Decatur Democrat, Volume 40, Number 10, Decatur, Adams County, 22 May 1896 — Page 10

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I CHAPTER IV. i About this time au incident occurred of which I can speak freely, for 1 witnessed it. Have I said that for years my favorite walk ran past Tumbledown Farm? One evening I had strolled gently there, and before I turned my steps homeward it was quite dark. Just as I approached the garden gate I saw a woman in a lightcolored dress come up the hill, and immediately I heard a strong, harsh voice say: “Is that you, Vanity?” “Yes," replied another voice, which I recognized. Walking as I was on the grass at the Bide o*f the road, my movements were noiseless, and the deep shadow of the hedge must have quite hidden m# from view. My next step brought me close to the garden gate, and here I could see a tall man beating the ground with his walking stick in a violent way. ! “Late again!” he said, more severely than before. “Night after night you go wandering off, why or where I can’t imagine. Do you know the hour?” 1 “Know the hour? Not I!” Vanity replied, in a tone thinly disguised by affected gaiety. “Time passes quickly.” “When you are not with me, you mean,” replied the tall man. “You selfish, willful jade!” “Don’t be cross,” interposed Vanity. „ The white figure drew close to the tall dark figure, and, as well as I could see, phe laid her head against his shoulder. He pushed her off, with a savage oath, and I saw him stalking back to the house. In went the great strong form, after followed Vanity’s slow white figure; bang went the door, and somehow through the crash I thought I heard a cry of pain or fear. You may be sure I turned this incident over in my mind a good many times; and though I made nothing oiff of it, I resolved to tell Willie I sad seen. It ■ Uffl ‘drU '‘t’Mif ie a visitor only? Why, tlu®, should he harge her with being lare night after light? And how should a visitor speak o her in so violent a manner? Was he a mother? Was he a husband? One thing vas clear to my mind: Willie did not know ibout his sweetheart all that was necessary to be known by a lover. I resolved to start him on the track of inquiry; and ..t happened, curiously enough, that soon after he came to me to talk over his love affairs, which had come to a crisis. They had arranged a new meeting place -a little swinging gate, which you may w lee even now standing at the corner of he plantation. So far they kept up a retense of accident in these encounters; nd/sunset after sunset found them at i/s swinging gate, ready to stroll off ifferent ways, if need arose. At last, ne Saturday night, Willie resolved to peak his mind. Vanity was leaning upon he gate, swinging herself to and fro, fifing her white finger-tips into the blosoms of a long stalk of foxglove. A •ainter might have chosen her as a model if a temptress. “Vanity,” said he a* last, and felt that :his was a great stride to make in a jreath. “What is it?” she asked studying the pink thimble of foxgloves with the most alluring carelessness. “Have you any news to tell me?” “What a white hand!” cried Willie, feeling more himself all of a sudden. “A pretty—little—white—hand!” “There are no rings to set it off,” Vanity said, looking at her hand with a pout. Then her face rippled into a smile and a a ugh. “Cover your hand with diamonds, cover t until every finger carries a fortune,” le cried, “and the hand would not look so beautiful as now. Vanity, dear Vanty!” “Yes,” she said’. “What have you got to say to Vanity—dear Vanity?” She raised her eyes, so that the last >eam of sunlight touched them and irraliated their dangerous brilliancy. “May I? may I?” Willie trembled at his »wn daring, yet he lifted the hand to his ips while he thus asked leave to kiss it. Vanity burst out laughing. “May I! may I! Os course you may!” he cried. “Dear timid lad! Look here!” Light as a flying bird, and as graceful, he touched his cheeks with her lips-, kimming away after a pressure which rould have scarcely hurt a butterfly’s ving. But her breath was on him, and icr brilliant laughing eyes were sparkling •lose to him. Delight—delight with pain n it—shot through Willie's heart. “Can I pass now?” demanded an imperium voice behind him, with marked emphasis. “If it will not be inconvenient!” Willie looked round. There stood Nancy Steele! Neither of the lovers had noticed her approach, for she had a Ifght, swift step, and got over the ground quickly. “Is that you, Willie?” said Nancy, speaking now in he£ most agreeable voice. “I did not see your facfe. What h pleasant evening!” and passed by, showing to him no vexation whatever, nor even manifesting any curiosity. “Who is that?” Vanity asked, disdainfully. “Where does she come from? At least, where did her bonnet come from?” “She is only a girl I know,” Willie replied, hardly able to speak for confusion. “Nothing more, I assure you.” Courting ..was over for that evening. Willie felt dashed by the suddgu ince of Vanity, too,' assumed an “ ‘xpressiou new to her—half angry, half effective; and there was a coldness in heir parting such as might have signified hat their commencing tenderness was eady to vanish. What thoughts were in Miss Vanity's aind I cannot conjecture. As ftp- Masar Will. I know be went downhijl hang-

