The man who wanted to help

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.M25 1898

McClure,

James G. K. 1848-

1932

The man

who wanted to help

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The Quiet Hour Series

iSmOy decorated clotky each 2J cents

How the Inner Light Failed

By Newell Dwight Hillis, author of* A Man's Value
to Society," etc.

The Men Who Wanted to Help

By Rev, J. G. K. McCiure, D.D. author of " Possi-
bilities."

Young Men By Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, D.D.

The Autobiography of St. Paul

Faith Building By Rev. Wm. P. Merrill, D.D.

The Dearest Psalm

And The Model Prayer. By Henry Ostrom, D.D.
The Life Beyond

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty, author of "Parables from

Nature."

Mountain Tops with Jesus

By Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D.
A Life for a Life

And other Addresses. By Prof. Henry Drummond.
With Portrait.

Peace, Perfect Peace

A Portion for the Sorrowing. By Rev. F. B. Meyer,
B.A.

Money

Thoughts for God's Stewards. By Rev. Andrew

Murray.

Jesus Himself

By Rev. Andrew Murray. With Portrait of the
Author.
Love Made Perfect By Rev. Andrew Murray.

The Ivory Palaces of the King

By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D.
Christ Reflected in Creation.

By D. C. McMillan.

Fleming H. Revell Company
CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO

The ManWhoWanted
To Help

James G. K. McClure, D.D.

PRESIDENT LAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF
'• POSSIBILITIES," ETC.

Chicago New York Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

mdcccxcviii

Copyright, 1898
By Fleming H. Revell Company

THE MAN WHO WANTED
TO HELP

The Man Who Wanted to
Help

Many persons do not know their
own names. They know the names
their parents gave them in child-
hood, the names which people use
in addressing them, but they do not
know the names people use when
speaking of them. Sooner or later
every one has some other name than
the one of his childhood. In an-
cient Athens the street boys used to
say when they saw Aristides, " There
goes 'The Just.' " So in Babylon,
they called Alexander "The Great,"
and in Rome, Nero " The Cruel."
5

The Man who Wanted to Help

One element of a person's life may
give him his new name; and when
people think of Judas they call him
a name he probably never heard,
" The Betrayer," and when they
think of Arnold they say, " The
Traitor," and of Washington, "The
Good."

Occasionally, the name thus given
to a person indicates a peculiar and
noticeable characteristic. On Gen-
eral Grant's tomb at Riverside are
cut the words he used in a season of
great political discord, " Let us have
peace;" so he is known as "The
Man of Peace." Lincoln said to-
ward the close of the Rebellion,
"With malice* toward none, with
charity for all," and to-day Lincoln
6

The Man who Wanted to Help

is called " The Man of Charity."
Because Napoleon claimed that a
special field of glory had been pre-
destined for him, he was named "The
Man of Destiny."

Once some parents who had po-
etry in their natures gave their son a
name ever to be associated with an
event of his infancy. They called
him " Moses," meaning " drawn
out,'* because he had been drawn
out of the river Nile, where in a
wicker basket he had been exposed
to death. That name is good so far
as it goes. But every one after a
while earns a name j good or bad, as
it may be, still he earns it, and it is
his distinctively. The name of our
childhood is imposed upon us, we
7

The Man who Wanted to Help

have nothing to say about it ; but our
later name we decide entirely for
ourselves. Jonathan Jackson said
of his boy, "His name is Thomas;"
and so it was until the boy became
a man and earned the name "Stone-
wall."

If any one in after years is to be
remembered as " The Man who
Wanted to Help," he must be noble-
souled. He does not so much need
a large occasion as a thoughtful
heart. Opportunity always is at
hand to him who is on the lookout
for helpfulness. The Romans used
to make opportunity a god and write
her name " Opportunity," as though
she was ready to present herself to
any one who would welcome her.
8

The Man who Wanted to Help

She is immediately at the side of all
who will use her. Only, we need
to keep our eyes wide open lest we
shall not recognize her presence.
She has a strange way of keeping a
little bit out of sight until she sees
us looking for her; then she makes
herself known.

