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Show II Dorothy Dix Talksl AS YOU SOW SO SHALL YOU REAP tByJJOKOTOix The World's Highest Paid Woman Writer i I You have heard a thousand sermons preached from the text, "As You Spw So Shall You Reap" all about the ages of sin being death; and the man who drank dying in the gutter; the gambler committing suicide after lie had lost his last dollar, and the broken law Inevitably taking itstoll of tho wrecked souls and bodies of hu-1 manity. And it's all true, horribly, bitterly, tragically true, but did you ever think that the reverse action of this stern law of God and nature is also true? As you sow so shall you reap, good as well as evil, lilies as well as thistles. this-tles. The man who Is industrious and thrifty In his youth is as surely well-to-do in his old age as the man Is Ipoor in his old age who was a waster, was-ter, a spender and a loafer In his youth. The man who has lived cleanly, clean-ly, and abstemiously, and taken intelligent intel-ligent care of his health is as sure to Jbe hale and hearty in his seventies as 'the man who has burned out his stomach with alcohol, and wrecked his nerves with dissipation, is certain to be either in his grave or doddering and senile. The beginning of our lives is made .!for us by chance. Our parents and 'our situation in the world in youth arc wished upon us, but we make our middle mid-dle life and old age for ourselves, and that Is hard or comfortable, filled with love and companionship, or empty and lonely according to tho way in which we have lived. For age is when we gather In the harvest of tho years, and as we have sown, so do wc reap. The trouble with us poor mortals is that we are always expecting miracles to be wrought In our behalf.' We can see how the law of cause and effect must work out for other people, but wo expect it to J)e suspended in our . own particular case, and that wo will Hl v be allowed to escape the penalty of HL our folly and our weakness. We shut our eyes to the fact that wMi 110 spiritual Burbank has yet arisen "Who can take the thorns out of the cactus of mean, and selfish, and hate-ful hate-ful traits of character, and make them a palatable and nourishing diet for love and friendship to feed upon. We should think a farmer a candi-' candi-' date for a lunatic asylum -who expect-cd expect-cd to gather in a heavy harvest of Hf corn from a field in which he had not planted a single grain of seed. We should send out a hurry call for an alienist for a gardner who railed against fate and considered himself a martyr to ill luck because he could not Hj gather roses off a thorn tree. But that's about what we demand of life. We want to reap where we have j not sown, and have flowers burst into H! miraculous bloom in places where we Hj have not set seed or bud. Hj Take the matter of success, for in- stance. Riches and honors are in-variably in-variably the harvest of long, and faithful toil and sweat, but it is the hardest thing in the world to convince tho young of that That is why there H) are so many people who are failures. Hj Thev arc not willing to bend" their back to the plough and properly pre-pare pre-pare the soil In which to plant the seed of tlieir ambition. They want to reap all of the rewards and emoluments without any work. The whole secret of success is com-prised com-prised in knowing more about your job, and doing it better than other people do. The man or woman who does that can invariably command their own prices for their labor and are celebrated in the market places. B They aro the school teachers, the rail- road brakesmen, the coal miners, the Jflm poor country lawyers, who become V9 Wilsons, the Geddas, and Lord Rhon- dlas, and McAdoos. You can't convince the average youngster, however, of this. Ho thinks success is a matter of luck, instead of effort, and he's always lookiug for lightening to strike him without the effort of even running up a lightening rod. Ho goes blithely along sowing wild oats, and curses some malign destiny because ho doesn't reap a bumper crop of wheat It's pitiful to think that we could all have in our garden of life the things that we want most if we'd only plant them there instead of not planting plant-ing anything at all, or planting a weed and expecting it to come up a flower. What the great majority of human I beings crave most is love. Above all ! other earthly blessings they desiro the affection and tenderness of those about them, and especially the love jand tenderness of their children, and no complaint is so bitter as that of fathers and wothers whose children are neglectful, and indifferent to them. Yet ninety-nine times out of a hundred hun-dred tho parents whoso children exhibit ex-hibit no affection forhem aro merely reaping what they sowed. They did nothing to win their children's love and confidence. They were tyrannical and hard, they fretted and scolded and never took the trouble to try to understand under-stand their children. They never showed them any real sympathy. They depended upon what they call natural affection. There is no natural affection, except the animal affection of a mother for her young while it is helpless. That feeling does not animate ani-mate the cild. It would be as much attached to anyone'elso who was kind to it A child's love for its parents is based on tho love, tenderness and sympathy it has received. Give these to a child and it gives them back to you tenfold. Withhold them and you get nothing. As you sow, you reap. A woman I know takes great trouble to devise little pleasures for her nieces and nephews. She is always giving them things. She takes them on delightful de-lightful little journeys and is on the most confidential terms with them. Asked why she did this she replied: "I am laying up love for my old ace. I am childless and I without theso children will be a very lonely oiu woman, with nobody to care whether I lived or died, so I am binding bind-ing them to mo with a thousand cords of affection. I am mixed up in then lives with all sorts of beautiful childish child-ish memories. And they'll always love mo, but why should they care "for me if I did nothing to make them happy or to win their hearts?" That's a bit of philosophy that will bear consideration. Why should our families love us if we are unlovely? Why should they cherish us if wo have done nothing to make their lives brighter and happier? Why should the wife expect her husband to continue to love her when her extravagance Is working him to death, and when the only reward he ever gets for his hard labor Is whining and complaints because be-cause she can't have more? Why should a husband expect his wife to love him when he treats her brutally and neglects her? Why should people who are selfish and high tempered, tem-pered, and whose tongues are like two edged swords, expect to have friends? And they don't. They reap as they have sown. We each gather in the harvest that we have planted. rtn |