ing his head, repulsed, baflled, foolish, reudy-to abandon this pretty Vanity, ask Nancy’s forgiveness, marry her, and live like a respectable man. CHAPTER V. Heavy was Willie’s heart that night. He was ashamed of himself, and dreaded the thought of meeting Nancy Steele, but events hurried him forward. Next morning when on his way to his place of business. he saw Nancy at a distance coming toward him. She held her hand out in a friendly way. “That was your Cousin Alice I saw with you last night, I suppose?” said Nancy, with a face of perfect “Certainly not,” Willie replied. hat made you think of her?” “I felt certain she must be a near relation when I saw her kissing you.” Then she went on: “How many such kissing acquaintances have you got, Willie?” “Well, you see, Nancy--—” Willie began. ft “I saw,” said Nancy, laughing still. “I had rather not have seen it, Willie.” Now she looked sad. “Never mind,” she cried, with a smile, and a sigh, passing on: “I tell no tales.” That night Willie came to me and laid the whole case before me. “Tell me candidly, doctor,” he said, “what I ought to do.” “You ought never to speak to Miss Vanity Hardware again; nor to see her,' if you can help it. I have a suspicion that this Miss Vanity Hardware has a secret to keep,” said I, resolved to tell him all I knew. “Have you ever seen a wedding ring on her finger?” “What?” cried Willie, leaping up as. if a bullet had gone through him. “I believe your sweetheart, Miss Vanity Hardware, is a married wotiian,” I went on. “Mrs. Vanity Somebody, as sure as my name is John Book. Don’t hold up your hand, Will, nor lift your voice, nor speak one word. I have seen that. he knows must be true; “But this stranger may not be a husband after all, docdor.” “Quite true; he may not bea husband; let us hope he is,” I replied, determined to give him my whole mind. “Oh, Will, she will make a fool of you. She was born to deceive hearts like yours.” Uphill he hastened with a beating heart. Somehow, as he drew nearer to the spots where he and Vanity used to meet the girl seemed to renew her enchantments. If she"iad any deep hidden trouble might not he be her friend and comforter? He was pondering that question in a warm transport, when he saw Vanity standing before him. “I am glad to see you this evening,” she said, with a serious air. “Thank God you are here, Willie!” “Why are you so glad?” he asked. “I have something to say to you, Willie,” she murmured. “Something veryserious.” Her voice was not the voice of low. Sad, timorous, full of foreboding, intimating a dark uncertain future. Willie stopped her. "And I have sqmething to say to you! Let me speak first!” She raised her eyes, and read in his face what was coming. For a moment she seemed irresolute, not knowing whether to speak or be silent; and he seized his opportunity. He drew her to his side,, and in a few low words told her how much he loved her. She could restrain herself no longer. A sob, which appalled her lover, broke from her ashy lips. For another moment she struggled with irresistible grief; then all her frame shook with crying, and she buried her face in her hands. • "Oh, Willie! my heart is breaking tonight! Breaking—breaking! forever broken !” Awe-struck, and scarcely knowing wbat he did, Willie took her hand in his. But she east him off imperiously, and drew away from him, as if there must be a space between them. “It is hopeless, Willie —hopeless,” she cried. “I love you—more, far more than you love me. But you can never marry me.” Willie remembered the story of the stranger, and his heart died within him. “Vanity,” he asked, with a faltering tongue, ‘‘are you—married?” “Married!” she exclaimed, her excitement arrested by sheer surprise. “What : made you think of such a thing?” ►She spoke as with indignation, but the tone was music in Willie's ears. “If you are free,” he said joyfully, “if you can return my love, nothing else shall stand between us.”’ “Is marriage the only bar that can come between us?” she asked. “Iknow of no other,” Willie answered, wondering and fearing. Then, with gathering boldness, he cried, “I fear no other!” “Poor boy,” she answered, shaking her . head. /“We have lived in different worlds. Listen!” —her voice became low and deep—“there runs between you and . me (like that stream) something which must divide us forever. It is red as blood, hot as fire, cruel as death. I love you, Willie. Who could help it? Aight have ’ lived for you. God knows, this moment, I copld die for you! But you milat see me no more. There is something better in store for you Jhan my love. Goodrby! IJgjfon love mcMf you pity me—let me .go alone!" He watched her as, with rapid steps, she ’ hurried across the field to their own little gate; it swung back as she went through, and when she turned into the plantaitno, ; he saw her bury her face in her hands. "Upon the peaceful evening air another l heart-broken sob was borne, like the iast £ry of one drowning in some quiet cruel sea.] and than she disappeared.

