With Bob Taylor

Oh, what a wonderful magician and what a tyrant king is Love, the King of Kings!

Look at the care-worn faces in the offices and counting rooms and on the business marts of the world. Look out yonder at the millions in the factories and fields, with beaded brows, and knotted muscles, and calloused hands, coining thought into gold, and sweat into silver. There is a mighty power moving on those restless tides; they are sowing and reaping for the helpless and the innocent; Love hath written his name in every heart, and in every life there is a love story. Now look yonder in the purple glow of eventide, how the millions dissolve and vanish among the shadows. The law of the King has been obeyed, and labor finds its sweet reward in the palace of love, by the brawling brook of laughter, on the brink of the river of song.

But, Lord, how soon the palace crumbles! And how surely the vibrant streams run dry when labor leaves his task undone, or toil takes his gold to other shrines!

If you would keep the loom of love in motion, you must be a flying shuttle of industry by day and spend your evenings at home. The shuttle delivers the thread; you must deliver the bread and grease the bobbins with butter.

The shuttle is always in its place. Art thou, O King? When the light is smiling through the window out into the darkness, and thy home is ringing with the laughter and song of children within, art thou there to laugh and sing with them? And when the baby cries in the dead hours of the night, dost thou meekly wear thy yoke of love and walk the floor and sweetly sing to thy screaming progeny?

Alas! too often thou art found where sherry glows and champagne flows and the night is very, very merry, O King!

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I saw a truant old gentleman vanish from his labors to a carousal one evening, and that night he went home as drunk as a lord, with unsteady steps and slow, dreading the storm within, and softly singing to himself as he went:

“I wish my wife was an angel, far, far away!”

The queen of the household, who had been nursing her rage, met him at the door with a face like a drawn tomahawk; and the clock struck one, and she struck, too, as he entered.

“How dare you come home to me at this hour of the night?” she shouted in her anger.

“Why, my dear, it was jis’ ten o’clock when I left prayer meetin’, an’ I come right straight home.”

“Yes, prayer meeting! You look like prayer meeting! Look at the hands on the dial of that clock; it has just struck one.”

“Well, now, madam,” he said, “if you propose to believe a durned little dollar-and-a-half clock before you’ll believe your husband, that’s all right; but I shall certainly think that I have not found the amiable spirit in this palace of love which I expected to find on my arrival.”

And the threads of love popped, and the loom stopped for several hours.

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An uncrowned old King went to his little palace one night under the influenceof King Alcohol, as usual. His unhappy wife let him in at the door and burst into tears and said:

“Husband, why do you come home every night in this drunken condition?”

“Why,” he said, “my dear, you are so pretty that I jist naturally love to look at you double!”

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Did you ever see a tramp tramping by and pausing at your door to beg a benediction—not of love, but of bread? What cared this wandering boy for love? His heart was in the grave; he was the “somnambulist of a shattered dream;” he was a romance in rags, a seedy poem, a tattered song, crumpled by the hand of fate and thrown into the waste-basket of oblivion.

He halted at a farmhouse one rainy day and proposed to kill all the rats on the place for his dinner. “Very well,” said the farmer, “it’s a bargain.” He called his neighbors in to see the killing. The tramp ate for an hour, and when he had finished he called for a spade. Seating himself in the middle of the room, he raised the spade over his shoulder and shouted: “Now fetch on your rats!”

He stopped at an old fellow’s door and told him he was a dentist, and smilingly proposed to put a good set of teeth in a fresh apple pie for nothing.

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I saw love enter the gubernatorial door to plead for love one day, and the old mother sat and wept in the presence of the Governor, while the aged father told the story of a love that was wrecked long ago, a life that was ruined, and a lover that wandered away with the death wound in his heart. Then I heard him tell the story of a tramp whose journey had ended at last within the prison walls; and I went out with them and stood at the gate of hell. I looked in and saw the ghastly stripes of shame and the pallid faces of crime moving to and fro, laboring under the lash of justice and shrinking from the scorn of their fellow man. I entered and looked again; there was not a smile nor a single peal of laughter, but melancholy’s ghost of song still lingered behind the iron bars to comfort languishing love.

I saw children of tender age in that vortex of living death, and I said, “Hell was not made for children;” and I dragged them out and delivered them to their mothers. I saw youths who had committed crime in the heat of passion, dying in disgrace, and I dragged them out and sent them home, some with a new hope and some to die. I saw repentant men who had suffered long enough, and I dragged them out and gave them to their wives and their children. I saw the erstwhile tramp, the romance in rags, the tattered song, now the striped doxology of a misspent life; two trembling hands pointed to him. I turned to the old folks and said: “His crime was not great, and you are old and feeble;” and I dragged him out and left them weeping upon his bosom.

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An overbearing lawyer once shouted to an old lady whom he was examining on the witness stand:

“Madam, please confine yourself to the facts!”

The old lady turned around to him and said:

“Well, sir, you are no gentleman; that’s a fact.”

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An old doctor examined his patient one afternoon and coldly said to him:

“You are dying, sir; have you any wish to express before you pass over the river?”

