^^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chaih Copyright No.. .^** Shell! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BOOK OF SUNDAY SERMONS MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS BY ADDISON L. LANGDON, "THE EVANGELIST." SELECTED. ("31 <' Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in the sight."— Psalms XIX:IV. QUINCY, ILLINOIS: THE EMPIRE PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1896. ^ **^*^ Vv ADDISON L. LANGDON, EVANGELIST. THE AUTHOR. THIS VOLUME Is dedicated to the intelligent people of the whole civilized world, whose minds are free from prejudice and superstition ; whose hearts are pure and sympathetit: ; who believe in equal mental, physical and commercial rights to all man and womankind, while in pursuit of life, liberty and hap- piness. THE AUTHOR. Copyright, 1896, By Addison L. Langdon, All rights reserved. PREFACE. IN presenting this volume to the public, I only ask that those who read its pages may do so carefully, thoughtfully and without prejudice, re- membering that an author was never yet born, who could write a book that would meet with universal approval, and I am not vain enough to flat- ter myself that I am an exception. I believe in the principle that all men are created equal ; that each and all of us have the right of freedom of thought ; that we may indulge in criticisms ; that no class or sect have exclusive rights or privileges ; that humanity rather than force, should govern mankind ; that deformities, should be concealed, social and all other scandals suppressed ; that fanat- icism and bigotry belong to the dark ages ; that true friendship is a jewel of great price ; that hypocrisy is an offense against society and those who are guilty should be exposed. I believe in moriality among man and womankind ; in forgiveness, char- ity and humanity ; in assisting along life's rough highway those who are earnestly struggling to reach an honorable place in life. I abhor snob- bery, despise flunkeyism and hate those whose acts are governed by pol- icy. I believe in the universal freedom of the mind ; in the right of all to persuade others, but deny their right to coerce. I believe that no one class should war upon another ; that every man and woman has his or her right to personal opinions upon all subjects, and I merely ask those who read my Meditutions of Twenty Years, to endorse only such portions as may be pleasing to them. I have written this volume with malice toward none, with charity for all, because I feel the lack of one and need of the other, on equal terms and footing with the rest of the human family, and ask for myself the charity I solicit for others. I am firm in my convictions of life's affairs, but not bigoted, and evi- dence, if properly presented, could convince me of my error, and know- ing the frailty of all humanity, I ask that the mantle of charity be thrown 6 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. over all defects and that love, h^pe, sunshine and happiness be the star, by which to guide us all into a harbor of rest, security'and peace fL we are through with this life, that has been so full of care ADDISON L. LANGDON, QuiNcv, Illinois. "^^' Evangelist." MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. SLIDING OVER THE BANK. Did you ever pause a moment to reflect on the shortness of human life and how abruptly it terminates, notwithstanding all our preparations to be ready for the grim monster when he stalks into our presence? Did you ever reflect on a human life — 'On your own for example' — or on the lives of your friends, and after following closely along the pathway, you find you have traversed the long journey and are at the end before you know it? Did you ever wonder why it was essential and necessary for the human family to undergo so much sorrow and trouble, while fight- ing the battles of this life? Well, we have, and long indeed have we studied over this human problem, which is yet very muddy. Every day we hear the sad and unwelcome news that some of our friends have tumbled over the bank into eternity, and then we think, of what earthly use has been their life-long worry and pain? Of what use is the money or landed possessions they have gained? What good has a lifetime spent in accumulation been to them? Men and women, in order to save a few dimes or dollars, wear old clothes; look ragged, unkempt, slouchy. They starve themselves; they deprive their system of all luxuries; they never go to a place of amuse- ment; never travel over this grand old country of ours and enjoy its gran- deur and loveliness; never entertain company; never possess themselves of any of the numerous benefits abounding on every hand. And thus they plod along, and some bright morning, right in the midst of another economical calculation, they tumble headlong over the bank into death. The world is filled with crazy cranks, whose only enjoyment is in the. misery they bring upon other people. We have fanatics on temperance, on religion, on diet, on dress, on fresh air, on all sorts of subjects, and they foist their disgusting and meddling peculiarities on the community until they tumble over the bank. Then another fanatic bobs up and takes the place of the defunct one. Nature left the earth in mighty good shape for us to enjoy, and we would enjoy it, too, were it not for the meddling proclivities of some people. The world itself is all right, and there is much in it that is bright and beautiful. But in our eagerness to discuss our crazy theme, or to accumulate more gain, we forget or neglect the beauties of this world, and tumble over the bank without an enjoyment, without a pleasure. 10 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. without a ray of satisfaction, without having benefited the world or the people in it, and so we go along, and finally away we go over the bank. We cannot, for the life of us, see what some men and women were created for. We know some of the former whose solemn faces would peel the varnish off the leg of a bar-room chair, and some of the latter whose ugly, meddlesome, gossiping, slanderous tongues would stop a clock, and yet, in the uneven, ill-shaped order of things, this class waltz along, side by side, with the reputable people of this life. We know some of these people who have been lying and swindling for years ; but, by and by, away they go over the bank. The temperance crank thinks of nothing else but making war on all those not favoring prohibition, and they are the meanest of all the great variety of cranks with which this earth abounds. We know one of these hen-pecked lunatics, who will any day in the week, give a stack of boodle to persecute an honest man who makes or sells liquor for a livelihood, who wouldn't give a dime to relieve the absolute distress and dire neces- sities of some homeless woman struggling to maintain her fatherless children. We know rank and pusillanimous old humbugs who attend church and prayer meetings regularly; who make pretensions of piety and long prayers, who are convicted swindlers and dishonorable business men, and they look at us and glare like wild beasts and call us infidel; but never mind, they will go over the bank too, by and by. We know church societies which are the worst dens of gossip in the city; we know corner stores which breed disorder every day. We find hypocrites and humbugs everywhere; on the streets, in the pulpits, in business; but by and by, like all mortality, they will take a header and go — over the bank. We cannot imagine why people will deliberately make themselves and their neighbors and associates so unhappy by exercising their meddling propensities. Cranks are born, not made; and so it is explained, per- haps, why this class exists. Lunatics and fanatics are produced by much long thinking upon one subject. First they become morbid, then wild, and a common nuisance to the whole community. But like all the rest, they will tumble over the bank after awhile. What the people of this world want to grapple with is reality; actual, substantial facts. We want to associate with real, true, honest, liberal people. You never saw a generous man who was a crank; you never saw a liberal-minded man who was a fanatic; you never saw a woman who attended strictly to her own affairs who was a slanderer or gossip; you never saw a real good, conscientious christian man or woman who was always thrusting their evangelical ideas under your nose. We have MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 11 this class in the world, but, unhappily, like all the rest of us, they have got to go over the bank. The mortality among the great men has been frightful during the past year or two, both at home, in the state and nation ; and with these occur- rences before our eyes, it would seem to us that all people should make it their aim, their constant study, their ambition, to make their lives a pleasure to themselves and friends, instead of making themselves obnox- ious and their friends unhappy. A man or woman who has a happy home is never a crank or fanatic ; and it's only unhappy homes that breed temperance fanatics and salvation armies and loons. You can tell a hen- pecked man the instant you look into his mug; and, being pecked out of his home, he seizes upon some irrational hobby with which to amuse himself. Men who have homes and attentive wives and obedient, respect- ful children, have no time, no inclination to mingle with lunatics and fa- natics or discuss the evils of things, and so the claim we make is true, that a happy home and a family whom we respect will cure all lunacy on things present or to come. And, mark our words, and mark your men and women, and you will find it as we say it is, that it's the unhappy home that gives birth to more of the evils of to-day than all the whisky ever made. Our resorts, our clubs, our dens are all supported by men who have been driven from unhappy homes. So, dear readers, brace up; begin now; forget the past; start fresh, and from now, henceforward and forever, make the best of your lives; get all the enjoyment you can out of it, for, just as sure as you are a foot high, you, like all the rest of the gang — the good, bad and indifferent — have got to go Over the Bank. FIRE AND FALL BACK. We are this night in our room, No. 15, in the Dunlap house ; Jackson- ville, and there is a grand dance in progress. The wealth and beauty of that city are present, and the merry murmurs of many voices mingle with the air. There is music and pleasure and joy, and it takes us way back in the past to similar scenes, when the Evangelist had no cares, no re- sponsibilities, no thought for the morrow; but years ago we fired and fell back. We can now, as we look, scarcely realize that we used to waltz up and down hotel halls, just as these people are doing to-night, whispering soft nothings to the fair sex, but we did, and by and by these thoughtless people will be heads of families, and then they will look back, just as we do now, and wonder the same as we now wonder, how they ever had the stomach to go through such things ; and so the world goes — it's fire and fall back. But we guess it is better so, for if we could not forget our pleasures and our pains, we would be in constant wretchedness; we would always be thinking of one or the other, and be miserable all the while. Each of us have some scenes in life that we are glad to remember, and others that we are glad to forget; and so the intelligent force that governs the affairs of this life, has arranged everything just about right — it gives us all a chance to fire and fall back. We don't believe there lives a man on this earth who has had more fun and more misery than the Evangelist, and yet, as we look around, we see the same in other people; so perhaps we are all nearly alike, after all. The fun we have is public property; everybody knows of it, and they with us, our fun. But our misery, our tears, we share and shed in secret, alone and in silence. We have had our fun and we have fired and fallen back, to give somebody else a chance to do the same thing. History tells us that this condition of things has existed ever since the world began. We come into the world and go through it and pass out of it precisely alike. There is no change in methods or style. We come in, pass through and go ©ut to-day just as they did thousands of years ago, and during all these years it has been fire and fall back with all. We feel sorry for people sometimes, and no doubt they feel sorry for us in the same way, because our tastes, aims and ambitions are so dif- ferent. We are sorry for a glum, morose man who sees no joy in youth- ful play; we feel sorry for the selfish, cranky hog, who has a pain every MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 13 time he sees boys enjoying themselves; we feel sorry for those old repro- bates who would deprive the youth of his moments of fun; we feel sorry for that old hypocrite who sees no sunshine in life save that found in the sanctuary; we feel sorry for any and all who cannot, for a time, forget themselves and make way for other people. Look around you, my beloved, and you can see these people on every hand. The world is full of them, of no earthly good to themselves or any- body else. They work like slaves all day in their offices and stores. You never see them at the opera house enjoying a good play ; they never leave home for a trip to other cities; they never have company; no one ever drops in to spend a social evening with them; and so they live, and by and by they fall back, and ten minutes after they are dead, are for- gotten by everybody. Every one in this world is given a chance to shoot. If they hit the bull's eye they are great; if they miss the center shot, they are guyed by the audience. If they win life's battle they are applauded to the echo; if they lose, they are roasted by everybody. The successful are by no means the most intelligent; indeed, it's the fool who most frequently gets to the front, while the wise sit on mats on the door steps. We have seen graduates from colleges currying horses for a living; and again have we seen the biggest fools on earth holding down positions of honor and trust; but each of us has been given an opportunity of firing and falling back. But, my beloved, when you come to boil this life of our down, there isn't much to or of it. No matter who or what we are, we all experience about the same pleasures and pains, and life and the end of it is nearly alike, one with another. There is one joy and two sorrows, one laugh and two cries; one pleasure and two pains, all through life. It was al- ways so and always will be. It's the ball to-night and katzen-jammer in the morning; it's the frolic one day, and settling the damages the next; it's the high old time one evening, and recovering with the host the next. And so this night, as we listen to the music and the murmur of happy voices, we think back a quarter of a century, to a time when we were free and thoughtless; to a time when we enjoyed the gayeties of an evening of song, dance and merriment, and knowing what sorrows and torments we have passed through, we can but think of that other dark day that is surely coming to those who are joyous and happy and free this night — to those who have before us fired and fell back. Well, it's all right. THE SALOON MAN. The various cities of all this land contain business places of all sorts, at which can be purchased any desired article, and when people wish anything they go to the proper stores for it. A large volume of the people of this land use stimulants of some sort, and for their accommodation the saloon was started and made one of the commercial branches of business. On the one hand are the patrons of the saloon ; on the other, the haters of it. The first named, as a rule, are law-abiding citizens, who visit the saloon after their day's work is done, and there quietly enjoy their glass of beer. This custom is national, and in some countries is even more marked than in our own. The regular frequenter of saloons never gets into any difficulty. He goes there for a purpose, accomplishes it and departs as quietly as he came; and were it this class alone, we would never hear of disturbances in our saloons. There are, however, a class of people, and we regret to say that they are usually native Americans, who abuse the privileges of the saloon, overload themselves with the goods there offered for sale, and bring upon the owner of the place all kinds of trouble, which he re- grets more than anybody. Now, the nature of the Evangelist's business during the past quarter of a century has thrown him with the saloon man, and he can truthfully say that as a citizen, as a business man and gentleman, the saloon man compares very favorably with any other class of business people. He is, as a rule, generous, has a high regard for honor and integrity, and is all around a good fellow and companion. Occasionally one will creep into the saloon business who brings discredit upon the profession, but no more or oftener than in other lines of trade. We have noticed that the name of the saloon man is always first on subscription lists gotten up to pay for conventions and celebrations that cities get up, and he is always a liberal contributor to these funds. Among the first bills ever paid by a certain church in the city of Quincy, Illinois, was one that was paid with the money contributed by the keeper of a saloon, and there are now living in that same city honorable, vener- able citizens, who forty years ago kept saloons, and they have lost none of their respectability because of it, either. The saloon man makes just as good a citizen as men from other professions, and much better than MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 15 the fanatic who loses no opportunity to express his hatred for the saloon man and his friends. The saloon man is never a bigot; he is absolutely free from prejudice and superstition ; his ideas of manhood and honor are much higher than many who move in high social circles and express contempt for the man of the saloon. The saloon man is generous to a fault, and always gives his share in aid of charity and for the relief of those in distress. The license moneys contributed to the city treasuries very greatly assist in maintaining the police and fire departments, in operating the electric light and water works plants, and in keeping in repair the public streets. Indeed, without the saloon money property owners would be forced to submit to heavier taxation to discharge the public debt. Now, these are facts in favor of the saloon man that none can deny, and therefore we ask, are they, as an especial class of business men not entitled to credit for what they have done and are doing for the benefit of the cities of our great country? The class of people who hate the saloon man do not reason well ; do not argue fairly. Theirs is a one-sided, unreasonable argument, and they would shift the responsibility of their views upon the shoulders of those who pay the bulk of our taxes. Is it logical to argue that because once in a while a man, worn out with sorrows and sufferings, shoots himself, that the manufacture of guns should be prohibited? Because some worn and weary soul, crushed be- neath the weight of his woes, hangs himself now and then, that we should discourage the manufacture of rope? Or, because an occasional victim finds rest at the bottom of the river, that the stream should be dried up? Is it therefore reasonable to argue that because here and there we find a man who has become a slave to morphine that no more of the drug should be sold? And now to the final conclusion: Is it any more rea- sonable to advocate the banishment of the saloon for the reason that here and there, at long intervals, some fool drinks himself to death? The saloon is a convenience to those who patronize it and not an in- convenience to those who do not. If there was not a saloon on earth and a man wanted a drink, he would contrive a way to secure it. We all know and must admit that. Why, then, should the saloon man be held re- sponsible and his business made a target at which to shoot? The drug store of a country town is really a worse place than the city saloon; and such places contribute no revenue to the town in which they thrive. Patrons of the saloons are purely voluntary in their acts. No saloon man ever leaves his occupation to entice or persuade a man to enter his place of business. You do not have to enter unless you choose, and 16 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. therefore, for the life of us, we cannot see, cannot understand, why even a small minority of our people should look so bitterly upon the man who keeps a saloon. The saloon is an accommodation to a very large class, and their rights and privileges are as sacred to them as are the rights and privileges of other men — their opponents — to them. Once in a while you will find a bad man among the saloon men. So also will you find them among the grocers, the druggists, the dry goods men, and in all the other branches of trade and traffic; but this occasional black sheep ought not to brand the whole fk>ck. We can say for a majority of the saloon men, that their reputation for sobriety, honor, integrity and generosity, is vastly at a higher ebb than a majority of those who make it their especial and daily business to worry and annoy the saloon man. HYPOCRITES AND HYPOCRISY, The death in Boston of the millionaire Sanborn in a notorious den of infamy, which was one of the many similar establishments owned by him, is one of the plainest cases on record of the absolute truth of the long teaching and preaching of the Evangelist. Here was a man, supposed by his neighbors and. friends to be a most thoroughly devout man. He was a leader in the church; he was a power- ful and apparently earnest exhorter; he talked morality and preached virtue, while he was at that very moment owner and operator of a dozen or more of the worst gilded palaces of sin in the city of Boston. Among his other great charities he built a seminary for young ladies, which he proposed to donate to the little city in which he lived, when death over- took him in one of his own dens of infamy. This is the sort of people we are after, always were after, and always will be after. It's these creatures who live double lives, and the world is filled with them, who do so much to destroy the con- fidence and honor and principle among men and women, boys and girls. It is this class of pious scoundrels who serve the devil under their religious masks, and the old viper of Boston is but a sample — a specimen brick, as it were, of thousands of others just like him all over the world. It proves only what we have said a thousand times in the past, and what we shall perhaps say a thousand times in the future, that a man is not a true, genuine christian, merely because he belongs to a church and leads in prayer, and gives liberally to charity. It requires something more than a mere outward show of piety to make a man an honorable christian gentleman, and so, when such a social outlaw exists, it is the duty of the community in which he lives to pull off the mask, tear away the veil that covers his sins and stand him up before the world in his true light. If you will keep your eyes open you can find just such characters as Sanborn of Boston right here at home — men and women who are living double lives. They have their two faces — the one beautiful, pleasant and sanctimonious ; the other a photograph of horrible nightmare. One face that smiles a smile of pious purity; the other a vision of dreadfulness. One face for the respectable portion of the community; another for the desperate. One face that leads us to believe that its wearer is a saint; another that tells us he is a human devil. These people are they who breed disorder and corruption and distress. It is these vile hypocrites 18 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. who startle the world with their evils when exposure comes, as it will certainly come to all who violate nature's laws or outrage common decency. It is the taking into our churches of such creatures that lies our main objection. It is because the leaders and rulers and deacons and elders and vestry do not inquire into men's characters more thoroughly before extending to them the right hand of fellowship. It is because they are so easily gulled and imposed upon that makes many of them simple in our eyes. There is not a clergyman on earth who has more respect for honor, principle, virtue and all goodness than the Evangelist. Neither is there one who more thoroughly hates hypocrisy and hypocrites and hypo- critical ways, and if we expose some of these human beasts we must be pardoned. They exist in this city to-day, and every hour they are deceiv- ing you and others. They belong to the church, they sneak into saloons by the back doors and drink alone; they visit breweries, and to induce the owners thereof to subscribe money in aid of railroads, they drink beer, while noted for their crazy temperance views. They lead in prayer meet- ing and sit for days and days at their tables without speaking a word to their wives and children. They lead prayer meetings Wednesday night and sand their sugar Thursday morning. They pray Sunday and pound their horses Monday. They sing psalms Tuesday at home and swear at their employes Saturday in the office. Such men live here to-day and they belong to the church, and yet do all the beastly things we have enumerated above. These men are every- where, and you have only to consult the daily telegrams to learn their names and residences and crimes and misdemeanors. Most people who belong to our churches are good and conscientious ; they never do wrong themselves, and because they are so simple and pure, they believe everybody else is so. But they are not by a very large majority, and it is because they don't kick these hypocrites out that lies the weakness of their institutions and the secret of our objections. Sin and hypocrisy, sinners and hypocrites are not new. The Lord had a hypocrite with him at the last supper, and there has been one at every supper since that time. Every church in the world has upon its rolls of membership hypocrites, and every pious gathering shows up one or more of them. It is perhaps necessary for the successful conduct of the world to have these specimens, just as we have bed bugs and mos- quitos and snakes. Perhaps they perforin some useful ofifice, as posing as models to shun. But to ordinary mortals on the outside it is difficult to understand what they wore ever created for, or of what earthly good they are to civilization, and yet we have them. We cannot understand MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 19 why we have boils and ring worms and the itch and piles, but we have them all the same, and possibly for some good purpose, the true inward- ness of which we do not know. It is, however, hard for us to tell what hypocrites were ever made for, unless it be to make some one who might otherwise be happy, trouble. Hypocrisy develops in all sorts of places. We find it among those whom we have looked upon as our friends. We find it in our own neighborhoods; it's among brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts; it lurks beneath the smiles of the beautiful, and we find it in the glare of the fiend. It comes to the surface at church sociables and donation parties and at the singing schools. It floats to the surface in the counting room and factory and store. We detect it in the merchant with whom we trade, and in the kid who runs our errands. It slops over among politicians, and it jars the domestic circle. Hypocrisy is everywhere — in doors and out. We bump up against it on the week day and Sunday. It is carried in the parson's phiz, and it nestles in the mischievous eyes of the sisters of the parish. We encounter hypocrisy in our daily walks and we dream of it at night. It is found in the highways and alleys; in halls of legisla- ture ; in the court room ; in the police station ; in the parlors of our homes, as well as in the sanctuary and among "sanctified" people. Hypocrisy is a national institution and indulged in by the people of the whole world. It seems to be a part of the machinery of the universe, without which we could not n.m successfully, and yet as we look at it and dispise hypocrites, we cannot see any use for either. We fail in our understanding of the necessities which seem to require the existence of either of them. We know that it is natural for some men and women to be hypocritical in their daily ways and speeches. By and by we come to know these people, and then, no matter how truthfully they may speak, or how honestly they may act, we don't and won't believe them. And yet, day after day, these same people will go from door to door, from friend to friend and rattle off their hypocritical cant by the yard, expecting us to believe all they say. There is no cure for hypocrisy — it was always with us and always will be. We can only expose it whenever we have an opportunity, and do our best to throttle the beast wherever found. When a friend, a pro- fessed friend, proves himself or herself a hypocrite, it will not do to pass the matter over lightly, but we must make an exposure of the treacherous friend, and by such exposure prevent others from being deceived. Men talk to you every day and you know they are lying; yet you say nothing, and why is this? Why not let them know at once that you are 20 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. "onto" their hypocrisy and deceit and falsehood, and this would save some other victim and perhaps reform the hypocrite in a measure. The world is full of them ; the clubs and churches and societies overrun with them. They are as numerous as thistles and as dangerous as veno- mous reptiles. They create trials and troubles everywhere and among everybody with whom they come in contact. They are brazen in their boldness and vile in their villainy, and if there is anything in this world or the next we have more to fear, it's a hypocrite and his or her hypocrisy. MOTHER. Was there ever a sweeter, more blessed word coined than that which forms the topic for our Sermon this day? Mother — how much does this mean to those of us who can only occa- sionally look at the little mound in the church-yard that covers all that remains mortal of mother. Others have their mothers with them, and not one in a thousand ap- preciates the fact, but those who have no mother pass many a sad hour in sorrowful reflection. What would we not do if we only had that dear old mother back again in our home. We can see it now, we can appreciate it now, we can re- member many and many a time when our conduct has sorely grieved that good old soul. We did not mean to bring sorrow upon the mother, but we did, and now we spend our remaining lives regretting it. We do not believe in envy, we are always glad that others have and can enjoy what we cannot, and yet every time we see a family group with a dear old mother in her arm chair, with her knitting and her bible, we somehow do feel just a little envy creeping through our vitals. Most men love their wives — some do not, and they have good cause. Most men love their children — some do not, and generally there is a good reason therefor. But a dear old mother is beloved and honored by all men. She positively can do no wrong; she never has, never will, and so all men love their mothers. Boys, those of you who still have your mothers with you, honor them every hour you live. No matter how seemingly foolish or absurd her little requests of you, grant them. Let it be your one great end and aim to do whatever your mother requires or requests you to do. You will never be sorry — never regret having done so. The Evangelist laid his dear old mother away in Rose Hill, Chicago, eleven years ago, and we have missed her every hour since that unhappy day, and shall continue to miss her until the end. We have spent many sad hours since that day eleven years ago, regretting that we had not more fully, more thoroughly appreciated her many kindnesses, her many deprivations and denials on our account. Men's wives now days are merely the fulfillment of a legal contract, and they are subject to all the flaws and crevices that things human are heir to. But a man's mother never fails. She is always true, always 22 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. loyal, always ready and willing to deny herself that her boy may be more happy. Men's children when little, know nothing of life or its deceptions and frauds, are very dear to them, but how quickly the years slip by and the baby boy becomes a man, only to break the heart of the dear old mother who has worried and toiled and prayed for years for this same son. The mother is always there, right at your side. She has a prayer and a con- solation and encouragement for you every time. She never fails. While the wife takes a whack at your character and your children disgrace, humiliate and mortify you by their conduct, the mother remains a monu- ment to your glory every hour and day. She is never wrong. While wives, and children, and relatives assault your character, throw obstacles in your way, destroy your ambitions, the good old mother is always ready to apologize for your short-comings, your failures, your weaknesses. You are always her idol, her joy, her pride, and no matter how low you may sink in the mire of human degradation, the mother still loves, still clings to you after every one else on earth has given you the dirty shake. The bible, which so many believe in implicitly, tells you to cling to your mother to the exclusion of everybody else — good counsel that. We say so too, boys, stick to your mother; be guided by her advice, swayed by her love, influenced by her desires, for she is your best friend — the best you ever had, ever will have. Boys, there are wives to bum, but you can never get another Mother. THE WORLD. No one knows just how long- this round ball or square substance called the world, has been in existence; no one knows who made it, or how; no one knows what it is made from or for, or what the end of it will be, if an end there is, and yet you can find scores of people who profess to know all the above enumerated things. The scientific searcher through archives gives the age of the world in- completely, but guesses it to be in the neigliborhood of thirty millions of years. The evangelical teacher professes to know who made the world, and how and why and all about it, but we imdertake to say that he knows no more of this world than you or we or any of us. That the world is beautiful and well made, the most ugly, desperate and depraved among mankind are forced to admit. They cannot deny either, that it is filled with everything which can be of any possible use or advantage to man and womankind, yet at the same time we also know that this same beautiful world contains much that is bad or can be corrupted to bad uses and for bad purposes. In the creation of this world everything was most thorough and com- plete, and like that procession which marched up the gang plank into the ark one day long ago, we have to-day two of each and every kind and two of the opposite. In this world we find venomous serpents whose bite is death, and in the very grass where the poisonous reptile hides grows a cure for its deadly sting. The death dealing and life-saving herb and plant grow side by side. We have material and facilities for producing heat and cold and light, and yet we can meet our death at the hands of each of these agencies, which we employ for our comfort. We have material from which we construct our weapons of defense, and some people mis-apply these things and use them for assassination and murder. We grow com and rye and squeeze it into whisky, which will either prolong or shorten a human life, according to the manner of its use. We have that which kindles flame, and by its side an extinguisher. We dig into the earth and find there iron and coal and gas, and we bottle it up and use it to make any and all sorts of things which will be of service to us and assist us in our life's endeavors. We have animals of each and every kind which we capture, subdue and educate for our own convenience and com- fort. We have something in this great and busy world for everybody 24 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. to (1(1, and tlwsc who are therefore uneni]iloyc(l, are