FAITH IN SOMEONE ELSE

Gettysburg Times - Apr 23, 1926

FAITH IN SOMEONE ELSE
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

It is a little strange how just faith works. Especially when that faith comes out of the heart of someone else and is applied to you.

We keep our chins quite a deal higher because someone else has faith in us.

The misfortune of others touch us because we, too, have had them.

We have wanted people to pat us on the back, encouraging us. And so we take our opportunity to pat someone else on the back.

In reading a lovely book the other evening, called "Footsteps in a Parish" by John Timothy Stone, I came across this sentence about the man for whom the book was written: "To know Dr. Babcock well, to realize what a friend he could be—one must have trouble."

Faith given one in trouble often changes the course of one's life. A large number of the failures that are strewn about us are failures largely because faith wasn't poured their way.

When somebody has faith in us, and we know it, then we begin to climb.

But just let one person who is near and dear to us lose faith in us—and then the sun goes behind a cloud at once.

We would rather have our pay in this life come to us in the shape of faith in any other way.

Then why not put your faith in someone else? Why not keep giving your faith away—out at "interest", for instance?

THE VALUE OF TRIFLES

Gettysburg Times - Apr 20, 1926

THE VALUE OF TRIFLES
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

Every day we live with things of marvelous value—not realizing or appreciating their worth. Most of these things are small in themselves.

It seems to be the habit of most people to let the most interesting, most beautiful, and the most fascinating things of human life just pass along. Like the tiny flower that waits so patiently in the valleys for someone to come along and love it—or even to notice it.

The little trifles of courtesy, thoughtfulness and consideration to many appear old fashioned and trite.

But it is by rightly appraising these very things in their value to human life, character and happiness that we learn the true and beautiful value of friendship itself.

Trifles of love and thoughtfulness are what make up the great spots in this universe.

There are plenty of people who go out of their way to do something spectacular, something that will attract attention to their deeds, but to do the out-of-the-way thing, and just be happy and satisfied over doing it is quite the rare thing.

Trifles that spring from the heart to be poured into someone's life are like rare gems.

Simple gifts, small remembrances, sacrifices that are genuine—these things renovate the heart and cleanse it for the larger efforts of life.

The little things, trifles, are the privilege of all.

I BELIEVE IN YOU

Gettusburg Times - Apr 17, 1926

I BELIEVE IN YOU
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

In the summer of 1909 Theodore Roosevelt and Robert E. Peary met. Peary was about to set out on the ship “Roosevelt” for his final dash to attain the North Pole.

Each man grasped the other's hand. Roosevelt looked into the eyes of the great and intrepid explorer and gave this as his final goodbye: “I believe in you, Peary.”

April 6, 1909, the North Pole listened to the waving of the Stars and Stripes!

Many who visited the World's Fair in Chicago in the early nineties remember that famous picture: “Breaking Home Ties.” There were the different members of the family, including the dog. But the face and figure of the mother predominated in interest. It silently uttered: “My boy, I believe in you.”

You can walk around with a darkened heart. Tears may wash its walls. The lights may all be dimmed, and the wind and rain of the outer world may chill each one of its chambers. But if there can yet be heard within this divine creation of the great God just one echoing voice of faith and love from but a single one beloved and that voice saying but this “I believe in you,” then nothing else matters.

All of us at times breathe with an instinct of heaven in our souls.

Empires have been lost, states have been dissolved, cities have been deserted, and choice human beings have stumbled, starved in heart, and fallen in their trucks—all because there wasn't somebody around to say: “I believe in you!”

How cheap and gross is admiration, flattery, adulation and mechanical applause beside this little touch of words, imported from the stars: "I believe in you.”

After that, life, with all its impossible tasks, becomes possible. And worries melt like fresh dew before the morning sun.

LITTLE ENOUGH

Gettysburg Times - Apr 16, 1926

LITTLE ENOUGH
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

It is only when the brave and simple nobility of some unheard of one shames us that we come to realize how really unimportant and useless we are.

No matter how hard we try to be somebody or to do something worth while it is little enough.

