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 ADDRESSED TO THE FRIENDS OF YOUTH. 
 
 I . HARRINGTON. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIAL PROGRESS SOCIETY, 
 130 Nassau Street 
 
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 ADDRESSED TO THE FRIENDS OF YOUTH. 
 
 BY 
 
 IY HA.RRINQTON 
 
 $06o 
 
 New York : 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIAL PROGRESS SOCIETY, 
 
 150 Nassau Street. 
 

 Copyright, 1888, by I. Harrington. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 YT7IIE need of social reform is a conceded fact. The causes 
 and the cures of our social evils, and the best methods of 
 applying remedies, open a wide field for debate. I believe that 
 Jesus of Nazareth was the truest teacher that has ever blessed 
 mankind — was just what he professed to be — The Light of the 
 World. I also believe that the world will never make any true 
 progress in social reform, on any other basis. He who taught 
 as no man ever taught, gave no counsel for the shedding of 
 blood. He allowed his own blood to be shed for the good of 
 mankind. Many of his followers did the same ; but that is all the 
 shedding of blood that a Christian can commit. 
 
 There are those who believe that true social reform can never 
 be achieved but by razing the foundations of society, or washing 
 them away by blood. 
 
 In the reign of terror in France we had a good test of this 
 theory. Peaceful reform is the only kind that has ever blessed 
 the world. 
 
 The author of this little book will be happy to co-operate with 
 all parties that believe in levelling up, and not levelling down 
 human society. This I believe is the true spirit of reform ; true 
 Democracy, true Republicanism, true Socialism, true Christianity, 
 true Catholicism, true Protestantism, and true Humanity. 
 
 I. HARRINGTON, 
 
 New York City. 
 
SHR&EJP BBB8RB R80R. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 Is life worth living? It is our estate. 
 Throw it away, you seal the book of fate. 
 Blot out the sun, the brilliant orbs on high, 
 And desolate the splendors of the sky. 
 
 Why was hope kindled in the human breast ? 
 To break the spell of idiotic rest ; 
 To prompt to effort, energize the will, 
 The loftiest aims of purpose to fulfill. 
 
 Why nature's voice prophetic in our ear 
 
 Of lofty effort and sublime career ? 
 
 Not for the worthless bauble of a name, 
 
 Not for the fiction of enduring fame ; 
 
 But for the grandeur, greatness of our kind ; 
 
 The triumph of goodness, and advancing mind ; 
 
 God's greatest glory in his works to show, 
 
 And stay all streams of human ills below ; 
 
 To speed the car of progress in its flight 
 
 And dry the floods of agony and blight. 
 
 Selfish aggrandizement is not the law supreme, 
 Though oft the phantom, and the silly dream 
 Of greatness and renown ; the anxious thought 
 Of lofty genius ; minds most deeply taught ; 
 Because false standards weigh us in a scale, 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Where to be wanting seems in life to fail ! 
 So say the oracles of modern schools 
 Not bound by Christ's self-sacrificing rules. 
 Mammon makes slaves, and golden fetters bind 
 Those, else the sovereigns of the realm of mind. 
 
 Man's real worth inheres within himself, 
 
 Unscathed by poverty, unbought by pelf ! 
 
 Bright in obscurity, as 'neath a crown, 
 
 Manhood the clearest title to renown ! 
 
 A diamond in the sand inheres the diamond's worth 
 
 O'er all the cruder, baser forms of earth. 
 
 The modest flower amid the desert sand 
 
 Is not more lovely in the queenly hand. 
 
 It may add beauty to the regal crown, 
 
 But covets not the fiction of renown. 
 
 "A man's a ?nan," the priceless gem in all 
 
 Of those who do, and those who do not fall 
 
 And blindly worship at the feet of fame, 
 
 And sacrifice their manhood to a name. 
 
 The higher law, the brotherhood of man, 
 
 Was nature's edict, God's illustrious plan ; 
 
 And God and nature never can repose, 
 
 Till truth shall triumph over all her foes. 
 
 Jesus must reign, the Light, the Life, the Way ; 
 
 What he proclaimed must bear the regal sway. 
 " Thy kingdom come " must be the only prayer ; 
 " Thy will be done " the all-absorbing care. 
 
 Resistance may be long and hard, but we 
 
 Can rest alone in Christ's supremacy. 
 
 Goodness is greatness, guiding, not to rule, 
 But serve mankind in Christ's soul-saving school 
 To raise the fallen, guide the erring, save 
 The pure and good from an untimely grave. 
 This gives no fame. Self-sacrificing toil 
 In modest mien brings not the wine nor oil 
 Of human praising; as our Master found 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 By stripes and sorrows ; agonies profound. 
 
 Humanity's appeal has cried aloud 
 
 To the tumultuous and giddy crowd ; 
 
 Till all ears are pained — some bosoms feel — 
 
 But most the want of earnest thought reveal. 
 
 Ease, aggrandizement, and soft pleasures find 
 
 An easy access to the eager mind ; 
 
 To bear the burdens of the weak how few incline, 
 
 Or heed requirements, human or Divine. 
 
 Fathers and Mothers: love, appeals to you 
 
 Whose hearts are tender, and whose purpose true. 
 
 If aught can stir the blood within your veins, 
 
 Or quicken thought within your fertile brains ; 
 
 If love is vital, or innate desire, 
 
 Let new resolves enkindle vital fire. 
 
 Effectual, fervent, and unceasing prayer, 
 
 Watchful, earnest, love-inspiring care ; 
 
 A consecrated heart, unbending will, 
 
 Should all parental offices fulfill. 
 
 To save your children from untimely blight, 
 
 Lest sunset come before the shades of night. 
 
 Ye Men of God, yours is a sacred trust, 
 Keep bright your armor from corroding rust ; 
 The youth should find in you a genial friend, 
 Wise to instruct, to caution, and defend. 
 With unobtrusive and endearing skill, 
 Shield the young lambs from all invading ill. 
 Be not the tyrant nor officious spy, 
 Nor make them dread nor shun your company, 
 But love your presence and invite your care, 
 As the last one their social joys could spare. 
 
 The Superintendents of the Sabbath School, 
 
 Office of love, young destinies to rule ; 
 
 To sow the seeds more precious far than gold, 
 
 That may bring forth perhaps a hundred-fold. 
 
 Of grave portent, if not the seeds of truth, 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 To ripen fast in fertile soil of youth. 
 
 Office of trust, responsibility, 
 
 Of good or ill in kind, and in degree, 
 
 You wield a power more potent than the king, 
 
 In all you teach, in all the songs you sing. 
 
 Heed well your power, in holy fear preside ; 
 
 In the way they should go, the infant pilgrims guide. 
 
 Masters of Thought, the Teachers of Our 
 
 Schools, 
 The mental Aliment, the guiding rules, 
 The bearings of thought whence art and skill must steer 
 Through the unknown, to havens far or near ; 
 Find here their roots, prime axioms of thought, 
 To eliminate from what is early taught, 
 The unknown quantities and true equations find 
 In all that is in matter and in mind, 
 ' After their kind " is nature's primal law ; 
 And from its first truths the mind is prone to draw 
 The vast results of all philosophy, 
 And gravest truths of all theology. 
 
 The Press — the Press— whose Argus eyes survey 
 The earth and skies, and dawning truths display ; 
 You honor the land which honors you in turn ; 
 And trains our youth, your messages to learn. 
 Your myriad voices speak to every sense, 
 And all that's new with eloquence dispense. 
 You wield a power o'er every yearning mind, 
 Where youth resort their aliment to find. 
 Effluvia wafted in the morning breeze, 
 Exhaled from all the spicy realm of trees ; 
 The voice of nature echoes in your page, 
 And gems of thought from every land and age. 
 Encyclopaedia of the social sphere, 
 Of everything we need to hope or fear. 
 Remember the youth, in all their weals and woes, 
 Where crystal streams, or turbid water flows. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 In virtue's paths of safety and success, 
 You have the power to counsel and to bless. 
 Hope pleads with you, that in your vital breath, 
 There be no fatal element of death. 
 