so of their own free will and accord. They arc idle, either from laziness or from pride — lazy and will not work or too proud to accept inferior situations, and so we have come to the conclusion that this world is all right, but it's the dogoncd ornery people in it who make the fullest enjc^yment of this world impossible. Some of us, therefore, in our view of life and its requirements, feel that our mission is to preach the gospel, and then those who entertain opposite views become opponents, and a row is inaugurated immediately. One man is an actor and is at once pounced upon by the religious world, and then another war is begun. One man drinks beer or liquor and up hops the temperance crank, and these two elements clash. One man believes in enjoying his life and he freely spends the money he has made, and at once a crowd of jealous observers pronounce him a spendthrift, and these two fight. It's license or anti-license; it's white against black; it's the christian against the unbeliever; it's a war of races; a war of appetite; a war of labor; of religion; of sexes. It's woman's rights; franchise; taxa- tion ; reform ; extravagance, all the while, and each of these and thousands •of other questions, have earnest and intelligent champions and advocates, who argue for or against, according to convictions or policy, and so we are all at war with each other and cordially hate each other for the views, ideas and notions we each entertain and embrace. This was always so; always will be so, and we cannot hope to ever reach that point where we shall all think, feel and act together as one, on any matter, thing or subject. There is, however, a way, by improving which we may all lead happier lives; it's a simple, easy way, and that is merely to mind your own busi- ness. This was the view all men once entertained in this country, and it was the motto stamped upon the early coin made in America, and to this day coin collectors have old specimens, upon the face of which you will find the motto: "Mind your own business." This is all there is of and to it — mind your own business, If you need a drink take it; if not let it alone. If you want a chew or smoke enjoy yourself thus; if not you may abstain. If you want to attend church go; if not remain away. If there is a hole in your sock, don't examine the heel of every one else to find a similar rip in order to justify your own neglect, but mind your own business. If you are a churchman don't despise and persecute and scan- dalize every one who is not. If our readers will practice this the people of the world will be made better and the lives they lead will be more pleasant, more enjoyable and more in keeping with the beauties of that greatest of all creations — The World. RUPTURES A SPECIALTY, Vultures are always found hovering over carrion; buzzards fly over and about where rot is thickest and loudest; gossips and slanders abound where scandal is uppermost. This world, my beloved, is full of people who live and wax fat in slandering other people ; their happiest hour is that in which most wretchedness reigns, the result of their evil tongues. The devil smiles most when the righteous go wrong and so do the depraved among mankind rejoice when a good man or a good woman falls down. These are dealers in ruptures — they make ruptures a specialty. Why the good Lord ever created these people is something we cannot comprehend ; why these dealers in ruptures are ever permitted to live to worry and annoy the decent among the great human family, is beyond our comprehension and yet they exist, they thrive, they prosper. Indeed they are uppermost in the affairs of this life. As we look back over a few years, we are tormented beyond expression. We have encountered obstructions; we have bumped up against reverses; who have played to hard luck. We have seen the sunshine turn black in an hour; we have waded through floods and battled with the waves and storms of life and have seen many a proud and haughty family hum- bled to the dust and these have all been the goods delivered by those who make ruptures a specialty. We have seen bright and happy homes transformed into sepulchers;. we have seen popular men and women converted into frozen pillars; we have seen the rich reduced to poverty and the poor elevated to positions of wealth and power; we have seen men die and their widows and children "splurge" on the life insurance; we have seen the tears of widows and orphans make wide rivers upon which the profligate sail happily. We have seen society break up homes; and we have seen the recep- tion and the breakfast and the tea bust up many a family circle and thus furnish fuel for the dealer in deformities and ruptures. We have seen men and women abandoned for other men and women; we have seen mansions torn down and other homesteads erected in their steads; we have seen young men and innocent children made prominent figure heads -in notorious scandals; we have seen the children of rulers — of leaders, going from store to store seeking employment; we have seen the wives of wealthy merchants, earning a poor living, clerking in stores — acting as 26 MEDITATIONS OV TWENTY YEARS. cashiers or clerks, and we have seen low down, ignorant porters in our stores grow and prosper and become leaders in the business community. We liave seen the sons and daughters of rich and influential citizens be- come ordinary drudges in the family; we have seen the lofty humiliated and the lowly exalted; we have seen the rotten and corrupt among the human family made leaders of "society" and the worthy and just reduced to the lowest levels. We have seen people who once possessed that pearl of great price — a good name, who would sacrifice all for a few dollars' worth of trade; we know men and women who have invaded other homes only to break them up, who are this day more resi)ec(ed in the conmnmity than arc the men and women who have lived true and faithful and honor- able and virtuous lives all their days. We know men and women who have stolen in and sneaked away the love and affection of the husband and the wife and we can now look back over the wreck and the ruin wrought. There may be a future — a pimishment — a penalty for all the sorrow inflicted on this eartli and we hope from the bottom of our heart there is, but somewhow or other it seems, it looks to us that the villain — the rascal, the ungrateful, the deceiver and the fraud had a corner on all of this life's afTairs and they who best succeed, so it seems, are those who make rup- tures a specialty. '* THIS ^ERE AND THAT AIR/' When you come to think about it the people of this world arc a queer lot. We all act queer, do queer things and we are queer and peculiar in all sorts of ways. One man and one woman do things that they heartily condemn in another man and woman. We find fault with other people for doing just and only what we do ourselves. We criticise the acts and habits and customs of our neighbors and forget seemingly that we have these very same faults ourselves. We arc pleasant and angry; happy and sad; we love and hate; we succeed and fail; we are generous and stingy, and so we all go through life. It's "this ere and that air." When we are children we think our lot a hard one. We are greatly disappointed when our parents refuse us the little things of this life, but great Scott, how gladly we would go back to those childish days after reaching the estates of men and women. We often think how peculiarly are we all constructed. Some how or other things don't fit; there are many loose joints in all our lives; there are crevices and cracks that we cannot, do not fill. Some of us arc rich and too stinking mean to enjoy our wealth; some of us are poor and we possess a constant desire to do something for the benefit of man and womankind. Those of us who would do good have no money and those who care nothing for the unfortunate among the human family are lousy with boodle. Those of us who would do good with our money haven't got any and those who wouldn't, have barrels full, and so we say that things are very much out of joint in this life we are doing our best to live. Some of us who spring from nothing, from nowhere, are all of a sudden lifted up to the top of life's great ladder and some of us who have a noble, patriotic inheritance are rolled over and over in the mud of society and business. People occupy high and honorable positions all over this country who are not entitled to the honor that is being conferred upon them. We know people who belong to swell clubs who are socially and morally rotten; who hang around theaters and flirt with the ballet; who arc full every night; who have inflicted untold misery on their own families by their dissipation and neglect. They have run through thousands of dol- lars of their father's money and yet wear good clothes and train in re- putable circles, who, if they had what justly belong to them and what 28 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. they have earned, would be in the chain gang doing street work. It's "this ere and that air." We don't know how it is but it seems as though things were out of joint, but whether it is always the fault of individuals or not we are not prepared to say. We know people who have tried awfully hard to make a successful "go" of this life and have failed, and we know others who have made no effort and have been pushed away up on top and this is dead wrong. People have been honored and praised who were utterly unworthy, and other people have been snubbed and neglected who were entitled to the highest praise. Dissipated men and women haye succeeded while the sober have failed ; those who have attended strictly to their business have seen their resources slip away from them year after year, while those who are grossly negligent of their business affairs are piling up dollars day after day, with no eflfort of their own There are scores of good, honorable but poor young men and women in every city and community who are especially fitted by nature to fill the highest places in social and business life, who are now, always were, always will be at the bottom. The more successful are using those people as door mats upon which to wipe their feet. Still, my beloved, don't g'ive up ; hang on ; you possess one thing sure, viz.: a personal knowledge of the fact that you are doing right, even though you are not a financial or commercial success. You possess that which the dishonorable among mankind would give all they were worth to possess, a clear conscience. It is not always the case that the men most solid financially are the happiest; it is not always the smiling face that covers a happy, light heart; it is not always the round and ringing laugh that tells the truth of the feel- ings under cover — that you cannot see ; it is not the cheerful appearance that always indicates happiness by a large, round majority; it is not the boaster who is the most prosperous; it is not the man with the best clothes who has the most money; it is not the braggart who makes the reliable citizen. We tell you, my beloved, things in this life are very much out of joint, they are not what they seem. The world is full of shams and frauds and humbugs and you cannot depend upon your nearest friends, as a rule, in cases of emergency. Be good and true to yourselves; do what is best for your own personal good and for the good of your own families; do not anticipate the friend- ships of those whom you are pleased to call friends; do not waste your precious moments in figuring on a future. Take things just as you find them; make the best of everything you have; do not expect anything / MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 29 and this is the only way you can save yourselves from bitter disappoint- ments, for this whole life, when you come to sum it up, is a contmued series of loves and hates; successes and failures; hopes and fears; sun- shines and storms; pleasures and pains scattered all the way through each and every life — it's "this ere and that air." RICH WITHOUT MONEY, Many a lunii is rich witlunil money. Tliousands of men with nothings in their pockets, atul thousands withont even a pocket are rich. A man honi with a i;oo(l, sotuul constitnticMi, a good stomach, and a good heart and tj-ood limbs, a pretty good head piece, is rich. Good bones are better than gold, tongh nnisdes than silver, and nerves that flash fire and carry energy to every fnnction are better than houses and l;nuls. It is better than a landed estate to have the rigiit kind of father and mother. Clood breeds and bad brcetls exist amtMig men as really as among herds and horses, luhication may do nmch to check evil tendencies or to develop good ones, bnt it is a great thing to inherit the right proportitMi of facnl- ties to start with. The man is rich who has a gi)od dispositicm, who is natnrally kind, patient, cheerful, hopeful, and who has a flavor of wit and fun in his composition. The hardest tliiug to get on with in this life is a man's own self. A cross, sellish fellow, a despondent and complaining fellow, a limitl and care-burdened man, these are all born deformed on the inside. They do not limp, but their thoughts do. Wlu\ among the intelligent wcndd take a rich man's gold if his with- ereil limbs went with it? Who would aceei>t riches coupled with organic, hereditary diseases? Who woifld take as a gift a private box in the safety vaults fdleil with rich secm-ities if deformity of body and mind went with it. Ah, my beloved, lots of you are rich but you don't know it. But what will riches ni>t do. We know men who have married women who were mentally and physically deft>rmed, merely and only because they were rich and they are going through life childless, yet with barrels of money. Piieir lumies are fine and are filled with all that art and science can produce, yet you hear no sweet voic<" of children, nor the pat- ting of children feet upon the velvet that covers the floor of these elegant homes. Yes, indeetl, the possessor of a good liver is rich; they who can eat and sleep are rich ; those who are physically whole are rich, though they have not one single dollar in this whole world. It is the custom, the habit of people to ct>m]ilain of their poverty, and even does this extend to those whose incomes they cannot spend, so large is it. We find fault with something or somebody every day and say if we only were rich, how very dift'erent would even'thing be, and, while thus complaining we never for one moment express our thanks for the strong minds and bodies we arc MKDITATIONS OF TWIONTY VKARS. 31 arryinp around with us every clay. Rich without numey- <• s of us .uc, ^it we don't know it, don't appreciate it, yet we are noh just the sanu '"oT^hat earthly .cod is money-riches to one defonned to ..e w. .^^^^ and twisted with diseases, to one deaf or dund, or hhnd. W^^'^ ^^^^ does nu,ney do a ,nan drawn out of shape with Ihe vanous ,1 hat the ; : n:sh is heir to and yet half the people of the wor 1 w<>uM 1. cj^n^ wilhu^^ to assun.e all these disagreeable defortnU.es of hfe for the ni herilance of a fortune. How do you account for it? cll health, a strong, well balanced mind; a iK.dy free f--^^-- ; ;;;^ aihnents is a fortune to any man or wo.nan. When P'^y-- ; ^ >^ - overtake the luuuan fanuly it's a good tlung to be possessed of the n es sary dollars to buy relief. Money is a good tlung to seeure u.auy <.f he s pleasures, but good health is vastly belter than riches an earth are useless, but, a wise creator, evidently knew his business when he maimfaelmrd all of these vari()us thinj;s. b'or ex- ample, we can sih- no use f(»r the snake or moscinito, but thini^s were made for some pfood pmpose and because we i\o not uiuU'rstand this piu'pose, is our misfortmie. So, perhaps it is that amonjif life's hnnian family there are people who are beyond oiu- understandiufjf. There aie born every year, swindlers and frauds and liars aiul they g'o abiutl doiu};' all the harm they can. h'or example, take a rawboned, ugly woman j^ossip. She goes from Jiouse to house with her scandal, her lies, and she continues this thing mitil she plays herself out then she goes to prohibition Iowa or some other state and opens up her "vials of wrath" on an innoci-nl and imsus- pecling comnumity, with the same result. It lakes si>me time to "get onto" this scandal monger set, but we ^\o it fast and llu-n Ihi-ir inlluence is gone in our midst. ()f all the crimes on the calendar, we hold that ingratitude is the worst. We have kiu)wn pi'ople before now who, while accepting yoiu" hos- pitality were going from house to lu>usi" defaming yonr character. These hell cats Im-ned loose on a ei)nnnunily. have made many enenues; they have caused imfavorable opinitms; they have worried ymi and brought Wpon you shame and mortilication. ^\>t what are you going to do about it? These infamous gossips have had their say and yon must wait for the "natural order of things" to regulate matters. But gossips who an- goviMiied eithei- by malict^ ov cmii^sitv. are always dangerous ami to steer away frtMU them slK>uld be our daily aim. The man or woman who windil repeat his or her information for his or her own benefit or protil is a fraud and a humbug and all respt-ctable people should slum them. We have sulTered at the hands of these gn^.ssips and have wailed vears iov mailers io right ihem.selve.v Hut a life of correctness will win in the MEDITATIONS OK TWENTY YEARS. 33 end, and no matter how black yon arc painted by the f^'ossips, the rosnlt will be in your favor by and by if yon do ri^ht. Every now and then yon will hear that a man who has hitherto walked in paths of pleasantness and peace has gone to the devil. Well, you shudder a conple of times and pretend to feel sorry, bnt all the while you have your eye on the gad-about, gossipinj^' wife of this ])oor devil who simply grew weary of his burdens and lay down on the wayside and died. The lost soul is at rest and the gossi]">ing wife who drove the husband to drink and death is still alive, sealtering"_I".er venom abroad throughout the land. She is universal — her name is legion and she aliounds everywheri" on the earth. All the day and all the night yi)U can see the elTects of the burning, blighting, withering results of this ugly gossiping vvoman's venomous tongue. Headstones mark graves all over this world thai coiUain the bones of men driven into these graves, by the neglect of homes while the wives were abroad .sowing .seeds of malice and discontent among a whole com- munity. CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES. There is perhaps no one thinLi; more than another that will stininlate a man or woman to strive for some eovetod prize, more than that trained by daily experience. Every man and woman on this earth is fitted ftir some one special tiling^ more than another. Some oi ns are destined to till high and honorable positions and some of ns to i'lll the low and dishonorable places in life. Some of lis are destined to be rich in this world's goods and some so poor that we can scarcely live. Some of ns become pillars in the church and some get tired out of the church for our dissolute conduct. Some of us wear puiple anil fine linen and some arc clothed in rags and tatters. Some of us are lucky and some arc the reverse of this. Some are for- tunate in all of the affairs of life and some directly the opposite. Some of us sliile into an association with the aristocratic and the learned and cultured and some flounder around in social sloughs and are covered all over with social filth, and yet it is not always the most worthy who occupy the high places nor the most unworthy who occupy the low positions. Circumstances alter cases. We have known some of the ver}^ best men on earth to sink way down in business and society who were once way ui>, and, my beloved, there was some good reason for it. Men of standing, of brain, of ability, swim along smoothly for many years and then all of a sudden quite unexpectedly, you see them flounder- ing in the greatest depths of despair. They know the cause, but you do not. You therefore censure them when they are entitled to and should have your entire sympathy — your pity, your respect. l\len often in this life labor for years in a mental way to accomplish a certain thing and then after all these years of anxiety, sorrow, trouble, they finally capture what they were after only to find they have got nothing after all, and the rest of their lives is spent in regret and humilia- tion. Men often bait their hooks and throw them into the stream. Their visions of big fish is great and by and by they get a bite, they pull and catch that which torments them the remainder of their lives. We have known men right here where we write who were good, true and noble. They were popular with their fellow men, they were re- peatedly selected to fill high and honorable offices of this land. Every where they went you found sunshine in their faces and their very presence MEDITATIONS OF TWKNTY YEARS. 35 was the sij,mal for the j;-Hstenin<:: of the brij^htcst rays of Hpi'ht. These men lived to the glory of us all and yet one morning they have been found dead in their beds with a bullet hole through their heads, and the whole city mourned. My beloved, there was something of a private nature worrying those poor men. In the midst of all their apparent pleas- ures there was some secret trouble eating into their vitals and before it reached the fatal sjiot they killed themselves, and then their former friends wondered why. Circumstances alter cases. The fact is, my beloved, that men do not receive the crelit due them for their many good (lualifications; the good things they do pass un- noticed without compliment, while the bad is telegraphed by a thou- sand tongues all over the world. People as a rule are only too glad to circulate the evil things done by humanity while very slow in speaking of their good deeds, and this is why the great poet said that the evil men do lives after them, while the good perishes with their bones; and that's right, they do. One now days can vScarccly meet any crowd of people, socially, either at home, in the office, at the hotel, on the train, anywhere, but that the conversation drifts at once into gossip or scandal. It seems to be epi- demic, and yet if you will notice carefully you will see that it's always the uncultivated, the ignorant, the common people, who give the greatest cir- culation to social dissipations and evils. We tell you, dearly beloved, that when a good man goes wrong, there is something behind it all that explains matters, and it ought to serve as an apology for such men, but it rarely does. The wrong is at once con- demned by almost everybody — the cause or causes leading to the wrong are never discussed or even thought of, and so it is that circumstances alter cases. If people would only learn to compliment men for their good deeds and performances and never speak of the bad ones, this great people would all be happier, more contented and more full of the pleasures of this life than the best of us now are. But this is a difficult lesson to learn, and generations have come and gone, and still the lesson is not learned, and possibly never will be; but we still live in hopes that there may be a great reform in all humanity by and by, and if it ever does come you will not have so many opportunities to quote our Sermon that "Circumstances Alter Cases." HE WHO HAS A FRIEND FINDS A TREASURE. A friend, a real, true, good friend, is something to admire, be proud of — almost worship. A friend is better than all the relations in the whole world. A friend is of more value to a man than any other single blessing we can name. There are many called, but few chosen when the matter of a true friend is considered. Scores of people daily profess to be your friend, but when you try them you find how woefully you were in error. Scores of people are loud in your praise when with certain crowds, but they are first to de- nounce you when with a gang entertaining opposite views. Scores of people say pleasant things about you only when they have reason to be- lieve that their sayings will be repeated to you. Had they not so believed their pleasing speeches would have been unspoken. "A friend in need is a friend indeed," is an old rhyme which means much and is quite true ; for if there is ever a time in this world when a man needs a friend, it's in the time of his great need and dire necessity. Then a friend develops into just what he professes to be. To some of this world's people we take kindly, even before we have €ver met them. We have formed an opinion of them, somehow or other — just how we cannot explain, but it's a good opinion we have of them. Then, there are others, to whom we have never spoken a word, whom we naturally dislike or despise, and for the life of us, we cannot intelligently answer why. Nature is a genius, and it has provided all mankind with a trade-mark which cannot be counterfeited. The sneak and outlaw and hypocrite are branded by this nature as with a red-hot brand of iron. Their mugs tell us of their character the moment we look at them, and among such as these we never look for a friend, unless, perchance, we are of this stripe ourselves, and then we bunch together as do hogs in a distillery pen in cold weather. A prosperous man — one with the sunshine streaming in at the windows of his life, has no special use for friends. To be sure, they are conven- ient to have in the house, like a shoe-buttoner, but he has no real need of them. When a man is making money and piling away his dollars as rapidly as he accumulates them, he has no need of friends. When a man is courted and flattered and petted and sought after by this world's people he has no need for friends. When everything comes his way and MEDITATIONS OK TWENTY YEARS. 37 no clouds arc to be seen; vvlicn his crops n])cn and his stock fattens and flourishes; when l)e has no (lel)ls hoverinf^ over him to weigh him down; when his family are gathered abcnit him and he surveys his smiling, happy domestic circle, he cares nothing for friends. Or, in his later life, when he sees his children happily married and with little families of their own growing up about them, he cares not then for friends. Ikit by and by, when floods and famine and calamity overtake such hitherto hai)])y people, then it is that friends come handy. When his home is broken up by disasters over which he could ejcercisc no control; when the "profits" of his jjusiness figure up on the side of loss; when his cro]is fail and his hogs drop all over the farm with cholera; when Inuniliation and disgrace stare him in the face; when overwhelmed by debt; when his children go wrong; when his plans and schemes miscarry; when bad habjls overcome him; when he totters vvitli inebriation or shakes from opium or morphine; when lie finds himself the only responsible en- dorser on tile note ui a busted companion; these, boys, are the times when a man needs friends. If they come to the fr(jnt at such times they are friends indeed. Do not believe everything men tell ycm about their true, real, lasting friendship, for there are many great liars in this world, as, no doubt, many of our congregation have already found oul. The Iwangelist can look back twenty-five years and see men to-day who professed ardent friendslii]) for us, who were only hypocrites of the deepest dye. And we can also see others whom we shall never fcjrgct for their great kindness to the homeless l)oy in those early days. We have had the j)leasure of helping some of the latter in their later lives. Some are dead and g(jne, but their memcjry will be c ver cherished by us, and the renmants of their families we hold in marked esteem. Some ])layed us successfully for a sucker, and we, like a iool, swallowed ho(^k, bait and line, and when it came to the test of their friendshi]), they were gone — went out to "see a man." It has cost us a goodly number of dollars, but we have learned something — it has helped us j)reach our sermons, which we hope will steer others away from the deceptions and treachery of pre- tended friends. The world is full of this and some of the frauds practiced on gullible humanity are infamous, humiliating, outrageous, but still it goes on. So long as suckers breed, they must be fed, and we nourish vampires, think- ing them angels; we cultivate social outlaws of both sexes, because we believe them good and true and pure. We have been imposed upon, and those engaged in the imposition are profes.sed christians, sometimes, and so our faith is shaken in all mankind. But there are good, honest, true men and women in this world, and 58 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. many Of them. People whose acquaintance is a credit ;.nH ^ :■ LEACHES. There are many other kinds of leaches in this world besides those the physician puts under your black eyes to suck away the blood. There are leaches in human form, who cling to you like the natural blood- suckers, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof. There are people all around you who are shiftless and lazy; people who will not do any manner of work in support of themselves. They are related to you, perhaps, in some manner, and you carry them from day to day and year to year. Some of these leaches dress well, they hang around the hotels and bar rooms; they pick their teeth and clean away therefrom the food that has cost you money. Some of them keep loaded half the time on your money, and they dwell on the fact that some of their relations, fifty or more years ago were senators or other public, prominent men. Every city in this land has its full quota of leaches — living of? the in- dustry of others. You know, and so do we, men who are existing year by year on the energy of their wives and children. These men never work, never have, never will. They are lost to shame, and the only morti- fication that exists is with the mortified faculties of these lazy, worthless men. There are leaches among the cultivated people who wear the finest of clothes, and whose persons are adorned with rich jewelry, who live from hand to mouth. They still cling to the old and past, when their circum- stances were different, and when they could afiford these luxuries — poor but proud in their poverty. There are leaches among the sports in all communities, and they hang round the saloons, waiting for the half-full decent man to come in and set 'em up, and they flock about the new-comer like flies at the bung-hole of a syrup barrel, and there they stand, all day and half the night, watch- ing and waiting for the man who is to ask them up to drink. There are leaches in the club and church, who always manage to get the best of everything, without cost to themselves. When pressed for a donation to some worthy object or person, they borrow the money of a friend and never repay the loan. These are the genteel-shoddy, whom you always have with you, and everywhere. There are leaches among the employes of the store and factory, who always share the good things of their associates, but always escape pay- 40 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. ment of their proportion of cost. There are leaches everywhere, built just like decent people, and you can only distinguish them by contrast, by experience. We had a visitor once from the East, and when it came time to return home, the money to buy the passage ticket was borrowed from us. That was twenty years ago, and the money has never been repaid. Leach. We once advanced the money to pay the fine of a man to keep him from going to jail, and while that man was grateful with his jaw, he has never repaid us that money. Leach. A once comfortably situated family became poor some years ago, and we advanced the money to grub-stake them, and, although what is left of that family are now in good circumstances, they have never oflEered to reimburse us. Leaches. What has been our experience has been yours, everybody's, and it al- ways will be so. There is no use of any attempt at reform in this regard, for, when the Almighty brands a man or a woman a leach, that settles it; leaches they are, and will be, as long as they encumber the earth. There are leaches, as well, among apparently respectable people, as among the fraternity of dead beats; and every day they are spending money on themselves that ought to be applied to paying old debts. Peo- ple have no business to insult their creditors by elegant dressing and re- ceptions, but rather should make an endeavor to pay their debts by an honorable economy. There are leaches who are patiently waiting for the outlawing of their debts, and yet are, every year squandering more than enough money to square themselves with the world. It's the endeavor to be honest that gives the creditor faith; it's the honesty of purpose and intention, that gives a man credit among his fel- lows; it's the hard work, the industry of men that tells of his good inten- tions; with these he receives the encouragement of those to whom he is indebted. But to see great, strong, healthy men sitting around on their front porches at home, making no endeavor to get square with the world, is where you apply the term of which we spout to-day — leaches. WE ARE ALL HEADED ONE WAY, This world of ours is made up of many curious things and many queer and curious people; and, while we are all quite alike, and all things much the same, yet each and every matter of life is separate and distinct in itself. The aims and ambitions of all humanity is to succeed and prosper, es- pecially financially, in this life. Many of us have a choice as to how we accumulate riches, but we regret, exceedingly, to say, that there are very many, also, who are not over-scrupulous as to the means and methods employed to acquire wealth. Beyond this matter of getting money lies a knowledge of the fact that each and every moment, hour and day, we are all slowly, but surely, drifting toward the end. Day by day we see our friends falling all around us. Some are tum- bled into eternity with life half done, and its affairs half wound up; some are toppled over by old age — the machine has worn out; some take life and death into their own hands and end an existence that has proved a burden to them; some are worn and weary with struggle, and make a pillow of their burdens and plunge over the bank; some still cling to hope, and are manfully battling with adversities, with disaster, with hu- miliation, with disgrace, and, covering their eyes, they plow along, hoping at last to meet that promised reward. We are all headed one way. Life is full of harrowing, distressing scenes and incidents ; it overflows with tortures and discouragements; its allurements are various and many; its vicissitudes numberless; its disappointments are without end. One life is full of sunshine, another with gloom; one life is full of hope, an- other with despair; one life is bright and beautiful, another cloudy and hideous. i The real trouble with the people of this world is that they are improp- erly educated by those whom they employ to teach them. Orthodox clergymen will preach the Ten Commandments and ask you to implicitly believe everything contained in the Bible, regardless of sense, justice, humanity or reason; and yet, the Evangelist can point you to wrecks lying all around this world, who have always led blameless lives. We can show you men and women who have followed the teachings of holy writ all their lives, who are limping around on crutches and looking out of one eye. People whose hearts are heavy with sorrow; people whose estates have been wrecked by profligate sons and sons-in-law; people 42 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. who are even now on their knees, praying for children disgraced. We know scores of them — good, pure, pious people, who have led the most righteous lives, and are to-day hobbling along after a faith that has knocked them in the head already a hundred times. One man feels that course to be the only correct one, and another feels the reverse ; one man believes one thing, another something else; and yet, notwithstanding, we are all headed one way. If there is another life, we all want it, and we all will do our level best to secure it. There may be one, there may be a dozen, there may be none; no one knows ; but to be sure about it, let each of us follow the dictates of our own hearts, and we will not be far from right when the end comes. As we have often said before, this life we l^now all about; the other nothing; and so, all