Clearfield Republican

OUR SATURDAY NIGHT.
WE TOLD HIM TO GO.

Again! Seven more lines on the
great book of records, filled for or
against us all who have lived. And
how much of that record would we be
willing to sit down and read, even to
our best earthly friend? How much
of it would we skip, pass over and
omit, if called to read the page near? And yet it will all be read over
yonder, by the one who sits to visa
our passports—to direct us to the
right or left, as we are worthy to
enter the flowery land, or deserving
to roam the desert of eternity!

With us the week has passed well
No regrets rise like clouds of fog to
hide the beauties of the past as we sit
and look back. In all the week just
gone we have not spoken even one
little unkind word—have not been
cross, or ugly, or ill-natured. To be
sure we have had cares and troubles,
and who has not, but we have tried to
keep that which annoyed us from
annoying others. To our mind a man
or woman who is vexed at something
has no right to vex and annoy others
simply in return.

And yet there are men and women
who do this. When bothered at the
office or shop, in the street or at place
of labor, they go home mad, ugly, ill-
natured, and like petty tyrants punish
those who are innocent. We hope
none of our readers are thus brutal-
for this is a brutality of the heart
uncalled for and inexcusable.

Nor have wronged any one the past
week. Nor refused aid to those in
distress, where in our power to render
assistance, except in two cases where
the applicants, as we thought, were
not deserving. One was a man who
came to us staggering drunk, begging
for money to purchase a supper and
night's lodging. He said he had eaten
nothing for two days.

"You want help! Have tasted no
food for two days—yet you have been
drinking till you are offensive to eye.
smell, and more an object of disgust
than pity. Why did you not buy food
instead of drink ?"

"I thought I could get food any-
where—the drink I had to pay for !"

"And so you would squander your
money to make yourself disgusting.
then rob the deserving poor of bread,
or step between them and deserved
charity? Well, you are a nice man to
come on such an errand !"

"But I had but forty cents—some
friends treated me !"

"Some friends treated you? Then
go to your friends who treated you to
drink, and ask them for food, and ask
one of them to let you sleep with
him!"

"Yes—but they won't give me food.
and I hate to ask them!"

"Then they are not your friends,
and you are a cowardly sneak to
accept from them the drink, and go to
strangers for food !"

"But you are no stranger. I have
read of you often as the friend of the
poor, and surely you will not tell me
to go hungry when I have humiliated
myself to beg?"

"We are the friend of all who are
poor—to all who try to do well; to
get along, and who are deserving. To
such we give as we are able. But it
is no charity to feed an able-bodied
loafer, who spends his money in drink
—who is treated by his friends, then
sponges or steals from that good
society which is not bound to bury a
suicide, till the wounds of those man-
gled by accident be bound up. We
have nothing for you. Go to your
friends, or to those who are foolish
enough to encourage such as you, by
feeding you and neglecting those who
deserve well."

And he went. We do not pity him
as we do the wife and children of the
drunken, poison-filled, aimless man,
who lives in his throat for the benefit
of poor-houses and pauper graves!

And the other case where we refused
to give relief was to a person who
cares not for good advice, kind words
or a feeling of interest—to one who is
never thankful for favors, large or
small—who despises earnest friend-
ship, and has no regard for the feel-
ings of a friend. A man is not bound
to continue putting sticks under water
that will not boil—to be a friend to
him who cares not for friendship—no
more than he is bound in duty to
attempt the rescue of a drowning
man who would not try to help him-
self, and who would drag his friend
down to death with him. There is a
duty to the deserving one should not
lose sight of in helping the undeser-
ving—the ones who will not try to be
good, kind, noble and thus deserving
of help from and confidence of the
good who live not entirely for self.

We had rather work for those who
are striving to succeed, who are wil-
ling to aid themselves, from small be-
ginnings work up to use, respectibility,
position and influence. There are
thousands of boys and girls, of men
and women, of fathers and mothers,
of wives and husbands, in little homes
and rooms, and garrets, and cellars
in overcrowded tenement houses of
cities, where the air is poison from
never-ending inhalation. we would
gladly help by gifts and good advice.
There are men and women every-
where who deserve kind words, a little
aid at first, and then they can walk
without stumbling. There are those
who wish to be good, whose hearts
are warm and mellow, who seem lost
sight of by churches and laws, and the
Government which cares only for the
rich. There are those who are stri-
ving to make home happy—to win
the dearer love of home ones. These
are our friends, and we ask them all,
in city or town, in poverty or riches,
to think over their seven-line record
as they have made it the past week,
and with us resolve to do all the good
we can—to speak none but kind
words—to encourage the deserving,
and see how much good we can accom-
plish, if not for a lifetime, at least for
one short week—between the writing
of this and another Saturday Night.—
"Brick" Pomeroy

A Mobile paper accuses Mrs. Stowe
of "beating the devil's tattoo with the
shinbone of a dead poet."