 The Novelist — Though wind and water fail, 
 
 No power on earth can hinder or prevail, 
 
 To stay the flood which sweeps our youth along, 
 
 In the springtides of story and of song. 
 
 Pure or impure ; sweet or sour will find 
 
 Its level in some class of youthful mind ! 
 
 The mother's voice, the father's firm appeal, 
 
 The priest or pastor with his holy zeal, 
 
 May fail in audience — no access find 
 
 To secret chambers of the inner mind. 
 
 Not so the novelist with his diamond key 
 
 That fits all locks of sealed mystery. 
 
 A willing mind, an ever listening ear, 
 
 A throbbing pulse, a quick spontaneous tear, 
 
 Welcome his wooing. Nature plays a part, 
 
 In the quick impulse of the youthful heart ; 
 
 Instincts for good or ill, as we decide, 
 
 By what is given, or by what denied. 
 
 Crush not the instincts, but in wisdom lead, 
 
 Where truth and purity find out their need. 
 
 Truth is stranger than fiction." There we find 
 
 The secret spring which moves the youthful mind. 
 
 And he who has the wisdom and the skill, 
 
 The law of love and virtue to fulfill ; 
 
 Is " a Daniel come to judgment " ; for he 
 
 Can play the harp of truth and purity. 
 
 Fiction must learn our evils and their cure, 
 
 And keep the currents of its life-blood pure. 
 
 The Church stands pledged to every thing that can 
 Advance the interests of God's creature, man. 
 The youth are its bow of promise, the hope 
 Which must the door of future progress ope. 
 
lO SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Manhood matured is slow to change, or cure 
 The evils of the past ; patient to endure. 
 Youth, honest and earnest, artless and sincere, 
 And slow established usage to revere ; 
 With fervent zeal and with an effort strong, 
 Oft burst the shackles of invading wrong. 
 Train well your youth forgetting not the cost, 
 If one of all your tender lambs be lost. 
 
 To Legislatures — Powers on Earth That Be, 
 
 Guardians of our human destiny ; 
 
 You wield a power for good or ill, so broad, 
 
 That oft you judge prerogatives of God. 
 
 Nature's good gifts, inalienably free, 
 
 Are made the prize of foul monopoly ! 
 
 Fair competition crippled and suppressed, 
 
 The few to favor, as against the rest. 
 
 Nature is subverted, honest effort chained 
 
 To the wheel of servitude, and restrained 
 
 From all that makes men free. Simply to breathe 
 
 Is not to live. To daily toil beneath 
 
 A load of anguish ; and to give the fruits 
 
 To idleness ; is barbarism pure. Men are not brutes 
 
 And money not a God to be revered ; 
 
 Neither abjectly to be loved or feared. 
 
 The musty records of the past review ; 
 
 Crush not the many, to exalt the few. 
 
 Might is not right, when in its ponderous weight, 
 
 It relegates the millions to a fate 
 
 Of degradation less than rank of men, 
 
 To raise to gods the less deserving ten. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Is nature deranged — her primal laws at fault ? 
 Or do they in their glorious mission halt ? 
 Is there rebellion, or a mighty pause 
 In the relations of effect and cause ?* 
 Does nature tremble, varying to decay? 
 Her glorious splendors only false display ? 
 Her fairest, brightest forms, why doomed to fail, 
 Love's sacred empire rashly to assail ? 
 Do nature's laws forbid us to believe 
 A fact too strange for reason to receive ; 
 That night should come so prematurely soon, 
 That sun should set before the twelve of noon ? 
 Fiction is strange ; but truth is stranger still, 
 With wide extremes the soberest thought to fill 
 With wonder and surprise ; and oft with gloom, 
 Deeper than darkest shadows of the tomb ! 
 There is a land where sunshine oft is bright, 
 And nature gleams forth raptures of delight ; 
 Where bud, and leaf, and spreading branches shoot, 
 Profuse with promise of abundant fruit. 
 
 All eyes with gladness view the inspiring scene, 
 Where no dark cloud appears to intervene. 
 Hope's cheering promises, unearthly bright, 
 Seem to defy the darkness of the night. 
 Fancy runs mad with pleasure's joyful tune, 
 Brilliant with promise of auspicious noon. 
 
 * It is beyond all question, that there are many serious faults in our construc- 
 tion of civilized society. It is unnatural that so many youth go to destruction. It 
 should arouse all the energies of civilized organizations to combat the evils that lead 
 our youth astray. If children are really and happily "brought up in the way they 
 should go, they will not depart from it. 
 
12 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Schemes, rival schemes, and fantasies arise 
 
 To add new splendors to illusive skies ; 
 
 Caution and fear are banished from the mind, 
 
 All ears enchanted, and all eyes so blind. 
 
 Earth's flattering scenes and enterprises bold 
 
 Gleam in the sunshine like a sea of gold ; 
 
 But like the enchanter's magical displays, 
 
 Darkness oft lurks amid the brilliant rays ; 
 
 And while vain joys all hearts and souls attune, 
 
 The sun declining, sets before the noon. 
 
 Where is that land ? Have sons of terra seen 
 
 These awful shades that darkly intervene ? 
 
 In horrors full vesture to extinguish day, 
 
 Driving the sovereign of our noon away ? 
 
 Yes, God forbid that other spheres should know 
 
 The direful scenes that darken earth below. 
 
 What withered hopes, what blighted prospects tell 
 
 How heaven's best gifts are made to rival hell ! 
 
 Where is that land ? O lovers of mankind, 
 
 In your own midst, this realm of woe you'll find ; 
 
 Not in the stars, the solar orb, nor moon ; 
 
 But in your homes sunset blots out the noon! 
 
 The millions ruined, let the grave-yards tell, 
 
 Where tides of grief in awful billows swell ! 
 
 Where agonized affections mourn and weep, 
 
 And broken hearts despairing vigils keep ! 
 
 O, the sad waste of beauty, strength, and skill, 
 
 Which should our country's highest hopes fulfill ! 
 
 The fairest, brightest forms of youthful bloom, 
 
 Made but to garnish the revolting tomb. 
 
 The heart grows sick ; the fountains of the soul 
 
 Are chilled to see dark billows madly roll 
 
 Over the young, the fair, the lovely of the land, 
 
 In ruins dread vortex thrust by the hand 
 
 That should stretch forth in earnestness to save, 
 
 Our country's dear ones from an early grave. 
 
 Does startled reason ask, where is the cause ? 
 
 Not in kind nature's, but in human laws. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 13 
 
 O civilization ! hope's prophetic son, 
 When will the trophies of thy reign be won ? 
 Why does the sun in blushing shame retire? 
 Why nature's forces lose their vital fire ? 
 Are higher triumphs yet in wisdom's store, 
 Than ever were conceived by man before ? 
 Is there no Moses with his mighty rod, 
 Still efficacious from the hand of God, 
 To smite the waters, and divide the sea, 
 And lead mankind to higher destiny ? 
 Egyptian darkness veils the human sight, 
 And millions rush with madness and delight, 
 Where God forbids, and truth and wisdom cry : 
 " Shun the broad road where folly's victims die." 
 Take the highway of duty and of right, 
 Where virtue walks with safety and delight ; 
 Where the white star dispenses clearer light 
 And gives new brightness to the human sight. 
 Reform ! Reform ! Let this your motto be, 
 In name of virtue and of purity. 
 
 First find the cause, and then apply the cure, 
 
 If true reform, your purpose to assure. 
 
 Our youth do not enact our social laws, 
 
 They are the reflex of misguiding cause. 
 
 From social usages our ills arise 
 
 Costumed in sly, insidious disguise.* 
 
 As impure waters send forth poisonous breath, 
 
 Charged with the secret elements of death ; 
 
 So foul infections waft in stealthy form, 
 
 To be revealed in dynamite of storm. 
 
 The moral atmosphere is seldom free 
 
 From the malaria of impurity ; 
 
 * There are many serious faults in popular usages. The desecration of the 
 Sabbath is one of the most serious. Young persons come in contact with vice 
 and folly when they should be in the Sabbath School. If children come in con- 
 tact with corruption, they will be corrupted. " Evil communications corrupt 
 good manners." 
 
