Connecticut western news., 1891-03-18

winch you do not glVe nm m laW1ul salary.
 How brightly the path of unre- strained amusement opens. The young man says: "Now am of for a good time. Never mind economy. I'll get money somehow. What fine road! What a beautiful day for a ride! Crack the whip and over the turnpike! Come, boys, fill high your glasses Drink! Long life, health, plenty of rides just like this!'' Hard working men hear the chatter of the hoofs, and look up and say: "Why, wonder where those fellows get their money from2 We have to toll and drudge; they do noth- ing" To these gay men life is a thrill and an excitement. They stare at other people, and in turn are stared at The watch chain jingles The cup foa1ns. The cheeks flush. The eyes flash. The midnight hears their gutfaw. They swagger. They jostle decent men of the sidewalk. They take the name of God in vain. They parody the hymn they learned at their mothers knee, and to all pictures of coming disaster they cry out, "Who cares!" and to the counsel of some Christian friend, Who are your
 Passing along the street some night, you hear a shriek in a grog shop, the rattle of the watchman's club, the rush of the police. What is the matter nows Oh, this reckless young man has been killed in a grog shop fight. Carry him home to his fathers house. Parents will come down and wash his wounds and close his eyes in death. They for. give him all he ever did, although he cannot in his silence ask it. The prod igal has got home at last. Mother will go to her little garden and get the sweetest flowers and twist them into a chaplet for the silent heart of the way ward boy, and push back from the bloated brow the long locks that were once her pride. And the air will be rent with the agony. The great dram atist says, "How sharper than ser pent's tooth it is to have thankless child"
 LIFE IS SREAI.-AMUSEMENT BUT REST
 I go further, and say those are un- christian amusements which become the chief business of mans life Life is an earnest thing. Whether we were born in a palace or hovel, whether we are afluent or pinched, we have to work. If you do not sweat with toll you will sweat with disease. You have soul that is to be transfgured amid the pomp of judgment day; and after the sea has sung it's last chant and the mountain shall have come down in an avalanche of rock, you will live and think and act, high on a throne where seraphs sing or deep in a dungeon where demons howl. In world where there is so much to do for yourselves and so much to do for others, God pity that man who has nothing to do.
 Your sports are merely means to an end. They are alleviations and helps. The arm of toll is the only arm strong enough to bring up the bucket out of the deep we'll of pleasure. Amusement is only the bower where business and philanthropy rest while on their way to stirring achievements. Amusements are merely the vines that grow about the anvil of toll and the blossoming of the hammers. Alas for the man who spends his life in laboriously doing nothing, his days in hunting up loung- ing places and loungers, his nights in seeking out some gas lighted foolery! The man who always has on his sport sr {oo o1- 1-o% &o sv, the mountain or fish in the brook, with no time to pray or work or read, is not so well off as the greyhound that runs by his side, or the fly bait with which he whips the stream.
 A man who does not work does not know how to play. If God had in tended us to do nothing but laugh he would not have given us shoulders with which to lift, and hands with which to work, and brains with which to think The amusements of life are merely the orchestra playing while the great trag- edy of life plunges through its five acts infancy, childhood, manhood old age and death. Then exit the last earthly opportunity. Enter the over whel1ning realities of an eternal world. I go further, and say that all those amusements are wrong which lead into l bad company. If you go to any place | where you have to associate with the incorporate, with the unclean, with the abandoned, however we'll they may be dressed, in the name of God quit it. They will despoil your nature. They will undermine your moral character. They will drop you when you are de- | stroyed. They will give not one cent to support your children when you are dead They will weep not one tear al your burial. They will chuckle over 1 your damnation.
 | THE SOCIAL NATURE ATTACKED.
 I had friend at the west-a rare friend He was one of the first to vel come me to my new home. To fine personal appearance he added gener- osity, frankness and ardor of nature that made me love him like a brother. But I saw evil people gathering around him. They came up from the saloons, from the gambling hells. They piled him with thousand arts They seized upon bis social nature, and he could not stand the charm. They drove him on the rocks, like ship full winged shiv- ering on the breakers. I used to ad- monish him. I would say, "Now l wish you would quit these bad habits and become a Christian" ''Oh," he would reply, 'I would like to, I would like to; but have gone so far I don't think there is any way back" In his moments of repentance he would go home and take his little girl of 8 years | and nnnraca her nnnNulsiNalv and