"Here lies below in hope of Zion,The landlord of the Golden Lion,His son keeps up the business still,Obedient to his country's will."
"Here lies below in hope of Zion,The landlord of the Golden Lion,His son keeps up the business still,Obedient to his country's will."
"Here lies below in hope of Zion,
The landlord of the Golden Lion,
His son keeps up the business still,
Obedient to his country's will."
Years ago a friend said to me: "I admire your zeal, but I wonder at your faith when you are in such a miserable minority." My reply was: "Are minorities alwayswrong or hopeless? How would you have enjoyed being with the majority at the time of the flood? It seems to me you would have been safer with Noah in the ark."
As to license and prohibition, that has always been the question since man was created. It was the question in the Garden of Eden when the devil stood for license, "go eat," and God stood for prohibition, "thou shalt not." That is the question today and I am quite sure God and the devil stand now as then, and while the Adams are divided, the Eves are nearly all on one side.
Another said: "After all the work done for temperance the people drink as much or more than ever." My answer is: how much more would they drink if we had not done what has been done?
Yonder on the ocean a vessel springs a leak and soon the water stands thirty inches deep in the hold. The captain says: "To the pumps!" and the sailors leap to their places. At the end of one hour the captain measures and says: "Thirty inches; you are holding it down." Hour after hour the pumping goes on, with changing hands at the pumps, and hour after hourthe captain says: "You are doing well; she can't go down at thirty inches. Hold it there and we'll make the harbor." Twenty hours and the captain shouts: "Thirty inches; and land is in sight. Pump on, my boys, you'll save the ship." Suppose one of our croakers who says, "Prohibition won't prohibit," had been on board. He would have said: "Don't you see you are doing no good; there's just as much water as when you began." What would have become of the ship?
At the close of the Civil War intemperance was pouring in upon the Ship of State. Men returned from war enthralled in chains worse than African slavery, for rum slavery means ruin to body and soul. Men, women and children ran to the pumps, and thank God, state after state is going dry. Soon we'll see the land of promise, and the Ship of State will be saved from a leak as dangerous as ever sprung in a vessel, and from as cruel a crew of buccaneers as ever scuttled a ship.
When I began the work as a "Good Templar" forty years ago, Kentucky was soaked in rum. Bourbon county, where I was reared, had twenty-three distilleries,and a dead wall lifted itself against my hopes of ever seeing the sky clear of distillery smoke above old Bourbon county, a name on more barrels and bottles, on more bar-room windows, and on the memories of more drunkards in ruin than any other county in the world. Yet I have lived to see the last distillery fire go out, and Bourbon county dry. While I had faith in the ultimate triumph of the Cause I never dreamt it would come to Bourbon county in my lifetime.
When I began saloons were at almost every crossroads village, and the bottle on sideboards was the rule in thousands of leading homes. Time and again my life was threatened. On one occasion twelve armed men guarded me from a mob, and once my wife placed herself between my body and a desperate mountaineer. Those were perilous times for an advocate of temperance in my native state. Now out of one hundred and twenty counties, one hundred and seven are dry. In Georgia the licensed saloon is gone; in North Carolina the saloon is gone; in West Virginia, Old Virginia, Mississippi and Tennessee the saloon is gone, while Oklahoma was born sober.
"That which made Milwaukee famousDoesn't foam in Tennessee;The Sunday lid in old MissouriWas Governor Folk's decree.Brewers, distillers and their croniesWell may sigh;The saloon is panic-stricken,And the South's going dry."Soon the hill-side by the rill-sideOf Kentucky will be still;Men will take their toddiesFrom the ripples of the rill;Boys will grow up sober,Mothers cease to cry;Glory hallelujah!The South's going dry."
"That which made Milwaukee famousDoesn't foam in Tennessee;The Sunday lid in old MissouriWas Governor Folk's decree.Brewers, distillers and their croniesWell may sigh;The saloon is panic-stricken,And the South's going dry.
"That which made Milwaukee famous
Doesn't foam in Tennessee;
The Sunday lid in old Missouri
Was Governor Folk's decree.
Brewers, distillers and their cronies
Well may sigh;
The saloon is panic-stricken,
And the South's going dry.
"Soon the hill-side by the rill-sideOf Kentucky will be still;Men will take their toddiesFrom the ripples of the rill;Boys will grow up sober,Mothers cease to cry;Glory hallelujah!The South's going dry."
"Soon the hill-side by the rill-side
Of Kentucky will be still;
Men will take their toddies
From the ripples of the rill;
Boys will grow up sober,
Mothers cease to cry;
Glory hallelujah!
The South's going dry."
