The Nicodemus cyclone. [volume] (Nicodemus, Graham County, Kan.) 1887-1888, 1888-04-13

they talk in right language, but now the
pour out the fury OF whole year in Sne re-
hot paragraph of five minutes. I knew of
9 man who excused himself for the habit say
ing; Il only swear once in great while.
must do that just to clear myself out
The habit comes also from the profuse use O
s byWords. The transition from a bywort
S which may be perfectly harmless to impreca
tlon and profanity, is not very large transi
tion. 1t is 'my stars !" and "mercY on me p
and good gracious" and ''by George!" ant
"6y JoVe!' and you go on with that littl,
while, and then you swear. These words
> perfectly harmless in themselves are mex
door to imprecaton and blasphemy. A pro
fuse use of bywords always ends in profanity
, Inc haDlt is creeping up into the highest
styles OF society. Women have no patience
with fat and unvarnished profanity. They
} Will order man out of the parlor INDUCING
} in blasphemy, and yet you will sometimes find
them with fairy fan to the lip, and under
chandeliers which bring no blush to their
cheek, taking on their lips the hottest OF
names in utter triviality.
Why, my friends, the English language is
COMPREHENSIVE and capable of expressing all
shapes of feeling and every degree of energy.
Are you happy, Noah Webster will give you
ten thousand words with which to express
your exhileration. Are you righteously indig-
nant, there are whole armores in the vocabu-
larry, righteous Vocabulary-whole armies of
pronunciation, and scOrn, and sarcasm, and
irony and caricature, and wrath. You ex-
press yourself against some meanness, or
hypocrisy, In all the OathS that ever smoked
UP from the pit, and will come right on after
you and give you thousand fold more en-
phasis of denuncation to the same meanness,
and the same hypocrisy in words across which
no slime has ever trailed, and into which the
| hres OF hell have never shot their fOrked
| tOngues--the pure, the innocent, God honored
| AnglO-S Saxon in which Milton sang and John
| Bunyan dreamed, and Shakspere dramatized.
There is no excuse for profanity when we
hQTT oh L..
flow of good words, potent words mighty
| words, words just to suit every crisis and
| every case Whatever be the cause of it, pro-
| family is on the increase. and if you do not
| know 1t. 1t is because your ears have been
| hardened by the din of imprecatiOns so that
| you are not stirred and moved as you ought
to be by profanities In these cities which are
enough to bring hurricane of fire like that
which consumed Sodom.
DO you know that this trivial use of Gods
name results in perjury? Do you know that
people who take the name of God on their
lips In recklessness and thoughtlessness are
fostering the crime of perjury? Make the
name of God football In the community,
ana 1t has no power when in courtroom and
in legislative assembly it is employed in
solemn adjuration See the way sometimes
they administer the oath: ''S'help you God
kiss the book" Smuggling, which is al
ways violation of the oath, becomes In some
circles grand joke. You say to a man:
SO very cheap! can't understand it.' ''Ahw
he replies. with a twinkle of the eve, "the
custom House tariff of these goods isn't as
much as it might be. , An oath does not
mean as much as it would were the name of
GOD IN reverence and in sOlemnity. Why Is it
that so often jurors render unaccountable
Verdlcts, and judges give unaccountable
charges, and useless railroad schemes pass in |
our State capitals, and there are most unjust
changes made in tariffs-tariff lifted from one |
thing and put upon another!
what is an oath! Anything solemnl |
Anything that calls upon the Almightvl |
Anything that marks an event in a mans |
history! Oh, no! 1t is kissing the book There |
is no habit, tell you plainIy-and l talk to |
hundreds and thousands of men to-day who |
VIII thank me for my utterance-I tell you,
my brother-l talk to you not professionally |
but just as one brother talks to another on |
some very important theme-I tell you there |
IS no habit that so depletes a mans nature as
Inc naolt OF profanity. You might as well
try TO raise vineyards and orchards on the
sides OF belching Strombol as to raise any,
thing good on heart from which there
pours out the scoria of profanity. You may
swear yourself down; you cannot swear your
self up. When the Mohammedan finds
piece of paper he connot read, he puts it as
side very cautiously for fear the name of God
may be on it. That is one extreme We 90
to the other. Now what is the cure of this
habit! 1t is mighty habit. Men have
struggled for years to get over it. There
are men in this house of God who would give
half their fortune to get rid of it. An aged
man who was IN the delrium of a fever He
mad Tor many years lived most upright life
and was hOnOred in all the community: but
when he came into the delirium of this fever
ne was full of lmperfection and profanity and
they could not understand 1t. After he came
to his right reason he explained it. He said:
when was a young man | was very pro-
fane co nquered the habit but had to
struggle all through life. You haven't for
forty years heard me say an improper word,
but it has been an awful struggle. The tiger
Is chained, but he is alive yet.n
If you would get rid of :this habit, I want
you, my friends, to dwell upon the useless
ness of it. Did voley of oaths ever start
heavy load! Did they ever exaspirate mean
ness from customer! Did they ever
collect a bad debt? Did they ever cure a
'oothache! Did they ever stop the twinge
IF the rheumatism! Did they ever help you
forward one step in the right direction! Come
low, tell me- ye who have had the most ex-
oerence in this habit, how much have you
made out of its Five thousand dollars in all
Tour life: No. One thousand? No. One
hundred! No. One dollar9 No. One cent?
No. If the habit be so utterly useless, away
With 1t.
But you say: II have struggled to over
come the habit long while, and | have not
)een successful" You struggled in your own Z
trengtn, my brother If ever a man wants
IOu, IL is IN such crisis of his history. God | :
lone by His grace can emancipate you from :
hat trouble. Call upon Him day and night ,
hat you may be delivered from this crime '
Remember also in the cure of this habit that 7
arouses Gods indignation. The Bible reit- {
rates from chapter to chapter, and verse {
fter verse, the fact that ii is accursed for :
his life and that it makes man miserable $
or eternity. There is not a sin in all the !
analogue that is so often peremptorily and {
uddenly punished in this world as the sin of
There is not city or a village but
an give an Illustration of a man struck down
t the moment of imprecation. couple of ,
ears ags, briefly referring to this in sermon, 7
gave some instances in which God had
truck swearers dead at the moment of their
That sermon brought to me from
many parts of this land and other lands
tatements of similar cases of instantaneous
from God upon blasphemers. NY b
pinion is that such cases occur somewhere | .
very day. but for various reasons they are I
ot reported. il
In Scotland a club assembled every I
Teek for purposes of wickedness, and
here was a competition as to which y
ould use the most horrid oath, and
be man who succeeded was TO be president
the club. The competition went on. A Il
Ian uttered an oath which confounded al. his h
and he was made president of the :
Tub. His tongue began to swell, and it pro- y
Id Il