George W. Bain - Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures

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[Illustration: _George W. Bain._]

_Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric,
Prose, Poetry and Story
woven into_

_Eight Popular Lectures._

_by_

_George W. Bain._

PUBLISHED BY
THE PENTECOSTAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
LOUISVILLE, KY.

COPYRIGHTED 1915

BY

GEO. W. BAIN,

LEXINGTON, KY.

To

Anna M. Bain.

So far as this life is concerned, I can express no better wish for any
young man who reads this book, than that he may be wedded to a wife as
loyal, loving and helpful to him as mine has been to me.

INTRODUCTION.

In offering this book to the public no claim is made to literary merit
or originality of thought. It is published with the same purpose its
contents were spoken from the platform, namely, to do good.

With the testimony of many, that hearing these lectures helped to
shape their lives, came the thought that reading them might help
others when the tongue that spoke them is silent.

As a public speaker the author admits, that how to get a grip on his
hearers outweighed the grammar of language; that the ring of sincerity
and truth in presenting a proposition appealed to him more than
relation of pronoun or preposition; besides in the "high school of
hard knocks" from which he graduated artistic taste in literature was
not taught.

If it is true that "tongue is more potent than pen," then the
mysterious power of personality and delivery will be missed in the
reading, yet it is hoped the simplicity of the setting of anecdote and
argument, incident and experience, facts and figures, story, poetry
and appeal will suffice to make this volume attractive and helpful to
those who read it, and thus the lives of many may be made brighter and
better by the life work of the author.

George W. Bain.

POPULAR LECTURES.

Index.

Lecture Page

I. Among The Masses, or Traits of Character 9

II. A Searchlight of the Twentieth Century 59

III. Our Country, Our Homes and Our Duty 101

IV. The New Woman and The Old Man 137

V. The Safe Side of Life for Young Men 187

VI. Platform Experiences 233

VII. The Defeat of The Nation's Dragon 273

VIII. If I Could Live Life Over 307

I

AMONG THE MASSES, OR TRAITS OF CHARACTER.

Whatever criticism I choose to make on human character, I hope to
soften the criticism with the "milk of human kindness." As rude rough
rocks on mountain peaks wear button-hole bouquets so there are
intervening traits in the rudest human character, which, if the clouds
could only part, would show out in redeeming beauty.

To begin with, I believe prejudice to be one of the most unreasonable
traits in character. It is said: "One of the most difficult things in
science is to invent a lense that will not distort the object it
reflects; the least deviation in the lines of the mirror will destroy
the beauty of a star." How unreliable then must be the distorting
lense of human prejudice.

I had a bit of experience during the Civil War which gave me something
of that whole-heartedness necessary to the service of my kind. In the
twilight of a summer evening, making a sharp curve in a road, about a
dozen men confronted me. They were dressed in blue, a color I was not
very partial to at that time. I had read that "he that fights and runs
away may live to fight another day." It occurred to me that he who
would run without fighting might have a still better chance, but the
click of gun locks and an order to surrender changed my mind to
"safety first" and I was a prisoner of the blue-coated cavalry.

The commanding officer who had me in charge (during my visit) was a
Kentucky Colonel. He afterward became a major-general. I looked at him
during the remainder of the war from the narrow standpoint of
prejudice and cherished revenge in my heart for his having exposed me
to the flying bullets of the Confederate pickets, a peril he was not
responsible for and of which he knew nothing until I informed him in
after years.

A few years after the war our barks met upon the same wave of life's
ocean. We became engaged in the same work of reform, I as an advocate
of temperance, he as candidate for the presidency of the United States
on the prohibition ticket. From the warmth of friendship, my prejudice
melted like mist before the morning sun and I found in General Green
Clay Smith a combination of the noblest traits in human character.

Whoever would graduate in the highest franchise of being, and realize
the royalty that comes of partnership with sovereignty, must have
respectfulness of bearing and feeling toward those from whom they
differ. We are greatly creatures of education and environment anyway,
and until we can unlock the alphabet of a life and sum up the
mingling, blending, reciprocal forces that have been playing upon that
life, we have no more right to abuse persons for honest convictions
than we have to blame them for their parentage.

