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HINTS IRON HISTORY: LM i^ T " r
Vy A. H. Ellen.
‘Over the Alps Lies Italy.”
0 you know what this saying is! It’s
the offer made by avarice to energy.
The spirit of it is false and the fruit
of it is ashes. In figure and in fact, it
has proved so. The ghosts of the
Goths testify to it; the dust of Attilla
and his hordes attest it; the rusted
rim of what was once the iron crown of
the Lombards is a silent witness to the
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truth. The same principle is shown in the life of
Alexander the Great; indomitable on the field, de
feated at the feast; victorious against the arms of
the East, vanquished by her indolence and ease.
I will at once admit that climbing is good, and
that Italy is good. But the man who climb* the
Alps merely to enjoy the ease of Italy has worse
than wasted his energy.
I met a business man on his way to Italy. Blind
to the beauty all around him; deaf to the songs
of the poets, deaf to the eloquence of the orators,
deaf to the prattle of his own children, unrespon
sive to all the sweeter calls to his higher nature,
to his better self; busy climbing—-climbing the
Alps—going to Italy. I met a politician headed
for Italy. Climbing the Alps. So eagerly climb
ing the Alps that he had neglected to safeguard
his conscience against the searing of sin; his char
acter exposed to the canker of corruption; his man
hood lent to the lecherous embrace of money. Go
ing to Italy. A drummer dreamed that all would
be well when the Alps were passed and the plains
of Italy possessed. A school girl hurriedly buried
her talent of influence at the foot of the mountain,
omitting the daily and hourly deeds of kindness in
her feverish effort to be dene with the mountain
climbing. This first, and then —then the rest in
ease forever on the plains of Italy. Her map of
Italy was drawn on a sheep skin.
It is well to reach Italy; but to rest there is a
vain anticipation; maybe a wicked one; certainly
it is vain. And it is not a question of preference.
It is not a possibility of choice. It is flatly against
the law of God and therefore may not be. Rest,
if you mean by the word abandonment of useful
and helpful effort, is rust. You cannot escape the
penalty. Worms are ready now to begin on the
body of him who thus lies down on his ivory bed to
rest. The navy of Tarshish that came every three
years bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and
peacocks, brought also another item that is not cat
alogued in the inspired record. It brought, along
with these, the bitter ink in which Solomon after
ward dipped his pen and wrote, 4 ‘Vanity of vani
ties, all is vanity.”
Now, honor bright, did you not make a speech to
an attentive school of boys and girls and tell there
“Over the Alps lies Italy”! We were telling the
truth, I hope, when we told that part of it. But
what was the impression left? Most likely this:
The Alps being climbed and Italy entered the end
was reached, and henceforth ease forever.
Italy is fruitful as a means, it is fatal as an end.
It is rare taken as a tonic, it is ruinous drunk as a
beverage. It is delightful as a bivouac, it is deadly
as a dwelling place.
Do you remember the reward that was rendered
the man who n-.ade a thousand per cent on the
pound entrusted to him! Ease in Italy! Not so.
It was the management of ten cities. Tom Johnson,
of Arkansas, mayor of Cleveland, has his hands
full these days managing one. And he is said to
be a competent mayor, too.
There is in the Bible the character sketch of a
man who climbed the Alps just to rest under the
soft, blue skies of Italy. The sketch is short, and
reads as follows: “Thou fool.”
Let’s be done with the idea that any amount of
climbing passed, or any area of Italy possessed,
confers the right and the privilege to cease from
useful and helpful labor.
To be sure if there were nothing beyond them
it would be idle to climb the Alps. Furthermore,
Italy— the Italy of opportunity— is a goodly land.
The Golden, Age for October 10, 1907.
The Italy of opportunity, not the Italy of indo
lence.
Water is good for a living tree. It rots a dead
one.
The Alps have been looked upon as envious bar
riers to good, and Italy is the synonym of things
hoped for, but the truth of history is tiiis: Greater
things have been done bv the men who climbed
out of Italy than by those who climbed into it.
The Prohibition Fight.
The Kansas City Times of September 22, says:
“At the beginning of 1905 Missouri had three pro
hibition counties.”
The lines are advancing in Alabama. The coun
ties of Talladega and Tuscaloosa voted out liquor
by large majorities on the first of October.
Within the ten days from September 8 to 18.
1907, nine counties voted on the liquor question in
Missouri, of which eight counties voted prohibition,
Benton alone going wet by sixty votes only.
The St. Louis Republic of September 22, in a
four-column, first-page spread, presents a wet and
dry map of the whole State of Missouri, showing
forty-four prohibition counties out of one hundred
and fourteen in the State.
The last legislature in Tennessee succeeded in
passing some amendments to the existing laws that
had the effect of excluding liquor froiq the whole
State except the counties in which are situated
Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and one mining
town. The Supreme Court has sustained those laws.
