The Baltimore County union., 1872-05-25

"light" in the hall, or at lamp post. We be-
lieved our companions pure enjoyment enough.
We were happy in the one thing at time
We should have felt, as they would the intru-
sion of cigar as an insult. What, 80 greedy
as to demand two pleasures at once, and is not
the young girl to be endured except you have
your weed think the young women of TO-
day have snned against themselves in allow
ing what the chivalry of another day never
presumed, and that their self-respect should
have revolted at this division in after ntion,
themselves seemingly second. l do not think
things have altered for the better. l have q
little quaint, questionable respect for woman,
which makes me feel that she is in herself a
pleasure and privilege which should be un-
shared by any other thing. Things run the
other way to day. No restraint, no postponing
of this till by and bye, but a taking every thing
at once, and getting the true zest out OF moth
ing. And from that and because of that, riot
and dissipation, the hideous enormities of de-
bauch, the unrestrained pursuits of pleasures
sapping the heart as we'll the life. One
stands by in marvel and in terror at the in
tenseness with which men follow up what
they call pleasure, heartily, systemati-
caliy thoroughly, live for it, die for itde in it.
And the more earnest the nature, the more real
value to the man, the more utterly, wilfully,
recklessly, hopelessly is it done. The worst
wrecks are often of the most superb material
men, who throw the whole wealth and resource
of themselves into the thing that degrades, as
Solomon did, the most splendid instance per-
haps on record of the magnifcence of moral
overthrow through pursuit of pleasure
In the whole, st end ea ee-astaelsEgae-6 s'pan sad
ness know nothing so sad as the furious driving
of the pleasures-the pleasures fed by the appe-
tites and passions-goading the man from excess
to excess, aded, worried, sated but not satisfied,
Knocked and taunted with new demand that the
new qualification but increases, and the soul 60
ing steadily down in its sadden death. | see
those in the streets whose feet are turned that
way nay meet them in society and in homes
| read the tell-tae in look and movement before
it loudly proclaims itself; see young men mark
ed and dcomed--fast they go, faster and faster.
driving more and more furiously, with desperate
plunges and fearful leaps until exhausted and
helpless they sink away in their shame or go away
to their award "There is moral TO be learnt from
the widest wordliness. When we look on the mad
ness of life, and are marveing at the terrible career
of dissipation let there he no contempt felt 1t is
an immortal spirit marring itself. II is an in
finite soul which nothing short of the infinite,
can satisfy, plunging down to ruin and disap-
pointment Men of pleasure whose hearts are
as capable fan eternal bessedness as christian S,
that is the terrible meaning and moral of our
dissipation. You are blindy pursuing your
destiny. That unquenched impetuosity within
you might have led you up TO God. You have
chosen instead that your heart shall try 10 salts
fly itself upon husks"
The difficulty morally speaking in all this
furious driving is that men do not comprehend
the realty Of life and The realities in life. They
put evil Tor good, and good for evil. They -
vert values. They take false views from false
points under false lights. Life is TO them thing
whose orb is rounded by the seuses-a delirium
of indulgence, carnival of thoughtless, extrava-
CANT riot it is toll in which is no rest to coun-
teract waste, no renewal of vital forces and used
up energies, only constant and fierce consump-
tion-a boiler with fierce fire beneath but no fresh
supply of water whose safety valve is weighted
down. Life cannot hold out So 1t becomes
prematurely aged, so as no years age. Body and
mind YIELD while that purer, more ETHEREAL thing,
the SOUL long before that, parts with its purity,
its freshness and its hope.
Give yourselves to realities, young men Live
with the moderation God enjoins, under the laws
He procaims repress all indulgence. Be indus.
trious without overwork, frugal without parsiuo-
ny, active without stmulant, and enjoy without
excess. Put all Divine gift in place and keep it
in place, and you will live wisely and we'll.
believe that the great want Of young men is
that of simpler purer, austerer life, but
| don't believe that strikes the ear pleasant
ly. doubt if many are saying, in their hearts,
amen. don't believe have your sympathy.
little suspect you think me getting on to ground
where you don't care to follow; that am m;a-
lister not man ; have forgot the man in the o n
lister. But wait Bit Recall the words.
