Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1859-02-08
The First Step Awry.

Many years since, while travelling Win
young friend through an Indian wilderness, IN
road diverged very slightly, but seemed t
make only little island, and we felt sure, tina
we would meet again short distance ahead
He took the left, kept the main path. Firs
moments, then miles passed, and dark nigh
came on, rainy and cold and drear enough, bu
we met no more! Thus it is in the world 0
mind. A man sets out in the vigorous pursui
of truth, all fresh with youth and hope and en-
ergy. But he comes to point in his progress
where the road separates, ever so slightly it ma,
be, seeming more apparent than real, and rely
ing on the seeming rather than the sure, tn
wrong path is taken. A false conclusion i
adopted every succeeding step is but farthe
divergence from the right until truth is lost sigh
Of the mists of error hang thick on every side
and that mind goes out in the darkness OF delu
sions, worse than death.
Precisely 30 in the moral world. The con
science, so tender of wrong, when its possesso
first breaks away from blessed mothers sigh
and voice and influence, starts almost at its OWL
soft sweet voice. But as the day OF life wear
on it loses its extreme sensitiveness, and while
the Young man would not for the world d.
what was positively forbidden, circumstance
sometimes occur, where action is required with
out an express thus saith the law or decided
forbiddance or if there be the slightest misgiv
ing of probability of wrong, there is treach
erous feeling that it will all come right again
by the prompt action if circumstances require
it, or that it will be rectifed before it can be
noticed. But the first step awry' gives direc
ton to second still more diyerging, till in the
course of weeks, or months, or weary years, the
man is walked up to the startling truth, that ht
is at a returDless distance from home and heaven
In the pursuits of literature, there are slmilal
resemblances. The young at first read books o
standard character iu science and morals
Then come temptations to swerve from this
straight path, and equivocal volumes are ginger
ly handled next, those which they would moi
exactly care to be seen perusing. BY degrees
the tastes are vitiated, and they return no more
to safe and solid reading, but go farther and far.
ther away from purity and truth, and they feed
on the trashy monthly, the Sunday newspaper
the low love. stored weekly; and going further
down, revel in yellow covered literature the
infdel magazine, the ribald novel; and last OF
all, books on physiology and marriage, fill up
the measure of moral corruption and ultimate
bodily disease.
In the simple habits and practices of youthful
lie, we grow up 10 tastes auu aPPe'iSes no
and safe; but once turning aside to indulge IT.
regularities, stimulatons, and pamperlngs' before
he is aware of it, the unconscious victim has
lost his relish for all that is simple and safe and
pure, and good and tobacco and wine, and sea-
soned food, and unbrided lust for mere, animal
qualification, disease the body, impair the intel.
lect, debase the heart, and to simplicity of life
and purity of taste, and their almost infallible
attendant glorious, joyous health, there is re-
turn, never! -1, :,
In mind, in morals, and in meditation, let all
beware of the first step awry. Beginning in
Doubt its progress is in misgving first, then in
fatuation its end, the irretrevable ruin of intel
lect, and heart, and body; for all, together, go
down in the night of mental error, Of moral deg
radaton and of physical death. Hence we re.
peat with an emphasis, Beware of The first step
Awry.n-HaJps Journal Of Health.