The Brookhaven leader., 1886-10-07
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
a Discourse to Young Men About
to Enter City Life.
The Careers OF Two Young Men-Throug Oh
ldIen-ss and Dissipation TO Death
by Industry to wealth and
Honor-An Earnest Appeal.

sermon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle took
for his text:
Ponder the path of thy teet.-lProv IL. 20,
and preached the following sermon on the
subject:
1.-TWO young men who came to live in
the city,"
1t was on Monday, September 20, at a
country depot. Two young men are to
take the cars for the city. Father brought
them in a 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 strolling that
way from adjoining farms, for it was gen.
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 we'll and
oth ers, without Swing anything, hoping
for them a city failure. Sitting on the fence
talking over the matter the neighbors
W, ul1 interlard their conversation about
the wheat crop of last summer, and the
apple crop vet to be gathered, with re-
marks about the city prosp cts of Edward
and Nicholas, for those were the names of
the two young men-Edward sevente cen,
and Nicholas nineteen; but Edward, al
though two years younger, being a little
quicker to learn, knew as much as Nicho-
las. They were both brown-faced and
hearty, and had g ne through all the cur
riculum OF hearty sports, bv which muscle
is developed and the chest filed out.
Father and mother on Monday morning
had both resolved to 20 10 the depot with
the bows, but the mother at the last mo-
ment backed out, and she said that some-
how she felt quite weak that morning, AMI
had no appetite for day or two, and so
concluded to say good bye at the front
door Of he old place, where she wept, and
what she did after the wagon left leave
other mothers to guess. The breakfast
things stood almost till noon before they
were cleared awav. But little was said on
the way to the ra lroad station. As the
locomotive whistle was heard coming
around the cutve. the father put out his
bsnd-somen hat knOtted at the knuckles
and one of the joints stiffened years ago
by wound from a scythe-an said:
"Good-hv", f lward; gool-bve, Nicholas.
Take good care of yourselves, and write
as soon as you get there, and let US know
anxious to hear"
Landed in the city, they sought out
with considerable inquiry of policemen on
street corners an questioning of car.driv-
ers the two commercial esta Adjustments to
which they were destined, so far apart
that thereafter they seldom saw each
other, for it is astonishing how far apart
two persons eau be in large city, espe-
cially if their halits are different Prac-
ticallv a hundred miles from Bow ing
Green to Canal street, or from Atlantic
avenue to Fulton.
Edward, being the youngest, we mus
look after him first. He never was in so
large a store in all his life. Such inter-
mnable shelves, such skillful imitation
real men and women to display goods on,
such agility of cash boys, such immense
stock of goods, and a whole community Of
employees! His heal is confused as he
seems dropped like pebble in the 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 a any moment he could
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 l. fluenza or a cold in the head.
But soma of you know how a young man
feels when set down in 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 side 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 com pany. At
ter spending two or three evenings in his
boarding house room, walking up and
down, looking at the bare wall or an old
c 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 it is
time to retire-and it seems that ten
o'clock at n light or even nine O'Clock will
never come-he resolves to accept the
chaperoning of his new friends at the
store.
The following night they are all out to-
gether. Although his salary is not arge,
be is quite flush with pocket money, which
the old folks gave lin after saving by for
some time. He can not be mean, and
these friends are doing all this for his
pleasure, and SO he pays the bills. At the
door # places of enchantment his COM
panions can not nd 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
enchanted with the glitter of spectacular
sin. Plain and blunt iniquity Edward
would have immed ia ely repulsed, but sin
accompanied by bewitching orchestra,
sin amid gilded pillars and gorgeous up
holstery; sin arrayed in all the attrac-
tions that the powers of darkness in COM
bination can arrange to magnetic a
young man, is very different from sin in
its loathsome and disgu sting shape.
But after few nights being very late
out, he says:
"I must stop. My purse won't stand this.
My health won't stand this. My reputa-
ton won't stand this"
Indeed one of the business firm one