14 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 If healthy lungs inhale malarious air, 
 Infection mocks the vigilance of care ; 
 Shun the infected region, would you find 
 The priceless gem of purity of mind. 
 
 THE FAMILY CODE. 
 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go ! " 
 Here is the first and most effective blow 
 Against the powers of ill.* The parents' soul 
 Should be a law of heavenly control ; 
 A law of love, and yet a law supreme, 
 In which pure virtue smiles in every gleam. 
 
 But O, how aimless is the fireside code ! 
 
 Powerless to lead to virtue, or to God. 
 
 Perverted tastes, unhallowed desire, 
 
 Which set the course of nature all on fire ; 
 
 Allure the reason, instincts set at naught, 
 
 By precepts which rebellious passion taught ! 
 
 The fruit forbidden of that upas tree, 
 
 Whose dark penumbra spreads o'er land and sea ; 
 
 The curse of earth, the dynamite of ill, 
 
 Fair Eden's siren with the power to kill ! 
 
 Vanities of vanities, life's false display, 
 
 All sorts of evils marshalled in array ; 
 
 Mixed and convolved to dazzle and allure, 
 
 More than the youthful virtue can endure 
 
 Without fixed purpose, firm as granite rock, 
 
 To meet the dark phalanx with its direful shock ! 
 
 * The fireside influences are often neutralized and turned into ridicule or dis- 
 regarded by the outside influences. If children are exposed to influences of the 
 street, parental wisdom may be dreadfully interfered with. Parents should guard 
 this with the most vigilant care. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. I 5 
 
 Let human progress here review the past, 
 And the horoscope of future ages cast ; 
 In retrospection scrutinize the plan 
 Of all known efforts for the good of man. 
 
 In thirty thousand years,* the skeptic claims, 
 
 Earth has evolved this animal with brains ; 
 
 Must thirty milleniums of progress more 
 
 Expire in social tragedy, before 
 
 Wisdom shall enter this progressive mind, 
 
 The higher ends of social life to find ? 
 
 O righteous Heaven, distil the morning dew, 
 
 Reveal the power and wisdom to pursue 
 
 Those higher walks of purity and love, 
 
 The hope of earth, the crown of Heaven above. 
 
 Since the imperative " Let there be light," 
 The higher law has beamed on human sight ; 
 But man in skeptic pride will not believe, 
 Will not the light of sacred truth receive. 
 'Mid Eden's bowers the way of life was taught, 
 When man the fruits of sensual passion sought. 
 The baser instincts, clamorous in their call, 
 Lured noble reason to its direful fall ! 
 The pure and good without the latent ill, 
 God wisely gave with freedom of the will. 
 All things were given, but for wisest use, 
 Forbidding only dangerous abuse. 
 That freedom still exists — temptation too, 
 With the same law to guard the right and true. 
 Fearfully, wonderfully man was made, 
 In all God gave, in all his love forbade, 
 
 * The age of the world has been a theme much discussed, but nothing has 
 been deduced that need impair our confidence in the cosmogony of the Bible. 
 Those who affirm that the earth is thirty thousand years old have no exact 
 evidence to rely upon. That the seven days of creation may have been periods 
 of time of indefinite duration is not improbable, and may be accepted without 
 detriment to the Mosaic cosmogony. 
 
l6 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Profoundest truths of biologic law, 
 
 Lie deep concealed beyond man's power to draw 
 
 With human lines. God has power to teach, 
 
 Beyond the lines where human thought can reach. 
 
 He may command — love's tender warnings give, 
 " Shun this, do that; obey my child, and live;" 
 
 Just as a father bids his child to shun 
 
 A hidden pit, where it may blindly run. 
 
 Grave unseen dangers lurk in every form, 
 
 In brightest sunshine, and in fiercest storm, 
 
 Worse than malaria, at every breath, 
 
 Charged with the subtlest elements of death. 
 
 When poisons cluster in the childish reach, 
 
 Parental wisdom's higher law must teach — 
 " Touch not, taste not," or "ye surely die ;" 
 
 So said Jehovah, sovereign of the sky. 
 
 The woes of earth all rise from broken laws ; 
 
 From man's infractions of effect and cause, 
 " Ignorance is bliss ! " Embrace at fearful cost ; 
 
 With health, and wealth, and peaceful conscience lost ? 
 
 The nitro-glycerine and dynamite may be 
 
 Convenient factors of utility, 
 
 But powerful agents potent to destroy, 
 
 In childish hands as an amusing toy. 
 
 Man's self-conceit all good and ill to know, 
 
 Overwhelms the earth with direful seas of woe ! 
 
 Unholy pleasures from corrupt desire, 
 
 Set all the social elements on fire ; 
 
 Enflame with passion, torture, scourge, and kill ; 
 
 And the whole earth with dire disasters fill. 
 
 The nitro-glycerine and dynamite are tame, 
 
 Compared with sin's fierce soul-consuming flame. 
 
 There was a time in God's unfolding plan, 
 
 When he resolved to make his creature, man, 
 
 A thinking, acting being, to partake 
 
 Of things Divine, "In our own Image Make;" 
 
 In purpose uncontrolled, in action free, 
 
 The glorious image of the Deity. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. IJ 
 
 Discretionary power of thought and will, 
 
 With freedom of choice between the good and ill, 
 
 Had not yet been conferred. " Let us make Man," 
 
 Crowned all the triumphs of creative plan. 
 
 With wants, emotions, attributes of mind, 
 
 Unknown to orders of a lower kind. 
 
 No emanation from instinctive light, 
 
 But vast endowments from Jehovah's might. 
 
 Lofty in thought, to purpose and to will, 
 
 With freedom of choice his purpose to fulfill ; 
 
 With powers progressive, not like brute's fixed state, 
 
 But endless progress towards the good and great. 
 
 Freedom to act is man's enduring crown, 
 
 His highest claim to personal renown. 
 
 The God-like power to think, compare, and choose, 
 
 Free to accept — as freely to refuse. 
 
 Deny him that, his loftiness expires, 
 
 And God's bright image from man's soul retires. 
 
 But freedom brings dangers ; peril marks the way ! 
 
 Unguided reason oft must go astray ! 
 
 Therefore, the voice from tenderest love on high, 
 
 In the day tliou eat est, thou shalt surely die ! " 
 
 Man felt his selfhood as a thinking soul ; 
 
 His pride rebelled against supreme control ; 
 
 Reason, and passion, and volition, free, 
 
 Questioned the wisdom of the Deity. 
 
 Like a spoiled child, man ate and drank his fill ; 
 
 With unchecked license both of good and ill ; 
 
 As the inebriate quaffs so rashly free, 
 
 The fiery fiends of mad insanity, 
 
 With pride, ambition, self-conceit and hate, 
 
 And with the towering passion to be great ; 
 
 Self-exaltation rankled in his breast, 
 
 And the world's dark history portrays the rest! 
 
 War, famine, pestilence, fierce aggressive strife, 
 
 Embittering every phase of human life ! 
 
