FARM ECHOES. 105 



travel through some farming districts of our much fav- 

 ored land, and see dilapidated dwelling houses and barns, 

 some unoccupied and forsaken ; and so comparatively few 

 new ones near them to take their places as evidences of 

 continued life and vigor. The tale they tell is a sad 

 one in too many instances, and may be easily learned. 



Indolence and intemperance are twin vices. Too often 

 they are like the Siamese twins, and cannot be separated. 

 Each sustains the other, if it does not create the other. 

 This double-headed curse leaves sad traces wherever it 

 goes, and if there is one woe deeper than another, it 

 drags its enslaved victims into the deepest. The very 

 ground seems to cry out against it, as it wastes under 

 neglect and foreclosed mortgages. No superscription by 

 the hand of man reveals the cause of this scene of desola- 

 tion and death, but the wayfaring man, if not a "fool," 

 may clearly discern in it the inscription by the hand ot 

 God upon the pages of inspiration : 



" They have erred through wine, and 

 Through strong drink are they out of the way." 



They probably began to indulge moderately in intoxi' 

 eating drinks, but became enslaved and ruined by them. 

 Their children were, perhaps, driven from what might 

 otherwise have been to them a happy and prosperous 

 home. Farming (if such an inappropriate term can be 

 used in this connection) was made offensive to them, and 

 they eagerly escaped from the degradation to which a 

 drunken parent had brought them. Did that lost parent 

 sin alone ? No ! Who, then, will undertake to fathom 

 the depth of that "woe" pronounced by an offended 



