Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1892-04-29

I
come at eYentide to cool Healthy wateri
Bright waterl Happy waterl While some
stream, too lazy any more to run, gathers
itself into a wayside pool, where the swine
wallow, md filthy insects hop over the sur
face, 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 ague and
death There is an endless activity under
foot and overhead.
Not one four 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 feeding on
clover tops, not one drop falling in show
err. 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 mis-
sion 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 whi1letrees on the
harrow, but you do not know that there IS
more industry in the earth upturned and
in the dumb vegetation underfoot than in
all that YOU see.
NATURES CEAsELEss ACTIVITY.
If YOU put your ear to a lump Of riven
| sod you may hear nothing in the roots and
spiculae of grass, but there are at work
I spades and cleavers and piledrivers and
/ battering rams and internecine wars. do
/ not wonder that the lively fancy of the an
| clients saw in the inanimate creation
around FlOras and POmOnas and Graces
and Fauns and Fairies and Satyrs and
! Nymphs Everything is busy. Nothing
/ is inanimate, except the man who cannot
see the life and hear the music. AG the
creation the morning stars sang together,
but they were only the choir which was 10
lead all the stars, and all the mountains
and all the seas in Gods worship. All
natural objects seem at one and the same
time uniting in work and joy and worship.
In Gods creation there is no pause in either
the worship, or the work, or the joy,
Amid all natural objects at one and the
same time it is Halloween and Whit
sunday and Ash Wednesday and All
Saints Day.
All the healthy beauty of that which we
see and hear in the natural world is de
pendent upon activity and unrest Men
will be NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. morally
and physically-on upon the condition Of
an active industry. know men die every
day Of overwork. They drop down in coal
pits, and among the spindles Of northern
factories. and on the cotton plantations Of
the south In every city and town and VII
lage YOU find men grooming under burdens
as in the east, the camels stagger under
their loads between AleppO and Damascus.
q Life is crushed out every day at counters
and workbenches and anvils. But there
are other multitudes who die from mere
inertia. Indulgences every day are CON
tracing diseases beyond the cathohcon OF
allopathy and homeopathy and hydropathy
and eclecticism. Rather than work = y
rush upon lancets and scalpels.
Nature has provided for those who VIC
late her laws by inactivity-what rheun
for the eyes, and what gout for the feet,
and what curvature for the spine, and
what structures for the chest, and what tu-
bercles for the lungs, and what rheuma-
tisms for the muscles, and what neural
Dias for the nerves Nature in time ar
raigns every such culprit at her bar, and
presents against him an indictment Oh one
hundred counts, and conyicts him on each
one of them. The laws of nature will not
stop their action because men may be ig
noraut of them. Disease, when 1t comes
ia do its work, does not ask whether you
: understand hygiene or pathology or ma
terra medica.
If there were not so many lies written on
to,nbstones and in obituaries you would
see what multitudes Of the worlds inhab
itauts are slain in their attempts to escapS
the necessity of toll Men cross oceans
and continents, and climb the Alps, ana sll
under the sky of Italy or the shadow Of
e Egyptian Pyramid, and go down INTO an
Gent ruins, and battle at Baden Baden and
2 come home with the same shortness o.
' breath, and the same poor digestion, ahu
the same twitching of the nerves, when al
D cr,ufIn they UnInli
e have dug health out Of the ground, OF
with their own ax hewn health out of g
e lor. or with their own scythe garnereo
e health from the grain field.
r There are many who estimate the re
r. speetability Of an occupation by the little
: exertiou it demands and would not lave
their children enter any employment wher'
e their hands many be seized, forgetting lha'
a a laborer's overalls are just as honorable
$ as a priest's robes and al anvil is just a
1 respectable as a pulpit Ilealth flies from
e the he'd of down and says, Il cannot sleeI
: here.D and from the table spread witt
e ptarmigan and epicurean viands, saying
b II cannot eat hele;" and from the vehicle
! of soft cushions and easy springs, saying
: 81 cannot ride here;" and from houses
1 luxuriously warmed and upholstered, gay
S ing, 81 cannot live here" and some day
c YOU meet health, who declined all thes'
luxuriant places. walking IN the ploW
t furrow, OF sweltering beside the hlssihi
r forge, or spinning among the looms o.
S driving a dray, or thinning = rooi' OF carry
e in0 bods of brick up the ladder Of wall.
s IDLENEss Is sATAN's OPPORTUNITY.
i Furthermore. notice that Incidence en-
5 dangers the soul. Satan makes his chic
: eou0uests over men who either have moth
e inc to do. or. il they have, refuse to do 1t
, There is a legend that St. Thomas, year
+ after Cbristis resurrection, began again t
: doubt. and he went to the Apostles ant
e told them about his doubts Each Apostl
e looked at him with surprise and then sal'
Il he must be excused, for he had no time u
# listen any longer Then St. Thomas wen
f ,,,t,e tevout women Of his time and e.
pressed his doubts. They said they wer
sorry. but they had no time to lister
a Then St Thomas concluded that 1t wa
n because they were 50 busy that the apps
3 ties and the devOut women had no doubt
# Idleness not only leads man into a
!. sociations which harm his morals, Du
e often thrusts upon him the worst kind
IS skeptieisfn. Loafers are almost always II
e ddels, or fast getting to be. Consummal
/ oilers never read the Bible, and II they a
IS near IN church can be distinguished N
3 audience Of 9 thousand by their ils.ies
u ness, for they are too lazy to hear II
J. not so much among occupied merchant
4. industrious mechanics and profession
II men always busy that you hear the rel
y, gion of Jesus maligned, as in publ
If lounging places, given up to profanity az
TO dissoiuteness. They have no sympati
he with the Book that says. LET him tn
IN stole steal no more; but rather let hi
TX labor. working with his hands the thiI
We which is good, that he may have to gu
g. 70 him tjtat needeth."
ut l .neaSlA e.iew man given up TO INC
ough idf9Acss that WIS converted. sim'
e? and Andrew were converted while hsnin
81 and lydia while selling purple, and z
lie shepherds Of Bethlehem watching ths
lie nocks heard the voice Of angels, ana 1i
Is, con was thrashing on tic thrashing io'