The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1894-02-22

| or where profanity benefits you.
3. Profanity is an unmanly habit
/ do not use the word ungentlemunlu.
prefer the word, unmonlp. One Of
the evils in the world to-day is the
fact that there are so many gentlemen
and so few men. And vet, | believe
no one has ever ventured to maintain
| that swearing is the mark Of even a
gentleman, earth h-born and man-made
though he be- If it is gentlemanly to
course" then of course YOU do so in
the presence Of ladies'. You do not?
Do you swear in the presence of your
wife and daughters? l know you do
not Thank God, even the lowest
swearer commonly respects his family
if not himself enough to keep the
oath out of the home Have I over
9oe'eCb Ncui Sdiidiltl 10 you dCtUidIiN
insult and degrade your family b.
swearing in their presence? Then !
respectfully submit that they should
close the house against you till you
plead for pardon and promise reform
| do not charge that a real man never
swears. / do charge that his manhood
is marred when he does. Great he may
be and yet swear But if so, his great
ness is not made by profanity; he
would be greater still without it. Pro-
fame swearing is not mark of great
ness but Of llttleness. How sadly com
mon is the mlsapprehenslon here
among our boys. / can recall in vivid
detail my first and only oath I had
the common notion that in some way
swearing helped one along very rapidly
toward manhood / had heard the
staggering swain all caned and gloved
and topped with five-dollar hat over
ten-cent head, swinging his idle ton
que in blatant blasphemy, and l stu
pidly made up my mind that he must
certainly be one of the greatest men in
the world that he had become so
mainly by swearing, and that my
straight road to greatness was the high
way of profanity. l must begin at
once. So my brother and l agreed one
day to curse two negro boys when they
got to us. We did not have any prov
ccation and did not want any. We
we're going to do the thing In cold
blood just to show that we could do it.
The result was great surprise to me-
l had supposed that I should feel i'm
mensely larger right away. But l did
not. l can scarcely tell you how did
feel. A sort of weak and Timber and
white and red and cowed and silly COM
bination laid hold of me, while the
ground felt soft and shaky beneath my
feet. 0, how thoroughly silly and
ashamed l felt My brother doubtless
had similar experience, as it was his
last appearance in the role of a swearer
Boys, if any of you ever swear-well,
I hardly ever advise boy to hide
things from his mother; but if you
should ever by any woful error let an
oath pass your lips, wouldn't let my
mother know anything about it,
think. She has been thinking so
proudly of you as her boy, her manly
boy, l should not undeceiye her I
would never let her know what hui
initiating failure she has made in raising
me. No swearing ever made great
man. Run your mind over the illus
trious names that have adorned the
history of our country and see how
many of them appear on the roll of the
profane. Was Washington a habitual
swearcr? Were the Adamses? Was
Jefferson, skeptic though he was? Was
Madison, father of the Constitution, no
ted for profanity? Was either of the
Great Three among statesmen distin-
guished as swearers? Was Abraham
Lincoln or Jefferson Davis or Robert
Lee or Stonewall Jackson a common
swearer? Who ever has taken his place
among the worlds immortals because
of the habit of profanity? Whenever
any man dishonors the name OF His |
Maker he thereby dishonors his own.
Observe, in the fourth place, that