HARD TO KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN.
“Somebody says: ‘But you don’t know my circumstances, Mr. Sunday. I’m handicapped by my parents. I’m handicapped by poverty.’ Listen! Go down tonight and get down your books and read of the men of history who have crept and crawled from the sewers of poverty and the quagmires of squalor. Obscurity never kept Benjamin Franklin walking the streets of Philadelphia gnawing at his loaf. Obscurity didn’t keep Edison working as a telegraph operator at $60.00 a month. Obscurity didn’t keep David herding sheep. If gold and diamonds weren’t so hard to get they wouldn’t be worth so much. Obscurity didn’t keep Grant in a tannery. Obscurity didn’t keep Garfield on the towpath of a canal. If you’ve got it in you, squalor and want can’t keep you down.”
“If you are going to win out you must have grit. That means you must be able to say “no” when asked to do wrong, so loud it will stagger hell. Or “yes” so loud it will gladden the angels of God. Put up your dukes and fight the devil.”
HONOR YOUR WIFE BEFORE SHE DIES.
“Don’t wait until your wife dies before you brag on her. Tell her that coffee was fine. Tell her how you like those biscuits—not those big four-story ones, but the little flat fellows with crust on both sides—that’s the kind I like. Think of the days you bought her gumdrops and candy hearts with reading on them. I wish I had all the money I’ve spent on candy hearts with reading on them. You’ve bought ’em, too, you fellows, haven’t you? Ha, ha! Thought so! (Here Mr. Sunday recited the poem, “Kiss Her.”) Some fellows pet dogs more than they pet their wives.
“Play with the children. You say, ‘Bill, I haven’t any.’ I say, ‘Then get some.’”
TWO PICTURES OF AMERICAN HOMES.
I think one of the prettiest pictures ever looked upon is to see a father with the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a mother with the religion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and to see them throw their arms about their eldest child, and the oldest child throw his arms about their next oldest child, and that child take the next oldest child by the hand, and on until the youngest and all with happiness in their hearts and songs on their lips, start for heaven.
And I think the blackest, darkest picture ever looked upon is to see a father without the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a be-frizzled society woman without the religion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and the next oldest child, and on down until the baby in the cradle, and to see that father and mother lock arms and all start to hell, like many of them are doing today.