Connecticut western news., 1891-12-17

men and philanthropists to wheel into line, and all the armies of heaven to bear down upon the foe, and we pray Almighty God that with the thunder bolts of his wrath he will strike down and consume all these influences that are attempting to destroy the young men for whom Christ died.
 THE CANT OF "LIBERALTTY."
 The first class of temptations that as saults a young man is led on by the skeptic. He will not admit that he is an infidel or atheist. Oh, no! He is a free thinker" He is one of your 'liberar men. He is free and easy in religion. Oh, how liberal he is! He is so *liberal" that he will give away his Bible He is so ''liberar' that he will give away the throne of eternal justice. He is so "iiberaI' that he would be willing to give God out of the universe He is so "liberal' that he would give up his own soul and the soul of all his friends. Now what more could you ask in the way of liberalty? The vic tim of this skeptic has probably just come from the country. Through the intervention of friends he has been placed in a shop.
 On Saturday the skeptic says to him, Well, what are you going to do to- morrow" He says, II am going to church." ''ls it possible?" says the skeptic. Well, used to do those things was brought up, suppose, as you were, in religious family, and believed all those things, but l got over it. The fact is, since l came to town I have read a great deal, and have found that there are great many things in the Bible that are ridiculous. Now, for instance, all that about the serpent being cursed to crawl in the Gar den of Eden because it had tempted our first parents: why, you see how ab- 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 it's organization that it crawled. Then all that story about the whale swallowing Jonah, or Janah swal lowing tLe whale, which was it z It don't make any difference, the thing is absurds it is ridiculous to suppose that man could have gone down through the jaws of a 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 tbrine and coagulated albulnen, and Jonah would have been changed from prophet into chyle. Then all that story about the miraculous conception why, it is perfectly dsgraceful! Oh, sir, 1 believe in the light of nature This is the Nineteeth century. Pros ress, sir; progress. don't blame voa but after you have been in town as long as have you will think just as l do."
 r Thousands.of young men are goins 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 the:r 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 civi lization, no homes, no happiness. Lan- cets to cut, and juggernauts to fall un- der, and hooks to swing to; but nc happiness. tell you, my young brother, we have to take a religion of some kind.
 We have to choose between four o1 five. Shall it be the Koran of the Mo halnlnedan, or the Shaster of the Hin doc. or the Zendavesta of the Persian. or the Confucius- writings of the Chi nese, or the Holy Scriptures9 Take what you will; God helping me. will take the Bible. Light for all darkness, rock for ali foundations; balm for all wounds. A glory that lifts it's pillars of fire over the wilderness march.
 Do not give up your Bibles. If these people scoff 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 in..uelity has ever done to lift the fourteen hundred mil lions of the race out of barbarisIn. 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
 Young man, hold on to your Bible; it is the best book you ever owned. Ii 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 i'll the counting room of the banker Glorious Bible! Light to our feet and lamp to our path Hold on to it!
 The second class of insidious tenpta tionS that comes upon our young men IS led on by the dishonest employer. Every commercial establishment is school In nine cases out of ten the principles of the employer become the principles of the employee. l ask the older merchants to bear lne out in these statements.
 If, when you were just starting i'll fife, in commercial life. you were told that honesty was not marketable, that though you might sell all the goods in