Part 19

Carlyle stuck to his dream and the world has the "History of Frederick the Great" and the "French Revolution" and "Sartor Resartus." When he had finished the manuscript of the "French Revolution," a careless maid built a fire with it. He wasn't discouraged, but went to work and wrote it over again and very likely better than he wrote it the first time.

Bonaparte in the garden of his military school dreamed of being a great general. He stuck to his dream and he realized his hopes.

Joseph Pulitzer, a poor emigrant, crawled in a cellar way in New York to sleep, and he dreamed of owning a great newspaper. His dream came true, and the newspaper is printed in a building erected on the spot where he dreamed in the cellar way.

Livingston dreamed of exploring darkest Africa; his dream came true.

Edison dreamed of great electrical discoveries. His monument is Menlo Park with its great laboratories.

Ford dreamed of making an automobile for the purse-limited masses--he was jeered; to-day the world cheers him.

My friend, Bert Perrine, was chucked off a stage in the middle of Idaho's great sage brush desert. He said to the driver, "Some day I'll own that stage and I'll use it for a chicken house."

He dreamed and schemed, and to-day the desert is the famous Twin Falls country, blossoming like a rose. And on his beautiful ranch at Blue Lakes, that old stage is used for a chicken house.

Rockefeller dreamed, Lincoln dreamed--so did Garfield, Wilson, Grant, Clay, Webster, Marshall Field, Richard W. Sears and all the other men who have done things worth while in the world.

The great West is the result of dreams come true.

Dream on, my boy; hitch your wagon to a star and stay hitched. That dream and that determination are the things that are to carry you over obstacles, past thorny ways, and through criticism, jeers and ridicule.

Your time will come. Dream and scheme, and make your ideals materialize into living, pulsating realities.

25.

There are many persons who act and advocate ideals merely for effect--they are hypocrites.

Here's a little true heart story that probably passed unnoticed except to a very few persons.

Little Spencer Nelson, a poor boy, eight years old, recently died in a hospital with a little bank clasped to his breast. The bank held $3.41 in pennies which the boy had saved to buy presents for the poor children in his city.

The little hero had fought manfully through three months' suffering, enduring the torture of five lacerating operations. The pain failed to dim the spirit of unselfishness which burned brightly and clearly in his tired, fever-racked body.

After each operation his mind became more securely fixed on his project to help bring cheer to poor children.

The little savings bank was his companion, and each visitor was asked to contribute to his fund.

Three hours before he died, a smile beautified his thin wasted face as the nurse dropped a dime in his bank. His last words--a message to his mother--were in a scarcely audible whisper, asking her to remember to use the money to make poor children happy.

That was real charity; that boy had no hypocrisy in his heart.

The daily paper chronicles instances of sensational charity, where men vie with each other to see who can give most and get the most advertising. These men overlook the wonderful opportunities at their door--they do not realize the beautiful love and charity that would stir in their hearts if they would but look into the out-of-the-way places and get direct connection with pain and suffering.

Little Spencer looked from his cot and saw the suffering of other little children and he wanted to help them, and the very resolve and impulse made him forget his own pain and misery.

In the Book of Good Deeds, the name of Spencer Nelson will be recorded as a sweeter act of charity than any million-dollar gift to a great institution.

What one of you who read these lines can read the story of that little hero and not be touched by the generous love and beautiful conception of charity he possessed.

I don't believe much in this far-away charity idea so many have.

I believe in helping those near where I am rather than sending money to Siam. Poverty and destitution, unhappily, are familiar spectres at home, as elsewhere. He who seeks to do good will not need to range afar. He can find opportunity close at home, near by, where all of us can find it if we only look.

It may be a pleasurable sensation for you to contribute fifty dollars to a missionary scheme in Siam, and get the Missionary report of the budget made up by the committee for the foreign missionary fund.