Weigh them-simpler, purer, op''erer That is
v ~ we Geed tn-haSe Lite wbat Cod
wa;.<Sss.iga o be. That is wnat uou 4peeis[ ns
make it, # we do jot like the ides, if we will
not strive after the thing the fault 10 ours and the
loss too.
The lives of the people since prosperities COM
menced and the marvellous resources of the land
helped out by the as marvellous revelations and
strides of science, have wanted and wanted in
creasingly, these virtues. We may call them and
jeer them as Puritan, but they are simply Chris
tan, just what every Christian ought to haYe
faith in, and every manhood attain. Austerity
does not mean hair shirt, and forty ashes, and
no meat. 1t does not mean penance, or denial of
everything pleasurable, the modification Of good
gifts Of God-but it means severe scrutiny into
action and motive, close watch over appetite
and conduct, jealous care of all the ins and
outs of life, life of more severe simplicity and
purity. Only by that way of return, as judge,
is there hope that the generations as they 60,
shall draw back from the madness OF this present
folly, and regain the lost elements OF broad
and loyal manhood. With the relaxing OF the
graver charge of self, simplicity departed and
after simplicity purity. With the resumption OF
to our good but to our happiness, vital alike to
our manhood as our immortaliy,-can we alone
hope rescue of our spirits for the grasp OF
modern contaminations and the setting up OF our
lives upon foundations not TO be shaken.
Young meu believe this tendency to furious
ly driving of everything in life is in the age, and
that you, as have said, partake of its elements
at your birth. 1t enters into your education.
Precept and example confirm it. And yet be-
lieve not only that you can but that you must re-
sist and turn it back. The integrity Of your
manhood depends upon it, the integrity Of the
character this generation makes and bequeaths.
There must be stop to this broad, downward
tendency, TO these things having 80 wild a sweep
and carrying SO fearful disaster. And every
mans moral courage and moral power is a help,
as every leaf and twg and pebble rolled by the
torrent before it, at last, joins to form the dam
that stays the mad danger of its course. We
must not stand and wiring our hands, and see 9TH
ers lost and feel our own peril we must not cry
| God help US, what shall we do" Because the
evil is imminent and mighty we must not sub
missively cringe before and accept it, The true
soul rises in its power before difficulty. 1t feels
| the spur Of generous ambition. 1t gives itself
to the task. 1t honors no failure. And the
generous spirit of youth, SO buoyant before other
difficulty, should not quail here. Just here lies
the tate of life. Let the young man hold at bay
all the furious temptiugs which crowd upon and
would compel him, not for his own good only,
but that so he may stand in the way OF the tide
that bears upon others, and possessed with a
brave serenity, his own life upright and pure, his
! toll, his endurance cannot be in vain. The
harvest must be rich, the reward great.
| Three things would advise him specially II
aim at. Will he attain them let them becuu<
general, think the furious driving, driving now
| so many to a worse overthrow and death than
TO which Jehu drove will be stayed.
l. Let him prize and get Honesty. How pain
fully it strikes one that so cardinal virtue should
be to-day in so little repute, that the thing honor
ed among savages and a staple Of old nature
| faiths should be 50 large want in the Christian
communities of the nineteenth century One is
stupe6ed at the evidences everywhere among
high and low, of the want Of simple, ordinary
! honesty. 1t is wanting in Senates, in Chamber:
I of Commerce, at brokers' boards, in markets
| and traffic and in the streets. II is wanting ir
| the heart-and there is where all the trouble lies
and thence is the remedy TO come. Disreputablt
pickiugs, wholesale peculations, everywhere un
blushing, avOwed, the more heinous the more
glored in An underpaid conductor conceal:
his an overpaid lobbyist is vain Of his. Your
servant the street beggar, the petty thief deny
but Vanderbilt, Drew, Fiske proclaim it
1t sometimes does seem as if the very foundations
of morality were hopelessly sapped, and there
could not come again to man the age OF honesty
But think it can if young men, in whom al
hope lies, will undertake it, and be resolutely
| trne I think they NAV redeem the time and re