Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-03-21


reavements through which you have gone:
What a mercy that we shall never be called
TO suffer them again! We may have others
bad enough, but those old ones never again.
Would you want to go through the process
of losing your father again or your mother
again or your companion in life again or
your child again? IL you were permitted
to stop at the sixtieth milestone or the
fftieth milestone or the fortlefh mile
stone and retrace your steps to the
twentieth, your experience would be
something like mine one day last November
in Italy. Iwalked through great city with
friend and two guides, and there were in ali
the city only four persons and they were those
of our own group. We went up and down
tho streets we entered the houses, the
museums, the temples, the theatres. We ex-
amined the wonderful pictures on the walls
and the most exquisite mosaic on the floor.
In the streets were the deep worn ruts OF
wagons but not a wagon in the city. On
the front steps OF mansions the word a.
come" in Latin, but no human icing to
greet us. The only bodies of any of
the citizens that we saw were De5ritied
and in the museums at the gates Or
the thirty-five thousand people who
once lived in those homes and worshiped in
those temples and clappe6 in those theatres,
not one left! For eighteen hundred years
that city of Pompeii had been buried before
modern exploration scooped out of it the lava
of Vesuvius. Well. he who should be per-
mitted TO return on the pathway OF his
earthly life and live it over again would find
as lonely and sad pilgrimage. It would be
an exploration of the dead past. The old
school house, the old church, the Old nome,
the old play ground either gone or occupied
by others, and FOR you more depressing than
was our Pompeian visit in November.
Beside that, would you want to risk the
temptations of life over again? From the
fact that you are here conclude that though
in many respects your life may have been
unfortunate and unconscerated you have got
on so far tolerably we'll, if nothing more than
tolerable. AS for myself though my life has
been far from being as consecrated as L
would like to have had it, | would not want
to try it over again, lest next time would do
worse Why just look at the temptations
have all passed through and just look at the
multitudes who have gone completely under.
Just call over the roll of your school mates
and college mates the clerks who were with
you in the same store or bank, or the opera
tives in the same factory with just good
prospects as you, who have come to COMP. ,te
mishap. Some young man that told you
that he was going to be millionaire and
own the fastest trotters on Westchester turn
pike and retire by the time he was thirty-fve
years Of age, you do not hear from for many
years. and know nothing about him until
some day he comes into your store and asks
for five cents to get mug of beer You, the
good mother of a household and all your
children rising up to call you blessed, can re-
member when you were quite jealous of the
belle Of the village who was so transcendly
fair and popular. But while you have these
two honorable and queenly names of wife and
mother she became a poor wait of the street,
and went into the blacllness of darkness for
ever Live life over again? Why, if many
of those who are now respectable were
permitted to experiment.. the next
journey would be demolition. You
got through, as Job says, by the skin of the
teeth Next time you might not get through
at all. Satan would say: II know him now
better than [ did before, and have for fifty
years been studying his weaknesses, and 1
will weave stronger web Of circumstances to
catch him next time" And Satan would
concenter his forces on this one man. and the
last state of that man would be worse than
the first My friends, our faces are in the
backward even if we had the choice. The
greatest disaster [ can think of would
be for you to return to boyhood in 1890. Oh,
if life were smooth Luzerne or Cayuga Lake,
l would like to get into a yacht and sail over
it, not once, but twice-yea, a thousand
times. But life is an uncertain sea, anL
some Of the ships crash the icebergs of
cold Indifference, and some take fire of evil
passion, and some lose their bearings and run
into the skerrles, and some are never heard
of. Surely on such treacnerous cea as that
one voyage is enough.
Besides all this, do you know if you could
have your wish and live life over again it
would put you much further from reun-
ion with your friends in heaven? If you are
in the noon of life or the evening of life you
are not very far from the golden gate at
which you are to meet your transported and
emparadised loved ones. You are now let
us say, twenty years or ten years or one year
off from celestial conjunction. Now suppose
you went back IN your earthly life thirty
years or forty years CT fifty years, what an
awful pOstpOnement of the time OF reunion!
1t would be as though you were going TO San
Francisco to great banquet, and you got to
Oakland, four or five miles tnis side of it, and
then came back to Hoboken or Harlem to get
better start; as though you were going
to Eng land to be crowned and having come
in sight of the mountains of Wales
you put back to Sandy Hook in order
to make a better voyage. The further
on you got in life, if a Christian, the
up companionship. No; the wheel of
time turns in the right direction, and it is
we'll it turns fast. Three hundred and
sixty five revolutions in year and for
ward, rather than three hundred and
sixty live revolutions in a year and back
ward. But hear yel hear ye. while tell
you how you may practically live your life
over again and be all the better for it. You
may put into the remaining years of
your life all you have learned of wisdom
in your past life. You may make the
coming ten years worth the preced-
ing forty fifty years. When man says
he would like to live his life over again be-
goes right on living as he has always lived
do you not he stutifes himself? He
proves that il he could go back he would do
almost the same as he has done. Ii man
eat green apples some Wednesday in cholera
time and is thrown into fearful cramps aud
says on Thursday: Il wish had been more
prudent in my diet: oh if 7 could live Wednes-
do in EN,iS rs