O
OASES
Among the African deserts are some fertile spots. They are occasioned by springs which arise in little dells and moisten the ground for some distance around them. They are islands of verdure and beauty and refreshing in an ocean of desolation. Some of them are very extensive and contain a considerable population. One of these is called the Great Oasis, consisting of a chain of fertile tracts of about a hundred miles in length. Another is the Oasis of Siwah, which has a population of eight thousand souls.
Is not life dotted with just such oases that gladden the desert expanse that surrounds so many pilgrims of earth? (Text.)
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OATHS
The primary idea of taking an oath is that we call upon the Deity to bear witness to the sincerity or truth of what we assert, and so, as it were, register our oath in heaven. When Abraham, for example, raised his hands to heaven while swearing an oath to the King of Sodom, he pointed to the supposed residence of the Creator. Afterward, when men set up inferior deities of their own, they appealed to the material images of symbols that represented them, whenever an oath was administered. The most usual form of swearing among the ancients was, however, by touching the altar of the gods. Other rites, such as libations, the burning of incense and sacrifices accompanied the touching of the altar. Demosthenes swore by the souls of those who fell at Marathon. Anciently, too, mariners swore by their ships, fishermen by their nets, soldiers by their spears, and kings by their scepters. The ancient Persians swore by the sun, which was the common object of their adoration, while the Scythians pledged themselves by the air they breathed and by their simitars. Descending to more modern times, the Saxons pledged themselves to support their homes and privileges by their arms; and the punishment for perjury or non-fulfilment of an oath was the loss of the hand that had held the weapon at the compact. The Spartans were wont to assemble around a brazier of fire, and, pointing their short swords to the sky, call upon the gods to bear witness to the compact. Swearing by the sword, in fact, retained its significance down to comparatively modern times, tho in a slightly modified form. Thus, while the pagans extended the point of the weapon toward the supposed residence of the gods, the warriors of Christianity after kissing it, directed the hilt—the true emblem of their faith—to heaven. A later form of oath was the pressing of the thumb upon the blade. Gradually, however, the practise became obsolete; and the kissing of the hilt, accompanying the words, “By this good sword!” was handed down almost to the time when the wearing of a sword by gentlemen was abolished, as one of the strictest codes of civil honor.—London Standard.
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OBEDIENCE
When the Duke of Wellington received a very intrepid battalion returning from a bloody campaign it was observed that he said nothing of their courage, praising only their discipline and subordination to command. Civilians were surprized. The field marshal’s reason was ready—Englishmen are expected to be brave, but obedience is a higher honor. War itself, as a science of slaughter, is not a lofty kind of work, as the most courageous warriors in later days always admit. Yet the military profession is an elevated one in civilized countries, because it is a discipline of character in the principle of authority.—Bishop Huntington, The Forum.
(2213)
Hon. Richmond P. Hobson, in relating some of his experiences after he and his men were captured by the Spanish, tells the following story:
The next day, when it seemed uncertain whether or not a remnant of the Inquisition was to be revived, when the enemy did not know whether it was his fault or ours that a ship had been sunk, and rather inclined to the belief that he had sunk an American battleship and that we were the only survivors out of several hundred, the men were taken before the Spanish authorities and serious and impertinent questions put to them. Remember, they did not know what it might cost them to refuse to answer, Spanish soldiers of the guard standing before them, making significant gestures with their hands edgewise across their throats. Our seamen laughed in their faces. Then a Spanish major questioned Charette, because he spoke French, and asked him this question: “What was your object in coming here?”
And so long as I live I shall never forget the way Charette threw back his shoulders, proudly lifted his head and looked him in the eye as he said:
“In the United States Navy, sir, it is not the custom for the seamen to know, or to desire to know, the object of an action of his superior officer.”
Obedience to the right, is an all too rare virtue, yet upon it depend the foundations of society and the spread of God’s kingdom. We are privileged to know and also to obey.
(2214)
The Princess of Wales, according to The Youth’s Companion, has trained her children so carefully in habits of obedience and veracity that they are nearly models of what children should be in those particulars. Upon one occasion, however, they were sorely tempted. This was when their loving and beloved grandmother, Queen Alexandra, brought them a big box of bonbons. But when the sweets were offered to them, one child after another reluctantly but firmly declined to take any.
“We like them, but mother has forbidden us to eat them,” explained the eldest prince.
“You can have the sugar-plums if I say you may,” said the indulgent Queen. “I will tell mama all about it when she returns.”
Prince Eddie wavered momentarily, then reiterated his refusal.
“We’d like them,” he sighed, “but that’s what mother said.”
The Queen was slightly annoyed by this opposition.
“But if I say you may—” she said.
Prince Eddie stood his ground, a hero between two fires—the wishes of his adored mother and those of his equally adored grandmother. His sisters and his brothers followed his lead. When the Queen went away she put the bonbons on the nursery table and there they stayed for months untouched, a handsome monument to the thoroughness of the princess’s training and the respectful love and devotion of her children. (Text.)
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OBEDIENCE, A TYPE OF
Admiral Dewey served through the Civil War, and had the fortune to get always into the thickest of the fight. When in command of the Dolphin, he exhibited his ideas of obedience. One of his “Jacks” refused to obey an order of his lieutenant and was reported to Dewey. “What!” said Dewey, “you refuse? Do you know this is mutiny?” The man still remained stubborn. Thereupon Dewey told the captain to call the guard. He stood the obdurate seaman on the far side of the deck, and ordered the marines to load. Then he took out his watch and said, “Now my man, you have just five seconds to obey that order,” and began to count the seconds. At the fourth count the man moved off with alacrity to obey the order. The admiral was a man to be trusted implicitly to carry out orders, which fact had become a byword at the Navy Department, and he won fame from the custom he had formed of doing the thing expected of him.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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OBEDIENCE AND GREATNESS
The moon calls to the Atlantic and the mighty seas lift themselves in great tidal waves as they follow their mistress round the globe. It calls with equal insistence to the wayside pool and this passing reminder of yesterday’s shower yields not an inch. The dust speck dances in the sunlight impudently or ignorantly defiant of the law which holds the earth with a grip of steel as it goes bounding along through a wilderness of stars held steady by the same hand. Be it big enough and noble enough, it knows how to obey.—John H. Willey.
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OBEDIENCE IN SPIRIT
It is told of an Eastern king how, planning to visit a remote part of his kingdom, he sent ahead a trusted minister to build for his royal master a suitable palace to live in. When the royal courier reached the end of his journey he found a plague raging and the people dying by thousands. So instead of building the contemplated palace, he took the money and spent it in medicine and bread for the poor sufferers, dug graves and buried the dead, and bought clothing to protect the living. When the king came on and found what was done, instead of punishing his minister he commended him, saying, “Oh, faithful servant, you have builded for me a palace in the hearts of my people—built it out of the tombstones which you have erected over the graves of the dead; jeweled it with the tears you have wiped away, made it echo with songs out of the sobs which you have stilled.”
These servants followed the spirit of the king’s command, not the letter. Will not God be well pleased with a similar obedience from His children? (Text.)
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Object-preaching—See [Sermon, Saving a].
OBJECT-TEACHING
Many men could be brought to abandon their evil habits if they could have them as plainly pictured as the man did in the following incident:
A rich profligate kept two monkeys for his amusement. Once he peeped into his dining hall where he and his friends had been enjoying themselves in wine, and found his pets mimicking the recent party. They mounted the table, helped themselves to the wine, and gestured and jabbered as they had seen their master and his guests doing. Soon they got merry and jumped all about the room. Then they got to fighting on the floor and tearing each other’s hair. The master stood in amazement. “What,” he said, “is this a picture of me? Do even the brutes rebuke me?” Ever afterward he was a sober man.
