Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1889 — THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE. [ARTICLE]

THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE.

The oost of Princess Louise's trousseau was £4,000. Dayud M. Stone, editor of the New York Journal of Commerce, has not taken a day off in twenty-nine years. The attempt to raise funds for a monument to John Bright does not prosper. Only $40,000 was wanted but only $16,000 has been secured. Mr. Cleaver, the English counsel for Mrs. Mayhrick, is out of pocket more than $2,000 because of his unsparing effort to secure that woman’s acquittal. __ It is not generally known that Mr. Gladstone has only three fingers on his left hand. The indexfinger was shot off forty-seven years ago by an accident in the hunting field. It is said that a part of Queen Victoria’s savings has been invested in real estate JnTNew York. eity, and that each year- she draws a handsome j income from the rentals. While he is on his travels the German emperor spends at least one hour each day in writing to his wife, to whom he also sends a telegraphic dispatch from every stopping-place on his route. John G. Whittier has gone to the White mountains for a montn,his feebleness having necessitated the change. Although he is not ill his friends are reported to be concerned about his condition. While her husband attends the fire Mrs. Moulton runs the engine of the Ocean City, a boat that conveys passengers from Longport to Somers Point and Ocean City, N. J. Mrs. Moulton is a pretty brunett Ex-Attorney-General Garland is the only member of the cabinet of the last administration who remained in Washington. He has just been appointed attorney for the Northern Pacific railroad at a salary of $25,000 a year. It is said that the chief reason why little King Alexander was only anointed, and not crowned, was the somewhat humiliating fact that the cost of s crown and the rest of the insignia of royalty was beyond the means of the iisposal of the Servian chancellor of the exchequer. A remarkable instance of long-con- . . ° turned service in the employment of a single concern is furnished in the case of Smith B. Freeman, who died recently on Staten Island at the age es 82 years, after having been continuously employed by the Staten Island dying establishment since its organization in 1819, a period of seventy years. Carlyle when a youth attended a Presbyterian church at Cummevtrees, Dumfrieshire. The preacher, the Rev. Davie Gillispie, spoke on “Youth and Beauty Being Laid in the Grave." Something in the discourse tickled the luture philosopher, He “smiled audibly,’’ whereupon the dominie turned on him, remarking: “Mistake me not, young man; it is youth alone that youpossess.” Ferdinand Guzman, the most famous bandit in Spain, is a dwarf who at one time kept a small store in Granada. Ho became angered at some action taken by the authorities and took to the mountains. He is hideously ugly in appearance and utterly unscrupulous. The romantic ahivalry attributed to Spanish bandits does not apply to him at aIL He has gathered about him a crew of the worst cut-throats in Europe and over them he reigns supreme. For one of the best examples of rapidly acquired wealth the South Dakotans point to Frank 11. Haggerty, now 33 years of age. and the commissioner of immigration for the Dakotas. Mr. Haggerty came from Pennsylvania about eight years ago, and when he reached Jamestown his capital consisted of $18,50. By inducing others to put up two-thirds of the money he got possession of a tree claim in the outskirts of what has become the thrifty city of Aberdeen. Going into real estate he handled his small capital so judiciously that he is today worth, at a moderate estimate, $150,000.

About a year ago Sir Douglas Stewart agreed to sell his family estates at Grandtully and Murthly castle, in Perthshire, to John Stewart Kennedy i of- New York-for £972,963. No sooner had he sealed the agreement than he changed his mind and he has since been engaged in litigation with the object of j evading it He has taken resort to an old Scotch law, by which he may claim to be “weak and facile of mind,'” and therefore “easy to be imposed upon” and induced to agree to the sale by “fraud or circumvention” and when lying under “essential error.” The Judges of the Court of cession have allowed the case to be tried on the issue of fraud, and what ever the decision at Edinburg it is thought certain to be carried to the house of lords.

