News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-03-31

Religious work without any humOr or
wit in it is a banquet with side of beef,
and that raw, and no condiments and no
dessert succeeding. People will not sit
down at such banquet. BY all means
remove all frivolity and all bathos and
all lightness and all yulgarity-strain
them out through the sieve Of holy dis
elimination; but on the other hand, be-
ware of that monster which overshadows
the Christian church today, convention
atty, coming up from the Great Sahara
desert of Ecclesiasticism, having on its
back a hump of sanctimonious gloom
and vehemently refuse to swallow that
camel.
Oh, how particular great many peo-
pie are about the ininitesimals while
they are quite reckless about the magni-
tudes. What did CHRIST say? Did he
not excoriate the people in his time who
We're so careful to wash their hands be
fore a meal, but did not wash their
hearts 1t is a bad thing to have I'M
clean hands; it is worse thing to have
an unclean heart. How many people
there are in our time who are very anx-
ious that after their death they shall be
buried with their feet toward the east,
and not at 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 minister of the
Gospel shall come in the line of apostolic
succession, not caring so much whether
he comes from Apostle Paul or Apostle
Judas. They have way of measuring
a gnat until it is larger than camel.
THE UNRIGHTEoUs SPECTATOR.
Again: Ny subject photographs all
those who are abhorrent of small sins
while they are reckless in regard to mag
nifcent thefts. You will find many a
merchant who, while he is so careful
that he would not tahe a yard of cloth
or spool of cotton from the counter
without paying for it, and who if a bank
cashier should make a mistake and send
in a roll of bills five dollars too much
would dispatch 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 800 900
appear like 100000. He only stole
800, 900 by the operation. Many of the
men of fortune made their wealth in
that way.
One of those men, engaged in such I'M
righteous acts, that evening, the evening
of the very day when he watered the
stock, will find wharf rat stealing an
| evening newspaper 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, 81
have been looking for you long while;
you stole my paper four or five times,
haven't you? you miserable wretch"
And then the old stock gambler, with a
voice they can hear three blocks, will |
cry out, police! Policer'
That same man, the evening of the day |
in 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, 81 hope yOu |
will all grow up to be as good as your IA
Their" Prisons for sins insectile in size, |
but palaces for crimes dromedarian. No |
mercy for sins animalcule in proportion, |
but great leniency for mastodOn ifliquity. |
1t is time that we learn in America
that sin is not excusable in proportion
as it declares large dividends and has
6utriders in equipage. Many man is
! riding to perditiOn position ahead and
lacl1ey behind To steal dollar is a
gnat; to steal many thousands of dollars
=, TTbapo ig,7 n ,1ao lon. !
who would not consent to steal a basket |
of peaches from a neighbours stall, but |
who would not scruple to depress the |
fruit market; and as long as 1 can re-
member we have heard every summer
the peach crop of Maryland is a failure,
and by the time the crop comes in the |
misrepresentation makes a 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 Mer-
camille library, in the reading rooms,
and see the newspaper reports of the
crops from all parts of the country, and
their phraseology is very much the same,
and the same men wrote them, method
ically and UNANIMOUSLY carrying out the
huge lying about the grain crop from
year to year and for a score of years.
After awhile there is corner in the
wheat market, and men who had con-
tempt for petty theft will burglarize
the wheat bin of a nation and commit
larceny upon the American corncrib
And men will sit in churches and in re-
formatory institutions trying to strain
ont the small gnats of scoundrelism,
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
reconstructed ON this subject. We are
to find that sin is inexcusable in pro-
portion as it i ;reat.
THE WORLDS SHEER AT A FALLEN CHRIS
TIAN.
know in our time the tendency is to
charge religious frauds upon good men.
They say, 'Oh, what a class of frauds
You have in the church of God in this
day." and when an elder of 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 plea
"Another Saint Absconded," Clerical
Scoundrelism," "Religion at a Dis
count, Shame on the Churches" while
there are Il thousand scoundrels 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 a Christian to get out
of their company.
But in all circles, religious and ire
Iigious, 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 admiration. Oh,
this straining 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 hkenesses. 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 a house to sell, and he
tells his customer it is worth $50 600
Next day the assessor comes around and
the owner says it is worth $15, 900. 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 huOdradS of Jo11orc n