 Vile selfishness became the social rule, 
 
 And real life became a primal school 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 To train the young in all the ways of ill ; 
 To wrong, defraud, to rival and to kill ; 
 To grasp, and hold what God designed to be 
 The common good of all humanity. 
 Man, in the madness of his self-conceit, 
 Blind to the dangers reason had to meet, 
 Repulsed his God, his Guide, his truest Friend, 
 Whose power alone could guide him, and defend : 
 In proud disdain forsook the source of light, 
 And wandered far in awful shades of night ! 
 The baser passions rose in frighlful force, 
 And lured man onward in his fatal course ! 
 In moral darkness, passional desire 
 Lighted its torches with unholy fire ; 
 Unbridled grossness daringly assailed, 
 At reason's gate its eloquence prevailed ! 
 The fruits forbidden reddened in the blaze 
 Where lights fantastic shed alluring rays, 
 While retribution gleamed o'er all the sky, 
 The tempter said, "Ye shall not surely die. 
 Passion prevailed, licentiousness ensued, 
 And reason's calm voice was clamorously subdued. 
 Man's better nature died, and wise control 
 Lost its dominion o'er the human soul. 
 Thebes, Ninevah, and Babylon may tell 
 How earth resembled the direst shades of hell. 
 What was the fatal and forbidden thing, 
 Having the mortal virus in its sting ? 
 There was but one tree which bore forbidden fruit, 
 Having all sins inherent in its root. 
 " Shall be as gods,"* was the seductive lie, 
 
 * However much there may be that deserves our admiration in our present 
 methods of civilization, it cannot be denied that it is mainly on the serpent's plan of 
 rivalry, competition, monopoly and selfish individualism, as opposed to a brother- 
 hood, such as God's law demands. Consequently the lucky few rule, and the mul- 
 titude suffer. The masses and the classes give a sickening aspect to human affairs. 
 The multitude have no hope of a proper recognition in society. Their self-respect 
 is blunted, and multitudes throw themselves away, or sink down in degrading 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 19 
 
 In bold defiance of the powers on high. 
 
 In this all elements of sin reside ; 
 
 Here is the line where good and ill divide. 
 
 Self-exaltation, jealousy, and hate, 
 
 Self-interest, self-love, the passion to be great ; 
 
 Monopoly, extortion, rivalry, and strife, 
 
 Passional indulgence — foulest ills of life; 
 
 Pleasure's whole throng, all crimes and vices blend 
 
 To consummation of nefarious end. 
 
 Perfect love to God — unselfish love to man, 
 
 Peace and good-will — God's universal plan ; 
 
 Exactly reverse of all the serpent said, 
 
 Hence woman's seed shall bruise the daring head 
 
 Of the vile monster, author of all sin, 
 
 In whom all follies of mankind begin. 
 
 Here is the fruit of that forbidden tree ; 
 
 All false religion, false philosophy. 
 
 All vice and crime, all passional abuse, 
 
 All deviations from the real use. 
 
 The source of evil can no longer be 
 Wrapped in the folds of unsolved mystery. 
 From human freedom, crimes and vices rise, 
 Rebelling against the Ruler of the skies. 
 
 Resulting darkness still o'ercasts our sky, 
 
 Truth asking still " Why will yon eat and die?" 
 
 Go back to Eden, and begin anew ; 
 
 The higher law of real life pursue. 
 
 Thousands of yeais of agony and woe, 
 
 Why not suffice a thinking race to show 
 
 inferiority and hopeless dejection. A iife of honest, virtuous usefulness fails to gain 
 respect, while idle voluptuousness and crafty unscrupulousness are floating on the 
 pinions of popular favor. Money, and not merit, is the standard of respect. Men in 
 hurtful, worthless, and even dishonest pursuits, are courted, and wined, and dined, 
 where a virtuous, honest and hard working man cannot show his head. Honest 
 industry is often driven to desperation, to intemperance or suicide ; and penniless 
 and paupered wives and children become like chaff in the wind, and find their sun- 
 
2o SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 That God's highway of safety is the best, 
 
 The only way of joyful peace and rest ? 
 
 The human problem, tangled and convolved, 
 
 In all its depths and beauty, has been solved. 
 
 Light, Light Divine, has pierced the shades of night, 
 
 And bathed the eyes of unassisted sight. 
 
 Love God with All Thy Heart and Soul and 
 
 Mind ; 
 And as Thyself, Love All of Human Kind. 
 All things whatsoever to your neighbor do, 
 That you would ask of him. Be kind and true ; 
 In meek forbearance long ; to anger slow, 
 And when assailed, return no angry blow. 
 Quickly respond to every call of need ; 
 The naked clothe ; the poor and hungry feed ; 
 Striving in peace and harmony to live ; 
 Quick to redress, and ready to forgive ! 
 Our civilization will be God-like when 
 This glorious law shall rule the hearts of men. 
 God gave to man a perfect law, that strife 
 Might never mar the harmonies of life. 
 But peace on earth, good will to man might be 
 The vital bond of all humanity. 
 On this broad platform, by Divine command, 
 It was designed the human race should stand. 
 
 Man rebelled, his selfishness prevailed, and we 
 Are still immersed in seas of tragedy. 
 God gave us freedom, noblest gift to man, 
 
 set before noon ; would have been far better off among savages, or the wild beasts 
 of the forest. Yet this is called civilization. Nations permitting this as an ordinary 
 occurrence are extolled in history as Christian nations. When shall we begin to call 
 things by their right names '? What is a Christian country ? One that ignores the 
 first prime axiom of Christian civilization — the brotherhood of man ? What makes 
 rivalry, competition, monopoly and strife the first elements of society? Will the 
 time ever come when every knee shall bow to Jesus, and every tongue shall confess 
 him King of Earth ? The time will come when kings, and princes, and all rulers — 
 parliaments, legislatures, and all law making powers — shall bow to the Maker of the 
 earth, and will not dare to make a law contrary to the teachings of Him by whom 
 the worlds were made. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 21 
 
 The culmination of the making plan ! 
 Was it a fault, he made his creature free ? 
 And subject to responsibility ? 
 
 Why should man have the liberty to stray? 
 
 Why not compelled to keep the narrow way ? 
 
 Because he is Man — the Image of his God— 
 
 Above the insects, tenants of the sod ; 
 
 With higher, nobler attributes of soul, 
 
 With reason, love and conscience to control, 
 
 Will God compel his children to obey ? 
 
 To shun the broad, and choose the narrow way ? 
 
 He pleads, instructs, with blessings rich in view, 
 
 For those who will the royal road pursue. ; 
 
 But to subvert the freedom he has given, 
 
 Would be infraction of the laws of Heaven. 
 
 God's law is love, not arbitrary force, 
 
 He would attract the erring from their course. 
 
 Reason must choose — prefer the good and true, 
 
 And with the whole heart the glorious way pursue. 
 
 Freedom was no stupendous failure, when 
 
 Wisdom conferred it on the sons of men. 
 
 When man shall know its uses, it will be 
 
 The crowning glory of humanity. 
 
 As vernal sunshine sets all nature free, 
 
 So man expands by beams of liberty. 
 
 In its broad sunshine, man must learn its worth, 
 
 Above all sensualities of earth. 
 
 Here we have two plans of human society. Adopt that which God taught, and 
 human existence is beautiful and heavenly. Adopt that which the old serpent, the 
 devil, taught, and you have a barbarism. Our civilization is a kind of cross between 
 the two. Our whole superstructure is strongly marked with rivalry, competition, 
 monopoly. Every one making himself a god, as nearly as he can according to the 
 competitive plan marked out by Satan, and not according to God's plan of loving 
 his neighbor as himself. Jesus commanded, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures 
 upon earth ;" yet it has become almost the entire business of the human race to 
 violate this commandment to the greatest extent that they can. This commandment 
 is as positive as that which says, "Thou shalt not covet," or "Thou shaltnot steal," 
 yet we are told, on very high authority, that a man has a right to lay up all the 
 
22 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Freedom will draw him towards its glorious source, 
 
 No more to wander from his heavenly course. 
 
 Duty and interest never disagree ; 
 
 They are indeed the same IDENTITY. 
 
 Man's greatest good inheres in truth and right, 
 
 Source of all interest, and of pure delight. 
 
 The ways of all pleasantness, the paths of peace, 
 
 Where keen-edged sorrows will forever cease. 
 
 But the upas tree is found in every grove, 
 Oft casting shades on purity and love. 
 And oft is sought and praised — attracting more, 
 Than the good and useful by ten thousand score ! 
 And rushing multitudes by shout and song, 
 Become the guide-board for the giddy throng, 
 Rushing to ruin by popular acclaim, 
 To stain the records of resulting shame. 
 