Dr Talmage Talks about the Lessons of the Oitv Street. The Many who Swagger and Strut and the Few who Do Not. The sermon of Rev. T. De Witt Talmage last Sunday was directed to the lesson Of life as gathered from those with whom we meet in our daily walks. His text was: “Wisdom crieth without: she uttereth her voice in the streets.” Prov. i, 20. He said:

We are all ready to listen to the voices of nature—the voices of the mountain, the voices of the sea, the voices of the storm, the voices of the star. As in some of the cathedrals in Europe there is an organ at either end of the building, and the one instrument responds musically to the other, so In the great cathedral of nature day responds to day, and night to night, and flower to flower, and star to star, in the great .harmonies of the universe. The spring time is an evangelist in Blossoms preaching of God's love; and the winter is a prophet—white bearded—denouncing woe against our sins. We are all ready to listen to the voices of nature; but how few of us learn anything from the voices of the noisy and dusty street. You go to your merchandise,- and your mechanism, and to your work, and you come back again —and often with an indifferent heart you pass, through the streets. Are there no 'things for us to learn from these pavements over which we pass* Are there no tufts of truth growing up between these cobblestones, beaten with the feet of toil, and pain, and pleasure, the slow tread of old age, and the quick Btep of childhood? Aye, there are great harvests to be reaped; and now I thrust in the sickle because the harvest is ripe. “Wisdom crieth withoutjshe uttereth her voice in the streets.” In the first place the street impresses me with the fact that this life is a scene of toil and struggle. By IQ o’clock every day the city is jarring with wheels, and shuffling with feet, and humming with voices, and covered with the breath of smokestacks, and a-rush with traffickers. Once in a while you rind a man going along with folded arms and with leisurely step, as though he had nothing to do; but for the most part, as you find men going down these streets, on the way to business, there is anxiety in their faces, as though they had some errand which must be executed at the-first possible moment. You are jostled by those who have bargains to make and notes to sell. Up this ladder with a hod of bricks, out of this bank with a roll of bills, on this dray with a load of goods, digging a cellar, or shingling a roof, or shoeing a horse, or building a wall, or mending a watfh, or binding a book. Industry, with her thousand arms, and thousand eyes, and thousand feet, goes on singing her song of work! work! work ! while the mills drum it, and the steam whistles life it. All this is not because men love toil. Some one remarked: “Every man is as lazy as he can afford to be.” But it is because necessity, with stern brow and with uplifted whip, stands over them ready whenever they relax their toil to make their shoulders sting with the lash. Can it be thai, passing up and down these streets on your way to work and business, you do not. learn any thing of the world's toil, and anxiety, and'struggle? Oh! how many drooping hearts, ho w many eyes on the watch, how many miles traveled, how many burdens carried, how many losses suffered, how many battles fought, hW many victories gained, how many defeats suffered, how many exasperations endured —what losses, what hunger, what wretchedness, what pallor, what disease, what agony, what dispair! Sometimes I have stopped at the corner of the street as the multitude went hitner and you, it has seemed to be a great panlomine, and as I looked I upon it my heart broke. This great tide of I human life that goes down the street is a rapid, tossed and turned aside, and dashing ahead and driven back—beaui iful in its confusion and confused in its beauty. In the carpeted aisles of the forest, in the woods from which the eternal’ shadow is never lifted, on the shore of the sea over whose iron coast tosses the tangled foam, sprin ling the cracked cliffs with a baptism of whirlwind and tempest, is the best place to study God; ! but in the rushing, swarming, raving street : is the best, place to study man. Going down to your place of business and coming home again, I charge you look about—see these signs of poverty, of wretchedness, of hunger, of sin, of bereavement—and as you go through the streets, and come back through the streets, gather up in the arms of your prayer all the sorrow, all the losses, all the suffering, all the bereavements of those whom you pass, and present them in prayer before an all synfpathetic God. Then in the great day of eternity there will bo thous- ■ ands of persons with Whom you in | this world never exchanged one word who will raise up and call you blessed; and there will be a thousand fingers pointed at you in heaven, saying: “That is the mau, that is the woman, who helped me when I was hungry, and sick, and wandering, and lost, and heart broken. That is the man, that is the woman,” and the blessing will come down upon you as Christ shall say: “I was hungry and ye fed me. I was naked and ye clothed me, I was sick and in prison and ye visited me; inasmuch as ye did it to these poor waifs of the streets, ye did it to me.” -

