Moths In The Candle

Every tnoth learns for itself that the caudle burus. Every night, while the candle lasts, the slaughter goes on, and leaves its wingless and dead around it. The light is beautiful, and warm, and attractive ; and, uuscared by the doad, the foolish creatures rush into the ñames and drop, hopelesaly singed, their HtUe lives despoiled. It lias been supposed that men have reason, and a moral sense. It bus been supposed that they observe, draw conclu8ion8, and learn by experience. Indeed, they have been in the habit of looking down upon the animal world as a group of inferior beings, and subjeots of commiseration on account of their defunselessness, yet there is a large class of men, reproduced by very passing generation, that die exactly what the moths ïhey learn nothing by observation or experience. They draw no conclusions, save those which are fatal to themselves. Around a certain class of brilliant temptations they gathei, night after night, and with singed wings or lifeless bodies, they stiew the ground arouad them. No instructions, no expostulations, no observation of ruin, no sense of duty, no rpmonstrances of cofiscience, have any effect upon them. If they were inoths in tact they could not be sillier or more obtuse. They are, indeed, so far under the dominatiou of their animal natures that they act like animáis, ani sacrifico themselves in ñames that the world's experience has shown to be fatal. A single passion, which need not be named, - further than to say that, when hallowed by love and a legitímate gift of lite to lite, it is as pure as any passion of the soul, - is one of the candles around which the human moths lie in myriads of disgusting deaths. If anything has been proved by the observation and experience of the world it is that licentiousness, and all illicit gratification of the passions in vol ved in it, are killing sins against a man's own nature, - that by it the wings are singed not only, but body and soul are degraded and spoiled. Out of all illicit indulgence come weakness, a perverted moral nature, degradation of character, gross beastliness, benumbed sensibilities, disgusting lite, and a disgraceful death. Before its baleful ñre the sanctity of womanhood fades away, the romance of lite dies, and the beautiful world loses all its charm. The ives wrecked upon the rock of sensuality are strewn in every direction. Again and again, with endless repetition, young men yield to the song of the siren that Deguiles them to their death. They learn nothing, they see nothing, they know nothing but their wild desire, and on they go to destruction and the devil. Every young man wlio reads this article has two lives before him. He may choose either. He may throw himself away on a few illegitimate delights, which cover his brow with shame in the iresence of his mother, and becomo an old man before his time, with all the wine drained out of his life ; or he may jrow up into a pure, strong manhood, leid in healthy relation to all the joys that pertain to that high estáte. He may be a beast in his heart, or he may lave a wife whom he worships, children whom he delights in, self-respect which euables him to meet unabashed the nojlest woman, and an undisputed place n good society. He may have a dirty magination, or one that hates and spurns all impurity as both disgusting and poisonous. In brief, he may be a man, with a man's powers and immunities, or a sham of a man, - a whited sepulchre, - concious that he carries with him his dead bones, and all uncleanness. It is a matter entirely of choice. He knows what one life is, and where it ends. He cnows the essential quality and certain destiny of the other. The man who says ie cannot control himself not only lies, )ut places his maker in blame. He can control himself, and, if he does not, ie is both a fooi and a beast. The sense of security and purity and self-respect that come of continence, entertained for a single day, is worth more than the llicit pleasure of a world for all time. Che pure in heart see God in every thing, and see Him eveiywhere, and they are supremely blessed. Wine and strong drink form another candle in which millions of men have binged theuiselve8, and destroyed both joüy and soul. Here the signs of danger are more apparent than than in the other 'orm of sensuality, because there is less secrecy. The candle burns in open space, where all men eau see it. Law sits beïind, and sanctions its burning. It pays a princely revenue to the government. Women fiaunt their gauzes in it. Clergyuen sweep their robes through it. Kespectability uses it to light its bauquets. ai maiiy regions of this country it is a lighly respeotable candle. Yet, every year, sixty thousand persons in this country die of intemperance ; and when we think of the blastod lives that live in want and misery, of wives in despair, of oves bruised and blotted out, oí children disgraced, of alms-houses filled, of crimes committed through its influence, of industry extinguished, and of disease engendered, and remember that this has jeeu going on for thousands of years, wherever wine' has been known ; what are we to think of men who still press into the fire Y Have they any more sense ihan the moths? It is almost enough to shake a man's faith in immortality to inow that he belogs to a race that nianifests so little sense, and such hopeless recklessness. There is just one way of safety, and only one, and a young man who stands at the beginning of his career can choose wliother he will walk in it, or in the way of danger. There is a notion abroad among men that wine is good, - that when properly used it has help in it,- that in a certain way it is food, or a help in the digestión of food. We believe that no greater or more fatal hallucinatiou ever possessed the world, and that none so great ever possessed it for so long a timo. Wine is a medicine, and men would tako no more of it than of any other medicine if it wero not pleasant in its taste, and agreeable in its first eftects. The men who drink it, drink it bocause they like it. The theories as to its healthfulness come afterwards. The world cheats itself, and tries to cheat itself in this thing ; and the priests who prate of " using this world as not abusing it," and the chemists who claim a sort of nutritious property in alcohol which never adds to tissue (!), and the men who make a jest of drinking, all know perfectly well that wine and strong drink always have done more harm than good in the world, and always will until that millennium comes, whose feet are constantly tripped from under it by the drunkards that lie prona in its path. The millennium with a grog-shop at every corner is just as impossible as security with a burglar at every window, or in every room of the house. All men know that drink is a curse, yet young men sport around it as if there were soinething very desirable in it, and sport until they are hopelessly singed, and then join the great, sad army that, with undiminished numbers, presses on to its certain death. We do not like to become an exhorter , in those columns, but, if it were sary, we should plead with young meu upon weary kneos to touch not the acoursed thing Total abstinence, now and tor ever, is the only guaranty in existence against a di unkard's life and death, and there is no good that can possibly come to a man by drinking. Keep out of the candle. It will always singe your wings, or destroy you. - Dr. J. 0.