You do not know the forces that have given direction to the lives of
others; if so, you might know why one is a member of this or that
church, this or that political party, why one lives north, another
south, one on the land, another on the sea.

Some of you may differ with me, but I believe if General Grant had
been born in the South, reared and educated in the South, his father
had owned a cotton plantation and many slaves, General Grant would
have been a Confederate General in the Civil War; while Robert E. Lee
if born, reared and educated in New England would have been a Union
General. If my opinion is correct, if all you northern people had
lived down south, and we southern people had lived north, we would
have gotten the better of the conflict instead of you.

If yonder oak, that came from the finest acorn and promised to be the
monarch of the forest, was dwarfed by simply a drop of dew; if yonder
rolling river, bearing its commerce to sea, was turned seaward,
instead of lakeward, by simply a pebble thrown in the fountain-head;
why not have consideration for those whose circumstances and early
training set in motion convictions differing from ours. God did not
intend all the trees to be oaks, or that all the rivers should run in
one direction, but He did intend all to make up at last His one great
purpose.

Thomas F. Marshall in an address many years ago, to illustrate the
differences between people of different sections, said: "If you call a
Mississippian a liar, he will challenge you to a duel; call a
Kentuckian a liar, he will stab you with a bowie-knife or shoot you
down; call an Indianian a liar, he will say, 'You're another;' call a
New Englander a liar, he will say, 'I bet you a dollar you can't prove
it.'"

Mr. Marshall intended his compliment for the Mississippian and
Kentuckian, but really his compliment was to the New Englander. If a
man calls you a liar, and you are not a liar, the manliest thing to do
is to say, "I challenge you, sir, not on to a field of dishonor, where
the better aimed bullet will tell who's a murderer, but I challenge
you out into the sunlight of God's truth where I'll prove myself a man
and you a slanderer."

I use this to show it is not just to look at character or questions
from the narrow standpoint of prejudice.

Then again, we should not judge a person by one trait. There are
persons for whom you may do fifty favors, yet make one mistake and
they will never forgive you. George Dewey went to the Philippine
Islands, remained in the harbor for months, never made a mistake and
returned to this country the naval hero of the world; and never were
so many babies, horses and dogs named for one man in the same length
of time. But one morning the papers came out with the statement that
he had deeded to his wife a piece of property some friends had
presented to him, and within three days after, when his picture was
thrown on a canvas in an opera house in Washington City it was hissed
from the audience, and when later on he dared to allow his name used
as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, we were ready
to smash the hero at once. But we must remember there are very few men
able to withstand the world's praises. Indeed there never was but one
man who could be successfully lionized and that man was Daniel.

Captain Smith of the Titanic was held responsible by public opinion
for the sinking of the great ship and was harshly criticised by the
press. His forty years of faithful, careful service on the sea was
erased by the one mistake. It was a tremendous one, but let it be said
to his credit that experts had declared that a ship with fifteen
air-tight compartments could not sink, that if cut into halves both
ends would ride the sea. The bulk-head was made to withstand any
contact, and Captain Smith never dreamt of danger from icebergs. But
when he saw his idol shattered, he did all a brave seaman could do to
save human lives. When the last life-boat was launched he came upon a
little child who was lost from its parents. He seized a life-belt,
buckled it about his waist and taking the child in his arms, jumped
into the icy ocean. Holding the child above the water with one hand,
he used the other as an oar, and reaching a boat he placed the little
one in the arms of a woman. Then returning to his sinking ship, he
threw off the life-belt and went down to his death. Who knows but in
the great reckoning day, his reward will be "inasmuch as ye did it
unto that little one on the sea, ye did it unto me."

The great Joseph Cook had a reputation that caused many to look upon
him as one who was all brains and no heart. Before meeting Mr. Cook I
was very much prejudiced against him because of what I had heard. I
lectured for a teachers' institute at New Wilmington, Pennsylvania,
when the great preacher was to follow me the next evening. As I was
leaving the county superintendent said to me: "When you reach the main
line Joseph Cook will get off the train which you are to take. I wish
you would speak to him and give him the name of the hotel where I have
reserved a room for him." When I reached the junction, and the great
savage looking lecturer stepped from the train, I said to myself: "You
can go to any hotel you please, I'll tell you nothing."