i CHAPTER VL Vanity wns gone. Willie Snow waa struggling With a rush of feeling, violent and turbid, like a mill race; and yet he weighed his sweetheart in tho balance more carefully than ho could have weighed her in his quietest mood. In common conversation she was frivolous and apert; against this fault he put the tn uious earnestness of her voice in this las supreme moment. “Vanity loves me!” quoth tho deluded boy. “That much is sure. Vanity loves me—loves me —loves me tenderly 1" After their parting at the Ijrook tea days elapsed without his seeing her again. Meanwhile, by every honorable means he tried to learn something about her and her father, but when the information h« picked up was put together with that which I had leiyned my self elsewhere, we remained as much in the dark as ever. The Hardwares kept no regular servant. An old charwoman was engaged to do the housework and the cooking, coming in at seven in the morning and leaving punctually at one. At five she returned, and did such further turns as were needful; and at eight she left for the night. Os old Mr. Hardware this woman saw little or nothing. He never camo down to breakfast, and he would not suffer her to enter any room where he might happen to be. Cross-examined, the old lady declared that no visitor ever came near the house. Concerning the strange man whom I had seen with Miss Hardware, she alleged that she knew nothing of him. It was impossible he could be so often at the farm without her knowledge. Was the old gentleman a kind father? She dared say; it was all coughing, and wheezing and groaning morning, noon and night Did the old gentleman drink? Poor old soul! not a drop—lived on gruel and dry toast. At last the lovers met again. One evening, as Willie looked, with scarcely hopeful eyes, across their favorite field, ho saw Vanity standing at the gate, waiting, as she had so often waited before. She was gazing pensively at the distant hills, and did not see Willie until he was at her side. “What brings you here this evening?" he asked. “Fate!”' she answered in a composed voice, as if she had prepared the reply a week before. “The last time we met you said yov loved me—did you not?” “I did.” “Vanity,” Willie cried, "I want nothing more in all the world!” She looked up. “Yes, one thing more!” he cried; “you love me—you are not married; yet you cannot marry me! What can the reason be? I have it!” he cried. “You have promised to marry some one else.” “I have not.” “Then why may we not marry ?” “You must ask me no more. If I let mv liking for you grow into love,’’ ska could "apver take back the heart 1 has given.” “Well, Vanity, what then?" “You could never love me so.” “I should not. What do ytm mean?" said Willie. “If you knew that there was a fact in my life—an ineffaceable fact—which would leave me open to sudden si something that children ought neve, know about a mother, that friends oug. never to know about a friend, that a husband ought never to know about his wife, unless he loved her with a love that was unquenchable —what then?” “I don’t quite understand you,” Willie replied, hesitating. “My love is unquenchable.” “If all that- were true of me, would yon still say that nothing in the world could alter your love?” “Y-e-s,” answered Willie slowly. “I believe so.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Os course, it would be nothing really disgraceful.”. Vanity rose with a sad sjnile. Shs touched him on the cheek. She seemed the elder and the stronger of the two. “Listen,” she answered, in a tone that sunk into his very soul. “If you had been brought up all your life amongst people who were some thoughtless, some vicious, some selfish, until you hardly knew that there was such a thing as goodness; and • if, all of a sudden, you saw somebody who drew forth a pure and noble lovat which flowed out for you like a tfeliciouc stream, promising to gladden a hard, scorched life; and if, just as you were go* ing to drijik, something told that you had no right to that love—Willie! Willie!” sha cried, starting up wildly—“if the veil were torn off me, you would hate me! Go, and let me go! Tell nobody what I have said; let it be a secret between you and myself forever. Don’t write to me —as you vale? my life, don’t write to me! O, Willie, Willie, my heart is broken!” “You are nervous and excited,” he said, soothingly. “You must be distressing yourself without reason. Are we to part in this way?” “We are,” she replied, grown more composed. “I have been foolish, and I must pay tho penalty. Forget me, Willie, for get all about me! Remember me only ar a boy remembers his first love.” “Am In- er to see you again?” “Never, except at this gate," said Van, ity decisively; “and never unless you find me here, without asking me to come.” (To be continued.)

