The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-04-09

itself to the utmost under the pro-
tecting panoply of the law; where
education and learning are fostered
and encouraged where the face OF
the country is dotted all over with
school houses academies, colleges
and churches and where free
press, the most potent educator,
sends forth daily and weekly from
a thousand towns, cities and villa
ges it's lessons of instruction, the
many-headed monster, crime, stalks
abroad in all its hideous leformity,
scarcely welcoming the shades OF
night to cover its begrimmed and
blackened visage.
Why is it so? The great ques
ton for christians, for moralists,
for philanthropists, for educators,
for all good law abiding citizens
and well wishers of their country
and their kind, should be, why is
this so, and where is the remedy?
1t is in vain for ministers of the
gospel to decry these evils from
their pulpits; it is in vain for NOR
alists to lecture against them, or
for legislators to pass enactments
for the punishment of offenses, un-
til the prime cause, the progenitor
of all these evils is removed.
Strike at that-strike at the root
of the evil, and when you have de-
stroyed the root, the leaves and
branches will wither, the tree itself
will decay and die, and out of its
dead body shoots ofgood will come
forth.
When the Creator cursed the
earth for mans sake and declared
that it should bring forth thorns
and thistles, and that in the sweat
Of his face he should eat his bread
until he returned to the ground,
He made an irrevocable decree-the
first law given to man after the fall
that while man lived on the earth
he should labor.
1t is the violation of this decree,
this first law, that produces the
greater portion Of all the suffering,
all the want, all the misery, all the
strife, contentious, crimes, in short.
all the evils that afflict mankind.
Idleness is the parent of all evils.
To imbue the rising generation with
a spirit of industry, to teach them
to engage in and adhere to some
useful and honorable occupation,
(and all occupations are honorable
which are useful), will do more to
lessen crime, subdue evil, elevate
society and christianize the people
than any other one thing that can
be accomplished.
The injunction to labor, like all
the laws of the Creator, is self
executing law. 1t cannot be viola
ted with impunity. Obedience to
it brings health, competence, con
tentment, peace, prosperity and hap
piness; disobedience, disease, want,
strife violence, crime, misery, woe
and death.
Industry is essential to the health
Of both body and mind.
1t requires industry, active exer-
else of the body, to develop the
muscle and give physical vigor-
Even so with the mind. Active ex-
ercise Of the mental faculties devel-
op mental strength, and gives men
tai vigor, while idleness wastes both
physical and mental vigor, and it
at the same time engenders all man
ner of vices.
The evils of intemperance, drum
kenness and debauchery are fearful
and alarming, and cannot be over
estimated. Yet who are your drunk
ards and debauches ? Are they
men who are assiduously devoted
to some useful occupation, or on
the contrary, are they notyour idlers,
men who either have no occupation,
or neglect the one they have?
The evils Of intemperance are the
legitimate offspring Of idIeness.
When do men engage in dissipation :?
When do young men contract their
habits ofdissipation? In their hours
of idleness. Ills then they con
tract not only their habits of dissi-
patton but all other bad habits
habits which fasten upon them with
the tenacity Of life and lead them
step by step through all the grada
tions of drunkenness, licensiousness,
debauchery, crime, want and misery,
and send them down to premature
graves with their memory "unhon-
ored and unsung.''
Who fill your lms-houses, your
jails, your penitentiaries? Who
are your swindlers, your thieves,
your robbers, your murderers :?
Ninety nine out of every hundred
men who never learned to ssearn
their bread by the sweat of their
brow" men who regarded honest
toll as degrading; who acted on the
assumption that the world owed
them living.
Alas how many of our young
men think the same thing.
It is fatal mistake, the world
owes you nothing, but on the con-
trary you owe the world for the
subsistence it has already given you,
and you owe to your creator the
diligent use of all your faculties,
both mental and Dhvsical