t i Wi1 son^ and ftarvK,hT\D. Roosevelt Ir\ cJuoye Alley's opinion, tkese are (XX) tke si 7c yrecxtesi orators tkai America Kas proiaceiiTairicK HeTvry 01 ay, Cal- Ko-u-t\^ Wet si e r, HeiKT-jr W. Graoy ai\o Wil- li oltt\ el. ^PryoLT\. Tkeir p i ciiAres also orace iKe c ab^Tv- off 1 ce walls. 13-at Tr\ooe3M\ ii"n\es Have evoK.eo arv £oreiyr\ Lanos oe.i\iuses of elooueAce^ ani duioe Alley's di s cerninj/ iaste has lei Kim to ckoose as ike iKtee sapre-n\e iT-u.- ropeccT\ oraiors : )7\irabeaiJ, of rra7\ce; ET"n\ileo (Past el cx-Tj of SpaiT\; ani Loll is KjDss-utk, of Kur^ary. TKe i\oble liKe- nesses of ikese orc^ior- pairi ois, ap- propri aiely ervouoXj oire accoroeo place a7T\oT\o ike Celetniies wKose br\ean\£7\is glorify ike walls oi oJ-uoye Alley's (j^aiei aT\o oeliyktf-ul retreat. T?\e 01 scr 1 n\i r\atioi\ bKowr\ by eT-u-Oye Alley it\ assembl 1 i\o ikis ar- ray of pi'ciu-res aiiesis "his ao77\-ira- tioi\ for nAen of V3sioi\ ; KioK loeals, ai\o lrai\sceuo^i\i accompli sK"n\ei\i. JJcmttless, tt\ a r\y of tke readers of ikis volume woilH appreciaie a. f-ull account of <$ -ao^ye Alley's ii\ieTesf- irvy a7\o lfxspiriTw life; bat- ike resiric- (XXI) tec!) limits of this, i rvt r-o <5 u cti otv iotbio CKT\yzHir\Q LeyorvO a brief sketck pre- 5e-rvi-]T\o little rr\ore ihaTv the iT\osi irr\ porta, rvt evenib it\ 1\ i s no "tew orf hjy pr oar-ess f ro?i\ tk e skkIv cKiloKooo of aix obscure TY\puTvta~:i~rv 1 a\e taicKecf" for n\ucK of- iKe tir\e., iyv cl I07 Catnv aAO s-uTosistea oik a. pitifully nveay^er diet. lAe was unable fo 0Ltter\6 reya.larly, b-at persevered fill \e orao mated n\l8£6. Itv sc\ool \e vi as very popular airvo freo-aeivfly eivtert a ii\e o K^i s scKoolTT\ates wiiKX^s ba^jo or violn\ or coty\ic sotvos. He ioo\ Kee-»\- esf> interest irycebaie, i\ ri\oot courts wKicK^K^ or^aT\izeo, aiv& iiv Ki st ory, T£t\o1i s\> ai\d Tciieratixre. Now follow, i-f you. will, t\is ou,i- (XXIII) liY\e of Kis successive promoiiorvs atva- pen'or Couri of qScxcksotv SoiAivty, cxao, wKile serving ike fouT-yeat ierrtv, stiAOied law wiiXoai ai\ i-rv?>ir -actor; (Z) I iv rebrixary, 1?o3, obi cm -rye <5 H-6. Li'cervse to praciice law ayvo i Trvnveoiaie- ly opei\eiaie teyislaiure, a no", c^i- its sessi otv (1 ? o5 }> obi-air\e\is practice t\oW e^teno-i-ny 7Y\-io seveis^ (XXIV) Co-la vvties) a>\on\ -iKe U. S. -SixpreiAe Qouri, iKe U.S. Circuit (^purt oi Appeals ( 4iK Circuit) aai bon\ -the Su'jren\e Covxris of Vi roir\i a ; TeT\r\e ssee, GeotaiCL, an6 SolaIK (Jarolnva-, Sub seauei\i- ly pa rii c i pati rvy ir\ important "iMaiS i>\ sever\ States outsiJe of Mort(\ Carol ir\ a.- (_7)li\ 1^1^, was presidential elector for Wooorow W j 1 s o iv ai\o,i\ 1 f £ o , for o5aT>\es 7\.Qqx, arte? yY\ade speec\es tkroayk- ouL"t tKe 5oA^re^sioi\al pistnct iY\eac\ Ca>rvpai?r\; (?) I\ i9ife, na/cxs UT\sucttS5ful caA- iiiaie tor SoKoress aycxiTvst Roi\. ^ebu- Iotn^ We aver; bwt ,c%f ier Je-f e at, r\<\6e., at l\i s o w vv e^c p e iv?) e , e i o k t e e r\^ 5 p e e c\e s i >\ be\alf of tke \on\iT\ee; (7)Itv j I?3Z, was a delegate to tKe Na- tional j)eT\ocratic 2.oAveAt)oK xv\ CKi- CaoOj arvO n\iJ\e followirvo Cav\pai^ivj delivered ikirty-toar SpeecKes, cover- i r\p tKe Skate iron\l^obbivsville to 5acK^o\vjHe so effectively i\dt, tro^ all places at wKick He spoKe. east of Way 7\esv i He, i-Ke re p o ar ei i\io State (XXV) (? \ a i r r\a rv W'n\bon\e. letters praiSLYvo tKe SpeecKes ana r ec^-v^e st i*\o tKe reiuLTMx^ * Alle^y io tKe several couTviies for fi^riKer aooresses, Copies of all sucKleiiers beirv^ rv\aoe by VTyr. Wi Kb o rive ai\6 ; wiiK cKarac- ieTisiicL Kn\or\ess, seivt io tKe mrvp'w»T\r tanv oraior tor Kis files; (10) 0i\ <5a7\. 2. k, -1^3 3, was appoirvtec! by %over\or ETKti TvyKa^s -to fill tKe va- caivcy res"ulti^? iron\ iKe oeatK of Superior 5_ou^ oJ-uooe V/alier t. 77\oore, O-tvo, ]i\ cj aiv^ 1^3 4-, Was T\on\i\aiea for tKe f u_ll e i cK^i-V ear i-ernr\ ; carryi-rvy ii\ tKe, primary eleciio-rv eacK o-fc iKe sev- e^x co iA.-v\-t i es of tKe oisirict olt\o recew- l rv q cc "total Vr\ a j o r i iy o £ ^^f" 4 (.~t."KT.s K a ™" Sorr\e £t\o or-se rr\ervt b<5.iT\\ao tKe largest practice ii\ \i s ^cicial District "botK i~>^ t\ta.7y^- ber arv o variety oi Cases, Civil a-rvo C r 1 y\i *\a I 3 (1ZJ I 7\ -if $d, at avv electioix, Kelci by tKe A1llt»\t\i Association ot V/esieTA. (XXVI) (Barolirvo. Teackers' Solle^e, 3uSpt Alley- was cl\ose7\ as f)\ a t institutions oraiuate wKo lr\ao reA^erecf tke rr\osi Si sti nouisT\ec( public Service. riis r\arr\e will, ikeref ore, be t\e first of su.cK 01 sti a? ui s1\ec5 XoAorees io appear* upo7\ a pem\a"»\e7\i rr\-ural tablet coa s pi cuoia sly oisplaye6 l^iKe col- lege li b^ary. To t?\e astor\i sKTY\eA.t of <5uo^oe Alley's f ri er\o s, tKi s man of amazing pkysical git\o 'rr\tellec-tual resources has, ii\ tKe "nr\i<5st of tKe uryeAt at\<5 ex- cessive o'enr\ano's of \\s professioA, fout\o tirr\e to reaC qao oi^oest n\ary volumes, rr\aK^ K"U- 7 \oreo~s of political speec\es, aAo deliver scores of coTA7AeAce-n-\e-r\-t aooresses. Furtkernxore, after years of researcKaAa preparation, t"K lS pro- fouAcj sfuie^t of sacreo writings }\as proouceo reliyious aooresses f\at Kave t\rillea' and aplif teo, witk tl\e irApas- sioA^ec^ elocj-ue-ryce of a prop\e"t, rr\ore tkai\ fifty aiAoieAces ir\ c\urcl\es ; court Kouses, ai\i Colle oes, to tKe edifi- cation of "bof K rY\iA,isters ar\S layr\tT\. (XXVII) ?TVy p] e a siny > but poorly perform- ed, tasK lacK,5 ; for its completion, on- ly son\e aovcx7\ce iT\for~n\atioT\ re- ^aroiAQ what this publication in- cludes. TKe value a no variety of its conieAis will mane ct wide ap- peal to people of varyir\Q tastes ana ir\te rests. Not all parts will e Dual- ly mirioue any lAcfwioualj but one or 'rr\oTe chapters will be Sure to i tjl s i i f y repeated perused by "those, who will eycarr\iAe t be choice ar\o diverse offeruxys Kererr\ as- S ern bl e o- TKe followirya chapters, cover- iAy a wioe rarxye, eye hi bit- but a lin\- itecf eycpressioTv of a lofty soul; for no \urrvoL^ "beiny, nv I if e's bri ef Span, ca-ry accompli sl\ complete Self-ey:- pressio7\. The Qoo-lix;e spirit struy- yles io reveal itself, "but ever falls sKort of full revelation,. The in- spired" ano aspiriny worker is al- ways yreater thaA >\is achieve- n\er\ts; "baeK of ever;/ hiyl\ an6 t\o- ble e^voeavor is a personal iiy of (XXVIII) siill Kicker a. r\ 6 Aobler powers cxr\o as pi rai i or\s. T?vose nyt eresiei ii\ oraiory Will £ii\S witkirv iKese pa^es a r\u tyy- ber of q5ia^>6 Alley's besi prepared aioresses. kawvers a?\o J-uoj?es carv read J\ere, wii}\ e7 M oy nveTvrt ar\o profit-, excerpts trorrv ^peecKes delivered lTv. i rr\ p o r t a -ivt law- suiis ; cov\ianv- i i\o llliAstrafi otvs — "hision cal ; bibli- cal, ano practical; also a. collec- tion of tiuSye. Alleys nr\c^cirr\s for Lawyers, yaiKerei £ron\>\is e^Cpen- ei\ce aAO S u_pple-n\e.rvi e 6 W r\aTY\erou.S Carefully prepared si cxi e n\e-rv-t s e;x> pre^iM) K^s corvcepiioiv of f~ke duiies of (X iu o q e . TXe aTryoLieiA^ aAC iXe Cor\- ^oisseur iry woro- pai>xiiT\o a.r\d ii\ eapKov\ious plvi^a seoloyy will te fa5ci>\aiec[ by ike ty\cl s> f. e r 1 y cfe- scMpiioivs of n\piAivt ai rv sceT\ery, ^>ixclv cls iKpse of W l\ite side l\oi\v ia-iry (xr\o Wa"bi oi\s of certairx auikors wKo kowe essayeo ikus io convey io ike ouiside wo^ld w\ai- TTVarvrver of \-u.ty\olt\^ h eiixc? s out T\aiive M\o \x7\i a i T\e e r s are. Tkese prefaiory parayrapks have. eixoeavoTeo io preseni iKe nr\aTv ai-xd io clireci your aiie?\iioT\ io Kis cfvef a~cki ev eTY\eT\.is. V/ovl a "ikai v/e "Kao mary rrvore Ciiize-rxs liKe eJ-uo^e Allejy! It\ Tf\y canr\Oio o pi t\i orv, T\ e beloi\ys i>\ iKe class of rrveA so eloaue-rvily ckaracier- iiei "by Dr. oS. G. Holl ar\A it\ ike follow- ing graphic lif\es: — (XXX) Goo owe us 7T\en. A ijme line tkis ^«n\aA(Js Sjtrono rhino's, oreat HearfcSj'irue f aii\, and *n?j Tall TY\ei\, Sun-crowr^eo, wKo live above tKe too l7v public 0-u.iy, a.-r\6 ii\ pnva.ie tkini^iKy. (XXXI) CHAPTER I. JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. Psalms, 121: 1. From friends cognizant of my plans to publish this volume, there have come to me a large number of written and oral sugges- tions to the eifect that I include in it at least a brief autobiographi- cal sketch, the idea being that it might be worth something to aspiring young men who have their own way to make in the battle of life. I have been very reluctant to comply with these requests, because there is so little I can say about my personal history that may be considered worth while; but those who have requested it have been so uniformly kind, and have given me so much encour- agement in my efforts to get the volume prepared for publication, that I have decided to defer to their wishes, and to record the few simple facts involved. Another reason that has urged me to this decision is that it furnishes me the opportunity to make public acknowledgment of my deep appreciation for the steadfast and unfaltering friendship of the thousands who have made it possible for me to achieve whatever of success has come to me in my long life of struggle. If my life and service have been of value to my people and my country, these friends deserve more of the credit than I would be willing to claim for myself, for without them I should have been helpless. I was born on the fifth day of July, 1873, at the base of Whiteside Mountain, in the southern part of Jackson County, eight miles to the north of the South Carolina and Georgia State lines. I was the youngest child in a family of ten. My father, Col. John H. Alley, was born and reared in Rutherford County, on a farm which included a considerable portion of the present town of Rutherfordton. His father was also named John H. Alley. He came with his father's family from Liverpool, England, when he was but two years of age. They settled in Petersburg, Virginia, and my grand-father, upon reaching his majority, came to Ruther- 2 Random Thoughts and the ford County, where he made his home for the remainder of his life. He married Susan Hampton of Rutherford County, the daughter of Jonathan Hampton, who was the son of Colonel Andrew Hampton. Both father and son were of Revolutionary fame, Andrew Hampton, with Major McDowell and John Sevier, having led one division of the mountain men up one side of King's Mountain in the noted battle of that name. (See Draper's King's Mountain and Its Heroes, Griffin's History of Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties, and "The Battle of King's Mountain", etc., in "Historical Statements" published by the U. S. Government.) Colonel Andrew Hampton was also one of the original signers of the Tryon Declaration of Independence, of August 14, 1775. (See Puett's History of Gaston County, page 104. Griffin's History of Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties, pages 17-18.) My mother's maiden name was Sarah W. Norton, and she was the first white child born in Whiteside Cove, her father, Barak Norton, having been the first pioneer to settle in that section. He came to South Carolina with his father's family from England when he was fourteen years of age. He married Mary Nicholson, who was the daughter of Irish parents, although she was born in South Carolina. This grand-father gave Whiteside Mountain its name, the Indian name of the Mountain being U-na-ka-ka-noos, meaning "White Mountain". As a young man my father was Colonel of the Rutherford County militia, and as such he, with his militia-men, was ordered out, under General Scott to assist in the removal of the Cherokee Indians to the Indian Territory. For the most part this was a wagon-and-horseback proposition, and it required about two years for my father to make the round trip. On his return, stopping at my grand- father's home for the night, my father and my mother met for the first time, and soon thereafter were married. My father then commenced to accumulate mountain land, and continued until he owned a contiguous boun- dary in Whiteside Cove of about seventeen hundred acres. In the meantime he was a volunteer in our War with Mexico, and after the Battle of Chapultepec he was made a Colonel in the United States Army. He had but one brother, Thomas J. Alley, of that part of Rutherford which later became Polk County. They were both opposed to Secession, and both voted against it; but Musings of a Mountaineer 3 when North Carolina seceded these brother came to the sad "part- ing of the ways". My uncle, honestly believing that a State did not have the right to secede from the Union, at once enlisted in the> Union Army and fought therein until the close of the War. My father, on the other hand, believed with equal honesty, that a State had the right to stay in the Union or get out, if it so desired. He maintained that the North had no right to dictate to a Southern State how it should manage its own internal affairs and institutions, and certainly that neither the Government itself, nor any State, had the right under the Constitution, to interfere with the insitu- tion of slavery in a State where slavery existed. Such was the construction which Abraham Lincoln himself placed upon the Constitution; for in a speech in Chicago, on July 10, 1858, he said: "I have said a hundred times, and I have no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the Free States to enter into the Slave States, and interfere with the slavery question at all ... . While we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in the States where it exists, we have no right to interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution; and we are bound by both duty and inclination to stick by the Constitution, in all its letter and spirit, from beginning to end." (See Wannamaker, "The Voice of Lincoln", page 192.) So, immediately after North Carolina voted for Secession my father enlisted in the Confederate Army. After one year of service, on account of a lameness received in the Mexican War, which rendered him unfit for active service as a soldier, Zeb Vance commissioned him Colonel of the Home Guard in Jackson County, and for the remainder of the War it was his duty, among other things, to arrest deserters from both Armies and carry them to prison at Fort Sumter — a service that was even more dangerous than duty in the Army itself, and a service that subjected him to the bitter hatred of the bushwhackers and outlaws who infested the country for some time after the War. Three of my mother's brothers, Confederate soldiers all, were killed in battle, two of them came home after the conflict was ended, but the youngest of her brothers was brutally murdered by Kirk's gang of outlaws, at his own home and in the presence of his wife and children. They attempted to murder my father the same night, and would have succeeded, but for the intervention in his behalf of one of the robber gang whose life my father had saved from the hands of 4 Random Thoughts and the a mob in time of the war. After rescuing him from the mob my father arrested him and carried him to Fort Sumter. This robber was killed by the Home Guard the day following the attempt on my father's life, and he recovered the robber's body from among eighteen others and gave him a decent burial. (See Allen's History of Haywood County, page 348.) Most of the men in the territory of what is now known as the "Carolina Mountains" fought under the Confederate Flag, al- though the "Appalachian Mountains" as a whole furnished two hundred thousand men to the Union Army. Following the Sur- render, and the return of the soldiers, bitterness and disappointment were rampant among the Mountaineers. The feeling was intense everywhere, and the defeat of the Confederacy was the sole topic of discussion on the lips of all. At this time my father received word that his brother, the Union soldier, on his way home, was coming by to visit him. He instructed his family and his friends to make no mention of the War in his brother's presence. He came by and spent three weeks, and the war, and its issues, and its out- come were never mentioned. If they had been mentioned, these men of settled convictions would probably never have been brothers again; but each was willing to concede that the other fought for the principles he believed to be right. Until the day of his death my father never mentioned to any of his sons that his brother had been a Union soldier. We obtained this information from our mother and older sisters, and from Judge Justice of Rutherford County. But permit me to add this: that this uncle, different from most Southerners who served in the Union Army, lived and died a Democrat, and for thirty-six years cast the only Democratic vote that was cast in Pea Ridge Township in Polk County! Although he was advised in his later years that he was entitled to a Federal pension, he refused to apply for it, and one of my brothers, who has now passed away, and I, contributed to his support during his last years on earth. I have thus spoken freely of my people, because so much more can be justly said of them than can be said of me. And though I never had a fight in my life, I have wished it to appear that my people on both sides of the house have been soldiers on every oc- casion when their country and their country's cause needed defense. Several of my nephews saw active service throughout our partici- pation in the World War, and my oldest son was in training when Musings of a Mountaineer 5 the Armistice was signed. And may I say just one more word in this connection? I have always believed that my mother and my five sisters were the most perfect Christians that I have ever known. They had a code and rules of conduct that they lived by every day of their lives, and when their final summons came they were not afraid to die by them. I can say the same of my father. It was said of my mother by the family and her neighbors, many of whom are still living, that she was never known to speak a word of harm of any person. It was her motto and she so advised her children: "If you cannot find something good to say about a person, do not say anything at all." The Christian lives of parents and sisters such as these were an inspiration to me, and from them I learned to respect and reverence every person's religion, whether I agreed with him in all its phases or not. And so, if I were in the wilds of Africa and should see a savage worshipping a snake; or in the forests of India, I should see a Hindu worshipping a Sacred Cow; or if in Peru, I should see a descendant of the Incas worshipping the sun or the Sacred Fire, were it the best they knew I would stand before them with uncovered head, for I know that inherently mankind must worship something. For the first sixteen years of my life I was practically a "house- ridden" invalid. I was born with asthma in its most severe form. The first sixteen years, my life was for the most part a struggle for breath. A hundred nights I have leaned out of an upstairs window in the old home, all night long, in order that I might breathe the pine-scented air blowing gently down from the nearby mountains. I had another affliction. From my earliest recollections, for more than half of my life, until recent years, I suffered peri- odically indescribable pain from sick headaches. This last named affliction has been my greatest drawback in life; for during the attacks, and many days following, I was unfit for physical or mental effort. I recovered from asthma as the result of an attack of whooping cough which lasted less than a week, a vindication of the homeopathic theory that as one poison will counteract the effect of another poison, so one disease will cure another. I cured sick headache by requiring myself to eat a widely varied diet, and by practicing regular habits of eating and sleeping. During these days of my so-called invalidism, I was the general "chore" boy for the family. I would go to mill, drive up the cows to be milked, and perform other services around the farm which 6 Random Thoughts and the did not require such violent physical exertion as would invariably bring on an attack of asthma. This period of my life was during the days when matches were scarce and costly. We usually bought one box a year. They came in round wooden boxes, containing one hundred matches, at the price of fifty cents per box. So if we ran out of matches and happened to let the fire go out, it was usually one of my duties to go to a neighbor's house to "borrow a chunk of fire". Looking back over the years, it seems to me now that I must have walked a hundred miles, ail told, on missions like this. But ail the neighbors were sooner or later guilty of negligence in allowing the fire to go out. We did not have any temples erected to the honor of Vesta in those days, nor Vestal Virgins to keep the fires perpetually burning. During the period about which I am writing, the public school money allotted to our District was sufficient only to employ one teacher for a term of six weeks. Sometimes, but not always, this six weeks term was extended for a month or two by "subscriptions", or contributions of the patrons to be applied on the teacher's salary. When I reached the age of seventeen my father sent me for one full session to the old Cullowhee High School (now Western Carolina Teachers' College) . The school was then starting into the second year of its life, it having been established the year before by Professor Robert L. Madison, a scholarly young man from Virginia. He is now the honored and much beloved President- Emeritus of Western Carolina Teachers' College, into which the old country High School which he established in 1889, has de- veloped. Entering the High School, in which unprepared students could begin at the bottom, I was admitted to the Intermediate Department in August, 1890. My father kept me there throughout the ten months session. He was one of those big-hearted men who could never say "No" to any one needing help, was always on notes and bonds for other people, and when I went home in May, 1891, to assist on the farm, the crash had already overtaken him, a calam- ity which usually overtakes those who pledge their property in this manner. All of his boundary of land was sold at auction, and was purchased by a fine old gentleman by the name of Henry Coons of New York, for whom my father had rendered a service some years before. As soon as the title had been transferred, this generous old gentleman sent down his agreement in writing, therein Musings of a Mountaineer 7 permitting my father and mother to continue to live on and use as their home, this entire property for the remainder of their lives; and this they did. When time came for school the following fall, my father told me that it was utterly impossible for him to send me that year, but that if I could make any arrangements of my own he would bid me God-speed, and help me any way that he could. Accordingly, in August I packed what few clothes and books I had, in my old canvas "telescope" (valise), and in a day walked from the old home all the way to Cullowhee, a distance of twenty-eight miles. Upon my arrival there, Professor Madison, at a sacrifice that I can see more plainly now than then, allowed me the opportunity to go through the entire session, with the payment of tuition deferred until I could earn it after the session had ended. By working evenings and mornings I reduced my board bill, so that for that item and tuition I owed only the sum of $53.00 at the end of the school year; but I had only fifty cents in spending money during the entire session! The following summer after assisting to make and to harvest the crop, I served a surveyor for a while, in the mountains of Macon County. From this work I saved $12.50, and when Christ- mas came I went to Atlanta, Georgia, and worked for a contractor and builder for six months at a wage of one dollar per day; the work consisting of carrying brick and lumber. Here I saved a suf- ficient amount to fully discharge my school debts and to buy a few much-needed clothes. In the meantime my two remaining unmarried brothers took unto themselves wives, and it became necessary for me to go home just at a time when I had arranged to attend a night school in Atlanta, indefinitely. My unmarried sister, a teacher in the Atlanta schools, who had splendid prospects for promotion as a teacher, gave up her profession and came home with me. For three years I operated the old home farm, with a limited supply of stock and tools, but was able to make a comfortable living for all of us. In the meantime I became acquainted with Professor Greer of Erskine College at Abbeville, South Carolina, he having spent the summer in my father's home. He returned to Abbeville and made arrangements for me to get my books free of charge, and a boarding place in the home of an old couple where I could pay my board by looking after their cow, fires, and like S Random Thoughts and the odd jobs, until I finished the four-year college course, with the assurance that during the vacations I could earn ample money for the item of clothing. So here, I was confronted with an alternative choice between a great opportunity and a great privilege — the opportunity to obtain a college education, and the privilege of caring for a grand old father and a saintly mother in their helpless old age. I chose the privilege and declined the opportunity. This ended my hope for a college education; but all through my life from that time on, I have been able to appreciate the truth in the beautiful lines of Walter H. Malone on Opportunity: "They do me wrong who say I come no more, When once I knock and fail to find you in! For every day I stand beside your door, And bid you work, and rise to fight and win. Wail not for precious chances passed away, Weep not for golden ages on the wane! Each night I burn the records of the day — At sunrise every soul is born again. Laugh like a boy at splendors that have fled, To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come. Though deep in mire wring not your hands and weep; I lend my arm to all who say "I can"; No shame- faced outcast ever sank so deep But he might rise and be again a man. Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast? Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow? Then turn from blotted archives of the past And find the future's pages white as snow. Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell! Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven! Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, Each night a Star to guide thy feet to Heaven." Musings of a Mountaineer 9 Now, in order to show that opportunity will not cease to knock at your door, even when he has knocked once and "failed to find you in"; and also to show how the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another; how the simple things, those events which, when standing alone are of but little, if any, significance, but which, when taken together as a connected whole make up the sum of life, it will be necessary to go back several years. When I was eight or nine years of age one of my brothers made for me a banjo, using for his material a cheese hoop, a tanned ground-hog skin, and wood that he worked into shape with knife and drawing knife, for the banjo's neck. We made the strings of "J. & P. Coat's Spool Cotton", by twisting strands of thread into the properly varying sizes, and then waxing them with home made beeswax. When the banjo was finished I soon learned to play on it, not only hymns, but all the old mountain melodies that I had ever heard; and for years, being the only person in that area who could play the banjo, I made the music for the mountain dances in my own section and in the adjoining Counties, not only in this State, but, on occasion, in South Carolina and Georgia. There came a time when quite a flood deluged our mountain valleys. There were no bridges spanning our streams. Co-incident with this disaster a man by the name of Childs, and his sister, both of New York City, were water-bound at my father's home for several days. One day this gentleman saw my banjo and asked what it was, and I told him, it being the only banjo I had ever seen up to that time. He asked me to play for him. I told him I had a broken string, but that I could soon make another one. I asked my mother for some thread from her sewing basket, and then from a spool of "J. & P. Coats" I made and waxed a string and played for the gentleman all the tunes I knew. When I had finished he asked to see the thread. He then said: "I own the majority of the stock in the Company that makes this thread. I knew that it was good for many things, but did not know before that it was good for making banjo strings. When I return to New York I shall send you the best set of banjo strings that I can find in the City." Upon his return he sent me, not only many sets of strings, but a very expensive banjo, the best one in fact that I have ever seen. It was after this that I commenced playing for the 10 Random Thoughts and the mountain dances. At that time the "Trade-mark" for this thread, which was seen posted on the store fronts, trees, and other public places, had on it the picture of a barefooted boy standing on a brook-side, fishing with a line made of this thread. Printed on the sign were the words, "J. & P. Coats' Spool Cotton is strong." A few months after my receiving the banjo from Mr. Chiids he wrote me that he had induced his Board of Directors to change the picture on their advertisement, and soon thereafter was seen posted on the store fronts and other public places the same ad- vertisement as before, but with the picture of a barefooted boy playing a banjo with strings made of J. & P. Coats' Spool Cotton. Now, in order to satisfy the hundreds who are continually writing me about it and asking for copies of it, I will here tell the story of my banjo ballad, "Kidder Cole." Is was composed when I was sixteen years of age. It was my first, last and only attempt at poetry, and of course there is not a line of poetry in it. Except for the fact that Miss Cole did not "change her name to Alley", the ballad speaks for itself, and adheres rather closely to the facts as they occurred. The ballad has been sung over the radio from various stations for many years. It is sung and played with banjo accompaniment wherever the mountain melodies are used. The ballad, and various stories as to its origin have often appeared in many of the daily newspapers and magazines, and the ballad itself has been included in several different editions of "Folk Songs". Let it be here under- stood, however, that all this has been without my knowledge or procurement. Like all songs that are handed around by word of mouth, many words, and sometimes whole lines of the ballad, have been changed. After writing the ballad, I composed (by ear) the music or melody to which the words are sung. When I have heard it over the radio I have observed no change in the tune or melody, although some of the words were slightly varied. In its issue of October 10, 1936, The State Magazine, of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried the story and the correct version of my ballad, the story having been written by one of its reporters, John A. Parris, Jr., formerly of Jackson County, and now a War corre- spondent in Europe. Mr. Parris published his article and the ballad without my knowledge. I here quote the lines as they appear in the magazine: Musings of a Mountaineer 11 "My name is Felix Eugene Alley, My best girl lives in Cashiers Valley; She's the joy of my soul And her name is Kidder Cole. I don't know — it may have been chance, 'Way last fall when I went to a dance, I planned to dance with Kidder the live-long night But I got my time beat by Charlie Wright. So, if I ever have to have a fight, I hope it will be with Charlie Wright, For he was the ruin of my soul When he beat my time with Kidder Cole. When the dance was over I went away To bide my time till another day, When I could cause trouble and pain and blight To sadden the soul of Charlie Wright. I thought my race was almost run When Kidder went off to Anderson; She went to Anderson to go to school, And left me at home to act the fool. But she came back the following spring, And Oh, how I made my banjo ring; It helped me to get my spirit right, To beat the time of Charlie Wright. Kidder came home the first of June, And I sang my song and played my tune; I commenced trying with all my might To 'put one over' on Charlie Wright. I did not feel the least bit shy, On the Fourth of the next July, When at the head of a big delegation I went to attend the big Celebration. 12 Random Thoughts and the When the speaking was over we had a dance, And then and there I found my chance To make my peace with Kidder Cole, And beat Charlie Wright; confound his soul! Charlie came in an hour or so, But when he saw me with Kidder he turned to go Back to his home with a saddened soul, For I'd beat his time with Kidder Cole. I've always heard the old folks say That every dog will have his day; And now all of Charlie's joy has passed For IVe succeeded in beating him at last. Oh, my sweet little Kidder girl! You make my head to spin and whirl, I am yours and you are mine, As long as the sun and stars shall shine. Oh, yesy my Kidder Cole is sweet, And it won't be long till we shall meet, At her home in Cashiers Valley Where she'll change her name to Alley. I like her family as a whole, But I'm especially fond of George M. Cole; I believe I shall like to call him *paw' When I get to be his son-in-law. Some of her folks I don't like so well, But I may some time, for who can tell? And after all between me and you I'm not marrying the whole durned crew." I will say here that Charlie Wright whose name appears in the foregoing lines is the same man who performed the heroic and miraculous feat of rescuing Baty from the brink of a two thousand foot precipice on Whiteside Mountain, a full account of which Musings of a Mountaineer 13 appears in this Volume in Chapter XXVI, at pages 490, and following. Soon after I declined the opportunity for the college course at Abbeville, I "swapped", or exchanged, my banjo for two books, a small volume of General History, and a book of speeches — political, legal, educational and religious. These speeches were not only eloquent, but were packed with learning on a wide range of sub- jects. I read and studied them during every spare hour, and the more I read them the more intense became my yearning for a more thorough education, and they became the greatest incentive and inspiration of my life. It had been the great desire of my mother and father, and in fact of the whole family, that I should be given the advantages of a college education. This was now out of the question; but it was determined that I must at least finish the High School Course at Cullowhee. So after arranging with a young colored man to stay at home to do the outside work for my sister, when the last of the crops had been harvested in the late fall I loaded an ox wagon with bedding, a few cooking utensils, and an abundance of home-grown provisions of every kind. I went to Cullowhee, rented a small one room cabin on a mountain-side more than a mile from the school, and became my own cook, laundryman, and house-keeper for a period of six months; and I not only kept up with my classes, but made up for the months I had missed by having to start so long after the session had begun. I went home before the end of the session in time to put in and culti- vate a crop; and the next year I went back to school in the same way. In the meantime my sister married and her husband was good enough to live at the old home place for a year or two; so this made it possible for me to remain in school to the end of the session, and to graduate with the class of 1896. It was my father's earnest wish that at least one of his boys should become a lawyer. The idea did not appeal to any of my four older brothers. My father had studied law as a young man. He was for some time Tax Collector in Rutherford County. He spent his spare time studying law. There were no railroads, and about four times a year he had to make a horseback trip to Raleigh to carry the tax money to the State Treasury. On his return trips he would come by Judge Pearson's home, "Richmond Hill" on the Yadkin, go over what he had read for the preceding three months, 14 Random Thoughts and the and have his reading assigned for the succeeding three months. He never did practice, but he was one of the Justices of the old Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions of Jackson County from the time of the organization of the County in 1851, until the adoption of the Constitution of 1868. The ablest lawyers in the western part of the State practiced in that Court. Men like Michael Francis, the Davidsons, the Averys, and others. I have heard men of the former generation, like Judge George A. Jones, General Theodore Davidson, and others, say that they had never talked with any lawyer who had a greater grasp and knowledge of the fundamental principles of the law than my father had. So, it was determined that I should at least have my chance to study law. I managed to borrow three hundred dollars on long time — a sum which I thought might be sufficient to pay for a one year course at the State University. I went there in the Fall of 1897, and pursued the course until I had passed my examinations on the first and second books of Blackstone. My mother became very sick at this time, and I came home and remained with her until she recovered. My money was exhausted, and I could not go in debt further, so all hope of further study in a law school was abandoned. My father advised me that the next best law school was the office of Clerk of the Superior Court; and in the spring of 1898 I entered the lists as a candidate for the nomination. At first I had four opponents, but one by one they withdrew, and I received the nomination by acclamation. The County was Republican at the time, but I managed to squeeze through by a majority of fifty- seven votes. In order that I might hold the office after I had won it, one of my brothers left his own farm and came to the old home to live for a year or so. He had to leave to take a position in another County, and another brother left his own farm and lived with our parents for the remainder of their lives. I can say with truth that all of us considered it a privilege, and not a burden, to do all we could for our parents in their helpless old age; and each one of us tried to do more than any of the others. During my term of office I continued my legal studies at night without an instructor, and upon the expiration of my term I suc- cessfully passed the examination and received my license to practice law. After standing my examination before the Supreme Court at Raleigh I had some very interesting experiences before reaching Musings of a Mountaineer 15 home. At the time I stood my examination I had a wife and two children. I had a home at Webster, but I owed Five Hundred Dollars. So I had barely enough money for the trip to Raleigh, including the fee of $23.50 for my license. My wife had cooked for me a box of provisions, which had saved the outlay of any considerable amount of money for my meals. On the return trip my train was delayed for several hours on account of a wreck in front of us; so when I reached Asheville I found that my train to Dillsboro had left several hours before. This made it necessary for me to spend the night in Asheville. I knew of a place near Pack Square, at least two miles from the railroad, where I could get lodging for fifty cents. I counted my money (I had a return ticket) and found that I had sixty cents left. This was enough to pay for my lodging, and for street car fare one way, with still a nickle left for a cup of coffee the following morning. I had carried with me to Raleigh all the law books required in the course of study. I am sure they would have weighed at least fifty pounds. I carried this load of books from the station to my lodging place two miles away, ate for my supper the remnants of the food my wife had prepared for me, paid fifty cents for my lodging, five cents for car fare to the station the next morning, and five cents for a cup of coffee. I rode to Dillsboro on my return ticket and then walked the four miles to Webster, carrying my fifty pounds of law books. When my license came a week later I rented a little office in the Courthouse at Webster. It was situated under the stairway which led up to the Court room. The room was about eight by ten feet in size with two windows. Most of the books which I had used in preparation for the ex- amination had been borrowed. After returning them I had five books of my own — Blackstone's Commentaries, Clark on Contracts, Clark on Corporations, Clark's Code of Civil Procedure, and Sims' North Carolina Forms. I procured an empty goods box that exactly fitted one of the windows, and when I had placed my law library of five books on this improvised shelf I found that they filled one third of the space; and it was my greatest ambition at that time to fill that shelf with law books. Thus equipped, I hung out my shingle, and announced to the world and to all who had law suits that if they would bring their cases to me they could get them tried. My first practice was before Judge W. A. Hoke — May God 16 Random Thoughts and the rest his noble soul! I appeared in thirteen misdemeanor cases, and with Judge Hoke's timely assistance I won eleven of them. From that time forth until the day I went on the Bench I had all the practice that I could attend to properly, which made it possible for me to own, at the time I went on the Bench, a law library of some two thousand volumes and a private library of more than a thousand volumes. Among my first cases was one in which I defended our old family darky, "Uncle"' Jordan Prater. He was working for my father-in- law when my wife was a baby, and when we married Jordan came to us and remained with us till he died some twenty years later. I was not at home when he died, but his devotion and fidelity to my wife and children had been such, that as I now recall, it con- sumed about all the money I was able to save for the next two or three years to defray the funeral expenses of that loyal servant. He was indicted for disturbing a meeting at the colored church; hence his need of my legal aid. The principal witness against him was "Uncle" Major Wells, a fine old-time darky who had gone clear through the Civil War by his master's side. "Uncle" Major was inclined to indulge in big words. When I took him on cross- examination I asked him: " 'Uncle' Major, what did 'Uncle' Jordan do when he came into the church?" "Uncle" Major replied: "Well, suh, when I first Vision Brudder Jordan he was perabu- latin' down the aisle, gesticulatin' a knife in his hand wid a long open blade in it." I then asked: "Was 'Uncle* Jordan saying any- thing?" "Uncle" Major replied: "Yas-suh, he say, Widen, Nig- gers'!" I next asked: "When 'Uncle' Jordan told them to 'widen' what did they do?" "Uncle" Major, with a very serious look on his face, said: "Dey widen!" After the witness had graphically de- scribed how some of them went out head first through the windows, with a majority of them crowding toward the door, I inquired: "What did the preacher say, if anything?" "Uncle" Major replied: "He say, 'damn a church dat ain't got but one do'!" Many years later I had another experience with "Uncle" Major. His son came over to Haywood County to work at a sawmill. In a few days he got into a row with a colored man from West Virginia and killed him. "Uncle" Major came over and employed me to defend his boy. I did my best both in the trial and in my speech to the jury. In my speech I paid a high tribute to "Uncle" Major, which I could see that he greatly enjoyed. After the Judge had Musings of a Mountaineer 17 charged the jury a lawyer- friend of mine was walking up the street, and as he passed a group of negroes they appeared to be in a heated discussion as to who was the ablest lawyer attending that term of Court. Opinion was widely divided, and heatedly con- tested. Finally "Uncle" Major arose in all his dignity and said: "Gemmuns, I'se got nothing to say dat could be residered harmful to any of de gemmuns you alls has been recussing. But I'se done been waiting on all de Judges and lawyers dat come to Leather- wood's Hotel at Webster for night on to fifty years; and I tells you now dat dis here Mr. Felix Alley sho' is de bes' nigger lawyer dat attends dese Co'ts!'" "Uncle" Major's confidence in me reminds me of the faith which Uncle Rastus had in his lawyer. Uncle Rastus was indicted for stealing chickens. He was defended by a young lawyer fresh from college, who made a most eloquent speech in behalf of his client. After he was acquitted Uncle Rastus went to his lawyer's office to thank him. His lawyer said: "Uncle Rastus, I got you out of your trouble and did not charge you a fee. Now I want you to tell me the truth. Did you steal those chickens?" Uncle Rastus scratched his head, walled his eyes, and replied: "Well, Boss, at de first start I wuz inclined to de 'pinion dat I did 'liminate dem chickens; but after listenin' to your speech my min' is full of reasonable doubts. I now doubts whedder I was any ways nigh dat chicken roos'!" Two years after settling at Webster I was nominated by accla- mation for the Legislature and was elected. In 1910 I was elected Solicitor of my District. I did not ask for a second term. In 1913 I moved to Waynesville where I have since resided. From the time I ran for Clerk of the Superior Court, up to and including the campaign of 1932, I actively engaged in every speaking campaign at my own expense, and I have tried to uphold the banner of my party in most of the Counties of the State, and in some other States as well. At no time in my life have I ever learned or played games of any character. I have found more pleasure and profit in devoting every spare hour to reading and study; and in this way I have sought to make up for the lack of college training. I engaged actively in the practice of law from the time I re- ceived my North Carolina license until January, 1933, when Governor Ehringhaus tendered me the appointment to the Superior Court Bench of my District, to fill a two year vacancy caused 18 Random Thoughts and the by the death of Judge Walter E. Moore. I had not sought the appointment, and had not asked for an endorsement, although I was later told by Governor Ehringhaus himself that I had a splendid endorsement sent in voluntarily by many of my friends, by way of telegram, letter and petition. Two years later I was nominated for the full judicial term by an average majority of more than a thousand votes for each of the seven Counties com- posing my District. I had served in the Legislature with Governor Ehringhaus in 1905, so it was a great pleasure to me to support him actively when he became a candidate for Governor in 1932. I virtually closed my office for weeks, and in his behalf I visited about all the Counties west of the Blue Ridge. It was a labor of love on my part, and it never occurred to me that I would ever seek, or that I would ever receive, the appointment to the high office to which he elevated me. In fact the vacancy did not occur until six or seven months after he was nominated; and the appoint- ment having been altogether voluntary on his part, it was the more deeply appreciated by me. I doubt if any State in our Union has ever had a grander galaxy of statesmen to fill the exalted office of Governor than North Carolina has had all the way from Charles B. Aycock to J. Melvin Broughton inclusive. In my sincere opinion none has filled that position with greater dignity, grace, and ability than J. C. B. Ehringhaus. If it shall be said that I am a biased witness, I plead guilty to "the soft impeachment". But with confi- dent assurance I point to the record, knowing full well that my assertion cannot be successfully gainsaid. Let us see. Governor Gardner, himself a great Governor, had the misfortune to inherit the depression of 1929, with all its devastating consequences; and without any fault of his, our State had a deficit, toward the close of his administration, of some twelve to fourteen million dollars. Our creditors in New York were