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Object-teaching, Successful—See [Warmth, Lost].
Objection Overcome—See [Tact].
OBLIGATION
George William Curtis exhibited an unusual honesty. Not only had he a fine sense of obligation where there was no legal or moral responsibility, but he considered himself bound by obligations made by others, in which he had no part. Upon his father’s death, Curtis assumed his liabilities, amounting to $20,000, which took many years of personal deprivation for him to pay; and later, upon the failure of a firm in which he was merely a special partner for only a small amount, and having no part in the management, he refused the immunity allowed under the law, and gave up almost his entire fortune to pay the firm’s indebtedness.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”
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OBLIGATION TO THE CHURCH
There are some people who seem to think they have a through ticket on a vestibule train for heaven. Having paid their pew-rent, taken a seat in the church for a pleasing Sunday service, feeling no obligation to do anything to move the church onward spiritually, they consider themselves at liberty to find fault with the minister and the choir, just as the critical complaining passenger, who, having paid for his ticket and secured his berth, looks upon the train officers and all, as bound to be simply subservient to his individual fancy and pleasure. Is it not time that those who are divinely commended to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling got rid of the passenger notion of getting to heaven? (Text.)—The Living Church.
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OBLIGATIONS, MEETING
No chapter in Mark Twain’s life gave more basis for the great love of his countrymen than that of his unsuccessful business affairs, his simple, uncomplaining facing of them, and his honest fulfilling of his debts to the last farthing. Coming upon him when sixty years of age, and with disheartening completeness, the failure of his publishing firm might well have bowed down a stronger man; and there can be no doubt but that his cheerful humor saved him, in bearing up under the disappointment, as it enabled him to pay his obligations in a financial way.
The firm of C. L. Webster & Co. was organized in 1884, and Mark Twain became president and chief stockholder. As head of the concern his essentially literary and unbusinesslike leanings led him to oversee only the broadest lines of the publishing policy, leaving the administrative details to other hands. Owing to the character of some of the works which the company put out, its ventures were more than ordinarily large; the memoirs of Gen. Grant netted between $250,000 and $300,000 in royalties alone to the general’s widow.
On April 14, 1894, after several reverses, the firm made an assignment for the benefit of its creditors. Mark Twain had already put in more than $65,000 of his own money in an attempt to save the company; he had also lost heavily in trying to develop a type-setting machine. Liquidation showed liabilities of $96,000. Sixty years old, with a wife and three daughters to provide for, Mark Twain voluntarily gave up all his personal assets as a partial satisfaction of his debts and accepted the burden of those remaining. He said, splendidly:
“The law recognizes no mortgage on a man’s brain, and a merchant who has given up his all may take advantage of the law of insolvency, and start free again for himself; but I am not a business man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It can not compromise for less than one hundred cents on the dollar.”—New York Evening Post.
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OBSCURANTISM
Literal fogs may be very detrimental, but it would be more valuable to clear away the fogs of ignorance and prejudice from human minds.
Fogs are not only disagreeable, but very expensive, especially in fog-bound London, where they are often the cause of great loss to merchants. During the week preceding Christmas in a recent year it is estimated that as a result of foggy weather at least $50,000,000 was lost in that city, business being paralyzed for the time being. This being the case, the invention of some means for clearing the air of fog would mean to the British merchant a very material increase of prosperity. The problem is one of such serious importance that experiments are now being carried on with a view of finding practical means for dispelling the dense atmospheric conditions.—W. Raymond, The American Inventor.
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OBSCURITY, LITERARY
Thomas Scott, the Biblical Commentator, once wrote a commentary on “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” He gave a copy of it to an old woman. Some time after he called to see her. “Have you been reading the book I gave you?” he asked her. “Yes, sir.” “Do you understand it?” “Well, sir,” she said, “I can understand what Mr. Bunyan wrote, and I think that some day by the grace of God I may be able to understand your explanation of it.”
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OBSERVATION, KEENNESS IN
Numerous mistakes in life, in literature and in science are due to imperfect or erroneous observation. The following story from the Penn Monthly, which is quite apropos, is related of Agassiz, and it is sufficiently characteristic of this remarkably accurate observer to have the merit of probability:
Once upon a time the professor had occasion to select an assistant from one of his classes. There were a number of candidates for the post of honor, and finding himself in a quandary as to which one he should choose, the happy thought occurred to him of subjecting three of the more promising students in turn to the simple test of describing the view from his laboratory window, which overlooked the side yard of the college. One said that he saw merely a board fence and a brick pavement; another added a stream of soapy water; a third detected the color of the paint on the fence, noted a green mold or fungus on the bricks, and evidences of “bluing” in the water, besides other details. It is needless to tell to which candidate was awarded the coveted position.
(2225)
Observation Profitable—See [Insect, a Model].
OBSERVATION, VALUE OF
Louis Agassiz, after he had spent fifteen years as a teacher of science in this country, when asked what was the best result of his efforts, replied: “I have educated five observers,” referring to the five senses. He claimed that the noblest profession in the world was that of teacher; and that especially in science, the teacher’s most important work was to train the student in habits of observation. Lowell called it a divine art—that of seeing what others only look at.
Educate the five senses and you make them fit teachers to educate you.
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OBSTACLES
Apparently some people are ignorant, and others have forgotten, that we have no sense that is capable of discriminating between high and low speed, or even between motion and rest, except by noting the usual accompaniments of motion, such as the apparent movement of surrounding objects, the resistance of the atmosphere, or the jolting due to obstacles in the path. If our surroundings move with us and the motion is smooth, our methods of detecting it fail. Thus, we can not feel the great velocity with which the earth is moving through space. In like manner, a train on a rough road seems to be going faster at forty miles an hour than one on a smooth road at sixty. The sensations of high-speed travel depend largely, therefore, on the conditions of that travel.
In the same way our moral progress can only be measured by the obstacles we meet and overcome.
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See [Happiness]; [Rebuffs a Stimulant].
Obstacles Overcome—See [Energy, Indomitable].
OBSTACLES, UNEXPECTED
Dr. Cecil Carus-Wilson described before the Linnean Society in London recently some singular observations concerning the inclusion of stones in the roots and stems of trees.
Oaks growing in a gravel pit in Kent had so many stones imbedded in their roots that they resisted attempts to saw them. Some of the roots are described as consisting of “a conglomerate formed of flints inclosed in a woody matrix.” In one specimen 67 flints were found, the largest weighing several pounds. In Norton churchyard, near Faversham, are three old yew-trees, in two of which flints and fragments of tiles have been seen at a height of seven feet above the ground. In Molash churchyard are other yew-trees which have flints imbedded in their trunks as much as eight feet above the ground. The tissues of the wood appear to have grown round the stones, which have been carried upward with the growth of the trees.
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Obstinacy—See [Suggestion].
Obstruction—See [Little Things].
Occasion, Equal to the—See [Rank, Obsequiousness to].
OCCUPATION AND HEALTH
There are some occupations that ought to be salvatory to those that engage in them, as that of the physician or the minister. Yet all occupations may so serve, if the man who works in them thus determines. As an instance of service salvatory to the worker, an English writer refers to the immunity from disease of those who work in the oil-fields:
There is no difficulty in accounting for this. Carbolic acid, one of the most powerful of our disinfectants, is abundantly produced in the oilworks, and this is carried by the clothes of the men, and with the fumes of the oil into the dwellings of the workmen and through all the atmosphere of the neighborhood, and has thereby counteracted some of the most deadly agencies of organic poisons. Besides this, the paraffin oil itself is a good disinfectant.