It might have been thought that
this poetically-named young man had
no special opportunity for nobility of
soul. He lived in a palace, sur-
rounded by luxury. The popular
opinion is that the softness of a king's
court robs a person of his vigor. It
often does. Petting may enervate ;
making us so dependent upon itself
that we become absorbed in receiv-
ing attention and forgetful of giving
9

The Man who Wanted to Help

it. But it need not. William I.,
of Germany, always slept on a hard
bed so that the luxury of his palace
might not unfit him for stern war.
There is more than one way of
using comforts so that they shall be
our servants, not our masters. What
way Moses used we do not know ;
but when he steps upon the scene
of public action his spirit is as strong
and virile as that of a knight. The
chevalier Bayard and all those high
souls that defended the helpless,
guarded the right and fought for the
good, were, every man of them, his
brothers.

Three times, and three times only
do we catch a glimpse of him in his

The Man who Wanted to Help

early years. Once he is out walk-
ing. He sees a case of oppression:
an Egyptian is beating an Israelite.
The odds are all with the Egyptian;
he is master, the other is slave; he
has legal rights, the other has none.
Besides, the Egyptian is the stronger
man and is worsting the Israelite.
What should Moses do? In his
heart burned a desire to help. He
sprang to the side of the under man,
and in rescuing him, slew the Egyp-
tian. It was a most unfortunate
action. It was like Uncle Tom's
interfering with the slave-master who
was abusing Cassy; the slave-master
turned upon Uncle Tom and had
him lashed. Moses only imperiled

The Man who Wanted to Help

his own life and the welfare of his
friends by his effort at help; he made
the bad worse.

Will he do better the next time?
Men who are eager to help soon
find their opportunity, and Moses
found his the very next day, when he
was out walking. He went where
the despised Hebrews had their
Ghetto. Two of them were fight-
ing; one was wrong, the other
right. Should he get mixed up in
their quarrel ? What responsibility
was it of his ? His desire to help
overleaped all such questions; he
tried to bring peace by reasoning with
the man who was wrong. But in
vain; his words were thrown back
at him with cruel taunts. A second

The Man who Wanted to Help

time the man who wanted to help
had failed.

What will happen now? It is not
enough to be earnest; a man has also
to be wise. The knowing how to
help is as essential as the desiring to
help. Oftentimes the humiliation
caused by misdirected efforts opens
the eyes to the necessity of wise
method. And so the best thing hap-
pened to the man who wanted to help
that could happen. Pharaoh, believ-
ing him to be dangerous, determined
to kill him. There was nothing to
be done now but flee. And away
he went, passing in an instant from
wealth to poverty. His good clothes
were gone, his position as a king's
son was gone; everything was gone
13

The Man who Wanted to Help

that men usually consider essential
to helpfulness. Stripped of all ex-
ternal power, whatever he is to ac-
complish now must be through his
own personality. Can such a man
find a sphere for helping ? We shall
see. All will depend upon the spirit
that animates him; if he lets his fail-
ures and disappointments dull his
interest in men, we shall hear no more
from him; but if he keeps a kindly
heart, then he will o«^ a blessing.

He came to a well. As he sat
resting beside it, seven shepherdesses
brought up their flocks. They drew
water and filled the troughs for their
sheep. They had no more than
done this before a band of rough
men pushed to the well bringing their
H

The Man who Wanted to Help

sheep. Seeing the water aheady
drawn in the troughs, they with
brute force drove back the sheep of
the women and put their own at the
troughs. Such an occurrence as
this was not unusual. The women
had suffered from it repeatedly, and
no one had thought much of its
meanness. But to-day there is a
man at hand different from any who
has ever witnessed this transaction.
He has a spirit in him that responds
to need. He sees this injustice, and
what does he do but spring to the
relief of the defenseless women,
force the thieving men away, and
then gallantly complete his kindness
by filling the emptied troughs for
those who had been assailed. It was
15

The Man who Wanted to Help

a great risk he ran ; but better far to
imperil his life than dampen the en-
thusiasm of his chivalry by hesitat-
ing to act. That evening when
those shepherdesses, reaching home
earlier than was their wont, ex-
plained their timely coming, they
sang the praises of a man who, the
t4iird time trying to help, had at last
succeeded.

From now on this one whose
whole early life is summed up in
these three deeds was to know how
to help. The man who wanted to
help has become the man who can
help. He is going to study human
nature in himself and see what will
help him; he is going to study flocks,
too, and see how to lead them and
i6

The Man who Wanted to Help

care for them, and he will learn
many a lesson of patience and for-
bearance as well as of purpose ; he
also is going to commune with God,
and thus there will come sweetness
and gentleness into his love for his fel-
lows, and the result will be, that he
whose desire to help outlived all
failures will some day be mentioned
as perhaps the most useful man the
world has ever known.

