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AN EDITORS CONPENSA TION: probal of His Friends
There are times when an editor finds the conven
tional “we” entirely too impersonal in its “sound”
A Beautiful Letter
From My Father’s
Gray-haired Friend.
ter from an honored man —the gray-haired friend of
my father’s young manhood, which I am going to
share with my readers. It may not be exactly “edi
torial” to do such a thing, but it is a great thing to
live in a free country where you can do anything
you “gentlemanly please,” as dear old Sam Jones
used to say, just so it don’t hurt anybody. This
letter won’t hurt —it will bring that blessing that
always comes to the individual life from getting a
glimpse into a truly big, generous heart. Ever since
it came as a birthday greeting I have carried it in
my inside pocket, occasionally taking it out and look
ing at it on the train or breathing in special inspira
tion from it before going before an audience to tell
what was in my heart. It has been a daily—an al
most hourly tonic to soul and brain and body. Verily,
it “touches a spring that unlocks the past” and
brings in speaking panorama before me the time
when, as a little red-haired freckle-faced boy I used
to deliver milk at the home of A. D. Adair, or maybe
after we moved to town, with the pail between my
knees I used to milk with both hands as hard as I
could while the city ladies strolled by the vacant
lot and made remarks about how fast the deed was
done. Thus a floating fragment of praise falling on
my childish ears would quicken my busy hands, and
the gentle cow munching her hay or “bran and
shorts,” did little reck that it was the generous
praise of the sunset strollers that was putting elec
tricity into the hands of the little humanly human
“milk-maid” boy. (
But read this letter from the great and good man
who, as treasurer so Jong of the Home Mission Board,
LIVED UP TO ITS MOTTO.
Mr. F. E. Shivers, Mt. Olive, Miss., says:
“Just before The Golden Age started I received
a prospectus announcing the coming paper. I
was impressed by its motto: ‘Piety in the
Home, Power in the Life, Purity in the State/
and I said: ‘l’m going to subscribe for that pa
per and see if it lives up to its motto.’ I have
I in «
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> An Inspirational Weekly for the Home and Citizen rjTpJ »
| W olljis Certificate Itutitlefi ? I $
$
± £j £ To Life Subscription to The Golden Age. #> » 5
i *o* GUARANTEE : We hereby agree to send The Golden Age to Purchaser named above for life. In the event A> A «
U Z of the death of Purchaser in less than five years, the paper will be sent to estate, or party designated, for the balance aq a ♦
5 AP A °f th® unex P irec l * erm °f f ive Y ears from date hereof. A• A $
♦* cer *tfi ca * e voi d unless signed by the President of the Corporation. pSpS n
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> Dated this day of 19 !u&m3
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♦ LaXSui PRESIDENT >
5 EsSgd! ■———— — 2
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and its application. It don’t
get quite close enough to the
editor’s heart nor perhaps to
the heart of his readers. Any
way, I recently received a let-
r 'From a Red-Headed Hilkboy to the Editor of The Golden Age. ”
The Golden Age for November 11, 1909.
stood often in the breach with his own purse and
saved the Board from embarrassment when the peo
ple didn’t “come up” like they ought to —read it and
see how, though past his three score and ten, A. D.
Adair is still looking for and embracing opportuni
ties to make somebody glad:
Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 15, 1909.
Dear Will: Your $lO proposition for life-subscrip
tion to The Golden Age received and I will not resist
the temptation, but send you a check for $lO with
my congratulation upon your birthday anniversary
for your great success with your great paper—a pa
per that every family ought to have. You have had
a hard time climbing from a “red-headed” milk-boy
to the Chief Editor of a great paper—to say nothing
of the great educational and prohibition work you
have done. You will get your reward for being in
strumental in saving many boys and girls, if not in
this world, then in the world to come. May God
bless you and your good wife and your paper and
its readers.
Yours in Christ,
A. D. ADAIR.
If my honest, honored father were living he would
say: “That’s just like ‘Dick’ Adair —always big
hearted, always cordial, always making somebody
feel good. How Ido love a solid, warm-hearted Chris
tian gentleman like Dick Adair!”
“Rather personal” you say—this lettei* and these
memories? Yes, I admit it. But are we not all per
sons? and if persons are natural they must some
times be personal When I was that little milk-maid
boy “Dick” Adair, as my father loved to call him,
always found time to speak a kind, sunshiny word
to the boy of his friend. He has kept it up through,
all these years since that boy has reached manhood’s
estate, brightening here and there the fragment of
a toiler’s journey more than he has known.
And this letter is given and these words of love
read every number from the first and, I am pre
pared to say that the paper has certainly kept
the faith and lived up to its motto. My wife
would just about fight for The Golden Age.
Take this $lO bill and send me The Golden Age
for life. Send me some samples every week
and I’ll try to put your great paper in the
homes of my friends.”
are written, not only as a glimpse into the heart and
a tribute to the life of one of God’s noble men whose
friendship has blessed in his day both father and son,
but as a stimulus likewise to other men who read
these words to scatter smiles and sunshine all along
the way, wrapping deeds of kindness in garments
of love and light. For, believe me, much as the
practical firendship revealed in this letter from my
father’s good friend means to me now in my pur
pose to enlarge the usefulness of The Golden Age,
after all, it is the way in which the golden deed is
done. Many sordid or even thoughtless men of the
world do not believe it, but that earnest “God bless
you” which was wrapped around the check has
meant more of encouragement and benediction to
the workers in the office of The Golden Age who are
dedicating their lives to the building of a great fac
tor for the vital uplift of our homes and the inspira
tion of youth—it has meant more, I tell you, than
the golden-hearted friend of my father ever dreamed.
Ah, dear old “Dick” Adair —the loyal hand of com
radeship which you used to clasp in loving “God
bless you” when my bare feet were “only beginning
the journey, many a mile to go,” is sacred dust today
over the pulseless heart that loved you then so ten
derly and so well; but if I. D. Upshaw, whose respon
sive heart you so often warmed and blessed is a
“shadowy witness” today of the steps he taught to
walk for the God whom you both loved and are lov
ing now, then your tender “God bless you” for the
heart and life of his son has added, I fancy, an im
pulse of praise and gladness to the boundless joy of
the skies.
The breezes of Beulah Land are playing over your
sunny, soulful face; if you see father before I do,
tell him that you kept up in the heart of his loving
boy the noble, Christian friendship which blessed
him while on earth.
Yours gladly and gratefully,
WILL D. UPSHAW.
A MIGHTY SENSIBLE WIFE.
Prof. J. J. Ferguson, principal of the South
Mississippi Business College, Hattiesburg,
Miss., says: “We have been taking The Golden
Age over two years. My wife likes it better
than any other paper that comes to our home.
I am glad to send check to cover back dues
and pay for a Life Subscription. I am going to
try to get others to take it.”
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