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OCCUPATION OF THE MIND
A certain boy who was distinctly bad in the Sunday-school class was observed to be one of the best in the industrial class held on Saturday. “How is it,” said the teacher, “that you cut up so in Sunday-school and behave so well here?” “Well,” said the boy, “here I have something to occupy my mind; in Sunday-school I don’t.”—Walter L. Harvey, “Journal of the Religious Education Association,” 1903.
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Occupation, Slavery to—See [Engrossment in Business].
Occupation, Wrong—See [Sympathy Royal].
Occupations, Comparing—See [Values, Standard of].
Occupations of Women—See [Alumnæ Occupations].
ODD BEHAVIOR
Paul Veronese, like many other painters, was given to eccentric moods and odd habits. On one occasion he accepted the hospitality of a family at their beautiful country villa. He assumed great liberties during his visit, claiming absolute possession of his room, allowing not even a servant to enter. He would not suffer the maid to make his bed, and the sweepings of the room were left every morning outside of the door for her to remove. He slipt away without bidding the family good-by. On entering the room the servant found the sheets of the bed missing and at once reported that the painter must have stolen them. After careful search a roll was found in a corner, which proved to be a magnificent picture of “Alexander in the tent of Darius.” It was painted on the missing sheets of the bed, and the artist had chosen this curious way of recompensing his hosts for their generous hospitality.—Frank H. Stauffer, The Epoch.
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ODD ONE, THE
“As every one who has visited London knows,” said a young man formerly attached to our embassy at the British capital, “the number of passengers carried on certain ’busses is limited by regulation.
“Once a kindly Irish conductor, tho quite aware that his ’bus was full, had permitted a young and sickly woman to squeeze in. The ’bus had not proceeded far before the usual crank spoke up. ‘Conductah!’ he exclaimed, ‘You’ve one over your number, y’know.’
“‘Have I, sir?’ asked the conductor with affected concern. Then, beginning to count from the opposite end, leaving the complainant until the last, he repeated: ‘Wan, two, three, four, foive, six, sivin, eight, noine, tin, ’lefen, twelve, thir—so I have sir, an’, be the Lord Harry, ye’re the wan. Out ye go!’
“And out he did go.”—Boston Transcript.
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ODORS
As each nation has its peculiar cut of dress, so each has its national odors apart from race odor. Esson Third says:
The Korean gentleman carries about with him two odors that are specially noticeable to a newcomer. I once made a journey with a Western friend who had a somewhat highly keyed sense of smell, and I remember his stopping short on the road as we walked along, tapping me on the arm and with a long sniff saying: “There it is again.” “What is it?” I asked. “That peculiar smell,” said he. I sniffed long and hard, but there was nothing but the fresh morning breeze and the delightful odors of hill and field. “I’ve smelt it before,” said he, “and I’ll tell you later when I smell it again.”
We tracked that odor for two days, and then we discovered that it came from the black lacquer hat. The odor of lacquer is one of Korea’s national smells. The second smell is due to a mixture of garlic, onions, cabbage, salt, fish, and other ingredients, that make up the Korean pickle so greatly enjoyed with their rice. This odor clings like that of Limburger cheese, and follows the native to church and into all the other walks of life.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”
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OFFENDED FEELINGS
To think about something else is the best and only sure cure for offended feelings. To think about the offense—its unkindness, its injustice, its meanness of spirit, and all its other ugly aspects—only adds to its sting and deepens our own suffering or anger. This hurts us, and helps no one. Eggs are not the only things that are given added life and power by being brooded over. If we want to enlarge and multiply everything unpleasant in that which has offended us, brooding over it will do it. If we want to have done with it and get it out of our life as quickly as possible, to turn deliberately away from it and concentrate our thought and energy upon something else is our sure road to success. “When any one has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense can not reach it,” Descartes is credited with saying. But we can not lift ourselves by mere will power. We can lose ourselves by devotion to something else—and thus we can lose the offense.—Sunday School Times.
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OFFENSE, ROCK OF
Fred J. Atwood voices the regret of those who, by failing to live, will lead others astray:
Because, professing still to be
A follower of the Lamb of God,
I walk in devious paths where he
Is never seen, has never trod,
E’en thus it is that some, through me,
The Master’s face may never see.
Because, professing to be wise,
And to have found the Truth, the Way,
I oft am seen in Folly’s guise,
Unmindful whom I thus betray,—
Yet so it is that some, through me,
To heaven’s gate may lose the key.
Because, professing his dear name
Whose love is infinitely great,
My tongue will even friends defame,
And flashing eyes oft tell of hate,—
Alas, alas, that some, through me,
May, hopeless, face eternity!
(2235)
Offerings—See [Love’s Acceptable Offering].
OFFERINGS, EXTRAVAGANT
When Alexander was a young man, he was one day present at the offering of sacrifices, and Leonnatus, one of his teachers, who was standing by, thought he was rather profuse in his consumption of frankincense and myrrh, for he was taking it up by handfuls and throwing it on the fire. Leonnatus reproved him for his extravagance, adding that when he became master of the countries where these costly gums were procured he might be as prodigal of them as he pleased. Alexander remembered the reproof years later, and finding vast stores of these gums in Gaza, he sent to Leonnatus large quantities of them, telling him that he might not have occasion to be so sparing for the future in his sacrifice to the gods. (Text.)
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OFFERINGS, THE POOREST
In the middle of the summer season tails of sick cattle are principal native offerings at Saint Herbot, a small parish not far from Paris, France. The annual cattle fair brings together a great number of dealers from all parts of Brittany. Business goes on from early morning until three o’clock in the afternoon, when every one adjourns to the church and joins in the service, at which the benediction of heaven on the worshipers’ heads is implored. The custom is for the breeders to cut off the tails of sick animals and lay the tails on the altar, the idea being that this ceremony will restore the sick animals to health. The tails are afterward sold and considerable money realized from the sale.
Many people are just this way toward God. The poorest products of their life they give to God, and make themselves believe that is giving. To give the tailings of the threshing floor is to give chaff. To give the tailings of the reduction mill is to give the low-grade ore. To give the tail ends of anything is to give the poorest.
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OFFERINGS, UNWORTHY
At the heathen festivals in India, the traffickers in sacrificial goods resort to all sorts of devices. Low-caste men have baskets containing little pigs from two days to a month old. These they sell to the high-caste worshipers, cutting the throat of the pig in the presence of the buyer and smearing some blood upon his pious forehead. But by a trick known to the salesman, the windpipe is not severed, so he sells the pig over and over. In the same way coconuts are sold whose milk has been dry for years, and rotten fruit and blind animals are bought at bargains—anything is good enough for offerings to the gods!
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OFFICE-SEEKING
Some Missouri Republican, hungry for an office, resorted to rather a novel method of attracting the attention of Governor-elect Hadley. He cut away the sole from an old shoe, carefully removed the pegs, and then, with a lead-pencil, addrest a letter on the worn side of the surface. Unfortunately, his signature could not be deciphered, nor was the address legible.
Curiosity on the part of those who handled this missive may have been in part responsible for its condition when it reached the attorney-general’s office. This much could be made out:
“I am a Republican and want a piece of pie. Anything will do me from guard at the penitentiary up as high as you will go. If you can’t give me a slice of pie, please save me a bite of the crust.”
So long as the spirit of the writer of this unusual epistle is abroad in the land, politics will be degraded and a better state of things retarded.
