Bethel University - Spire Yearbook (St Paul, MN)

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18 THE ACORN where they can be raised up. Though billboards bear many of these favorable blessings, they are notorious to the general public’s comfort and welfare. To the traveler they serve as vexatious impediments. Often when lie wishes to see some country scenery or some object of particular interest from a car window on passing by, some billboard will pass before his eyes and shut off the scenery from his view just at the moment when he could have best beheld his scene. They arc always a great nusiancc to the tralvel-er. Billboards are very attractive, especially to children. The pictures that the lower classed theaters of to-day post, tend to lead young men and women into a life of sin and degradation. Theaters are, however, not I he only immoral advertisers, but the brewers, cigar companies, in short all trades established on the principle, namely to get all the money possible from those whom they can lure by their en- A TRIBUTE TO OU How bright are the honors which await those who with sacred fortitude and patriotic patience have endured all things that they might save their native land from division and from the power of corruption! The honored dead! They that die for a good cause are redeemed from death. Their names are garnered. Their memory is precious. Each place grows proud for them who were born there. There is to be, ere long, in every village, and in every neighborhood, a glowing pride in its martyred heroes. Tablets shall preserve their names. Pious love shall renew their inscriptions as time and the unfeeling elements efface them. And the national festivals shall give multitudes of precious names to the orator’s lips. Children shall grow up under more sacred inspirations, whose elder brothers, dying nobly for their country, left a name that chanting advertisements. These advertise their products by means of paintings that are very enticing and that tend to incite a craving for those dangerous and demoralizing products. People generally take advantage or billboards, especially those enclosing vacant lots, by throwing debris and rubbish in such places. Here it will be hid from view. It will a!so be shut off from being reached by winds. Under such circumstances germs will thrive and grow. Thus from this rubbish disease is liable to spread and endanger the health and life of the people. Billboards tend to lower the morals, and to weaken the stamina of the young men and women of this country and indirectly to endanger the health, and life of the people. When we see they are doing these things, we know that they are detrimental to our country, and we should do all in pur power to obliterate them. —Walfred Anderson, ’ll. =5 HONORED DEAD. honored and inspired all who bore it. Orphan children shall find thousands of fathers and mothers to love and help those whom dying heroes left as a legacy to the gratitude of the public. Ob, tell me not that they are dead— that generous host, that airy army of invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism? Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your teais. It was your son: but now be is the nation’s. He made your household bright: now his example inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to every gener-

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THE ACORN 17 WHEN THE VIOLETS BLOOMED. Little Irene was sitting in her rolling chair. She had been sick all winter, but had been told, that when the violets bloomed, she might be well enough to be out and pick them. How glad she was for every sunny day, noting how the snowdrifts became smaller and smaller, and •’soon , she said, the violets will bloom.’' One day, when it was warm weather, her mother took her out on the veranda, where the fresh, pure air seemed to put new life into her frail body. She was out every nice day after this and enjoyed, not only the fresh air, but. the company of some birds, which were building their nests in a tree near the house. She also watched the grass coming up, and the buds on the trees, and most of all, the spot where the violets were growing. She was planning how she would arrange the flowers and take care of them. Iler parents' hope of their daughter’s recovery revived once more. But one morning she could not sit in her chair. Her eyes were glowing with fever, and she spoke about the violets, which she had expected to come out that day. Towards noontime she grew more quiet, and when the bright sun rays came in thru the window, and she heard the cheerful songs of the birds, she said: “I am so glad that springtime has come, I wish it would never end.” Just then her younger sister came in with some violets from their yard. Irene took the little messengers of spring in her hands, and with new life looked around at her parents and sister with her happy smile and whispered: I am going—where the violets—bloom forever.” She closed her eyes, and in a few moments her spirit was free from earthly bands. The Great Gardener had come to transplant her into a place where death is no more, and where the violets are in constant bloom. Georgina Staverfeldt. BETHEL ACADEMY. O Bethel, Bethel thou hast done A deed that hearts will move— In days that of thy time are gone And days that are thou still do’st loan Thy cunning token from above Of pureness and of love. f J We love the beauty where thou stands And its surrounding hills, The music from celestial bands Us brought by His all-powerful hands, In nature—that our hearts now fills With gladness that us thrills. Thou art not rich and shall not be For those in Mammon’s halls, Try only riches is thy key And guide to those who cannot see A path o’r hills, woods, waterfalls That leads where Knowledge calls. —Joel Anderson. BILLBOARDS. That which will probably first attract the attention of a youngster, at he comes from some remote country place toward a city are the large billboards, with which our cities are so well supplied. These with their attractive advertisements are placed at all favorable points. They will be found surrounding vacant lots, forming barricades along railroads and thoroughfares, thus protecting wayfarers from being suddenly surprised and attacked by robbers. They occupy almost every conceivable spot

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THE ACORN 19 ous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. Before he vjas yours: he is ours. He has died from the family that lie might live to the nation. Not one name shall he forgotten or neglected: and it shall by-and-by he confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his whole life. Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life the marks of wounds and sufferings. Neither epaulette nor badge is so honorable as wounds received in a -good cause. Many a man shall envy him who henceforth limps. So strange is the transforming power of patriotic ardor that men shall almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give way to hobbling cripples, and uncover in the presence of feebleness and helplessness. And buoyant children shall pause in their noisy games, and with loving reverence honor those whose hands can work no more, and whose feet are no longer able to march except upon the journey which brings good men to honor and immortality. Oh. mother of lost children! sit not in darkness nor sorrow whom a nation honors. Oh, mourners of the early dead, they shall live again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our gladness. The nation lives because you gave it men that love it better than their own lives. And when a few more days shall have cleared the perils f;om around the nation's brow, and she shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice upon her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her heart, and whose life, given to her, shall live with her life till time shall bo no more. Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register; and till the mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the book of National Remembrance. —Henry Ward Beecher. MOTHER, HOME AND HEAVEN. There are three words that sweetly blend, That on the heart arc graven; A precious, soothing balm they lend— They’re mother, home and heaven! They twine a wreath of beautieous flowers, Which, placed on memory’s urn. Will e’en the longest, gloomiest hours To golden sunlight turn! They form a chain whose every link Is free from base alloy; A stream where whosoever drinks Will find refreshing joy! They build an altar where each day Love’s offering is renewed; And peace illumes with genial ray Life’s darkened solitude! If from our side the first has fled. And home be but a name. Let’s strive the narrow path to tread, That we the last may gain! —Mary J. Muckle.