And though you be done to the death, what then? If you battled the best you could, If you played your part in the world of men, Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, Edmund Vance Cooke. ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Address of President Lincoln at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863, IF WE HAD THE TIME If I had the time to find a place And sit me down full face to face With my better self that stands no show It might be then I would see my soul If I had the time to let my heart To a comrade quartered on no-luck land, And hear the note of the whip-poor-will, I think that my wish with God would rhyme- If I had the time to learn from you How much for comfort my word would do; To kiss your feet when I did you ill If the tears aback of the bravado Richard Burton. MAMMA'S DIRL Ev'ry night when shadows fly. I had not forgot, ah, no! Down the ways we used to tread; O'er those ways of yesteryear That still makes their mem'ry dear. Than I was down any way That my young feet used to tread; And today's birds sing more clear J. M. Lewis, in Houston Post. JOHN WESLEY'S RULE Do all the good you can, THE SIMPLE FAITH Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well. John Greenleaf Whittier. A MORNING PRAYER The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. Robert Louis Stevenson. HORACE GREELEY'S SORROW We publish below a pathetic letter written by Mr. Greeley on the death of his little boy. Notwithstanding the fact that more than thirty years have passed since the words were written, they will awaken sympathy in many a heart that has known a similar grief: My Friend:-The loss of my boy makes a great change in my feelings, plans and prospects. The joy of my life was comprehended in his, and I do not now feel that any personal object can strongly move me henceforth. I had thought of buying a country place, but it was for him. I had begun to love flowers and beautiful objects, because he liked them. Now, all that deeply concerns me is the evidence that we shall live hereafter, and especially that we shall live with and know those we loved here. I mean to act my part while life is spared me, but I no longer covet length of days. If I felt sure on the point of identifying and being with our loved ones in the world to come, I would prefer not to live long. As it is, I am resigned to whatever may be divinely ordered. We had but few hours to prepare for our loss. He went to bed as hearty and happy as ever. At 5 a. m. he died. His mother had bought him a fiddle the day before, which delighted him beyond mea . . |