XXIV

GREATNESS


Say, fellows, if I should make up an unusually good story about you,
some noble thing you did, or some kind and generous act, to whom
should I tell it, to be sure it would be believed? Yes, I see you know
of whom I am thinking--your mother. I might tell your brother and
sister, and they would say: "Phew! are you sure it was Dick?" I might
tell your employer, and his eyes would roam around over the objects on
his desk; or your teacher, and he would look at the sky and say:
"Think it will rain?" I might tell your father, and he would be
grateful--but surprised! But let me tell your mother! There I would
find one who is ready to believe anything good I would say about you.

I tell you, fellows, a mother is a wonderful gift to a boy, for her
prayers alone. Long before you learned to say, "Now I lay me down to
sleep," she was praying that you would be a great and good man some
day. Those prayers of mothers have kept many a boy from going wrong.
One night in a great city where I had gone to find work I had fallen
in with some young fellows who "knew the ropes," and being far from
home and lonesome I was glad to accept their companionship. They
invited me to join them in an "evening lark" to which no loyal
Christian would lend himself, and though I was a nominal Christian I
was tempted sorely. I regarded myself as "my own man," having just
turned twenty-one.