St. Landry democrat., 1886-10-16

Rev. T. Dewitt Thlmage, in recent
sermon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle took
for his text:
Ponder the path of thy feet.-lProv. tx 26,
and preached the following sermon on TIE
subject:
1.-TWO young men who came to live In
the city"
1t was on Monday, September 20, at
country depot. Two young men are to
take the cars for the city. Father brought
them in wagon with two trunks. The
evening before at the old home was a sad
time. The neighbors had gathered in to
say good-by. Indeed, all the Sunday af-
ternoon there had been strollng that
way from adjoining farms, for it was gem
orally known that the two boys the next
morning were going to the city to live,
and the whole neighborhood was inter
ested some hoping they would do well and
others, without saying anything, hoping
for them city failure. Sitting on the fence
talking. over the matter the neigltbors
would nterlard their conversation about
the wheat crop of last summer, and the
apple crop yet to be gathered, vita re-
marks about the city prospects of Edward
and Nicholas, for those were the mares of
the two young men-Edward seventeen,
and Nicholas nineteen; but Edward, al
though two years younger, being a little
quicker to learn, knew as much as Ntcho-
las. They were both brown-faced and
hearty, and had gone through all the cur
riculum of hearty sports, by which muscle
Sc tho al,
Landed in the city, they sought out
with considerable inquiry of policemen on
street corners and questioning of car driv-
ers the two commercial esta blishments to
which they were destined. so far apart
that thereafter they seldom saw each
other, for it is astonishing how far apart
two persons can be in a large city, espe-
cially if their habits are different. Prac-
ticallv a hundred miles from Bowling
Green to Canal street, or from Atlantic
avenue to Fulton.
Edward, being the youngest, we raust
look after him first. He never was in so
large store in all his life. Such inter-
minable shelves, such skillful imitation of
real men and women to display goods on,
such agility of cash boys, such immense
employees His head is confused as he
seems dropped like pebble in tko great
ocean of business life.
"Have you seen that greenhorn from the
country" whispers young man to young
man. "He is in such and such a depart
ment. We will have to break him in some
night"
Edward stands at his new place all day
SO homesick that at any moment he couli
have cried aloud If his pride had not sup
pressed every thing. Here and there a
tear he carelessly dashed off as though it
were from influenza or cold in the head.
But some of you know how young man
feels when set down in a city of strangers,
thereafter to fight his own battles, and no
one near by seeming to care whether he
lives Or dies. The center of a desert, a
months journey to the first settlement, is
not much more solitary.
But that evening, as the hour for closing
has come, there are two or three young
men who sidle up to Edward and ask him
how he likes the city, and where he ex-
poets to go that night, and if he would |
like them to show him the sights. He
thanks them, and says he shall have to |
take some evenings for unpacking |
and making arrangements. as he had |
just arrived, but says that after awhile he |
will be glad to accept their company. At |
ter spending two or three evenings in his |
boarding house room, walking up and |
down, looking at the bare wall or an old |
chrome hung there at the time that relig- |
Gus newspapers by such prizes advanced |
their subscription lists, and after an hour |
toying with the match box and ever and |
anon examining his watch to see if 1t is |
time to retire-and it seems that ten |
O'Clock at night or even nine o'clock will |
never come-ha resolves to accept the |
of his new friends at the |
store.
The following night they are all out to-
gether. Although his salary is not large,
he is quite flush with pocket money, which
the old folks gave him after saving by for
some time. He can not be mean, and |
these friends are doing all this for his
pleasure, and 30 he pays the bills. At the
door Of places Of enchantment his COM
panions can not End the change, and they
accidentally fall behind just as the ticket
office is approached, or they say they
will make it all right, and will themselves
pay the next time. Edward, accustomed
to farm life or village life, is dazed and
with the glitter of spectacular
sin. Plain and blunt iniquity Edward
WOULD have immed lately repulsed, but sin
by bewitching orchestra;
i'm arid gilded pillars and gorgeous up
,oistery; sin arrayed in all the attrac-
ions that the powers Of darkness in COM
,ination can arrange to magnetic a
roung man, is very different from sin in
is loathsome and disgusting shape.
The same young men and others of a
rowing acquaintance ever ready to es-
'ort him. There is never any lack of such
Guidance. If a man wants to go the whole
~ s-i., La G.Sxl