The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-03-10


boy around the house. A philosopher at
90, scientist at Is. an archeologist at 10
and a domestic nuisance all the time. An
oak crowded into an acorn. A Rocky
mountain eagle thrust back into the egg
she'll from which it was hatched.
Besides that, if 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 heartbreaks, and the
bereavements through which you have
gonei 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 20
through the process OF losing your father
again or your mother again or your CON-
panion In life again or your child
againi If you were permitted to stop
at the sixtieth milestone or the
fiftieth milestone or the fortieth mile
stone and retrace your steps to the
twentieth, your experience would be some
thing like mine one day last November in
Italy. l walked through great city with
a friend aud 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 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 Welcome" in Latin, but no
human being to greet us. The only bodies
of any of the citizens that we saw were
petrified and in the museum at the gates.
OF the thirty-five thousand people who
once lived in those homes and wor-
SHIPPED in those temples and clapped
in those theaters, not one left! For
eighteen hundred years that city OF
PompeH had been buried before modern
exploration scooped out of it the lava Of
Vesuvius. Well, he who should be permit
ted to return on the pathway of his earthly
life and live it over again would find as
lonely and sad n pilgrimage. 1t would be
an exploration of the dead past. The old
school house, the old church, the old home,
the old play ground either gone or occupied
by others, and for you more depre sing
than was our Pompeian visit in November.
Besides that, would you want to ri K the
temptations Of life over agains From the
fact that you are here l conclude that
though in many respects your life may
have been unfortunate and uncousecrated
you have got on so far tolerably we'll if
nothing more than tolerahle. 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 l would do worse. Why,
just look at the temptations we have
all passed through and just look at the
multiUudes who have gone completely
under. just call over the roll Of your
schoolmates and college mates, the clerks
who were with you III 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 that he was going to be
/ millionaire and own the fastest trotter:
on Westminster turnpike and re ire by the
time he was 35 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 gooC
mother of household and all your chill
dren rising up to call you blessed, can re-
member when you were quito jealous Of
the belle of the village who was so trans
cendently fair and popular. But while you
have these two honorable and queenlJ
names of wife and mother, she became
poor waif Of the street, and went intC
the blackness of darkness forever. Law
life over agains Why, il many @
those who are now respectable wer,
permitted to experiment, the mex
journey would be demolition. You go
through, as Job says, by the skin of th'
teeth. Next time you might not ge
through at all. Satan would say: &c
know him now better than / did before, anC
have for fifty years been studying his weak
nesses, and will weave a stronger web O
circumstances to catch him next time.
And Satan would concenter his forces OF
this one man, and the last state of tina
man would be worse than the first. NJ
friends, our faces are in the right di-
rection. Better 60 forward than back
ward, even if we had the choice. TIL
greatest disaster can think Of would b.
for you to return to boyhood in 1890 O
if life were a smooth LuZerne or Cayugt
lake, would like to get into yacht ant
sail over it, not once, but twice-ysa,
thousand times. But life is an uncertain
sea, and some of the ships crash on the ice
bergs Of cold indifference, and some tax,
fire Of evil passion, and some lose their bear
ings and run into the skerries, and som
are never heard of. Surely on such
treacherous sea as that one voyage
enough.
Besides all this, do you know if you coul
have your wish and live lite over again
would put you so much farther from re
union with your friends in heaven? II yol
are in the noon of life or the evening of lif
you are not very far from the golden gat
at which you are to meet your transporte,
and empsradised loved ones. You are now
let US say, twenty years or ten years or on
year off from celestial conjunction. Nos
suppose you went back in your earthl,
life thirty years or forty years o
fifty years, what an awful post
ponement of the time of reuuionl
would be as though you were goinI
to San Francisco to great banquet, AM
you got to Oakland, four or five miles thi
side OF it, and then came back to II boke
or Harlem to get better start; as thoug
you were going to En- gland to be crowned
and having come in sight Of the noun ain
OF Wales. you put back to Sandy Hook il
order to make bet er voyage. The furthe
on you get in life, il a christian, the neare
you are to the renewal Of broken up com
pansionship. No; the wheel Of tim
: turns in the right direction, and i
is well it turns so fast. Three hundre
and sxty-five revolutions in
year and forward, rather than three hun
dred and sixty-five revolutions in a yea
and backward. But hear yei hear ye
while tell you how you may practicall
live your life over again and be all the bette
J for IT, You may put into the remaining
years of your life all you have learned Q
wisdom in your past life. You may max
, the coming ten years worth the preced
ing forty or fifty years. When a ma
says he would like TO live his life owe
J again because he would do so muc
better, and yet goes right on living a
be has always lived, do you not 90
be stultifies himself He proves tina
} If he could go back he would do almost th
same as he has done II man eat gree
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