Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-08-13

which will come with bis execution. What
makes the lives of these two men differ SO
widely ? What, but circumstances
do not say that this city boy is in his his.
tory, the representative of all the vicious
men and women in the world, but he is in
many respects the representative of the
larger part of them, as the contrary is the
representative of the larger part of the
virtuous. How ought this fact to open
wide the arms of our pity and our charity
towards those whose steps are toward ruin |
How inconsderate is that selfrighteous
contempt and abhorrence with which vir.
tuous world regards those who only needed
favoring circumstances to make them pure
and worthy as itself
The truth is that the great brotherhood
and sisterhood of sin groan under the un-
charitable judgments of those who, but for
circumstances interposed by other power
than their own, would have been among
their number. These judgments may not
be unjust but they are uucalled for. They
may be just, coming from Him who sees
the heart, but they are illegitimate, proceed
ing from those whom kinder circumstances
have aided to preserve. say they groan
under these judgments. They feel bitterly
10 regard to them, and they will accept no
benefcient ministry at the hands of the
good until they receive the sympathy to
which they believe themselves entitled
Any man who approaches this class in an
attempt to do them coed, with censure to
his lips and the assumption of u self-won
and selfpreserved righteousness in his bear
ing, will find, to the cost of his mission,
that every heart is closed against him
There is basis of brotherhood and ten.
der sympathy in this connection of circum-
stances with the development of character
and life, aud on this basis every man must
stand who would raise the fallen, strength
en- the week, aud reclaim the erring.
Leaving classes, we come to individuals
The orange that is too hard squeezed yields
bitter juice. Here and there, in the
path of our observation, we see men and
women who, having lived good aRd reputa-
BILE lives, yield to some sudden and over
wbelming temptation, and fall with q crash
that startles our hearts with terror. Some
man whom, through life of strict integri-
ty, we have regarded as model Of honor
ohO oNuhoo OOlOiO NhN
world condemned as defaulter, swindler,
forger. Did it ever occur. to you to STOP
for moment, aud think what band o
circumstances must have conspired against
and what temptations must have assaileC
him, even to lead him one step toward The
resistance of conscience, the sacrifice of hi:
peace of mind, the forfeiture of his good
name, and the danger of bis surrender oi
his personal freedom !? Did you ever pause
in your Judgment, and attempt to measure
the solitary, secret, hand-to-hand conflict
with the devil by which he was at last dis
armed, baffled and ruined Did you ever
attempt to realize the fact that if you had
been in his place you might have fallen like
him Do you sit coldly above the fallen
man, and, with the unthinking world, con-
demn him ? All pity him pity him.
Pray that you enter into temptation, and,
while you hold his sin in horror, remember
that kinder circumstances and smaller temp
tations have probably saved you from his
fate.
Some gentle girl, full of all sweet hopes s
bright with innocent beauty, gives herself
to one who is unworthy of her. She yields
him her faith to be betrayed, her love to
abused, her trust to be deceived. Enslav-
ed by circumstances, shorn, of will by the
blind devotion of her passion, ensnared by
the tolls of one whom she believes inca
pable of willful wrong, she wakes from her
mad dream ruined woman. What have
you to say to her, or say about her God
forgive you, if you, man or woman, can
stand over the PROSTATE creature from
whom hope has departed, and breathe into
her ears words of condemnation aud scornl
Why are you, woman, who reads these
words, better than she Madame, Maid
en-, the straightest stick is crooked under
water. Condemn her sin if you will, hold
it in adherence as you must but when,
with beseeching look, she comes into your
presence, her selfrighteous accusers around
her, remember how the Christ that is in
you impels you to delay Judgment, and,
while revolving the pitiful circumstances
Of her fall, to stoop humbly and write that
Judgment in the sand.
The track upon which the train Of hu-
man reformation runs is laid in sympa-
thy, and this sympathy, can never be
established so long as there exists in the
heart of virtue the same feeling of hatred
to the sinner that is felt toward the sim
The world will accept and can have nc
Savior who has not been tempted aud been
surrounded with circumstances that exhibit
ed to him the measures of human weakness.
A being must be tempted Gin all points
like as we are" before we can give him our
hand TO be led up higher. The soul that
does not appreciate the power of tempta-
tion has no mission to the tempted. 1t is
a law of the heart that it will not eccept
the ministry of natures that have no sym
patby with it. Go the world over, and Sc
lect those preachers who have the greatest
power over men--power to move them ia
high directions, and power to attract them
with strong aud tender affections-and
they, will, without exception, be found to
be those who betray hearts and expsrien
ces that show that they are sympathetic
with the tempted. The exceedingly prop
er young men who graduate from the theo
logical institutions, in white craVats and
white compilations, Gre men who have little
power in the world, as general thing
The world knows at once that such mer
know nothing of its heart but when il
/ E,Iu4 -, - rnack O.pfcffan xUorkaF who has