Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-12-12
A Sundays Sermon on the Sinews o.
Sunlight and Somnolence of
Shadows.

er added to each bed. Faces were pressed
against windows, and eyes pee red out into
the darkness and all shiveringly exclaimed,
"Winter has come at last" But winter had
not come. The sun rose the next morning
and all through the day struggled for his
supremacy-for this is not country of
winter reyels. By evening the clinging
mists lifted and the sun went down, but
down in triumph, painting all the horizon
with the fires of his victory.
| Kansas is land of sunrises and sunshine
but land of sunsets and, sunsets. Our
mornings are glory, our days triumph,
but our evenings are ever gentle blessing.
However brilliant the day, and how brilliant
they are, the soft draperies whose folds
curtain off the light and leaves us with the
stars and with the night, are sure to be
tinted with the dyes of dreams and the
beauties of the inexpressible. The great
disc of molten white each recurring morn
ELIMINATES the opalescent deeps of the east
ern horison and his light falls on people
ike unto whom none others are so blessed;
but, when this monarch of climes and sea-
sons has performed its days task and rolls
from his rosy-lined couch of feecy clouds
over the edge of the world and falls into the
arms of night, the reflex of his vanishing
smile lights up, with a beauty whose rich
ness and delicacy are indiscribable, one OF
| tho f,;rasf bar;ta,as Of oortb
This happy valley of ours is unique in its
conformation and phenomenal in climatic
influences, and peculiar in the tastes and en-
ergies of its inhabitants, and under these
combined influences is destined to be the
seat of higher civilization. A great bound
less valley it is. as level and rich as the Delta
Of the Nile at ocean level, yet plateau with
an altitude as great ms that Of the highest
peaks of the Allegheny mountains. 1t is a
valley of unlimited sunshine and perpetual
breezes.
And, winds, too. does some reader suggest
Yes we have winds, winds such as sweep no
other land, winds that are soothing and winds
that are stern, winds that sing and whisper
and winds that grieve and moan, winds, the
invisible sweep of whose pinions are like the
spirit of liberty ever caressiing our bound
less, billowy prairies, kissing their nodding
flowers and swaying grasses, and anon bear
ing along upon its mighty wings the king of
winter and his frozen train. Other lands have
their summer suns and winter winds, but we
have sun that never sleeps and wind that
never tires. While the wind blows in con-
stancy, in boundless majesty the center of
light and energy pours down through rare
atmosphere of crystal azure health, harvests
and happiness on our homes;
Happy valley. happy homes, happy peo-
Pile. Sun, wind and a vast rich, open plain,
and in the midst, freedom and our bright
city. Clouds come, and their shadows oft
linger for day yet a brief hour is the limit,
come a sscene-shifters.a verting WEAKNESS,
as night is relief from day.
And these are the environments, these the
influences which envelope this valley of
homes. Squallor, lethargy and shiftlessness
are incompatible with such surroundings.
Peace and plenty spring from energies thus
stimulated and love and joy as surely follow
as that rivers find the sea.
And Wichita, fair with her rising spires
this Sabbath morning, and meath ~ en-
towering trees costly nesting her thousand
homes. She is indeed fair city of homes
and as earth can afford nothing higher or
better than homes, then thousand times
blessed is our city of homes. As home is
the ideal, the center of all lives and of all
aspirations, then how many ideals and aspi-
rations center in our bright young city with
its thousand attractive homes. But objects
some reader, there are many cities of homes.
Aye, but there is but one Wichita, as every
traveller will tell you. Up and down her
level streets are miles and miles of shady
walks. up and down are rows and rows of
homes, the palatial residence, the unpreten-
tious cottage, but all homes.
On no streets nor throughout all her sub
urbs can there be foetnd a single shanty, or
squalid howell, only snug, attractive, cosy,
vine-covered happy |
homes. But, says another, the city is too
new to admit of such thing as a tumbled-
down rookery or poverty and decay. There
is nothing to such an objection. When the
sun shines as it does here and the wind
blows as it does here, and the trees,
the grasses, the flowers, grow as they
I'll do here, the spirit of the people would
chafe under and never permit that which is
to chimes where fogs Cypress, clouds
discourage and heats wilt. He who has
once lived in the happy valley will never
i've happily elsewhere. and she whose home
S in Wichita will never go away to remain.
God made the country and man made the
own," except in this instance in which it
eems He had the largest hand in both town
md country. What health, what life,
what virtue, what intellectual triumphs
must such land in such cline produce
nd why not, therefore, the higher civiliza-
ion of which we spoke.
Our river rolls, our city grows, and dome,
md spirc, and dark-walled, factories, and
palaces grand, may, in the days to come, add
trife and pride, but squallor, beggary and
.rima will never flourish in this cline of ever
PRESSING minds and eternal sunshine.
Gene. OF our life and happy manhood hours!
10 smiling city and spacious fertile vale!
here oft we wonder midst your vernal iow-
ers,
/ nd revei in the ordor- breathing gale;
hould tickle fate, with talismanie wand
Bear me afar where either India giows,
)r fix my dwelling on the polar land.
Where nature wears her ever-during SHOWS;
iili shall your charms my fondest themes
adornl
When placid evening paints the western sky,
nd when Hyperion wakes the blushing morn,
% rear his gorgeous SAPPHIRE throne on high,
'or the guiltiess heart, where'er roam
20 scenes can hold us like our own valley
home.
Mr.. Finley Ross has purchased the James
)agner property on the corner of First
treet and Topeka avenue and is having it
epaired and fitted for residence. Yester-
ay Ask & Child were laying the carpets.
4 rantIaman inst from Colorado repors p,