“Yes,” said the patient, feebly, “I wish I had employed another doctor.”

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The world loves us if we succeed; it despises us if we fail; it piles ice around its benefactors, and gives the meed of praise to genius only when genius is in the grave. But what do words of praise avail to lift the shadows from a path no longer pressed by weary feet? Why fill the hands of the dead with flowers which you have withheld from the living? Who wouldnot rather have one smile, one tender word to-day, than to know that a million roses would be heaped upon his coffin? Who would not rather live and dream among the flowers of love than to sleep the dreamless sleep beneath a wilderness of flowers?

Then why not let the Gulf Stream of love flow on? For its warm current breathes upon the icy shores of mortal life and makes them blossom with laughter and song. Love is the soul of the beautiful, the true and the good; it is all there is of happiness.

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But “the course of true love never did run smooth.” Listen to my tale of woe. An absent-minded old bachelor once fell in love with a beautiful girl and instantly prepared for battle with the flounced and powdered enemy. At first his plans worked well, and he was about to win a great victory over all the swells in town; but an accident happened which changed his destiny and wrecked his hopes of conquest and happiness. The church bell rang one bright Sabbath morning, and he knew that his idol would be there; and he diked himself in faultless style and curled his sorrel moustache till it looked like the tail of a pug. The excitement of the occasion made him more absent-minded than ever, and he waited until the worshipers had assembled, and then walked down the aisle in triumph, the observed of all observers, with his overcoat hanging on his arm; but the maiden looked at his overcoat and blushed; the preacher looked at it and smiled, and the congregation looked at it and broke into laughter; and the old bachelor looked down, and it was his every-day pantaloons. His hope exploded like a bubble in the air, and he dropped the garment and flew.

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We have stepped over the threshold of the twentieth century. What greater wonders will it unfold to us? It may be that another magician, greater even than Edison, the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” will rise up and coax the very laws of nature into easy compliance with his unheard-of dreams. I think he will construct an electric railway in the form of a huge tube, and call it the “electro-scoot,” and passengers will enter it in New York and touch a button and arrive in San Francisco two hours before they started!

I think a new discovery will be made by which the young man of the future may stand at his “kiss-o-phone” in New York and kiss his sweetheart in Chicago with all the delightful sensations of the “aforesaid and the same.”

I think some Liebig will reduce foods to their last analyses, and, by an ultimate concentration of their elements, will enable the man of the future to carry a year’s provisions in his vest pocket. The dude will store his rations in the head of his cane, and the commissary department of a whole army will consist of a mule and a pair of saddlebags. A trainload of cabbage will be transported in a sardine box and a thousand fat Texas cattle in an oyster can.

Power will be condensed from a forty-horse engine to a quart cup. Wagons will roll by the power in their axles, and the cushions of our buggies will cover the force that propels them. The armies of the future will fight with chain lightning, and the battlefields will be in the air.

Some dreaming Icarus will perfect the flying machine, and upon the aluminum wings of the swift Pegasus of the air social, civic and military parades will be held.

The rainbow will be converted into a Ferris wheel; all men will be bald-headed; the women will run the government—and then I think the end of time will be near at hand!

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A great many youths think that if a man has brain-power he can accomplish anything. So he can, but a study of the men who are failures, the men who fill our penitentiaries and our sanitariums, will show that unless ability is ballasted with character, its possessor is unstable and untrustworthy. There is a tremendous power in ability, boys, when added to character.

I saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and press it to his bosom. He shaved and primped and resolved to marry every day in the year for forty years. But when the hour for love’s duel arrived, when he stood trembling in the presence of rosy cheeks and glancing eyes, and beauty shook her curls and gave the challenge, his courage always oozed away, and he fled ingloriously from the field of honor.

Far happier than the bachelor is old Uncle Rastus in his cabin, when he holds Aunt Dinah’s hand in his and asks: “Who’s sweet?” And Dinah drops her head over on his shoulder and answers, “Bofe uv us.”

A thousand times happier is the frisky old widower with his pink bald head, his wrinkles and his rheumatism, who

Wires in and wires out,And leaves the ladies all in doubt.As to what is his age and what he is worth,And whether or not he owns the earth.

Wires in and wires out,

And leaves the ladies all in doubt.

As to what is his age and what he is worth,

And whether or not he owns the earth.

He “toils not, neither does he spin,” yet Solomon in all his glory was not more popular with the ladies. He is as light-hearted as “Mary’s little lamb.” He is acquainted with every hog path in the matrimonial paradise and knows all the nearest cuts to thesanctum sanctorumof woman’s heart. But his jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Woe unto the bachelor who dares to cross his path!

An old bachelor in my native mountains once rose in church to give his experience, in the presence of his old rival, who was a widower, and with whom he was at dagger’s points in the race to win the affections of one of the sisters in Zion. Thus the pious old bachelor spake: “Brethren, this is a beautiful world. I love to live in it just as well to-day as I ever did in my life. And the saddest thought that ever crossed this old brain of mine is, that in a few short days at best, these old eyes will be glazed in death and I’ll never get to see my loved ones in this world any more.” And his old rival shouted from the amen corner:

“Thank God!”

