There was the Sunday-school and
the church, where serious and honest men uttered manly and
religious counsel to sincere hearts, which nurtured good
and holy purposes. All this he has bartered away for the
privilege of being rich--of having more land than he knows
what to do with; more corn than he can tend, and pigs till
they are a pest to him.
Having glanced at some of the evils attendant on Western
life, I must hasten to indicate what class of men should
come to the West. The poor of our cities, whose poverty
becomes the more haggard by being placed in immediate
proximity to measureless profusion, luxury and
extravagance--respectable people, whose whole life is a
lifelong struggle to keep up appearances, and in whom the
securing of affluence is like putting on a corpse the
frippery and finery of the ball-room; young men with brave
hearts and willing hands--these are the classes that may
come, and should come, to the West. And if Adam, realizing
that the world is all before him, where to choose, looks
to the West to find his Eden, I would respectfully suggest
that he has an infirmity in his left side, and that his
best security against the perils of a pioneer life is to
take to himself the rib that is wanting.
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