Some months later I lectured in Cooper Union Hall in New York City.
Just about time to begin the lecture Joseph Cook entered the door and
took a seat just inside. When I had talked about ten minutes, he arose
and passed out. I thought he was not pleased and the incident did not
lessen my unfavorable estimate of the great thinker.

Some three years later Mr. Cook was on our chautauqua program at
Lexington, Kentucky. Doctor W.L. Davidson, superintendent of the
assembly, requested me to call at the hotel and inform our
distinguished visitor of his hour and see to his reaching the
chautauqua grounds. With reluctance I went to the hotel and sent my
card to his room. He ordered me to be shown up to the room at once.
Approaching the door I found it open and Mr. Cook stood facing me. My
impression is that politeness was sacrificed in my haste to explain
that I was sent to inform him as to the hour of his lecture and to
offer to call for him in time to escort him to the grounds.

Extending his hand he said: "Come in and let me make my best bow to
you for the service you have rendered the temperance cause. I heard
you once for about ten minutes in Cooper Union, when I had an
engagement and had to leave. I see you are on the program tomorrow and
I shall be there."

After his first lecture, returning to the hotel I said: "Mr. Cook, if
I can be of any service to you while you are in our city, please feel
at liberty to command me at any time."

He replied: "I order you at once. I am anxious to see the home of
Henry Clay and the monument erected to his memory."

Next morning we went to Ashland and then to the cemetery. After
visiting the Clay monument, we were passing near where my daughter had
been buried only a few months before. When I had called his attention
to the sacred spot, Mr. Cook said: "I read Miss Willard's account of
her death, and the beautiful tribute paid her in the Union Signal.
Please stop a moment."

He left the carriage and going to the grave, took off his hat and
stood with uncovered head for a few moments. Then taking his seat
beside me in the carriage, he laid his hand on mine and said: "Blessed
are the dead that die in the Lord."

With tears rolling down my cheeks I said to myself: "Under the great
brain of Joseph Cook beats a tender heart." Not to know him was to
misjudge him, while the close touch of friendship revealed one of
God's noblemen.

Unity in variety is the order of nature. Out of what seems to us a
medley of contradictions come amendments and reconstructions that
illustrate the benevolent guardianship of God in working out the
problem of creation. Out of the most discordant elements God can bring
the most harmonious results. Out of the bitterness and bloodshed of
our Civil War has come a more harmonious, united, happy and prosperous
people.

It was said of General Grant: "He's an artist in human slaughter. He
cares nothing for the loss of men, so he wins the battle." But,
General Grant believed the harder the battle the sooner it would be
over. When the end came he gave back the sword of Lee, and said to the
worn-out Confederate soldiers: "Take your horses with you, you'll need
them on your farms. Go back to your homes and peace go with you." That
manly strength of character that enables a man to face shot and shell
on the battlefield, is not any more sublime than the manly weakness of
heart which "weeps with those who weep."

While we should not judge one by a single trait in character we must
not overlook the importance of little traits. In this age of great
movements, great schemes and great combinations, our young people are
disposed to ignore little things. A little thing in this great big age
is too insignificant. Yet, we are told it was the cackling of a goose
that saved Rome; the cry of a babe in the bull-rushes gave a law-giver
to the Jews; the kick of a cow caused the great Chicago fire; the
omission of a comma in preparing a bill that passed Congress cost this
republic a half million dollars; while the ignoring of a comma in
reading a church notice cost a minister quite a bit of embarrassment.
Among his announcements was one which ran thus: "A husband going to
_sea_, his wife desires the prayers of this church." The preacher
read: "A husband going to see his wife, desires the prayers of this
church."

