FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  
prophesied to Macbeth. BE CORRECT. Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.--Pope. I have here quoted one of the grandest flights of the human fancy, and with a purpose. If God, who is perfection, and in whose image we are faintly formed, watches the weakliest of his lambs, supports the weariest of his poor sparrows, should not we, in trying to be true men, endeavor to pay equal care to all things intrusted to our attention, be they great or be they small! And more than that. The little errors beget myriads of their kind. "Many mickles make a muckle." The habit sooner or later, leads some of us into an awful abyss, where it had been better we had not lived. Errors creep into character just as ideas get into our brain. Says Moore: And how like forts, to which beleaguers win Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within, One clear idea, wakened in the breast By memory's magic, lets in all the rest. Says Franklin: "A little neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the driver was lost; being overtaken and slain by an enemy, all for the want of care about a horse-shoe nail." "In persons grafted with a serious trust," says Shakspeare "negligence is a serious crime." And so it is. STORY OF SAG BRIDGE. In September, 1873, a conductor on the Chicago and Alton Railroad started south with a freight train. He was to stop at a station a few miles from Joliet and wait for the incoming passenger train from St. Louis. He consulted his watch. That unhappy piece of mechanism told him that he had time to reach the next station. He spoke to the operator of the telegraph. That person could give him no information as to where the passenger train was, and he, determining not to wait, pulled out. As his train was still within hearing, the operator rushed to the platform with the news that the passenger train had left the nearest station! The operator knew that TWO TRAINS WERE ABOUT TO COME IN COLLISION, a knowledge that has sometimes deprived railroad men of their minds forever. Soon the awful shock reverberated afar, and from nine to fifteen persons were killed in a horrible manner. One of the most prominent men of Chicago was scalded so that the flesh left his skeleton. A
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
passenger
 

station

 

operator

 
persons
 

Chicago

 

conductor

 

September

 

BRIDGE

 

freight

 

started


Railroad

 
reverberated
 

manner

 
overtaken
 
prominent
 

skeleton

 

scalded

 

negligence

 

killed

 

Shakspeare


horrible

 

grafted

 

fifteen

 

platform

 

nearest

 
telegraph
 

rushed

 

information

 

determining

 

pulled


person

 

hearing

 
TRAINS
 

knowledge

 

COLLISION

 

incoming

 

Joliet

 

railroad

 

deprived

 

mechanism


unhappy
 
consulted
 

forever

 

friend

 

faintly

 
formed
 

watches

 
weakliest
 
purpose
 

perfection