawn. Who shall sleep when from the mothers' fold One little lamb is gone. The father of little Jacob had a mile to walk in order to enlist his nearest neighbor in the patrol of the woods. Not a trace of the missing boy being dis- covered, the men were abandoning hope, declaring [89] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN it to be useless to go further in quest of the boy. The mother, learning the decision, in frantic agony, could not bear the terrible thought that he might be still alive, exposed and suffering. Brave men, unaccustomed to weep, shed tears of sympathy at the sight of her grief. They formed into separate companies and took different directions, having agreed, like the ships of Columbus, upon signals in the event of discovery. As the long day wore away and the gloom of another dismal night was settling down, as with raven wings upon them, the echo of a very distant gun breaks upon the painful silence. It means that they detect a trace. The suspense is breathless. A second gun reverberates. It signifies he is found. A third shot sets the news afloat upon the startled air. And he is alive. There was no one of the five hundred strong men but shared in the shout of joy. The victorious party came in sight, bearing the little hero on their shoulders, seated on a hastily con- structed chair, made of poles and ever-greens. The loss of a boy, it appears, is not a matter only of indi- vidual concern. All mother hearts feel it tenderly. Sympathy is contagious. Strongest men are fullest of compassion. "Weariness is not reckoned. Hunger is defied. Feeling knows no measure. There arose a glad cry to the gate of Heaven, Rejoice, for I have found mine own. The son of a man is come to save that which was [90] BOY LOST lost. He is interested in these little ones. For I say unto you that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father. When the Shunamite woman saw that she had lost her son she called unto her husband and said, "Send me, I pray thee, that I may run to the man of God." Then she said, "Drive and go forward. Slack not thy driving for me." That's a mother, with the loss of her son in the balance. "With a feeling of awe I have looked upon a father when the thought of losing his son was shaking his soul. In a wild, sparsely settled portion of the West, in passing at night from one town to another, by a freight train, I sat in the caboose with the only other passenger, a physician. He kept anxiously snapping his watch, and as if he had forgotten what he read on its dial, he would look again to discover the time. He said that he was called, by a telegram, for expert service, in the case of a boy whose condition was critical. At the next stop the father of the boy was to meet him and hurry him to the little sufferer. As he left the car I accompanied him, but only for a moment. It was no village, only a solitary signal station. A span of horses with a light carriage was backed up against the platform. A man was placed to so stand in front of the horses that no time should be lost in untying a halter. The thing that impressed me was the silence, the solemnity, the intensity of feeling. Emotion can become too deep for words. The father, by a gesture having directed [91] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the doctor to a seat in the carriage, took up the reins and whip and gave the word to the horses. The prayer of the parents in a case like this is, that God would give them back their chUd. Then he is God's child to give, and the parents to receive. This three-fold own- ership in a boy is beautiful and correct. He is restored and lent to the parents. Samuel, to use his mother's beautiful saying, was lent to the Lord as long as he lived. There was God's child restored to the par- ents. Here is the child of fond parents who lend him to the Lord. This three-fold interest or ownership is the point on which the incident of our text turns. Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. They doubtless went among their kinsfolk and acquain- ances calling, "Jesus," "Jesus." "They found him not. ' ' He refers to his other relation, to his father in Heaven. He was restored to his parents. He went down to Nazareth and was subject unto them, but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart that he uttered about his relation, not only to his parents, but to his father in Heaven. In Shakespeare 's play. Two Gentlemen of Verona, Speed makes the obser- vation: The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the shepherd. A sheep becomes lost not be- cause it is vicious or defiant, but simply because it is a sheep and needs a shepherd. During a long drive in South Dakota, as the night was coming on, we saw a solitary disconsolate sheep. It is a pitiable sight. Detached from the flock, it was exposed to certain [92] BOY LOST death, as we had that day seen wolves about the haystacks and prairies. It had no aptitude what- ever looking toward self-help. It is not in the na- ture of a sheep to render assistance in its own self- preservation. Its entire dependence is on the shep- herd. A lost sheep is entirely the owner's problem. " I go to the desert to find my sheep. ' ' The unending purpose of the true shepherd is in the words of Luke, "Until he find it." In our largest bank a very prosperous man dropped a dime, and it rolled away and he kept looking for it. Quite a company became interested in his resolve to recover his money. A man who wanted to have his attention tried to talk to him, but he was still sweeping the floor and its corners with his eyes in the hope of making a recovery. The man who wanted to see him, in desperation took out a quarter and asked him to take it and forget the dime. He had not discovered the principle that we are seeking to suggest, that a man hates to lose a thing. It is a characteristic deeply implanted in all natures. It is true of the Creator, of our Saviour, and of us. A man will spend more time recovering a thing than he would in earning it. It is about impossible for anyone to turn his back on a thing that is lost. Not grasping this principle, an ex- positor will sometimes spfend an undue proportion of his time in expounding the parable of the lost piece of silver in telling about its value and its his- tory. The principle that caused the woman to light [93] THE "WORST BOYS IN TOWN the candle and sweep the house and search diligently was her unresting nature while the thing was lost. When it was recovered notice the occasion of her joy. It was in having found the piece she had lost. I once heard a sermon on The Lost Boy, in which a calculation was made as to what a boy cost when he was a year old, and so on each year up to ten, and the point was made that a father could not afford to lose his investment. It is a principle which the Creator imbedded in the man and not the money invested in the boy that puts resolution into the search. A secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association having visited many army camps, af- firms that the hymn most frequently called for is Oh Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight. His value might be discredited by his conduct, but the love of his mother still says, "Go search for him where you will, but bring him to me. Tell him I love him still." There is not in this favorite hymn a single line that suggests that the boy is likely, or well-educated, or talented, on the contrary the implication runs the other way. But this only in- flames the mother heart to do her part with greater faithfulness and more painstaking. A lost boy first suggests preventive measures, and then suggests the use of specific means looking to recovery. When a very little boy was lost in a wide wheat field, and had tired himself out and had sunk down in weariness and heavy sleep, the men who were [94] BOY LOST searching could not seem to locate him by an indi- vidual canvass, and so they took hold of hands, which were extended, and went over the ground until they found him. The co-operation gave thor- oughness and quicker result. It depended less on chance. The cairn of Lizzie Bourne on the spot where she perished is not remote from the door of the old Tip Top House on Mount Washington. Bun- yan makes much of the fact that a pilgrim can be lost not remote from the haven where he would be. Joseph and Mary fell into the error of going on for a full day, supposing that the lost boy of our text was in the company. I know the agony of coming to a standstill in a position of extreme peril with the sorrowful words upon my lips, I'm lost. It was on a glacier. I had read of Agassiz's dis- coveries in the locality. I was full of wonder. I kept leaving my guide. He would call to me. Soon his voice died away. I turned often to avoid a crev- asse here and another at a different angle there. One direction now seemed as good as another. I'm lost. It has been a terror in my dreams ever since. Un- speakably I felt the need of a guide. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. "My father, Thou art the guide of my youth." "Therefore for Thy name's sake lead me and guide me." A shiver of subdued consternation ran over a multitudinous assembly, which crowded a great tent and hung as a deep fringe on all its borders when it was an- [95] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN nounced that a young child felt lost, and was in sorrow and alarm at her situation, and if there was any friend of the child present a meeting could be arranged at the right of the platform. And when, in response, a lady arose and hurriedly started, the audience broke out into the most rapturous and tumultuous applause. The saddest thing imagin- able is a lost child. The gladdest thing is a child found. This is the joy of Heaven. O great heart of God ! whose loving Cannot hindered be, nor crossed; WiU not weary, will not even In our death itself be lost — Love divine! of such great loving, Only mothers know the cost — Cost of love, which, all love passing, Gave a Son to save the lost. [96] Chapter XI THE FIRST WHO CHEERED Immediately received strength. Acts 3 : 7. It is a matter of common knowledge that God has done a great deal for Milford, New Hampshire, and the newspapers are now pointing out that man has also done a great deal for her by what the publications call, The Milford Spirit. We find by correspondence that an organization exists com- posed of prominent men, which has breathed into the varied business enterprises the breath of life. "We had a young man about to graduate at Dart- mouth. He was going to study Forestry and go West." And this was the style of approach, "My boy,, yours is a family which has been physicians for generations. What a record you have back of you, what traditions to keep up. Your father needs you, the town wants to have you come and help him carry on the work and succeed to it." The young man is in the Harvard Medical School. He is com- ing back. There is an important industry in the town whose existence depends upon a single life. The owner is the only man who understands it. His son was studying finance, and had graduated in the regular course. This statement was put up to him. [97] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN "One hundred families depend for their livelihood upon your father's factory. He needs some one to help him. We don't want you to go off to some town in the West or South. We want you to come back and be an understudy to your father, to hold up his hands and in time to run the factory." This organ- ization, in the words of the text, took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he immediately re- ceived strength. The ioy is there in the factory. The Milford spirit makes a young fellow feel like try- ing. When a person watches how it works it almost makes him believe in the old-fashioned doctrine of transmigration, perhaps we would better say, the transfusion of souls, by which is meant here the passing of the soul of a far-seeing, large-hearted man into an untested, inexperienced youngster, whose life is all before him, and who stands wondering at the parting of the ways. "Johns, would thee like to go into business for thyself 1 ' ' Johns is an early form of the word Jones. This question was raised by Gerard Hopkins, the Quaker uncle of Johns Hopkins, to whom it was ad- dressed. "Yes, but, uncle, I have saved only $800." And he had worked hard for seven years to acquire it. "But that will make no difference. I will en- dorse for thee and this will give thee credit and in a short time thee will make a capital. Thee has been faithful to my interests. I will start thee in business. ' ' Johns Hopkins, thus cheered, immediately [98] THE FIRST WHO CHEERED received strength. He labored untiringly early and late. His business grew and extended into other states. His parents, only rich in their family of eleven children, were visited by Gerard, who pro- posed that Johns, the eldest, who worked as a boy on the farm, should go to Baltimore and learn the wholesale grocery business. It seemed a voice from another world. When, having amassed, at nearly eighty years of age, seven millions dollars, to found the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, he said to his cousin, "If not for him," meaning his Uncle Gerard, "I would in all probability have remained a boy on the farm." The picture of Johns Hopkins hung in the office of a Baltimore firm who were asked. What was Johns Hopkins to you? And this was the reply, One day he came, and looking around said, Why don't you do a larger business? You are prompt, you ought to get on. They told him can- didly how things were with them, and he drew a check for $10,000 on the spot and told them not to hurry about paying it. "From that day we prospered." When Richard Knill visited Spurgeon's father he was very much drawn to the small boy Thomas, aged ten, and drew the little friendly fellow into a walk with him in the garden where he, in easy words, conversed with him and prayed with him and said that this child will one day preach the gospel to thousands. The boy immediately received strength. He had a rebirth of expectation and re- [99] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN solve. A prophecy like that goes far toward its own fulfilment. So was it with the sad-voiced, disap- pointed, dejected minister who had preached in vacant pulpits, on occasion, as supply for many years, as pictured by Mr. Crockett, until he received the stimulus of an encouraging word from a good Scotch elder named William Greig, when he pulled himself together on the following Sunday, and preached so stormily that he took the congregation by assault, and got a unanimous call on the spot When Darwin received a word of praise from Sir John Mclntire, he says, it made a new being of him. His latent faculties were then called up. This talent of evoking the best in another is in its way a kind of genius. Dr. Stillman of the First Church, Boston, had a delicate frame and was much depressed after what he felt was a poor sermon. He could not eat his dinner and went sick to bed. "Jephthah," he said, calling his colored servant, "tell the deacons that they must get somebody to supply the pulpit." ' ' I feel bad for the people, ' ' said the servant, ' ' They will be disappointed. Folks is queer but they don't want to hear anybody else. I hearn Mrs. Smith say this mornin' what a beautiful sermon the doctor preached. But I'll tell the deacons Massa Stillman is wearin ' hisself out. " " You needn 't go. I feel bet- ter. Brush my boots Jephthah, and I'll try to preach myself." Those who resist hardest the truth we are seeking to enforce do it with the feeling that men like Spurgeon and Darwin do not need to be called [100] THE FIRST WHO CHEERED up and reinforced. If you please, for a moment pass from a consideration of the need of such a sum- mons to a notice of its effects. Old Dr. Samuel John- son, gruff, self-centered, and independent, would seem most likely to be indifferent to an early word of cheer, Yet down to gray hairs he kept telling of the pleasure and uplift that came into his life when his old school mistress came to bid him farewell and brought him an extremely common- place present, and told him he was the best scholar she ever had. With his great powers of mind he began to reason that a boy might be the man in miniature. When Christopher Gore, an eminent lawyer of Massachu- setts, afterward governor of the state and United States Senator, had settled down to practice his profession, an awkward fledgling undertook the task of an introduction of himself and spoke of his em- barrassment as he briefly, but frankly, explained his circumstances and spoke of his wishes and am- bitions, and offered to send to New Hampshire for letters to conform his statement. The great lawyer heard him through, took him at his word, and en- gaged him on the spot. Before leaving Mr. Gore's employment the young law student was tendered the office of clerk of courts, with a good salary, which he needed. But his patron set his face steadily against his accepting it, and openly prophesied for him em- inence at the bar in a direct practice of his pro- fession. This kindly prophecy changed the whole [101] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN face of things. "Webster told his father what Mr. Gore had said, which was the lever that turned the switch at that junction. The Dartmouth College Case, The Girard Will Case, and the Suicide Is Con- fession Case, argued in Salem, the greatest address ever made to any jury, go to plainly show that Mr. Gore 's prophecy was fulfilled. A new standard had been set up, new forces called into action. They stimulate the will, with the result that a man does not sit down trusting to fate to work out his prob- lems for him. He goes to work all the more diligently and vigorously, resolving that if, in the opinion of the best authority, a thing can be,, it shall be accom- plished. If it were true that the first who cheered rendered no particular office, why is it uniformly that when men have attained elevated position, they appear to feel under a sort of obligation to make public acknowledgment to those who gave them a perpendicular lift at just the right time? In the executive office at Washington a number of gentlemen being present, Mr. Lincoln said to Mr. Seward who bought Alaska, which is proving itself a bonanza, at two cents an acre, "You never heard how I earned my first dollar, did you? / was eighteen. I got the consent of my mother to construct a little flat boat. With the spring floods, the river rises, and later subsides so that the landing place is not at the same stage at the different tides. A steamer coming down the river would stop in midstream, [102] THE FIRST WHO CHEERED and passengers would go on board by means of boats putting out from shore. Two men came in carriages and, 'Will you take us and our trunks out to the steamer ? ' I said, ' Certainly. ' I was glad to have the opportuntiy of earning something. I sculled them out to the boat. I lifted their heavy trunks and put them on deck. Each of them took from his pocket a silver half dollar and threw it on the floor of the boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may think it a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar." This testimony is taken here for the sake of the next two sentences. Listen, "The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confldent being from that time." This stands to the credit of the first who cheered. For the author of the proclamation of emancipation and the dedicatory speech at Gettys- burg to say, "The world seemed wider and fairer before me, I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time, ' ' who would not rejoice extravagantly to have ministered that cheer and joy to that super- man. The reason that the words and deeds of the first who cheer prove so effective is that the recipient stands at the point, where we all stood when we felt so deeply a slight, if the social favorites in the com- munity gave a party and passed us by unnoticed. [103] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN We wonder that we had any feeling in a matter that has grown into such profound indifference, but We did feel it keenly. "We had not then established ourselves; we had not been given our rating. Hear Robert Fulton, the builder of the Clermont, the first steamboat on the Hudson, mourn. "We wonder that he cared, but the fact that people do so deeply care gives the point to all we say. The crowd jeered and mocked, and Mr. Fulton says, "I never received a single encour- aging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish across my path." "The dog," it has been said, "cares not for the approval of his fellow dogs who are his equals, but much for that of man, who is his superior." "When we were wondering how things were going to go with us, every word and act were weighed. "We were looking at every slight indication. Any sharp cut went to the quick. Anything that looked like recognition and a fine future went to the heart. It was taken at its face value. It established our identity. It marked the elevation to which the tide might rise. "We set out to deserve our rating, and not to disappoint the expec- tation of our friends. For the Mechanics' Hall in Boston seven thou- sand tickets had been sold in advance, and not a seat on floor or in galleries and not an inch of standing room remained unoccupied in the aisles, up to the orchestra rails. Just after a solo by Mrs. Barry, a lit- tle spark of fire was seen upon the red cloth side of the [104] THE FIRST WHO CHEERED proscenium. Several men jumped up excitedly, and pointed to the little glimmer. In an instant the at- tention of the whole vast audience vras centered upon that one spot. Even as they looked the little flame glided up the side, creeping with startling -rapidity along the edge of the fabric. As the au- dience viewed the scene with subdued terror, a lithe form was noticed approaching. It was substitute Victor, of Engine 22, who with a companion was on duty in the hall. He hesitated for a moment. But men cheered and ladies joined with them, while handkerchiefs and hats were waved in all parts of the great building. Hestitancy instantly vanished. Quickly climbing up the slender frame-work, hand over hand, and swinging from cross-bar to cross-bar, he seized the cloth, and, tearing it loose, dropped it down where it was grasped by others and the blaze extinguished. Electrified by applause he rose above himself and became a hero. With the sympathetic support of a myriad of souls he seemed to use a strength beyond his own. Having received such cheer, a man cannot turn back. [105] Chaptee XII FARES, PLEASE So he paid the fare thereof. Jonah 1:3. A man's pocketbook is his best friend on Bome journeys. He is kept reaching for it the most of the time. If a man does not pay his fare the car is stopped to give him opportunity, with or without assistance, to alight. The conductor always seems to want something. "Pares, please." On the first and second class cars abroad the greeting used to be, "Tickets please." But on the third class car it was simply, "Tickets." There was a difference in politeness, but none in the uniformity of making some kind of collection. In the museums it is com- mon to exhibit the coins that have been taken from the cerements of people decently buried which were provided to pay to the ferryman who should set the traveler across the cold and rapid river that' it was believed all pilgrims must pass. It was natural to infer that there would be a fare to pay if the future is judged by the past. In many of the hotels abroad, if a guest desires a light or warmth in his room it is furnished at an itemized price. A hotel is not a charitable institution like an endowed hospital. It is conducted for revenue only. You become a [106] FARES, PLEASE guest and later comes the reckoning. We sometimes hear of free schools, and of free seats in churches. There are none. The moment a janitor is employed a bill is running up that will certainly be presented, which each person benefited may himself pay, or some substitute must be found who will pay it for him. Anyway there must be a settlement. It is interesting to see a mother, leading a small boy, attempt to get him by an engine that has steam up, which is blowing off. She tugs and pulls and calls. There is a peculiar fascination about an engine, and a steamboat, and the cars, for a boy. Assuming that he is intelligent and apt and quick, suppose he should say, Mr. Engineer, I see how you work those levers. Let me take your place, please. With what rapidity the ears would be emp- tied if the request were to be granted. No matter about your fondness for mechanics, no matter who your father is, no matter about your mind's bright- ness, you must have experience, and experience must be paid for. Fares please. Is the position worth having? Then it is worth paying for. Lay down the price and take it. You ought not to expect something for nothing. No paper currency, no promises-to-pay will do. We must have the gold of real service. Work is the price. He that reapeth receiveth wages. A real vacation can only be earned by labor. We must pay the fare. That night's slumber is best, that has been earned, [107] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN "Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing. Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begun. Each evening sees its close. Something attempted, something done. Has earned a night's repose." Girls do not take to locomotives, but they do want to have a piano either in the home they have, or in the home they dream they are to have. Getting a piano is the smallest part of the production of music. No matter how well your sister can play, no matter how many good music teachers you can secure, be- fore you personally become a pianist, under the most favorable conditions, you must pay a fixed price in diligence and self-discipline, with no substitutes, and no absent treatment. You cease paying the fare and all advancement stops short. In this and in kindred lines of glorious art, the gods sell profi- ciency at the price of great labor. The outstanding feature of a memorable lecture on The Last Supper was the variety and particularly the vast number of tentative sketches and studies that the artist had made before he reached his climax in expression. The lecturer kept indicating the world's great good fortune that the first attempts to realize the artists ideals were not used, as they were so inferior and deficient in quality. As objects of curiosity, in the art centers of Europe, one artist alone having left twenty-five hundred preliminary drawings and car- toons, we have painful evidence that the great mas- [108] FARES, PLEASE ters passed through long processes of careful train- ing that the eye and hand should be thoroughly educated for their work. So they paid the fare thereof. The celebrated poet, Goethe, tells us he had noth- ing sent to him in his sleep and once remarked to his friend, Eckerman, "Each clever saying has cost me a purse of gold. Half a million of my own money, the fortune I inherited, my salary, and the large in- come I have derived from my writings have been expended to instruct me," so he paid the fare thereof. Men overlook the stupendous price at which every good thing must come. It costs suffering and toil and thought, even heroism and martyrdom, while it is deemed to have been obtained without much ex- penditure. Its price must be paid, and quality comes high. Sir Joshua Reynolds, it is said, never painted a likeness without drawing a picture also. He la- bored by the aid of accessories to heighten the effect of the art, and by great painstaking, to place his sitters in the best light. When Milton resolved to write something "which men should not willingly let die," he knew what it would cost him. It was to be "by labor and intent study, which I take to be my portion in this life. ' ' When Mr. Dickens wrote one of his Christmas Books, he shut himself up for six weeks to do it; he "put his whole heart into it." and came out again looking as haggard as a mur- derer. Dante saw himself growing leaner over his Divine Comedy. So he paid the fare. All men every- [109] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN where agree to honor the most useful man of the twentieth century, not only the greatest inventor of his age, but a discoverer as well. For two days and nights and twelve hours, sixty hours in all, Edison worked continuously without sleep until he had conquered a difficulty. He is said to have tried two thousand substances before fixing upon the fibers of bamboo for the arch in the vacuum of his glass globe. For ten years together he has worked eighteen hours a day. So he paid the fare thereof. He often works all night and thinks best, he says, when the rest of the world sleeps. Christ taught the Woman of Samaria though he was weary. As James Montgomery says, "Night is the time for toil." That President who is believed by many to have been the best prepared for his high office, in his student life, looked across the college campus and saw all the windows darkened except one. It marked the room of his only competitor. Night after night, it made this plain statement. If you expect to take the college honors it will be on the basis of more than the forty-four hours of toil a week which is the maximum amount required from a laboring man. He saw where the matter hinged. He cheerfully gave the extra labor and paid the fare. Soon after the late Horace Maynard, congressman, postmaster-general, diplomatist, entered Amherst College he put over the door of his room A large letter V, and engaged in study with great devotion. At [110] TARES, PLEASE the end of four years, graduation day came, and Mr. Maynard was appointed to deliver the valedic- tory. After having received the compliments of the faculty and students for the honor he had received, Mr. Maynard called the attention of his fellow-grad- uates to the letter V standing for valedictory, over the door of his room. In Cleveland's Compendium, English Literature of the Nineteenth Century,* an as- terisk is attached to the line. Night is the time for toil, referring the reader to a footnote in the book that would be amusing if it were not so piteous. The author seems to feel that if he could have had a word with Montgomery he would not have framed that verse. He suggests study by day and not by night. Guess he never had a book he sat up nights with. Could Napoleon, when studying his maps, or Julius Caesar when forming the plans for his campaign, or Stonewall Jackson when executing his far-famed flank movements or victorious surprise attacks, have seen the footnote of the easy-going compiler of poems, he would have laughed in the author's face. Our excellent compiler did not rise quite high enough to get a sidewise look at men with tasks. lAfe has its moments and its prizes. Either the sun must stand still or the work must go on after that goes down. The forty-four hours a week that mechanics use will not do to meet their need. A stu- dent for the ministry was lately found living on a few cents a day, and studying like Jonathan Edwards * Page 597. [Ill] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN "thirteen hours a day," thus enduring hardship that he might obtain the prize upon which his heart was set. So he paid the price thereof. When Bernard of the Tuileries, as he came to be called, destined to re- ceive the patronage of kings and emperors, to write books, to open a school of philosophy, drew forth his five hundred cups and saucers, his bowls and pit- chers and beautiful vases, bright and shining like a mirror, from his fiery furnace, it seems inappropriate for him to have carried the bricks to build his ovens on his back. It would have been, to use the word of the compiler of poetry, a "better economy" to em- ploy an expressman. But he had no money to pay the freight. So he paid the fare thereof in drudgery. It is an unspeakable price which humanity pays for the prize of goodness or righteousness, or even simple honesty. Everything costs something. The com- monest form of dishonesty is a dignified attempt to get something for nothing. Pretention never wrote an Iliad, nor drove back the Germans on the Marne. Above all Greek, above all common fame is the transcendent title of our war President, Honest Abe. It is no accidental designation. He earned it. He paid the fare thereof. His biographers show his scrupulous, laborious, painstaking to be just in his accounts while keeping postoffice. Closing his little grocery early, he went on foot, at night, to rectify cer- tain little errors in the business of the day. As a law- yer he always tried a case fairly and honestly, met the [112] FARES, PLEASE facts squarely. He never misrepresented the evi- dence. A part of the price he paid for the title that can never be taken away from him was two days' work "pulling fodder" for his teacher, Mr. Craw- ford, from whom he borrowed Eamsay's life of Washington. Through the chinks between the logs of the cabin the rain drove in at night and ruined the book. As he had no money, he faced the con- ditions, put himself wholly at Mr. Crawford's dis- posal, having agreed to work until the owner of the book said he was satisfied. He realized in practice the early wish of his mother, who said she would rather he would learn to read the Bible than own a farm. To secure the rights of the little nations, we must pay the price. Out of this fiery upheaval there will come a new Heaven and a new earth. It is ours to pay the fare thereof. The conditions exacted a terrible toll. Nothing was given. All things were Sold. Nothing for nothing has been the rule. The lives of martyrs have a .purchasing power. They are counters. Like shniiags and guineas, they are given in exchange. They are valuable for what they will buy. Our Saviour's death! Its value is in its purchasing power. We are bought with its price. His sepulchre counts but one among all the broken tombs of earth. In a better view, however, his death discriminates his grave from all others in what it achieved He gave his life, a ransom for [U3] THE WOEST BOYS IN TOWN many. Sacrifices are the seeds of good things. When our sympathies go out to the soldiers under Wash- ington at Valley Forge the touching lesson is taught us that every advancement made by our nation was preceded by somebody's self denial. So they paid the fare thereof. All the acres of windowless homes at the national cemetery at Arlington, having among the 15,000 graves 2,110 of the unknown dead, gathered from the battlefields of the Wilderness, the Potomac, and the Rappahannock, exhibit the cost of the Union. ' ' Without shedding of blood there is no — no anything." We must not forget that the words bless, bloom, blossom and blood are all from the same root ! Burial Hill at Plymouth, com- ing next to the tomb at Mt. Vernon in veneration, has never been surpassed in reverent interest and attachment since the sepulchre in Joseph's garden was hewn and occupied and sealed by a stone. It indicates that he that goeth forth and bearing pre- cious seed shall come bringing sheaves, but they will be paid for with tears. No weeping, no reaping. "And they who found in our land The power that rules from sea to sea, Bled they in vain, or vainly planned. To leave their country great and free? Their sleeping ashes from below Send up the thrilling murmur, No!" All noble things are hard to do. Every heroic act has its price. The fare must be paid. If a man gives himself to attain success in business he must [114] FARES, PLEASE give up ease and leisure, and cheerfully pay the fare. The mother who, having lost her way during a heavy snow storm and knowing that she or her babe must perish, wrapped the apparel carefully around her child and heroically dared to die that the child might live. The fare was high, but she paid it. The gift that costs us nothing does us and others the least good. St. Paul tells us that the Macedonian brethren first gave their own selves unto the Lord. They wanted to make an outstanding expression of their religious devotion to a divine cause, and so paid the fare thereof. [115] Chapter XIII THE EVER PRESENT BOY There is a lad here. John 6: 9. There is a lad here. There usually is. He is able to be about. I am calling at a door and am imperfectly understood by a French family. There is a lad present, who is in school, and speaks both languages. The boy is like a page on the floor of Congress, waiting to be used. Eliphalet Nott was riding one day over a coun- try road in Dutchess County, New York, and his horse cast a shoe. It is a lad that tells him that Farmer Potter has a man that can shoe a horse. The gentleman seeking a blacksmith will be best remembered as the president of Union College. He preached a sermon when pastor of the First Pres- byterian Church in Albany on "the Fall of Hamil- ton" in the duel with Aaron Burr. This discourse of great eloquence and power contains the famous passage indicating that in the moment in which the challenge was accepted, Hamilton "was not at his best." This famous address, so timely and vigor- ous, was the chief agency in abolishing dueling. It also made its author president of the institution at Schenectady, New York. He continued in his exalted oflSce for sixty years. With his leadership the college [116] THE EVER PRESENT BOY became the largest in the country, and for a quarter of a century surpassed both Harvard and Yale. As the horseshoeing proceeds, a lad is on hand who is soon joLaed by his brother, to witness the process. Everything is new to children. They are learning the ways of the world. President Nott turned and asked Farmer Potter what he was go- ing to do with the boys, suggesting for them a course of study at Union College. Accordingly both boys, Alonzo and Horatio Potter were sent to this institu- tion and there they graduated with high honors, the one afterward becoming Bishop of Pennsylvania, the other, the Bishop of New York. Alonzo married Dr. Nott's daughter and nine sons were born to them "all men of conscience and leadership who were intent, not on private gain, but on the common good." Clark- son N. Potter was in Congress for twenty years. Howard was one of the founders of the United States Sanitary Commission and incorporator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the American Museum of Natural History, president of the New York Society for Improving the Conditions of the Poor, and founder of the State Charities Aid Asso- ciation. James became a colonel, Kobert, a major- general, Edward, an architect, devoted himself to the study of the housing of the poor and to planning model tenements. Henry became successor to his uncle as Bishop of New York. Eliphalet was presi- dent of Union and Hobart Colleges and William was architect of the Treasury Department at "Washing- [117] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ton. Who can measure the influence that is turned into noblest channels when President Nott has the eye to see, There is a lad here, also his brother? It would do God's work injustice not to send such boys to college. When they review their lives they observe that the forces that enter into the formation of their characters consist of persons. They do not mention rules or maxims, although they were not inattentive to them. Boys are wonderfully adhesive to men that seem big and generous and ap- preciative of them and estimate them at their best. Boys have a strong prejudice in favor of out-spoken- ness. They are stimulated by hopeful praise. The lad here in the text had his resources spoken of with unlikeliness and disparagement, the implica- tion being that nothing would come of them. But the Saviour saw, in what he had, the means of blessing to thousands. The store must have its carrier-boy, the regiment its boy drummer, the river steamer, its call boy, the telegraph office, its boy messenger. Boys are paid in dimes, and for their employers earn dollars. They are the little wheels which make the mighty machine go smoothly and steadily. They fill in the spaces. When anyone detects the noble qualities in boys, they admire the fine qualities in him and at once there is evidence of a kinship of mind between them. In a time of war the nation seems to reach right down to take up young men for immediate use, not sparing the time [118] THE EVER PRESENT BOY for their complete education and preparation. The dominant spirit is military. The soldier is the fore- most citizen, The man of the hour. After our Civil War our President and Governors were men developed on fields of action. New tests have brought out valor. The nation cannot buy the qualities that make the soldier. The price, like that of wisdom, is above rubies. Not in the army alone are young men sought and advanced, but necessarily in other de- partments of life because the country's wants seem so immediate and urgent. Look at the call for men as the country organizes its new possessions, opening up new fields of opportunity in remote islands. This is an inevitable result of revolution. It was so in the Civil War. Men who at the moment are equipped do the work. Duties devolving on young men are growing greater and more important all the while. The designation "Boys in Blue," was applied to them not because it was poetic and alliterative, nor was it used like a diminutive to voice tenderness, as when a man tells us that he has a little wife at home, although it is the good fortune of the ex- pression to carry the color of both these things, but the expression prevailed and could never be dis- placed in the speech of those who saw the companies of soldiers because it stood for a salient fact. It was an army of hoys, a battle front of glowing, glorious youth. [119] THE "WORST BOYS IN TOWN Joseph H. White enlisted in Company A, Second N. H. Volunteers, as a drummer boy at the age of nine years and eight months, and was probably the youngest soldier in the Union Army. J. P. Lyon, who enlisted in the 81st Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, was born in October, 1850, and went to war in Sep- tember, 1861, so that he was not eleven years of age, but only ten. He stood four feet, five inches high. The best authority on the records of the Con- federate Army states that Col. John H. Whallen of Louisville was the most youthful recruit on the Southern side, being but eleven, but in the Northern Army, there were more than twenty boys whose ages were eleven. There was a boy for every uniform. Cornelius H. Regan joined the 19th Mass. Inf. as a member of Co. H when he was a little less than thir- teen and so was twelve. In the Civil War there were one hundred boys who were only twelve. It was a boys' war, just as with the Saviour's blessing, the day, when at one time 5000 men, and at another time 7000 men besides women and children, were fed, was a boy's event. Only a mother's thought- fulness in sending him forth with a little basket in his hand, containing five thin loaves or cakes, and two small fishes, for his mid-day luncheon put him in the way of giving all to Christ, receiving by the Lord's methods more in this life, and in the time to come, everlasting remembrance. Johnny Clem distinguished himself in an en- gagement near the Chickamauga River. He was a [120] THE EVER PRESENT BOY volunteer in the Twenty-second Michigan Begiment of Infantry, and was only twelve years old. He was serving as marker of a regiment in a review at Nashville when he was brought to the notice of Gen- eral Rosecrans, who made him welcome at headquar- ters. He performed faithfully whatever duty was imposed upon him whUe the Army of the Cumber- land was approaching and crossing the Tennessee River, and in the battle of Chickamauga he won for himself the rank of sergeant by a deed of great valor. He had been in the thickest of the fight, and three bullets had passed through his hat, when, sep- arated from his companions, he was seen running with a musket in his hand, by a mounted Confederate colonel, who called out, "Stop, you little Yankee!" The boy halted, and brought his musket to an order, when the colonel rode up to make him a prisoner. With a swift motion, young Johnny Clem brought his gun up and fired, killing the colonel instantly. He escaped, and for this heroic achievement on the battle-field was made a sergeant, put on duty at the headquarters of the Army of the Cumberland, and placed on the roll of honor by General Rosecrans. William H. Davis, Co. A, 158th N. Y. Volunteers, lacked one month of being fourteen, and so was thirteen when he enlisted for three years, and was through with it all by the time he was sixteen. There were seven hundred boys in the Union Army only thirteen years of age. John Daley entered the Reg- [121] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ular Army, became a mounted orderly at fourteen, receiving $13.00 a month, drawing the same rations, clothing, allowances, and everything else to which the largest men in the service are entitled, and there were one thousand boys only fourteen in the Volun- teer Army of the Civil "War. George G. Eussell of Salem won distinction in the great fighting regi- ment the Third Maine Vol. Inf. at fifteen. There were more than two thousand boys in the Union Army at fifteen, and now with each year of age the number in the army mounts right up to the climax when boys at eighteen outnumber those of any other age in the United States Service, at the time of the Civil War, and there were nearly a half milliou of them, and then the number of soldiers of a given age drops away suddenly and rapidly as you ad- vance the years. Boys in Blue obtained their full share of medals of honor which have the word valor iascribed on the cross-bar. Colonel Roosevelt was unable, as he very much de- sired, to receive