Newspaper Page Text
Banks County Gazette.
VOL I.—NO. 42.
Cheap.
It has been a long time since I have
written. I will try again.
La Grippe has the people, or the
people have the grippe.
No work done in the farm yet in
this section.
Mr. J. W. Gillespie will be at home
soon. Look out, girls.
Miss Fannie Cochran has a fine
school at Mount Pleasant, and she is
giving universal satisfaction. Miss
Fannie is a nice lady and a good
teacher.
Mr. W. H. T. Gillespie is having
a house built on his place. He bought
last year two thousand dollars worth
of chickens and eggs. Nice fellow.
In a previous issue you said that
we had just- as well advocote the
manufacture of liquor as the raising
of tobacco. I don’t think so, for the
Scriptures don’t say “touch not, han
dle not, taste not” tobacco, but it does
the whisky. Tobacco don’t send souls
to hell like whisky, nor is it the cause
of unhappy homes and bitter tears
that whisky causes. True, tobacco is
filthy, and really bad, but I had rather
see a man take a chew of tobacco
than a drink of liquor.
Mr. Howel Garrison is suffering
with the neuralgia but hope he wi.l
be well soon.
Cheap Boy.
Family Manners.
There is an artistry of life as well
as of literature. The virtues are of
various sizes. There are big, heroic
virtues, to which youth is forever leap
ing; atid there are little virtues which
do not make much showing in our
private Book of Martyrs. To the
latter class belongs the virtue of po
liteness.
Some will even deny that it is a
virtue. Wc all know the man who
cares for nothing under heaven but
Truth—spelled a I ways with a capital
TANARUS; who looks upon fine manners as
he would look upon the seductions of
th<* Sirens; who tramps his way
through society, possitive, self-assert
ive, Laving a track of discomfort up
to his own house door; from behind
which we he .r his characteristic re
mark: “My dear, I'm not scolding.
I’m just telling you.”
Good man! it is only that he lacks
the sixth, saving sense of the artistry
of life. It is a sense which should
awake with the rest of the senses—in
childhood. The manners one attempts
to put on in after life are apt to fit as
iiiy as the plowman’s Sunday suit.
Worst of all, they leave one at the
mercy of traitorous memory.
We remember a young woman who
had grown up in a wealthy but uncul
tivated home. She was talented and
noble hearted. But many kindly peo
pie were forced to say of her, “She is
not a lady.” She herself confessed it
one day in a passionate outbust. “I
know I’m rude, but I can’t help it. I
never was taught to be polite at home
and now to remember what I ought
and ought not to do is difficult as
walking on ice. When I’m excite l
I’m sure to say or do something which
shocks the very people I care most
for, and they give me the cold shoul
der, and take up with girls who I
know are inferior.” And the worst
of it is, it was all true.
The thousand-and-one points of
common good breeding which chil
dren acquire in a well ordered, grac
ious home, under the eye of a winning
mother—to be gentle of manner; to
walk, stand, and sit gracefully; not to
fidget, grimace, yawn; in conversa
tion to use low and pleasant tones;
not to interrupt, or contradict, or
brag; not to assert too .strongly or
laugh too loudly—all this comes to the
children, if at times slowly, still as
suredly. Their minds open to the
beauty of gentle, graceful living as
naturally as to the beauty of the
works of art upon their walk.
If it were not so, if fine manners
could be taught to children only by
constant nagging, we might well pre
fer that the poor innocents should be
left to their ignorance and their bliss.
What is demanded is the lifting ef the
whole family life to a high level; and
then the adoption of Froebel's noble
motto: “Come and let us live with
our children.”
Hence it is that parents who have a
code of company manners, and who
are more shocked at some excrescence
of animal spirits in the parlor than at
the breaking of all the decalogue in
the nursery, do not find the family
growth in politeness satisfactory.
And we shall lie likely to hear them
a little later on, lamenting the ways
of their careless and rough boys,
and settling into the belief that the
boys, at least, are by nature incorrigi
bly rude, fit only to be kept out of
sight until they assume responsibility
for themselves.