Already seventeen states are dry, and there are many arid spots in the wet states. While I cannot hope to live to see the final triumph, I have faith to believe my children and my children's children will live in a saloonless land, a land redeemed from a curse that has soaked its social life in more blood and tears than all other sources of sorrow; a land where liberty will no longer be shorn of its locks of strength by licensed Delilahs; where manhood will no more be strippedof its possibilities by the claws of the demon drink; where fore-doomed generations will not reach the dawning of life's morning, to be bound like Mazeppa to the wild, mad steed of passion and borne down the blood lines of inheritance to the awful abuse of drunkenness.
To this end I appeal to every minister of the gospel, stir the consciences of your hearers on this question. I appeal to the press, that potent power for the enlightenment of the people.
"Pulpit and press with tongue and pen,Set to new music this message to men:Let the great work of destruction begin,And rid our loved land of this shelter to sin.As before the sun's brightness, the darkness must fly,So by power of the ballot the rum curse must die,Then cover the earth as the wide waves the sea,With the sound of the axe at the root of the tree!"
"Pulpit and press with tongue and pen,Set to new music this message to men:Let the great work of destruction begin,And rid our loved land of this shelter to sin.As before the sun's brightness, the darkness must fly,So by power of the ballot the rum curse must die,Then cover the earth as the wide waves the sea,With the sound of the axe at the root of the tree!"
"Pulpit and press with tongue and pen,
Set to new music this message to men:
Let the great work of destruction begin,
And rid our loved land of this shelter to sin.
As before the sun's brightness, the darkness must fly,
So by power of the ballot the rum curse must die,
Then cover the earth as the wide waves the sea,
With the sound of the axe at the root of the tree!"
Now and then I hear an old man or an old woman say, "Even if I could I would not live life over." Well, I own I would, provided I could begin the journey with the knowledge I now have of what it means to live.
While mistakes have been many there are some things I would not change. I would be brought up in the country as I was. I would play over the same blue-grass carpet, along the same turnpike aisle, swing on the branches of the same old trees and listen to the concert chorus of the same song birds.
Indeed I sympathize with the boy who exchanges the music of birds, melody of streams, lowing of herds, driving of teams, diamond dew on bending blade, morning sun and evening shade, with all other sweet associations of country life for a lodging room in a city, where church doors and home doors are closed against him in the evening hours of the week, and all evil places wide open for his ruin. It has been well said: "The street fair ofevil associations in our large cities begins with the night shadows and grows with the darkness." I dare say if I could draw aside the veil that will shut in the night scenes of this city, the revelation would make some godly fathers tremble for their boys, and pious mothers long to gather their children about them when the sun goes down, as moor birds gather their helpless young when hawks are screaming in the sky.
All hail to the Young Men's Christian Association, with its open doors for young men in the evening hours! All hail to its gymnasium, its swimming pool, basketball and other sports that develop strength and furnish entertainment! Away with the idea that all the pleasures of the world belong to the devil.
A distinguished divine was brought up in New England by a staid old aunt, who never let him go anywhere except to church, Sunday school and prayer meeting. When quite a lad she let him go to New York City to visit a cousin. That cousin took him to see Barnum's circus. It was his first circus, and the wild animals, the bareback riding, trapeze performance, clowns and chariot races bewilderedthe country boy. Next morning he wrote his aunt, saying: "Dear Aunt, if you'll go to one circus you'll never go to another prayer meeting as long as you live." But he did go to prayer meeting and became a grand good man. There are many innocent springs of pleasure, where youth can drink and not be harmed.
It may surprise some for me to say, if I could live life over I would be brought up in the same old state of Kentucky. "With all her faults I love her still,"but not her stills. It has been my privilege to visit every state in the union and I find all the good is not in any one state, nor all the bad. While Kentucky has had her night riders, Missouri has had her boodlers, California her grafters, Illinois her anarchists, Pennsylvania her machine politics, New York her Tammany tiger, and Washington City her blizzards on inauguration days. God doesn't grow all the daisies in one field nor confine thorns to one thicket.
It's been my lot this land to roam,O'er every state twixt ocean's foam,But still my heart clings to its home,Kentucky.I've traveled the prairies of the west,I've seen each section at its best,There's nothing like my native nest,Kentucky.No matter through what state I pass,No matter how the people class,To me there's only one Blue Grass,Kentucky.When my wanderings here are o'er,And my spirit seeks the golden shore,Then keep my dust for evermore,Kentucky.
It's been my lot this land to roam,O'er every state twixt ocean's foam,But still my heart clings to its home,Kentucky.