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Oil on the Waters—See [Experiment].
Old Age—See [Immortality].
Old Age and Work—See [Fame and Time].
OLD AGE CHEERED
The incident related below by the Rev. Asa Bullard is an example that ought frequently to be imitated:
At the “Old People’s Day” in 1881, I was invited to be with Mr. Batt. The house was quite full on the occasion. There were sixty people present who were over sixty years of age, and twenty-five who were eighty years of age or more. A bouquet was presented to each of these twenty-five. They arose, as their names were called, and received the bouquets as they were presented by the hands of children. At the close of the meeting one of those addrest said: “It knocked twenty years right off from my age.”—“Incidents in a Busy Life.”
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OLD AGE INCURABLE
The following story is told of John Hay:
He had been ailing one time, and a friend made bold to ask what the trouble was. “I am suffering from an incurable disease,” answered Mr. Hay bravely.
A sense of delicacy prevented the friend from making further inquiry; but he told the story to many of his associates, nearly all of whom were acquainted with Mr. Hay, and the report soon spread around Washington that a deadly disease held the Secretary of State within its grasp. One intimate acquaintance of Mr. Hay determined to find out the nature of the secretary’s ailment, and addrest him one day with the remark: “I have been told that you are suffering from an incurable disease. Is it true?” “It is,” said Mr. Hay, in a sad tone. “What is the incurable disease?” then asked the insistent acquaintance. “Old age,” exclaimed Mr. Hay, with a chuckle. (Text.)—Milwaukee Free Press.
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OLD, ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE
To feel young and able to take on new duties and perform them satisfactorily at the age of 73 should put heart into every discouraged person who is nearing the seventies. Such a person was the matron of the “rest home” for working girls, Arrity Hale.
When Arrity Hale was seventy-three years old, her husband having died some time before, she began to find it hard work keeping her small house going. She never told any one of this, but neighbors began to suspect it. A well-known New York family had a country-place near the village, and they had always been on friendly terms with Mrs. Hale. One member of this family was connected with the Working Girls’ Vacation Society, and she, with some other women, was contemplating the foundation of a home in the neighborhood as a branch of the society.
The woman in question and her friends interested with her in the project, were all alumnæ of Miss Green’s school in this city. Miss Green was a famous preceptress a generation or so ago, and she numbered in her classes at No. 1 Fifth Avenue many of the girls who are now the society matrons of the city. After teaching three generations of pupils, and when she was considerably more than seventy years old, she decided to give up her work.
Her old pupils determined to do something in her honor, something that would be a lasting tribute to her, and acting upon a suggestion from her, they determined to purchase a cottage in the country to be used as a rest-home for working girls during their summer vacations. That was how the “L. M. Green Cottage” was established.
Knowing that Arrity Hale was not in the best of circumstances, they approached her with an offer to buy her farm and establish her in it as matron. She eagerly accepted, and the plan was at once put in operation. Some of the members of the society were rather dubious about putting a woman over seventy years old in charge of a houseful of girls, but in a season or two this feeling had entirely disappeared. Mrs. Hale had no trouble at all.
Every girl who visited the Green Cottage left with a regret that she could not spend all her life there. (Text.)
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OLD, HOW TO GROW
Softly, oh, softly the years have swept by thee,
Touching thee lightly with tenderest care;
Sorrow and death they have often brought nigh thee,
Yet have they left thee but beauty to wear.
Growing old gracefully,
Gracefully fair.
Far from the storms that are lashing the ocean,
Nearer each day to that pleasant home-light;
Far from the waves that are big with commotion,
Under full sail and the harbor in sight;
Growing old cheerfully,
Cheerful and bright.
Past all the winds that were adverse and chilling,
Past all the islands that lured thee to rest,
Past all the currents that lured thee unwilling
Far from thy course to the Land of the Blest;
Growing old peacefully,
Peaceful and blest.
Never a feeling of envy or sorrow
When the bright faces of children are seen,
Never a year from the young wouldst thou borrow—
Thou dost remember what lieth between;
Growing old willingly,
Thankful, serene.
Rich in experience that angels might covet;
Rich in a faith that has grown with thy years,
Rich in a love that grew from and about it,
Soothing thy sorrows and hushing thy fears;
Growing old wealthily,
Loving and dear.
Hearts at the sound of thy coming are lightened,
Ready and willing thy hand to relieve;
Many a face at thy kind word has brightened;
“It is more blessed to give than receive.”
Growing old happily,
Ceasing to grieve.
(2243)
OLD-TIME REVELS
Talk about dissipations, ye who have ever seen the old-fashioned sideboard! Did I not have an old relative who always, when visitors came, used to go up-stairs and take a drink through economical habits, not offering anything to his visitors? On the old-fashioned training-days the most sober men were apt to take a day to themselves. Many of the familiar drinks of to-day were unknown to them, but their hard cider, mint julep, metheglin, hot toddy and lemonade in which the lemon was not at all prominent, sometimes made lively work for the broad-brimmed hats and silver knee-buckles. Talk of dissipating parties of to-day and keeping of late hours! Why, did they not have their “bees” and sausage-stuffings and tea-parties and dances, that for heartiness and uproar utterly eclipsed all the waltzes, lanciers, redowas and breakdowns of the nineteenth century, and they never went home till morning.—T. De Witt Talmage.
(2244)
Old Truths—See [Solidity of Old Truths].
OLD-YEAR MEMORIES
Let us forget the things that vext and tried us,
The worrying things that caused our souls to fret;
The hopes that, cherished long, were still denied us
Let us forget.
Let us forget the little slights that pained us,
The greater wrongs that rankle sometimes yet;
The pride with which some lofty one disdained us
Let us forget.
Let us forget our brother’s fault and failing,
The yielding to temptation that beset,
That he perchance, tho grief be unavailing,
Can not forget.
But blessings manifold, past all deserving,
Kind words and helpful deeds, a countless throng,
The fault o’ercome, the rectitude unswerving,
Let us remember long.
The sacrifice of love, the generous giving,
When friends were few, the hand-clasp warm and strong,
The fragrance of each life of holy living,
Let us remember long.
Whatever things were good and true and gracious,
Whate’er of right has triumphed over wrong,
What love of God or man has rendered precious,
Let us remember long.
So, pondering well the lessons it has taught us,
We tenderly may bid the year “Good-by,”
Holding in memory the good it brought us,
Letting the evil die. (Text.)
—Susan E. Gammon, Christian Advocate.
(2245)
Omens—See [Superstition].
OMNISCIENCE
Here is a sentiment of the Psalms repeated in distant Japan by one who, perhaps, had never read about the all-seeing One who “understandeth our thoughts afar off”:
Take heed unto thyself; the mighty God
That is the soul of nature, sees the good
And bad that man in his most secret heart
Thinks by himself, and brings it to the light. (Text.)
—Her Majesty the Empress Haruko of Japan.
Translated by Arthur Lloyd.
(2246)
There was in my regiment during the Civil War—I was chaplain—a certain corporal, a gay-hearted fellow and a good soldier, of whom I was very fond—with whom on occasion of his recovery from a dangerous sickness I felt it my duty to have a serious pastoral talk; and while he convalesced I watched for an opportunity for it. As I sat one day on the side of his bed in the hospital tent chatting with him, he asked me what the campaign, when by and by spring opened, was going to be. I told him that I didn’t know. “Well,” said he, “I suppose that General McClellan knows all about it.” (This was away back in 1861, not long after we went to the field.) I answered: “General McClellan has his plans, of course, but he doesn’t know. Things may not turn out as he expects.” “But,” said the corporal, “President Lincoln knows, doesn’t he?” “No,” I said, “he doesn’t know, either. He has his ideas, but he can’t see ahead any more than General McClellan can.” “Dear me,” said the corporal, “it would be a great comfort if there was somebody that did know about things”—and I saw my chance. “True, corporal,” I observed, “that’s a very natural feeling; and the blest fact is there is One who does know everything, both past and future, about you and me, and about this army; who knows when we are going to move, and where to, and what’s going to happen; knows the whole thing.” “Oh,” says the corporal, “you mean old Scott!”—Joseph H. Twichell.