threatening to declare a default, and to my own knowledge Governor Ehringhaus made two or three trips to New York to plead for time, assuring these creditors that their securities would be paid. And they were paid, and the honor and the integrity of North Carolina were saved; and, from that time on, northern capital has eagerly sought investment in North Carolina securities at the lowest rate of interest ever known. Governor Ehringhaus was called upon to make many decisions which required courage of the highest order. He solved every problem wisely and well. Our schools did not close for a day. Our Musings of a Mountaineer 19 teachers were promptly paid. The State moved forward in every line of its activities, and Governor Ehringhaus turned the State over to his successor in the most prosperous condition that it had ever enjoyed in its entire history. I acknowledge my gratitude to him. He gave me the greatest opportunity for usefulness that I have ever had. I believe that no official in our State Government is clothed with graver responsibilities and greater power for the ac- complishment of good than the Superior Court Judge. And I do know that all through the western half of the State there are scores of boys to whom I have given another chance who are today on the high road to successful and useful lives. I do know that I have seen heaven shining in many a mother's eyes when I have "tempered justice with mercy" in the judgments that I have pronounced upon her boy. And I also know that during my more than eight years of service on the Superior Court Bench I have never exhibited the slightest impatience toward any person who sought a hearing of his grievances in my Courts; and up to now I have never spoken an unkind, abrupt, or discourteous word to any lawyer, officer, party, witness, juror, or any one else in any Court over which I have presided. Among all civilized people courtesy is current coin always and everywhere. Savage tribes appreciate it, and even the dull, dumb beasts recognize it. I believe in the gospel of sunshine and the religion of kindness. They are the essence of the Golden Rule, the hand-maiden of love. It is just as easy to be kind as to be otherwise. It costs nothing, and it makes all of us feel so much better. Without it no association can be pleasant, no home can be happy, and no Court can properly function. Among my acquaintances I recognize no enemies. If I have any they stand alone in that capacity, and our feelings cannot be mutual. From the time I first engaged in professional life, I have made it a rule, each night before permitting myself to go to sleep, to look back over the events of the day in order that I may recall whether any thing has occurred that I should forget and forgive. Such is my philosophy of life. My wife has remained at home and toiled incessantly in the rearing of our children, so that I might go out into the world and seek such opportunities as were within my reach. She and my hosts of friends have made it possible for me to achieve whatever of success I have enjoyed. They have made it possible for me to give to my four children a better chance in life than I have had — the 20 advantage of a college education such as I yearned for but could not have. They have made it possible for me to give my three boys their legal education in the best law schools in the State; and I have been permitted to live to see them enter the noble profession of the law, which I love so much, with success within their reach, and waiting only for them to reach out and grasp it. And so, the dark clouds pass; but the blue sky abides forever. Oh, yes; I owe a debt to my friends that can never be repaid. "The monarch may forget the crown That on his head so late hath been; The bridegroom may forget the bride Was made his own but yester e'en; The mother may forget the babe That smiled so sweetly on her knee; But I cannot forget my friends, And all that they have done for me." CHAPTER II. AT THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION OF 1912. And he was called the friend of God. James 2: 23. On the 6th day of June, 1912, in response to his written request, I delivered in Raleigh, North Carolina, the only nominating speech for Hon. Locke Craig for Governor. The speech was published in the leading daily papers of the State. The following is the report of the speech as it appeared in the Asheville Citizen, June 7, 1912: "MEMORABLE SCENE ENACTED AT RALEIGH'S AUDITORIUM WHEN FAVORITE SON IS PRESENTED Ex-Governor Glenn introduced Francis D. Winston, the per- manent Chairman, who discussed Democracy's prospects for success at the polls next November, and declared his purpose to rule the Convention in a fair and impartial manner. Ex-Governor Glenn moved the nomination for the Gubernatorial office at 3:50, and Hon. Felix E. Alley of Jackson County was introduced to nominate Honorable Locke Craig of Buncombe County. Mr. Alley, who was received with cheers, said: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention: A few weeks ago a great throng of people assembled in this hall to drop a tear and pay the last tribute of respect to North Carolina's most distinguished statesman and best loved citizen. When the news flashed across the State that Governor Aycock was dead, the hearts of our whole people, without regard to party, or race, or condition, were robed in sorrow as they had been at no other time since the death of the great Vance. After serving with distinguished ability in the councils of his country for more than half a century, our great Governor has descended to his last resting place in the City of the Dead, and his manly form is wrapped today in the cold embrace of the tomb. That magic voice which so often thrilled the hearts of his admiring listeners is hushed today in the stillness of the eternal silence. The 22 Random Thoughts and the multitude shall no longer hang spell-bound on his impassioned words, and never again will our souls be uplifted at the sight of his inspired and noble face. Never again will our people be instructed by the outpourings of his profound intellect, matured as it was by his long experience, and enriched by copious streams from the fountains of knowledge. The products of his great and cultivated mind and the wonderful results of his well-spent life are all that remain to us of that kingly man. But the world rolls on, and nature loses none of its charms. The grass loses none of its freshness. The sun still shines with undiminished splendor and the flowers of spring still come to fill the air with fragrance. Nature, untouched by human woe, prescribes the immutable law of Providence that decay always follows growth, and that He who takes away never fails to give. I have been commissioned by the Democratic Party of Western North Carolina to present this assembled host of Democratic rep- resentatives, as your candidate for Governor, a man who we con- fidently believe more nearly than any other, is capable and worthy of taking the place of our great ex-Governor, not only in the coun- cils of his country, but in the love and esteem of his countrymen. I know it is customary in a nominating speech that something be said in detail of the character, achievements, and attainments of the man to be named. But what can I tell you of the man whose name I shall presently mention that is not already known? Who is un- acquainted with his great services to his party and his State? Where is the man who does not know that he has already done enough and done it well enough to win for him the everlasting gratitude of the people of North Carolina? For twenty-five years and more, in all the political storms that have swept over this State he has stood upon the field of battle among the leaders of the Democratic hosts, presenting the gospel of Democracy with the zeal of an apostle, without reward, except that reward which comes from the consciousness of duty nobly dis- charged. But I do not present his claims to you upon the ground of party service. The Democratic Party does not owe him one single cent. True it is, that through all these years, like the spring that gushes out of the mountainside and pours forth unceasingly its life giving fluid, this patriotic, unselfish man has devoted the prime of his splendid manhood to the service of the Democratic Party. With him it has been a labor of love, for he is one of those who believe Musings of a Mountaineer 23 that it is the duty of every citizen to devote to his country's service the talents that Almighty God has given him. But I do insist that the Democratic Party owes it to itself and to the people whose destinies have been committed to its keeping to make grateful and substantial recognition of its workers who have grown gray in its service. I do insist that if public office should ever be bestowed as a reward for public service, no man more than he deserves this reward. If 'public office is a public trust', then into no safer hands can be committed this the greatest trust in the gift of the people of North Carolina. If public office was created for the welfare of the whole people, then under his leadership we may confidently hope and expect to carry out all the great policies for which the Demo- cratic Party stands. No man in North Carolina is better fitted for this great task. He believes sincerely in the principles of the Demo- cratic Party, and he has always sought, and, as Governor of this State he will continue to promote, what he conceives to be the public good by placing its measures and its men in control of the Government under which he lives. As an orator he has had no superior, and but few, if any, equals in the entire history of the State. With a self-possession never for a moment disturbed; with a mental concentration which no excite- ment can shake; with a will that never falters, and a courage that never fails; with a voice, rich, musical, and resonant, sounding forth like a bugle-call to action, or modulated into the soft seductive notes of the flute, wooing the affection, — with all these gifts and attainments has he won enduring fame! But while he is a Democrat, loyal and enthusiastic, and is devoted to every principle for which his party stands, yet his respect for opposing opinions is so gentle, and his manner of meeting them in discussion is so free from bitterness, that prejudice melts away in his presence and leaves his hearers with unbiased minds to weigh his clear and forcible arguments. And it has been this disposition, dealing justly with opposing views, his zeal tempered with respect for his adversary, as well as his splendid ability and his superb eloquence, that have made him a guilding power, and, for all these years, the recognized leader of the Democratic Party in Western North Carolina. But behind the orator is the man, with a spotless character and a noble soul, firm in his adherence to principle, un- swerving in his ideas of the right, and devoted in his observance of the rules which guide the good citizen in private life; and it is 24 Random Thoughts and the traits like these shining out like stars, over the pathway of his life, that fill the hearts of his friends and followers with abundant pride and joy today. Perhaps his greatest service to the State, in any single instance, was the magnificent fight he made in behalf of the Constitutional Amendment. It is well known that this measure was unpopular in the West. We knew nothing of the evils of negro domination. We had never been threatened with its dangers and its curses. But in that dark and doubtful hour, his voice was the first to rise above the storm, and in all the Counties of the West he sounded to our people the note of danger and alarm. He told us that the adoption of the Amendment would result in the temporary defeat of the Demo- cratic Party in our Western Counties. But he told us that our brothers in the East were in distress; he told us that the white womanhood of Eastern Carolina was in peril; and with their ears attuned to the musical touch of his eloquence, the chivalry and manhood of the mountaineers were aroused, and the whole State heard their answer as it echoed through the hills. And as he foresaw and foretold, the flag of the Democratic Party in the Western Counties went down in defeat, but the banner of white supremacy and white man's government was planted where it will wave tri- umphantly for a thousand years. And I stand in this magnificent presence, without the fear of successful contradiction from any quarter, and assert that this man did more for the success of that wise measure than any other man in North Carolina, living or dead. And I shall prove my assertion by testimony which no man will dare impeach, and which no man can dispute without sacrilege. Governor Aycock, in presenting him to the State Convention at Charlotte four years ago, and referring to the speech which he heard him make when opening the campaign at Laurinburg in 1898, used these words: "From that hour I never doubted for one moment the redemption of North Carolina, and her restoration to decent, orderly, and economic government. Until the great victory in November, 1898, this young man never ceased his labors. From Currituck to Cherokee he carried his message of courage and hope, nor did he stop his work with the election; for the people of his County, filled with his enthusiasm, awakened by his cry of alarm and shouting that the cause of New Hanover and Craven is the cause of Buncombe, sent him to the Legislature, where with wisdom, zeal and untiring energy he labored with his Musings of a Mountaineer 25 fellow-workers until the Constitutional Amendment had been for- mulated and submitted to the people. When this was done, he was the first to take up the task of making clear to the people the provisions of that wise Act, and from one end of North Carolina to the other, but particularly in the mountains, where the evil of negro domination was not so well known, he labored unceasingly until 50,000 majority of the people of the State had forever settled the race issue and made good government possible for all time to come. He had won that election before I commenced my campaign". So, my friends, when the question shall be asked who is the man that did most for the success of the Constitutional Amendment, from the portals of high Heaven the answer will come ringing down to us in the language of our sainted ex-Governor, "Locke Craig is the man!" Four years ago his friends sought for him the nomination for Governor of this State. We believed that by virtue of his distin- guished and unrewarded service he deserved the recognition we sought. We believed that, in view of the past history of our section of the State, we had the right to ask this recognition at the hands of the Democratic Party. We believed then, and we believe now, and we shall always believe, that he was then, and that he still is, the peer of any man who ever held that high office. The convention came, and for days and nights the contest was waged; but at the last the banner of our great leader went down wet with our tears. Then when the memorable contest was ended, true to his noble magnanimity and true to the past history of his unselfish life, he came before that great convention and, in a speech whose beauty and eloquence and pathos melted a thousand strong men to sobs, placed the laurel wreath of honor upon the brow of his successful opponent. But, my friends, with the feeling of pain and disappointment in the hearts of his friends, there was mingled a feeling of pride and of exceeding great joy. It is said that when the Hebrew children were cast into the furnace with its seven- fold heat, there appeared to the astonished gaze of the Babylonish King another form, of celestial aspect, walking with them in the midst of the flames and comforting them in their fiery afflictions. And when the smoke of the great convention cleared away, we beheld Locke Craig still standing erect, *a sovereign among his peers', his garments un- scorched, without even the smell of fire, still wearing on his brow 26 Random Thoughts and the the ineffaceable impress of a clean, honest, and upright man, and on his breast the white rose of an unselfish, blameless, and noble life. And scarcely were the tumultuous echoes of that convention hushed until the music of his eloquence was mingling with the music of the waters of the mountain streams; for within less than two weeks, in my own County of Jackson, he made the first speech delivered by any man in the campaign of 1908. And from there he went to all the Counties of the mountains and appealed to his friends not to allow their disappointment over his defeat to make them less eager for the triumph of Democratic principles. He told us that men will jrise and fall like leaves before the wind when it whirls through the forest on its way to meet the roar of the climbing waves as they rise up from the sea; but he likewise told us that the principles of the Democratic Party are as eternal and unchanging as the granite in our everlasting hills, and it was for these principles that he spoke. Throughout that great campaign this magnificent man, whose great heart has ever throbbed with a greater and intenser love for his party and his State than for his own personal interests, triumph, and promotion, this great Apostle of Democracy, whose lips the Almighty has touched with an eloquence irresistible in its power to stir the souls of North Carolinians as no other living man can stir them, went from the remotest section of the mountains to the shores of the sea, and always and everywhere he appealed to his friends to give their loyal support to the Democratic ticket, of which his successful opponent, Hon. W. W. Kitchin, was the head. And I am sure, my friends, that no one here or elsewhere, will dis- pute the statement that Governor Kitchin had no more loyal sup- porters in that campaign than the men who fought and were willing to bleed and die for Locke Craig in that great contest. From that day to this, he has gone on and on, irradiating his pathway with the splendor of his genius until today everywhere within the borders of our commonwealth he is hailed as the un- crowned chieftain of the North Carolina Democracy. I have often stood upon the majestic mountains of my County and from their lofty and dizzy heights beheld the indescribable glory of the sunrise. And, standing there, I have seen the dark storm clouds gather, and watched the lightning flash, and listened to the deafening roar of the musketry of the winds and the artillery of the skies. And then I have seen the clouds break way and dis- Musings of a Mountaineer 27 appear, leaving the heavens ablaze with the varying hues of God's beautiful Rainbow of Promise, which throughout all the ages has caused the glad heart of humanity to beat with quick pulsations of hope. Four years ago when we failed to secure for our great leader the nomination for Governor, the dark clouds of gloom, for a time, cast their shadows upon the hearts of tens of thousands of as loyal Democrats as ever lived. We were saddened but not disheartened; we were disappointed but not discouraged; but with love and devotion for him like unto that which inspired the "Old Guard of France" to follow the great Napoleon to victory or the grave, we resolved that we would never cease to stand by him, and fight for him, until we had achieved for him the richest rewards and the highest honors and the proudest distinctions that abide within the gift of the people of his native State. And we come here today, my friends, no longer in supplication; we come no longer in tears, except the unbidden tears of gratitude; we come rather to glory in the fulfillment of a long cherished hope, with the light of triumph on our faces and a song of victory in our hearts. We come de- voutly thankful to Almighty God that the sun has risen again; that the clouds have been dispelled; that the Bow of Promise has re- appeared, and that the Star of Hope beckons the land of the moun- tains — the Country of Vance, to return once more to its own. We come rejoicing in the knowledge that our gallant leader, by his unprecedented loyalty, by his sublime patriotism, by his distin- guished and long-continued service to his party and his State, as well as by the force of his great genius and the splendor of his fame, has challenged the admiration and won the esteem and compelled the support of every Democrat in the State. Each and all have com- missioned you to come here today to carry out their decree that Locke Craig shall be the next Governor of North Carolina. War has its heroes, and when men fight under the banner of a righteous cause, glory's chaplets fitly mark their tombs. Poets may compete for fame, and when their lines convey messages of truth and right, they may justly claim the laurels that they win. Wealth may bring renown when justly won and nobly used, and hard earned gold may keep fame's beacon burning brightly when no breath of shame shall rise to blow it out. But far greater is the honor, and more lasting is the renown, of the man who, without reward or the promise of reward, has devoted the best years of his 28 Random Thoughts and the life to the cause of good government; for the fruits of his service shall be reaped by all the people, the unlettered and the learned, the rich and the poor, alike. On the enduring granite of an unselfish devotion and patriotic service has Locke Craig founded the citadel of his fame, and I predict that, as Governor of this State, he will write his name in letters more enduring than brass or marble upon the hearts and in the memory of the people whom he has ever delighted to serve. Such is the character, such is the history, and such are the at- tainments of the man whom the Democracy of the mountains presents to the Democracy of the State as its candidate for Governor in this good Democratic year of 1912. And I rejoice that he is to be Governor now in the noontide of our State's fair promise. I rejoice that he is to be Governor of this State at a time when a thousand ships are plying her harbors and sounds, and when ten thousand trains are daily hastening across her borders freighted with the fruits of our peoples' toil and thrift; at a time when every rising sun shines upon the foundation of a new schoolhouse, and sheds its parting rays upon the last touch of paint on one that day completed; at a time when by the recognition and promulgation of the great Democratic doctrine of "Equal rights to all and special privileges to none", the door of Hope and of equal Opportunity stands open wide to all the people of the State. He loves every inch of North Carolina's historic soil from where she pillows her lovely head upon the bosom of her own majestic mountains to where she bathes her shapely feet in the rolling surf of the sea. He loves her people; he loves their traditions and he loves their history, and, under his wise and masterly leadership, these people for whom he has wrought so faithfully and mightily in the past, will be led onward and upward into that grander and more glorious destiny that awaits them. And now, in the name of every Democrat in the State; in the name of every man, woman, and child in Western North Carolina; in the name of that fair land that gave Zeb Vance to North Carolina and the world, I pledge you that when the impartial historian of the future shall come to write the history of this great commonwealth, high up on the scroll of fame and renown, beside the names of the immortal Vance, the peerless Aycock, and the revered Jarvis, the "noblest Roman of them all", he will write another name that will blaze with equal splendor; the name of the Musings of a Mountaineer 29 peerless and idolized tribune of the mountain people — our own beloved Locke Craig! Gentlemen of the Convention, the distinguished honor has been conferred upon me to present to you as your candidate for Gover- nor, that able lawyer, that wise statesman, that matchless orator, that Christian gentleman, that knightly, magnificent man, Locke Craig of North Carolina. Mr. Alley's speech, which was a splendid and superb effort, was frequently interrupted with enthusiastic cheering and