48 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Well, it was not long before every other property on that street was 

 graded and the lawns beautified, and it was the nicest street in the town 

 inside of two year?. At first it was the worst, dilapidated old place, the 

 most forlorn in the town. 



I am glad for having the privilege of speaking to you and of meeting 

 with you. I have no prepared speech, and do not care to encroach upon 

 your time. [Applause.] 



The President: We are very glad, indeed, to have our brother speak. 

 There is one thing I would like to emphasize and that is that we do 

 not use our inheritance. We do not use our own property — we do not 

 reach out and take our own. When a person does that he is astonished 

 to find out how much belongs to him. I like the idea that Paul presented 

 to us. You know that when that man started out he was a home mis- 

 sionary society, a foreign missionary society; he was a theological pro- 

 fessor; he v^s a minister and he was a teacher, all combined in one. If 

 he had started out on the present regime he would have needed several 

 thousand dollars back of him. He was all gathered together. He had 

 a thorough training, and he started out not only to support himself but 

 to support his co-laborers. He used to work day and night. Paul, with 

 that kit of tools, could defy the whole army of Satan, and shake all 

 Asia. If he had not had an education at hand, an educated brain as well 

 as an educated heart, he would have made a failure of it. But because 

 he reached out and took the whole thing in he became the sublimest 

 success. I like the style of that man's preaching. I built, or helped to 

 build, sixteen churches, and I moved around considerable. I never lived 

 in a parsonage but once. I built ten houses for myself. 



The idea of a man sitting down with dyspepsia and preaching dys- 

 pepsia sermons I do not admire. He had better move around and have 

 a little life in him. That is the way to do. There is a slogan I want 

 people to take up and carry on this great work — the common people, the 

 homemakers, the farmers and everybody else. "Beauty is wealth," mark 

 that; therefore, raise a whole lot of it and be rich. It may be very 

 difficult indeed for a person to gather four or five thousand dollars to 

 build a magnificent home. If you only knew it you could have a beau- 

 tiful home for your own care. Some years ago, after preaching over 

 forty years, with nerves all gone and this body fit for the ash-pile, be- 

 lieving that Osier was going to chloroform me, all men over sixty years 

 old — I was a man all broken down, just making a living but with lots of 

 experience, broken in health and wealth, with the wolf at the door and 

 nothing to go on, what was I going to do! I made up my mind that 

 with heart within and God o'erhead, I would go ahead and do something. 

 So I commenced ornamental horticulture. Out of my head and with 

 nothing in my hands but the assistance of the great Counselor I went 

 to work and succeeded. 



As I said, you may not be able to get three or four thousand dollars 

 to put into a fine home. Perhaps you could put a few hundred dollars — 



