The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-09-21
P4W pAW MTCH. FRIDa Z. sEPXEIBER a1, 1871

Jley lelt nome tney SAID 10 tneir reuSlOu -
Now you and are on good terms. L shall
never speak Ill OF you. But am going to Chi
cago to make money. have no use for you
there. Having acquired competency there
will be back and shall be pleased 10 see you.
Goodbye Religion am going to Chicago
g. In childhood friendships are easily formed.
How readily you can win the goodwill OF youth.
A Young lady Of sixteen will fall IN love three
or four times day and think nothing OF it,
but not 30 the woman of thirty! In childhood,
then, when friendships are 80 easily formed,
present Jesus as the true friend.
f. In childhood faith is predominant. A
child believes everything that is told il, until it
has been once deceived. Then il doubts. Faith
is natural; unbelief is the result OF experience.
The more we lose faith in man the more we
lose faith in God. That great army OF fifteen
Thousand. who deposited their hard earnings
only to lose them in the bank which has recent
ly failed in Chicago, would be very poor con-
gregation to preach to tins afternoon. At
present their distrust in everything IN the
heavens above and the earth beneath is far
more prominent than is the element of faith.
Prof. SWING in q recent sermon, makes this
statement: " Faith in God and faith in man
are inseparably joined. The heart is a unit.
1t cannot be skeptic toward heaven without
being skeptic toward earth. Distrust is
disease that attacks all the mind when it at
tacks apart. Broken banks are broken churches.
When faith IN bankers fail, faith in clergyme
and lawyers and merchants is shaken. 1t is,
perhaps, true that what good came to religion
by the three months revival of last winter is
counteracted by the harm that comes to public
virtue by one fraudulent bank failure" That
is Prof. Swing thinks it probable that the bank
swindls, robbing the orphan, The widow and
deerepit age, destroyed more faith in the good
and the true than all the Moody and Sankey
meetings elected. To present the gospel with
The best results we must preach 70 CHILDHOOD
or youth before the individual has been so de-
cs,ved by his felow-men that be has lost faith
in everything.
8. He who begins the Christian hIe in youth
Will find it much easier to live right than though
lie waits until manhood. Dr. Spencer, Of
! England, says that when he was boy his
father gave him little tree This was get out
IN the orchard with the larger trees. One day
4 horse in running about the orchard broke his
little tree go that it fell helpless to the ground.
Il was propedu up, however, healed over and stood
for many years bearing abundance Of the best
fruit. one night tremendous thunder storm
swept through that region. The next morning
DR.. Spencer found that his tree was again lying
PROSTATE on the ground. He founc that K had
broken of this time in the very same place
where the horse broke 1t years ago when il was
very little tree. You may find young men
! who are very wild, as we term it. They are
sowing their wild oats. They engage In this
sin and the other. After time they reform,
and for years seem to stand perfectly erect
with true moral power. But by and by you
hear of their fall, and you find that they
broke off from moral life just where they did
! in the days Of their youth The tree that has
been weakened by fall in youth must guard
itself with jealous care against the storms OF
later years Mr. Cough says, q ] am at best
even now. only reformed drunkard. brok-
en- limb, though reset and healed, is still a limb
that has been broken" Begin your good work,
then, with childhood, that youth may be passed
without fall.
! G. The children are soon to become the main
workers in church, society and state. 1t will
not be long before this church win be inquirirg
whom shall we elect in place Of this deacon and
! this elder. 1t is to the young people Of to-day
! that we are TO look for these future workers.
An army in going into battle has reserve
| corps so that the ranks may be hlled up as fast
as the soldiers fall. The church is an army.
| The Sunday school is the reserve corps AS
the ranks thin we must look to the Sunday
school for new supplies. Hence, should we
not give these persons upon whom the welfare
OF all will soon depend, that religious culture
fitting them FOR their work? Socrates said
that If be could climb to the highest place in
Athens he would lift up his voice and cry:
:" What mean We, fellow citizens, that ye turn
every stone to scrape wealth together, and take
90 little care Of your children, to whom, one
day, you must relinquish It all" Not only
our gold but our society. our church. our state
is all to be given over into the hands Of the
children of to-day.
People asked Robert Raikes, the founder of
Sunday schools. what Bible authority he had
for such institutions. The Bible says nothing
about Sunday schools. Here is Bible for it {:
"Tram up child in the way he should 60"
"Bring them up In the nurture and admonition
of the Lord" Here is the command. how can
1t be best executed-by sending the child to
the Sunday school, or by allowing it to romp
the streets? Tne Bible does not tell me to
ride on the cars when so to Chicago, but the
| Bible tells me "Do thysef no harm," and
therefore am not going to walk to Chicago as
,ong as can ride in q Pullman
The Sunday schools afford about all the re-
Hgious culture that many children receive. The
family altar, among all denominations, is grow
ing into neglect. The day school does not devote
the few moments to religious service as 1t once
did. The time is not far distant when the
Bible will be entirely crowded out Of the schools
supported by the State. We may lament these
things as we may, but these are the facts
Among the Romans was the custom OF holding
tho fsce of the new.born infant towards the