applause. On the speaker's first reference to Mr. Craig, the entire Bun- combe delegation and the delegations from the other Western Counties, rose and cheered for several minutes. At the conclusion of Mr. Alley's speech, it was moved that Honorable Locke Craig be nominated by acclamation. The motion was carried with loud cheering, preceding a remarkable demonstration." A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF JUDGE JAMES L. WEBB In the busy and rushing scenes of life, it is well, now and then, for us to forget the pressing cares and duties of the hour, and pause long enough to pay a tribute and drop a tear to the memory of those who have fallen asleep by the wayside. I undertake to say that when on the first day of October, 1930, the announcement of Judge James L. Webb's death was flashed over the wires, the people of North Carolina, without regard to party or creed, with an unbroken and overwhelming voice, testified one to another that we had lost our best loved public man. His continuous service on the Superior Court Bench for more than a quarter of a century had been rendered in every County of the State, and he was perhaps the best known man in North Caro- lina. I believe that few men knew him more intimately than I did, and I am quite certain that no man honored and loved him more. It was my proud privilege, once as Solicitor, and three times as an Attorney in private practice, to ride with him the Twentieth Ju- dicial District, embracing the seven Counties west of Buncombe. Commencing in 1911, and from time to time through the passing years, it was my good fortune to appear in his Courts in many important causes, a number of them involving the awful issues of 30 Random Thoughts and the life and death. I have heard him try causes presenting every phase of legal controversy that comes up for solution in North Carolina Courts of Justice; I have seen every variety of interest pressed upon his judgment; I have heard the most intricate questions of law presented for the analysis of his great mind; I have seen a Bar, the equal I believe, of any in North Carolina, cross their swords in many a hard fought contest in his presence; and then I have seen the wise and learned Judge ascend to the seat of judgment, poise the scales with an even hand, and then, actuated by a single purpose to pursue the right under all circumstances, and blind to everything but the inward light of an enlightened conscience, measure out equal and exact justice between man and man. I have often heard him say that he believed in the maxims of common sense, and he always brought them to bear in the discharge of his judicial duties. In the Courthouse he had no friends to reward, and no enemies to punish. He knew human nature and the heights to which it can aspire and the depths to which it can descend. His great heart throbbed in sympathy with the lowly and the un- fortunate; he could always find an excuse for the erring, and he carried with him a mantle of charity for frailty. Who, having heard him sentence a youthful criminal, has not been thrilled and up- lifted by the expression of compassion and pity on his kindly face? At such times I have seen him pause for minutes before pronouncing judgment, with a far-away look in his eyes, seeking support and guidance, no doubt, from the Source and Fountain of all Wisdom; and I have thought that he may have heard a Voice we could not hear whispering to him the words spoken from a Cross in far-otf Jerusalem, more than nineteen centuries ago: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." It must be so, for I have heard him then pronounce a judgment in which justice and mercy were blended; and then a wayward youth, whose crime may not have been so great, after all, stood erect and stepped forth from the Court room with confident eye, fully convinced that it is the higher object of the law to serve and not to destroy. Our own Supreme Court has announced the principle, of uni- versal application, that the opinion of the Appellate Courts as written in the books is not the law, but merely constitutes evidence of what the law is. The decision of the Superior Court Judge, who actually tries the case in the Courthouse, constitutes the law of the case, and when on appeal to the Supreme Court this decision is Musings of a Mountaineer 31 affirmed, the opinion of the Supreme Court furnishes evidence that the Judge of the Superior Court decided the law correctly. I have heard it said that in all of his twenty-six years of continuous service on the Bench, Judge Webb was never over-ruled in a criminal case, while in civil appeals he had charged to his long record fewer reversals than any other Judge in the State, as lawyers everywhere who have familiarized themselves with the decisions of our Court of last resort, will testify. Judge Webb is dead, but the influence of a life like his can never end. The tomb cannot enclose it. He will continue to live in the decisions of our Courts of Justice, and the results of his life will live on and on through the coming centuries to uplift, to enrich and to bless mankind. He lived with the sincere affection of a host of friends clustering about him, and he died honored, revered, and mourned by the whole people of a great commonwealth. Marble and granite will mark his resting place; but firmer far than marble, and more lasting than granite or enduring brass, is the solid foundation of his fame; for as long as justice tempered with mercy shall be prized as a priceless boon, his memory will abide in the hearts of North Carolinians, and those who read the beautiful story of his life will feel new inspiration to battle for the cause of the eternal right. Just and learned Judge, patriotic and upright citizen, devoted and consecrated Christian, faithful and constant friend, courteous and princely gentleman, Farewell! Sacred be your memory, and peaceful and restful your sleep! A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF A FRIEND During the past two years I had the good fortune to be able to perform some acts of friendship for the late Caleb A. Ridley. On numerous occasions, public and private, he acknowledged and expressed his appreciation of the little services I had rendered him, among which was the procurement of a number of lecture and preaching engagements in Haywood and surrounding Counties. On one of these occasions he publicly dedicated to me the fol- lowing poem entitled "A Friend", which he had written a short time before: 32 Random Thoughts and the "A friend is not a fancy, An acquaintance for a day, One who gains your confidence, Then trifles it away. "A friend is not forever Feigning love for you; But is ever seen performing Deeds to prove it true. "A friend is one who loves you, And whether well or ill, Just forgets your failings And loves you better still. "No mater about your meanness, Of that you may amend; And long as life shall last you I'll love you as my friend." This little poem beautifully expresses the warm and constant friendship that existed between Caleb Ridley and me for more than a quarter of a century; and now that the silver cord that bound him to life has been loosed; now that the sun of his life has gone down, and while yet we linger in the twilight of recollection, and before the night of forgetfulness blurs the picture of memory, I desire to write, over my own signature, as a memorial of him, my humble and heart-felt testimony to his genius, his high ability, and the worth of the great work wrought by him. No aspiring young man was ever beset with more difficulties, or hampered and hindered by greater handicaps and hardships in his struggle for education than was Caleb A. Ridley. But with a will that never faltered; with a courage that never failed, and with a faith that reckoned not with defeat, he struggled on and on, until he filled with distinguished ability and marvelous success the pulpits of some of the greatest churches in the South and West. His eloquent voice has been heard by entranced and delighted throngs in almost every State in the Union. Millions have hung in breathless attention on his impassioned words, while at the mag- netic touch of his eloquence it is said that more than twenty Musings of a Mountaineer 33 thousand souls have been turned back to God. I have heard him when his eloquence was like the limpid rivulet sparkling down the mountain's side, winding its silver course between margins of moss, and gradually swelling into a bolder stream until at last it roared into the head-long cataract and spread its rainbow to the skies; and then I have seen it flow on like a slow-moving river, reflecting from its polished surface forest and cliff and crag. I have heard him when his eloquence was like the angry ocean, chafed by the raging fury of the tempest, hanging its billows with deafening clamor among the lowering clouds, or hurling them, in sublime defiance, at the storm that frowned above. I have heard him when his eloquence rose like the thunder-bearer of Jove when he mounts on strong and untiring wing to sport in fearless majesty over the troubled deep; at one instant plunged amid the foaming waves, and at the next reascending on high to play undaunted among the light- nings of heaven or soar toward the sun. I have seen him with tongue dripping with the honey of matchless phrase lash his listening audience to the pinions of his mind, leave the picture gallery of the earth and leap up into the dizzy spaces where worlds are born and unveil the power of Almighty God in the light of the twinkling stars. And then I have seen him come fresh from zones of comets and astral climes, and with a master's hand play upon every chord of the human heart and melt his hearers to tears with the pathos of his appeal. And then, still riding upon the easy wings of his daring art, I have seen him descend from his sojourn above the clouds and convulse his hearers with laughter and with mirth. There were those who criticised and condemned him; but whether the occasions which evoked criticism and condemnation were the result of inherent weakness or the ravages of the dread disease — the cankering cancer that caused his death, I do not know. I do know that there were those who criticised him unjustly and without possessing themselves of the facts — little souls who were not worthy to fasten the lachets of his shoes; but it is always so. "The flaming, slanderous tongue of strife, With its well directed poisonous dart, Has embittered many a joyous life And broken many a virtuous heart." And let me ask, What assurance have those who criticised and 34 Random Thoughts and the condemned him that they, too, would not have fallen, even as he fell, and perhaps sooner and with less resistance, if they had been tempted as he was tempted? He that hath fallen may have been as honest at heart as those who condemned, though they may walk proudly today in the sunlight of success and immaculate fame. How many of us can be sure that our sisters, our daughters, or our wives would have been strong enough to resist the temptation, desolation and distress that sacrificed our abandoned sisters of shame? It may be that they have not fallen because they have not been sorely tempted. Victory does not always proclaim the hero and the Saint has no monopoly on virtue. It requires but little effort to sail with the wind and tide or to float on tranquil seas. The Captain, who loses his ship in the raging tempest may be a better and braver sailor than he who rides into the harbor when the winds are still and the waves are calm, with engines in perfect order and colors flying. It is tempetation, tribulation and travail; it is poverty, penury and pain; it is difficulties, distress and disappointments that try men's souls and furnish evidence to the world of what material they are made. The Savior seeth not as man seeth; and He taught us from the Cross that the abandoned outcast, the branded criminal, black as midnight in the eyes of the world, may still have somewhere in the corner of his soul a light that burns; some living spark that may yet be kindled into a blazing Star of Hope. Therefore, it is not the man who never fails, but the man who can come back who deserves the greatest honor; and the man who fails and comes back may be a greater hero than he that "taketh a city". And so it behooves us to think and speak kindly of our erring brother. God pities him; Christ died for him; Heaven's mercy attends him, and the Angel Hosts and Chorus will welcome him back with shouts and songs of Joy. Then — "Pray don't find fault with the man who limps Or stumbles along the road, Unless you have worn the shoes he wears Or struggled beneath his load. "There may be tacks in his shoes that hurt, Though hidden away from view, Or the burden he bears if placed on your back Might cause you to stumble, too. Musings of a Mountaineer 35 "Don't sneer at the man who's down today, Unless you have felt the blow That caused his fall, or felt the shame That only the fallen know. "You may be strong, but still the blows That were his, if dealt to you In the self -same way at the self-same time, Might cause you to stagger, too. "Don't be too harsh to the man who sins Or pelt him with word or stone, Unless you are sure, yea, doubly sure, That you have no sins of your own. "For you know, perhaps, if the Tempter's voice Should whisper as soft to you As it did to him when he went astray, 'T would cause you to falter, too." Surely, in view of the great amount of good Caleb A. Ridley wrought in his life-time, charity would have condoned and forgiven the weakness or fault or whatever it was that provoked criticism. Charity, we are told, is the paramount virtue. All else is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Charity never persecutes nor back- bites. It draws the curtain to hide a neighbor's fault; turns a deaf ear to the tongue of scandal and heals the wounds made by the poisoned arrows of hate. Charity is the Good Samaritan of the heart. It is that which thinketh no evil, and is kind; which hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things. It is the Angel of Mercy which forgives seventy and seven times, and still is rich in the treasures of pardon. It visits the sick and those that are in prison, soothes the pillow of the dying, mingles its tears with those who mourn, buries the dead, and cares for the orphan. It delights to do offices of good to those who are cast down, to relieve the suffering of the oppressed and distressed and to proclaim the Gospel to the poor. It is as wide as the World of Suffering, deep as the Heart of Sorrow, extensive as the Wants of Creation, and boundless as the Kingdom of Need. Charity presupposes justice and justice is an attribute of God, whose charity is inexhaustible. Its 36 Random Thoughts and the supreme example was given us from the Cross when the Savior prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Caleb Ridley idolized the people of his native mountains, and he was the greatest master of mountain folk-lore that I have known. He was the author of hundreds of poems — many of them master- pieces, and he wrote a number of books in eloquent and faultless phrase that rank with the best literature of the times. Whether in the pulpit or on the lecture platform he was pre-eminently the greatest orator this section has produced. But now the musical voice is still, the beaming eye is closed, and a long, useful life is terminated forever. No, not forever, for no one ever dies all for- gotten, and no one ever perishes wholly from the face of the earth. The influences of a human life are eternal. The tomb cannot enclose them. They escape from its portals and continue to pervade the daily walks of men, like unseen spirits, guiding and controlling human thought and action. And so will the influence of this great mountaineer's life live on and on to uplift and bless mankind, and to serve as an inspiration to struggling and ambitious youth every- where. Faithful and constant friend, farewell! Child of genius, sleep on! Sacred be thy memory, and peaceful and sweet thy rest. A PEN PICTURE OF CHRIST The following is part of a letter said to have been written by Publius Lentulus of Rome in a report to the Senate. It is said by the New York Press to be the only reliable pen picture of Christ as seen in actual life, and it is an exquisite piece of word painting. It is taken from a manuscript now in the possession of Lord Kelly and kept in his library. It was copied from an original letter of Publius Lentulus at Rome. It being the usual custom of Governors to advise the Senate and the people of such material things as happened in their respective Provinces, in the days of Tiberias Caesar, Publius Lentulus, Procurator of Judea wrote the following letter to the Senate: "There appeared in these, our days, a Man of great virtue, named Jesus Christ, who is yet living amongst us, and of the Gentiles is accepted as a Prophet of Truth. He raises the dead and cures all manner of diseases. A man of stature somewhat tall and comely, Musings of a Mountaineer 37 such as the beholder may both love and fear. His hair is the color of a chestnut, full ripe, plain to his ears, whence downward it is more orient and curling and waving about his shoulders. In the midst of his head is a seam, a partition in the hair, after the manner of the Nazarites. His forehead is plain and very delicate; his face without spot or wrinkle, beautiful with a lovely red. His nose and mouth so formed that nothing can be reprehended. His beard is color like his hair, not very long but forked. His look innocent and mature. His eyes fiery, clear, quick and luminous. In reproving the greedy, the selfish and the oppressor He is terrible, his eyes piercing as with a two-edged sword; but looks with tenderest pity on the weak, the erring and the sinful. Courteous and fair spoken. Pleas- ant in conversation, mixed with gravity. It cannot be remembered that any have seen him laugh, but many have seen him weep. In proportion of body most excellent, — a Man for his singular beauty surpassing the children of men." CHAPTER III. THE AGE OF OPPORTUNITY. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men. Galatians 3: 9, 10. The following speech was delivered first at Clayton, Georgia, May 24, 1927, and thereafter in substantially the same form in numerous schools and colleges in North Carolina. Ladies and Gentlemen: I am infinitely grateful for this, my first opportunity to speak in the great State of Georgia. I could not be other than oppressed by a feeling of trepidation when I remember that this was the State of Robert Toombs, the intellectual giant of the Old South; the home of Alexander Stevens, the idol of his country; and old Ben Hill, said to have been the incarnation of mind and magnetism; and Howell Cobb, one of the truly great men of the nation; and Gordon, the Thunderbolt of War and the Apostle of Peace; and Grady, whose genius blazed but for a little while like a brilliant star and then disappeared forever; Grady, of whom it has been said: "As an editor he had no equal; as an orator he stands as the Demosthenes of the South; while as a man, the high marble that towers above his grave is but a fit emblem of his purity." I am glad that my first opportunity to speak in your State oc- curred in this County, which was the birth place of the great Chief Justice Bleckley, than whom a more brilliant or learned Judge has never adorned the Appellate Bench of any court in this great land. I am grateful also that my first speech in Georgia is to be delivered here, where my father and mother, now dead for a quarter of a century, more than eighty years ago spent the first year of their married lives. Here, too, my sister lived, and here most of her children were born; and here, too, a brother, who has also passed away, spent some years of his life. I am glad, too, to make my first speech here, because it was in 39 this town that I was admitted to the Georgia Bar, and became at least an honorary member of the Fraternity of Georgia Colonels. For several days before I received your invitation to speak on this delightful occasion I had been spending my idle hours reading a very interesting book on the mythology of the ancient Greeks; and I had read the story about a traveler who went into a studio in Athens, and while he was examining some very old statues repre- senting the ancient Greek Gods, he found one whose face was covered with hair and he asked the guide what God this statue rep- resented. "The God of Opportunity," the guide replied. "Why is his face hidden?" the traveler inquired; and the guide answered: "Because people seldom recognize him when he comes to them." "Why has he wings on his feet?" the traveler desired to know. And to this question the guide made answer, "To indicate that he will soon pass on and that when once gone he cannot be overtaken." The lesson taught by this story from Grecian Mythology sug- gested a name for my speech tonight, — "The Age of Opportunity." "To take time by the forelock" was the first allegory known to Greek Art as if it had been the dawning idea of a new civilization. The God of Opportunity was represented by a boy in the flower of youth. Handsome in his bearing his hair fluttered at the caprice of the winds, leaving his locks tangled and disarranged. Similar to Dionysus his forehead shone with grace, and his cheeks glowed with youthful splendor and beauty. With wings on his feet to indi- cate swiftness he stood upon a sphere, resting upon the tips of his toes as if ready for flight. His hair fell in thick curls from his brow, easy to lay hold of; but upon the back of his head he had no hair, indicating that when he had passed he could never be seized or laid hold of any more forever. That opportunity is more multiform and varied today than ever before all will agree; that we are living in the most wonderful age of the world all will admit; that we are living under graver and mightier responsibilities than any people who have lived before us none will deny. The wealth of the ages is our heritage; the wealth for which countless generations have dreamed and struggled and fought and suffered and died; the wealth of liberty and law that makes everyone secure and safe in his life, property, and the pursuit of happiness; the wealth of the library to enlighten us and the Christian Religion to guide us; and the wealth of opportunity that makes it possible for us to appreciate and utilize the thought, the 40 Random Thoughts and the experience, and the achievements of all who have lived before us. The learning and the wisdom, the philosophy and the experience of every age and every clime are ours. Every library is a treasure- house of knowledge and every book is filled with truths that we may learn. We open them and as we turn the leaves the shadows of vanished centuries pass before us. Through them we observe hang- ing up in the dome of the mighty past, the great lamp of human experience in whose reflected light we may see how to avoid the pitfalls that have made so difficult the slow progress of our race in its upward march. Invention's wand has touched the seas. Genius has filled the earth with countless gifts to bless mankind. Freed from ancient thought and superstition, we are beginning to win unheard of victories in the domain of science. One by one we have dispelled the mists and doubts of the ancient world. Nothing is too difficult for our hands to attempt — no region is too remote, no place too sacred for our daring eyes to penetrate. We have robbed the earth of her secrets and have sought to solve the mystery of the stars. We have secured and chained to our service the elemental forces of nature. We have made the winds our messengers and the fire our steeds. We have descended into the bowels of the earth and have walked in safety on the bottom of the sea. We have lifted our heads above the clouds and made the impalpable air our resting place and used it for a track over which our airships fly faster than the flight of the swiftest bird. We have invaded the skies and harnessed the light- ning. The telegraph, wire and wireless, gives wings to the news and the events of each day are known in