The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1886-02-11

unCanCeleus anu vet IueIe u uOt an uOui
Of the day OF night for the last ten years
there have not been women, by haaty mar
rage, intrusting their earthly happiness to
men about whose honesty they knew moth
ing, or who are incumbered with liens and
judgments, and first mortgages, and Sec
ond mortgages, and third mortgages of
evil habits. No wonder that in such cir
cumstances parents, in coniugating the
verb in question, pass from the subiunc-
tive mood to the indicative, and from the
indicative to the imperative. In nearly
all the cases of escapades that you will
hear Of the rest of your lives there will be
headlong leap over the barriers Of pa
rental common sense and forethOught.
stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten
in ecret IL pleasant. But he knoweth not
that the dead are there.
In view of all this charge you TO break
up clandestine correspondence il you are
engaged in it, aud 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 -ofiice under
assumed address. Have no correspondence
mistake open your letters. Do not employ
terms of endearment at the beginning and
close Of letters, unless YOU have a right to
use them. That voung lady is on the edge
of danger who dares not allow her mother
to see her letters.
Tfyou 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 five wears. 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 if their opposition is
founded on genuine wish for the chill's
welfare, or on some within or notion or
prejudice or selfshness. fighting a natural
law and irving to make Niagara run up
stream. Mr.. Pitt, the Prime Minister OF
| England. was always saving wise things
| One dav Sir Walter Farduar called on him
in great perturbation. Mr.. Pitt int, mred
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: ais the
Young man Of respectable familv9" eyes"
ais he respectable in HIMSELF" eyes -"
"Has he an estimable character?" eyes !"
"Whv. then, nv dear Sir Walter, make no
opposition" The advice was taken. and a
! happy married life ensued Let ministers
and officers of the law declins officiating
at claniestine marriages. When thew are
asked to date a marriage certificate back,
Al.
! decline to say that the ceremony was in
! November instead of January. or decline
| to leave the date blank lest others ill out
! the record enormously. Let a 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
! 1t necessary to publish beforehand in the
newspapers. rs It used to be published ~
! The New ENGLAND churches, so that II
there he lawful objection ii may be pre-
scented, not swinging the buoy en- the
rocks after the ship has struck aud gone to
! pieces. And here it might be we'll fGr me
to take all the romance out of al esca pade
bv quoting dozen lines of Robert Pollock
I the great Scotch poet, where he describes
/ pades:
Yet had she many DAYS
or sorrow in the world. but never wepr,
She lived on aims, and carried in her hand
Some withered stalks she gathered II the
spring.
When any asked the cause she smi'cH and
said
They were her sisters and would com and
watch
Her grave when she was dead. She nevor
spoke
or her deceiver. father mother, homo
Or child, or heaven. or he'll. or God, hut still
! In lonely places walIel AMI ever gazei
| TDon the withCred stalks and talked them
Till wasted to the shadow of her youth
With woe too wide TO see beyond, she died.
But now turn on this subject an intenset
! light. We have fifteen hundred lights in
| this church, and when by electric touch
/ thew are kindlcd in the evening service IL
| is almost startling. But this whole subject
/ of "Clandestine Marriages and Escapades"
put under a more intense light than that
! The headlight of locomotive is terrible IL
| YOU stand near enough to catch the full
| glare of it. AS IL sweeps around the
| Horseshoe curve" of the Alleghenies OF
along the edge of the Sierra Nevadas, how
! far ahead and how deep down, and he "
! high up it flashes, and there is instantane-
Gus revelation of mountain peak and wild
beasts hieing themselves to their caverns,
| and cascades thousand feet tall, clinqing
/ in white terror to the precipices! But
| more intense. more far. reaching, more
! sudden, swifter and more tremendo IS,
is the headlight of an advancing udgment
! Day, under which all the most hidden af-
fairs of life shall come to discovery and ar
raignment. i quote an overwhelming
passage of Scripture, in which | put the
whole emphasis on the word "secret:"
God shall bring every work into iudgmt mt
| with every secret thing, whether it be good
or evil
| What time that will he in which the
| cover shall be lifted from every home and
from every heart. The iniquity may have
been so sly that it escaped all human de.
lection, but it will be as well known on
that day as the crimes of Sodom and Co.
morrah, unless. for Christ's sake, It has
been forgiven. All the fingers of universal
| condemnation will be pointed at it. The
archangel of wrath will stand there with
| uplifted thunderbolt ready to strike It,
| The squeami hness and prudery of earth
| ly society, which hardly allowed
| some sins to be mentioned on earth, are
! past, and the man who was unclean and
the woman who was impure will, under a
light brighter than a thousand noonday
sun, stand with the whole story written on
scalp and forehead and cheeks ana hands
ha ho1a