Newport weekly independent., 1901-07-19

years and arraignS the people who live 1 beyond their means; text, Jeremiah 1 17:11: ''As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatch tn them not, so he that | getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his end shall be a fool" Allusionis here made to a well-known fact in natural history. If partridge pr a quail or robin brood the eggs of another species, the young will not stay with the one that happened to brood them, but at the first oppor- tunity will assort with their own spe- cies. Those of us who have been brought up in the country have seen the dismay of the farmyard hen, hay ing brooded aquatic fowls, when after awhile they tumble into their natural element, the water. So my text sug- gests that a man may gather under his wings the property of others, but it will after awhile escape. It will leave she man in sorry predicament and make him feel very silly.
 What has caused all the black days of finanical disasters for the last 60 years? Some say it is the credit sys tenn. Something back of that. Some say it is the spirit of gambling ever and anon becoming epidemic. Something back of that. Some say it is the sud- den shrinkage in the value of securi- ties, which even the most honest and intelligent men could not have fore seen. Something back of that. I will give you the primal cause of all these I,o of modern society which impels man to spend more money than he can hon. estly make, and he goes into wild spec ulation in order to get the means for inordinate display, and sometimes the man is to blame and sometimes his wife and oftener both. Five thousand dol lars income. $10,000, $20 ,000 income, is not enough for man to keep up the style of living he proposes, and there fore he steers his bark toward the maelstrom. Other men have suddenly snatched up $5O,000 or $1oo,000. Why not he? The present income of the man not being large enough, he must move heaven and earth and hell to catch up with his neighbors. Others have a country seat; so must he. Oth- CTS have a palaitial residence; so must he.
 Extravagance is the cause of all the defalcatiOns of the last 60 years, and if you will go through the history of all the great panics and the great finan- cial disturbances, no sooner have you found the story than right back of it you will find the story of how many horses the man had, how many car riages, how many banquets the man gave-always, and not one exception for the last 60 years, either directly or indirectly extravaganza the cause.
 Now for the elegances and the re- finements and the decorations of life. cast my vote. While 1 am considering this subject a basket of flowers is handed in-fowers paradisiacal in their beauty. White calla with green background of begonia. cluster of heliotropes nestling in some geranium. Sepal and perianth bearing on them the marks of Gods finger. When l see that basket of flowers, they per suade me that God loves beauty and adornment and decoration. God might have made the earth so as to
 
 left it without adornment or attrac- tion. Instead of the variegated colors of the seasons the earth might have worn an unchanging dull brown. The tree might have put forth it's fruit without the prophecy of leaf or blos- som. Niagara might have come down in gradual descent without thunder and winged spray.
 There are families in all our cities who can hardly pay their rent and who owe all the merchants in the neighbOr- hood and yet have an apparel unfit for their circumstances and are all the time sailing so near shore that busl- ness misfortune or an attack of sick ness prepares them for pauperism. ouknowveryw we'll there are thousands of families in our great cities who stay in neighborhoods until they have eX- hausted all their capacity to get trusted. They stay in the neighbor- hood until the druggists will let them have no more medicines, and the butch CTS will sell them no more meat, ana the bakers will sell them no more bread, and the groceryman Will sell them no more sugar. Then they hhu the region unhealthy, and they hire carman, whom they never pay, to take them to some new quarters where the merchants, the druggists, the butch CTS. the bakers and the grocerymen come and give them the best rounds or beef and the best sugars and the pest merchandise of allssorts until they ma out that the only compensation they are going to get is the acquaintance o.
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