Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1894-01-11

viii got II for you. For sale at wholesale By
MOVES BROS. b CUTLER. St. Paul:
voyagers had slandered the old ocean,
and I wrote home an essay for maya
zine on 1.-The Smile of the Sea-" but ]
never afterwarl could have written
that thing, for before we got home we
got a terrible shaking up. The first
voyage of life may be very smooth,
the last may be euroclydon. Many
who start lift In great prosperity do
not end it in prosperity.
The great pressure Of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction; at
about IS years of age a mans nervous
system changes. and some one tells
him he must take stinlulants to keep
himself up, and he takes stimulants to
keep himself up, until the stimulants
keep him down. or Il man has been
going along for thirty or forty years In
unsuccessful business, and here is an
opening where one dislonorable action
he can lift himself and lift his family
from all financial embarrassment. He
attempts to leap the chasm and he falls
into 1t.
Then it is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes. If a man
make fortune before thirty years of
age he generally loses it before forty
The solid and the permanent fortunes
for the most part do not come to their
climax until in mid-life or in old age
The most Of the bank presidents have
white hair. Many Of those who have
been largely successful have been flung
Of arrogance or worthless or dissipa-
ton in old age. They may rot have lost
their integrity, but they have become so
worldly and so selfish under the intiu-
ence of large success that it is evident
to everybody that their success has
been temporal calamity and an eter-
nal damage. Concerning many people
it may be said it seems as if it would
have been better if they could have
embarked from this life at 20 or 80
years of age. Do you know the reason
why the vast majority of people die be-
fore 35? 1t is because they have not
the moral endurance for that which
Is beyond the 80, and a merciful God
will not allow them to be put TO the
fearful strain.
Again: There is Il blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that one is the sooner taken off the de-
fensive. AS soon as one is old enough
to take care Of himself he is put on his
guard. Bolts OH the door to keep out
the robbers. Fire-proof safes to keep
off the flames. Life insurance and
fire insurance against accident. Re
ceipts lest you have to pay debt twice.
Lifeboat against shipwreck. Westing-
house air-brakc against railroad coils
ion. There arc many ready to over
reach you and take all you have. De
Tense against cold, defense against heat,
defense against Sickness defense
against the worlds abuse. defense all
the tombstone sometimes is not suf-
ficient barricade. If soldier who has
been OH guard, shivering and stung
with the cold, pacing up and down the
parapet with shouldered musket, is
glad when some one comes to relieve
guard and he can go inside the fort
ress, ought not that man to shout for
JOY who can put down his weapon of
earthly defense and 60 into the kings
castle? Who is the more fortunate,
the soldier who has to stand guard
twelve hours, or the man who has to
stand guard six hours? We have COM
mon sense about everything but relig-
ion, common sense about everything
but transference from this world.
Again: There is a blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that one escapes so many bereavements.
The longer we live the more attach
ments and the more kindred, the more
chords to be wounded or rasped or sun
dered. If Il man live on to 20 or 80
years of age, how many graves are cleft
at his feet? In that long reach Of time
fathers and mothers 20, brothers and
sisters go, children go, grandchildren
go, personal friends outside the family
circle whom they had loved with
love like that Of David and Jonathan.
Besides that, some men have ma
tural trepidation about dissolution, and
ever and anon during forty or fifty or
sixty years this horror of their disso-
luton shudders through soul and body.
Now, suppose the lad goes at 16 years
OF age? He escapes fifty funerals, fifty
Baskets, fifty obsequies, fifty awful
wrenchings Of the heart. 1t is hard
enough for us to bear their departure
but is it not easier for us to bear their
departure than for them to stay and
bear fifty departures? Shall we not by
the grace of God rouse ourselves into
generosity of bereavement which will
practically say, ut is hard for me to
go through this bereavement, but how
glad am that he will never have to
go through it."
So reason with myself, and SO you
will find 1t helpful to reason with your
selves. David lost his son. Though
David was King, he lay on the earth
mourning and inconsolable for some
time. At this distance of time, which
do you really think was the one to be
congratulated, the short-lived child or
the long-lived father? Had David died
as early as that child died he would.
In the first place, have escaped that
particular bereavement, then he would
have escaped the worst bereavement
OF Absolem, his recreant son, and the
pursuit Of the Philistines, and the ia
tigues of his military campaign, and
the jealousy of Saul, and the perfidy of
Ahithophel, and the curse Of Shimei.
and the destruction Of his family ut Zik.
lag, and above all, he would have es-
capped the two great calamities of his
life, the great sins Of unc;eanness and
II ul0Cr. David lived to M oF ,,orl So.