Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/317



By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God; Oh, like the greatness of God is the greatness within The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

(1309)

GREATNESS SERVING

A mother and daughter were traveling through a forest. Overcome by the long journey, the mother fainted and fell by the wayside. As soon as consciousness was partly restored to her she sent her little child to seek out a minister. The little daughter went weeping on her way. She soon met a stranger riding a horse. The man inquired of her why she was weeping. She asked him if he were God's minister, and he said that he was. She led him to the side of her dying mother. His bodyguard soon arrived. Reverently did they uncover as they found the King of England kneeling in prayer for the dying peasant. The greatest among them was their servant. (Text.)

(1310)

GREATNESS, TRUE, OF A CITY

What makes a city great and strong? Not architecture's graceful strength, Nor factories' extended length, But men who see the civic wrong And give their lives to make it right, And turn its darkness into light.

What makes a city full of power? Not wealth's display nor titled fame, Not fashion's loudly-boasted claim, But women, rich in virtue's dower, Whose homes, tho humble, still are great Because of service to the state.

What makes a city men can love? Not things that charm the outward sense, Nor gross display of opulence, But right, that wrong can not remove, And truth, that faces civic fraud And smites it in the name of God.

This is a city that shall stand, A light upon a nation's hill, A voice that evil can not still, A source of blessing to the land; Its strength not brick, nor stone, nor wood, But justice, love and brotherhood.

—Author Unknown.

(1311)

Greatness Unrecognized—See.

GREED

The large families in this country to-day are to be found only in the industrial centers. Greedy men have considered this their opportunity, and have located great stocking and silk factories in these places for the sake of employing the children of these families.

I saw in the ill-ventilated rooms of these silk-factories girls by the dozen under fourteen years of age. More than once I saw a stoop-shouldered, anemic girl, apparently not more than eleven years of age, standing all day before her machine so fatigued that she stood on one foot while she rested the other by holding it against the leg on which she was standing. To my inquiry as to her age the reply was, "The affidavit said she was fourteen."

A girl in whose machine the silk by chance became tangled was approached by a foreman with the jaw of a bulldog and a face whose every feature indicated brutality, and who poured out a stream of profanity as he threatened to dismiss her if it occurred again. These girls were the daughters of coal-miners or of a coal-miner's widow.

We are pretty generally agreed that society owes to every one equal treatment with his fellows in an effort to get a living and an equal protection in using the opportunities that exist. When one looks into the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes of veritable children to whom in so many cases the home was never the holy of holies, and where instead of the gentle voice and loving hearts of teachers there is the brutal taskmaster, one feels the need of some new Declaration of Independence.

A railroad that owns and operates mines in this region, last year, in addition to an already fat dividend on its stock, declared a stock dividend of fifty per cent. Would that it were possible to print on every share of that dividend a description of the existence that is called life in this section of our land! (Text.)—, Christian Endeavor World.

(1312)

See ;.

Greed, Commercial—See.

GRIEF, EXPRESSING

Great griefs can seldom be borne in silence; nor is it well that they should be. Just as the cry of pain springs to the lips of