one of these medals for his charge at San Juan Hill. He was told that he simply did his duty, while Medals of Honor call for special acts of valor, where a man, with marked bravery, acts upon his own initiative, which means more than duty-doing, or obedience to orders. Orion P. Howe, Co. C, 55th 111. Inf., May 19th, 1863, at Vicksburg, although severely wounded and exposed to a heavy fire, persistently remained upon the field of battle un- [122] THE EVER PRESENT BOY til he had reported to General Sherman the necessity of supplying cartridges for the troops under Colonel Malmberg, and he was only fourteen. Nat M. Gwyne entered upon a charge at Petersburg July 30th, 1863, had his arm crushed by a shell and amputated before he had been mustered, and was but fifteen. William H. Horesfall, a drummer boy, Co. 6, First Kentucky Inf., saved the life of a wounded officer lying between the lines of battle, and thus, like those others, re- ceived his medal of honor for a heroic act of his own initiative. Julius Langbein, Co B, 9th N. Y. Inf., whejn he volunteered to go to the aid of a wounded officer, to rescue him from a perilous position was but eleven. Benjamin Levy, Co. G, 1st N. Y. Inf., a drummer boy, went into battle at Glendale, Virginia, with the musket of a sick comrade, and saved the colors of his regiment. WiUiam Magee, a drummer boy of Co. C, 33rd N. J. Inf., in a charge at Murfreesboro, was among the first to reach a field battery of the enemy, and, mounting the artillery horses, brought the guns into the Union line. The vivid way, to represent the possibilities about us, in the boys of today, and to see how near the grammar school period the Boys in Blue were, is to select, one by one, boys who are now the exact age that we find the Boys in Blue actually were then. And these later boys are a trifle more mature, as schools are better, the flag is very much more in evidence, and effective measures are now more widely used, which develop a great deal of patriotic feeling. In his last days. General Grant [123] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN said that boys now would have a like spirit and show an equal devotion. At the dedication of soldiers ' mon- uments, General Sheridan used to make the point in his addresses that The Civil War was fought hy hoys, and not by such grizzled men as are seen in the Grand Army parades. Major Rhea, Commander of the Grand Army, years ago, said in St. Louis that it had been figured out that the average age of enlisted men at the time they entered the service was but a very small fraction over nineteen years. The Union was saved hy hoys. We have, as a result of the Civil War, not only the preservation of the Union and the emancipation of the slaves, but also a knowledge of the power and resources of our nation as exhibited in a gen- eration of boys. Heroism is always modest, and boys with almost every kind of lineage, the son of employer and the son of employee, took the blue clothes out of the same box and the petty distinc- tions of birth and class was discarded like the cast-oflf raiment. They slept under the same blanket and drank from the same canteen. The uniform, which they put on, as if it were a wedding garment, was a great social equalizer. There was one regiment of men of noticeably mature years, the thirty-seventh Iowa, called the Graybeards or the Silver Grays, en- listed for three years, but at the end of two years finding themselves worn out, they petitioned Presi- [124] THE EVER PRESENT BOY dent Lincoln to be relieved. But these very men had 1,500 sons in the Union Army. In 1863, it was found that one-fifth of the entire membership of the Congregational churches of Iowa was in the army. Illinois had one-eighth, Minnesota, one-ninth, whereas in Iowa, one church had two- thirds of her male members in the army, seven churches had one-half, sixteen churches had one-third, and twenty churches had one-fourth. There is usually a larger proportion of boys in the Sunday School than of men in the church, and as a military com- pany was sometimes recruited in a single town, whole Sunday Schools, so far as the older boys were con- cerned, emptied themselves into the army and Entire classes were broken up. The name "Boys in Blue" is instinct with unend- ing life. It is enshrined in the American heart. It is engraven upon the tablets of American history. It shall never perish from the earth. It describes them as they first appeared lined up for duty, and at that initial stage of service they are embalmed in our na- tional recollection. In all languages the terms of affection assume appearance of endearing littleness. Affectionate diminutives abound in them all. As he goes upon the battlefield a soldier speaks of his lit- tle darlings. In old English the word was dearlings, but by a change in pronunciation the word gains in richness. In the use of words there is something like it in the first picture that we have of the Son of God, after His Ascension, and in connection with "signs [125] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN and wonders." He is still called the "Holy Child Jesus," as if the words applied to Him for a fact, in His radiant boyhood, became stereotyped, and in the Book of Eevelation, the name given to Him is the diminutive form of the word Lamb, as if the recollection of Him when actually young was beauti- ful, and the associations of the name were so suggea- tive that it was pleasant to recall Him, not as God's Lamb, but as God's little Lamb. [126] Chapter XIV LITTLE TOUCHES Say now, Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Judges 12 : 6. The small matter of pronunciation seems a very little item to stake life or death to a man upon. It makes no difference how minute the test is if it is sufficient and true to the facts. The sound "th" can- not be pronounced by the Persians, nor by the Ger- man Jews, who put s in the place of t. Frederick Christensen was the person selected for the invidious task of testing the aliens, seamen or passengers who landed at Liverpool claiming they were natives of friendly countries. No man's assertion, even when backed by papers was accepted. There is an unfail- ing test. It is named in the text. The real pitfaU for a foreigner is the pronunciation of the letters "t" and "h," or more deadly stiU, the combination of the two in that diphthong, "th." Germans were asked to pronounce this sentence correctly: "The thieves thought, although they made a terrible mis- take, that their path was smooth and threaded the way to the haven of their hopes, but there were thorns and thistles there." This sentence resulted in thirty arrests. Here is a shorter sentence used as a test, [127] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN which finally settled whether it should be a sentence of 120 days at hard labor for aliens, or a transference to the tower of London: "Thirty-three thousand thieves thrust their thirty-three thousand thistles." Twenty-five persons were convicted by it. Sergt. Channel, who is in the habit of dropping his h's, and Sir Frederick Thesiger were once trying a case about a ship called the Helen. Every time the former men- tioned the vessel he called it the Ellen. Whenever the other counsel mentioned her they called her the Helen. At last the judge, with a quaint gravity, said : ' ' Stop I What was the name of the ship ? I have it on my notes the EUen and the Helen. Which is it?" The name of the ship is one and the same. The dif- ference designated the nationality of the men who pronounced it. The Gileadites said Shibboleth. When they took the passages of the Jordan and the Ephraimite said. Let me go over, this test was used, Say, now. Shibboleth, which means an ear of com, and he would say Sibboleth, which means a heavy burden, for he could not frame to pronounce it right. The hatchet story is the smallest incident in the life of our greatest American. Yet for three generations it has been deemed the truest exhibit of the inner character of Washington. It is quoted as indicative of the man, and is in effect more fruitful than a hun- dred admonitions. When the little angry Yankees walked straight up to the door of General Gage and complained to him in person that his soldiers knocked [128] LITTLE TOUCHES down their snow forts and spoiled their slides, it was in a way a small matter, yet it revealed the American spirit with which the enemy would have to reckon at Lexington, Saratoga, Trenton, and Yorktown. We know that General Gage gave it that interpretation, for he said that the resolute boys would make good soldiers, and that in this country they seemed to breathe in liberty. A man stepped down from a Pull- man car into the arms of a posse of police. He be- lieved he was unknown and could not be identified. It is a common observation that a criminal always makes the wrong move. He is self-conscious and tries too hard to be unknown. A telegram was sent to the station, last before his destination, for a detective in ordinary citizen's garb, to travel the last stage of his journey, in the car with him and alight as he did. This being done the detective said to the policeman, That's your man. The guilty man kept doing some- ing to undo his identity and this marked him. It was like a gratiuitous oath, not wrung from a man by anger, nor called forth by any strong emotion. It came right out of him. It was uttered in reference to a commonplace occurrence and tells the story that it is a part of his everyday language. There are no little habits. There are no petty truths. We Americans are so trained to appreciate big things that we are ill-prepared for the stress the Bible lays on small things. Our thought is so keyed up to contem- [129] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN plate the largest cataract and city, the longest railroad and river, the greatest lake, and a state equaling the area of Germany and the British Isles together that we blink America's greatest fault, which is the crime of waste. This proceeds by littles and they reveal our national character. America cannot think in cents. The slopes abroad are terraced to support and save the fertile loam. It is pitiful to see what efforts are made, to till to its utmost capacity the small spaces on their sky farms and glean the bare pittance of hay and grain. In vain for us the Bible points with com- mendation to the generous widow who put two cop- pers into the treasury thus giving more than all the rest, and she shows her character by a test, which is correct and final. Yet it was a small matter. The publican made a short prayer of seven words and his character was revealed by the very littleness of the test. A minute, artless act is the truest sign. Our Saviour acted on this when he made the test of dis- cipleship, carrying an eternal reward, a cup of cold water. If it had been the gift of $100 to charity, a man educating and clothing a large family by weekly wages might not have it by him. But under any con- ditions he can be kind and considerate and neighborly and helpful. He can have a heart and show it by any means open to him at the moment. We get the best picture of a man when he is unconscious. When saw we thee thirsty ? The man did not know he was being judged. The act was more decisive, being just natural. [130] LITTLE TOUCHES And the Lord said, unto Gideon, I will try them for thee. He used a little test. It worked perfectly. The result was the best possible as Gideon found. It revealed Nature. Let us see how Shibboleth so operates that it be- comes fidly a test. If the Ephraimite had been de- tached before he began to talk and put into the Gileadite's place, it would have been easy for him to say Shibboleth. Gilead from the first heard it pro- nounced Shibboleth. That was example. When he began to pronounce the word he was taught to say Shibboleth. That was practice. When he used the word familiarly and frequently he formed a habit, and the habit established his character as a Gileadite, and it carried a destiny. He formed the habit, and then the habit formed him. The habit actually left a mark on him, so deeply imprinted that it could be easily discerned when he came to frame to pronounce a word right. A man walks across a lawn once. The effect on the grass is not apparent. If he takes the same course day by day he makes a record. The path was not made on the first day, nor on the last, but both days are recorded with the others in the result. There was the original course taken. This was copy. It became a way of doing, a way, a path, a route, and when worn down deep this route is called a rut. Cut down into the solid lava in Pompeii these ruts appear [131] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN in the narrow paved streets, and these records can never be effaced. They are as imperishable as the en- during material in which they are so deeply registered. In repairing a church in Hartford, the parts needing it were renewed, with the honorable exception of the stone step, worn till it was hollowed out, by the will- ing, faithful feet of the worshipers. The church stone would not have revealed the first foot-prints of a single visitor to that holy shrine. But the record is now there with the rest and the effect on the stone is not even as enduring, as the effect of the visit, on the man that came to the house of prayer. Each of us is now known to his friends by his handwriting. It is as dis- tinctive as his face. It differs from that of the mem- bers of his own family. He himself formed it. Now look at it. It is the product of habit. It will remain charac- teristic of him. Why does not a man use a differ- ent hand writing each new day? He cannot. A leopard cannot change his spots. Nature is against it. A man looking at an unsigned letter can tell at a glance if it is his penmanship. What makes it so dis- tinctive? If he had begun with a different copy, a different teacher, a different ambition, a different pur- pose, his handwriting from the first would have been different. Let us see him entirely change it now. It is like the individuality of old apple trees ia an orchard. They are angular, rigid, irregular. Once at certain points they could have been shaped, but now they are old, as Solomon says. That which is crooked [132] LITTLE TOUCHES cannot be made straight. "When a maid accused Peter of being a Galilean he became excited, and they that stood by, then spoke right up and said, thy speech be- trayeth thee. As he became perturbed his nature was less concealed. The more excited he grew, up to the point of cursing and swearing, the more his original Galilean nature and heritage came stalking out. Every Scotchman, says Sir "Walter Scott, has a pedi- gree. So have our traits, our faults, our excellences, our specialties, and our distinctive marks of character. It is true even of our taste. In the arts we are quite free with our comments. In the pleasures of the table our taste would have been different had we been natives and residents of China or Italy. The black broth of the Spartans was deli- cious to them though loathsome to others. If one will look out broadly upon men and nations, he will observe that people can adopt almost any practice or diet or habit, and custom will make it easy. A person can make long hours, in a business that he likes, and that is prosperous, and habit will make it easy. Habit comes from a Latin word that in the third person sin- gular, when applied to a man, comes pretty near mean- ing. It has him. It means a mode of action so es- tablished by use as to be entirely natural, involuntary, instinctive, unconscious and uncontrollable. It was so with the Ephraimite. For they said unto him, say now Shibboleth and he said Sibboleth, for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Habits are at first cob- webs, then cables. "After these things," the arrest of [133] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Christ, the trial, the crucifixion, the burial, Simon Peter, though an apostle, feeling that they had wit- nessed the closing scenes, said to his associates, "I go a-fishing." When he, by the death of Christ, was left to himself, and restraints were off, habit, sounded a recall to what had become his second nature. This becoming the method, the keynote in a man's life ought to be right. Good music cannot well be made upon a wrong scale, nor with a false keynote. There is a book that has seen service, kept near at hand which if held on its back, on the table between one's hands and then released suddenly will fall open at a passage so impressive, so effective, so incompar- able that it has been much consulted and much ad- mired. It is in the life of Amos Lawrence, who took his final departure from school, at thirteen and entered a store. He became one of the merchant princes of Boston, who have reached high places in the estimate of the world, and have given distinction to the city for its gifts to philanthropy. He was an affectionate, Homeloving hoy, and went often to see his parents in Groton. He would drive thirty-five miles, leaving Boston late Saturday afternoon, reach home about midnight. Sunday, starting after midnight he would arrive in Boston about daybreak, so that his business never suffered from the loss of a single moment of his time. It is on the difference of going just right and a little wrong that Amos Lawrence makes destiny [134] LITTLE TOUCHES turn. "Now, I say, to this simple fact, of starting just right, am I indebted, with God's blessing on my labors, for my present position, as well as that of the numerous connections sprung up around me." The wheel of an engine has dead-points and centres, where the engine can exert no direct power over the machinery. The wheel has to rely on the impulse already received to carry it past the dead- point. So, when staggered by an overwhelming temptation, the soul is at the dead-point, and the force of habit carries us by. [135] Chapter XV "PLEASE SLOW DOWN" According to the pace of the children. Gen. 33 : 14. Kev. Version. Coming down the gang plank as he is landing from the ship a foreigner's first greeting from an American is, Step lively please. It is said that the earliest expression learned from his employer is Hurry up. The Hurry Spirit is now in the saddle, and with a tightly drawn tension things have heen speeding up in every department of life. We are now advancing quick-step. It is the pace that kills. People try to hurry in their minds, and that brings about a confusion and perturbation that are unbear- alble. Captain Fume, a very smart man, is pictured running to and fro, shouting down below, and hailing fore and aft, and producing a tremendous excitement all around in getting his boat under way. His part is to work himself into something of a passion, cause a good deal of a stir, be sure that he is heard in every direction, be all over the boat, impress people and make them hold their breath. He is thought to be a tower of strength. His noise and bluster and vehemence are looked upon as so much propelling power, and the evidence that things are moving. [136] "PLEASE SLOW DOWN" Trains must now scud, running express as if in a race of life or death, not stopping even at the chief stations. "Where does this train go?" exclaimed a breathless, hurrying passenger. "It goes to New York in ten minutes." Good level roads are being built rapidly, as au- tomobiles are geared high and are to go at top speed. Finger boards are supplied so that the car can bowl along at a scorching rate and not stop for foolishness anywhere. Obstacles are an impertinence, and every trip is a hurry call. The lure of the remote and distant is upon us, and we must get there. We have been living fast, and the only change is that we have come to live faster. Now there is at this same hour A children's world. The little dwellers in it have the right to be recog- nized, shielded, and educated. The little child is the important factor in this universe. He is the element of infinite worth. In our nearest school- house there are 750 pupils, the youngest aged four. He, with his possibilities, with his life all before him, is the greatest thing in the world. What is hurry to us, is harsh to him. Of all the signs displayed I like best, the one in Wenham, on the way to Asbury Grove. It has pathos in its entreaty, and tells in fewest words its plea. SCHOOL CHILDREN PLEASE SLOW DOWN When a driver has opened out all the stops and has [137] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN his teeth set, his brow contracted, his gaze fixed, all his powers bent on projecting his swift racer like a cannon ball, willing for speed's sake, to commit suicide in the street, this slogan suggests to a chauf- feur pushing his motor too hard, There are others. Do not sin against the child who is artless, is unsus- pecting, and asks for sympathy and consideration and has a right to them. Children are children aU the world over, and show by their complete similar- ity, that they are entitled to attention as a class. Nature by it, is giving each generation a fresh start. The children's world, unlike ours, does not break up into clans, nor separate into upper and lower circles, nor divide into castes. There is nothing in the Bible more sweet and tender than its pleadings for ths children. They seem to be its adopted children. Our Lord makes the child his client and tells what would better happen to a man than that he should offend one of these little ones. "Boys will be Boys" is sometimes uttered as a form of reproach. Boys ought to be boys. Boys need to be hoys. Any process which seeks to transform them into grave and reverend seniors before their time not only must fail, it ought to fail. "We want it to fail. How can a person make a jest of the deference that is paid by a grandsire to the children of his children. His conduct is the deepest lesson that it is permitted him to give to the world. It says in an [138] "PLEASE SLOW DOWN" acted language, too deeply felt for words, that lie ap- preciates childhood now. He has witnessed what his children have become and sees possiblities in the next generation that he did not belicTe or realize un- til he had witnessed his own children begin, as they did, and then become such factors in the world, some of them earning from the start more salary than he ever received in his life. But in particular he sees that children, when extremely young, are taught most and best, by both precept and example and that they are approached, on their affectional side. He uses now Jacob's method and leads on softly, according to the pace of the children. These grand- parents are conscious of little omissions, and are making some small atonements and taking some new attitudes which come out of their hearts and their deep experiences and their studies, both of human nature and God's word. If they had not gained our confidence, if all barriers to our hearts had not been thrown down, if by them our affections had not been touched, their example, their well directed word, their call to duty or to prayer, would not have had its known effect. Under their influence did we have religious feeling. There can be no religious feeling without religious life. There, in the atmosphere of love, were signs in us of religious life, and we so yoHng. It was for them A great religious opportunity, greatly used. That religious impression, if not received then, would never have come at all. A message received at twenty- [139] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN one would have been different. To have been without our first impressions of God, of the heavenly life, of the practice of prayer, and of its answers, of sin, its confession, and its forgiveness would have been a loss that never could be later supplied. They became the message from another world to a child and were so understood, and thus left an imprint never to be effaced. When we were at a plastic age, if we had not received those religious impressions we should never have had them, and it would have been our greatest loss, as they are a reality at this hour. We should have had an address, made by some later individual, but this would have meant the loss to us, of what we received then, and have carried every day since, and shall have in our experience at every turn of life, liv- ing or dying. Coming to us in the person of our grand-parents The Spirit, to use Jacob's phrase in our text. Led on softly according to the pace of the children. That dis- tinguished New England pastor and writer, whose influence, on the ministers of English churches has been greater than that of all other American divines together, says with much emphasis. Let every Chris- tian father and mother understand, when the child is three years old, that they have done more than half of all they will ever do for his character. More is done on the child's immortality in the first three years [140] "PLEASE SLOW DOWN" of his life than in all his years of discipline after- ward. There is one type of address to boys and girls that is of amazing and unfailing interest to them, and that is a vital recital of an experience of our own when we were of their age. They will know in- stantly by its marks if it is true of their time of life, and if it is and has a point in it their welcome and their delight are obvious. Children can start only from themselves. They have not traveled widely, they have no ex- perience in business, not of advanced life, and if others will enter into their world and tell about themselves, when they were little, and be at home with them, instead of trying to drag them out of their world, they seem to feel an extravagant joy. If a grown person will take some notice of their sled, making them feel all the while that it is distinctly theirs and will give it direction, will help them about their snow fort or snow man, the memory and the good influence of the delightful companionship seems to go on with them, as Kipling said, to the children always and always and always. An adult stepped out of his world into theirs and for a few moments it was a good thing for him and them, for he, like Jacob, led on softly according to the pace of the children. A child will cry when brought into a com- pany where everyone is strange. He has no connec- tion with anybody or anything, and is uninterested and alarmed. A chief justice of the United States [141] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN appeared on Sunday at the door of a church at the beginning of children's service. The speaker, in dismay, told him that it was an appointment an- nounced and that he feared it would have to be kept, and the great man said, "Then I will become a little child." That was Christ's desire for him, as for us all, and the boys and girls felt honored and were overjoyed to have him unbend and enter their world and company with them according to the pace of the children. In the memorial of Doctor G. W. Hos- mer,* he was sent, it appears, when twelve to drive a flock of sheep to a pasture thirty-six miles distant. He spent the first night at his uncle's and was lifted up with the praise which his smartness elicited from his uncle and his aunt, and so started on rejoicing. By the middle of the forenoon one of the sheep was tired out. She lay down and gave up. He held her up and tried, in all ways, to push her along, but it was useless. He had to leave her with Gen. Gardner, of Bolton. Five miles further along two other sheep gave out and gave up. His instructions did not provide for tired sheep. The whole thought was on the destination. Even teachers tell children what they want to have done, but do not indicate definitely enough about the inter- mediate processes. The answer to a problem is printed in the book, the difficulty however is in work- ing it out. All are agreed about the final result, but the mind gets upset in the confusion of unlocked * Page 30. [142] "PLEASE SLOW DOWN" for details. Boys are to be men and we, at the start begin to think of them, in terms of that end, and if the fact is revealed, that a boy is not a man, the exclamation is, "Oh, you baby," and this is neither fair nor decent. Jacob undertook no forced march, no dash for the pole, but led on softly according to the pace of the children. The pace is set by a child, like the little fellow that acts as coxswain in a boat. Small as he is, he does the steering and sets the pace. Now, boys, hit her up, and eight great muscular men, moving in exact rhythm will cause their long oars to rise and fall with exactness, and the boat to pierce its way like a dart. If any member of the crew is list- less, and glances at the crowd on the shore, his un- sparing command is. Eyes in the boat. And this association of the big, with the little, is a great pleas- ure and blessing to the little if as, with Jacob, the fact is kept in mind that younger persons are com- panying with us and we must govern ourselves in view of that fact. On the links for golf, thoughtless and excitable persons need to rule their conduct, their speech, their disuse of Sabbath hours, heeding, first of all, what is best for the youngest. As the social pace gets faster and faster, the family trend needs to be slackened according to the pace of the children. The conversation like water will seek its own level and flow progressively around the children. Let us reverence their simplicity, their good- humored honest joys, their unworldliness, their un- suspicious friendship, and pray that we may grow [143] THE "WORST BOYS I¥ TOWN into its likeness, be converted and become as little children. The reason why so many of our great abolitionists and reformers are so fractious and scold so unmercifully is because they do not distinguish between manufacture and growth. Dry dead timber can be carved and soon finished, but in growth Nature must have her time. Farmers who are near to Nature do not seek to hurry her. Clarkson and Wilberforce and others agitated thirty years, before the British nation, and then more promptly than ourselves, came to consciousness that negroes were not chattels. In our schooldays, the seeds of reform, in temperance were being diligently sown, and only recently, helped by the war, also by the unwillingness of people to have a chauffeur partly drunk drive an automobile (a thing that has been freely granted in the matter of a horse), has the har- vest seemed to be ripening rapidly. All great things must have their time. The best grow slowest. The forcing habit is a mistake. Be- ware of the short cut to wealth. Scholars are not made in a day. In developing a fine animal for good service the trainer, like Jacob, leads on softly. Thou hast made summer, said the psalmist, but the ad- vance is so gradual, the creative days are so many, and so long, and men are so impatient to move rapidly, that it travesties the Scripture, to speak of a man's walking with God. The man strikes a gait that is inconsistent with a calm spirit, with serenity, and with quiet reverential ways. [144] "PLEASE SLOW DOWN" The most painful episode in the life of St. Paul came from the flat refusal to look with leniency upon the fitful conduct of immature Mark. He had dis- appointed St. Paul's expectations, who felt he had difficulties enough without involving himself any further with the inconstancy of youth. The great- est Apostle of them all, appears at the least ad- vantage, in an attempt to solve the practical problem. How to deal with the young. The first dissension in the early church was over the method of treating with young disciples. Mark's de- fection was simply boyish. Things were not going to suit him and he may have preferred to be at home, had had enough and simply quit. Paul was intolerant. We are not vindicating Mark; we cannot, but he was young. The older and greater the apostle became the less did he seem fitted to get along with youth, who have the traits that go with the lack of years. Paul led in a sharp eontension and those who had been friends departed asunder, the one from another. This Scripture teacheth. Keep together, keep sweet, face the facts including, in some cases, the youthfulness of the young. This earliest quarrel between church workers has been repeated in their age from that day to our own, and the issue has been the same. The party of the first part feels that a boy ought to be- have like a man, that a new recruit ought to count as a tried and seasoned warrior, while the party of the second part, knoweth our frame, remembereth that we are dust, and that the companions of apostles are [145] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN boys before they are men. Mark could have given no higher praise to Barnabas than has just been given to a champion of the boys of whom they said, "He is the man that understands." The man who adheres to them, while at the same time he thoroughly knows their qualities, including their frailties. [146] Chapter XVI PAUL JR. And when Paul's sister's son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle and told Paul. Acts 23:16.* I could stand before that sterling boy hat in hand. We are taught to "rise up before the hoary- head" and to reverence age, but I honor a boy that has a quick mind, real courage and a prompt decision to do, himself, the thing that must be done. One of the commonest errors, as in this incident, is for per- sons to say things, and to act themselves out, with the delusion that all will go unheeded because the witness is so young. Here is the indication that Paul's sister's son, whose name is not given, it may have been Paul Jr. or, more properly, Paul Second, was far from being grown ; otherwise these wily men would never have handed out the means of their own defeat. They under-estimate a boy. The whole community sometimes finds that it has done this. A church, a teacher, a Sunday School may do it. It would have been possible for a visitor, in Dr. Wil- liam Salter's Sunday School to have undervalued a * ScriptTiTe Lesson, Acts 23:12-29. [147] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN bare-footed boy, who sat there, little Sammy Byers, who afterward wrote the great war-song, which gave even the name to the campaign, "Sherman's March to the Sea." At the celebration of the fiftieth anni- versary of Dr. Salter's pastorate. Consul Byers, who wrote what is called the "State Song of Iowa," which has been adopted by fifteen hundred schools and colleges in that Commonwealth and that pearl among books of travel, "Switzerland and the Swiss," boasted that he still owned a Testament which was given him in Dr. Salter's Sunday School for com- mitting Bible verses to memory. And in the same typical Sunday school was a boy, subject to under valuation, named John M. Corse, to whom later General Sherman signalled: "Hold fast. We are coming." For at Altoona 2,700,000 rations were stored, being three weeks' supply of bread for Sher- man's whole army, and to retain this provision was a question of life or death. Gen. French, a Con- federate, sent a message to Gen. Corse, demanding his surrender to "save a needless effusion of blood," and allowed Gen. Corse five minutes for deliberation, to which the Sunday School scholar replied that he was ready for the "needless effusion of blood" when- ever it was agreeable to General French, and the as- sault began. Again the signalling came, "Tell Altoona, 'Hold on. General Sherman says he is working hard for you;' " and General Sherman said, "I know he will hold out, for I know the man." Although as General [148] PAUL JE. Corse said, "My losses are very heavy," one-third of the entire command, and he was "short a cheek- bone and an ear," he had the grit to "hold the fort ;" and this gave P. P. Bliss the song and fame that went round the world and came back in Chinese. One of the last of P. P. Bliss' compositions, the one he sang at Rome, N. Y., only two nights before his tragic death in a railroad horror at Ashtabula Creek, was "Hold Fast Till I Come," which was almost the exact words of one of Sherman's signals to John M. Corse. Pass not by that child unheeding; Smile upon him. Mark me, when He's grown old he'll not forget it; For, remember, boys make men. Let us try to add some pleasure To the life of every boy ; For each chUd needs tender interest In its sorrow and its joy. The eyes and heart of St. Paul's sister must have overflowed when she knew that her young son, probably, had saved the life of the great apostle by doing a task that even she could not have done. When forty wicked, determined men, with an adroit plan, had banded together and bound themselves un- der a curse that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul, his sister's son knew of their lying in wait and went and entered into the castle and told Paul. There is almost a mother's familiar [149] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN kindness, an exceeding tenderness in Paul's conduct as he handed the genial, open-hearted boy, every- body's friend, along without any word of admonition or guidance whatever, to go on alone with his efforts to save Paul's life. That boy with native ingenuity will make his way and his mark in the world. All the little things about him reveal high breeding. I see in him the influence of his mother, who was trained in the same household with St. Paul and had exactly the same rich inheritance of mind and heart. Lysias, perceiving at a glance his value, took him by the hand and, continuing to hold his hand, went aside privately and asked him, What is that thou hast to tell me? What a human touch is given when the boy, having superior steadiness, stability, and deference to older persons, yet a boy, before completing his errand, or even stating his case, drops in a word of advice to the chief captain. That's the hoy of it. His ingenuous eye looks unflinchingly into his. No lie or equivocation falters from his lips. With native notions of right and wrong, he loved jus- tice with the true first love of a high spirited boy, and the lad, the earnest boy tells the chief captain, But do not thou yield unto them. A boy has less humbug about him than his elders. A boy, too, has less fear. A physician will say that in a critical illness a boy is the more likely to pull through, for, unlike the man, he does not, to the malady, add worry and fear [150] PAUL JR. that he may not live. A boy makes a surprising re- covery when, as the expression indicates, a man literally is frightened to death. Boys are soldiers, have courage, that quality that makes them heroes. They do not hold themselves back from exposure to danger. Their minds being clarified from fears and forebodings, and all the attending difficulties, their instincts are prompt in emergencies. Their career you can judge with a fair degree of accuracy in ad- vance. All the perfections seem bound up in them. You do not fear for their welfare ; you feel that they will be successful on the high lines of life. Oh, toys, hoys. You do not know what admiration is felt when you, like Paul Jr., take up a difficult and important task and do it well. You have opportunities that are not given to your elders just as Jonathan's little lad was better suited to his work than a man. The advantage is with the boy. When the conspirators against his uncle's life, talk over their program in his hearing, with perfect oblivion of him, he has an hour and an opportunity afforded him only because he is a boy. So was it when a lad, unnoticed by Gentral Lee, overheard his conversation on meeting some of the members of his staff on the streets of Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, when he said to them that he had de- cided to march to Gettysburg instead of Harrisburg. It is a matter of common knowledge that the great struggle of the Rebellion turned upon the battle of [151] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Gettysburg. General Lee, reenforced by General Longstreet, had determined upon his second invasion of the North. The lamentable disasters at Freder- icksburg and Chancellorsville had produced a de- pressing effect upon the country at large. Our national currency, which is quick to detect the feel- ings of the popular heart, ran right down to its minimum in value. Volunteering began to flag. Desertions from our army had never been so fre- quent. General Lee promised his followers the cap- ture of Philadelphia, Baltimore, or "Washington. The condition of things was desperate. Our national leaders were thoroughly alarmed. It was their darkest day. The boy, hearing the conversation waited to see that the movements confirmed the con- versation. This they did. With feet like hind's feet he pressed his way to the telegraph office, and wired the utterably import- ant tidings to Governor Curtin. The great and good war governor, quick as thought, ordered out a locomotive without any cars to hinder its flight, to speed like the wind along the track to bring the boy that had heard General Lee talk in that way. The detached engine is said to have flown at the rate of sixty miles an hour. The little bashful boy, a farmer's son, soon stood in the governor's imposing presence. Gathering about, the governjOr's friends were trembling with excitement. The boy recited the facts just as they occurred. The governor looked [152] PAUL JR. anxiously into the faces of his friends, and said, "I would give my right hand to know that this boy tells the truth." Now, there chanced to be a corporal at head- quarters who knew the boy, and he said, "Governor Curtin, I know that boy. I lived in the same neighborhood with him, and it is absolutely impossible for him to lie. There is not a drop of false blood in his veins." In five minutes an order reached headquarters, and in fifteen minutes the troops were pushing their way toward Gettysburg; and when they came into proximity to the place of engagement, enthusiasm spread like an infection, and the men, with a cheer, went up into the line of battle on a run. More men were left dead upon this best-marked field, in point of monumental work in all the world than perished on both sides in the Franco-Prussian War; and when, on the third of July, our troops were victorious, and General Lee began his retreat, he said sadly, ' ' This is the beginniag of the end. ' ' General Horace Porter has indicated the fact that Gettysburg seems to be the banner battle-field for the adventures of boys, and attributes it to the fact that this engagement was fought near a good- sized town and in a thickly populated section of coun- try, and non-combatants of all kinds intermingled with the troops. From him we learn that General Hancock used to tell of a boy scarcely six years old, who, in the [153] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN midst of the fighting, was seen coming toward him with a musket which he was dragging across the field, not having the strength to carry it. When near enough to speak, a feeble little voice, that could scarcely be heard amidst the rattling of musketry, the roar of artillery, and the shouts of struggling men, cried out: "Here's my papa's gun. Papa is dead, but here's his gun. Somebody else must shoot it. Papa can't shoot it any more." The father, like other patriotic citizens who lived there, had taken part in the defence of the town. The child had strayed after him, and seemed to know that the gun ought not to be idle on such a day. As the general heard the boy's story, and spoke a kindly word, and ordered him to be taken to a place of safety, "some- thing on the soldier's cheek washed off the stains of powder." What unconscious preparations are now pro- ceeding in life. Unwittingly boys are being prepared to give guidance to governors, and chief captains, and to stand in heroic positions. Nothing will re- enforce a boy in a crisis-time of his life like a char- acter established in the truth. That symbolic character of our country. Uncle Sam is pictured in the act of greeting the boys that lately went to war to make existence safe for the smallest nations, with the words, Oh, How do you do? I have seen you before in 1776, in 1812, in 1861 and I am glad to see you now in 1917. The heroic age of [154] PAUL JR. the Eevolution is only four generations removed from us, and the heroisms we are reviewing are but one. The boy is now living somewhere in the land who will see the last member of the Grand Army of the Republic laid away to sleep in his deep, narrow, windowless home. He will be tenderly cherished by a grateful country, because he is the last link which will bind the land to a glorious past. The country's welfare will then have passed into hands warmed by hearts that are now young. At the Philadelphia Exposition, America's most popular picture, The Spirit of '76, now preserved in Abbott Hall at Marblehead, was admired for its remarkable natural- ness and for the story it portrayed. It is un- doubtedly the most widely reproduced work of any American artist, with the possible exception of Stewart's portrait of Washington. The scene is laid at the battle of Monmouth. An aged fifer advances with evident determination to the fray, his gray locks streaming in the wind. A drummer-boy by his side is looking sidewise anxiously into the old man's face, and catching from him the tune and the step of the music of liberty. The boys so far have never failed the nation. They will not fail it now. Give them passion for their country, for the church, for books, for business, for teaching, for mechanics, and you give them a lever with which to lift the world. [155] Chapter XVII THE SOUND AND ROBUST HAVE NO MONOPOLY The Lame Take the Prey. Isa. 23 : 33. In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, early in the last century, three men held a place of unrivaled pre-eminence, Wellington, Scott and Byron. Caledonia, stern and wild, was a meek nurse for a poetic child and the genius of Scotland embodied in Sir Walter Scott gave him his passport to fame and the world's applause. The Scotch thistle, a wayside weed, he promoted into universal botany and it now blooms, less prickly than of yore, in the gardens of the world. The Life of Napoleon produced to the author, or rather to his creditors, about ninety thousand dollars; an amount for a single work unprecedented in the annals of literature. Byron conducts his readers through scenes of sur- passing splendor and, for eloquent expression of sentiment, and for poetical beauty, has no peer among writers of the English school, and for a few years, it seemed as if the world had but one great poet. Now these two out of three acknowledged leaders were visibly, painfully lame, and as for Arthur Wellesley, The Duke of Wellington, the [156] THE SOUND AND ROBUST HAVE NO MONOPOLY representative of Ireland, he was under-vitalized, having very indifferent health, and his noticeable inferiority was no small concern to his widowed mother. He had little or no enthusiasm for play, never engaged in it and when his comrades sallied forth with shouts and buoyant spirits he came lag- ging out of the school room into the play-ground, in the center of which, was a large walnut tree against which he used to lounge and lean. The first intima- tion that his mother had that he had left the school in which he had been placed was the decisive one, of seeing him in a public place, causing her to ex- claim, almost angrily as she had not seen him for two years, I do believe there is My ugly hoy Arthur. He gave no indications of being cast in the heroic mould, and a thing that then seemed, as unlikely as for the sun to stand still upon Gideon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, happened when he vic- toriously brought the terrible conflict, which had lasted twenty-two years, to a termination by defeating Napoleon on the field of Waterloo. When the great world-war was at its height, we held our text with confidence for on the side of the Allies Field-Marshall Sir Douglas Haig was color blind which was so serious an obstacle that he was re- fused entrance to the Staff College, while on the side of the Central powers, to say nothing of the Kaiser with a withered arm, biographers of Hindenberg, [157] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN founder of the famoias Hindenberg line having many of the same relations that Mason and Dixon's Line maintained in the Civil War, lacked the common power of calculation. In the city of Clogaji where his father was stationed as an officer, this note may be seen in the school attended by the great warrior, in arithmetic the dullard of the class. Martin Luther was not strong on verbs, and he was flogged fifteen times in one forenoon over one conjugation. Another one-sided man was Prescott, the historian, who had to be wholly excused from geometry. Distinctly proper, perfect people are never favorites. They never get votes. The work of the world is not done by them. Senator Gore, from Oklahoma, at eight, lost one of his organs of vision by a blow from a play- mate, and the other by an arrow from a cross bow. Notwithstanding this he had to withdraw from his earliest candidacy for the legislature because of his minority. Judge Quentin D. Corley, Probate Judge of Douglas County, Texas, has attained a fine character, won success as a lawyer, and distinguished himself as a competent and efficient judge, although he lost both hands in a railway accident when he was twenty-one. "We can conceive a living man, without an arm or leg, but not without a head. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Nature always tries, often with great success, to make amends for all bodily imperfections and im- pediments. Marshal P. Wilder, dropped by his [158] THE SOUND AND ROBUST HAVE NO MONOPOLY nurse, hence a dwarf, became one of the princes of entertainers, and the entertainer of princes, and ■worth $100,000. The lame take the prey. Edison recites the advantages of his deafness, as it en- ables him to concentrate his thoughts without the dis- tractions to which others are subjected. Readers of biography almost reach a point, where they look upon drawbacks in early life as necessary to future greatness. There can be no doubt that overcoming difficulties is a training and an education which no amount of mere scholastic teaching can supply. Success comes from the reserve mental energy which all men possess. No one thinks he has used all the mental energy he has, or could have. "They say best men are moulded out of faults." There are few persons living but wish that their color, their looks, or stature, or temperament, or memory, or endurance, or physical make-up was dif- ferent from what it is. When a perfectly self- satisfied, self-complacent individual appears, he often has, in that fact alone, a defect that other persons note with revulsion, and which they pity most of all. Imperfect men, working as evangelists, gather the ripened harvests. Work on the farm is done by horses having points that could be improved, and the best that can be said about the winners in races is that all shapes run. The prevalence of unsoundness would be more obvious than it is, except for the fact, that much is done to obscure these imperfections, and [159] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN it is the acme of all bad manners on the part of one's associates, to allude to them, or draw the attention of others to them. A lady met Byron then a little child, out with a nurse, and exclaimed to her, "What a pretty boy. What a pity he has such a foot. ' ' The words were like the bite of a serpent or the stroke of a dagger. He shook his childish whip at her, with a passion of tears, and cried, "Dinna, Dinna speak of it." Channing was a chief factor in establishing one of our religious denominations. He was a great force in the world, and his writings seem so mighty and weighty that a person is in no mood to find that he weighed but one hundred pounds. The reader will not have it so, and almost refuses to go from great effects to their apparently negligible cause. In many homes Dr. Theodore Cuyler has supplied a good share of the religious nutrition. His writings once covered the country like the leaves in autumn. After a person who loves devotional reading has left, at a book store, the order for anything by Dr. Cuyler, and has read his pages by thousands, as his fugitive articles have been given to the world by millions, he meets him in the railway station. 7s that he? How then did he take such fine large pictures ? The photographers, unasked, moved the camera up close to him. The boyhood of men now living was cheered and entertained by the writings of the Burlington Hawk- eye man, who was more widely quoted than the fl60] THE SOUND AND ROBUST HAVE NO MONOPOLY classics. He wrote a lecture about two hours long and was deemed by some of the Lyceum and lecture bureaus, as on the whole the best thing on the market. When he appeared on the platform before a wondering, expectant audience only five feet three inches in height, having as he said no voice, no pres- ence, no gestures, no training as a speaker, his pro- nounciation faulty, and his grammar uncertain, his hearers approve the text. The lame take the prey. For this diminutive man, having entered the ministry, Sunday after Sunday for six years, crowded the great auditorium at Los Angeles. Isaac Watts stood only five feet and his smallness was emphasized by his slendor form. But the reason the lame take the prey is well told in his familiar verse, given offhand to a man who commented contemptuously upon his little- ness, that he must be measured by his soul. The mind's the stature of the man. There is a law of compensation which provides that when a person cannot hunt, cannot go actively afield and engage in the chase, he can, like the Shakers cut off from their earlier means of livelihood, become peculiarly suc- cessful in the manufacture of traps. The lame take the prey. They get the results. The Bible of a boy, like the iron gate of Peter's prison, opens of its own accord, to the story of David and Goliath, in which the conquest of skill over mere rude strength is described. The giant of six cubits and a span may strut and boast, the well-favored Apollo may be [161] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN addled with adulation, but they have no exclusive sure grip on the prizes. The lame take the prey. When Professor Arminius Vambery was asked by the Empress Eugenie how he travelled through Asia with a defective foot, he answered, "Oh, your Majesty, one does not walk on his feet, but on his tongue." Those who are lame, by a great resolve, otherwise by sheer necessity, are forced to wake up their faculties and shake out the talent hid in a napkin. This new increment of activity, this compensation is often so marked as to cause the sufferer, like Saint Paul, with a thorn in the flesh, to glory in his infirmities. St. Chrysostom tells us that the great apostle was "a little man about three cubits (or four feet and a half) in height." Oh, I like the Lord for that trans- figuration in human experience. Shine on, Christ of God, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of those Thou hast anointed. If an angel were sent to find the most perfect man he would probably find him in a cripple having a lower thought of himself than others have of him. Timothy, whom Saint Paul calls his son, had notoriously bad health and the apostle has drawn attention to his often infirmities, became the youngest of the bishops. Here is another element in success. It is of the soul, spontaneous, outbursting. The Cicero of Chi- cago, the Chrysostum of the western pulpit, exclaims, "I have been sick two years, thank God," and breaks out soon again, "I thank God for my sickness." [162] THE SOUND AND ROBUST HAVE NO MONOPOLY What, thankful for a severe, trying, painful, bodily limitation? So he said with great emotion, and with moving pathos. A person is not inclined to that form of expression unless it has a meaning. Jacob's sinew shrank. He halted on his thigh. He carries in himself the memorials of conflict. But, as the narrative states, the sun rose upon him. His name was changed to Israel. "We have been made familiar with the case of Byron, who had a servant in Greece whose name was Demetrius, a servant who above all living men was thought to be a coward. Byron, in his lordly jollity, used to set Demetrius upon a crazy horse for the purpose of laughing at his fears, and Demetrius, in very deed, would have walked a mile, to avoid facing any dog that ever barked. He was a coward, and yet that man, fired with patriotic ardour, opening himself to the inspirations of patriotic zeal, led the assault against Athens, and with incredible prowess delivered the city from the Turks. A new spring was touched. Moral heroism displaced physical fear. Living in misfortune, advanced in years, Milton, though blind, entered upon the composition of his great epic which was to determine his future fame. In six years he had realized the object of his hopes and prayers by the completion of Paradise Lost. His task was done. The field of glory was gained. He held in his hand his passport to immortality. A counterpart of this picture is Walter Scott at nearly [163] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the same age, his private affairs in ruin, testing him- self in a different field from the one in which we have seen him, undertaking hy intellectual labors alone to liquidate a debt of $585,000. Both tasks in life may be classed with the morally sublime. Glory, pure and unsullied, was the ruling ambition and motive of Milton, honor and integrity formed the in- centives to Scott. But they, the lame, take the prey. Their aim was clear and understood, and their realization was exact and complete. The world's superlative gift is affection. Pity is the straight road to a woman's heart. "She Don't Care for Me." How did ever this suggestive expres- sion come into use? Here one evidently designs to affirm that no particular affection exists, and yet this is not what he says. He only denies the care. The implication is — and its basis is a deep principle in human life — that when one cares for another, nature soon supplies an affection. Unfortunate mothers who must give away their children find it easiest to do so at the child's birth. After a mother begins to care for the child her affection takes hold and will not let go. The children of wealthy parents who are surrounded by numbers of attendants and are handed over first from one to another frequently grow up with weak and unstable affections. Out of a family, that sufferer is missed most, who has made the great- est demands upon a mother's sympathy and time. We discern here a wise provision of nature. All of [164] THE SOUND AND ROBUST HAVE NO MONOPOLY her tasks are to be done in love. When care com- mences love begins. And so regnant is this principle in human life that its sway is acknowledged in one of the commonest expressions of every-day life. Now we cannot deny the care of God. Planning for us in His providence, and caring for us daily, by a law of mind that prevails throughout the universe, we may be assured that He loves us. The working of the principle increases the sum of His love. If He cares for us He loves us, and if He loves He cares for us. And as feeble babes that suffer, Toss and cry, and will not rest, Are the ones the tender mother Holds the closest, loves the best; So, when we are weak and wretched. By our sins weighed down, distressed, Then it is that God's great patience Holds us closest, loves us best. Seeing there is so much that is mysterious about the life to come, it is a great' comfort to be told plainly that the inhabitant of that land shall not say, "I am sick." In the presence of Jesus the lame walk. At His touch the lame were healed. "Oh, mother," said a crippled boy, when they talked to him by his bedside of suffering, concerning Heaven, "Oh, mother, shall I be straight there?" And she quieted him with this text, "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." [165] Chapteb XVIII BECOMING A LADY And thou saidst, I shall be a lady. Isa. 47 : 7. "It is demonstrated that the brain of the man is larger than the brain of the woman," said a gentle- man professor to a class of young ladies at school. "Now, what does that prove?" "It proved," said a bright member of the class, "that the world is gov- erned by quality and not quantity." Mr. Stead believed that the raling influences come from the picked "half million." A man who made a fortune in purchasing land had as one rule, Buy quality. With land or horses or apparel or labor quality comes high. A broker may deal in coarse commodities, but when procuring supplies for himself he covets quality. The man who developed The Concord Grape did more for the country than though he had paid the national debt. One of his factors was the common wild grape. To the vigor of this, which gave vitality at the start, he added the Isabella to get his quality. I shall be a lady is the expression of the intensest desire of one's being for excellence. In it there is no hostility to the nicer members of the other sex. It is not to become a premature old woman, it is not obeisance to Mrs. Grundy whose [166] BECOMING A LADY censorship admits one to good society only after a loss of the fresh tone of youth, of spontaneity, spirit, vivacity, and of individual charm as Samson shorn of his locks was brought before the lords of the Philistines to make sport for them. It is said of some nations that they know no childhood. Children become little men and women as soon as they can flirt and strut. They think their chief sin is their youth. Many girls begin all too soon to uncon- sciously rehearse for the real drama to come by and by. Keal quality cannot be hid. It is different. There is always a fine way of doing a thing. It is as " unconcealable as fire." It is not to be bought with a price. It must grow. When a new chapter opens in her life, which harmonizes with a secret longing of her nature, that she understands not, and scarcely thinks of asking herself why, then is brought to pass a sudden recognition of all that she has be- come. In all nations women ornament themselves more than men. The taste for dress, a graceful decoration of the person, is, to a certain de- gree, instinctive and there is no reason to think that it ought to be wholly repressed. A person cannot begin the refinement of this taste too early. Its lack of previous cultivation is seen in the "new rich," who put on such outstanding colors as we associate with savages. "Too much adult" according to one judge is the bane of growing girls. They have a right to [167] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN be just girls, until they get their color, their apple- cheek bloom, their health, their taste, their intelli- gence, their pretty manners, their ideal. It is sometimes said of a man, he missed his calling. It will be probably said of you if you attempt to become another Joan of Arc. This gallant young maid, mounted on a fiery steed, rallied a disheartened army and under adverse conditions, led it to vic- tory, and raised the siege of Orleans. She is the finest character in the Middle Ages of France and by conquests and abilities rose from a peasant's hut to a royal palace. While conceding her excellencies, she is devoid of that loveliness and of those feminine qualities which the world has come to associate with the members of the better sex. We are all, men and women, better for the little attentions, for the courtesies, the feeling of chivalry toward ladies, the gallantries which give them the best seats and priority everywhere. It is not unearned nor unde- served. The public schools, so an educational writer aflSrms, are inadequately supplied with womanly ideals. He finds that a majority of young women hold to masculine aims, that a large per cent., openly assert they would prefer to be men. When the boys go off to college or to enter business, the girls feel that they are without an equal incentive. It is exactly at this stage of their lives that ladyship, the eternal feminine, exemplified at its best, should be made attractively to engage their attention. [168] BECOMING A LADY In the battle of Monmouth where "Washington seems more distinctly human than elsewhere in his career, an American gunner was killed, with no one competent to take his place. Accordingly that piece of artillery was ordered removed. But the gunner's wife, aged 22, Dropped the bucket, with which she was carrying water to the soldiers and worked the gun with both skill and courage. Next morning she was presented, by General Greene, to "Washington, who was so pleased with her bravery that he gave her a commission and had her name put on the pay list for life. And the fame of Molly Pitcher per- vaded the army and country. Six women have won commissions in our military service. One girl at thirteen enlisted as drummer boy. Another girl at fourteen, and one at sixteen, went to the front and deported themselves gallantly, but even their martyr spirit, exhibited in this form, does not seem to im- press us as ideal. "When men were supine and drunkeries were lawless and defiant, with good purpose and indom- itable spirit, in Kansas, a woman took the law and hatchet into her own hands and hewed her way right through the saloons into national and world- wide fame. But in those same days, escorted by groups of children, contesting with one another, the right to have a side, that is the privilege to walk next to her, on the way to school, the young lady teacher [169] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN was threading the streets and the country turnpikes doing an office an angel might covet. She inspired the young spirits whom she taught with the evil and waste of the saloon, and as soon as these youths could take time to grow up they made themselves felt and put the saloon in most localities out of commission. Plant your reforms in the schools. And we are able to designate politicians who were repairing their fences and overlooking what was going on in the schools, who do not to this day know how, in the matter of temperance sentiment, the revolution hap- pened. The saloon is not only doomed, hut the form of the handwriting on the wall, is ladylike. The teacher did it, yet her mission is to spare her delicacy. Her spirit, however, is not abated. A lady is a lady in every land. Sweeping through her life is the cur- rent of a great purpose. It concentrates every energy and it gives her power. She reveals the way to interest others, and to become in one's self, interesting. It is to be intensely interested. A smashade, only by an individual, of Carrie Nation type, must be local and limited. But a ground swell of sentiment can be best occasioned by the intelli- gence, the resolution, and the lovely influence of the comely, carefully educated, well-groomed teacher whose precepts so dominate her scholars that their hearts incline them to say, whatever the teacher says, goes. And that teacher is more magnetic and in- [170] BECOMING A LADY fluential and effective than she would ever hecome as an imitation man. Many women in England seem to be overwhelmed with regret at not being bom men. They seem to spend their time and ingenuity in at- tempting to atone for Nature's mistake. Their hats and gloves and stout shoes and swinging gait, with hands thrust into the pockets of their ulsters are the same as the men's. As much as possible some mas- culine garment is taken and draped and adapted to the female figure. This is a reform against Nature which decrees that with advancing civilization the sexes shall not approximate, but differentiate. Becoming a lady does not aim at what the Eng- lish style fine ladyism of the Flora McFlimsey type. This languid, useless, showy, human flower or but- terfly seems born only to flutter in the sunshine and court attention. This counterfeit takes great pride, like the male members of the savage race, in the smallness and unused look of her hands. Pine lady- ism, marked chiefly by leisure and social display, uses the word lady as it is in grammar, the feminine cor- relative of the word lord. Some boys felt that the word lady, as thus used, did not meet their need, when they voted that Miss Blank was a gentleman and by them a lady has just been characterized as a perfect gentleman. Dr. McKenzie, of Cambridge, an orator, in setting out an ideal for the emulation of girls could not lead them toward fine ladyship, ex- onerated from the duties of life, as there is no neces- sary relation between weakness and beauty, urged [171] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN them to acquire the qualities of a perfect gentleman. On a very recent occasion the President of a co- educational college desiring to find seats for a large group of undergraduates said, from the platform, those "women standing near the door can find seats at the front." The word woman is now often ap- plied in educational circles to those not certainly out of their teens. It is this villainous reference in fine ladyship to rank and ease of circumstance, to a draw- ing room doll, the feminine of dolt, that starts our ingenuity to characterize in a word, those fine- natured women, who are Far ahead of their brothers and hushands in refinement and culture who raise the tone of the family, and give us back in reflection, what we see in their mothers, not in the old form, but in the old loveliness, with a modem, ideal setting. Their counsels are always for the better way, no mat- ter what the dangers and difficulties to be en- countered. Mr. Selfridge, the American owner of the largest department store in London, gives us to understand, that since the nation entered the world war, that the languid, lounging, soulless dead weight women that constituted the fine ladyism of a former type, eating the bread of idleness, lolling in the lap of luxury, taking it easy, has lost caste such as used to exist, when it was said that every man's foot was on the neck of the man next below him and his knee bent to the man above him. Nothing to do is no longer good form for those to whose lot fall the [172] BECOMING A LADY must-be-dones. The brain activity of women has been stimulated beyond all example. Conversation has become something more than the old ceaseless repetition of commonplaces which, like music boxes, could be wound up to play their set of tunes and then they stop. The set consists of only two or three tunes at most. There is now no mistaking idleness for refinement. Caste and rank are dissolved and blended in a true democracy of labor and the intel- lect is kindled or fanned to brighter flame. Strangely the Scriptures nowhere command marriage, but with infinite pains recognize and bless and guard it. The affections blossom in the teens. They are universal and almost omnipotent. If we may judge by all-around indications there is no girl's paradise without an Adam nor boy's without an Eve. The heart, like the tendril accustomed to cling, Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone. But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing It can twine with itself and make closely its own. The fault with the world is not that there is not affection enough, but that it is not properly directed. "Never marry but for love," said William Penn, "but see thou lovest what is lovely." We sometimes have in mating the game of blind man's bluff, only that in husband catching both parties are blinded, they blind themselves and then blind each other and [173] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN go it blind until the mask and disguise and illusion later fall away. Cupid is pictured witk his eyes heavily bandaged, and our complaint is that he thus proceeds with his archery. No compulsion whatever was used in bringing either party to the altar. And both had grown to years of discretion. Marriage is of one's own choosing or consent. There are some things on the contrary that we do not determine. But in the matter of that tremendous, untried ex- periment, which, whether it succeed or not, has to be kept to when once undertaken, we must take all the responsibility. "We are not responsible for our ex- istence. We do not determine the color of our eyes. We cannot add a cubit to our stature, but in mating we make a selection and then are required by our own adult act to stand by our choice. Is marriage, then, a failure? Yes, when the husband is a tyrant. Your mistake is remediless. You may hide your dis- appointment as the stricken bird covers its wound with its wings, but the anguish will not cease to make itself felt though you may hide it in a bruised and bleeding heart to the last. Marriage is a failure when either party marries for money only. Money is not everything. Heaven forbid a woman to sell herself for a mess of pottage, and a rich woman makes a poor investment when she buys a husband. The astounding worldliness that exists causes people to cultivate for acquaintances and friends those only "who can do us good." Marriage is a failure when [174] BECOMING A LADY a young lady marries a man to reform him. The marriage service does not read, Do you take this man whom you hold by the hand to love, cherish, and reform? Why should a girl without any ex- perience in the matter, attempt to conduct a Keely Institute? "Woe to a woman who, having loved, not wisely but too well, finds herself linked to such a man in bonds too close. For now the rowers are pausing on their oars. They wait a change before they can pull together. Marriage is a failure when the husband is engaged in a business that is not approved by the wife. When it is a last resort. You are not born into the world only to be married. When a woman takes a husband only for the sake of having one it is a vine around a tree, and if the tree decays or is weak and falls down, it brings the vine into the dust. Such a Husband is a great inconvenience. When a woman acts as if she had stepped down from a pedestal to marry "him." That expression may seem ungallant but attracted by the scent of the roses growing on it, a blind man may be in- capable of seeing the wall, he is going to run his head against. When she knows more of com- plexion powder than she does of baking powder. Such a marriage ought to be proscribed by public statute. He begins to complain of heartburn and they both attribute it to affection, but it proves to be dyspepsia. When the husband takes his wife into [175] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN his confidence only long enough to tell her that he is not making any money now. If anyone attacks the gentler sex, as a sex, any woman will arise and defend the sex; but if anyone attacks any individual member of the sex, every woman will leave her to defend herself. If you attack his sex, as a sex, a man will say nothing; but attack an individual mem- ber of the sex and nearly every man will have some excuse to offer for his shortcoming. Is marriage a failure? Yes, when a man persists in arguing over a matter, on which, on account of a temporary men- tal difference he and his wife never think quite alike and never have thought quite alike, and on this mat- ter, never will think quite alike, and it is not at all important that they should think alike. I abom- inate a woman who, when asked what she thinks, has only to say, "I think just what my husband thinks." That is not harmony. It is stupidity. There is no conversation, only monologue. When a person wants harmony and goes to the keyboard he does not keep striking one key. That is monotony. It is tedium. It is weariness. Real harmony comes from striking the different notes in an octave. Har- mony consists in diversity no less than in likeness if only the same kejmote governs both parts. As two harmonious notes struck in unison on a per- fectly tuned instrument, will not only sound them- selves but will set in vibration a third, and thus [176] BECOMING A LADY complete the accord, so the unison of the first mem- bers of a family will extend to the guest in the at- mosphere of such a home. A party of travelers lately visited a lonely hut on a mountain. There they found a woman who told them that she and her husband had lived there forty years. Why, they said, did you choose so barren a spot? She did not know. "It was the man's notion." During forty years she had been content to exist without the mood or spirit to talk things over, to ascertain the purpose of life. Private Peet having returned from the world war, tells of the fallen in battle who on recovering themselves a bit are always trying to crawl forward and so creep into the enemy's ground. One soldier, under these conditions, was thoughtfully turned around by his comrade, who left him at last with the caution: "You are in the right direction; don't turn round." A girl fixes her ideal, I shall be a lady. You are in the right direction; don't turn round. There is a beautiful little animal found in both continents, called the ermine, whose fur is so famed for its unblemished whiteness that it has been taken as the emblem of incorruptibility. The dainty little creature makes it the business of its life to keep itself clean. It is so inclined by native instinct to immaculateness that it will suffer capture or wel- come death rather than defilement. Knowing this, trappers and others seeking its fur will besmear [177] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the paths it might take ; and, true to iastinct, it keeps itself vmspotted, though it yields its life. Its atti- tude is not, "I must live," but, "/ must keep myself pure." If in an exigency it were left to decide upon the de- sirability of cleanliness, so small a creature might weaken; but stainlessness is ingrained into its very nature, and even when hunted its purpose is first to be untainted. So sweet and natural a thing among women is it to be devout, so elevating to the nature, that a godless woman, seems to have no light in her and no glory proceeding from her. All men, even the irreverent, love to read in the fine, feminine face, as Longfellow says, "The divine beatitude, Blessed are the pure in heart." [178] Chapter XIX AN INVENTORY OP WHAT WE HAVE Tell me, what hast thou in the house? II Kings 4: 2. I believe that there are those gathered here that shall not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God come with power. In the currents of the world's life and thought and purpose we are approaching a crisis. The lines of action seem converging into a consummation. We are in a changing world and great forces are abroad, animated by a common soul. The whole earth is in motion. A new security seems destined for the little nations. It is a rebirth of civilization. The newspaper informs us daily that we are turning a critical corner, and that many things now in vogue will come to a full period. We have not yet reached the end of human improve- ment. True to history the Lord may come suddenly to his temple. In the life of those now upon the earth more than one nation may be born in a day and reforms for which men have long prayed and sacrificed may gladden the earth, as the aloe bursts into bloom in a night, after living for a hundred years in a state of preparation. Many men who will be influential in repairing and rebuilding the foot- stool will be graduates of what we may call, for want [179] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN of a name, Khaki College, a school of discipline in which one man takes orders from another whom he has never seen and the obedience would have been the same if the conditions had been reversed, and the one giving the orders had been the person to receive them. Now in such work it is seldom that a man distinguishes himself except in one thing. It is not only great good fortune, it is nature's badge of success. If a person finds he is born with a bias, a bent, a forte, it is like saying that he has from a divine All-wise hand his allotment, his assignment. Tell me, What hast thou in the house ? No other reply has such significance as this, / have an aptitude. Then you have a calling. Your attention is drawn thus to the fact that you are called, called of God, called according to His purpose. Out of this you speak of the choice of your profession. That does not express the full fact. That not only shows your choice. It indicates that you are the chosen. Let us hope that the bias is irresistibly strong. A relative was sitting in a buggy ia front of a store when a child called out "Mother," and the woman said "What." She had the sway of a natural bias. Looking around instinctively she saw a little ragmuffin, with soiled face who was no child of hers. Nature's bias or bent makes you individual. This is what makes men so different. They are similar like the mountains, yet they are unlike as the mountains of which some are higher, some are [180] AN INVENTORY OF WHAT "WE HAVE peaks, some rounded, while some have a surface torn by some awful contortion. The elder Mr. Latrobe, an eminent member of the Baltimore Bar, had two promising sons, in whom he thought he saw very clearly the indications for distinct professional lives. One with a mathematical turn he destined for West Point, and secured his appointment as cadet. The other seemed precisely adapted to the law, and after his graduation at college he studied in his father's office, and was admitted to the Bar soon after his brother entered the army. But a few years de- veloped this singular change. The West Point graduate did not like army life, and therefore re- signed, studied law, and became eminent in his pro- fession. The other son, who had been trained to law, did not like his profession, retired from it, and became the distinguished civil engineer who con- structed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad across the Alleghany Mountains. Who did the calling in the case of these young men? Not the father. Were the young men consulted on their allotment? Not in any degree. It inspires awe to trace a calling to its source. To have no mistake about its kind or its author it is written deeply in the very nature of an individual who differs out to the limit from his own brother, born of the same parents. A mixed brood of fowl, hatched by the same unsuspecting mother were being clucked along the margin of a pond where they separated, the ducks from the [181] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN chicks and traveled in different companies. They were almost human in their behavior. Tell me, What hast thou in the house? Have you faith in your job? That is an augment. Nothing blights a man like a weakening faith in his appointed task. No man is at his best if he thinks lightly of his work and doubts if it is worth while. Have you an understanding of the times? The last minister of the interior in Russia told nearly the whole truth when he said to a representative of the Associated Press who visited him in prison, that his crime consisted of "not understanding the spirit of my age." We may as well say plainly, even to the most talented young man that if he fails, at this single point, he is doomed. There is a force, related on the one side to the mind of the Deity, and on the other side the present advanced stage of prog- ress in the world, which must be reckoned with or be at once out of the running. This genius of our day is to prevail. The spirit of revenge goes with savages. Their day is done. Their race is over. TeU me, What hast thou in the house? A miracle, such as is suggested by the text, always be- gins with something. Here it was a condition of poverty. It is often spoken of as an inconvenience, a hindrance, and thus is made a weak excuse, whereas a triumph over it is like graduating with honor from West Point. It is a certificate of worthy labor, faithfully performed. About the finest thing [182] AN INVENTORY OF WHAT WE HAVE written by Dr. Johnson is his Easselas, and it is only produced that he might raise money to bury his mother. Mrs. Trollope was left a widow, with a brood of children, whom she desired to keep to- gether, and though she was in middle life, she took to authorship, to provide for their daily wants and wrote half a hundred romances which made her famous. Two great forces that incite men to work are Ambition and famine. Napoleon believed that the greatest problem for men to solve is the question of bread. Much that we do is from mixed motives. Make all the men in one state independent and half of them would very soon become non-productive. Has poverty ever robbed you of a single intellectual power ? Has it closed your heart, or damped your purpose, or brought any disfavor with heaven, or with your self-respect? Has it not ratner at times proved a main spring, an inducement, a secret motive, a whip, a persuasion? Tell me, "What hast thou in the house? An object may be found there at times that bars more men from success than poverty. It is vividly pic- tured in that Book of books which has been called The Memoirs of God, ' ' the measuring line. ' ' We find that a wave of feeling had passed over a young man's nature. In his heart was a passionate faith. In- visible things became visible. Why is thy counte- nance sad, seeing thou art not sick? Wliile at duty, a cup in his hand, in the presence of the king, [183] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN silently, but with his soul in it he "prayed to the God of Heaven." Here is a picturesque study of an ideal where faculty and sudden opportunity unite. To make the typical case complete a chance to repair the walls of Jerusalem and rebuild the gates is offered to the unlikely person, a work of mechanics, of construction to a cup-bearer. But for entire naturalness the last stroke is a climax. I lifted up my eyes and looked and beheld a man with a measuring line. He typifies, the scholars say, the same individual that had the acute vision. A great population was found outside of the walls of Jerusalem. The vision is antagonized by mechan- ical difficulties. The issue is joined. Calculation is squarely, definitely, actively opposed to the vision. Which shall prevail, an ideal, or sober calculation? Which is preferable? Which is most often at fault? Which is more trustworthy? Calculation must most frequently fail, for the reason that it cannot tell what sublime possibilities are, for example, in a young girl until the spiritual awakening takes place. The mother of William Lloyd Garrison, at eighteen was a gay, trifling, frivolous girl, living for pleasure, for dress, for society. By what seemed al- most an accident, she attended one evening a revival meeting conducted by some traveling Baptist evan- gelists. She went, as usual, to have a good time with her companions at the expense of the Christians. But something in that meeting, fired the electric [184] AN INVENTORY OF WHAT WE HAVE train and roused the spiritual fervor of her nature. The unseen and eternal, became vivid and real to her. She awoke! She saw the glory of Christ, and at once, then and there, became worthy to be the mother of "William Lloyd Garrison. She had in her the elements of a lofty, earnest, religious character and she cast herself on God alone. Eeach hither the measuring line. There is a mysterious factor to whom it must be applied, which is God. AH things were made by him. Who can take the measure when it is no longer I, but Christ that dweUeth in me? Calculation is lame. It falls down. The power of the invisible does not submit to measure. Who is that boy there in a back yard picking up chips? A sea captain comes along and asks, "Want to be a sailor?" and the boy, Edward, drops the chip basket, not tarrying to bid his foster mother good-bye. At seventeen he could not read. Prom the ship he drifted into Boston, heard the bell of the Park Street church. Dr. Griffin weis giving out his text, "But he lied unto him." Tears ran down the sailor's face. He was melted. Why can't I preach so. I will try it. Dr. Griffin was the last word in scholarship. He became the president of a New England college. Notice that word "so" in the ideal. It stands for effectiveness. Beach hither the measuring line. Apply it to a man with acute vision who cannot even read. He does not measure up, is the verdict of cal- [185] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN culation. Now which is wrong, ideal or calculation? He became the Booth of the Boston pulpit. He weis so earnest and convincing that it is related of him that while vividly describing a sinful soul drifting toward shipwreck, a sailor in the congregation, forgettiag where he was, cried out, "Let go your best bower anchor, or you're lost." Jenny Lind was delighted with Father Taylor and so was Charles Dickens. ' ' I repeat, and would dwell upon it," said Walt "Whit- man, "that among all the brilliant lights of bar or stage I have heard in my time — for years ia New York and other cities I haunted the courts to witness notable trials and have heard all the famous actors and ac- tresses that have been in America the past fifty years — though I recall marvelous effects from one or other of them, I never had anything in the way of vocal ut- terance to shake me through and become fixed, with its accompaniments, in my memory, like these prayers and sermons — like Father Taylor's personal elec- tricity and the whole scene there, in the little old sea church in Boston." "I located my Bethel in North Square because I learned to set my net where the fish ran." Apply the measuring line. It would apply to a man's library, but it would not give an estimate of Father Taylor. It could put a man in a class, in the university, as senior wrangler, but that would have almost no bearing on his subsequent career. Very few of our ablest men would have met the measures of the senior wranglers. The man [186] AN INVENTORY OF WHAT WE HAVE with the measuring line gathers a lot of statistics. Disraeli said there were Three kinds of lies. They are stated by him, in such nervous language that they cannot be quoted here, but the last kind, and worst of all, was statistics. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, how fortunate for Columbus that no man was there with some statistics. It would have been a calamity to Eli Whitney or Cyrus Field or Leland Stanford if in opposition to them a man had ap- peared with a few statistics. St. Paul felt the supreme importance of the individual initiative, and his chief fear was lest he should build upon another man's foundation. One of the most striking sen- tences to be found in any biography is in the life of Dr. Constans L. Goodell, "his conversion made him." There is no comparison, it is a contrast, between his work before and after his revival experience. He came to have the gifts that universities cannot be- stow, the current coin that cannot be counterfeited, the prophet's vision, the poet's fancy, the light of genius. After this inner nature was all lighted up he wrote one of the gems of our literature. Outriding a cyclone at sea. Hand us the measuring line. Here calculation gives the lie to even calculation. They are bitterly antagonistic. Call the roll of discoverers and inventors. "What appears? The ideal and the measuring line, which is calculation, are mutually [187] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN destructive. Look over your associates and ac- quaintances. "Ah him!" Discouragement fell early upon him. His genius was blighted. His life was poisoned. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand, and when calculation piled one difficulty upon another, he lost faith in himself and in his work. He felt the divine Ought in his soul, but calculation said that the thing he ought to do could not be done and he became disheartened and felt that there was no further use in trying. The ideal is the active force in life. It is an ideal that gives individual initiative. When his ideal, the best thing in him, the only fac- tor that would sustain exertion, died out it left him hopeless, passionless, disappointed. Henceforth to be only an observer of other people's attainments and successes. His associates have gone on and left him. He has lost heart. Even the Deity cannot use a dis- couraged man. His family suffers at what he need- lessly gave up, when the man with the measuring line appeared. He has a sort of excuse, a sufficient ex- cuse for him, but it would not have been sufficient for the others in his class, who would have kept to the ideal and surmounted the obstacles. There are two ways of helping a man up a mountain with a load. One is to increase his enthusiasm, his hope, his purpose, the spiritual factors in him, or to decrease his load. Our human energies cannot be estimated. They have never been fully brought out. "We all know [188] AN INVENTORY OF WHAT WE HAVE that in certain lines we have ourselves energies that we have never used, certainly not to their limit. How then can we be measured, never having appeared in full capacity? There are faculties, in all our neigh- bors, that are unused, unappreciated, unrecognized, and of course unmeasured. Near the close of one of the days in their earliest married life, an intelligent, Prosperous-looking couple, out walking together in the suburbs of their home town, were attracted by a large colonial house, stand- ing apart in spacious grounds. Full of hope and sen- timent, the young husband said that if his business flourished and he happened to rise in the world, noth- ing would suit him better, than to buy that place and give it to the community for a hospital. He had often noticed the place, and had allowed himself to indulge the ideal of his life, to acquire that estate, and with a little suitable ceremonial, which would be to him a great pleasure and reward, bestow a deed of it upon the town. His business for a fact, under his energetic management, thrived remarkably. An uncle of theirs, meanwhile, willed them a large prop- erty, and the husband with trained insight and cal- culation began to talk of the obvious family need of a more capacious house that would correspond with their new and easy circumstances, and their need of extending larger entertainment. He knew no other such bargain, nor any place that so appealed to his [189] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN fancy as the colonial house with the extended lawn, and so needing a home he bought it and filled it with furniture and lived in it like a lord. His ideal had faded. The candle lighted in his young life he had put under a bushel. An ideal is not a contract with another party that will hold you up to a performance of its terms. If your enthusiasm has died, if your nature has receded from earlier ideals, if the divine Ought is classed, as a youthful feeling, which has had its day, the last state of that man is worse than the first. My ideals and I may part company, but it is not they that are the worse for it. It was a youthful ignorance But now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from Heaven Than when I was a boy. When spending a day once in a carriage with a man whose life supplied the background of the story, he told me about an aeqaintance whose luck in fish- ing having been hard he uttered the prayer and vow that if the Lord would give him one good big haul, that would yield him something worth while, one-half of it he would give to the poor. He had good fortune. He said that there were now as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, and that the poor had more time to fish than he did. If they really desired fish, they knew where to come for just such a supply as he had just taken and the chances were that they would get them with less trouble. We must not lose [190] AN INVENTORY OF WHAT WE HAVE the vision. When a human being comes to regard lightly those ideals which he has once sincerely rever- enced it is his own condemnation. It is the falling away of a man whom God has called. Honor your aptitude. Read in it your divine commission. Any man with a "calling" is a co-worker with God and the Chief Factor will see the work through. [191] Chaptee XX A DIFFERENCE IN CRADLES She laid him in a manger. Luke 2:7. The thunderous booming of cannon, at an early hour of the morning, on the sixteenth day of March, in the year 1856, proclaimed to the people of Paris and of France, that the Emperor's star was stiU ascendant, and that an heir was born to Napoleon's throne. For more than a fortnight the standing guns upon the grounds in front of the Hotel of the Invalides had been kept loaded, and the veteran artiUery-men, with lighted match rope, were march- ing to and fro behind them, ready, at the first signal from the palace, to ignite the charges and proclaim to the people of the city and of the surrounding coun- try the advent of the heir apparent to the throne of France. On exhibition in a millinery establishment, there had long been kept, for the child a vast array of the most costly clothing, exquisitely wrought, of lace and satin. All over France the day of the illustrious ad- vent was spent in rejoicing, that a son and heir to the throne of the empire was born, while the courts at the Tuileries were crowded, with the most dis- tinguished generals and statesmen of France, and the [192] A DIFFERENCE IN CRADLES dingy barracks of the Invalides were enveloped in powder-smoke from the overheated guns. Thus is born a son to Napoleon III. and Eugenie, a son known to us as the Prince Imperial, who perished miserably by an assegai in the hand of a savage in Africa. So, too, indeed, was it that by a preconcerted plan, on the twentieth of March, 1811, a signal was given from the French capital announcing the ad- vent of a son to Napoleon the First. From a thou- sand fortresses countless cannon rolled the joyous proclamation around the empire until the echoing hills reverberated with the loud rejoicing, at the birth of the much-desired heir apparent. No sooner had a feeble cry escaped from the infant lips — for the child believed to be dead, being without warmth or respiration, was reanimated by the concussion of the cannon — then the Emperor hurried to embrace him and to bear him into the presence of the great dig- nitaries of state who had been assembled to do him honor. So great was the delight of the Parisians that they kissed and embraced each other on the streets. The popular enthusiasm knew no bounds. Men, women and children flocked together to the Tuileries to obtain tidings of the babe's well-being. Bulletins were posted, hourly, to inform the eager people re- specting the health of the royal mother and child. He is not an hour old, when he is proclaimed King of Rome. He is not ten days old, when two [193] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN regiments of six companies each, composed of the orphans of those who had fallen in battle for Napo- leon's cause, become by imperial decree the body- guard of the favored child. In six months eight thousand of these youthful soldiers are under arms; and as, in the Place of the Carousal, the Emperor is reviewing the troops, a bat- talion of little foot-soldiers in good order is seen to advance. They draw themselves up in line of battle immediately opposite a battalion of the old guards, and, placing himself between them and the old grena- diers. Napoleon said: "These children are worthy of their fathers. I confide to them the guard of my son." Then from the throats of the people and of the guards, — thenceforth sworn to the service of the in- fant king of Rome, the deafening cry of "Long live the Emperor!" rent the air. Turn now from the Tuileries to a manger. Heaven's greatest achievements begin in obscurity and silence. Nothing of noisy exultation told of the advent of the Messiah. No ready herald stood wait- ing to report to the anxious servants of state His natal hour upon whose shoulders was the government of a Redeemer's kingdom, destined to spread from sea to sea and from river to the ends of the earth. "And but for the mysterious voicing Of that unearthly choir, rejoicing. And but for that strange herald gem, [194] A DIFFERENCE IN CRADLES The star that burned o'er Bethlehem, The shepherds on His natal morn Had known not that the Lord was born." There must be divinity in a king and vitality in a kingdom that could rise up to the work of universal conquest from such disadvantages and obscurity. But where is Napoleon? He is dead. And Napoleon II? He is dead. And Napoleon III and his son, the late Prince Imperial? They are dead. And the French Empire? It is dead. And that diadem and those jewels? Some of them the auctioneer has offered for sale. Turn now to the Prince of Peace, and hear the inspired word proclaim, "He ever liveth." Yes, Christ lives, and in never so many hearts as He does today. Yea, verily. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and His dominion from genera- tion to generation. Yea, by all the festivities of this glad season, by aU the songs of Christmas morning, by all the worship of Christian people, by all the in- creasing acclaim of joy with which the glad tidings of Christmas day are received, Christ lives. And Troy and Athens yet retain Their spell for pleasure and for pain; But there is that which passes them — 'Tis Thy blest history, Bethlehem ! They are dead which sought the young child's life. Infidel books have tried to dethrone Christ and to refute Christianity. Critics have sharpened their [195] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN knives; Voltaire cried, "I have crushed the wretch;" deep-laid schemes have been formed to undermine the church; the meeting-house has been brought iato all sorts of competitive rivalries ; the Bible was to be laid aside ; the hymn-book was to be supplanted ; but here they are. The church is spreading at home and in heathen lands. Christ lives. And they are dead that sought the young child's life. Christ's conquests are not yet complete, but the immortal energy of love has begun its sway. Joy, then, for the news of Christ- mas morning. Joy for the birth of the Prince of Peace. Earth with earnest expectation waited long for the salutations of Christmas day. "There's a song in the air, there's a star in the sky. There's a mother's deep prayer, and a baby's low cry, And the star rains its fire, while the beautiful sing, Tor the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King." [196] Chapter XXI WHY PEOPLE CANNOT They could not because of unbelief. Heb. 3:19. The cavalry's part is to supply eyes for the army. Sheridan was sent forward to determine the strength of the Confederate forces about Eichmond. He would have a brush with J. E. B. Stuart who would fall right back on Lee's whole army. In making his report, General Sheridan said, "I can thresh Stuart any time." General Meade repeated this remark to Gen- eral Grant, who inquired, "Why didn't you tell him to do it?" This was done. Sheridan cut loose and, with all his cavalry, boldly proceeded as if going into Richmond. Stuart, seeing what he thought to be an opportunity for an exploit, moved in behind Sheridan and cut him off from his base of supplies. Napoleon used to say, "Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake." Sheridan kept moving straight on, giAdng Stuart a chance to become detached from Lee's army. Then, at the right moment, Sheridan gave the sharp order, 'Bout face. Turning quickly, with solid, overwhelming force, he rode Stuart down, which was the last of him and of his bright plans. His forces were shattered. Victory must iegin somewhere. It started in Sheridan's heart at the time he [197] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN deeply felt, and resolutely stated, what lie could do. For an absence of this resolve read the defeat of the Spanish Armada, as told by the historian, Froude. It was the greatest fleet the Mediaeval World had ever seen. It consisted of 130 ships, and carried more than 30,000 sailors and soldiers. By its size it was meant to overwhelm all distance. Magnificent, mightiest in the world, the fleet carried 2,500 guns. Now let us read the letter which the commander wrote to king Philip of Spain when he was notified of his appointment. ' ' My health is bad, and from my small experience of the water I know that I am always seasick. The expedition is on such a scale, and the object of it is of such high importance that the person at the head of it ought to understand sea fighting and navigation, and I know nothing of either. I have not one of these essential qualifications. I have no acquaintance among the ofiicers who are to serve un- der me. Were I competent otherwise I should have to act in the dark by the opinion of others, and I can- not tell to whom I may trust. The adelantado of Castile would do better than I. Our Lord would help him, for he is a good Christian, and has fought in naval battles. If you send me, depend upon it, I shall have a bad account to render of my trust. ' ' The doubter cannot be a leader, nor can he exert a power- ful moral force. This man was defeated before he started. He left home tvhipped. As for a victory, he would not know what to do with [198] WHY PEOPLE CANNOT it. His mind was not prepared for it. It would have been inappropriate and misplaced. Being at heart de- feated, the King who sent him ought to have read the handwriting on the wall, Weighed and found wanting. By giving such a man command the King affronted God and fortune, the fitness of things, all rules of suc- cess, and the result was one of the most monumental disasters of history. So we see he could not win because of unbelief. He did not believe in himself, nor in the Deity, in whom he declared the other commander believed, nor in any likelihood of victory. Niaety thousand defeated men, says General Foch, withdraw before ninety thousand victorious men solely because they have had enough, and they have had enough be- cause they no longer believe in victory, because a bat- tle won is a battle in which one refuses to acknowl- edge defeat. In a country school attended by big boys and pupils generally of all ages, a teacher once said on the opening morning that he had never taught before and he did not know how he should succeed, that he undertook the task with many misgivings, that he was afraid that his particular weakness would be in maintaining order, and least of all in setting up any- thing like discipline, that as the day approached to open the school, he had become so conscious of his defects that he might as well say plainly that he felt unfitted for what was before him. That is a good place for him to stop his career as teacher. [199] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN His usefulness is over. Whether or not it is true that a man can who thinks he can, the reverse is a fact. If a man thinks he can- not, and has led the other minds to think he cannot, he cannot, and he cannot because of unbelief. Life's battles don't always go To the strongest or fastest man ; But soon or late the man who wins Is the one who thinks he can. He that believeth not is condemned already. Certainly he is, and should be. He that believeth not in society is condemned. He that believeth not in law and order is legally condemned. He that believeth not in keeping his word and observing treaties is con- demned by the law of nations. He that believeth not in himself, nor in the relations, in which he has come to stand, should not be put in command of a fleet, nor of a school. He is condenmed already, by those that have insight into human nature, and he ought to be displaced. He is disqualified in advance. No obstacle, no barrier, no blockade, no interference has yet appeared. The preventive is in nothing outward. It is in him, in his mind and heart, in his lack of motive and faith and hope and resolve. Doubt in- dulged becomes doubt realized. To think a thing is impossible is to make it so. Expectation is the first step in achievement. Confidence is a great element of success even in a game of ball. It is unlikely we will either hit or catch a ball we are expecting to [200] WHY PEOPLE CANNOT miss. Some one has said that Columbus practically found America before he left Spain, and so far from being surprised, when he saw the western continent, he would have been surprised if he had not seen it. All prophecies are written upon the man himself. What we will, that for one short moment at least, is done. What we desire, that for one short moment, we are. When a man predicts ultimate failure, he simply fulfills his own prophecy, which it is in the nature of the mind to tend toward doing. On the other hand, when the mind is profoundly convinced of a truth, it conquers. If I were asked to pick up a racing crew, I would never select a man who would feel discouraged because things looked a little dark. One faint heart in a boat would spoil any crew. In Amherst College, Mr. Beecher was sent to the board to demonstrate a theorem. He spread out his figures and began his proof. The professor sat shak- ing his head and saying, "No, no, no, oh, no." The future pulpit orator, full of language, attempted to resume his recital. "Oh, no, no, no," said the teacher, and Mr. Beecher went to his seat in red con- fusion. Another student was called to the blackboard. Availing himself of the figures already made, he op- ened the recitation. The teacher said, "No, oh, no," but the pupil said, "Yes, yes, this is certainly right. It is coming out just right, ' ' and was rewarded with the words, "Very well." The future anti-slavery cham- [201] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN pion rallied enough to say, "Why, those are my figures. He has only followed my Imes." "Yes," said the professor, "hut the difference is, you know it, but he knows that he knows it. ' ' He had certitude and a courage about it, what the Scripture calls the assurance of understanding, and in the book from which the text is taken he has the assurance of faith. It takes a woman 's insight to analyze this absence of self-reliance, this hesitation about casting in one's lot with what is fundamentally right, and staking one's all upon the issue, and to put in words, the cure. Her little daughter having taken lessons in music and having practiced a good deal, was invited to play before visitors. She says she cannot. She never has played in company. She knows she will break down, and she does not feel very well either, but her mother entreats and gently urges her toward the keyboard of the piano. "I can't do it. I shall not get half way through. I shall break down, ' ' which she does, and switches off to the back of the room, with the air of I told you so, and the fond mother, who is grieved at the situation, promptly says, "Dear child, she could if she only thought she could." If she thinks she cannot, why of course she cannot. The work of the world is done by men who have bound- less faith in the enterprise they have undertaken. Nothing saps the strength like loss of faith. Who can imagine a half-hearted Stanley? The man who is to cross Africa must believe that he is doing that particular thing which above all others [202] WHY PEOPLE CANNOT needs to be done, and that he is the man to do it. If Stanley had begun to think that perhaps it didn't mat- ter much after all, it would have been all up with him and his followers. Even a lady does not like a half- hearted lover who does not seem to know his own mind. Some young persons, on becoming Christians, take great pains to keep the way open by which they can turn back. They are wary about committing them- selves or making any profession. They are like those generals whose thoughts are mainly on keeping open the line of retreat. ' ' Any man who is prepared for de- feat would be half defeated before he commenced. As to being prepared for defeat, ' ' said Admiral Far- ragut, ' ' I certainly am not. ' ' When Admiral Dupont was explaining to him the reason he failed to enter Charleston Harbor with his fleet of iron-clads, he gave this and that and the other reason. "Ah, Dupont there is one other reason." "What is that?" "You did not believe you could do it." When determined commanders find there is too much thought given to backing out, they fire their ships as soon as they make a landing and burn their bridges behind them. That gives the men a forward look. I can because I ought, becomes the motto. The peculiarity that keeps a young person from holding out in the religious life is not any fault in the religion. It is the non-com- mittal, hesitating, attitude of mind which means de- feat everywhere. The need is stamina, resolve, the exercise of a master mind, reliance on the revealed [203] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN facts and a holy confidence to take Almighty God at His word. To make progress toward Heaven the first step must be by faith. Away with weak-kneed doubt. The Kingdom does not need it and if you do, it does not need you. No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God. He is not fitted for it. Into the everlasting Kingdom entrance shall be ministered abuntantly unto him who seeks the Lord with a whole heart, early and finds him. Then when the plough is nearing the end of the long furrow he has this confidence, I know that my Redeemer liveth. I shall see God : I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another. [204] Chapter XXII LITTLE COATS FOR LITTLE MEN His mother made him a little coat and brought it to him I Sam. 2:19. This is the world's prettiest, sweetest story of mother and son. It stands in the Bible just where the tender affection for St. Augustine does in history. He was an only son. While he was wild and far from God, the tears of his mother fell to the ground. Such prayers could not be disregarded. Like Luther, and Knox, and Chalmers, he gave a new impulse to his own generation and to suceeding ages. For a thou- sand years previous to the reformation his writings, next to the Scriptures were the guide of those who sought the narrow way. Literature does not show another instance of such benefit to the church among the works of men. There is no love like mother love. When a biographer seeks to appeal to us, along with the son comes the mother. As in the life of Wash- ington, we are shown that the son inherits from his mother a high temper and spirit of command such as was shown at the battle of Monmouth when he rode down his own favorite horse and used impetuous volcanic speech when he found Lee in retreat. Then, [205] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN to heighten the effect by a contrast, the mother is shown reading to the hoy whose father died when he was twelve, lessons of morality and religion out of the "contemplations of Sir Matthew Hale," a volume having in it his mother's name in her own handwriting, which the great general, standing first in the hearts of his countrymen, always preserved with the most religious care, as it gave him that balance, firmness, dignity, and elevation of character which made him rank as a superior man. And the child Samuel was young and his mother brought him into the house of the Lord and said to Eli, I have lent him to the Lord. This was the talk. Meanwhile, notice the act of the boy. And he, the little fellow himself so young, worshiped the Lord there, and at this sight, the consummation of the mother's prayer, she broke right out in song. There are moments when nothing less than a hymn of praise will utter what is felt in an overflowing heart. The sentiment she so worthily expressed opens with al- most the same words as the hymn of Mary, the mother of our Lord. "My soul doth magnify the Lord And my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour." In our Saviour's visit to Jerusalem, his mother went with him and stood by him in the final hour. [206] LITTLE COATS FOR LITTLE MEN "Poets oft have sung her story, Painters decked her brow with glory, Priests her name have deified: But no worship, song, or glory. Touches like the simple story, Mary stood the cross beside." There are two things that prevent us from view- ing matters from a small boy's point of view. "We judge others by ourselves, and suppose that they see and feel as we do. A father and his little son were on the street to view a procession, and the father was interested in it, but the child was unsatisfied and restless, and it seemed unaccountable. But on bend- ing down to reason with him the father foimd that, from the boy's level, there was no display to sight, and he lifted him up and soon both of his hands were pointing toward the pageant while he kept exclaim- ing, "Dere, dere." After we are familiar with people in their prime and greatness, we hold an estimate of them, which is far advanced from a child's expression. Great men pass into history at the climax of their careers, and even in their ashes lived their wonted fires. When Samuel last appeared he was described as an old man covered with a mantle. After Samuel has faced Saul who, from his shoulders and upward was higher than any of the people, and told him that he was rejected from being king, after he has hewed Agag in pieces, these tragic scenes rather overlay the picture of the visit of the gentle, prayerful mother to the house of [207] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the Lord, bringing each year a little coat for her son, finding pleasure doubtless in trying it on him to test its fit. But These angel visits were never effaced from the memory of Samuel. They lay at the foundation of his character and of his out- standing success. A minister, after the death of his wife, took their little son into the parlor and asked him if his dear mother did not sometimes kneel with him and pray. "With eyes instantly filled with tears, the little disciple artlessly replied, "Yes, father, mother used to kneel at that chair and hold my hand and pray for father and for me, and for Henry, and for all of us. ' ' Sir Joshua Eeynolds has made a famous picture, thousands of times copied, of little Samuel waiting on his knees to hear the voice of the Lord if He should again call him. He is clothed in the little coat, or mantle, which his mother brought him. It means that a little boy in a little coat can pray and love the Lord, and engage in religious service without using big words or making long prayers. And Christ himself said to older men and women that except they became like the little boy in the little coat they should not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Three things were probably true of Samuel. First, he was affec- tionate. That is just like a boy. A mother now living, speaking of her pleasure in her family, said it was a great delight to do things for boys as they love you so. That is a fact about boys. They [208] LITTLE COATS FOR LITTLE MEN have warm hearts. A mother, having a little son who sold papers, often had nice talks with him, as they had heard at church together that a Bible reader among the heathen could be employed for nine dollars a year. During a conversation he said he believed he could give the profits of his sales on one day out of each week toward the support of the Bible reader, and so they formed a company, and together they set their Bible reader going. The wife of the minister at Franklin, New Hampshire, used to talk with her little son about what he woidd do when he grew up, and under the holy influence of the Sabbath after- noon he told his mother during the talk, in which their hearts flowed together, that he believed he would like to be a missionary. His little imagination lighted him on his way, and looking at his mother fondly, said, "And won't the heathen be glad when they see me coming with the Bibles." Another thing is certain about the little boy with the little coat, that he had an open mind. When the telephone bell rings in a very remote part of the house, a child will hear it. The elderly people are not quite so sure to do so. A child's ears and eyes are open. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down to sleep, that the Lord called, Samuel. He re- sponded by rising. Little hoys hear a great many calls of God. Many ministers have left us their testimony that they had a call to their work when they were chil- dren. Bishop Simpson believes that the time is com- [209] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ing when most of those who join the church will come as children. I think that most little boys pray. The quick blush of a child shows how sensitive he is, and how readily he receives an impression, and his situation in the world is such, that nature tends to make him teachable. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." A boy, trying to be old, is a monstrosity. The way to their hearts is closed when they have to be treated like little old men. That certainly is not God's way with a boy. It is natural as it is beau- tiful. He is constantly sending messages by children. Many of us incline to think that if the All-wise One has a religious work to do it would be more appropri- ate to call the aged prophet to do it than the minister- ing boy. But Eli had no ear for the finer vibrations of the spiritual voice. In uncounted cases the Lord has used a child to unite a family, to incline them to attend church, and to speak to them of religious duty. Religion is best expressed by boys and girls. It is thus by God's appointment. Their superb singing is like cathedral music; for purely religious effect it is common to use children's voices. At a recent confer- ence a chart exhibited, on a sliding scale, the ages at which persons in that locality joined the church. It appeared that as many united with the church before they were twelve as after they were twenty. In the presence of this amazing fact the audience continued so incredulous that it was tested at a random on the congregation then present, and the showing as given [210] LITTLE COATS FOR LITTLE MEN was justified. Those who are called to be princes in the earth will increasingly be, like David, anointed in their father's house before they go forth to the struggle of life. Children are not waifs. They are not foundlings. Within a generation two living forces have entered the field, which perceptibly lower the age at which children become Christians. One of them is the prevailing idea of the kindergarten, the child's garden, in which education is begun much earlier than formerly. The other is the unmeasured influence of Professor Drummond, and of kindred spirits in the new religious movement of college men who hold and teach, that in religion there need be no cant, no sanctimoniousness, nothing unreal or exag- gerated in expression or feeling, to be put on like Saul's armor. If it be true that man is actually re- ligious, it is doubly true of boys with their inherent faith in God, and with their acceptance of immortal- ity. In its exquisite simplicity religion, like the little coat, is the right fit for a boy. No one is called to adopt a set of phrases. Each tree is allowed to bear fruit after its kind. These persons are careful not to interfere with the school studies, nor with athletics, there being no law against a good head and a good body, as they are needed and go weU with a good heart. When the awful explosion came at Halifax little Lola Bums, the eight-year-old daughter of John Bums, of Granville Street, was on her knees by her cot saying her morning prayer. The house coUapsed. [211] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Hours later the child was found in the midst of the wreckage hemmed in by fallen timbers and sur- rounded by broken glass. She was unharmed, and as deliverance approached her prayer was turned to Christian hope and then to thanksgiving. When saved she was still on her knees, pouring out her soul in prayer. This is the soul's attitude while the af- fections are stiU fresh and unchilled by any disap- pointments, with no prejudices to overcome. Its habit then is with ardor to give the whole heart with- out reserve to him who plainly said, Those that seek me early shall find me. [212] Chapter XXIII PROVIDENCE OPENS THE GATE A little Maid. 2 Kings 5:2. Except the litttle maid had been in Naaman's house, except the Syrians had gone out by bands and brought her away a captive out of the land of Israel, except for her confidence in the representative man of her religion, not iq the Mng, not in the power of money, but in the prophet that is in Samaria, except for her early definite impression touching the tender compassion of him who inherited Elijah's mantle and a double portion of his spirit, causing him to be the nearest approach to the coming Saviour in gracious- ness and blessing, Naaman, Captain of the Host of the King of Syria, a great man -with his master, a mighty man of valor, would have remained a leper. Medical aid could have given him little prospect of a cure and very little hope of much relief. This chain of events in which the little maid forever stands as the shining link, exhibits the outstanding truth that Grod's Providences always match. When we see so distinctly that Naaman is a providential person, we must keep just as clearly in mind, that each one of us is fully as much so. The distinguish- ing beauty of his life is that the fact can be so clearly [213] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN seen. In that day when the Books are opened, The Book of Providence and the Book of Life, we will see the events of our lives connected up as they are shown in the case of the little maid. God's opportunities always come to the right person. The point of the text is to have us see this little maid respond to the touch of Provi- dence. The hand of Heaven often seems most con- spicuous in the life of a girl or young woman. She is passing along the street, turns a corner, looks into a face and from that face she can never turn away. "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there I will be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." William S. Tyler, professor of Greek in Amherst College, often called the Attic Bee, fully decided to go West. At the springtide, the roads were heavy and in some places in the country almost impassable, the stage driver refused to take his heavy trunk, probably laden in part with books. It was in those days impracticable to go without it or to become detached from it, and so he must wait for the roads to settle. In the mean time he received an invitation to fill for a single term an unexpired tutor- ship. This changed the whole current of his life. He became and continued for 57 years to be the re- ligious representative and exponent of the college, signalizing his service by his remarkable book on the [214] PROVIDENCE OPENS THE GATE Day of Prayer for Colleges. He came to stand at Amherst where Professor Albert Hopkins, brother of the president, did at Williams, before the young men took over the work of educating one another religiously, as the main stay, the mentor, the re- sponsible head and guide of the. religious life of the institution. The opposing Angel, in the person of a stage-driver, met him in a narrow way, where there was no turning and a mere trunk became an impedi- ment that was prohibitive. The best proof of the doctrine that we have before us is testimony. There is probably no person having an observing mind T)ut that can point to an incident seemingly small at the time and ever after, an event that was not thought of or planned with reference to its great result that directly affected all his subsequent days. Doctor Horace Bushnell distinctly states that his career turned on a wafer. He always made con- spicuous his belief that great opportunity existed at the West to form institutions and mould society. He determined to share in this formative work. He was appointed to a Tutorship in Yale College. He wrote a letter to President Day, declining the honor. Before mailing the letter he noticed the absence of the wafer to seal it. Having obtained it as he was going out of the door he encountered his mother, who on learning his decision told him that he had settled the question without any consideration at all that she had seen. A postponement seemed reasonable, which carried the result that he was taken back to [215] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN New Haven. One of those revivals came on which early pervaded the life of the college, which drew out and set in motion certain great and abiding forces. His decision to enter the ministry carried the result that eternity alone can reveal. His ' ' Christian Nurture" has affected all Christian thought, from his own day to this, and has made its way against a willful misunderstanding and great opposition. It was an age-maker. The other clear thinker and great author whose works are likeliest, with Bushnell's to be found in the libraries of most clergymen the world around, is Frederick William Robertson. "A more thought- ful, suggestive and beautiful preacher never entered a pulpit." His teachings are as clear as the light. Some of his findings, like BushneU's being so often quoted, have become a part of the worlds common stock of knowledge. His biographer traces the working of that Mysterious Factor that shapes our destinies and diverted him from the army to the ministry. Life has its invisible switches. It seems that the daughter of Lady Trench had been seriously ill. She was prevented from sleeping by the barking of a dog in one of the adjoining houses. This house was Captain Robertson's. A letter was written to ask that the dog might be removed ; and so kind and acquiescent a reply was returned, that Lady Trench called to express her thanks. She was much struck, at that visit, by the manner and bearing of the eldest son, and, in consequence, an intimacy grew up be- [216] PROVIDENCE OPENS THE GATE tween the families. This trivial incident is used by Eobertson to show that God orders all things. "If I had not met a certain person, I should not have changed my profession ; if I had not known a certain lady, I should not probably have met this person: (Mr. Davies who believed that he saw in Eobertson all the elements that would form a fine minister, and who labored to dissuade him from entering the army) if that lady had not had a delicate daughter who was disturbed by the barking of my dog: if my dog had not barked that night, I should now have been in the the Dragoons, or fertilizing the soil of India. ' ' Then who can say that these things were not ordered, and that the merest trifles are not signposts reading. This is the vxi/y, Walk ye in it. Human nature responds to the call of duty. This appears nowhere more sublime than in the person of these young heroes and heroines who are not so scarce as people suppose. Almost anyone can be a hero on a grand scale with the eyes of an admiring world looking on. There is no evidence that the little maid was ever applauded or hurrahed. She rose right up out of her menial position into the useful religious life. She did her work where she was placed. Some of the noblest heroisms have been achieved in the lowliest conditions. Not complain- ing of her place, but shining ia it, she illustrates the truth that it is the lesser stars that twinkle the most. In the school of Mr. Thomas Knibb in the [217] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN island of Jamaica, was a roguish boy, who violated the rules of the school by swearing, and stood in line to be punished. His sister went to Mr. Knibb with eyes brimful of tears and begged that she, instead might take his punishment, to which Mr. Knibb consented. Looking at the wider school of life, Seeing its hoys and men, unless we have some help as in the case of Naaman, we might fail to discover and applaud the obscure hero- ines to whom the world is most indebted for the great results that appear in other lives than their own. If ever there was a self-made, self-contained man, it was that giant leader of his people, the emancipator of the slaves. Yet it was Sally Bush, to use Mr. Lincoln's own words, who first made him feel like a human being. She appeared to make a new boy of him. This daughter of genius lies buried in an obscure grave, while he has a monument that pierces the skies. Scarcely a century has elapsed after the death of Mohammed when his energetic and elastic doc- trines prevailed widely in Asia. His calls to prayer resounded from the spires of St. Sophia at Constan- tinople to the gate of Vienna. Khadijahs's faith made him. Sometimes a man's faith needs a support. He loved her because she believed in him when no one else did, and when he was not quite sure that he be- lieved in himself. He made history. He made [218] PROVIDENCE OPENS THE GATE himself a great name. She made him. Just as Monica's faith and prayer made St. Augustine, Miss Frazier's faith made Hugh Miller an author. "Gentlemen," said the wife of General Greene to some callers who were regretting that there was no means of cleaning the green seed from the cotton. "Apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney. He can make anything." He had gone to Georgia to be- come a private teacher, and on reaching there found another person had been employed, leaving him without either resources or friends, except the Greenes. He modestly said he never had seen cotton- seed in his life. Separating one pound of the clean staple, from the seed, was a day's work for a woman. The time usually devoted to it, was the evening, when the slaves, men, women, and children, were collected in circles. There was one whose duty it was to rouse the dosing and quicken the indolent. The amount of labor required to separate the seed from the staple made the raising of cotton prohibi- tive. The word "gin" is a contraction for engine. More than any other one thing the cotton-gin occasioned the Civil War. It sub- stantially gave the South, from the first, three million dollars annually. Slave-holding was made profitable and became an institution worth fighting for and ex- tending. What a revolution in personal and national, industrial and mechanical, political and economic history this single invention wrought. But just as [219] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Naaman's good fortune is traced to the faith of the little maid, the imperishable fame of Eli Whitney turns upon the faith of a woman that he could invent anything. He had never constructed a cotton-gin, but she believed he could, and he did. Expert opinion states that Vassar College made the greatest contribu- tion to the education of women. It did not raise the question, How can we bring them to our ideas and the- ories and standards, but How can we do the most for the women themselves. In the presence of twenty or thirty gentlemen, Matthew Vassar entered a room carrying a small tin box. Sixteen years before, standing in the quadrangle of Guys Hospital in London, he read this inscription, Thomas Guy, Sole founder of this hospital In his lifetime. The words "in his lifetime" were the iron that entered his soul and excited his emulation. To one of the gentlemen present, the key, of the tin box was passed. He had been appointed President of the Board of Trustees. The box contained bonds and other securities valued at four hundred and sixty thousand dollars. At the college's third com- mencement Mr. Vassar began to read his annual ad- dress. His voice was somewhat feeble. He had nearly concluded when his voice faltered and soon ceased. The paper dropped from his hand. He leaned back in his chair. He was dead. He took [220] PROVIDENCE OPENS THE GATE the ground in his presentation speech that woman had received, from the Creator, an intellectual constitution, the equivalent of man's. His father was an obstinate, strong-minded, ignorant man, with the result that the boy, Assisted by his mother, ran away from home. With all his little property tied up in a cotton handkerchief, he walked to a ferry eight miles, accompanied by his mother, who there at their parting gave him seventy-five cents and her blessing. Not an even dollar, not, on the other hand, a half dollar, but seventy-five cents. The further point is, Matthew took it, seventy-five cents. She stood, crying, on the banks of the river, until she saw her boy starting in the world with these seventy-five cents that his mother gave him at their solemnities, safely landed on the opposite shore. Within twenty-four hours he had a boy's position in which, by hard work, for five years, he saved $150. We know his monument. We know his monumental work. But at the foundation is that woman's faith, her confidence in her son, her tears, the equal pathos of her gift, the love that sustained her in an eight- mile walk. The poet Gray wrote sadly that he had made a discovery, that we can have but one mother. We all make it, sooner or later. She invests her all in us, her heart, her hopes, her prayers, her tears. She is our guardian spirit. She spends her whole life smoothing the way for us. Our success is the [221] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN answer to her prayers. What we do is the only return she gets on her investment. Wherever the story of Vassar College is told throughout the whole world, it is also her memorial, and a proof of her faith and confiding love. [222] Chapter XXIV READY, WAITING TO BE HEROES Hast thou seen all this great multitude? I will deliver it into thine hand. By whom? By the young men of the princes of the provinces. Then he said, Who Shall order the battle? And he answered, Thou. 1 Kings 20:13, 14. General Grant graduated at the middle of his class, while Lee graduated well up toward the head. Yet the college cannot change its markings. They are not final, however. Greatness in the world, honorable distinction, real ability, are still to be tested by action. At Appomattox Grant passed to the head and Lee went to the foot. Lincoln pro- posed to save the Union. "By whom?" By an unsuspected hero. John Adams was approached by his father (himself named