Little things are suggestive of great things. We read that a
ship-worm, working its way through a dry stick of wood, suggested to
Brunell a plan by which the Thames river could be tunneled. The
twitching of a frog's flesh as it touched a certain kind of metal led
Galvani to invent the electric battery. The swinging of a spider's web
across a garden walk led to the invention of the suspension bridge.
The oscillation of a lamp in the temple of Pisa led Galileo to invent
the measurement of time by a pendulum. A butterfly's wing suggested
the combination of colors. So little things are suggestive of great
things in character.

"Boy wanted" was the sign at the entrance to a store. A boy took the
sign down and with it in his hand entered the store.

"What are you doing with that sign?" asked the proprietor.

The boy replied: "Well, I'm here, so I brought in the sign."

That boy was given the place. Attention to small things has made many
a successful man, while a little temper, a little indifference, a
little cigarette, a little drink or some other little thing has been
the undoing of many a young man.

What are these little traits in human character? They are matches
struck in the dark. Do you know what that means, a match struck in the
dark? If not, get up some night when it's pitch dark in the room, run
your face up against a half open door, knock the pitcher off the table
and spill the cold water on your bare feet, sit down on a chair that's
not there, and you'll realize what it means to strike a match. If I
were to go into a parlor of one of your finest homes at midnight with
all the lights out, I would see nothing, but let me strike a match and
beautifully decorated walls, fine paintings, and furniture will meet
and greet my vision.

You cannot be very long in the company of anyone until a match will be
struck. Of one you will say, "that's good; I'm glad to find such a
trait in that person," but directly another match will flare up and
you will find another trait as disappointing as the other was
commendable, and you are at a loss to know what "manner of man" you
are with.

It's a wonder to me when so many characters are so difficult to solve
that many young people rush headlong into matrimony without striking a
match, except the match they strike at the marriage altar. A girl sees
a young man today; he's handsome, talks well, and she falls in love
with him, dreams about him tonight, sighs about him tomorrow and
thinks she'll surely die if he doesn't ask her to marry him. Yet she
knows nothing about his parentage or his character. No wonder we have
so many unhappy marriages, so many homes like the one where a stranger
knocked at the front door and receiving no response went around to the
rear where he found a very small husband and a very large wife in a
fight, with the wife getting the better of the battle.

The stranger said: "Hello! who runs this house?"

"That's what we are trying to settle now," shouted the little husband.

My young friends, I will admit love is a kind of spontaneous,
impulsive, natural affinity, something after the order of molecular
attraction or chemical affinity, but while by the natural law of love,
a young woman may see in the object of her affection her ideal of
perfection in humanity, she owes volitional conformity to a higher law
than natural affinity. She owes to herself, to posterity and to her
country a careful study of the character of the young man to whom she
should link her life and love.

I believe two dark clouds hanging upon the horizon of this republic to
be the recklessness with which life is linked with life at the
marriage altar, and the recklessness with which we elect men to
offices of public trust. While we have many public men, schooled in
the science of government, whom the spoils of office cannot corrupt,
we have an army of demagogues who rely upon saloon politics for
promotion, and on all moral questions reason with their stomachs
instead of their brains. This is especially true in the government of
our large cities.

Sam Jones, lecturing in a city noted for its corrupt government said:
"Take the political gang you have running this city, put them in a
cage, then let the devil pass along and look in and he would say,
'That beats anything I have in my show.'"

We don't seem to realize that every public man is a teacher, every
home is a school, and the education received outside the schoolroom is
often more effective than the education inside. All the forces and
elements of the organism of society are teachers and all life is
learning. The birth of an infant into this world is its matriculation
into a university, where it graduates in successive degrees. And do
you know in this great school of human life, where I come with you to
study the traits of our kind, that we never reach a grade that we are
not influenced by what touches us? Here I am past fifty years of age
(and then "some"), yet I am constantly being influenced by what
touches me.

Start a new song with a popular air and it will spread throughout the
whole country. Boys will whistle it and girls will sing it. A number
of years ago, when at the station ready to leave home for New England,
a lad near me began to whistle and then to sing a new song. It was a
catchy tune and took hold of me. On the train I found myself trying to
hum that tune, then I tried to whistle it, and failing in both
attempts I finally gave it up. Two days after I left the train up in a
New Hampshire town and took a street car for the hotel. A blizzard was
on, but there stood the motorman, muffled to his ears, whistling the
same tune I had heard down in Kentucky, "There'll be a hot time in the
old town tonight."

