The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1881-06-04

though You may be seaIe0 III chuftn.
really the place for you is the peniten-
tiary. No wonder that so many OF
our merchants fail. They are swindled
into bankruptcy by these wandering
Arabs. these nomads Of city life. They
cheat the grocer who sells the green
apples that make them sick, and the
doctor who attended them in their dis
trcss. and the undertaken who fits them
for departure from the neighb0rhood
where they owed everybody when they
paid the debt of pature-the only debt
they ever do pay.
Amid such a depraved system of
morals our young men are starting
ont. and / CRY a warning. There are
a thousand things you cannot afford
now. but be patient, industrious and
honest. and you can afford them after
awhile. Certain lines of good con-
duct lead to certain successes. Great
laws control those things which seem
hap-hazard. II is possible, | have
been told by those making Obserya-
ton. 10 tell Just how many letters will
be sent to the dead-letter office from
being wrongly addressed, and just
how MANY letters will accidentally be
nut into the postoffice without stamps,
and Just how many people Will, IN any
city. slip and fall by treading on or
ange Feelings. There are no accidents.
The smallest event that ever happened
is the connecting link between two
eternities. the eternity of the past and
the eternity of the future. Head the
right way and you will come out at
the right goal. Bring me- young
man of thirty years of age, tell me his
physical health, his mental calibre and
his habits, and | will tell you his dcs-
tiny, and in a thousand cases L viii
not make five inaccurate prophecies.
Realizing this, want to make you
nervous about the contraction of UNI
necessary debts.
Young man, take a paragraph of
nv own experience. My first pastoral
settlement was in village. My sal
airy was $500 and a parsonage. The
sum
SEEMED TO ME ENORMOUS.
What All of that in one year? L
was afraid of getting worldly under
the prosperity. First of all, resolved
to entertain the whole congregation,
in groups of twenty-five people, and
we began. They were the best con-
gregation in all the world, and, feel
ing nothing was too good for them,
we crowded the table with luXHriance.
But we never got through with the
undertaking BY the end of six
months / was in financial despair. In
stead of profusion of luxuriance we
had struggle to get the necessities,
and learned what every young man
learns either in time to save himself
or too late, that you must measure the
size of the man before you begin to
! cut the cloth for his coat. Every year
multitudes of young men are slaugh-
tered, slaughtered on the sharp edge
of debt. When creditors go after a
man like pack of hounds in full cry,
alas for the reindeer! They jingle his
bell before he gets up in the morning.
They. Jingle his bell after he has re-
tired at night. They meet him as he
comes down his front steps. They
send him a letter or postal-card in
curiest style, telling him to pay up.
They attach his goods. They want
! the cash or a note at thirty days or a
note on demand. They call him a
knave. They tell him he lies. They
want him disciplined at the church.
They want him turned out of the bank.
They come at him from this side and
from that side, from before and
from behind, and from above and
from beneath. And he is chased,
and scolded, anb sued, and de-
nounced, and dunned, and sworn at,
and gibbeted, till he gets nervous dys-
pepsia, gets neuralgia, gets heart dis
ease, gets liver complaint gets convul-
sive disorder, gets consumption. He is
dead now, and surely they will let him
alone. No, no, no! His creditors watch
that there is no unnecessary expense
at his Obsequies, whether there are any
useless handles on the casket, whether
it is lined with muslin or silk, whether
the shroud is in superfluOus plaits,
whether the flowers on the casket were
bought by the family or donated,
whether the hearse is cheap or costly,
in whose name the deed of the grave
is made out. Then they ransack the
bereft home, the books, the pictures,
the chairs, the piano, the mattresses,
the carpets. Cursed be debt! For
the sake of your happiness, for the
sake of your good morals, for the sake
of your soul, for Gods sake, keep out
of debt.
But / think more young men are
slaughtered through irreligion. If you
can only get his religion away from
the Young man you can make him the
prey of all evil. We all know that the
Bible is the only perfect system of
morals. Now, to destroy that young
man you must first get his Bible away
from him. First try to laugh him out
of his reverence for the Scriptures.
Take all those incidents of Scripture
that can be made mirth Of-Jonah's
whale, Simpsons foxes. Adams eX-
| tracted rib, then caricature eccentric
or inconsistent Christians. Then pass
off on him as original with yourself
those hackneyed arguments against
Christianity which are as old as sin.
| Now he has surrendered the Bible and
YOU have taken the strongest fOrtitica-
ton. The rest of the work is cOmpar-
atively easy. All the gates of his soul
are now open, inviting all the sins of
earth and the sorrows of eternal death
to come in and drive the stakes off for
their encampment. A steamer 1900
miles from shore, with her rudder
broken and the compass lost and her
hulk leaking fifty gallons the hour, is
better off than young mans morals
after he has cut loose from his Bible.
Have you noticed how despicable a
work it is to take away mans reli-
gion without offering him substi-
tute? 1t is a meaner business than TO
come TO a sick man and steal his med
icine to a blind man and steal his dog
to a cripple and steal his crutch; to a
pauper and steal his crust; to poor
man and burn down his home. 1t is
the basest of all larceny to attempt to
steal the worlds Bible which has been