The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-04-03

fathers and mothers to the church, and II
the greater il authority, then certainly the
less.
Ny charge also to parents is, remember
that this evil of bribery often begins in the
home circle and in the nursery. Do not
bribe your children. Teach them 10 do that
which is right, and not because OF the ten
cents or the orange you will give them
There is great difference between reward
ing virtue and making the profits thereof
the impellinC motive. That man who IS
honest merely because ''honesty is the best
policy is already a moral bankrupt.
My charge is to you in all departments OF
life, steer clear Of bribery, all Of you. Every
man and woman at some time will be
tempted to do wrong for compensation. The
bribe may not be offered in money. 1t may
be offered in social position. Let US remem
ber that there is a day coming when the
most secret transaction Of private life and
Of public life will come up for public repre-
hension. We can not bribe death, we can
not bribe sickness, we can not bribe the
grave, we can mot bribe the judgments os
that God who thunders against this sin.
''Fien said Cardinal Beaufort. ''tie! can't
death be hire5s is money nothings must
die, and so rich! if the owning Of the whole
realm would save mel could get it by policy
or by purchase-by money" No; death
would not be hired then; he will not be
hired now. Men Of the world often regret
that they have to leave their money mere
when they 90 away from the world. You
can tell from what they say in their last
hours that one of their chief sorrows is that
they have to leave their money. break
that delusion tell that bribe taker that he
will take his money with him. God will
wrap it up in your shroud, or put it in the
ralm Of your hand in resurrection, and there
it will lie, not the cool, bright, shining
gold as it was on the day when you sold
your vote and your moral principle; but
there it will lie, hot metal, burning and
consuming your hand forever. Or, If there
be enough Of it for chain, then it will fall
from the wrist clanking the fetters OF an
eternal captivity. The 'bribe is an everlast-
ing possession. You take it for time, you
take It for eternity. Some day in the next
world, when you ere longing for sympathy,
YOU will feel on your cheek kiss. Looking
up you will find it to be Judas, who took
thirty pieces of silver as bribe ard finished
the bargain by putting an infamous kiss on
the pure cheek Of his divine Master.
Another wrong use of money! is seen inthe
abuse of trust funds. Every man during the
course Of his life, on larger or smaller
scale. has the property Of others committed
to his keeping. He is so far safety deposit,
he is an administrator, and holds in his
hand the interest Of the family of a deceased
friend. Or he Is an attorney, and through
his custody goes the payment from debtor to
creditor. or he is the collector for business
house, which comsensates him for the re-
spons!bility; OF. he is a treasurer for chari-
table institution, and he holds aims con-
tripnted for the suffering; or heiS an Official
Of the city or the State, or the nation, and
taxes, and subsidies, and salaries, and sup
plies are in his keeping. 1t is as solemn
a trust as God can make it. It is concen-
trated and multiplied condolences. On that
man depends the support Of q bereft house
hold, or the morals Of dependents, or the
right movement Of thousand wheels OF
social mechanism. A man may do what he
will with his own, but he who abuses trust
funds, in that one act commits thett, 1aise-
hood, perjury, and becomes. IN all the Inten-
sity Of the word, miscreant- How many
widows and orphans there are with MOTH
ing between them and starvation but a
sewing machine or held up out Of the
vortex OF destruction simply by the thread
Of a needle, red with their own hearts
blood, who little while ago had, by father
and husband. left them competency. what
is the mattera The administrators or the
executors have sactifced it-running risks
with it that they would not have dared to
encounter in their own private affairs.
How often it is that man will earn i've
lihood by the sweat of his brow, and then
die, anu within few months all the estate
goes into the stock gambling rapids OF wall
street. How often it IS that you have known
the man to whom trust funds We're COM
mitted taking them out Of the savings bank
and from trust companies and administra-
tors, turning old homesteads into hard cash,
and then putting the entire estate into the
vortex Of speculation. Embezzlement Is an
easy word to pronounce, but 1t has ten
thousand ramiications of horror.
There is not a city that has not suffered
from the abuse of trust funds. Where IS
the court house, or the city hall, or the jail,
or the post-ofice, or the hospital that IN the
building Of it has not had political job?
Long before the new court house in New
York City was completed, it cost over sl2,-
ooo. coo. Five million six hundred and sixty
three thousand dollars for furniture. For
plastering and repairs, S2,310,C0). For
plumbing and gas works, s1,23l,Sl7. For
awnings, $2a,5jS Thebl!s for three months
soming to the nice little sun Of SIS, l5l, 1889
There was not an honest brick, or stone, or
lath or nail, or foot OF plumbing, or inch Of
plastering, or ink stand, or door knob IN the
whole establishment
That bad example was followed in many
Of the cities which did not steal quite so
much because there was not so much to
steal. There ought to be Closer inspec-
tion, and there ought to be less opportunity
for embezzlement. Lest man shall take
fye-cent piece that does not belong to him
the conductor on the city horse car must
sound his bell at every payment, and we
are very cautious about small offenses, but
give plenty of opportunity for sinners on
large scale to escape. For boy who steals
a loaf of bread from corner grocer 70 keep
his mother from starving to death,
prison; but for dcfranGers who abscond
with half million Of dollars castle on
the Rhine, or, waiting until the offense is
forgotten, then a castle on the Hudson!
Another remark needs to be made, and
that is that people ought not to go into
places, into business orinto positions where
the temptation is mightier than their char
acter. If there be large sums of money to
be handled and the man is not sure Of his
own integrity; you have no right to run an
uuseaworthy craft into an euroclydon. A
man can tell by the sense Of weakness or
strength in the presence of bad oppor-
tunity whether he is in safe place. How
many parents make an awful mistake when
they put their boys in banking houses, and