The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-01-01

there's not in all the city to-day an inc.
briate that did not begin with ale.
"XXX," what does that mark mean?
Xxx" ON the besr barrels; Xxx"
ON the brewers dray; Xxx" ON the
any one who could tell me what this
mark means, have had to guess that the
whole thing was an allegory: "XXX"-
chat is, thirty eart-breaks, thirty agon-
les, thirty desolated homes, thirty chances
for drunkard's grave, thirty ways to per-
dition. "XXX" II were to write .
| story the first chapter would be Xxx"
the last the pawnbroker's shop. Be watch.
| full! At this season all the allurements to
dissipation win be especially busy. Let
not your fight to hell be in the winter.
also remark that the winter evenings,
through their very length, allow great
swing for indulgences. Few young men
would have the taste to go to their
| rooms at seven o'clock and sit until
eleven, reading Motley's Dutch Republic
| or John Fosters essays. The young men
| who have been confined to the store all
| day want fresh air and sightseeing; and
they must go somewhere. The most Of
|
| or four hours of leisure. After the even.
ing repast the young man puts on his hat
and coat and goes out. "Come in here"
cries another. "Go," says Satan; "you
| ought to see for yourself" Why don't
| you go?" says a comrade, sit is a shame
for young man to be as green as you
are. By this time you ought to have seen
everything"
Especially is temptation strong when
business is dull. have noticed that men
spend more money when they have little
| to spend. The tremendous question to be
settled by our great population, day by
day, is, how to get a livelihood. Many of
our young men just starting for them
selves are very much discouraged. They
had hoped before this to have set up q
household of their own. But their gains
have been slow, their discouragements
many. The young man can hardly take
care of himself. How can he take care of
another? And, to the curse of modern So
ciety, before young man is able to set up
home of his own, he is expected to have
enough to support in idleness somebody
else, when God intended that they should
begin together and jointly earn a liveli-
hood, So, many of our young men are
utterly discouraged and utterly unfit to re-
sist temptation.
The time when the pirate bore down
upon the ship was when its sails were
down and it was making no Roadway.
People wish they had more time to think.
The trouble is, in dull times, that people
have too much time to think. Give to
many of our commercial men the four
hours of these winter nights, with nothing
to divert them, and before spring they will
have lodgings in an insane asylum. re-
mark further that the winter is especially
trying to the moral character of our
young men, because some of their homes
in winter are especially unattractive. In
summer they can sit on the steps or have
bouquet in the vase on the mantel, and the
evenings are so shSrt that soon after gas
light they feel like retiring. Parents do
not take enough pains to make these long
winter nights attractive. 1t is strange that
old people know so little about young peo-
pie. One would think that they had never
been young themselves, but had been born
with spectacles on. 1t is dolorous for
young people to spend the three or four
hours of a winters evening with parents
who sit talking over their own ailments
and misfortunes and the nothingness of
this world. How dare you talk such bias
phemy! God was busy six days in max
ing the world, and has allowed it to hang
six thousand years on his holy heart; and
that world hath fed you and clothed you
and shone on you for fifty years, and yet
you talk about the nothingness of this
kha Ia
in your family to sit and groan about this
magnificent, s:ar-lighted, sun-warmed,
shower baptized, fiower-strewn, angel
watched, God-inhabited planet: From
such homes young men make a wild plunge
into dissipation. Many of you have the
means-why do you not buy them violin
or a picture? or have your daughter
cultured in music until she can help
to make home attractive: There
are ten thousand ways of lighting
up the domestic circle. 1t requires
70 large income, no big house, no rich
wardrobe, no chased silver, no gorgeous
upholstery, but parental heart awake to
its duty. Have doleful homo and Tour
children will not stay in it, though you
block up the door with Bibles and tie fast
man: "This is beautiful tree in front of
your house." He answered, with whine:
"Yes; but it will fade" l said to him:
"You have a beautiful garden" He re-
piled: "Yes, but it will perish" found
out afterward that his son was a vaga-
bond, and was not surprised 1T it. You
can not groan men into decency, but you
can groan them out of it.
Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.
Arm yourself against the especial temp
tations of this seas son. Poets and painters
have represented Satan as horned and
hoofed. If were poet should describe
him with manners polished to the last per-
lection: hair flowing in graceful ringlets;
eye little bloodshot, but floating in be-
witching languor; hands soft and dn-
monded: step light and artistic; voice
mellow as a Aute; boot elegantly shaped:
conversation facile, carefully toned and
Frenchy; breath perfumed until it would
seem that nothing had ever touched his
lips save balm and myrrh. But his heart
would encase with the scales of {, mon
ster, then fill with pride, with beastliness
ofdesire, with recklessness, with hypocrisy,
with death. Then would have him touched
with some rod of disenchantment
until his two eyes would become the cold
orbs of the adder, and on his lips would
come the foam of raging intoxication, and
to his feet the spring of the panther, and
| his soft hand would become the clammy
hand of a wasted skeleton; while sud-
/ denly from his hear. would burst in crack
ling and all-devouring fury the unquench-
able flame. and in the affected lisp of his
! tongue would come the hiss of the worm
that never dies. But, until disenchanted,