Connecticut western news., 1898-11-10

ties and Thanksgiving gatherings
 around loaded tables. But that husband
 and father forms an unfortunate ao-
 quaintance who leads him in circles too
 convivial, too late houred, too scandal
 ous After awhile, his money gone and
 not able to bear his part of the expense, he is gradually showed out and ignored
 and pushed away Now, what di-
 lapidated home is hisl A dissipated life
 always shows itself in faded window
 curtains, and impoverished wardrobe.
 and dejected surroundings, and in bro
 ken palings of the garden fence, and the
 unhinged gate, and the dislocated door,
 bell, and the disappearance of wife and
 children from scenes among which they
 shone the brightest and laughed the
 gladdest. If any man was ever down,
 that husband and father is down. The
 fact is, he got into wrestle with evil
 that pushed and pulled and contorted
 and exhausted him worse than any Olympian game ever treated Grecian.
 and he was thrown. Thrown out of pros
 perity into gloom. Thrown out of good
 association into bad. Thrown out of
 health into invalidism. Thrown out of happiness into misery; but one day.
 while sinking through one of the back
 streets, not wishing to be recognized, a
 good thought crosses his mind, for he has. heard of men flung flat rising again. Arriving at his house, he calls his wife ,I. ( ha md I am going to do differently This is not what promised you when we were
 married You have been very patient
 with me and have borne everything, al-
 though I would have had no right to complain if you had left me and gone
 home to your father house. It seems to
 me that once or twice, when l was not
 myself, struck you, and several times,
 know, I called you hard names Now
 I want you to forgive me. l am going
 to do better, and I want you to help
 me. |" "Help your" she says. "Bless your soull Of course will help youl knew you didn't mean it when you
 treated me roughly All that is in the
 past. Never refer to it again. Today
 let us begin anew"
 Sympathizing friends come around
 and kind business people help the man to something to do, so that he can again
 earn living. The children soon have
 clothing so that they can go to school
 The old songs which the wife sang
 years ago come back to her memory.
 and she sings them over again at the
 cradle or while preparing the monday meal Domestic resurrection He comes
 home earlier than he used to, and he is glad to spend the evening playing games
 with the children or helping them with arithmetic or grammar lessons which are little too hard. Time passes on, and some outsider suggests to him that be is not getting as much out of life as he ought and proposes an occasional visit to scenes of worldliness and dissi- patton He consents to go once, and after much solicitation twice. Then his old habit comes back He says he has been belated and could not get back un- til midnight. He had to see some west ern merchant that had arrived and talk of business with him before he got out of town. Kindness and geniality again quit the disposition of that husband and father The wife's heart breaks in 8 new place That man goes into second wrestle with evil habit and is flung, and all he'll cackles at the moral defeat. T told you so, say many good people who have no faith in the reformation of fallen man. r'I told you sol You made a great fuss about his restored home but l knew it would not last. You can't trust these fellows who have once gone wrong" So with this unfor- tunate, things get worse and worse, and his family have to give up the house, and the last valuable goes to the pawn brokers shop But that unfortunate man is sauntering along the street one Sunday night, and he goes up to church door, and the congregation are singing the second hymn, the one just before sermon, and it is William Cowper's glorious hymn:
 There is fountain filled with blood
 Drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
 And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains.
 wavering at the Door.
 He goes into the vestibule of the
 church and stops there, not feeling well
 enough dressed to go among the wor-
 shipers, and he hears the minister say, "You will find the words of my text in Luke, the nineteenth chapter and tenth
 verse, The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost. ." The listener in the vestibule says: If any man was ever lost, am lost, and the Son of Man came to save that which is lost, and he has found me and he will take me out of this lost condition. Oh, Christ, have mercy on mep The poor man has courage now to enter the main audience room, and he sits down on the first seat by the door, and when at the close of the service the minister comes down the aisle the poor man tells his story, and he is encouraged and invited to come again, and the way is cleared for him for membership in Christian church, and he feels the omnipotenoe of what Peter, the apostle, said when he spoke of those "kept by the power of God through faith unto complete saliva tion.' Yet he is to have one more wrestle before he is free from evil habits and he goes into it, not in his own strength, for that has failed him twice. but in the strength of the Lord God Almighty The old habit seizes him, and he seizes it, and the wrestlers bend backward and forward and from side to side, in awful struggle, until the mo- ment comes for his liberation and, with both arms infused with strength from God, he lifts that habit, swings it in air and hurls it into the perdition from which it came and from which 1t never