It's been my lot this land to roam,
O'er every state twixt ocean's foam,
But still my heart clings to its home,
Kentucky.
I've traveled the prairies of the west,I've seen each section at its best,There's nothing like my native nest,Kentucky.
I've traveled the prairies of the west,
I've seen each section at its best,
There's nothing like my native nest,
Kentucky.
No matter through what state I pass,No matter how the people class,To me there's only one Blue Grass,Kentucky.
No matter through what state I pass,
No matter how the people class,
To me there's only one Blue Grass,
Kentucky.
When my wanderings here are o'er,And my spirit seeks the golden shore,Then keep my dust for evermore,Kentucky.
When my wanderings here are o'er,
And my spirit seeks the golden shore,
Then keep my dust for evermore,
Kentucky.
Not only would I be brought up in Kentucky and in the country, but I would go to the same Yankee schoolmaster, have the same sweethearts and marry the same girl, provided she would consent to make another journey with the same companion. By the way, we were married in Bourbon County, Kentucky, when she was nineteen and I twenty. About four years ago we celebrated our golden wedding, and the morning after the celebration,
She put on "her old grey bonnet,With the blue ribbon on it."We didn't "hitch Dobbin to the Shay"But along the interurbanWe rode down to Bourbon,Where we started for our golden wedding day.
She put on "her old grey bonnet,With the blue ribbon on it."We didn't "hitch Dobbin to the Shay"But along the interurbanWe rode down to Bourbon,Where we started for our golden wedding day.
She put on "her old grey bonnet,
With the blue ribbon on it."
We didn't "hitch Dobbin to the Shay"
But along the interurban
We rode down to Bourbon,
Where we started for our golden wedding day.
If I could live life over surely I could ask no better age than the one in which I have lived. We no longer toil over a mountain, but glide through it on ribbons of steel; telegraphy dives the deep and brings us the news of the old world every morning before breakfast; we talk with tongues of lightning through telephones and send messages on ether waves over the sea; we ride horse-cycles that run, never walk and live without eating; we travel in carriages drawn by electric steeds that never tire; the signal service gives us a geography of the weather, so the farmer may know whether or not to prepare to plow, and the Sunday school whether to arrange or to postpone its picnic tomorrow; airships mount the heavens, steamships plough the ocean's bosom, submarine torpedo boats undermine the deep with missiles of death, while photography turns one inside out, and doctors no longer guess at the location of a bullet. All these things have come to pass within my life-time. What may the young beforeme expect in the next fifty years?
Recently I read an imaginary letter, supposed to have been written by a Wellsley College girl. It was dated one hundred years in the future. She wrote:
"Father gave me a new airship a few weeks ago. I leave my home in Baltimore every morning after breakfast and reach Wellsley in time for classes. We have only thirty minutes in school in the morning and fifteen in the afternoon. Our teachers are in telepathic touch with all knowledge and we get it in condensed form. A few days ago, just after lunch at noon I took a spin up into Canada; the machine got a little out of fix, so I jumped on a gyroscope and returned in time for dinner at six.
"Yesterday I sailed over to New York City and took dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria; had two capsules for dinner and they were delicious. I read how the people used to sit around tables and eat all kinds of things. It must have been funny to see their mouths all going at one time. Then they had stomach trouble--indigestion they called it. Now we have everything necessary for the human system put up in capsules; we get up a thousandfeet above the earth where the air is pure, so we ought to live to be two hundred years old.
"Last week my classmate and I took a flying trip to see the Panama Canal, and while there we decided to take in the Exposition at San Francisco next day. There we saw many antiquated machines called automobiles; they used to run around the streets in rubber stockings, honking horns to warn the poor, then turning turtle they killed or maimed the rich. In one department we saw an animal with long tail, and a mane on its neck. They called it a horse and told us that years ago horses were harnessed and driven about the streets, while the fast ones were raced for money."
That young woman may be all right about her capsule dinners and condensed instruction, but one hundred years from now, when on her way from the west to Wellsley if she will stop in Lexington, Ky., she will see a horse sale in progress; horses selling from five hundred to ten thousand dollars that will trot or pace a mile in less than two minutes, while slow ones will be hitched to dead wagons, used to gather up those who have fallen fromairships and gyroscopes. It may be that one hundred years in the future airships will be seen soaring over the cities, delivering packages in parachutes at the back doors of residences, but the day will never dawn when there will be an airship, gyroscope, or an automobile that will supplant the fleet-footed, sleek-coated, handsome Kentucky horse.
Now I come to the more practical, for I do not bring you this talk, challenging your criticism or inviting your praise of it as a literary production, but with the purpose of helping some one live as I would wish to live if I had my life to live over.
