The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-08-16

Rto0m q n. z comhllreiaE AdvettLIer.

FTDiN EtG ANs l. NyfitfitSFNt <1NNNfttAEts
The primary lesson OF practical life is
How TO Work. Only second to 1t in i'm
portance Is the much neglected lesson,
How 10 Play. The Christian Herald
has a thoughtful article on the un-
sociality of city life. as especially man
Ifested in church membership. 1t
draws pitia bic picture OF a stranger
within our gates-that is, sojourniDg In
our city. He is alone every rywhere. HIS
presence ignored by every body. At
his hotel nobody looks at him. II by
accident he strays into IA church, none
of the worshippers notice, much less
welcome, the stranger. AT the theatre
he is still more solitary, by the contrast
between his mental state and that of the
chattering, chuckling crowd. Nor Is
this unsociabllity displayed only to-
wards strangers. There Is a great lack
of cordiality in the relations OF ac-
quainIances. The amenities of life
are neglected. By not properl ymixing
work and play, bat byi postponing the
latter to occasional periods OF leisure,
the power OF enjoyment Is deadened,
and thus, as we have hitherto said, to
most men there is no harder work than
TO try to play. Long ubstenance from
amusement renders the one abstRininR
incapable of being amused. Here IS an
epitome of daily life of such as these:
"They take a hurried breakfast, with
season their beefsteak or mutton chop
with the price current, and then hurry
Off to the store or the shop, and see no
more of their families until dinner; and
perhaps they take this down town, at
a restaurant or cOtfee-house. at night
they come ONE exhausted, nerves all
unstrunR, head aching, and untitled for
all social intercourse with their iamt
lies. Supper is hurried over, and the
children are sleepy, and sent of to the
nursery or to bed, and after glanciug
over the evening paper, and perhaps
reading a short chapter in the Bible, i:
protesting Christian, and brief
dream of stocks and dry goods, and
notes falling due. and notes that will
never pay. Such Is the daily round OF
many a man for six days"
If we were disposed TO be ethically
casuistical, we might raise the question
whether 1t be worse to make the Sab
batha day of labor than to make 1t one
OF unrest, which many church.going
people habitually do by crowdlng into
it all the re- gious duties of the week.
Thus it not unfrequently happens that
the first day of the working week is Hs
emphaticalIy. "blue Monday" TO the
church. going man as IL he had spent II
unworthily.
lUnsociaiIty, the Herald goes on TO
Say, Is not unfrequently found among
families whose residences are closely
adjacent. These should be, in the
Christian sense, tour Deighbors;" but
how seldom are their relations neigh
borly! The evil even extends TO the
churches. We quote, in conclusion,
paragraph in this relations:
"Even members of the same church,
il the church be large, have scarcely a
speaking acquaintance. They will need
an introduction when they get to Hea-
ven to those with whom they have sat
down at the same communion table.
Said a lady who is a member of one of
our city churches, and not an obscure
member either, not many weeks since,
to the writer of this article: i was sick
and confined TO my room for three
months, last winter, and neither the
pastor, nor one of the elders, nor any
member of the church, came to see me,
or to inquire If l were sick or dead
Nobody seemed to miss me, although
we occupy a seventy-dollar pew Said
another lady, and a member of the
same church for years: If l were i'll
and dying, or II one of my children
were sick and at the point of death,
there is not member OF that church to
whom 1 could say, Come and pray
with my family don't know them.'" 5"