The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-04-21

son be wrecked on a gamblers table.
There will be many a money-till that
will spring a leak.
In the midnight hour, pass down the
I streets of our American cities, and YOU
hear the click of the dice and the sharp,
keen tap of the pool-room ticker At
these places merchant princes dismount,
and Legislators, tired of making laws,
take respite in breaking them. All
classes of people are robbed by this
crime, the importer of foreign silks and
the dealer in Chatham street pocket
handkerchiefs. The clerks of the store
| take hand after the shutters are put
Xp, and the officers of the court while
away their time while the jury is out.
In Baden Baden, when that city was
the greatest of all gambling places on
earth, it was no unusual thing the next
morning, in the woods around that city,
to find the suspended bodies of suicides.
| Whatever be the splendor of the sur
roundings, there is no excuse for this
crime. The thunders of eternal de-
struction roll in the deep rumble of
that gambling ten-pin alley, and as
men come out to join the long process
sion of sin. all the drums of woe beat
the dead march of thousand souls. In
one year in the city of New York there
were S7,O00,000 sacrificed at the gaming
table. Perhaps some of your friends
have been smitten of this sin. Perhaps
some of you have been smitten by it.
Perhaps there may be a stranger
in the house this morning come
from some of the hotels. Look
out for those agents of iniquity who
tarry around about the hotels. and ask
you: would you like to see the city?"
Yes. "Have you ever seen that splen-
did building uptown" No. Then the
villain will undertake to show you what
he calls the lions" and the elephants"
and after young man, through NOR
bid curiosity or through badness of soul,
has seen the Lions" and the ''ele-
phants," he will be on enchanted
ground. Look ont for these men who
move around the hotels with sleek hats
always sleek hats-and patronizing
air, and unaccountable interest about
your welfare and entertainment. You
are fool if you cannot see through it.
They want YOU money.
| In the midnight hour, also, drunken
ness also does its worst. The drinking
will be respectable at o'clock in the
evening, a little flushed at o, tallxative
and garrulous at 10, at II blasphemous,
at II the hat falls off and the man falls
to the floor asking for more drink.
Strewn through the drinking saloons
of the city, fathers, brothers, husbands,
sons, as good as you are by nature, per-
haps better.
In the high circles of society it is
hushed up. A merchant prince, if he
gets noisy and uncomfortable, is taken
| by his fellow-revelers, who try to get
him to bed or take him home, where he
falls Hat in the entry. Do not wake up
the children. They have had disgrace
enough. Do not let them know it.
Hush it up. Bnt sometimes it cannot
be hushed up, when the rum touches
| the brain and the man becomes thor
oughly frenzied.
oh, if the rum touches the brain, you
cannot hush it up. You do not see the
worst. In the midnight meetings a
great multitude have been saved. We
| want few hundred Christian men and
women to come down from the highest
| circles of society to toll amid these
wandering and destitute ones, and kin
die up light in the dark alley, even
the gladness of Heaven.
Do not go from your well-flled tables
with the idea that pious talk is going
to stop the cravings of an empty
Il,
Take bread, take raimant, take medi-
cine as well as take prayers. There is
great deal of common sense in what
the poor woman said to the city mis-
sionary when he was telling her how
she ought to love God and serve him.
oh" said she, IF you were as poor and
cold as l am, and as hungry, you could
think of nothing else"
A great deal of what is called Christ
ian work goes for nothing for the sim
pie reason it is not practical. As after
the battle of Antietam a man got out
of an ambulance with bag of tracts, and
he went distributing the tracts, and
George Stuart, one of the best Christian
men in this country, said to him, What
are you distributing tracts for now?
There are 5000 men bleeding to death.
Bind up their wounds, and then dis
| tribute the tracts" We want more
common sense in Christian work, TAX
ing the bread of this life in one hand,
and the bread of the next life in the
other hand,
There is a place in Switzerland,
have been told, where the utteranee of
one word will bring back a score of
| echoes; and l have to tell you this
morning that sympathetic word,
kind word, a generous word, a helpful
word uttered in the dark places of the
town will bring back ten thousand
echoes from all the thrones in Heaven
Are there in this assemblage this
morning those who know by experience
the tragedies of midnight in town? l
am not here to thrust you back with
one hard word. Take the bandage from
your bruised soul and put on the sooth-
ing salve of Christ's gospel and of Gods
| compassion. Many have come. l see
| others coming to God this morning
tired of the sinful life. Cry up the
news to Heaven. Set all the bells ring
| ing. Spread the banquet under the
arches. Let the crowned heads come
down and sit at the jubilee. 1 tell you
there is more delight in Heaven over
one man that gets reformed by the
grace of God than over ninety and nine
that never got off the track.
| / could give you the history in a min
ute of one of the best friends ever
had. lie welcomed me to my home at
| tba xvaSt He WAS of sDlendid nerSOnal