Treading the narrow way

by Robert Emmett Barrett

I fear America is no longer another word for opportunity as was said by the beloved Emerson, unless she helps him to establish homes on the public domain by loaning him money at a low rate on long time periods and keep him at work and help him along and not foreclose when he is doing his best to win. He’ll win, give him a chance.

What Emerson said may have been true at an earlier period it was so intended, but the plan was lost sight of and the great greed for wealth was accomplished to the detriment of the majority who have been obliged to make their living with their hands. It is a sad fact but true that there is a revolution slowly kindling in the breasts of the laboring class of people against capital; God grant that in some way the fire can be put out.

I have sometimes thought what’s the use of living. The sorrows and pains outnumber the joys by a large margin. You slip down the hill of pleasure without any exertion, but to climb the mountain of morality is a gigantic task, for every step is a struggle, and after you have fought and won nine-tenths of the journey one misstep and you slip to the bottom and the whole climb is before you again. It’s fight, fight all the time, continually and forever! It robs you of nature’s rest, steals away your ambition, stirs up hatred towards those in easy circumstances and causes conditions of unrest and strife.

Is life worth the gigantic struggle to overcome the perplexing difficulties and endeavor to live honest and clean and not slip down the path of despair where the great majority seem to be going. I say it is! “For, what do you profit if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul.”

Let your mind ponder over the story of Lazarus picking up the crumbs from the rich man’s table and you must conclude the starving beggar gained uncomparable joy and satisfaction to the rich man’s torment when the two men’s lives were carefully weighed on the scales where God predominates and not the sugar trust. It pays! It pays in a thousand different ways!

There is something to a man that lives an upright life in the church and in the world. He is a valued asset to any community, he may be poor but he has character, and this is something money can not buy. It takes a good life to make a man. A fellow that is rich and lives solely for the pleasure of his money is not a man.

One time I mused thus: If it could be so, just for the shortest duration of time, while temptation was the strongest and the fierce conflict was raging, if I could be blind, absolutely blind till the strong temptation had passed and then let me see again and have my first sight catch the last glimpse of the golden sun as it dipped behind the western horizon, leaving behind a long stream of golden beauty stretching out in its grandeur to kiss the evening sky; even if a scene like this could erase the temptation and the blindness prevail during the surging of the conflict, how could my faith be increased by not having the moral courage and strength of character to withstand the evil? It’s the casting aside of temptation by the sheer strength of the will power that makes the struggle easier, the way grow brighter, and the victories grander. If God would allow such a condition once, we, in our weakness, might ask again and again and instead of growing stronger we would grow weaker. It is the heroic fighter who has won his laurels when the bullets of evil whizzed all around him that you like to go up to and pin the medal on.

THE SADNESS BEHIND THE VALE.

A life of self-denial and sacrifice is the grandest object the sun shines on. There is nothing under the azure skies of heaven so worthy of true merit as the pure, unspotted and unselfish heart of a sacrificing mother. How my heart aches for the poor, worn and tired mother whose whole life is confined in four walls with three or four children, laying claim to her entire time and attention. You do not find these kind of women saturated with society; they are not fanatics on woman suffrage nor are they riding through the streets in a limousine with a good-for-nothing yellow-nosed pup sitting beside them. In common decency how can any woman with any affection or mother love center it upon such an object as a despicable, worthless pug-nosed cur. If it was a dog like a Shepherd, St. Bernard, Newfoundland, and many others, there would be a little better taste shown, but when it is confined solely to the mongrel whelps and Teddy bears I think it is high time to pick up the Bible and read the thirty-second chapter of Isaiah from the first to the twelfth verse inclusive. Lord, but it is pitiful to see such things committed when there are thousands and thousands of poor little homeless girls and boys starving to death for some one to love them, give them a home and then see a poodle woman and her poodle dog go rushing by.

For a long number of years I have had the pleasure of being acquainted with one of God’s self-denial mothers. If this earth contains anything sweeter and the next world anything better the mind of man so far hasn’t been able to conceive it nor the Bible to reveal it. In her early womanhood and all through her life she has been frail, small-boned, short of stature, delicate, and very unmuscular. Her’s was not the physique to struggle as she has against life’s tremendous battles, but she took up the burden cheerfully, looked every difficulty in the face squarely and openly and lifted her voice to the ever-listening ear and overcame every obstacle with gentleness and love. When heartaches, pains and sorrows seemed so heavy that human endurance could no longer stand the strain and tension, she would, through the channels of her wonderful self-control, step from beneath the heavy clouds of trials and sorrows out into the sunshine of God’s holy love and stand master and conqueror of every trial. The loyal battles she has swept with victory are worthy of such praise and eulogy that the human mind can not find words choice enough to meet it.