Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-12-14

nave IOuHQ UIlaJ UIlefc are Il great l1aIly
things in the Bible that are ridiculous.
Now, for instance all that about the
serpent being cursed to crawlin the Gar
den of Eden because it had tempted
our first parents; why, you see how alb
surd it is; you can tell from the very or
ganization of the serpent that it had to
crawl; it crawled before it was cursed
just as well as it crawled afterward; you
can tell from its organization that it
crawled. Then all that story about the
whale swallowing Jonah, or Janah swal-
lowing tie whale, which was it? 1t don't
make any difference, the thing is absurd
it is ridiculous to suppose that man
could have gone down through the jaws
of II sea monster and yet k ept his life:
why his respiration would have been
hindered he would have been digested;
the gastric Juice would have dissolved
the ibrine and cOagulated albulnen,
and Jonah would have been changed
from prophet into chyie. Then all that
story about the miraculous conception
why, it is perfectly disgraceful! Oh,
sir, l believe in the light OF nature
! This is the Nineteeth century. Prog
ress, sir; progress. I don't blame Won
but after you have been in town as
long as l have you will think just as I
! do.
Thousands of young men are going
! down under that process day by day,
and there is only here and there a
| young man who can endure this artil
| lery of scorn. They are giving up Their
Bibles The light of nature! They
have the light of nature in China; they
have it in Hindostan; they have it in
Ceylon. Flowers there stars there
waters there, winds there; but no civil
Iization, no homes no happiness. Ian
Gets to cut, and juggernauts to fall I'M
der, and hooks to swing to; but no
happiness. tell you, my young brother,
we have to take Il religion of some kind.
We have to choose between four or
five. Shall it be the Koran of the Mo
hanmedan, or the Slaster of the Hin
doc or the Xendavesta of the Persian,
or the Confucus writings of the Chi
nese, or the Holy Scriptures? Take
what you will; God helping me. | will
take the Bible. Light for all darkness;
rock for all foundation; balm for all
wounds 4 glory that lifts its pillars
of fire over the wilderness march.
Do not give up your Bibles. If these
people scott at you as though religion
and the Bible were fit only for weak
minded people, you just tell them you
are not ashamed to be in the company
of Burke the statesman, and Raphael
the painter, and Thorwaldsen the
sculptor, and Mozart the musician, and
Blackstone the lawyer, and Bacon the
philosopher, and Harvey the physician,
and John Milton the poet
Ask them what infidelity has ever
done to lift the fourteen hundred mil
lions of the race out of barbarism.
Ask them when infdelity ever institut-
ed a sanitary commission; and, before
you leave their society once and for
ever, tell them that they have insulted
the memory of your Christian father
and spit upon the deathbed of your
mother, and with swine's snOut rooted
up the grave Of your sister who died
believing in the Lord Jesus.
ALL SUFFICIENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES.
Young man, hold on to your Bible;
it is the best book you ever owned. 1t
will tell you how to dress, how to bar
gain, how to walk, how to act, how to
live, how to die. Glorious Bible!
Whether on parchment or paper, in Oc-
tavO or duodecimO, on the center table
of the drawing room or in the counting
room Of the banker Glorious Bible!
Light to our feet and lamp to our path.
Hold on to It'll
The second class of insidiOus tempta-
tions that comes upon our young men
IS led on by the dishonest employer.
Every commercial establishment is a
school In nine cases out of ten the |
principles of the employer become the |
principles of the employee. [ ask the |
older merchants to bear me out in these |
statements.
IT, when you were just starting in |
life, in commercial life, you were told |
that honesty was not marketable, that |
though you might sell all the goods in |
the shop you must not sell your con-
science, that while you were to exercise
ali industry and tact you were not to |
sell your conscience-if you were taught |
that gains gotten by sin were combusti-
bic, and at the moment of ignition
would be blown on by the breath of |
God until all the splendid estate would
vanish into white ashes scattered in the
whirlwind-then that instruction has
been to you precaution and a help
ever since.
There are hundreds of commercial
establishments in our great cities which
are educating a class of young men
who will be the honor of the land, and
there are other establishments which
are educating young men to be nothing
but sharpers. What chance is there
for young man who was taught in an
establishment that it is right to lie, if
it is smart, and that a French label is
all that is necessary to make q thing
French, and that you ought always
to be honest when it pays, and that it
is wrong to steal unless you do it well?
Suppose, now, a young man just
starting in life enters a place of that
kind where there are ten young men,
all drilled in the Infamous practices of
the establishment He is ready to be
taught. The young man has no theory
of commercial ethics. Where is he to
get his theory? He will get the theory
from his employers.
One day he pushes his wit little be-
yond what the establishment demands
of him, and he fleeces a customer until
the clerk is on the verge of being seized
by the law. What is done in the es-
Enlistment? He is not arraigned. The
head of the establishment says to him.
"Now be CAREFUL be careful, young
man; you might be caught; but really
that was splendidly done; you will get
along in the world, I warrant you"
Then that young man goes up until he
becomes head clerk. He has found
there is premium on iniquity.
One morning the employer comes to
the establishment. He goes into his
counting room and throws up his hands
and shouts, 'tWhy the safe has been
robbed" What is the matter? Moth
ing, nothing; only the clerk who has
been practicing a good while on Gus
toners is practicing a little on the en-