The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1888-06-20
a Lay Sermon for All Classes in Life.

He is. indeed, wis man who knows where to
draw the line between too much and too little.
At the point where too much ends and too little
begins is the golden mean of enough. There the
house of content may be built and happiness
make its abiding place. But the minds of men
app ear to be constituted that the desire for
more than they need is perpetual. Unlike the
happy brutes, who live for to-day and take no
thought for tomorrow. the life of the human crea-
ture is a long anticipation in which the desire to
get is never entirely satisfied. And yet the evil
of having too much works almost as much mis-
chief the opposite and more inconvenient evil
of having too little.
The first human pair began business by seeking
after superfiuity. Eden was full of delights to
crafty every sense; but there too many
in the garden. In reaching for the forbidden
fruit of Life luckless progenitors gathered in
the harvest of death. The sons and daughters of
Adam and Eve have never since been rid of the
faint of greed of the curse that follows it.
Liberty is one of the dearest aspirations of the
human heart, but in order to live securely men
have teen obliged to set up governments and make
laws in curtalment Of liberty. 1t is an excellent
thing for good men who satisfied to respect
the equal rights of Others but in the hands of bad
Liberty i. therefore abridged in such degree that
good men and bad men may live together under
certsi compacts imposed by force. So we have
LID erty with her wings clipped.
In the wise order of nature it is SO ordered that
men get from the earth year by year just about
enough to sustain life with no great overplus. 1t
follows that those of US who get too much trench
upon the proper share Of those who get too little.
Considered in this light it is happy thing that a
sur felt should carry retributon with it, answering
to the pangs Of famine. Truly in this way is the
lust of wealth and the greed Of power controlled.
Nature herself seems to detest monopolies. 1t
is freak of hers that nearly ali the anthracite
coal OF the world appears to be in Pennsylvania,
and it is an astounding fact in the history of leg
slation that in free commonwealth natural
monopoly should have been allowed to fall into
the hands Of an artificial monopoly. Bituminous
Goals and lignites. however, have been distribu-
ted over the earth's surface with a more even
hand 1t is impossible to establish combination
big enough to control every source of supply.
2 For while after its discovery petroleum was
also practically Pennsylvania monopoly. It,.
too, fell into the hands Ct creature organized
and sustained by Legislative faculty. But the
flow Of oil from the remarkable wells on the shore
of the Caspian Sea has given them the appropri-
ate name Of petroleum geysers." The Russian
oil is beginning to deluge the markets Of the
world, and to sweep away the Standard profits
and keep down the Standard prices.
Only in moderation is there safety. 1t is well to
avoid eating too much drinking too much, work
ing too much and sleeping too much. as the gath
ering too much of this worlds gear. Enough is a
river flowing peacefully between its banks; TOO
much is q food overlapping the bonds of safety.
and carrying devastation in its path. He who
has more than enough has part Of that which
belongs to some one else. If the precepts OF
Scripture be correct he should make haste to cor
rect the by proper distribution. And let him
who has enough possess his soul in content
stamford IN. ~ Mirror. t--s,-...
Among the m0St blessed cOntriyancoS of