(2247)
Omnipresence, A Wrestle with—See [Children’s Religious Ideas].
One Idea, The Man With—See [Engrossment in Business].
ONE, WINNING
In St. John’s Church, in the little town of Beverley, England, one stormy evening in December, 1853, a meeting of the church missionary society was being held at which a scant audience was present, including just one young man, who on the Sunday previous had been particularly invited to attend. The vicar of the church, the Rev. A. T. Carr, suggested a postponement, but the speaker, a venerable rector of a near-by town, replied that those who had braved the storm were entitled to hear the message intended for them. The service over, that lone young man trudged homeward, when the thought came to him: “I was the only young man there. Why should not I become a missionary? May not the Lord have something for me to do in heathen lands?” The resolution was made. That young man was William Duncan, now known as “The Apostle of Alaska,” whose missionary triumphs among the Indians of the Alaskan coast have won the admiration of the world.
To win the one is sometimes to win the many. (Text.)
(2248)
Open Allegiance—See [Church Membership].
Open Door to China—See [Chinese Progress].
OPENNESS OF MIND
The Mediterranean is practically a tideless sea, and yet the visitor to its waters is puzzled at the discovery of what appears to be a tide. But the explanation is that there is a connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, so that what seems to be a tide at Gibraltar is simply the rolling waves from the tide of the mighty Atlantic into the sea that washes the shores of southern Europe and northern Africa. As long as the channel at the Straits of Gibraltar is open, so long will there be this rolling in, and so there will be a constant influx of blessing while communication with God is unhindered.
(2249)
See Source of Blessing.
OPINION, CHANGED
When General Ewell was asked what he thought of Jackson’s generalship in the Shenandoah Valley campaign, he replied:
“When he began it, I thought him crazy. Before he got through, I thought him inspired.” —The Sunday Magazine.
(2250)
Opinionatedness—See [Individualism, Excessive].
OPINIONS
Wesley himself said once to his preachers, “I have no more right to object to a man for holding a different opinion from my own than I have to differ with a man because he wears a wig and I wear my own hair, tho I have a right to object if he shakes the powder about my eyes.”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”
(2251)
OPPORTUNITIES, IMPROVED
Whitefield preached under conditions and to audiences known to no other orators. Passing over Hampton Common, he finds a crowd of 12,000 people collected to see a man hung in chains. Here is an audience, a pulpit, a text; and straightway he captures the crowd! He preaches to another vast multitude assembled to see a man hanged, and the hangman himself suspends his office while Whitefield discourses. Some wandering players have set up their stage at a country fair; the crowd rushes together to grin and jest. But Whitefield suddenly appears, turns the whole scene to religious uses, spoils the players’ harvest, and preaches a sermon of overwhelming power.—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”
(2252)
OPPORTUNITIES UNUTILIZED
The Macon Telegraph says that Macon men in Florida laugh to see natives opening canned tomatoes in sight of tomato plants loaded with ripe fruit. Then the said Macon men go to their own homes and buy Florida shad, at Washington Market prices, altho their own river is full of them; and the Telegraph asks: “Is it not a little singular?” Bless you, no! The same sort of thing is going on all over the country. There is not a year when hams and bacon do not bring higher prices in some great pork-producing counties of the West than they do in New York. There are Southern counties where the watermelon grows so easily that the small boy scorns to steal it, yet in some towns in these counties a watermelon costs twice as much as in any Northern city. There are cattle-ranches in the West where milk, when there is any, brings fifty cents a quart, and great grain farms on the prairies whose owners never in their lives tasted an ear of sweet-corn. And, coming back to the shad, there are times when these fish are running up our own river by tens of thousands that a breakfast of shad costs more than one of beefsteak, altho the shad comes right to town and needs only to be taken from a net, while the beef has to be fed at least three years and then brought half-way across the continent by rail. No, there’s nothing singular about it, except in the fact that where food products most abound human nature seems most incompetent to make full use of its opportunities. America is, above all others, a land of plenty, but no one would imagine it after looking at a price-list of family supplies.—New York Herald.
(2253)
OPPORTUNITY
Senator J. J. Ingalls wrote the first of these poems not long before he died, the only poetry he is known to have composed. In reply, Walter Malone wrote the second selection:
I
Master of human destinies am I,
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock, unbidden, once at every gate:
If sleeping, wake—if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me, reach every state
Mortals desire and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, and wo;
Seek me in vain, and uselessly implore:
I answer not, and I return no more.
II
They do me wrong who say I come no more,
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you wake to ride, to fight, and win.
Wail not for precious chances passed away,
Weep not for golden ages on the wane!
Each night I burn the records of the day,
At sunrise every soul is born again.
Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
My judgment seal the dead past with its dead,
But never bind a moment yet to come.
Tho deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep:
I lend my arm to all who say, “I can!”
No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep,
But yet might rise and be again a man.
Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous retribution’s blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past,
And find the future’s pages white as snow.
Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell!
Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven.
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.
(2254)
The importance of seizing opportunities as they pass by is realized by astronomers who study the sun’s corona:
The study of the corona of the sun is limited to the few brief moments of total solar eclipse; to some five or six minutes every few years. For this purpose expeditions are fitted out and sent to the most favorable locations; and the astro-physicist utilizes every moment of totality in obtaining photographs and spectographs for measurements and study.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”
(2255)
Howard B. Gross, pleading for better conditions for the “submerged” classes, says:
The other day, after Easter, I took a lily which I had bought for my wife—it had withered and grown yellow—I took the ugly thing and threw it into the back yard, and as I threw it the pot broke, and I saw a thousand little rootlets beating against the pot, hungry for air and moisture, and I planted that ugly thing in the soft and tender soil, where the morning sun could smile upon it, and the noonday sun not smite it, and the fairest thing which ever grew in the garden grew out of that despised and dried thing which had no chance to grow. All these people need is the full, free, fair chance that we have had.
(2256)
Single acts and moments are fraught with destiny.
Esau filled his life with regret for trifling one day; Esther’s was full of glory for one day’s courage. Peter slept one hour and lost a matchless opportunity; Mary’s name is fragrant forever for the loving deed of a day. Do your best now. (Text.)—Maltbie Babcock.
(2257)
Some men make their opportunities.
Less than sixteen years ago a clergyman was called to two New York parishes. One was thriving, the other was standing still, the duty of existence growing heavier with each year of inactivity. He chose the latter church, because, as he said, “there was more work to do.” At that time his congregation was never large and bad weather often made it very small. It had a Sunday-school of less than fifty members and the Sunday services were practically the end of the week’s labor. People were moving rapidly farther uptown; the churches were going with them, and St. Bartholomew’s, at that time one of the smaller Episcopal parishes, while it was stubbornly holding its place, was gradually weakening. And so it was, comparatively inactive, half forsaken, when Dr. Greer came to it.
