Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-07-05
The Right sort of Religion.

We want religion that goes into the
family and keeps the husband from be
ing spitefiil when the dinner is late, and
keeps the dinner from being late-keeps
the wife from fretting when the husband
tracks the newly washed floor with his
muddy boots, and makes the husband
mindful of the scraper and the floor mat
keeps the mother patient when the baby
is cross, and keeps the baby pleasant;
amuses the children as well as instructs
them; wins as well as governs projects
the honeymoon into the harvest moon,
and makes the happy hours like the East
ern tree, bearing in its bosom at once the
beauty of the tender blossom and the
glory of the ripening fruit. We want a
religion that bears heavily, not on the
exceeding sinfulness of sin" but on the
exceeding rascality of lying and stealing;
a religion that banishes small measures
from the counters, small baskets from
the stalls, pebbles from the cotton bags,
clay from paper, sand from sugar, chic
DRY from coffee, otter from butter, beet
juice from vinegar, alum from bread,
strychnine from wine, water from milk
cans and buttons from the contribution
box. The religion that is to save the
world will not put all the big strawber-
ries at the top and all the bad ones at the
bottom. 1t will not offer more baskets
of foreign wine than the vineyards ever
produced bottles, and more barrels of
Genesee flour than all the wheat fields
of New York grow and all her mills
grind. 1t will not make one-half pair
of shoes of good leather and the other
of poor leather, so that the first shall re-
dound to the makers credit and the sec.
ond to his cash.
1t will not put Jouvin's stamp on
Jenkins kid gloves, nor make Paris bon
nets in the back room of Boston mil
liners shop, nor let piece of velvet that
processes to measure twelve yards come
to an untimely end in the tenth, or a
spool of sewing silk that vouches for
twenty yards be nipped in the bud at
fourteen and half, nor the cotton thread
spool break at the yard-stick fifty Of the
two hundred yards of promise that was
given to the eye, nor yard-wide cloth
measure less than thirty-six inches from
selvedge to sslvedge, nor all-wool de-
LANES and all-linen handkerchief be
amalagamized with clandestine cot
ton, nor coats made of woollen rags
pressed together be sold to the unsus-
pecting public for legal broadcloth. 1t
does not put bricks at five dollars a
thousand into chimneys it contracted to
build of seven-dollar materials, nor
smuggle white pine floors that have paid
for hard pine, nor leave yawning cracks
in closets where boards ought to join, nor
daub ceilings that ought to be smoothly
plastered, nor make window blinds of
Stats that cannot stand the wind, and
paint that cannot stand the sun, and fas-
Jennings that may be looked at, but are
on no account to be touched. The re-
ligion that is to sanctify the world pays
its debts. 1t does not consider that forty
cents returned for one hundred cents
given is according to the gospel, though
it may be according to law. 1t looks up
on man who has failed in trade and
who continues to live in luxury, as a
thief. 1t looks upon man who prom
ises to pay fifty dollars on demand with
interest, and who neglects to pay it on
demand with or without interest. as H.
ar CongregationaIist.