The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-01-26


| the vars;s: ''Lc:sticus. xix, L: y siaai
not =aear hs- my SAME falsely; e5;l The
Lord And ofl tho co-cr ~ tic 2rs-H- f.-s@s;-
| mont, IL liz o@H h5s34-ty rit5us: Matthew,
| V. 81: ihou siisl, not f,rsr@e4r tilyssiif bus
shalt perform unto the Lordti THINE oati4s."
Suppose ship captain offers his services
| to take Il ship out to sea. After he gets u lit
| tie way he comes alongside Of a vessel with
| more beautiful flag, and which has perhaps a
richer cargo and is bound for more at
tractive port Suppose he rings . bell for the
| engineer to slow up and the wheel stops. Now
1 see the captain being lowered over the side
OF the vessel into q small boat, and he crosSea
t., the gayer and weather. craft, and climbs
up the sides, and is seen walking the
bridge of the other ship. l pick up his
lrctgned speaking trumpet and | shout
through it: Captain, what does this mean:
Did you not promise to take this ship to
Southampton, Englandl' Yes" says tho
crptain, but have changed my mind and
have found can do better, and | am going
to take charge here. | shall send back to you
all the letters l got while managing that ship
and everything got from your ship, and it
will be all right" You tell me that the worst
fate for such captain that is too good for
him. But it is just what woman
does who promises to take ono through the
voyage of life, across the ocean of earthly
existence, and then breaks the promise. The
sending back of all the letters and rings
and necklaces and keepsakes cannot make
that right which is in the sight of
God and ought to be in the sight of man,
an everlasting wrong. What American
society needs to be taught is that bathrothal
is an act so solemn and tremendous that all
men and women must stand back from it
until they are sure that it is right, and
sure that it is best, and sure that
no retreat Will be desired. Before that
promise of lifetime companionship any
amount of romance that you wish, any
ardor Of friendship, any corning and going.
But espousal is a gate, a golden gate, which
one should not pass, unless he or she expects
never TO return. Engagement is the porch
OF which marriage is the castle, and you have
no right in the porch if you do not mean to
pass into the castle.
The trouble has always been that this
whole subject Of alliance has been relegated
to the realms Of frivolity and joke, and con-
sdered not worth a sermon or even serious
paragraph. And so the massacre of human
lives has gone and the devil has had it his
own cruel way, and what is nightly needed
is that pulpit and platform and printing
press all speak a word Of unrnistakable and
thunderous protest on this subject OF in
finite Importance. Weput clear out into thin
poesy and light reading the marital en-
gagernerts of Petrarch and his Laura, Dante
and his Beatrice, Chaucer and his Philippa,
Lorenzo de Medici and his Lucretia, Spenser
and his Rosalind, Waller and his Sacchar-
issa, not realizing that it was the style Of
their engagement that decided their happi-
ness or wretchedness, their virtue or their
profigaey All the literary and military
and religious glory Of Queen Elizabeths
reign cannot blot out from one Of the
most conspicuous pages of history her in
famous behavior toward Seymour and
Philip and Melville and Leicester and
Others All the ecclesiastical robes that Dean
Swift ever rustled through consecrated
places cannot hide from Intelligent people of
all ages the fact, that by promises of mar
rage which he never fulfilled, he broke the
heart OF Jane Warning after IN engagement
Of seven years and the heart Of Stella after
an engagement Of fourteen years, and the
poetic stanzas he dedicated to their excel
lences only make the moro immortal his own
perfidy.
But suppose 1 should make a mistake,n
says some man or woman, land l find it out
after the engagement and before the mar
riager' Ny answer is, you have no excuse
for making mistake on this subject There
are 30 many ways OF finding OUT all about the
character and preferences and dislikes and
habits Of man or woman, that if you have
not brain enough to form a right judgment
in regard to him or her, you not 80 fit a
candidate for the matrimonial altar as you
are for an idiot asylum. Notice what society
your especial friend prefers, whether he is
industrious or lazy, whether she is neat or
slatternly, what books are read, what was
the style Of ancestry, noble or depTaved, and
il there be any unnolved mystery about the
person under consideration postpone oil
promise until the mystery Is solved.
Jackson's Hollow, Brooklyn, was part Of
the city not built on for many years, and
every time l crossed it 1 said to myself or to
others, why is not this land built onl I
found out afterward that the tito to the
land was in controversy and one wanted
to build there until that question was de-
sided Aftcrvard understood the title was
settled, and ROW buildings are going up all
ever ID. Do not build ysur happiness for this
world ON a character, masculine OF feminine,
that has not settled and undisputod title to
honor and truth, and sobriety and kindness
and righteousness
Oh woman, you have more need TO pause be
fore making such an important promise than
man, because il you make mistake it is
worse for you. II a man blunder about
promise Of marriage, or go on to ON unfortu-
nate marriage, he can spend his evenings
away, and can go to the club or the Republi-
can or Democratic headquarters, and absorb
his mind in city or state OF national elections,
smoke himself stupid, or drink himself
drunk. But there is no place of regular re-
treat for you, oh woman, and you could not
take narcotics or intoKicants and keep your
respectabiiity. Before you promise, pray
and think and study and advise. There will
never again in your earthly history lie /.
time ni.~a you go much need God.
1t seems to that the world ought tc
cast o;lt rom business credits and from good
mel. -l4!,arhood those who boast Of the number
Of lisssts tier have won, the Iudia1
bo2sss CT TIE AGnlber of scalps he has taken
II l4ian will lie to . ronlaA and a woman
will lie to q man about 80 important mat
ter as that Of hfetimes welfare, they will
lie about bill of goods and lie about finances
and lie about anything Society today is
brimful OF gnllants, and man milliners and
carpet knights, and coquettes and those most
God forsaken OF all wrctches-nirts. And
they 60 abont drawing rooms and the parlors
or watering places, simperfng and bowling,
and scraping and whispering, and then re-
turn to the club rooms if they be men, or to
their special gatherings il they be women, to
chatter and gigSle over what was said to
them in confidence Condign punishment is
apt to come upon them, and they get paid in
their own COIN could point you to score
whom society has let drop very hard in re-
turn for their base traffic in human hearts,
As to such men, they walk around in theif
celibacy, after their hair is streaked with
gray, and pretending they are naturally
short-sighted when their eyes are old in
sin tl8f they need the spectacles Of a sep
tuagenarian, eyeglass about No. s, and
think they are bewitching In their stride and
overpowering in their chances, although they
are simply laughing stocks for all mankind
And il these base dealers In human hearts be
females, they are left after while severely
alone, striving in . very desperation Of
agony Of cosmetics TO get back to the at
Effectiveness they had when they used to brag