The University of Hard KnocksParlette, Ralph Albert
Philosophy
The University of Hard Knocks
Parlette, Ralph Albert
Character; Conduct of life; Success
Moses is ninety-five and burning the candle at both ends. He is a
hundred. And the committee dies!
Moses goes right on shouting, "Onward!" He is a hundred and ten. He is
a hundred and twenty. Even then I read, "His eye was not dim, nor his
natural force abated." He had not time to stop and abate.
So God buried him. The committee was dead. O, friends, this is not
irreverence. It is joyful reverence. It is the message to all of us, Go
on south to the greater things, and get so enthused and absorbed in our
going that we'll fool the "committee."
All the multitudes of the Children of Israel died in the Wilderness.
They were afraid to go on south. Only two of them went on south--Joshua
and Caleb. They put the giants out of business.
The Indians once owned America. But they failed to go on south. So
another crop of Americans came into the limelight. If we modern
Americans do not go on south we will join the Indians, the auk and the
dodo.
The "Sob Squad"
I am so sorry for the folks who quit, retire, "get on the shelf" or
live on "borrowed time."
They generally join the "sob squad."
They generally discover the world is "going to the dogs." They cry on
my shoulder, no matter how good clothes I wear.
They tell me nobody uses them right. The person going on south has not
time to look back and see how anybody uses him.
They say nobody loves them. Which is often a fact. Nobody loves the
clock that runs down.
They say, "Only a few more days of trouble, only a few more
tribulations, and I'll be in that bright and happy land." What will
they do with them when they get them there? They would be dill pickles
in the heavenly preserve-jar.
They say, "I wish I were a child again. I was happy when I was a child
and I'm not happy now. Them was the best days of my life childhood's
palmy days."
Wake up! Your clock has run down. Anybody who wants to be a child again
is confessing he has lost his memory. Anybody who can remember the
horrors of childhood could not be hired to live it over again.
If there is anybody who does not have a good time, if there is anybody
who gets shortchanged regularly, it is a child. I am so sorry for a
child. Hurry up and go on south. It is better on south.
Waiting till the "Second Table"
I wish I could forget many of my childhood memories. I remember the
palmy days. And the palm!
I often wonder how I ever lived thru my childhood. I would not take my
chances living it thru again. I am not ungrateful to my parents. I had
advantages. I was born in a parsonage and was reared in the nurture and
admiration of the Lord. I am not just sure I quoted that correctly, but
I know I was reared in a parsonage. About all I inherited was a Godly
example and a large appetite. That was about all there was to inherit.
I cannot remember when I was not hungry. I used to go around feeling
like the Mammoth Cave, never thoroly explored.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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