BEAUTIFUL THINGS
THE beautiful things are the things we do; they are not the things we wear, as we shall find when the journey’s through, and the roll call’s read up there. We’re illustrating the latest styles, with raiment that beats the band; but the beautiful things are the kindly smiles that go with the helping hand. We burden ourselves with gleaming gems, that neighbors may stop and stare; but the beautiful things are the diadems of stars that the righteous wear. There are beautiful things in the poor man’s cot, though empty the hearth and cold, if love and service are in each thought that husband and wife may hold. There are beautiful things in the lowest slum where wandering outcasts grope, when down to its depths they see you come with message of help and hope. The beautiful things that we mortals buy and flash in the crowded street, will all be junk when we come to die, and march to the judgment seat. When everything’s weighed on that fateful day, the lightest thing will be gold. There are beautiful things within reach today, but they are not bought or sold.
TRAVELERS
DOWN this little world we travel, headed for the land of Dawn, sawing wood and scratching gravel, here today, tomorrow gone! Down our path of doubts and dangers, we are toddling, mile on mile, transient and inquiring strangers, dumped into this world a while. Let us make the journey pleasant for the little time we stay; all we have is just the Present—all we need is just Today. Let’s encourage one another as we push along the road, saying to a jaded brother: “Here, I’ll help you with your load!” Banish scorn and vain reviling, banish useless tears and woe; let us do the journey smiling, all our hearts with love aglow. Let us never search for sorrow, since the journey is so brief; here today and gone tomorrow, what have we to do with grief? Down this little world we wander, strangers from some unknown spheres, headed for the country yonder where they have no sighs or tears; let us therefore cease complaining, let us be no longer glum; let us all go into training for the joyful life to come!
THE SHUT-IN
I KNOW a crippled woman who lives through years of pain with patience superhuman—for ne’er does she complain. An endless torture rages throughout her stricken frame; an hour would seem like ages if I endured the same. Sometimes I call upon her to ask her how she stacks; it is her point of honor to utter no alacks; she hands out no alases, but says she’s feeling gay, and every hour that passes brings some new joy her way. “I’m all serene, old chappie,” she says, “as you can see; my heart is always happy, the Lord’s so good to me!” Thus chortles pain-racked Auntie, and says it with a smile; and when I leave her shanty I kick myself a while. For I am strong and scrappy; I’m sound in wind and limb; and yet I’m seldom happy; I wail a graveyard hymn; whene’er I meet reverses my howls are agonized; I say, with bitter curses, the gods are subsidized. When life seems like December, a thing of gloom and care, I wish I could remember old Auntie in her chair, forget my whinings hateful, and that wan shut-in see, who says that she is grateful, “the Lord’s so good to me!”