Your wise mother is not given to
worrying over trifles. She does not
expect perfection in a day. And she
has put from her, as far as the east is
from the west, the ghastly possibility
of retting vanity up in tile room of
love. So she does not begin with
exhaustive attention to the minutice
of etiquette, knowing that way lies
the danger of making her boys pngs
and her girls self conscious society
misses before they are in their teens.
She lays down, as the laws of her
household, the broad principles of
respect for elders, reverence for
women, kindliness for all; and she
permeates the home atmosphere with
her finest conceptions of the deference
and the sympathy due from soul to
soul.
Her children very early delight to
place a chair for grandmother, and to
save father steps. They learn to be
proud of that restraint which enables
them to keep self in the background,
and to defer to brother ank sister. It
never enters their heads that servants
are less worthy of respect than other
people. They are as unabashed in the
presence of w ealth and power as they
are tender toward suffering and pover
ty. When she teaches them, from
time to time, her code of manners—
and she is careful to perfect it accord
ing to her best judgment—she teaches
it for home use, and it becomes fixed
by beeoming,natur:il.
Thus, over and above all formal
rules, da trammeled by them, develop
ing an individuality which is its own
badge of distinction, there come to
such a brood of brave girls and gentle
boys a feeling for the charm of life,
and a sweet humanity, that blossom
spontaneously into
Noble manners, or the flower
And perfect fruit of noble mind.
—Harper’s Bazar.
A professor in a well-known univer
sity says that the use of liquor and
tobacco is decreasing among young
men students, and even the use of tea
and coffee. He believes the fact to.
be due to the sense of pride in a fine
physical condition, which affects by
far the larger part of the students.
Their experiment in training, which
is undergone in one way or another
by a very large part of the young
men, gives them by experience a
clear understanding as to the influ
ence of hygienic conditions.—Nash
ville Christian Advocate.
Pure In Heart.
To be pure in heart is to have pure
loves. But that which we love we
think about, nor is it possible for us
to love any thing without first think
ing that we love it. And we can
choose our thoughts. We can sit in
judgment upon them, decide which
are good and which are evil—retain
the good and discard the evil. The
secret, then, of being pure in heart is
to choose and retain pure thoughts.
Ah, if bewildered humanity only
knew this! If it odlv knew that the
way ont of its tangle of vice and error
was just to get hold of one pure,
good thought, and cling to it until
another came tojt by the law of at
traction, and then cling to that, and
so on until evil thoughts were dis
placed and temptations disappear,
because the soul lias cliined above
them. But thoughts blossom into
action and feeling, and thus our think
ing controls our living. A human
being cannot perform a single action
without first thinking that he will
perform it, nor can he love or hate
HOMER, BANKS COUNTY, GEORGIA,WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2.5,1891.
any thing without first thinking that
lie loves or hates it. He cannot even
feel too warm or too cold until he at
first thinks about it. The wise man
truly says that “as a man thinketh in
his heart so is he.” We cannot cher
ish an evil thought without being
hurt by it, nor can we entertain a
pure thought without being helped
by it. So the preacher, teacher, book
picture, or paper that suggests pure
thoughts to the world is a benefactor
of the race.
I feel profoundly sorry for the soul
that is born in an environment of
vice, sin and ignorance, One is so
apt to entertain the thoughts that the
surroundings suggest. Yet, after all,
the soul is free. If it wills, it can no
more be kept down by unfortunate
surroundings than an eagle can be
caged by fencing it in by high walls.