First, to the boys before me. If I had life to live over one of my first purposes would be to seek my calling in life. Do you know half the failures of life come from misfits of occupation? There are lawyers starving for want of clients, doctors with patients under monuments, and preachers talking to empty pews, who might have been successful in factories or furrows. Cowper was a failure as a lawyer, he was a success as a poet; Goldsmith was a bungling surgeon, he was a power with his pen; Horace Greely was a successin the Tribune office, he was a failure as a farmer and a slow candidate for president.
When U.S. Grant was a very young man his father sent him to sell a horse to a buyer and instructed him to ask one hundred dollars, but if he could not get that amount to take eighty-five. The buyer looked the horse over and said: "Young man, what is your price?" Young Grant replied: "Father told me to ask you one hundred dollars, but if you would not give that to take eighty-five." It is needless to say the calling of U.S. Grant was not horse trading. This same young man afterwards tried the grocery business and bought potatoes far and wide to corner the market, but the price went down, the potatoes rotted in Grant's bins and his grocery effort was on a par with his horse trading. He then tried the ice market but that became watered stock on his hands and again he was a failure. Later on in life 'mid roar of cannon and rattle of musketry the misfit found his element. Here he was so sure of his calling he made his motto, "I'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," and to the general, who could not drive a horse trade, or corner the potato market, or dealin ice, one of the greatest generals the world ever knew surrendered his sword, and from the highest military position Grant was called to be President of the United States.
If it is true that "ever since creation shot its first shuttle through chaos design has marked the course of every golden thread," then every human being is designed to fill a certain place in life. There are young women teaching school, getting to be old maids, who should be the wives of good husbands, and there are some wives who ought to be old maid "schoolmarms."
We have born architects, born orators, born bookkeepers, born musicians, born poets, born preachers, born teachers, born surgeons, born bankers, born blacksmiths, born merchants, born farmers.
Two farmers live side by side; one doesn't seem to work hard, yet everything is neatness from one end of the farm to the other; his neighbor works hard, yet the cattle are in his corn, the fences are broken, gates off the hinges and everything seems out of order. That man was not made to be a farmer. He should rent out, or sell out, and go to the legislature,or find some other place he can fill.
Matthew Arnold said: "Better be a Napoleon of book-blacks, or an Alexander of chimney-sweeps, than an attorney, who, like necessity, knows no law." There are born shoemakers cobbling in Congress, while statesmen are pegging away on a shoe-last because their brains have not been capitalized by education and opportunity. There are born preachers at work in machine shops, and born mechanics rattling around in pulpits like a mustard seed in an empty gourd; born surgeons are carving beef in butcher stalls, while here and there butchers are operating for appendicitis.
God planted the hardy pine on the hills of New England, and the magnolia down in the sunny South-land. Let some horticulturist compel the magnolia to climb the cold hills of New England, and the northern tree to come down and take its place in the "land of cotton, cinnamon seed and sandy bottom," and everything in both will protest against the mistake.
Lowell said: "Every baby boy is born with a calling." With some this calling is very definite. It was definite with George Stevenson when in childhood he made enginesof mud with sticks for smoke-stacks. It was definite with Thomas A. Edison, who, instead of selling newspapers, went to experimenting with acids, and charged a steel stirrup that lifted him into the electric saddle of the world. With others it is very indefinite. Patrick Henry failed at everything he undertook until he began talking, when he soon became the golden mouthed orator of his age. Peter Cooper failed until he took to making glue, then his business "stuck" to everybody and he made a fortune out of which he built Cooper Union for the education of poor boys.
I have a grandson whose calling was indefinite. He was named for his grandfather, to whom fishing is a fad. During my rest season I go fishing almost every day. While I make an exception of Sunday I can appreciate the minister who was a great fisherman. On his way to an appointment Sunday morning he came upon a lad fishing in a wayside stream. Halting he said: "My boy, this is the Sabbath day and the good Book says you should remember to keep it holy." Just then a fish seized the boy's bait and drew the float under, when the good minister excitedly said: "Pull, pull. Ah! that's a good one.I'll try that place myselfsome other day."
Fishing is my favorite sport. My grandson was a baseball fiend and a football player. He was hurt in a football game and I wrote him, warning him against his recklessness, and to the admonition I added: "Twenty-five boys have been killed already this season playing football; it's a brutal game anyway."
