The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1888-02-09

grave. Along the walks OF prosperous life
death goes mowing-and such harTests
az are repeated! Materia medica has been
exhausted to find curatives for these physio-
logical devastations. Dropsies, cancers,
consumptions, gout, and almost every in-
trinity in all the realm of pathology have
been the penalties paid. To counteract
the damage pharmacy has gone forth with
medicament, panacea, elixir, embrocatiOn,
salye, and cataplasm.
Tonight with swollen feet and cushioned
ottoman, and groaning with aches in
Vulnerable, will be the votary of luxurious
living, not half 80 happy as his groom or
coal HEAVIER. Wrong fashion is the worlds
undertaken, and drives thousands of hearses
to Greenwood and Laurel Hill and Mount
Auburn.
But, worse than that, this folly is an in
tellectual depletion. This endless study of
proprieties and etiquette, patterns and
styles, is bedwarfng to the intellect. L
never knew a woman or a man of extreme
fashion that knew much. How belittling
the study of the cut of q coat, or the tie of
a cravat, or the wrinkle in q sleeve, or the
color of a ribbon! How they are worried
il something gets united, or hangs awry,
or is not nicely adjusted! With a mind
capable of measuring the heigth and
depth Of great subjects; able to unravel
mysteries, to walk through the universe,
to soar up into the ininity of Gods attri-
butes-hovering perpetually over new
style of cloak l have known men reckless
as to their character and regardless of in
terests momentous and eternal, exasper-
ated by the shape of vest button. What
10 the matter with that woman wrought up
into the agony of despair? oh, her muf
is out of fashion!
Worse than oil this folly is not satisfied
until it has extirpated every moral senti-
ment and blasted the soul. A wardrobe is
the rock upon which many soul has been
riVen. The excitement of luxurious life
has been the vortex that has swallowed up
more souls than the Maelstrom off
Norway ever destroyed ships. What
room for elevating themes in a heart
filled with the trivial and unreall
Who can wonder that in this haste for sun
gilded baubles and winged thistle down
men and women should tumble into ruin?
The travellers to destruction are not all
clothed in rags. On that road chariot
jostles against chariot; and behind steeds
in harness golden plated and glittering,
they go down, coach and four, herald and
position, racketing on the hot pavement5
of hell. Clear the track! Bazaars hang
out their colors over the road; and trees of
tropical fruitfulness overbranch the way.
No sound of woe disturbs the air, but all Ia
light, and song, and vine and gorgeous
ness. The world comes out to meet the
dazzling procession with: "Hurrah! hur-
rah!" But suddenly there is halt and an
outcry of dismay, and an overthrow worse
than the Red Sea tumbling upon the Egyp-
tians. Shadow of gravestones upon finest
silk! Wormweod squeezed into impearled
goblets! Death with one cold breath with
ering the leaves and freezing the foun-
tains.
In the wild tumult of the last day-the
mountains falling, the heavens flying, the
thrones uprising, the universe assembling;
amid the boom of the last great thunder
peal and under the cracking of burning
world-what will become of the disciple Of
unholy fashion?
But watch the career of one thoroughly
artificial. Through inheritance, or p
haps his own skill having obtained enough
for purposes of display, he feels himself
thoroughly established. He sits aloof
from the common herd, and looks out of
his window upon the poor man and says:
"Put that dirty wretch off my steps i'm
mediately!" On Sabbath day he finds the
church, but mourns the fact that he must
"OloAAP WAN pC VI t1O Sultp
and says: "They are perfectly awful"
"That man that you put in my pew had
coat ON his back that did not cost S." He
struts through life unsympathetic with
trouble and says: 81 cannot be bothered. ="
Is delighted with some doubtful story of
Partisan life, but thinks that there are
some very indecent things in the Bible.
Walks arm in arm with the successful man
of the world, but does not know his own
brother. Loves TO be praised for his splen-
did house, and when told that he looks
younger than ten years ago, says: "Well,
really; do you think so?"
But the brief strut of his life is about
over. Upstairs he dies. No angel wings
lowering about him. no gospel promises
kindling up the darkness; but exquisite
embroidery, elegant pictures, and bust
of Shakespeare on the mantel. The
pulses stop; the minister comes in TO read
of the resurrection, that day when the
dead shall come dp-both he that died on
the floor AMI he that expired under
princely upholstery. He is carried out to
burial. Only few mourners, but q great
array Of carriages. Not one common man
at the funeral. No befriended orphan to
weep tear on his grave. No child of
want pressing through the ranks of the
weeping, saying: ale is the last friend
have, and must see him."
What now? He WAS n great man. Shall
not chariots of salvation come down to the
other side of Jordan and escort him up to
the palace? Shall not the angels exclaim:
Turn out! A prince is coming" viii
the bells chime? Will there be harpers
with their harps and trumpters with their
trumps?
/ No! no! no! There will be shudder as
though calamity had happened. Stand.
ling on Heavens battlement, a watchman
will see something shoot past with fiery
downfall, and shrick; Wandering star, for
whom is reserved the blsckness of darkness
forever"
But sadder yet is the closing of wo-
mans life that has been worshipful OF
opportunity wasted. What a tragedy A
woman on her dying pillow thinking of
what she might have done for God and
humanity, and yet having done nothing
Compare her demise with that of a Harriet
Newell going down to peacefully die in the
Isle of France, reviewing her life lime
sacrifices for the redemption of India or at
the last hours of Elizabeth Hsrvey, having
exchanged her bright New England
home for life at Bombay amid stolid
heathenism, that she might illumine it,
saying in her last moments: "If this is
the dark valley, it has not dark spot in it;
all Is light, light" or the exit of Mrs. Len
nox, falling under sudden disease at
Smyrna, breathing out her soul with the
last words; "Oh, how happy" or the de-
parture Of Mrs. Sarah d. Comstock, spend
ing her life for the salvation Of Burmah,
giving up her children that they might
come homo to America to be educated, and
saying, as she kissed them good-by, never
to see them again: "Oh, Jesus, I do this
for Thee" or the going of 10000 good wo-
men, who, in less resounding spheres,
have lived not for themselves, but for G cd
and the alleviation, of human suffering.
That was brilliant scene when, in 1885,