The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1889-05-24
But while sometlmes there are Q who

ii. / remark that another caldron OF
iniquity is an indolent life. All the rail
trains down the Hudson river yesterday,
all the rail rains on the Pennsylvania
route, all the rains on the Long Island
road brought to these cities young men tt
begin commercial life. Some of them are
here this morning, / doubt not. DO yor
know what one OF your great temptations is
going 10 BET 1t is the example of INDECENT
people in our cities. They dress better than
some who are Industrious. They have
access to all places of amCsement-plenty
of money, and yet idle. They hang around
our great notes.-the Fifth Avenue, the
Windsor, the Brunswick, the Stuyvesant
the Gilsey house-all our beautiful hotels,
you find them around there any day-men
who do nothing, never earn anything, YET
Well dressed, having plenty. Why should
WalkE Why should you work! Why drudge
and toll In bank and shop and Office, or on
the scaffolding, or by the anvil, when these
men get along so well and do not worki
Some of them hang around the city halls
OF our great cities, toothpick in their
mouth, waiting for some crumb to fall from
the Office holders table. Some of them
hang around the city hall for the city var
bringing criminals from the station houses.
They stand there and gloaJ over it-really
enjoy the disgrace and suffering of those
poor creatures as they get out of the city
van n go into the courts.
Where do they get their money! That is
WLdb you ASK 1Ldb ID what L ask. Only
four ways of getting ~money-only four: by
inheritance, by earning it, by begging it,
by stealing it; and there are a vast multi
tude among us who get their living not by
inheritance, nor by earning it, nor by beg
ging it. L do not like TO take the response
bility of saying how they get it!
Now, these men are a constant temptation.
Why should | toll and wear myself out in
the bank, or the Office, or the store, or the
shop, or the factorys These men have moth
ing to do. They get along a great deal bet
ter, and that is the temptation under which
a great many Young men fall. They begin
to consort with these men, these idlers, and
they go down the same awful sleeps. The
number of men in our cities who are trying
TO get their living by their wits and by
sleight of hand is all the time increasing.
A New York merchant saw a young
man, one OF his clerks, in half disguise, go
ing into a very low place of amusement.
The merchant said to himself: Il must
look out for that clerk; he is going in bad
company and going in bad places; l must
look out for him." A few months passed
on, and one morning the merchant entered
his store, n this clerk of whom | nave
Deen speaking came up in assume conster-
nation and said: "Oh, sir, the store has
been on fire; L have put out the fire, but
there are a great many goods lost, we nave
had a great crowd of people coming and 60
ing" Then the merchant took the clerk
by the collar and said: 81 nave had enough
of this; you cannot deceive me; where are
those goods you stole!'' The young man
instantly confessed his villainy.
o the numbers of people in these great
cities who are trying to get their living not
honestly! And they are a mighty tempta-
ton to the Industrious young man who can
not understand it. While these others have
it so easy they AVE it so hard. Horatius of
olden time was told that he could lave just
as much ground as he could plow around
with a yoke of oxen in one day. He hooked
up the ken to the pillow and he cut q very
large circle and plowed until he came to the
same point where he started, and all that
property was his. But l nave to tell you to-
day that just so much financial, just so much
moral, just so much spiritual possession you
will have as you compass with your own in
duStrleS, and Just so much as from the morn
ing OF your life TO the evening of your life
you can pillow around with your own hard
work. go to the ant, thou sluggard: con-
slider her ways and be wise" One of the
most awfu caldronS of death today is an
indolent life. Thank God that you have to
work.
Ill. Once more I remark: that the dram
shop is a great caldron of iniquity in our
time. Anacharsis said that the vine bore
three grapes: the first was Pleasure, the
Y was Drunkenness, and the next Mis-
cry. Every saloon above ground is a foun-
tain of iniquity. 1t may ave a license and
1t may go along quite respectable for a
NlllIC, UtG dlUSI d WDllc- Uut COVER WILL Idll
off and the color of the iniQuity will be dis
played.
"Oh," says some one, "you ought to be
easier on such a traffic when it pays such a
large revenue to the government, and helps
support your schools and your great insti-
buttons of mercy" n then 1 think of
what William E.. Gladstone said-I think it.
was the first time he was chancellor of the
exchequer-when men engaged in the
%ruinous traffic came to him and said their
business ought to have more consideration
from the fact that it paid such a large rev.
enue to the English government. Mr.. Glad
stone said: "Gentlemen, don't worry your
selves about the revenue; give me thirty
millions of sober people, and We'll nave
revenue enough and a SURPLUS"
We might in this couBtry-this traffic
perished-have less revenue, out we would
have more happy homes, and we would have
more peace, and we would have fewer pep
pie in the penitentiary, and there would De
tens of thousands of men who are now on
the road to hell who would start on the road
to heaven.
But the g~nancial ruin is a very small part
of it. This iniquity of which l speak takes
everything that is sacred out of the family,
everything that is holy In religion, every
thing that is infinite in the soul and tram
pies it under foot. The marriage day has
flash. Music sounds. Gay feet go up
and down the drawing room.
Did ever vessel launch on such
a bright and beautiful sea. The
scene changes. Dingy garnet. No fire.
On a broken chair a sorrowful wife. Last
hope gone. Poor, forsaken, trodden under
foot, she knows all the sorrow of being a
~drunkard's wife. ooh" she says, she was
the kindest man that ever lived, he was so
noble, he was so good! God never made a
grander man than he was, but the drink did
it, the drink did it," Some day she will
press her hands against her temples and
cry: 'Oh, my brain, my brainr' or she will
go out on the abutment of the bridge some
moonlight night and look down on the CLASSY
surface and wonder if under that CLASSY
surface there is not some rest for a broken
heart.
A young man, through the intercession
of metropolitan friends. gets a place in a
bank or store. He is going to leave his
country home. Thatmorning they are up
early in the old homestead. The Junk is
on the wagon. Mother says: 'My son, I
put a Bible in the trunk, l hope you will
read it often.' She wipes the tears away
with her apron. oh he says, "come,
don't you be worried, l know how to take
The father says: "My son, be a good boy
and write home often, your mother will be
anxious to hear from YOU" Crack! goes
the whip, inc over the hills goes the
wagon. Five years have passed on,
and a dissipated life has done its work
coming up in front of the old homestead.
The young men of the neighborhood who
have stayed on the farm come in and say:
SIS is possible? Why, he doesn't look
natural, does he? Is that the fair brow we
used to know! Is that the healthy cheek
we used to know? It can't be possible
that is him." The parents stand looking
at the cash in the forehead from which the
life ooeed out, and they lift their hands and
say: 20 my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom; would God l had died for thee,
o Absalom, my son, my son!n
Lorenzo de Medici was very sick, and
some of his superstitious friends thought if