As Jong as the top is left open the
eagle can fly away; and so the soul,
fenced in by unhappy encompass
rnents, can always find the way out if
it takes the upward route. And the
soul’s freedom lies in its power to
think what it pleases. Circumstances
may control the body and force it to
live in the sight and sound of vice and
vulgarity; but the sounds may fall
unheeded upon the ear, the sights
pass unobserved before the eye, if the
eye, if the mind be occupied with
other things. A poor sewing girl was
once obliged to work in a room full
of rude women, where oaths and
obscene language were constantly
passing from mouth to mouth. At
first she bent over her sewing machine
with blushing face. Then she fell to
singing as she worked, or repeating
pleasant bits of poetry or prose. After
a little she obtained such perfect con
trol of her thoughts that she seldom
heard what was going on around her
unless personally addressed. Her
thoughts remained pm;e, so her face
lost none of its innoeenoe, her char
acter none of its nobility by the try
ing ordeal. Then we form habits of
thinking which as time goes on be
come fixed, and without conscious
effort on our part, the mind takes up
tlie thoughts suggested to it—that are
along the line of previous thinking—
and thus pure-heartedness becomes
easy and natural. It is to such a
heart, pure from long habits of pure
thinking, that God reveals himself;
for the reward of the pure-hearted is
that they shall see God.
One.of the saddest things about
sin is its blinding power. The de
bauchee cannot see any beauty in
virtue, the gambler discerns no at
traction in regular work, the inlidel
beholds no reason in faith. But the
pure hearted man sees that virtue is
its own reward, that work is a con
stant pleasure to those who engage
in it rightly, and that faith is sweetly
reasonable. Habits of pure thinking
keep the mind open toward heaven, so
that the light of the unseen world
comes in and illumines the life, and is
unconsciously reflected in the face.
Sometimes in passing through a
crowd we see a face that attracts us
by its sweetness of expression. Per
haps it is an old face, crowned with
gray hair; yet love, joy and peace
shine out of every dot and crinkle in
it. But whether old or young, when
we see that unmistakable soul light
in a face, we know the heart behind
it is pure, the life good. It was once
my fortune to stand before an au
dience of three hundred men in a
state’s prison. Every man before me
was a condemned criminal. As I
stood and talked to them I was struck
with the dark and dull expression of
their faces. Afterward I stood before
an audience of nearly the same num
ber of young men belonging to the
Salvation Army, and I conkl not help
exclaiming to the companion who
was with me, “How bright their faces
are!” Neither audience was educat
ed, and many of the Salvation Army
boys came f#mi humble homes and
miserable surroundings. What made
their faces so bright ? It was because
tney loved God and each other, and
were just then thinking about these
pure loves.
To keep the mind occupied with
good, pure, useful, and beautiful
thoughts, precludes the possibility of
thinking about, and thus being temrit
ed by, any thing sinful, low or gross.
It is because Paul knew this that he
says so earnestly: “Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are true, whatso
ever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are
pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report,
think on these things.”
In the well formed habit of think
ing pure thoughts lies the secret of
being pure in heart.—New York Ob
s'arver.
The Frozen Truth, devoted to the
interests of no license in Cambridge,
and edited in part by Mr. Edmund A.
Whitman, refers to the fact that the
doposite in the savings banks have
increased during the last year, under
no license $146,590.98, and notes the
significant fact that t. e number of
deposits of amounts of SSO and less |
is much larger than last year, “show
ing that tlie poorer people are saving
more money.” The same paper gives
a list of places formerly occupied as
saloons, 123 in all, 104 of which are
now used as groceries, stores, dwell
ings, or for other such purposes. Two
have been turned into coffee houses,
and one into a reading room, kept
open by the North Cambridge social
club. Nashville Christian Advocate.
If to your life, struggling in obedi
ence to Christ, but not able to clear
itself into light about Christ, there
could come, as from the Christ, you
long for, a command to you to strug
gle oil still in hope because you must
reach the light some day: and yet a
command, while she light is withheld,
to find satisfaction and growth in the
ever deepening struggle, would not
that be the command you need ? Pa
ti nee and struggle, an earnest use of
what we haxe now and all the ''time,
an earnest discontent until we come
to what we ought to be—are not these
what we need, in just such a life as
this with its delayed completions?
Jesus does not blame Peter when he
impetuously begs that he may follow
him now. He bids him wait, and he
may follow him some day. But \yc
can see that the value of his waiting
lies in the certainty that he shall fol
low; and the value of His following,
when it conies, will lie in the fact that
he has waited.—Phillips Brooks.
