The Brookhaven leader., 1890-08-14


vessels as to go among the light
spray Of the summer watering place to
find character that can stand the test
of the great struggle of human life.
All, in the battle of life you want o
stronger weapon than lace fan or a
croQuet mallet Tho load of life is so
heavy that in order to draw it you want
a team stronger than one made of a
masculine grasshopper and a feminine
butterfly.
Another TEN ptation that will hover
over the watering place is that of bane-
full literature. Almost every ono start
ing of for tho summer tax es some read.
ing m after 1t is book out of the Ii.
brary or off the book-stand, or bought
of the boy hawking books through the
cars. / really believe there is more pes
tiferous trash read among the intelligent
classes in July and August than in
all tho other ten months of the year.
Men and women who at home would
not be satisfied with book that was
not really sensible, / found sitting on
hotel piazzas or under the trees read.
ing books, the index of which would
mako them blush if they know that
you knew what the book was.
"Oh," they say, you must have in.
| tcllectual recreation!' Yes. There is
no need that you take along into wa
tcring place "Hamilton's Metaphysics,
or some thunderous discourse on the
eternal DEGREES, or ''Faraday's Philoso-
ply" There are many easy books that
are good. You might as we'll
say: II propose now to give
a little rest to my digestive organs; and,
instead of eating heavy meat and vege-
tables, / will for a little while take
| lighter food-a little strychnine and a
few grains of ra tsbane." Literary poison
in August is as bad as literary poison in
| December. Mark that Do not let the
frogs and tho lice of corrupt printing
press jump and crawl into your Saratoga
trunk or White mountain valise.
| Would it not be an awful thing for
you 10 be struck with lightning some
day when you had in your hand one OF
those paper-covered romances-the hero
a Partisan roue, the heroine an unprin-
| ciplcd flirt-chapters in the book that
you would not read to your children at
the rate of one hundred dollors line!
Throw out that stuff from your
summer baggage. Are there not
| good books that are easy to read
books of congenial history, books of
pure fun, books of poetry ringing with
merry canto, books of fine engravings,
books that will rest the mind as we'll as
| purify the heart and elevate the whole
life? My hearers, there will not be an
hour between this and the day of your
death when you can afford to read
book lacking in moral principle.
Another temptation lowering all
around our watering places is the in
| toXicating beverage. l am told that it
| is becoming moro and more fashionable
| for women to drink. | care not how
well women may dress, if she has
| taken enough of wine to flush her cheek
and put glassiness on her eyes, she is
| intoxicated. She may be handed
| into a twenty-five hundred-dollar car
| riage, and have diamonds enough to con
found tho TifFanys-she is intoxicated.
| She may be a graduate of great in
stitute, and the daughter of some man
in danger of being nominated for tho
| presidency-she is drunk. You may
| have a larger vocabulary than l have,
and you may say in regard to her that
she is ''convivial," or she is merry"
or she is FESTIVE" or she is ''exhil-
arated," but you can not with all your
| garland of verbiage cover up the plain
| fact that it is an old-fashioned case of
| drunk.
Now, the watering-p places are full OF
| temptations to men and women to tip
pie. At the close of the ten-pin or
billiard game they tipple, At the close
of tho cotillon they tipple. Seated on
| the piazza cooling themselves off, they
| tipple. The tinged glasses come around
| with bright straws, and they tipple.
First they take Eight Wines" as they
call them; but Eight wines" are heavy
enough to debase the appetite. 1t is
not a very long road between champagne
at five dollars per bottle and whisky at
five cents glass.
| Satan has three or four grades down
which he takes men to destruction.
One man he takes up and through one
| spree pitches him into eternal darkness.
That is rare case. Very seldom, in
deed, can you find a man who will be
such fool as that.
| When man goes down to destruction
Satan brings him to plane. 1t is al
almost level. The depression is so
slight that you can hardly SEQ it. The
man does not actually know that he is
on the down grade and it tips only a
little toward darkness-just a little.
And the first mile it is claret, and the
second mile it is sherry, and the third
mile it is punch, and the
fourth mile it is ale, and the
fifth mile it is porter, and the
sixth mile it is brandy, and then it gets
sleeper and sleeper, and the man gets
frightened and says: ooh, let me get
off, No" says the conductor, this
is an express train, and it does not stop
until it gets to the grand Central Depot
of Smashupton. All, Look not thou
upon the wine when it is rcd, and when
it giveth it's color in the cup, when it
moveth itself Alright. At the last it
biteth like serpent and stingeth like
an adder"
| Il hese are watering places accessible
to all Of us. We do not have a labori-
Gus packing-up before we start-only
the throwing away of our transgres-
| siOns. No expensive hotel bills to pay;
it is without money and without price"
| No long and dirty travel before We get
there-it is only one step away. In
| California in five minutes l walked