The southern sentinel. (Winnfield, La.) 1883-1910, 1886-03-12

stolen waters are sweet, and bread cate n
In secret Is pleasant. But he knoweth not
that the dead are there.
In view of all this charge You to break
MP clandestine correspondence II you are
engaged in it, and have no more clandes-
tine meetings either at the ferry, or on the
street, or at the house of mutual friends, or
at the corner Of the woods. Do not have
letters come for you to the post-ofilce under
assumed address. Have no correspondence
that makes you uneasy lest some one by
mistake open your letters. Do not employ
terms of endearment at the beginning and
close of letters, unless you have q right to
use them. That young lady is on the edge
of danger who dares not allow her mother
to see her letters.
II you have sensible parents take them
into your confidence in all the affairs Of
the heart. They will give you more good
advice in one hour than you can get from
all the world beside in Eve years. They
have toiled for you so long and prayed for
you so much, they have your best interests
at heart. At the same time let parents re-
view their opposition to a proposed mari
tai alliance, and see il their opposition is
founded on a genuine wish for the chili's
welfare, or on some within or notion or
prejudice or selfishness, fighting natural
law and trying to make Niagara run up
stream. Mr.. Pitt, the Prime Minister of
England, was always saying wise things.
One day Sir Walter Farquar called on him
in great perturbation. Mr.. Pitt inquired
what was the matter, and Sir Walter told
him that his daughter was about
to be married to one not worthy Of her
rank. Mr.. Pitt said: as the
young man Of respectable familyi" Eyes"
SIS he respectable in himself9" Eyes"
"Has he an estimable character." eyes"
"Why, then, my dear Sir Walter, make no
opposition" The advice was taken, and a
happy married life ensued. Let ministers
and officers Of the law decline officiating
at clandestine marriages. When they are
asked to date q marriage certificate back,
as We all are asked, let them peremptorily
decline to say that the ceremony was in
November instead of January, or decline
to leave the date blank lest others I'M out
the record enormously. Let q law be
passed in all our States, as it has already
been in some OF our States, making a
license from officers of the law necessary
before we can unite couples, and then make
it necessary to publish beforehand in the
newspapers, as il used to be published in
the New England churches, 80 that If
there be lawful objection it may be pre-
sented, not swinging the buoy ON the
rocks after the ship has struck and gone to
pieces. And here it might be well for me
to take all the romance ont Of an escapade
by quoting dozen lines of Robert Pollock,
the great Scotch poet, where he describes
tho craxed victim OF one of these esca-
pades:
Yet had she many days
OF sorrow In the world, but never wept,
She lived on aims, and carried In her hand
Some withered stalks she gathered In the
spring.
when any asked the cause, she smiled and
said
They were her sisters and would come and
watch
Her grave when she was dead. She never
spoke
OF her deeeiver. father. mother. homo
Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God but attn
In lonely places walked. and ever gaxed
Upon the withered STALKS and talked them:
I'LL wasted to the shadow of her youth,
With woe too wide to see beyond, she died.
But now turn on this subject an intenser
light. We have fifteen hundred lights In
this church. and when by electric touch
they are kindled in the evening service il
u almost startling. But this whole subject
Of "Clandestine Marriages and Escapadesn
! put under more intense light than that.
The headlight Of q locomotive Is terrible il |
you stand near enough to catch the full
glare Of it. As it sweeps around the |
'sHorseshoe curve" Of the Alleghenies or
Along the edge of the Sierra Nevadas, how
far ahead, and how deep down, and how
high mp it flashes, and there il instantane-
Gus revelation Of mountain peak and Wild
beeses hieing themselves to their caverns,
and cascades thousand feet tall, clin9ing !
IN white terror to the precipices! But
more intense, more far-resching, more
sudden, swifter and more tremendous,
. the headlight Of an advancing Judgment |
Day, under which all the most hidden az.
fairs Of life shall come to discovery and ar |
raignment. I quote an overwhelming |
passage Of Scripture, in which I put the |
whole emphasis on the word "secret:"
God shall bring every work into judRmeut. |
With every secret thing. whether IL be soodl
or evil
What time that will be in which the
cover shall be lifted from every home and |
rom every heart. The iniquity NAV have |
been so sly that II escaped all human de-
lection, but it win be Is well known ON
that day as the crimes Of Sodom and Co. |
morrah, unless, for Christ's sake, Il has
been forgiven. All the fingers of universal |
viii be pointed at Il. The
of wrath will stand there WITH |
apfifted thunderbolt ready to strike Il. |
the squeami hness and prudery Of earth
y society, which hardly allowed
'oms sins to be mentioned ON earth, are
past, and tho man who was uncIean and
me woman who was impure win, under Z |
light brighter than . thousand MONDAY
sun, stand with the whole story written ON
'calp and forehead and cheeks and hands
md feet; the whole resurrection bodv
Name and dripping vita fiery disclosure. |
On thousand scpulchral and celestial ana
nfernal voices crying: "UncIsani On
lean Unclean!n
a