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Oliver Wendell Holmes says:

“Our brains are seventy year clocks. The angel of life winds them up once for all, closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the resurrection angel.” When I read this I thought, what a stupendous task awaits the angel of the resurrection, when all the countless millions of old rickety, rusty, worm-eaten clocks are to be resurrected, and wiped, and dusted, and repaired, for mansions in the skies! There will be every kind and character of clock and clockwork resurrected on that day. There will be the Catholic clock with his beads, and the Episcopalian clock with his ritual. There will be an old clock resurrected on that day wearing a broadcloth coat buttoned up to the throat; and when he is wound up he will go off with a whizz and a bang. He will get up out of the dust shouting, “Hallelujah!” and he will proclaim “sanctification!” and “falling from grace!” as the only true doctrine by which men shall go sweeping through the pearly gates into the new Jerusalem. And he will be recognized as a Methodist preacher, a little noisy, a little clogged with chicken feathers, but ripe for the Kingdom of Heaven.

There will be another old clock resurrected on that day, dressed like the former, but a little stiffer and straighter in the back, and armed with a pair of gold spectacles and a manuscript. When he is wound up he will break out in a cold sepulchral tone with, firstly: “foreordination!” secondly: “predestination!” and, thirdly: “the final perseverance of the saints!” He will be recognized as a Presbyterian preacher, a little blue and frigid, a little dry and formal, but one of God’sown elect, and he will be labeled for Paradise.

There will be an old Hard-shell clock resurrected, with throat whiskers, and wearing a shad-bellied coat and flap breeches. And when he is wound up a little, and a little oil is poured into his old wheels, he will swing out into space on the wings of the gospel with:

“My Dearly Beloved Brethren-ah; I was a-ridin’ along this mornin’ a-tryin’ to study up somethin’ to preach to this dyin’ congregation-ah; and as I rid up by the old mill pond-ah; lo and behold! there was an old snag a-stickin’ up out of the middle of the pond-ah; and an old mud turtle had clim up out uv the water and was a settin’ up on the old snag a-sunnin’ uv himself-ah; and lo! and behold-ah! when I rid up a leetle nearer to him-ah, he jumped off of the snag, ‘ker chug’ into the water, thereby proving emersion-eh!”

Our brainsareclocks, and our hearts are the pendulums. If we live right in this world, when the Resurrection Day shall come, the Lord God will polish the wheels, and jewel the bearings, and crown the casements with stars and with gold. And the pendulums will be harps encrusted with precious stones. They will swing to and fro on angel wings, making music in the ear of God, and flashing His glory through all the blissful cycles of eternity!

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The mornings come, the evenings go,Till raven locks turn white as snow;The evenings go, the mornings come,Till hearts are still and lips are dumb;The morning steals the stars in vain,For evening steals them back again.

The mornings come, the evenings go,

Till raven locks turn white as snow;

The evenings go, the mornings come,

Till hearts are still and lips are dumb;

The morning steals the stars in vain,

For evening steals them back again.

The mornings are the rapturous thoughts of God; the evenings are His glorious dreams. We think within His thoughts, and dream within His dreams. The sun and stars are His mighty looms on which he weaves the lights and shadows that tint the earth and sky with colors divine. But let those looms of light for a moment stop; let their blissful shuttles cease to fly, and instantly, this beautiful world of ours, with all its bloom and beauty blighted, with all its mirth and music hushed, would lie naked and dead on the cold bosom of eternal night.

So it is with human life. It hath its spirit looms, and its throbbing shuttles forever delivering to the warp and woof of hope and memory, the shining threads of human kindness, and weaving them into gossamer webs of love around our hearts and in our homes. Every tender word we speak; every blessing we bestow is a thread of sunshine woven into somebody’s life; and all the smiles and sympathies which come to us from other hearts are threads of light and love woven into our own. But let the loom of love for a moment stop; let its blissful shuttle cease to fly, and that moment happiness will lie dead on the hearthstone, and laughter will perish among the roses at the door.

All men are Kings, but love is King of Kings. His imperial chariot rumbles over the cobblestones of human hearts, and the sighing millions are his worshipers. Wealth bows its haughty head before his throne, and pays penance with jewels and gold; labor bends the reverent knee and counts its beads of sweat; commerce folds its snowy wings and kneels on the billows in mute but eloquent adoration, and art chisels down the cold white prison walls of shapeless marble and leads dumb beauty forth, a breathless prayer to love.

Love is the only despot against whose tyranny no nation ever rebels; his yoke is the twining of tender arms, and the crack of his whip is a guileless kiss. Love is a regal anarchist; he climbs the ladder of laughter and throws bomb shells of mirth into the palace of the heart. Love is a royal minstrel; he scales the harp strings of song and serenades the soul. Love rides on the wings of butterflies, and, with his silken lariat, lassoes strolling lovers, and leads them down among the golden rod and clover blossoms. The dimples in the chin of mirth are the tell-tale tracks of love; and he lurks among the roses that bloom on beauty’s cheek.

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