Boy Train Wreckers, An epidemic of train wrecking seems to have broken out among the boy? of the Eastern States. One day last week a New York policeman saw a gang of about ten young boys In Douglas street They went directly to the Brighton Beach railroad cut. Then they scaled the hill and began rolling down rocks. When the stones reached the railroad tracks the boys arranged them carefully on the tracks In a solid pile and then braced them on each side with nails and sticks of wood. Next they placed an oil can on the top of the pile. The policeman chased them and followed Thomas Plunkitt, aged 16, to his home. The next day he obtained a warrant for the boy’s arrest. In court Plunkitt swore he did not mean to- wreck a train, and as the policeman’s testimony was uncorroborated, Justice Steers discharged the boy with a reprimand. z The engines of the Northwestern railway in England are worth £5,000,000,000. To maintain this value an old engine is withdrawn every five days and replaced by a new one.

TALMAGE'S SERMON. WASHINGTON PREACHER SHOWS EVILS OF BAD COMPANY. aeociation with the Vyieked Breeds Corruption, and He Who Consorta with the Unclean Will Be Polluted, Kays the Great Divine. Sin la Infectious. Young and old, but more especially the young men and women of our time, have a vital interest in the theme upon which Rev. Dr. Talmage discoursed last Sunday. He chose for his subject, “Bad Company,” the text selected being Proverbs i., 15, “Walk not thou in the way with them.” Hardly any young man goes to a place of dissipation alone. Each oue is accompanied. No man goes to ruin alone. He always takes some one else' with him. “May it please the court,” said a convicted criminal when asked if he had anything to say before sentence of death was passed upon him—“may it please the court, bad company has been my ruin. I received the blessing of good parents, and, in return, promised to avoid all evil associations. Had I kept my promise I should have been saved this shame and been free from the load of guilt that hangs around me like a vulture, threatening to drag me to justice for crimes yet unrevealed. I, who once moved in the firs| circles of society and have been the guest of distinguished public men, am lost, and all* through bad company.” This is but one of the thousand proofs that evil associations blast and destroy. It is the invariable rule. There is a well man in the wards of a hospital, where there are a hundred people sick with ship fever, and he will not be so apt to take the disease as a good man would be apt to be smitten with moral distemper' if shut up with iniquitous companions. In olden times prisoners were herded together in the same cell, but each one learned the vices of all the culprits, so that Instead of being reformed by incarceration the day of liberation turned them out upon society beasts, not men. Beware of the Vicious. We may, in our places of business, be compelled to talk to and mingle with bad men, but he who deliberately chooses to associate himself with vicious people is engaged in carrying on a courtship with a Delilah whose shears will clip off all the locks of his strength, and he will be tripped into perdition. Sin is catching, is infectious, is epidemic. I will let you look over the millions of people now inhabiting the earth, and I challenge you to show me a good man who, after one year, has made choice and consorted with the wicked. A thousand dollars reward for one such instance. I care not how strong will become unclean! Aouk< man, ill the name of God. I warn you to beware how you let a bad man talk familiarly with you. If such a one slap you on the shoulder familiarly, turn round and give him n withering look until the wretch crouches in your presence. I give warning to young men and say, “Beware of evil companions.”