He replied: "Dear Grandfather, I am sorry so many boys have been killed playing football, but I read recently that last summer two hundred and fifty men were drowned while out fishing; would it not be well for you to keep off Lake Ellerslie? You say football is a brutal game; I submit to you, Grandpa, that the man who takes an innocent worm or a minnow, strings it on a steel hook, and sinking it into the water, jerks the gills out of an innocent fish, is more cruel than the boy who kicks another around for exercise. I need a pair of baseball shoes, number six and a half; send them by express." He got the shoes, and I decidedhewas called to be a lawyer.
Young man, if you get to be a preacher and cannot put force into your sermon, the world doesn't want to hear you preach,but if you are a good cobbler it will wear your shoes, if a good baker it will eat your bread, or if a good barber it will let you put your razor to its throat. Remember in making your choice,
"Honor and fame from no condition rise,Act well your part; there the honor lies."
"Honor and fame from no condition rise,Act well your part; there the honor lies."
"Honor and fame from no condition rise,
Act well your part; there the honor lies."
If I could live life over, I would not be content with a common school education. In my youth circumstances lifted a dead wall against my hopes, but if given another chance I would somehow press my way to where higher education scatters its trophies at the feet of youth, for while it is true some of the most successful men of our country graduated from the high school of "hard knocks" and universities of adversity, yet the humblest toil is more easily accomplished and better done where college education guides.
To college education, however, I would add the education which comes from rubbing against the world. Some one has said: "For every ounce of book knowledge one needs a half dozen ounces of common sense with which to apply it." Douglas Jerrold said: "I have a friend who can speak fluently a dozen different languages but has not a practical idea to express inany one of them."
An old woman suffering from rheumatism was asked by a friend: "Did you ever try electricity?"
She answered: "Yes, I was struck by lightning once but it didn't do me any good."
In this many sided age one needs to educate muscle, nerves, heart and conscience as well as brain. That man who is all brain and no heart, goes through the world with his intellect shining above his bosom like an electric light over a graveyard.
Young people, do you know you live in a testing world, a world in which all buds and blossoms are tested? The bud that stands the test of wind and frost goes on to flower and fruitage; the bud that can't stand the test goes with the dust to be trampled under foot. Every cannon made by the government is tested; the cannon that can stand the test goes into battleship or land fort, the cannon that can't stand the test goes into the junk pile.
Yonder in Virginia a few years ago, there was a young man who had everything an indulgent father could give him, but in school his character could not stand the test, and he exchanged his books forwine and cards. He married a beautiful young woman, shot her to death in his automobile and died himself in the electric chair, leaving his old father in a desolate home with harrowing memories tearing his heart; while over the life of an innocent babe he hung a cloud as dark as was ever woven out of the world's misfortune, and sent another life to wander in painted shame outside life's eden of purity, the barb of conscious guilt to be driven deeper and deeper into her soul by the scorn of a pitiless world. All because young Beatty could not stand the test!
Harry Thaw had everything wealth and refinement could bring into a young life, but he sacrificed all upon unhallowed altars, and with the brand of Cain upon his brow, he was cast into a madman's cell. He could not stand the test.
Lord Byron was Britain's brilliant bard. He could have lived in England's glory and then slept with England's buried greatness in Westminster Abbey, if he had stood the test; but at the age of thirty-seven, when he should have been on an upward flight to greater fame, he drew the "strings of his discordant harp" about him and over them sent the bitter wail:
"My days are in the yellow leaf;The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the griefAre mine alone!"
"My days are in the yellow leaf;The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the griefAre mine alone!"
"My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!"
Younder in a cabin a babe was born. When eleven years of age he helped his mother clear out a patch and raise a garden. Later on he lay in front of a wood fire, studying lessons for the morrow. Later in life he went to college, with only a few cents in his pocket. He went to church and there gave part of his little all in a collection for missionary work. The next Saturday he earned a dollar with a jack-plane; at the end of his college term he had paid his way and had seven dollars left. At twenty-eight this young man was in the senate of his state, at thirty-six he was in Congress, and twenty-seven years from the time James A. Garfield rang the bell of Hiram College for his board he went into the White House as President of the United States. He could stand the test. Boys, can you stand the test?
During the Spanish American war there was a regiment called the "Rough Riders." It was made up of picked young men fromdifferent states of the Union. It was this regiment that made the famous charge up San Juan Hill. At the close of the war, the regiment was mustered out of service. The Colonel, giving his farewell address, said: "You have made an honorable record in war, now go back to your homes and make honorable record in peace."
Sixteen years of that record is made. The Colonel has been President of the United States for seven years of that time. General Leonard Wood has gone to the front of the army, and others of the regiment have become successful professional and business men; but some have gone to jails and penitentiaries, one died not long since in the streets of New York City and was buried in a pauper's grave; some are fugitives from justice.