A (rain, the street impresses me with the fact that all classes and conditions of society must commingle. We sometimes culture a wicked exclusiveness. Intellect despises ignorance. Refinement will have nothing to do with boorishness. Gloves hate the sunburned hand, and the high forehead despises the flat head; and the trim hedgerow will have nothing lo do with the wild corpsewood. and Antliens hates Nazereth. This ought not to. be so. The astronomer must come down from liis starry revelry and help us in our navigation. The surgeon must come away from his study of the human organism and set our broken bones. The chemist must come away from his laboratory, where he has been studying analysis and synthesis, and help us to understand the nature of the soils. I bless God that all .classes of people are compelled to meet on the street. The glittering coach wheel clashes against tho scavenger's cart. Fine robes run against the teed Pier’s pack. Robust health meets wan sickness. Honesty conlronts fraud, Every class of people meets every other class. Independence and modesty, pride and humility, purity and beastliness, frankness and hypocrisy, meeting on the same block, in the same street, in the same city. Oh! that is what Solomon meant when he said: “The rich and the poor meet together: the Lord is the Muker of them all.” I like this democratic principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which recognizes the fact that we stand before God on one and tho Do on any airs; ty, you are nothtng but a man, born of the same parent, regenerated by the same Spirit, Cleansed by the same blood, to lie down in the same dust, to get up in the same resurrection. It is high time that we all acknowledged not only the Fatherhood of Goa,- bu t. the brotherhood of man. Again, the street impresses me with the fact that it is a very hard thing for a man to keep his heart right and to get to heaven. Infinite temptations spring upon us from j these places of public concourse. Amid so much affluence how much temptation to covetousness, and to be discontented with bur humble lot. Amid so many opportunities for overreaching, what temptation to vanity. Amid so many saloons of strong ; drink, what allurement to dissipation. In the maelstroms of the street, how many make quick and eternal shifu wreck. If a manof-war comes back from a battle, and is towed Into the navy yard, wo go down to look at the splintered spars and count the bullet holes, and look with patriotic admiration on the flag that floated In victory from the masthead, But that man is more of a curiosity who has gono through thirty years of the •harp-shooting of business life, and yet

sails biff'Victor 0 f the temptations of the street. Oh! how many have gone down under the pressure, leaving not so much as the patch of canvass to tell where they perished. They never had any peace. Their dishonesties kept toiling In their ears. If 1 had an ax, and could split open the beams of that fine house, perhaps I would find in the very heart of it a skeleton. In his very best wine there is a smack of the poor man’s sweat Oh! is it strange that when ft man has devoured widows’ houses, he is disturbed with indigestion? All the forces of nature are against him. The floods are ready to drown him, and the earthquake to swallow him, and tne fires to consume him; and the lightings to smite him. But the children of God are on every street, and in the day when the crowns of heaven are distributed, same of the brightest will be given to those men who were faithful to God and faithful to the souls of others amid the marts of business, proving themselves the heroes of the street Mighty were their temptations, mighty was their deliverance and mighty shall be their triumph.

