"Hurray for Ohio!"
There lives in our town a thoroughgoing Republican. When he rises in the morning he hopes it'll be a good day for his party. When he goes to bed at night he hopes some votes have been made the past day. When he meets a friend on the street, it is: "Hullo! Well, we laid 'em out in the fourth ward, didn't we?"
He is a wealthy man, and isn't in politics for anything but the pure love of the game. He has been mayor of the city and State legislator, and he is now an old man, but he hasn't graduated from the ranks. He is with the rest of "the boys," every time—first at the polls and last to go home, at every caucus and primary, his jolly face looming up at every convention, his approving ears drinking in every word of the orators. He counts time from the elections; and if the Republicans come out on top, he is supremely happy for all the weeks till another election puts him again on his mettle.
Well, there came an election with bad news from New York City, how Tammany had swept everything, and the Republicans had not even a rag left to wave. I was in the car the morning after election, and I saw our Republican coming down the aisle. I trembled for him. How would he stand the defeat?—and at his age, too.
I needn't have worried. As he drew nearer, I perceived that his face was one expansive and exuberant smile, and that he was exclaiming right and left to his many acquaintances:
"Gl-orious news from Ohio! Heard about Ohio? Splen-did, isn't it? Hurrah for Ohio!"
Sure enough. There it was, and on the first page, too, if only I had turned my eyes away from New York. The Buckeye State had certainly done well by the Republican party.
Now that is the spirit I like. It's worth a million of your cold, calculating, balancing, judicial intellects. I'm not defending blind partisanship, that thinks its own party perfect and the other party Satanic; of course I'm not. But I do like to see men believe in something, through and through.
And stick to that belief.
And proclaim it in all ears.
And refuse to see the set-backs.
And make the most of the victories.
And hope all things for it.
It is by such men, zealous superbly for the Kingdom of God, that this grand old earth is to win its regeneration.