Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-10-12

thrift habits, misery procligities and
dissipation are the names OF sone Or the
shears with which men are every day
made powerless. They have strewn the
earth with the carcasses OF giants and
filed the great prison house with de-
strOycd SaInsous, who sit grinding the
mills OF despair, their locks shgrn and
! their eyes out. IL parents only knew 20
what temptations their children were
subjected they would be more earnest in
their prayers and more careful about
their example. No young man escapes
having the pathway Of sin pictured IN
bright colors before him.
The first time | ever Saw q c.ty-it
was the city Of Philadelphia wSs q
mere lad. ] stopped at q hotel, and |
remember in the event:de acorrupt man
piled me with his Internal art. He saw
| was green. lie wanted 90 show me tho
sights of the town. He painted the path
of sin until it looked like emerald: but
/ was afraid Of him. / showed back
from the basilisk. made up my mind
he was 4 basilisk. remember how he
reeled his chair round in front OF me
and with a contracted and diabolical eff
fort attempted to destroy my seal; but
there were good angles in the air that
night. 1t was no good resolution on
my part, but il was the all encompass
ing grace of a good God that delivered
me. Beware! beware! . young man!
Taere is q way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof is
death. If all the victims of an impure
life in all lands and ages could be gath
cred together, they would mako q host
vaster thar that which Aerxes e.
across the Hellespoint, than Timorr led
across India, than William the Con-
queror led across England, than Abou-
Bekr led across Syria; and IL they could
be stretched out insingle file across this
continent, ! think the vanguard of the
host would stand on the beach of the
Pacific while yet the rear guard stood on
the beach of the Atlantic.
/ say this not because / expect to re-
claim any one that has gone astray in
this fearful path. but because | want 70
utter n warning for those who stillmain-
tain their integrity. The cases Of re-
clamation of those who have given
themselves fully up TO an impure life
are so few, probably you Go not know
one of them. ! have seen q good many
start out on that road. How many have
| seen come back? Not ne that / now
think Of. 1t seems as if the spell OF
death is on them and no human voice or
the voice Of God can break the spell.
Their feet are hoppled, their wrists are
handcuifed. They have around them a
gi-dle Of reptiles punched at the waist,
fastening them to an iron doom; every
time they breathe the forked tongues
strike them and they strain to break
away until the tendons snaP and the
blood exudes; and amidst their contor-
tons they cry out: Take me back 10
my fathers house. Where is mother?
Take me home! Take me home.'
Do / stand before q man today the
locks of whose strength are being toyed
with, let me tell you 20 escape lest the
shears Of destruction take your moral
and your spiritual integrity. Do you
not see your sandals beginning 10 curl
on that red hot path? This day in the
name of Almighty God tear of the
identifying veil and the embroidered
mantle of this old bag OF iniquity, and |
show you the ulcers and the bloody
ichor and the cancered lip and the part
ing joints and the macerated limbs and
the wriggling putrefaction, and l
rors! In the stiffness OF this
Sabbath hour / lift a warning. Remem-
Der il is much easier TO form bad habits
than to get clear of them; in n min
ute of time you may get into a sin from
which all eternity cannot get you out.
Oh, that the voice Of Gods truth
might drown the voice of Delilah.
Come in into the ways of pleasantness
and the paths OF peace, and by the
grace OF n ~pardoning God start for
thrones Of honor and dominion upon
which you may reign, rather than
travel the road to a dungeon where
the destroyed grind in the mills of de-
spair, their locks sho-n and their eyes
out.