What is true of that regiment, is in some measure true of every body of young men and boys I meet. In my presence are boys who will be leaders of thought and action twenty years from now in whatever community they dwell. There is a boy before me who will be a successful merchant, there's one who will be a banker, another will be a lawyer, others will lead in other lines. But alas! in my presencenow, looking me in the face this minute, there may be a boy, or boys, who will stain with blood the stony path to despair.
Do you say that no such ignominious possibility hangs over any boy in this audience? I tell you it is not always the first, but sometimes the fairest born. I know a man who in his youth drove his father's fine horses, romped and rested on the richest blue-grass lawn, ate from spotless linen and lived in luxury, who now eats from the bare tables of low saloons, and is often given shelter by an old colored "mammy," who was once his father's slave.
I have in mind a schoolmate, whose father lived in a fine country home two miles from the schoolhouse. The influence of my schoolmate's mother was pure as the diamond dew he brushed from the bending grass in barefoot days. But he left the country home and the last time I saw him he was a vagabond, begging bread from negro cabin doors. Ah! mother, you can't tellwhichboy.
In a large city a few years ago a man stood at the side door of a saloon at two o'clock in the morning. His clothes were worn and the matted hair hung about hisface. He waited, hoping some one would come along and give him the price of a drink. Two young men, one of them a reporter on a leading daily, came down the street. As they neared the poor fellow, one said to the other: "Did you ever see such an appeal for a drink? Here, hobo, take this dime and buy you one."
Seizing his hand his friend said: "No, let's do the job like good Samaritans. Come in, tramp, and have a drink with us."
The three entered the saloon, the glasses were filled and the tramp took his and draining it, said: "Young men, I'm very thirsty, may I have another?"
"Yes, help yourself," was the reply, and the tramp took the second drink. Then lifting his hat he said:
"Young men, you call me a hobo, but I see in you a picture of my lost manhood. Once I had a face as fair as yours, and wore as good clothes as you have now. I had a home where love lit the flame on the altar, but I put out the fire and to-night I'm a wanderer without a home. I had a wife as beautiful as an artist's dream, but I took the pearl of her love, dropped it in the wine glass, Cleopatra-like I saw itdissolve and I quaffed it down. I had a sweet child I fondly loved, and still love, though I have not seen her for twelve years; a young woman now in her grandfather's home, she is deprived of the heritage of a father's good name. Young men, I once had aspirations and ambitions that soared as high as the morning star, but I clipped their wings, I strangled them and they died. Call me a tramp, do you? I'm a preacher without a charge, a lawyer without a brief, a husband without a wife, a father without a child, a man without a friend. I thank you for the drinks. Go to your homes and on soft beds may you sleep well; I'll go out and sleep on yonder bench in the night wind. A few more drinks, a few more drunkard's dreams, and I'll go out into the moonless, starless night of a hopeless forever."
Oh! how I would like to help some boy in this audience stand on his two feet and with clear brain, manly muscle, and moral courage fight and win the battle of life. How it would rejoice my soul if I could, with earnest appeal, throw about some mother's boy an armor of celestial atmosphere against which the arrows of evil would beat in vain, and fall harmless athis feet.
Hear me, boys; never was there a day when character counted for so much as now; never a day when a young man, equipped with education and stability of character, filled with energy and ambition, was in such demand as he is today; while on the other hand, never was there a day when a young man with bad habits was in so little demand as now. The industrial world is closing its doors against young men who are not sober, industrious and competent. Even a saloon-keeper advertised thus: "Wanted--A man to tend bar, who does not drink intoxicating liquors." How would this read: "Wanted--A young man to sell shoes, who goes bare-footed."
Young women, just here I have a question for you. If the railroad company does not want the drinking man, if the merchant discriminates against him, and even the saloon-keeper does not want him for bar-tender, do you want him for a husband? Can you afford to wrap up your hopes of happiness in him and to him swear away your young life and love?
Some young woman may say: "If I taboo the drinking man, I may be an oldmaid." Then be an old maid, get some "bloom of youth," paint up and love yourself. John B. Gough said: "You better be laughed at for not being married, than never to laugh any more because you are married."
If I could live life over there are some things I would not do. I would not stop smoking as I did thirty-five years ago, because I never would begin and therefore would not need to stop. I am not a fanatic on the question, but I believe every father in my presence, who uses tobacco, will be glad to have me say that which I will now say to the boys who are dulling their brains, poisoning their blood and weakening their hearts by the use of cigarettes.
