Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-04-18

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to come, and will make five inaccurate
prophesies out of five hundred. All this
makes me solicitous in regard to young
men, and 1 want to make them nervous in
regard to the construction of unpayable
debts. give you paragraph of my own
experience:
Ny first settlement as pastor was In
village. Ny salary was $500 and par
sonage. The amount seemed enormous to
me. l said to myself: what! all this for
one year:" was afraid Of getting world
ly under so much prosperity! 1resolved
to invite the congregation 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 that nothing
was too good for them we piled all the
luxuries on the table. ] never completed
the undertaking. At the end of six
months 1 was in financial despair. l
found what every young man finds in
time to save himself or too late, that you
must measure the size of a mans body be-
fore you begin to cut the cloth for his
coat
Now he is dead and you say: "Of course
they will let him alone" O, no! Now
they are watchful to see whether there
sequies, to see whether there is any USE
less handle on the casket to see whether
there is any surplus plat on 1.-THE shroud,
to see whether the hearse is costly or
cheap, to see whether the flowers sent to
the casket have been bought by the family
or donated, to see in whose name the deed
to the grave is made out. Then they ran
sack the bereft household, the books, the
hn h. .hoi fa
the piano, the mattresses, the pillow on
which he dies. Cursed be debt! For the
sake of your own happiness, for the sake
of your good morals, for the sake of your
immortal soul, for Gods sake, young man,
as far as possible keep out of it.
When a young man wilfully and of
choice, having the comforts of life. goes
into the contraction of unpayable debts he
knows not into what he goes. The credit
ors get after the debtor; the pack of
hounds in full cry and alas! for the rein
deer. They jingle his doorbell before he
gets up in the morning, they jingle his
doorbell after he has gone to bed at night.
They meet him as he comes off his front
steps. They send him postal card, or
letter, in curtest style, telling him 10 pay
up. They attach his goods. They want
cash. or note at thirty days, or a note on
demand. They call him a knave. They
say he lies. They want him disciplined
at the church. They want him turned out
of the bank. They come to him from this
side, and from that side, and from behind,
and from above, and from beneath, and
he is insulted and gibbeted, and sued, and
sworn at until he gets the nervous dys-
pepsia, gets neuralgia, gets liver COM
plant, gets heart disease, gets convulsive
disorder, gets consumption.
Second-But think more young men
are slaughtered through irreligion. Take
away a young mans religion and you
make him the prey of evil. We all know
that the Bible is the only perfect system
of morals. Now if you want to destroy
the young mans morals take the Bible
away. How will you do that? Well, you
will caricature his reverence for the
Scriptures, you will take all those Incl
dents of the Bible which can be made
mirth of-Jonah's whale, Samson's foxes,
Adams rib-then you will caricature &C.
centric Christians or inconsistent Chris
tains, then you will pass off as your own
all those hackneyed arguments against
Christianity which are as old as Tom
Paine, as old as Voltaire old as sin. Now
you have captured his Bible and you have
AIKEN his strongest fortress; the way is
comparatively clear and all the gates of
his soul are set open in invitation to the
sins of earth and the sorrow of death, that
they may come in and drive the stake for
their encampment
A steamer fifteen hundred miles from
shore, with broken rudder and lost COM
pass, and hulk leaking fifty gallons an
hour is better off than young man when
you have robbed him of his Bible. Have
you ever noticed how despicably mean it
is to take away the worlds Bible without
substitute? 1t is meaner than
to come to a sick man and steal his me IL
cine, meaner than to come to a cripple
and steal his crutch, meaner than to come
to pauper and steal his crust, meaner
than to come to poor man and burn his
house down. 1t is the worst of all lar
cenies to steal the Bible, which has been
the crutch and medicine and food to so
many. What a generous and magnani-
nous business infidelity has gone into!
This splitting up of lifeboats and taking
away of fire escapes and extinguishing of
light houses.
1 come out and say to such people,
what are you doing all this for?" 60"
they say, lust for fun" 1t is such fun to
see Christians try 10. hold on to their
Bibles! Many of them have lost loved
ones and have been told that there is a
and it is such fun to tell them
there will be no resurrection! Many be-
lieve that Christ came to carry the bur-
dens and heal the wounds of the world,
and it is such fun to tell them they will
have to be their own savior! Think of
the meanest being you ever heard of; then
go down a thousand feet underneath it
and you will find yourself at the top of
flight of stairs a hundred miles long;
20 to the bottom of the stairs and
you will find ladder a thou |
sand miles long; then go to the |
loot of the ladder and look off a preci- |
Dice half as far as from here to China and |
you will find the headquarters of the |
neanness that would rob this world of its |
only comfort in life, its only peace in |
Heath and its only hope for immortality. |
Slaughter a young mans faith in God and |
here is not much more left to slaughter.
Now, what has become of the slaugh- |
tered: Well, some of them are in their
'ather's or mothers house broken down in
health, waiting to die; others are in the
hospital; others are in Greenwood, or
-ather their bodies are, for their souls
have gone on to retrbution. Not much
prospect for young man who started life
With good health and good education, and
/ Christian example set him, and oppor-
unities of usefulness, who gathered all
lis treasures and put them in one box and
hen dropped it into the sea-
Now, how is this wholesale slaughter to
'e stopped? There is not person in the
louse but is interested in that question.
Z oung man, arm yourself The object of