Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-07-25

into your store and asks for five cents
to get mug of beer.
You, the good mother of household,
and all your children rising up to call
you blessed, can remember when you
were quite jealous of the belle of the
village, who was SO tranScendently
fair and popular. But while you have
these two honorable and queenly
names of wife and mother, she became
a poor waif of the street, and went
into the blackness of darkness for
ever. Live life over again? Why, if
many of those who are respectable
were PERM ted to experiment, the
next journey would be demoli-
ton. You got through, as job says,
by the skin of your teeth. Next time
you might not get through at all.
Satan would say: Il know him now
better than l did before, and have for
so years been studying his weaknesses,
and [ will weave stronger web of cir
cumstances to catch him next time"
And Satan would concentrate his forces
On this one man, and the last state OF
that man would be worse than the
first. My friends, our faces are in the
right direction. Better go for
ward than backward even if we
had the choice. The greatest dis
aster I can think of would be for you
to return to boyhood in 1898. Oh, If
life were a smooth Luzerne or Cayuga
lake, / would like to get into a yacht
and sail over 1T, not once, but twice
yea, thousand times. But life is an
uncertain sea, and some of the ships
crash on the icebergs of cold indiffer-
ence, and some take fire of evil pas
sions, and some lose their bearings and
run into the Goodwin sands, and some
are never heard of. Surely on such
treacherous sea as that one voyage is
enough.
Besides all this, do you know, if you
could have your wish and live life over
again, it would put you SO much fur
Their from reunion with your friends IN
Heaven? If you are in the noon of life,
or the evening of life, you are not very
far from the golden gate at which you
are to meet your transported and em-
paradised loved ones. You are now,
let us say, 20 years, or ten years,
or one year off from celestial conjunc.
ton. Now, suppose you went back in
your earthly life 80 years, or 40 years,
or SO years, what an awful post
ponement of the time of reunion!
1t would be as though you were
going to San Francisco to great
banquet, and you got to Oak
land, four or five miles this side of it,
and then came back to Baltimore to
get better start; as though you were
going to England to be crowned, and
having come in sight of the mountains
of Wales, you put back to Sandy Hook
in order to make a better voyage.
Would you Ike for many years to adj
journ the songs of Heaven, to adjourn
the thrones of Heaven, to adjourn the
companionship of Heaven, to adjourn
the rest of Heaven, to adjourn the
presence of Christ in Heaven? No;
the wheel of time turns in the right
direction, and it is we'll it turns SO fast.
Three hundred and sixty-fve revolu-
tions in a year, and forward, rather
than 365 revolutions in a year and
backward.
Out yonder is man very old at 40
years of age, at time when he ought
to be buoyant as the morning. He got
bad habits on him very early, and those
habits have become worse. He is a
man on fire, on fire with alcoholism,
on fire with all evil habits, out with
the world and the world out with him.
Down, and falling deeper. His swollen
hands in his threadbare pockets, and
his eye fixed on the ground, as he
passes through the street, and the quick
step Of an innocent child, or the strong
suep Of an young man, or the roll OF
prosperous carriage maddens him,
and he curses society and he curses
God. Fallen sick, with no resources,
he is carried to the almshouse. A loath-
some spectacle, he lies all day long
waiting for dissolution, or in the night
rises on his cot and fights apparitions
of what he might have been and what
he will be- He started life with as
good prospect as any man on the
American continent, and there he is, a
bloated carcass, waiting for the SHOW
els of public charity to put him five
feet under. He has only reaped what
he sowed. Harvest of wild oats! There
is way that seemeth right to a man,
but the end thereof is death.
And then the reaping of the harvest
is so different. There is grandfa-
Their now. He has lived to old age be-
cause his habits have been good. His
eyesight for this world has got some
what dim. but his eyesight for Heaven
is radiant. His hearing is not SO acute
as it once was, and he must bend clear
over to hear what his little grandchild
SAYS when she asks him what he has
brought for her. But he easily
catches the music rained from
supernal spheres, Men passing in
the streets take off their hats in
reverence, and women say: "What
good old man he is" Seventy
of so years, all for God and for making
this world happy. Splendid! Glorious!
Magnificent! He will have hard work
getting into Heaven, because those
whom he helped to get there will fill