John) thus, "It is now time for you to commence your life work. What business do you wish to follow?" The boy said he would be a farmer. Tired, hot, discouraged, un- happy, he said, "Father, I have been thinking today. I should like to try my books." In Harvard the students were all enrolled according to social posi- tion, and John Adams, our second President, was the fourteenth in his class, an unsuspected hero. But the British government imposed taxes which were evaded, and the matter was brought before the Superior Court. Adams was present and listened [223] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN intently, and afterward wrote, "Otis was a flame of fire. American Independence was then and there born. Every man appeared to me ready to get away and take up arms. I do say, in the most solemn manner that Mr. Otis breathed into this nation the breath of life." The torch of an unsuspected hero was lighted by that flame of fire. John Adams, like John the Baptist, a prophet who became more than a prophet, himself was transfigured. He became like the great king whom Samuel anointed and then kissed, who was turned into another man. Hear what Mr. Jefferson says of him; — "The great pillar of support to The Declaration of Independence, and the ablest advocate and champion on the floor of the House was John Adams. Me was our Colossus." Hear what our greatest orator says of him, the later sentences being probably the finest burst of elo- quence in our language! Adams and Jefferson are no more. On our fiftieth anniversary, the great day of national jubilee, in the very hour of public re- joicing in the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices of thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took their flight together to the world of spirits. Their fame remains, for with American liberty it rose, and with American liberty only can it perish. It was the last swelling peal of yonder choir: "Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth evermore." I catch that [224] EEADY, WAITING TO BE HEROES solemn song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, "Their name liveth evermore." At Salem, Mass., the public squares were black with people who had gathered to see their soldiers start on their way to the Cuban war. The great popular demonstration rose to a sublime climax when a solitary open landau, was seen approaching, accompanied by a band of music, escorted even by the mayor on foot and other dignitaries of the city, containing Francis B. Cahill, a mere boy, a sailor, with his crutches resting beside him. He received nearly mortal injury when the ill-fated Maine went down into the murky waters of Havana's benighted bay. That boy, however, stood in a dutiful relation to a great government, and now the whole country stands ready to do him homage. A true soldier has ever been dear to the popular heart. If the risk he takes is coupled with duty, all men reverence it. The fine stories of the world are made up of dangerous, dutiful facts. In the morning a sailor can be just an ordinary boy, but at night, if found in the place of duty, if his position is contested, he is made a hero. "He gripped the black peril like a vise, And as he grappled saw That life is one of sacrifice. And duty one with law." If he had been earlier seen at his employment, or upon the street, he might have passed, an unsuspected [225] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN hero. There is a commander's baton in every so^' dier's knapsack. What other surprise has touched us so profoundly as the latent undiscovered earnest- ness of young people. But a particular reason why some men underestimate our resources is that it is in them to insist on undervaluing v^hatever exists. With this tendency goes usually the habit of decrying one's town. This mental quality seems to co-exist even with an intense love of country. These men are sure that their particular town is the worst place for gossip on the globe. And, so if this were not dispraise enough, they will refer to their town as dead and alive places, or make some allusion to their having gone to seed or prove that the best families have gone up higher, or will apply the epithets, Sleepy, deserted, Deity-forsaken, or sum up their valuation and then style the place a one-horse town. Becoming a habit, it works without discrimination. It does not look for excellencies, any- way it does not find them. That it works without much discrimination is shown by the fact, that two places in the same New England state, can be located within a half dozen miles of each other, and one will have a well-known place pride, and the other wiU sadly lack It. And neither of these estimates will be based on the distinctive merits of the case, but stands as the result of the collective opinion of persons whose underestimate came from their implanted turn of mmd. [226] READY, WAITING TO BE HEROES How is it that we find our neighbors, ordinary- men, doing extraordinary things? It is chiefly because, as William James so forcefully points out that as a rule men habitually use only a small part of the forces which they actually possess, which they might use under appropriate conditions. We all feel more or less alive on different days, and know that there are energies slumbering within which conditions do not call out. "Our fires are damped and our drafts are checked." We did not get the full measures of the forces inherent in some of our Presidents until they were made to carry a great burden. Instead of crushing them, it sustained and strengthened them, as in the case of the President during the Civil War, and the President during the German War. The youth who have gone to the front and have been disciplined and tested have so conspicuously strengthened their mental, moral, and physical stature that they will become, for na- tional purposes, the war being over, Our second line of defense. When the peoples wanted presidents, governors, and disciplined men for other positions they chose soldiers in astonishing numbers, whom colleges had never decorated with titles. The inner lamp had been lighted. Their lives were following a higher bent, their abilities had been both developed and disclosed. Hast thou seen all this great multi- tude? That's the situation. I will deliver it into Thine hand. This had been too much to hope. By [227] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN whom? By the forces you have, whose availability is not realized, the young men of the princes of the providences. Then he said, Who shall order the battle? and he answered. Thou. It must be evident to all of you who are ob- servers of the signs of the times that the generation which is now coming upon the field of action is destined to live in stirring times. During their day will probably be wrought out a more general and vital change in religious methods of work than in any one epoch since the beginning of the Christian era. It would be easy to show that during the past few years a general preparation has been in pro- gress. The rays are beginning to focus, and the place where they seem bound to converge is not remote from where we now are. It is a great thing to live at such a time. The days are not without privilege, and certain it is they are not without peril. Ques- tions that once were confined to a few extraordinary minds are now to be popularized. The voices of most men were lately but echoes of their chieftains, but now matters are to be so reversed that those who are leaders only voice the popular sentiment, and proclaim what in the hearts of the people has come to exist. A burst of patriotic feeling proves that people in national emergencies rise above the consideration of the loaves and fishes. It is the last word about expense to say that anything costs like war. But [228] READY, WAITING TO BE HEROES what wins the war? Man power at the front and in the supply of equipment. What builds a business? Is it money? That is the popular belief. Many suppose that the problem of a business is solved when they have money. They might have it thus, by inheritance and not have it long. When con- templating successful men some persons say, Oh, yes, their money made them. As it is a sophistry to prove a thing by an exception, the general answer is. No, money did not make them. They made money. Observation teaches from actual cases, that there is far more possiblity and much more probability of succeeding without capital, at the start than with it. The very discipline required to overcome difficulties and get under way in busi- ness is just what is needed to insure success. The very lack of capital is the condition of knowing how to handle it when it comes. A feeling allied to despair steals at times into young men's hearts, even if they be of good faith and fiber when they feel in their empty pockets, and then look into their empty hands. There is the stern battle of life to be won. "By whom?" "By the young men of the princes of the provinces." "Who shall order the battle?" "Thou." Young men are at the front not only in times of war but also in the great periods of indus- try and enterprise. The arrangement of having a "money partner," already having made his way, and then a "business partner," and then a "manu- [229] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN facturing," a "managing," or "practical" partner, here is a young man's opportunity. It is impossible now to discriminate between men by calUng some of them members of the laboring classes. In the matter of pay you cannot divide between them, for some who are employed get more money than some others who are employers. Who could ever draw the line between the laboring class and others? In what class would Webster stand, who distinctly states that he, all his life a very early riser, worked twelve hours a day for forty years? Many clergymen work seven days a week and do not reserve for themselves their evenings. Organizations, which are our forms of the highest life, must have the young men of the princes of the provinces to keep them in all their extended parts alive, and they often have princely salaries. Men used to talk of being independent. No one in business now is in independent circum- stances. Men are less so than formerly. The very word civilization tells the story, fitted to live with others in a city. To be independent one must return to the condition of a savage. The greatest men, and the richest, are the most dependent. These persons, too, are human enough to crave sympathy, but they have to live, for the most part, without it. Can a contractor be independent? There are two hundred operations in making a shoe, over 1000 in producing a watch. In some of the Rochester fac- tories more than fifty different persons are employed in making a man's coat. In the professions similar [230] READY, WAITING TO BE HEROES specializations are in vogue. At the turn of the new year business changes are affected and young life is introduced into the commercial houses. God is a great business doer. He is Chief factor in a house that is called by His name. But little more than a generation ago, the idea of partnership in doing good took hold of the public mind. Hast thou seen this great multitude of non- adherents to the Son of Man 1 I will deliver into thine hand. By whom? By the young men of the princes of the provinces. SLOGANS The only thing that will overcome the indescrib- able feeling of halt in religious affairs is a rallying cry, a shibboleth, a slogan, a vitalizing quantity or personality that shall start the hearty acclaim. Cer- tain ideas, having a catchy name, The Flag, The Union, The Freedom of the Seas, The World Safe for Democracy, call up the mind and unlock the energies of the young. They throw off the chill. They inspire a new crusade. This always marks the farthest advance in mankind. This irresponsible volcanic action is not manufactured, as men of weak passions are inclined to assume. It is the irresist- able overflow of full hearts ; and if, on occasion, these should hold their peace, the stone would cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber would answer it. It is good to be generously affected al- ways in a good thing. Religious teachers who de- precate enthusiasm, and exalt what they call a sober [231] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN standard of feeling, which rigidly represses its emo- tion, will please keep in mind that an outburst of loyalty, voiced almost rapturously, was among the few things that our Saviour unreservedly praised. He knew that religion or any other great cause goes down when it loses the power of exciting the highest, most intelligent, and most courageous social enthusiasm. Patriotism has been a passion with the finest spirits in every age. With every fresh uprising of the people there comes a revival of loyalty, of brave, unselfish devotion to country, which results in an improvement in the character of the men who are chosen to responsible places. Turner, the greatest of the British painters, has left one piece, which, had he never touched his brush again, should have rendered him immortal. It is called "The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth, to be broken up." The sun is setting, flooding all the sky with splendor. Amidst the crowded shipping of a busy port a huge battle ship of the line is towed slowly up the channel. Her battles are over. Old and shattered and useless, they have doomed her to be broken up. But to the last she bears her name the ' ' Temeraire, " the " Fear- less." Under existing conditions the soldier of the cross, as well as the standard bearer in the field, must reveal a capacity for courage. Simple duty has no place for fear. [232] Chapter XXV SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS I am debtor. Rom. 1 : 14. Two things have come into our hands, by Rev. Mark Guy Pearse, for which we cannot be too thank- ful. One of them is the story of Daniel Quorum, and the other is his experience as a boy of 14 returning from Germany, where he had been at school, to his home in the beautiful wilds of Cornwall. He stayed in London long enough to spend all his money, except sufficient to pay his fare home. He traveled by train to Bristol — the rail only went as far then. He went on board the vessel to carry him home, and thought, when he had paid the money for his pas- sage, that that included all. He was very hungry and indulged freely in the pleasures of the table. At the end of the journey, a dapper little stew- ard, with a gold band round his cap, came to him and presented him his bill. He told him he had no money. Then, said he, "you should not have ordered the things you did." He asked him his name. He told him. He took him by the hand, shut up his book, and said, "I never thought that I should live to see you. ' ' Then he told him how, when he had lost his father, his mother was in great distress, and the [233] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN boy's father had been so kind to her that he made a solemn promise that, if he ever had the opportu- nity, he would show kindness to one of his; so he took charge of him, paid his bills, gave him five shillings, and put him into a boat with some sailors, who rowed him in fine style to the shore. His father met him, and he said: "Father, it is a good thing to have a good father;" and he told him what had taken place. "My son," said he, "I passed the kindness on to him long ago, and now he has passed it on to you. Mind, as you grow up, you pass it on to others." One day, as he was going by train with a first-class ticket, he saw a lad at the third-class ticket office, Bubiing his eyes to keep down the tears. He asked him what his trouble was, and the lad told him he had not enough money for his fare by four- pence, and he wanted so to go by that train, as his friends were expecting him. He gave him a shilling, and the lad went, got his ticket and brought him the change. He told him to keep it, and said he was going to ride with him. Then in the carriage, he told the lad the story of how he was treated in the boat. "And now, ' ' he said, "I want you, if ever you have the opportunity, to pass it on to others." He got out at the junction, and as the train left the station, the lad waved his handkerchief and said, "I will pass it on." He is now a benevolent agency turned loose in the world, and on him rests the burden of unpaid debt. There is now a force [234] SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS in him which acts like the mainspring in a clock that keeps it running. He may be able to pay only by installments, but he has the disposition and is actually seeking opportunity. He adopts the Apos- tles precept, Owe no man anything. Suppose we all should arise and pay our debts. The day of the Lord, that great day, would seem to be dawning, and the face of society would be changed. Debt measures what ought to be done. "We are debtors, to our native land, whose stars and stripes break out upon the free air, as a pledge of our liberty. This land has been bought for us. To seek the price, we visit the silent battlefields. Do we owe noth- ing to all those men whose swords now hang upon our walls? Are we not debtors to humanity, seeing that the ages have built for us this our world ? In a report to the Harvard overseers it was shown that no man pays his way. In his tuition is not reckoned the endowments and libraries, the value of the grounds, and the prizes. That man pays most of his dues, whose unfailing hammer rings earliest in the morning and latest at night, seeking to discharge his duty and lessen his debt. Having been already paid in ad- vance, and having thus become trustee to a trust, the apostle stands willing to be commissioned even to the Greeks and barbarians. The fact, that he is so far from feeling under the slightest obligation to them, in themselves considered, gives to the text all its point. He cannot be indebted to the barbarians, just as the world owes nothing to the Turk, who came [235] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN from the obscure East, the home of barbarism, the cradle of brute force, the lair of savage cruelty. The Turk is a barbarian literally, an alien, an in- vader, a destroyer, a minus quantity in civilization. He desecrated the noble architecture and art of Greece, and looked upon the Alexandrine library, with that disfavor, that led to its destruction. At Athens, unduly influenced by his environ- ment, becoming classical and delightful, St. Paul preached to the Greeks with uncommon eloquence, yet nowhere did he so completely fail. He quoted from their poets and was far away from the hiding of his power. Nobody realized this better than him- self. He left at once, never to return. He came again into this very part of Greece, but passed Athens by, once and again, without repeating his ill-starred visit. Notice his change of key at Corinth where he strikes a better note. When I came to you, I came not with the excellency of speech, or of wis- dom (as I did with the Greeks). I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Saint Paul wrote epistles to the Corinthians, none to the Greeks. There was nothing there to address. His use of declamation was a closed incident. While the Greeks and barbarians had no attractions for him still I am debtor, both to the Greeks and barbarians. He felt a burning fire shut up in his bones. Still, still I am debtor. Dr. William M. Taylor used to tell of a trust conveyed [236] SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS to his grandfather who, over poor roads, steep and stony, was on the way to mill with a great sack of grain on the back of a horse. Old Dobbin stumbled and his heavy load fell to the ground. Beside the beast's burden the honest farmer felt the weight of his three-score years and ten, and could not replace the grist. By and by he saw a gentleman on horse- back coming near and he thought, Perhaps he will help me. But as he drew near he discovered he was the Earl who dwelt in the neighboring castle, and his heart sank within him for, he thought, he could not muster courage to ask assistance from him. But he had no such occasion, for the Earl was a gentle- man, by a higher patent than that of any earthly nobility, and when he saw the old man's need he dismounted and said : "Here, John, let me help you." So between them, they replaced the sack on the animal's back. Then, said John, who was a gentle- man, too, although he did wear homespun — or, as they call it in Scotland, "hodden-gray" — took off his Kilmarnock bonnet from his head and said : "Please your lordship, how shall I ever thank you for the great kindness you have done for me?" "Very easily, John," was the reply; "whenever you see a man needing your help as much as you were need- ing mine just now, help him, and what will be thank- ing me." Now there is something due from John Taylor, and our word "ought" implies something that is owed, just as duty implies something that is due. In King IV Hostess remarks to Prince Henry, [237] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN "Falstaff slanders you, my lord, and said this other day that you ought a thousand pounds." Look at that little seroggy monosyllable ought. It has no beauty. Pronounce it. It has no melody. Analyze it, and it has but two phonetic elements hid- den under five crooked and hooked, written characters. But weigh it and it is the heaviest word in our lem- guage, the name of God excepted. Like a piece of me- teoric stone, it comes to us from another world. It is a pilgrim out of eternity. It refuses to be parsed. You cannot run it in the paradigms of speech. I ought, that is first person singular; you ought; they ought. You are declining your pronoun. "Why do you not conjugate the verb ought? They ought. What tense? Call it present, or call it past. You can call it anything. What would be the future. You can't change it. The ten commandments will not budge. What is the past perfect? I had ought. That is ungrammatical. Drop it. It is not like an ordinary modern word. It is a mandate from heaven, fixing its grip on the soul. The tenacity of its hold is shown in the Eeuben Hoar Library in the little town of Littleton. A eoimtry trader, who kept the village store, by slow and persistent economy had acquired a small prop- erty and with it the confidence of the community. Many entrusted him with their small savings. Then followed the old story of a dishonest partner, finan- cial ruin, the loss, not only of the fortune and hard [238] SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS earnings of a lifetime, but with them also the funds held in trust for widows and friends. Business failure carried with it severer penalties then than now. The law did not then give its present easy avenue of return to commercial life. Before him were the opening doors of the debtors' jail. But there was Reuben Hoar, a plain Massachusetts farmer, a neighbor, customer, attendant of the same church, largest local creditor, who was under no obligation whatever to his bankrupt townsman, ex- cept what humanity dictates toward a dumb animal fallen in the streets, who said to him, "Let me be a brother to you. I will stand behind you. Go on with your store, keep a stout heart, pay up your debts. What you need I will supply." He at once came to his feet, retrieved his trade, his honor, his fortune, his position in the community. But there was a son of fifteen who shared this ordeal, to whom, with a boy's sensitiveness, it meant tears, a deep resolve and an imprint burned into his soul with letters of fire. As he prospered, he never forgot the kindness to his father, nor the hole of the pit whence he was digged. A fine library was reared at Littleton. It is a grateful tribute to Reuben Hoar, and bears alone his name. I do remember my debts this day ; by every kindness done to my father or mother I am debtor. I would take a long journey on foot to express grati- tude to anyone who ever did a favor to my mother. A Godspeed to her means more than any bounty to [239] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN me. We bring the direct charge against you all of being debtors. When Comfort had been given to a soldier boy in the hospital, or in the field by a nurse, or a comrade in arms, the members of the family at home cannot find words to express their gratitude. They feel that the kindness was to them. No, it was not. Oh certainly it was. It is felt to have been so in a double measure. Ye have have done it unto me. When John Newton's mother was wearing her crown, he made a visit, at his father 's desire, among those who had loved her. A tender feel- ing was cherished toward all her friends and well- wishers. If there is anything concerning which we have clear ideas it is a matter of debt. There are some who seem to have thoughts and feelings that are blurred at this point, who get in debt, stay in debt, and appear perfectly easy. But if anybody is in debt to us, we have a pressure of conviction as to what he ought to do. It is a particular obligation, where we have received some conspicuously good turn, from some good angel. To thus receive benefits and never render them makes us sponges that are full but never pressed out. Solomon disliked to die because of that man, the son of a heathen wife, that should come after him. After a minister has labored long and hard in a church it is useless for him to try to conceal his interest, in the man that should come after him, to reap in part from the seed of his sowing. The [240] SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS chosen successor appears and proceeds, according to custom, to give his religious experience and his rea- sons for entering the ministry. He had been a mem- ber of the first Congregational Church in Chelsea. When he reached the Sophomore year in Harvard he entertained religious doubts. When a boy is shooting up in stature he appears overgrown and ludicrously awkward. WTien at a similar stage mentally He is intellectually top-heavy. No one ever knows as much as he thinks he knows. When they were planning a few years ago, to shorten the college course and graduate, thus, students at the Sophomore stage, President Wilson said that he did not see how a man could expect to graduate a Sopho- more who ever saw a Sophomore. It takes more than two years to make a man out of a boy. The word Sophomore is derived from sophos, and moros, half- wise, half fool, with the last the larger half. Any question that vexes the protectionists or free traders, the single-taxers, the immigration bureau, the old and the new schools of theology, he can settle off- hand, without hesitation; also the matters which baffled Milton's Conclave of the Grand Infernal Peers when they "could find no end in wandering mazes lost." He does not think that Solomon was such a wise man, only that he was wise for those times. He has a very positive way of filing his decisions. A callow Sophomore, in the know-it-all stage, who posed like a little god, knowing good and evil, pro- [241] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN pounded several questions to Phillips Brooks, and having a conceited attempt to be an agnostic, ended the interview with the condescending remark, "I guess I won't ask you any more questions, as I don't want to unsettle your faith." A minister observed, that he would desire no better fortune, than to buy such persons at their real value, and sell them again at the estimate which they place on themselves. This period of transition, which a stu- dent necessarily passes through, as he does the stages of the measles and the mumps, when the powers are expanding rapidly and the habits of independent thought have begun to start inquiring, is not unwelcome, for all discovery and invention and human improvement are largely due to it. If a young man has a good constitution, keeps his pores open, and does not take cold, he will be all the better and none the worse for it. As the minister said of him, he will make a noble man and good Christian if I can only get him up fool's hill. There is a charm about his frankness. He openly said to his pastor in Chelsea that he had shed his religious beliefs and wished to be dropped from the church. The minister asked him about Dr. Peabody, and they fell into a pleasant talk about his well-known absent-mindedness. But the Sophomore gathered himself and said that he feared he had not made himself understood. He had abandoned the be- liefs of the church and was there to request that his name be expunged from the church roU. The minister [242] SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS asked him about his mother, who he said was very much beloved by the church people. The young man thought that somebody must be stupid, as his er- rand did not seem to be stated in such a way as to be understood. I came to say that I do not now hold my former views of God and the heavenly life. I fear I did not make it plain, that I did not want to embarrass the church, by carrying me as a mem- ber. "Oh, yes," said the minister, "I caught your meaning. When you are at home remember that we are doing business at the old stand." "Are you not going to drop me?" "Drop you! Far from it. Never, Never, Never!" "What are you going to do?" The church is going to mother you and love you and pray for you." "And now, ' ' said my successor, ' ' I am entering the ministry to try to do for some other young man what my min- ister did for me when I was in the Sophomore year of Harvard College. ' ' He did not choose the easy method. That would have been to say, All who are in favor of dropping this young man from our rolls will please hold up their hands, and the deadly sin is committed never to be undone, with its baneful influence and its dire effects. Jesus said, Let both grow together till the harvest. The net cast into the sea gathered the usual variety. With what an elevated, high-minded motive the one time Sophomore entered the ministry. He could not repay his minister in kind. We cannot lead the man to Christ who first prayed with us [243] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN when we were seeking the Saviour. I am debtor to benefactors and guides and authors that I can never hope to thank save in heaven. In an evil hour, when Napoleon, whose name fills more pages in the world's solemn history than that of any other mortal, decided upon what he called his Continental system, he found the power divided between himself and Alexander of Russia. The man of destiny must see his system enforced. He has staked his all upon it. When he had cap- tured Vienna, Atistria had iegged for peace. When he had ridden as conqueror into Berlin, Prussia had yielded. The genius that had so often startled the world was of no advantage in procuring rations for the army, nor shelter from the northern blasts. Words utterly fail to describe the sufferings of the French during that terrible march homeward. Over 58,000 of the 60,000 cavalry horses died from wounds, exposure, over-work, and starvation. In the pas- sage of the Berezina River 28,000 men were lost. When he reached the opposite side of the river. Prince Emile discovered that only ten men remained of the thousand which he commanded at the be- ginning of the campaign. These ten soldiers, how- ever, formed themselves round their loved leader. The cold was intense. Snow lay heavily upon the ground. Sleep they dare not, for to lie down and rest was inevitably to have no waking. "My chil- [244] SOMETHING ABOUT DEBTS AND DEBTORS dren," he said, "I must sleep. If God wills that I fight again He will wake me in the morning." He lay down and slept. When he awoke and was ahle to observe his surround- ings he saw that he lay in a thatched shed. His body did not repose on the naked earth. A pile of clothes was under him, thus protecting him from contact with the snow and shielding him from the piercing cold. The prince examined them and found them to be the red coats of his soldiers. He saw that his brave men, unwilling to desert him as he lay in the snow, had car- ried him to this shelter and covered him with their coats. He went out to seek them. He had not far to go. Outside the shed lay his ten companions, half naked, and frozen in death. They had given their lives for him and died that he might live. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. " " God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sin- ners Christ died for us." "Oh to Grace, how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be." [245] Chapter XXVI GATES THAT OPEN TOWAKD THE BAST. And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the East. Ezekiel 43:4 When that bright particular star, distinguished from the whole host of Heaven, "His Star," as the Scriptures styles it, that had no need of the darkness to make it visible, shone over the wise men, in their own country, it appeared in the East. That is the source of our religious ideas and lessons, one of which is that people as we travel eastward have much less timidity about expressing their religious views than Americans have. They are indeed, on the other hand, very outspoken about it. We are in the Tyro- lese Alps. This is the market place. Many of the peasants have come hither to sell the products of their market gardens. We are in the adjacent res- taurant. The town clock in a neighboring church strikes twelve, and a silence pervading the place, these stout men stand, about their tables and with bowed heads ask a blessing, using words in which all can join, "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hal- lowed be Thy name. Give us this day our daily bread." That is not an American scene. It is re- [246] GATES THAT OPEN TOWARD THE EAST vealed in the East which is the cradle of civilization. A Mohammedan, five times a day will fall upon his knees just where he is, not caring about his surround- ings, at the appointed hours of prayer. He will stop his business transactions, whether in the store or field, or in the midst of a crowd, and drop upon his knees and pray. A gray-bearded Turk, on a rug in the rear of his store, engaged in his devotions, will take no heed of Americans who desire to buy his goods, but will compel them to wait until he is through. The chance of losing a sale by not attend- ing to a customer does not deter him from prayer. That is an eastern scene. No one would suspect that we were presenting an American picture. One of the favorite paintings which has estab- lished itself in popular favor is Millet's "Angelus." At the time it was sold it brought $110,600.00 the highest price ever paid at auction for a modern painting. It is beyond doubt the most marvelous production of our times. A young laborer stands in a field, by his side his wife, a simple peasant girl, with blue apron and short skirt and white cap. He holds his hat in hand and bows reverently. She clasps her hands, and is the expression of devotion. Man, woman and God are the participants in this solemn scene. They are the only factors in the pic- ture. It is now early evening, when the glow of sunset is coloring the clouds and falling upon the earth. There is a fork in the ground; at its side a [247] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN wheelbarrow, a basket of potatoes, and everything which tells the story of a day's work. The artist has made the light to fall upon his bowed head and her folded hands. What is the meaning of this scene ? Why does it seem as if the very windows of Heaven are open above it, and that the interest, of the angels, is centered upon that ordinary field? Far away in the dim outline,- a church-spire rises against the sky. You can almost hear the sound of the bell. It is the evening "Angelus." At its sound the laborer pauses to worship. The picture can never lose its vitality. Such a revelation comes out of the East. We have no such American sight. If reverence exists, we do not mean to show it. This general agreement to conceal religion is our great American Vice. It is a lamentable failing, and it is distinctly American. If it is not clearly defined, contrast an American's bad habit, in the matter of his religion, with his outspokenness touch- ing his country. He wishes those people over the ocean would come to this country and learn how to check baggage. It is common abroad to see women pass from the platform into the luggage van to claim their baggage. These personal belongings become again mixed in transit and the wrong trunks are sent to the hotel. Then the American vernacular floods again. This overflow of language comes not from pride only in American ways, but also from distress of mind. The traveler feels that as there [248] GATES THAT OPEN TOWARD THE EAST is a better method of identifying baggage the way it is done in the United States ought to be preached from the housetops, and it is thus set forth with much fervor. Religious Shamefacedness. But in matters of faith, in the item of loyalty to "a better country that is a heavenly" there is the con- stant use of the soft pedal. If anyone is interested in re- ligion and wonders about my religious sympathies, I keep him guessing. The agricultural implements used abroad are particularly provocative of boasts touch- ing this country, and of recommendations to visit it, and of the unsought advice to do things as they are done in America. But the man's religion is carefully concealed in his waistcoat pocket. You can no more tell whether he has any than you can judge of the coins he carries, without seeing them. Find out as best you can if he is a Christian. He will contribute nothing toward the discovery. One thing he is proud of and he does not care who knows it and that is that he comes from the United States. He is as timid as a gazelle in religious matters but absolutely unabashed in bearing noble witness that America is the greatest country on earth. He will go into open campaign and work and fight for his politics while in religion he does not care to have it known which side he is on and rather inclines toward ret- icence. Friend, how camest thou in hither not hav- ing a wedding garment ? If you attend the marriage, openly [249] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Identify yourself with the party, and do not be ashamed to be marked as one of the guests. If you go to the wedding put on the raiment. If you have accepted the invitation wear the livery. Guests make a distinctive united group, and there is without another company. Show which side you are on. Put on the uniform. It is an effective expression of loyalty. Gbd's footprints show that he has always moved from the East westward. It is from the East that we learn the reason that a band of earnest Christian workers represent themselves, not as belonging to the church, but to an army. Such a designation would never have arisen in the "West. It comes from an empire where the martial spirit prevails, and where an army ofilce is coveted. St. Paul's church is the most conspicuous object in London. It exalts the tablets and statues and monuments of those who have been brave in war. This affects the martial spirit. Titles, ranks, and military methods appeal to men and boys, and with women, these influences are irresistible. Some one wondered how such a being as Satan ever tempted Eve. He may have had on an uniform, was the reply. An officer abroad is not permitted to travel except in a first-class car. He has always been a social sensation. The popularity of the army with women arose in the days of chivalry. Scottish mothers, still hold before their bairns chivalrous ideals and urge them to be heroes and not cowards as they go out to fight life's battles. Remarkable shrewdness [250] GATES THAT OPEN TOWARD THE EAST was displayed by Booth when he planned an army organization. He knew well the influence of the martial spirit, and skilfully utilized this master pas- sion in his organization. There is an office, and a military title in sight for anybody. All this would gain no headway in a western town, where people, living on a level, and being good neighbors, know each other well. But where you find, on the one hand, royalty and nobility, earls and lords and dukes, you will find on the other a multitude, as in London, to whom no voice has spoken, and to whom no hand has been held out. Three hundred Londons would make the world. Its streets, placed end to end would stretch across our land from ocean to ocean. It has more churches and chapels than the whole of Italy. The people who die each year within the city limits of London would fill a cemetery of twenty-three acres. Now General Booth, Greatheart, a born leader, an organizing genius whom Bunyan and Carlyle would style Mr. Able Man, knew in London what way to proceed. He put his Christian workers in uniform. It is a defense. It also saves an introduction. But here 's the evidence of insight. Every adherent must make an open com- mitment. He displays upon each person the words. Salvation Army. Thus he is known and is literally, as the Scripture says, ' ' read" of all men. And by reason of what the people have read on his cap, he is forced to stand in a new relation. When he returns to his old environment, he is not of it. Being now advertised as [251] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN a worker, that is his field. Temptors are notified that he is against them, and so is no longer open to their wiles. He is a " marked man ' ' in the community, and what is expected of him helps him. He feels a new loyalty, advertises a new standard of life, and the eyes that follow him everywhere he goes, guard him and hold him up to his profession. The hiding of his power is in the fact that he is a badged believer. Politicians hurrying to some nominating convention garland their cars for a favorite party, and a favorite candi- date. The old prophecy recites that holiness to the Lord is to be written on the bells of the horses. Carved in stone over a doorway in a building of Chicago University are the words ex oriente, Out of the East. Out of the quarter where the sun rises comes the religious light, taking the form of a commandment, Thou shalt not have the iniquity of the Continental Sunday. During the erection of the American Chapel in Paris the question arose touching Sunday labor. The workmen were unwilling to lose the two hundred francs a Sunday while the building was being reared. They supposed they were putting an additional day's pay into their envelopes each week. They gathered around Dr. Kirk and stated as their grievance that they could not support their families on six day's pay. But he told them that there was to be no reduction but rather a day saved for rest and worship. This affects favorably every part of a man's life. He showed them that Sunday was the [262] GATES THAT OPEN TOWARD THE EAST poor man's day, that only slaves are compelled to work every day in the week, that the religious idea was to give seven days ' pay for six days ' work. A more wel- come annovmcement could hardly have been brought them by an angel from heaven. This was an innovation. As an object lesson it set out the whole Sunday question. The day once given to amusement will end in labor. When a contractor wants his men to put the work along, it is not enough for them to say that they had plans for some sports. There is no moral earnestness in such an excuse. Put only amusement against labor and the more earnest element will pre- vail. But when they tell him that their consciences are against Sunday labor, that Qod expressly forbids it and they are not going to do it, as it makes them slaves, their protest is effective. We are invited by a resident of Geneva to stand for an hour on Sunday morning in the labor market and see the troops of dull, tired, sodden looking laborers, in their ragged blouses, unwashed from the grime and sweat of one week's work, trudging off on Sunday morning sluggishly and wearily "like dumb driven cattle" to the work of the first day of another week. The progress that was made was revealed at Nimes, Prance, where 1000 em- ployes marched through the streets carrying banners with this device, Buy nothing on Sunday. Most of the shops, on being requested to close, put up their shutters. Servitude seven days in the week was farthest from the thought of working men when, on [253] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN that day, with the world awheel, they turned them- selves into an excited mob of pleasure-seekers, surging through the streets with baskets and bundles, trying hard to rest on the Sabbath day. Sports were in progress. Bands were employed. Toy balloons were being hawked by the zealous ped- dlers. Holiday gaiety, light amusement, riding, sail- ing, visiting, gaming prevailed, even the apparel of the people appeared loud. The demonstration seemed forced and noisy, and the participants acted, as if after working so hard to be happy, they were afraid they were not going to be paid. There was a lesson from the East which, on its delivery was so witnessed by the spirit that the recording angel will never allow its impression to be effaced. The place was Exeter Hall on the Strand in London. The younger Booth had just visited the dock to say farewell to his father, who was sailing for Africa. The faithful son recited his plans for Chris- tian work to gain his father's counsel and approval. The time was so short, and the conference so im- portant, that it was continued between the son on the wharf and the father standing at the gunwale of the vessel. The son recited more in detail his scheme and begged an approving word, when the old general, lift- ing both hands in benediction, said solemnly to his son, "All right. Go ahead." On returning to Exeter Hall the son said to a great expectant, melted multitude "Are we all right?" and recited the inci- [254] GATES THAT OPEN TOWARD THE EAST dent. Let us search our hearts. "We are not to go ahead unless we are all right. Are we forgiven! Is it all right between us and our Maker? Are we at peace with Him? Are our accounts squared? Are we simply all right? "After this the judgment." Is there anyone who can rise up in the judgment against us. "We must not go ahead unless we feel that it is aU right with us. There is therefore now no con- demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. How do we feel about it ? Are we all right ? He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself. Do you know you have it ? "We shall be changed. "We shall be all spirit. "We shaU meet God. In view of what is before us we are not fitted to go ahead unless we are all right, and we know well the means of reconcilia- tion. And are we all right? "We are not fitted to enter into trial, into the valley of the shadow, or even into difficult work unless we can say Emmanuel, God with Us. A person who is not all right is weak, un- settled, and unfitted to go forth. But now he bears witness that he has a strong faith, that he distinctly feels that he has been forgiven, and that he entertains a lively hope. All right. Go ahead. [255] Chapter XXVII "GET A SPECIALTY" The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire and the women knead their dough. Jer. 7:18. There they fly, the children, to gather the fuel. They are the feeders of the flame. The eye tries to follow them as they scour the hillside yonder making up their fagots. They run as they stoop. If anyone of us who are older should take their speed, to do their allotted task he would feel the effects of his ex- ertion on the next day and the next. Children may not be able to do all that we can do, but they can do some things which we cannot do. With what cheer- fulness they work, and with what glee, and with how much use of the voice ! It is the organ of the soul. We can tell the moment the work begins by the sound of their shoutings. "Look, papa. See, mamma, see." Their parents are summoned to the door of the tent to witness how smart they are. They do not like solitary labor. When one child finds enjoyable activity it is easy for him to associate with him a troop of others. Children readily form a party or an excursion. They come right to the point. Their hands are not tied by conventionalities. They are naturally missionaries. For effective word-carriers, [266] "GET A SPECIALTY" go first to the children who are attending school, to whom a notice being given, it travels like a contagion to the community's outmost rim. There are some things children can best do. A lady who joined the French class of The "Woman's Club was not a little disturbed because the youngest member made the most progress. Children are in the language-learning period. Calling at the home of a French family and finding difficulty in expression, a visitor opens his eyes when a child interposes and becomes an easy in- terpreter of the meaning of both parties that had at- tempted to confer. Children can memorize the easiest. Recall your own early exploits in committing to memory long portions of Scripture and poems and declamations, particularly when the meaning was a trifle obscure, and compare what you did then with your inability to do the same task now, and you will find that there are some things that children can best do. An old sailor said that he never knew a boy to get washed overboard at sea. If a heavy man catches hold of a rope he cannot sustain his own weight as a boy can. A hoy is light and wiry and tenacious if he gets hold. Simply because he is a boy, he can keep hold. He has less to sustain. So it is with the boy who by faith lays hold on Jesus. He has not the weight of so many habits and thoughts to drag him down. It is easier for a boy to feel sorry for a sin, and to repent and to change his ways. There are some things that children can best do. The one sure [2-57] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN thing that you notice about a child is a want. His nature turns him to a supply. He naturally inclines to pray. Even the form, as in the familiar case of John Quincy Adams, continues with him as a fixed habit all along down the years until he is old and gray-headed. While a ship was loading with sugar at New Orleans, her captain was brought frequently in con- tact with a clerk whose gentlemanly bearing and ability awakened in the captain a purpose to speak to him, as they parted, about the importance of conse- crating his life to his Redeemer. On going to sea the captain never omitted for a single day to pray for the sugar merchant's clerk. Thus Christopher R. Robert, who pondered in his heart what the captain said to him, became a Christian, and conscientiously vowed that, if the Lord prospered him, he would do only good with a tenth of all he gained. Standing at the water's edge, near Constantinople, he noted the aroma of the freshly-baked bread that, by contract, was being landed at the rate of 12,000 pounds a day for the Eng- lish army in the Crimean War. "Where do you get the redolent loaves 1" " Prom a missionary over here by the name of Hamlin." All taken up with the work and character and ideals of the missionary, Mr. Robert inquired, "What is your greatest need?" "Nothing else so much as a college to crown these heights." "I guess we can compass it." The dream of a life-time, the vision, the prayer had [258] "GET A SPECIALTY" their fulfilment in Robert College. ' ' And behold there came an old man from his work out of the field at even." It was Cyrus Hamlin, statesman, diplomat, suited to be president of a theological seminary or a professor in a college. He was informed that a serious malady would require, surgically, a major operation, and that his chances at his age of surviving it were cer- tainly no more than even. Said he to the surgeon, ' ' If you were in my place, would you face the operation ? ' ' "I would." Mrs. "Walter Baker invited him to her house, as she kept Jersey cows, to be nourished and strengthened for what awaited him. As he, in the elevator at the hospital, reached the landing, crowned with dignities and honors, a strong attendant took him in his arms and bore him to the operating table to save the draft upon his nervous forces by his un- aided approach. As the anaesthetic was about to be administered, he said quietly, "Wait a moment while I pray. Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. And this I ask for Jesus' sake. Amen." "I am ready." When he was looking death in the face, when in the stress of life, in the exigency of all human experience, he prayed the prayer his mother taught him. After the lapse of all those momentous years, having established his fame in both hemispheres, [259] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN when in solicitude and anguish of heart, his soul's cry was in the words he learned at the sacred altar of his mother's knee. Church of the living God, what do you feel should be the support of people in trial, in the emergency of life, or in the struggle of death ? Teach it to the chil- dren and then they cannot forget it. The effort to cast it out will only confirm their recollection. Mother the children, and their living sentiment by the blessing of God becomes their dying sentiment. In the stress of life to whom shall they go but to The Mighty To Save. The fathers kindle the fire. The men are on the dividing line here between man- kind and the brute creation. A man can kindle the fire. A brute cannot. It would not do to trust a dumb animal with the responsibility that inheres in igniting a flame. Before the days of lucifer matches, it required strength that had been stored, and experience and skill, having tinder to take the flint and a hard metal, or to so revolve hard wood in a prepared orifice, or to vigorously, even violently, rub two pieces of partly de- composed wood together in such a way as to get a spark and kindle the fire. The vigor of our text comes from assembling one by one, the appropriate forces that are to be used in service. In the battle of Chancel- lorsville, the soldiers, were not defeated. The generals were outclassed, and egregiously and ridiculously whipped. Our great defeat and humiliation arose from the fact that there were 37,000 young, brave men [260] "GET A SPECIALTY" that our generals did not seem to be able to introduce into the fight and make them available.* This is a les- son for pastors and Christian workers, and leaders. Here were troops eager for the fray, but they lacked direction. Viesburg stands as a great achievement of a general. When Grant dropped down the Mississippi River, cut himself loose from the base of supplies, and informed the authorities at Washington that he would not be heard from for several days, it was the brilliant stroke of a master mind. Vicksburg was The greatest surrender of generals, of whom there were fifteen, and of armament and men that had ever been made at one time since time began. This was an achievement of General Grant, but Get- tysburg, following closely on, was conspicuously not only a soldier's battle but it expressed in a still broader sense the spirit of the people, which here became mani- fest in this unprecedented conflict. The American soldier was reinforced by a mighty sentiment at home. As he advanced into battle, he felt the mighty, loyal North behind him. The heart at home, and the heart at the front beat in unison This is the most pointed lesson that can be learned by the church from our na- tional history, of the crying need of men not unwilling to be placed and used. Failure comes from inability to bring the demand and the supply together. The *M'heii this address was given at Burlington, Vt., General 0. O. Howard, who had the experience, of visiting his own grave, where his arm was buried, was present and talked at length with the author, about the service and made no exception in his friendly re- marks to the point here made. He said himself, having had a command there, "We were whipped out of our boots," and used that expression. [261 J THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN sore defeat at a crucial period came solely from the commander's impotence in not placing them on any part of the firing line. On the approach to Gettysburg the soldiers in the ranks were determined that there should be no repetition of the recent errors. The lamentable disasters at Fredericksburg and Chancel- lorsville had depressing eifect upon the country at large. Our national currency, which is so quick to detect the feelings of the popular heart, ran right dovm to its minimum in value. Volunteering began to flag. Desertions were frequent. The rebels having been so successful, were enthusiastic and presuming. It was the darkest hour in the history of the Kebellion. Loyal hearts everywhere were depressed. General Lee, having been reinforced by General Longstreet, M'as promising his followers as a reward, for booty, the capture of Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington. The condition of things was desperate. Our na- tional leaders were thoroughly alarmed. No one, however, better than the common soldier in the ranks apprehended the imminent peril. Determination was rising high. Patriotism became a passion. One lofty purpose pos- sessed the soul. Such resolve had come to actuate the rank and file of the men, and to such a degree were all their loyal hearts rallied and centered, that when the first army corps, which had been wearily plodding its way toward Gettysburg, came into proximity to the engagement, enthusiasm spread like an infection, and the men with a cheer went up into the line of battle on [262] "GET A SPECIALTY" a run. More men were left dead upon the field than the Germans lost in the whole Franco-Prussian War. As General Lee began his retreat he exclaimed, "This is the beginning of the end. ' ' Gettysburg, the pivot on which our national destinies turned, was a soldiers' battle. The men in the rank and file did not know very weU who was in command as the change had occurred withiu three days. This greatest struggle was fought and won by our troops in an overwhelming conscious- ness of personal responsibility. The crisis was believed by each man to rest upon the masses in the field. It stands out, upon the page of living history, as the sym- bol of the issues of life in our land. In political, in theological, in missionary, and aggressive spheres of thought and action, final decision must rest upon the intelligence, the devotion, and the patriotism of our men. At Chancellorsville, the Generals could not do their work, at Gettysburg the soldiers were successful. In the Art Building, in the Exposition at Philadel- phia, among the paintings before which knots of peo- ple were constantly hanging, there was represented a central figure repulsing the wild charge of Pickett's division. It was a common soldier surrounded by his associates. As a mark of the signs of the times, make a study of the memorials of valor as they stand today in monumental stone and bronze, and you will find that the figure which stands forth to exemplify mod- ern heroism and achievement is not an officer of the staff but a common soldier from the ranks. Time was when the benefits of learning were withheld from all, [263] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN save a chosen few. Selected individuals were edu- cated, but the common people early dropped out of school. The plan then was the education of the "classes." Now the problem is the education of the masses. It is said that Michael Angelo took his copies, from the persons he met in every day life and wrought them out in the walls of the Vatican. So the expres- sion, which a church at last is made to wear is taken from the actual life of the people. And the women knead their dough. There are some things that women can best do. The text names but one particular which is connected with the feeding of the race. On the first leaf of the Bible the broad ground is taken that woman 's perceptions of evil are more acute than those of men. She therefore understands the moral and religious bearings, for example, of the temperance question better than man. This did not happen. It was God's idea from the first. Her endowment accounts for the fact. A great work- ing, vital, eternal truth is lost entirely to the sight of those who suppose that woman 's call to prominence m reformatory matters issues, belated, from the new growth of sentiment.* Her call was at the beginning. The conditions which enable her unerringly to re- spond are in her very nature itself. And the Lord *This sermon was preached in Montreal "before young people, and the points under this third head were deemed by them so effective and so clearly adapted to do a larger good that a request was sent to the author for the privilege of printing that portion, of the sermon as a temperance campaign tract for general dis- tribution. This came to be done in several places in varied editions. [264] "GET A SPECIALTY" God said: "I will put enmity between thee, viz., the serpent, the tempter, the beguiler, and the woman. That is, she is Heaven-appointed to stand at the angle where the beguiler touches human-kind. At the furthest outpost where righteousness antagonizes wickedness, there she stands. She is at the point of oppugnancy between the arch-representative of moral evil and our race. She is at the apex of the phalanx where humanity militates against the powers of darkness. She is there as a picket. By the apprehensiveness of woman's being she is con- stitutionally fitted to go on guard. By an instinct which does not mislead and which man does not pos- sess in equal sensitiveness and serviceableness by a superior susceptibility she is made impressionable to the presence or the advances of evil. She is specifically endowed with a sensibility which enables her to detect more quickly and unerringly what is harmful morally. This is done by pure native insight by the unimpeded clearness of her finely organized intuitive powers. Woman is a more highly organized being than man. It is a scientific principle that the continuance of the creative process is marked by ascending degrees of life. This is in the nature of an intuition. In the measure, in which it is possessed, and in its univers- ality, it could not be acquired. By Nature's original thought for her, she has a set of perceptions, that look, by the implanted law of their own being, for the [265] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN discovery of any lurking evil that menaces the young of the race. A great part of her fear when exposed to danger, in some dark street alone, is that she may lose what it is the moral business of her whole life to keep. She is made thus, as we so often see, naturally apprehensive. She does not analyze nor understand her fears. They are implanted. They act unconsciously and early. By them she is placed on guard. Her perceptions of the variation between rudeness and refinement are more acute than those of men. Most of those conventionalities, which make up so large a part of polite education, are of her invention, and in her absence fall into disuse. In a pioneer settlement, composed only of men, life falls suddenly to the same level. One may be stronger or braver or richer than another, and receive deference therefor, but distinc- tions based on differences in culture are unknown. The moment women appear, social lines are drawn and caste begins. The very existence of the word Out- cast implies a moral caste from which bad people are eliminated. "What women these Christians have!" said a Pagan orator of the second century, with a true perception of the Bible 's primal idea of the dignity of womanhood and the holiness of motherhood which raises the whole tone and character of the household. Woman sees with a vividness that man does not have, how the sale and use of intoxicants interfere with the best interest of the home. She, who has the pitiful [266 J "GET A SPECIALTY" heart, cries out when the saloon claims a victim. Every boy now grown, remembers that his mother notified him of the moral turpitude of some bad associate long before he discovered the quality she apprehended. By her sensitive organization, spiritually, she was not only first to speak but was fitted to speak, and now I go further and say she was appointed to speak. Not to speak is to be recreant to the commission given her at the beginning. And the great practical inference, from this statement, of an undeniable Bible principle, is that when woman speaks upon reformatory matters she is to receive the attention to which her position and appointment, as we have seen, entitle her. She is by God's decree the moral priestess of the race. Our duller senses do not serve us. So when she, standing on the moral outpost, declares plainly, that there exists a moral danger in a specified custom or person, she speaks representatively and authoritatively. That is God's way of uttering His voice to us. As a man, I may see no danger, but I am not organized to see it, as she is. Woman's proclama- tions on temperance and other reforms are divinely of- ficial. When women move, in a town or city, in the matter of a temperance reformation, the men in the community — the newspapers in the place — and the community itself, ought to know how much it means, in view of the principle, which is here accentuated. Men are to respond to their summons, give them aid and comfort, yield their resistance lest haply they be found fighting against God. From this discussion ap- [267] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN pears, too, the reason that there are more women than men in the church. Of course, there are. There ought to be. There always will be until the mil- lennial light shall illumine all things. It is obvious, when but 10 per cent of the inmates of penitentiaries are women, and 90 per cent men. The man who spec- ulated with stolen money would have been safe if he had confided in his wife. A woman instinctively shrinks from the thought of evil doing. No such sophistry beguiles the wife, as believing that default- ing, is simply borrowing money. She knows it is a theft, and can't be made to see it in any other light. In the moral realm she, who has the pitiful heart, will wield an increasing influence and gain an ascendency, which both the advocates of woman's singing base, and the female adorers of Oscar Wilde have imperilled. In recognizing, moreover, woman's true place in the joint work for temperance and thus thinking after him the great thoughts of God, we are to know that this cruel giant of intemperance is yet to be slain ingloriously like Holofernes by Judith, Abimelech and Phyrrhus by the hands of women. The sphere of woman's care in the matter of morals is now greatly extended, as the employment of women and children, in stores and shops and fac- tories was not until this century introduced and es- tablished. The weaving of woolen and cotton goods in earlier days was generally done in the homes of the workers, as watchmaking is still done in Switzerland. [268] "GET A SPECIALTY" But as isolated labor, can no longer compete with col- lective organized industry, a new menace to home in- fluence has arisen which she, quick to detect, is now going about to counteract. Into the realm of philan- thropy, also she has projected her beneficent influ- ence. "Woman," says Lecky, "possesses a natural instinct and genius of charity." "The order of deaconesses, ' ' he continues in his History of European Morals, "may be traced to the Apostolic period." They were employed "in visiting." The various benevolent orders in which women are al- lied for Christian activity, particularly in our branch of the church, are probably outgrowths of this primi- tive organization. Looking out broadly upon the field today, we find that defalcations never occur among women. That they never betray a trust is the wonder of those, who are versed only in routine of the com- mercial world and not in what God has made known in his word and in the moral construction of woman herself. Being guided by her unequalled intuition, who can now point to women as a class, who are to be found on the wrong side of any great moral ques- tion? "Women, in view of these considerations, are freighted with large responsibilities. Nearly all the city missionaries of Boston are ladies, and they are appointed, not because of economy, but because they do the best general work. Some one asked Mr. Spur- geon, "Who is the most efficient man in your church?" He replied, characteristically, "Mrs. Bartlett." Children, Fathers, Women on what do [269] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN you lavish your best? Everybody has some object, himself or another, on which he lavishes his choicest store. We know where the alabaster box was broken. It was ointment, "very precious," "very costly," that was poured forth. It is a gift of the best that touches the heart. Abraham brought Isaac to the altar, his best. There is nothing too good for the Saviour, nothing too good for friendship, for the church, for our country, or college, or school, and nothing too good to apply to young men and women who are in the formative stage of their lives. [270] Chapter XXVIII TRAVELING INCOG Thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the win- dow. Joshua 2:18. There are the children of Israel coming up out of bondage. They approach Jericho. Upon what is the preservation of Rahab and of her house made to de- pend? Not upon her faith, but rather upon the ex- pression of her faith. The scarlet thread must be thrown out from the window in token of her faith. When we speak of yielding testimonies to our fellow- men, we are prone to think first of the good that will be done to others. Let me turn that thought around. I want to make it evident that the primary advantage is to the one who thus adds by confession, the seal to his faith. It is not a living faith until it is expressed. Here is an egg; by sight or by sound you ascertain that there is life in the egg. It must be expressed, not only on account of those whom the fledgling may greet with its song, but there must be manifestation for the well-being of the life itself. Here is a tree ; if insects strip the leaves away, which are its form of manifes- tation, it will some time, if expression is persistently denied, die in its place. Look at this seed; life is in it. The power of the germ, however, may [271] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN be lost in time if you refuse it a chance of expression. Plant it. Let it manifest itself, and the earth will never be without that form of life. Neither can faith main- tain its vitality except it is given an outward manifes- tation. "Faith without works is dead." Religious life without expression is incomplete. The expression is a part of the faith, it is the development or final stage of it. The Apostle does not say, ' ' Thou shalt be saved if thou shalt believe in thine heart." That would recognize and reward a partial process. He insists rather upon a completed process, as the terms, on man 's part, of salvation, and so lays down these in- separable conditions of confession with the mouth as well as belief in the heart. Hence he continues, "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." "Upon this Rock" — upon this solid foundation, not upon Peter's faith, for an undeveloped faith is a very inse- cure thing, but upon faith as it was that moment con- fessed — "I will found my Church." The faith of a man needs to be pronounced in order to hold the man. It is upon this idea that we proceed in laboring to se- cure temperance and other pledges. "We want souls to commit themselves, and that for their own good. We instinctively distrust mere matters of sentiment and kindly disposition until they have been manifested. The very expression of regard for President Timothy Dwight as it used to be expressed by the students at Yale College, as They stood respectfully [272] TRAVELING INCOG in their places, after prayers, until he had passed slowly down the long aisle, not only was a token of reverence for him, it deepened the regard for him in the hearts of the students themselves. It built up one of the traditions of the university. It bound the hearts of the students up in the same bundle with the institu- tion itself. The expression of reverence became a part of the collective life at New Haven. What they did for him they did with even greater effect for themselves. The seven long, weary, sanguinary years of the Revo- lutionary War were fought through to a glorious triumph upon the basis of a declaration. The force that carried the colonies through was in the embodied idea. The expression of the idea gave it birth, fired it with a destiny and gave it unwonted energy. Y»u will observe that it is from the standpoint of a Declaration that aU our revolutionary history is reviewed. Here the unformed sentiment or the form- ing sentiment crystalized. Henceforth, we deal in history, with a new fact. Men must be given a place on which to stand, when they would lift the world. So is it in religious life. Congregations break forth with singing, when men declare their faith. I suppose that in the case of many persons there are a great many religious sentiments and convictions lyiag loose about the mind. A movement toward expression would bring them into line. As bodily strength comes from its expenditure, and not from its hoarding; as the mental faculties gain through their using; as expres- sion of thought in speech or writing increases one's [273] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN treasures; as the memory, the afEections, the imagina- tion, gain in power by giving them exercise and by Giving them play, so in our religious development expression is attended by an increment of power. But a man does not make himself strong merely for the sake of strength, but that his increased power may be of service ; just as a man should not make himself rich for the mere sake of riches, but that he may use his wealth in beneficence and blessing. Strength, riches and capability of ex- pression involve immense responsibilities to others. In a spot, not remote, two boys were in jeopardy of their lives upon the water. One of them gaining the shore, ran to a neighboring eminence to give the alarm and summoned help. There he was seen by many, engag- ing in violent gesticulations, which, not being under- stood, met with no response. He longed to save his companion, but alas, it was his misfortune, he was deaf and dumb. Yonder is all needful help, and at the foot of the hill a human being is perishing, and yet there stands in the midst an interested person, but tongue-tied and silent as the grave. Dumb as mummies. Here, in an acted parable, is the church. Oh, this dumbness! Needy humanity, help in readiness, and the intercessor dumb ! Oh ! the affliction of it ! To have children born dumb has always been accounted a mis- fortune by parents. So, too, is it in the case of those who are born again. Dumbness among the children of God is an unmitigated calamity. Where there should [274] TRAVELING INCOG be, sounding out the living voice of testimony, spir- itual life becomes so still, so quiet, that the church seems to be a vast aquarium. You look down upon liv- ing creatures that engage in various movements, but all is so voiceless! So-called Christians engage in varied activities, but the profoundest silence reigns. Dumb as fishes! There is motion, but no utterances! Their religion is bottled up. They carry dark lanterns. They have a light, but it illumines only their own pathway. Not only are they passing through life sil- ently, but as Christians some of them, in that char- acter, act as if they wanted to be unknown. Once in Pisa, a company was pointed out as containing princes. No one was to know it. They were traveling incog. This is a method adopted, too, by many of the children of the Great King. They are princes of the Royal Blood, but prefer to be unknown. They avoid, thus, all responsiblity for keeping up to their princely char- acter. They are like the seven thousand who had never bowed to Baal, of whom even Elijah did not know. They are the Lord's hidden ones. They have only witnessed up to a negative point. The best that could be said of them was that they had never kissed Baal. This negative testimony has at best but a sec- ondary value. Sometimes in the discernment of this fact, the children of this world are wiser in their gen- eration than the children of light. So was it when a large commercial house sent out its traveling salesman. He seemed to possess all those [275] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN qualities that would secure success. He himself felt confident of ability; but for some reason that was alike a surprise to him and to the firm, he made only unsuccessful journeys. After thorough acquaintance with his methods, the senior member of the firm asked him into the counting room to talk things over and in friendly fashion said: "We find that it is your ten- dency on visiting a store to spend more or less time in berating or deriding those business houses that are in direct competition with us; you labor to make it ap- pear that such a competing house has no standing in our own city, and this other one is trembling on the uncertain verge of bankruptcy. We find that you use your opportunity in talking about them. What we want is, when you have the ear of your customer, that you should talk about us. Talk about our credit — our facilities for doing business. Talk about us." God is a great business-doer. In his name we are called to travel into all lands and among aU in- terests to represent him. Much depends not only upon expression, but as well upon the method of it. We have no warrant and no occasion to antagonize anybody. When we get the ear of those to whom we are commissioned it is a supreme moment. The spirit of the Divine Firm of Business-doers, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, is this : Talk about us — Talk about us. [276] Chapter XXIX THAT ALAEMING IF If I had not come. John 15 : 22. "We should not have that painting which enchants the world. No one is known who ever saw it and was disappointed. It does not seem a picture, it appears a reality. A room is set apart to it for there is no other painting in its class to keep it company. As the generations rise and faU there is only one voice, and that gives pre-eminence to the Sistine Madonna. It is the glory of Dresden. It is the honor of Europe and the world. It does not give the impression of great labor, but rather of having been thrown off as if it were an inspiration of divine genius. When the proper end was reached, Eaphael stopped without put- ting any gilding on refined gold. "We should not have had this picture, if Christ had not come, nor the Madonna of the Chair, before which the observer stands transfixed. It is more than beautiful. li is faultless. In its perfection, it seems to gather into small space aU the graces of the art of painting. The mother is seated and clasps her child who turns his large eyes with a wondering gaze toward the world in which he is to take a part never before enacted, [277] THE WOEST BOYS IN TOWN and never to be repeated. The eyes are those of a child, and yet their deep power seems to tell the story, in advance, of the beatitudes, the upper chamber, Gethsemane, The Mount of Olives, and Calvary. Into what an eclipse the earth would pass, if we were to lose those enshrined pictures, which make our Painted Bibles, the world's holiest treasures, in which cul- minate the great moments of hallowed history that live ia our hearts and teach us reverence for sacred things. The Nativity, like a song without words, utters the universal language of mankind, and speaks with moving eloquence to every soul. From that scene in the life of The Holy Family an observer can- not bear to withdraw his eyes, because the figures seem alive. The luminous points in it, appear to dif- fuse themselves with a supernatural light. Eaphael died of the Transfiguration, and at his funeral, with a loveliness that seems almost divine, it hung over his bier. But if Christ had not come he could not have fulfilled that promise, made to his disciples, that he would give to some of them a glimpse of his glory, as proof that He was Messiah. Nor should we have had The Sorrowful "Way to Calvary, when in the picture, Jesus, having fallen under the cross, it is forced upon Simon of CjTene. The unfortunate world would also have lacked the picture of the Saviour and the Tribute Money, whose colors look as if they were grown on the canvas, as they grow on the petals of a lily. There would never have been unfolded to the wondering gaze of men, that masterpiece The Mar- [278] THAT ALARMING IF riage at Cana, in which art seems to feel herself peculiarly interested and honored, and breathes an in- spiration directly received from inspiration, which we know was divine. There is a plain tendency with men to choose the form and character of expression that meets the need of their age, and if it be religious we have such pictures as The Last Supper, The Last Judgment, most awe-inspiring picture ever painted, where the martyrs are present, with the symbols of the var- ious tortures, through which they passed to immor- tality. We have the Elevation of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross, before which a visitor tarried spell-bound to that degree that his companion desired him to come along, to which he replied, as in a dream, "Stop till they get him down." It is fine to have no disputed title, but to enjoy priority by the verdict of the world. In the Imperial City there is an edifice which cost $50,000,000, where $40,000 are used annually for repairs, and where 60,000 soldiers can parade its floor. It is a cathedral, without equal, in elegant art. Its dome, which is its most vast and imposing feature, from a distance seems to float in the air. The interior has the symmetry and sublimity of some great work of nature. No other dome so imposing, but that of heaven, was ever spread above mortal eye. It is hard to believe that man has done it all. It is 450 feet from the floor. Looking up to it, it seems to belong to a higher and better sphere. It overwhelms the observer with aston- [279] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ishment at the genius and achievement of men. It takes them captive and swallows them up in its im- mensity. If Christ had not come this harmonious temple, in its awfukiess and majesty, gathering up within its walls, a vast congregation of seven churches, would never have been built. Among his apostles was the son of Jonas, a man of great in- tensity "who moved altogether when he moved at aU," who, when the band that followed Christ seemed to be breaking up and he had said to them, "Will ye also go away?" replied in that critical moment, "To whom shall we go?" It is in honor of Peter, whose usefulness, as in the case of many others, springs out of some re- covery from sin, that this church was named. If Christ had not come there would also be eliminated from the most progressive and prosperous of the Italian cities the Milan Cathedral. At near view it seems stained a little but from a distance it glistens with dazzling whiteness like Mt. Blanc at noon day and as overpowering. Nearly 4,000 statues fiU its niches and canopies and stand upon its pinnacles, in a wilderness of marble columns. One hundred and eighty priests are connected with its observances, and fifty are seen at a single service. That miracle of art, universally admired, which has attained the good old age of 800 years, The Florence Cathedral, nothing like it had ever existed before, would never have expressed its heavenly purity, nor have revealed the graceful outlines and delicacy of its figures. Nor would The [280] THAT ALARMING IF Campanile, with its slender proportions and queenly elegance of form. Nor would the Cologne Cathedral, nor The York, which has lived a millenium, which dwarfs the whole city, in which the great Constantine assumed the imperial purple, and which, when built, would have held its entire population, nor Dublin, nor Canterbury, nor Chester, nor Notre Dame, whose por- tals are of almost unequalled grandeur, and whose three large rose windows are the most beautiful in Europe, and from whose roof the limits of Paris seem almost co-extensive with the visible horizon. Nor "Westminster Abbey, whose monuments epitomize a nation's history. Nor the Cathedral in Pisa, whose swinging lamp suspended from the ceiling taught Galileo, at 19, the law of the pendulum, which he was first to apply as a measure of time. And no splendid mausoleum and monimient of St. Mark, the humble shoemaker evangelist, with its columns brought from the Holy Land, its statues captured from subjugated nations, in Venice, that city of poetry and splendor that floats like a picture on the sea. The thought suggested by the Saviour in the text shakes a devoted Christian all up. The mere suggestion agitates his mind. He explores the pages of history and reads the annals of all our organizations in vain to find misfortunes that would be comparable to it. Archimedes was so fluttered by his discovery, of a method of ascertaining the bulk and weight of an object that in the streets, he exclaimed. Eureka. His plan seems to have been, to [281] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN judge of a thing, by the void it would make, when taken away. Place a kingly crown in water and reg- ister the uplift. Withdraw the crown and note the fall, and you know the amount of material you have. The most suggestive measure of anything is to make it a negative quantity. Detach the engine from the load, withdraw the capital from a business, take the mother from the home, and the difference tells the story. If Christ had not come we should not have had Handel 's Oratorio of the Messiah. There is a kind of rapture in properly hearing it. It engrosses the whole being. Every sense is flooded with delight. A new exalted feeling thrills the soul. A quickening breath sweeps over a concourse of people when a soloist of quality with power, with conviction and religious feeling is about to afSrm in song, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth. Persons, under the sway of her spirit, turn and look where she is looking, as she makes a reverent pause and then exclaims with real emotion, I shall see God. It preaches like a sermon. It lifts like an oration. It inspires like a poem. In the atmosphere of a great revival, Handel produced his unrivaled work, and the moving composition shows it. A few years ago a wide, almost world- wide canvass was made and vote taken touching our favorite hymns, and a decree was uttered touching the order in which they stand, in popular favor, by a process that is called a plebiscite. A person is no- tional, speaking only for himself, in naming his first [282] THAT ALARMING IF choice, which is based, on some individual exper- ience or taste or incident. But in a second and later selection he acts with others and gives a true ver- dict. Here are one hundred hymns which the world has taken to its heart in the stress of life, in hours of exaltation, of religious feeling, in days of sorrow and of joy. They are the organ of the soul's deepest ex- pression. What calamity would befall mankind and the church and the believer and even the wayfarer in the matter of these one hundred hymns, almost every one of which teUs of Christ, often heard under pa- thetic conditions, if the world had been stripped and impoverished. A lesser loss to the earth would be its public buildings and its fortune. What beggary would come to us if we were dispossessed of the mem- ory of those Christian hymns that were used in lifting our souls into unison with our God and Saviour when the skies and earth seemed united by a ladder as in Jacob's dream at Bethel and when Heaven comes down our souls to greet And glory crowns the mercy seat. [283] Chapter XXX DOING THE HANDSOME THING Go with him twain. Matt. 5: 41. It is Old Home "Week in a rural New England community. Business is practically suspended. All doors are set open, in a spirit of unfeigned hospitality. The residents resolve to stop at nothing in showing welcome to those who travel far in coming to see them. A distinguished visitor, ahsent from the place for a generation, makes inquiry, "Where does the teacher live whose school I once attended?" "I can show you," replies a resident. On the way, the names of the pupils in the ancient school are told over. "From the schoolmaster's I wiU go with you to the home of one of them. In his infirmities it will do him good, like a medicine, to see you." The resident repre- sented the spirit of the whole town, becomes ac- quainted with the visitor and so likes him. It is the way of the world. The Biblical spirit implies more leisure than most of us feel that we have. It would show in the amenities of life. The citizen felt a form of compulsion to go with the visitor one mile. Then follows a generous self-impulse which savors of his own personality. He went with him twain. Not of [284] DOING THE HANDSOME THING necessity, as Paul says, but willingly. This crowns his work. It is the glory of the second mile. Dr. Robert Dawbam, of New York City, was styled a second-mile surgeon. After an operation, in sewing up a wound, he always tied three knots when the cus- tom was to tie only one. Asked about it, he replied, "The third is my sleeping knot." Repose is sweeter when no task is left half finished. I have read of a nurse who does her work well, up to the routine limit. At that point she begins to hesitate. A patient is quick to detect a spirit of reluctance. The nurse is like a boy, with an examination coming, whose only thought is to "get by." "Whoever invented that execrable expression. The evil that men do lives after them. One idea is to do the handsome thing, to render uncompelled service. The other is to do only enough to "get by." Familiarity with this phrase, suggests to some a program. It is a stony-hearted, cloven-footed guide toward doing less than the best. It was an evil hour when it got loose in the world. The introduction of it is like that of the gypsy moth. The man who introduced it thought he was doing a smart thing. His plan was to get sUk at less than silk prices. A statesman electrified the coimtry, with the hearty announcement, which it seems scarcely possible to quote without commendation, that he did not belong to his party a little. He did not just barely stand for its principles, in a certain degree, to some extent, passably, possibly. Old fashioned people [285] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN had a heart, believed the Bible was inspired because it inspired them, thinking that it could not give what it did not have, and they gave us, on the rule of love principles, the quaint expression, Scripture measure, the kind that is pressed down, and shaken together and running over. It was their good manners. Instead of stamping a bill. Paid, they wrote Paid in full. The act had a Bible flavor in it. Religion, life consist not in verbs, activities alone, but in adverbs as well of quality and method. Let us see Rebecca "Queen it." "Let down thy pitcher I pray thee that I may drink," said Abra- ham's servant to her at the well. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, "I will draw water for thy camels also." She did the handsome thing. That's her high nature. She did not try to get by with the least she could do. It is a key to character. One party in this incident is a shrewd, responsible, well-tried, thoroughly trusted man of the world, act- ing wholly on the merits of the case, having fuU com- mission to choose a wife for Isaac. The trait that Rebecca, a damsel very fair to look upon, exhibited, adding quality to beauty, was clearly defined in ad- vance. On his long journey he had a chance to think things over. There was, in his mind, one character- istic principle and but one. It was a trait that could not be overlooked. It is a characteristic that has a peculiar, finding quality in it. He waived other mat- ters, or merged them in this, and here is the heart of [286] DOING THE HANDSOME THING my theme. Let her show that she is in her nature, gracious. Any other good qualities that she is found, on later acquaintance, to possess will be properly ac- credited, but in her native disposition, there is a shin- ing, lustrous, dominating quality around which all others, like satellites, revolve, which is indispensable, and that is graciousness. Knowing that thou wilt do more than I say. That characteristic was right there. She showed it. It is an angel trait. All unconscious of what was at stake, she met the test. How pleasant it is to see her rise at the supreme moment. She rang true. There is a kind of crystaliza- tion in the circumstances of life. It is pinnacle of ex- perience. "She let down her pitcher." I drank and then she made the camels drink also, "also" being the pivotal word. I put the earring upon her face and the bracelets upon her hand and I bowed my head and worshipped. The poet who said, An honest man's the noblest work of God did not know about Rebecca. We fortunately can follow her life based on this super- lative trait. They were married and lived happy ever after. Shakespeare covets this fine quality for Desde- mona and makes lago say of her, ' ' She holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than is requested." "Gimpers" in the world war are those who do a little better than they have to, and to promote this spirit they have organized ' ' The Gimper Escadrille. ' ' There is a stammering in action which is more vmfortunate than stammering in words. [287] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN We sometimes say of a person that lie hesitates m speech. Simon the Pharisee, he of the marble heart, showed hesitation at the very point where Rebecca so radiantly shines. He affected to be host to the Lord, yet he holds himself back, as if seeking to settle at the lowest terms. His home became a place of mark by giving entertainment, but there was no heart in it, and he was obviously making it a matter of the least possible trouble. His idea is, in the vernacular, to get by, only this and nothing more. As stated in the prayer book, he has left undone the things which he ought to have done. He was a canny, shrewd man, but never exposed to any fatality from enlargement of the heart. If he ever laughed he never laughed heartily, as he does nothing else heartily. He is not a man who would say. My cup runneth over. Some things he would do pretty well, and some could not well be much worse. His instruction to his clerks would be, Do not give too much merchandise to the shilling. The Saviour's sensitiveness, noted limita- tions, in the spirit of hospitality, and when events forced some expression from him, he said plainly, Thou gavest me no water for my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint. This host hedged himself with a palisade. He did his guest a kind of denatured courtesy. li was as cold as charity. There was no lack of appreciation of the formal in- vitation, but, as usual with Pharisees, cold-hearted as the elder brother, ungenerous as Shyloek the chill [288] DOING THE HANDSOME THING came from a sparing, stinted, doling spirit which be- gan at the door. To have done only that which it was our duty to do is to have been unprofitable servants. And Elisha said unto the king, Smite upon the ground, and he smote thrice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times. He was one of these men that do not fit in with a plan that has earnest feeling in it. He is not the kind that leaves no stone un- turned to compass his object. His idea is to do pretty well, or well enough, to a degree, to a certain extent. In the place of shields of gold, which Solomon had supplied, Rehoboam put shields of brass, thus express- ing his nature as well as his idea, that an inferior article would answer the purpose. Beside economizing one's self, there is such a thing as a stingy receiver. The gift was very nice, but he does not feel the need of doing anything about it. It might have come from one who is, by ill health or age, retired from the interplay of life and so finds pleasure in supplying the wherewithal to those still active in a needy world. Did the gift do good? In what way ? At what point ? In what measure ? But the tongue tied receiver cuts short the history of a gift. When once it is received any pleasure in its subse- quent interesting or useful story is not shared, with the one who originated the gift. This Is about the worst form of heart failure. Another ungenerous [289] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN receiver is one, who fails to recognize any aboimding measure of personal service, with the result, that the person rendering the service, failing to win any praise, soon ceases any partieulr effort to deserve it. There are some of us who, from study of it, have so come to love the Bible that like the angel with the little book we could eat it up. Its words, the Psalm- ist said, were sweet to his taste, sweeter than honey to his mouth. One's taste for it grows, also his regard, when he finds that human nature in its most modern ways, and in its utterances, that seem real new and very human, are matters of record in the best of books. The Bible speaks of ' ' The Other Side. ' ' Both a priest and a Levite came where the wounded man was, whom the robbers beat up. And there was a clear sugges- tion of duty. But their disposition expressed in latest phrase was to get by. But the Scripture ia finer expression pictures them as sidestepping by taking to the other side of the road. That was not the side taken by the Good Samaritan who made the man his guest at the inn, took care of him, saw the man through the first night after his injuries, and was lavish of himself. On the morrow, as he departed after every bill was paid, after all was said and done he gave an added touch. It has the element of nicety about it. It gilds everything with exquisite, delicate finish. He took out some money and gave it to the host. This gives his work completeness. He carries the thing through. The last act has the consistency and the cumulative [290] DOING THE HANDSOME THING power of fine breeding, and unerring instinct. This endows the mind with another sense. It shows a golden trimmed virtue. It is the coronation of philanthropy. "I do not think," some one said, "that all the machine charity of the world, however sincere, however honest, will ever make up for exalted personal service. " It is not work done by compulsion. It looks toward a re- ward that is not of earth. Them that honor me I will honor. It is said that money talks. Those two entirely extra, unsolicited pence talk with indescribable charm. They reveal the inner princely nature of a man who has the unfailing instinct to do the handsome thing. We live together many years, And leave misounded still Each other's springs of hopes and fears, Each other's depth of will : We live together day by day, And some chance look or tone Lights up with instantaneous ray An inner world unknown. [291] Chapter XXXI EAGLES ADOPT INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION An eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings. Deut. 32 : 11, 12. Standing in his door, a ship captain said, "You see that solitary gigantic tree yonder. It is the home of an eagle. The nest is, like herself, a royal affair, four or five feet in height and as much in diameter. It contains a cart-load of material. Prom her lofty perch the American bird, with extraordinary power of vision can survey her neighborhood for miles around. Upon a towering pinnacle of rock, near the entrance to Yellow Stone Park, the Wonderland of the Republic, is an eagle's nest. Poised above it, statuelike, with broad expansive wings outspread, is seen our bird of freedom, a watchful sentinel, the embodiment of strength and majesty, thrilling the beholder to the heart. Only one brood is reared each season, but they are eagles! The mating of the par- ent birds lasts as long as both survive. The feature of their home is its abundance of food, which, from over supply, falls even in great quantities to the ground. Our national bird will carry a lamb equal to her [292] EAGLES ADOPT INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION own weight to her nestlings that have an inactive life and a continual feast. They remain in the nest an incredible time and part themselves from it with the greatest reluctance. When the ousting begins neigh- boring people come forth from their doors and wonder at the violence, the aggressive spirit, the public de- monstration, and the noise. The best specimen of the feathered tribe stirreth up her nest because the heavy, over-fed, dormant nestlings are eagles. They have been satisfied with ease, and with their spacious, well appointed home, hence with noble instinct, as if di- rectly. Divinely guided, the nest is stirred up, made uninhabitable, turned inside out that the eaglets may come to themselves. They are Monarchs of the air. They have the Eagle nature and the Eagle qualities. Those who have dabbled a little in Latin are ever declaiming with the swing of conquest, a stale, weather-beaten, moss-grown line, "gone out through all the earth and its words to the end of the world," "I sing the arms and the man," with which Virgil begins his masterpiece. As the sound dies down, another class advances, like a tenth wave upon the shore, reciting the battered translation, now worn to a thread, ' ' I sing the arms and the hero, ' ' and set out with eloquent admiration his achievements, great honors and immortal praise. But there are three words which are unaccented, slurred over, muffled in this glorious verse. "I sing the arms and the hero who first, exiled by fate, ' ' came from the coast of Troy. On this parenthesis "exiled by fate" the stately nar- [293] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN rative turns. Back of all accomplishment, honors, fame, lay a merciless stirring of the nest, inexorable expulsion, a heartless, unwelcome ejection. "There is a local feeling" exclaimed our most renowned orator at Plymouth, with great depth of emotion, "too strong to be resisted," a sort of genius of the place which inspires and awes us. We feel that we are on the spot where the scene of our first history was laid." "The breaking waves dashed high On a stem and rockbound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky Their giant branches tossed. What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine, The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? They sought a faith's pure shrine." What a perversion of history it is in both song and oratory to begin the life of the Pilgrims with the landing on Plymouth Rock. Their nest at Scrooby with violence had been broken up. They had been dislodged. It was heart breaking. They underwent affiction and anguish; a soulless dislodgment lay be- hind their brilliant record here which has brightened with the years. Franklin seats himself abroad and reads to an admiring group the story of Ruth, and the captivated company exclaim almost in unison, "That is the fin- est thing in any language." Ruth became the an- [294] EAGLES ADOPT INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION cestress of our beloved Lord. What delight he must have felt at the mention of her name, and of the tender incidents that attended her career ! What heart has not been touched with that exquisite protestation of pure affection addressed by her to Naomi, "Whither thou goest, I will go." "Thy people shall be my people," But why is Naomi in the land of Moab at all? Grim hunger did it. The gaunt wolf was looking in at the door. Desperate necessity breaks up the home. They are driven forth by pitiless want. The nest was stirred up and made untenable. We catch at the roseate side of the narrative and forget the bitter- sweet. Review the history from end to end and we see no way to have the charm, the pathos, the felicity, without the harsh expulsion, and the grief. The children of Israel cherish fondly the time "when we sat by the fleshpots of Egypt, and when we did eat bread to the full." They had to be har- ried by Pharaoh, lashed by task-masters, tormented by plagues, life made unendurable, before they would make the start for a promised land that flowed with milk and honey. Jacob, the typical Jew, a little inclined to live and thrive at the expense of his brother, was a mother's boy, disposed to have Esau a wild man do the running, and himself, meanwhile, easily absorb the family wealth. No good and quiet boy could ever be more to his mother's mind. But before his name was ever changed to Israel and ere he developed the [295] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN qualities that go with the new name, even his doting mother must stir up the nest and send this idle boy about his business, saying "Arise, flee. Thy brother Esau as touching thee doth purpose to kill thee. ' ' The father of General Lew Wallace sent him to school, but very much to the boy's discredit, failed to secure anything like regular attendance at recitations, or even a decent attempt to master his lessons. His time was spent in fishing, hunting, and roaming through the woods. When a search was made for him he was carefully hidden among the trees, lying upon his elbows, maunehing an apple. At length his father, a lawyer, called him into his office, and reaching into a pigeon-hole of his desk, took down a package of papers which were the receipts for tuition which he had paid on the lad's account, and asked him to add them, as he called them off. "That sum represents what I have expended ; after mature reflection I have come to the conclusion that I have done for you all that can reasonably be expected of anj^ parent. And I have therefore called you in to tell you that you have now reached an age when you must take up the lines yourself." The boy was staggered. He was electrified. His noble powers were at once called into use. Copies of a single work of his have been translated into all languages, from the French to the Arabic. The room in which it was begun has become a shrine in the governor's palace at Santa Fe, and 700,000 copies [296] EAGLES ADOPT INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION of it have been issued, and when we rejoice most in the distinguished author's glorious achievements we must not overlook the faithful father's fruitful method. "We have, however, at length, found a mother who feels that the nest, with its comfort and its abundant parental supplies, is none too good for her son of twenty-five, who weighs two hundred pounds. She felt him too inexperienced for the task he was expected to perform. She had him a splendid sup- per, and her husband told her that she had done well in getting her son early to bed that he might rise early and reach his work on time. "He is not going to work tomorrow. I telephoned the man that he must get someone else to do his work. I am not going to let him make a slave of my boy. ' ' You must have noticed in the various biographies how sad the partings always are, of a boy from his home and mother, as he goes forth to enter upon his individual career. It was so with Dwight L. Moody, who was found crying at the top of the hill, The Home-Sick Mount, which was separating him from Northfield and his mother. It is real sorrow, when a timid boy, by some stem necessity is bundled out of the home nest. The mother of Philip H. Sheridan was strongly opposed to his going to West Point, for she said it was too much like going out of the world. At seven- teen, having borrowed $50 from James Gallin, the day he was to leave, he was greatly grieved at the [297] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN sadness his going away had caused his warm-hearted Irish mother. Yet he was fully determined. He would cry and then go out to the rain barrel and wash his face and come back into the house, unwilling to yield his hope of a career, but sorry to cause such grief to his beloved mother. He came to be ranked, both by Grant and Von Moltke, the great field marshal in the world. It was only by leaving the home nest that he was enabled to write his name among the im- mortals. A hardy, young plant transplanted to a strange, unsocial soil, may droop for a day, but soon begins to raise its head and to flourish, basking in a new affluence of sunshine and nourishment and room. The eagle fluttereth over her young. They are inclined to gorge and doze. She whips the nest. There are the eaglet and an easy berth. The mother bird is trying to get them apart. Her operation seems almost human. An over-indulgent father was known to have a boy and $100. And the president of a college wrote him, advising him to keep them apart. A certain portion of the commun- ity, emancipated from the necessity of toil, adhere to the nest, its leisure, its contentment, and its stagnat- ing, complacent self-conceit. The great apostle gloried in tribulation. The word is derived from tribulum, which means, the flail, used in threshing out the grain. The eagle's wing comes down like a flail. For the present it seemeth grievous. You do not know a man very well unless you can tell when [298] EAGLES ADOPT INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION he found himself, and how it all came about. This was his soul's awakening, his rebirth. The eagle fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, and soars, an aerial car, out for a sail. They are in their element. There is one generation, with complete sympathy, entire devotion, putting its strength, its skill, all its acquisition under the next generation to develop its individuality, widen its out- look, and develop its full and large capacity. It is the Bible's finest drama of helping other to help themselves. It is almost the- atric in the vivid, picturesque, and perfectly natural participation by the actors, each one so strongly and promptly taking his part. Thus, Henry F. Durant dealt in early days with Wellesley College, becoming, under God, a strengthening blessing. Thus dealt the United States with the Philippines. If Cuba should be erased from the map of the world, if twelve hun- dred islands between Borneo and China should be sunk into the Pacific Sea, if Luzon and Manilla and Funston and Aguinaldo and the clever ruse by which he was captured should be forgotten by men, the af- fecting vital lesson would still remain, in which a great nation with only benevolent design, put her strength under the benighted islanders, victims of op- pressive rulers, and lifted them to a new vision and with the soul's awakening enabled them to discover their latent powers. The eagle appears at her best, and does her best [299] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN as she gives to the young their first lessons in a school of aviation. It has been supposed and taught that each of us, if normal, has five senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, and that these are all we can have, or need. But the bird man claims, in the name of science, that there is a sixth sense as real as any of the other five. It is equilibrium, or balance. When a person walks he only Falls forward and catches himself, which require practice as seen in the case of a child. But the aviator keeps his bearings by an in- stinctive faculty or adjustment and equipoise, and an intuitive sense of relations. If he is too heavily loaded on one side he feels it. Some young people are all poetry, all fiction, all sentiment. They are lacking on the side of experience and a common re- gard for the stern facts of life. Here we have a practice school in symmetrical development, in keep- ing one's poise in times of stress, of great excitement, in days of war, amid national upheavals, in changed conditions of life, of prosperity, and of new sur- roundings. The queen among American women, the most popular lady in the land, when inheriting great wealth which turns the heads of many, while receiv- ing adulation which often causes giddiness, and while dispensing a royal charity which makes many per- sons purse-proud and heady, exhibits this fine quality of poise, balance, steadiness. She finds a little out- cast thrown out of his nest and left thus on the cold [ 300 ] EAGLES ADOPT INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION steps of a cathedral. She spreads abroad her gentle, benevolent wings, taketh him, beareth him on her wings, nameth him after her husband, seateth him at her table, and feedeth him of the king's meat. Helen, in history, stands forever as the prototype of feminine beauty. Saint Helen discovered the holy sepulchre and the true cross. Her zeal and religion made her a favorite with Christian writers, who caused her to be canonized. Little Finley B. Shepherd, solitary, as- sociated only with adults, distends his young life to- ward theirs, making him old before his time. So that select spirit, his renowned, princely mother, our American Helen, does an act more distinctively Christ-like than constructing the Hall of Fame, more nearly on the New Testament level, like her personal care of sick and convalescent soldiers at Camp Wy- koff when she, spreading abroad again her hospitable wings, taketh three other children into her Tarrytown and Fifth Avenue home to be the companions and mates of her adopted son that all of them may be children together and help educate one another. Blessed among women shall she be, for "whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, re- ceiveth me and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth him that sent me." [301] Chapter XXXII SOME OF MY MOTTOES The preacher set in order many proverbs. Ecclesiastes 12: 9. The Truth Will Bear Its Own Weight When visiting a Hospital for the Insane, I savp a strong, big, crazy farmer brought in, by a posse of his muscular neighbors, who seemed to feel that their grave responsibility would be fully discharged if by any device they inveigled him across the threshold of the asylum and hastily shut the door. The superintendent said to the base deceivers, ' ' And how did you get this man to accompany you ? ' ' "We told him we were going to buy cattle, and we invited him to go with us." "And how did you induce him to come to this hospital?" "When we saw it in the distance on the hill, we said to him that we thought it was a big hotel, and, as the night was coming on, we asked him if he had not as lief stop there as anywhere; and he said, 'Yes.' " ' ' Now before you go, ' ' said the superintendent to the false brethren, "you must tell this man that you lied to him; that this is not a hotel, and that you [302] SOME or MY MOTTOES knew it was not. This man must be undeceived. If it is left to us to disclose to him the facts, he might think that you too were misguided, and that the place was proving of a different character from what people outside have generally supposed, that you were his friends and we were not, that we were detaining him unjustly. This starts a spirit of resistance and pre- judice and animosity, which is unfavorable for both treatment and recovery. The best way to get along with the insane is to take a self-respecting course with them, and to tell them the truth. If this man recovers, it will be by coming to the standards of fact where a hotel is a hotel, and a hospital is a hospital. Right wrongs no man." Thus some men seem to feel incorrectly that they are about the only persons living who ought to know the truth ; that it is their care to see that it is doctored, warped, and by them adapted to other people. They use falsehood when the truth would, all things con- sidered, be better. A husband will sometimes say, "Now to my wife I always take this attitude, and seek to give this im- pression," as if things, for her, needed always to be made over according to some erroneous notions of his own. He gets a habit of twisting the truth and re- shaping it, not that it needs it, and the matters in- volved are not improved by so much manipulation; but he thinks that the truth ought in some way to be refashioned for different people. Many persons think they are not shrewd and tact- [303] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ful unless they in the little matters of daily life, ap- ply their ingenuity, to distorting and perverting the facts of the case. Nothing is further from the spirit of home than insincerity and acting a misleading part. The truth will bear its own weight. Out with a hypo- crite, even in his own house ! CULTIVATE CLOSE RELATIONS WITH THOSE YOU OWE The room in which I have now wrought for many years, by a placard on the door, is named ' ' The Grind- er's Home." On the right on a shelf stands a large- mouthed bottle in which I have put all the cremated notes that I have given for any debts I have incurred. When a note of hand was paid by me, I would bum it and put the ashes in this bottle. The pathos of my life is in this receptacle, and it carries a lesson. Wrapped around it and pasted to it is a sheet of paper on which are written the names of the persons to whom I have owed money. I find, on calling the roll, that there is not one of them, that is not stiU, a friend, and there is not one, that under the same circumstances, I could not go to today with a perfect certainty of getting the same, or even a larger, favor. I attribute it in part to an adherence to this motto of my life: Cultivate close relations with those you owe. This is a very practical matter, as many of the new fortunes of the world are made on borrowed money. When you owe a man, do not avoid him. Do not elude him. Do not cross the street when you see [304] SOME OF MY MOTTOES him coming. Do not either studiously or even uncons- ciously keep out of his way. Why treat him like a leper ? Bo not dodge him. Do not allow yourself to dislike him. Try to see him, and not wait for him to "see" you. When a friend lends another friend money, he has reason often to fear that he will lose both the money and the friend. Carefully maintain the intimacy, and frankly reveal just what you have, what you are doing, and how you are getting along. If you are inclined to be a little secretive, and to work in a corner, it is the highest impolicy in your relation to a creditor. Be sure to pay him off before you grow reticent and distant and exclusive. While the debt stands, keep in with him. Let him feel that he has the correct view of the inner working of your mind and business. He will often be wondrously pa- tient, sometimes unexpectedly helpful and kind. A man under such conditions deserves to be treated decently, and has a right to know more than you have any business to communicate to others. Cultivate close relations with those you owe. A MAN'S OPINIONS MEASURE HIM AS MUCH AS THEY DO THE THING THAT HE EXPRESSES THEM OF So it is in that remarkable debate between Ho- race Greeley and Robert Dale Owen on divorce, which is a struggle of giants, a great sight to witness, and one of the breeziest, brightest, profoundest col- [305] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN lisions to be found in our literature. The impact is furious. It is a great display of power; and yet, as if in mockery, it ends just where it began. Robert Dale Owen exhibits the revolt and debase- ment of feeling, that inhere, in being wife to a man, that habitually comes home drunk. On the other hand, Mr. Greeley sets out the fact that the state has a stake in every marriage, as the children may have to be supported and educated at public expense; that, if a young woman marries a man who drinks, she must have a drunkard for a husband ; that the unlike- liness of divorce acts as a deterrent to ill-considered marriages, on the principle, named by the judge to the culprit, who complained of his punishment for merely stealing a horse, when he was told that sever- ity was not for stealing the horse, but that horses might not be stolen. But we are reviewing the case that we may ob- serve the full self-revelation made by the parties en- gaged in battle. Their opinions mark them. Each one has the defects of his qualities. One is plainly a sentimentalist, or humanity man, who cannot bear to see a woman suffer. The other is a comprehensive publicist, a statesman who has thrown his feelings be- hind his back, approached the subject from the stand- point of the public good, and designs to make mar- riage a serious incident, it being for life. On the famous electoral commission, almost by accident, it became necessary to name Justice Bradley in place of Justice David Davis. This was fatal, in [306] SOME OF MY MOTTOES advance of everything, to Mr. Tilden; for, while it was hoped that the eight Republicans and seven Demo- crats would rise above the trammels of parties, and render a judicial verdict, on the pure merits of the case, yet they did not; for on each of the three dis- puted States, and on the elector from Oregon, they voted just as they were, as partisans, before they heard the case, eight to seven. We see plainly the meaning of our Saviour's precept. Judge not, that ye be not judged. On the incidental question of the right to use a play, in a contention at law, it was con- trived to bring before the court the question whether Shakespeare's plays were not written by Bacon. The judge decided that they were written by Bacon. He had no sooner judged than he was judged. The verdict of scholars turned against the judge. A man who is always judging invidiously is himself judged mercilessly. It is decided that such a judge of other people is censorious. Judge not, that ye be not judged. Two women, each claiming a child, were brought before Solomon for judgment. Bring me a sword, said the wisest of men. We will make an equal divi- sion. "0, save the child!" said one. O-ive her the living child. In no wise slaj^ it," said one of the women. The one thus speaking is the mother. Her motherhood shows in her utterance. Achilles was fond of war and was likely to get into it; to keep him out of danger his mother sent him to an obscure place, [307] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN disguised as a maiden. In the expedition against Troy his aid was indispensable. He must be identi- fied. Odysseus appeared as a peddler, spread his wares, including a shield and spear, before the king's daughters, among whom was Achilles in disguise. Then he caused an alarm of danger to be sounded, upon which, while the girls caught up what personal adornments they could, and fled, Achilles seized the arms to defend himself, man-fashion. A man's ac- tions come from his way of thinking, and his opin- ions measure him more than the thing that he ex- presses them of. In Kossuth County, Iowa, the largest county in the state, two rural townships, substantially alike, were voting on the prohibitory amendment. One voted fifty for the amendment to twenty-two against it. The other vote stood seven for the amendment and one hundred and seven against it. It was the same issue exactly in both townships. When on the merits of a proposition the question is identical, a man's opinions touching it measure him as much as they do the thing he expresses them of. The inference is easy that there were two different kinds of people, with different antecedents and tastes and purposes and that the vote simply recorded a distinction among men. "That only which we have within can we see without." A man cannot help revealing himself, his inheritance, predilections, temperament, sympathies, and limitations, in his opinion, which discredits no- [308] SOME OF MY MOTTOES body but himself. A man may try to get away from himself in his opinion, but he cannot. Even if he did, it would not be his opinion. It would be an affectation. THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY TO 1)0 A THING In your visits to business offices it must be sug- gestive to notice, how many of them have printed mottoes exposed to view, in varying dogreos of con- apicuousness. Some doubtless are put up by em- ployees, and some by the proprietors; but they are there, showing that practically every man or woman has some basic word or principle to which he likes to adhere, and wishes that others would do so. Some of these are helps over hard places. When Dr. Meredith was conducting his far- famed Bible class, in Tremont Temple, people ex- pressed to him surprise at the wisdom of some of his oifhaud answers. Ho said that those replies that were apparently impromptu had been, on the contrary, most elaborately considered. The questions that reached him usually touched some principle, like that of inspiration, that he had earlier privately attended to, and his response was along the lines of his con- clusions. He had studiously and carefully made up his mind, for example, whether there is or is not a miraculous, supernatural element in revelation. A question touching this rising, he at once falls back upon his earlier decision. For a young man, when under a strong temptation, to consider not his im- mediate environment, but the lines of eoiiduet he had [ 309 j THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN earlier fixed for his behavior, is to live the life of principle. On one of his first trips as brakeman, a verdant country boy heard two conductors debating which of their trains, which had met, should back up to some point where the side track would be as long as one of the trains, so that they could pass. But in the face of derision the rustic boy maintained that trains could pass each other, by a side track that is far shorter than either of them. There is always a way to do a thing, and he pointed it out, and every freight-con- ductor now knows that two trains can ' ' saw by " on a track insufiScient to hold at one time either full train. From Emporia there rose the question, "What's the matter with Kansas?" Benevolent friends of the Eastern States had been sending boxes of clothing, carloads of supplies, and all kinds of grain for seed. So much had been done for Kansas that she was "done for," with the usual result, where everything is done for persons, who in turn, do nothing for them- selves. They are "done for." But there was a remedy. There is always a way to do a thing. Their present prosperity proves the truth of the proverb. I was once on a committee to carry a city for no- license. Conditions seemed to render the prospect hopeless. If I were going to frame a motto to hang up in the shops and committee-rooms, it would be, "There is always a way to do a thing." It was at [310] SOME OF MY MOTTOES length suggested that the right would prevail if the local Catholic church, which was very strong, would come out openly in the contest, and if the holy father would attend the Sunday-night rallies, in a public hall, and participate in them. I remember my visit to the priest, who instantly said he would be most happy. All accounts agree that the churches in Musca- tine, lo., were trying to do their sledding on nearly bare ground. There is always a way to do a thing. They had the courage to send six different delega- tions to Rev. William Sunday, an evangelist. They secured his aid; and one church, not speaking of the others, increased its membership from six hundred to at least fifteen hundred, necessitating a new audi- torium. Take it in a small rural community, where there are too many impoverished churches, which they cannot properly support, where two at least, out of them all, ought to unite. They have their antecedents and their property and their appointments. Suppose they should keep this flag flying : ' ' There is always a way to do a thing." All the time it exists. It puts all the attention on finding the right method ; there is a door. It takes much less than Mr. Henry Watterson's noble oration on "The Compromises of Life" to show that almost every great commanding achieve- ment, like our United States government, is the re- [311] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN suit of a series of concessions. When you speak of a "most uncompromising" man, you substantially say that he is opinionated, intolerant, odd, ill fitted to work or get along with others; in short, uncivilized, for the very word refers to man in his relations with others. The apostle takes note of the ' ' adversaries ; ' ' but there is, too, a "door;" and, if we gain confidence by this motto, it is inspiriting to seek, with others, un- til we find it. HOW MUCH WE MISS BY NOT ASKING FOR IT ! Rev. Dr. George R. W. Scott, who died while en- gaged in unselfish, unpaid labor, a most acceptable and gifted preacher, having a competency, and hence not needing any income from his ministry, used to express often his surprise and regret that, having said to his clerical brethren, who, being crowded and pressed, were toiling beyond their strength, that in the event of their desiring a respite for a Sabbath or two he would cheerfully and gratuitously supply their pulpits, though breaking under their burdens, and needing exactly what he could freely give, and would supply for the asking, they did not seem to ask. In a fine passage that always struck my fancy when I declaimed it in school the poet in describing Lord Byron, exclaims in great elevation of feeling, "Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help." I heard a man apologizing to a bank president for seeking a loan. "Why," said the president, "we are here to lend money. A bank cannot exist without [312] SOME or MY MOTTOES lending money. It is as much a favor to us to bor- row money of us as it is to you. We only want to be sure that we are to be repaid." "When a minister is suggested for a church, or a worthy person is named to make an address, or for office, or for a place on a programme, it is the most provoking impudence for some person, who thinks he knows it all, to step in uninstructed, and settle everything in advance by the stout, instant, but false, affirmation, "0, he would never accept it." "How would it do to ask him?" You would find a vast gain by letting him make his own decisions. I have known persons to be denied, some of the most exquisite pleasures of their lives, by not having the request to grant a favor, ever reach them. It was stopped on its way by a person who did not know as much as he thought he did, but who judged noble souls by his own low standards. Some people, whose chief interests are in the religious world, can readily point to a happy mar- riage where, if the young man had inquired of people on the right and left of him, if he had better give voice to his affection and social ambition, they would have told him. No, not to think of such a thing. I once desired a laborious, painstaking favor of a very rich parishioner, and said to a committee, with whom I was conferring, "I believe I will ask for it," and they said: "How dare you? It will never be conceded." But I presented my request. I found a [313] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN friend that I still greatly prize. She said in sub- stance: "Why, yes, certainly. Don't separate me from others simply because my husband has been so prospered. We do not want to flock by ourselves, and be lonesome and deserted." How much we miss by not asking for it! Paradise is the believing in it. A man was seen hurrying along over the frozen ground in the direction of the church. An acquaint- ance called to him, "Where are you going?" "To the parish meeting." "What is to be done?" "I don't know." ' ' Then what are you going f or ? " ' ' I am going to oppose 'em. ' ' He belonged to the opposition. He did not pro- pose anything, nor believe in anything, nor help to advance the business, but made it all brakes and no motor. His whole object in life was to combat those that did. Such a man is unusually unhappy. Take two typical men. One has the soul to say, " I 'm for it. ' ' The attitude natural to the other is, "I'm agin it." Nothing so symbolizes the wine of life as to have a good, worthy, distinct object, of which one can, with all self-abandonment say, "I'm for it." Paradise is the believing in it. The political mugwump makes no positive con- tribution to the adoption or execution of any govern- [314] SOME or MY MOTTOES mental policy. The real business of the government has to be carried along without his aid. True criticism must be sympathetic. There can be no appreciation of art, without the art- istic spirit, and lacking this, a man's opinions are of no more value, than they would be in science, without the scientific spirit. One man does not know any more about science, than another man does about religion. Yet a man without any experience in religion calls himself liberal. How can a man be liberal with a thing he does not have? It is like generosity with other people's money, having no conception of its value, never having earned it. A man must have felt an aifection to judge of its power. A man makes for himself the world he lives in. A man makes himself ridiculous, by expressing opinions on religion when he is without the religious spirit. It is against the first law of criticism. He is out of his class. Such a principle would not be applied in choosing judges at even a country fair. There are many victims of the Doubting Folly. Some men keep the question raised in their own minds as to whether they have accepted the right positition or profession. This impairs energy and concentration and pleasure. When a person faces his work, paradise is the believing in it. There is worldly wisdom, even, in the inspired advice, "Forget thine own people, and thy father's house." If the Gentile princess has given her hand and heart, as there is no [315] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN happiness in a divided mind, let her go over heartily to the new alliance. Do not adopt a calling in which you have no enthusiasm; but, having said, "That's the course for me, ' ' then stand by your choice. Paradise is the believing in it. [316] Chapter XXXIII THE STORY OF A BOOK AND AN ISLAND Isa. 42: 4. The Isles shall wait for his law. II Chron. 