Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-04-17

then 90 down a thousand feet underneath
it, and you will find yourself at the top of a
stairs hundred miles long; go to the bot
tom of the srairs, and you will find ladder
a thousand miles long; then go to the foot
of the ladder and look off precipice half
ns far as from here to China, and you Will
find the headquarters of the meanuess that
would rob this world of it's only comfort in
life, its only peace in death and its only
hope for immortality. Slaughter a young
mans faith in God, and there is not much
more left to slaughter.
Now what has become of the slaughtered?
Well. some of them are in heir fathers or
mothers house broken down in health,
waiting to die; others are in the hospital;
others are in Greenwood, or, rather, their
bodies are, for their souls have gone on to
retribution. Not much prospect for a
Young man who started life with good
health and good e6 ueation, and Christian
example set him, and opportunity of useful
ness, who gathered all his treasures and put
them in one box, and then dropped it into
the sea.
Now, how is this wholesale slaughter to
be stopped? There is not person in the
house but is interested in that question:
Young man, arm yourself. The object of
my sermon is to put weapon iu each of
your hands for your own defense. Wait
not for Young Mems Christian Associations
TO protect you, or churches to protect you.
Appealing to God for help, take care of
yourself
First have a room somewhere that you
can call your own Whether it be the back
parlor of fashionable bording house, or
room 10 the fourth story of a cheap lodging,
I care not. Only have that one room your
fortress. Let not the dissipator or unclean
step over the threshold. If they come up
the long fight of stairs and knock at the
door meet them face to face and kindly,
yet firmly refuse them admittapce. Have
few family portraits on the wall, if you
brought them with you from your country
home Have Bible on the stand. If you
can afford it and you can play on one, have
an instrument of musc-harp or flute, or
cornet, or melodeou, or violin, or piano -
Every morning before you leave that room.
pray. Every night after you come home in
that room, pray. Make that room your
Gibraltar, your Sebastopol, your Mount
Zion. Let no bad book or newspaper come
into that room, any more than you would
allow a Cobra to coil on your table.
Take care of yourself. Nobody else will
take care of you. Your help will not come
up two or three or four flights of stairs;
your help will come through the roof. down
from heaven from that God who 10 the six
thousand years of the worlds history never
betrayed a young man who tried to be good
and Christian. Let me say in regard to
your adverse worldly circumstances, in
passing. that you are on level now with
those who are f1.ially to succeed. Mark my
words, young man, and think of it thirty
years from now. You will find that those
who thirty years from now are the million
aires of this country, who are the orators of
the country, who are the poets of the coun-
try, who are the strong merchants of the
country, who are the great pbilanthropists
of the country-might'est in Church and
State-are this morning on level with
you. not an inch above, and you in straiten-
ed circumstances row.
Herschel earned his living by playing
violin at parties, and in the interstices of
the play he weuld go out and look up at
the midnight heavens, the fields of his i'm
mortal coaques's. George Stephenson rose
from being the foreman in colliery to be
the most renowned of the world engineers.
No outfit, no capital to start with! Young
man, 90 down to the Mercantile library and
get souae books and read of what wonder
ful mechanism God gave you in your hand,
in your foot, in your eye. in your ear, and
then ask some doctor to take you into the
dissectiug room aud illustrate to you what
yon have read about. and never again CON-
mis the blasphemy of saying you have no
capital to start with. Equipped! Why, the
poorest young mau in this house is equip
ned ss ouly the God of the whole universe
could afford to equip him. Then his body
"a very poor affair compared with his won
derful soul-oh, that Is what makes me soli-
oitous. am not 80 much anxious about
you, young man, because you have SO little
to do with, as l am anxious about you be-
cause gou have much to risk and lose OF
gain.
There is no class Of persons that so stir
as young mes IN great cities.
Not quite enough salary to live ens end all
the temptations that come from that deheis.
Invited on all hands to drink, and their ex-
hausted nervous system seeming to demand
stimulus. Their religion carieatured by the
most of the clerks in the store and most of
the operatives in the factory The rapids
of temptation and death rushing against
that young man folty miles the hour, and
he ia a frail boat headed up stream, with
nothing but broken oar to work with.
Unless Almighty God help them they will
goundsr.
Ah! when told you to take care of your
self YOU misunderstood me if you thought
meant you are to depend upoo human re-
solution, which may be dissolved in the
foam of the wine cup, or may be blown out
with the first gust of temptation. Here is
tha helmet, the sword of Lord God AL.
mighty. Clothe yourself in that pannply,
and you ahall not be put to confusieu. Sin
paws we'll neither 10 this world nor the
next, but right-Slipkiug and right-believing
and right.acting wai take you in safely
thr ,ugh this life and in tssGsport through
tho pext
| never eball forget a prayer beard
young man make some fifteen years ago
It was very short prayer, bat it vas
tremendous prayer: sOh Lord, help as.
We fiud it so very easy to do Yong 500 so
hard to do right. Lord, help u.s." wat
prayer, l warrant you, reached the ear or
God, and reached his heart And there are
10 this house hundred men who have
found out-a thousand young men, perhaps.
who have found out that very thing. 1t is
SO very easy to do wrong, and so hard to do
right.
l got letter, only one paragraph of
which shall read: "Having moved around
somewhat 7 have run across many youDg
men of intelligence, ardent striveis after
that will o'-the wisp, fortune, and of one of
these would speak. He was young Eug-
lishman of twenty three or four years, who
came to Ne~ York. where he had acquaint-
ances, with barely sufficient te keep him a
couple of weeks. He had been tenderlv
reared, perhaps | should say too tenderly,
and was not used to earning his living, and
found it extremely difficult to get any posi-
tion that he was capable Of filling. After
many vain efforts in this direction he found
himself on Sunday evening in Brooklyn.
near your church, with about three dollars
left of his small capital Providence seem
ed to lead him to your door, and he deter.
mined to go in and hear you.
''He told me his going to hear you that
night was undoubtedly the turning point in