“When Mr. Bryan was at a banquet in Tokyo,
attended by the Cabinet and heroes of the Russo-
Japanese War, he turned down his wine glass and
responded to the toast, ‘Admiral Togo,’ with the
words, ‘To the man who conquered on water, I drink
his health in a glass of water.’ ” —National Ad
vocate.
The items that follow are from the Associated
Prohibition Press:
“According to the viewpoint of the brewers, the
only wrong with Senator Peck’s prophecy that pro
hibition will be Statewide in Missouri within three
years, is that it is probably right.”—The Kansas
City (Mo.) Times, September 19, 1907.
It may seem that we ought to be sorry that we
have to announce that Pensacola went wet the
other day. Our observations have led us to the
confident conclusion that prohibition never loses in
a hard fight. The fight may come prematurely, or
its result may be adverse because of fraud, acci
dent or mistake, but the fight will always inform
and arouse a large circle of people, and the effect
will inevitably be to bring strength to the cause.
The defeat at Pensacola will hasten a State law
in Florida.
The Pennsylvania State Federation of Liquor
Dealers have severally and collectively concluded
that they are not in favor of local option. It has
been the fashion for some time for anti-prohibition
ists to disguise themselves by declaring in favor of
local option. The liquor men and their friends
about Atlanta, within the past wear were crying
out, “Let us have local option; don’t give us State
prohibition.” But it is clear now that local option
is prohibition in motion. Local option in Georgia
meant State prohibition at first It never expected
to stop until State prohibition was secured.
The Pennsylvania liquor men have therefore de
termined to try to raise one million, five hundred
thousand dollars to fight local option.
In a charge Fo the federal grand jury of Ada.
I, T.> September 25, Judge J, T, Dickinson, of
Chickasaw, directed them to find indictments against
any person convicted of selling any beverage in
side the Territory which contained any amount of
alcohol or malt, and concluded: “If any of you
grand jurors need any bracing up of the backbone,
you should find it in the results of the recent elec
tion on the prohibition issue, which shows that this
community, as well as nearly every other commu
nity in the Territories, wants laws against liquors
and wants them enforced. No longer can be urged
the old argument for leniency and looseness, that
the people do not want the harsh laws against the
liquor traffic enforced.”
I? I?
Among the Workers.
GIVE US MEN!
Strong and stalwart ones:
Men whom highest hope inspires.
Men whom purest honor fires.
Men who trample Self beneath them,
Men who make their country wreathe them
As her noble sons,
Worthy of their sires,
Men who never shame their mothers,
Men who never fail their brothers,
True, however false are others:
Give us Men —I say again,
Give ns Men’
—By the Bishop of Exeter.
This from Sunday School Times is very fine:
“We should always preach more than we practice.
It is not dishonest to do this. Is it inconsistent for
the officer who trembles with physical fear each
time he goes into an engagement, to urge his men
to be steady under fire! Did we advocate only
what we have attained, we should never lead any
one even as far as we have gone ourselves. We
must ever hold before ourselves and others a higher
standard than our own achievements. Our lives
should never reach the limit of our ideals for
our ideals should never be lowered to ihe level of
present or past attainment. Our goal must for
ever be far in front. As we develop, it must ad
vance. But we can not teach, with any hope of
success, more than we believe and earnestly strive
after. ’ ’
The Baptist Commonwealth, of Philadelphia, con
tains a nice sketch and a fine picture of our friend,
Rev. J. J. Wicker, who conducted a very effective
revival meeting at the Tabernacle last winter. The
Commonwealth announces that he will labor in
the regions round about Philadelphia in evangelis
tic work during the fall.
Rapidity of Its Multiplication.
I saw in an English newspaper that a grain of
wheat which five years ago had been picked up by
an admirer of royalty, as it fell from the hand of
the Prince of Wales, had, by being sown, produced
in the short interval, as much as could be drilled
into sixteen acres of land. And if we could onlv
catch as eagerly, and sow as diligently, the seed
that falls from the hand of the Prince of Peace,
we mierht soon be able with the increase to cover
the whole earth. “There shall be a handful of
corn in the earth on top of the mountains; the
fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon,” Psalms
72:16. —W. M. Taylor, in Holiness Advocate.
Professor Buekham, in his “Christ and the Eter
nal Order,” a very striking hook indeed, says that
Christ has been obscured by His miracles. When
men could not answer Christ themselves, they
sought to answer His miracles; and too often His
followers have allowed themselves diverted to a
side issue. Then the nature of Christ in the atone
ment has tempted us away from pressing irresist
ibly and continuously the person of Christ in the
atonement. And the act of Christ in the incarna
tion has sometimes been a snare to draw us away
from seeing the person of Christ in ’this glorious
revelation of God. In the terms of personality,
and in our own experiences are we to find ex
pression for all of the great truths about God in
the flesh. Experience is the final proof of God in
Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. —Argus,
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