The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-09-04
FUTILiTY OF ADVICE-GIVlNG,
Unless 1t Is Pleasing 1t Always Goes I'm.
needed,

Unless 1t Is Pleasing 1t Always Goes I'm.
needed.
The most thankless task that phi.
lanthropist or reformer undertakes is
to give warning of inevitable evil As
long as you prophesy pleasant things
draw attractive pictures that fatteI
mems and women's self-complacency,
you are sure to be heard: but utter the
note of warning, and like jeremiah
the prophet of old you have only the
owl and the bittern to listen to you.
Cassandra, the prophecies of Troy, is
the eXemplar of all who take upon
themselves the mission of driving men
against their own convictions and in.
clinations 1t is impossible in the ma.
ture of men and women that this should
be otherwise. The most thorough
tyrant that the world ever saw can not
control the thoughts and convictions OF
men. The mother can not bind her
daughter nor the father his son. Each
individual must live out his own expe.
rience, learn from the very beginning
that fire burns, that evil betrays, that
wrong reacts on the doer in shame and
modification. There are many things
that people think, and probably think
rightly, that they can manage for them.
selves better than people can manage
for them. They invest their money in
wild schemes that not all the financier-
ing or legislation or all the warnings %
financial prophets will save them fUet1.
To-day the most shallow methods of
obtaining money under false pretences
are as prevalent as in the days of the
Vicar of Wakefield, although they have
been repeatedly exposed in the news
papers. Not long ago a needlework
firm advertised throughout the country
to send work to embroiderers on receipt
of one dollar for security for the work
given out. Not one word or one line of
reference was given as security for the
dollar, and those who answered the adj
vertisement received in return for their
dollar few tawdry bits of cotton and
silk and of embroidery thread not
worth over six cents, and when their
worl. was finished it was returned to
them as unsatisfactory, and the money
retained. This scheme was so shallow
on the face of it that it seemed that any
intelligent person would recognize it.
Letters were repeatedly sent to news
papers asking if the scheme was cor
rect, Yet in spite of a general liscredit
of it. thousands of dollars were col
lected through it from women who
could i'll spare even 50 small sum.
Similar schemes, under slightly differ
ent forms, have taken in hundreds of
thousands, and all in face of plain warn
ing.
Crying in the wilderness topeople on
the subject of their health usually falls
on listless ears. Tell the pale student
that she is breaking down her health by
late hours, by strong tea and other
foolish methods which she hopes will
enable her to pass her examination, and
your words are as the idle wind. Tell
the average man of the world of the evil
effect of his free habits, and unless he
has been previously alarmed at his own
condition, he will deem your advice,
even if from his nearest relative, as ap-
preaching to impertinence. People will
llOI dtlN lCC dDOII lICiI ICdllIl rum
their own physicians unless they have
sent for them, and even then in many
cases they reject it unless it suits their
inclination. They would like to have
physician like the Indian medicine man
who can charm away their illness,
without the attendant inconvenience
of change of habit of life now neces-
sary to a cure. 1t is distressing to see
people rushing headlong to disaster
without being able to save them by our
own experience, when we remember 50
well how we fell into the same slough
and recall the difficulties we had in ex-
Treating ourselves from it. But people
do not learn from the experience of an
other. The infant tries the fire even
though he is warned that it is hot. and
so people throughout life must go
through vicissitudes of all kinds before
they learn. The poet tells us that
Men may rise on stepping stones
OF their dead selves to higher things"
y .