Words.
Words seem to be little things,
easily spoken, soon die. They pass
out of mind, and seem to pass out of
being. But they are not tittle things,
they are great things, they do not
pass out of being, but they pass into
being. They preserve our thoughts,
shape our tempers, abide in our char
acters. They hold iu form our creeds.
Our prayers and praises are set in the
framework of words. God is ap
proached by words, they are the offer
ings of the soul, its intermediary with
God. “Take with you words, and
turn to the Lord,” said the prophet.
Words will be weighty things in
the day of judgment. In that great
day “by thy words thou shalt be justi
fied, and by thy words thou shalt be
condemned.” Words make spiritual
character, and indicate its perfection.
“If any man offend not in word the
same is a perfect man.”
As there are good and bad people,
so there are good and bad words.
The grievous sin of blasphemy is com
mitted by words. The providence of
God is arraigned by words; his attri
butes are inveighed against by words,
bis majesty dishonored, his name
blasphemed by words. The unpar
dona le sin is committed by words.
Slander, calumny, backbiting, the
long black list of evil speaking, is
made up of words.
The catalogue of evils is not ex
hausted by this summary. There are
corrupt communications which are
not to bo in the mouth nor pi oceed
out of it. There are filthy communi
cations to be avoided. There is fool
ish talking, random prating, words
inflated by vanity and egotism, which
must not be named among Christians.
Jesting, which the Bible says is not
convenient, that easy, accommodating
talking, turning itself to suit the con
ditions, like the chameleon its color.
Flattery that corrupts both the flatter
ed and the flatterer is done by words.
Then there are idle words that do
no good, work no benefit, of which
Christ makes the solemn statement
that “for every idle word that men
speak shall they give account in the
day of judgment.” These weigh
against our souls by their very light
ness.
Then there are what Paul calls
evil communications, words against
sound doctrine, words that unsettle
faith in the fundamental truths of the
Bible; these, he says, corrupt good
manners. This kind, he says, eat as
doth a canker, they burn into faith
and righteousness like a gangrene.
An illustration of these cancer words
are found in the following incident
which appeared lately in a daily
paper: “When I was a young girl of
fourteen,” writes a lady, “I was at
tending boarding school some dis
tance from home. I was very proud
and reticent; so, although nearly
heart broken with home sickness, I
did not confide my grief to any one.
Under these circumstances, and
while striving with all my heart to be
good and truthful iu word and deed,
I was told to write a composition on
‘Truthfulness.’ I did my best, writ
ing down every noble and uplifting
thought I had, making my composi
tion the honest expression of tlie be
lief of a young heart in goodness.
The teacher took it for correction,
and when she handed it back, she
said, with a sneering little laugh,
‘That is what we call school girl re
ligion.’ ”
The writer added that she has never
since been moved by a high ideal
that this mocking laugh has not come
baonomi: ftUI -os i
• It is said ot JNero, u„
and tender, he regretted that he iniv.
learned to write, because lie had to
sign a death warrant. Many persons
will, in the day of judgment, wish
they had been bom dumb when they
arc confronted with the poisoned
fruit of the lips.
There a'e words that help. It takes
strength to comfort us in death, when
our homes and hearts are desolate
with a great desolation, and yet words
do this great comfort for us. “Where
fore comfort ye one another with
these words,” says Paul. The truth
of God coming through the agency of
human words are the strength, light,
and joy of these hours of weakness,
darkness and sorrow. Behold how
great a matter a little fire kindleth,
and the tongue is a fire. A fire for
good, for great good; a fire for evil ;
for groat evil.—Nashville Christian
Advocate.
The Morning Star puts this head
ing to an editorial, and says: “Some
where in one of Charles Reade’s
hooks occur the words: ‘To be always
polite you must be sometimes insin
cere.’ This seems to be a very popu
lar doctrine. What swarming hypoc
risies infest social intercourse! What
numbers of ‘white lies,’ falling daily
from the lips of men and women, to
be repented in even the lisping accents
of observant children, receive their
only justification in such terms as
these: ‘To be always polite, you must
be sometimes insincere.”
Danger to the Alliance. .
As soon as the Alliance approaches
the development of strength which
indicates possibility of its principles
bccomiug dominant in the govern
ment, the tremendous power of
wealtli*and political influence will be
exerted to modify the policy of its
leaders, When a man becomes prom
inent and powerful by virtue of the
votes back of him, he is brought face
to face with new necessities.
The power to talk and reason now
becomes the power to act. The cour
age to talk and write of vast reforms
for the welfare of humanity, and the
courage to act in the same line are
two wholly distinct developments in
human nature.
It is like the difference between
SINGLE COPY THREE CENTS,
urging the troops to death and de
struction behind the breastworks—
and leading them in tlie charge after
the hreastworks have been cleared.
Few men have the power within
them to face the toadyism of thirty
one billion dollars of capital, with all
that it implies! Few men, indeed, in
a single’state have the name heroism
to stand before the polished and cul
tured princelings of an old civiliza
tion and proclaim the truths envolved
at the hearthstone of a desolate home.
Here is the danger. We have
readied it. The Alliance is now a
power, and already wo find men who
have posed as the leacers of revolu
tion making their peace with the
money power. The heroism of the
platform becomes the conservatism of
the lobby.
Tlie hour demands men! It de
mands iron walls and genuine cour
age. It demands the spirit of the
Master—men who in statecraft can
pierce the present clouds into the
future beyond—men who can make
pathways as well as tread tnese
already beaten.
The hour of trial comes. Watch
him who wavers—who trenches—who
falters, and prepare to search anew
for those wlio are equal to the Won
drous times which dawn upon us.—
The Great West.
We read occasional newspaper edi
torials on letters, which indicate that
the writers are greatly exasperated
over the killing of a few seals by
British crows, in the waters of the
North Pacific and Alaska seas. These
writers even intimate that it might he
well to expend a few thousand mil
lion dollars, and kill scorns of thou
sands of human beings to protect
these srahs. Strange we do not hear
these friends of the seal say anything
■t wanton destruction of
“”’Jkaid
in.wx.pt. if" legalized Tn our country.
We commend these frothy seal pro
tecting patriots to the calm consider
ation of the word of our Savior: “How
much, then is a mnn hblter than a
sheep,” or a seal ?—Demorest Times.
And liow much better would our
country be if all tlie newspapers were
Demorest Times, and all our cities
and towns were Demorests? - God
bless tlie Times and the city in which
it is published.
The aim which God assigns to ns
as our highest is indeed tlie direct In
verse of that which we propose to
ourselves. He would have its in per
petual conflict; we crave an unbroken
peace. He keeps us ever on the
march; we pace the gteen sod by the
way with many a sigh for rest. He
throws vis on a rugged universe. His
resolve is to demand from us, without
ceasing, a living power, a force fresh
from the spirit he has given. He
leaves in each man’s lot a thicket of
sharp temptations, and expects him,
though with bleeding feet, to pass
firmly through, having given* him
courage, conscience, and a guide
divine to sustain him lest he faint.—
James Martineau.
Few things moro thoroughly extin
guish the spirit of devotion in a
church than long, dry prayers in the
pulpit. Of these the New York Evan
gelist says : “Again, what appear to
be perfunctory and unemotional
prayers of a preacher, pm, ere which
seem to bear a sort of trade-mark,
and to bo taken down from a shelf
and dusted for use, are enough to
spoil the very best of sermons, even
when well delivered.”
*
Grove Level.
Rain and mud are very plentiful.
The roads are almost impassable
on account of so much rain.
Mr. Joe Bonnet's family are all
vert sick.
Mrs. Thomas Cartledge and her
two sisters, Misses Maggie and Bir
die Forbes, have returned to their
home in Jefferson.
Mrs. Porkins is sick with the grippe .
Mrs. Watkins, who has been quite
sick with pneumonia','is improving.