A long story for an illustration,
you say. Ah, but what is more in-
teresting than a bit of personal ex-
perience, and what could picture our
thought better ! There are really
but two classes of people in our
world — those who want to help, and
those who want to be helped. It is the
17

The Man who Wanted to Help

second class into which many a man
gets, either purposely or unwittingly.
It is so large that no one is ever
lonesome for company in it. How
true to life the dream that came to a
public-spirited leader : He and sev-
eral others started to pull a heavy
coach uphill. A rope was fastened
about the front part, and they all
took hold together, the leader at their
head. The signal to start was
given, and away the coach went,
amid much enthusiasm. How pleas-
ant it all is, thought the leader ; and
so did the others seem to think, for he
heard their merry voices and was de-
lighted at their interest and purpose.
They would soon be at the top of the
hill ! It was not long, however, before
18

The Man who Wanted to Help

the coach seemed heavier to the leader
than at first. Reluctant to say any-
thing that would discourage the
others, he closed his lips and resolved
that he would put all his energy into
the work. His quick ear did note
the fact that no sounds came from
those behind him, but interpreting
their silence by his own, he held the
rope the tighter and pulled the
harder. But at last he could not
budge the coach an inch. Pull as he
would, it was in vain. He turned to
speak to those behind him. Not
one was there ! They had disap-
peared ! But where ? He went to
the coach, looked in, and there they
all were, asleep. One by one they
had become " tired," and had gotten
19

The Man who Wanted to Help

in while he had been pulling them,
as well as the coach, uphill!

True to life indeed ! Hosts of
people seem to feel that they must
never outgrow their babyhood, but
should be carried all their days. Es-
pecially when the uphill work of life
comes are they glad to have some
one else do that work while they
profit by it. No one wonders that they
feel so; it is the easiest way to live,
free from strain and burden, and free,
too, from responsibility. It is the
way the tramp lives, and every man
has somewhat of the tramp in him.
A study of the " unemployed classes "
in England brings out the fact that
thousands of men will take work if

20

The Man who Wanted to Help

it is brought to them, but they never
make an effort to seek it.

And yet Ruskin was right when
he said: " There is no true potency
but that of help ; nor true ambition
but ambition to save." It exalts a
heart to bend itself to another's up-
lift, and it glorifies a life to remedy
the world's ills. No small man ever
yet had such purposes; he could not
have them and remain small. They
are large, and they have enlarging
power. As soon as a person has a
helpful intention in his heart he looms
up; he becomes a factor in a home
or in society that will eventually make
an impression. If Moses has re-
solved that his life motive shall be to

21

The Man who Wanted to Help

help the needy, he may act stum-
blingly at first, but he will break a
bondage at the last. John Brown
did not know the speediest and wisest
way to end negro slavery in the South,
but when, as answer to the cry of
three million human hearts calling to
him for deliverance, he determined
to do something, or say something,
or suffer something that would put
an eternal period to that slavery, the
final result was sure. Say that his
act in seizing Harper's Ferry was
foolish; say that when he was put to
death his death was in clear con-
formity to law. Still, indiscreet as he
was, he had good part in starting a
movement carrying in its sweep the
extinction of slavery, and hundreds

22

The Man who Wanted to Help

of thousands of soldiers kept step to
the marching of John Brown's soul
as they irresistibly forced slavery to
its death.

It cheers a man's very heart to
know what he can accomplish in life
simply by " wanting to help." If
that desire is lodged once and for-
ever in his soul and cannot be damp-
ened or dissipated by obstacles, some
hurtful thing will surely be over-
powered, and some good cause will
surely be built up. David is a mere
stripling as Goliath sees him, and
many a one might think his slight
form and boyish face stand for im-
potency. Goliath scorns him. He
little knows that in this youth is a
purpose to help ! It seems very
33

The Man who Wanted to Help

sentimental and impracticable. What
can come of it ? This can come
of it — that animated by it the youth
will hunt up some way of accomplish-
ing help: if not by armor, then by a
sling. And this always comes of
such a purpose : the man who has it
becomes a pathfinder for something
beneficent. It quickens his percep-
tions of needs, it deepens his sympa-
thies, it stirs his courage. " Come
and help us," has been the voice
heard, and when the answer has gone
back, " We will help you or die in
the attempt," the men who have so
answered, in themselves have become
noble and to others have brought
deliverance. That purpose shook a
self satisfied scholastic out of his
24

The Man who Wanted to Help

composure, and made Paul's heart
burn with a new energy and his in-
fluence assume a new blessedness.
All the good there is in a man is
waked up when he becomes the
man who wants to help.

