"
The engineer said: "Well, I guess you've paid your fare; climb into
the cab and help me run this train."
I commend to you the cultivation of tact, but don't let it lead you
into the meanest trait of character--selfishness. To say,
"Of all my father's family I love myself the best,
If Providence takes care of me, who cares what takes the rest?"
In the days when there was a community hearse in a country
neighborhood, and carpenters made the coffins, a young man, who was
ashamed of the old worn-out hearse, went about soliciting money to
purchase a new one. Presenting the purpose to an old man of means, he
received from this selfish citizen the reply:
"I won't give you a dollar. I helped to buy the old hearse twenty
years ago, and neither me nor my family have ever had any benefit from
it."
Against this trait of selfishness I place the most beautiful of all
traits--sympathy. I would rather have the record of Clara Barton in
the great reckoning day than that of any statesman whose portrait
hangs in a hall of fame.
During our Civil War she went from battlefield to battlefield, and was
just as kind to the boy in gray as she was to the boy in blue.
After the Civil War Queen Victoria desired to communicate with Clara
Barton regarding the same mission of mercy for the German army, where
the Queen's daughter was then engaged. But Clara Barton was already on
the ocean, and soon after was in the war zone with the German army.
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