The Brookhaven leader., 1890-03-20

the next turn of the road. Suppose you,
q man in mid-life or old age, were, with
your present feelings and large attain
ments, put back into the thirties,
or the twenties, or into the teens, what
Q nuisance you would be to others, and
what an unhappiness to yourself. Your
cotemporaries would not want you and
you would not want them. Things that
in your previous journey of life stirred
your healthful ambition, or gave you
pleasurable surprise, or led you into
happy Interrogation, would only call
forth from you a disgusted ''Oh, pshawl'
You would be blase at thirty and mis-.
anthrope at forty and uncomfortable al
fifty. The most insane and stupid thing
imaginable would be second journey
of life. 1t lie amusing to hear people
say:
81 would like to live my life over
again IL could take my present expert
ence and knowledge of things back with
me and begin under those improved
auspices"
Why. what an uninteresting boy you
would be with your present attainments
in child's mind. No one would want
such boy around the house: A phi.
losopher at twenty,a a scientist at fifteen,
an archeologist at ten, and domestic
nuisance all the time. An oak crowded
into an acorn. A Rocky mountain eagle
thrust back into the egg-shell from
which he was Matched.
Besides that, il you took life over
again, you would have to take its deep
sadnesses over again. Would you want
to try again the griefs and the heart
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 proc
ess of losing your father again. or your
mother again, or your companion in life
again, or your child again? II you we're
permitted to stop at the sixtieth mile
stous, or the fiftieth milestone, or the
forristh milestone, and retrace your
steps to the twentieth, your experience
would be something like mine one day
last November in Italy. l walked
through great city with friend and
two guides, and there were in all the
city only four persons, and they were
those of our own group. We went up
and down the streets, we entered the
houses, the museums the temples, the
theaters. We examined the wonderful
pictures on the walls and the most ex-
quisite mosaics 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
'Welcome," in nLatin, but no human be-
ing to greet us. The only bones of any
of the citizens that we saw were petri-
fed and in the museum at the gates.
OF the thirty-five thousand people who
once lived in those homes and worshiped
in those temples and clapped in those
tbeaters, 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 permitted to re-
turn on the pathway of his early life
and live it over again would find as
lonely and sad pilgrimage. 1t would
be an exploration of the dead past.
The old schcol-house, the old church,
the old home, the old playground either
gone or occupied by others, and for you
more depressing than was our Pom
peiian visit in November.
Beside that, would you want to risk
the temptations of life over again?
From the fact that you are here l con-
clude that though in many respects your
life may have been unfortunate and un-
you have got on so far 'tol-
erably we'll, if nothing more than toler-
able. AS for myself, though my life
has been far from being as consecrated
as would like to have had it, l would
not want to try it over again, lest next
time would do worse. Why, just look
at the temptations we 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 operatives in the same factory,
with just as good prospects as you, who
have come to complete mishap. Some
young man that told you he was going
to be a millionaire and own the fastest
trotters on Westchester turnpike, and re-
tire by the time he was thirty-five 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 house
hold, and all your children, rising up to
call YOU blessed, can remember when
you were quite jealous of the belle OF
the village, who was so transcendently
fair and popular. But while you have
these two honorable and queenly names
Of wife, and mother, she became poor
waif of the street and went into the
blackness of darkness forever.
Live life over, again? Why, II many
of those who are now respectable were
permitted to experiment, the next jour
new would be demolition. You got
as Job says, by the skin OF the
teeth. Next time you might not get
at all. Satan would say:
~ know him better than did before.
and have for fifty years been studying
his weaknesses, and / 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.
NV friends, our faces are in the right
direction. Better go forward than back
ward, even If we had the choice. The
greatest disaster ] can think OF would
be for you to return TO boyhood in 1890,