And then what may result from
his purpose ! Every reform born
into the world has come from a heart
holding this purpose : all prison im-
provement, all educational advance,
all removal of unjust laws. Eliza-
beth Fry, and Froebel, and Peel were
inspired by it. It is a perilous thing
often ; it landed Paul in a jail be-
cause he was bound to help the man
of Macedonia ; it killed Telema-
chus because he was bound to stop
gladiatorial murders. But whether
25

The Man who Wanted to Help

in jail, or out of jail, Paul the helper
started the salvation of Europe, and
whether dead or alive, Telemachus
the helper ended gladiatorial mur-
ders. Even if we do not succeed
in our efforts to help as we hoped,
others learning by our mistakes, if
mistakes they were, will take up our
efforts where we laid them down
and will forward them toward the
goal. But what men call our mis-
takes are not always actual mistakes;
often they are the very wisest and
best deeds that the circumstances
admitted. One person's failure may
inflame zeal in scores of others.
When Ellsworth was shot at Alex-
andria, thousands upon thousands of
men leaped to the defense of the
26

The Man who Wanted to Help

cause for which he perished. The
man who wants to help is humani-
ty's hero. He is not forgotten ; he
never lives wholly in vain. In some
good hour men call him to mind
and they follow him. Winkelried
dies with the spears of the enemy
piercing his breast — but the man who
tried to open a path of deliverance,
henceforth is an inspirer to deeds of
bravest loyalty and staunchest devo-
tion.

It is always costly to be the man
who wants to help. Personal ambi-
tions have to be laid aside ; the sel-
fish instincts have to be opposed and
even curbed. Usually a man can
lift another only by putting himself
beneath him, and can help a cause
27

The Man who Wanted to Help

only by making sacrifice for it. It
is very seldom that an inventor works
out an invention, or a poet a poem,
excepting through a lonely isolation
from the world's gaiety; and it is just
as seldom that a helper biesses his
fellows excepting as he has special
hours wherein he dwells apart from
the world's pleasures. But the result
justifies the effort. When Moses
started to lend a hand to every needy
situation, it was inevitable that he
would be misunderstood. If he saw
a social wrong, he tried to right it;
if he saw oppression by employers or
faithlessness by employees, he tried
to remedy them. He wished public
education to prosper, and every prin-
ciple of sanitation to prevail. He
28

The Man who Wanted to Help

had a heart and an eye for every pos-
sible thing that he thought would
make men happy and good. And
the more his interest in the world's
needs absorbed him, the less could
selfish men understand him. But he
had his reward ; high thoughts be-
came his guests, generous impulses
filled his soul, sweetness and tender-
ness swayed his heart. Then, too,
there came the ripening of his pow-
ers; starting to help in one thing, he
learned how to help in many things.
He grew in comprehension of judg-
ment, and grew also into the very
nature and joys of God.

Cost then what it may, a noble
soul will aspire to be helpful. For
to be otherwise is to be a parasite on
29

The Man who Wanted to Help

the social or religious organism. The
mistletoe fastens itself upon an oak
or apple-tree, forces its roots within,
appropriates the sap, and then, fed by
another's life, flourishes.

Even some animals fasten them-
selves on other animals, and, feeding
on tissues that do not belong to them-
selves, grow fat and thrive. And
there are birds, like the cowbird and
the European cuckoo, that never
build a nest for themselves, but,
searching until they find a nest built
by the energy of another, they seize
it as their own. There is something
ignoble, contemptible, in being a
parasitic plant or bird, and it is just
as ignoble, just as contemptible to be
a parasitic man, living wholly on
30

The Man who Wanted to Help

what others provide. Such a man is
virtually a thief j he steals his living.
He is worse ; he drinks another's life-
blood.

