Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1872-10-04
The True Way to Rest.

OF all the miseries which can assail a
man of action and affairs the greatest,
perhaps, is the custody of his own facul-'
ties when suddenly banished from, or
lifted out of, the arena of duty and service.
MANY soldier to whom every day
brought tedious marches, short ratlons
and mortal perils, and who had longed
for years for the security and plenty of
his own village home, has lived to prove
that white winged peace which bore him
to mothers arms to be condemnation
20 a sluggishness and monotony of life
for which he would gladly resume the
picket and the camp fire, the heavy mus
ket and the daily exposure to wounds and
sickness and death.
Hundreds of business men, full of
cares and solicitudes, have fancied that
these burdens and anxieties where their
prison house, and have strained forward
to the day of jubilee when they should
escape the bondage of daily business,
and for the first time become freemen.
When that day Of jubilee came, and
worn and weary merchant, fnanc1er or
tradesman has quilted his calling and re-
tired upon his envied fortune, he has too
often found that the wings that bore him
away from business turned out to be
ravens pinions, ominous and baleful, and
the bird a pelican, picking at his own
bleeding breast, not to feed its brood, but
to satisfy it's own craving for excitement
that would not come Better. in nine
cases out of ten, for the man of business
to bear all his cares than flee from the
providential sphere of his Importance,
his intercourse with his peers, his COLI
sion with the rivals of his hopes and aspira-
tions. Far better lose his fortune than
his health and his sanity, and both are
risked by abandoning customary cares
and duties and scenes. For one man
driven mad by overwork, ten are crazed
and made melancholy to desperation for
want of employment for mind and time.
Until we can get away from our own
natnra, away from our own mental and
moral constitution, away from the laws
of the Creator written in our hearts, we
cannot gain rest by merely flying from
our circumstances, our providential lot
and our appointed burdens and cares.
We may change the place, but we shall
keep the pain. If, instead, we could
change our policy; that is, make amend
ments in our habits, characters and inter
nal carriage, then, indeed, the whole
prospect would be improved. The idler
can change his ennui, not by changing the
scene OF his 1dleness, but by ceasing to
be an idler. The man of business, in
volved in vast responsibilities, must mod
crate his ambition and his cupidity, not
merely change his hours and his habits,
if he would sleep at night or eat his din
ner without producing the nightmare and
the horrors. Let him not vainly think he
can find relief by abandoning his calling
and retreating from his sphere. That
will only be topping over from one ex-
IRENE to another, and he will be just as
immoderate in his feelings as before, only
they will be of a different kind. IT he
was lately driven by the demon Of specu
lation and excessive enterprise, he will
now be ridden by the demon of avarice,
and will live with the poorhouse in his
dreams, and perhaps will eventually de-
stroy himself in disgust of life.-La6eral,
Christian Z