we, as a true teacher and preacher, can do, is to plead with our large congregation to do as near right as their abilities and capacities will allow them, and take their chances with the rest of us, for that which is said to be in store for us hereafter. We are all headed one way. There are scores of people in this very city who go to church and pray, and are called pious, and who say they are "going to heaven when they die." Well, all we have got to say is, that if some of them do reach that harbor of rest for the good, we shall ask our old friend, the devil, to pull the string and let us in where he reigns supreme. Bald-headed christians who have settled for ten cents on the dollar, are fooling themselves like thunder if they think for one moment that they will get a crown in glory. Fanatics who have bred trouble in society, in families, in neighborhoods, will come out the little end of the horn when eternity's roll is called. Ministers who have meddled in politics; those who have dabbled in scandal ; cranks who have destroyed the peace of mind of their fellow-men, will find their names on the wrong list when the judgment day comes 'round. Study to benefit humanity here, now, in this life; never mind the other one. Clothe the naked; feed the hungry; lift up those who have fallen; encourage the weak; pour your vials of oil over those whose hearts are wounded; pity the bum and look after his family; relieve distress wherever you find it, and that, too, before asking if the poor victim be- longs to the church. There are scores of breaking hearts near you to- night; try, and you can do great good in lightening some of them. There is much sadness near where you sit to-day; see if you cannot soften the sorrow a little. There is humiliation and disgrace, wretchedness and woe; there are those who are weaiy and heavy laden; give them a lift with the loads they carry; speak kindly, tenderly to those who are tor- mented and perplexed. Live a pure, good life, my friends, and we will bet all we can scrape together that you, and all who do as we have taught, MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 4» will receive all the glories and benefits of whetever reward there is for the good deeds done in the flesh. SCRAPS. The human life is entirely made up of scraps. It's a sort of crazy quilt, made out c)f many i)arts, each part not of nuich account by itself, but added to the rest, makes soiuclhing useful, something pleasing to look upon, to think about. And how very nnich alike is one life with another. Beginning with babyhood and going along through life in all its various stages, how very similar is one life with that of another! There may be a fate, a fortune that steers some lives to marked suc- cesses and others to utter failure. We know that some succeed while others fail. It is genius, it is luck, it is accident, that leads some of us just where we want to go, and others in an entirely different direction. What is it that makes the poor rich and the rich jioor? Why is it that a poor man is blessed with half a dozen children and the rich man has none? Why does accident always befall some poor devil who cannot afford to pay the doctor bills, and those rich who can, escape? Scraps. The lives each of us lead is made up of scraps — a little here and there. No matter who we are, nor what position we occupy in this life, we are all floating along life's river together, and our make-up is the same. The occupations of men and wcMucn are as curious as they are numer- ous. Each of us has, or should have, something to do. We choose our life's profession and follow it, and what suits one does not suit another. The editor looks at the preacher and wonders how the devil he can preach such stuff; how he can, year after year, spring his mouldy chest- nuts on his peo]">le for ]->ay; and the preacher looks with pity upon the editor, and wonders how he can be so luig'odly. Scraps. Sixty millions of people, and all of them doing something each anil every day! Some of these people are engaged in noble pursuits, and their lives are a credit to them, while others are following degrading callings, and are a discredit to those engaged in them. Scraps. The professional man, the merchant, the inventor, occupy one position and the racer of horses and the fighter of chickens and dogs, another; but they arc all busy at their respective trades. How skillfully does the doctor saw ofT your arm or leg, and just as skillfully does the con. man beat you out of your possessions — each understands his business. Scraps. The professional evangelist, going from town to town, exhorting the MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 45 people to flee from the wrath to come, is no more in earnest than the fakir with his scheme, and each is working his business for all there is in it. Scraps. The educated and scientific man associates, mingles with educated and scientific people, and the brute and bully is found with his kind. The good and pure are with others who are so constructed, and the burglar and thief flock with those of their sort. Each knows whore to find the other, and you will always find each class together. Scraps. We are all going up and down in life's scale every day. Those at the bottom are struggling to reach the top, and those on top are struggling to prevent a fall to the bottom. Scraps. This world is made up of all sorts of people — the good, the bad, the indififerent; and each is making the best use of time to further the inter- ests of his own desires. The good, as a rule, are growing better, and the bad growing worse, and we are all traveling a road that is built of scraps. A human being does not amount to much on this earth, anyway. He is here for a time, then gone and is never missed. His place is soon filled by some one else, and he goes through the same performance. Scraps. One lot of men are digging away in the bowels of the earth for coal, and another lot on top of the ground are burning it up. One lot of men are building houses, another set tearing them down. One lot are manufac- turing whisky, another set trying to prohibit its being made. One lot are rabid church people, and excessively pious, and another set are di- rectly opposite. One lot creates, another destroys; and so it is with this entire life. It is made up of scraps. If people only could realize it, they would see how idiotic, how foolish it is to quarrel, to gossip, to slander. But the Creator put these several qualities into people, and they must come out. A scandalmonger is so created. This is not something that can be acquired; it is natural. The slanderer is natural born, and all of these come from the ignorant. A woman may wear silks and satins and fine plumes, and still be a fool. A man may wear broadcloth, and rings on his fingers and still be an idiot. Scraps. And so is this world made up with the good and bad, the pure and im- pure, the educated and the illiterate, the saint and the sinner, the sober and the drunken, the honest and dishonest, rich and poor, sick and well^ whole people and those who are deformed, the truthful and the liar, the genuine and the counterfeit of these several materials is what the whole people are made of — scraps. HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT? Close observers of this world, its people and its affairs, arc mystified at the many peculiar things they see scattered all through this life. There is so much that is queer, strange, mysterious, that it bewilders us some- times and renders our life burdensome, because of the many things we cannot explain. We see a good, conscientious man, striving in every way to succeed in life. He is out of his bed early in the mornmg and he labors hard, far into the night. He is sober and industrious; he has no bad habits; he is gentle in his manner and kind in disposition ; he is popular with all the boys and yet he fails in everything he undertakes. Have you ever no- ticed that? When a man is seriously wounded in a railroad wreck, or falls through a hatchway, or tumbles off a ladder and breaks his bones, he is always one who is the sole support of a widowed mother and fatherless brothers and sisters. Have you ever noticed that? When a cyclone comes; when fire sweeps through a village or city; when local or general calamities come upon a people anywhere, its fullest force will be felt by those the least able to stand the loss. Have you ever noticed that? The most enterprising men of any community — men who invest their means in fostering public measures; in increasing public prosperity; in developing local resources; in advancing the best interests of a city, are the very ones who go all to pieces after awhile and die in poverty, in ob- scurity and in humiliation. Have you ever noticed that? Day by day men plan and scheme; they have ideas which they produce in tangible shape only to fall by the wayside, weary and worn out, to lie there helpless and see their pet devices developed and perfected by some one else. Have you ever noticed that? Men with shoulders that are bent, and hair that is white, stand idly by and behold their thoughts and ideas making other men who have no brains, rich. They see the lands they once owned, in possession of some one else ; they see their buildings the property of others, while they themselves are troubled in spirit over the problem of their next meal. Have you ever noticed that? Senators and governors and generals, men whose fame once filled this land, men, the mention of whose names was the signal for universal en- thusiasm ; men who played a brave part in the real play of life ; men whose MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 47 authority was absolute, whose commands and requests were law, have slipped from their high positions into places way down in the human scale and have become only ordinary among the general herd. Have you ever noticed that? Accidents have made men famous; calamities have developed riches; pains and punishments have changed men's lives and characters. Afflic- tions have softened hard hearts and hardened hearts that were once as tender as a woman's. Circumstances have changed good men to bad ones, and bad to good. Have you ever noti'^ed that? Generous, liberal, open-hearted and open-handed men and women have lost their wealth and the power it gave them for doing good, while the stingy human hog, rises higher and higher in public esteem. Have you ever noticed that? Men, who have piled up brick and mortar in our cities ; men who were commercial kings; men who were always at the head and front of all public enterprises, have been crowded out and their places filled by little, trifling creatures, with wee, small souls, who only lack bristles on their necks to make them hogs, and this is true as well of one locality as an- other. Have you ever noticed that? Intelligent men, kind-hearted, affectionate men; men who are indus- trious and economical; men whose sympathies are keen and whose love for humanity is great, are ridiculed and burlesqued by a gang of ignorant but lucky creatures, who have prospered in some mysterious way. Have you ever noticed that? Liars and hypocrites and frauds, and those who are irresponsible and dishonest, meet success at every turn of fortune's wheel, while the truthful, the true and the reliable, encounter misfortune and disaster at every turn. Have you ever noticed that? The saint is punished, while the sinner thrives; the bad are prosperous, while the good are unsuccessful; ignorance is rewarded, while cultivation is pushed one side; the licentious are elevated, while the virtuous are cast down; the meek and lowly follower loses his possessions, while the thug and the bum flourish like a green bay tree; men of massive intellects are depend- ent on the cold charities of a cruel world, while the idiot and the fool live in grandeur and rule the roost. Have you ever noticed that? GET THERE. If the people of this big, bright world should stop to kick out of their pathway every banana peel that falls; if they should roll away every ob- struction; if they should sit in the comer and mourn and worry over things they cannot avoid ; if they should whine every time an enemy lit into them; if they should grow light-headed and faint-hearted over every reverse; if they should sit idly around, waiting for that "something" to turn up, the moss and mold would grow over and about them and these people would be buried from sight. There is no life that is wholly free from care, responsibility, annoyance and trouble; there never was, never will be; and yet, the average of man- kind "pulls through" somehow or other. Once in awhile we find some weak-minded brother who falls under his heavy load and shoots a bullet into himself or hangs himself to a rafter in his barn. Now and then we find some frail sister who is afflicted beyond her power to endure, and she hops into the river and eternity. But the mass, the majority of all mankind, nerve themselves to carry their load, no matter how heavy, how humiliating, how degrading, how severe. There is scarcely a day in the week but that all mankind bumps up against some trial; but that something occurs to perplex them; either about their homes, their children, their business or their social affairs. It would prove too difficult a task to enumerate these troubles and trials, and so we leave each and every one of our congregation to his or her own. The great Creator of us all, fashioned us differently. There are no two of us alike. We neither act nor think alike; our modes, methods, habits are not alike; our customs, our ideas, ovir impressions, our fancies, our desires, our pleasures are wholly unlike ; and so, it is not remarkable that we should differ; that we should quarrel; that we should laugh and weep and rejoice and worry over the funny and serious affairs of the life we live. We believe that people are born just what they are, and the deviltry of the child means the villainy of the man. We are led to believe that people become vicious and corrupt and bad, by their associations, but we do not believe it. We believe that every bad man and woman has badness in their blood, and that they as naturally drift toward corruption as the water of a river flows oceanwards. We do believe, however, that with MIOnrPATlONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 49 proper care, a i)roper j^^uard of children, naturally inclined toward evil, can be restrained, and possibly saved at last, and we therefore believe in exerting- ourselves in this direction. We think that children properly and carefully reared, will never entirely forget their early training, no matter how depraved they may become in their after lives; and so we would impress upon every parent the absolute necessity of making their children see and understand that they must not allow themselves to be- come discouraged at every ill wind that may blow across their path. Tell them that the world is big, and broad, and lOng, and that they stand an equal show with the rest of ''getting there," if they apply themselves. It's humiliating to be poor, and yet our richest men to-day were once pinched by poverty. Their opportunities were no better than yours. They educated themselves; they clothed and fed themselves, and all this time were laying the foundation of their wealth. They were obstinate and determined and "got there." Each and every young man and woman of to-day, who is struggling for their mere living, may as well be free and independent in their later lives as any who have preceded them. The roads are no rougher now than when the successful men trudged over them, laboring with their heavy burdens. The clouds are no darker to the young man and woman of to-day, than they were years and years ago, when your fathers and mothers started on their journey of life together, and they "got there." The trials and torments and worries and perplexities of those who have been successful were no more severe than are yours to-day. The anxieties, the responsibilities, the cares, were as numerous and varied in those earlier days as now, and yet, see how honest toil and faithfulness has been rewarded — these earlier ones "got there." The Evangelist was "picked at," and lied about, and belittled, and snubbed, from the first day he left a broken home to seek a fortune for himself in the West. We have bumped u]) against all the calamities in this calendar; we have been badly advised; been the victim of selfish, disreputable and dishonest people ; we have had shocks ; we have encoun- tered every storm of life, and have been washed by treacherous waves, while clinging to a forlorn hope; we have builded our castles in the air and have seen them disappear; we have been deceived by life's mirage, and gone far out of our way, chasing the unreal ; we have laughed and wept; we have clung to hope desperately; we have danced and paid the fiddler his price; we have used red paint, and it has taken years to re- move its stains from our soiled garments; we have been tossed about in the ocean of life, and our frail boat seemed almost ready to sink; but it didn't; and, my friends, during all these varied experiences, we have never lost our determination to "get there." 50 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. Our life, young man, is only what you may expect yours to be. You will encounter the same violence; you will rub against the same peo- ple who will ridicule your subordinate positions and make fun of your carefully studied projects; you will be discouraged by those you thought your friends; you will receive bad advice; you will be the victor once, and the next trip the victim; you will have your joys and sorrows; your fun and your moments of serious thought; you will find tliat same old man with his huge boot to kick you out in the same old way, if you tarry too long with his favorite daughter at the gate; you will find that same old woman, who will pick up your highly perfumed notes with the tongs; you will find the same old sister ready with the same old story of your poverty and dissolute habits, and your general unfitness for anything that is exalting and pure and good; the same spies will dog your footsteps by day and by night, ready and anxious to report your evils and suppress your virtues; you will encounter the same rough edges, the same diffi- culties, the same obstacles, the same oppositions; but, my young and earnest, struggling friend, stiffen your neck, harden your heart, push ahead regardless, and if you heed not the treachery and baseness of the human family, your name is Eli, and you willtzet There. BIRDS OF A FEATHER. Have you, clear people, ever paid any attention to the subject of our Sermon to-day, "Birds of a Feather?" If not, from now on do so, and you will see how very true it is that birds of a feather do flock tog-ether. You may go anywhere and you will see men of the same tastes and dispositions, the same customs, manners and habits, the same instincts, all friendly with one another. Mean and stingy men flock together; wicked and vicious men all flock together; corrupt and licentious men flock together. They gather at common resorts and together they discuss the interesting features of the day — interesting to them, but to no one else. They are well posted regarding all the things they wish to sneak away from, and they are never caught. The loafer knows every resort where the free lunch is served, and he and his kind are there to fill up on the soup, but to spend no money with the house. The masher knows all the girls who can be flirted with in safety, and he compares notes with his fellows, and they all flock together, because they are of the same feather. There is in every community certain cliques, certain people who are sorted out as one would sort an article of trade. The one may be de- pended on to assist in any and all things that are suggested for the public good ; the other is known as a hog, and will do nothing to assist anything or anybody that is good. Every community contains people who are recognized as the leading, moving spirits of that community, and also another class who are known as obstructionists — who are always on the wrong side; always pulling the wrong way; you will find everywhere great, big-hearted people, who make thqse around them happy by their own cheerfulness, and at the turn of the wheel, you find the cold and selfish human beast, with no sympathy, no love, no thought for any but themselves. This world, though, could not "go," were it not for the fact that all sorts, all kinds of people were turned loose in it. We are mingling to- gether every day — each feather, each kind, flocking together; and yet, unfamiliar with each other. None of us know the secrets of the other, and yet we flock together, each kind by itself. There is something in nature that seems to provide for the lacks, the wants of others, and so are we all provided for. Floating around in so- ciety to-day, here and there and everywhere, are men and women who 52 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. ought to be in jail or under the sod. Murderers, forgers, seducers, sail- ing in your midst under false colors. Men who have committed the foulest, the vilest of crimes, are to-day walking in respectable circles among respectable people; but among the crowd is one who knows that the bird has strayed from his kind and is not where it should be. We know a man who is in a prominent trade to-day and hundreds of our readers have bought goods from him, who, a few years ago, killed a man in a little city hard by. He was arrested and tried and acquitted, but our readers could never imagine who it is; and yet he butchered a fellow-being a few years ago. You mingle with such people every day, but do not know their history. Go with us to any hotel, any public place, here at home or anywhere else, and you will see birds of a feather flocking together. They sit at the same table; they hug the same post in front of the hotel; they tell and laugh at the same sort of a story ; they belong to the same lodge and are the same in every way, brains and habits and character. A few years ago, some of these airy fools were being educated and fed by the mission schools of the church. They were absolutely sup- ported by the christian charity of the church to which their parents be- longed, and see how natural it is for them to flock with their kind. Money may give people position; it may give them place and power, but it cannot give them brains; it cannot give them intellect; and not- withstanding the fact that their rooms are handsomely furnished; that they board at the leading hotels, you will notice that they are not social favorites. Cultured society does not crave their presence; intellectual circles has no use for them. They are looking and seeking to flock with their own kind. They are birds that are looking after other birds of their own feather. Now and then men and women stray away from themselves and get into other flocks , but nature comes to the rescue and they are discovered and driven out and back into the flock from whence they came — into the flock whose part and parcel they are, and so it is that, go where you may, you will always find, that the subject of our Sermon is true, and that "birds of a feather do flock together." ONE WAY AND ANOTHER. The study of life, in its various shapes, is a most interesting one to those who are observers, and if people would more generally study life as ex- ampled by the human family, it would greatly improve the race; it would make us all more sympathetic, more kind, more forgiving. It would teach us that things are not what they seem, by a very large majority. It would let us into the inner lives of people; it would reveal to us their sorrows, their pains, their frailties. It would show us good reasons for many of the queer and peculiar performances of the people. It would teach us to apologize for the acts and deeds of men and women. It would reveal to us full explanations for the methods and bearings of the great human family. But where one person studies life and its repre- sentatives, ten thousand pay no attention to it. The great masses of people are on the lookout all the while only for themselves. They care nothing for the successes or the failures of other men and women. They are only interested in themselves, and so we are a great nation of selfish mortals, tumbling through the world each on the alert for himself, for herself. There are in this life as many peculiarities, as many characteristics, as many methods, modes and dispositions as there are people, and so it is not strange that we are disagreeing, quan-eling and at continual war with each other all the while. It is not at all strange that we have enemies ; that we envy and are jealous. It is not to us strange that cranks are multiplying every year and hypocrites are becoming more and more nu- merous; and, until people learn to put up with insolence, with slights, with the malice of his neighbors and acquaintances, we shall always dis- agree and be in trouble. The professed christian is not always what he pretends to be, and he or she has vices within themselves that are more numerous and hurtful than in others whom they condemn so severely. The churchman looks with horror upon the profession who earn their living on the stage, and yet upon the boards you can find people who outrank many of those who are assailing them. We know wee little tots, five, seven and ten years of age, who are earning a living for their fathers and mothers and the whole family. Little innocent girls and boys, who know no wrong, who are supporting disabled fathers handsomely by their cute performances on the stage, and yet the whole church is making war on even these little 54 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. ones because of their ways of life; but we cannot all think and act one way, and there is the difference. Gamblers live by that profession. They make no secret of it, and there is just the same space allotted to them on this earth as to the most gifted anion"- the clergy. The world is full of people who make their living racing horses — they do nothing else. They simply go from one race track to another, betting, winning and losing their money, and these peo- ple have got just as much right to be on earth as any other man, and yet thousands disapprove of their ways of life. Pleasure gardens run all day Sunday and great crowds of people pat- ronize them, enjoy themselves and harm no one, and yet other thousands vehemently condemn all of these pleasures ; but we cannot help it. Each faction has the right to be, to do, to act, to think as best pleases his fam- ily and the rest ought in no way to interfere. Thousands of men and millions of dollars are employed each and every year, in the manufacture and sale of beer and whisky. Thousands of peo- ple drink it after it is made and feel secure and satisfied, while other thousands of rabid prohibitionists are using their every endeavor to piievent the manufacture, sale and use of both malt and spirits. Both classes believe their way to be the best, and each is doing their level best to maintain their side of the question, and each fighting the other all the while. Clubs are maintained all over the country, where the membership gather and suck their toddy and play cards, and in this way enjoy them- selves, while on the outside are other people who condemn the club and the members in measured terms. One firm prints bibles and testaments, while another grinds out playing cards. One firm prints tracts, another makes dice boxes. One firm makes priestly robes, another builds clothes for actors. One firm makes the service for the communion table, another makes the furnishings for bar rooms. One firm builds costly altars for our elegant cathedrals, another the furniture for our saloons; and so we find everything all the while. We are all busy one way and another. SPENDING AN EVENING. There are many and various ways of doing that of which we preach this day, and, no doubt, it was so ordained to accommodate the many and various inchnations and tastes of this world's people. Spending an evening is just what we make it. We can spend an evening pleasantly, or we can make it one of torment; but to spend one pleasantly we must cater to the tastes of those whom we would please. If a man could do at his neighbor's home exactly what he would do if he was at home, many a pleasant evening could be spent — neighbor with neighbor, friend with friend. But the trouble is that when one man makes a social, evening call upon another, he is called upon to do so en- tirely different from what he would do if he were at home, that the "pleas- ant evening" becomes a bore and a nuisance, and we do not "hanker" after many of them. Suppose, for an example, that a man smokes his cigar at home, if he could do this in his neighbor's home he would be glad to avail himself frequently of a pleasant evening with his friends and neighbors; but, un- fortunately, his friends are not smokers — not "onto" your desires, and the result is that you sit through the entire evening waiting only for the hour to arrive when you can "get out of there" and light your cigar. What "might have been" a pleasant evening was a bore — a patience tester — an infernal nuisance, and you will be very careful not to get into such a trap again. Well, this is one picture. Another is the home that is managed by a fault-finding, petulent, scolding wife. Everything goes wrong; nothing is just right, and one fault after another is found, until the husband wearies of it, and so you will find him at the club, or sitting with his feet on the bar-room radiator, listening to the jokes and fun of the loungers there. As we write this Sermon, we see sixteen of this world's people. They pre of various ages, from the youth to the ma-i with gray hair and what are they doing? Let us see. There are three tables — four men at each table playing "high five" — that's twelve, three playing pool and one sits by the stove reading a paper — that's sixteen full grown, able-bodied, healthy, strong men "spending the evening," Ah 56 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. here comes four more men — ^they walk up to the bar, and, what is this we see — a bottle, so it is, a long, slim bottle with something brown in it and one man fills a small glass and the other four "take beer." They are, these four, spending an evening and we look at them and wonder if they do this because they have no other way of spending an evening, or because their homes are unhappy, or because they prefer this way to any other. As we sit and write this sermon, we look at these twenty people and speculate as to what prompts them to do what we see them doing and then we look back home to the little ones saying their prayers and wish we were there to hear them. We see life in all its various shapes. We see people of all sorts and kinds and the more we see the more confused we become, wondering at the hows and whys of life. We wonder why intelligent men can asso- ciate with the low and brutal ; why the head and front of a family can con- tent himself with high five, while sweet little children are kneeling in their cribs, saying the "now I lay me down to sleep," but, boys, there are more ways than one of spending an evening. HANG ON. We believe, that traveling as we do so many miles each month, and mingling as we do with so many people, that we see more of the inner lives of the human family, than others who remain at home. We see sights and hear tales that mean sorrow, suffering, trials and tribulations to hundreds. We see those who are discouraged, those weighed down with their heavy burdens; those who are discouraged at their ill fortunes; those who have lost their nerve — their grip and those who feel that life has no charm for them, but our advice to them all is — hang on. As we have often said, there are times when it seems that all is lost; that it is idle, useless to struggle further to keep up with the procession; that everything seems dark and forbidding — ^times when you are so blue ; when your friends even seem careless and when you feel it in your bones, that you had not one, in the face of this big globe — not one to whom you could turn in your discouragements, but hang on. Everything you undertake fails you. Others are successful but you are not; others clean up a profit each and every year but you get deeper and deeper in the hole, every time the three hundred and sixty-five days roll round. You cannot tell where the fault lies. You try just as hard as you ever did, just as hard as others do — but things continue to go wrong. Everything you touch turns upside down ; your speculations fail ; you are on the losing side of every game. You drop your stufif in any measure you calculated would prove to your advantage. But, my be- loved, hang on. It is indeed a long lane that has no turn. By and by your time will come and those who are rejoicing at your ill luck will themselves be bat- tling with adversity. Those who are now on top will be at the bottom. Those who are climbing life's hill rapidly will come tumbling down by and by and you will meet them coming down as you are going up. Hang on. You can see examples every day — all around you in proof of this. You know people who a few years ago, rode in carriages who are walking to-day. You know people who once had piles of boodle, who would to-day consider themselves rich if they had in their pants the price of a drink. People have been known to blow out their brains because they had fallen from lofty places — fallen from the rich and influential to the ordinary mortal, without power or influence; without one redeeming 58 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. feature left them to operate with, and the sti-ain is too much and so, in some lonely place they lie down to sleep. Such people though are cowards and ought to be severely condemned for shifting their burdens onto the shoulders of their wives and children; they should be con- demned for bringing disgrace upon their issue and yet they are to be pitied for their weakness. If we could have talked to these people with such heavy hearts, we should have advised them to hang on. If, when men are discouraged, they could bump up against some one — some good, true friend who would advise them. Some one to whom they could turn, unbosom themselves; some one to whom they could tell their troubles, it would, in many cases, relieve them, but unfortunately just at such a time, no one appears and another victim is numbered with the slain. But my beloved, there must be a change; there must come a time when you will receive a reward for your faithful endeavors. You cannot make us believe that the good are always to be tormented and the bad always rewarded. You cannot make us believe that the libertine and the scoun- drel will always succeed while the virtuous and the worthy are over-loaded with pains and penalties. You cannot make us believe that the rascal can always flourish while the honest among mankind are trodden under foot. We believe there will come a time, and that too, on this earth, when the pure and good, the honest, and industrious will be recognized and and prospered and the human beast driven to his corner, the contempt and the scorn of men. We believe that those guilty of crime wall be punished and the honest rewarded and we don't believe one will have to die either before receiving his reward or punishment. To those in torment now; to those in distress and trouble; to those in affliction and sorrow, to those blue and discour- aged, we have but one advice, one word, viz., hang on. It may come your way by and by — Hang on. ENEMIES OF SOCIETY. It is not always the men and women who wear the best clothes; who make the best appearance on the streets; who use the best language; who are the most entertaining, who make the best citizens, by a large majority. It is not the smooth and slick man and woman with a perpetual smile, who makes the best friend to tie to. It is not the plausible pleasant man who oils his hair and appears in immaculate linen who is the best among our people. It is not the genteel looking who are always genteel, nor is it the professedly pious who are sincerely so. We meet both men and women who look all right, who dress well, appear well, who speak well and yet are villains of the deepest dye and these are society's enemies. An enemy of society— the greatest enemy, is he who deceives you by his looks and manners. He or she is society's greatest enemy who pro- fesses what he or she is not. Society's greatest and most dangerous enemy is that man or woman who is sailing under false colors and we have them in every community. Everybody, everywhere has at times been grossly deceived in people. We have trusted them, confided in them, told them of our personal afifairs and they have violated the confidence we have reposed in them and used what we have confided to them for their own private ends. All of our readers before now have felt sorry for some poor unfortunate devil in trouble and you have extended your aid only to find how grossly you have been deceived. You have, ere this, recommended some man for a position — endorsed his application only to find out later that you have made the greatest mistake of your life in doing so. Men and women in the midst of their troubles have come to you and you have assisted them, only to be rewarded by their abusive tongues. Wc have, ourselves, before now, entertained people — given them the best we had in the house, only to hear, a few months later, that they had, even while our guests, lied to our neighbors about us. They were enjoying our hospitality and at the same time using what they heard and saw to our detriment. All of these are enemies of society. The wolf in sheeps clothing; the hypocrite; the deceiver; the humbug 60 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. and the general fraud are all society's enemies. If you know men and women to be thieves and liars, you can watch them ; if you know them to be dead beats and swindlers, you can govern yourselves in accordance with your knowledge and the actions of such people and not be injured by them, but when you look upon a man or woman as your friend, when you impart to them your secrets; when you tell them of your private affairs and then, later on, ascertain that they have used this confidential information for purposes of gossip, then it is that you mistrust all men and womankind — and all those who do these things, are enemies of society. We never could, nor do we yet, understand why these social frauds and deceivers are tolerated; why these are permitted to wreck friendships; destroy homes; poison minds; pollute the social atmosphere, and yet they do every hour in the day and every day in the week. It seems to us that there should be a limit to the influence of these imposters but there seems none and every hour and day these creatures are plotting their mischief, to the despair and sorrow of us all. There is no punishment for these destroyers of human happiness and peace; we nuist endure the painful results of their venomous tongues and yet we cannot but regret that the world is so full of these human reptiles of which wc preach to-day — enemies of society. FATE. Do you believe in such a thing as fate? Wc do and you would if you could .