Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1916 — SELF DENIAL, OR SENSE? [ARTICLE]

SELF DENIAL, OR SENSE?

Says a writer in the Ohio State Journal: “As time moves on the virtue of self denial is more and more needed. The social fascinations, the alluring fashions, the varied amusements, the fun and fiction in reading, the gadding mania, the every day gossip and all the glitter and hum of this materialistic age strongly demand the exercise of the virtue of self denial. In fact, there is no safety in any other way. Anyone who lets himself go loose among the blanishments of the day runs straight into the face of ruin.” The writer uses the wrong term when he names self denial as the virtue that is to resist these peculiar allurements of the age. He should have said “sense.” Self denial somehow includes the idea of a right surrendered, of a legitimate privilege foregone for the sake of a greater end In view. When we apply the’term self denial to the quality in man that is to resist the extravagant vanities of any time, we pre-suppose his perfect right to the free exercise of these vanities.

This is an error. Man' has no rifeht to excuses of any nature. Any violation of the spirit of moderation is a transgression against either himself or his fellowman, according as his act affects the one or the other. But the writer is right in the danger which he sees for the race in the multiplicity of temptations of his age. It requires a sane and sensible mind Indeed to safely steer a life course amid them. Volumes have been written on the virtue of patient endurance of the afflictions of poverty. Greater volumes are needed on the greater virtue of resistance to the ills of prosperity.

Yes, we say "ills” advisedly. Prosperity is far from being a blessing to a large per cent of the human race. Not a community in the country but can point to numerous instances of the abuse of prosperity. Its wrecks are fairly strewn along life’s road. We sometimes wonder if our schools, our churches, our human

bettermelrt societies, and even our ■homes, are doing their duty in intelligently instructing the race in a course of sensible avoidance of the many peculiar vanities of the age. Most of these vanities are the direct outgrowth of an unprecedented prosperity, and the mind of the young, especially, needs to be particularly fortified against them. Are we doing this? Mr. Farmer, is that binder or mower still in the field where you finished up the harvest? Put it under shelter at once. Do you know that the average life of a machine like that is at best three to five years, whil£ if it is well housed from the weather it should last from ten to twenty years? Fact! And again we remind you that this is a good city to live in, a good place to trade in, and a good one to keep your money in. But in time it will cease to be either unless you are as loyal to the town as it is to you. When a wise man makes a fool of himself we all take a poke at him, but the fool slides by without notice. Men who make a practice of interfering with the business of others seldom have any business of their own. But, then, people who laugh at their own jokes are seldom annoyed by the silencS of others. A pretty girl never needs to look in her mirror. The bald heads tell her the story. Never mind politics. Santa Claus will be holding the center of the page now. Congress will soon be back on the job again. That is, part of it will.