News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-04-18
SUNDAYS SERMON.
ONE OF REV. DIR. FALMAGES
STERLING DISCOURSES.
Subject: "Thc Slang liter preached
at st. Louis, MOI

aIcc; but after while the men and the boys
close III upon him with sticks and stones and
shouting, and drive him through bars and
into doorway, where he is fastened. and
with a well aimed stroke the ak fells
him. and so the anticipation of the reClolent
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 whflc in
fluences with darker hue and swarthier arm
close in upon him, and he finds that instead
OF making an excursion into garden ne has
been driven ''as an OK 60 the slaughter
/. We arc apt to blame young men for
being destroyed when we ought TO blame the
influences that destroy them Society
slaughteIs great many young men by the
behest: you must keep up appearances;
whatever be your sal2ry, you must dress as
well as others, you must vino and brandy as
many friends, you must smoke as costly
cigars, you must give as expensive entertain
ment5, and you must live in as fashionable
boarding house. If you haven't the money,
borrow If you can't borrow mako false
entry, or substract here and there a bill from
bundle Of bank bills; you viii only have to
make the deception little while; IN a few
months or in year or two, you can make
all right. Nobody viii be hurt by it, nobody
viii 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. There is nothing
wrong ABOUT borrowing money. mere Is
hardly d man in the house but has sometime;
borrowed money Vast estates has been built
on n borrowed dollar. But there are two
kinds Of borrowed money. Money borrowed
Tor the purpose of starting or keeping
up legitimate enterprise 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 coat,
however plain, and then you borrow money
II Al. n.
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 q 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 desDot-
ism of being in debt more of them would keep
cut of it. What did debt do for
above the centuries? 1t induced him
TO take brides and convict himself
us Il 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 bis pictures and statuary. Better
for him if he had minded the maxim which
he hal cilisclel over the fireplace at Abbots-
ford; Nv aste 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-
pcctatiOn of paying for them, or go into
debts which You cannot meet, you steal Just
SO much money. If l 20 into q grocer's store,
and buy sugars and coffces and meats, with
nc capacity TO pay for them and no inten-
ton of paying for them, | am more
dishonest than if go into
the store, and when the grocer's
face is turned the other way | fill my pockets
with the articles Of merchandise and carry
off ham. In the one case / take the mer-
chants time and l take the time of his mes
senger 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 my
self, and ! transfer the goods without any
trouble to him. In other words, q sneak
thief is not so bad as q 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 groceTs and meat shops and apotheca-
ries. They owe everybody within half mile
Of where they now live, and next Nay they
will move into q distant part of the
city, finding a 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
disappointed 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 predeces-
scr 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 tho
new neighboT, and he, the new neighbor,
with great conpiaccncy and with an AIR of
afiuence, orders the finest steaks and the
highest priced sugars, and the best of the
canned fruits, and, perhaps, all the news
papers. And the debts viii keep on accunu-
lating until he gets his goods on the Both of
next April in the furniture cart.
Now, let me say, il there are any such per-
f1f~.h how o,.1 for
your own convcnicnces, you had better re-
move to some greatly distant part of the city.
Il is too bad that, having had all tho trouble
OF consuming the goods, you should also have
tue trouble of being dunnedi And let me say
that II 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 in business
They are swindled into bankruptcy by these
wandering Arabs, these nomads of city life
They cheat the grocer out of the green APP
pies which make them sick the physician
who attends their distress and the under.
takcr who fits them out for departure from
the neighboThOod where they owe everybody
when they pay the debt of nature, tho only
debt they ever do pay!
Now Om young men are coming ND in this
dcpraVed state Of commercial ethics, and
am solicitous about them. / want to warn
them against being slaughtered on the sharp
edges OF debt. on 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 a law which controls even those
things that seem haphaZard. ! have been
told by those who have observed that If is
possible TO calculate Just how many letters
viii be sent to the Dead Letter Office every
year through Inisdirection; that it is pos
sible TO calculate just how many let
ISIS will be detained for lack of post
age stamps through the forgetfulncss of
the sendeTs, and that it is possible TO tell just
how many people viii fail in the streets t-y
slipping on an orange peel. In other words,
there are no accidents. The most insiguii-
can't event you ever heard of is the link be-
tween two etcFnities-tlIc eternity of the past
; pIlt the eternity of the future Head tho
out ut the right goal
Bring me young man and tell me what
his physical health is and what lis mental
calibeT, and what his habits and win tell
you what will be his destiny for this world
and his destiny for the world to come and
VIII not make i've inaccurate prophecies out
OF the i've hundred. All this makes mo
soiIcItious in regard 10 young men, and |
want TO make them nervous in regard to the
contraction Of unpayablc debts. I give
you paragraph from my own experience.
My first settlement as pastor was in n vii
Iagc- by salary was $500 and a parsonage
The amount seemed enormous TO nc | said
to myself: u hati III this for one yeary' /
was aIlald OF getting worldly under so n1ucil
prosperity / resolved to invite all the con-
gregatOu to my house in groups of twenty
five each. We began, and as they were the best
congregation in all the world, and we
felt nothing was too good for them, we piled
all the luXuries on the table | never com
pleted the undertaking. At the end of six
months | was in financial despair. ] found
what every young man learns in time to save
HIMSELF or too late, that you must measure
the size Of mans body before you begin to
cut the cloth for his coat.
When young man willfully and OF choice,
having the comforts of life, goes into the
contraction Of uHpa vable debts he knows not
into what he goes. The creditors get after the
debtor, the pack Of bounds in full cry. aud
alas for the reindeer. They jingle bis door
bell before he gets up in the morning.
they jingle his door bell after he has
gone to bed at night. They meet him as he
comes Oft his front steps. They send him a
postal card, 'or a letter, in curtcst style relL
inc him to pay up. They attach his goods
They want cash, or a note at thirty days, or
Ihcy say he lies They want him dis
cipiined at the church. They want
bin turned out Of the bank They
come az him from this side, and from that
side, and from before and from behind and
from above, and from beneath and he is in
suited and 9ibbcted, and sued and dunned
and sworn at, until he gets the nervous dys-
Pcpsia, gets neuralgia, gets liver complaint
gets heart disease, gets convulsive disorder
gets consumption.
Now he is dead, and you say: ''Of
course they viii let him alone" Oh not
Now they are watchful to see whether there
are any unnecessary expenses at the
obsequies, 70 see whether there is any useless
handle on the casket to see whether there is