I warn you to shun tho skeptic—the young man who puts his fingers in his vest and laughs at your old fashioned religion and turns over to some mystery of the Bible and says. “Explain that, my pious friend; explain that.” And who says: “Nobody will scare me. lam not afraid of the future. I used to believe in such things, and so did my father and mother, but I have got over it.” Yes, he has got over it. and if you sit in his company a little longer you will get over It, too. Without presenting one argument agaifist the Christian religion such men will, by their jeers and-scoffs and caricatures, destroy your respect for that religion, which was the strength of your father in his declining years and the pillow of your old mother when she lay a-dying. Alaska time will come when this blustering young infidel will have to die, and then his diamond ringcjvill flash no splendor in the eyes of Death, as he stands over the couch, waiting for his soul. Those beautiful locks will be uncombed upon the pillow, and the dying man will say, “I cannot die —I cannot die.” Idleness Begets Sin. Again I urge you to shun the companionship of idlers. There are men hanging around every store and office and shop who have nothing to do, or act as if they had not. They are apt to come in when the firm are away and wish to engage you ■in conversation while you are engaged in your regular employment. Politely suggest to such persons that you have no time to give them during business hours. Nothing would please them so well as to have you renounce your occupation and associate with them. Much of the time they lounge around the doors of engine houses, or after the dining hour stand upon the steps of a fashionable hotel or an elegant restaurant, wishing to give you the idea that that is the place where they dine. But they do not dine there. J?hey are sinking down lower and lower day by day. Neither IW day nor by night have anything to do With idlers. Before you admit a man into your acquaintance ask him politely, “What do yoti do for a living?” If he says, “Nothing; I am a gentleman,” look out for him. He may have a very soft hand and very faultless apparel and have a high sounding family name, but his touch is death. Before you know it, you will in his presence be ashamed of your w'ork dress. Business will become to you drudgery, and after awhile you will lose your place, and afterward your respectability, and. last of all, your soul. Idleness is next door to villainy. Thieves, gamblers, burglars, shoplifters and assassins are made from the class who have nothing to do. - When the police go to hunt up and arrest a culprit, they seldom go to look in at the busy carriage factory or behind the counter where diligent clerks are employed, but they go among the groups of idlers. The play is going on at the theater, when suddenly there is a scuffle in the top gallery, What is it? A policeman has come in, and, leaning over, has tapped on the shoulder of a young man, saying, “I want you, sir.” He has not worked during the day, but somehow has raked together a shilling or two to get into the'top gallery. He is an idler. The man on his right hand is an idler,, and the man on his-left hand is an idler. During the past' few years there hns been a great deal of dullness in business. | Young men have complained that they have little to do. If they have nothing ' to do< the/ can read and Imnrove

their minds and hearts. These times are not always to continue- Business is waking up, and the superior knowledge that in this interregnum of work you may ob- ; tain will be worth $50,000 of capital. Tho large fortunes of tho next twenty years nre having their foundations laid now by lhe young men who are giving themselves to self-improvement. I went into a store in New York and saw five men, nil Chris-, tians, sitting round, saying that, they had nothing to do. It is an outrage for a Christian man to have nothing to do. Let him go out and visit the poor, or distribute tracts, or go and rend the Bible to the sick, or take out his New Testament and be making his eternal fortune. Let him go into the back office and pray. Shrink back from idleness in yourself and in others if you would maintain a right position. The Harvest of Eternity. A young man came to a man of IK) years of age and said to him, “How have you made out to live so long and be so well?” The old man took the youngster to an orchard, and, pointing to some large trees full of apples, said, “1 planted these trees when 1 was a boy, and do you wonder shat now I urn permitted to gather the fruit of them?” We gather in old age what we plant in our youth. Sow to the wind, and we reap the whirlwind. Plant in early life the right kind of a Christian character, and you will eat luscious fruit in old age and gather these harvest apples in eternity. I urge you to avoid the perpetual pleasure seeker. I believe in recreation aud amusement. God would not have made us with the capacity to laugh if he had not intended us sometimes to indulge it. God hath hung in sky aud set in wave and printed on grass many a roundelay, but he who chooses pleasure seeking for his life work does not understand for what God made him. Our amusements are intended to help us in some earnest mission. The thundercloud hath an edge exquisitely purpled, but with voice that jars the earth it declares, “I go to water the green fields.” The wild flowers under the fence are gay, but they say, "We staud here to make room for the Wheatfield and to refresh the husbandmen in their nooning.” The stream sparkles and foams and frolics and says: “I go to baptize the moss. I lave the spots on the trout. I slake the thirst of the bird. I turn the wheel of the mill. I rock in my crystal cradle muckshaw and water lily.” And so, while the world plays, it works. Look out for the man who always plays and never works. You will do well to avoid those whose regular business it is to play ball, skate or go a-boating. All these sports are grand in their places. I never derived so much advantage from any ministerial association as from a ministerial club that went out to play ball every Saturday afternoon in the outskirts of Philadelphia. These recreations are grand to give us muscle and spirits for our regular toil. 1 believe in muscular Christianity. A man ’WIIUSC ‘I HU US U -b.w fallen overboard from the yacht. There are men whose business fell through the ice of the skating pond and has never since been heard of. There is a beauty in the gliding of a boat, in the song of the skates, in the soaring of a well-struck ball, and I never see one fly but I involuntarily throw up my hands to catch it. aud. so far from laying au injunction upon ball playing or any other innocent sport, I claim them all as belonging of right to those of us who toil in the grand industries of church and state. But the life business of pleasure seeking always makes in the end a criminal or a sot. George Brummel was smiled upon by all England, and his life was given to pleasure. He danced with the peeresses and swung a round of mirth and wealth and applause, until, exhausted of purse and worn out of body and bankrupt of reputation and ruined of soul, he begged a biscuit from a grocer and declared that he thought a dog’s life was better than a nun’s. Such men will come into your office, or crowd around your anvil, or seek to decoy you off. They will want you to break out in the midst of your busy day to take a ride with them. They will tell you of some people you must see, of some excursion that you must take, of day that you ought to dishonor. They will tell you of exquisite wines that you must taste, of costly operas that you must hear, of wonderful dancers that you must see, but before you accept their convoy or their companionship remember that while at the end of a useful life you may be able to look back to kindnesses done, to honorable work accomplished, to poverty helped, to a good name earned! to Christian influence exerted, to a Savior's cause advanced. these pleasure seekers on their deathbeds have nothing better to review than a torn playbill, a ticket, for the races, an empty tankard and the cast, out rinds of a caro.usal, and as in the delirium of their awful death they clutch the goblet and press it to their lips the dregs of the cup falling upon their tongue will begin to hiss and uncoil with the adders of an eternal pdison, » Again, avoid as you would avoid the death of your body, mind and soul any one who has in him the gambling spirit. Men who want to gamble will find places just suited to their capacity, not only in the underground oyster cellar, or at the table back of the curtain, covered with greasy cards, or in the steamboat smoking cabin, where the bloated wretch with rings in his ears deals out his pack and winks at the unsuspecting traveler—providing free drinks all around—hut. in gilded parlors and amid gorgeous surroundings.. • Avoid Unhealthy Stimulante. This sin works ruin first, by unhealthful stimulants. Excitement is pleasurable. Under every sky and in every age men have sought it. The Chinaman gets it his opium, the Persian by chefcSg hasheesh, the trapper in a buffalo hunt, the sailor in a squall, the in ebriate in the bottle and the avaricious at the gaming table. We must at times have excitement. A thousand voices in our • nature demand it. It. is right. It is i healthful. It is inspiring. It is. a< desire , God given. But anything that first, grati ifies this appetite and hurls it back in a . terrific reaction is deplorable and wicked. . Look out for the agitation that, like a • rough musician, in bringing out the tune i plays so hard he breaks down the inst.rut ment. God never made man strong • enough to endure the wear and tear of I gambling excitement. No wonder if, after having failed in the game, men have i begun to sweep off imaginary gold' from the side of the table. The man was sharp r enough when he started at. the game, but r a maniac at the close. At every gaming » tabla sits on one side, ecstasy, enthusiasm,

romance -the frenzy of Joy; on the other side, fierceness, rage, tumult. The professional gamester schools himself into apparent quietness. The keepers of gam bling rooms nre generally fat, rollickin and obese, but thorough and professio: gamblers, in nine eases out ol ten, n pale, thin, wheezy, tremulous and exhausted. A young man having suddenly inherited a largo "property sits at the hazard tables and takes np in a dice box the estate won liy a father’s lifetime sweat and shakes it aud tosses it away. Intemperance soon stigmatizes its victim—kicking him out, n slavering fool, into the ditch, or sending him, with the drunkard’s hiccough, staggering up the street where his family lives But gambling does not in that way expose its victims. The gambler may be eaten up by the gambler’s passion, yet you only -discover it by the greed in his eyes, the hardness of his features, the nervous restlessness, the threadbare coat and his em barrassed business. Yet he is on the road .to hell, and no