100 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



above all others of human beings, that differentiates, that 

 separates them from all the animals on the earth? One 

 will say reason, and another will say this thing, and another 

 will say that thing, but when you come to analyze it down, it 

 is a power which God has 'given to man, and which he has 

 given to no other being in the world. Other beings approach 

 to us in other respects. Talk about reasoning? Why a dog 

 can beat us sometimes. I have seen dogs do more abstract 

 reasoning that most men are capable of. But the distinguish- 

 ing thing about man, which God has given to him and to no 

 other being, is the power to laugh. INIan is the only creature 

 on this earth which can laugh. Many of the other creatures 

 can do everything else that he can do, but they cannot laugh. 

 They talk about the laughing hyena, which is an animal you 

 find in western Asia. I have lain awake in my tent in Pales- 

 tine, and listened to the laughing hyena, and it is no more 

 like the human laugh than that steam clicking in the pipes 

 there. It is a sound, and that is about all you can say about 

 it. God has given to man the power to laugh, and what do 

 you suppose he gave it to us for? Didn't he give it to us to 

 be exercised? Why, he never gave us anything that he did 

 not intend that we should use. He gave that great gift to the 

 children to use and exercise. If we do not let our children 

 laugh I think we are committing a sin; let them laugh; let 

 them make a noise; let them blow the house up; they will be 

 the better for it. Don't stop them; let them laugh, and make 

 them happy. They need it all to develop them for future use- 

 fulness in life. Now, so much for the family. 



Now, if a man is a good citizen he will not only be right 

 in his family, but he will be in his neighborhood. He will 

 take an interest in all his neighbors. The good citizen is 

 reaching out beyond himself; he wants to benefit somebody 

 else; whatever his neighbors are interested in, he is interested 

 in. If they are going wrong he is interested to turn them, 

 and if they are going in the right way he is interested still, 

 and he takes a part in what is going on in the neighborhood. 

 He doesn't shut himself in; it doesn't cost anything to be 

 neighborly, and be generous with your neighbors. W'hy, 

 generosity is the best policy if you put it on the lowest ground 

 imaginable. It pays to be generous to your neighbors; some 

 of them, of course, will want to borrow about everything 