£iivc the time and attention to life's affairs that they deserve. We are entirely unskcptical ; we have-4jiO fears, no superstitions, and yet we are a firm believer in fate. We believe that in this world there must be a victor and a victim, and believing this we know one person must un- willingly play the role of the victor and one the victim. We believe that one man is born lucky and the next unlucky. The hicky man wins and the unlucky one loses every time. We are a firm be- liever in fate. All of us make our daily plans; we scheme and arrange affairs and fate changes thcni all. We believe that the man or woman who acts con- scientiously ; who docs what he or she believes to be right, will, one day, sooner or later, get to the front, providing fate does not interfere. If it does, throw up the sponge. Money makes power and power makes place, but notwithstanding this we would nuich prefer to stand in with fate to secure for us a good honest name among our fellow men, than to enjoy the applause of the rabble on general principles and have fate against us. Fate. What is it? What is this fate that deludes and de- ceives so many of the human family every hour in the day. It is a hidden something that is to favor one and discommode another. Is it con- trolled by wisdom or is it merely a happening — the result of accident? Is it a fate that naturally follows mankind, or is it the i)lunge in the dark let the results be what they may. We may fight as much as we ])lease, but, all the same, there is a sort of a fatality that persues all mankind. We may struggle; we may endeavor, but, there is something that pushes us forward or backward and so we go from day to day — from mile to mile, as we journey on through life. The Evangelist is a firm believer in fate. We are of those who believe in that of which we preach. We believe that the honest among man and womankind will be j^crsccutcd and the vile among mankind honored by the people as a whole. But there is one sure principle. Be decent yourself and accept any fu- ture that comes. Some of us may endeavor as much as we please, but all our plans will prove unavailing and the harder we try the farther we get from the object of our endeavors. ' 62 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. If we are in luck — stand in with fate, we may succeed without making scarcely any eflfort. If not, all our labor is lost. We know men and so do all who read these sermons, who are pure in body and mind, who are honest and their integrity has never been ques- tioned, who are to-day just where they were a quarter of a century ago. Nothing succeeds with them; everything they touch goes to pieces; every plan they make miscarries and always have. Why? Can any of our congregation tell? Again, you all know utterly corrupt men and women who prosper at every turn — who succeed in anything they undertake. While their bad morals are public property yet they are received by "society" and given a front seat, while the reputable man and woman — the honest and morally clean among man and womankind are crowded into life's dark corners, out of sight. Well, we cannot explain it, but our idea is that the mysterious some- thing of which we preach to-day, is at the bottom of it — Fate. EXAMPLE. My beloved did it ever occur to you that everybody is an example for some one else; did you ever stop to think that somebody was noting your every action, your every movement, your every speech and for the one jnn-pose of patterning after you. Did you ever pause one moment to think that some one was imitating you and saying that whatever you do they could, and be right? Did you ever think that every time you uttered a sentiment some one was laying it away to use themselves when occasion required? No, well, it is so and no matter how humble you may be ; no matter how lowly a place you may occupy in life's sphere, there is always somebody watching what you do and what you say, for the one purpose of imitating you — doing just as you have done, saying what you have said. This is plain; and how easy it would be if it were as easy to do right as it is to do wrong, but somehow or other the right is always difficult and the wrong so easy. You have children perhaps and those children naturally look to you for their exam])le. What they see you do, what they hear you say, they feel they can do and say and be perfectly right, so great is their confidence in you. Perhaps you are a young man, not yet started on life's journey far enough to have assumed the domestic rela- tions. Well, there is somewhere, somebody, younger than yourself who is noting your acts and speeches and doing precisely as you arc doing, and so the point of our remarks this day, is, be careful that you do not set anybody an example that is bad. The affairs of this world are not in all instances properly adjusted. It is very often the case that those who set a bad example arc often rewarded while the good are made the victims. We know men who arc kept in business positions who have neglected their families, abused their wives and children. We have seen and read letters from poor, forsaken, neglected wives, pleading for a little money to pay the board of herself and children, while the beast of a husband be- longed to clubs and was enjoying himself at public places, and kept in business position by men who ought to have kicked the beast into the street. We have known good, true honest men "let out" of their jobs to make room for some social outcast — some abusive hanger-on at disreputable joints and we have seen the world applaud a scoundrel while looking 64 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. with compassion and pity upon the virtuous and the honest wife and child- loving man. It is awfully discouraging to a decent man to see people showing atten- tion to a social scoundrel and neglecting a virtuous and the reputable man, and yet this very thing is done every hour in the day and this very thing is what breeds so much corruption in the land. We see on our streets every day, men and women who are socially corrupt — men and women who are living in an open state of adultery — they make no secret of it but flaunt their vileness in the face of decency, and yet these corrupt people are respected and encouraged in their life's endeavors. They are shown the same attentions as the reputable and the virtuous among the people. The socially rotten men and women seem to be just as much thought of as those who endeavor to lead respectable and virtuous lives. What encouragement is there, therefore, for any one to be or try to be reputable, when those who are continually setting a bad example are the most thought of in the community. But, the mission of the Evangelist on this earth is to preach honor, virtue, respectability. We are to teach the truth ; endeavor to make men and women honest and truthful. We never yet have applauded a scoun- drel and we never shall, no matter how high he or she may stand in the social world. If a decent man is rich we honor him; if poor it is the same. If a bad man is rich we abhor and despise him regardless of the power of his wealth. We have but one object in our teachings and that is whatever comes, let your aim be set to everybody a good example. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. Lunatic asylums and graveyards all over the civilized world, are filled to-day with those who have endeavored to solve the problem of life, and countless thousands are still among the living who will enter the valley of the shadow unenlightened. It is something no intellect, no matter how deep or broad or comprehensive, can fathom. It is something, nothing, which we do and do not understand, and whether the length of our living is long or short, we come in on the home-stretch blind. Millions have tried their level best to explain the problem of life, but have failed, and other millions will follow and imitate and go to their deaths with the thing misunderstood. Not even one among them all can tell you what it is or was, or is to be. The people of this world are living to-day; to-morrow they are dead. They are bright and cheerful one moment; the next depressed and sad. This week they are filled with encouragement and hope ; next they floun- der helpless in a sea of despair. This month their faces wear bright smiles; next we see frowns, and we trace in the cheeks deep furrows and agony of mind that wears away the frame. Twice each day, in every city and town, there arrives and departs the passenger trains filled with people. Some are going one way, some an- other; some are homeward bound filled with joy at pleasant anticipations, and some are bowed down with great grief. Some are flying, as fast as steam can carry them, to pleasant and delightful homes; others to desola- tion and ruin. Some will be met at the door with kisses and love; some with brooms and pokers and abusive tongues. Some home circles will be full and complete ; others broken and destroyed. Some hearts will over- flow with lightness; some sink in the heaviness of despair. Hotels will be crowded with busy men, hastily writing their orders to the firms they represent on the road. Busy proprietors of offices and stores will be hurrying their busy clerks to greater activity. Freight houses will be piled high with goods going east and west, north and south. Millions of money will be risked on things which will bring ad- ditional millions to those who invest. Steamboats crowded with people and merchandise are coming and going constantly over the waters. In- ventions will multiply each and every hour and great labor saved thereby. Men and women will wear old and shabby clothes in order to accumulate more gold. Wives and children will be half starved; we will risk our 66 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. lives; annoy our debtors; assault the characters of our fellow men; pilfer their good names; rob the widows and orphans; join the church, and get hung — right along, day after day, trying to solve this problem of life, and yet at the end it is still unsolved. Now, how absurdly foolish is this daily wrestle with the mysterious — with the unexplained, the fathomless. How idiotic is the course you and all of us are pursuing — hunting up an explanation for this mysterious thing. The longest life is very short, and each day and week and month we see our friends tumbling over the bank, with their lives half lived; their plans half perfected; their schemes half developed. The grim monster is inhuman, remorseless, diabolical. He fastens his icy fingers on the old and young alike. The father, the mother, without regard to love or age or affection, is snatched away. The son or daughter, who is the only support of the family, is brought home with a broken limb or back. Virtue is pursued by poverty, while vice is rewarded with success. The meanest men and women are prospered and encouraged, while nature's noblemen rot and neglect. The embezzler of millions lives in a palace in Canada, while the poor unlucky devil, who nips a loaf of bread to save the lives of his babies, wastes away in a dungeon. We tip our hat to the bald-headed deacon, while he sands his sugar and beats his creditors out of seventy-five per cent by a rascally compromise, and yet each and all of us who live and move and have our being, are daily en- deavoring to solve the problem of life. Now, my beloved, there is something in this life that we can under- stand, let us therefore lay fast hold of that, and let the other slide. Crack the nut of life with your hammer of intelligence; get out the meat; it's sweet and good and pleasing to the taste. Now and then you will come across one that is bitter — one that the worm has dug into before you. Throw that away. Don't waste your time trying to discover how or why that destroying worm got into the kernel. Pick out another — smash it and eat the meat. There is not much to a single nut, but there are lots of them in the basket of life. You can easily fill yourself and be happy. You need not starve or become discouraged because you find a bad one now and then. Why the imps of darkness meddle with our affairs we cannot tell, but they do just the same, and it requires all the nerve we can command to thwart their fiendish designs. Be honest, manly, womanly, upright; be pure in act and deed. Stick to your friends and those who have stuck to you, and let the rest of the world go to the devil. Love your wives and babies and homes and see to it that the atmosphere there is honorable and pure, for the Evangelist will tell you right here and now, that he or she — the husband or wife — who is guilty of domestic dishonor; the man or woman who is responsible MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 67 for a wrecked home or a broken human heart, will roast in hell if there is one, and they will be first to be cast into the hottest corner of eternal torment. Homes are destroyed every day and hearts are broken every hour. The world is full of human wrecks stumbling, staggering along over the rough surface of this restless, busy globe. Cursing men and tearful women jostle each other on crowded streets. Rivers of tears flow every day. It's the birth and the burial; hope and fear; joy and sorrow. It was thus in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, and yet not a single one among the millions will ever be able,"while living, to solve the Prob- lem of Life. STRUGGLE. With a struggle we enter this world; with a struggle we go along through it and with a final struggle we leave it. From our first hour on earth to our last, it is one constant, continual struggle. It is a strug- gle to get what we eat and drink and wear; a struggle to gel; a position in life which enables us to earn our living; a struggle to keep our po- sitions after we have gained them. It is a struggle to make and keep our friends; a struggle to control our appetites, our passions; a struggle to practice the teachings of the golden rule; a struggle to keep back our anger, our sentiments, our expressions. It is one constant struggle and worry to perform our allotted duties; a struggle to resist the numerous temptations that lie so thickly in our pathway; a struggle to lead just, correct and pure lives, amidst so much that is unjust, incorrect and im- pure. The infant in arms, twisted with colic, is in as much agony of body and mind, as the adult person, compared to their reason and years. The youth, sick at heart, at the "shake" his girl has given him, is as worried and sad and feels as forlorn and forsaken, as the man of maturer years is over the loss of his vast fortune. It is a life-long struggle for every one who lives. It will be a struggle for millions yet unborn, to fill their missions on this earth. No one has ever "got there" without a struggle, no one ever will. The little boy who once worked for the gas company had a fearful struggle with his poverty and lack of position, but now, with thousands of good hard English gold in his panties, he can see and feel that his struggles have not been in vain. All the great men in American history struggled for many years before they reached a place in life that insured them peace and plenty for their remaining years. Many a widow is struggling to-day with the fates that bind her to poverty and distress. She is numerous in this world and her sufferings and her struggles are hard to bear, but the children for whom she is struggling will be obliged to struggle for their babies, just as the poor widowed mother did for them. The struggle comes with each new life. The first faint peep of the baby as it is ushered into this big world, is the first signal that its struggles have begun and the rattle in the old man's throat tells that his struggles are at an end. Woe unto that man, that woman, who imagines that the end of one MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 69 trJal, one struggle, is the end of all. Just as soon as one difficulty Is ar- ranged and provided for, another takes its place, and while some of our moments are full of joy and pleasantness and peace, so many more are filled with bitterness, that we scarcely can appreciate the pleasures of our checkered lives. It is a struggle for the banana peddler on the street corner to dispose of his fruit before it rots. It is a struggle for the merchant to sell his stock before his limit of credit expires. It is a struggle for the borrower to meet his notes as they fall due. It is a struggle to bear up under afiflictions and sorrows. It is a struggle to choose between life's necessi- ties when we can have but little at best. It is a struggle to earn money enough to meet the daily demands of ourselves and families. No matter who we are or where we live, whether in the tumult and confusion of a busy metropolis or in the quiet of a farmer's home, these matters of life, these worries and troubles, make us struggle to meet its demands upon us. The rugged frontiersman clearing away the timber upon land he pro- poses to farm, struggles day and night to accomplish his ends, and the city merchant, walks the floor long after the rest of the house is wrapped in slumber, struggling with his business thoughts. The victim of ex- cesses struggles with himself as none but himself know how, to down his one besetting sin. It is a struggle in politics, in religion, in business afifairs to reach a successful point. The student struggles to master his books for the one and only purpose of fitting himself for a prosperous and prominent future. The clergyman struggles with his congregation and week and month and year he preaches piety and morality to his flock. It discourages him when the growth of his church is slow, but he strug- gles on and on, just the same, hoping in the end to see the reward as the results of his earnest labors. The school teacher toils at home from an early morning hour and then plods her way to a distant school room where her sweet nature and amiable disposition is severely taxed by her struggles with the blockheads seated in a row before her desk. The struggle between striking employes and employers is fierce and bitter and revengeful, each doing their level best for supremacy. So is it with all of us; so it always was; so will it ever be. It is a strug- gle to get into the world, to get through, to get out. None of us escape; none ever have escaped, none ever will. There is "something on the old man's mind" and the young one's too. We may not know the strug- gles of either, but they have them just the same. As we have often said the smile on the face is no indication of an easy mind. We all struggle to live and our torments are as long as our lives, and when our weak, little eyes first see the light of this world and when the wrinkles on our 70 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. faces tell us that the evcnin<^ of our life is come, we can then look back at the earliest recollection and what do we see, nothing' but one, pro- longed, form-withering, mind-warping, heart-breaking Struggle. WARTS. Did you ever have one on any of your several fingers; have you ever cui and burned and bled tlicm, or wra|)i)C(l about them a silk thread or done any of the thousand things to remove these pests from your hands'. If you have you know the humiliation, the annoyance, the pain attending their presence. If you have not you are in big luck. Well, my beloved, warts don't all grow on your fingers. .Some of them are well developed and walk about on two legs, see with two eyes, talk about you and your families with one tongue. They peer into private places and possess themselves of your secrets; they "hustle" oidy when gossiping about you; they dog your footsteps, noting carefully your every movement and spreading what they have seen or heard about you. There are warts of this sort and they cling to the sm-face of human life as do their brothers that grow upon your fingers. A wart is one who i)Ossesses friendship for you until you differ with him, then he shakes you; a wart is one who rejoices at your misfortunes; a wart is one who uses you for inunoral purposes; a wart is one who sneaks himself into your graces and then betrays you; a wart is one who assails virtue; a wart is one who works his employes half to death at starvation wages; a wart is a dogoned rascal and joins a church to better work his crookedness. A wart is he who hops on a man when he is down; a wart is he who plays poker until he loses, and then brings suit against the house for the money he has lost; a wart is he who drinks and smokes with you every time you ask him and then sneaks home when it comes his turn to treat; a wart is he who is always begging of you a chew of tobacco; a wart is he who has his name all over four sides of a saloon slate representing what he owes at the bar. Oh, no, warts don't all grow on the hand by a large majority — nor are they little knotty wounds. They eat and sleep and walk; they mingle with people who are whole and they spread themselves all over the earth. The great human wart on the body of life is more vastly to be dreaded than the little disorder on your finger. There is a remedy for the latter and time and care will heal it, but there is no cure for the former. It is nature's misfit and is on the earth to keep a place with others of its kind. It is not a new creation. There was a wart who sat at the last supper with the Lord several years ago. The rest of that group were 72 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. real, true, faithful followers, but among them was one wart and he be- trayed his associates. Among the continental soldiery of our revolution was found one wart and they hung him. In the church and Sunday- school, you will always find one wart and it spreads all over the surround- ings of these sacred places. You will find him in our stores and offices; in the banks and counting rooms; on steamboats and on railroads; he is in the social circle and the singing school. You find him, very rarely however, editing a newspaper; he is a ringleader among cranks; he is found among the rich and among the poor; you will find him at lunch time, buying a five cent glass of beer and eating thirty cents worth of soup. Like the poor, you have him with you always — the wart. Such things arc requisite and necessary for a safe and satisfactory movement of this great big world of ours. The hypocrite and the swin- dler; the gossip-monger and the assaulter of character; the overbearing, tyrannical, cold-blooded money lender, who lives off his tax on poverty: the renegade and the reprobate; the chump; the sneak and the sub- sister on the fruits of shame; the dude who owes a bill at the bawdy house and the swell who owes his landlady are sample warts, and we bump up against them continually in our daily walks. The hanger-on at our sporting joints, the lusher and the hero of the green room are all warts. The wolf in sheep's clothing; the pious swin- dler, the fossil and the flunkey are warts. But there is one thing sure — time evens up all things and by and by we discover the true nature of these human warts and we take immediate steps to relieve ourselves of them. We "catch on" after awhile, and then we pour on the medicine which will cure us of the torments. By and by the wart works itself out by the roots, and we cast it from us forever. There are many warts growing on the body of life all around you ; they develop slowly, but after awhile you measure their magnitude by the evil they do and then comes the cure. My frinds, look carefully about you and tell us truly, can you not see these pests; have you not discovered them already; have they not begun to show in all their hideous and disgusting forms, upon your life; do you not feel the effects of their hypocrisy, their malice, their lies, their bull- dozing, their boycotting? Can you not feel their polluting tingle on your flesh? Look out for them — they are warts. GRIT, It requires lots of the stuff of which we preach to-day, to get through this world, and without it, thousands would, every hour, make a pillow of their burdens and lay down by the wayside to sleep that "dreamless sleep." The great force which rules and regulates this world and its affairs, has given to each of us more or less grit. It is the salt of our lives and we should dry up and blow away were it not for this. Grit gives us the nerve necessary to tackle life's perplexities ; it gives us courage to overcome disasters to our purse and persons; it makes us brave and enables us to push aside obstructions which prevent our life's journey being successfully made. It is grit that quiets minds that are disturbed; it's grit that enables us to smother feelings of malice; it's grit that restores reason temporarily misplaced because of gossip and scandal about ourselves. It is grit that enables men who have lost their fortunes to make a new start in life and seek to replace that which they have lost. When a man has sat on life's ragged edges many years, brought thither by his own follies or excesses, it's grit that assists him to live over his troubles. When a man is brought down to life's low levels by the errors of those in whom he has confidence and has trusted, it's grit that helps him up. When a man mourns and broods over the many misfortunes that come to him in his daily life, it's grit that assists in downing a feeling that prompts self-destruction. Without grit, and lots of it, many a man, alive and well to-day, would be sleeping the sleep that knows no waking. Without grit, many a man occupying a position of honor and trust to-day, would be subsisting upon the dregs of earth. When a man has once held a high social place and has been, through misfortune, removed from such a high, proud position, it's merely grit that helps him smother a desire to remove himself from his humiliation. Once in a while a man keeps up, for a long time, but he broods over his troubles, he thinks and thinks until his brain gives way and then a pistol ball ends his trials here at least. What troubles he may have to en- counter in the great beyond, none of us know. Without this grit, we are helpless, powerless to suggest to ourselves a remedy — a way out of our difficulties, our trials, our misfortunes. 74 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. Wc do not l)clievc that there is anything on this earth that is more deniorahzing in its tendencies, than to know that we once occupied a high social, financial place in a community, and then be obliged to step down into a lower strata. It's not humiliating but it is demoralizing. It wrecks our minds as well as our bodies. It drives us to indulgence in excesses — this destroys the body, while the mind is poisoned by thoughts of other and better times. We once had a life of this kind in our midst and its ignominious ending makes us think. The end was but the natural result of long years of brooding and thinking over the ups and downs of this peculiar life. In the days and weeks and months, and years, it was pure grit that kept away the terrible final which came at last, when grit lost its grip. My beloved, you remember our preachings, you know what we have said, time and time again, that we cannot tell the true state of a human heart, by the deceptive smiles upon the face. That smile is often born after severe pain ; that happy look upon the face is merely a counterfeit — a mask to cover up the genuine, the real. The hand we shake in the morning belies the cold, dead heart that we carry within our breasts. Let every member of our congregation cultivate this great essential of life — grit, for, without it, your journey will be labored and difficult if not wholly a failure. Without it you cannot hope to win life's battle, and if you lose on your last deal, it's those you loved and leave behind who will have their own and these additional burdens to carry. None of those you see on your daily walks, are free from sorrows and troubles of this sort. There are no two of them alike. What is one man's pain may be another's pleasure, but each of us has something over which to worry. None of us are absolutely free — each has something to discourage, hu- miliate, mortify, and so we say, that it's only grit that will assist us in overcoming life's torments. Each family has its secrets, its skeleton, which are carefully concealed from the public gaze and scrutiny. Our children go wrong and we worry and lament and at times it seems as though our hearts would break. We harbor thoughts of murder sometimes, when we look at the domestic ruin in our homes. Sometimes we feel passion claiming possession of us and we cannot shake it off. Sometimes we have business dealings with dishonorable little squirts just starting in life, and it's merely the exercise of grit that enables us to hold our peace. Sometimes reputable people assail you and the community looks down on you and you feel your ambition oozing out at your fingers' ends, and if it were not for the topic of our preach to-day — grit, you are done up for good in this life, and perhaps in all the others that are to come after this. We cannot get along through this world without trouble; and it will MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 75 come to you in all sorts of forms and shapes. You will be sorely afflicted in mind and body, and you must expect and be prepared for it and seek that which will enable you to meet these trials when they come, and the only rememdy is that of which we preach to-day — Grit. HABIT. The topic of our sermon to-day is probably the most common thing in this world. It is something which everyone has to deal with. The smallest, tiniest, wee little baby has habits, and so also has the oldest person on top of ground. Some of these habits of which we speak are good ones and some are very bad. Habits are something which grow upon us scarcely without our knowl- edge, and so we find our three hundred millions of people, each and every one of them, with one or more habits, either good or bad. It is not our intention or purpose in this sermon to classify these habits, nor to separate the good ones from the bad, but merely to call the atten- tion of our readers to this matter of habit and let each one think which of the many habits are fastened to themselves. Men and women placed upon this earth by one great Creator, are sup- posed to start life exactly alike. All infants are the same when they make their first appearance in this world, and then as they grow they de- velop the various traits which make them famous or infamous, as the case may be. By and by, when the baby has become a man, he finds him- self possessed of a desire to use to excess intoxicants; he feels an irresist- ible desire to steal; he cannot control his appetite for drugs — opium, mor- phine and similar compounds. On all others he is perfectly rational. He reasons intelligently regarding the various influences which make or wreck humanity, and yet is absolutely powerless to control the one single habit which has enslaved himself. Why is this, can any one tell? All over this world to-day arc thousands of people who are the victims of their habits. When these habits first appeared, there was no danger in them, but by and by they became a mighty cataract which swept every- thing before it and the victim is helpless. The Jekyll and Hyde element figures more largely in the make-up of the human family than most people are aware of, and as you look at some men and women you would scarcely believe the fact that they have some one habit they absolutely, positively, cannot control, and yet, the world is full of them. It does not belong to any one single class of people; it's not entirely the intelligent nor the ignorant, the high or low bred, but it comes to us all. The clergy are not exempt even, and there is many a good old min- ister of the gospel who takes a pull at his big black bottle before climb- ing his pulpit steps. People everywhere are victims of habits. They MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 77 drink or smoke or chew or use snuff; they drink tea or coffee in injurious quantities; they inject morphine under their skin until the surface of their bodies looks like the target of a practicing company of sharp-shoot- ers; they stuff themselves with food and drink, when they know posi- tively that it will hurt them, but their desires are too strong for them and so they indulge and suffer the consequences. Thousands of graves are filled all over this world, by those who have murdered themselvse with opiates. Thousands lie dead, the victims of their own folly; adultery, infidelity and various other corruptions of a social nature have destroyed thousands more; thousands are leading double lives; thousands are wasting away in hospitals and at the homes of their charitable friends, because of their habits which they could not control. But how can we prevent all this? We incline to an opinion, which has become fixed in our mind, that all this cannot be avoided; cannot be prevented. Way back when the Bible was new, the men and women of those times were similarly afflicted, and the people of the whole world have been forming and acquiring and indulging habits ever since, and will so continue to the end of time. But what we cannot comprehend is, why a man or woman is cursed with an appetite or desires and then deprived of the moral courage to free him or herself from its bondage. We don't understand that. Why men and women will squirt morphine into themselves, or hit the pipe, or use any other stimulant to an unreasonable degree, when they know that each dose must be increased to produce the desired effect, and that they must keep on increasing it until death ends all desires. Why men are given brains and are then