Boys, I believe a cigar made me tell my first falsehood. When I was fifteen years of age I felt I must smoke if I ever expected to be a man. Father smoked, our pastor smoked, and so did almost every man in our neighborhood. My mother opposed the habit, but I thought mother did not know what it took to make a man.
I heard her make an engagement to spend a whole day ten miles from home the following week, and that day I set apart for learning to smoke cigars. I laidin some fine ones, six for five cents, and when mother went out the gate on her visit, I started for the barn. In a shed back of the barn I took out my cigars, determined to learn that day if it required the six cigars for my graduation. The first cigar was lighted and with every puff I felt the manhood coming; but in about five minutes I felt the manhoodgoing. Just then my uncle called: "George, where are you?" When I answered he said: "Come here and hold this colt while I knock out a blind tooth."
Horsemen before me know some colts have blind teeth and to save the eyes these must be removed. I staggered to the colt, held the halter rein and when the tooth was removed my uncle, looking at me, said: "What's the matter with you? You are pale as death."
"Nothing, only it always did make me sick to see a blind tooth knocked out of a horse's mouth," I replied.
My uncle said: "You better lie down on the grass until it passes off," and I did.
But I kept on after that until I learned to smoke like a man. When years had passed and I became editor of a paper it seemed to me I could write better editorialswith the smoke curling about my face.
One morning I finished my breakfast before Mrs. Bain had half finished hers. Lighting my cigar I stood by the fire chatting and smoking until the stub was all that remained. Then, as was my custom, I walked up to kiss her good-bye when she said: "Good-bye. But, I would like to ask you a question. How would you like to have me finish my breakfast before you are half through yours, light a cigar, smoke it to the stub, and with tobacco on my lips and breath offer to kiss you good morning?"
I said: "You don't have to kiss me," and with this I left for my work. On the way her question seemed to be waiting my answer, and I gave it in a resolve that she should never again have cause to repeat that question, and with my resolve went the cigar.
About this time a co-worker joined me in the same resolution, which helped me to keep mine. After tea that evening Mrs. Bain said: "I did not know you were so sensitive, or I should not have said what I did." I did not tell her then of my promise, lest I should fail to keep it. Thirty-fiveyears have passed and not a single cigar have I had between my lips since that morning.
Boys, take one five-cent cigar after each meal, add up the nickels for one year, put the money at interest, next year, and every year do the same, compounding the interest, and in thirty-five years you will have thirty-five hundred dollars--the price of a home for your old age.
I do not hope to convert old smokers, but if I can persuade one young man in this audience to throw away the cigarette, never to smoke one again, then I will have honored this hour's service.
If I could live life over I would take the same total-abstinence pledge I took fifty years ago and have kept inviolate to this day. I would take it, not only because of its personal benefit to me, but because of what it has led me to do for others.
It is said reformers never expect to see the bread they cast upon the waters; inventors may, but not reformers. Yet I have lived to see my bread come back "buttered" in my old age.
I have lived to see thousands of men and women to whom I gave the pledge intheir youth, wearing it still as a garland about their brows, and their children, by precept and example of parents, keep step with the onward march of the temperance army.
I have lived to see more than one hundred counties of Kentucky, in which I established Good Templar Lodges, when bottles were on sideboards in the homes, and barrooms in almost every crossroad village, now in the dry column.
I have lived to see seventeen states under prohibition, fifty millions of people of the United States living under prohibitory laws, the Congress of the United States giving a majority vote for submitting national prohibition to the people, and the great empire of Russia going dry in a day.
Sweet is the "buttered bread" that is coming to me after these many years since I cast my bread upon the waters, when days were dark, discouragements many and faith weak. I am waiting now for another slice of this "buttered bread" about the size of old Kentucky dry.
If I could live life over I would put a better bit to my tongue, and a better bridle on my temper. An Englishman said: "My wife has a temper; if she could getrid of it I would not exchange her for any woman in the world."
Two men meet and have a misunderstanding; one flies into a passion, shoots or stabs, while the other stands placid and self-contained, preserving his dignity. The world calls the first a brave man and the latter a coward; but Solomon declared the man who rules himself to be "greater than he that taketh a city."
Oh! the tragedies that lie in the wake of the tempest of temper. On the dueling field such men as Alexander Hamilton went down to death for want of self-control. Andrew Jackson killed Dickerson; Benton of Missouri killed Lucas; General Marmaduke killed General Walker. Pettus and Biddle, one a Congressman, the other a paymaster in the army, had a war of words, a challenge followed; one being near-sighted selected five feet as the distance for the duel, and there educated men, with pistols almost touching, stood, fired and both were killed.
