PLAY

Gettysburg Times - Mar 25, 1926

PLAY

By George Matthew Adams

Play occupies a greater part in the real happines of life than almost any other element.

The man or woman who gives all his time to work and no play early grows cramped and sour. Play takes youth by the hand and leads it into middle life and touches old age with beauty, giving a striking and gorgeous beauty to all life as the summer clouds make opals amongst the rays of the dying sun.

No time to play? Isn't it life for which we live? Isn't happiness the goal of all our ambitions? And what a worker play makes of a man!

On the other hand, work may be made largely play. The most trying and strenuous job in the world is that of President of the United States. Yet when President Roosevelt was about to retire, after two of the most strenuous terms in history, he grinned and said: "I've had a bully time!" It is too bad that the world had to lose so great a man so soon. I don't believe that Roosevelt would ever have grown old.

Tennis, horse-back riding, boxing, affairs of state and of the world—these were a part of the daily life of Roosevelt. (And hunting in parts of half a dozen countries thrown in for a vacation time.)

Youth should be taught that work must be made a part of play, and that all work really can be made play.

The healthy and wholesome city is that one which devotes most to the recreational phase of its community.

College life would be dull and drab without play. "I love my work." That attitude is what gives zest and happiness to any worker.

Let's never forget how and when to play!

FAITH

Gettysburg Times - Mar 24, 1926

FAITH

By George Matthew Adams

This is an old subject. But it is one we think of probably more than any other, for it is the very foundation of our hope, here and now and is the substance of our belief in eternal life.

Faith closes our eyes at night and opens them in the morning. Faith tiptoes into our chambers and tells us of the day. Then it trails along with us throughout the hours and sustains us in all our various activities.

We think out our ideas. We weigh them. Then we dress them up in the clothes of Faith and send them out into the world.

We do business every hour and every day on faith. Everything we eat, drink, or use, we give our faith to. When we go on a long journey, we place our faith in the man who runs the train, our automobile, or our ship.

When we get low and a storm cloud of worry comes our way, Faith is the sunshine that sooner or later clears the storm.

The farmer toils and the sweat rolls from his brow as he turns the soil, but he is cheerful and happy for he has faith that his labors will be fruitful.

You can't keep house, or school, or your shop without faith.

We all do different things with our faith. It doesn't matter so much what. For faith is to apply and no two do the same job the same way.

Faith is to keep us sweet and unbending in courage. Faith is to keep us on the way that is safest, not the swiftest of the shortest.

Faith leads up by the hand.

ADVICE

Mar 23, 1926

The cheapest commodity in this world is advice. That's why so many people give it away.

Advice should be something to keep until asked for.

We all need suggestions to guide us along the way. But advice should be sought or else its power for helpfulness becomes doubtful.

You see, advice that you give to someone may have been thought out as good advice for yourself but turn out to be the worst possible advice for another.

Circumstancs often wither the best of advice so that it is in the way.

To keep one's mouth shut is an accomplishment both rare and refreshing.

The lawyer sells his advice. And the client gladly pays a great sum to his lawyer because he has faith in his advice.

There are so many things that we could give away and which would make other people very happy, so that advice really takes a back seat and is of little importance excepting when highly cultivated through experience of special study and research.

How many times we have given our advice only to see it come back to us in a very happy state of mind and full of blame.

But kindness, generous impulses that have been put to action sincere love, encouragement, inspiring words, never come back except when they return with interest compounded again and again.

Seek advice, but do not give it.

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