 Pleasure and happiness must learn to find 
 Their common centre in the eternal mind. 
 Thy will be done, must fill the heart and soul 
 With a supreme, a heavenly control, 
 Till freedom tend like waters to the sea, 
 Spontaneous toward one great suprernacy ; 
 Where reason, appetite and passion see 
 Entire responses in the Diety. 
 Temptation then might charm the ear of sense, 
 
 money he can get honestly. In the universal scramble that follows, under the 
 very highest sanctions of our methods of civilization, is it surprising that multitudes 
 fall by the way, crushed by superior advantages, superior strength, superior intelli- 
 gence and trained skill ; broken in body, soul and spirit, to die in abject obscurity, 
 " Unwept, unhonored, and unsung ? " Is it surprising that human ingenuity is 
 racked to its utmost to devise ways of fraud, unjust gain, sharp practice or open and 
 positive aggression to obtain what society has decreed as the only passport to popu- 
 lar favor ? Social usages pay a very high premium for all forms of secret or even 
 open fraud, if it can escape the forms of law. This gives very strong motive to run 
 risks of exposure, and ruinous downfall, in the hope of successful escapes, 
 as numerous unsuccessful ones can sorrowfully testify. But if we could 
 know how many have escaped, and been honored, flattered, petted and embraced 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 23 
 
 With all the siren's magic eloquence ; 
 But shuddering reason calmly would survey 
 The ruined temples lying in the way ; 
 And wiser grown, resist the fatal spell, 
 And flee as from the fiery gates of hell. 
 Borne on the pinions of celestial love, 
 Triumphantly, and joyously above 
 Impure attractions, and depraved desires, 
 Where a corrupt imagination fires 
 The sensuous nature ; freedom will arise 
 To nobler triumphs 'neath exalted skies. 
 
 Man has abused his freedom, and himself, 
 
 Subsidized by earth's alluring pelf. 
 
 Earth's tragic scenes, appalling to behold, 
 
 Defying tongues of angels to unfold ; 
 
 Have placed man's freedom in degraded light, 
 
 And filled the earth with wretchedness and blight. 
 
 License, indulgence, luxury, excess, 
 
 Have shown too oft impotency to bless. 
 
 Still fools believe, the maelstrom's terrors crave, 
 
 And venture where the maddened billows rave ; 
 
 Wisdom too late, the cyclone's rage too soon, 
 
 Disaster frowns, and sunset comes at noon. 
 
 In progress of Jehovah's glorious plan, 
 
 The last great triumph of his creature man, 
 
 Will be the freedom of the human will, 
 
 as the stars in high life : the risk would not seem so absurd or so lacking of common 
 prudence. 
 
 " Shall be as gods." These words draw a perfect line between all good and 
 evil. They were directly aimed at man's weakest point, not to expose and overcome 
 it, but to flatter it, arouse to flame, and make it the rule of life. To lead man to 
 reject his greatest good, and to choose his greatest evil, was the cunning device of a 
 being who sought man's ruin. Who was, what was that being? It was an intelli- 
 gence that knew the distinctions between good and evil better than man has known 
 them : that knew the human make-up better than man has known it : it was a 
 being that knew all the springs in the human organism that may be diverted to 
 evil, and knew the causes and effects that would most effectually secure that end. 
 That intelligence looked through human nature, through all the future history of 
 
24 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Choosing the good, without the latent ill. 
 Free to partake, yet choosing to refrain ; 
 Knowing that virtue is eternal gain. 
 When freedom shall rise to that exalted height, 
 To hunger and thirst for purity and right ; 
 Then will man shine in brightness of the sun, 
 And his predicted triumphs will be won. 
 But till then the poisoned tides will flow, 
 And men will quaff their bitterness and woe ! 
 
 The law of motives — O could man believe ! 
 
 The fearful logic could his heart receive ; 
 
 His soul would shrink with horror and dismay 
 
 From the allurements tempting him astray. 
 
 If ignorance were bliss, his folly might be wise, 
 
 But blindness is parent to his agonies. 
 
 All vice is suicide ; virtue is the road 
 
 Which leads "through nature up to nature's God." 
 
 Who marvels why our youth should go astray 
 While vices thick as sunbeams point the way ? 
 The polished graces of alluring wrong, 
 Give fascination to the siren's song. 
 The young and lovely, by ingenious art, 
 With poisoned arrows quivering in their heart, 
 Are lured to ruin, daring the giddy steep, 
 To plunge thence headlong in the awful deep 
 Of social tragedy, to meet their doom, 
 With sunset horrors e'er the blaze of noon. 
 From false inductions, taught that wrong is right, 
 With gleaming pleasures dazzling in their sight ; 
 
 mankind, and plotted the dreadful evils which have ensued. •' Shall be as gods. " — 
 This appeals to man's pride, ambition, love of self-exaltation, and desire to be great. 
 It awakens selfishness, avarice, competition, monopoly, jealousy, hatred, revenge, 
 murder, and all forms of aggression. There is not an evil known to man that will 
 not grow out of it. 
 
 God gave man exactly the opposite law — " Thou shall love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ; arid thou shalt love 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 25 
 
 Forsaking God, sole guardian of their youth, 
 And scorning all his righteous words of truth ; — 
 No God to love, no hell to shun, no fear, 
 No faith nor hope their fragile bark to steer ; 
 Conscience a myth, or superstitious awe, 
 Not known to reason or to nature's law ; 
 " Whatever is, is right ; " there is no wrong, 
 To break the rhythm of the siren's song. 
 Thus vice and virtue find no bounding line ; 
 Each by the other we may well define. 
 
 No reverent love or awe should man confess, 
 
 No prayer nor praise — there is no power to bless. 
 
 Spurious philosophy, with palsying hand 
 
 Has touched the vital sinews of our land. 
 
 Virtue has felt the shock ; integrity 
 
 Has lost its normal worth ; and broad and free, 
 
 Remorseless fraud strides o'er the land, and blight 
 
 Seems to blot out the normal sense of right. 
 
 Sons and daughters learn to live and breathe on wrong, 
 
 Wrongs on the weak inflicted by the strong. 
 
 By tricks of trade, by cultured arts of fraud 
 
 Outraging reason, and the laws of God. 
 
 Parental love thus takes them by the hand, 
 
 Instructing them to build upon the sand. 
 
 If their house should fall, who would wonder why? 
 
 To find the causes, would you search the sky ? 
 
 Parental perfidy has sealed their doom, 
 
 And planned their ruin e'er the tide of noon. 
 
 Has civilization but a palsied hand, 
 To curb the giant evils of our land ? 
 
 :hy neighbor as thyself." This is the law which was taught by Jesus, and which was 
 :aught essentially the same by Moses ; and although there is no exact record of it 
 earlier, we must believe that God taught to Adam and Eve exactly opposite to what 
 the serpent taught. 
 
 If we adopt God's law it makes a brotherhood of the human race of love, peace, 
 good-will and mutual benefit ; " Ye shall be as gods," converts human society 
 into a barbarism of aggression and strife. 
 
26 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Or is one arm weak and palsied to save 
 The other strong to thrust into the grave ? 
 Our boastful progress, scarcely in its teens, 
 Shrinks not with horror from revolting scenes. 
 The seeds of ruin lurk in social forms, v 
 As sunshine wakes the dynamite of storms. 
 Our social vices — O the depth and height, 
 Like burnished gems reflecting solar light ; 
 Wafted as incense in the zephyr's breath, 
 Charged with the fatal elements of death ! 
 
 The social glass, worst enemy of man, 
 Since the arch fiend his direful work began ! 
 Whose Stygian waters flamingly arise, 
 Reflecting mad defiance to the skies. 
 Young wives and mothers, whose torn bosoms feel 
 A depth of woe no language can reveal ; 
 Plead, vainly plead, in the dull ear of sense, 
 With melting tears and glowing eloquence ; 
 Their husbands dead, except the bloated form 
 Which lives and breathes, provoking social scorn. 
 Their children homeless, friendless, hurled 
 Like chaff in tempest, hopeless on the world ! 
 Parental love extinguished in the soul 
 Of them, the slaves of passion's vile control. 
 Parents with age and broken-hearted grief. 
 In hopeless agony denied relief ! 
 The hope, the pride, the ornaments of home, 
 Bring desolation 'neath the family dome. 
 In dreadful shades their sun goes down at noon 
 Shrouding the home of happiness in gloom ! 
 The tide flows on, still mighty is the glass, 
 From lip to lip the flowing goblets pass; 
 The temperate drinker rules the social state, 
 Tempting the millions to their direful fate. 
 Honors eternal crown the lofty head 
 Of Paul, great champion of truth, who said : 
 " I would not eat meat till life's remotest end, 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 27 
 
 If it would cause my brother to offend." 
 Example God-like, height of human fame ; 
 Civilization, clothe thyself with shame ! 
 That nineteen centuries should gleam this light 
 So vainly on the world's dark blear-eyed sight. 
 Truth's great expounder touched the keynote when 
 He solved this problem in the affairs of men. 
 The car of progress would you keep in course, 
 Come here then, learn the laws of moral force — 
 Touch not, taste not, handle not the thing, 
 With death and dire destruction in its sting. 
 Am I my brother's keeper? " Yes, you are ; 
 This is the true reformer's guiding star. 
 
