Newspaper Page Text
'C'viii‘a-i> , ' : V//r'’ H ^
bft,-: :•■
•• ':- OiO»;;;- . •& s |T*"-5nS” ■ \
' '
-^iSs .:'
i ' ‘-:1 ,v •;' ■'■• VSf
i^~X- *->>*»*
•<"n-
BSfesV
editorial Section of fnar$r$ Sunday Jlmerican, Atlanta, August to. m.
"‘Haven't You Dropped Something?” Asks Old Time
op'r.gei, 1U13, t>j tno tttar Company. Groat Britain Ritfbts Reserved
OW long kave YOU been
walking on this life road?
You will look at this
picture and ask yourself,
as every thoughtful man
will: “What have I dropped in MY
years of walking?
What will you answer to yourself?
* * *
We each begin life with power more
or less highly developed. Like the leaves
on the tree, we are all different. No two
leaves in the greatest forest of the world
are alike.
But, like the leaves of the great forest,
we are so nearly alike that we may look
upon each other as identical leaves on the
big tree of humanity.
Certain things we have when we start,
ALL OF US.
Certain powers are ours, powers of the
body and of the mind.
Some of us add to our power and to
our possessions, some of us lose, drop
ping the qualities like the man in this
picture, one by one, as we walk along.
What have we dropped? W hat have we
kepi? ••
Is it too late for us to turn around, pick
up ard get back what we have lost?
With what expression does Old Time
g,.ze upon us? Does he think of us as
! v c ess or as being still with a chance,
his wise old eye looks at us passing
a>rg his road, and as he says to us:
aven’t you dropped something?"
Reader, haven’t YOU dropped some
thing?
You have, and every man has. Some
of us have gained. But every one of us
has also lost.
This Sunday, with its time to rest and
think, is a good day to question ourselves,
learn what we have dropped, study how
we can get it back, what chance we still
It is not a Very Long Journey from Toothless Babyhood to Toothless
Old Age.
v
It is a Short Walk in the Eyes of Father Time. Yet to Each One of Us
lime says, as He sees Us go: “Haven’t You Dropped Something?”
And most of Us DO Drop thajt which We Need More and More, as the
Years Come Upon Us and Weigh Heavily.
We Must Gather New Strength, New Quality, or Drop on the Way Part of
That with which Life Began. There is No Stagnation, No Standing Still, Every
Day We Gain or Lose.
have to keep and increase our posses
sions while we walk the remaining few
days, or years, on the road that ends so
soon.
4 4 4
In a cradle, struggling with its little
hands and feet pitifully, pathetically
looking down the road of life and won
dering what is coming, lies a little child.
That child once was you.
It had such a start in life as could be
given to it by its mother and father, its
grandmothers and grandfathers, reach
ing back in a straight, unbroken line for
tens of millions of years to the lowest
form of life.
Wonderful, awe-inspiring and unques
tioned is the fact that YOU are the de
scendant of life uninterrupted, a link in
a chain of existence that has actually
lasted upon this planet since the first lit
tle spark of life moved here and began
its gigantic task of evolution.
4 4 4
After millions of years of travel
through various forms of life, your indi
vidual existence began in that cradle,
with the power of mind that heredity
gave you.
What had you then?
What have you added to the qualities
that you had, before you could talk or
think?
And what have you lost, dissipated,
squandered and thrown away of those
qualities that your father and your
mother, in her hours of pain, gave to
you?
These are the questions that ought to
interest every one of us.
With what did we start? How much
have we left? What have we :
to our original start? What have
dropped or throw'n away? ..
* * 4
It cannot be denied that a man born
with average health and a normal brain
starts life WITH EVERYTHING THAT
HE NEEDS FOR REASONABLE SUC
CESS. One child may be so far ahead
of the other at birth that the race is
hopeless as between the two.
But no child with a normal brain and
a normal body, even of average brain
and average body, need fail of great suc
cess, if the child, following the ancestors,
and the man, following the child, will
only keep and develop the qualities in
herited at birth.
Each of us is born with a certain
amount of self-confidence, which is
MENTAL ENERGY. It is the greatest
asset in the mere struggle for success.
What you yourself believe and what
you feel is what MAKES YOU. If you
have kept that confidence, that mental
energy, it will give you the power to
attack the problem that presents itself,
to fight it to-day and continue fighting it
to-morrow.
Have you still the courage that you
had in the cradle, with which you defied
the universe with your roaring?
Have you the open mind, the power
to see the truth and to enjoy the world
that you had as a child?
That is a valuable asset. Have you got
it? Or is that one of the things that Old
Time has seen you drop on your slow
journey?
What about persistency, that quality
which is to the brain what hardness is
to armor plate and elasticity to the steel
spring?
Can you still try, try and try again? .
Or is persistency one of the things that
Time has seen you drop?
What about faith in yourself, in hu
man beings and in the wisdom that gov
erns this universe?
You had it as a child, when you looked
at the stars, wonderful in beauty, and
the moon in its phases, at the green trees
and the sunlight.
Have you kept or have you lost that
feeling of reverence which makes man
what he is and lifts him above the ani
mal?
Or have you dropped that feeling and
taken in its place cynicism, hopelessness,
indifference and callousness of mind?
4 4 4
Happy the man w ho takes into old age
the joyousness and the faith of child
hood. Sorrow cannot destroy him and
failure cannot prostrate him. He is a
happy man.
Unhappy he who has lost his illusions,
his hopes, his belief. No money, hon
ors, fame or success can make up for
that.
Success is ashes to the bitter mind
that no longer hopes and believes.
And happiness lives in the mind that
does believe, that still HAS FAITH,
though it may not have won the victory.
Have you the faith of your childhood,
and its hopes, or has Time seen you
drop them? * * *
This picture is a sermon.
Every man needs it. The successful
man needs it as much as the unsuccess
ful, and perhaps more.
For the man of success must be a man
of power. And his responsibility to hu
manity is as great as the power that hu
manity gave him.
Think this over. Apply it to yourself.
It is not too late. IT IS NEVER TOO
LATE to make up for mistakes. For
only the body gets old, not the brain.
And any brain can start again, and pick
up what it has lost. It can if it will be
its own ruler, turn around to Old Time
and say at the last day:
“I did drop many things. But I have
picked up some of them. And although
the journey that you have marked out
for me has been a hard one, I go down
into the grave carrying with me the best
of that which I got at the start, and all
that I have been able to gather since I
realized my duty.” *