every land by the following night. The telephone will carry the human voice thousands of miles and the graphophone will preserve it for generations after we are dead. We have photographed both sound and motion in the modern "movie"; and, greater far than all, by means of the radio instant communication has been established between the nations of the earth. In such an age and amid such achievements are there still op- portunities for you? Ah, yes; the land was not all taken before your time, the earth has not ceased to yield its increase. The seats are not all taken; the people are not all educated; government is not yet perfect, the chances are not all gone. The resources of your country are not fully developed, the secrets of nature are not all mastered, and there is room and need for all of us in every depart- Musings of a Mountaineer 41 ment of human life, in every field of human endeavor. The new is supplanting the old everywhere, and, as the years roll on, new conditions and new problems arise for solution. The methods of the past are daily giving place to newer and better modes. Those who have devoted their lives to the cause of human progress are daily falling by the wayside; and, as the struggle goes on, men and women with trained minds and strong arms and noble souls are needed to take the vacant places in the battle of life. We are told that in the Government of God there is no waste of energy, that nothing is left to chance. Every leaf and flower and tree, every river and vale and mountain, — everything in the visible creation bears the impress of a Divine purpose, and this law applies no less to men and women than to material things. And to all who are blessed with the gift of life there is also given ability and capacity for the accomplishment of the work we are destined to do. There is not a human being on the earth, except it be those on whose heads the hand of affliction rests, who is not blessed with some special gift of mind for the achievement of success in some special field of endeavor. So the first and most important step to take in the road that leads to a successful life is to find the work for which nature has designed you, and then concentrate your body, your mind, and your soul to attain the foremost place in your chosen work. It has been well said that if God were to commission two angels, one to sweep a street crossing and the other to rule an empire, they could not be induced to exchange their callings; and no less true is it that he who feels that God has given him a particular work to do, can be happy and successful only in the fulfillment of that particular work. If he does not fill that place in life, he will fill no place to the satisfaction of himself or his friends. You will remember that in the fable related in the Book of Judges, the fig tree among others, was invited to become King over the forest. After the olive tree, on account of its fatness, which was pleasing to both God and man, had declined to reign over the other trees, the fig tree replied: "Why should I forsake my sweet- ness and good fruit and go and rule over the other trees?" As King over the stalwart oak and the lofty pine, the fig tree would have been a miserable failure, and as much out of place as men and women who aspire to a work they cannot do; but, for bearing figs, the oak and the pine are vastly inferior to the fig tree. Bearing figs, 42 Random Thoughts and the of all things, is the thing for the fig tree to do; it shines in its own proper sphere, but when you take from it its fig-bearing power it is fit for nothing else on the face of the earth. Nature has endowed us with intellectual gifts as multiform as the stars, distributing them among the rich and the poor and the high and the low alike; and although, we differ from one another as the "stars differ one from another in glory", yet, the utmost accomplishment of the life-work of each is essential to the success of all, and the success of all is necessary if our race is to reach its highest destiny. But life is too short, and the fields of endeavor are too vast for any one to fit himself for all. Each one must choose a place and fit himself for that, if he would discharge its duties well; and each one in the place for which he is best trained may ren- der service of the highest class and so merit and receive the greatest praise and the richest rewards. Thus constituted, will the mighty machine which makes our social life be made to move in perfect harmony and no part be esteemed better than the rest. And I believe that civilization will never mark its highest tide until all men and women have chosen his proper work. No man can be ideally suc- cessful until he has found his proper place. Like a locomotive, he is strong on the track, but weak and useless everywhere else. Like a boat on the river he finds obstructions on every side but one. When I was a young boy I read the story of a convention at- tended by all the birds of the feathered creation, the object of the convention being to see which bird could fly the highest. The blackbird was there, and the bluebird and the redbird, and these, and all the other birds, had assembled to settle the question as to who should be King of the air. At last the signal was given and the flocks of birds, representing every species, began to circle toward the sun. The eagle, however, made a broader sweep than all the rest, and higher and higher and still higher he soared, until at last he rested on outstretched wings in midair, far above the clouds; and the heavens echoed with his shrill scream of triumph as he poised high above them all, when, to his amazement, he heard a chirp above him, and upon looking around he beheld an English sparrow nestling under the feathers on his back as it said to him: "I am higher than you are, Mr. Eagle; I am King of the air". But the great eagle reached around and with his beak pulled him off and twisted his neck and dropped him to the ground; and it is said that from that day to this an English sparrow has never been Musings of a Mountaineer 43 known to roost higher than the limbs of a cherry tree! And so, my friends, I advise you, that if the Lord has made you an English sparrow, continue to roost in your own little cherry tree, and do not try to contest with the eagles; if He has made you a robin continue to sing among the apple blossoms; if He has made you a meadow lark roost low, and watch out for the hawks; if you are a humming bird stay in your own nest when the owls are prowling around. But remember that there is more music in a mocking bird's throat than in the throats of all the crows that ever blackened or devastated a corn field; just as there is more peace in the humblest cabin where roses bloom around the door, and happiness and contentment reside within, than in all the gilded palaces of the earth where happiness and contentment are not. The sweetest song birds do not sing above the clouds nor build their nests among the highest crags; and I would rather be a cooing dove and live in a meadow and mingle my mournful song with the music of a mountain stream than to be a great eagle and build my nest on the highest peak of the Smokies, and prey upon the helpless and the defenseless and the innocent. And so it makes no difference what your calling is. Every calling is an honorable calling if inspired by honorable purpose and prosecuted by honest performance. Noble manhood and noble womanhood will lift any legitimate calling into re- spectability and honor. The rock which reckons not with the thunderbolt and bows not to the ocean's waves may yet be swept from its base by the unconsidered brook. The bootblack on the street who can make your shoes reflect the sun and shines them better than anyone else can shine them, is a leader in the world, and is entitled to as much credit as the man who made the shoes. If a barber possesses the greatest skill and can mow the stubble from the roughest chin with easy grace; if he knows to a hair just what to cut and what to leave to make his patron's head look the best; if he knows the lotion that will coax the struggling fuzz on the baldest scalp and persuade it to grow like roses in June; if he can draw his razor with an ease and skill matching the master of the violin who glides caressingly his dancing bow across the singing strings; if he can handle well his comb and clippers and knows the use of every barber's tool; if he can rub and shampoo and knead and wipe with such skill and gentleness that every frowsy, unwashed customer who passes through his hands may issue forth a perfumed pink of beauty and delight, he is a 44 Random Thoughts and the leader in the world, but the chances are that he would be a failure at everything else. If a farmer can reach the top in tilling the soil, and can know each baneful bug, malicious microbe, and devouring worm; if he has learned to recognize each pest that blights and mildews growing crops, and knows the means to nip them in the egg; if he knows all kinds of horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, and fowl that lay and breed with profit; if he knows the moon, and the season when to sow and reap, and how to fertilize and trim, and when to sell for greatest gain; if by his industry and his intelligent cultivation of the soil, he has persuaded one acre of land to produce two bushels of wheat or corn where before it produced but one, he has earned the right to leadership, and may by the example of his success, have done more for his country than the great lawyer who represents it in the Courts of some foreign Prince or Potentate. The master builder who has the mental grasp to image in his mind a mighty temple and body forth his vision in a form where each part will fit as neatly as the human eye; if he has such skill to manage men that multitudes obey him with delight, and move like armies stirred by martial music when led by a great com- mander; if he has a ready use for the builder's art and all the skill which countless ages have sent down the tide of time, he deserves as much honor and is entitled to as much credit as the man who thunders forth his eloquence in the highest councils of his Nation's Capital. So: "If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill, Be a scrub in the valley, but be The best little scrub that stands by the rill; Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a bush, then be a blade of grass. Some highway the happier to make; If you can't be a whale, then just be a bass, But the livliest bass in the lake. We can't all be Captains; we've got to have a crew, There's work for all of us here; There's big work to do, and there's lesser to do, But the work we must do is the near. Musings of a Mountaineer 45 If you can't be a highway, then just be a trail, If you can't be the sun be a star; It is not by size that you win or you fail, Be the best of whatever you are." We are drawn by an irresistible impulse to the occupation for which we were created, and no matter what difficulties surround it, no matter how unpromising its prospects, that occupation is the only occupation we can ever pursue with satisfaction, or profit, or success. A human life inspired by hope and lured and urged on by the ambition to succeed may be likened unto a mountain river. If I may, I shall use for example the Tuckaseegee River which flows clear across my native County of Jackson, and which has its source far back on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains in whose shadow I was born and reared. Its way is beset by many a bluff and gorge and hill until finally it reaches the Tuckaseegee Falls near Glenville. There we behold a battle raging between the pliant water and the stubborn rocks and there we see the result of ages of such conflict. The secret of the river's ultimate success is, first, that it never ceases its attack; and second, that it is continuously rein- forced. Millions of drops of water are hurled against these cliffs each moment and rebound into the abyss, without apparently pro- ducing the slightest effect. But these are instantly replaced by others, and these again by more and more in an unending series, whereas the cliffs, when their disintegrated fragments are swept down the stream can never be renewed. Gaunt, mutilated, seamed with scars and furrowed with the wrinkles of the ages, these black rocks face the maddened flood in silence as if aware of their ultimate doom, however long deferred. Meanwhile, the river, confident of victory is exultant. "If not in ours, at all events in our successor's day", its breakers seem to shout defiantly, as they leap from ledge to ledge, and white with fury, fling themselves on the tusk-like crags that tear them into shreds but cannot check their course; and the river, triumphant, flows serenely on into the Tennessee. The Ten- nessee flows into the Ohio, the Ohio empties into the Mississippi, and the Mississippi, the Great Father of Waters, extending from the regions of perpetual snow to the land of unending summer rolls with majestic sweep out into the Gulf of Mexico. It is there caught up by the Gulf Stream which moves noiselessly as the moonbeam's shadow through the turbulent waves of the ocean carrying upon its 46 Random Thoughts and the throbbing bosom health and warmth and life to half of the world. My friends, the river in its journey from its source to the sea is but carrying out the purpose for which nature designed it, and its ulti- mate triumph in this unending battle teaches us that we must always go forward and never backward; that we must always press on to greater heights, to grander glories, or see the glories already won turn to ashes on our brows. We may sometimes slip; shadows may obscure our paths; we may have days of mourning and nights of agony, for it is a universal, though mysterious law of life which none of us can understand, that man is powerless to produce any- thing permanently good or beautiful until he has first paid the penalty of suffering or death for the triumph of his dream. There never was a worth-while victory ever won that did not cost blood or suffering. There never was a truth discovered that was not the price of agony. Socrates in a Pagan age believed in the immortality of the soul; but for teaching it he was rewarded with a cup of poison hemlock. St. Paul preached it in the beginning of the Chris- tian Era; but he was paid for it with the dungeon and death. Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated it with his life-work; but He was despised and hated and rejected of men, and finally died on the Cross that fallen man might inherit everlasting happiness and eternal life. All of life's beauty was born of suffering and sorrow and the very hope of immortality sprang from broken hearts. The history of the world is a history of bloody warfare, and the nations of the earth have mounted upward through the gloom in a mist of tears. Every great life work is an agony and behind every song there lurks a sign. The mother of Christ is spoken of as the Woman of Pain and the teaching of Christ is sometimes referred to as the Religion of Sorrow. The first breath and the last gasp are drawn in suffering and all the way from the cradle to the grave stretches the great Battle Field of Life. And in this connection I wish to call your special attention to four great truths uttered by the Savior, and which if fully under- stood, appreciated and observed will inevitably bring not only spiritual, but material success to all who are willing to make them the guiding star of their lives. We are told that certain of his disciples who desired to sit on either side of Him, one on His right and one on His left when He had established His Kingdom, asked Him what their positions would be, and Jesus replied: "Whosoever will be great among you Musings of a Mountaineer 47 let him be your minister; and whosoever will be Chief among you let him be the servant of all". Now what does this mean? I believe it means that success requires service. I believe it means that success will be measured not so much by what we get out of the world as by what we put into the world. It means that our lives will be weighed not so much by what others may do for us as by what we shall do for others. It means that life's length is not to be measured by its hours or its days, but by that which we have done therein for our country and our kind. The Ten Commandments, like a collection of diamonds which bear testimony of their own intrinsic worth, in themselves appeal to us as coming from a Divine or Superhuman Source; and no conscientious or reasonable man has yet been able to find a flaw in them. Absolutely flawless, negative in form but positive in mean- ing, they easily stand at the head of our moral system and likewise constitute the foundation of the legal codes of all the civilized nations of the earth; and no nation or people can long continue a happy existence in open violation of them. But upon these Com- mandments have been placed two widely differing interpretations. The Mosaic, or human, or negative interpretation is founded on absolute justice between man and man. It makes the bold assump- tion that every man belongs to himself and has the right to do as he pleases with himself so long as he accords the same right to others, and does nothing to interfere with their enjoyment of such rights. In other words, under this interpretation he must not do unto others what he would not have them do unto him. This interpreta- tion is but a restatement of the Golden Rule of the Chinese religion as taught by Confucius. But under the New Dispensation Jesus gives the truly Divine interpretation. He tells us that He came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it; and by precept and example He illustrated and made plain its true meaning and force according to the Divine Will. His interpretation is positive in its nature, and is founded on the broad principle that no man belongs to himself, or has the right to do as he pleases with himself; but that he holds his body, his mind, his soul and his property by Divine grant in trust for the benefit of all mankind. And so the religion of Christ is positive. He tells us that "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them; for this is the law and the prophets." According to His religion he who serves man best serves 48 Random Thoughts and the God best, and he who serves God best serves man best. According to Him man was not made for himself alone, but all were made for each and each for all. Again He said: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it." I believe that these words apply to every worthy calling and work in life; and I believe that we will make infinitely greater progress, in both material and spiritual pursuits when we shall get ourselves away from the idea that there is any real distinction or essential difference between work, and religious work, as these terms are popularly understood. I know that there are those who believe that man's daily activities in the prosecution of his business are at least selfish, if not wholly evil, and that only the time which he actually devotes to church work, strictly so-called, and his time actually spent in civic service are classed as "Church Work" or "consecrated work" in the real sense. But I believe that the placing of so narrow an interpretation on these words of Christ would have the effect to obscure if not to destroy the real meaning of his life. From the very hour that he asked his mother in the Temple where He was conversing with the Doctors and the Elders, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" until the close of his earthly career, He made repeated reference to His "Father's Business". And so I believe that He came into the world not merely to "preach the gospel to the poor" and "visit the sick and those that were in prison"; not merely to open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, and to heal the sick and raise the dead and cast out devils. All these things are essential parts of his "Father's Business"; but his "Father's Business" is as wide as the World of Suffering, deep as the Heart of Sorrow, extensive as the Wants of Creation, and boundless as the Kingdom of Need. And I believe that when God proclaimed the law of free agency among men He instituted on this earth the greatest experiment in all the tide of time; an experiment to which all His resources are committed. By this great experiment He is planning here to develop perfect men and women stronger than circumstance and victorious over chance; and no human talent can be wasted or perverted if this tremendous experiment is to succeed. Men and women must eat food, they must wear clothes, and live in houses, and have means of transportation from place to place. They must be educated Musings of a Mountaineer 49 and have medical attention and all the essential things that go to constitute the civilization to which we aspire. Therefore, all legiti- mate business is part of His "Father's Business", and every worthy work is service and every worthy service is prayer in action. And whoever works faithfully and honestly in any worthy calling, is, in partnership with God, and is his co-worker in this mighty enter- prise which He has established here on earth, and which even He can never finish without the help of men and women with trained minds and willing hands and noble souls. Again He said: "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." Now what does this mean? It means that we must give full measure in all we do. It means that we must conscientiously do our level best in every worthy work. It means burning the mid- night oil. It means that we must work when we are tired, or until we have correctly finished every worthy task our hands find to do. The lawyer may be called upon to write a deed, and in a slovenly, slipshod way he may write a document that may possibly pass the title to your home; but until he has written into that deed every apt word of conveyance so that there may be no possible doubt that the deed is correct, — until then he has not traveled that second, undemanded mile. In the preparation and trial of every cause the lawyer has not traveled the second undemanded mile until he has sat up while his client slept; until he has exhausted every law book and sifted and weighed every fact and made every preparation that the cause requires, so that the entire truth may be presented to the trial Court. The Doctor who fails to ascertain every symptom and apply every remedy and exercise all the skill known to his profes- sion, will have charged against him the undemanded mile. And so, in every department of life, in every field of human endeavor, in every duty which rests upon us, we will stand condemned in the Court of Conscience and in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of God unless in every instance we have traveled that second, that last, that undemanded mile. And finally He said: "Work while it is yet day, for the night cometh when no man can work." Work is everywhere. It was instituted when the Morning Star first sang Creation's Hymn, and it has rolled on down the Stream of Time, ever increasing, always improving, as the human race has multiplied, and as the civilization of Nations has demanded, and the countless instruments of toil will never be laid aside until 50 Random Thoughts and the dropped from the nerveless hands of the laborer; not until the Angel of Death shall stand with one foot upon the land and the other upon the sea and declare that time shall be no more. It is said that work and sweat are penalties of the fall of man, but heaven has draped these penalties with beauty and love. When the Al- mighty created man, it would have been an easy thing for Him to have given us our bread ready made. He might have left us in the Garden of Eden forever; but he had a grander and a nobler end in view when he created man than the mere satisfaction of his animal appetites and his animal passions. There was a Divinity within man which the luxuries of Eden could never develop, and so there was an inestimable blessing in that curse which drove man from the Garden and compelled him forever to earn