The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-02-07

u 1llG 4S SGOItEAGds
= young one seeks every pleasure h
a will exhaust the capacity of enjoy
ment, and in his old age, while de
sirous of pleasure, must suffer tn
torture of Tantalus, plunged il
water up to his lips and yet tn
poor wretch could not obtain
I. fdrop; so these young men, wheI
: grown old, surrounded with mean
: of enjoyment, pleasure wooiDg OIL
every hand, have lost the power o
enjoyment.
But though you may not reap thu
full harvest. to say nothing of wha
may happen to you in future life
you will receive your full reward
in the persons of your children
They will be deprived of theil
rights; they will enter the world
with an inheritance of woe; body
and soul they will be injured by
your youthful excuses. We tall
much about depravity inherited
from Adam. know but little
about that aud care less; what do
know and about which care is
that if young men sow wild oats
and congratulate themselves in old
I eiSC OSCalaSC Vi lEEAA 4ACSuOA HUH
painful disease, yet that their chill
dreu will reap abundantly in de-
PRAYED appetites. If any are en-
gagged in planting the Devils seed,
though that seed may not produce
fruit during their life, yet the seed
is not lost it will bring forth fifty
fold in the lives of their children.
| can think of but few sadder refiec
tons for parents thaa that because of
their folly their children are born
under the ban, from early infancy
under a curse. Sad fate! l am
only giving you facts, my friends
not preaching; only reading tie les
son taught by these facts.
My young lady friends, do not
congratulate yourselves that you
will escape; that you, like many
good people who, after the sermon
is over, say that hit neighbor A. or
Il. Don't apply this to the young
men, but take it to yourselves. You
do not plant so largely as the young
men, but you do many of you plant.
! AS you well know, l believe in
amusements; but when you spend
all your time in 9musements you
are sowing wild oats, and in old age,
when you most need amusement,
nothing Will amuse You; or you
| live in whirl of excitment, spur
ring body and soul to the swiftest
/ pace, and i'll after years when you
need the spur to urge on your flag
ginS energies, nothing will excite.
Women, old while they are yet
young; women nervous and irrita-
bic; women weak and sickly in a
healthy climate aud no overwork,
are reaping the wild oats planted by
themselves or their parents.
suppose not many of you dae
aware of the slight circumstances
which cause q nation to advance or
retrOgrade. Not some great event
suddenly makes or mars the
national life, not by o sudden
leap does a people advance from
insignificance to importance. Even
so small circumstance as the
publication and extensive cir
culation of papers like Wild Oats,
Days Doings, Sporting and ORA
matte News, Police Gazette, ard the
common use of the phrase, ''only
sowing his wild OATS" by persons
moral and even religious; and the
indifference felt by even parents to
the designations of their sons and
daughters, which they call youthful
folly the commonest of the phrases
little fast, rather wild, young
bloods, not spoken in condemDa-
tion-nay, even with a little ad-
miration in the tone-all these
things indicate a state of public
sentiment which If not altered will
bring the republic to ruin. Think
not this is idle prating; it is legit-
innate conclusion from history.
Turn to the history of France and
you can trace the effect of just such
sentiments. The nobility, initiated
by the rich of the middle class, liv-
ed in II most profigate state. Every
young man of quality had his mis-
tress; every married woman her
lover. Worse and worse grew the
morals of France, until the revolu-
ton came and with its thunders and
its lightnings cleared up the atmos-
phere. Again under the late Louis
Napoleon the same condition of
morals prevailed. Paris was cess
! pool of corruption, cleansed only
| by the blood of thousands. Turn
farther back in history to the days
of the Roman Republic, when vice
was winked at, laughed at and final
ly admired the Republic was eX-
changed for an Empire, and the
Empire from being the strongest
government in the world became
the prey of every wandering tribe
of barbarians passing near Rome.
Think you that our Republic is diff
ferently constituted; that we are in
sured against degradation1 Men do
| change, the world changes, and with
each cycle humanity does not return
to its starting point, but has ad-
vanced. Yet we have not so much
changed hut that the same causes
which ruined Rome will ruin US.
When fast, wild young men are toll
Grated and admired, other young
men will try to initiate them all
young men will tend toward fast
ness, and instead of fast boys being
the exception they will be the rule.
We see already in the rising genera
ton, evidence of the effect produc-
ed by sowing wild oats.
My young friends, be sure OF
this, what you sow you shall reap.
| Do not hope after sowing the Dew
seed to reap Gods harvest.
There's no escape from natural laws.
The harvest from wild oats is sigh
ing, weeping, grooming and agony.
You will suffer in body, mind and
soul your children will suffer; 9TH
ers, misied by your example, will
suffer and lastly, the nation will be
degraded, Wheat kernels laid away
with Egyptian nummies thousands
of years ago, under favorable condi-
lions, will geTIninate and produce
grain; so this wild oats, laying dor
mant for a generation, suddenly at
tains vitality. AS we think of in
herited evil, great black wave
rolling down the ages and darken-
ing the soul and lives of innocent
children, it would seem that God
did not love us, but because of this
law of inheritance goodness is pos
sible, and saints live whose noble
lives lure rs to greater attainments
Sowing wild oats will prevent your
success. Not only the act in itself,
but the Indifference of the commu-
nifty prevents success and degrades
the nationsllife. No man lives alone
an atom VI humanity uHCOHHeCleu
: with others; all men are bound to
gether by thousand ties, the union
J forming humanity; thus lives max
ing history; what affects one affects
all the sin of one Injuries the whole
! Let us exclude from our vocabulary
these eXcusing, concealing phrases
| "a little fast" /" rather wild" sow,
; ing wild OATS" etc. and use plaiI
: Anglo Saxon. Phrases borrow &c
, from the French, Latin words, mys
: teal expressions convey false i'm
:, preston In simple words that al
5 can understand, let each one condemn
: limo measured words, the prevailing
5 dissipation, extending from thu
] I ltiE.rEa IN he ANAL s.ifias- and sa.oh