Connecticut western news., 1899-03-16
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 Some of you are evening stars, and you are cheering the last days of old people, and though cloud sometimes comes over you through the querulous- ness or unreasonableness of your aged father and mother, it is only for a mo- ment, and the star soon comes out clear again and is seen from all the balconies of the neighborhood The old people will forgive your occasional shortcom- ings, for they themselves several times lost their patience with you when you were young and perhaps whipped you when you did not deserve it. Hail. evening star Hang on the darkening sky your diamond coronet.
 Wormwood In the Home.
 But are any of you the star Worm woodP Do you scold and growl from the thrones paternal or maternal3 Are your children everlastingly pecked at Are you always crying "Hushp' to the merry voices and swift feet, and to the laughter, which occasionally trickles through at wrong times, and is sup pressed by them until they can hold it no longer, and all the barriers burst in- to unlimited guffaw and cachinnation, as in high weather the water has trickled through slight opening in the milldam, but afterward makes wider and wider breach until it carries all be- fore it with irresistible freshet2 Do not be too much offended at the noise your children now make. 1t will be still enough when one of them is dead. Then you would give your right hand to hear one shout from the silent voice. or one step from the still foot. You will not any of you have to wait very long be- fore your house is stiller than you want it. Alas that there are so many homes not known to the Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Children, where children are whacked and cuffed and ear pulled, and senselessly called to or der, and answered sharply and sup pressed, until it is wonder that under such processes they do not all turn out Mana Sahibsl
 What is your influence upon the neighborhood, the town or the city of your residence1 Twill suppose that you are star of wit What kind of rays do you shoot forth Do you use that splen- did faculty to irradiate the world or to rankle itf bless all the apostolic col lege of humorista The man that makes me laugh is my benefactor. do not thank anybody to make me cry. can do that without any assistance. We all cry enough and have enough to cry about. God bless all skillful punsters, all reparteeists, all propounders of in- genious conundrums, all those who mirthfully surprise us with unusual juxtaposition of words Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens and Sydney Smith had divine mission, and so have their successor in these times. They stir into the acid beverage of life the saccharine. They make the cup of earthly existence, which is sometimes stale, efervesce and bubble. They placate animosities. They foster longevity. They slay follies and absurdities which all the sermons of all the pulpits cannot reach. But what use are you. making of your witf Is it be- smirched with profanity and unclean- nessf Do you employ it in amusement at physical defects for which the vic tims are not responsiblef Are your pow CTS of mimicry used to put religion in contemptf Is it bunch of nettlesome invectivef Is it 8 bolt of unjust scorn ? It it fun at others misfortune2 Is it glee at their disappointment and de- featf Is it bitterness put drop by drop into a cupf Is it like the squeezing of Artemisia absin thium into a draft already distastefully pungentf Then you are the star Wormwood. Yours is the fun of a arattlesnake trying how well it can sting. It is the fun of a hawk trying how quick it can strike out the eye of dove.
 Star of Worldly Prosperity.
 But will change this and suppose you are a star of worldly prosperity. Then you have large opportunity. You can encourage that artist by buying his picture. You can improve the fields, the tables, the highway, by introducing higher style of fowl and horse and COW and sheep. You can bless the world with pomological achievement in the orchard. You can advance arboriculture and ar rest the deathful destruction of the American forests You can put piece of sculpture into the niche of that pub lie academy. You can endow college. You can stocking 1000 bare feet from the winter frost. You can build a church. You can put missionary of Christ on that foreign shore. You can help to ransom a world. A rich man with his heart right-can you tell me how much good James Lenox or 8 George Peabody or Peter Cooper or a William E. Dodge did while living or is doing now that he is dead. There is not city. town or neighborhood that has not glorious specimens of conse- crated wealth.
 But suppose you grind the face of the poor. Suppose, when man 8 wages are due. you make him wait for them be- cause he cannot help himself, Suppose that, because his family Is sick and he has had extra expenses, he should po- itely ask you to raise his wages for this year, and you roughly tell him if he wants better place to go and get it. Suppose, by your manner, you act as though he were nothing and you were everything Suppose you are selfish and overbearing and arrogant. Your first name ought to be Attila and your last name Attila, because you are the star Wormwood and you have imbittered one-third, If not three-thirds of the wa ters that roll past your employees and operatives and dependents and associ- ates, and the long line of carriages which the undertaken orders for your funeral in order to make the occasion respectable will be filled with twice as many dry, fearless eyes, as there are persons occupying them. You will be in this world but few minutes. As compared with eternity. the stay of the longest life on earth is not more than a minute. What are we doing with that minutef Are we imbittering the domes- tic or social ol political fountains. or are we like Moses, who, when the Israel ites in the wilderness complained that the waters of Lake Marah were bitter,