The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-09-05

(Penned by layman in the spare mo-
ments of busy career, and dedicated TO
better understanding of life and its varied
opportunities.
There came to my hands during the
past week one of the new silver certificates
\ prolonged inspection of this beautiful
specimen of engraving resulted in some
considerations that may not be lacking in
value for the young men who read this
paper
The boy in the engraving. around whom
History tenderly lays her arm, has ceased
from his play. So have you: your days
of inconsequent amusement are at an end
and the problems of life begin TO press
upon you. You are now beckoned onward
from irresponsible childhood toward respon-
sible manhood.
Before the interested eyes of the 1.-the
youngster panorama of the distant city
of Washington. with its cloud piercing
monument. is stretched out. For you
there is even a wider vista, the broad mile
age of a vast continent, challenging. con
quest and urging you through its myriad
opportunities to be something and 10 do
something.
Behind. above, and in front of him are
placed the enwreathed names of those of
our countrymen who, in spite of difficulty
and strain, have earned by toll and abso-
lutte concentration of purpose, lasting
niche in our Temple OF Fame. These same
glorious deed workers in every field are for
your inspiration. too, from Longfellow. the
poet, to Emerson, the philosopher, with
all the intervening names of warriors,
writer's inventors, statesmen and patriots.
Note, further that he is being turned
from amusement to ambition, from play
TO purpose. from indifference to intensity,
by-whom? A woman. Whether the
same grand, ennobling influence is by your
side | know not If SO. then is it well;
bat of this more anon.
feel, know that the drowsy eyes Of
some indolent ones will sean these lines.
Let me blow trumpet blast into their
sleeping ears. so that the deadened eyes
may light up, even if that light be but the
CLEAN of malevolence towards unnattract-
i've truth. would hundred fold rather
talk with man who had life enough to
grow angry than with an unresponsive,
corpse-like creature that raises neither the
voice of protest nor of acquiescence. To
the lazy and worthless one, then. would |
talk awhile To you | say The cattle
that lie ruminant in your barn are better
after their kind than the young corner
loafers of our villages and towns and cities.
The former have no archives to thrill their
hearts, no past treasury Of noble deeds TO
help in the present, no prescience of the
end to which time is leading them the
latter have all of these and yet, to listen
TO the idle talk of many group of young
men, one might almost doubt the exist
enee Of history Of our race, the records
Of glorious men and women, of religion,
truth, goodness, purity of women, and all
the things that ought to set gulf between
us and the patient, instinct following, duty
doing, hopeless animals. If passing girl
is discussed the remarks are too often in
terlarded with lewd jests, which, instead
al humiliating every mothers son, raise
that peculiar hyena laugh, that laugh
without honest mirth in it; you know the
laugh, so do l. In such gang goodness
in a man is sneered at as hypocrisy; truth
is labelled as lie; religion is dubbed buff
foOnery; greatness, not worth the trouble;
history. of less account than the pedigree
of a pig.
Are you tied in with such a group, you
in whom there is the strength and vigor of
youth, You in whom Turk portentous pow
ers over the destinies of our rae? For
ahe sake of all that makes us the head OF
creation, rub your eyes open and let into
your brain some faint idea of the glory of
being a human creature If you can find
soothing better to do than you are now
doing, yon are sheep in your vacuity and
a tumble-bug in your tastes.
What sort of country would YOU have
for the exercise of your interminable lack
of purpose, if all who preceded you had
been content to kick their heels on empty
boxes, to snarl and squabble over the
trifing things that exhaust the knowledge
Of your gang, and to stop the emitting of
tobacco juice just long enough to permit
the passage Of an equally dirty joke or
story? Where would now be the subju-
cation Of a continent by our restless cos
mopolitan nation? If Echo could repeat
the first word of the question instead of
the last, she would cry aloud, Where 2?
Great nations are not built of such as you,
neither are they sustained You are
worse than useless; yoH are positive det-
riment to us. A nation is rot ike mon
nment of enduring stone. II is y living
thing made up of living things. BY them
it rises to dignity, by them again it is en-
ieebled and torn to pieces, just as in your
body health is maintained by moving par
ticles that attack and destroy the evil,
multiplying creatures of disease, or are
themselves destroyed and your own death
follows Historians in the past tweitty-tiv
wears have grown to an understanding that
u - lItt uall1 lives duu tuou@itS vi tuC
great common people that make history
far more effectually than the master strokes
of an occasional military hero You then;
you, in all your meanness, are history
maker Because of your narrowed and
low life the unwilling contribution you are
making to our national history must also
be narrow and low Oh, for the power to
reach right into your heart and stir you
from your sloth and your indifference.
! viii ask you to follow me further. |
will tell you Of your power and your oppor-
iunities Then will follow some thoughts
regarding the great ones who have preceded
us. And finally, If this pen may be dipped
in might andin eloquence, the last article
will attempt to describe the power Of noble