his living in the sweat of his brow. Our Creator has so constituted us that we can be happy only when our hands and minds are busy; and the struggle for ex- istence keeps all living things at constant work. We see it in the huge elephant in the pride of his strength as he roams the tropical jungle, and all through the animal kingdom down to the smallest insect. We see it in the Leviathan which makes the great deep boil like a pot and we see it in the animalculae that has brief existence in a drop of water. And so, likewise, are all inanimate things moved by this same law of force and action. The rainbow which attires the heavens with blended beauty; the zephyr which fans the fevered cheek; the lightning which purines the atmosphere and adds beauty to the landscape, — all obey the same law which produces earthquakes and volcanoes and tempests. The whole earth, with her sister planets and attendant satellites, all whirl through space with the same velocity and the same regularity as when they were first dropped like balls of fire from the Creator's hands. The sun, with millions of other suns, the stars, which hold their festival around the midnight throne, mocking us with their unapproachable glories, — all move around a common centre which, for all we know, may be the throne of the Almighty himself. Without haste, without rest, all move on forever. And so I repeat that work is everywhere. God works, for the Bible says: "He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done," and Jesus worked, for He said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" and so work reaches from His great White Throne all the way down through His shining courts to the veriest atom of Creation. And so, my friends, it all comes to this, that we must garner wisdom before we are Musings of a Mountaineer 51 required to use it, lest when the time for use arrives the time for harvest will be over; that whoever would be great must render great service; that whoever would reach the top must be willing to lose himself at the bottom; and that the richest rewards will come to those who travel the second, undemanded mile. George Elliot tells us that "there is no short cut, no patent tram- road to wisdom. After all these years of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must still be trodden in solitude with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time." And I tell you that there are no elevators in the house of success. If you would get above the first floor you must climb the stairway step by step. In every pathway of life there are valleys to cross as well as mountains to climb. Do not stop in the valleys, for there the view is obstructed on every hand. Climb to the mountain's top for it is there only that you can envision the landscape that lies beyond. In this battle of life there are several roads that you may take. You may drift with the tide, or float down with the current of the stream. You may follow the course of least resistance, or clamber around the mountain's side; but all this takes time, and in your aimless rambles and voyages there is great danger of losing the way. Few men and women soar into the empyrean on eagle's wings, and those who do, usually mount on borrowed plumes, and soon sink back into oblivion's murky seas. Those who win the fadeless laurels must climb and climb and climb, inch by inch across the boulders that beset the way, until with infinite toil they clear the somber clouds that hang heavy on the mountain's rugged sides, and with pallid faces, and tired limbs, and aching hearts, pass into the glory of the sun, where they are hailed by their fellows as men and women whose lives have been of real service and value to the world. Then, my friends, let us improve the opportunities of today, for the opportunities of today will not return tomorrow. When I was a young man, struggling for an education, I read one simple sentence which has influenced my entire life; a sentence written by one of our great men who had learned to place the proper estimate upon the value of time. He said: "Time once passed is gone forever, and all the gold of all the earth will not buy one moment back again." Edward Howard Griggs beautifully expresses the thought in these eloquent words: "The River of Time sweeps on with regular,. .^, nC ULINOIS 52 Random Thoughts and the remorseless current. There are hours when we would give all we possess if we could but check the flow of its waters; there are other hours when we long to speed them more rapidly; but desire and effort are alike futile. Whether we work or sleep, are earnest or idle, rejoice or moan in agony, the River of Time flows on with the same resistless flood; and it is only while the water of the River of Time flows over the mill wheel of today's life that we can ultilize it. Once it is passed, it is in the great unreturning sea of eternity. Other opportunities will come, other waters will flow; but that which has slipped by unused is lost utterly and will not return again." James Freeman Clark says that, "It may make a difference to all eternity whether we do right or wrong today." So let us improve the opportunities of today, for this day only is ours. We are dead to yesterday and we are not yet born for tomorrow. Let us keep in mind the lines of Madeline Bridges: "Be glad for today through sun or rain, Look out with resolve and hope; For today can never come back again, In all life's lengthened scope. Though years may be many, of toil or play, You never again shall see today. "Make much of today, it is time's best gift, The real, the here, the now; Our dreams and our longings idly drift, We know not where nor how, Or if ever they may fulfillment meet; But today is ours, let today be sweet. "Then honor today! Give it all your best. Let your noblest thought and deed Win out to the world, for that soul is blest That blesses the world's sad need; So each day shall a jewel be, In the counted day of life's destiny." And let me say to you, my friends, that we could not if we would escape the consequences of having lived. No one ever dies all for- Musings of a Mountaineer 53 gotten and no one ever wholly perishes from the face of the earth. The influence of a human life, even in this world, is eternal; and this is so because each mind and heart reproduces some of its qualities and some of its achievements upon the minds and hearts of others from generation unto generation. And so the cur- rents of influence for good or for evil, when once started flow on forever even here on earth. It is a mandate of God's Eternal Law that every wrong done by one man to another, whether it affect his person, his property, his reputation or his happiness, is an offense against justice, and justice is Divine. If you have wronged another you may mourn, and grieve, and regret, and then resolutely determine against a repetition of such conduct in the future; the person you have wronged may forgive you according to human language and human conduct; you may suffer the torturing pangs of remorse, and may to the uttermost extent of your power endeavor to make reparation for the wrong you have done, and that is well; but the act is done, and were Nature itself, with all of its force and all of its power to conspire in your behalf, it would be utterly powerless to undo your act. The consequences to the body, the heart, the mind, and the soul, of both our righteous and our wicked deeds, though imperceptible to man, are matters of everlasting record, written in the Annals of the Past, and there they must remain forever. You may repent, and repentance for a wrong com- mitted will bear its own fruit, — the fruit of purifying the soul and amending the future; but repentance can not blot out the past. The commission of the wrong itself is an irrevocable act; but it does not incapacitate the soul to do right in the future. Its conse- quences can not be expunged, but its course need not be pursued, and the wrong need not be repeated. Wrong and evil perpetrated, call not for despair, but rather for efforts more energetic and determined than before, to the end that wrongs may not be multi- plied. Repentance is still as valid as it ever was; but it is valid to make the future secure and not to obliterate the past. Why, even the criminal is by the laws of the Almighty irrevocably chained to the testimony of his crime; for every atom of his mortal frame, through whatever changes its particles may migrate, will still retain adhering to it through every combination, some movement derived from the very muscular effort by which the crime itself was per- petrated. These truths are illustrated by another of God's Eternal Laws, 54 Random Thoughts and the and that is, that no motion originated by natural causes or human agency can ever be destroyed. Even the pulsation of the air, once set in motion by the human voice cease not to exist with the sounds to which they give rise. The quickly accentuated sound soon becomes inaudible to the human ear; but the waves of the air thus raised travel throughout the surface of the earth and the ocean, and in less than twenty hours every atom of the atmosphere takes up the altered movement due to that infinitely small portion of primitive motion which has been conveyed to it through countless channels, and which must continue its path throughout its future existence. And so the air itself is one vast library, on whose pages is forever written all that man has ever said or even whispered; and the earth and the ocean, as well as the air, are eternal witnesses of the words we have spoken and the deeds we have done. There, in their immutable but unerring characters, the righteous deeds we have performed, the songs we have sung, and the prayers we have prayed, as well as the vows unredeemed, the promises unfulfilled, the thoughts wickedly uttered, and the words falsely spoken, stand forever recorded; thereby forever perpetuating the testimony of the life record of all the men and women who have ever lived upon the earth, just as the track of every ship that has ever disturbed the surface of the ocean remains forever registered in each suc- ceeding wave. But my friends, however hard we strive; however well we improve our time, all of us leave an unfinished work. I can not hope to remove mountains or even to cut a trail across them. A few steps upward in the hard and flinty rock I cut and climb, and then I must stop and die. And yet I know that it is the struggle to attain that develops us; for when we have placed our hands upon that which looked so attractive to us from a distance, and which we have struggled so hard to reach, nature robs it of its charms and holds up to our view a still more attractive prize. The ideal is ideal only because it is unattainable. The ideal is like the rainbow; it is always in sight, but always beyond our reach. The unattained and the unattainable still beckon us on toward the summit of life's mountains into the regions where the souls of the great live and breathe; and Hope is always a promise of the pos- sibility of its own fulfillment. Saint Paul tells us that "Hope is an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." It is the Child of Faith. It is a Rainbow, with Musings of a Mountaineer 55 one end resting on the cradle and the other on the grave with which Faith has painted the overhanging sky; it is a golden flash of sun- light that gilds the rugged and thorny pathways of life; it is a never-ending song that sustains forever the fainting soul of man. Walking hand in hand with Faith it lifts us step by step up the mysterious ladder to heights from which we may see its Star forever blazing above the unrisen Tomorrow. And so, my friends, when I reach the point in the upward climb where I must stop; when I, exhausted with my worn out tools, must cease to struggle, another, abler and stronger than I have been, with sharper tools than I have had, and fresh to the task, may, where I cease, begin; and he may cut and climb and climb and cut only to be succeeded by another still, until at last some future climber shall complete the task and step out on the top to look upon the glorious vision of the world beyond. So,- "Here is a toast that I want to drink To a man I'll never know; To the man who is going to take my place, When it is time for me to go. I've wondered what sort of chap he'll be, And I've longed to take his hand, Just to whisper, "I wish you well", In a way he would understand. I'd like to give him the cheering word That I've longed at times to hear; I'd like to give him the warm hand-clasp When never a friend was near. I've learned my lesson by sheer hard work, And I wish that I could pass it on, To the man who'll come to take my place, Some day, when I am gone. Will he see all the sad mistakes I've made? Will he count all the battles lost? Will he ever guess the tears they caused, Or the heart-aches they have cost? 56 Random Thoughts and the Will he see through the failures and fruitless toil, To the underlying plan, And catch a glimpse of the real intent And the heart of the vanquished man? I dare to hope he may pause some day As he toils as I have wrought, And gain some strength for his weary task From the battles that I have fought. But I've only the task itself to leave, With the cares for him to face, And never a cheering word may speak To the fellow who'll take my place. Then here's to your health, old chap; I drink as a bridegroom to his bride; I leave an unfinished task for you, But God knows how I tried. I've dreamed my dreams as all men do, But they all did not come true; And I pray today that all my dreams May be realized by you. And we'll meet some day in the great Unknown, Out in the Realms of Space; You'll know my clasp when I take your hand, And gaze into your tired face. There, all failures will be success, In the light of a new-found Dawn; So, tonight, I'm drinking your health, old chap, Who'll take my place when I am gone." And so, if all will do their best on each occasion when duty calls, then in the coming years humanity itself may stand upon the highest peak and behold the dawn of that glad day when righteous- ness, linked with liberty and justice, shall dwell in all the earth. Musings of a Mountaineer 57 I commenced my speech with the story of the statue, still standing in Athens, representing the old Greek God o£ Opportunity, and I close with the beautiful words of Mary A. Townsend: "To each man's life there comes a time Supreme, One Day one Night, one Morning or one Noon, One freighted Hour, one Moment opportune, One Rift through which sublime fulfillments gleam, Ohe Space when Fate goes tiding with the Stream Or Once, in balance 'Twixt Too Late, Too Soon, And ready for the passing Instant's Boon To tip in his favor the uncertain beam. Ah, happy he, who, knowing how to wait, Knows also how to watch and work and stand On Life's broad Deck alert, and at the prow To seize the passing Moment, big with Fate, From Opportunity's extended Hand, When the great Clock of Destiny strikes Now!" CHAPTER IV. ADDRESS ACCEPTING NEW HAYWOOD COUNTY COURTHOUSE ON BEHALF OF BAR ASSOCIATION, SEPTEMBER 19, 1932. The Lord bless thee, O habitation of Justice. Jeremiah 31: 23. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a privilege of which I am profoundly proud, that has been conferred upon me by the Committee of the Bar Association, to take part in the celebration of a day and an event that will be memorable in the history of Haywood County. And I am especially proud of the particular part the Committee has assigned to me — to accept on the part of the Bar the most beautiful, the most convenient, and, as we believe, in all of its appointments, the very best Courthouse in all this country. As I stand before this splendid audience, composed of citizens assembled from every section of Western North Carolina, I wonder whether they will consider that I am guilty of any impropriety if I shall say that this Courthouse is situated in the best County in the entire State. In farming, in stock-raising, in road-building, in the number and character of our churches and schools, in the size, value, accommodations, and comforts of our Home for the Aged and Infirm, and in the size, equipment, efficiency, and completeness of our Splendid County Hospital, with its staif of able doctors and skillful surgeons, and especially in the strong, sturdy, and progressive character of our citizenship, surely Haywood County stands in the forefront of North Carolina Counties. I congratulate your Honor that you are the first Judge to preside over a Court to be held in this Temple of Justice. I congratulate the Architect who designed it, and the Artisans who constructed it. I congratulate, individually and collectively, the Commissioners who ordered it and supervised it, and made of it a Courthouse that will accommodate the increasing needs of our growing County 59 until our grand-children are old. I congratulate the keeper of this building upon the excellent and painstaking care he is devoting to it. As is ever the case in an undertaking like this, there were those who opposed the construction of any building at all. There were others who criticised the character of the building during the course of its construction, but I confidently believe that when time has receded until we can have a perspective of events, the universal verdict of our people will be that our Commissioners have builded wisely and well, because their work will endure. This magnificent structure is our building, the concrete expression of our pride in our County; and I think there could be no more convincing and eloquent evidence of the unconquerable spirit and splendid patriotism of the people of Haywood County than the fact that in the midst of our country's greatest depression they should be here today dedicating not only to their own use, but to the use and enjoyment of generations yet to come, a Courthouse that would do honor to any County in any State in the American Union. Much as I appreciate the kind and generous spirit that prompted my brother Johnson to bestow upon me such fulsome praise for the small part I was able to play in the actions and events that made this day and this celebration possible, candor compels me to disclaim much, if not all, of the credit he is so willing to accord me. If so be it happened that I prepared more of the papers and had more to say in the action that resulted in a perpetual injunction forever enjoining the repair of the old buildings, thereby precipitating the absolute necessity for this structure, let me say that, without the sup- port and helpful assistance of all the members of the Bar and a host of progressive citizens, my small efforts would have been in vain. This Courthouse is not the result of the thought of any one man or of the efforts of any one man. It is the result of the concensus of thought and the combined efforts of all those who believed that Haywood County should keep step with modern progress in this great State, and, but for such cooperation, this happy day would never have dawned. In the building of this Courthouse, as in everything worth while in politics, in religion, in business, and in civic movements, success is achieved only by unity of purpose, combined effort, and concert of action. 60 Random Thoughts and the There are some features, however, about this Courthouse which I did suggest, and which were accepted by the Architect and the Commissioners; as, for instance, the enlargement of this room be- yond the size contemplated by the original plans, and the installation of the gallery, just as Captain Hannah suggested the additional court room on the third floor. And there is another feature which was my original thought and suggestion, and which was adopted by the unanimous vote and approval of the Commissioners, and for which I am not only willing, but proud to accept credit, and that idea was to build in, as a part of the Courthouse itself, so that they will endure as long as this building shall last, the Decalogue, which now forms the basis of the Judicial Codes of every civilized nation on earth, and the figure of the blind Goddess of Justice. And it might be interesting in this connection to give a brief history of the giving of the Law and the surrounding circumstances attending that mighty event, as they are recorded in the nineteenth and twentieth Chapters of the Book of Exodus. Far across the Mediterranean Sea, there is a vast desert belt five thousand six hundred miles long with a woof of rocky plains and sterile knolls woven into a warp of burning sands and hung around the broad shoulders of Africa, binding it to the globe and lapping over one third of Asia. This mighty desert stretches from the At- lantic coast of Africa to central Hindustan in Asia. Amid its sandy and unproductive areas, there are many beautiful oases which lie like kisses on its sun-burned cheeks and many verdant valleys with which its parched face is dimpled. Near the center of this arid zone, lying in the forks of the Red Sea, is the peninsula of Sinai, and there Sinai rises in rugged grandeur to the maximum height of nine thousand, three hundred feet, towering into irregular, daring, and splintered peaks and breaking into a thousand badly balanced and salient crags. Here, in the very heart of this system of mountains is the plain of Rahab where the Tribes of Israel lay encamped during the days when the law was given and there, rearing its jagged head among the clouds is Mount Horeb, where the Divine Glory sat enthroned during the days of the giving of the Law. And there Sinai stands today, unchanged and unchangeable, precisely as it was when the foot of God trod its solitary peaks more than three thousand years ago. Since then, cities have sprung up out of the wilderness and then perished, whose ruins today are Musings of a Mountaineer 61 the wonder of the archeologist and the student of antiquity. King- doms and Empires have arisen and passed away. Mighty republics have lifted their proud heads among the stars and then crumbled into dust. The wild goat now browses in their deserted capitols, the lizard sleeps upon their broken thrones and the owl hoots from their forgotten altars and ruined fanes; but Sinai still stands, sub- lime in its solitude, isolated from the world, uninhabited and un- inhabitable, and there it will continue to stand until time shall be no more. The music of machinery, the hum of industry, and the roar of battle have never been heard among its gray old peaks. They have stood there silent since God spake from their summits, save when the nimble- footed lightning has danced among their rugged boulders and heaven's thunders have rumbled among their crags. But there was a time when God manifested Himself there, more than fourteen hundred years before Christ was born. It was then that the Tribes of Israel, numbering some six hundred thousand, besides women and children, assembled upon the plains of Rahab and in the mouths of the valleys widening into the plains. And then we are told that on the third day, in the morning, the clouds began to gather around the peaks, growing denser and blacker every moment. From the turbid and inky embankment great pieces and murky fleeces of cloud rolled out and lapped around the cliffs and enveloped the ravines, until at last every peak was hidden, and the Mount itself seemed changed into angry, lowering clouds, instinct with latent tempests, and lifting themselves around the surrounding mountains. And now the lightning began to shimmer; the electric flashes trembled upon the face of the clouds; the clouds themselves grew blacker between the flashes, while rumbling thunders sprang from peak to peak, rolled through the gorges, and left the whole desert roaring in echo. Such, my friends, we infer from Holy Writ, was the dreadful but magnificent prelude which heralded Divinity. And now, the great God, Law-giver and Judge, descended in fire from Heaven, and as His divine foot touched Sinai's granite crest, the mountain reeled and quaked while volume after volume of smoke ascended the sky to cover the track of descending Deity. God, the greatest of all law-givers, was on the earth, His foot-stool. A trumpet more terrible than the trumpet of judgment that will awake the dead announced His presence. It was the trumpet that summoned all humanity to receive the law and its thunderblasts shook the moun- 62 Random Thoughts and the tains. Moses trembled and the people fled away from the Mount, for immutable law was King that day. Louder and still louder sounded the trumpet, — its awful tones forming words which shaped themselves into a code of law enduring as time, inexorable as death: 1. Thou shalt have no other God before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 5. Honor thy father and thy mother. 