deprived of the power to protect them; why men are made intelligent upon every point save one, and that one allowed to destroy them. Why men will seek comfort and consolation in that which they know is sure ruin; why men will feed themselves upon that which kills, is something we cannot get through our skull. We know people, and possibly some of our readers do as well, who use morphine enough in twenty-four hours to kill a hundred men who are not accustomed to its use; but habit — a daily habit of many years — has made the users of this drug capable of taking their enormous doses without effect. We know men who can and do drink pure alcohol without a twinge of the muscles; without a twist of the face. It's a habit acquired by them many years ago, and now it cannot be driven away. All our readers know of the hundreds of young men who are carried away every year by excessive smoking of cigarettes; by the immoderate use of tobacco and cigars; by the corrupting influences of unholy desires 78 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. of a social character; and yet every one of these so destroyed began in a modest manner, and it was the habit confirmed that has done them up. The Evangelist knows what he is talking about. We have a habit, and it requires a nerve of steel to control its desires, and yet it can be done. So all we can advise is, moderation in all things, as taught by the Book; and this done, you have by the neck your enemy — Habit, NOT IN IT. If everybody in this big world of ours had a soft snap, there would be no fun in living. If somebody was not victorious and somebdy "left" every dc.y in the week," people would have no ambition, no energy, no "git up." If all the people who walk the earth got everything they wanted without an effort, we would all lose interest in everything, and so it is that in all schemes, all plans, all endeavors, all attempts, there is somebody who is "not in it." Some of the people of this world sit behind the heavy oak counters of big banks, look toward their vaults and shake hands with themselves over their great luck; over the fact that they are in it; while others sit on high stools at our lunch counters and hate themselves because they are not. Some people can build railroads and steamboats, big hotels and busi- ness houses. They are in it. Others build castles in the air. They are not in it. Some people wear purple and fine linen, and diamonds sparkle. They are in it, while those who wear patches on their pants are not. It's a mighty good thing to be in it, and if we all knew how, we would be dandies; but we don't, and that's the matter, and it explains why so many of us are not in it. But, boys, some of those who are in it to-day, may not be to-morrow. We have known people who rode behind fifteen hundred dollar horses who are walking to-day. They were in it once, but are not now. These changes are liable to happen to any of us and at any time. It's as we have often said before, a see-saw; a whirligig. We go up and down; we all come round by and by. We are in it after awhile. There are times in all our lives when things look mighty blue; there seems to be something wrong; everything we touch topples over; every- thing we do proves a dead failure. We don't know why; we work just as hard, but somehow, things don't come our way. The reason is, we are not in it. Then, all of a sudden, without any special endeavor, mat- ters brighten up; we become encouraged again; take new interest in matters and things, and sail along life's river satisfied, contented and happy. We've got in it again. A young man working six days each week, for two or three dollars^ has not much to encourage him; but if he hangs on, he will be in it after awhile. A girl, standing behind a dry goods counter vv^ith a salary of 80 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. five dollars a week, has occasion many times during those seven days to feel blue over the situation ; but still, if she is faithful, something bet- ter will develop by and by. We know ladies in Quincy, keeping many servants to-day, who once ran the country fields roundabout here bare- footed, and it was not so many years ago, either. They are in it now. Then they were not. Every day, as you pass along the streets, you meet hundreds of people who are not in it, and hundreds who are. How the fortunate ones be- came so fortunate, or how the unfortunate became so unfortunate, is something none of us can account for. It's merely the way of the world. The other day we met a man, who, a few years ago, was a successful, prosperous business man, in the tin line. To-day he is running a small little shop on a by-street, getting along somehow, from one day to an- other. In talking with him we found that he had been defrauded of his property by another, and his present condition is due to his not being in it. The other follow was. Each of us in this life has a duty to perform, a mission. We may not always know what it is, but we have one just the same; and before we are through this life, we will have found out what it was. It is the failures, the mistakes, the errors, the misfortunes, that we encounter as we go through our lives, that tell us so plainly that we are not in it, and it is the success that tells us who are. We get mad sometimes as we look at the good fortune of some hu- man hog; some stingy, miserly wretch who pinches every dime until it yells before he spends it. This hog prospers; everything he undertakes goes right; he makes money without half trying; he is fortunate in spec- ulation. He buys a piece of land and it increases in value; and yet, if you go to him for a dollar for some benevolent object, some charity, you will find he is not in it. It is a feature of this life to be first on the winning side and then among those who lose. It is one of life's characteristics to be up one day and down the next. It is a well-written law of nature that we all must float in the atmosphere where we belong, and if we attempt any other eleva- tion, we take a tumble. Yahoos who were once forced to eat with a pewter spoon, may be se- lected from the naturally aristocratic by the way they walk, the way they sit in their carriages, the way they hold their hands and wag their tongues. Nature draws the line, and the unfitted stay on the other side. They are not in it. CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. To be contented and satisfied with our lots in life; to he grateful and thankful for the conifcjrts and blessings we enjoy; to be appreciative of our joys, is to gain a great victory in tliis our struggle for existence. The world, as most of us find it, is full of trouble, full of sadness, full of ago- nies of both body and mind, and those, therefore, who willingly ruid de- liberately thrust themselves in the way of all these wretched things, arc scarcely an object of sympathy or pity; all such are more worthy of our scorn and contempt. Look, way back, over your own existence, beloved people, and tell us truly, if your lives, as a whole, have not been rather disappointing. Tell us whether or no it is not true that you have failed where you expected the greatest success. Tell us if that which you thought your best efforts have not proven your worst. Tell us if those for whom you have done the most, have not been the first to desert you when you most neerled the consolations and comforts they were capable of giving you. Tell us if you have not fallen, helpless, by the wayside of life, when every indi- cation pointed to great gains. Tell us if your highest ambitions of life have not been the first to humiliate you. Tell us of any occurrence, any event, any episode, any move you have ever made that has "panned out" exactly as you thought it would. Knowing then, the vicissitudes, the uncertainties, the realities of this life, we ask you candidly, are you not little above the idiot in intellect, to willfully thrust yourselves into the jaws of calamity and disaster, by worry and anxiety and dissatisfaction? None of us can have worldly affairs just the way we want them; we can do nothing to avert calamity; disaster and ruin and death come to one and all of us alike. We may be perplexed, we may plan and scheme and calculate, but the obstinacy of this life's affairs will flop things the wrong way every time. Why, then, this ceaseless, useless dicontent at the many situations we find ourselves in? It does no good; we are but burdening ourselves with additional and needless trouble. One day we sail along the street in high feather; the next we run home with our tail feathers pulled out by some rooster, sharper and keener than we. One day we jingle the chink in our pantaloons pocket, and the next we are striking our next friend for a small loan. One day we ride in an upholstered carriage, and the next, we arc wheeling in some man's coal. 82 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. One day we are too proud to recognize our less fortunate friends, and the next, we would esteem it an honor to shake the hand of the common- est old rum-browned bum. One day we are right side up and marked glass, with care, and the next we are upside down and broke. One day we are treating everybody in the house, and in a jolly voice we say: "Come up everybody, and have a drink," and the next we are grabbing lunches. Now, this is your life, and it's ours — it's everybody's. We have seen this sort of thing all our lives, and we can to-day single out human re- verses by the score. We can see those who were way up yesterday, last week, a month, a year ago, who are way down to-day. We point to mounds in the churchyards and tell our friends the history of the failure in life of the one who lies buried there. We can see living wrecks, too, all around us. People whose ventures were unsuccessful, and they are now upside down, wrong side out, flat, busted. Why, then, the sense or reason in our continual worry and distress over the affairs of life? The confounded schemes don't work out our way; they never did, they never will. Why then not be contented and satisfied with what we are and have, and make the best of it? The Evangelist had rather be that man who lives happy and contented with his wife and children, in two small rooms, than to be the man who is unhappy and discontented in a palace. We had rather be that woman earning happily and cheerfully her own living by daily toil, than to be the finest lady in the land, bound with heavy chains of sorrow and dis- content. Learn contentment first, enjoyment afterward; learn to be satisfied first, luxury later; learn to be master and mistress of yourself first, then you may indulge a hope of leading others, later on in life; learn to be pleased with what you have, if you cannot have what you please; learn to love your homes, your wives, your children first, and then, if you have any leisure, you may gratify your ambition to succeed in business or speculation or trade, or commerce, or finance, or politics, or whatever else your ambition may suggest. But let your first thought be your wife, your children and your home. Mind you, now, the Evangelist says your own home, your own wife, not those belonging to some one else; and the very lives you lead will be as true a detector, as though your personal characters were printed in letters of fire and stuck in your hats. For that woman who is constantly on tlie street, or that man who is always hanging around the hotels and resorts, tell the public very plainly that their homes are unhappy, that their life partners afford them no joy or hope or happiness, and it is dis- MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 83 content that is responsible for much, if not all, of these cases of domestic infelicity and marital wretchedness. Follow the teachings and practices and examples of the Evangelist, and they will steer you into a heaven before you die. Disregard our teachings, and you are in hell already. We can promise you nothing beyond the grave, and of this, we know just as much as any and all of the rest of our brother clergymen. But if you do as we direct you here, on this earth, we will promise you a domestic heaven, full of life and light, and joy and love; we promise you a perpetual sunshine and a sure thing on an earthly crown that blazes with precious stones of purity and beauty; an ornament that will do you some good here below; a diadem that peo- ple in the flesh may see and profit by; and the first step toward securing an earthly peace, is to secure at once that great boon, contentment, which you will find is vastly better than wealth. DO RIGHT, This world is full of human beasts who ridicule every good man ; who make sport of every one who makes an honest endeavor to do right. The secular press join in and belittle the efforts of Wananiaker and others of his class, as though it was among the impossibilities for a real good, true, christian man to hold public office. We have the most ardent admiration for an honest man who is good and does good; but the trouble is, that there are so many hypocrites now days, that it is difficult to distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit. There is, however, a difference, and you can detect the spurious if you are careful. On every hand, all about us, we see men and women professing vir- tues they do not possess, and it disgusts us; but it should not deter us in our honest efforts to succeed in doing right. This is a great big world, and it is full of all sorts and kinds of people, and each is on the watch of the other, trying to find some flaw to pick at, and so, when one of us makes a mistake, it is a picnic for the rest, and they improve their time, scattering their information, and so it becomes harder for men and women at all times, to do right, but you can, if you will. When Christ was on earth, he was followed about by an illiterate gang who libeled him at every step. He was persecuted and abused by those who ought to have known better, but this good man kept right on in his own way, doing good. It's the same to-day; and when any man of special prominence professes goodness, and not only professes, but is good, the descendants of that same old gang follow him about burlesqu- ing his endeavors; ridiculing his efforts, belittling his acts, insinuating against his good motives. But those who are truly and really good will take no heed of this, but pursue their way, as though no one was mocking them. Men and women, high in learning, in society, in the church, often use their positions to further some devilish scheme, and the daily reports from everywhere bring tidings of their success; but, my beloved, their rac^ is soon run. They may succeed for a time, but they will be brought up to the bull-ring with a sudden jerk one of these days. We have no word to speak in condemnation of men and women who differ with us in their views. We have a great deal of real respect for MEDITATIONS (fF TWENTY YEARS. 85 even a bad man if he confesses his badness and does his evil openly and above board; but for the hypocrite and the sneak we have not words at our command sufficiently expressive to tell of our abhorencc. If a man needs a drink and walks straight in at the open front door and gets it, we have respect for him; but only contempt for the white- haired fraud and imposter who prays and goes after his toddy through the alley and the back door. We can smile with satisfaction at the man who goes fishing on Sunday if he goes boldly and "right before people/" but we hate the humbug who gets away on his Sunday fishing expedition before daylight and returns after dark. A few weeks ago a friend of ours in this very city took his two little children out one Sunday to give them a little picnic in the woods. On his way thither he was met by a hypocrite who proceeded to lecture our friend roundly on the wickedness of bringing up his children in this un- godly way. Well, a few weeks later this hypocrite was himself arrested and placed under heavy bail for crime, and whether guilty or not, the preachings of the man are valueless. Do right, my beloved — that is, as you see it. If your conscience is clear and you want to do what others condemn as wrong, go ahead and do it. If you want to go to church, go; if not, stay at home and never interfere with others who have their own ideas as well as you. A man may occupy a high social position and still be a sneak and rascal. A man may be way up in some commercial place, and yet be the talk of the town for his evil ways. A man may have a good wife and children at home, and still ride horseback and flirt with the girls, but he is a puppy, all the same, and the contempt of all decent people who are onto him. There is but one way to get through this life safely, successfully; and boiled down, it's two little words that form our text to-day — do right. FINDING A LEVEL. The great social, domestic world is as evenly balanced, as thoroughly- regulated, as is the most delicate portions of all the other great machinery of this big universe. Its various parts are well lubricated; its revolutions as regular; its motions and results as perfect, and one only has to watch life and its events and its happenings, to become convinced that what we say is true. Every now and then you will see a man or woman, one or both, who is living "swell." They give cai^d parties and luncheons and receptions. They are apparently way up in the social swim, and thus they sail along smoothly, as fai^ as you can see or know; when, all of a sudden, the com- munity is startled, as by a clap of thunder from a clear summer sky, with the information of their downfall. We are stunned, shocked, paralyzed by some dreadful announcement, and yet, why should we be? It's merely the enforcement of nature's great law; the re-adjustment of life's affairs, tlie settling back into natural positions of the false, the fraud, with tlie real and the true. People sometimes succeed in gulling the public for a long time. They play their cards well and hold winners more frequently than other peo- ple, but at last comes the real and the correct, and then you discover that these people have maintained themselves so long by the grossest abuses of the privileges of an easy-going public sentiment. Among the many torments of this life that annoy and perplex, there are some delightful tilings, and among them the fact that people cannot always continue their counterfeit lives. The truth will prevail by and by, and then we all know of the humbuggery, the deceit, the fraud, that these exposed people have practiced for years to maintain themselves in a life position that they are not fitted by nature to fill. My beloved, you cannot monkey with nature. That is something be- yond the most skillful of human devices. Nature stamps all its works, and its brands are all patented, and no matter how shrewd, how clever humanity is, when an attempt is made to deceive or improve on nature, it fails every time. There is something genuine about all of nature's work, and all attempts to counterfeit it prove inglorious failures. Common, uneducated men, by some pulling of wires, assisted by ac- quaintances, have before now climbed into social places, and they have MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 87 hung on there for a number of years, but at last their grip loosened and they tumbled back to their natural places. Educated and refined people are always modest; they always wait to be asked to occupy prominent place. The low, coarse and common, al- ways push themselves into high places unbidden. Seedy men, with worn and faded garments, whose baths are few and far between, live along isolated and unkempt for many years. They at- tract no attention, because they belong by nature just where they are. All of a sudden they appear decked out in the height of fashion, but their clothes don't fit; there is something about them that betrays the wearer of those garments; their feet shamble, their knees knock to- gether, their hands find no easy place, and yet, no matter how much their garments have cost, no matter how earnest their attempt at polished manners, you can tell at a glance that these people do not belong on the level along which they are attempting to sail, and by and by, they take a drop, and it is heavy, you bet. A man born poor has a great big world before him, and free libraries all over this land afford that poor man the opportunity of educating him- self, and there are thousands all over this land occupying high places in professional, political, commercial life, who began with nothing in the way of capital, save a good name, an honest purpose, the legacy of good parents. Such men succeed in life because they have made an earnest, honest endeavor to educate, to perfect themselves in the line of real and true manhood, and when low people attempt to imitate these good ex- amples, they always fail. A man may have a barrel filled with boodle; he may dress extrava- gantly; he may live in luxurious apartments and still be a fool. For a time his "stufT" may keep him afioat, but through it all you read the clown, the boor, the ignoramus, and one day, when you least expect it, the fraud exposes himself, and we find him just where he belongs; just where nature intended he should be — at the bottom. He has, by his own act, revealed to the world the truth ; he has found his natural level. My beloved, do not attempt to sail in an atmosphere too rarefied for you; keep yourself where you belong, where you know you belong, and every man of sense knows where that is. Do not attempt to keep pace with those who own dollars where you do pennies. Do not force yourself into a sphere you cannot maintain; for if you do, just as sure as fate, you will be knocked out; forced back to the lower places from whence you rose before you were prepared by education to fill the more exhalted place, you will surely find your level sooner or later. A HYPOCRITFS SMILE. Billy Shakespeare never wrote a truer line than this: "A man may smile and smile and be a villain still." That's right; and a woman, too. There is nothing on all this earth so exasperating as the smile of a hypocrite, and a hypocrite is always a villain, no matter what the sex. To see people around you with their faces beaming all over with smiles which you know to be counterfeit, is where you test your endurance. Just how long you can tolerate them without an explosion, depends upon your level-headedness. The smile of a hypocrite is always upon the face of an ignorant person. You never saw an intelligent being who was hypocritical, never. People may wear fine clothes, deck themselves all over with ribbons and satins, and then murder the English language when they speak. It's heart-rending to hear such people talk; every sentence is ungram- matical; every other word an error; and this is the class who talk behind your back and smile upon you when you are looking at them. The great Creator made these people for some purpose known to himself, but us poor, weak mortals, cannot see why; understand why. They seem to us villains, and they are, so far as being of any use is con- cerned, only to make other people wretched and unhappy. In this they are very successful, and they accomplish their work astonishingly well. It always amxises us to hear these people talk. They never read any- thing and can talk about nothing, and yet they imagine they are creat- ing a wonderful impression upon their listeners. They are, but in a very different manner from what they think. We laugh way down in our stomach at them, and pity the ignorant creatures, while they mortify us claiming our friendship, and the smile they give you is the smile of a hypocrite and a fraud. But like bed-bugs and mosquitos and snakes, such people were no doubt built for a purpose, and one day, possibly, we shall know what that purpose is. In the meantime, we must endure these pests with the others. It has been our experience that the people we have done the most for were those who appreciated it least; those who have been reared amid selfishness and thoughtlessness are they who first forget their obligations, those who had not the brain sufficiently large to comprehend the kind- ness that had been bestowed upon them. The whole world is full of such people, and they thrive just as well. MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 89 seemingly, as the other sort, and so it is very discouragingly — an en- deavor to be anything better. When we read in newspapers complimentary notices of some villain who beats his wife, or abuses his children, or swindles his neighbors, we think how very trifling are the affairs of this world and how little to en- courage a man to higher aims in life. The experience of all our congregation has been the same as ours. They have all felt the shame of a hypocrite's work; the humiliation of a hypocrite's tongue. They have all been irnposed upon, deceived by this semi-civilized element who have a place on the earth the same as other people. Our congregation has all felt the sting of a hypocrite's tongue, and therefore know just what the effect is, and there is no remedy. It was always so, from the time the world began until the present hour. The Judas at the Last Supper sits at our tables to-day, and as he smiles, he plans your ruin ; and thousands of years hence it will be the same. There is but one way we know of to overcome the effect of these peo- ple's hypocritical methods, viz.: keep away from them. Remain in your own homes; attend to your own business; labor all the time; keep busy at something; stick close to your own families; educate your children thoroughly, and there will be little danger of them ever becoming hypo- crites. It is a difficult thing to get through this life, anyway, and we must be continually on our guard against the assaults of the hypocrite — beware perpetually of the hypocrite's smile, for the hypocrite, either he or she, may smile and smile again and be a villain still. You are not safe even in your own home; it is invaded by the ignorant against your will, and around your own fireside, appropriating your own possessions, the ignorant, low-lived class smirch your character. They are prompted to do this by various reasons — malice, hatred, jealousy; one or all. Nothing is sacred to these people. They are cold and inhuman, and the only way to avoid contamination is to keep yourself free from their influences. Have nothing in common with them. They are com- mon, very common people, and they know no better than to poison the air that is breathed by their best friends. They have not the mental ca- pacity to appreciate kindness; they came from the dregs and they fatten still upon its pollution, and you may know all these people by the heading of our preach to-day — A Hypocrite's Smile. MONEY, If there is anything on the face of this earth that money will not buy, we do not know what it is. It will secure every comfort ; it will put in- competent men into important places; it will secure the acquittal of those deserving punishment; it makes a thief respectable; it will open the gates of society to the rankest villain; it will cover up the iniquities of all classes; it will secure comforts without end; it will build up and destroy; it will purify and befoul people, character and things ; it will control the destinies of a mighty nation; it will educate the ignorant; it will cover up deformities and warps and twists in humanity; it will ease a guilty conscience and pave the way for individual success. Money! Money will accomplish anything on the face of the earth, either good or bad. There is many a man in the penitentiary to-day who never would have been there if he had been the "proud possessor" of money enough, and there is many a man walking the earth a free man to-day, who would have been in jail, but for the fact that he possessed that which kept him out, viz. : money. It's all nineteen-twentieths of the people of the whole world are after; it's all they think about; all they work, toil, struggle and sufifer for. Money has joined many a mental and physical deformity to health and happiness of the opposite sex, only to destroy and wreck. Money has made many a bad man good and good one bad. Money has lifted out of the slough of despond many a weary mortal, and it has swallowed up many a one. Money has been the cloak for many a villain to destroy confidence and ruin valuable lives and property. Money has cleared many a scoundrel before the bar of justice. Money has destroyed vigorous manhood; it has cracked many a character; it has warped many a constitution. It has restored the sick and has made imbeciles of those who were well. It has made men the firmest friends and the dead- liest enemies. It has worked off many an old maid onto men who ought to have known better. My beloved, it's just as we say; we know of nothing in all this world that money will not do. Nothing that is good, nothing that is bad, but that money will handle and control completely. It is too bad that respectability, brain, character, cannot compete \vith money, but it cannot. The most notorious outlaw can control position, MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 91 society, politics and commercial affairs, if he has enough money, and this is a cause for real regret ; but there is no help for it ; none whatever. A man with money can neglect his family, indulge in concubines, be licentious. He can commit any outrage against society, and yet main- tain a respectable place among the respectable people of the world, and though scores of them know he is not fit to associate with decent people, yet they are afraid to say so, for fear that the man may use his means to punish them for telling the truth. Virtue is made a toy, honesty a joke, honor a by-word, by money. Rottenness it tolerated in society; scandals hushed up; newspapers are corrupted; soiled linen is laundried by public means, conducted privately; absconders and embezzlers are given certificates of good moral charac- ters ; quacks are enabled to practice medicine ; rascals are elected to office by means of that of which we preach to-day — Money. It would indeed be a great day if people were judged by and credited with the virtues they possessed, instead of being m.easured by the size of their pile. It would be a great day if men were honored for their good deeds, applauded for their moral heroism, cheered for their manliness, instead of for the money they can control. It would be a great day if men were encouraged for their respectability, instead of to increase their pile at the bank. But, my beloved, we do not believe that such a state of aflfairs will ever exist in this world. It is getting worse and worse every year, and money is the absolute lever that moves the whole world and everything in it. While this is true in every paiticular, there are other things to consider in gaining money, and each of our readers must be his and her own judge just how much they can afford to sacrifice in order to gain wealth. If they have no conscience, no sympathy, no humanity, no love or affection, they are then good material to work on ; but if they want something else besides the "simply honors," conferred on the rich, it may be well enough to consider personal reasons first, and then, in the gaining of riches, you will not lose your characters, your reputations. Your conscience will not trouble you, and you won't have the nightmare, as you dream of the dirty tricks, the rascality you have indulged in while you have been increasing your wealth while making that which has formed our text to-day — Money. GLITTER. In this day and generation, it's the ghtter that seems to catch on, no matter whether tlierc is anything snl:)stantial about it or not; if it shines, that goes. Yon may take tlic worst vagabond on earth; a man without character, without reputation; a man known to be morally corrupt, horribly bad, cruel and vicious; but if he wears fine clothes and is ornamented with diamonds, he can walk in the best society in this land, A woman, also, though she may be indolent and shiftless, ignorant to the extreme, yet, if she is arrayed in silks and satins, she receives more attention than she can attend to. The vilest dens in our land to-day are the most attractive, Money is lavished in gdlt and crystal and glitter, and, as we say, the more corrupt- ing the place is to the morals of men and women, the brighter it shines. Some years ago we were a visitor in a gambling house in Chicago. We went there in company with several newspaper men, not to buy chips, but to see the place, and we saw it. It was grand and cost thou- sands of dollars to fit it up. It was covered with silver and gold mount- ings. The fire-place had been purchased in Europe at a cost of two thou- sand dollars, and everything was lavish and beautiful. But it caught the boys, and hundreds of them were dropping their wad up stairs. Why is it that vice is covered, while virtue hides itself in dark places? Why is everything that is bad covered with that which attracts, and every- thing that is good, is shaded with gloom? Why will men spend money so lavishly on anything that is bad, that is corrupt, and kick so over a single dollar given for any good purpose? Why arc sinful resorts furnished with the finest furniture, the easiest chairs, the brightest lights, and the resorts of the good so shabbily ar- ranged? It's a great mistake to build a fine church and leave the seats uncushioned. There are easier seats elsewhere, and the boys find them witliout any trouble. It's the glitter that catches the eye and the crowd. The most intellectual man or woman in the world, would not attract even a i)assing notice if they wore jeans clothes, while the biggest fool on earth, if arrayed in purple and fine linen, would gather a crowd of ad- mirers wherever he went. It's the glitter, the dazzle, the sparkle, that gets there now days. It is unfortunate that it is so, but there is no use talking about it, there MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 93 you are; it's a fact, and you might just as well accept it. You never can shine unless you put on the shiners. You have got to do it to keep up with the procession as it is to-day. We would much prefer that intelligence were the passport; that brains were the open sesem to society; that men and women were sought after for their real worth, but, alas, that won't work. It's the glitter. A calico dress and hickory shirt stand no show now days, and the brightest young man in the world could never receive even a nod of recognition from a society belle, if he were dressed i" homespun. Society demands of our youth more than they can stand. It costs them more than they can earn to clothe themselves properly for entrance into society. They stand it for awhile, keep getting deeper and deeper in debt, until, by and by, you hear something, and the community is again shokcd at another good young man gone wrong. But it's the glitter that did the business for the young man. He couldn't shine without good clothes; good clothes cost money. He couldn't earn enough, and so he tapped the till of his employer, and there you are once more — the glitter. The love of the glitter has ruined thousands of our young women, and thousands more are being ruined every year. The love of dress and jewels has destroyed them body and soul, and this will continue, year after year, until there is a revolution, a reform, a change in that which affects so disastrously our society of to-day. It will continue until some- thing else rules the world and people besides the glisten and the glitter. If a man, wearing seedy clothes, walks into a hotel and registers his name, the clerk immediately shoots him up the elevator to the top floor, while the brainless dude, with his fine duds and diamonds, occupies room number one, on the parlor floor. Barbers will "soldier" on a customer, in their endeavors not to catch the grizzly patron with cow hide boots, while the same artist will hurry the man in his chair through, that he may catch the dandy, with only the price of a shave in his pocket; and so it goes; it's so everywhere and with everybody. We are all after the dazzle, the glitter. IT'S FUNNY. If a man could explain all things in this life, he could make a fortune in a brief space of time. If he could answer all the questions that curious people would ask, he would be a human wonder. But no man, nobody, can answer or explain many of the queer and curious things of this pe- culiar life. No one ever will. We see things every day that puzzle us, worry us, annoy us, but we cannot prevent their happening; we can only stand and stare and won- der. We have said it before, many times, yet it is still the same in our mem- ory, and we marvel all the more as time passes and the curious things are yet unexplained, and day by day the world is slipping away, and life's mysteries are mysteries still. Why is it, do you suppose, that people in our large cities are freezing to death every winter, while thousands of cords of wood lie rotting on the banks of all our rivers? Why is virtue and sobriety allowed to wallow in the mire and filth of this world, while the impure and the loafer are permitted to walk in high places? Why does the bum and the thief enjoy good health, while the pure and good among the people are writhing on beds of pain? Why is the pure woman forced to earn a living at hard work in the factory, the office, the store, while the adventuress is arrayed in purple or fine linen and covered with diamonds? Why is the wife so often deserted for the mistress? Why is the good man made to suffer from the stings of poverty, while the bad one flour- ishes amid the pleasures of life? Why is the poor clergyman, whose whole life is devoted to doing good, forced to struggle for the wretched living he makes, while the owner of a trotting horse grows rich by the money he wins on the race track? Why do rank, noxious, poisonous weeds grow without the slightest care, while rare, useful, valuable plants wither and die under the tender- est cultivation and care? Why do the ragged, dirty children of the slums, escape all the dread diseases, while clean and carefully attended children are stricken down? Why is it that the trainman who is the sole support of a widowed mother and fatherless sisters and brothers, always is the one who is in- jured or killed in the railroad accident? Why is it that the bad is so MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 95 easy, and the good so hard? Why can the depraved and vicious succeed in everything they undertake, while the decent people among our men and women always fail in their endeavors? Why is it that the meanest people on this earth are always more suc- cessful in their undertakings than those who are personally popular with all mankind? Why is it that great, lubberly human hogs can board in big hotels and surround themselves with every luxury of life, while gen- teel and educated gentlemen are forced to economize in everything, in order to "make both ends meet?" Why does the "sport" wear diamonds and the preacher a patch on his pants? Why can an illegitimate business pay big rents and salaries and grow in popular favor, while the legitimate starves to death, although strictly economical in every particular? Why can a scoundrel who is rich, enter the best society in the land, while the honest man remains on the outside? If a man could answer these, and thousands of other similar questions, satisfactorily, he would command large audiences every hour in the day. ^ It is altogether probable that in the beginning all things were perfect — even our first parents, Adam and Eve — but from that day until this, peo- ple have gradually degenerated, until the evil among them are largely in the majority. Once bad men and women were shut completely out of respectable company; but it's not so now. Once a wicked man was shunned by all who were good; now it makes no difference how bad a man may be morally, if he has plenty of boodle, he can go anywhere, do anything, and no questions will be asked and no one will oppose him in anything he may undertake. Now, my beloved, do not grow weary with well doing; do not become discouraged, but keep right on in the right way; for, while sin may ap- parently be reposing in a bed of rosees, the thorns will wound by and by. It may seem easier to do wrong, but there is a punishment that follows that's tough, and no one who does wrong can escape. So, my beloved, fear the punishment and keep away from all that is corrupt and evil among the affairs and people of this world. You cannot make us believe that the ugly, the wicked, the mean among the people, can always be successful in this life. We believe, and firmly too, that all such will get their deserts before they leave this world. We do not believe that stolen money or valuables ever did the thief any good. We do not believe that the destroyer of human happiness will get clear through this life without his share of the wretchedness he has caused others. But just why the great Ruler of life's affairs, as preached by some, allows wickedness to flourish at all, is something we cannot under- stand. Why sin and the sinner are not wiped off the face of the earth. 