Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-04-30

w., inc church wall; and have a sm;la m
nN.1p' inc nave the mouth filed with
10y "a.er. There is no man in the wor Ia
eA,ep' '"e christian shat has a right ia
leel an ontrammeled glee. He ia nrom;sea
everything Is to be for the best here. and
ne Is on the way to . delight which will
take all the professions With ,a,m
branches, and all the orchestras, hornad
ana cy inhaled and trumpted. to srnress
"oh," you say, 81 have so much tronh,e ~,
,un.you more trouble than Paul had?
uoes ne say! "sorrowful, yet al.
ways re1o'cing. Poor, yet making many
things" Oil
The next laughter mentioned in the R;b,s
snat shall speak OF, is the FOOLS laughter.
OF ene expression Of sinful merriment.
solomon was very quick at smile: when
ne makes a comparison we all catch -
what is the laughter of a fool like, He
says: ut is the cracking of thorns md er
a pot" The kettle is swung, a bunch of
ramble is put under it, and the torch ia
applied to it and there is a great noise and
a big blaze and a sputter and a quick ex.
tingulshment; then it is darker than it was
before. FOOLS laughter. The most mis-.
cradle thing on earth is q bad mans fun.
mere they are-ten men in a bar.
room; they have at home wives.
mothers, daughters. The impure Jest
starts at mi corner of a bar.
room and crackle, crackle, crackle it goes
all around. In five hundred such outlaws
there is not one item of happiness. They
all feel bemeaned if they have any con.
science left. Have nothing to. do with men
or women who tell immoral stories. l have
no confidence either in their Christian
character or their morality.
so, all merriment that springs out of the
defects of others-caricature of a lamef foot
or a curved spine of a blind eye or a deaf
ear-wil be met with the judgments of
God either upon you Or your children.
Twenty years ago in this city I knew a
man who was particularly skillful in imi.
Eating the lameness of a neighbor. Not
long ago a son of the skillful mimic had
his leg amputated for the very defect
which his father had mimicked years be.
fore. l do not say it was a Judgment of
God; l leave you to make YOU own in
ference. So, all merriment born of dissipa.
ton, that which starts at the counters of
the drinking restaurant, or from the wine
glass in the home circle, the maudlin sim
per, the meaningless joke, the sa~turnalian
gibberish, the paroxysm of mirth about
nothing that you sometimes see in the
fashionable club-room or in the exquisite
parlor at twelve O'Clock at night,
are the cracking of thorns under a
pot. Such laughter and such sin end in
death. When l was a lad a hook came
out, entitled, "Don Jour's Patent Ser
MONS" 1t made a great stir, a very wide
laugh, all over the country, that pooh did.
1t was q %caricature of the Christian minis.
try, and of the word of God and of the
Day of Judgment. Oh, we had a great
laugh! The commentary on the whole
thing is that not long ago the author Of
that book died in poverty, shame, debauch-
cry, kicked out of society and cursed of
Almighty God. The laughter of such men
is the echo Of their own %damnation.
The next laughter that I shall mention
as being in the Bible is the laugh of Gods
condemnation: "He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh" Again: "The Lord
will laugh at him." Again: 81 will laugh
at his calamity" With such demonstra-
tion will God greet every kind of great
"a NV AAGoSs b0u ulSA DulIu uD
villainies higher and higher. Good men
almost pity God because He is so schemed
against by men. Suddenly q pin drops
out of the machinery of w~ickedness, or a
secret is revealed, and the foundation be-
gins to rock, and finally The whole thing is
demolished. What is the matter? 1 will
tell you what the matter is. The crash Of
ruin is only the reverberation of Gods
laughter.
On Wall street there are a great many
good men and a great many fraudulent
men. A fraudulent man there says: II
mean to have my million" He goes to
work, reckless of honesty, and he gets his
first one hundred thousand dollars. He
gets after awhile his two hundred thou
sand dollars. After awhile he gets his
five hundred thousand dollars. "Now,"
he says, II have only one more move to
make and I shall have my Million" He
gathers up all his resources; he makes
that one last grand move; he fails and
loses all, and he has not enough money
left to pay the cost of the car to his home.
People can not understand this %spasmodic
revulsion. Some said it was a sudden
turn in Erie Railway stock, or in Western
Union, or In Illinois CenGfal; some Sa1o IL
was Jay Gould; some said it was one spec
ulator, some said it was another. They
all guessed wrong. I will tell you hat it
was: "He that stitch in the heavens"
laughed.
A man in New York said he would be
the richest man in the city. He left his
honest work of chairmaking and got into
the city councils some way, and in ten
years stole fifteen million dollars from the
city governments: Fifteen million dollars.
He held the Legislature of the State of
New York in the grip Of his right hand.
Suspicious were aroused. The grand jury
presented indictments. The whole land
stood sghast. The man who expected to
put half the city in his vest pocket
goes to Blackwelps Island, goes to Ludlow
street Jail, breaks prison and goes across
the sea, is rearrested and brought back
and again remanded to Jail and died
there. Why. "He that sitteth in the
heavens" laughed.
Rome was a great empire; she had Hor-
acc and Virgil among her poets; she had
| Augustus and Constantine among her en-
perors. But what mean the defaced PAN
theon and the Forum turned into = cattle
r,orl,ot opd thu broken -yalled Coliseum