The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1858-12-09

which were never blighted, may try in
vain to imagine the disappointment
and agony of that boys feelings. All
along his journey he had strengthened
his weary limbs with the anticipation
and kindness and sympathy he would
receive in that beautiful city so full of
steeples. He remembered what his
mother had told him about religion |;
but the cold, proud looks then on every
face chilled his heart and paralyzed his
limbs. He sat down again on the steps
and wept. The notes of the organ
met his ear (; he listened to the sounds !;
was that meant for praise Young
and ignorant as he was he had instinc-
lively read the souls of that congrega-
ton; he knew that that worship was
a mockery; the second was hateful
and he would have fled away, but he
knew not where to 60. He wandered
off little way and at length dropped
weary and exhausted and insensible
upon the pavement. He awoke in a
strange place. You can all guess where
he awoke. 1t was where the thief and
the drunkard and the street brawler
often awake. There were stern faces
and haI sh voices around him, and when
he had told them his story they turned
him into the street again, homeless and
fainting with hunger. l will not weary
you with detail of his history for the
next six years. From a street beggar
he became the hireling of shop keepers
and all kinds of mercenary dealers. 1t
was fearful schooling for his youthful
mind; but fortune had denied him
any other. He had almost forgotten
how to read, and he felt that fate had
shut him out forever from the temple
of knowledge. Gradually his mind
yielded to the necessity of his lot, and
with kind of dull despair he went the
round Of his accustomed tolls. Till
his eighteenth year he had adopted but
few vices. Although he moved in
nearly the lowest sphere of humanity,
and was daily witnessing scenes of a
vitiating character, yet he escaped the
contagion, for he was an isolated being,
having no sympathy with anything
above or below him. The memory of
his mothers teachings had not quite
faded from his mind the memory of
her love still came back to him in
dreams and kept alive longing for the
good, the pure and the true. How he
needed kind hand then to assist him,
a brothers hand to guide, brothers
voice to speak words of encouragement.
But no such hand was given, no such
voice addressed him. The wise, the
pious and the high avoided him; the
low, the vile, and the degraded said,
come and 60 with u.s. A long time
he had stood alone, oppressed with a
sense of degradation, longing to rise !;
longing for sympathy and counsel; but
evil counsel only answered to his long
ing. One day he yielded to the infu-
ence of an associate and tasted glass
of liquor. He had always loathed the
fumes and shrunk from the idea of
drunkenness as from the lowest infamy.
But he had no sooner drank than he
seemed in new world. The sudden
exhiloration of his spirits was delight
full. 1t seemed to be just what his
soul needed to chase away its gloom
and remove his sense of degradation.
1t was the first moment of happiness
he had known for years; he drank
again and grew happier still, and Won
dered he had been a fool SO long.
There acds a balm for all Ife's ills!
What if it did shorten his days? What
was life to him who had never known
a joy! What was reputation to him
who never had a .friend? What cared
he for the opinion of his enemy, the
world! He hated the world and every
thing in it. He abandoned himself to
the intoxicating cup, and at the age of
nineteen he was a confirmed drunkard.
Then his employers (who had once
sneered at his abstemiousness) turned
him off, and then the street, and grog-
shops, and the watch-house were his
homes. Five or six years more passed
over him, of which his memory retains
but faint record; loathsome de-
graded outcast he roamed through these
streets, abhorred and summed by you
all, the pharisee, the, extortionist, the
genteel tipler, and fashionable philan-
thropist all looked at him with horror,
and stood aloof and thanked God they
were not so. He felt their scorn and
returned it four fold. Some of you
who are here tonight have seen him
wandering along this very street, rag
ged, filthy, reeling to the next sink of