 WOMAN DETHRONED. 
 
 Woman dethroned — in life's auspicious morn, 
 Scathed by the flames of ignominious scorn ; 
 Temple demolished, crushed and blasted flower, 
 A trampled garden or a fallen tower, 
 Deserted city, desolated realm ; 
 A ship abandoned without chart or helm; 
 Erratic comet from its orbit hurled, 
 The wonder, dread and puzzle of the world. 
 Yet O, how many, bright as morning ray, 
 Find their sun setting e'er the noon of day ? 
 Victims of madness, frenzy and despair ; 
 Friendless, homeless tenants of the air ; 
 Abandoned, outcast, reckless and forlorn, 
 Cursing the day that ever they were born ; 
 Weary of life, in desperate haste to die, 
 And blot the sunshine from the noon-day sky ! 
 
 The darkest omen which we have to fear, 
 Dread horoscope menacing our career, 
 
28 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Is the corruption of our youth ; the blight 
 
 Which drapes our banner with the gloom of night. 
 
 Where rests the guilt ? O civilization, where ? 
 On the whole nation ; on its want of care ; 
 On social standards, usages and crimes, 
 The sad degeneracy of modern times. 
 
 Let home — the discipline, parental care, 
 Fireside devotions, songs of praise and prayer, 
 All the surroundings, social atmosphere, 
 Be the sure helm the youthful bark to steer. 
 The Church, the State, the school of learning — all 
 Should see in life's failures an imperious call. 
 Come to the rescue, and with love's embrace, 
 Protect the interests of the rising race. 
 Priceless the blessings 'neath that sacred dome. 
 The pure environs of a Christian home ; 
 Invoking less the virtues of the rod, 
 Than word divine, and love and fear of God. 
 " 'Tis education forms the common mind, 
 Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." 
 Train up a child in wisdom's holy way, 
 And when he is old, his footsteps will not stray. 
 Corrupt our youth : It strikes the vital part, 
 
 The youthful conscience, could it never feel 
 Objective influence but for heavenly weal ; 
 A youth corrupted would be rare to find, 
 Or if corrupted, would amaze mankind ! 
 But turbid streams of sensual passion flow 
 In volumes deep o'er all this earth below; 
 Sweeping our youth away ! You wonder why ? 
 So many live but just to sin and die. 
 Forbidden fruits most temptingly displayed, 
 And sparkling goblets tastefully arrayed 
 With elegance of grace, and living smile, 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 29 
 
 Potent the young and artless to beguile. 
 In Eden's fair logic say, " partake and live," 
 They will the essence of true pleasure give. 
 The added weight of ridicule and sneer, 
 Addressed to weakness, diffidence and fear, 
 Gives direful energy to sin's appeal, 
 Which youth are ever sensitive to feel. 
 And as their sun should gain meridian height, 
 It sets amid the sable folds of night. 
 True anthropology is shocked to see 
 The vital roots of the majestic tree 
 Of manhood thus so wither and decay, 
 Before the noontide of the rising day. 
 
 Enlightened progress has been slow to learn 
 
 The axis on which the social sphere should turn. 
 
 Earth's wails and woes should break man's dreamy rest 
 
 And wake heroic ardor in his breast. 
 
 New ways and means, new efforts for the right, 
 
 To speed the car of progress in its flight. 
 
 Work ! Work ! ! Work ! ! ! Is nature's wise decree ; 
 
 Her primal law of human destiny. 
 
 Nature no rest can know. She works ; and man 
 
 Is but a part of her achieving plan. 
 
 Much has been done to glorify the past, 
 
 Great monuments of human effort cast 
 
 Their bright effulgence over land and sea, 
 
 With beams prophetic of what yet may be. 
 
 Our educational achievements stand 
 The pride and glory of young freedom's land. 
 Developed manhood bursts the iron chains 
 Which had for ages bound the realm of brains. 
 Light out of darkness dissipates the gloom 
 Which long obscured the solar beams of noon. 
 Push on this mighty engine ; lubricate it well 
 And let enlightened patriotism swell 
 
20 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 The motive energies, until our mental night 
 Shall be dispelled by universal light. 
 The engineers in their heroic toil, 
 Let them not lack the lubricating oil. 
 
 The Sabbath Schools — a kind and gentle hand, 
 The guardian angel of our happy land ; 
 A power immense arrayed on virtue's side, 
 Wise to instruct and vigilant to guide. 
 Its potency in virtue's sacred cause 
 Is mightier far than codes of civil laws. 
 " Let me make a nation's ballads, then 
 I care not who may make the laws of men." 
 The Sabbath schools exert a power of song 
 Alarming to the daring hosts of wrong. 
 Inspiring youth with purpose bold and free, 
 And pointing to triumphant destiny, 
 Training emotion, sentiment and will, 
 The noblest ends of manhood to fulfill. 
 Resist the soft cadence of the siren's song, 
 Potent to lure the artless to the wrong-. 
 
 PREVENTION. 
 
 Prevention is the secret of reform. 
 
 The glowing spark may kindle to a storm, 
 
 Fanned to flame, Chicago's power of cure 
 
 Might be too weak her safety to insure. 
 
 By thousands we may guard and save the youth, 
 
 Where one could be restored to love of truth. 
 
 The sprouting acorn yields to infant hand, 
 
 But the tall oak, proud monarch of the land, 
 
 Disdains to bend, defiant holds the field 
 
 Till death's stern logic teaches it to yield. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 3 1 
 
 The mighty Amazon in birth-place dell, 
 
 Is not prophetic of enormous swell ; 
 
 The tiny stream at first so ill defined, 
 
 Faint as the currents of the infant mind, 
 
 Gives little promise in reflected beams 
 
 As mighty monarch of terrestrial streams ! 
 
 Rill after rill augments its little force, 
 
 As it meanders on its modest course. 
 
 As swells the ball revolving in the snow, 
 
 So grows the streamlet in its onward flow ; 
 
 Till mighty rivers, with impetuous tide, 
 
 Flow in, and spread the enormous channel wide ! 
 
 Defying all the powers of earth to stay 
 
 The rushing torrents on their boisterous way. 
 
 So vice and folly modestly begin ; 
 
 Shocked at the rough and rugged form of sin 
 
 The name of vice offends their moral sense, 
 
 Which seeks defence in glowing eloquence. 
 
 The channel widens through the blooming vale 
 
 Where odors sweet from wild-flower tints exhale. 
 
 Free thought and feeling claim a wider space, 
 
 And other sins approach with winning grace. 
 
 Aggressive habit comes so soft and slow 
 
 That shade into shade, the blending colors flow. 
 
 Untried indulgence pleads the same excuse, 
 
 Despising all excesses and abuse. 
 
 Broader and broader tributaries find 
 
 A willing access to the yielding mind. 
 
 One vice contracted soon will find another, 
 
 Friend, parent, neighbor, sister or a brother ; 
 
 One vice or virtue will not live alone, 
 
 Each one received another will condone ; 
 
 Passion imperious soon will fiercely rave, 
 
 And the free-thinker sinks into the slave ; 
 
 The Amazonian rill becomes a sea, 
 
 The home of fierce impetuosity, 
 
 Like maelstrom terrors maddened into rage, 
 
32 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Spurning volition's efforts to assuage ! 
 
