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Hints from History—Little Speeches Tor the Truth
Sy A. H. Mett.
“Remember, Thou Art Mortal.”
A diy of triumph in Rome. The procession
passes: The Consuls, the Senate, the trumpeters,
the spoils, the victims for the sacrifice, white oxen
with their gilded horns, the prisoners, destined to
die on the Capitoline; then the chariot bearing the
victorious general, the Tiiumpator, attired in pur
ple and gold borrowed from the treasury of the god.
Above his head the crown of Jupiter was held by
a slave who ever and anon whispered into his ear
these solemn words: 1 ‘Remember thou art mor
tal.’’ Greater than the value of the conquered
provinces, greater than the wealth of all the spoils
borne in th:lt mighty procession was the wisdom
if that humble admonition.
Pride.
Men have forgot the admonition and so have be
come too Lroud. Scipio had triumphed over Hanni
bal. The shouts of triumph and of joy were in his
ears and he couli not hear the groan of the cap
tives or the clank of their chains or the sob of their
desolate loved ones as they sat by the ruined walls
of Carthage. He could not hear the edict of his
< wn exile, nor see the day when he himself should
die in a distant land. Xerxes gazing down upon
his millions of soldiers officered by hundreds of
kings fergot that he was mortal. Ordered the sen
to be scourged with whips and bound with chains
because it had dared to break his bridge of boats.
Ah, Xerxes, the servile hosts may obey thy voice,
the sea belongs to God. Moses forgot that he was
mortal, and so ’tis written:
“On Nebo’s lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan’s wave.”
Let me remember that I am mortal lest I be guilty
of the sin of pride in the sight of God.
“Ah, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.”
Cruelty.
Surely the pages of history would not be stained
as they are with blood if men had not forgot this
solemn admonition. Alexander, the lovable boy, the
son of a king, the idol of his mother, the pupil of
Aristotle, the pride of his councillors, the conqueror
of the world, forgot that he was mortal. With the
haughty boast that he was the son of a god, he
slew old Clitus who had saved his life. He forgot
that he was mortal and miserably died in the midst
of his conquests.
Caligula, wearing the little boots that gave him
the name, forgot that he was mortal, and so became
a monster whose deeds have added a deeper dark
ness to the midnight annals of cruelty.
Time.
Men and women have forgotten the limitations
of mortality, and so have despised the infinite value
of time. Elizabeth had reigned for half a century
over the strongest people on the globe. In the midst
of .what appeared immortal splendors, she had for
got that she was mortal —failed to note the infinite
value of the golden moments that were slipping
through her fingers during all these fifty years, and
now from the pitiless bed of death I hear her cry:
“Millions of money for one inch of time!” We
grieve for thee, oh, queen of the sea-girt Isle, as
we hear this helpless cry ascend to God.
Wealth wasted may be amassed again by indus
try. Health wrecked may be repaired by temper
ance. Knowledge lost may be regained by study.
Fiien'dships shattered may be restored by years of
fidelity. Reputation demolished may be rebuilt
by penitence and virtue, but who yet has ever
looked again upon his vanished hours? Who from
the darkening Past has been able to wake again the
sleeping years?
Neglect.
A mortal man indulging the sin of neglect! “I
went by the field of the slothful and by the vine
yard of the man void of understanding, and 10, it
was grown over with thorns, and nettles had cov
ered the face thereof, the stone wall thereof was
broken down.” Over the broken gateway was writ
ten the word “Neglect.” I made my laborious way
back over all the ruins of the Past. Above the
crumbling stones of stately palaces I read the single
word “Neglect.” Posted above the mighty wreck
of ample empires I read the fearful word “Neg
lect.” Written on the slab above the sepulcher of
infinite possibilities, and of godlike aspirations un
realized, I read the mournful word “Neglect.” The
sick man need not swallow poison in order to die,
just let him neglect the means of recovery. The pleas
ure seeker in the rapids above Niagara need not put
his hand to the oar in order to hurry on his own
destruction, just let him neglect, and his doom is
alreadv sealed. The student need not have saw or
scalpel cut into his brain, just let him neglect and
the godlike power to think is gone forever. What
more tremendous question has ever reached our ears
than this, “How shall we escape if we neglect?”
Intemperance.
Let me remember that I am mortal that I may
avoid the sin of intemperate indulgence. Let me
remember that the years of this mortal life shall
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PROF. A. H. ELLETT.
not be long enough to obliterate the scar of its
wound, the stain of its touch. A deep cut may be
cured but the scar remains. Smallpox may be
healed but the mark remains. An earthquake is
soon over, but for the years thereafter the earth
is rent in gulfs and chasms which the centuries will
never close.
“I walked through a woodland meadow
Where sweet the thrushes sing,
And found on a bed of mosses
A bird with a broken wing.
I healed its wound, and each morning
It sang its old, sweet strain,
But the bird with the broken pinion
Never soared so high again.
“I found a young life broken
By sin’s seductive art,
And touched with a Christ-like pity
I took him to my heart.
He lived with a noble purpose
And struggled, not in vain,
But the life that sin had stricken
Never soared so high again.”
the Golden Age for August 15, 1907.
Beauty.
Let me remember that I am living in a mortal
house lest I forget to look out, and see the beauty
all about me. Let me see the rainbow on the storm
cloud, and hear with reverent soul the majestic roll
of the thunder in heaven. Let me rejoice in the
radiance of God’s noonday, and grow purer behold
ing the silent pomp of the noiseless night as
“Silently, one by one in the infinite meadows of
heaven
Blossom the lovely stars, the forgetmenots of the
ans’els.”
Kindness.
Most of all let us remember our mortality lest
we forget to be kind. Kind, because the years of
our lives are numbered, and the years of our loved
ones are numbered, too. There will come a time
if indeed it has not already come —
“When she who had thine earliest kiss,
Sleeps in her narrow home.”
While they live, let us be kind to those we love.
“Oh, friend, I pray tonight,
Keep not your kisses for my cold, dead brow,
The way is lonely, let me feel them now,
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need
The tenderness for which I long tonight.”
The sweetest words the prophet ever wrote of
Christ are these: “A bruised reed shall he not
break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench.”
It is not permitted us all to be illustrious, I thank
God it is possible for the weakest of us all to he
kind.
Immortality.
In the greatest triumph of this life a voice will
ever whisper, “Remember thou art mortal.” Ev
ery pain that racks the body repeats the warning
to us. Every failing eye and palsied hand is ut
tering the words of the Roman slave. The lines of
care and sorrow are on every human face. The va
cant chair is by many a saddened fireside. Every
hearse with its low-rumbling wheels, every tomb
with its marble lip, is uttering the self-same words.
1 pray God I may heed them and be wise.
This is the message of our mortality; but above
the iteration of these words I have another voice that
brings another message to my soul. Not in times
of triumph only but in times of darkness as well
I have heard that voice. The voice that whispers
to the soul, “Remember thou art immortal.”
Ah, yes,
“Some day our eyes shall see
The faces kept in memory;
Some day, some time, ah, no, not yet,
But we will wait, and not forget.”
r r
Alcohol, the worst thing in whiskey—Julius Hort
vet, Minnesota’s State Chemist, has just completed
an examination of a miscellaneous collection of li
quors which have been sent in for analysis on the
ground that they contained many adulterations
more harmful than the alcohol itself. In his report,
Mr. IJortvet declares that alcohol is without doubt
the worst pcison in whiskey, whether “pure” or
“blended ”
R R
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Address, THE GOLDEN AGE, Atlanta, Ga.
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