Milford chronicle., 1888-04-13


luxury should be denied simply because
am poor. Because am poor and dependent
on a days wages, haven't as much right TO
swear as he has with his large income@
Employers swear, and that makes so many
employees swearl
The habit also comes from infirmity Of
temper. There are a good many people who,
when they are at peace, have righteousness
Of speech, but when angered they blaze with
imprecation Perhaps all the rest Of the
year they talk in right language but now
they pour out the fury of a whole year in one
red hot paragraph of five minutes. / knew
Of man who excused himself for the habit,
saying: ~ only swear once in great while
must do that just to clear myself out.
The habit comes also from the profuse use
Of bywords. The transition from byword
which may be perfectly harmless to impre-
cation and profanity, is not very large
transition II is ''my stalsln and "mercy on
me!r and ''good graciousln and 'by Georger
and ''by Joveln and you go ON with that a
little while, and then you swear. These
words, perfectly harmless in themselves, are
next door to imprecation and blaspheny. A
{ profuse use of bywords always ends in pro-
family The habit is creeping up into tho
highest styles Of society. Women have no
patience with fat and dunvarnished profanity.
They will order a man out of the parlor in
dulging in blasphemy, and yet you will
sometimes find them with fairy fan to the
lip, and under chandeliers which bring no
blush to their check taking on their lips the
holiest of names in utter triviality,
Why, my friends, the English language is
comprehensive and capable of expressing all
shades of feeling and every degree of en-
ergy Are you happyl Noah Webster will
give you ten thousand words with which to
express your exhilaration Are you right
eously indignantl There are whole armies
in the vocabulary, righteous vocabulary
whole armies Of denunciation, and
scorn, 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 l will come right on after you
and give a thousandfold more emphasis of
denunciation to the same meanness and the
same hypocrisy in words across which no
slime has eyer 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
have such a magnificent language-sueh
flow of good words, potent words, mighty
words, words just to suit every crisis and
every case. Whatever be the cause of it,
profanity is on the increase, aud if You do
not know it, it is because your ears have
been hardened by the din Of imprecations so
that you ere 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 perjuryl 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 foot ball in the community,
and it has no power when in court room and
in legislative assembly it is employed in
solemn adjuration! See the way sometimes
they administer the oath: "S'help you God
kiss the bookI' Smuggling, which is always
a violation of the oath, becomes in some
circles a grand joke You say to a man:
"How is it possible for you to sell these goods
so very chcapl l can't understand IT. "Ahln
he replies, with a twinkle OF the eye, '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 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
schemes pass in our state capitals, and there
are most unjut changes made in tariffs
tariff lifted from one thing and put upon
another.
What is an oathG Anything solemn! Any
thing that calls upon the Almighty2 Any
Oh, no! 1t Is kissing the book There is no
habit, tell you plainly-and l talk to hun-
dreds ard thousands OF men today Who will
thank me for my utterance-I tell you, my
brother-I 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 mans nature as the
habit Of profanity You might as well try
to raise vineyards and orchards on the sides
Of belching StrombOi as To raise anything
good on a heart from which there pOIrs out
the scoria of profanity. You may swear
yourself down; you cannot swear yourself
up When the Mohamnedan finds piece Of
paper he cannot read, he puts it aside very
cautiously for fear tie name of God may be
on it, That is one extreme. We Sc the
other. Row what is the cure OF this
habis2 1t is a mighty habit. Men have
struggled for years to geS over it. There are
men in this house of God " DO wOuld give
half their fortune TO get rid of it. An aged
man was in the delirium Of fever. lie 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 imprecati0n and profanity, and
they could not understand it, After hc came
to his right reason he explained it. lte said:
''When was young man l was very pro
fame l conquered the habit, but l had to
struggle all through lie. You haven't for
forty years heard inc say an improper word,
but it has been aY awful struggle. The tiger
is chainct but he is alive yet"
If you would get rid Of this habit, I want
you, my friends, TO dwell upon the useless
ness OF it, Did a voiiey of oatlis ever start
heavy loadl Did they ever extirpGte meail-
ness from customerf Did they ever collect
bad debtl Did they ever cure toothacho!
Did they ever stop the twinge of the rheu-
mat.sm. Did they ever help you forward
one step in the right directioni Come now,
tell me, yc who have had the niost expert
ence in this habit, how much have you made
ont Of it, Five thousand dollars in all your
life. No. One thousandl No One hum
drcdi No. One dollarl No. One cent?
NJ. II btlo uehyib bS ~ utbNAi9 AHeANaai tlNa1
with it.
But you say: ~ have struggled to over
come the habit long while, and have not
been successful" You struggled in your
own strength, my brother If ever man
wants Cod, it is in such a crisis Of his history.
God alone by His grace can enlancipate you
from that 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 Indignation. The
Bible reitcratcs from chapter to chapter, and
verse after verse, that it is accursed for this
life and that it makes man miserable for
eternity. There is not a sin in all the cata-
l0gue that is SO often peremptorily and
suddenly punished in this world as the sin of
profanity. There is not a city or a village
but can give an illustration Of man struck
down at the moment of imprecation A
couple of years ago, briefly referring to this
In a sermon, / gave some instances in winch
God had struck swearers dead at the moment
Of their profanity. That sermon brought to
me from many parts Of this land and OthF