Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 209 pages of information about Crayon and Character.

Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 209 pages of information about Crayon and Character.
of affairs, it was Mr. Mill’s duty to go to Mr. Carlyle’s home and break the news to him.  Mr. Carlyle tells of the interview in these words:  ’How well do I remember that night when he came to tell Mrs. Carlyle and me, pale as Hector’s ghost, that my unfortunate first volume was burned.  It was like a half sentence of death to both of us.  We had to pretend to take it lightly, so dismal and ghastly was its horror!’

“If the description of the scene were to end here, I am sure that some of us would see only the darkest, gloomiest side.  Let us make a sketch to illustrate this condition. [Draw Fig. 106 complete.] But the description does not stop here.  Carlyle goes on to tell how, with the sympathy of his wife, he began anew the great task, and, although it was, as he says, a ‘job’ that nearly broke his heart, the result was a work superior in every way to his original effort, and he lived to rejoice in what he once considered to be a disastrous misfortune.  He received ample reward for his overmastering patience!

[Illustration:  Fig. 106]

“‘If thou faint in the day of adversity,’ says the Psalmist, ’thy strength is small.’  Remember this:  Every shadow has a light behind it! It is toward that light that the discouraged one must turn his face.  Look up, not down! [Add lines to complete Fig. 107; the hair covers the face of Fig. 106.] No man ever saw the highest success who ‘looked down his nose’ when trial came.  Look up—­like the man in the picture!”

[Illustration:  Fig. 107]

THE MAN WHO FINALLY HEARD
    —­Kind Words
    —­The Tongue

The Restoration of His Hearing Brought to Him Pain as Well as
Pleasure.

THE LESSON—­That we should guard well our tongues against speaking careless, useless or vulgar words.

This illustration is based on the actual experience of an Indiana man.  It contains a lesson of such great importance that a chapter of one of the strongest moral epistles of the New Testament is devoted to it.  The speaker would do well to study carefully the third chapter of the Epistle of James as a foundation for the preparation of the talk.

The Talk.

[Before beginning the talk, draw the picture of the man, completing Fig. 108.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 108]

“The face I have here drawn represents the portrait of a certain business man living in an Indiana town.  Ever since the time of an illness in childhood this man had been almost totally deaf.  For years he tried in vain to secure the aid which would restore to him his hearing, and during all the period of his boyhood and young manhood he could hear only those words which were spoken very distinctly, close to his ear.  Sometimes he could hear the thunder and other loud, sharp sounds.

[Illustration:  Fig. 109]

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Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.