96 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. is beyond our comprehension. Why the bad are permitted to do their bad deeds at all, is something we cannot explain. It is one of the "funny things" about which we preach to-day. Virtue in rags and vice in velvet has been the order for many years; but we shall not attempt an explanation of why. We could not tell if we would, because we do not know. There is lots of suffering among the good people of this world, and lots of pleasure among the bad ; but it will not last forever. We believe that by and by there will be a change, and that the evil among our people will be punished and the good receive their reward; but, looking at life and its affairs, we cannot help but say it's funny. THE PRODIGAL SON. Every reader of these Sermons has read, heard or knows all about the biblical prodigal son. They are familiar with that rash and wayward boy; how he left his happy home, a home surrounded with every com- fort, luxury and blessing. You follow him and see how low he descends in the scale of human degradation. That boy was influenced just as thousands of our boys of this day and generation are influenced. He grew weary of home discipline, home teachings, home restraints. Perhaps his father was exacting and system- atic and methodical in home management. Perhaps the father imposed upon the family a strictness that became a burden, and while done for the future good of the children of the household, it became irksome to this particular son, who, no doubt, had a mind, and an instinct, and meth- ods and bearings of his own; and so it was he grew weary of this re- straint, this dicipline, and concluded to shake the home and go out into the world and battle for himself in his own way, and he went. But his calculations miscarried ; he made a mistake ; he overrated his own personal powers and abilities, and his strike on his own account was a failure most dismal. But this boy, this prodigal son, suffered alone. He made no kick, but went into the pasture and filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, rather than hang 'round the corners watching for some one from his own town from whom he could borrow a five or a ten on the strength of old acquaintance or neighborly interest. He did not guzzle nor play the dead beat. He had no evil companions; he was not a lounger nor hanger-on at public resorts, waiting for some one to ask him up to take a drink. He was not a bum. He merely had made a failure of his first start in life for himself, and after making a manful endeavor to succeed; after eating with the hogs ; after getting way, low down, he came to him- self, and thinking over the past and the future, he reasoned and said: 'T will arise and go to my father," etc. — a very sensible conclusion for this ambitious young man to come to. Now, how is it with the sons — the prodigal sons — of this day and generation? They are not satisfied with degrading themselves, but they must, and do, drag others down with them. The fathers and the mothers and the sisters and the brothers are all drawn into this degrading whirlpool and are all swallowed up to- gether. When we come to compare the biblical prodigal son with the sample 98 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. to-day, wc cannot refrain from cxprcssinj^ an opinion that the prodigal of this early time was much more of a man, an honorable man, than the best among the prodigal sons of to-day. The Evangelist was np in Chicago, recently, and passing the corner of Jackson and Dearborn streets, we encountered a boy who was down on his luck. He looked rusty, shabby, bummy, and he struck us for a dol- lar. We gave him a half, to get a "shave and a breakfast," so he said, and we followed him and saw our half dollar passed over a bar on Monroe street. Well, perhaps, by and by, this misguided young man will see the folly of his evil ways, take a tumble to himself and return to his home in this city. Possibly not; but wc wish to impress upon all our congregation, that the prodigal son of old was vastly superior to the prodigal son of to-day. As we write this Sermon, our mind wanders back almost thirty years. It was night, antl a dozen or more of us boys were together in a bar-room, and one of that party was a prodigal son. He had grown weary of home restraints and he had informed his father that if he would give him one hundred dollars he would never "darken the door again." Well, this boy got his hundred, and he met the gang at the saloon, and we drank Tom and Jerry until train time, and we all went down the hill and saw this prodigal son off on the Chicago train. Well, we pass hurriedly over the next few months, but the life of this prodigal son was tough, and he, like the prodigal of old, gave up the fight, came home, and this prodigal is to-day a leading business man. He is at the head of a most interesting family, is one of our best citizens; lives in a fine home, and perhaps never thinks of the night we all "got together" in front of the hotel bar and drank to his success and prosperity forever, and of how dismal a failure was his first life's endeavor alone. To look at the dignity that marks the gait and daily doings of this old friend of ours, you would never suspect that "once upon a time" he was a prodigal son. The prodigal son as told about in scripture, is not a marker to the prodigal son of this day and generation. The first prodigal son suffered all alone; he drew no others into his troubles. He placed the blame of his errors on none. He accused no one of leading him astray. He blamed no one but himself, notwithstanding the ten'i[)tations that beset him on evry hand. He alone it was who suffered, and the Evangelist has often thought that the ])rodigal of old was much more of a man than the prodigal of to-day, for the very and only reason that the prodigal of Bible history was a self-denying, a personal enemy of himself, while the prodigal of this day not only ruins himself, but his whole family, socially and financially, and of the two, give us the early prodigal son. ** WIPE OFF THE SLATE/' We wonder how many of our congregation have run an account with the bar? We wonder how many of our members have "had it charged?" We wonder how many have been behind in Hfe's affairs as in the commer- cial transactions of the day and year? ^ Every honest man, every honest woman, wants to feel him or herself square with the world, and it is a satisfaction to know that after years of personal debt, after years of obligations, after years of indebtedness, that we can "wipe of¥ the slate.'* Many of us can look way back into a past that was most happy ; we can see flowers and blossoms and sunshine; we can see beauty and bright- ness; we can inhale sweet perfumes, and look back to a time when all was cheer and hope ; when ambition reigned ; when we strove to win life's battle; when we knew no sorrow, no woe, no wretchedness. We. can look way back when home was encircled with sunbeams, when pleasures and happiness reigned; and then we look into the dark places and sec phantoms of the past. We can remember when our surroundings were intellectual; when our associates were cultivated and refined, and then we compare the then with now, and it makes us more anxious than ever to wipe off the slate. My beloved, the Evangelist can remember a time when lilHes bloomed ; when roses scattered their sweet fragrance around; when the sunshine chased the shadows from the pathway. We can remember when the songs of sweet birds were all in tune; when hearts beat happily; when it was always midday, and when clouds never came; and then again we can see the check of the illiterate, the gall of the ignorant, the long tongue of the fool and the ignoramus. We can see the broad road that leads to eternal death, and see the throng that follows this great highway, and we can also see the narrow road that leads to everlasting peace, and the few that are traveling that way. Every seed decays before it produces fruit; every fond hope dies, but that death brings new life to something hitherto unknown. The Evan- gelist can look back to a time when everything smacked of joy, and then, in a few short months, we found ourselves overwhelmed with a torrent of irresistible force, and we threw up our hands on command, and fate went through us. It is easy enough to do right, to be good, when things go your way, 100 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. but it requires a brain, a determination as well, to do the correct thing when things go wrong in our life's affairs. Scores of times in our short life, have we thought it best to make a pillow of our burdens and lay down upon them by the wayside and sleep ; and then, way out from some obscure corner, would come an encourage- ment, and we would take new hope, new courage, new life, and brace up, and wipe off the slate, and try once more to win this battle of life. Oftentimes have we concealed ourselves behind our fears and hopes; often have we worried and wearied over possible results; often have we worn a troubled look over schemes that have miscarried. We have sat in solitude, all alone, and contemplated fearful things, when in the deepness of our gloom came a friendly warning, and we have then and there decided to begin anew — to wipe off the slate. Many years ago the Evangelist began his battle of life, and like many others we encountered obstructions; we met enemies; we bumped up against scandal-mongers; we ran against the slanderer. But then we had a mainstay, a support. We had an encouragement; we lived and hoped that things would turn out for the best, and they did. We felt a strong influence, a mighty help in these our times of trouble, and we leaned against those hopes and were supported. We have seen those hopes decay, and all before Uo was great, black, forbidding clouds. We lived thus for many years, and then, way off in one corner, came a ray of hope. We clutched at it as the drowning man at a straw, and were saved; and this mellowed our heart, and we were willing to "wipe off the slate." Those of our congregation who are in trouble; those of you whose loads are more than you can carry; those who feel as we have felt, like laying down your sorrows and making of them a pillow; those of you who are discouraged; those disheartened, those ready to give up the ghost, let us implore you to make one more effort to win life's battle. My dearly beloved, make a barricade of your misfortunes; use your calamities as breastworks ; employ your failures as a defense for your pro- tection; make up your mind to pocket insults; to smother your injuries; to forget the past and begin once more; and to do all this, you must wipe off the slate. IT IS HOPE. All of our many readers well remember the trinity, Faith, Hope and Charity; and it has been said that the greatest of these is Charity; but we do not believe it. Indeed, it is not; for Hope double discounts Char- ity in all its details, in all its various and many parts. It is Hope that gives a man and woman strength to continue the battle of life after years of disappointment and failure. It is Hope that cheers a weary soul. It is Hope that strengthens faint hearts. It is Hope that stimulates the anxious parent to look forward to something better, some- thing brighter for their erring children. It is Hope that fills aching hearts with cheer and gives weary souls a rest. It is Hope that enables men and women to look beyond a bitter present to a brighter future. It is Hope that enables us to lay aside our sorrows and wear smiles. It is Hope that saves many a human being from tumbling headlong over desolation-'s brink. It is hope that our ill luck will change, that our misfortunes are ended, or that they will soon end. It is a hope that strengthens the weak, who without it would fall at once into the bottomless pit. The best of us, in this life, are continually tormented by one thing or another. We are forever being worried by all sorts of facts and fancies, real and imaginary. We are humiliated and chagrined at the innumera- ble features of life over which we have no control, and yet, for which we are not responsible. Where, my beloved, would we be were it not for Hope? The hungry in these distressing times are kept up by Hope — hoping that the morrow may give them food. The widow and the fatherless are encouraged to hope for a change in their wretched condition, and that relief will soon come and remove them from their distress. It is Hope that feeds the soul; that encourages the weak; that strengthens the weary. It is Hope that saves many a man and woman each and every year from going to their destruction, prematurely. The child hopes that its childish desires may be gratified; the grown people that their heavier trials may be lightened; the youth hopes that the maiden of his choice may at last be all his own; the innocent maiden hopes that no evil may befall her beloved. We see a lonely and a sad wife, sitting all alone. Her home ought to be a happy one; and it is Hope, and Hope alone, that keeps her up. 102 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. Day by day she sees her dreams proven the contrary; day by day she sees her hopes decay; and, my beloved, were it not for Hope, what would there be left for this one single sample of womanly wretchedness? It has been said that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick." Possibly; and yet, were it not for this hope, the heart would be a mighty sight sicker than it is. It is Hope that keeps us all up in this life. It is Hope that gives us new life. It is Hope that serves as a balm for our ills when all else fails. It is Hope that polishes the rough edges on all of the affairs of life, and without this Hope all of us would fall far short in all of our life's affairs. Give us Hope instead of Charity every time. Away from home, in some obscure corner, is to-day a young man who but for his own indulgences, might be a grand success in this life. As we have said before, he is matured beyond his years, and yet, with all his favorable surroundings, this young man is making a sepulchre of the material that nature gave him for the building of a throne. A.11 of those who are interested in this young man have nothing left but Hope, A few years ago we saw a youth, full of vigor, who possessed talent and business qualifications, who deliberately chose the broad and easy road that leads to everlasting death and torment. His many friends gave him up, but the Evangelist did not. We wrote a letter to the father of this youth, urging patience. We knew he would come out all right in the end, and he did; and to-day occupies a high and honorable place in the commercial and financial world. It was only our Hope, and it won. My beloved, the Evangelist has been tortured and tormented in many ways. We have seen the time when we were all ready to "shuffle off this mortal coil," and it was Hope, only Hope, that stayed the execution of our contemplated intentions, to end this life's terrors and torments; and then, way off in the dark, came a light that was bright, and clear, and beautiful, and we saw at last the realization of our hopes, and finally we assented to the fact and said, as others have said before : It is Hope. YOUR ENEMIES. Every man and every woman, every child, even, on the face of this earth, has enemies. No one escapes; and if such a thing were possible, we should look with curiosity and suspicion upon that human being who claimed to have no enemies. There is one period when it appears that we are without enemies, and that it at our death. When the clergyman is called to "make a few re- marks" before we are planted, he says everything nice about us. You never heard of a preacher telling the truth about a dead man. There are lots of human beasts in this world who live and die as such ; and yet, no matter how ornery, how brutal, how selfish, stingy or mean a live man may be, nor how many years he has practiced these things, the clergyman tells how wonderfully good this mean man has been all his life; tells us of his charity, of which no one ever heard while the dead man was alive; tells us of his benevolence, and how, in life, he had lived without an enemy. What a different man, indeed, is the dead man from the live one. It does not matter how correct a life a man may lead, he will have ene- mies. No matter how good, humane, generous a man may be, there are some among his friends, acquaintances and neighbors, who do not like him, who are his enemies. It's the same with the tender sex. They all do something sometimes that makes people angry, and these people are their enemies always. You speak confidentially, sometimes, to people about other people, and they betray your confidence and you have made an enemy. You do your business in an honorable way; you make an effort to be honest ; you try to do everything that is right and in the right way, and still, in some one thing you fail, and in that failure you make an enemy. A man cannot get along at all in this life without making enemies. No matter who he is, nor what he does, he is sure to have some enemies. He makes them somehow or other, frequently without knowing when or how, but they are there just the same, and they never lose an opportunity of letting other people know it. Therefore, how useless it is for us to try and make everybody our friends. We might just as well lead haughty, independent lives as to be meek and modest in our demeanor, for we will have enemies just the same, and just as many of them, no matter how we live. 104 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. In our time we have done very much for some people in this world, and we know that they have repaid us in slander and scandal. We have humiliated ourselves more than once by associating, publicly, with people who bore bad reputations, but it was our privilege so to do if we chose, and we did so choose. We have, for a good purpose, visited disreputable places, and have received a social black eye from our enemies who did not know, nor did they want to know, what called us to these ill-favored resorts. The enemy of a man never sees any good in him, and if he did he would never mention it. He is always wrong, and an enemy never gives him credit for doing anything that is right and proper and good. Your enemy is always on your track, and it's nuts for him to find you doing something that he can tell to your enemies, that tliey, in turn, may assist in spreading over the community. Your enemy is always on the watch, and of course, he can find something against you in your methods or your speech, or acts, and it don't take long to spread it over the commu- nity, when your enemy gets hold of it. You may struggle your best to lead such a life as shall make for you friends, but you will fail. You may be perfect in all things save one, and in this one you will fall down, and this is where your enemy gets in his or her work against you, and how are you going to avoid it? We all have our enemies ; some more, some less ; and the greater a bene- factor you are, the more kind and humane, the greater do we number our enemies, and there is no remedy for it that we know of. Our only sug- gestion is to please yourselves; live such lives as will give yourselves the greatest satisfaction, bring to yourselves the greatest amount of happi- ness; stick closely to your own homes; mind your own business, and then let your enemies go it. Let them open out on you. Let them slan- der and abuse you. Let them peddle your weaknesses to an eager pub- lic. Let them vilify you and always speak ill of you ; do ever}^thing they can against you; and if you are safe within the sacred precincts of your own home, your enemy cannot injure you much. If in your home, your own home, you find enemies, fire them out, and then you will have, at least, one spot on this earth where you will be free from your enemies. THE PRINT OF THE NAIL. Boys, there are lots of preachers in this world, and they are all crammed full of views and ideas peculiar to each individual self and creed. Each one of them professes to believe the doctrine he preaches. Some are real and true and honest in their convictions, and others are frauds and impostors. The orthodox clergy preach to you of a future life beyond the grave; of the soul and its immortality; of heaven and hell. They tell you that all the good among us will, by and by, be fitted out with a pair of wings, given a golden harp, and that then, forever and forever, we shall have nothing to do but to skim lazily in the atmosphere of eternal bliss and sing. Of the bad among us, they say we are to be carelessly tumbled into an eternal fire that is never quenched, and that there we shall sputter and sizzle and roast. But say, boys, the preachers who give you this know nothing about it at all. It's an idea they borrowed from their prede- cessors, and they, in turn, from theirs. Of what is to come and be a million years hence, none of us know; but there is one thing we do know, and it is to foster and encourage our youth to grapple with that, that the Evangelist lifts up his melodious voice week after week. We know for a positive fact, that if we drive a nail into a post or board, that, although we may easily withdraw the nail, we cannot remove the print the nail has made. We know all about this world, and the people in it; we know what is right and what is wrong; we can easily tell what is good and what is bad; we know the difference between honesty and thievery; we know how to pick out from the throng the conscientious man and the hypocrite; we can detect the spuri- ous from the genuine every time; and so it is our aim and ambition to steer the youth in the right road in this life and let the other look out for itself. It's practical sermons the Evangelist preaches week after week — ser- mons based upon actual experience, actual contact with the people of this world and from a positive knowledge gained by bumping up against life's rough edges. In brief, we know what we are talking about — the other preachers don't, and that's the difiference, and the only difference, between our sermons. Boys, we have danced and we have paid the fiddler his price. It came high, but we had to have it. We have- painted very large cities a bright 106 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. carmine and we have used wet towels on our head in the mornino-. We have "cut up" all the "monkey shines" human inventive genius could scratch together and have paid the penalty every time. We have bet on the wrong man, the wrong horse, the wrong chip and have settled our losses dollar for dollar. We have played "hookey" from school and got licked for it. We have sneaked under the circus tent and got kicked out. Briefly, boys, we have tried everything en the outside of human nature and got worsted every pop. It will be the same with you. There is no use talking, boys, you cannot serve two masters— it can't be done. You have either got to be a decent, honorable, respectable, honest, virtuous man, or a dogoned scoundrel and outlaw. There can be no neutrals— no half way position in this fight for life; it's either one or the other. If you are determined to associate with vagabonds and social rottenness, cleave to that exclusively and don't pollute decent society with your festering presence. If you are bound to pursue the broad road tKat leads to doom, go it, but don't drag others along with you, and remember always the print of the nail. You lead a scandalous life, and while you may possibly reform by and by, you never can remove from your own hearts and consciences the im- pressions your wrong acts have left thereon. The young men who are to-day on the downward road are bringing upon themselves many hours of regret and much remorse. Their wrong and wicked trips may be fun for awhile, but it means tears by and by. The frolic in a dive is fun, but when the money you stole from your employer to have this fun is' dis- covered, then comes the time when you look into the nail hole and weep. The excessive guzzler of booze is having fun, but when the poor devil writhes and wriggles and twists with the jim-jams, then comes remorse and pain and regret and humiliation and shame and all the other accom- panying tortures and terrors. So it is, boys, with this world and its aflfairs. If you do wrong you will pay the penalty, just as sure as you live, and you will get your punish- ment here and right now. You won't have to wait until you reach the imaginary hell to meet your chastisement— you are in a real live hell al- ready, and the terrors of that place will scrape your bones cleaner than a pork-house spare-rib. You are not fooling anybody, boys. The Evangelist knows where you are nights and how much you got "stuck for." We know how m_any corks were pulled for you and how much you still owe on what was in the bottles. We have seen the slate in the bar-room and know what's charged up against you, and we tell you plainly and straight that this means heaps of trouble for you after awhile. Boys, straighten out; walk the crack like men; be upright and honest; MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 107 enjoy your innocent fun, but steer clear of anything that is red — that's a bad color — it means danger — it will paralyze you. Seek to live this life correctly — never mind the other one. You have to deal with the here, not the hereafter. You cannot be true and false at the same time, neither good and bad. You must either be a virtuous man or a hypocrite. Come over on the right side, boys, and come now, then you won't have to look at the ugly imprints your sins have made — ^the Prints of the Nails. HOME. There are no four letters in any language, put together, which mean so much as home. It means happiness or misery; it means delight or dis- gust; it means hope or hopejessness; it means clouds or sunshine; it means all that is true and pure and good, or all that is false, impure and bad. A happy home is the silver lining to a summer's cloud; an unhappy one, the darkness which betokens gloom. A happy home is a touch of heaven here on earth; an unhappy one is a tinge of hell below. A happy home is all that is bright and beautiful; an unhappy one is that which breeds nightmares and horror. The longest life is short enough to those who live in a happy home, while the shortest life is much too long to those whose homes are unhappy, and when a happy home is so easily acquired, it's passing strange that there are so many unhappy ones. It is not necessary that we inhabit palaces in order to lead happy lives ; a cabin, or cottage, or two rooms may contain happiness, while the mar- ble front may overflow with misery and wretchedness. It is not necessary that we "roll in wealth" in order to be happy. On the contrary, the day's wages of a contented man will bring to his door great joy and happiness. A home is precisely what we make it; we lay the foundation and build our domestic structures as we desire, and there are only a few very simple but imperative rules we must follow to attain a peaceful, happy home. We must make a specialty of one thing, and that is to lose sight of all else save the one idea of our domestic circle. We cannot be continually crowding our homes with that stuff they call "society" and hope for a happy home to continue long. The most solid domestic structure will crumble and fall very soon and surely, if we devote more time to social matter? than to our homes. A wife who worships a silk dress and hates a dish rag won't hold your domestic structure together very long, we will give you a pointer on that. A husband who thnks more of his club or jovial companions than of his wife and home, is loosening the mortar between the bricks of his domestic peace and the whole outfit will go to the devil in a bunch by and by. There are two other things in this world besides oil and water that will not mix, and these are domestic happiness and society. You have got to let go your grip on one or the other, my boy, and it's for you to say which if the two it shall ije. You cannot shine as a domestic bright light MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 109 and as a society bumble bee at the same time. You cannot reign at the front of a respected family and as a social figurehead at one and the same time. You cannot be the honored master of a happy home and a second hand dude— it must be one or the other, and it's for you to say which it shall be; you must choose yourself. There are millions of people in the world to-day who are strangers to anything that resembles a home of any sort. An army of young men cooped up in small rooms at hotels; living in rooms over business blocks; sleeping on cots in our banks and commercial houses; eating their meals at restaurants, whose daily aim and whole ambition is to have a home of their own, and when such a home is secured, it would seem to us that it would be fully appreciated and worshipped as something resembling the "pearl of great price." There are also hundreds of homes, but the sunlight of happiness is not found within their walls. The mistress is engrossed in society's meshes; the master in his business, and gradually the evil is tightening, and by and by it will choke them to death, and all around uh we can see to-day the ruins of just such homes. The Evangelist sounds his alarm; he gives you a warning that he hopes you will heed. Seek first the happiness of your own home, regardless of what people may say. Work diligently; be faithful to your business trusts; save money and spend it all in beauti- fying your home — in doors and out. We practice what we preach, and we will give you all to understand that there is nothing too good for us to use in our home. We make our money and we spend it all for that we most enjoy — our home, and we want every member of our congrega- tion to do the same. Money earned and hoarded will do you no good, but every dollar spent in home luxuries and comforts will smooth the wrinkles in your face and make you better and happier and more satisfied with yourself and contented with the world at large. The Evangelist shut down on all society long ago; we have but one aim, one am.bition, and that is to surround ourself with all the blessings and comforts a home will bring, and we consider all investments in this direction well made, and we will compare our home conveniences and comforts, with those of any pious old fraud and bet seven dollars we will carry oflf first prize. We have a barrel of beer in our cellar; a keg of whisky under the stairs; a box of cigars in our room. You will also find five bibles and prayer books and the works of Tom Paine and Ingersoll on our mantels and tables, you will find hymn books and rock and rye in the same room. We carry in stock everything thfit all classes who visit us may desire or demand, and no matter what the tastes or inclinations of our friends may be, we can and alw^ays do accommodate them. 110 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. We believe in surrounding ourselves with every comfort and luxury; we enjoy these ourselves and it gives us pleasure that our friends can do the same, and if we were worth a million we would blow every dollar of it in beautifying our home and filling it fuller and fuller with those worldly things that promote happiness and contentment. We believe in getting all the enjoyment there is in this life out of it, and we can see no enjoy- ment in piling up dollars for somebody else to spend, and if we can only succeed in making every member of our congregation see this matter of a happy home as we do, we shall be grateful and thankful and glad, and satisfied that we have done a good work as an Evangelist here on earth. THE DRINKING MAN. As it requires all sorts, kind and conditions of men to make up this great world in which we live, it probably is necessary that a few of each sort should