We shuttle too much through this life.

Ideals don't always have the gold rays of the sun upon them. Often they are darkened by the clouds of a storm. But it is our faith—that comes from somewhere—that leads us always and eventually into the light again.

No matter what we do for others, no matter how we try to make this world a little happier, it is never enough.

We can never be too kind, never do too much to make the way of some one else less difficult, never give too much of love.

The world is full of cravers. The hunger of the heart, of the soul, is a far nobler hunger than ever that of the body.

When the rain falls and the winds blow, adding gloom and loneliness, it is a little enough to go out of your way to do something that will put a light into the window of a life darkened by discouragement and loss.

How just a little bunch of white daisies changes all!

THE CRUST OF CHARACTER

Gettysburg Times - Apr 14, 1926

THE CRUST OF CHARACTER
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

Who can tell how a house is furnished by looking at its exterior? Who can tell the manner of a man by looking him over from the outside? Can a soul be translated as the school boy does his Latin? Why is it that people are so misjudged? And why is it that imperfect men and women take such storming pleasure in picking out and glorying in the faults and imperfections of their own kind?

There are hard questions to answer. The outside of a man or woman after all, is but the curtain that hides nobility, beauty and great heroism.

There is nothing more coward in the world than to impugn the motive of a human being or to cast a shadow of reproach upon one whose inner life you know nothing about.

Life is hard enough at the best. Imperfect people in an imperfect world do not make for perfection.

That's why we have God to whom we may all go and open our silent hearts. Into whose perfect heart we may pour all our problems and our griefs.

The crust of character is for the world, but the inner heart that is so often bathed with tears is only for the eye and love of the Great Father of us all.

It takes the courage of a conqueror to pass through some of the byways of this world.

But we know that there are plenty of this sort—else from where do out older friends come?

IT'S JUST HOW

Gettysburg Times - Apr 13, 1926

IT'S JUST HOW
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

The business of life is largely learning just how to live.

And the best way to live is to help others to live. The closer we knit our efforts, our desires and our successes to others, the better we achieve our fondest ambitions.

The late Russell H. Conwell, to my notion, was one of the world's greatest men. He died poor, after having earned and given away millions to others. He left a great university which he founded, and endowed thousands of lives with the new hope, inspiration and education. I heard this man give his famous lecture "Acre of Diamonds" when I was a boy and what he said has given me the great inspiration all through the years.

Conwell knew just how to make people happier and hus geniality, his rare humor and his beautiful unselfishness left this world his debtor far beyond even the millions he so generously gave away.

And just how you take life, too, is a measure of what you get from it.

One tiller of the soil will bring out double what another will. Simply because he just knows how.

The making and keeping of friends is a matter of knowing just how it pays to think, study, observe, plan, and work far in advance—
just so that at the proper moment you may know just how.

You only need a little bit of heaven each day in your heart to make all the people of the earth very much akin to you.

THE NEW

GETTYSBURG TIMES - Apr 12, 1926

THE NEW
By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

RICHARD JEFFERIES in his book “The Story of my Heart,” says many beautiful things. Here is one: “The world would be the gainer if a Nile flood of new thought arose and swept away the past, concentrating the effort of all the races of the earth upon man's body, that it might reach an ideal of shape, and health, and happiness.”

We all live too deeply in traditions, old fancies and conventionalities.

A strong and able body gives forth fine thoughts through its brain, in the same way that a strong and well nourished stalk gives forth a beautiful flower.

And a healthy mind doesn't see decay and disease. It sees youth, freshness, unnumbered years in embryo, full of possible vitality, vibrant life and a happy soul-life budding far ahead in hidden years.

There is a fascination to the new. That is why we should all the time be searching for the new—trying it out, testing it, proving what is good, and holding to it, making it a part of what we leave to others.

A new thought should always prove an event to a man.

The past should stand out only as a picture, something to think over and profit from. Its influence upon human thought should be only as a piece of coloring to guide us in producing a greater picture, a finer work of art in human doing.

It takes courage to attempt the new. But then, what is life without the use of courage?