Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-09-25
RUINS WHOss

| 1iHo' Az AoAAo".hS 10 ~ CudTaCLerlSC1(
chapter from the first part. =,
INTERPOLATION RUINS WHOM?
Humanity, though progressive, is yet uni.
versaIly weak and imperfect; and nature deals
with it through freaks mysterious and vhims
confounding. No two of the genus man ere
endowed with the same faculties of intellect
or features of physical form None ars free
from natures impcrfections, and but few. in
deed, sufficiently so to make their brief So
journ upon this earth really and truly success
ful. Whers there is one even tolerable sue
coss in reaching the higher and noblcr types
| Of manhood, thero are hundreds of ignomin-
;ous failures. The world is wont to attribute
these few successes and many failures in all
instances to ply sica! oauses-to training, ed
| acaticn, circumstances, temptations or pro-
tections. But we do not think the facts will
at all sustain the theory. As a rule, and one
c!most Without exception, men, and women
| too, VINO succeed in life, do 80 through the
gifts of nature, through attributes of intelli-
gencs and gooGness born with them, ard the
more adverse the circumstances, and the
greater the temptations which surround and
beset thom, the greater, purer and more bril-
liant is their success. And those who fail
were failures born, Nature did net endov
them with the elements Of success, and neither
training, education, circumstances, protection
from temptation nor help from friends, will
make them successful. Education, extraor-
dinary circumstances, or help from friends,
may tend to keep them from utter ruin and
degradation, and make them less failure
| than they otherwise would have been, but can
not make them success Training, educa-
tion and surroundings have their good or evil
effects, but unless nature has given man
| those attributes of head and heart necessary
| to success, no amount of training, education,
| nor anything else that may be done for him.
| can supply the failures of nature. Education
| and training cannot make a wise man out of
natures fool, an honest man out of natures
| rogue, nor decent'man out of natures beast.
| If nature has endowed man with those at
tributes Of intellect and goodness necessary
| to make him a success, training, education
| and association will polish and Improve na-
| ture's good work, and doubtless bring it to
much higher state of perfection than it could
| ever reach without them. But nature must
do its work first, The thoroughfares of life
are literally paved with the wrecks of men who
started on their voyage under the most favor
| able circumstances, and who stranded upon
breakers that any well balanced mind could
| and would have avoided. A young man of
| apparent fine intelligence and brilliancy, with
| good education, good family and friends to
| encourage and help him, adopts the legal pro-
fession as his life work, and almost at once
grasps fame and prosperity, and bright
struction in sight. But modern Delilah ap-
! pears upon the scene, and with her silvery
| tongue and deceptive smile he is beguiled,
and falls, 8 prey to his own lusts and the
| wiles of woman. And the world holds up
| its hands in horror, and exclaims: "Oh, the
depravity of woman ! She has wrecked and
| ruined q most brilliant and promising light !"
Another "bright and shining light "goes
| into trade" becomes merchant, and for
season prcspers we'll, but the "gaming table,
| fascinates 3ia and he falls; and the "gaming
| table, is charged with running another "great
| and good man." Another rushes to destruc-
tion down the giddy stream of intemperance,
and then the very atmosphere is made blue
the ''rum-seller," for destroying so noble
specimen of Gods handiwork p But these
| theories are all wrong. These wrecks lack
either the necessary intelligence or the moral
| stamina to succeed, and their failure. from
some cause or other was inevitable. If the
modern Delilaa had not appeared, the wreck
who surrendered to her, would have found
some other means Of destruction. His wreck
would have been charged up in the "black
book" to the "gaming table," the rum sell
ler," or some OF the many other "things ter
ribls" that haunt the virtuous dreams of the
"great moral prohibitionists. If there had
been no gaming table," the wreck who event
down" there, would have gone to pieces on
some other shoal. And SO with the wreck who
drifted to destruction upon the Turing tides of
intoxication. He was without helm and
without compass, and it were as impossible
for him to make d successful voyage across
! the world, as it were for a ship to sail around
it without those essential adjuncts. And he
who allows himself to be decoyed from the
highways Of manhood by wonan's wiles,
and wrecked upon the filthy reefs of lust is
either too weak intellectually, or too rotten
morally, to make life in any degree success,
| and may just as we'll have foundered there as
elsewhere. And while gambling-and espe,-
tally that kind Of gambling so commonly car
ried on in the "Cnrist;sn churches" at their
fairs, festivals, &C., and at which the young
men and boys generally take their first steps
toward raking "blacalegs" of themselves-is
truly one Of the greatest carses that civillza-
tion tolerdteS, yet we presume no intelligent
person will say that the Ia;.n who deliberately
hazards, on any game of chance, fortune, or
a sufficient portion Of his means, to wreck
him financially, hos brains enough to enttle
| him to place among tbe possibly successful
men. Some of the shrewdest and most sue
cessful business men Of the world, play
games Of chance, and for q consideration, but
| their object, instead of gain, is amusement
and excitement; and their we'll balanced and
cautious minds-such minds as are essential
to success-will not allow them TO 80 far
enough to either wreck or embarrass their
business. And the idea that man eau de-
vote his mind and energies to managing the
complications of successful business, and
then, after business hours, sit down to q gam
bling table and contend successfully with
"sports," who make gambling profession and
life study, and who have comparatively
nothing to lose and everything to gain, can
only be entertained by lunatic. All men,
or nearly all, ere more or less susceptible to
the charms and smiles Of woven, but we'll
balanced. pure minded msn-men who nature
designed for successful men-do not allow the
witcherss of 'cornen to dethrone their reason
or wreck them financially, no more than they
DO the excitement of the gaming table or the
luring hi2arities Of bacchanalian revel Thev
ere the real temperance men Of the world.
they ENJOY all things that are enjoyable, bu.
do not indulge to excess, or intenperatels, in
anything. And so, we contend, that while a
great many men wreck themselves through
drunkenness, the liquor they consume is only
lndireotly and remotely responsible for their
wreck. ihey were born with the clements Of
ss1-destructlon in them, and drunkenness was
only the means not the cause, Of their fall
They chose drunkenness as the means of their
ruin, because its degradation and beastliness
| was most congenial to the instincts and facul-
ties that nature endowed them with; and if
they could not have obtained that means,
they would have sought and found some 9TH
| or. Now we will n OF insist that there are ab-
solutely no exceptions to the rule herein
contended for. In fact, we have no doubt
there is occasionally man who fails through
drinking, or through gambling, or some other
| vice tor which he has an especial passion,
who would not become an entire wreck if the
opportunity to indulge his peculiar appetite or
passion was removed. But these exceptions
| are 70 rare that they will hardly warrant the
prohibihonists in their continual lamentations
over the "great and good men wrecked
through the temptations of the rum-seller."
From the Sank Rapids Sentinel. 9. '-~
The work of-taking out the wreck
Of the sauk Rapids bridge, which
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