Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1907 — PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE.

MAKING BUSINESS OE BENEVOLENCE. By John D. Rockefeller.

It takes a practical mind to make a fortune. Men have often said in my TiWring, “Oh, how I wish I were' rich! If I had money I should do this great work or that” Now, those men will never be rich. They haven’t got the purpose and practical bent of mind for it. They think of the fruits of victory without the struggle. It is necessary to fix the mind pretty firmly upon the making of money be; fore It is possible to plan its spending. I remember clearly wheii The financial plan—ls I may call it so—of my life was formed. I was in Ohio, under the ministration of a dear old minister who preached, “Get money; get it honestly, and then give it wisely." I wrote that down in a little book. I have the little book yet, with that wfftTng in it I have tried ever since to “get 1 money honestly and to give it wisely.”

There Is a great deal of folly shown In the distribution of benevolence. If substance is a trust, then it Is very serious business, this matter of dispensing it. One can’t simply get rid of it and have a free conscience. A responsibility attaches to the distribution. I have an idea on that point, 'to this effect: Let us have benevolent trusts —corporations to manage the business of benevolence. .*». SMALL TOWN IDEAL PLACE TO LIVE* By Mil too Starr.

Some people in happy circumstances are unhappy. Many who are better off in their small town would like to live in a large one. Bigness does not mean happiness. It does not insure content, which anywhere is essential to happiness. The town of 3,000 almost anywhere in the agricultural regions of this country is more favorable as a place of residence than Is the average town of 50,000 or larger.

It is cleaner and healthier. It has a better class of people. The average of intelligence and of character is higher. If the small town is without saloOns It has that •distinct advantage over others, and small, which have, and the larger towns usih||Jv have the saloon and the evils which congregate The small town lias no considerable vicious that element rules many of the larger towns ' The air of the «mall town is clear and pure; that of the sometimes is loaded with smoke and soot and burdened'with the bad odors of dirty streets. The small town has as .good schools, as good churches, as good teachers, and as good preachers, and recognition in the home and society •does not depend so much upon mpney. There is less •snobbery and dissipation. There is a Juster recognition of personal worth. At the same time the conveniences and luxuries of life are to be enjoyed, and living is cheaper. ’ The word that Is to be spoken to the people of the ■small town is the word of appeal to make the best of natural advantage. If they are to go Into manufactures, economy dictates what they must be. If abundant raw materials exist and If there is practicaly unlimited local

demand for the product, it is a clear case. If there is great local demand, while transportation cuts small figure In the cost, of the product, it may pay. Those things settle themselves when men of means are weaned of speculation abroad and are satisfied with modest returns of money invested at home, PLEASURE IMPOSES YOKEOF ISON. By Rev. Dr. Newell Dwight Hlllla.

Consider that all schemes of living based on pleasure, sensual delights or worldllness impose on men a "yoke ,of iron. If the biography of epij cureans tells us anything, if the lamp f of experience throws any light on th° path of life, then the way of worldly v pleasure is a thorny way, a steep path, and pleasure’s yoke is a yoke of iton. Strangely enough, i f many people were to serve Christ with hall

the zeal ana that they serve Tanitr. and sensual delights, they would exhibit zeal that would give them a place in the book of martyrs. The time has come when some speak of the big, splendid virtues of a former generation as old-fashioned virtues. Well, the old-fashioned flowers in a .mother’s garden are the sweetest flowers that ever grew. We never will outgrow the virtues of our fathers, that were rooted in faith, matured on courage, illustrated in a struggle for .liberty, and compacted In the laws and institutions of the land. These poor, silly, restless folk that want to cast off the yoke and faith of their fathers choose yokes of iron. They want an easy yoke. But when it is too late they find the yoke is iron, and that the shoulders are worn raw, that the feet are cut, and the heart is broken, and that hope is dead. GHOSTS DOMINATE THE WORLD. By Rev. Dr. Frank Crane.

In Ibsen’s play, “Ghosts,” Mrs. Alving claims, upon discovering the evil bent of her son. and realizing that it is traceable to the father, that she seems to hear ghosts. Extending her thought, she adds that she feels that her own so-called principles are but ghosts. .Ghosts, she cries, fill the earth, thick as the sands of the sea; she sees them between the lines of the newspaper, they dominate the

»»■!.. .1 Bill UiC uuto VI ure world—ghosts of dead creeds, dead passions, dead convictions. Ibsen was more than a morbid breaker of convictions —he was a master arid knew life. He perceived the truth that men’s minds are controlled not by reason sirfiratir-fiJ-by the long gray arms of vanished reasons; not by living, intelffgeh£ so much as by the crystallized power of dead convictions": u)j will, but by automatic institutions. We are born Into a nag-ridden world. We find all the prizes of life mortgaged by our fathers’ fears. We are bidden to conform or die. To revolt wildly at all of this is folly; for the ghosts are too strong for us, and we fight as they who beat the air, only to make ourselves ridiculous. But the way to freedom is to find the truth and sell it not, to cling to it, to follow it unwaveringly, better, to find, love and follow that strong Son of God, who is truth’s self. Following Him we come ever into wider chambers, and last to freedom

J. D. ROCKEFELLER

REV. N. D. HILLIS.