Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-02-06
AN ARMCHAIR SERMON.

Sarcasm That Chilis Enthusiasm and Eiut
Love fn Many q Home.
Ii am to kiA a chicken "a thing
| wouldn't do, my dear, Tor Thousand
poundsp do not proceed to do the deed by
cruel and protracted metnods. writes
Amber" in the Chicago Tribune. 1 should
De arrested by the Humane Society If
! went TO work to put poison in the doomed
lows cally ra1ons, or nip it slyly now and
then with red-hot halrpiu
The cat that was killed by care suffered
far more than the cat that persisted by a
quick bullet.
When horse is disabled and unfit for
! service, the merciful man KNOCKS 1t ia the
head with weli-aimed blow, and that's the
last of it But we have different ways of
killing Iowa, and trust, and kindly feeling in
one another's hearts. We make use all too
often, of the North American Indians orig
inal method of protracted torture. And
love, and trust, and kindly feeling, although
they die hard, and are a long time dying.
under the process, are as certainly doomed
as the chicken, the cat and the dis
abled horse are by the blow of the
Ratchet, the sting of the bullet or
the crash of the club. There is
many home to-day where love is
slowly dying under the torture inflicted by
a sarcastic tongue, or where it already lies
dead under the peculiar processes of this
cowardly mode of torment. The drunkard's
WE Is not more to be pitied than the wife of
the cold-blooded husband whose tongue
holds the venom of a dozen serpents.
would rather be mated to man who should
throw Chair at me now and then than to
such husband as we see occasionally, who
murders his wife's peace and happiness
slowly yet surely from day to day with cruel
and biting words of suspicion and contempt.
might dodge the chair, but l couldn't
dodge the word, and, besides, bruises in
ficted on the body hea' under the applica-
ton OF iniment and arnica, but there has no
salve been found yet to cure the hurt of
sarcastic tongue. There are many I'M
happy homes in the world, and many broken
hearts, and there is great cry raised
against the causes therefor A crusade is
even being raised against the giant forces
that combine to break up the harmony of
domestic concord, yet the lesser influences
Tor evil are ignored and forgotten. 1t is as
though we armed ourselves to 60 out and
shoot elephants in country where rabbits
were devastating the crops, or fitted out a
Heet 10 catch whales IL fresh water pond
1ull OF cells and catfish. InteIuperance, and
unfalthfulness, and all the greater causes
OF sorrow in the world homes have ALWAYS
plenty OF armed and steadfast opposers and
Toes, but the little hidden foxes that spoil
the vines run to and fro without molesta-
ton.
1t takes as much heroism often to sit
down and endure for a half-hour the electric
buzz-saw of modern dentist as it takes to
march TO battle behind drum and a flag;
but VINO ever wrote poem to the hero or
heroine of the dentists chaira It takes
more Christian grace to live in the same
house with q sarcastic tongue than to wear
hair-cloth shirt and do iante-sunrise pen
ance, and yet who stops to say word of
comfort to the saint Injured to domestic tor
ment, or learn a lesson from her sublime
patience and enduring courage? 1t is not
gong to be those who march up by and by
and show saber cuts on the body who will
be called heroes, but those who display
scars made in the heart that were silently
endured, who will wear the laurel and the
bay. We all pride ourselves On the Ell.
quette that teaches US to be gentlemen and
ladies' in the drawiug-room or in public
places, but when some of US have learned
the etiquette that teaches US to be moro
gentlemanly and ladylke as fathers and
mothers, sisters and brothers, parents and
children, we shall have learned a new code
The man is 4 coward who is civil only
where he dare not be otherwise, but be-
comes bully behind the closed doors of
his home. What we need is less manner
ism for show, and more courtesy at home.
You would never dare to speak to a lady in
society, sir, IS you speak to your wife and
daughter, and / say you are the worst sort
Il who, r,l-.
ones at home you would not dare
assume to a stranger.
All pollteness that is put on merely for
show is like the stain the cabinet-maker
puts on pine board; poiteness that
amounts to- any thing is in the grain of
the wood not an external application We
make a terrible fuss when our growing
children put a dinner knife to their lips,
yet say nothing when they poster and
h2rass one another with mean aud sarcas-
TIC speeches until good nature flies out the
window and evil temper stalks in at the
door
! VIII take my chance any day to live !.
with the person who commits the solecism
Of putting his knife In his mouth rather /
than with the person who deals in anger /
spesch and inuendo.
Yea take it greatly to heart when the
;lugs get into the roses and your June /
gardens are despoiled of their sweetness
md beauty. And yet there is something
worse that gets into the home, that garden
II delight, when unkind and sarcastic
speech creeps in with its chilling blight. l
ave in my minds eye as l write family
II growing sons and daughters more desc
ate than any garden devoured by slugs
r withered by devastating blight The
ather sits over against every thing that is
spontaneous and ardent and earnest with .
rs cold aud clammy ridicule; the older
BOYS emulate their father, and the girls are
ashamed TO be fresh and natural and enthu-
Iasnc, IS they were meant to be, for fear
u evoSlng laughter and contempt In the
midst sits the mother, dear little fright
med morsel of woman, full of poetic fan
les and immortal enthusiasns stuffed and I
onhned like so many infant Moseses IN bull
ush baskets, with Herod stalking up and
own the bank
If you must murder love, then, in the
cart and home. wherein you ought TO
,lorify and crown il, pray you 90 out and
,et drunk, or rob bank, or skip to Canada
nth defaulter's gripsack; any thing, so