When the telephone made its appearance a good Christian man had one
installed in his store and during the morning hours of the first day
he called up all his friends who had phones, and "Hello! Hello!" took
hold of him. He went home to lunch and being a little late he hurried
into his chair at the table. With the telephone still on his mind, he
bowed his head to return thanks and said: "Hello." He was a good
Christian man, but the telephone had taken hold of him.

The very tone of the voice has a tendency to influence and control
character. I wonder so many parents train their voices as they do.
They have a kind of snap to the tone which they evidently think makes
the children and the servants "get a move" on them. Perhaps it does,
but at the same time it falls upon a family like frost upon a field of
flowers. You pay three dollars to have your piano tuned, yet you train
your voice to sound harsh and hard.

How the tone of the voice controls was illustrated in my own home
several years ago. I went home in the early spring and found some one
had been among my bees and had left the lids of the hives lifted at
the time the bees were making brood. Going to the house I said to my
wife:

"Where is Charlie?" He was the colored man in charge of the barn and
garden.

Mrs. Bain replied: "I suppose he is about the barn; he doesn't stay in
the house." I knew that, but somehow we Adams will go to our Eves with
anything that goes wrong.

"What's the trouble?" my wife asked.

I told her about the exposure of the bees, (about the effect of which
I knew very little) and said:

"I want Charlie to keep out of that apiary. He'll kill every bee I
have."

Mrs. Bain in a very gentle manner said: "I did that myself. That's the
way father used to do. I was afraid your bees might starve during the
long cold spell, so I made some syrup and placed it in the upper
compartments. I lifted the lids so that the light would attract the
bees up to the syrup. I'm very sorry I did it, but I thought it would
please you."

I said: "Well, I believe you did the right thing, my dear, and I am
very much obliged to you."

If my wife had said in a harsh tone: "I did that, sir. What are you
going to do about it?" then I would have said something.

A little bit of anger let loose in a field of human nature is as
destructible to noble impulses and generous feelings as a cyclone is
to a town. I was in an Iowa cyclone some years ago and I noticed when
it was approaching the people didn't run out of their homes and throw
stones at it. They ran for the storm cellars. When you see a bit of
anger coming toward you from brother, sister, husband, wife or friend,
don't throw a dictionary of aggravating words at it; get out of the
way and it will quiet down like the troubled waters of Galilee when
"Peace be still" fell upon them.

When we realize how sensitive character is to the touch of influences,
and how uncertain the character of the influence that may touch us,
how very careful we should be as parents as to what shall touch us,
how we shall touch others, who may be fed by our fulness, starved by
our emptiness, uplifted by our righteousness or tainted by our sins.

Sometimes a boy is sent to school with the idea that the influence of
the teacher will mold the character of the boy, when the magnetic
touch by which the faculties of the boy are sprung doesn't come from
the teacher, but from some boy on the playground and perhaps not the
best boy. Some boys are as potent on the playground as a major-general
on a battle-field. Some persons are like loadstones, they draw, others
are like loads of stone, they have to be drawn.

I have known down South in the days of slavery, coal black queens of
the domestic circle. The cows would come to the cupping as if it were
a spiritual devotion. Maiden mistresses would tell them their love
stories, when they wouldn't tell their own mothers. I am a southern
man, born and reared mid slavery, and I pay this tribute to the black
"mammies" of the South before the war. Down there in that hale, hearty
colored motherhood was laid the foundation of future health and
strength for many a white baby, when otherwise its mother would have
had to see it die. Frail, delicate mothers, who because of slavery had
not done sufficient work to develop physical womanhood, were not able
to nurse their own infants and gave them to the care of vigorous,
healthy colored mothers, who took them to their bosoms and nursed them
into strength. But for that supplemental supply of vigor, but for that
sympathetic partnership in motherhood, much of the most potent manhood
of the South would never have been known.

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