Smyrna times., 1878-10-23

but comparative silencel No signs of death,
but the dead were there! As | moved
through l said, This is the home of lost
souls. Nothing to stir ones mirth, but all
the sin filling the eyes with the tears of
pity. 1t was Dantes Inferno. By some
strange infatuation the multitudes were
chained in bandage from which not one
out of hundred will ever escape. When
they move out they will move into hell. A
place of moral corpses, corpses on the stair,
corpses in the gallery, corpses in the
gardens Leper met leper, but no bandaged
mouth kept back the breath. l seemed |
sitting on an island coast against which
euroklydon had driven thousand dis.
masted wrecks, and every moment more
blackened hulks rolled in and while was
looking to find if the sea would go down |
and the winds 1ull l bethought myself that |
it was an everlasting storm driving up bill |
lows that always ragged; and on each carcass
that strewed the beach q vulture had al. |
ready alighted, the long beaked and filthy |
| vuture of unending despair, now pecking |
into the depths of corruption and now
wiping on its black wing the blood of a
soul. Not one lark, not one robbin, not
one chaffinch but vultures, vultures vul
| lures
First of all l have to report that the
sacred rhetoric so common concerning the
| CHASTITY magnifcence of gambling hells and
other haunts of inquity is all apocryphal.
| We saw the grandest and most pretentious
! of all of them. | had been told that the
walls were adorned with master pieces of
paintings that the music was like the
lingering of Thalberg or Gottschallz that
the fountains were bewitching in the gas
light; that the upholstery was imperial
that the furniture was like the throne
room of the Tuilleries. Master pieces
There was not one painting worth five dol
lars, laying aside the frame. Great daubs
of color which no ointellent machanic would
have on his walls, crooss- breed between a
chrome and splash of paint. Music
The homliest creatures ever saw squawked
discord, accompanied by pianos out of tune.
| Upholstery with two characteristics-red
and cheap. The changing light sweeping
across the groups of the dancers cost about
seventy-hve cents for chemicals a night
Tinsel, gaudy tawdrineSs, gewgaws, frippery,
seemingly bought at a secondhand furni-
ture store and never paid for. The inhabi-
tants greatly repulsive. Here and there
poor soul on which was the crown of
beauty, but not comparable with the Chris
tian loveliness and beauty that may any
day be seen on any of our great thorough
fares. Young man, you are a stark fool if
you 20 to haunts of dissipation to hear
music or to see fine upholstery, or admire
attractveness of feature. In Thomas or
Gilmore's, or Dodworth's band you would
hear more harmony in ten minutes than in
a year of the racket and bang made by the
. cheap orchestra of the dissolute.
q "However great the pretense, sin is al
. most always poor. Mirror, divans, Chick
j ering grands, she cannot keep. The sheriff
oil of lat
f uplifting for the auction-going, going
, gone.
o "I have also to report that in my mid
i night exploration l saw what amazed me
s much. | do not want to say it, because il
r will send sorrow through many hearts tha
t are so far away cannot comfort them, bu
S l must tell it. | saw in all these haunts o
o iniguity multitudes of young men, wh(
}. had on their cheek the ruddy color o
7, country health Many of them had jus
}. come to town to begin business this au
d tumn. They had helped harvest the sum
l. mer grain, and they had on them that lool
|; which no man has unless he has been liv
d ing the rugged, outdoor life of the country
e They had heard how gaily boat swing
3. along the edge of the maelstrom, and the
e had ventured. o, my God, will one or tw
l months do such awful work for youn
" man? o, Lord, hast Thou forgotten wha
ID transpired as they were all kneeling at tn
| family altar the morning he left home
IS how the fathers voice trembled in tn
re prayer, and mother and sisters sobbed a
rs they lay on the floor l saw his first loo
le at sin with an immovable air, as much a
al to say am mightier than all evil The
ul l saw him consulting with sin. Then l sa'
ry him doubt and waver as a shade Of refet
'u ton crossed his face, and some holy men
of ory seemed TO call him back. | thin
ne coming up from the gaudy upholster
in there was a whisper. | think it said t
d. him: My son, go home.' And out of tn
xt folds of the same upholstery hand becl
IL, oned-a hand that began to be wrinkle
o. with age hand worn to hard work
y, hand trembling with emotion. Goodne
ad and Sin had a struggle, but Sin triumphet
i'll and l saw him surrender to darkness an
,e, death-an OK to the slaughter. O., N
in soul, has it all come to this Is this the en-
IN, of all the good advice and prayers tn
.er began eighteen or twenty years ago? III
ell this cluster from the country vineyard gor
of into the great wine press, where remor
ad and despair trample, and the vintage is
he vintage of blood? L have not so much pi
ou for those who, brought up in city lii
, is know beforehand the surrounding alluI
an ments, but God have mercy on the count
d lad, all unsuspecting and SO easily beguile
be Young man, recently from the farm-hou
Be among the hills, what have your parer
DIS done against you that you should do IL
If against them? Why are you so bound
no killing with trouble her who gave y
ex- birth? Look at her fingers, how did tn
, Of get so distorted? guess it was in maxi
EEL so many garments for you to wear. Doy
as prefer to that honest old mothers face, t
ork bruised cheek of sin Write home with
der morrow mornings mail, cursing b
der whitening locks, cursing her stoop
GUS shoulders, cursing her old arm chair, Gu
the ing the cradle in which you were born.
cot can't you say. Why, you are doing
ave now. l see on your hands and on yC
'ery feet the blood of mothers broken hea
ess. Did you, when you threshed the harv
still apples from the corner of the field
way, summer, think you would have come
risk this. Perhaps feel the more sympathe
With for such because | was myself a coun
bed lad, not till fifteen years having seel
ula. great city. remember how stipend
and New York looked as landed at Courtls
heir street ferry. And look back and won
rom how, with a nature all awake for hilari
10 and boisterous amusement, l escaped.
ted, news about you, wayward young man,
most get to the country home. You can't b
into it. There are people who like to tell
and news, and some accursed old gossip
say some day put on her hat and wend her
, sin, fernal steps to the old homestead and
alted down, and after wriggling about on