The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-12-13

down the street and look into the
pawnbroker's wind wv. Ele rant watch.
elegant furs. ele ant q tie. elegant
shoes, elegant scarf, elegant books,
elegant mementoes
You sometimes see people with
pleased countenance looking into such
a window. When look into a pawn
brokers' window it seems TO me as if
had looked into the window of hell.
To whom did that watch belongP To
a drunkard To whom did those furs
belong? To a drunkard's wife. To
whom dill those shoes belong? To a
drunkard's child. l take the three
brazen balls at the doorway of pawn
brokers' shop. and 1 clank them to-
gether, sounding the knell of the
drunkard's soul A pawnbroker's shop
is one of the great eddies in the great
torrent of municipal drunkenness
"Oh," says some one, ~ don't patron
ize such things. / have destroyed
no young man by such influ-
ences. only take ale, and it
takes a great amount of ale to
intoxicate." Yes; but l tell you there
! is not drunkard iu America that did
! not begin with ale. Three X's-I do
not know what they mean. Three KS
on the brewers dray, three KS on the
door of the gin shop, three KS on the
side of the bottle. Three KS. asked
a man. He could not tell. Iasked an
other what is the meaning of the three
KS. He could not tell me. Then /
made up my mind that the three KS
were an allegory, and that they meant
thirty heartLreaks, thirty agonies,
thirty broken up households, thirty
prospects of drunkard's grave, thirty
ways to perdition. Three KS. If I
were going to write story, the first
chapter l would call Three KS and the
last chapter l would call The Pawn
brokers' Shop. Oh, beware of your in
| 6uence.
The winter season is especially full
of temptation, because of the long
evenings allowing such full swing for
evil indulgences. You can scarcely ex-
pect young man to go into his room
and sit there from to IL o'clock in the
evening, reading Motley's dutch Re-
public" or John Fosters essays. 1t
d
him to do, but he will not it. The
most of our young men are busy in
offices, in factories, in banking houses,
in stores, in shops, and when evening
comes they want the fresh air. and they
want sightseeing, and they must have
it. they will have it, and they ought
to have it. Most of the men here as
sembled will have three or four even
ings of leisure on the winter nights.
After tea the man puts on his hat
and coat and he goes out. One
form of illurement says, Come in
here" Satan SAYS. 1T is the best for
you TO go in; you ought not to be so
green: by this time you ought to have
seen everything" And the tempta-
tons shall be mighty in dull times
such as we have had. but which be-
lieve are gone: for l hear all over the
land the prophecy of great prosperity,
and the railroad men and the mer-
chants. they all tell me of the days of
prosperity they think are coming, and
in many departments they have al
ready come, and they are going to
come in all departments: but these
dull times through which we have
passed have destroyed great many
men. The question of n livelihood is,
with a vast multitude, the great ques-
ton. There are young men who eX-
pected before this to set up their house
hold, but they have been disappointed
in the gains they have made.
They cannot support themselves:
nfb
And To thc curse of modern
society, the theory is abroad that a
man must not marry until he has
achieved a fortune, when the twain
ought TO start at the foot of the hill
and together climb to the top. That
is the old-fashioned way, aud that will
be the new fashioned way if society is
ever redeemed. But during the hard
times, the dull times. so many men
were discouraged, so many men had
nothing to do-they could get nothing
TO do-a pirate bore down on the ship
when the sails were down and the yes
sci was making no Roadway. These
long winter evenings, be careful where
you spend them. This winter will de-
eide the temporal and eternal destiny
of hundreds of men in this audience.
Then, the winter has especial temp
tations in the fact that many homes
are peculiarly unattractive at this sea-
son. In the summer months the young
man can sit out on the steps, or he can
have a bouquet in The vase on the man
tel, or, the evenings being so short,
soon after gaslight he wants to retire
anyhow. But there are many parents
who do not understand how to make
the lonr winter evenings attractive to
their children. 1t is amazing to me
that so many people do not un-
derstand young people. To hear some
of these parents talk you would think
they had never themselves been young,
and had been born with spectacles on.
Oh. it is dolorous for young people to
sit in the house from to ii
o'clock at night, and to hear parents
groan about their ailments AMI the
nothingness of this world. The moth
ingness of this world. How dare Won
talk sueh blasphemy? 1t took Goi six
DAYS 10 make this world, and ne has al
lowed ii six thousand years to hang
upon His holy heart. ana this world
has shone on vou and blessed you for