Sow Your Wild Oats, You'll Regret It

1900

Edward Bok said in the Sunday School Times, relative to a young man "sowing his wild oats:" "No man has ever passed through a period of indiscreet living during his early manhood without regretting the memory of it in after years. Nor has any man, by reason of 'sowing his wild oats,' known one iota more of 'life,' except that particular phase of it, which, if it had a glitter for him in youth, became a repellent remembrance to him in his more mature years. The reputation that comes of right living and good character is what the man of forty to seventy desires, and nothing but the well-spent years of early life can secure this."

—The Ram's Horn, March 17, 1900, p. 17

Mother

1902

God gave us but one mother. Remember, she has borne for you that which no other human being has or can. Remember that in the natural course of events the grave will in a few years, at most, close over her, leaving you behind. Remember that, when she is gone, you will think of her faults and her failings with pitiful tenderness, and want to cover them from all human eyes. And remember, also, that the deepest sting which sorrow has for us is hidden in those soul-harrowing words. "If I only had!" or "had not!" It would be blessed to live, no matter what the provocation, so that, standing beside an open grave those words could have no sting for us. - Mrs. G. R. Alden.

When He Missed His Mother

1910

Bishop of Lincoln Regretted Inability to Make Frank Criticism of Poor Sermon

Cannon Scott Holland, in an appreciation of the late bishop of Lincoln, mentions that Doctor King was a bachelor, and his mother lived with him till her death. He said once, after hearing a rasping sermon that irritated him: "It is at such a time that I miss my mother." He was asked why.

"Because directly we were through the door I should have turned to her and said: 'That was a beastly sermon,' and then it would have been out, and I should have been sorry to have said it and should have begun to apologize for the sermon and to love the preacher. Now the poison is in me all the week and I can't get rid of it."

Doctor King had a delicate and subtle wit. Once, said the canon, we had all been rather swept off our feet by the vivacity of certain Hampton lectures which were laid out on rather well worn conventional lines.

The material was old, no doubt, but still it was surprising how well they went. How was it? What would King say of them? "Well, it is wonderful," he said, "how good an old pair of trousers will come out if you have laid them away for some time in a drawer."

He had hit it exactly. The trousers were green, for all their apparent sheen.