Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1888-01-07


with their feet toward the east, and not at all
anxious that during their whole life they
should face in the right direction no that they
shall come up in the resurrection of the just
whichever way they are buried How mahy
there are chiefly anxious that a minister OF
the Gospel shall come in the line of apostolic
succession, not caring SO much whether he
comes from Apostle Paul or Apostle Judas.
They have way of measuring q gnat until
1t is larger than camel.
Again: My subject photographs all those
who are abhorrent of small sins, while they
are reckless in regard to magnificent thefts.
You will find many merchant who, while
he is SO careful that he would not take yard
of cloth or a spool of cotton from the counter
without paying for it, and who, IL bank
cashier should make mistake and send in
roll of bills S. too much, would dispatch a
messenger in hot haste to return the surplus,
yet who will go into stock company in
which, after a while, he gets control of the
stock, and then waters the stock and makes
100000 appear like $780, 900. He only
stole 100000 by the operation. Many of
the men of fortune made their wealth in that
way. One Of those men, engaged in such un.
righteous acts, that evening, the evening Of
the very day when he watered the stock, will
find wharf rat stealing newspaper from
the basement doorway, and will go out and
catch the urciin by the collar, and twist the
collar SO tightly the poor fellow cannot say
that it was thirst for knowledge that led him
to the dishonest act, but grip the collar
tighter and tighter, saying: 8 1 have been
looking for you a long while; you've stolemy
paper four or five times. haven't your
you miserable wretch" And then the old
stock gambler, with voice they can hear
three blocks will cry out: Police, police"
That same man, the evening OF the day in
which he watered his stock, will kneel
with his family in prayers and thank
God for the prosperity of the day,
then kiss his children good night with
an air which seems to say: 81 hope you
will all grow up to be as good as your
father" Prisons for sins insectlle In size,
but palaces for crimes dromedarian. No
mercy for sins animalcule in proportion, but
great leniency for mastodon iniquity. A
poor boy slyly takes from the basket Of
market woman a choice pear-Saving some
one else from the cholera--and you smother
him in the horrible atmosphere Of Raymond
Street Jail or New York Tombs while his
cousin. who has been skillful enough TO steal
$4,000 from the city, you will make him
candidate Tor the New York Legislature
There is a great deal of uneasines5 and ner-
vousneSs now among some people III our
time to have gotten unrighteouS fortunes,
a great deal of nervousness about dynamite.
tell them that God will put under their M
righteous fortunes something more explosive
than dynamite, the earthquake of his omnlp-
otent Indignation. 1t is time that we learn
in America that sin is not excusable in pro-
portion as it declares large dividends and has
outriders in equipage. Many man is riding
to perditon, position ahead and lackey De-
hind. To steal one copy of a newspaper is a
gnat; to steal many thousands OF dollars is a
camel. There is many fruitdealer who would
not consent to steal a basket of peaches from
a neghbor's stall, but who would not scruple
to depress the fruit market; and as long as
l can remember we have read every summer
oh - nd ic q foi In
by the time the crop comes in the misappre-
hension makes a difference of millions OF dol
lars. A man who would not steal one peach
basket steals So 900 peach baskets. Go down
in the summer time into the Mercantile
library, in the reading room, and see the
newspaper reports of the crops from all parts
of the country, and their phraseology is very
much the same, and the same men wrote
them, metbodically and UNANIMOUSLY carry
ing out the huge lying about the grain crop
from year to year and for a score of years.
After a while there will be corner" in
the wheat market. and men who had
contempt for a petty theft will bur-
glarize the wheat bin of a nation and
commit larceny upon the American corn
crib. And some OF the men will sit In
churches and in reformatory institutions try
ing to strain out the small gnats of scoundrel-
ism, while in their grain elevators and their
storehouses they are fattening huge camels
which they expect after while to swallow
Society has to be entirely reconstructed on
this subject. We are to find that sin is in
excusable in proportion as it is great.
/ know in our time the tendency is to charge
religious frauds upon good men. They say:
,, ooh, what class of frauds you have in the
Church OF God in this day." and when an
elder of a church, or deacon, or minister of
the Gospel, or a superintendent of Sabbath
school turns out defaulter, what display
heads there are in many of the newspapers.
rafna Aran flnr
Saint Absconded;' Clerical Scoundrel-
ISM Religion at a Discounts" Shame
on the Churches while there are a
thousand scoundrels outside to where
there is one inside the church, and
the misbehavior of those who never see
the inside of a church is so great it is enough
to tempt man to become Christian to get
out of their company. But in all circles,
religious and irreligious, the tendency is to
excuse sin in proportion as it is mammoth.
Even John Milton in his " Paradise Lost"
while he condemns Satan, gives such grand
description OF him You have hard work to
suppress your admiration Oh, this strain
ing out of small sins like gnats and this gulp-
I ing down great iniquities like camelsl
This subject does not give the picture OF
one or two persons, but is a gallery in which
thousands of people may see their licensees.
| For instance, all those people who, while they
] would not rob their neighbor of farthing,
appropriate the money and the treasure of
the public. A man has house to sell, and
he tells his customer it is worth $4,000
Next day the assessor comes around and
the owner says 1t is worth $4,000 The
government of the United States took
of the tax from personal income, among
other reasons, because so few people
would tell the truth, and many a man with
an income of hundreds of dollars day made
statements which seemed to imply he was
about to be handed over TO the overseer Of
the poor Careful to pay their passage from
Liverpool to New York, yet smuggling in
their Saratoga trunk ten silk dresses from
Paris and half dozen watches from Geneva.
Switzerland, telling the custom house officers
on the wharf: ''There is nothing in that
trunk but wearing apparel" and putting a
five-dollar gold piece in his hand to punctuate
the statement.
Described in the text are all those who are
particular never TO break the law of gram
mar, and who want all their language an ele-
CANT specimen of syntax, straining out all
the inaccuracies Of speech with fine sieve Of
literary criticism, while through their con-
versation 60 SANDER and innueIdo and pro-
family and falsehoo1 larger than whole car
AVIAN Of camels, when they might better
fracture every law Of the language
and shock intellectual taste, and better let
u A..H-