The Yazoo sentinel. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1878-1916, 1891-05-07

Ia toll day IN and day out. until cur hands y
clustered and our arms ache and our bra
10 gets numb, and then be called upon to suI
70 port what In the United States are abot
ot Two million ioafers. They are q very DANCE
ie Gus class. Let the public authorities kee
Vi their eyes on them.
In Again, among the uprootfng Glasses pIar.
a the oppressed poor Poverty to q certaiI
d extent Is Christening, but after that, when 4
70 drives man to the wall and he hears ~
e children cry in vain for bread It sometime,
" makes him desperate. think that there ar
Il thousands OF honest men lacerated into vapa
y Dondism. There are men crushed undel
Il burdens for which they are not half paid
a while there is no excuse for criminality
q even In oppression, state 10 as a simple fac
4 that much OF the scoundrelism Of the com
% munity is consequent upon illtreatment
d There are many men and women battered
y ana bruised and stung until the hour Of de
/. SPAR has come, and they stand with the
y feroctty OF wild beast which. pursued until
. IL can run no longer, turns round, foanlinc
: and bleeding, 10 fight the hounds.
There is q vast underground New York
I ana Brooklyn life that is appalling and
: shameful. IL wallows and steams with purre-
{ faction. You go down the stairs which are
wet and decayed with filth, and at the bot
tom you find the poor victims on the floor
J cold, sick, three-fourths dead, sinking Into a
still darker corner under the CLEAN OF the
, lantern OF the police There has not been a
breath of fresh air in that room for five
, years, literally. The broken sewer empties
its contents upon them, and they lie at night
in the swimming filth. There they are, men,
, women, children; black, whites: Mary Mag
dalen without her repentance. and Lazarus
without his God. These are ''the dives into
which the pickpockets and the thieves 60 as
well as great many who would like adiffer-
emit life but cannot get it.
These places are the sores of the city,
IanAv al
the underlying volcano that threatens us
with Caracas earthquake. 1t rolls and
roars and surges and heaves and rocks and
blasphemes and dies, and there are only two
outlets for 1.-THE police court and the Pot
ter's field In other words they must either
! go to prison or to hell. Oh, you never saw
] II, you say. You never will see it until on
the day when those staggering wretches
shall come up in the light Of the Judgment
throne, and while all hearts are being re-
vealed, God viii ask you what you did to
help them.
There is another layer of poverty and des-
titution not SO squalid, but almost as help
less You hear the incessant wailing for
bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes are
sunken. Their cheek bones stand out. Their
hands are damp with slow consumption.
Their flesh is pulled up with dropsies. Their
breath Is like that of the charnel house.
They hear the roar of the wheels of fashion
overhead and the gay laughter Of men and
maidens and wonder why God gave to others
so much and to them so little. Some of them
thrust into an infldelIty like that of the poor
German girl who, when told in the midst of
her wretchedness that God was good, said
mo; no good God. Just look at me- No
good God"
In this cluster of cities whose cry OF want
/ interpret there are said to be, as far as
can figure it up from the reports, about
three hundred thousand honest poor whoa
dependent upon individual, city and State
charities. If all their voices could come up
at once it would be groan that would shake
the foundations of the city and bring all
earth and heaven to the rescue. But for the
most part it suffers unexpressed. 1t sits IN
silence crashing its teeth and sucking the
blood Of its own arteries waiting for the
Judgment day. Oh, l should not wonder II
on that day it would be found out that some
of us had some things that belonged to them,
some extra garment which might have made
them comfortable in. cold days; some bread
thrust into the ash barrel that might have ap.
peased their hunger for a little while; some
wasted candle or gas jet that might have kin
aA.-slz.aaaas- aosraa fraaao on tine
ceiling that would have given them a roof;
some Jewel which, brought to that orphan
girl in time, might have Kept her from being
crowded off the precipices to an unclean life;
some New Testament that would have told
them of Him who 'came to seek that which
was lost"
Oh this wave Of vagrancy and hunger and
nakedness that dashes against our front
door step! If the roofs of all the houses Of
restitution could be lifted so we could look
down into them just as God looks, whose
nerves would be strong enough to stand it?
And yet there they are. The fifty thousand
sewing women in these three cities, some Of
them in hunger and cold, working night
after night, until sometimes the blood spIrts
from nostril and lips.
How well their grief was voiced by that
woman who stood by her invalid
husband and invalid child, and said to the
city missionary: II am down hearted.
Everything's against us; and then there are
other things" What other thingsT said
the city missionary. ''Oh," she replied, my
SIM" What do you mean by thats ''Well,h
she said, Il never hear or see anything good.
It's work from Monday morning till Satur-
day night, and then when Sunday comes /
can't 90 out and l walk the floor, and, it
makes me tremble to think that l have got
to meet God. oh, sir, it's so hard for u.s.
We have to work So and then we have so
much trouble, and then we are getting along
so poorly; and see this wee little thing grow
ing weaker and weaker; and then to think
we are not getting nearer to God, but float
ing away from Him. Oh, sir, l DO wish I
was ready to die"
/ should not wonder if they had a good
deal better time than we in the future to
make up for the fact that they had such
bad time here. II would be just like Jesus
10 say: Come up and take the highest seats
You suffered with Ne on earth; now be
ylorifed with Me in heaven" Oh, thou
weeping One of Bethany Oh, thou
lying One of the cross Have mercy on the
starving, freezing, homeless poor Of these
great cities,
l have preached this sermon for four or
Eve practical reasons: Because / want you
10 know who are the uprooting classes Of
society. Because / want you to be more
IN your charities. Because
want your hearts open with generosity,
and your hands open with charity. Be
cause want you to be made the sworn
friends of all city evangelization, and all
newsboys' lodging houses, and all chidren's
aid societies, and Dorcas societies, under the
skillful manipulation Of wives and mothers
and sisters and daughters; let the spare gar
nents of your wardrobes be fitted to the
limbs of the wan and shivering. l should
lot wonder If that hat that you give should
,ome back a jeweled coronet, or if that gar
nent that you hand out from your wardrobe
hould mysteriously be whitened, and some
low wrought into the Saviour's own robe,
o in the last day He would run His hand
,ver it and say, Il was naked and ye clothed
Me- That would be putting your garments
% glorious uses.
But more than that, 1 have preached the.
ernon because thought IN the contrast
-ou would see how very kindly God had
lealt with you, and / thought that thou
ands Of YOU would 60 10 your comfortable
ZONES and sit at your well-illed tables and
\ the warn, rpoistors and look At the round