Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-04-20

street, vet have enough Q1SElncGG6SS OF
utterance to let you know that they are
damning their own souls or damning
the souls of others. IT is an awful
thing the first time the little feet are
lifted to have them set down on the
burning pavement of hell.
Between sixteen and twenty years of
age there is apt to come a time when a
young man is as much ashamed of not
being able to swear gracefully as he Is
of the dizziness of his first cigar. He
has his hat, his boot, his coat of the
right pattern, and now if he can only
swear without awkwardness and as well
as his comrades, he believes he Is In
fashion. There are young men who
walk In an atmosphere of imprecatiOn
-oaths on their lips, under their
tongues, nesting in their shock of hair.
They abstain from it In their elegant
drawing room, but the street and the
club house ring with their prOfanities.
They have no regrrd for God, although
they have great respect for the ladies'
My young brother, there Is no manli-
ness in that.
The most ungentlemanly thug a
man can do is to swear. Fathers foster
this great crime. There are parents
who are very cautious not to swear in
the presence of their children; In a
moment of sudden anger, they look
around to see if tbs children are present
when they indulge in this habit. Do
you not know, o father, that your child
is aware of the fact that you swear Z?
He overheard you in the next room, or
someone has informed him of your
habit. He is practicing now. In ten
years he will swear as well as you do.
n FL l. l.. \ Il
that you may swear and your son not
know it. 1t is an awful thing to start
the habit in a family-the father to be
profane, and then to have the echo Of
his example come back from other
genel atoms: so that generations after
generations curse the Lord.
The crime is also fostered by master
mechanics, boss carpenters, those who
gre at the head of men in hat factories,
and in dock yards and at the head of
great business establishments. When
you go down to look at the work of the
scaffOlding, and you find it is not done
right what do you say? 1t is not
praying, is it? The employer swears-
his emplOye is tempted to swear. The
The man says: 'I don't know why my
employer, worth $50, 900 or 800, 600,
should have any luxury I should be
denied simply because 1 am poor, Be
cause I am poor and dependent on a
days wages, haven't I as much right to
swear as he has with his large income %
Employers swear, and that makes so
many employees swear, The habit also
comes from infirnity Of temper, There
are a good many people who, when
they are at peace, have righteousness
of speech, but when angered they
blaze with imprecatiOn. Perhaps all
the rest of the year they talk in right
language, but now they pour out that
fury of a whole year in one red hot
paragraph Of five minutes. L knew one
man who excused himself of the habit
saying Il only swear once in a great
while. 1 must do that just to clear
myself out. "
The habit comes also from the pro
fame use of bywOrds. The transition
from a bywOrd which may be perfectly
harmless to imprecatiOn and profanity,
is not very large transition. 1t is
q My stars, and Mercy on me, and
Good gracious" and by George, ="
and "By JOve," and you go on with that
a little while, and then you swear.
These words, perfectly harmless in
themselves, are next door to impreca-
ton and blasphemy. A profuse use of
bywOrds always ends in profanity. The
habit is creeping up into the highest
STYLES of society. Women have no pa
thence with fiat and unvarnished pro-
family. They viii order a man out of
the parlor indulging in blasphemy, and
yet you viii sometimes find them with
fairy-fan to the lip, and under chande-
hers which bring no blush to their
cheek, taking on their lips the hottest
of names in utter trivalty.
why, my friends, the English lang
uage Is comprehensive and capable of
expressing all shades of feeling and
every degree of energy. Are you hap
ply? Noah Webster viii give YOU ten
thousand words with which to express
your exhiIaratiOn. Are you righteOusly
indignant, there are whole armOries in
the vocabulary, righteous vocabulary
whole armOries of denunciation. and
scorn, and sarcasm, and irony, and
caricature, and wrath. You express
yourself against some meanness or ny
pOcrisy in all the Oaths that ever
smoked up from the pit, and I viii
come right on after you and give YOU a
thOusandfOld more emphasis of denun-
citation to the same meanness and the
same hypocrisy in words across which
no slime has ever trailed and into which
the fires of hell have never shot their
fOrked tongues-the pure, the innocent,
God-honored Anglo-Saxon in which
Milton sang and John Bunyan dreamed
and Shakespeare dramatized. There is
no exsUse for profanity when we have
such a magnificent language a
flow of good words, potent words
mighty words-wOrds just to suit evey
crisis and every case. Whatever be
the cause of it, profanity is on the in
creasn md if Won do not l,nnM III 81 is