Connecticut western news., 1894-01-11

T
 excuse practical personality. Begin
 ming my life's work on the muniticent
 salary of $500 year and a parsonage,
 and when the call was placed in my
 hands did not know how in the world
 I would ever be able to spend that
 amount of money, and remember in- dulging in devout wish that might
 not be led into worldliness and prodi-
 gality by such an overplus of resources,
 and at time when articles of food and
 clothing were higher than they are
 now, felt it religious duty to get my life insured, and presented myself at
 an office of one of the great companies, and stood pale and nervous lest tho medical examiner might have to de-
 clare that had consumption and heart disease and a half dozen mortal ail- ments, but when got the document. which I have yet in full force, felt . sense of manliness and confidence and Quietude and reinforcement, which is a good thing for any young man to have. For the lack of that feeling there are thousands of men today in Greenwood and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn who might as we'll have been alive and we'll and supporting their families. They got a little sick, and they were so worried about what would become of their households in case of their de- mise that their agitations overcame the skill of the physicians, and they died for fear of dying. 1 have for many years been such an ardent advocate of life insurance, and my sermon on The Crime of Not Iusuring' has been go long used on both sides of the sea by the chief life insurance companies that some people have supposed that l re- ceived monetary compensation for what have said and written. Not penny. I will give any man $100 for every pen ny have received from any life insur- ance company. What have said and written on the subject has resulted from the conviction that these institu- tions are a benediction to the human race. But, alas, for the widespread inn providence! You are now in your char ities helping to support the families of men who had more income than you now have, or ever have had, or ever will have. and you can depend on the improvidence of many for the truth of my text in all times and in all places,
 "Ye have the poor always with you. !" LACK OF MENTAL BALANCE.
 Another fact that you may depend upon for perpetual poverty is the in- capacity of many to achieve hveh-
 hood. You can go through any com munity and find good people with more
 than usual mental caliber, who never have been able to support themselves and their households. They are 1nys- tery to us, and we say, ''I do not know what is the matter of them, but there is a screw loose somewhere. Some of these persons have more brain than thousands who make splendid suc- cess. Some are too sanguine of tenn l perament, and they see bargains where there are none. A common minnow is to them a gold fish, and quail fia- mingo, and a blind mule on a towpath Bucephalus. They buy when things are highest and sell when things arc | lowest Some one tells them of city lots out west, where the foundation of the
 first house has not yet been laid. They I say, What an opportunity" and they I put down the hard cash for an orna- mented deed for 10 lots under water. | They hear of new silver mine opened
 in Nevada, and they say, What a
 chance!" and they take the little money they have in the savings bank
 and pay it out for as beautiful certifi- cate of mining stock as was ever print ed, and the only thing they will ever | get out of the investment is the aforesaid | illuminated Autograph. They are all
 ways on the verge of millionairedom and are sometimes worried as to whom they shall bequeath their excess of for tune. They invest in aerial machines or new inventions in perpetual mott on, and they succeed in what mathemati- clans think impossible, the squaring of | circle, for they do everything on the | square and win the whole circle of dis | appointment. They are good honest,
 brilliant failures. They die poor, and
 leave nothing to their families but a | model of some invention that would not work and whole portfolios of diagrams | of things impossible. I cannot help but like them, because they are so cheerful with great expectations. But
 their children are a bequest to the bu- reau of city charities. Others admin
 ister to tho crop of the worlds misfor-
 tune by being too unsuspecting. Honest
 themselves, they believe all others are honest. They are feeced and scalped
 and vivisected by the sharpers in all
 styles of business and cheated ont of
 everything between cradle and grave,
 and those two exceptions only because
 they have nothing to do in buying
 either of them. Others are retained for
 misfortune by inopportune sickness.
 Just as that lawyer was to make the | plea that would have put him among
 the strong men of the profession, neu-
 ralgia stung him. Just as that physi-
 clan was to prove his skill in an cpl
 demic, his own poor health imprisoned
 him. Just as that merchant must be I at the store for some decisive and intro | ductory bargain, he site with rheu-
 matic joint on a pillow, the room redol-
 ent with iniment. What an over
 whelming statistic would be the story
 of men and women and children inn | poverished by sicknessesi Then the cy-
 clones. Then the Mississippi and Ohio
 freshets. Then the stopping of the
 factories. Then the curculios among
 the peach trees. Then the insectile
 devastation of potato patches and wheat
 fields. Then the epizootics among the
 horses and the hollow horn among the
 herds. Then the rains that drown out
 everything and the drou9hts that burn
 up half continent. Then the orange
 groves die under the white teeth of
 the hoar frost. Then the coal strikes,
 and the iron strikes, and the me-
 chanlce strikes, which all strike
 labor harder than they strike capital.
 Then the yellow fever at Brunswick and
 Jacksonville and Shreveport. Then
 the cholera at the Narrows, threatening
 to land in New York. Then the Charles
 ton earthquake. Then the Johnstown
 flood. Then hurricanes sweeping from
 Caribbean sea to Newfoundland. Then