The man who wants to help
scorns to be a "parasite." Benefit-
ing as he does by the Christian civil-
ization that has nourished him, he
resolves to add to, not detract from,
that civilization. He will be a giver
to the world's good as well as a re-
ceiver. Balfour, in his " Foundations
of Belief," expresses the man's pur-
pose. He says, "that even if we
offer no personal influence to Christi-
anity, even if we deny its claims, we
still live on it." And then he adds:
" Biologists tell us of parasites that
live, and can only live, within the
31

The Man who Wanted to Help

bodies of animals more highly organ-
ized than themselves. For them
their luckless host has to find food,
to digest it, and convert it into nour-
ishment, which they consume with-
out exertion and assimilate without
difficulty. Their structure is of the
simplest kind. Their host sees for
•them, so they need no eyes; he hears
for them, so they need no ears; he
works for them and contrives for
them, so they need but feeble mus-
cles and an undeveloped nervous sys-
tem. But are we to conclude from
this that for the animal kingdom eyes
and ears, powerful limbs and com-
plex nerves are superfluities ? They
are superfluities for the parasite only
because they have first been necessi-

32

The Man who Wanted to Help

ties for the host, and when the host
perishes, the parasite, in their ab-
sence, is likely to perish also."
"No," the man who wants to help
says, " I will not be a parasite. The
convictions of honor that underlie
my life, the home refinement in which
I grew up, the standards of right and
purity that I hold, the ideals of pur-
pose and behavior in which I was
nourished, have all come from Christi-
anity; and these things, the best
things within me and around me,
shall not find me merely existing by
them, but they shall find me labor-
ing for them. They have helped
me, and I will help them."

Anything less than this purpose is
fatal to a man's moral vigor ; he
33

The Man who Wanted to Help

grows weak and vitiated without it.
Lowell a few years since in England
had occasion to refer to those who,
having obtained all their moral glory
through Christian institutions, after-
ward repudiated those institutions.
This was his comparison : " They
have been helped to climb to the
lofty place in which they are, by a
ladder, and now they turn around
and kick down the very ladder that
lifted them." Freely having re-
ceived, why not freely give ? To
feel no desire to add to the world's
good is to be mean-spirited.

What a watchword that was,

spoken by her mother to Frances

Willard: " My child, enter every

open door." That watchword was

34

The Man who Wanted to Help

a clarion note summoning Frances
Willard to usefulness. With eyes
that scanned the needs of society as
an Indian scout in time of war scans
the horizon, she found doors, yes,
and open doors, for her efforts. It
was not a day when woman was un-
trammeled for the putting forth of
her powers of help. Extraordinary
moral courage was needed; it seemed
so out of place for a woman to be
publicly advocating the side of the
oppressed, and to be lifting her
voice for reform! But she " took
upon her soul the woes which fill
the drunkard's home and fall with
such crushing force upon the timid,
trusting, patient keeper of that
home." As the heart of Bruce was
35

The Man who Wanted to Help

thrown into the midst of the fight,
she threw herself into the temper-
ance cause, into every cause that she
believed would bless woman and so
would bless the world. She thought
of little children and their welfare,
of growing youth and their purity;
she lifted a banner inscribed, " For
God, for home and native land,'* and
marching under it herself, she gath-
ered to it tens of thousands who fol-
low it now and will follow it always.
And when Frances Willard re-
solved " I will enter every open
door," she made herself an energy
whose influence became world-wide
and eternal.

If a person will only take to him-
self such a resolve, all life will be
36

The Man who Wanted to Help

changed for him, and he will help
change all life for many another.
The suggestion for such a resolve
often comes strangely. Many a
man has thought the windows of
heaven ought to open and a voice
in tones of commanding authority
speak to him therefrom, if he were
to receive the inspiration necessary
to such a new energy. Seldom, in-
deed, is srch a voice heard — once in
a century, by an Augustine in the
garden, and as the voice speaks he
learns that he is to drop all his daw-
dling and selfishness, and be a man of
action, purity, and human succor.
But usually the way is this, as it was
with the father of Dr. William M.
Taylor, in Scotland. His father was
37

The Man who Wanted to Help

going to mill, with a sack of grain
laid over a horse's back. The
bridle path was rough, the horse
stumbled, and the sack fell off. Too
old to replace it, he wondered who
would help him. A man came in sight.
His heart sank when he saw that he
was the nobleman of an adjoining
castle. How could he ask aid of
him! But he did not have to askj
the nobleman had his own life-
motto, and dismounting, voiced it,
" Let me help you, John." The load
was soon on the horse. " Please,
your lordship," said John, " how
shall I ever thank you for your
kindness? " This was the reply —
and once heard by any man, it is all
the inspiration for helpful purpose he
38

The Man who Wanted to Help

can ask — " Whenever you see an-
other man as sorely needing assist-
ance as you were just now, help
him; and that will be thanking
me."

