News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-12-17

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| believed all those things, but / go
| over it. The fact is, since | came tt
| town | have read a great deal, and
| have found that there are great man!
| things in the Bible that are ridiculous
| Now, for instance, all that about tn,
serpent being cursed to crawl in 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 tt
crawl; it crawled before it was cursed
lust as well as it crawled afterward; you
can tell from its organization that i
crawled. Then all that story about the
| whale swallowing Jonah, or Janah swal
| lowing the whale, which was it? 1t dom
make any difference, the thing is absurd
it is ridiculous to suppose that a mar
| could have gone down through the jaws
of n sea monster and yet kept his life
why, his respiration would have been
hindered he would have been digested
the gastric juice would have dissolved
the fibrine and coagulated albumen
from prophet into chyle. 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. don't blame yo,l.
but after you have been in town as
long as have you will think just as
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
Iery of scorn. They are giving up their
Bibles. The light of naturel 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
lizatiou, no homes, no happiness. Lam
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 religion of some kind.
We have to choose between four or
five. Shall it be the Koran of the Mo-
hammedan, or the Shaster of the Hin
doc, or the Zendavesta of the Persian,
or the Confucius writings of the Chi
nese, or the Holy Scriptures? Take
what you will; God helping me, I will
take the Bible. Light for all darkness !;
rock for all foundation; balm for all
wounds. A 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!
The second class of insidious tempta-
tons that comes upon our young men
is led on by the dishonest employer.
Every commercial establishment is o
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.
Ii, 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
I'll industry and tact you were not to
sell your conscience-if you were taught
that gains gotten by sin were combusti-
BILE, 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 q 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 a young man who was taught in an
establishment that it is right to lie, if
it is smart, and that French label is
all that is necessary to make 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, 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
get his theory? He will get the theory
from his employers
One day he pushes his wit a little be-
yond what the establishment demands
of him, and he fieeces a customer until
the clerk is on the verge of being seized
by the law. What is done in the es-
tablishment2 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, | warrant YOU"
Then that young man goes up until he
becomes head clerk He has found
there is q premium on iniquity.
One morning the employer comes to
the establishment. He goes into his
counting room and throws up his hands
and shouts, ''Why the safe has been
robbed" What is the matter? Moth
ing, nothing; only the clerk who has
been pTacticing a good while on Gus
toners is practicing little on the en-
plOyer No new princinIe introducad |