Dr. Greer left St. Bartholomew’s recently perhaps the most powerful single Protestant organization in the world, a church that spends more than two hundred thousand dollars a year, the old edifice remodeled and crowded to the doors of a Sunday morning, a parish house in the midst of the maelstrom of East Side life; six Sunday-schools aggregating two thousand members, two in English, one in Armenian, one in Chinese, one in German, one in Swedish; industrial schools, clubs, an employment bureau that obtains positions for one hundred people a week, a clinic that cares for one hundred and fifty people a day, a boarding-house for girls, and many other important cogs in an immense and constantly active machine of religious and philanthropic endeavor. It was built up piece by piece, getting greater support as it proved itself, just as any factory or business grows. (Text.)—Arthur Goodrich, Leslie’s Monthly.
(2258)
There is an Indian legend of a good spirit who, wishing to benefit a young princess, led her into a ripe and golden corn-field. “See these ears of corn, my daughter; if thou wilt pluck them diligently, they will turn to precious jewels; the richer the ear of corn, the brighter the gem. But thou mayest only once pass through this corn-field, and canst not return the same way.” The maiden gladly accepted the offer. As she went on, many ripe and full ears of corn she found in her path, but she did not pluck them, always hoping to find better ones farther on. But presently the stems grew thinner, the ears poorer, with scarcely any grains of wheat on them; further on they were blighted, and she did not think them worth picking. Sorrowfully she stood at the end of the field, for she could not go back the same way, regretting the loss of the golden ears she had overlooked and lost.
To each of us are golden opportunities offered; life speeds on to the goal from which there is no return; let us redeem the time, for fields are white to harvest.—Illustrated Missionary News.
(2259)
Opportunity, American—See [American Opportunity].
Opportunity, Business—See [Business Chances].
OPPORTUNITY IN THE ORIENT
Let me remind you of that great painting called “Anno Domini,” which perhaps some of you have seen, and which vividly illustrates the unprecedented opportunity to-day in the extreme Orient. It represents an Egyptian temple from whose spacious courts a brilliant procession of soldiers, statesmen, philosophers, artists, musicians, and priests is advancing in triumphal march, bearing a huge idol, the challenge and the boast of heathenism. Across the pathway of the procession is an ass, whose bridle is held by a reverent-looking man, and upon whose back is a fair young mother with her infant child. It is Jesus entering Egypt in flight from the wrath of Herod, and thus crossing the path of aggressive heathenism. The clock strikes and the Christian era begins.—Arthur Judson Brown, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
(2260)
OPPORTUNITY LOST
Everybody knows now of the telephone and its large usefulness. It was not so, however, back in the seventies. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell had hard work to arouse interest, and harder yet to enlist capital, in his invention. In an account of the struggles of those early days, the following incident appears:
He resolved on a desperate move, and he went to Chauncey M. Depew and offered him a one-sixth interest in the company if he would loan $10,000 to put the company on its feet. Depew took a week to consider the proposition. At the end of the week he wrote back that the incident might be considered closed. The telephone was a clever idea, but it was utterly lacking in commercial possibilities, and $10,000 was far too big a sum to risk in marketing an instrument that at best could never be more than a source of amusement.
Thus Depew let slip an opportunity to acquire for $10,000 an interest that to-day could not be bought for less than $25,000,000.
(2261)
The New York Sun is authority for the following story:
A Provincetown man, out on his first trip as captain of a whaling-vessel, about thirty years ago, stopt at one of the West India Islands on his way home. One of the natives offered him five small lumps of a dirty-looking substance which the native asserted was good for something. The native further informed the captain that he had got these pieces from a dead whale which was ashore on a certain beach and that there was plenty more in the carcass.
Did the captain hoist all sail and get to that dead whale as fast as the winds of Providence would permit? Not a bit of it. He had been made captain for the purpose of going after sperm oil, and he concluded that he’d better stick to his job. So he gave the native a pair of blue overalls and a jumper for the five dirty lumps and went on his way.
After he had made port he showed the five lumps to Mr. Stull, and when the latter gave him $700 for them he almost had a fit. Still that shock was nothing to what he got a little later, for he learned that another captain had heard of the dead whale, had got what ambergris still remained in the carcass and had sold it in New York for $30,000. It was estimated that this whale must have contained in all at least $50,000 worth of ambergris.
(2262)
Opportunity Seized—See [Supply and Demand].
OPPOSITION
Ornithologists assure us that the eagle, the condor of the Andes, the albatross of the Pacific, and even the swiftly-flying little dove, like many other birds that are strong on the wing, can fly more swiftly against a wind than in a gentle breeze. It may be that this is because they are thus stimulated to exert the muscular strength of their pinions. But, however this may be, it is a fact that the fires of a steamship burn much more fiercely under the boilers when the vessel is going against a head-wind.
Christian effort of the right kind is at its best when opposition is faced, for this very condition brings us into contact with the divine resources which are ever on our side.
(2263)
OPPOSITION TO MISSIONARY WORK
I heard a little while ago of a member of one of our churches in Pennsylvania whose son graduated from a theological seminary and sent word home to his father that he had decided to be a missionary, and asking him for his approval; and the father sat down in a towering rage and wrote back to him something like this: “This is absolutely the saddest message I have ever received from you. I could have wished that you had died in infancy, as your brother did, rather than that things should come to such a pass as this. You never will get my consent to do such a rash and foolish thing. I will cut you entirely off from any share in my inheritance, unless you give up this idea forever; and I do not care to see your face again until you have given it up.” Imagine that kind of an answer from a professing Christian! In spite of it, the man is in Japan as a missionary to-day. Would it not be far more Christlike to take the attitude that my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Paton did over at Pittsburg three years ago, when their only child, a beautiful, clever, tender girl, came to them one day and said she wanted to be a missionary out in Africa? And they were so much in sympathy with Christ that they said, “We shall be very glad to have you go.” Then, as they thought and prayed over it for a few days, they decided that they could not let anybody else support their daughter, and so they sent word to the mission board that they wanted to have the privilege for the rest of their lives of paying their daughter’s salary while she worked over yonder in Africa. And when one and another of their friends came to them, protesting against this madness in sending their only child away off to bury her life in the heart of Africa, their simple answer to these critics was in words like these, “Our Lord has given His best to us, and our best is not too good for Him.”—J. Campbell White, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
(2264)
OPTIMISM
The following verses are by M. A. Kidder:
There is many a rest in the road of life,
If we only would stop to take it,
And many a tone from the better land,
If the querulous heart would wake it.
To the sunny soul that is full of hope,
And whose beautiful trust ne’er faileth,
The grass is green and the flowers are bright,
Tho the wintry storm prevaileth.
There is ever a gem in the path of life,
Which we pass in our idle pleasure,
That is richer far than the jeweled crown,
Or the miser’s hoarded treasure.
It may be the love of a little child;
Or a mother’s prayers to heaven;
Or only a beggar’s grateful thanks
For a cup of water given.
Better to weave in the web of life
A bright and golden filling,
And to do God’s will with a ready heart
And hands that are swift and willing,
Than to snap the delicate, slender threads
Of our curious lives asunder.
And then blame heaven for the tangled ends,
And sit, and grieve, and wonder.
(2265)
Kate Sanborn tells of an old lady of her acquaintance, eighty-three years of age, who is famous among all who know her for her happy cheerfulness. One day when she was choked by a bread-crumb at the table, she said to the frightened waiter as soon as she could regain her breath: “Never mind if that did go down the wrong way. A great many good things have gone down the right way this winter.” (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.
(2266)
In answer to the question, “What is optimism?” this humorous instance was recently given:
A man lost his balance and fell from the fortieth story of the Singer Building, Broadway, New York. As he passed each story going down he said to himself, “It is all right so far.” That was optimism.
