THE TOLL-GATE | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1872

THE TOLL-GATE.

—We are all on a journey. The world through which we are passing is, in some respects, like a turnpike, all along which Vice and Folly have erected toll-gates, for the accommodation of those who choose to call as they go; and there are very few of all the host of travelers who do not occasionally stop a little at some one or another of them, and consequently pay more or less to the toll-gatherers. Pay more or less, I say, because there is a great variety, as well in the amount as in the kind, of toll exacted at these different stopping-places. Pride and Fashion take heavy tolls of the purse; many a man has become a beggar by paying at their gates; the ordinary rates they charge are heavy, and the road that way is none of the best. Pleasure offers a very smooth, delightful road in the outset. She tempts the traveler with many fair promises, and wins thousands; but she takes without mercy; like an artful robber, she allures till she gets her victim in her power, and then strips him of health and money, and turns him off, a miserable object, into the very worst and most rugged road of life. Intemperance plays the part of a sturdy villain. He is the very worst toll-gatherer on the road; for he not only gets from his customers their money and health, but he robs them of their very brains. The men you meet in the road, ragged, and ruined in fame and fortune, are his victims. Be careful of your habits. These make the man; and they require long and careful culture ere they grow to be a second nature. Good habits I speak of. Bad ones are more easily acquired; they are the spontaneous weeds that flourish rapidly and rankly, without care or culture.—Good Templar.