Wild Oats. 
The most magnihcient specimen of young 
manhood that I have ever known was a 
young fellow student named Henry Haines. 
As an athlete on the campus, as a scholar in 
the arena of debate, he was facile princeps. 
everywhere and always. We were not so 
much envious of him as proud of hin, and 
we fondly fancied that there could he no 
height of fame or fortune too difficult for 
his adventurous feet to climb, and that the 
time would come when he would til 1 the 
world with the echo of his fame, and it 
would be a proud thing for any of us to de¬ 
clare that we had known him. A little ten¬ 
dency to dissipation was by some of us ob 
servable—a little dash of dare-deviltry— 
but this was only the wild oat sowing 
which was natural to youth and genius, 
and which we did not doubt that after 
years would chasten and correct. 
But the years came and the years went, 
and the young collegians were scattered 
through the world, and ever and anon Would 
some of us wonder what could have become 
of Henry Haines. We looked in vain for 
his rising star, and listened long for his 
coming feet. Some time ago, for a single 
Sabbath, I was preaching in New York. 
My theme in the morning had been ‘The 
Ghost of Buried Opportunity.’ On my way 
to my hotel I discovered that I was ‘shadow¬ 
ed’ by a desperate-looking wretch, whose 
garb, whose gait, whose battered, bloated 
look all unmistakably betokened the spawn 
of slums. What could the villain want 
with me? I paused at my door, and faced 
about to confront him. He paused, advanc¬ 
ed, and then huskily whispered: ‘Henson, 
do you know me?’ I assured him I did not, 
whereupon he continued. ‘Do you remem¬ 
ber Henry Haines?’ ‘Aye, aye, well enough, 
but surely you are not Henry Haines?’ ‘I am 
what is left of him—I am the ghost of him. 
I shuddered as I reached for his hand, and 
gazing intently into his face, discovered 
still some traces of my long-lost friend, still 
doubly lost though found again, I put my 
arms about him in brotherly embrace, and 
drew him to my room, and drew from his 
lips the sad story of his shattered life. 
begged him by the old loves and unforgot- 
ten memories of better days to go back with 
me to my Philadelphia home, and under 
new auspices and with new surroundings, 
to strike out fora noble destiny, which I 
hoped might still be possible. But, striking 
his clenched fist on my table, he said: ‘Hen¬ 
son. it’s no use to talk to me. I'm a dead 
beat, and a n dead broke. I’m a burnt out 
voir,tin>. and there’s nothing left of me but. 
cinder- now. 1 have come to New York to 
bury mysi If out of sight of all that ever lov¬ 
ed me. 1 know l i e ropes here, and shall stay 
here till I rot. 1 live in a muskrat hole near 
the wharf. I shall die as I have lived, and 
1 have lived like a dog.’ 
In vain were my earnest protests and bro¬ 
therly pleading. He tore himself from me 
and w^ent shambling off to his den by the 
wharf. 
He had sown the wind and was reaping 
the whirlwind. He had sown to the flesh, 
and was reaping corruption. He had sown 
‘wild oats,’ and the oats were now yielding 
a dread harvest of woe. 
-- 
What Will it Crst? 
Gen. W. T. Sherman said in the early 
part of the late war that it would take a 
million of men and tax the resources of rhe 
government to its utmost limit to put down 
the rebellion. He was considered crazy, 
and was called for some time ‘Crazy Sher¬ 
man.” But this was a prophecy that was 
too sadly fulfilled. If some broad minded 
man should now rise up and predict as to 
what it would cost this people to put this 
God defying and man destioying liquor 
evil away, he too, perhaps, would be called 
crazy. But as surely as God caused Phar¬ 
aoh to let the children of Israel go, and 
caused the South to <ive up her slaves, so 
surely will God make this nation give up 
this business that causes a more blighting, 
blasting, withering curse than Egyptian 
bondage or Ameri an negro slavery; and 
if we do not do this swiftly and willingly, 
God's judgments will suddenly and awfully 
avenge the wrongs of the millions of inno¬ 
cent sufferers. President Lincoln, in his 
second inaugural, when the war had pro¬ 
gressed nearly four years, said: “If this 
