The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-04-12
CURSING AND SWEARING.

UU lNlNU AMI NW EARlNU.
REV. DR. TALMAGE DiscoURsEs ON
THE HABIT OF PROFANITY. -
There Is No Excuse for It When We
Have Such Magnificent Language
and the Profuse Use Of Bywords.
BROOKLYN, April 8. = One of the
hymns sung at the Tabernacle this morn
ing begins with the words:
So let our lips and lives express
The Holy Gospel we profess.
After reading appropriate passages Of
Scripture, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage,
DID,, preached on the habit of cursing
and swearing. His text was from the
Book of Job ii, Z, and o: so
went Satan forth from the presence
of the Lord, and smote Job with sore
boils from the sole of his foot unto his
crown. And he took him a potsherd to
scrape himself withal; and he sat down
among the ashes. Then said his wife
unto him, Dost thou still retain thine in
tegrity2 Curse God, and die. /"
A story oriental and marvellous. Job
was the richest man in all the East. He
had camels and oxen and asses and sheep,
and, what would have made him rich
without anything else, seven SONS and
three daughters. It was, the habit of
these children to gather together for fam
lily reunion. One day, JOB is thinking of
his children as gathered together at a
banquet at the elder brothers house.
While the old man is seated at his tent
door, he sees some one running, evident
ly from his manner bringing bad news.
What is the matter now? .sOh," says
the messenger, "a foraging party Of
Sabeans has fallen upon the oxen and
the asses, and destroyed them, and butch
cred all the servants except myself"
Stand aside. Another messenger run
ming. What is the matter now9 "Oh,
says the man, ''the lightning has struck
the sheep and the shepherds, and all the
shepherds are destroyed except myself"
Stand aside. Another messenger run
ming. What is the matter now? "Oh,"
he says, 'sthe Chaldeans have captured
the camels, and slain all the camel driv-
ers except myself" Stand aside. An
other messenger running. What is the
matter now7 'Oh," he says, "a hurri-
cane struck the four corners of the tent
where your children were assembled at
the banquet, and they are all dead"
But the chapter q calamity has not
ended. Job was smitten with slephanti-
asis, OF black leproy. Tumors from
head to foot-forshead ridged with
tubercles -eyelashss fall out -nostrils ex-
coriated-voics Destroyed - intolerable
exhalations from the entire body, until
with none to dress his sores, he sits down
in the ashes with nothing but pieces of
broken pottery to use in the surgery iof
his wounds. At this moment, when he
needed all encouragement, and all con-
ISOLATION, his wife comes in, in fret and
a rage, and says: .'This is intolerable.
Our property gone, our children slain,
and now you covered up with this loath-
some and disgusting disease. Why don't
you swear? Curse God, and die!"
All. Job knew right well that swearing
would not cure one of the tunors OF his
agonized body, would not bring back one
of his destroyed camels, would not re-
store one of his dead children. He knew
that profanity would only make the pain
more unbearable and the poverty more
distressing and the bereavement more
excruciating. But judging from the
profanity abroad in our day, you might
come to the conclusion that there was
some great advantage to be reaped from
profanity.
Blasphemy is all abroad. You hear it
In every direction. The drayman swear
ing at his cart, the sewing girl imprecat-
ing the tangled sl1ein. the accountant
cursing the long line Of troublesome fig
ures. Swearing at the store, swearing in
| the loft, swearing in the cellar, swearing
| on the street, swearing in the factory.
| Children swear. Men swear. Women
swear. Swearing from the rough calling
on the Almighty in the low restaurant
| clear up to the reckless "Oh, Lordp' of a
glittering drawing room; and the one is
as much blasphemy as the other.
There are times when we must cry out
to the Lord by reason of our physical
agony or our mental distress, and that is
only throwing out our weak hand toward
| the strong arm of a father, It was no
| profanity when James A. Garfield, shot
in the Washington depot, cried out:
1
is no profanity in calling out upon God
in the day Of trouble, tn the day Of dark
ness, in the day OF physical anguish, In
the day Of bereavement; but ] am speak
ing now of the triviality and Of the reck-
lessness with which the name Of God is
sometimes managed. The whole land is
cursed with it.
A gentleman coming from the far west
sat in the car day after day behind two
persons who were indulging in profanity,
and he made up his mind that he would
make a record Of their profanities, and Az
the end of two days several sheets of
paper were covered with these impreca-
tions, and at the close of the journey he
handed the manuscript to one Of the per-
sons in front of him. sis it possible, !"
! said the man, THAT we have uttered so
many profanitss the last few days?" "It
is" replied the gentleman, ...Then,"
said the man who had taken the manQ-
script, II will never swear again."
But it is comparatively unimportant
thing if man makes record Of our inn
proprieties of speech. The more memor-
able confederation Is that every improper
word, every cath uttered, has record in
| the book Of Gods remembrance, and
that the day will come when all our
crimes of speech, il unrepented Of, will
be our condemnation. shall not today
deal in abstfactiona, hate distractions.
am going to hays . plain talk with you,
my brother, about habit that you admit
to be wrong.
The habit grows in the community In
| the fact that young people think 1t manly
| to swear. Little children, hardly able to
| walk straight on the street, yet have
enough distinctness OF utterance to let
you know that they are damning their
own souls, o. damning the souls of others.
It is an awful thing the first tims the
little feet are lifted to have them SET
down on the burning pavement of hell
Between 18 and 90 years Of age there
is apt to come q time when a young man
Is as much ashamed Of not being able to
swear gracefully as he is OF the dizziness
J Of his first cigar. He has his hat, his