The Literary echo, and Pawcatuck advertiser. [volume] (Westerly, R.I.) 1851-1854, 1854-03-23
Selected.
The old Man Of the Mountains.
lie is SOWING HIS WILD OATS.

This I remember was a household
proverb in the days of my youth. If a
young man was rakish, was out late at
nights, getting high with boon compan-
ions at the tavern, and sallying forth
under the excitement, for mischief or
disturbance, the common remark was,
he is sowing his wild oats, or, he is only
sowing his wild oats. When he has got
through, when he gets to be few years
older, he will sober down and become a
steady man.
Now the Old Man of the Mountains
has lived long enough to see a great
many such experiments on the virgin
soil tested; and to witness the disap-
pointment and sorrow of fond parents,
who fattered themselves when their sons
were wild and dissipatcd, that they,were
only sowing their wild oats, strangely
forgetting, that the crop must be like
the seed. That this is true in the
natural world every body knows. If a
husbaDdman sows cookie in his field in
stead of barley, the harvest will be
cookie and nothing but cookie. If he
sows tares it will be tares and not wheat ;
if thistles, it will be thistles, and it will
be hard to root them out. So if he
sows wild oats instead of good seed on
the choicest lot in his farm, the crop
will be wild oats and nothing else. Sup
pose that some one passing by, should
stop at.the next house and report what
he has seen, and ask what the farmer
means by this sort of cultivation, and
the answer should be, 90 he had a
quantity of cookie, or tarcs, or wild
oats on hand, and he is sowing them to
get rid of them. When these are gone
he will SOW good seed and have good
harvest" What would you say of such
a sower9 This is not the manner of
our farmers, up here among the noun
tains, any how.
Now as it is in the natural, so it is in
the moral world. The same law gov
erns in both Whatsoever a man
soweth that shall he also reap" When
you see a young man of sixteen idling
away his time, and beginning to smoke
and drink and keep loose company; and
to deceive his parents by going to bed
early and getting out at the window after
they are asleep, you may calculate,
almost with moral certainty, what the
end will be. They may fatter them
selves that he is only sowing his wild
oats, and that after all, he will grow up
o good son and become a sober and USE
iul man but alas, for the bitter disap-
pointments Of thousands, who have laid
the dattcring uncuon to their souls,
they have lived 10 see luxuriant crop
spring up from the tares, and their
!" gray hairs have been brought down
with sorrow to the grave" The effect
follows the cause 1t must be so, it
will be SO, unless God intcrposcs to pre-
vent it.
Your son is an amiablc and bright
boy, as comely, perhaps as Absalom
lie is the pride Of your house, the hope
of your old age. He has a surplus of
animal spirits; he becomes fond of
society; he wants to go here and 20
there, and choose such companions as
he likes best, and you indulge him in it.
You say he is addicted to no bad habit,
and it may be true. Young people,
you say, must have amusements, they
must be allowed to enjoy themselves.
You can trust your son, you think, be-
cause you have brought him up so well,
and when it begins TO be whispered, that
is getting into bad way, and you can't
help seeing that there is great change
in him, you datter yourself, that he is
only sowing his wild oats, and will be-
come sober and steady when he has
done. Ah, when he has done But
when will he 1t docs not take long
for the crop to spring up, and then he
will have more on hand to SOW than
ever. The yield every year will be
greater and greater. And when will