Crumbs Swept Up

[CENE: — A crisp morning. Carriage with spinning wheels, whose spokes gHsten like splinters of the sun. Roan horse, flecked with foam, bending into the bit, his polished feet drumming the pavement in challenge of any horse that thinks he can go as fast. Two boys running to get on the back of the carriage. One of them, with quick spring, succeeds. The other leaps, but fails, and falls on the part of the body where it is most appropriate to fall. No sooner has he struck the ground than he shouts to the driver of the carriage, “Cut behind!”

Human nature the same in boy as man. All running to gain the vehicle of success. Some are spry, and gain that for which they strive. Others are slow, and tumble down; they who fall crying out against those who mount, “Cut behind!”

A political office rolls past. A multitude spring to their feet, and the race is in. Only one of all the number reaches that for which he runs. No sooner does he gain the prize, and begin to wipe the sweat from his brow, and think how erand a thinof it is to ride

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in popular preferment, than the disappointed candidates cry out: “Incompetency! Stupidity! Fraud! Now let the newspapers and platforms of the country * cut behind! ‘”

There is a golden chariot of wealth rolling down the street. A thousand people are trying to catch it. They run. They jostle. They tread on each other. Push, and pull, and M<y Those talk most acrainst riches who cannot get them. Clear the track for the racers I One of the thousand reaches the golden prize, and mounts. Forthwith the air is full of cries:” Got it by fraud! Shoddy I

Petroleum aristocracy! His father was a rag-picker! His mother was a washerwoman! I knew him when he blackened his own shoes! Pitch him off the back part of the golden chariot! Cut behind! Cut behind!’’’

It is strange that there should be any rivalries among ministers of religion, when there is so much room for all to work. But in some things they are much like other people. Like all other classes of men, they have one liver apiece, and here and there one of them a spleen. In all cases the epigastric region Is higher up than the hypogastric, save In the act of turning somerset. Like others, they eat three times a day when they can get anything to eat. Besides this, It sometimes happens that we find them racing for some professional chair or pulpit. They run well — neck and neck — while churches look on and wonder whether it will be “Dexter” or the “American Girl.” Rowels plunge deep, and fierce is the cry, “Go ‘long! Go ‘long!” The privilege of preaching the gospel to the poor on five thousand dollars a year Is enough to make a tight race anywhere. But only one mounts l6 CUT BEHIND.

the coveted place; and forthwith the cry goes up In consociations and synods: “Unfit for the place! Can’t preach! Unsound in the faith! Now is your chance, O conferences and presbyteries, to CUT BEHIND!”

A fair woman passes. We all admire beauty. He that says he don’t, lies. A canting man, who told me he had no admiration for anything earthly, used, instead of listening to the sermon, to keep squinting over toward the pew where sat Squire Brown’s daughter. Whether God plants a rose in parterre or human cheek, we must admire It, whether we will or not. While we are deciding whether we had better take that dahlia, the dahlia takes us. A star does not ask the astronomer to admire it; but just winks at him, and he surrenders, with all his telescopes. This fair woman in society has many satellites. The boys all run for this prize. One of them, not having read enough novels to learn that ugliness is more desirable than beauty, wins her. The cry Is up:” She paints! Looks well; but she knows It. Good shape; but I wonder what is the price of cotton! Won’t she make him

Stand around! Practicality worth more than black eyes! Fool to marry a virago!”

In many eyes success Is a crime. “I do not like you,” said the snowflake to the snowbird. “Why?” said the snowbird. “Because,” said the snowflake, ‘^ you are going up, and I am going doivn!’’

We have to state that the man In the carriage on the crisp morning, though he had a long lash-whip, with which he could have made the climbing boy yell most lustily, did not cut behind. He was an old man; In the corner of his mouth a smile, which was always as ready to play as a kitten that watches for some one with a string to offer the slightest Inducement. He heard the shout in the rear, and said: “Good morning, my son. That is right; climb over and sit by me. Here are the reins; take hold, and drive. Was a boy myself once, and I know what tickles youngsters.”

Thank God there are so many in the world that never “cut behind,” but are ready to give a fellow a ride whenever he wants It. Here is a young man, clerk in a store. He has small wages, and a mother to take care of.

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l8 CUT BEHIND.

For ten years he struggles to get Into a higher place. The first of January comes, and the head of the commercial house looks round and says, “Trying to get up, are you?” And by the time three more years have passed the boy sits right beside the old man, who hands over the reins, and says, “Drive!” for the old merchant knew what would tickle the youngster. Jonathan Goodhue was a boy behind the counter; but his employer gave him a ride, and London, Canton, and Calcutta heard the scratch of his pen. Lenox, Grinnell, and the Aspinwalls carried many young men a mile on the high road of prosperity.

There are hundreds of people whose chief joy Is to help others on. Now It Is a smile, now a good word, now ten dollars. May such a kind man always have a carriage to ride In and a horse not too skittish! As he gfoes down the hill of life, may the breeching - strap be strong enough to hold back the load!

When he has ridden to the end of the earthly road, he avIII have plenty of friends to help him unhitch and assist him out of the carriage. On that cool night It will be pleasant to hang up the whip with which he drove the enterprises of a lifetime, and feel that with it he never “cut behind” at those who were struggling.

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