24 : 15. I have found a book of the law. Ps. 107: 20. He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. The man standing with his hands tied behind him, on the deck of that vessel, is Lieutenant Bligh. He and eighteen others are about to be forced over the side of the ship into a small boat, which is to be veered astern and cast adrift in the open ocean. He is a mean-spirited, irritable, passionate man, without tact, with no inclination toward conciliation but with an uncontrolled, inhuman temper. The seamen, in- cluding subordinate officers, are stung and smarting and incensed by reason of undeserved insults from Bligh. He gave Matthew Quintal, one of the sea- men, two dozen lashes. "I thought" said Lieutenant Bligh, "it would have a good effect to punish the boat keeper in the presence of the seamen, and ac- cordingly I ordered him a dozen lashes. All who at- tended the punishment interceded very earnestly to get it mitigated." At another time he flogged three men and put them in irons for a month for further punishment and flogged them. He placed a midship- [317] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN man in irons and confined him thus from the fifth of January to the twenty-third of March, eleven weeks. Not liking the ship's carpenter, Bligh felt that he was under the necessity of confining him to his cabin. Bligh, too, fell out with his own mess- mates, the master and the surgeon of his ship, and sep- arated from them, each taking his part of the stock, to live in his own cabin. Such scanty portions of food were allowed, that when there were four men in a mess they would draw lots and give to one of them the whole. Some cheeses were taken from the ship's sup- ply and he accused the crew of the theft, whereas it was proved, that this portion of the sailor's food, had been sent by the lieutenant, to his home before the ship had left her dock. The climax came when he accused the officer next to him, Fletcher Christian, of steal- ing some cocoanuts that were piled up on the deck between the guns. The small boat into which these nineteen persons were hurried, with extremely scant furnishings and supplies, was only three feet in depth. Some of their few things had to be thrown over to lighten the boat, which was loaded to the water's edge, and in which, in great distress, was made for 3618 miles, the most extraordinary voyage in the entire history of the sea. The men, on landing being living skeletons clothed in rags, scarcely able to walk, were viewed with horror, surprise, and pity. On the ship named The Bounty, after the mutiny, remained twenty-five men, who set her bow for Tahiti, where sixteen of the men were put ashore [318] THE STORY OF A BOOK AND AN ISLAND at their own request, and nine set off in her to find some No man's secluded island in an uncharted sea where they would escape the vigilance and condign punishment of the English government, which was sure to immediately attempt to run them down. They took with them six Tahitian men and twelve Poly- lesian women. They ran the ship Bounty upon the rock of Pitcairn's Island, a little speck, a high crag with its summit in the clouds, without a harbor, that rises sheer and inaccessible out of the unfrequented sea. The wife of Williams, lost her life, by a fall, from a precipice, while collecting the eggs of birds. The white men developed the well-known propensity to treat black men with flagrant oppression and com- pelled one of the Tahitians to give his wife to Wil- liams. The black men took a stand against this out- rageous act of rank injustice, and seeing now, plainly, that they had no rights or security while the white men lived, devised a plot for their destruction. Fletcher Christian, who was chiefly and primarily the originator of the mutiny, within eleven months of the settlement on the island was shot while at work in his garden. He resisted tyrany and became a tyrant. The women, seeing the inevitable extinction of the white men, turned upon the blacks and exter- minated them. Jealousy and treachery and murder prevailed until John Adams, whose real name was Alexander Smith, having assumed that of our second president to conceal his identity, was the sole sur- [319] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN vivor of the men on the island, and all died of viol- ence, except one. While their names remain, every trace of all their burial places, is lost. John Adams even had a hair breadth escape, having had his finger broken in a close struggle for his life. Having been shot in the neck while he was cultivating his ground, as he rose up was felled with a club. For ten years these fifteen men were a prey to their own vices. They that take the sword perish with it. The drama in which each played a part commenced by treachery and cruelty, continued in violence and strife, and ended in bloodshed and death. These hard hearted, self-acknowledged guilty men, who were in hiding, have taken with them other spirits, heathen ab- solutely, little removed from cannibalism, and the last state of these men is worse than the first. As Adams looked across that wide expanse of the un- plumbed, the salt, the estranging sea, which the height of his position commanded, a sail appearing would be no welcome sight. Like Cain, he was an outcast amid the great wilderness of water. Those dreadful scenes at which he assisted lived before him, and a horrible Nemesis follows him. These feuds and cold- blooded massacres were among friends and intimate companions who, when they were crossed, stopped at no cruelty and at none of God's commands right there in their own little ocean home. His situation is desperate. He felt a grave responsibility for a better type of life for the children that were left, and for their widowed mothers. [320] THE STOEY OF A BOOK AND AN ISLAND "Where is the way where light dwelleth?" As if by direct interference of Providence he came upon a solitary copy of the Bible, which had been saved from The Bounty. I have identified it, I think, as the probable one given to Peter Heyward by his mother, published in Edinboro, having bound with it, Tate and Brady's metrical version of the Psalms car- ried from London half way across the globe, return- ing later to New York for exhibition before the Sea- men's Friends Society, this identical book became to Adams, in his sore need, the power of God unto Sal- vation. In desolation and loneliness unspeakable, his companions dead, his thoughts solemnized by visions in the night so that he could not sleep, he began its perusal, accompanying his diligent study by prayer three times a day. His mind being enlightened and his heart mysteriously warmed, his examination re- vealed to him that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. With life on its pages, a heart in its words, the Bible needs no key. It speaks for itself. The words are spirit, and they are life. This Bible is put to a test. The truth is simply what will work. We judge by a specimen, as we take ore from a mine, or bits of cotton from a bale, or of wool from a fleece. Is the Bible capable of lifting men up and transform- ing them when used by unlikeliest persons, and in the most forbidding conditions ? If it is efScient with all the odds against it, in this island, could it not be well used in another? Does it work? There are silver books and a few golden books, but here is one [321] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN book that is above price. It is adapted to meet a great need. The change wrought by it cannot pos- sibly be produced, and never has been effected through the instrumentality of any other book. Becoming sole instructor and guardian and the gentle, good shepherd, the children received the things, taught them by Adams as if they came by nature. They showed a thirst for knowledge. The women were teachable, being conscious of the community's perish- ing need. A modern miracle was wrought. "He sent his word, and healed them, and de- livered them from their destructions." For eighteen years no sails came within the horizon bounded by a limitless sea and sky. Six years later two vessels are standing in the offing two miles from shore. The visitors observed two young men bringing their canoes on their shoulders down to the shore, launching them, dashing through the heavy surf, pad- dling to the ships, and on their near approach, to the astonishment of everybody, calling out in English, "Won't you heave us a rope now?" One of these young men was a son of Fletcher Christian, the chief in the mutiny, and his name is Thursday October Christian, from the day and month in which he was born. He was finely formed, and well mannered, in stature nearly six feet, and would anywhere have pro- cured a friendly reception. The other was George Young, son of the midshipman, tall, robust, athletic, healthy, a handsome youth. When they were shown into the cabin and offered something to eat "I blushed," [322] THE STORY OF A BOOK AND AN ISLAND said an officer, "when I saw, ere they hegan to eat that on their knees and with hands uplifted they im- plored grace, and when they had eaten, resuming their former attitude, offered a fervent prayer of thanksgiv- ing. Our omission of this ceremony did not escape their notice, for Christian asked me whether it was not customary with us also. I was both embarrassed and wholly at a loss for a reply, and evaded the question by drawing his attention to the ship's cow, which was then looking down the hatchway. One of the young islanders rescued a child by diving for it from a ves- sel that was lying in these waters. The father of the child came to him and offered him a bag of dollars, which he pressed the youth to accept, but he stoutly refused, saying he had only done his duty. Yet he had come on board to sell some vegetables to gain a few dimes for himself and exhibited a nice distinction in his ideas of the ways of getting money, not by doing one's duty, but by the usual avenue of a fair exchange. In the eagerness of the young men to get on board a visiting ship, several of the canoes had been suffered to go adrift. When they were brought back the captain ordered that one of the islanders should remain in each. This occasioned the question on which of them this duty should devolve. One of them remarked that he supposed they were all equally anxious to see the ship, and the fairest way would be to cast lots. This was at once acceded to, and those upon whom it fell to go into the boats departed with- out a murmur. [323] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Visitors to the island report that the young women were the objects of particular attraction, their faces beaming with smiles indicating an unruffled good humor, and exhibiting modesty and bashfulness, and a demeanor which gave them that grace of person which we call charm. A sailor landing on the island, so far forgot himself, as to talk to one of the girls as if he was a heathen, and as if she was another. Her replies to him were so gentle and so self-respect- ing, and so direct, and so illuminating to his darkened mind and depraved nature, that he, when again at sea, saw his sinfulness and indecency, and became penitent, and on reaching port united with the mar- iners' church in Boston. "I feel convinced," said Admiral Morseby ' ' that the most hard-hearted villain and the greatest reprobate must loathe himself and detest his own sins in contemplating the high moral standard to which these simple islanders have at- tained." Before commencing the day's work each fam- ily has religious worship consisting of Scripture read- ing and prayer. If a guest comes to the family table after a meal is begun, grace having been said, they aU wait for him to ask a blessing, to which they aU respond. Amen. They unite in returning thanks at the end of the repast. "On one occasion," said Cap- tain Beechy "I had engaged Adams in conversation, and he incautiously took the first mouthful without having said grace ; but before he had swallowed it he recollected himself and feeling as if he had com- [324] THE STORY OF A BOOK AND AN ISLAND mitted a crime immediately put away what he had in his mouth and commenced his prayer. On the Sab- bath they attend two services beside a session of the Sunday School. A British Admiral said he had never heard such singing except at Cathedrals. They be- came the most religious people on the globe and their piety is extremely becoming. Human history pre- sents no other contrast so marked, and the fact is un- questioned that it came from the spiritual illumina- tion of one man and came to include the whole people, with no exception and all proceeded from a single, unaided, heaven-sent copy of the Bible. This book fits the facts of life. "The entrance of thy word giveth light." "He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salva- tion." An organ was presented to the islanders by the Queen of England "in appreciation of their domestic virtues. ' ' THESE WERE A BIBLE PRODUCT Indelicacy had never lighted her unallowed flame on the pure altar of their innocent hearts. They are strictly honest in their dealings with each other and with those who visit them in ships. They have no locks upon their houses, and those who trade with them do not deem it necessary to witness the measure- ments of articles purchased from them. It is impos- sible to describe the atmosphere and charm that the society of these Christian people throws around the [325] THE WOEST BOYS IN TOWN most modest and interesting and well organized com- munity that has, perhaps, ever been seen upon the earth. That one Bible actually produced in this most engaging little spot in the world a golden age, an Acadia, a Utopia, a millenium not paralleled else- where in the world and supposed to exist only in the imagination of poets and in the aspirations of philo- sophers. They live together in perfect harmony and contentment where before they were a prey to their evil natures and are patterns in all the affectionate relations of life and have no vices. McKoy, one of the wicked original mutineers had been a distiller and had a guilty knowledge of the processes of manu- facturing an intoxicant from the root of a plant called the tee, and was himself in a state of constant drunk- enness and in a fit of delirium tremens threw himself from a cliff and was killed outright. This degrading vice, which lay at the base of the mutiny itself, as Fletcher Christian, the instigator, on board The Bounty, served a grog as he proposed the crime, they stamped out utterly. They bruised the head of the serpent and there are no more distilleries, no more liquors nor drunkenness, nor quarrels, nor swearing, and no bad language, no slander, no harsh words. A VERITABLE SHEPHERD On the first day of the week a ship appeared and desired to get some water. They told the captain that they do not barter on Sunday. If it was a mat- ter of necessity they would bring him a little, but [326] THE STORY OF A BOOK AND AN ISLAND their consciences were against labor on the Sabbath and most of the people were at meeting. The men of the ship, on reaching the church, found that the sermon had just commenced and they were soon them- selves engaged in the religious observances, solemni- ties, and prayers, among the islanders so worthy of all respect, so heaven born, so singular. A perfect paralysis falls upon toil and business upon the Lord's day to a degree in the human race never before seen in any people springing from so guilty a stock. On the sixth of November, 1883, died the last survivor of the generation taught as children by John Adams. In a last illness she revived the days when she, as a child, was instructed by him, and did not cease re- peating the prayer that John Adams taught his youth- ful flock to use before retiring to rest, I will lay me down in peace and take my rest, for Thou, Lord, makest me to dwell in safety. Like Napoleon, like Stonewall Jackson, John Adams, too, pastor, teacher, exemplar, law giver, governor of the island, having survived the last of his companions twenty-nine years seemed to be living over the vivid momentous inci- dents of his eventful career. "Land in sight!" he exclaimed as the hour of his translation arrived. ' ' Are you happy 1 ' ' asked one who stood by his death- bed. "Rounding the cape into the harbor," was the jubilant reply. Nearer drew the saintly man to the celestial prospect; calmer became the haven. "Let go the anchor," he exclaimed, and the Christian pioneer was no more. [327] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN Land ahead! its fruits are waving 'er the hills of fadeless green ; And the living waters laving Shores where heavenly forms are seen. Onward, bark! the cape I'm rounding See, the blessed wave their hands; Hear the harps of God resounding From the bright immortal bands. Now we're safe from all temptation, All the storms of life are past ; Praise the Rock of our salvation. We are safe at home at last. Rocks and storms I'll fear no more, When on that eternal shore; Drop the anchor! furl the sail! 1 am safe within the veil. [328] Chapter XXXIV MODERN METHODS OP CHRISTIAN NURTURE You young men, because ye are strong. I John 2 : 14. Have you ever noticed that business firms, as they advance in years, are always associating with them young, energetic partners in trade? Who could not catalogue an extended list of commercial houses that have taken, by this means, a new lease of life? Indeed it is doubted by some shrewd observers, if a company of old men with old methods could hold their own in places of sharp competition; in fact, I have heard it afSrmed by one who was in a situation to form a good opinion, that no man could manu- facture shoes after he was fifty years of age. He becomes impatient of detail. It is not maintained that shoe-manufacturers must surrender their livings at the dead line of fifty. The point is, rather, that they must introduce into the business with them, young salesmen, and asso- ciates, and employees. It is not necessary that their names should appear on the letter-heads, but the young blood must be felt. So it is in the church. "We must introduce young men into the firm that is doing business for God. There is no objection to a senior partner, who, as [329] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN pastor, heads the work and does the preaching if it is a young people's church and their animation and thrift are felt in the conduct of affairs. Churches do not turn to young ministers because they preach better, for, certainly, they do not. Parishes feel the need, however, of some methods of church-building which shall be supplementary to pulpit work. The volume of Christian personality must be in- creased, what I will call the element of humanness must be present. Mr. Moody calls it personal effort, and says that when sanctified, it surpasses in effect- iveness, even his work in great congregations. It seems to be a law in the spiritual world, that all the religious work shall never be relegated to a pro- fessional set. In a church service, the preacher had pressed the claims of Christ upon some young hearts with a good deal of power. He asked all who were ready to confess Christ to rise. A boy was observed to be struggling with convictions of duty. He had been so wrought upon that it even became apparent to those who were seated near him, but he could not quite bring himself to submit to the test which the pastor had named. The moments were passing and he was resisting, and the opportunity was closing, when a young woman who sat behind him reached forward and touched him, whispering, "If God is talking with you, would you not better do what He is saying to you ? " He rose up. The touch did it. The little man straightened himself to make a life-long [330] MODERN METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE stand for God. Your mental sight reproduces the scene. The picture honors the pastor's appeal. Nothing would have been accomplished without the truth. Yet what is needed is the pastor plus, the pastor plus the touch. In an organized way we must furnish the additional factor, the touch, that peculiar element of humanness which is so effective in all practical work. Warm hearts must supplement the ministerial limits. This is no disparagement of convincing pulpit work. It honors it rather. It completes it. It sums up its work. The pastor plus the touch is precisely what we aim to secure in The Modern Methods of Christian Nurture. "When that highly cultivated young gentleman, a graduate, trained as a lawyer, became the earliest itinerant advocate of The Modem Methods of Christ- ian Nurture, this was the occasion. He was growing up in a city church and being likely, clean, and able, was the object of much eloquent admiration. In a company of women which amounted to a maternal association he was named as a subject of particular prayer. Some of the men of the church knew of this, and would often speak to him and tell him that on his mother's account, and on his own they were pray- ing for him and hoped that he would soon feel it to be his duty to unite with the church. He thus lived and developed in a fine warm atmosphere, and sur- rounded and helped by a coterie of friends he united with the church. Presently he found that he lacked the sympathy and warm interest and incitements that [331] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN had been his making. The men who had so persist- ently angled for him had now gone after other fish. They regarded him as landed. So far as he was concerned, their work was done. When the Pilgrims were learning their new art of planting corn, the Indians taught them to place two fish in every hill. Passing a field thus fertilized, or any place where fish are caught and not used, ' ' Oh the offense is rank, it smells to heaven. ' ' Fishers of Men owe it to their catch to put it to noble use. We get a lesson from the parable of the leaven. It must be kept warm, otherwise it does not work. Isolation here is death. ' ' I had grown cold through isolation ; in fellow- ship I found the thrill of new, warm life," said Dr. Dawson in his greatest utterance. The Evangelistic Note. A man naturally a recluse finds godly com- munion with others. God is with his people. All pres- ent desire the well-being of all. The reality of religion is each one's happiness and is the solicitude of all. Each molecule must take its part and perform its own duty. Atoms of dough do not say to three or five others, Now you represent us in this work. Leaven is a committee of the whole. Bach little unit takes hold just where it is to do the work, in its new pres- ent vital relations. Just where it is it must tug and lift. We say of leaven. It works. It must have ap- propriate material. It must have contact with the meal. Here is a phenomenon. Who can declare it? How does it happen that not [332] MODERN METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE one of us can name a city or town or village or hamlet in which every soul is truly converted to God? If there are few persons thus unconverted, it seems de- creed that these few shall be difficult cases. Provi- dence seems to design that every Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor should be furnished with material upon which to work. God's providence without, cooperates thus with God's spirit within. One supplies the material, and the other the leavening spirit. To serve an end so desirable it becomes necessary that the Calling Committee, Social Committee, through the Lookout Committee should keep propounding for membership boys and girls in this associated life. The chance is given to everybody to take hold. The handle of things is turned toward each member. Have you social sparkle? Here is your field. Have you musical talent? Come with us. Can you serve upon a com- mittee? What a variety of talent is available. It is plain that we must keep widely enlarging the asso- ciate membership and not discourage it, as the man- ner of some is. The desirability of this form of ac- cession leads me to deprecate the tendency of those who are already members of a society to make a social set. There is a fellowship, and it is delightful to wit- ness, but the danger is that it may become a ' ' Ring. ' ' Now if a society were to be organized where soci- eties now exist, it would be made up of others than those who compose it. The danger is that our organ- [333] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ization shall become like the sewing circle in the church. Certain ladies constitute it. If other ladies had composed it from the beginning, they would have been it. There is no reason at all why other ladies should not be the sewing society as well as those that compose it. So with our societies ; social congenialities increase as time goes on. Nothing will limit our growth like a clique. Many a society, once de- signed for all, has struck on that rock. Some churches, even, get wrecked on the same shoal. A society or a church with a clique in it has taken the oars up into the boat and has begun to drift. In propound- ing names for membership it is a mistake to specify the sort of membership into which the candidate pro- poses to come. Have them voted in simply as mem- bers, leaving the kind of membership to be determiiied when, in an atmosphere of prayer, under the pressure of the spirit, they sign the roll. That is the point at which very many favorable decisions are reached. No delinquent active member ought ever to be rele- gated to the associate list. That degrades it. It makes a motley company, it comes to consist of the ring-streaked and speckled. The roll of associate membership becomes thus a black list. There is nothing necessarily opprobrious about associate mem- bership. It is a part of the working machinerj^, and a worthy, necessary portion. No member of the church nor Christian ought ever to be enrolled in the associate list. It breaks down the very distinction [334] MODERN METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE that it is the life of the society to keep defined. Have an honorary list, if one should be needed. We must reserve associate membership for those of good repute. It makes a difference, if a man stands at a threshold, whether he is facing in or facing out, and he must be helped ia the direc- tion he is facing. There is, undoubtedly, an element here which is unique, and which is certain to have a lasting place in all successful church administration, and that is a provision that every young disciple shall, like Tim- othy, "exercise himself under godliness." When the accomplished young graduate, to whom reference has been made, saw a church at work among its young peo- ple by the Modern Methods of Christian Nurture with all the ardor of his new-found relations to Christ, he turned aside from a chosen profession and took up a banner with the strange device, just quoted from Scripture to plant its colors in every state westward to the Pacific sea. Mr. A. T. Stewart was fond of calling his store a school for training young men in business. They learned to sell by selling. They were taught how to do things by doing them. One must get the pronunciation of a language by speaking it. In arithmetic there is a simple statement of the princi- ple, and then follow the exercises. Christianity is more than a science; It is an art. This latter is acquired by practice chiefly. Young men and young women can be trained for the church work [335] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN ++• D- them upon committees, of committees, by putting ^^ ,i^y by becom- Y^^'^^P7°free^urch machinery and studying its w^inr/rol wftMn the work. It is wise even to let the Juniors do most of their own work. The worst ad- vised thing of all is to introduce the lecture system. What industrial training is in the world of education, that The Young People's Society of Christian En- deavor is in the religious realm. It teaches young people how to engage in religious activities by en- gaging in them. Religion ceases to be a science only taught out of a book, or in lectures by a teacher. No matter how much a person may learn in a primary school, grammar school, college, or professional school, there are still some things that he must learn to do by doing them. We used to call it The Am- herst System applied in the religious realm. Many national institutions now educate, or govern the stud- ents by means of one other. Bringing them into contact with each other, the college has not declined in the tone and energy of its influence, nor has it weakened in scholarly ambition, nor in the attach- ments and allegience of its graduates. The memory of man returns to a day when Dr. Samuel Taylor ruled Phillips Academy like a despot." "/ am the government," was about the idea. The institution fell into virtual anarchy in making the transition from the one man sway to the government by a faculty. It suggests Prance and Russia. The students have come to share [336] MODERN METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE in the administration of order. A similar change has come over the spirit of our churches. Time was when the minister was monarch. If a party or ball seemed offensive he appeared upon the scene and dismissed the assembly. In the early days he was the physician also. The first medical work published in America was by the pastor in Weymouth. The minister did much of the legal business of the people. Lawyers were rare until the approach of the Revolution. He now is the truest pastor who associates the people with him in church work. Like others, he is desired to be a member of the church. He is not paid for preaching, but is paid that he may preach. Those who are breth- ren with him in the church seem to say, ' ' We will take care of you and of yours, that you may give yourself continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word. ' ' This principle of self-government so prevails in The Modern Methods of Christian Nurture that there is a vigor of requirement that astonishes outsiders, and which would never be practicable except that they are self-imposed. It is the religious part of the great world trend toward democracy. It is religious co-education as we have it in the family and in the church. It means the co-operation of the sexes in all religious activities. It means unconsciousness of sex in the services of Christ. Thus shall it be in the last days, when God's Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, that the young men and women, the sons and the [337] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN daughters, sliall prophesy, and "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." The custom of deferring to the young element as impa- tient of control is injurious. Some administrations are afraid of the younger element in the church. Some good persons sit apart and talk about the young people as though they were a distinct order of beings. They are a constituent part of the church, and as such are to learn the discipline of subjection. Even our Lord, when but twelve years of age, referred to some things which he must do; and one of them was his Father's business. Nothing surprises a Christian worker so much and so often as the unexpected Chris- tian earnestness of young people. What astonishment visits the hearts of many persons in the audience when the minister, with an accent of conviction reads the words of our text, "I have written unto You young men iecause ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one." The very specifications cover details on which people incline to an opposite opinion, but inspiration was never truer than here. Of all the characteristics of this organization no other one is so conspicuously admirable as that which, for want of a term, will be called, the determining ele- ment, which joins the personal issue and causes the individual, halting hitherto, to pronounce himself and "subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel." Our public school [338] MODERN METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE system provides set days for determining to what de- gree pupils have at length matured. So church work needs, and needs nothing else so much as to cause subjects of prayer and instruction not only to believe in the heart, but to confess with the mouth, saying either Yes or No to what God requires. At the foot of the Himalaya Mountains there are some places, so I remember to have read, where they obtain fruit all the year over. In their mild winter it ripens on the plain, and when the fierce summer has scorched to ashes the lowland vegetation they bring down the berries plump and cool from the upper eleva- tions beside the snow. In the matter of fruitage our Society is admirably situated with reference to a like result. There are ideas and plans of religious work, entertaiaed by many good people, that seem to pro- vide only for an occasional harvest. Evangelists iecome reapers. Their efforts must, in the necessities of the case, be spasmodic. Work that is related to years of church life is done up in the aggregate. It is bunched. En- deavor is put forth as if once for all. This has cer- tain advantages. It gives accent to the word now. It draws the public gaze. It has a large measure of eclat. But with the methods of the Spirit revealed as they are, behold I show you a more excellent way. Every meeting of this Society becomes an accepted time; every Sabbath is a day of salvation. Unlike [339] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the vine with its annual harvest, or the aloe plant which puts its entire life into its centenary flower, with its consecration meeting, this Society in a church "is there the tree of life which yielded her fruit every month." [340] Chapter XXXV FIVE WORDS In the Church I had rather speak five words. I Cor. 14: 19. When Socrates in his prison at Athens, con- demned to drink the draught of fatal Hemlock by decree of the Court, was about to begin his great ora- tion on the Immortality of the Soul, he said to those who were about him: Let us take hold of one an- other's hands as we approach this deep and rapid river, and let us pray unto the gods for help. In entering upon a subject so near to the heart, let us in sympathy take hold of one another's hand and pray unto God for help. When the beloved Professor Churchill from Andover, used to give elocutionary entertainment in our churches, he used to say. If there are bracket lamps, beside the lamp on the desk, let them be lighted. The illumination of the chandelier will of course be welcome. If you choose for place, a public hall, and there are footlights, let them be ablaze. When I read I like to stand in an atmosphere of light. His expression gains distinctness and his form has clearer outlines thus like an angel standing in the sun. There are subjects, that we have not only known, but have so entered into our lives, that when we re- [341] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN present them, we instinctively reach out our hands for all the reinforcement, that we can gain from our best moods and from an atmosphere of prayer. "When General Thomas' division of General Grant's army was faced up to Missionary Eidge, it was Gordon Granger's conunand, aU young men, mostly new recruits, who, seized by a sudden inspira- tion, never halting, never wavering, never doubting, reckless of death, scaled the sharp acclivity, steep as a house-top, and like a whirlwind swept General Bragg, from a position which was deemed secure. On his gray horse, followed by Hardee, he was soon in flight, discomforted, routed with his forces irretriev- ably broken. The young men were sent to take some rifle pits and they captured a ridge. Neither of the generals initiated the movement. Some English strategists who were present believed it out of the question for an army, step by step by step, Like mountain goats, to ascend a precipice that rose sheer four hundred feet. These martinets pronounced the thing, that the young men did, impossible, but these youths had not heard that it was impossible and they went right on and did it. It is the spirit that gets things done no matter how great the difficulty or odds. Fired with a holy recklessness they did not know any bet- ter than to do the thing that was suffering to be done, and so went over the top. Intuition is diviner than experience. Many persons carry their experience like a burden, [342] FIVE WORDS and are limited by it, in their course, and need to drop their pack, as Bunyan's Pilgrim did, in order to reach forth, unto those things that are before. Immortal praise is given to a woman in Scripture for having done what she could, but here are young men doing what they could not. It is the glory of young life to be doing the thing that has been deemed impossible. They take their bent, not from the ob- stacles, that are held to be insurmountable, but from a certain spontaneous upspringing, irrepressible, buoyancy in youth that is, at first hand, an original en- dowment from their Maker who not only sets a young man up, but puts a new, fresh, unused, unafraid im- pulse inside of him to set him going. This God in him, entheus, enthusiasm, is a more potent factor than years or munitions of war without it. Seeing this God implanted, wonderfully effective force exists, what hindereth us from touching it up, from mak- ing it an ally, from providing a wide field for its dis- play, in the religious realm. It reinvigorates the church; it can point to some modem miracles. The man who says a thing cannot be done is followed by the young man who does it. That political party will eventually rule, that makes itself the most hospit- able to the young. When nominees are being con- sidered, the practical question first asked by the wise ones is. Will the ticket thus presented be acceptable to the "boys?" While this designation is carried along far into life, yet we know its original signifi- cance, and what force it was, that the careful men [343] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN felt they had to reckon with, or be thrown down. Those heroic figures, some of them mere boys, who have passed through the fire in this day of trial in the nation's history, can never again be quite small. How the young are coming to the front. They may have defects, but they have spirit. We must not fail, in our appreciation, of this great burst of idealism, during the impressionable, open-hearted years of young men's lives, in its effect upon the whole course of our national life. This upspringing of native spontaneity, which renews itself in a fresh generation, is heaven-born. It is not the duty of us, who are older to stamp out these new incitements and re- solves, lest haply we be found destroying the best thing that has come to us. That was a good prayer of the brother, in meeting, that we might be raised above the need of any local or special pressure to duty, that out steadfast pressure might be ever from within. It is obvious, first, that religious activity should enlist the young. It will be most effective if, secondly, it is a people's movement. When it was reported to General Stonewall Jackson, who had been mortally wounded, that the soldiers, gathered at headquaretrs, were all praying for him, he said, They are very kind. As the end of his brilliant career drew near, like the greatest military genius of any age he, too, not only passed into delirium, but also like Napoleon, imagined that he was commanding in a heady fight, and the [344] FIVE WORDS words rang out on the startled air, Order A. P. Hill to prepare for action. Pass the infantry to the front rapidly. For the Lord's army that is a timely order. Ad- vance the infantry, the rank and file of the peo- ple, the laic element in the church to the front rap- idly. Formerly the church engaged in Homeric war- fare. This was a struggle of chieftains. In Bible phrase, it is pictured to us in the encounter between Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span, and David, to whom King Saul said, Go and the Lord be with thee. As between these heroes, the battle went, so the victory promptly followed. And when the Phillistines saw that the giant had fallen upon his face to the earth they fled. The lion-hearted Rich- ard, challenging Saladin to single combat would be now absurd. The most considerable man that ever set foot in Lynn, to become a resident. Dr. Parsons Cooke, no- ticed a man, rising in the First Church of Christ to utter a testimony, in a revival meeting, and he thought him disturbed, and asked him to be seated. In times of religious awakening. Dr. Cooke took all the responsibility, preached every evening, as long as strength was given to him to perform his solitary tasks. When he stopped the revival stayed. Now if we see a work of grace limited in its active agency to one person we are apprehensive that it lacks scope and depth and power. Hundreds of old time [345] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN New England churches indicate the same early limita- tion in working force. How many sanctuaries, that we have seen, have been raised up and a vestry put be- neath them, to enable them to make a wider employ- ment, of their working forces. Where elevation of the building was impracticable, we see a chapel com- paratively new in an adjacent building. But the significance is the same, a new structure to provide for wider activity on the part of the people. It was never designed, that the witness bearing power in a church should be limited to one individual, no matter how talented. You may have a minister like Chrysos- tom, the Homer of orators, who was compared to the sun, his name signifying The Golden Mouth. The minister may have the spirit of a St. John, yet for a great work in a church a minister, plus the people is better than any imaginable minister when working alone. Beside enlisting, first, the young, and being, sec- ondly, a people's movement, a widespread religious work, to be effective, needs, thirdly, to be organized into a society. When Mr. Moody was conducting probably his greatest evangelistic campaign, the great concourse of people, having gathered in a hippo- drome, he lacked a suitable place, for an after meet- ing. He asked those who felt interested in the things, he had stated, to come with him, up into a gallery, and expressed the wish that many Christians would accompany them. Now, said he. Will those who feel that they are Christians please rise ? If you have made [346] FIVE WOEDS your beginning tonight, or at some earlier, recent meeting, if you feel that you are Christians, please rise. Do not move, please, just rise and stand where you are. Now we under- stand that all have risen, that feel that they are Christians. Do not move, please ; just rise and stand right where you are. Now, said he to those standing, you see who are seated. Now sit right down just where you were, and those who are Christians go to work upon those who are not. That is the method of work exactly, in an organization having in its name five words. Young, Peoples, Society, Chris- tian, Endeavor. It sharply differentiates between active and associate members, and then shuts them up in a society together in order that those who are Christians may go to work upon those who are not. At a meeting the Society's books are opened for ad- ditions to membership. Down the page is a line, on one side of which are active members; on the other side, associate. A young lady advances to sign the constitution. Will you join as an active, or as an as- sociate member? "I want to join the Society, please." "Yes, we understand, but will you join as an active, or as an associate member?" "What is an active member?" "An active member is one who is willing to be considered as endeavoring to lead a Christian life." "Then what is an associate mem- ber?" "An associate member is one who is not will- ing to be considered as endeavoring to lead a Christian life." "Well," as I said, "I thought I would just join [347] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN the Society. I had not thought to commit myself on the matter of the Christian life." We do not have any neutrals. The Saviour does not. Everybody here alights from the fence and takes sides. No one soul has been exempt from this among the millions who have joined us. "We have no what-is-its, no hybrids. "Will you join as an active or as an associate mem- ber?" "I want to pray about it." On reaching a well-known home, her mother found, from her talk, that it was with her own beloved daughter what the Scripture calls Thy Day. "My child, ' ' she exclaimed, ' ' The spirit of God is striving with you. 'Tis mercy's hour. Perhaps if we both pray and if we recognize the presence of God, you may now become one of those who are willing to be considered as endeavoring to lead a Christian life." Is it not plain that the So- ciety, by the very fortunate nature, by the inherent form of its organization, is bringing this young soul to an issue. Like most other persons, she entered the Kingdom of Heaven on her knees. She became con- spicuously useful as a Christian worker. She was married to a gentleman, widely known, who gives all his time to religious service in a Massachusetts city. In its very organization as a society, young people are brought to a corner where two ways meet, where a decision must be made. When the issue is thus joined, as one young member said, the very place of meeting becomes as solemn as the judgment. It is believed, that any minister who reads these lines, will [348] FIVE WORDS consent to the proposition, that there is no other serv- ice that any other organization can do, that will sur- pass this, to cause persons to thus become pronounced in their religious life. No other organization has ever been projected, that by necessity, in the very terms of its existence, causes persons to come to Christian decision. This, the Society, by its very constitution, is suited to do. Its greatest emphasis is thus seen to be on the word Christian. Young people influence young people, and here they do it, at a point that touches both time and eternity. It is just here that a soci- ety may be seen at its best. It aims at conversion and is, at the same time, organized for recruiting, so that it gathers with one hand what, with the other hand it directs to the cross. This is the crowning glory of the Society of Christian Endeavor, and it ought everywhere to be made known, that it combines in the truest proportion of any organization, in the church, religious life and religious activity. It is on this idea, that the society gets its patent. The class meeting and the prayer meeting bring out experience and testimony. The Sabbath School furnishes instruc- tion. This Society combines in the best proportions. Christian life and Christian endeavor. The efficacy of a medicine depends not only upon its ingredients, but also upon their proportions. It has been found in practice, that if the training school, which this so- ciety presents, were suspended, another precisely like [349] THE WORST BOYS IN TOWN it, in aim and form and proportions, would have to be adopted. In these matters, Like Abou Ben Adhem, this society leads all the rest. The principles on which it was founded have been tested, and the reserves of energy are continued, their strength unwasted, as if God had brought them down through the years in His hand. When the deep friendship sprang up between David and Jonathan, they made a covenant with each other. There is always a movement, toward a pledge, in any case where a strong love is felt. It measures the depth of the affection and stands for it. In the ardor of young discipleship, a pledge is taken to attend the meeting and help the meeting. Devotion of spirit is the key and explanation of everything in the great conventions. When in one of them aU the preparations were complete, and this brilliant com- mittee of seventeen, an aggregation of princes, had put on their last touches, and had done all that human wisdom could contrive, they came together in a secret place and prostrated themselves before God for an hour and a quarter, from four o'clock until a quarter past five, and remained in importunate prayer until they had the assurance that they were heard, and that there would be a good convention. Such results, as are witnessed in these great convocations, do not sim- ply happen. "God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God." This committee, talented as men go, never had a meeting that did not open and close with prayer. More than [350] FIVE WORDS once the remark was made as the meetings advanced, "This is hallowed ground, because the Lord has vis- ited His people and the place of His feet is glorious. ' ' The consecration was distinctly Christian, and when so much feeling exists it tends to exemplify our fifth word, which is, endeavor. Behold of a sudden the ancient and well-nigh forgotten fable of Briareus has a divine realization. This Christian organization has now a hundred hands. When Heine the poet, in seri- ous illness, was led by friends to the feet of the famous statue of Venus, which is bereft of arms, he looked up in her face and murmured, "Oh my lady of Milo, help me!" and she seemed to answer, ' ' I would do so, Heine, but you see I have no arms. ' ' The daughter of Zion, in many communities, still is fair and statuesque. She pities and desires to help but she has no arms. The young people of the church now consecrate to her beneficent service their thou- sands of willing hands. [351]