Connecticut western news., 1892-03-31

a deacon, or a minister of the Gospel, or a superintendent of Sabbath school turns out defaulter, what display heads there are in many of the newspapers Great primer type. Five line pica Another Saint Absconded," Clerical Scoundrelisln." Religion at n Dis count" shame on the Churches" while there are thousand seoundrels outside the church to where there is one in- side the church, and the misbehavior of those who never see the inside of a church is SO great it is enough to tempt man to become Christian to get out of their company.
 But in all circles, religious and ire ligfous, the tendency is to excuse sin in proportion as it is mammoth. Even while he condemns satan, gives such a grand description of him you have hard work Co suppress your admiration. Oh, this strainiug out of small sins like gnats, and this gulping down of great iniquities like camels.
 This subject does not give the picture of one or two persons, but Is a gallery in which thousands of people may see their likenesses. For instance. all those people who. while they would not rob their neighbor of farthing, appropriate the money and the treasure of the pub lie. A man has house to sell, and he tells his customer it is worth $20. GOO. Next day the assessor comes around and the owner says it is worth $l5,0O0. The government of the United States took off the tax from personal income, among other reasons, because so few people would tell the truth, and many a man with an income of hundreds of dollars day made statements which seemed to imply he was about to be handed over to the overseer of the poor.
 Careful to pay their passage from Liverpool to New York. yet smuggling in their Saratoga trunk ten silk dresses from Paris and half dozen watches from Geneva. Switzerland, telling the custom house officer on the wharf, "There is nothing in that trunk but wearing apparel" and putting five dollar gold piece in his hand to punctu- ate the statement.
 Described in the text are all those who hNNNi AO hiSah Nllt law of grammar and who want all their language an elegant specimen of syn tax. straining out all the inaccuracies of speech with fine sieve of literary criti- cism, while through their conversation go islander and innuendo and profanity and falsehood larger than a whole cara van of camels. when they might better fracture every law of the. language and shock their intellectual taste, and better let every verb seek in vain for its nom- iuative and every noun for its govern ment, and every proposition lose its way in the sentence and adjectives and par ticiples and pronouns get into n grand riot worthy of the Fourth ward on cleo tion day. than to commit moral inac- curacy. Better swallow thousand gnats than one camel.
 THE cENsoRIous uYPocRITK.
 Such persons are also described in the text who are very much alarmed about the small faults of others, and have no alarm about their own great transgres- sions. There are in every community and in every church watchdogs who feel called upon to keep their eyes on others and growl. They are full of sus- picions. They wonder if that man is not dishonest. if that man is not unclean, if there is not something wrong about the other man. They are always the first to hear of anything wrong. Vultures are always the frat to smell carrion. They are self appointed detectives. lay this down us rule without any exception, that those people who have the most faults themselves are most merciless in their watching of others. From scalp of head to sole of foot they are full of jealousies and hypercriticisms.
 They spend their life in hunting for muskrats and mud turtles instead of hunting for Rocky mountain eagles, al. ways for something mean instead of something grand. They look at their neighbors' imperfections through mi croscope and look at their own imper- fections through telescope upside down. Twenty faults of their own do not hurt them half 80 much as one fault of somebody else. Their neigh bors imperfections are like gnats and they strain them out; their own imper- fections are like camels and they swal. low them.
 But lest any might think they escape the scrutiny of the text l have 10 tell you that we all come under the divine satire when we make the questions of time more prominent than the questions of eternity. Come now, let us all go into the confessional. Are not all tempted to make the question, Where shall live nowy greater than the ques- tion, Where shall live forever? How shall get more dollars here? greater than the question, How shall l lay up treasures in heaven? the question, How shall pay my debts to man2 greater than the question, How shall l meet my obligations to God2 the ques- tion, How shall gain the worldl greater than the question, What If 1 lose my soul? the question, Why did God let sin come into the world? greater than the question. How shall l get 1t extirpated from my natureg the aucs- ton. What shall 1 do with the twenty or forty or seventy years of my sublunar existence2 greater than the question, What shall do with the millions of cycles of my post-terrestrial existencei Time. how small it isl Eternity, how vast it isl The former more insignificant in comparison with the latter than a gnat is insignificant when compared with camel. We lodged the text. We said. That doesu't mean me, and that doesn't mean me" and with a ruinous benevolence We are giving the whole sermon away.
 But let us all surrender to the charge. What an ado about things here. What poor preparation for a great eternity. As though minnow were larger than a behemoth. as though swallow took wider circuit than an albatross, as though a nettle were taller than Le- hannn cndnr. ns thnngh A Ynnt were