The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-07-23
THE GOSPEL WAGON.

THE LETTER.
 "Sitting here alone in my office this evening the impulse comes to me to write to you. The hour is o'clock, and I have not been home to dinner l am so pressed with work now that have to peg away sometimes till long after midnight to keep up. Sometimes wonder if life is worth all the work and worry, yet it is only for the moment these dark suggestions come.
 q sit here looking into the bright f1relight, the cold wind bowling outside. am now fifty years old. How soon the whole story will be told and my fitful race run! How sorry I am that with me fifteen precious years were worse than wasted How glad I am that four years have nothing but bright marks to show and that these days my highest ambition is not to get rich, but to walk uprightly in the love and fear of God, discharging every known duty and scat tering sunshine everywhere so far as it Is in my power. The lesson of life has been hard, bitter lesson for me to learn. I suppose you may cast your eyes. over-your whole circle of acquaint- ances far and wide. and you will find not one with the checkered career that has come to me-joy and anguish, suc- cess and bitterest failure, sunshine and despair, all chasing each other over the mystic web into which my life has been woven, .ard all my own fault; that is the bitterest reflection of all.a, .-''
 But see what miracles God can do. But little more than four years ago had not a friend in the world. How humiliating it seems to own it now! Dissipation had separated me as with a wall of fire from those knew in better and happier days. To my relatives was as one dead. My children, whom I loved so dearly, had not heard their fathers voice for years. God knows struggled with all the energy of de- spairing and shattered manhood to bet ter my condition, but every avenue was shut and barred against me. No one would give me work; 1t was mockery and worse for me to ask for money. Cold nights like these can you accus- toned to all that wealth can command can you even faintly imagine what it must be for warm-hearted, fine-grain- ed man of generous instincts and &C., toned to the society of the good and educated, to go wandering up and down the desolate streets, aimlessly stopping with tears and anguish to look into the windows where the bright, warm light shone over happy home circles, as far from him as the gates of Paradise? Oh, the misery of 1t! In all this broad generous Christian world, to have no f,.io Y,1o to lay ones head for months in and out; i; to walk the streets all through the never-ending, desolate night, fearing ar- rest if one stood or sat, and longing for the gray dawn and the opening of some friendly saloon, for in such desperate cases the saloon is the only home the unfortunate can have, as long as he is not shabby and behaves himself. In my case I was too proud to go to sta tion houses or free lodging places. When midnight came, if, had not twenty-five cents when parted with gay, rollicking, drinking companions, who little knew my woe, with sinking heart I faced the fact that another of those terrible nights was before me.
 "How like a hideous nightmare it all seems now! How far away, thank God! This wretched experience was mine both in New York and here, and many a night here have wandered down in the darkness to the river side and watched the big steam dredges at work on the mud flats and tried to get work there where no one knew me. Do you wonder, then, that sat there watching the swift black current go silently by and longed for courage to plunge in and end 1t all? Don't wonder when your eyes, glancing over the daily pa- per, so often carelessly rest upon the words Found Drowned They may convey no impression to you, but there is life's history behind these two words-the story of wrecked and ruin ed life, story of heart-breaking, fail- ure, despair and the quiet, greedy river To me these words have a terrible sig ,nificance.3 I cannot read them without a shudder and an offered thanksgiving to God for His wondrous deliverance.
 Now, judged from every standpoint Of human wisdom. everyday experience and the opinions of sensible, matter-of- fact men, what possible hope of escape or future for wreck circumstanced as I have described? None! Absolutely none! No one believes in him; decent men shun his company; no one would give him work; no family opens it's charmed doors for him. If he has any, one sufficiently interested in him to think of him twice, 1t is only with. a sigh of pity and 8 Poor fellow; he can not keep sober day; he is gone.'
 Behold the changel E. look about me. Here is nice comfortable office and cheerful wood fire burning in the grate; books and piles of papers piled