Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1897-11-11

| 1He uTSC voyage OF HE may ue very
smooth; the last may be euroclydon,
Many who start life in great prosper
ity do not end it in prosperity.
The great pressure of temptation
comes sometimes in this direction; at
about forty-five years Of age mans
nervous system changes, and some one
tells him he must take stimulants to
keep himself up, and he takes stimu-
lants to keep himself up, until the
stimulants keep him down; or man
has been going along for thirty or
forty years in unsuccessful business,
and here is an opening where by one
dishonorable action he can lift himself
and lift his family from all financial
embarrassment. He attempts to leap
the chasm and he falls into it.
Then it Is in after life that the great
temptation of success comes. II man
makes 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 midlife, 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 wordliness or dissi-
patton in old age. They may not have
lost their integrity, but they have be-
come so worldly and so selfish under
the influence Of large success that it is
evident to everybody that their sue
cess has been a temporal calamity and
an eternal 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 TWEEN
ty or thirty years of age.
Do you know the reason why the
vast majority of people die before
thirty? It is because they have not
the moral endurance for that which is
beyond the thirty, and merciful God
will not allow them to be put to the
fearful strain.
Again: There is a blessing in an
abbreviated earthly existence in the
fact that one is the sooner taken OF
the defensive. AS soon as one is old
enough to take care of himself he Is
put on his guard. Bolts on the doors
to keep out the robbers. Fire-proof
safes to keep off the flames. Life in
surance and fire insurance against &C
cident. Receipts lest you have to pay
a debt twice. Lffeboat against
shipwreck. Westinghouse air-brake
against railroad collision, and hum
dreds of hands ready to overreach
you and take all you have. Defence
against cold, defence against heat,
defence against sickness, defence
against the worlds abuse, defence all
the way down to the grave, and even
the tombstone sometimes is not suf-
ficient barricade.
If soldier, who has been on 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
20 inside the fortress, ought not that
man to shout for joy who can put
down his weapon of earthly defence
and 20 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 common sense about
everything but religion, common sense
about everything but transference
from this world.
What fools we all are to prefer the
circumference to the center. What
dreadful thing it would be If we should
be suddenly ushered from this wintry
world into the May-time orchards Of
heaven, and IL our pauperism of sin
and sorrow should be suddenly broken
up by presentation of an emperor's
castle surrounded by parks with
springing fountains, and paths up and
down which angels Of God walk two
and two. We are Like persons stand
ing on the cold steps Of the national
picture gallery in LONDON, under UNI
brella in the rain, afraid to go in amid
the Turner's and the Titians and the
Raphaels. I come to them and say,
"Why don't you go inside the gall
lery?" "Oh," they say, eve don't
know whether we can get in." I say,
Don't you see the door is open?"
"Yes," they say, "but we have been so
long on these cold steps, we are so at
tached to them we don't like to leave"
But" I say, ut is so much brighter
and more beautiful in the gallery, you
had better go in NO." they say,
I'VE know exactly how it is out here,
but we don't know exactly how it is in
SIDE"
So we stick to this world as though.
we preferred cold drizzle to warm habi-
tation, discord to cantata, sackcloth to-
royal purple--as though we preferred
a piano with four or five of the keys
out of tune to an instrument fully att
tuned-as though earth and heaven had
exchanged apparel, and earth had talk
en- on bridal array and heaven had
gone into deep mourning, all it's watt
ers stagnant, all it's harps broken, all
chalices cracked at the dry wells, all
the lawns sloping to the river
plowed with graves, with dead angels
under the furrow. Oh, I want 10
break up my own infatuation, and
want to break up your infatuation with
this world. I tell you, If we are ready,