Senator Carmack of Tennessee, criticised Colonel Cooper as a machine politician. Cooper said: "Put my name in your paper again, and I'll kill you." Young Cooper felt in his rage that he must settlethe trouble. Did he settle it? The bullet that went through the heart of Carmack went through the heart of his wife, threw a shadow over the life of his child, and draped Tennessee in mourning. Did he settle it? He started a tempest that will howl through his life while memory lasts and echo through his soul to all eternity. Oh! that men would realize that to walk honorably and deal justly insures in time vindication from all calumny.
Abraham Lincoln was called the "Illinois baboon" by a leading journal, but Mr. Lincoln placidly read the charge, and told a joke as a safety valve for whatever anger he may have felt. One hundred years go by and the President leaves Washington and goes on a long journey to stand at a cabin door in Kentucky, there to pay tribute to a man who "never lost his balance or tore a passion to tatters."
I stood in front of the great Krupp gun at the World's Fair, and as the soldier in charge told me that one discharge cost one thousand dollars, and it could send a shell sixteen miles and pierce iron plated ships, its lips seemed loaded with death and it spoke of war and bloodshed and hate.
A little later I entered the Hall of Fine Arts and looked upon that impressive picture entitled, "Breaking Home Ties." The lad is about to go out from the roof that has sheltered him from babyhood, to be his own guide in the big wide world. His mother holds his hand as she looks love into his eyes, and gives him her warnings and blessing; the father, with his boy's valise in his hand, has turned away with a lump in his throat, while even the dog seems to be joining in the loving farewell.
Turning away from that picture, the thought came: Ah! that means more than Krupp guns. It means the coming of a day when love shall rule and war shall cease, when reason and righteousness shall be the arbitrators for differences between nations, when owls and bats will nest in the portholes of battleships, and each nation will vie with the other in warring against the kingdoms of want and wickedness.
When a man requested Bishop McIntyre to preach his wife's funeral sermon, and told him of her many beautiful traits, Bishop McIntyre said: "Brother, did you ever tell her all these sweet things before she died?"
Just here Sam Jones would say: "Husbands, go home and kiss your wives. Tell them they are the dearest, sweetest things on the earth; you may have to stretch the truth a little, but say it anyway."
A few years ago, just before the Christmas holidays, I wrote my daughter, saying: "I wish you would find out from your mother what she would like for a Christmas gift. However, don't tell her I wrote you to do this. Also suggest something for the grandchildren that I may bring each some little remembrance that will please them." I closed by saying:
"The sands of my life are growing less and less,Soon I'll reach the end of my years,Then you'll lay me away with tendernessAnd pay me the tribute of tears."Don't carve on my tomb any word of fame,Nor a wheel with its missing spokes,Simply let the marble tell my name,Then add, 'He was good to his folks.'"
"The sands of my life are growing less and less,Soon I'll reach the end of my years,Then you'll lay me away with tendernessAnd pay me the tribute of tears.
"The sands of my life are growing less and less,
Soon I'll reach the end of my years,
Then you'll lay me away with tenderness
And pay me the tribute of tears.
"Don't carve on my tomb any word of fame,Nor a wheel with its missing spokes,Simply let the marble tell my name,Then add, 'He was good to his folks.'"
"Don't carve on my tomb any word of fame,
Nor a wheel with its missing spokes,
Simply let the marble tell my name,
Then add, 'He was good to his folks.'"
Boys and girls, don't speak back to mother. You love her and don't mean to offend, but it hurts her. She was patient with you in your infancy; be patient withher in her old age. From her birth she has been your loyal, loving slave. She will go away and leave you after a little while, and oh! how you will miss her when she's gone. Deal gently with her now; speak kindly to her and when she's gone memories of your love and kindness to mother will come to you like sweet perfume from wooded blossoms.
Young lady graduate of high school or college, do you realize what your father has done for you, and the sacrifices he has made that you might have what he has never had--a diploma? Go, put your fair tender cheek against the weather-beaten face of your father, print with rosy lips a kiss of gratitude upon his furrowed brow, and tell him you appreciate all he has done for you.
I have been talking to you an hour about what I would do if I could live life over. If I had life to live over would I do any better than I have done? If I am no better now, than I was five years ago, if I am to be no better five years hence than I am now, then I would do no better if I had another trial.
However, I cannot live life over. The sand in the hour-glass is running low andwhen gone can never be replaced, and I am not much struck on old age. It is said to have its compensations, in that the "aches and asthmas of old age are no worse than the measles, mumps, whooping-coughs and appendicitis pains of youth." Righteous old age should be better than youth. The ocean of time with its breakers and perils face the young, while for the righteous old the storms are past, and they are