Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-08-09


watering place is to the formation of hasty
and lifelong alliances The watering places
are responsible for more OF the domestic in
felicities of this country than all thu other
things com lined. Society is so artificial taere
that no sure Judgment OF character can be
formed. Those who form compaaionships
amid such circumstances go into lottery
where there are twenty blanks to one prize
In the severe tug OF life you want more than
glitter and splash. Life Is not a ballroom
where the music decides the step
and bow and prance and graceful
swing of long trail can make up
for strong common sense. You may as
well go among the gayly painted yachts of a
summer regatta to find war vessels as to 60
among the light spray of the summer water
| ing place to find character that can stand the
test of the great struggle of human life
All, in the battle of life you want stronger
weapon than a lace fan or croQ1et malleti
The load of life is SO heavy that in order to
draw il you want team stronger than one
made up of a masculine grasshoppar and
feminine butterfly.
II there is any man in the community that
excites my contempt and that excites the
contempt Of every man an woman, it is the
i softhanded, soft-headel fop who, PERU I'd
until the air is actually SICK, spends his sum-
mer in taking killing attitu les and waving
sentimental adieus and talking iufinitssmal
nothiags, and finding his heaven in the set of
/ lavender kid glove. Boots as tight as an
| inqnisition, two hours OF consummate skill
exhibited in the tie of flaming cravat, his
conversation ma 10 up OF Abs" and
/ "Oh'sn and ''He-hee's" 1t would take five
hundred OF them st wed down to make a
! teaspoonful of calves foot jelly. There is
only ,ne counterpart to such man as
that, and that is the frothy young wo nan at
the watering pace, her conversation made
/ up of French moonshine, what she has on her
/ head only equae by what she has on her
| back; useless ever since she was born, AMI to
| be useless until she is dead; and what they
l will do with her in the next world | do NOT
know, except to set her upon the banks OF
the River of Life for all eternity to loo
| sweet. God intends US to admire music aud
| fair faces and graceful step, but amid the
| heartlessness and the imitation AMI the fan
! tastic influences of our modern watering
/ places beware how you make life long COW
| enantsl
Another temptation that will hover over
4 the watering plaza is that of baneful litera-
4 tufe. Almost every starting off for tn D
/ summer takes some reading matter. 1t is
] book out of the library or off the book stan |,
or bought of the boy hawking books throu yh
! the cars. really believe there is more pes
/ tiferous trash read among the intelligent
classes in July and August than in all the
other ten months of the year. Men and wo-
men who at home would not be sa tisfied with
q book that was not really sensible, | found
sitting on hotel piazzas or under the trees
reading books the index of which would
make them blush il they knew that you
knew what the book was.
Would it not be an awful thing for you to
be struck with lightning some day when you
had in your hand one of these paper covered
romances-the hero q Partisan roue
the heorine an unprinciplel flirt-chap-
tiers in the book that you would not read to
your children at the rate OF one hundred
dollars q 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 well as purify tho heart and elevate
the whole life2 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 intoxicating bev-
erage. / am told that it is becoming more
fashionable for women to drink. l care not
how well woman may dress, if she has
taken enough of WINE to flush her cheek and
put glasSiuess on her eyes she is intoxicated.
She may be handed into $500 carriage AMI
have diamonds enough TO confound Tilfauys
she is intoxicated. She may be a graduate
OF great institute aud the daughter OF
some man in danger of being nominated for
the Presidency-she is drunk. You may
have a larger vocabulary than I have, and
you may say in regard to her that she is
''convivial," or she is merry" or she is
festive" or she is ''exhilerated,n but you
cannot with all your garlands of verbiage
cover up the plain fact that it ia an old
fashioned case Of drunk.
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's a
rare case Very seldom indeed, can you
lind man who will be such fool as that.
When man goes down to destruction
Satan brin IS him to plain. 1t is almost
a level. The depression is so slight that
you can hardly see it. That man does not
actually know that he is on the down
grade, and it tips only a little toward
darlSness--iust little And the first mile
it is claret, an 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 ami the man
gets frightened and says, "Oh, let me get
oitF' No. says the conductor ''this is an
! express train and it does not stop until it gets
to the Grand Central depot of Smashupton II
All, look not thou upon the wine when it is
red, when it ejvetll its color in the cup, when
/ it moveth itself Alright At the last it biteLh
like a serpent and stingeth like an adder
My friends, whether you larry at home
which will be quite as safe and perhaps quito
as comtortabe--or 90 into the country. arm
/ yourselves against temptation. The grace
of God is the only safe shelter, whether in
town or country. There are watering places
access bic to all of u.s. You cannot open a
book OF the Bible without finding out some
such watering place. Fountains open for
/ sin and uncleanlineSs; wells of salvation:
/ streams from ,nhapnn- q flood CT n .
the rock by Moses; fountains in the wider
ness discovered by Hagar; water to drink
and water to battle in; the river of Col
which is full of water; water of which il a
man drink he shall never thirst; wells of
water in the Valley of Baca; living fountains
/ of water; pure river of water as clear as
crystal from under the throne of God.
These are watering places accessible to all
OF us. We do not have laborious packing
up before we start-oniy the throwing away
of our transgressions. No expensive hotel
bills to pay; it is without money and with
out price" No long and dirty travel before
we get there; it is only one step away. II
\ California in five minutes | walked around
and saw ten fountains. all bubjliug up. and
they were all different And in five minutes
l can go through this Bible parterre and find
you fifty bright sparkling fountains buJ-
bling up into eternal life.
A chemist will go to one of these summer
watering places and take the water and ana
lyzs it, and tell you that it contains SO much
of iron, and so much of soda and so much OF
lime, and so much of magnesia. l come to
this Gospel well, this living fountain, and
analyze the water, and l find that its in
gradients are peace, pardon, forgiveness,
hope comfort life, heaven. "Ho, every one
that thirsteth, come We" to this watering
place!
Crowd around this Bethesda to-day Oh,
you sick, you lame you troubled, you dying
crowd around this Bethesda Step in it'll
Oh, step in it, The angel of the covenant to-
day stirs the water. Why do you not step
in it, Some of you are too weak to take
step in that direction. Then we take youup
in the arms of our closing prayer and plunge
you clean under the wave, hoping that the
cure may be as sudden and as radical as with
Captain Naamau, who, blotched and carbun-
cled, stepped into the Jordan, and after the
seventh dive came up, his skin roseate COM
plexioned as the flesh of little child.