 O daring youth, trust not your strength to steer 
 
 In safety, where sly dangers lurk so near. 
 
 Where giants fall, trust not your untried skill, 
 
 Heroic courage nor your valiant will. 
 
 Touch not, taste not, pass all evil by, 
 
 The slippery paths let not your courage try ; 
 
 The straight and narrow path is wisdom's way ; 
 
 Build on the rock, and venture not astray. 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 Woman, woman, man's superior part, 
 Much hast thou suffered from his wily art, 
 Bowing and vowing, in obsequious phrase, 
 Exhausting language by exalting praise ; 
 Frenzied and mad, he bows at woman's feet, 
 Eloquent to woo, and pious to entreat. 
 Potent her power, too potent to be lost, 
 Yet oft — how oft ? — she turns it to her cost ! 
 Rules but to ruin, conquers but to kill ! 
 With deadliest drugs the cup of life to fill. 
 Enchanting smiles, the laughing, speaking eye, 
 The flowing curls, her captivating sigh, 
 Bewitching play upon the heart-strings — these 
 Are not the fortress of her power to please. 
 The higher, sweeter instincts of the soul, 
 Her pure affections bear supreme control ; 
 A silent power to rule the social state 
 With edicts rivaling the laws of fate. 
 The lords of earth, the stronger sex will be 
 Just what the gentler sovereigns decree. 
 Let female virtue raise the standard high, 
 Fear not, stern gallantry will soon comply ; 
 With eager haste will don the silken chains 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 33 
 
 Despite his aristocracy of brains. 
 
 Let female virtue wake the nation's care, 
 
 In all that's great and good, let woman share ; 
 
 Eden will glow with fragrant bloom again, 
 
 With loftiest trophies to the sons of men. 
 
 LEGAL WRONG. 
 
 God created the heavens and the earth ; 
 
 He gave all being an exalted birth. 
 
 The earth he made for man, where not the few, 
 
 But all might ways of happiness pursue. 
 
 He holds the balance of fruition even, 
 
 Impartial as the rains and dews of heaven ; 
 
 Seeking alone the greatest good of all ; 
 
 To give response to every needful call. 
 
 Earth, air, and water were for common use ; 
 
 Not for monopoly, and vile abuse. 
 
 Monopoly invades the natural rights of man, 
 
 The flames of hate and jealousy to fan. 
 
 The right to breathe, to drink the cooling stream, 
 
 Would laws of God or nature contravene? 
 
 Could laws of man ? How then deny the right 
 
 For man to spread his canopy by night, 
 
 On his own soil ; by nature free, 
 
 The rightful heir of life, and liberty. 
 
 Not as a trespass, charity, or fraud ; 
 
 But in the image of Almighty God. 
 
 To eat, and drink, and sleep, could aught deny? 
 
 From nature's laws of common destiny ? 
 
 When industry has plied its power and skill, 
 
 Its fruits should not be subject to the will 
 
 Of idleness, monopoly, and legal fraud ; 
 
 Subverting nature, and the will of God. 
 
34 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 The battle's toil for earth's substantial good, 
 Should give man pleasure, rest and needful food. 
 But acting well their part, brave toilers find 
 But crippled bodies, with untutored mind, 
 No thought, nor action, nor volition free ; 
 While chained to rocks of disability. 
 Their nobler powers half crucified and slain. 
 With galling manacles and pangs of pain. 
 Brave and daring industry has filled 
 The coffers of the rich ; while want has killed 
 The noblest prompting of the sons of toil ; 
 And robbed them of the bounties of the soil. 
 
 The streams of wealth ; as Mississippi broad, 
 
 Flow through our land, these fruitful works of God, 
 
 Smiling propitiously to bless the hand 
 
 Of industry, with bounties of the land. 
 
 But toiling masses still remain unblessed ; 
 
 Be not surprised — sharp practice tells the rest. 
 
 The world's great wrong, whence streams of sorrow flow, 
 
 Unfathomed fountains of unmeasured woe ; 
 
 Eliminating manhood, rich and poor, 
 
 With less than needed, or with ten times more, 
 
 Oh, the crushed spirits maimed by wants decree, 
 
 Beneath the heal of mammon's tyranny ! 
 
 Root of all evil, madd'ning thirst for gain, 
 
 Defying earth and heaven to restrain. 
 
 The laws of nature with propitious heed, 
 
 Are yielding kindly to the laws of need. 
 
 Toil yields abundance seemingly to bless 
 
 The millions with the means of happiness. 
 
 But toil gropes on, in penury and pain, 
 
 While wealth and pleasure riot on the gain. 
 
 O God we thank thee, Justice does not sleep ; 
 
 Forbearing mercy does not cease to weep ; 
 
 Full compensation waits the suffering mass, 
 
 While wrong seeks refuge in a house of glass. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 35 
 
 Social Oppression ! Oh the bands of steel ! 
 Benumbing reason, and the powers to feel. 
 Inalienable rights, by nature's edicts free ; 
 The major premise of man's destiny. 
 Was Earth not made for man ; its fullness too ; 
 That all might share ; as now the lucky few. 
 Designed the poorest, weakest child to bless, 
 With life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness ; 
 Bestowed by nature for the greatest good, 
 Where honest toil might get abundant food. 
 Where shelter, rest, and plenty might be found 
 By every tenant of the fertile ground. 
 The earth is broad enough, and free, 
 To all the offspring of the Diety, 
 Equally related to the earth and skies, 
 In mutual love ; — bound by the holy ties 
 Of brotherhood. Born from a common cause ; 
 Held and protected by the common laws 
 Of justice, goodness, and impartial love; 
 Sweet bond of earth ; bliss of the realms above. 
 
 Men have dimensions occupying space. 
 Could God give these without a needful place ; — 
 A spot on which to stand ? On all the earth 
 Has man no right by simple laws of birth ? 
 
 All men have feet — have they no place to stand ? 
 
 Have hands, yet not their length nor breadth of land ! 
 
 How then exist ? A pauper and a blight ? 
 
 Nature's aggressor on some civil right ? 
 
 Born an outlaw ; without right to be, 
 
 But by permission of Monopoly. 
 
 His existence crime, while reptiles^find 
 
 The laws of nature adequately kind ? 
 
 Man thus is crushed, neglected, and forlorn, 
 
 Rueing the day that ever he was born. 
 
 Shut out from all that God and nature give ; 
 
 Not e'en the right to eat, and sleep, and live. 
 
36 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 The bond, the bond, outweighing God's command, 
 
 Held up to stay God's all-controlling hand. 
 
 In courts of earth a good and legal plea, 
 
 But false in God's great court of equity ! 
 
 Our glorious declaration would be fraud, 
 
 If man by nature nor by nature's God 
 
 Could the inalienable right possess, 
 
 Of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness ! 
 
 Immortal Jefferson, hadst thou defined 
 
 The inalienable rights of all mankind ; 
 
 Monopoly might stand appalled, and we 
 
 Be all endowed with life and liberty. 
 
 Nature's great hand might open wide, and spread 
 
 The wing of love o'er every human head. 
 
 Pursuit of happiness be broad and free, 
 
 And man stand forth in native dignity. 
 
 Let Jesus rule, and human ills would cease, 
 
 And earth would smile with love, and joy, and peace. 
 
 Glory to God, that in his sovereign plan, 
 He stamped his image on his creature man ; 
 Exalting him in reason and in will, 
 The glorious ends of purpose to fulfill. 
 Progressive attributes evolving force, 
 To guide, propel, and dignify his course ; 
 Affirm his greatness, in divine decree ; 
 The God-like gift of immortality ! 
 
