The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1892-06-30


of that time, go back with bleared eyes
and tremulous hands and bloated cheeks
to the faithful and successful perform.
ance of their duties. Indeed, their emf
ployers and neighbors expect this
amusement or occasional season of
frolic and wassail. Some of the
best workmen and most sbillful
artisans have this mode of con-
Quoting themselves, but as the
time rolls on the season of dissi-
patton becomes more protracted and the
season of steadiness and sobriety more
limited until the employers became dis
gusted and the man is given up to a
continual and ruinous idleness. When
that point has arrived he rushes to de-
struction with astonishing velocity.
When man with wrong proclivities
of appetite has nothing to do, no for
mer self-respect or moral restraint or
The beseechings of kindred can save
him. The only safety for man
who feels himself under the fasci-
nation or any form of temptation is an
employment which affords neither recre-
alton nor holiday. Nothing can be more
ton than an occupation which keeps
him exceedingly busy during part Of
the year and then leaves him for weeks
and months unemployed. There are
many men who can not endure pro-
tracted leisure. They are like fractions
steeds that must constantly be kept to
the load, for weeks quiet makes them
1ntractable and uncomfortable. Bad
habits produce idleness and idleness
produces bad habits. The probability
is that you will either have to give
up your loose indulgence or else give
up your occupation. Sin will take all
enthusiasm out of your work, and mahe
you sick of lifes drudgery, and, though
now and then, between your seasons of
dissipation, you may rouse up to sud-
den activity and start again in the
chase of some high and noble end, even
though you can catch the game, you
will sink ba ok into slothfulness before
you have roasted that which you took
in hunting. Bad habits unfit man for
everything but politics.
Now, what are the results of indo-
lence? A marked consequence of this
vice is physical disease. The healthi-
ness of the whole natural world de-
ponds upon activity. The winds, tossed
and driven in endless circuits, scatter
ing the mists from the mountains and
scooping out death damps from the
caves, and blasting the miasma of
swamps and hurting back the fetid at
mosphere of great cities, are healthy,
just because of their swiftness and I'M
controlableness of sweep. But, after
awhile, the wind falls and the hot sun
pours through it, and when the leaves
are still and the grain fields bend not
once all day long, then pesti-
lence smites it's victims and
digs trenches for the dead. The
fountain, born far up in the wild wood
of the mountain, comes down brighter
for every obstacles against which it is
riven, and singing a new song on every
shelf of rock over which it bounds. till
it rolls over the water wheels in the
VALLEY, not ashamed to grind corn, and
runs through the long grass of the
meadow, where the willows reach down
to dip their branches and the unyol1ed
oxen come at eventide to cool Healthy
wateri Bright water! Happy water!
| While some stream, too lazy any more
to run, gathers itself into wayside
pool, where the swine wallow and
filthy insects hop over the surface
and reptiles crawl among the ooze,
and frogs utter their hideous croak, and
by day and night there rises from the
foul mire and green scum, fever and
plague and death. There is an endless
activity under foot and overhead. Not
one fCur-o'clock in the flower bed, not
one fly on the window-pane, not one
squirrel gathering food from the cones
of the white pine, not one rabbit feed
ing on clOver-tops, not one drop falling
in shower, not one minnow glancing
in the sea, not one quail whistling from
the grass, not one hawk cawing in the
sky, but is busy now and is busy always,
fulfilling its mission as certainly as any
monarch on earth or any angel in
Heaven. You hear the shout of the
plowboys busy in the field and the
rattle of the whiffletrees on the harrow,
but you do not know that there is more
industry in the earth upturned and in
the dumb vegetation under foot than in
all that you see. If you put your ear
to lump of riven sod you may hear
nothing i'll the roots and spicula of
grass, but they are at work spades and
cleavers, and piledrivcrs, and batter
ing-rams, and internecine wars l do
not wonder that the lively fancy of the
ancients saw in the inanimate creation
around Floras and Pomonas, and Graces,
and Fauns, and Fairies, and Sarvrs, and
Nymps.
But my text is descriptive also of
those who hunt for opportunities, and,
when they get them do not use them.
The rabbit they overcome by an early
morning tramp lies for weeks uncooked
in the door-yard. The deer that they
brought down after long and exhaust
ing pursuit in the Adirondacks lies Oh
their door-sill undressed, and the sa-
worry venison becomes a mall
odorous carcass. They roast not
that which they took in hunt
ing. Opportunities laboriously cap
tured, yet useless, and that which came
4 in invitingly like string of plover and