(2267)
Once I got hard up and went down and sold the best suit I had to get bread, and I had my shoes half-soled, and that night some fellow stole my shoes, and the next morning the snow was ten inches deep, and I got up, and looked out of the window, and I said, “I would rather have feet and no shoes than shoes with no feet.” I like the fellow that goes along without growling.—“Popular Lectures of Sam P. Jones.”
(2268)
Dr. A. E. Winship tells this story:
It was eleven o’clock on as disagreeable a night as Chicago knew last winter that I ordered a cab to take me to the Northwestern Station. Carriages were scarce, and I was asked to ride with another man.
“A good night this!”
“Humph,” I replied, “if anybody likes this kind, I don’t.”
“It is just the tonic I need for my eighty-two years. It blows the blues all out of a man if he ever had them, which I never do.”
“Do you often ride nights at your time of life?”
“Nearly every night; it does me good.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. This is Doctor Willetts.”
“Certainly, and I would have been nursing old age twenty years ago if I had ever found anything bad in life. A night like this! Why, to growl about it, it would take a year off my life.”
Thanks to Doctor Willetts I have not seen bad weather since, and I never shall.
(2269)
See [Prophecy].
Optimists, The, and the Pessimists—See [Loads, Balking Under].
ORATORY
There are men in legislative assemblies who speak often, but are never masters of any situation. They have great powers of utterance, but nothing to say. The orator whose burning sentences become the very proverbs of freedom is not he who consumes the most time and employs the selectest paragraphs. I have seen men in Congress often on their legs and buzzing about like able-bodied darning-needles, but they never managed, even by accident, to sting anybody into attention.—James T. Fields.
(2270)
Order—See [System in Labor].
Order, The Natural—See [Plan in Nature].
ORGANIZATION, INDUSTRIAL
The farmer who tills his own soil, the man in the shop who is his own employer, the proprietor of the small factory, as well as the manager of the greatest manufacturing corporation and his subordinates, are each concerned with the problems of organization in their special work.
Thousands of farmers to-day are eking out a scanty subsistence because of a lack of intelligence in the proper organization of the activities of farm life. Thousands of manufacturing establishments are upon the verge of bankruptcy or are reducing dividends for the same reason. Industrial education confined to the production of skilled workmen might prolong the agony, but would not avert the final disaster, because of lack of intelligence in the organization of means to ends in the particular productive enterprise. Thousands of firms concerned with the distribution of products fail annually, not because of lack of interest on the part of those who are managing them, but because of lack of skilful organization of the various forces whose action is necessary to success.
The schools do not exist to-day which undertake to give instruction in these particular fields. Even the body of knowledge which would form the proper field of study has not been organized and put into teachable form. Even the beginnings have hardly been made toward industrial education in this particular field.—Lorenzo D. Harvey, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,” 1909.
(2271)
ORGANIZING FOR WORK
The difference between a locomotive engine and a pile of scrap-iron is that the one is organized and the other is not. In the case of the engine machinery, side arms, driving-wheels and whistle—all have their place and part. So have driver and stoker. And it is the organized power and effort that bring results.
Many men have enough good moral material for a fine character, but have not yet put it in effective order, and so can not bring it to bear. (Text.)
(2272)
Orient, The, and Opportunity—See [Opportunity in the Orient].
Original Sin—See [Sin, Original].
ORIGINAL SOURCES
The history of the Christian religion might conceivably be written as was this history named below:
Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet found the histories of the American Revolution so full of errors that, in his disgust, he resolved to make some history that could not lie. The result was the unique folios now in the keeping of the Lenox library, in which the author has never written a word, but has told the story by the assembling of original documents and letters. He never allowed himself to insert a copy, no matter how many hundred dollars the original document might cost him.
(2273)
ORIGINALITY
A really fertile creative mind has got to produce—wheat and tares, flowers and weeds—all springing from a rich soil. Contrary to the general belief, there is nothing so deadly to the writer of creative power as a too early development of the critical faculty. That is why the young man who is always conscious of Lowell and Emerson looking over his shoulder never is original.—Robert Bridges, Collier’s Weekly.
(2274)
As Plutarch tells us, “it is well to go for a light to another man’s fire, but not to tarry by it, instead of kindling a torch of one’s own.” A torch of one’s own!—that is a possession worth having, whether it be a flaming beacon on the hilltop or a tiny taper in the window. We can not tell how far a little candle throws its beams, nor who is laying his course by its flickering light. The most that we can do—and it is also the least we should do—is to tend the flame carefully and to keep it steady.—Brander Matthews.
(2275)
ORIGINALITY OF MAN
If we mean by individuality differences in character and disposition, then is there a fair measure of individuality among the animals. No two animals are just alike, any more than any two trees are just alike. But if we mean the possession of striking original traits, unique powers and capacities, as among men, then there is very little. Animals do not differ in the degree that men differ. What one does all of its kind will sooner or later do. Anything you can learn of one bird or beast that is not true of every member of its species is unimportant.
I, myself, like to dwell upon what seems like individual differences in the manners and characters of the birds and the mammals. We all love the specific and characteristic; but we are aware of these differences mainly because we have a few birds or mammals under observation and not the whole class. Some day we shall observe the same trait or habit in another of the same class. We see something in the eye or the face of a member of one’s own family and think it peculiar and original; then, in the face of an Eskimo or a Cossack, we see the same look.—John Burroughs, The Independent.
(2276)
Origins, Unknown—See [Unknown Realities].
OSSIFICATION
The London Mail reports this sad case:
An honored guest at most of the London hospitals is a tall, slim man, with a thin face, who has to move about with extreme care, because if he happened to fall down he might break in several places.
He is literally a fragile man, who has to walk with something of the stiffness of “La Poupée.” A violent fall would be disastrous to him. He is suffering from a rare and painless disease which, in the words of one of the doctors who has seen him, turns him into “a porcelain man.” Alban Rushbrook, aged thirty-five, has for seven years been suffering from myositis ossificans; his muscles are turning into bone. He can walk, but he can not sit in a chair, and it is difficult for him to turn his head far to the right or left. The muscles of his chest, back and thighs are all turning to bone. He lies flat in bed. When he desires to rise he is shifted to the edge of the bed, and his rigid body is tipped up till his feet touch the floor. A stick is placed in his hand, and he can then make his way in a straight line ahead.
(2277)
OSTENTATION
The boxes in the temple treasury were shaped like trumpets. Jesus said, “Do not make a trumpet of the box; it looks like one, but do not use it for the purpose of calling attention to what you are about to put into it.” (Text.)
(2278)
OSTENTATION, SNOBBISH
Occasionally great wealth publishes itself in an unbecoming and distasteful manner, as the following suggests:
The son of the New York millionaire, John W. Gates, dislikes to have bills of such small denomination as $100 littering up his pockets, says the Philadelphia Press.
The last time Mr. and Mrs. Gates came to this city in their automobile they stopt at the Bellevue-Stratford. When he asked for his bill he found it amounted to a paltry $70. Opening a huge wallet, he handed out a thousand-dollar note. This was fondly laid away and the cashier began to count hundred-dollar bills in change.
“My word,” said Mr. Gates, dropping into the vernacular of the metropolis, “I can’t carry that truck around with me. Send my bill to New York and I will mail you a check.”
Calling hundred-dollar bills “truck” was more than the porters who heard it could stand. If they had not been so well trained they would have forgotten to carry Mr. Gates’ dress-suit case out to his automobile.
(2279)
OTHER SIDE, THE
“There’s another side,” said the minister’s wife softly.
