Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-04-08


night.
Religious work without any humor or wit
in it IS a banquet with a side of beef, and
that raw, and no condiments and no dessert
succeeding People viii not sit down at such
a banquet By all means remove all frivolity
and ali pathos and all hghtness and all vul-
garitv-straIn them out through the sieve of
loly discrimination: but, on the other hand,
,eware of that monster which overshadows
he Christian church to-day, conventlonaLy,
oming up from the Great Sahara Desert of
Gcclesasticism, having on its back hump
of sanctimonious gloom-and vehemently re-
fuse to swallow that camel.
Oh, how particular great many people
are about the infnitesimals while thev are
quite reckless about the magnitudes. What
did Christ say Did He not excoriate the
people in His time who were so careful to
wash their hands before meal, but did not
tsh their hearts? 1t is a bad thing to have
Mclean hands: it is worse thing 30 have
an uncleaE heart. How many people there
are In our time who are very anxious that
after their death they shall be buried wit b
their feet toward the east, and not az all
anxious that during their whole life they
should face in the right direction so that
they shall come up in the resurrection of the
just whichever way they are buried. How
many there are chiefly anxious that min
lister of the Gospel shall come in the line of
apOstollc succession, not caring so much
Apostle Judas. They have a way of meas
urlng gnat until it is larger than a camel.
Again, my subject photographs all those
who are abhorrent of small sins while thew
are reckless in regard to magnificent thefts
4ou will find many a merchant. who while
he is so careful that he would not take yard
of cloth or a spool of cotton from the counter
without paying for it. and who if a bank
cashier should make mistake and send in
roll of bills five dollars too much would dis
patch messenger in hot haste to return the
surplus, yet who will go into stock company
in which after awhile he gets control of the
stock and then waters the stock and makes
100000 appear like 5000, 0OO He stole only
500, 600 by the operation. Many Of the men
of fortune made their wealth in that way.
One Of those men engaged in such upright
eous acts, that evening, the evening of the
very day when he watered the stock, will
find a wharf rat stealing an evening newspa-
per from the basement doorway, and will go
out and catch the urchin by the collar and
twist the collar so tightly the poor fellow
cannot say that it was thirst for knowledge
that led him to the dishonest act but grip
the collar tighter and tighter, saying: -
have been looking for you long while You
stole my paper four or five times haven't
you? You miserable wretchp And then
the old stock gambler, with a voice they can
hear three blocks, will cry out, 'Police, po-
lice"
nat same man, the evening of the daY on
which he watered the stock. will kneel with
his family in prayer and thank God for the
prosperity of the day, then kiss his children
good night with an air which seems to say:
~ hope you will all grow up to be as good
as your fatherw Prisons for sins insectile
In size, but palaces for crimes dromedarian.
NC mercy for sins animalcule in proportion,
but great leniency for mastodon iniduity.
It is time that we learn in America that
sin is not excusable in proportion as it de-
hos 1frfIo ;@
equipage. Many man is riding to perdi-
ton position ahead and lackey behind To
steal dollar is a gnat; to steal many thou.
sands of dollars is a camel. There is many
fruit dealer who would not consent to steal
basket OF peaches from neighbor's STALL
but who would not scruple to depress the
fruit market; and as long as can remember
we have heard every summer the peach crop
of Maryland is failure and by the time the
crop comes in the misrepresentation makes
difference of millions of dollars. A man
who would not steal one peach basket steals
fifty thousand peach baskets
Any summer go down into the Mercantile
library, in the reading rooms, and see the
newspaper reports of the crops from all parcs
of the country, and their phraseology is very
much the same, and the same men wrote
them, methodicallv and UNANIMOUSLY carrK-
ing out the huge lying about the grain crop
from year to year and for score of years.
After a while there is a corner" in the
wheat market, and men who had contempt
for a petty theft will burglarize the wheat
bin OF nation and commit larceny upon the
American cOrncrlb. And men will sit in
churches and in refOrmatory institutions try
ing to strain out the small gnats of scoundrel-
ism, while in their grain elevators and in
their storehouses they are fattening huge
camels which they expect after awhile to
swallow. Society has to be entirely recon-
structed on this subject. We are to find
that sin is inexcusabe in proportion as it
is great.
| know in our time the tendency is to
charge religious frauds upon good men.
They say, sob, what class of frauds you
have in the Church of God in this day." and
when an elder of a church or a deacon or
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," "Cler-
zeal Scoundrelism," Religion at a Dis
count" Shame On the Churches" while
there are a thousand scOundrels outside the
church to where there is one inside 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 Chris
tian to get out of their company.
But in all circles, religious and irreligious,
the tendency is to excuse sin in proportion
as it is mammoth. Even John Milton in his
paradise Lost" while he condemns Satan
gives such a grand description of him you
have hard work to suppress your adnira
ton. Oh, this straiEing out of small sins
like gnats, and this gulping down great in
EQUITIES like camels.
This subject does not give the picture Of
of one or two persons, but is gallery in
which thousands of people may see their
likenesses. For instance, all these people
who, while they would not rob their neigh
Dor of farthing, appropriate the money
and the treasure Of the public A man has
hOusa to sell and he tells his customer il is