The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-04-26

Ihey will order man out Of the pt.rior III
auging in hlesfhcmy, and yet you will some
limee Ind them with fairy fan to the lip,
and under chandeliers which bring no blush
Oh names in utter trivialitv.
Why, my friends, the English language Is
comprehensive and capable 81 EXPRESSING all
ergy. Are you happyl Noah Webster will
give you ten thousand words with which to
express your exhilaration. Are YOU right
eousiy indignant There are whole armies
whole armies 81 deRunciation, and
scofn, and sarcasm. and irony, and Carl
cature, and wrath. You express your
/ SELF 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 thousandfold more emphasis OF
remuneration to the same ineanfess and the
same hypocrisy i'll ,w6ids across which 10
hime has ever trailed, and into which the
fires OF hell have never shot their forked
tongues-the pure, the innocent, God hon
ored Anglo-Saxon in which Milton sang and
John Bunyan dreamed and Shakespeare
! dramatized
There Is no excuse for profanity when we
nave such magnificent language-such a
flow of good words, potent words, mighty
words, words lust to suit every crisis and
every case. Whatever be the cause of it,
profanity is on the increase, and if you do
not know it, it 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 pr6fanites in these cities
which are enough to bring hurricane oe
fire like that which consumed Sodom
| Do you know that this trivial use Of Gods
name results in periuryi Do yo,i know that
peopl" who take the name of God on their
lips in recklessness and thoughtlessuess are
| fostering the crime of per ,urv9 Make the
name of God a football in the community,
and 1t has no power when in court room and
in legislative assembly it is employed IN
i solemn adjuration! See the way sometimes
they administer the oath. "S'help you God
kiss the book!' Smuggling, which is always
violation Of the oath, becomes in some
circles grand joke You say to a niaii:
"How is it possible for you to sell these goods
so very cheap! can't understand IT," Ali"
he replies, with twinkle in the eyes, "the
custom house tariff of these goods isn't as
much as it might be-" An oath does not
mean as much as 1t Would we're the ilame Of
God used in reverence and in solemnity.
Why is it that so often Jurors render unac-
countable verdicts and judges give unac-
countable charges, and useless railroad
scheIaes pass in our State capitals, and there
are most unjust charges made in tariffs
| tariff lifted from one thing and put upon
| another!
| What is an oath9 Anything solemn? Any.
thing that calls upon the Almighty! Any
thing that marks an event in mans historyl
Oh. no! 1t is kissing the book There is no
habit, I tell you p!ainly-and 1 talk to hu:;-
dreds and thousands of men to-day who will
| 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 thema-I tell you there is no
habit that SO depletes mans nature as the
habit of profanity. You might as well try
to raise vineyards and orchards on the sides
of helching Stromboli as to raise anything
good on heart from which there pours out
| the scoria of profanity. You may swear
yourself down; you cannot swear Yourself
! up. When the Mohammedan finds piece of
paper he cannot read, he puts it aside very
| cautiously for fear the name of God may be
on it, That is one extreme. We go the
other. Now what is the cure Of this
! habits Is is might. habit MeV@k4o1
| 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 was in the delirium of fever. He had
for many years lived a most upright life and
was honored in all the community, but when
| he came into the delirium of this fever he
was full of imprecat, on and profanity and
they could not understand it. After he came
when was young man | was very pro-
fame / conquered the habit but l 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"
If you would get rid of this habit, l warn
you, my friends to dwell upon the useless
ness of it. Did volley of oaths ever start
heavy loada Did they ever extirpate mean
ness from customer. Did they ever collect
bad debti Did they ever cure toothachel
Did they ever stop the twinge of the rheu
matism! Did they ever help you forward
one step in the right direction! Come now,
tell ME, We who have had the most expert
ence in this habit, how much have you made
out of its Five thousand dollars in all your
lifel No. One Thousand! No. One hun.
dred! No. One dollar? No. One cent? ?
No. If the habit be SO utterly useless, away
with it.
But you say: II have struggled to over
come the habit long while, and have not
been successful" You struggled in your
own strength. my brother. Ii ever a man
wants God, it is in such a crisis of his history
God alone by His grace can emancipate you
from trouble Call upon Him day and
night that you may be delivered from this
crime. Remember also in the cure of this
habit that it arouses Gods iniignrtioa. The
Bible reiterates from chapter to chapter, and
life and that it makes man miserable for
eternity. There is not a sin in all the cata-
logue that is SO often peremptorily and
suddenly punished in this world as the sin of
profanity. There is not a city or village
but can give an illustration of a man struck
down at the moment OF imprecation A
couple of years ago, briefly referring to this
In a sermon, l gave some instances in which
Sod had struck swearers dead at the moment
OF their profanity. That sermon brought to
me. from many parts of this land and other
| lands. statements OF similar cases of instan-
taneous visitation from God upon bias
phemers. My opinion is that such cases
occur somewhere every day, but for various
reasons they are not reported
In Scotland cub assembled every week
<Or purposes Of wicsedness. and there was q
competition as to which could use the most
horrid oath, and the man who succeeded was
to be President of the club. The competition
/ went on. A man uttered an oath which con-
| founded all the comrades, and he was made
| swell, and it protruded from his mouth, and
he could not draw it in, and he died, and the
| physician said: "This is the strangest thing
| we ever saw; we never saw any account in
the books like unto it.; we can't understand
it." l understand it. He cursed God and
died.
At Catskill, N. Y, group of men stood
der storm. There came a crash of thunder,
and some of the men trembled. One man
said: why, don't see what you are afraid
| Of am not afraid to 60 out in front of
the shop and defy the Almighty. l am not
afraid Of lightning" And he laid a wager
| on the subject, and he went out, and he
shook his fist at the heavens, crying: "Strike
| II you dare!n And instantly he fell under a
bolt. What destroyed him! Any mystery
about It'll Oh, no. He cursed God and died.
Oh, my brother, God will not allow this
sin to go unpunished There are styles of
writing with manifold sheets, so that man
| writing on one leaf writes clear through ten,
fifteen or twenty sheets, and SO every pro.
family we utter goes right down through the
leaves of the bool. of Gods remembrance 1t
is no exceptional sin. Do you suppose you
could count the profanites of last week-the
profanities of office, store, shop, factory
They cursed God. they cursed His word, they
cursed His only begotton Son.
One morning, on Fulton street, as / was
passing along. heard man swear by the
name Of Jesus. My hair lifted. My blood
ran cold. My breath caught My foot
halted Do you pot suppose that God is ag.
gravatedl Do you not suppose that God
knows about itf Donysius used to have a
cave in which his culprits were incarcerated,
and he listened at the top of that cave, and
/ he could hear every qroan he could hear