“How do you know?” asked the visitor who had told the discreditable little tale strictly in confidence, as she herself had learned it in the bosom of the Wednesday afternoon sewing circle. The minister’s wife had not been present, and it was only right that she should be put right about this family of newcomers in the parish. “Some things had come to the ears of the sewing circle that were not—well, not exactly—”
“There’s another side!” repeated the minister’s wife, not so softly this time. In fact, there was a noticeable little ring of indignation in her tone, which died out in a sort of wondering pity as she noticed the challenging look of her caller. “You’re glad there is another side, aren’t you? Why, of course you are. And, you see, I know all about it.”
“You weren’t at the meeting,” said the other stiffly. “If you had been, you—”
“No, I was there—at the house. And I saw—I saw—oh, Mrs. Babbitt, if you could have seen what I saw.”
“I saw, too—with my own eyes! That daughter of theirs is an opium—”
“She isn’t their daughter—not any relation; not even a friend or a friend’s daughter, just a poor girl who had been sick so long and suffered so terribly that the doctors themselves had made her a victim of the opium habit. And they have undertaken to try to cure her. They have given up their home—their very lives—to it. They don’t say a word about it. I just found it out—with the help of the doctor.”
The visitor rose suddenly, almost unceremoniously. For a moment the hostess looked troubled and aghast. Had she spoken too sharply, discourteously, even? Her mind fled back over the interview as she faltered: “You are not going yet? You—oh, you aren’t offended at anything I’ve said?”
“Yes, I’m going. Offended—I? I’m going round to see all our ladies, every single one of them!”
“And tell them?—”
The minister’s wife held her breath for the answer. One may be very bold, but it sometimes means a great deal to offend “the ladies.”
“And tell them,” said the caller, gathering her wraps about her, “that beautiful ‘other side!’”
“Oh!” breathed the minister’s wife gratefully. “And tell them, won’t you, that there always is another side, always, always! And it is our Christian business to try and find it.”—Anna Burnham Bryant, Zion’s Herald.
(2280)
OTHERS, CONSIDERATION FOR
Among the regular announcements printed each week in the calendar of the Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles, Cal., when the Rev. Robert J. Burdette was pastor, was the following:
Out of Christian consideration for others, the women will please remove their hats before the beginning of the sermon.
There was general conformity with a request so courteous and so Christian. In a large audience of several thousand there will, of course, be occasional transgressors. When the number of transgressors was exasperatingly large, the startled ears of the offenders were in danger of being greeted with a pronunciamento from the pastor, ordinarily the gentlest of men, usually in this spoken form:
“If the lady with the becoming hat will kindly notice how hard the man behind her is dodging, trying to see the preacher, she will undoubtedly be obliging enough to take down her millinery, postpone her halo, and conform to the customs of this church.” The effect is generally satisfactory to the audience, and the wearer’s self-respect is preserved in a trying episode. (Text.)
(2281)
Outcome—See [Direction].
Outlawry—See [Lawlessness].
Outstripping Danger—See [Ahead of Circumstances].
Overcoming Obstacles—See [Energy, Indomitable].
Overdoing—See [Comparisons, Apt].
OVERDOING DANGEROUS
On all sides we may see that the stern laws which are necessary to our development may become exhaustive and destructive, passing beyond a given limit, as in athletics a man may be overtrained. And all this is just as true of our moral as it is of our physical and intellectual nature. A fair share of hardship develops heroic qualities, but when existence becomes too hard it breaks the spirit; the child cruelly treated becomes cowed; men and women bred in misfortune’s school become timid, nervous, cowardly. So, if heaven did not temper life, the finer qualities could never be developed in us. Burdens too heavy to be borne would break our heart; temptations too fiery, or protracted, wear out our patience; sorrows too acute drink up our spirit. Overborne by unmitigated pressure, we should lose all faith, courage, hope; nothing would be left to us but atheism, cynicism, despair.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
(2282)
OVERLOADING
A horse drawing a load of freight was going down the grade on Seneca Street (Buffalo). The weight of the load sent it forward on the animal’s heels. The driver pulled up the horse to steady him. The load slid forward still faster—the horse slipt and fell.
A little crowd gathered. The horse was unhitched as it lay panting on its side with its fore-legs skinned from the knee down from contact with the ice. The animal struggled to rise, but could not gain a foothold. Then some one placed a folded blanket under the horse’s fore-feet, and he got up and stood shivering from the strain.
Just a common street scene.
But it has a moral in the opinion of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is, “don’t overload.”
“I do wish that teamsters and owners of work-horses could be brought to understand that it does not pay to overload their wagons,” said Miss Jessie C. Hall, office secretary of the society.
“Just now the overloading of wagons is causing no end of trouble and complaints are pouring in every day. If drivers would take smaller loads it would pay in the end. Only this morning an agent of the society was called to Broadway and Gibson Street where a horse had fallen down. It was so badly hurt that it had to be destroyed.”
(2283)
OVERPLUS OF DUTY
This testimony by an expert should interest particularly those just starting in life:
Andrew Carnegie, in a recent address before a graduating class in New York, said:
“There are several classes of young men. There are those who do not do all their duty, there are those who profess to do their duty, and there is a third class, far better than the other two, that do their duty and a little more.
“There are many great pianists, but Paderewski is at the head because he does a little more than the others. There are hundreds of race-horses, but it is those who go a few seconds faster than the others that acquire renown. So it is in the sailing of yachts. It is the little more that wins. So it is with the young and old men who do a little more than their duty. Do your duty and a little more, and the future will take care of itself.” (Text.)
(2284)
Overproduction in Nature—See [Destruction Necessary].
Overshadowed—See [Living in the Shadow].
OVERSIGHT
Many a good plan has failed through oversight of some forgotten or neglected factor.
Two years after Mr. Cassatt became general manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Robert Garrett walked into the office of George B. Roberts, then president, and exclaimed gleefully: “Mr. Roberts, we have secured control of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. We are not disposed, however, to disturb your relations with the property, and you need not give yourself any uneasiness on that score.”
This road, owned by New England capitalists, extended from Philadelphia to Baltimore, and had been operated in the interests of the Pennsylvania. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, always on the lookout for an open path to New York, coveted the small but important stretch of track and resented the Pennsylvania’s control of it.
President Roberts was amazed and not a little discomfited by the easy assurance of Mr. Garrett. As soon as the exultant Baltimore and Ohio man had gone there was a conference between President Roberts and Mr. Cassatt.
“Garrett says they’ve got the P. W. & B.,” said Mr. Roberts.
“Oh, no, they haven’t,” replied the general manager.
That night there was a meeting of Pennsylvania Railroad directors in New York. Mr. Cassatt was the presiding genius. He told them where he could lay his hands on a block of P. W. & B. stock that would put the control forever in the hands of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Before the directors rose from their chairs a check was drawn for $14,949,052.20. It hangs in a frame now on the walls of the treasury of the Pennsylvania Railroad, canceled to show that the money was there waiting when it was presented. At the time it was written, it was the largest check ever recorded. The Garretts were completely routed. They couldn’t understand how they had come to overlook that block of stock, and they were equally at a loss to know how Cassatt had discovered it and negotiated the purchase over night.
(2285)
Ownership Settled by Sheep—See [Testimony, a Sheep’s].
OWNERSHIP, THE SOUL’S
Thomas Traherne, a poet whose works became known only after his death, wrote this verse:
My infancy no sooner opes its eyes
But straight the spacious earth
Abounds with joy, peace, glory, mirth,
And, being wise,
The very skies
And stars do mine become.
(2286)