Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-04-18
EVIL INFLUENCES.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the
Temptations Of Young Men.
The Evil OF Reckless Borrowfng-A Picture
of City Life-The Day of Reckoning
Sure to Come-How to Remedy
the Evil.

NV l. lew Al ASNOha
sermon at st. Louis took for his subject
"The Slaughter" and his text Proverbs
vii. 81: AS an OK to the slaughter" He
said:
There is nothing in the voice or in
the manner OF 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 awhile the men and the
boys close in upon him with sticks and
stones and shouting, and drive him
through bars and into doorway, where
he Is fastened, and with well aimed
stroke the axe fells him; and so the an
ticipation of the redolent pasture field is
completely disappointed. So many a
young man has been driven on by tempta-
ton TO what he thought would be para
disaical enjoyment; but after awhile in
huences with darker hue and swarthier
arm close in upon him, and he finds that
instead of making an excursion into a
garden he has been driven "as an OK to
the slaughter"
First-We are apt to blame young men
for being destroyed when we ought to
blame the influences that destroy them.
Society slaughters a 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 entertainments, and you
must live in as fashionable a boarding
house. If you haven't the money, borrow.
If you can't borrow make false entry, or
subtract here and there bill from bum
die of bank bills; you will only have to
make the deception little while; in few
months, or in a year or two, you can make
all right. Nobody will be hurt by it; no.
BODY will be the wiser. You yourself will
not be damaged" By that awful process
a hundred thousand men have been
slaughtered for time and slaughtered for
eternity.
Suppose you borrow money. There is
nothing wrong about borrowing money.
There is hardly man in the house but
has sometimes borrowed money. Vast es-
tates have been built on a borrowed dollar.
But there are two kinds of borrowed
money. Money borrowed for the purpose
of starting or keeping up legitimate enter
prise and expense, and money borrowed
to get that which you can do without.
The first is right; the other is wrong If
you have money enough of your own to
buy a coat, however plain, and then you
borrow money for dandy's outfit you
have taken the first revolution of the
wheel down grade. Borrow for the lux
uries-that tips your prospects over in the
wrong direction.
The Bible distinctly says the borrower
is servant of the lender. 1t is a 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 despotism 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 brides and convict himself as a GRIM
inal before all the ages. What did debt do
for Walter Scott? Broken hearted at Abb
botsford. 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
Abbotsford, "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
expectation of paying for them, or go into
debts which you can not meet, you steal
GERS store and 1 buy sugars and coffees
and meats with no capacity to pay for
them and no intention of paying for them,
l am more dishonest than if go into the
store, and when the grocer's face is turned
the other way, l fill my pockets with the
articles of merchandise and carry of a
ham. In the one case take the merchants
time, and the time of his messenger TO
transfer the goods to my house, while in
the other case l take none of the time of
the merchant and l wait upon myself,
and l transfer the goods without any
trouble to him. In other words, a 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 prox-
unity to other grocers and meatshops and
apothecaries. They owe every body within
half a mile of where thew now live and
next May they will move into distant
part Of the city, finding a new lot of vic
Tins. Meanwhile you, the honest family
in the new house, are bothered day by day
by the knocking at the door of disap-
pointed bakers and butchers and dry
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 pre-
decessor has gone to some distant part of
the city, and the people who have any
thing to sell have sent their wagons and
stopped there 10 solicit the valuable"
custom of the new neighbour, and he, the |
new neighbor, with great complacency
and with an air of afiluence, orders the |
finest steaks and the highest priced sugars,
and the best of the canned fruits. and per- |
haps, all the newspapers. And the debts |
will keep on accommodating until he gets |
his goods on April so in the furniture cart |
They cheat the grocer out of the green |
apples which makes them sick, the physi- |
clan who attends their distress, and the |
undertaken who fits them out for departure |
from the neighborhood where they pay |
the debt Of nature, the only debt they ever |
do payi
Now, let me say, if there are any such in |
the house, il you have any regard for your |
own convenience, you had better remove |
to some greatly distant part of the city. |
1t is too bad that, having had all the |
trouble OF consuming the goods, you
should also have the trouble of being |
dunned! And let me say that if you find |
thatthis pictures your photograph, instead
of being in church you ought to be in the
penitentiary. No wonder that so many of
our merchants fail in business. They are
swindled into bankruptcy by these wan
dering Arabs, these nomads of city life.
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
fianna nd ind |