Treading the narrow way

The chapters in this book are not based on fiction, they are not drawn from imagination, they are not gems that come from culture and learning, but are gleaned entirely from the rugged school of life, and are for the purpose of cheering the down-hearted to a realization that a good life has its just reward, that through continued combat every temptation, obstacle and evil will vanish if a strict observance of God's law is kept in carefully treading in the narrow way.

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DEDICATION

To that dear teacher who urged me to go to school when I was past twenty years of age, and helped to mold in me the true principles of honor.

To a fine Judge on the Bench whose many fatherly talks to poor unfortunates, whose feet had slipped from the narrow way, who helped me to obey and respect the law.

To a splendid intellectual lawyer, one of God's clean home men, whose guest I have been at many intellectual feasts, to him I owe the avoidance of the saloon and learned the intrinsic value of sobriety.

To my two eldest sisters, one sister-in-law, and my devoted wife through whom I learned the desperate struggle and what it means to live clean.

To a poorly paid self-educated minister to whom I am deeply indebted for the first introduction to my master.

To these in the major part, and a few others, God bless them all, I owe whatever I am to them, to these dear people I affectionately dedicate this book.

R. E. B.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. Early Footsteps. 9 II. Getting the Backbone. 21 III. The Two Paths. 32 IV. God's Intention Man's Prevention 46 V. The Sadness Behind the Vale 61 VI. Gratitude. 71 VII. Just Poems. 87 VIII. Sallie's Loyalty. 112 IX. Sunshine. 117 X. Temperance. 133 XI. Every Day Philosophy. 145 XII. Glimpses from the Past. 158 XIII. Hopes That Exploded. 179 XIV. The Weary Traveler. 196

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TREADING THE NARROW WAY

EARLY FOOTSTEPS.

Robert Emmett Barrett was the soothing and patriotic cognomen my father fastened upon me when I first opened my eyes and I looked him squarely in the face. I say my father named me and I honestly think he did. The first two-thirds of the name proves my contention and opens the book wide enough that the reader has no trouble in discerning the nationality of my father. Mother was an English woman and I knew it the first time she called father "Arry." If mother had had her equal rights in naming me, I might have been a Gladstone; but somehow or other father monopolized mother's half interest and she finally became disgusted and told him to name me any blooming thing he wanted to. If mother could have foreseen this savage war across the orient, I believe, she would have handled the center name, but the way it stands I wouldn't shoulder a gun for England and I can't use my undeveloped oratory against Ireland, and I am about half persuaded to let them settle their own troubles. It being no fault of mine that I am half Irish and half English, I let it go at that and get along with everybody the best I can. It's hard to separate the halves from the whole, and so, from a perpendicular standpoint, I give the Irish the top half and the English the bottom half; I'd rather let the English have the running half anyway.