Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-04-17

II huOW ~ WCll 10 uO llldb OuC Nllluln WuO
escapes only opens the door for othor
! criminalities. When these people 70
unarrested and unpublished, it is putting
a high premium upon vice, and saying 10
the young criminals of this country,
"What safe thing il is 10 be great
criminal" Let the law swoop upon them.
Let it be known In this country that crime
will have no quarter, that the detectives
are after it, that the police club is being
brandished, that the iron door of the
prison is being opened, that the Judge is
ready TO call on the case. Too great
leniency to criminals is too great severity
to society.
Again: in your efforts to arrest this
plague of crime, you need to consider the
idle population. or course, do not refer
TO people who are getting old, or TO the
sick, or to those who cannot get work; hut
tell you to look out for those athletic men
and women who will not work. / do not
care who the man is, you cannot afford to
be idle. 1t is from the idle classes that the
criminal classes are made up. Character,
like water, gets putrid If it stands still too
| long. l have watched these do-nothings
who spend their time strolSing their boards,
and re-touching their toilet, and criticizing
industrious people, and pass their days and
| nights in bar-rooms and club-houses,
loungiDg and smoking and chewing and
card-playing. These men for awhile smoke
the best cigars, and wear the best clothes,
and move in the highest sphere; but have
noticed that very soon they come down to
the prison, the almshouse or stop at the
gallows.
In this cluster of cities, whose cry Of
want interpret, there are said to be, as
far as l can figure it up from the reports,
about three hundred thousand honest poor
who are dependent upon individual, city or
state charities. If all their voices could
come up at once. il would he groak that
would shake the foundation 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, should not wonder il on that day it
would be found out that some of US had
some things that belonged to them; somo
extra garment which might have made
them comfortable in cold days. some bread
thrust into the ash barrel that might have
appeased their hunger for little while;
some wasted candle or gas Jet that might
have kindled up their darkness; some
fresco on the ceiling that would have given
them roof; some jewel which, brought to
that orphan girl in time, might have kept
her from being crowded off the precipices
OF an unclean life; some New Testament
that would have told them of him who
came to seek and save 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 70 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 spurts
from nostril and lips. How well their
grief was voiced by that despairing
woman who stood by her invalid husband
and invalid child, and said TO the city mis-
sionary: Il am down hearted. Every
things against US; and then there are
other things" what other things?"
said the city missionary. TO-" she re
piled, ''my sim" "What do you mean by
that?' well, " she said, Il never hear or
soc anything good. It's work from Mon
day morning till Saturday night, and then
when Sunday comes l can't go out, and
walk the floor, ard it makes me tremble to
think that have got to meet God. o sir,
it's so hard for us. 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 growing weaker
and weaker; and then to think we are not
getting nearer to God, but floating away
from him. o, sir. l do wish / was ready
10 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 a
bad time here 1t would be just like Jesus
to say: "Come up and take the highest
seats You suffered with me on earth;
now be glorihed with me in heaven" o,
thou weeping One of Bethany! o, thou
dying One of the cross! Have mercy on
the starving, freezing, homeless poor of
these great cities!
have preached this sermon for four or
five practical reasons: Because l want you
TO know who are tho uprooting classes of
society. Because l want you TO be more
discriminating In your charities. Because
1 want your hearts open with generosity,
and your hands open with charity.
Because want you to be made sworn
friends Of all city evangelization, and all
newsboys' lodging houses, and all
children's aid societies and Dorcas
societies, under the skillful manipulation
of wives and mothers and sisters and
daughters; let the spare garments Of your
wardrobes be fitted to the limbs of the wan
and shivering. l should not wonder If
that hat that you gave should come back a
jeweled coronct, or If that garment that
you hand out from your wardrobe should
mysteriously be whitened, and somehow
wrought into the Saviour's own robe, so in
the last day he would run his hand over it.
and say: Il was naked and ye clothed me.
That would be putting your garments to
glorious uses.
But more than that, have preached the
sermon because l thought in the contrast
you would see how very kindly God had
dealt with you, and 1 thought that thou
sands of you would so TO your comfortable
homes, and sit at your well-flled tables, and
at the warm registers, and look at the
round faces of your children, and that then
you would burst into tears at the review
| of Gods goodness TO you and that you
would go to your room and lock the door,
and kneel down and say: 20 Lord, / have
been an migrate; make me thy child. O
Lord, there are 80 many hungry, and un-
| clad. and unsheltered today, / thank thee