6. Thou shalt not kill. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 10. Thou shalt not covet. And this code of law, thundered down from the heights of Sinai more than thirty centuries ago, is the law in North Carolina today. And, my friends, I am superstitious enough, or sentimental enough, or religious enough, if you please, to believe that these laws of the Almighty, carved in these tablets of marble, emblematic of the tablets of stone on which they were originally graven, built in as a part of this court room, where they will remain constantly before the eyes of the people and the jurors and the witnesses, will, as the years go by, materially aid in the administration of justice in this Courthouse. I believe that when the witness goes upon that stand to testify and is conscious that just above him is the command from on high. "Thou shalt not bear false witness", he will pause long before testifying falsely in a contest between man and man. I have hanging on the walls of my office a picture representing a Roman Court, when Justinian and his associates, at the command of the Roman Emperor, assembled nearly two thousand years ago to compile and codify the laws of Rome. When you look at the picture, at first glance you see only Justinian and his associates; but upon a closer examination, you will see, in the background, just above the Judge's stand, the picture of a woman so beautiful as to make you feel that she must have been formed in Heaven and then handed down a stairway of stars for man to love and cherish for- ever. This same picture is on my license to practice law, issued by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and that of other States. It is on every lawyer's Musings of a Mountaineer 63 license — this same picture of this beautiful woman, standing on a pedestal, holding in her right hand the sword of authority, while in her left hand she holds poised a pair of scales emblematic of the Scales of Justice. It is a picture of Astrea, the blind Goddess of Justice, worshipped in ancient times by pagans who had no know- ledge of the Christian's God, but who believed that this Goddess of Justice presided in the souls of the Judges who held in their hands the lives and liberties and property rights of those whose causes the Courts were called upon to determine and to decide. The mythologies of Greece and Rome teach us that this Goddess of Justice was blind when she poised her scales; blind to hatred, revenge, and vengeance; blind to passion, prejudice, and partisan- ship; blind to everything except those things that pointed unerringly to the everlasting truth. And I believe that this figure, built in as a part of our Court- house, illustrating, as it does, the historical truth that, centuries before Moses and the Decalogue were ever heard of, men loved and worshipped Justice as an attribute of Divinity, — this figure will likewise aid in the administration of justice, because it teaches that, in all ages and in every clime, the idea of justice is inherent in the heart of man. Then let me appeal to the lawyers everywhere who expect to practice in this Courthouse, and let me especially appeal to the lawyers of Haywood County, that we make this Temple what it was designed to be — a place where justice shall be judicially, fearlessly, and impartially administered. For more than a thousand years before the time of Christ, Zoroastrianism was the religion of ancient Persia and it is still the religion of several hundred thousand people in India. According to its teachings, the world constituted a mighty battle-ground on which the contended forces of Good and Evil were engaged in perpetual struggle. Midway between these two contending armies stood man, and it was incumbent upon him to choose upon which side he would battle. There could be no compromise, no evasion, and no division of loyalty. And not only was man required to enlist on one side or the other, but the beasts and the birds, and the winds and the flowers and the trees, — all nature, animate and in- animate, the very earth and the sky and the sea and all that in them is, — were likewise required to enlist either under the standard of Good or the banner of Evil in this perpetual struggle for supremacy; a struggle in which the Spirit of Good would ultimately triumph. 64 Random Thoughts and the And so, too, in this Courthouse, as in every temple of justice, we see Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, engaged in mortal combat; for it is hardly to be imagined that both sides can be right in the same lawsuit. And it is the never-ending conflict between Right and Wrong that makes every Courthouse a temple of tragedy, because here, Wrong sometimes triumphs, and the defeat of the Right in any cause must inevitably result in tragedy for some one. We see in the Courthouse every class of human life, and every phase of human character. Here are hearts in whose dark and mysterious depths gleam fierce flames of vice and crime; and then, in contrast, here are bosoms fragrant with violet vales of innocence, where the goddess Virtue sits enthroned. Here we see eyes wet with tears of remorse and penitence, listen to piteous sobs of grief and regret, and hear words of pardon, soft and sweet. Here we listen to savage cries for vengeance or see wrapped in spotless robes of purity hearts that lovingly condone and forgive. Here we see thorns of hatred mingled with roses of love, and crimson stains on garments of guilt and beads of sweat, wrung by anguish or pity, glistening like dewdrops upon the brows of honest men. Here lurk the demons of revenge with bloody sword in hand, while at the feet of the sublime form of Justice, with persuasive voice and uplifted hands, the meek-eyed Angel of Mercy kneels. Here we see revolting pictures stamped upon scarlet brows of shame; but it is here, too, that charity draws the curtains to hide a neighbor's faults, turns a deaf ear to the tongue of scandal, and heals the wounds made by the poisoned arrows of hate. And here it is that Falsehood comes attired in the garb of Truth and oftentimes wears her mask so well that the unsuspecting jury believes her guileless; but above and beyond the clouds of gloom cast by Falsehood's shadow, and shining like the Star of Hope on Heaven's bright canvass we see the lustrous image of the Eternal Truth. And higher than the steeple of this Temple, greater than the Republic itself, and more enduring than the granite of which this structure is builded are the Divine Attributes of Justice; and as long as the world shall exist as the habitation of man, humanity will continue to love the Right as a priceless boon and will gladly glorify those who strive to preserve and promote it. It gives me infinite pleasure to accept, on behalf of the Haywood County Bar, this magnificent building. Musings of a Mountaineer 65 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT WESTERN CAROLINA TEACHERS' COLLEGE ON THE OCCASION OF RAISING FUNDS FOR THE "MADISON MEMORIAL", OCTOBER, 1936 Dr. Hunter, Professor Madison, Fellow Members of the Alumni Association, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Hunter for inviting me to speak here today on this great occasion. On the thireenth day of May, 1897, when I was twenty-three years old, at the invitation of Professor Madison, I spoke to the Alumni Association of the old Cullowhee High School. I spoke then in the old green building down under the hill, the occasion being, as I now recall it, the ninth annual commencement of the school; and today, when I am sixty-three years young, in response to the kind invitation of Dr. Hunter, I am privileged to return to address the Alumni Association of the Western Carolina Teachers' College, and the friends of the college here assembled. On the former occasion our Association had twenty-one mem- bers; today we boast a membership of one thousand one hundred eleven. On the occasion of my former speech, among other things, I had this to say: "And before I conclude, I feel it my duty to say to you, Professor Madison, that there is one person at least among those who have graduated from your school, whose life, if it shall ever accomplish anything that is really worth while, whatever there may be of success; whatever there may be worth while, will be due in part — and in great part — to your kind teachings, to your wise counsel, to your patient forbearance, and to your devoted, your fervent, your never failing friendship. And I am sure, Professor Madison, that as an educator, as a Christian character, your in- fluence here will endure for ages, and your name will be spoken with gratitude and veneration by generations yet unborn. After nine years of continuous and unbroken service as Principal of this school, now conceded to be the best of its kind in the State, you still stand forth with eye undimmed, and natural force unabated, ready for all the toils and duties of your exhalted station. May your School — Our School — continue to grow until it shall shed lustre on North Carolina and the adjoining States." 66 Random Thoughts and the Thirty-nine years have come and gone since I uttered those words. Would it be too much for me to claim that as a mere boy, I was then speaking the words of prophecy? Let us see. We all agree that this school has continued to grow; that it has shed lustre on North Carolina and the adjoining States, and I know that all of us agree that through all these thirty-nine years Professor Madison has remained the same kind teacher, the same wise counsellor, the same patient helper, and the same devoted, unfailing friend; and I also know that all of you will join with me in a prayer of thanks- giving that we have him with us still, with his force still unabated, and his eye still undimmed. And I am likewise sure that you will agree with me, that if we could know that he might retain his physi- cal power and his mental vigor, we could wish that he might live to be as old as the man I heard about a few days ago. Up here in Avery County, North Carolina, where the altitude is above the clouds, and the people live in perpetual sunshine, mellowed with a generous mixture of moonshine, they boast that their people live to be unusually old. And the story goes that a stranger was passing through that County, and as he came around the mountain side he found a very old man sitting on the bank of the road and weeping as though his heart would break. His hair hung down over his shoulders, and his beard reached to his waist, and both were white as snow. Out of the kindness of his heart the traveler stopped his car, and went back and asked the old man the cause of his grief. As soon as he could master his emotion, the old man said: "Well, fifteen or twenty minutes ago my daddy came all around beating me to death." The stranger was amazed, and finally he inquired: "Do you mean to tell me that as old a man as you are has a father still living?" And the old man replied: "Well, you would think I had a daddy living if you could have seen him wear out that hickory withe around my naked back." And then the stranger said: "Well, old man, since you have told me this much, I want to ask you what your father was whipping you about?" And the old man replied: "Well, it was about as near nothing as you ever saw, he beat me up like he did because I was sassin' my grandpap!" But in my speech here thirty-nine years ago, I also said this: "Having planted in the minds of so great a number of the young people of this country the principles of education, refinement, and progress; and having by your incessant labors built up a school here for the general dissemination of knowledge in this section, we Musings of a Mountaineer 67 know that you merit the richest rewards and the highest honors of the people of this country while you live and their costliest brass and marble should protect your dust after your work here is over*" Well, that is all right; and I have no doubt that when Professor Madison shall answer the summons that will call him across the mystic river that divides this world from the next; when he answers the summons that will call him to the rich reward that awaits him, the people of this country will rise up as one man and mark his resting place with their costliest brass and their most enduring marble; and I repeat that will be all right. But for a man like Professor Madison, in recognition of service such as he has rendered here, that is not enough. I believe in the custom prevailing in this country of sending flowers to the funerals of our departed friends. I love flowers. They are the emblems of purity and innocence, and nothing is more beautiful than a lovely living flower. But the burn- ing rays of the sun will cause the flowers to fade, and the descending rains will cause them to decay. And I believe that a kind word spoken, a needful service rendered, and a little sunshine scattered here and there will be worth more to us while we live than a wilder- ness of flowers scattered over our graves after we are dead. And I believe that all of you will agree with me that Professor Madison deserves to be honored with budding, blooming, living flowers while he lives. Honors paid by the living to the dead are as old and universal as the races of mankind. They follow the bereavements of the cabin and the palace. Simple ceremonies attend the humble and the lowly, and frail memorials mark their resting places; while the long pro- cession and the solemn and lofty dirge, the crowded assemblage, and the voice of eulogy, all wait upon departed eminence and glory. The barbarian chants a requiem over the grave of his fellow mortal, and the Christian extols the virtues of his fallen comrade. And I believe in erecting monuments over the graves of our departed dead, and carving epitaphs that will transmit from year to year the meritorious deeds of those who sleep beneath them; but Time, after a while, with its destructive forces, will dim the epitaph and crumble the marble into lifeless dust. And I believe that every person in this great audience will agree with me that Professor Madison deserves a monument, to be erected in his lifetime, that will shine more brightly through the coming years than our most highly polished 68 Random Thoughts and the brass, and that will be more lasting than our richest and most enduring marble. No one ever dies all forgotten, and no one ever wholly perishes from the face of the earth. The currents of influence, for good or for evil, when once started, flow on forever, even here on the earth; and this is so because every mind and heart reproduces some of its qualities and some of its achievements upon the minds and hearts of others, both before and after death. The greatest actors on the broad stage of human affairs have always pointed back from the loftiest points of their elevation, to the Mother with her prayers; to the Father with his toil and devotion; to unselfish kindred; to self-sacrificing friends; to teachers who taught them that they were born for a higher destiny than that of earth, and bowed with rev- erence before the living power associated forever with their names and memories. But now and then the current of this stream of influence receives a new and startling velocity. Some intellectual force, towering above all others of its period and section, occasion- ally imparts to communities and States, and even to nations at once, an impulse which condenses the ordinary advancement of the times into the thrilling compass of a single day. Then entire com- munities and States, and not merely individuals, become the sub- jects of an irresistible influence. A new era is then noted on the page of the historian, and new gateways are opened for the onward movement of the race. Such an event occurred here at Cullowhee, when in 1889, a young man from Virginia, the descendant of a famous family of that great commonwealth; a family which has given a President to this nation, and many other noted men to the world, came here and founded the old Cullowhee High School. It was my privilege to attend that school in the second year of its life, and until I had finished the classical course then prescribed. During that period the school was tottering on its first foundations, and I know something of its troubles, its trials, and its travails. Its only means of support was the tuition of the students which most of them were unable to pay; and I well remember the times when we had but little assurance that the school would continue from one month to the next. And I can also bear testimony to the toils, the penuary, the poverty, and the hopes deferred, that darkened those early years in the life of that young man. But he was utterly unafraid. He was afraid of nothing but doing wrong. Disappoint- ments failed to sadden his face. His heart was full of hope and his Musings of a Mountaineer 69 soul was was full of dreams, and his eyes gleamed with the eternal promise of a better day; and so with the patience of a Job, with the self-denial of a Hermit, and the courage of a Martyr, he fought his battles against what appeared to be overwhelming odds. But the struggles of the years brought mastery, and with mastery came faith, and with faith came triumph, — a triumph whose proportions have continued to swell until his influence took unto itself the wings of the morning and visited the uttermost parts of this and sur- rounding States; and it dwells today in a thousand homes in our mountain section and has shaped the destiny of thousands of lives. And as a result of his self-sacrificing life-work, combined with the magnificent leadership of our splendid President, Dr. Hunter, for the past thirteen years, the old Cullowhee High School has grown into the Western Carolina Teachers' College, a college easily the equal of the best of its kind in all the land, and superior to many. My friends, all men and women who deserve to live desire to survive their own funerals, and to live afterward in the service they have rendered to mankind, rather than in the fading characters written in the memories of men. Most men desire to leave some work behind them that will outlast the brief day and generation in which they lived. That our influence shall survive us and be living forces when we are in our graves; that our works shall be read, our acts spoken of, and our names recollected and mentioned with reverence and gratitude, both while we live and after we are dead, as evidence that our achievements live and rule and sway, and lead some portion of mankind and of the world, — this is the highest aspiration of the human soul. To plant trees, that after we are dead shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers have planted. To sow that others may reap; to work and plan, not only for those who live while we live, but for those who shall come after us; so to work and live that the results of our lives shall reach far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule in the realms of thought over men who are yet unborn; to bless, with the glorious gifts of a well spent life, the unnumbered thousands who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what cemetery his unguarded ashes repose, — this is the supreme aim of every exalted life. The poorest unlettered laboring man, painfully conscious of his own limitations; and, in consequence, stirred by laudable ambition for his offspring; and the poorest widowed mother, giving her life- 70 Random Thoughts and the blood to those who pay the pittance she is able to earn, — such a man and such a woman will toil and save and sacrifice, in order to educate their children, that the rising generation may occupy a higher station in the world than its predecessors. And so, from the ranks of such humble but heroic souls come the world's greatest benefactors. Hence in the influences and results that survive him, man becomes immortal through successive centuries. The Spartan mother, who, giving her son the shield, said to him, "Win with it, or die upon it", shared the government of Lacedae- mon with the legislation of Lycurgus, for she, too, made a law that lived after her; a law which inspired the Spartan soldiers that after- wards demolished the walls of Athens, and aided Alexander the Great to conquer the Eastern world. The widow who gave the fiery arrows to Marian with which to burn her own house that it might no longer shelter the enemies of her country, the house in which she had lain with her head on her husband's bosom, and where her children were born, legislated more for her country than many a Legislature that convened after her State won its freedom. It was of but little importance to the Kings of Egypt and the Monarchs of Assyria and Phoenicia that the son of a Jewish woman, a foundling, adopted by the daughter of King Sesostris Rameses, slew an Egyptian because he had oppressed a Hebrew slave and then fled into the desert to remain there for forty years; but Moses, who might have been the representative of the King in lower Egypt, became the deliverer of the Jews, and led them from Egypt to the frontiers of Palestine, and made for them a law which still endures; a law that has furnished the foundation for the legal codes of all the civilized nations of the earth, and shaped the destinies of the world. Moses and the old Roman lawyers, with Alfred the Great of England; the Saxon Thanes and the Norman Barons; the old judges and chancellors, and the original founders of our jurispru- dence, now lost in the mists and shadows of the mighty past, are still legislating for us, and we still obey the laws which they de- signed. Napoleon died upon the barren rock of his exile on the lonely island of St. Helena, and his bones, borne back to France by the son of a King, now rest in the great city on the Seine; but the thoughts of Napoleon still govern France. He, and not the people, Musings of a Mountaineer 71 dethroned the Bourbon, and drove the last King of the House of Orleans into exile. He, in his tomb, and not the people, voted the crown to the Third Napoleon, and he, in his grave, and not the generals of France and England, led the United forces against the grim despotism of the North. Mahomet announced to the Arabian Idolators the new creed: "There is but one God, and Mahomet, like Moses and Christ, is his prophet." For many years unaided, then with the help of his family and a few friends, then with his disciples, and finally with an invincible army he taught and preached the Koran. But the religion of the wild Arabian enthusiast, conquering first the fiery tribes of the Great Desert, spread over Asia and India, the Greek Empire, Northern Africa, Persia and Spain, and dashed its fiery soldiery against the battlements of Northern Christendom; and today the law of Mahomet governs one-fourth of the human race, and Turk and Arab, Moor and Persion, Hindu and African, still obey the prophet and pray each day with their faces toward Mecca. Confucius, now dead over twenty-five hundred years, still enacts law for China; and the thoughts and ideas of Peter the Great still govern Russia, with all its rapid changes in Government. Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Demosthenes, Aristotle, and the other great sages of the ancient world are still recognized as the great Masters of Philosophy and still exercise dominion over the intellects of men; and the great statesmen of the past still preside in the councils of the nations. Burke still lingers in the House of Commons in England; the sonorous voice of Mirabeau still rings in the legislative Chambers of France; and the echo of Patrick Henry's eloqeunce may still be heard in the old St. John's Church in Richmond. Long years ago the Temple built by Solomon crumbled into ruin when the Assyrian hosts overran Jerusalem and left the Holy City a mass of ruins and Palestine a desert. The Kings of Egypt and Assyria, who were contemporaries of Solomon, are now dead and forgotten, and their kingdoms are shattered wrecks bleaching on the shores of Time. The wolf, the lion, and the jackal now howl and roar among the ruins of Thebes and Tyre, and the sculptured images of Nineveh and Babylon are dug from the ruins and placed in the scattered museums of the world; but the Proverbs and Songs of Solomon still live, and will continue to live through the coming 72 Random Thoughts and the centuries as gems of priceless wisdom "which rust cannot corrupt, and which thieves cannot break through nor steal." It is said that Jesus of Nazareth, during his entire career on earth had not where to lay his head. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was criticised because He sat down at the table to eat with publicans and sinners. He visited the sick and those who were in prison, and was denounced as the friend of the outcast. He was despised and rejected of men, and was finally tried, con- demned, and crucified upon a false charge of seditious teaching against the reigning Caesar; but His executioners could not destroy His ideas; they were unable to crucify the doctrines He taught; and upon these ideas and doctrines, there arose all around the world the fanes of a new and undying faith. My friends, if God, who is Himself invisible to the eyes of Man- kind, by means of definite acts reveals Himself to the understanding of men; if He acts through Angels in Heaven, and through men on earth, then let me ask, may not the works of Professor Madison here in Cullowhee, be likened unto the works of God, his Maker and Redeemer? I have oftentimes stood upon the highest peaks of the mountains of this County and watched the light of the dawn come sweeping over the eastern hills, like the mist hurrying before the ocean's gale, until every plant and shrub and blossom glistened like diamonds in the effulgent rays of the morning sun; and I thought the picture was sublime. I have listened to the rumbling thunder bellowing through the raging storm, and have watched the lurid lightning leap out from behind the clouds at midnight and flash clean across the storm-swept sky, until cloud and darkness, and the shadow-draped earth, amid the rattle and roar of the rain and hail, and the crashing blast of the screaming winds, flamed suddenly into vivid splendor; and I thought that picture was sublimer still. As I came across the Balsam Mountains this morning, I gazed upon a picture that fairly took my breath away; a picture painted by that unseen Mystic Hand that traces the never fading green on pine, and laurel, and cedar; but mingled with the green there was the red of the oak, the yellow of the poplar, the brown of the hickory, the black of the walnut, the scarlet of the sassafras, the gold of the maple, the pink of the sumac, the lavender of the locust, the crimson of the birch, and the gray of the slinging moss; while Musings of a Mountaineer 73 the sourwood added its ruby blush, and the blackgum and the dogwood, mantled in purple tinged with orange, blended their brilliant hues with all the rest, until the whole mountain side seemed to be robed in all the resplendent colors of the rainbow; a picture of such rare and exquisite beauty that the Divine Painter Himself has dared to surpass it only in the molten and empurpled splendor of His sunset skies; and I thought that picture was sub- limest of all. But the most beautiful picture that I ever saw, or that I expect ever to see, unless I shall be permitted to look upon heaven's in- comparable landscapes, with its gates of pearl and streets of gold, its purple hills and fields of light, and its opal towers and bur- nished domes, is the light of a noble, unselfish, well-spent life devoted to the service of others, and shining like a benediction upon those whom it has inspired and uplifted and waiting only for the Voice that will bid it enter the "Mansions in the Sky." Such a picture we have before us today in the life and service of Professor Madison. And the great object of this great day is to make the final arrangements to convert the acre of ground on which the old Cullowhee High School building once stood, into the beauty spot, not only of this Campus, but of the entire country, there to remain in fresh and perpetual beauty as a memorial of him. The plan, as I understand it, and as mapped by a great architect, is to plant trees, construct fountains and pools, to provide seats, and to lay off walk-ways, bordered by hundreds of varieties of shrubs and flowers. But the greatest idea of all, — an idea originating in the great and generous heart and brain of Dr. Hunter, is to establish in connection with this memorial, what shall be known as the Madison Memorial Scholarship, so that always through the coming years some worthy young man will be obtaining an education here in consideration of his service in keeping fresh and beautiful the Memorial down under the hill. We learn in history that the ancients had a poor way of striking a light and keeping a fire, and so it happened oftentimes that there was no light to be had. The fires had been neglected everywhere and the whole nation found itself in darkness. To rekindle the spark was a laborious and difficult task, and so the people of antiquity, in order to prevent a recurrence of the calamity, designated certain persons whose sole duty in life was to keep the lights always burn- 74 ing. In Rome the preservation of the fire was given a sacred char- acter. A Temple was built for the service in honor of Vesta, the Goddess of the Home and the Fireside, and those set apart to feed the fire were consecrated as to a religious duty. The purest young women in Rome were chosen as guardians of the sacred fire, and if one of these Vestal Virgins, as they were called, lost her purity or let the fire in the Temple go out, the law of Rome imposed upon her the awful penalty of death. And so, within the Temple, night and day, winter and summer, and from year to year, the Vestal watched her sacred flame. The Roman Legions might camp upon the distant Rhine, or chase Picts and Scots in the Grampian Hills, or form lines of battle on the Euphrates; but in the Temple at Rome would be found the eternal fire, with the Vestals watching it night and day. If the fire went out in the house of any Roman, rich or poor, in country or in town, he was not left in perpetual darkness; but straightway he took himself to the Temple and lit his torch at the sacred fire which the Vestals had kept alive. And in all the broad domain of Rome there was never a fear of universal dark- ness, because they knew that if one of the Vestals proved recreant to her duty, another would be there to take her place, and that Vestals might come, and Vestals might go, but the light would shine on forever. My friends, let us erect here today a Temple; let us inaugurate in that Temple the Vestal service; let us make it like unto a "pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night"; let us make it like unto "a city that is set upon a hill that cannot be hid", so that the light of the life of this great and good man shall shine on forever. CHAPTER V. RELIGION— A COMPARISON. ''God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth." John, Chapter 4: 24. Ladies and Gentlemen: History tells us that Demosthenes, the greatest of the Grecian orators, before addressing the multitude would always pray to all the Gods and Goddesses of Greece to allow nothing but words of truth and wisdom to pass his lips. On this occasion I feel deeply my unworthiness and my inability to even approach the discussion of the sacred subject of religion, and I trust I may be pardoned if I crave and request the earnest prayer of each person present that I may speak tonight only those words that will be helpful to you and to me. I am sure you will agree with me that my task is a difficult one when I must confine within the space of one short hour the dis- cussion of the sublimest theme in the Universe; a subject as old as the human race itself; one upon which countless thousands of volumes have been written, and which has engaged the best thought of the greatest minds the world has ever known. Of course an hour will not seem long if you pay attention to what I shall have to say. Down in one of the Counties east of here I heard a story about Judge Cook who for many years presided over our Superior Courts. A lawyer at Durham had argued a dull, dry legal proposition for about three hours, and finally something he said caused the Judge to awake. The lawyer then said: "If Your Honor please, I do not feel at liberty to trespass further on Your Honor's time." Judge Cook at once replied: "Don't you worry about having trespassed upon my time; for the past two hours my fear has been that you proposed to invade the realms of eternity." And the story goes that the next day was Sunday and the Judge went to church. When the service was over the Judge was presented to the minister who 76 Random Thoughts and the asked him after the introduction what he thought of his sermon, and Judge Cook said: "Well, it was wonderful; like the love of God, it surpassed all understanding, and like His mercy I thought it was going to endure forever." Religion is inherent in the heart of mankind, and the religious idea is so old that it is lost in the impenetrable shadows of antiquity. It matters not how far back we trace a religious faith, we find un- mistakable evidence that it is the successor of a faith that lived before. It is said that Zoroaster was the founder of the religion of ancient Persia, and yet we find abundant proof that Zoroaster was a compiler and an apostle rather than the founder of a new re- ligion. The Vedas of India consist of a collection of the peculiar ideas of religions that were hoary with age when the authentic history of India begins. When we read the history of the world and its mythology we find that the people of every age and clime, whether civilized or savage, worshipped something. What does it mean? What is it that we call religious faith? It came into the world of man countless centuries ago, and it is here today. Wherever man is, there is also a Spirit and a God. Wherever there is human life there is also faith. Where did it come from? And when? And how? And why? What was it yesterday? What is it today? What will it be tomorrow? I repeat, what does it mean? It surely means that belief in God; belief in a Higher, a Superior, a Supreme Power is the basis on which mankind has built and advanced, and the basis on which his hope and destiny rest. So far back as we can trace the history of the human race, religion in some form has constituted the heart of civilization and the soul of progress. It was here before the Tower of Babel reared its crest into the clouds. It was here before the Pyramids were built and before the Sphinx gazed out upon the desert wastes of Africa. It was here before the intrepid Greek warriors led their invincible hosts to their ten years' war with Troy. The nations that first worshipped at the shrine of a Supernal Power are buried beneath the dust of bygone ages. The altars and temples of countless cen- turies have crumbled into ruins and over their forgotten sites great cities have reared their proud palaces of stone and marble. Mighty civilizations have successively played their several parts, run their cycles and then given way to newer and higher forms of life; but the religious idea remains with us still and grows with man's intel- lectual growth and "broadens with the process of the suns." Musings of a Mountaineer 77 We may ponder over the prophecies of the Old Testament and the Revelations of the New Testament until we are gray with age; we may read the Koran of Mahomet and the Zenda- Vestas of Persia; we may study the Vedas of India and the Analects of China; we may refresh ourselves with reading the Sagas of the Scandinavian climes and the mythologies of Greece and Rome; we may acquaint ourselves with all the religious literature of all the ages of all the world, and we have one mighty history of the never-ending search of mankind for light — a history of the quest of man for God. In ancient Egypt the people worshipped many Gods, but their chief Deities were Isis and Osiris. Osiris was the Divine Lord of the Nile lands, the God of Justice and Love and Nurturing Light. We are told that he was put to death by Set, the God of Darkness and Evil; but his loving wife, Isis, went up and down the land in search of the body, and weeping until the banks of the Nile over- flowed with her tears. Eventually she found the body and buried it; but this God of Darkness and Evil discovered the burial place, and after unearthing the body and dismembering it thoroughly buried each fragment in a different place. But the faithful Isis after traversing the land a second time, found all the pieces and buried them together in a securely sealed tomb. And then Osiris came to life again, and was miraculously resurrected from death and carried up to heaven where he lived on eternally. Many of the virtues of Christianity appear to have been the ideal of the ancient Egyptians. A thousand voices from the Egyp- tian tombs proclaim this fact. The inscription on a king's tomb at Thebes, among hundreds of others, describes the creed of one of the Pharoahs in these words: "I lived in truth, and fed my soul with justice. What I did to men was done in peace, and how I loved God, God and my heart well know. I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and a shelter to the stranger. I honored the Gods with sacrifices and the dead with offerings. I never took the child from its mother's bosom, nor the poor man from the side of his wife." I believe that every liberal minded man will agree with me that many of us could emulate that creed with profit to ourselves and to the world. The Scandinavians worshipped Odin or Wodin as their chief Divinity. Their heaven was Valhalla, into which none could ever enter except those who fell bravely in battle, and in which Odin 78 Random Thoughts and the had his abode with its roof of gold, and on whose innumerable walls hung as their ornaments swords and spears and shields. From its hundreds of wide portals issued daily multitudes of heroes to contend in battle, while beautiful maidens, called Valkyrs, swift as meteors in their flight through the sky, rode upon the wings of the wind invisible, above the scene of the conflict, and designated with their spears the warriors who should fall, and whom they would then bear off in triumph to Valhalla. According to Greek Theogony first came Chaos, a shapeless and formless mass of matter. This is the condition in which the Greek poets supposed the world to have existed before the Almighty Power brought the confused elements into order. Chaos was the consort of Darkness and from their union sprang Terra, or the Earth and Uranus, or Heaven. So the obscure fiction of the Greek poets coincide with the Hebrew account given by Moses: "And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light and there was light'." Terra, the Earth, married Uranus, or Heaven. Their offspring were Titan and Kronos, or Saturn, the last named being the God of Time. Titan, the elder son, gave up his dominion to his brother, Kronos, who then became king of Heaven and Earth. Kronos married his sister, Cybele, who was also known as Rhea. The reign of Kronos was called the Golden Age. The earth yielded spon- taneously subsistence for its population and war was unknown. All things were in common and Astrea, the Goddess of Justice, con- trolled the actions of men. But Kronos had received his kingdom from Titan on condition that he would devour all his male children, which he had solemnly promised to do. His wife, Rhea, however, concealed from him Jupiter, Poseidon and Pluto. Titan and his giant half-brothers, the Titans, then made war on Kronos. Each of the Titans had fifty heads and a hundred hands. They dethroned Kronos and took him captive, but Jupiter took up arms, assembling his brothers and the later Gods on Mount Olym- pus. The Titans collected their forces on Mount Othys, opposite Olympus, and then the war of the Gods commenced. After it had lasted for ten years or more Jupiter called the Cyclops to his aid, and also some powerful giants whom he had released from captivity and who then assisted him in the war. Mount Olympus was now Musings of a Mountaineer 79 shaken to its foundations. The sea rose, the earth groaned and the mighty forests trembled. Jupiter flung his mighty thunderbolts. The lightning flashed and the woods blazed. The Titans attempted in return to storm the skies, throwing massive oaks at the heavens, piling up the mountains one upon the other and hurling them at Jupiter. But Jupiter flung the giants into the abyss of the earth below, and being completely triumphant, he released his brother from captivity. We come now to the twelve great Deities — the six Gods and six Goddesses who formed the Council of the great Gods of Mount Olympus, presided over by Jupiter. The six great Gods of the Olympian Council were Jupiter, sometimes called Zeus, and in Latin, Jove, who was the real monarch of the heavens and the father of most of the other Gods. Poseidon, called Neptune in Latin, was the God of the sea and controlled the tides and the waves. Apollo or Sol, as he was called by the Romans, was the Sun God and patron of music, poetry and eloquence. Ares, called Mars by the Romans, was the God of War. He is represented as being armed with a helmet, a pike and a shield. He sits in a chariot drawn by furious horses, called "Flight and Terror"; and his sister, Bellona, the Goddess of War, conducts his chariot. Discord, in tattered garments, holding a torch in his hand, goes before him, while Clamor and Anger follow. Hephaestus, called Vulcan in Latin, was the God of fire and of blacksmiths and all those who worked in iron or other metals. Hermes, called Mercury in Latin, was the herald and interpreter of the Gods and patron of commerce and wealth. The six great Goddesses of the same Council were first Hera, called Juno in Latin and referred to in the New Testament as Diana of the Ephesians, the Great Goddess of Nature and the wife and sister of Jupiter. On earth she was worshipped as Artemis or Juno, but was called Selene or Luna in heaven, or the Goddess of the moon. She lived in the woods accompanied by sixty Oceanides, daughters of Oceanus, a powerful Sea God, and by twenty sea Nymphs; and her attendant and messenger was Iris, the Goddess of the Rainbow. Armed with a golden bow and lighted by a torch kindled by the lightnings of Jupiter, she led her Nymphs through the dark forests and wooded mountains in pursuit of the swift- footed deer. The high mountains were said to tremble at the twang 80 Random Thoughts and the of her bow, while the forests resounded with the panting of the wounded deer. Aphrodite, as she was called in Greece, and Venus in Rome, was the Goddess of Love and Female Beauty and of Laughter and Pleasure, and was the daughter of Jove, although it was claimed by some that she sprang from the foam of the sea, and a zephyr wafted her along the waves to the Isle of Cypress where she was attired by the Seasons and then led up to the Assembly of the Gods. It is said that flowers bloomed at her feet as she walked, and the rosy Hours attired her in Divine apparel. Clad in a purple mantle, glittering with diamonds, and bound around her waist by the Zones, she traversed the heavens in an ivory chariot drawn by doves. Eros, or Cupid, as he was called in Latin, the son of Venus, was the God of Love. He is represented as a beautiful boy with wings. Armed with a bow and arrows it is said that he shot darts of love into the bosoms of both Gods and men. Athene, called Minerva by the Romans, was the Goddess of wisdom, of modesty and chastity, and was a daughter of Jove without a mother, having sprung from his head full grown and completely armed. Demeter was the Goddess of Corn and of the Harvests, and the mother of Persephone who was kidnapped by Pluto, the God of the Infernal Regions, of which she later became queen. Hestia, or Vesta, as she was called in Rome, was the Goddess of the Home and of the Fireside. In Grecian and Roman Mythology every man's house was his castle, and there before the altars of Vesta the new-born child was named. In Rome the preservation of fire was given a sacred character. The Temple of Vesta was used for that service and those set apart to feed the fire were consecrated as to a religious duty. Astrea was the Goddess of Justice. It is said that she dwelt upon the earth in the Golden Age, but the wickedness and impiety of men drove her to heaven. With a blind-fold over her eyes so that she could not see either one of the suitors before her, she is repre- sented as a woman indescribably beautiful, standing on a throne, holding in her right hand the sword of authority, while in her left hand she holds poised a pair of scales emblematic of the scales of justice, in which she weighs the actions of men, the good actions on one side and the bad on the other. In addition to the Gods and Goddesses composing the Olympian Council there were many minor Gods and Goddesses, among which may be mentioned Terminus who was the God of Boundaries; Musings of a Mountaineer 81 Comus was the God of Revelry and Festivity; Bacchus was the God of Wine and Plutus was the God of Wealth. Aeolus was the God of the Winds, and resided in one of the Aeolian Islands. It is said that when Ulysses visited Aeolus in his Island, this God gave him a bag in which were tied up all the contrary winds, so they would not disturb him in his voyage; but his companions opened the bag: and all the winds rushed out and destroyed all the ships except the one in which Ulysses was sailing; and from these escaping contrary winds were formed the whirlwind, the hurricane, the cyclone, the simoon, the typhoon and the tornado. Janus was the God of Peace and it was believed that he presided over the military enterprises o? Rome; and so the great gates of his Temple in the heart of the city were always left open so the people could enter and offer sacrifices for the success of the Roman arms. But it is said that during the entire reign of Augustus the gates of the Temple were closed for the first time in eight hundred years, for Rome was at peace with all the world. Among the minor Goddesses may be mentioned Eos, or Aurora, as she was called by the Romans, who was the Goddess of the Dawn or the Morning. Flora was the Goddess of Flowers and Gardens; Pomonus was the Goddess of the Fruit Trees, and Somnus was the Goddess of Sleep. The Sirens were three Sea Nymphs who resided near the shores of Sicily where their sweet voices lured to sleep all who passed by and then drowned and devoured them. The Graces were three sisters who constantly attended Aphrodite to indicate that Beauty always accompanied Grace. The Furies, or Eumenides, were likewise three in number and were said to have sprung from the wound given by Kronos to his father, Uranos. They punished the guilty in this world by pursuing them with pangs of remorse, and in the infernal regions by perpetual torture. Nemesis was the Goddess of Vengeance and was the daughter of Destructive Night. She was the avenger of Wrong, punishing all offenders against the Eternal Law, but especially those guilty of taunting or boastful pride, and in general, those who were guilty of overstepping the bounds of moderation. The Three Fates were Clotho, Lackesis and Altropas; and they were clothed with tremendous power as they were entrusted with the management of the fatal thread of life. Clotho drew the thread between her fingers; Lackesis turned the wheel and Altropas cut the thread with her scissors. The Muses were nine sisters whose dwelling place was on Mount Olympus 82 Random Thoughts and the where there was a fountain from which water gushed forth beneath