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Moths In The Candle

Moths In The Candle image
Parent Issue
Day
2
Month
February
Year
1882
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

An interpretation of the moral worth of the late Dr. J. G. Holland may be found in the following extract taken from an article written by him many years ago: "Every moth learns for itself that the candle burns. Every night while the candle lasts, the slaughter goes on, and lea ves its wingless and dead around it. The light is beautiful and warm, and attractive; and, unscared by the dead, the foolish creatures rush into the flames, and drop, hopelessly singed, tlieir little lives despoiled. It has been supposed that men have reason and a moral sense. It has been supposed that tliey observe, draw conclusions, and learn by experience. Yet there is a large class of men, reproduced by every passing generation, that do exaetly what the moths do, and die exaetly as the moths die, They learn nothing by observation or experience. Around certain class of brilliant temptations they g-ather night af ter night, and with singed wings and lifeless bodies, they strew the ground around them No instructions, no expostulations, no observations of ruin, no sense of duty, no remonstiance of conscience, have any effect upon t hem. If they. were moths in fact they could not be sillier or more obtuse. A single passion, which need not be named, - f urther than to say that, when hallowed by love and a legitímate gift of life to life, 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 gratifleation of the passion involved 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 beastlines, benumbed sensibilities, a disgusting life, and a disgracef ui death. Below its balef ui flre the sanctity of womanhood fades away, the ro, manee of life dies, aud the beautiful world loses all its charms. The lives 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 beguiles 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 de vil. Wine and strong drink form another candle in whieh millions have singed themselves, and destroyed both their body and soul. Here the signs of danger are more apparent than in the other form of sensuality, because there is less secrecy. The candle hurns in open space, where all men ean see it. Law sits hehind and sanctions its burning. It pays a princely revenue to the ernment. Women flaunt their gauzes in it. Clergymen sweep their robes through it. Respectability uses it to light its banquets. In many regions of this country it is a highly reapeetable candle. Yet every year sixty thousand persons in this country die of intemperance; and when we think of the blasted lives that live in want and misery, of wives in dispair, of loves bruised and blotted out, of children disgraced, of alms-houses ñlled, of crimes committed through its influence, of industry extinguished, and of disease engendered, and remember this has been going on for thousands of years, wherever wine has been known; wliat are we to think of the men who still press into the flre? Have they any more sense than the moths ? It is almost enough to shake a man's faith in immortality to learn that he belongd to a race that manifests so little sense,and such hoj.eless recklessness. There is just one way of safety and only one, and a young man in the beginning of his career ean ehoose whether 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, qr a help in the digestión of food. We belieye that no greater or more fatal hallucination ever possessed the world, and that none so great ever possessed it for so long a time Wine is a medi:'ine, and men would take no more o ït tlMu or any other medicine if it wer not pleasant in its taste, and agreeable in its flrst effects. The men who drink it, drink it because they like it. Th.e theories as to its healthfulness eome afterwnrd. 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 chemiste who claim a sort of nutritious property in alcohol which never adds to tissue (!) and the men who make a jest of water drinking, ill know per fectly 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 liepronein itspath. The niillennium with a, grog shop at every corner, is just as impossible as security with i búrglar at every wjndow, or in every roQm pf the house. All men know that drink is a curse vet young men sport around ii Hg f there were something very ileaira'rfe in it and then joiu the grt.it, dad arniy that' with undiminished nunibers, presses on to lts certain leath. Total abtinence, now and forevev is the only guaranty in existencè agamst a drunkard's Ufe 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."

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat