Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-07-25
THE FAST YOUNG MAN.

4NCNs III LIE PASshSASo tt'o ~
at the First Baptist Church on ''Ihe
Fast Young Man" His text was:
prepared him chariots, and horses, and fifty
men to run before him.-H. samuel: ~, I.
The ''fast young man. is not
peculiar to our time. He has figured
c~opspicuously and ANONYMOUSLY in all
ages Of the worlds history; but never
has there been a time when he came to
the front like now. One of the chief
characteristics of the fast young man,
rs typiiied by the dashing young o of
David, is a certain audacity and bril-
liancy that challenge admiration. He
is handsome, fascinating, adventurous,
and has a reckless abandon about him
which makes many condone the follies
and vices conspicuous in his character.
He has an air Of generosity and chival-
nv that draws around him a coterie of
followers who think him the prince of
good fellows. Absalom still lives-he
will be met with on the strect-corner, in
the lobby of the theater, at the saloon
bar, and in the gambling-hell. He is
apparently generous, is ready to treat
lavishly, and is to many their very
ideal Of generosity and nobility. The
typical young American is this dashing,
prodigal, fast young man. Like Alb
SALON., he must needs maintain APP
pearances, and if money can not be had
legitimately, he must get it somehow.
Absalom, though not destitute of filial
feeling, yet being driven to desperate
straits, proposed to h%ypothecate his
fathers affairs, and inaugurated a re-
bellion. The fast young man is Just
such another, who, one day, startles
the world with some daring d%efalcation
or embezzlement.
The infamous record of young Wall
street spectators shows that the fast
young man is not the ideal that many
suppose HIM to be. He is mean and
heartless. and the sleek exterior is only
the glistening of the snake. Young
men could not be too much on their
guard against these splendid, fascinat-
ing, yet insidious destroyers-and young
women should realize that the plain,
homely, plodding son of toll is infinite
ly preferable to these hollow-headed
hypocrites.
Among the chief causes that went to
make the fast young man were wealth
of natural endowments, wealth of in
tellectual gifts, and wealth of material
resources. To be an Apollo Belvidere
or a Venus de Medicis was too often a
fatal gift of fortune, and the alterations
OF such sons of genius as Byron, Burns
and Edgar Allan Poe showed that the
highest intellectual endowments too
often placed men in circumstances of
extraordinary peril. A great fortune
was often a misfortune to a young man,
and the young man who develops right
lyi in the lap of luxury should be regarded
with the same admiration as the Sala-
mander which lives in fire without being
burned. Parental neglect Or parental
mismanagement often led to the devel-
opment OF the fast young man, and the
children of stern, hard, unsympathctic
parents often go to perdition with &C
tolerated speed to indemnify themselves
for their long period of restraint. If
David had lived as he ought, Absalom
might have died as he wished. The sad
end of Absalom-cut down in the midst
of his wild career and thrown like a dog
into a dishonored grave-was, sooner
or later, but too true a picture Of the
ultimate fate of the fast young man.
Shattered health, broken fortune, sui
eide or the hangman's rope were only
the common sequel of a fast life. Young
men should beware of the sleek, shin
ing emissaries of Satan who would de-
coy and drag them down to perdition
along with themselves, and if disposed
to lead a life of display and selfish graf
ification should, if not for their own
sake, at least for the sake of those who
loved them with a deathless love pause
before rushing on to perdition.-CAica.
go Tribune.