Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1881-02-07

L
stared at. The watch chain jingles. The
cup foams. Cheek fiushes. The eyes
Il lush. The midnight hears theil
gufaw. They swagger. They
! jOstls decent men off the
sidewalk. They take the name OF tod
in vain. They parody the hymns IT,
learned at their mothers knee; and
all picture. of coming disaster they cry
out, "Who cares" and to the counsel
OF some Christian friend: "Who are
you" Psssing along the street some
night, you hear shrek in a grog-shOp,
the rattle of the watchman's club, the
rush of the police. What is the matter
now? Oh, this reckless young man has
been killed in grog.shop fight. Garry
him home TO his fathers house. Par
ents will come down and wash mis-
wounds and close his eyes in death.
They forgive him all he ever did, though
he cannot in his silence, ask it. The
pro3igsl has got home at last Mother
will 90 to her little garden, and get the
sweetest flowers, and twist them into a
chaplet for the silent heart OF the way
ward boy, and push back from the
bloated brow. the long locks that were
once her pride. And the air will be rent
with the fathers cry, "Oh, my son, my
son, my poor son! would to GodI had
died for thee, oh my son, my son.
| go further and say those are
Unchristisn Amusemerts
which become the chief business of a
mans life. Life is an earnest thing.
Whether we were born in palace or
hoyel, whether We are affluent or
pinched, we have TO work. If you do
not sweat with toll, you will sweat with
disease. You have a soul that is to be
trsns6gured amidst the pomp Of judg-
ment day; and after the sea has sung
its last chant, and the mountains shall
have come down in an avalanche of
rock, you will live and think and act
high on a throne where seraPhs sing or
deep ina
Dungeon Where Demons Howl.
In a world where there is so much to do
for yourself, and so much to do for
others. God pity that man who has moth
ing to do. Your sports are merely
means 10 an end. They are alleviations
and helps. The arm of toll is the only
arm strong enough to bring up the
bucket out OF the deep well of pleasure.
Amusementis the only bower where
business and philanthropy rest while on
their way to stirring achievements.
are merely the vines that
grow about the anvil of toll and the
OF the hammers. Alas for
the man who spends his life in labor
lously doing nsthing, his day in hunting
up lounging places and loungers, his
nights in seeking out some gas.lighted
fOolery, The man who always has on his
sporting jacket ready to hunt for game
in the mountain or fish in the brook,
with no time 20 pray or work or read,
Is not so we'll off as the grey hound that
runs by his side, or the tiy-bait with |
" hich he whips the stream. A man who |
ioes not work does not know how to
which to lit and hands with which TO |
work and brains with which to think.
The amusements OF life are merely the
orchestra playing while the great TRACE
.ly of life plunges through its five acts
infancy, childhood, manhood, old age
and death. Then exit the last chance
Of mercy. Enter the overwhelming re-
alties Of an eternal world, 20 furth-
or and say that all those amusements
are wrong which lead into bad com
pany. Ii you belong to an organiza-
ton where YOU have to associate with
the incorporate, with the unclean, with
the abandoned, however well you may
be dressed, in the name OF God quit 1t.
They will despoil your nature. They
will undermine your moral character.
They would drop you when you are
destroyed. They will give not one cent
TO support your children when you are
dead. They will weep not one tear at
your burial. They will chuckle over
your damnation.
want TO otter one more rule. Any
amusement that gives you
DistaSts for Domestic Life
is bad. How many domestic circles
have been broken up 10y sinful amuse-
ments. The father went Oft, the mother
went of, the child went of. There are
10. day the fragments before me Of great
many blasted households. Oh il you
have wandered away, | would like to
charm you bark by the sound OF that
one word. Home" DO you not know
that YOU have but little more time TO
give To domestic welfare? Do you not
see. father. that Your children are soon
10 yet ont into the world and all the in
fluence for good you are 10 have over
them YOU are to have nowH Death will
break IN on your conjugal relations and
alas. il you have TO stand over the grave
of one who perished from your
neglect. saw a wayward hus-
band standing at the deathbed
of his Christian wife, and | saw her
point % ring ON her finger and heard
her saw to her husband: "Do you see
that rirg?" lie replied: Yes, / see
IT." We'll" said she, do you remem-
ber who put it there" "Ies," said he,
al put it there" and all the past seemed
to rush upon him. BY the memory OF
that day when, in the presence OF men
and angels, YOU promised TO be faithful
ia ioy and sorrow, and in sickness and
in health; by tbs memory of those
pleasant hours when you sat together
in your new home talking Of bright
future: by the cradle ard the joyful
hour when one life was spared and an
other given; by that SICK bed, when the
little one lifted up the hands and called
for help and you knew he must die, and
he put one arm around each
OF YOUR necks and brought you
very near together in that dying kiss;
by the little grave in Greenwood that
YOU never think of without rush OF
tears, by the family Bible, where, amidst
stories OF heavenly love, is the brief but
expressive record of births and deaths;
by the ueglects Of past, and by the agon-
les OF the future; by a judgment day,
when husbands and wives, parents and
children, Immortal groups, will stand to be
caught up by shining array, or to shrink
down into darkness. All that beg you
to give to your home is your best atfec-
tions. look in your eyes to-day, and
/ ask you the question that Gehazi
asked of the Shunamite: as il well
with thee? Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with thy child?" God grant
that il may be everlastingly well.
And now l have some remarks OF a
more general nature. You must have
noticed last Sabbath that have no SYM
pathy with
Ecclesiastical strsight-Jackets,
or with that wholesale denunciation OF