Again, the street impresses me with the fact that life is full of pretensions and sham. What subterfuge, what double dealing, what two-facedness! Do all the people who wish you good morning really hope for you a happy day? Do all the people who shake hands love each other? Are all ttiose anxious about your health who inquire concerning it? Do all want to see you who ask you to call? Does all the world know half as much as it pretends to know? Is there not many a wretched stock of goods with a a brilliant show window? Passing up and down these streets to your business and your work, are you not impressed with the fact that much of society is hollow, and that there are subterfuges and pretensions ? Oh! ho\v many there are who swagger and strut, and how few people who are natural and walk. While fops simper, and fools chuckle,and simpletons giggle.how few people are natural and laugh. The courtesan and the libertine go down the street in beautiful apparel, while Within the heart there are volcanoes of passion consuming their life away. I say these things not to create in you incredulity and misanthropy, nor do I forget there are thousands of people a great deal better than they seem ; but 1 do not think any man is prepared for the conflict of this life until he knows this particular peril. Ehud comes pretend iug to pay his tax to King Eglon. and while he stands in front of the king, stabs him through with a dagger until the haft went in after the blade. Judas Iscariot kissed Christ. Again the street impresses me with the fact that it is a great field for Christian charity. There are hunger and suffering, and want and wretchedness in the country; but these evils chiefly congregate in our great cities. On every street crime prowls, and drunkenness staggers, and shame winks, and pauperism thrusts out its hand asking for alms; —Herr want is most squalid and hunger is most iean. A Christian man, going along a street in New York, saw a poor lad and he stopped and said: “My boy, do you know how to read and write?” The boy made no answer. The man asked the question twice and thrice: “Can you read and write?” and then the boy answered with a tear plashing on the back of his hand. He said in defiance: “No, sir; I can’t read nor write neither. God, sir, don’t want me to read and write. Didn’t he take away my father so long ago I never remember to have seen him? and haven’t I had to go along the street to get something to letch homo to eat for the folks? and didn’t 1, as soon as I could carry a basket, have to go out and pick up cinders, and never have no schooling, sir? God don't want me ;q read, sir. I can’t read nor write neither.” Oh, these poor wanderers! They have no chance. Born in degradation, as they get up from their hands and knees to walk, they take their first step on the road to despair. Let us go forth in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue them. If you are not willing to go forth yourself, then give of your means: and if you are too lazy to go and too stingy to help, then get out of the way, and hide yourself in the dens and caves of the earth, lest, when Christ’s chariot comes along, the horses’ hoofs trample you into the mire. Beware least the thousands of the destitute of your city, in the last great day, rise up aud curse your stupidity and your neglect. One cold winter’s day, as a Christian man was going along the Battery in New York, he saw a little girl seated at the gate, shivering in the cold. He said to her: 1 ‘My child, what do you sit there for this cold day?’-’ “Oh.” she replied, “I am waiting for somebody to come and take care of me,” “Why,” said the man, “what makes you think anybody will coine and take care of you?” “Oh,” she said, “my mother died last week and I was crying very much, and she said: ‘Don’t cry, my dear; though 1 am gone and your father is gone, the Lord will send somebody to take care of you.’ My mother never told a lie: she said some one would come and take care of me, and I am waiting for them to cdnle.” O yes, they are waiting for you. Men of great hearts, gather them in. gather them iii. It is pot the will of your Heavenly Father that one of these little ones should perish. Lastly, the street impresses me with the fact that all the people are looking forward. I see expectancy written on almost every face 1 meet between hero and Brooklyn bridge, or walking the whole length ‘of Broadway. Where you find a thousand people walking straight on, you only find one man stopping and looking back. The fact is, God made us all to look ahead because we are immortal. In this tramp of the multitude on the streets, I bear the tramp of a great host, marching and marching for eternity. Beyond the office, the store, the shop, there is a world, populous and tremendous. Through God’s grace, may you reach that blessed place. A great throng fills those boulevards and the streets are a-rush with the chariots of conquerors. The Inhabitants go up and down, but they never weep and they never toil. A river flows through that city, with rounded and luxurious banks, and trees of life laden with everlasting fruitage bend their branches to dip the crystal. No plumed hearse rattles over that pavement, for they are never sick. With immortal Health glowing in every vein they know not how to die. Those towers of strength, those palaces of beauty, gleam in tho light, of a sun that never sets. Oh, heaven, beautiful heaven! Heaven, where our friends are. They take no census in that city, for it is inhabited by “a multitude which no man can number.” Rank above rank. Host above host. Gallery above gallery, sweeping ail around the heavens. Thousands of thousands. Millions of millions. Blessed are they who enter in through the gate into that city. Oh ! start for it today. Through the blood of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, t ike Up'j'our'march to heaven ‘ The Spirit and the Bride say come, and whosoever will, let him come and take of tho water of life freely.” Join this great throng marching heavenward. All the doors of invitation are open. “And I saw twelve gates, and there were twelve pearls.”