Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1857-07-23
The World Owes me a Living.

That's false, sir! 1t doesn't owe you
farthing. You owe the world for the
light of its days, the warmth of its sun
shine, the beauty of its earth and sky, and
for its love, affections, and friendships, which
have from your childhood, young man,
clustered around and clung to your worth
less trunk. For all these, and other bless
ings of countless numbers, YOU are debtor.
You have never thanked God for health
and life. You never made the world bet
ter by your living. You owe for the breath
you breathe and for the strength YOU enjoy.
You haven't anything to your credit on the
day-book or ledger of life-not cent
You have never taken a dollars stock in
Heaven. You are amiserable, aimless, III
dolent bankrupt. You float down the
stream of your lazy existence like flood
wood on water. Were you to sink to-day
to oblivion, you would not leave bubble.
The world owe you living! Where is
there a manly thought uttered, or noble
deed performed? Where are there evil
dcnces of your labor? Nowhere. You are
lounging through life with your hands in
your pockets, an indolent loafer, swearing
and slavering nonsense. You drink, gam
BILE, and chew tobacco, but never earned
your board. A pile of lumber would be
of more account, for that could be worked
into forms of usefulness and beauty; but
you will not make anything of yourself,
nor allow society to do it. A world Of
such as you would be the place to live in,
indeed! You have degraded our common
manhood, instead of enabling and elevat-
inc it, and in nothing but the form and vul-
gar speech, are you above the brutes that
perish. And because you are too lazy to
work, you claim that the world owes you
living!
Don't tell that lie again. you sluggard
The world or society would not suffer loss
were lighteing to strike you or the cholera
to take you off. There are too many of
such. Were you treated as drones are
treated in the hives you would have been
kicked out of creation years ago. You are
a sponge, swollen with what you have alb
sorbed from society. You dwarfed the in
tellect given you, and neglected the endow-
ments it would have brought you. So ef
fectually have you wasted the boon of life,
that unless your bones shall go to the dis
secting room, and your picked carcass as
fertilizer upon some God-forsaken spot, you
will have passed through life to no purpose.
The tobacco you have chewed, has only
defled everything around you, and the
liquor you have drank has only been adul
terated by your miserable nature, and been
turned into rcwdyis1n and profanity. You
contaminate everything you touch, and even
those like you, will keep their children
from the leprosy of your teaching and ex-
ample.
No, sir, you owe the world better life.
You never can pay all the debt, but if you
can do no better you can commute for
twenty five cents on the dollar. Do and
say something noble and manly; labor for
some honorable purpose, and not inhale
Gods pure air for nothing, and grunt
through existence like hog, having only
two aims in life-to reach the bar and the
dinner table; and only two attributes
to eat 10 glu:tony, and dring to drunkenness.
The world owes such man living!