Among The Masses, or Traits of Character
A Searchlight of the Twentieth Century
Our Country, Our Homes and Our Duty
The New Woman and The Old Man
The Safe Side of Life for Young Men
Platform Experiences
The Defeat of The Nation\'s Dragon
If I Could Live Life Over
INTRODUCTION.
In offering this book to the public no claim is made to literary merit or originality of thought. It is published with the same purpose its contents were spoken from the platform, namely, to do good.
With the testimony of many, that hearing these lectures helped to shape their lives, came the thought that reading them might help others when the tongue that spoke them is silent.
As a public speaker the author admits, that how to get a grip on his hearers outweighed the grammar of language; that the ring of sincerity and truth in presenting a proposition appealed to him more than relation of pronoun or preposition; besides in the \"high school of hard knocks\" from which he graduated artistic taste in literature was not taught.
If it is true that \"tongue is more potent than pen,\" then the mysterious power of personality and delivery will be missed in the reading, yet it is hoped the simplicity of the setting of anecdote and argument, incident and experience, facts and figures, story, poetry and appeal will suffice to make this volume attractive and helpful to those who read it, and thus the lives of many may be made brighter and better by the life work of the author.
George W. Bain.
AMONG THE MASSES, OR TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
Whatever criticism I choose to make on human character, I hope to soften the criticism with the \"milk of human kindness.\" As rude rough rocks on mountain peaks wear button-hole bouquets so there are intervening traits in the rudest human character, which, if the clouds could only part, would show out in redeeming beauty.
To begin with, I believe prejudice to be one of the most unreasonable traits in character. It is said: \"One of the most difficult things in science is to invent a lense that will not distort the object it reflects; the least deviation in the lines of the mirror will destroy the beauty of a star.\" How unreliable then must be the distorting lense of human prejudice.
I had a bit of experience during the Civil War which gave me something of that whole-heartedness necessary to the service of my kind. In the twilight of a[page 10] summer evening, making a sharp curve in a road, about a dozen men confronted me. They were dressed in blue, a color I was not very partial to at that time. I had read that \"he that fights and runs away may live to fight another day.\" It occurred to me that he who would run without fighting might have a still better chance, but the click of gun locks and an order to surrender changed my mind to \"safety first\" and I was a prisoner of the blue-coated cavalry.
The commanding officer who had me in charge (during my visit) was a Kentucky Colonel. He afterward became a major-general. I looked at him during the remainder of the war from the narrow standpoint of prejudice and cherished revenge in my heart for his having exposed me to the flying bullets of the Confederate pickets, a peril he was not responsible for and of which he knew nothing until I informed him in after years.
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