The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-04-24
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Slaughter" preached
ut St. Louis, MOI

the butcher to indicate to the OK that there
is death ahead. The OK thinks he is going on
to a rich pasture field of clover, where all day
long he will revel in the herbaceous luxuri-
ance; but after while the men and the boys
close in upon him with sticks and stones and
shouting, and drive him through bars and
into q doorway, where he is fastened and
with a well aimed stroke the ak fells
him; and so the anticipation of the redolent
pasture field is completely disappointed. So
many young man has been driven on by
temptation to what he thought would be
paradisiacal enjoyment; but after while in
nuences with darker hue and sSarthier arm
close in upon him, and he finds that instead
of making all excursion into garden he has
been driven ''as an OK to the slaughter"
I. We are apt to blame young men for
being DESTROYED when we ought to blame the
influences that destroy them. Society
slaughters great many young men by the
behest: "You must keep up appearances;
whatever be your salary, you must dress as
well as Others you must wine and brandy as
many friends, you must smoke as costly
cigars you must give as expensive entertain
ments and you must live in as fashionable
boarding house If you haven't the money,
borrow. If you can't borrow make false
entry or substract here and there bill from
bundle of bank bills; you will only have to
make the deception a little while; in few
months, or i'll q year or two, you can make
all right. Nobody will be hurt by it; nobody
will be the wiser You yourself will not be
damaged" By that awful process hundred
thousand men have been slaughtered for
time and slaughtered for eternity.
Suppose you borrow. There is nothing
wrong about borrowing money. There is
hardly q man in the house but has sometimes
borrowed money. Vast estates has been built
on q borrowed dollar. But there are two
kinds of borrowed money. Money borrowed
for the purpose of starting or keeping
up legitimate enterprise and expense,
and money borrowed to get that which
IS right, the other is wrong. If you have
money enough of your own to buy coat,
however plain, and then you borrow money
for dandy's outfit, you have taken tho first
revolution of the wheel down grade Borrow
for the necessities; that may be well. Borrow
for the luxuries; that tips your prospects over
in the wrong direction.
The Bible distinctly says the borrower is
servant of the lender. 1t is bad state OF
things when you have to go down some other
street to escape meeting some one whom you
owe. If young men knew what is the despot-
ism of being in debt more of them would keep
out of it. What did debt do for
Lord Bacon, with mind towering
above the centuries? 1t induced him
to take bribes and convict himself
as criminal before all ages. What did debt
do for Walter Scott? Broken hearted at
Abbotsford. Kept him writing until his
hand gave out in paralysis to keep the sheriff
away from his pictures and statuary. Better
for him if he had minded the maxim which
he had chiseled over the fireplace at Abbots-
ford: "Waste not, want not"
The trouble is, my friends, the people do
not understand the ethics of going in debt,
and that if you purchase goods with no ex-
pectation of paying for them, or 60 into
debts which you cannot meet, you steal just
so much money. If l 60 into grocer's store,
and buy sugars and coffees and meats, with
no capacity to pay for them and no inten-
dishonest than if 60 into
the store, and when the groeers
face is turned the other way I fill my pockets
with the articles of merchandise and carry
off ham. In the one case take the mer-
chants time, and take the time Of his mes
senger to transfer the goods to my house,
while in the other case take none of the
time of the merchant, and I wait upon my
self, and I transfer the goods without any
trouble to him. In other words sneak
thief is not so bad as a man who contracts
for debts he never expects to pay.
Yet in all our cities there are families that
move every May day to get into proximity to
other grocers and meat shops and apotheca-
ries They owe everybody within half mile
of where they now live, and next May they
will move into a distant part of the
city, finding q new lot of victims.
Meanwhile YOU the honest family in
the new house, are bothered day by
day by the knocking at the door of
goods dealers, and newspaper carriers, and
you are asked where your predecessor IS.
You do not know. 1t was arranged you
should not know Meanwhile your predeces-
sor has gone to some distant part of the city,
and the people who have anything to sell
have sent their wagons and stopped
there to solicit the valuable" custom of the
new neighbor, and he, the new neighbor,
with great complacency and with an air Of
highest priced sugars, and the best Of the
canned fruits, and, perhaps, all the news
papers And the debts will keep on accumu-
Iating until he gets his goods on the Both Of
next April in the furniture cart.
Now, let me say, if there are any such per-
sons in the house, if you have any regard for
your own conveniences, you had better re-
move to some greatly distant part of the city.
It is too bad that, having had all the trouble
the trouble of being dunned! And let me say
that if you find that this pictures your own
photograph instead of being in church you
ought to be in the penitentiary. No wonder
that so many of our merchants fail i'll business.
They are swindled into bankruptcy by these
wandering Arabs, these nomads Of city life.
They cheat the grocer out Of the green ap-
piles which make them SICK the physician
who attends their Distress and the under
taker who fits them out for departure from
the neighborhood where they owe everybody
when they pay the debt of nature, the only
debt they ever do pay!
Now our young men are coming up in this
depraved state of commercial ethics, and
am solicitous about them. / want to warn
them against being slaughtered on the sharp
edges Of debt You want many things you
have not, my young friends. You shall have
them if you have patience and honesty and
industry. Certain lines of conduct always
lead out to certain successes
There is law which controls even those
things that seem baphazard 1 have been
told by those who have observed that it is
possible to calculate just how many letters
will be sent to the Dead Letter office every
year through misdircction; that it is pos
sible to calculate just how many let
ters will be detained for lack of post
age stamps through the forgetfumess of
how many people will fall in the streets by
slipping on an orange peel In other words,
there are no accidents. The most insignifi-
cant event you evor heard of is the link be-
tween two eternities-the eternity of the past
and the eternity of the future. Head tho
right way, young man. and you will come
out at the right goal.
Bring me young man and tell me what
his physical health is, and what his mental
calibcr, and what his habits, and l will tell
you what will be his destiny for this world.
mud his destiny for tho world TO come and i
will not make five inaccurate prophecies out
of the five hundred All this makes me
solicitious in regard to young men, and I
want to mako them nervous in regard to the