Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-04-07

war IL Is very snort bridge between
smile and tear, suspension bridge from
eye TO lip, and it is soon crossed over, and
q smile is sometimes Just as sacred as a
tear. There is as much religion, and
think little more, in a spring morning
than in starless midnight.
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 re-
move all frivolity and all pathos and all
| lightness and all vulgarity-strain them
out through the sieve of holy discrimina-
tion; but, on the other hand, bewareof that
monster which overshadOws the Christian
church today, conventionally, coming up
from the Great Sahara Desert of Ecclesi-
asticism, having on its back hump Of
sanctimonious gloom-and vehemently re-
fuse to swallow that camel.
! MAMMOTH CRIMES IN TRADE.
Oh, how particular great many people
are about the ininitesimals while they are
quite reckless about the magnitudes
What did Christ says Did he not excori-
ate the people in his time who were so
careful to wash their hands before a meal,
| but did not wash their hearts? 1t is bad
thing to have unclean hands; it is a worse
thing to have an unclean heart. How
many people there are in our time who are
very anxious 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 a way of measuring gnat un-
til it is larger than camel.
Again, my subject photographs all those
who are abhorrent of small sins while
they are reckless in regard to magnificent
thefts. You will find many a merchant
who, while he is so careful that he would
not take yard of cloth or a spool of cot.
ton from the counter without paying for
it, and who if bank cashier should make
mistake and send in roll of bills five
dollars too much would dispatch mes
1 senger in hot haste to return the surplus.
yet who will go into a stock company
in which after awhile he gets control of
the stock and then waters the stock and
makes 100000 appear like S20O,0O0 He
stole only 100000 by the operation. Many
of the men of fortune made their wealth in
that way.
One of those men engaged in such un-
| righteous acts, that evening, the evening
of the very day when he watered the stock,
will find a 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: Il have been looking
for you a long while. You stole my paper
four or five times, haven't your You mis-
cradle wretch" And then the old stock
| gambler, with voice they can hear three
blocks, will cry out, "Police, policep
That 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, II hope you will all grow up
to be as good as your father!'' Prisons for
sins insectilc in size, but palaces for crimes
dromedarian. No mercy for sins animal
cule in proportion, but great leniency for
mastolon iniquity.
| COLOSSAL LIES ABOUT THE CROPS.
1t is time that we learn in America that
sin is not eXcusable in proportion as it de-
clares large dividends and has outriders in
equipage Many man is riding to perdi-
tion position ahead and lackey behind.
To steal Il dollar is gnat; to steal many
| lc pf Il plI tc
many fruit dealer who would not consent
J to steal basket of peaches from a neigh
boris stall, but who would not scruple to
depress the fruit market; and as long as |
can remember we have heard every sum-
mer the peach crop of Maryland is fail
ure, and by the time the crop comes in the
misrepresentation makes a difference of
millions of dcllars. A man who would not
steal one peach basket steals fifty thou
sand peach baskets.
Any summer go down into the Mercan-
! tile 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, methodically and UNANIMOUSLY
carrying out the huge lying about the
| grain crop from year TO year and for score
| of years. After awhile there is a corner"
| in the wheat market, and men who had a
| contempt for petsg theft will burglarize
the wheat bin of a nation and commit lar
| ceny upon the American corncrib And
| men will sit in churches and in reforma-
| tory institutions trying to strain out 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 mex
cusable in proportion as it is great.
know in our time the tendency is to
charge religious frauds upon good men.
They say, "Oh, what class of frauds you
have in the Church of God in this day."
and when an elder of church or deacon
or minister of the Gospel or superin-
tendent of Sabbath school turns out de-
| faulter what display heads there are in
many of the newspapers-great primer
| type; five line pica-"Another Saint Alb
sconded," Clerical Scoundrelism, Ere
| ligion at DISCOUNT" ''Shame on the
| Churches" while there are Thousand
scoundrels outside the church to where
there is one inside the church, and the mis-
behavior of those who never see the inside
of church is SO great it is enough to
tempt a man to become a Christian to get
out of their company.
But in all circles, religious and irreli-
| gious, the tendency is to excuse sin in pro-
portion as it is mammoth. Even John
Milton in his Paradise Lost" while he
condemns Satan, gives such a grand de-
scription Of him you have hard work to
suppress your admiration. Oh, this strain
ing out of small sins like gnats, and this
gu1ping down great iniquities like camels.
This subject does not give the picture of
one or two persons, but is gallery in which
thousands of people may see their like
nesses. For instance, all those people who,