have been created as examples, illustrating all the various people and their affairs. In compliance with this necessity men were made and filled with idea?,, notions, habits, customs, and each day as they passed along through life they practiced their several and various traits, and this is how the article named in the heading of this our Sunday Sermon, happened to be on earth. If we were all liberal in our ideas we would not adversely criticise the doings, acts and performances of our fellow men, but, alas! to perfect our condition as a race of people we must have the crank, the kicker, the fault-finder, just as we have the reverse of these, and we are all mixed up together and belong to one great family. There is one class of people who believe in the use of stimulants, an- other who oppose it, and if the latter were only as liberal and generous in their views and opinions as the former, everything would move along smoothly. But, unfortunately, they are not, and this fact precipitates trouble among the classes. The whole human family follow as a rule their predecessors. The son absorbs the views of his father and does precisely as he has done. The son's views on religion, politics, morals and all else are exactly what his father's were, and the boy thinks, acts and believes what his father before him did. The drinking man then is a creation, and he fills his niche in life, exactly as do the other creations. He associates with his kind and does not disturb or interfere in any with his neighbors. He uses this stimu- lant every day just as his father did before him and sees in it no wrong, no harm. He sits at the table and sips away at his mug of beer and thinks only of pleasing things — indulging himself merely and only for social purposes. He does not consider that he is injuring himself or his fellows, and so he proceeds along day by day. Occasionally, however, you will find a drinking man who does not possess the power of mind sufficiently strong to control himself, and this isolated case is used by fanatics as the corner stone upon which to build a structure having for its end in view the utter annihilation of the beverage 112 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. that affords so much comfort, pleasure, happiness to so many others, and this is the starter of our trouble. The world over you can see husbands and wives take their little ones to summer resorts, and seated together around a little table they happily sip their cooling and refreshing beer and are as contented a circle as you would wish to see. None of this little group ever indulge too freely — beyond their capacity — they just sit there, drink their beer and are happy the whole day long. But unfortunately for us all, there comes along by and by a man who does not act in this manner. He loads himself at a gulp and then pro- ceeds to make himself a nuisance and things unpleasant for every one around him. Now, the fanatic in his comments does not point to the happy and con- tented family sitting at the table — a half dozen or more of them — but they select this one obnoxious nuisance and upon him build their arguments against the use of liquid stimulants, and right here is where the injustice to a large and respectable class of people comes in. The whole line is made to suffer because of the indiscretions of one single human being. To apply the term, a drinking man, to any single individual, does not mean that he is necessarily a loafer or a bum. Thousands of men are drinking men and yet you never saw one of them overcome by the stimu- lants they absorb. The nabobs of this country — great railroad men, financiers, politicians, inaugurators of great schemes, promoters of big enterprises, all have their side-board in which is stored a stock of liquid refreshments. When con- ventions, or encampments, or gatherings of any and all kinds are held you never saw the people of California attend these assemblies without one car in tlieir train being filled with something refreshing in kegs and bottles for the drinking men of the party, and the drinking men are not drunkards either, nor sots, nor loafers, nor bums. The drinking man is, as a rule, as much and oftener more of a gentleman than those who do not drink, and were it not for the fact that the latter interfere upon every possible occasion with the former, there would be no trouble in this world on that score. Our mission in this life is to attempt to educate people to attend strictly and only to their own affairs. Do yourself what you believe to be right and extend the same privilege to others. If you desire to attend church do so, and if your neighbors do not, leave them alone with their own convictions on that point. If your neighbor wants a drink let him have it — he is responsible, not you. You do not have to indulge because he does. You each have a personal privilege that the other is bound to respect, and if we all did this the drinking man MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 113 would receive no more attention, no more comment, no more criticism; would be no more of a relic or curiosity than the man who does riot drink. Let each man in this big world be the custodian of his own afifairs, and then much, if not all, that breeds trouble would be avoided. Live and let live; enjoy your own opinions and habits and permit your neighbor to do so unmolested. When you learn to do this you have succeeded in removing one prominent obstruction in the navigation of life's great river. MASKS AND FACES. In the molding of the human face is a mark of skill which certainly re- flects marvelous credit upon the creator. Millions upon millions of human faces, and yet no two of them alike. While the outline is there; while the general construction is the same, yet the features are entirely different. The human face is the beveled edged mirror of life itself, and in it is reflected our character; our pleasure, our pain, and yet, so delicately is this face arranged that it can be used to counterfeit, to mislead, to deceive. By the smile, which nature has given us power to create on our faces, we indicate our joy, or, if a malicious spirit wills it so, it also indicates a deceiver — a fraud, but the latter is the mask, not the face. People may smile with this mask with a heart breaking from its weight of woe. People may smile with this mask, while plotting our destruc- tion. People may smile as Judas did smile, while laying their plans to betray us. Most people of this world have both the face and the mask, and they wear the latter to cover the former when occasion requires. Yet, the pro- visions of nature are so carefully and wisely made, that the mask is pene- trated and the face is seen by those who have a right to see it. Somehow or other the smile of a hypocrite and fraud has something suspicious about it; it lacks the true ring of the genuine, and we detect its truth be- fore damage is done. Now and then, however, we are deceived and mis- take the mask for the face. We see a meek-loving, mild, simple, innocent-appearing saint, as he smiles upon us. We have been taught to respect this man because of his professions of piety. He holds an office in a prominent church and passes current in the community for good, and yet in the seclusion of his own home he beats his wife. The Evangelist knows such a man and can give his name. He is a case of mask and face, and he uses each as occasion requires or his purposes demand. The detective is one of the necessary pieces of machinery which the de- tection of crime and criminals make necessary, and how nicely can he adapt himself to his profession. He has many masks which cover his one single face, as the time and necessity require. He mingles with thieves, talks their vocabulary, assumes their customs, habits and ways; he allows himself to be arrested and goes to jail with the other law break- MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 115 ers, merely and only to secure the evidence his profession requires for the conviction of the law-breakers. Young men who are notorious for their many immoral ways of life,, assume their masks every time they call on a reputable young lady at her home. We know young men who are mentally and morally and physically diseased who appear in our best society, covered with their masks, and the world swallows their deceit and treachery as a matter of fact. Young ladies who lie in bed until noon, while their mothers do the housework, cover their faces with masks "when evening comes, and they appear in the parlor to receive their young gentlemen callers. These young women who appear so neat and attractive at night are terrible slouches during the day at home. Their hair uncombed, perhaps their faces, even unwashed, hosiery full of holes, and slip shod slippers on their neglected feet. At the evening time they all wear masks. The face of the home for their home people, and the face of the evening for their friends are entirely unlike, although worn by the same young woman — it's the mask and the face. The rascal who joins some prominent church that he may better ply his vocation; that he may more profitably work his nafarious designs; that he may secure easier victims, wears his mask. The pretended friend who secures from you social or professional secrets only to repeat them to your erjemy, wears a mask,, All those who are morally corrupt, who are allowed the privileges of good associations, wear masks, and if he will, your family physician can tell you of many grossly immoral people who are welcome guests in our best homes. They all wear masks. These are not new ideas. This system of two faces has been in con- stant use for years. It is as old as the world itself, and people have always practiced the wearing of faces and masks. Indeed, it is as we have already said, a most impossible thing to telf at times which is the face, which the mask. We have known people to- laugh heartily "before folks" whose hearts have been burdened with secrets and who threw themselves upon their beds and wept bitterly the moment they were alone. That you saw was the mask. That you did not see, the face. People who walk the streets in clothes unpaid for; those who owe for their board; those who are daily practicing upon you their deceits and frauds and swindles, all wear masks and always will. Try as hard as you may, you cannot detect these deceptions until, after awhile, an accident reveals to you the truth. Then you are astounded at the information and surprised at your own blindness and at the stupidity of yourself at being so easily gulled. • . ' ' i J 116 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. There is but a single way to proceed through this Hfe, and that is to beHeve nothing that you do not absolutely know, and even discount what you know by half to provide for mistakes. We have often looked at people and wondered how much of that they were telling us, they would have us believe. We have often heard people extolling the virtues of others, whom we knew to be unworthy of the compliments they were receiving. The Evangelist is a social skeptic — made so by the circumstances sur- rounding his own life. He has seen so much deceit and hypocrisy; so much of this mask and face business; so many of the impositions prac- ticed upon humanity; so much that was fraudulent in character and morals, that we are an absolute unbeliever in any other theory than that all the people of this world wear Masks and Faces. TROUBLE. Ever since that first chump and idiot Adam, bit into that apple, the world has been full of trouble. It is a matter of some doubt whether the bite he took on that memorable occasion is the real cause for all the trouble in the world, but it dates from thai time and it is the result of the example set by the world's first fool. With a whole orchard groaning beneath its weight of apples, it beats the average man to know why Adam wanted to chaw on the particular one which Eve gave him, but he did just the same; he took it, bit into it and trouble has been with us ever since. The history of Adam is of the first man who wanted the earth. What a snap he had and yet he did not have enough sense to appreciate it. Lo- cated as he was in his summer garden, surrounded by everything to make life enjoyable, with Eve to assist him in the duties of the place; he had no socks to send to the laundry, no mending to do, no buttons to sew on his shirts, no shoes to wear out. He had no fires to make cold mornings and nothing to do in hot weather but to sit under fig trees, chew his finger nails and admire Eve, and yet with this soft snap, the dogoned idiot was not satisfied and so he was willingly led into temptation and the devil has been to pay ever since. We live along in this life dissatisfied every day, dissatisfied with what we have and are continually reaching out for that we have not and cannot get. We are in trouble all the while, and so if we believe that Adam is the cause of it all, we can hardly be blamed for entertaining a mighty poor opinion of Adam. There are thousands of people now days just like the first chump, they have everything on earth that contributes to enjoyment and comfort and yet do not value, do not appreciate it. With the abundance which sur- rounds them, they still are short on something they want but cannot possess themselves of — they are in trouble. But this only proves that most people are themselves only and alone to blame for much of the trouble that surrounds them and it is the lack of gratitude, of appreciation, of thankfulness for what they do have and ought to enjoy, that is responsible for half their troubles as they exist. Once in awhile we are not responsible for the trouble that is upon us; we may be satisfied and grateful for what we are and have, but some one else may heap upon us burdens we. cannot bear and thus the trouble we 118 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. have is not our own, but we have it all the same, and we suffer, as keenly as though it were our own, and had brought it upon ourselves. But few in this life are free from trouble of some sort, perhaps none are. Some people are so constituted that they conceal their troubles better than others, but they have them just like the rest.' We never could understand why all the troubles we are forced to endure, are visited upon us. It does not appear clear to us that they are at all necessary. Any one with brains can appreciate his blessings and enjoy them and trouble is not needful that he may more fully appreciate his pleasures. Trouble comes to us in a variety of shapes, and what worries one man almost to death, is no terrors for another. The greatest and heaviest bur- dens of one man are very light for another and he carries them easily. It worries one man to owe a bill he cannot pay, while another will stand his debtor off with a smile on his face that is bewildering to the sensitive man. The trouble of one is nothing to the other. The happiness of one family annoys another and fills them with envy and rage. The pros- perity of one man makes another one jealous and angry. The success of one man is poison to another and all this causes us trouble. We invest our money in mines or stock and lose it; we bet on a candidate and lose; we mortgage our home to help us out of financial difficulty, and they fore- close on us and we find ourselves in the street. We start in business and it does not pay; we owe for our board and washing and lots of other things and it all makes trouble. We are ambitious and cannot gratify it ; we earnestly desire some special thing and cannot get it; some other fellow walks off with the girl on whom we have banked heavily — whom we have fed, for years, on ice cream and caramels ; we try to push our big foot into a little shoe ; the strings of our liver pad break ; our shirts and collars don't fit; we have bunions and corns and all sorts of aches and pains which cause us tro^ible. Our children go wrong; our schemes don't pan out; our plans mis- carry; our calculations do not work as we intended they should, and so we are always in some sort of trouble. Part of the troubles we have to bear are real and serious and hard, but many of them are imaginary and could be avoided if we chose. We, like old Adam, allow ourselves to be led into temptation and it makes us trouble; we prance about among the joints night, and trouble comes with the morning. We visit another man's wife, and climb out of back win- dows and over back fences as we flee from the wrath to come. We do all sorts of things we need not do and the result is trouble. So my beloved what's the use of always worrying yourselves over what is sure to come to all of us. From the very day the world began until MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 119 the present time, we have all had our annoyances, our trials, our troubles. The same snake that wiggled in the grass in Adam's summer garden, is in ours to-day, the same Eve who persuaded Adam is on deck now; using her beauty to lead us astray ; the same fruits are growing on our vines and trees and the same crowd is skulking along the highways seek- ing a favorable opportunity to snatch it. Men whose heads are light and who are easily influenced are floating around the same to-day as when our first parents were chasing butterflies and grasshoppers in Eden. The same weaknesses, the same follies, exist, the same charms lure us away from the straight and narrow way, and the same penalties and punishments are meted out to all of us who tread the forbidden paths. We eat and sleep and live — day by day the same. We have some pleasure and much trouble and so it will be until the angel toots for us and we are driven to our corner to await the call of time. Whether there is anything after this life we do not know, but this one for a fact is full of that which we preach to-day — Trouble. WHAT IS LIFE? Life is a fact, and yet if we were to ask a thousand different people what it is, each would answer you differently. Life is a reality, and yet as mysterious as it is real. Life is to one person a burden, to another a pleasure; to one a success; to another a failure; to one a bright sail, to another a rough voyage ; and so, were you to ask what life is, each of these would answer according to their own experience and situations. To some of us life is the most deceptive of all deceitful things ; it is a delusion and a snare, and he who can live a successful life and say to you that he has so lived we should look upon as one of this world's natural curiosities. If we had the management of our own affairs ; our own health ; our own business. If we could regulate the lives of our children and steer them along pleasant paths; if we could calculate on our own fortunes; if we could ward off disaster and peril; if we could prevent broken bones, boils and carbuncles; if we could head off the belly-ache and cramps; if we could stand off death, perhaps then life could be made a pleasure and a peace. But while we have no voice in the management of our own livers, and hearts and bowels, we cannot be sure that life will not prove to us a pain and nuisance. There is much in life that is pleasant, and we enjoy it hugely, but im- mediately following our joy comes sorrow, remorse, heartache, sickness, pain and a thousand other things that detroy the fun we have had. The absorption of budge in reasonable quantities is fun; a night out with the boys is fun; the devouring of a stolen watermelon is fun; the rope stretched across the sidewalk and the toppling over of the unfortu- nate devil whose chin hits it, is fun ; the can tied to a pup's tail makes lots of fun for the boys. But say, the after-clap is what hurts. The first of these are things that make life desirable and existence a pleasure, but that which comes after these is what knocks the spots out of a "feller." To swallow the booze means a wet towel and seltzer in the morning, and gripes and pain ; a night out with the boys means seven dollars and costs and a bruised proboscis and a lame back; the swallowing of the stolen watermelon means peppermint and the belly-ache; and so it is all through life. It is one pleasure and one pain; one fun and one regret; one "good time" and one remorse ; one hearty laugh and one prolonged cry ; one day of jolly fun and one day of prostration, wretchedness, humiliation and agony. MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 121 None of us are satisfied with our lot in life ; we are always reaching out for something we cannot have. If we are fortunate enough to be pro- vided with one thing, we want something else, and when that is given us we stretch out our claws for more, and thus do we proceed day after day and year after year, until we wear ourselves out worrying over the per- plexing mystery of endeavoring to satisfactorily answer the question: What is Hfe? If people would only learn to be contented with their lives, just as they find them, much that now causes unhappiness and dissatisfaction would be removed, and when with other lives before us showing the unsatis- factory condition of things, it's very strange we do not profit thereby. The pulpy, bloated body of millionaire Stewart could not even remain and rot in the tomb unmolested. Even after death the success he had made of his life was the secret of the robbing of his grave. While Stewart was successful, and by industry and faithfulness and honest labor had se- cured great wealth, those who stole his bones profited by this example to commit crime. What was Stewart's life to him? Vanderbilt with his enormous sums of money, died like a dog on the floor of his palatial home. What was life to him? Lincoln with his massive intellect, his wonderful executive ability; his power over men, was shot like a beast. Likewise Garfield. What was life to these two great men? To be born into this world is to wear a crown of thorns; to live is to worry and fret; to exist is a struggle, and to be a man or woman is to suffer all the ills that flesh is heir to, and the sooner the human family realize this fact the sooner will disappointments cease ; appreciate as soon as you can, dear readers, that "man that is bom of woman is of few days and full of trouble," and if any of you can figure out the pleasures of Hfe without corresponding pains, you can do more than the Evangelist,, we assure you. Little girls and boys at their play at school have troubles that seem hard to bear; the youth and maiden have theirs; those in middle life theirs; age bends under its weight, and finally after a battle, either long or short, the end comes to us all, and we are tumbled into a hole in the ground; a few crocodile tears are shed; a hymn is sung; and we ride back into town for another stiff to go through the same performance. What is life? The same nature that created mankind created also a peculiar fitness to crown it with. To one of us is given a throat and neck, and we warble a living out of it. To another is given the power of strength, and we turn hand-springs and lift huge burdens for our living; another paints a pic- ture; another writes a book; another cracks safes; another sandbags his fellow man ; another preaches the go^el ; another 'tends the monkey cage 122 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. in a circus; another goes as a missionary to a foreign land, to teach the gentle savage the way of everlasting bliss ; another steals horses ; another plays skillfully on various musical instruments; another teaches the mys- tery of three card monte, and this is life. One man knocks you on the head and another sews up the cut ; one man makes you sick and another cures you; one man sells you clothes and another steals 'em; one man gives you a farm and another beats you out of it; one man belongs to the church another to a theater; one man builds a house and another burns it down, and so it goes and so it has gone for ages, and for ages yet to come it will be the same, and now, my beloved, if you can from this tell us what life is, out with it, for we all would like to know — to have an answer to the subject of our sermon to-day — What is Life? THE ONE THING NEEDFUL. In our earlier lives, we were taught that faith and grace and kindred compounds was the "one thing needful," but most of us, after a tussle with the world and its peculiar people, have arrived at the conclusion that our earlier teachings were in a measure at least, wrong. Every young man and woman starting on a voyage of life, has some sort of a deep-seated idea of how his or her future life will be spent. Some are filled with an enthusiastic endeavor to climb quickly life's steep hill and too soon gain its summit. Some are easily and early discouraged and give up life's battle, without half an effort. Some plod along in the tiresome, weary way that means failure in the end. Some encounter diffi- culties in settling on any plan for their future. Some are weak-minded, faint-hearted, and flee though none pursue. Some are born tired and they always fail. Some are too easily influenced, and accepting bad advice, fall down before they have begun to climb. Some enter trades or professions nature did not intend they should follow — they are not built right and so tumble. Some being poor fear the future and give up. Some accidentally stumble upon that which will make them great or very small. This life is full of curios and of all the relics and curiosities, the human race is the boss, and that such exist is evidence enough that the world could not be other than what it is. We are a firm believer in ambition; we believe in making a manly, womanly struggle to be a success in this world and we always feel like slapping a successful man on the back for a bully boy. But so long as we are filled with the peculiar element which makes all man and woman- kind peculiar, we do not see how we can avoid very well being just what we are. Cleveland, playing penuckle in Buffalo, was the same man as he who is president of our country to-day, and yet, we venture to say that the idea of holding his present position never once entered his mind years ago. The histories of the world's great men and women tell us that they came from very humble stock, and from candle maker's son, Christopher Columbus, down through all the generations, which have produced Schiller, Goethe, Washington, Lincoln and all the rest, we ought to find hope, for each of our chances are equal to any of those who have lived and died before us. 124 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. Suffering Peter, do you catch onto the fact that your lives are sHpping- away terribly fast young man. The faucet of life's molasses barrel is wide open, and the contents of that cask are emptying drop by drop, and before you realize the fact a hollow sound will be the response to the tap with a stick you give upon the staves of life's tub. The daily duties of each and every life are quite the same, although va- ried consequent upon the different situations we find ourselves in. The man rolling in boodle gets only what you get — something to eat and drink and wear and a place to rest his weary head when night comes on. The only difference is that if we are blessed with cash, our food will be more dainty, our clothes of a finer fabric, our drinks more aristrocratic, our bed softer. But the weary bum sleeps just as soundly on a board in the police station, as the King of Bavaria upon his bedstead that took forty men forty years to build. The homeless vagabond glides through each day somehow or other with his ragged suit as he who is arrayed in purple and fine linen. We can't all be saints; some of us must sin. We can't 'all wear line clothes ; some of us must be clad in tatters. We can't all ride ; some must walk, but we will tell you, my beloved, what we can do — all of us. We can, if we will, ease our lots in life until they may not seem half so gloomy and pitiless and sad. We can, no matter how humble we are, nor how small our homes, nor how frugal our diet, we can, if we will, be happy, and it all lies with ourselves to say whether we shall be so or not. It's very simple, this plan of ours, but the discipline must be rigid. We must practice economy in our domestic affairs; v;e must learn what con- tentment means; we must not be envious; nor jealous, or selfish either; we must appreciate what we are and have and make up our minds to be satisfied. We care not how humble is the home, it can be made a paradise on earth, if contentment dwells therein. We can be a happy people and family, if we envy not the superior situations of our acquaintances, and we tell you now that many a good man is in jail to-day for embezzling the funds that went to encourage extravagance of living and dress. Many a natur- ally good woman is dragging herself along through life to-day in misery of body and mind, because of the commission of error caused by a desire to live in places and positions beyond her financial ability. A lifetime of agony is endured and untold suffering entailed upon many innocent people by fashions and follies that could have been avoided, as well as not. My friends, let me advise you a little, and if you accept that advice, your lives will be the pleasanter, the happier therefor. We should all be dili- gent and industrious and frugal. We should attend strictly to our own business, which produces our living, but, there must be a time given to the MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 125 enjoyment of our homes; we must take the time to be with our wives and children; we must learn that, of all the duties, all the demands, all the requirements upon our ability and time, we owe our homes the first, and we religiously believe, that when we appear at the gates of heaven, the very first question Pete will ask us, will be : "have you always loved your wives and children and home?" If you answer yes and can prove it, you will sit among the ransomed. If no, a fork will tear its way into your toughened hide, and you will be tossed among those in hell, who while on earth, forsook and forgot their wives and homes and babies, in their selfish ambition to accumulate the one thing needful. AMBITION. To be ambitious is manly, womanly; to seek to better one's worldly condition is not a sin; to seek to improve our financial standing is cred- itable; to strive to prosper, struggle to earn and save, is something of which all man and womankind may well be proud. When you see a man or woman who think they have reached the sum- mit of their ambition and sit themselves down to sufi("er life's remnant in idleness, you encounter the very worst stumbling blocks of civilized times. When you bump up against a man who tells you his business is as large as he can well handle, you may know dead sure, you have struck a crank. This world is filled with shiftless, lazy, idle men and slouchy women, who merely exist from day to day. They have no ambition beyond the hour, and from day to day they drag themselves in every one's way. They are void of the commonest sympathies for those in trouble; they know not how to love ; they are wanting in delicacy and sympathy ; they are hangers-on to life's brightest side, waiting for something to turn up. The "world owes them a living," say they, and thus from hour to hour they hang on and look ahead and wait and sleep and hope. It's tough on young men and women who have been delicately reared ; who have had homes and parents who have always provided for their every want, to be obliged to forsake their happy surroundings and en- gage in some menial employment for a livelihood. It's tough to enter the ranks of hard labor for those who have never known what it was to want for anything. It's tough to be "cut" on the street by your former associates who have been more fortunate than yourself. It's tough to pass homes of elegance in which you were once a welcome guest, and know that its inmates no longer recognize you because you are now obliged to work for a living. It's tough to see people clad in the sumptu- ous raiment your frame was once arrayed in, and then look at your own calico or hand-me-down. It's tough to hear sweet music floating away on the midnight air and listen to the slippered feet as they glide along the ball-room floor, while you are perched on a high stool in some counting- room, or doing some other mind-wrecking labor for your living. It's tough to walk into the fashionable church and be sized up by the usher and seated the third seat from the rear, because your wardrobe gives it away that you work for your living. It's tough to ask the loan of the price of a drink that is to brace you up and collect your shattered nerves. MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 127 But this comes to us all. And so it is, that ambition to remove yourself from these unpleasant situations, is honorable. The world has no sympathy for any man or woman who is down in the mouth, or run over at the heel; this world's people have no pity for you ; they care nothing for your troubles, your sorrows, your afflictions. They only call him a fool who gives way; lets down under the weight of his burdens, and so once more is ambition to recover from such misfor- tunes an honor to any man or woman. There comes a time in all our lives when clouds hang very low around us; times when our cries of anguish go up to heaven like the wail of a lost soul; times when sweet notes of music have a garbled sound, and when the piping of sweet song birds are out of tune; times when the shadow has chased the sunshine from your home; times when the heart is sick and the mind unbalanced, and we seek some secluded comer amid the ruin about us and are quite ready to give up in despair. These are times to exercise your ambition; these are times for a manly, womanly exercise of an honorable ambition, and to seek to remove yourself from the mire in which you stick. But no matter what you do, you will always find those who will belittle your efforts; lie about your past; falsify your present; prejudice their cronies against you ; and so, what a fool you are, indeed, to continue your own suffering to gratify merely such as oppose your methods. Enemies we have on every hand, and they will stoop to any depth to annoy an ambitious man. If one's ambition lies in the great world of politics, every act outside the paths of rectitude is raked up and published against you; if theology is your ambition, some one will discover that you were once run in with the bums in the town where you lived fifty years before; if medicine is your ambition, it will be discovered that you were once a barber or porter in some store, and therefore can know nothing of the profession you have chosen. If your ambition leads you to the successful summit of any desire, it will be known that once you were "one of the boys," and many a lark is charged up against you ; and so it is seen that if we wait for the putting in force of our ambition until it suited and pleased everybody, we would be found standing alone, at the end of life, still holding the bag — an unsuccessful, disappointed, unhappy victim of a divided and unreasonable people. There is not much encouragement,^ we will admit, in the average life of man and womankind, to exercise our ambition. The future is very uninviting, unpromising, and the average mind can see little to stimulate activity in the exercise of an ambitious nature. Yet none of u« can tell what we can do until we try. Sometimes it happens that we discover, by accident, that which makes us great, although the happy hit never entered 128 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. our mind until we clumsily stumbled over it. Some of our most useful machinery now in use, was discovered and perfected by men who were seeking something entirely different at the start. We must try, strive, endeavor, struggle, labor hard and long and with- out ceasing, and we must have ambition to do this. Therefore, my un- satisfied beloved, you who sit perched on high stools; you who stand all the day behind the counters of our stores ; you whose lives are bitter and unpromising; you whose hearts are heavy with the forbidding prospects before you, take our advice and nerve yourselves for a determined battle with fate, and remember what the Evangelist tells you, that your best weapon with which to make this fight is Ambition, LIFE'S WAYS. The life we live is a peculiar thing when you pause a moment and think about it; and the more you think the more are you impressed with the truth. You may apologize for the mistakes and the errors of