Clarksville evening tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1890, 1890-03-10

rience would be something like mine, one day
last November, in Italy. ! walked through
great city with a 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 the
aires. We examined the wonderful pictures
on the walls and the most exquisite mo-
sale on the floor. In the streets were the
the deep worn ruts Of wagons, but not wagon
In the city. On the front steps of mansions the
word "Welcome" in Latin, but no human be-
ing to greet u.s. 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 aud worshiped in those temples and
clapped 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 permitted to return on the
pathway Of his earthly life and live it over
again, would find as lonely and sad a pill
grimage. 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 depressing than was our Pompeian visit
in November.
Beside that, would you want to risk the
temptations OF life over againa From the
fact that you are here conclude that though
In many respects your life may have been
unfortunate and unconsecrated you have got
on so far tolerably well, 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 we have
all passed through, and just look at the multi
tudes who have gone completely under. Just
call over the roll OF your schoolmates 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 pros
poets as you, who have come to complete
mishap Some young man that told you that
he was going to be q millionaire, and own
the fastest trotters on Westchester turnpike,
and retire 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
"a household 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 transcsndently fair and popular.
But while you have these two honorable and
queenly names OF wife and mother, she be-
came poor waif Of the street, and went into
the blackneSs of darkness forever Live life
over againl Why, If many Of those who are
now respectable were permitted to expert
ment, the next journey would be delnoli-
ton. You got through, as Job says, by the
skin of the teeth Next time you might not
get through at all. Satan would say: ~
know him now better than | did before and
have for fifty years been studying his weak
nesses and will weave a stronger web of
circumstances to catch him next time.n And
Satan would concenter his forces on this one
man, and the last state Of that man would he
worse than the first. Ny friends, our faces
are in the right direction Better go forward
than backward, even If we had the choice
The greatest disaster can think of would be
for you to return to boyhood in 1890 Oh, IL
life were a smooth Luzerne or Cayuga lake, l
would like to get into yacht and sail over
it, not once, but twice-yea, a thousand
times. Butife is an uncertain sea, and some of
the ships crash on the icebergs of cold indif-
ference, and some take fire of evil passions,
and some lose their bearings and run into the
skerries, and some are never heard of.
Surely ON such treacherous sea as that one
voyage is enough.
Beside all this, do you know if you could
have your wish and live life over again it
would put you SO much further from reunion
with your friends in heaveni II 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 en-
paradised loved ones. You are now, let us
say, twenty years or ten years OF one year off
from celestial conjunction. Now, suppose
you went back in your earthly life thirty years
or forty years or 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 this side of it, and
then came back to Hoboken or Harlem to get
II better start; as though you were going to
England to be crowned and having come in
sight of tho mountains Of Wales you put back
to Sandy Hook in order to make better
voyage. The further on you get In life, if
Christian, the nearer you are to the renewal
of broken up companionship. No; the wheel
of time turns in the right direction, and
it is well it turns so fast. Three hun
dred and sixty-five revolutions in a year
and forward, rather than three hundred and
sixty-fve revolutions in year and back
ward But hear yel hear vel while tell Ou
how you may practically live your life own
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 preceding forty or Hfty years. When a
man says he would like to live his life over
again because he would do so much better
and yet goes right on living as he has always
lived, do you not SEQ he stultifes himselfl He
proves that il he could go back he would do
almost the same as he has done. IL a man
eat green apples some Wednesday in cholera
time and is thrown into fearful cramps and
says on Thursday: II wish / had been more
prudent in my diet; oh, II | could live
Wednesday over again" and then on Friday
eats apples just as green, he proves that it
would have been no advantage for him to
live Wednesday over again. And we, de-
ploring our past life and with the idea Of inn
provement long for an opportunity to
try 1t over again, yet go on making
the same mistakes and committing the
same sins, we only demonstrate that
the repetition of our existence would afford
no Improvement. 1t was green apples before,
and it would be green apples over again, As
soon as a ship captain strikes a rock in the
lake or sea he reports it, and buoy is swung
over that reef and marines henceforth stand
off from that rock And all our mistakes in
the past ought to be buoys warning us TO
keey in the right channel There is no excuse
for us II we split on the same rock where we
split before Going along the sidewalk at
night where excavations are being made, we
frequently see a lantern on framework and
we turn aside, for that lantern says, keep out
OF this hole And all along the pathway OF