preacher's voice, or startling warning, or wife’s entreaty, can make him stay for a moment his headlong career. The infernal spell is on him; a giant is aroused within, and though you. may bind him with cables they would part like thread, and though you fasten him seven times round’ with chains they would snap like rusted wire, and though you piled up in his path heaven high Bibles, tracts and sermons and on the top should set the cross of the Son of God, over them all the gambler would leap like a roe over the rocks on his way to perdition. The Gambler Gaina Perdition* A man used to reaping scores or hundreds of dollars from the gamiug table will not be content with slow work. He will say, “What is the use of my trying to make these SSO in my store when I can get five times that in half an hour down at Billy's?” You never knew a confirmed gambler who was industrious. The men given to this vice spend their time, not actively engaged in the game, in idleness on intoxication or sleep or in corrupting new victims. This sin has dulled the carpenter’s saw and cut the band of the factory wheel, sunk the cargo, broken the teeth of the farmer’s harrow and sent a strange lightning to shatter the battery of the philosopher. The very first idea in gaming is at war with all the industries of society. Any trade or occupation that is of use is ennobling. The street sweeper advances the interests of society by the cleanliness effected. The cat pays for the fragments it eats by cleaning the house of vermin. The fly that takes the sweetness from the dregs of the cup com pensates by purifying the air and keeping , back the pestilence. But tho gambler gives uot anything for that which he takes. I recall that sentence. He doos, make a return, but it is disgrace to tho man he fleeces, despair to his heart, ruin to his business, anguish to his wife, shame to his children and eternal wasting away mt —i'u.n<w**r wmVLUs i'.i, ■ harvest! Who will want to sell tape and measure nankeen and cut garments an ’ weigh sugars when in a night's'game . e makes and loses and makes agam a loses again the profits of a season? If men fail in lawful business, G pities and society commiserates, I where, in the Bible or society, is th. any consolation for the gambler? Furthermore, this sin is the source of uncounted dishonesty. The game itself is often a cheat. How many tricks and deceptions in the dealing of the cards! The opponent’s hand is ofttimes found out by fraud. Cards are marked so that they may be designated from the back. Expert gamesters have their accomplices, and one wink may decide a game. The dice have been found loaded with platina, so that doublets come up every time; TJjese dice are introduced by the gamblers unobserved by the honest men who come into the play, and this accounts for the fact that 99 out of 100 who gamble, • however wealthy when they beginrat the end are found to be poor, miserable, haggard wretches that would not now be allowed to sit On the dqorstep of the house that they once owned. Promises of God. In a gaming house in San Francisco a young man, having just come from the mines, deposited a large sum upon the ace and won $22,000. But the tide turns. I» tense anxiety comes upon the counte-i nances of all. Slowly the cards went forth. Every eye is fixed. Not a sound is heard, until the ace is revealed' favorable to the bank. There are shouts of “Foul, foul!” but the keepers of the table produce their pistols, and the uproar is silenced and the bank has won $95,000. Do you call this a game of chance? There is no chance about it. But these dishonesties in the carrying on of the game are nothing when compared with tho frauds that are committed in order to get money to go on with the nefarious work. Gambling, with its needy hand, has snatched away the widow’s mite and the portion of the orphans, has sold the daughter’s virtue to get the means to continue the game, has written the counterfeit’s signature, emptied' the banker’s money vault nnd wielded the assassin’s dagger. There is no depth of meanness to which it will not stoop. There is no cruelty at which it is appalled. There is no warning of God that it will not dara. Merciless, unappeasable, fiercer and wilder it blinds; it hardens, it rends, it blasts, ifr erushes, it damns. Have nothing to do with gamblers, whether they gamble on large scale or small scale. Cast out these meh from your company. Do not be intimate with them- Always be polite. There is no demand that-yon ever sacrifice politeness. A young man accosted a Christian Quaker with, “Old chap, how did you make all your money?" The Quaker replied’, “By dealing in an ar tide that you mayest deal in if thou will* —civility.” Always be courteous, but at z the same time firm- Say “No” as if you meant it. Have it understood in store and shop and street that you will uot stand in the companionship of the Skeptic, tile riffler, the pleasure seeker, the gambler. Rather than enter the companionship such accept the Invitation to a bet ,r feast. The promises of God are > - fruits. The harps of heaven are i i music, (flusters from lhe vineyart f God have been pressed into the tank The sons and daughters of theJLdn! - mighty are the guests, while the banquet to fill the cups and dlvwl'e the clusters and command .the harps and web come.the guests is a daughter of God, on whose brow .are the blossoms of paradise and in whose eheek is the flush of celea> tial summer. Iler name is religion. Her ways are ways of pleasantness And her paths are peace.