The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-10-03

knows he does wrong, and when he
does right he knows he does right, and
to that throne which Almighty God
lifted in the heart Of every man and
woman appeal.
As to the physical ruin wrought by |
the dissipations of social life there can
be no doubt What may we expect OF !
people who work all day and dance all
nightP After awhile they will be
thrown on society, nervous, exhausted
imbeciles These people who indulge in
the suppers and the midnight revels
and then go home in the cold, un-
wrapped of limbs, will after awhile be
found to have been written down in
Gods eternal records as suicides, as
much suicides as if they had taken
their life with pistol, or knife or
strychnine.
How many people have stepped from
the ball room into the graveyard! Con-
sumptions and swift neuralgias are
close ntheir track. Amid many of the
glittering scenes of social life, diseases
stand right and left and balance and
chain. The breath of the sepulcher
floats up through the perfume and the
froth of deaths lips bubbles up in the
champagne. / am told in some of the
cities there are parents who have actu-
ally given up housekeeping and gone
to boarding that they may give their
time illimitably to social designations
have known such cases. have known
family after family blasted in that way
il one of the other cities where |
preached. Father and mother turning
their backs upon all quiet culture and
all the amenities of home, leading forth
their entire family in the wrong direc-
tion. Annihilated, worse than annihi-
lated--for there are some things worse
than annihilation. give you the his
tory of more than one family when l
say they went on in the designations of
social life until the father dropped into
lower style of dissipation, and after
| awhile the son was tossed out into So
ciety nonenity, and after awhile the
daughter eloped with French dane
ing master, and after awhile the moth
er, getting on further and further in
years, tries to hide the wrinkles, but
fails in the attempt trying all the arts
of the belle, an old flirt, poor miser-
able butterfly without any wings.
If there is anything on earth beauti-
full to me it is an aged woman, her white
locks flowing back over the wrinkled
brow-locks not white with frost, as
the poets say, but white with the bios
SONS of the tree Of life, in her voice the
tenderness of gracious memories, her
face benediction. AS grandmother
passes through the room the grandchil-
dren pull at her dress and she almost
falls in her weakness; but she has moth
ing but candy or cake or a kind word
for the little darlings. When she gets
out of the wagon in front OF the house
the whole family rush out and cry;
"Grandma's come!" and when she goes
away from us never to return, there is
shadow on the hearth, and shadow
on the heart. There is no more touch
Ing scene on earth than when grand
mother sleeps the last slumber and the
little child is lifted up to the casket tc
give the last kiss, and she says: Good
bye, grandma" o, there is beauty il
old age. God says so. "rhe hoarJ
head is crown of glory" Why shoult
people decline to get old? The bes
things, the greatest things know o
are aged. Old mountains, old seas, olC
stars and old eternity. But if there il
anything distressful, it is to see an oil
woman ashamed of the fact that she /
DID. What with all the artificial appli
ances, she is too much for my gravity
laugh even in church when see he
coming. The worst looking bird ol
earth is peacock when it has lost it
feathers. / would not give one lock o
my old mothers gray hair for tift
thousand such caricatures of humanity
And if the life of a wording, if tn
life of disciple given to the world
/! sad. the close Of such life is simply
: tragedy.
Let me tell you that the dissipation
: Of social life are despoiling the useful
! ness of a vast multitude of people
3 What do these people care about tn
: fact that there are whole nations
, sorrow and suffering and agony, whe
! they have for consideration the NOR
important question about the size of
glove or the tie of cravat? Whic
9 one of them ever bound up the wound
y of the hospital? Which one of them eve
e went out to care for the poor? Whic
of them do you find in the haunts c
sin distributing tracts? They live o
5 themselves, and it is very poor pasture
!, Sybaris was great city, and it ono
sent out three hundred horsemen
= battle. They had minstrel who ha
:. taught the horses of the army gret
trick, and when the old minstrel playe
a certain tune the horses would res
:, and with their front feet seem to bet
= time to the music. Well, the old mil
strel was offended with his countr,
: and he went over to the enemy, and h
= = said to the enemy: "You give me tn
= = mastership of the army and l will d
: stroy their troops whom those horseme
:. come from Sybaris." So they gave Il
old minstrel the management, and
!, taught all the other minstrelsa a certa
= tune. Then when the cavalry trot
came up the old minstrel and all u
9 other minstrels played certain tun
= and at the most critical moment in II
! battle, when the horsemen wanted
7, rush to the conflict, the horses rear'
y " and beat time to the music with the
= forefeet, and in disgrace and rout Il
enemy fed. All, my friends, ha
! ! seen it again and again--the minstre
= |, of pleasure, the minstrels of dissir
y tion the minstrela of goddess associ