men and women, but all the same these errors and mistakes come regularly. We have in our mind this day a man who so far as we could see, was blessed with all of the comforts and blessings and conveniences of this life. He had a wife, a beautiful home on a leading residence thorough- fare. He had horses and carriages, he had servants and his business house was a large and prominent one, and yet with all these comforts — all these blessings, all these happy events, we now see him lugged away from his home, an imbecile — an intellectual wreck. The beautiful home is occupied by strangers, while the owner is having his head rubbed in some experienced medical joint far removed from here. This man — this wreck of a man never liked the Evangelist and he has gone the way of all those idiots who have for years attempted to ^'do" us. Away from his palatial home — in some obscure medical headquarters, this physical ruin is sitting in the corner with his hat on awaiting the direction of his advisers and this, my beloved, is one of life's ways. Ah, my beloved, it is not the rich who enjoy the most of this life's blessings, by a large majority; it is not those who float in the highest social circles who make the best citizens; it is not the most influential, apparently who can steer their own selves away from brain disorders ; it is not those way up in social or business afifairs who win life's race by a long shot and you will, if you observe closely, see that the victor usually is one from the humbler ranks of life, while the one who is assisted most is the first to fall. Every now and then you will see a palatial home being neglected. You can see it at a glance. You know that something is wrong. You see weeds growing in the sidewalks. You see a general neglected air about a place and you wonder and marvel at the great difference between men and women in this life. We recollect the social gatherings — and we look back to a wedding and a feast and we see in that throng — among the guests a man who is now being looked after by hired men. The home is darkened — the curtains drawn and silence prevails all about the place, all because a weak-minded 130 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. manager has forgotten his part and so, my beloved, it is with all of this life's ways. Sometimes men and women, too, are elevated to stations in life that they are not competent to fill — nature has not provided them with the mental or physical machinery to fill those places satisfactorily and so they make a failure of their endeavors. Sometimes rich and influential relatives secure a good place for some poor relation and the poor relation shows his appreciation by "doing" his benefactor. Sometimes real, good, intelligent men and women are forced by circumstances to take subordinate places in this life's alTairs and those over and above them in authority are not half as brainy, not half so pleas- ant or popular but so it is in all of this life's ways. As we look back over a quarter of a century, that we have been in busi- ness for ourselves, we sometimes marvel at the numerous, the wonderful changes that have occurred among those we know. Som.e that were as poor as Job's turkey twenty-five years back are simply lousy with boodle to-day. Some who lived in elegant home are to-day occupying smaller quarters and working for other people on a salary that is small, very small. Some a few years back held good and profitable positions, commercially or professionally, who are this day struggling hard to get enough to eat for themselves and families. Some of those whom we have known have lost their reason and have died in insane asylums. Som.e have been carted was with soft brains. Some have committed suicide. Some have jumped the town and gone no one knows where, leaving behind an army of mourners. Some have gone to other parts legitimately and have got to the front or fallen from life's ladder to the bottom of the pit where they lie even now wretched and helpless. The sun shines just the same to-day as it did thousands and thousands of years ago and the clouds hang lightly or heavily on different people just as they always did — always will and so my beloved it is in all of life's ways. HOOKS AND EYES, For every hook there must be an eye, or the night shirt of a human life would not hold itself together. For every pleasure there must be a pain, or we should grow selfish, crusty, morbid, unreasonable. For every day of bright and delightful sunshine, we must have one of winds and waves and storms, or we should soon forget ourselves and our duties. to our fellow-men. We enjoy one lovely sail along the river of our lives and then encounter a rough passage. For every bird, flying and war- bling its sweet songs, there is a mate, and for every fair and pensive maiden there is one, somewhere in life, who was created expressly to match the maidenly pattern. For every storm of rain an unbrella is made, and for every fall of the beautiful snow, a shovel or plow is built, with which to shovel it away. For every poison there is an antidote. For every disease a medicine just fitted for its cure. The cork is made to take the place of a lost limb as well as to stop the necks of bottles. Every demand is met by supply. Every event has its cause and effect, and every emergency is scientifically provided for. We are placed in this world in a manner most mysterious, and we leave the life in the same way. We cannot account for either— from whence we came or whither we go. It's all a blank, a mystery. Our fates and fortunes are unfathomable. We succeed and fail and cannot tell why. Oftentimes the most unworthy succeed in life, while those justly entitled to life's joys, fail. Sometimes the most ignorant and uncultivated people become heads of famous circles, while those of brains- and culture, perish from' neglect. We cannot fathom these strange af- fairs, nor should we try. There are scores of men in the land to-day who- have grown rich on the inventions of those who are starving to death. The woods are full of fallen trees that lie rotting on the ground, while humanity is freezing for lack of a single armful of wood. We cannot comprehend these things. The human family are never satisfied, so perhaps it does not matter who we are, or how we are, or where we are. It makes no difference whether the rain falls or snow flies, some of us will be disappointed. The day one man wants fair, another would give boodle to have foul. The human idiot seems as contented as the man of brains. The poor want to be rich, and the rich" are worried to death in the care of their posses- sions. The boy longs for manhood, that he may remove himself from 132 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. the system and discipline of his home, and the man wishes he "were a boy again." The old maid hangs over the gate, looking for the lover who never comes, and the man wanders alone over the city, wishing he had some soft heart into which he could pour his trials and seek relief and ease. The homeless man longs for one, and he with the home mortgages it to raise the wind for speculating. It's a constant and continual strug- gle, and yet we cannot tell how or why. We live in all sorts of ways and do all sorts of things for our living. The labors of one could not be endured by another. The wise man is often a fool, and the fool frequently mistaken for an intellectual bundle. We often polish pebbles, while diamonds are neglected and lost. The spurious gains an envied circulation, while the genuine lies hidden among the rubbish of our lives. We nourish an unfortunate man or woman, and they repay our kindness and humanity by vileness. We join the church for policy, for business purposes, and they get onto us and we are fired. We embrace one political faith and the other side hops onto us. We join the lodge and are expelled for non-payment of dues. We array ourselves in new clothes and our babies empty the molasses can on our outfit. We start a fund in the building association for our children, and some of the observers laugh and ridicule our en- deavors. Whether we are saint or sinner, some one will kick; and while we laugh, some one is bathed in tears. There is a dance in one house, a funeral in another. One man has a house full of good things and another one would consider the leavings, the waste, a luxury and relish. Men and women all over the world are possessed of various likes and dislikes, tastes, sentiments, habits, manners, customs, and all the argu- ment we can bring to bear, will fail to change them. The people of every city, every neighborhood, the members of every family, church and school, all think, act and feel differently, just as nature intended they should, and so it is no use protesting, for what is, must be. Is there not a wise provision in the make-up and conduct of this life's affairs, after all? Is it not well that the wheels move right along, just the same, day by day, no matter what happens. The sun and moon and stars shine and do not shine, just as nature wills, and none of us are con- sulted. We must adapt ourselves to the changing conditions from hour to hour, from day to day. Some of us are doomed to pass through life, a burden to ourselves and friends ; some will always be rich, some always poor. Some will toil and struggle to gain a living, and some will scarcely know how to spend their income. Some will pay rent and some will collect it. Some will ride, some will walk all through life. Capable and intellectual men will sink away in oblivion and be forgotten, because of habits that have be- MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 133 come confirmed. Some will join the church and sing psalms, some travel over the country with a dancing bear and a violin. Some will be hostlers, and cooks, and nurses, and some flunkeys and dudes and dandies. Some will chew the bitter cud of disappointment, and some will be hilarious over their great success. Some will always be borrowing. Some will be neat and tidy, some shiftless and slovenly. Some economical, some spend- thrifts. Some pure, and good, and holy, and others will be vagabonds, hustling for a livelihood over this world's broad acres. It was always so, always will be so, and there is many a Job to-day, poulticing his boils, who has never figured in history, and never will. There is many an undiscovered Moses in the land to-day, and the raw- boned, awkward youth of now, may one day lead hosts. We cannot tell and yet, for every pleasure there is a pain ; for every hook, an eye. IT WONT '' WASH '' NOW. Years ago, when men and women were burned at the stake for express- ing opinions of their own, which were far in advance of the stupid ideas of their associates; years ago, when the orthodox priesthood could punch up the fire, and make their terror-stricken congregation admit that they could hear the crackling flames and snufif the sulphuric odors of brim- stone, whether they could or not; years ago, when the men used to sit on one side of the church and the women on the other, it would have proven very impolitic and unprofitable for any man to preach as docs the Evangelist to-day. But those were days of theories, these are days of facts; those were days of superstition and fear, these are days of science and reason ; those were days when the parish priest did our thinking for us, these are days in which we think for ourselves; those were days when faces were worn to remind us of tombstones and graveyards; these are days of smiles and sunshine; those were days when the whale and bear "stiffs" were absorbed by the people, these are days when we admit these thrilling nar- ratives only to "illustrate a text;'' those were days when the souls of men and women were the chief objects of our solicitude and thought, these are days when the minds and bodies of the sexes are of more account. Then, it was the common belief that even a helpless babe would perish eternally and the barbarian would be its roasted companion. Then it was the sanctuary first and your household last. Then it was your ministers' comforts before that of your own firesides; but the Evan- gelist is happy to say, that all this has been changed within a hundred years, and you, nor any one, can make us believe that Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln are to-day frying in torment, sim- ply because, in life, they neglected the main thing that leads to salvation, according to the following of faith. Show us a man who loves his wife and babies, above everything else on the face of the earth, and we will show you a man who is going to enjoy whatever there is to enjoy in a future life. Show us a man who loves his home and spends all his leisure hours there, and we will show you a man in the lead, in this free-for-all race for heaven. Show us a man who is honest, and loving, and humane, and charitable, and we will show you a man who will be a leader in glory. This life we know all about; we know the things that produce happi- MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 135 ness ; we know the wretchedness and misery that follows a course of dissi- pation and sin; we know what virtue means and what its violation will bring us to; we know what honesty will do for us, and we know the perils of dishonesty; we know what smiles and frowns will do for us; we know what happy and unhappy homes are; we know the heart-aches that follow a desperate life, and we know the joys unspeakable that come with a life of regularity and rectitude ; and, knowing all these things, and having been endowed with brains suflEiciently active to distinguish between right and wrong, there is no one to blame but ourselves if we fall among the Philistines. The peacock is a beautiful bird, but when it attempts to sing, we skip; a dude is a pleasing sight to look upon, but when we hear him speak, we puke ; a fanatic is shaped like a human being, but when we hear him ex- press himself, we marvel at the depth of his stupidity and gall. An ivy clinging to the wall is fascinating, but touch it, and we are de- filed. To drink the seemingly pure and crystal waters of some of our springs means death. To gaze upon the female form devine, is conducive of much happiness, but when we see her remove her bangs and bustle and palpitators and colors and pencil marks from under her eyes, un- screw her cork leg and lay aside her glass eye, we find ourselves asking ourselves where the "divinity" comes in. So it is with the teachings of man; the most plausible theories are often the weakest; the most convincing visions are dreadful frauds; the most perfect appearing are the grossest deceptions in the world ; the most pious looking saint is often the grandest rascal in the universe, who will beat you while he prays, and settle for ten cents on a dollar. We know men who go to church regularly, who are church officers, who lead the prayer meetings, whom we wouldn't trust as far as we could sling a bull by the tail. We know sleek and pious looking christians who have robbed widows and orphans and who are living in houses to-day which they bought with the money they stole; and if you think we can't prove this, give the Evangelist a chance and we will give their names. We know pious old hypocrites whose faces remind you of a midnight in the morgue, who a few years ago settled for ten cents on the dollar and beat their creditors out of thousands, and yet you have cheek enough to look us in the face and tell us that these ecclesiastical reprobates are go- ing straight to paradise, while the honest sinner, who pays his debts, is to be consumed with a fire that is never quenched. Well, it won't wash — that's all. Let us not worry ourselves over the penalties for violating a christian's creed, but rather make it a study to do right, as near as we know how. Let us lose no time fretting about the big fire of the hereafter, while we 136 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. can do so much good here on earth. Let us meet each other, man to man; clothe the naked; feed the hungry. Let us go out into the street and take the poor old bum by the hand and lead him to a soft place to lie down. Let us bind up his wounds and give him seltzer and sober him up, and then we can appeal to the manhood within him, that was hidden away beneath thick coatings of benzine. Let us take the fallen sister into a moral atmosphere and show her a chance to live honestly; give her a woman's work and show her how she can abandon her wick- edness. Let us reason with the unruly boy, and picture the evils of wrong to the wayward girl. Never mind their souls. Look after their bodies — keep these pure and their souls are in no danger of taint. The Evangelist would do his good work here on earth, where we can see the good eflfects of our kindness and sympathy, because if the "song and dance" the other clergy give us be true, we may not behold the good results if it only shows up in paradise — we may not "get there." It's kind- ness and charity and forgiveness that we want now — any reprobate can possess pity. It's love and affection and benevolence that talks, and all this twaddle about purgatory, if you step off the orthodox plank. Won't Wash Now Days. SUPERSTITIONS. The Evangelist has an idea that if we had the power to look into the hearts of all men and women and solve the mysteries there, that we should find an easy way of accounting for the peculiarities and idiosyncracies of the human family; we should be able to solve the problems of life that are now puzzling, mysterious, bewildering; we would be able to explain many queer actions and strange speeches of people; we would be able to clear away much darkness, and let the sunlight into dark places. If we knew the make-up of men and women we could then easily un- derstand what is now deep and unexplainable. We should, we fear, find that many who are rated sane among their fellows would be found a "little off," as the commonplace saying goes. We should find that men of massive minds have at least one weak spot somewhere in their com- positions. We should find that a mind capable of deep reasoning, of wide scope, of vast information, can be swayed by a trifle; we should find that hearts overflowing with love and tenderness, can be turned into an icy receptacle by a simple single disappointment. It is a popular notion among all classes that superstition is found only among ignorant, unlearned, coarse, common people ; but the Evangelist says a vastly different thing, and we know we are correct in our opposite views, because we personally know people who are rare specimens of genius, who are intelligent, famous, popular, who are weak, very weak, on certain simple things. Everybody in America knows, and probably two-thirds of us have either seen or talked with Henry Ward Beecher. The Evangelist has both seen and talked with him, and heard him lecture and preach, and if we were to say that this great man had a pet hobby or superstition, we would find few who would believe it to be true ; yet it is fact all the same. No one in the world will deny Mr. Beecher's great intellectual powers; we all admit his eloquence, his intelligence, his wisdom; and we must also admit that he has, like all other men, his weaknesses. Rev. H. W. Beecher has a funny hobby or superstition, the full scope of which will perhaps never be known, as we do not believe he has ever explained to any one his actions in the regard of which we speak. His peculiarity consists in the accumulation of finger rings, and he has hun- dreds of them, of all sorts, shapes and sizes ; picked up here, there, every- where, all over the inhabitable warld, and at frequent intervals, Mr. 138 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. Beecher would sit, quiet and still, all alone, and put a half dozen of these rings on each of his fingers and change them from one finger to another, hours and hours at a time. He would sit and look at his collection of rings and muse and study, and while in this strange fancy, he would answer no questions, pay not the slightest attention to any one who might speak to him, but acts like one in a dream. By and by, this spell, or whatever it is, passes away, and he would lay aside his rings, and then we find him bright, entertaining, interesting and level-headed. This is a superstition of some sort; a light mental irregularity that may perhaps never be satisfactorily explained away. It is one of the supersti- tions of intelligent men that we cannot understand, and of which we preach to-day. We know men right here in this city who are capable, bright, intellec- tual, who are possessed of similar fancies. They are rational and solid on every topic save one strange peculiarity which, at times, at least, seizes complete control of them. We venture to say that if our readers would take the time and trouble to enquire of their friends, whom they meet on our thoroughfares, day by day, that they would find that nine out of every ten of them carry a buck- eye, or coin, or piece of leather, or a pebble in one of their pockets. You ask them why, and they will say: "For luck." They laugh as they an- swer you thus lightly, and yet, in their very pockets is the positive evi- dence that convicts them of a superstition. We know a gentleman in, this city, and he is a smart, active business man, too, with every capability that denotes an intelligent gentleman. He is sound on commercial and financial matters, and yet, you could not, by any sort of a threat or bribe, induce this gentleman to enter a house or room with his left foot first If, by any accident, he should pass through a door and his left foot should be thrown first over the threshold, he would immediately retrace his steps and enter again, with his right foot first over the sill. We have frequently spoken to him of this peculiarity and he says he cannot explain it; he does not know why he does it, but says a mysterious something forbids his entering through a door left foot first. He has endeavored for years to break away from this subtle fascination, but tells us it is an absolute, utter impossibility. This is another species of superstition. Seeing the moon over the left shoulder brings bad luck and over the right, good luck, according to the ideas of some people, and they firmly believe it, too, and no manner of reasoning force can change their super- stition. We don't believe that ycu can find a river or ocean captain in the world who will set sail on his craft if there is a preacher and a gray horse on MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 139 board. One or the other would have to be removed or he would not sail. This sentiment is universal among steamboat captains, and you cannot shake this superstition out of them. Look about you and tell us how many residences and offices you know where horse-shoes are hanging over the door. There are thousands of them all over the country, and those horse-shoes hang there, not because they are ornaments, by any manner of means; but as a gratification of a superstitious fancy that grapples human hearts now and then. This is but another breed of the superstitions of men and women. The howl of a dog means death, as some people view it. The visit of a black cat to your kitchen door, according to some, means a dreadful calamity that is about to overwhelm the family visited. A bird flying in at your open window, is a positive indication of misfortune, as some of our superstitious brethren and sisters reason. A tea leaf in your cup means that you will have visitors. The burning of your ears means that some one is talking about you. To dream of the dead means that, on the following day, you will receive a letter from a living relative. We are personally acquainted with a gentleman in another city who, just just before visiting at night, touches a particular spot on the wall with his index finger three times. He cannot tell you why he does it, but if in his business hurry he should forget this "funny business," he can't sleep, and must and does rise and perform his superstitious jugglery. He is a wise man, too, and so far as we know, is an eminently successful one, but this peculiar superstition has seized possession of him, and he cannot shake it off. We know people who will not sleep with their heads toward the south, nor with their heads toward the rear of a train in a sleeping car, nor could you hire, bribe or frighten them into a departure from this peculiar superstitious fancy of theirs. Our readers all know wives who would not, under any circumstances, take their wedding rings from their fingers, and some of them have worn these rings for years and years, because of a superstitious dread of some- thing terrible which would surely overtake them if their rings should be removed. The Evangelist might go on for hours and hours and write columns of such actual instances of the positive superstitions of people, all people; and we do not believe that one in a million are without a peculiarity of some sort — without one or more superstitions. This fancy or fatality, or humbuggery, or idiocy, or fear, or superstition, or whatever it is, has possession of thousands, and it is only accidentally that we discover it now and then. If these absurd fancies appeared only in those who are known for their mental weakness, we could readily account for it; but when men and women, noted for their superior mental conditions and 140 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. great level-headedness, are possessed of these strange fascinations, we are up a stump to account for or explain it, and so it is as we say, that all those who are rated sane are not altogether so upon all subjects and mat- ters. The human head and heart are singularly constructed parts of our anatomy, and the same head and heart that is capable of the most phe- nomenal inventions and discoveries, exhibits at times, the most idiotic and reasonless frailties. The most elequent of men and women are now and then simpletons, and the longest head and deepest heart are once in a while the dullest parts of our make-up. We claim that superstition and its companion and chum, fear, are more deeply seated in more human hearts than our readers have any idea of, and without attempting to explain away the fancies and peculiarities of all men and women ; without trying to solve these strange antics of this world's people; without mirth or grief, we onfy say, that every man, woman, girl and boy, who have arrived at the age of reason, are at certain times and upon certain topics, "ofif their nut" and possessed of ths sub- ject of our sermon — Superstitions. SHAMS, SHODDIES AND DECEPTIONS. The people of America are noted for their shams and humbuggery, and deceptions are made as much of a subject for study as any of the lessons taught by our text-books. Indeed, it seems to us that more at- tention is paid to the art of successful deception, than to the plain, real, truthful affairs of this life. If people would be natural ; if they would live naturally, act naturally, it might interfere with their social standing or business, but it would pre- vent much of the trouble that follows fraud and deceit. In this age, how- ever, it seems unnatural to be natural, and so everybody indulges in de- ception and shams. Not one person in a thousand acts naturally; it would not do, for it would reveal objectionable features in the composition of our friends that we should not like, and so, by common consent, we put up with what we know to be unreal. Shams and shoddies, deceptions and frauds appear to us in thousands of ways and are practiced by thousands of people. Some deceive us with an ease and grace that prove them experts in the business, while others make sorry work of it, and thus give themselves dead away every time. Every one of our readers know people who are professionals in the art of deceiving, and yet it being none of our business, we make no com- ments. You know ladies who are elegantly dressed and create favorable impressions on the street by their elaborate exteriors, whose skirts and underwear are torn and ill-kept, and whose hose are full of holes. We know people who ride in elegant carriages and keep a full line of servants, whose homes are barren of even ordinary comforts. We know people who shine brilliantly as society people, who live in elegant houses, who feed on bread and molasses, starve themselves, in fact, that they may "cut a swell" before people. We know men whose undershirts are fringed with rags and whose socks are not mates and very old, whose fingers and shirt fronts are covered with diamonds. We know women wrapped in costly robes, who are slovens, and who, when at home, are covered by greasy wrappers and sit in corners thick with cobwebs and the accumulations of dirt. We know men who occupy front seats at costly places of entertainment, who smoke five-cent cigars or cheap pipes at home, in order to save money for these outward evidences of elegance. We know women who pinch and scrimp and save in their homes, that 142 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. they may once a year give a grand lunch for their acquaintances to talk about for the next six months. We know people who some years ago were menials, and who only lived by the greatest manual exertions, who are to-day rolling in luxury. They are coarse, ignorant people by nature, and even as they sit lazily in their luxurious carriages, they cannot tell you correctly the year the Pilgrims landed on our shores. We know men covered with costly gar- ments and wearing expensive, fashionable shoes, who have not washed their feet for three months ; and women wearing thirty-dollar hats, whose ears and necks look as though they had been struck by a cyclone. We know men who have appeared at receptions in coats and gloves and neck- ties borrowed of friends for the occasion, and women who have secured the loan of diamonds in order that they might create a favorable impres- sion. We know young men who have taken sleigh rides with their favorites, who owe for the very shoes they wear and whose names are on every sa- loon slate in town; and we know young ladies who sleep till noon, who owe for the feathers in their hats, and who could not make a cup of tea to save their worthless lives. We know people who are liberal subscribers to every enterprise that will be made public, who owe their hired help. We know people who are credited with being fashionable, who live on corn meal and sorghum. We know people who order the greatest deli- cacies at hotels, who live on sow belly at home. We know children who put on the most excruciating agonies, whose fathers used to saw wood, and whose mothers once took in washing. We know people to-day who wear paste diamonds and dollar store watch chains and imitation gew gaws. We know business men who deliberately misrepresent their com- mercial standing to the agencies, and thus secure credit and goods to carr^"- on deception and fraud. Every reader of these Sermons knows those among their friends and ac- quaintances who practice deception day after day, in order to gain some point or gratify some selfish desire. You know housekeepers who apolo- gize to callers for answering the door-bell themselves, because their serv- ant was out, who have not had a hired girl in their home for a year. This is deception. You know housekeepers who "are out" to certain callers and "at home" to others. This is deception, and of the meanest sort. You know people who flatter at your face and ridicule behind your back. You know people who live in their kitchens and only open up their parlors on special occasions. You know people who borrow of their neighbors, every time company drops in on them unexpectedly. You know people who drove drays and were roustabouts on steamboats, who would knock your eye out, if you reminded them of the fact to-day. You know people MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 14S who have elegant Hbraries at home, who could not tell you the name of a single volume nor of what it treated, and you know people who are deceiving you in their manners and methods every day. All the many deceptions and shams which we see all the while, are senseless, because we know them to be deceptions and shams, and it only makes us smile in derision or express our contempt for those practicing them. People have not forgotten as they behold the dude of to-day, how his father sawed wood for a living a few years back. They have not for- gotten that this same dude gets only seven dollars a week for his labor, and yet, nine out of ten of our best familirs, would prefer the meaning- less call of an empty-headed fop, to the pleasing visit of a sensible young man arrayed in common clothes. The fool in diamonds and broadcloth, is a "great catch" at the party, while intelligence wrapped in jeans, is a "wall flower," and yet we know the fool owes his washwoman and has not money enough to pay for his shave. His manners are all acquired and his display counterfeit — he is a deception and a sham. Experienced persons can tell a true lady or gentleman the moment they see them, whether clothed in fine linen or calico; there is a natural air surrounding refined people which makes, at once, a place for them in our esteem. Under all circumstances, they are easy and graceful and per- fectly at home in the society of cultured people, and coarseness is as easily detected, although the dress is stunning and the brilliants blinding. The world is filled with shams^ — indeed the real is a rarity. The elegant dress of a lady, that cost perhaps a hundred or two dollars, is a sham — only that portion of the lower half is real; the overskirt may cover a part of the elegant dress, that is made of flour sacks; or bed ticks or old towels- its a sham. The elegant set of furniture in our bed chambers is half sham. The ragged tick that holds the hair, may be soiled and worn, the quilt spotted and weak with age but it matters not so long as an elegant white spread covers them up. Sham sheets and sham pillow cases are found on every bed. A man's elaborate shirt front is no indication that there is a tail to the shirt, and the world is none the wiser, so long as the bosom is stiff and white and clean. What matters it about the tail. A paper collar and paper cuiTs are neat looking but they are shams all the same. A pair of twelve dollar shoes may cover feet enclosed in fifteen cent stock- ings — but its a sham nevertheless. A woman's face with its paint and powder is a sham; indeed everything about her is "made up" from her "switch" to her busUe. Her dainty foot as it appears to us may be pitiful and painful from the corns growing all over it. Her beautiful teeth may be worked on a pivot and she may take them out and shine 'em up every night. There is, in New York, a factory where false calves are made as 144 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. a specialty and we have heard of pads and countless other devices calcu- lated to deceive us, in the beautiful "form divine" of womanhood of to-day. The "get up" of men is no improvement on the women; they are shams. They wear shoulder pads and wax their mustaches and dye their whiskers and hair, and some of them, we regret to say, wear corsets. Its sickening, but true, nevertheless. They carry their arms in slings, when its some other part of their outfit that's wrong and in a variety of other ways, do they deceive confiding mortality. They are shams and so also are the lives they lead. Shams are not peculiar to any one thing or any single individual. We are all equally guilty and subject to this same censure or ridicule. We sham because it seems to serve our purposes better than this real; we sham because people seem to like it better; we sham because everybody else does; we sham because sham gives better satisfaction than the real. We worry ourselves how to create shams, when something real could be invented in nmch less time and be more agreeable and often more useful. We make it a study how best we can deceive our friends^ — de- ceive them in everything; how we eat and walk and transact our business; deceive them in regard to our worth, commercially; as to our influence and position. We deceive one friend to gratify another, and each and every act of our lives is governed by some sham, or deception or fraud. It was always so and always will be no doubht, and so, as we daily mingle with the men and women of the world, we shall always be thinking and wondering how much of what we hear and see is real, and how much of it sham, and shoddy and deception.