What inspiriting deeds have sprung
from this purpose! When we know
how it has wrought changes, turning
despair into hope and feebleness into
power, we marvel that everybody does
not seek it and live by it. There is
such a thing as the genius of help.
It may be acquired. It is never de-
nied any man who wishes it. But
help is so important a factor in hu-
man life that no one can ever ex-
pect the genius of help to be his, as
water falls, of itself. Help to be
help must be an actual benefit. Any-
39

The Man who Wanted to Help

thing that injures, whatever the spirit
in which it is done, is not help, but
hurt. Is not this, then, a definition
of the origin of help — " It springs
from wisdom that is inspired by
love?" When Harriet Belcher
Stowe's work was summed up — ^and
that work lay back of John Brown's
and Abraham Lincoln's and the
Emancipation Proclamation — it was
said that the whole explanation of
her influence lay in her power of
sympathy. Yes, sympathy indeed,
but with what consummate skill she
told the story that went deep into
the heart and conscience of the
American nation, and fixed itself in
memory — and would not let itself be
forgotten until that story became a
40

The Man who Wanted to Help

story of the past and not of the
present. Love there must be, but
wisdom, too, lest the very one whom
we would strengthen, we weaken —
and the very one we would encour-
age to activity we encourage in list-
lessness. Astoria Hill understood
all this when she went into the heart
of London's poorest districts, took
old buildings and made them clean,
healthful and well-equipped dwell-
ings. Ruskin understood it when
he furnished most, if not all, of the
money for this work. Miss Hill sat
down beside the women and chil-
dren, living with them, correcting
them, showing her own example of
careful housekeeping, and insisting
that rents should be paid — and she
41

The Man who Wanted to Help

lifted the people, not lowered them
— and hers was help indeed.

What a world of need ours is !-
Where is the heart that does not
lack cheer, and comfort, and
strength ? To give these is to give
much. To help the world think
straight, to help it to be true, is
much. The older man who simply
prayed God to open a young man's
•eyes to know that God's chariots
and horsemen are on the side of
the right, helped the young man.
Esther helped when she made peti-
tion for an endangered race. Mar-
cus Aurelius helped when he wrote
of courage and hope. Andrew
helped when he led another to the
great Teacher. Philip helped when
42

The Man who Wanted to Help

he explained the meaning of history.
The man who tramping out from
Rome to meet Paul the prisoner put
gladness in his heart, helped. Tolstoi
tells of the beggar to whom he said,
" Brother, I have no money" — and
the beggar grasped his hand with de-
light because he called him " Broth-
er." Every home in which we live
needs brightening; every friend we
have needs inspiriting ; every earnest
cause needs strengthening. Some
persons sit by the wayside begging j
others walk life's path bestowing.
" I get all I can," the sponge says;
" I give all I can," the light says.
" 'Tis only noble to be good," is
wise ; " 'tis only noble to be helpful"
is wiser.

43

The Man who Wanted to Help

" All men,*' said Emerson, " are
benefactors or malefactors." Glad-
stone visited a poor sick boy whom
he had seen sweeping the street
crossings. Phillips Brooks cared
for an infant child in the slums that
its mother might get out to the
fresh air. Humboldt gave Agassiz,
resigning his studies because he
could not meet his expenses, a
check, wherewith he completed his
studies. Christ put His shoulder
under other men's burdens and
helped every needy heart and cause
He could find.

A boat was stranded. Men were

trying to push it off the sand into the

deeper water and float it. Progress

was slow. One man seemed to

44

The Man who Wanted to Help

shirk. His comrade looked up and
saw him. Then he said, " Have
you hope of heaven?'* "Yes,"
the man answered quickly. "Then
take hold and help! "

And so I say to every man the
world over who would have hope of
heaven, " Take hold and help."

**If any little word of mine can make a

life the brighter.
If any little song of mine can make a

heart the lighter,
God help me speak the little word, and

take my life of singing.
And drop it in some lonely vale, to set

the echoes ringing.'*

45