(Look Back with Bob Enoch - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

ACTIVITY — Miserable is he who slumbers on in idleness. Miserable is the workman who sleeps before the hour of rest, or who lies down in the shade while his brethren work in the sun. There are always duties to perform and functions to exercise, functions which are ever enlarging and extending in proportion to the growth of our moral and mental station. Man is born to work while it is day.

“Thousands of men,” said Chalmers, “breathe, move and live — pass off the stage of life and are heard of no more. Why? They do not partake of good in the world and none were blessed by them; none could point to them as the means of their redemption; not a line they wrote, not a word they spoke could be recalled; and so they perished. Their light went out in darkness, and they were not remembered more than insects of yesterday. Will you thus live and die. O man immortal! Live for something. Do good and leave behind you a monument of virtue.”

The Parkersburg Gazette,

Dec. 18, 1852

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THE TRUE LIFE — The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, and drink and sleep; to be exposed to darkness and the light, to pace around in the mill of habit and turn the wheel of wealth, to make reason our bookkeeper and turn thought into an implement of trade — this is not life. In all this, but a poor fraction of the consciousness of humanity is awakened; and the sanctities still slumber which make it most worst while to be. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith alone can give vitality to the mechanism of existence; the laugh of mirth which vibrates through the heart, the tears that freshen the dry wastes within, the music that brings childhood back, the prayer that calls the future near, the doubt which makes us meditate, the death which startles us with mystery, the hardship that forces us to struggle, the anxiety that ends in trust — are rue nourishment of our natural being.

LITTLE THINGS. — Springs are little things, but they are sources of large streams; a helm is a little thing, but it governs the course of a ship; nails and pegs are little things, but they hold the parts of large buildings together; a word, a look, a smile, a frown, all are little things, but powerful for good or evil. — Think of this and mind the little things. Pay that little debt; it’s a promise, redeem it; it’s a shilling, hand it over; you know not what important event hangs upon it. Keep your word sacredly; keep it to children; they will mark it sooner than anyone else, and the effect will probably be as lasting as life. Mind the little things.

The Parkersburg Gazette,

Jan. 1, 1853

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REASON AND FAITH. — Reason and Faith are twin-horn beings — the one in form and features the image of manly beauty — the other, of feminine grace and gentleness; but to each of whom, alas, was allotted a sad privation. While the bright eyes of Reason are full of piercing and restless intelligence, his ear is closed to sound; and while Faith has an ear of exquisite delicacy, on her sightless orbs, as she lifts then toward heaven, the sunbeams play in vain.

Hand in hand, the brother and sister, in all mutual love, pursue their way through a world, on which, like ours, day breaks and night falls alternate; by days the eyes of Reason are the guide of Faith, and by night the ear of Faith is the guide of Reason.

All is want with those who labor under these privations respectively. Reason is apt to be eager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will not permit him readily to apprehend; while Faith, while gentle and docile, is ever willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and wisdom can effectively reach her. Edinburgh Review

The Parkersburg Gazette,

May 20, 1854

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Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.