 Man was not made to grovel dark and low, 
 In downward course, as turgid waters flow ; 
 No beast of prey in predatory strife ; 
 Embittering all the scenes of social life. 
 Royal his birth, his heritage a crown ; 
 Rebuking earth's conceptions of renown ; 
 Resplendent genius, grasping powers of thought, 
 As though in schools of heavenly wisdom taught. 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 37 
 
 But when dethroned, perverted, and denied 
 The gifts of nature, and the truths to guide ; 
 Shrouded in gloom, in darkness, and despair ; 
 Crushed to earth by loads of maddening care ; 
 God's image seems extinguished in the soul, 
 And the whole man the slave of foul control ! 
 Then Oh ! the dark torrents of his wails and woes ! 
 The mad contortions ; fierce, convulsive throes ; 
 Deep degradations, stains of vice, and crime. 
 Appalling drapery of the scenes of time ! 
 
 But God is not mocked, nor thwarted in his plan ; 
 
 His glorious purpose in his creature man ; 
 
 The vital energy, the impelling force, 
 
 The Great Omniscient, all prevailing source 
 
 Of universe, has mighty work to do, 
 
 The wrong to vanquish, ultimate the true ; 
 
 Love's mighty forces to array in strife, 
 
 And solve the paradox of real life ! 
 
 The tragic battle may be fierce and long ; 
 The daring forces desperately strong ; 
 But truth's omnipotence does not contend, 
 But for a glorious, a triumphant end ! 
 Progress, progress by Jehovah's might, 
 Will give the field of conquest to the right. 
 
 God has decreed man's greatest good to gain ; 
 Whatever foes may hinder or restrain. 
 Can foes defeat ? Tell Sol no more to shine ! 
 Revolving spheres within your hand confine ; 
 The guiding reins of universe assume ; 
 And nature bind by tragic laws of doom ! 
 Then God's great battle may be lost, and man 
 Refract the concord of Jehovah's plan ; 
 Then selfish hate may gain eternal sway, 
 And universe expiring, fade away ! 
 
38 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 Till then, think not that nature's laws can cease , 
 And jarring spheres subvert all nature's peace ! 
 Freedom must reign, not iron laws of fate ; 
 And love must conquer all the powers of hate. 
 All private rights with public interests blend ; 
 In common purpose to a common end. 
 Who dares oppose? what the disturbing cause ? 
 To bring disorder to Jehovah's laws. 
 
 Rapacious selfishness, defiant will, 
 Prolific root of every form of ill ; 
 Monopolized resources bought and sold ; 
 Nature's free gifts, by magic touch of gold ; 
 Made to oppress, and not to bless mankind, 
 As nature's God impartially designed ! 
 
 Crime ! Crime of All Crimes! Sin of All Sins! 
 
 God spare in mercy, him the wretch who wins ! 
 
 Who blindly, madly dares to intervene, 
 
 A dark impenetrable cloud between 
 
 God, and his gifts to men. Wash not with Blood ! 
 
 Realms have been gory with crimson flood, 
 
 Poured out for freedom. Martyred millions bled, 
 
 When Legal Wrong had raised defiant head — 
 
 The strong against the weak. The powerful few 
 
 Against the many. False against the true. 
 
 The Purse, the Sword, the tyrants legal plea. 
 
 To justify profound inicmity, 
 
 With chartered rights, oppression's forms of law, 
 
 With truth transfixed beneath the lion's paw ! 
 
 The legal bond, the pound of flesh must be 
 
 The only price of God's supremacy. 
 
 Legal oppression, ruthless monster, he 
 
 Acts the chief role in dark enormity ! 
 
 Vilest of all the enemies of man, 
 
 Since the first rivulets of wrong began ! 
 
 Arch, cunning, subtle, and as the serpent wise, 
 
SUNSET REFORE NOON. 39 
 
 And clad in seeming livery of the skies ; 
 
 The favored few, drunk on the vital blood, 
 
 Of manhood crushed beneath the enormous load, 
 
 Of unpaid servitude, and gorgeous wrong, 
 
 The bleeding weak beneath the mighty strong, 
 
 Are blighting the roots of that majestic tree, 
 
 The sheltering dome of human liberty. 
 
 Monopoly ! monopoly ! God's worst and direst foe ! 
 
 The fortress strong of human ills below. 
 
 Offspring of Eden, Satan's specious plan, 
 
 To tempt, demoralize, and ruin man ! ! 
 
 Does hope still hover o'er this fallen sphere ? 
 Does mercy tremble with appalling fear ? 
 Man must abandon Satan's artful plea 
 Shall be as cods by foul monopoly. 
 Crush the vile monster, set the captives free, 
 And bless mankind with life and liberty. 
 
 THE MOTHER'S LAST APPEAL. 
 
 Oh, my wandering erring boy, 
 
 Friendless, homeless stranger ; 
 Victim of unwise decoy, 
 
 Aimless, hopeless ranger ; 
 Think not too meanly of yourself, 
 
 God's image is your measure ; 
 The blood of Jesus is your hope, 
 
 His love your only treasure ! 
 
 My heart still yearns and bleeds with his, 
 
 Your pangs are mine forever ; 
 Love's heart-strings still so firm and strong, 
 
 No power of earth can sever. 
 
40 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 A mother's love can never fail, 
 Nor chicle but with devotion ; 
 
 Until the sunbeams cease to smile, 
 And tides forsake the ocean. 
 
 Come home, my boy, break every bond, 
 
 Once more be brave and free. 
 Rise up in manhood's noble strength, 
 
 The child of liberty. 
 Shun all the snares and charms of sin, 
 
 The deadly cup disdain ; 
 All paths of vice and folly shun, 
 
 Whate'er the cost or pain. 
 
 WHO HATH WOE ? Prov. xxiii., 29. 
 
 Ye lovers of pleasure, tell me Who hath Woe, 
 Where darkest, deepest, turbid waters flow ? 
 Sweeping away the valiant and the brave ; 
 Into the vortex where mad billows rave ! 
 
 O ! who hath Sorrow ? Where the heart-strings fail ; 
 And reason dies in fierce convulsive wail ! 
 And noble manhood sinks to beast of prey, 
 Till all that's human crushes to decay. 
 
 Ah ! who hath Babbling, where once reason stood, 
 The towering monument of wise and good ? 
 Now frantic ravings of the maniac's brain, 
 Proclaim the downfall of proud reason's reign ! 
 
 And who hath Wounds, where manhood scathed 
 and torn, 
 
SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 41 
 
 Writhes in convulsions, frantic and forlorn ? 
 Look on that haggered, ragged, withered form, 
 Once fair and beautiful as vernel morn. 
 
 Now fallen headlong from the lofty steep, 
 To sink forever in the maddened deep. 
 A man of pleasure is a man of pain," 
 A wreck, a ruin, body, soul, and brain ! 
 
 Young man, come here, look on this loathsome frame, 
 Fallen from lofty pinnacle of fame. 
 Stop where you are ; tempt not the powers of ill ; 
 In reason purpose with heroic will. 
 
 LOOK NOT UPON WINE. 
 
 " Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the 
 cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth 
 like an adder." — Prov. xxiii., 32, 33. 
 
 Look not on the wine when alluringly red, 
 As it temptingly smiles in its roseate hue ; 
 
 When its victims half yielding, half shivering with dread, 
 Reluctantly fail the straight path to pursue. 
 
 Temptation how wily, how artful its plea ! 
 
 Half angel, half siren, enchantingly smiles ; 
 Wise counsel entreats noble manhood to flee, 
 
 But habit and appetite marshal their wiles. 
 
 The conflict oft rages, with doubtful endeavor, 
 Advantage if gained trembling long in the scale ; 
 
 Firm purpose heroic the strong cords would sever, 
 But dalliance often resists but to fail. 
 
42 SUNSET BEFORE NOON. 
 
 The act to the word suit without hesitation, 
 With defiance meet foes with electrical speed ; 
 
 Put the imps of temptation in wild consternation, 
 By quick evolutions and determined heed. 
 
 O ! tarry not long where wine's votaries are smiling, 
 Though wild song and dance make all lively and cheer, 
 
 Where with delicate hands and with sweet words be- 
 guiling, 
 Refusal is met with a frown and a sneer. 
 
 Brave courage may meet Waterloo's fierce menaces, 
 When to cannon's bold logic, no valor would yield ; 
 
 But soft eyes and sweet voices with elegant graces, 
 Oft vanquish where courage could not gain the field.