Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1860-04-27
YOUNG MEN IN CITIES.

Henry Ward Beecher says in recent dis
Hthere is one thing IN this great city that
Is shaken off like -four from a cooks dredging
box, or like pepper from castor--if there is
one thing here that is blown through the air
andlblasted, it is young men. They come
from their homes to this vast slaughter house
city, as the old hecatombs come forth for the
slaughter. For cannot say, but that think
that if Of every hundred, fifty in the end are
successful the count would be very large
There is nothing that is so wasted, SO remorse-
aessly used up, as the young men that come TO
our cities They see the paths which have led
Others to ruin they behold dangers ON every
side of them they are warned by parental ad-
vice, by early teaching, by their conscience, by
their fears, and by lurid expectations of evil,
and yet they go on, and on, and are destroyed.
What an experience meeting it would be if
all the old business men of this city were to
come together, and give the history of the
clerks that they have had in their employ
some have had two, others FIVE, others ten,
Others twenty, others thirty, others forty, and
Others fifty! Suppose there had been kept a
record Of what has become of all the young
men that have been in boarding houses, both
small and large! Suppos ~~ were to have a
day of Judgment, in which should be disclosed
the life and destiny of all these personsl Oh,
what an army of famiable young menl Oh, what
a gathering of those that stand as the enshrin-
ment of mothers tears and anxious prayers !
OF, what an assemblage of much loved, much
taught candidates for damnation! Oh, what
a terrified defamation Is one in ten lost p
Yeus might double and quadruple the number,
and then have scarcely enough for the count
1t is terrible thingi f...
And of those that apparently stand, how
many are sriddled? How many limp inwardIy
If not outwardly?~ How many have wounds,
that though they may heal, will leave scars on
them as long as they live? Eow many are be-
ginning to do right, feeling the Internal grip of
wickedness still? How many that are perhaps
cured of scurvy, are weak from having had it !?
How many are SO disabled by rheumatism or
cramps, or gouts, that they will never walk
straight again? And how many are wasted
and destroyed? The pit has not been without
fuel. 1t has been fed by nothing less than
men--men cradled, and rocked, and nourished
and brought up by sanity mothers, for dcs-
truction. They come hither, all hoping, alex
pectant, all eager, all silly all fools! Here
and there, by some overshadowiag providence,
some seem to be protected Some are early
turned back from evil and reformed absolutely
and saved Many more advance far in the
path of wiekedness, and then, become apprised
of their danger, turn back but it is only by
climbing and climbing that they can ascend
the steep, down which they so easily slid. And
many more than all these go on gathering dark
ness at every step, their feet treading more and
more slippery and rough ways, till their char
acter is gone. Their reputation soon follows
with trustworthiness. all trust oeses life be-
comes system of dodging experiments vice
becomes crime, and crime becomes destruction;
and before half their days are ended, and the
curtain falls, and Hell knows the rest.