Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1883-07-18
Advice to Young Men.

want yon my boy, always TO keep up
with the times, but want you however
fast you may run, to retain tender and
loving reverence for the dear old past, with
its beautiful lesson of honest purpose, OF
loving faith of truthiulness, OF really good
feelings remember the past with reverence.
AT the same time don't want you to be
sleeping or stupidity conservative. This is
a rapid old world and you must sleep with
your spurs on il you will keep up with the
times. don't want you 10 live forever in
the past. We must live in to-day. l don't
agree with the esihetics who wall about
the dissertation OF the past by The noisy
vulgar, money getting present; these peo
pie who rend their garments because rail
road runs through. Palestine and another
winds up the lava scorched sides of Vesu-
vius, and put on sack cloth and sink down
in ashes because steam propellers steam and
| splash through the busy streets of Venice
and the steam whistle iortures the gloomy
quiet Of the Bridge of Signs. Good for the
steam whistle. Had il shrieked its indig.
nant protest against the hate and blindness
ol the past. centuries ago, the gloomy,
| pitiless crnelties and remorel. IS tyranny
that now invest the Bridge OF Signs with a
morbid, inhnman interest, would never
have been. If l were the steam whistle OF
1888, under that shadow of the dark ages.
| would pull my valve wide open until my
head hung down on my back, and | would
shrek and scream until the torment of my
civilized yells shook that pathway of tears.
l hnt of lao. Ia.
pitiless torture from its cruel and iniaui-
tous foundations. Mr.. Ruskins lifts his
feeble voice against the clamor of the voice
OF steam. It's we'll enough for Mr.. Ruskin
to cry "sacrilege" now, but suppose Mr..
Ruskin had clanked across that bridge six
hundred years ago, with fair eyed Hope
throwing him go5d bye kisses from the
further portal lie would have given words
for the saving shrek of the steam whistle.
Do you ever go back to the old school
house and weep and sob because some
heoItless old icunclast of farmer is going
TO make firewood of the old beech tree ?
An, no; yo' have wept enough ON account
Of th"t tree in days gone by. You take
the farmer by the hand and say:
Chop it down, and then grub the roots
and fill the hole with salt. Why didn't
you think OF this thirty years ago." So
the Tree and Bridge of Signs must go, for
what are school house dresses but Lreeches
Of sighs?
1t iS world of change. We may not
like to see the old landmarks 60, but iflhey
stand in the way Of the railroad they must
go. There are some links that tie us to
the past that even dread to see broken,
hut they can not stand IN The way of man
ifest destiny.
Why, there are people, my boy, who
think il is profanalion and sacrilege be
callSe IL IL proposed TO have railroad
wind its way up the sacred side of Mount
Olivet and TO send the railway locomotive
sleaming and putting along the sunny
slopes that were trOdden so wearily by the
aching feet that sanclified the mountain
with their perfect holiness two lhons nd
years ago. But while yield place TO M
man in my honest reverence for sacr,
things, my hoy, can see no proclamation
In the railroad, even when IL winds along
the slope of sacred Olivet. Because M i
look al il, 1T Was the light that shone from
Oliyet, il was the life that made the NOM
tain holy ground, that led mankind from
all darkness into all the light of the nine
teenth century it was Oliyet and the in.
slruclion OF the teacher whose prayers and
tears and suflerings were all for mankind
that led us from barbarlsm TO civilization
and TO all the triumphs of civilization
from the brazen wheeled chariot to the
lightrnnning ambulance from the s6lid
wheeled Syrian or OK cart TO the road wag.
ON and the Victorian; from the slow mov.
ing caravan to the limited express and
fast white mail Ifanythine in the world
has right to go shouting along the grades
OF the Mount Of Olivet il Is the railway
locomotive. Nothing that is really pro-
gressvc can be sacrIlegious. But there is
great deal that is profane and sacrleg-
ious, my boy, that isn't the least bit pro-
grsssive.