Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-02-21
Moody to Young Men.

In the great revival meetings in
Washington city, the great evangelist,
Dwight L. Moody, in his sermon on
Monday night of last week, in address
Ing young men, said
young man, tell me how you spend
your Sabbath and I'll tell you the crop
you will reap. Do you spend it riding,
fishing, hunting, gratifying your lust
Do you spend it laughing at the men
and women who are going to church,
soothing and sneering at the elders,
laughing at your mothers God? You
are going to have bitter harvest if
you do as sure as two and two make
four. Do you scoff at the old men and
women who follow Christianity and
call them old fogies? All, the devil
never has any old fogies. He kills
them off before they are out of their
thirties. l want to ask you a few
questions for you to answer in your
own minds. Do you spend one or two
nights week in the saloon or playing
billiards for the cigars and drinks? l
| tell you the harvest Will be bitter.
That is what makes drunkards and
gamblers. Step by step you come
down until you reach the depths. How
do you treat your parents? Do you
honor them, do you speak contempt
uously of them to your friends; call
your mother 1.-The old woman;n call
your father 1.-The old man?'' God pity
you if you do, for your harvest will be
hard. You will have children and
| they will treat you the same,
1t was easy to see that the shaft had
gone home to many in the audience
and several men had their faces buried
| in their handkerchiefs. But the pow
erfdl archer was just beginning to use
the arrows in his culver. He recount
ed the story of a man who was on the
point of sending his own father to the
poorhouse when his own little son
spoke up and said:
Papa, when | get big will you ex-
pect Inc to send you to the poorhouse
like you are sending grandpa?,'
The man stopped. He hoped every
man and woman in his hearing would
cherish the lesson and stop SHINING at
once. An English clergyman had once
said to him that England punished Its
murderers more successfully than
America, because it hung more of
them. He had replied that neither
England nor America punished one in
hundred of its worst and meanest
murderers. II have son." he cried,
land | would sooner have him come
to me and plunge dagger to its hilt
in my heart than to murder me slowly
by coming home drunk night after
night and taking years to complete
his crime. Are there any young men
here tonight who go home at IL or 1
or 2 O'Clock half under the influence of
liquor and speak contemptuously to
the mother that lets you in and curse
her if she gently upbraids you for your
conduct? Don't you know you are the
meanest kind of murderers. | hope
the reporter will put this in the morn
ing paper, so it can be sent into every
saloon in Washington to meet the eyes
of just such men. Oh, if there are any
here tonight. God help you, for the
harvest will be hard. All over Amer
lea others are being murdered in just
this awful way. Think of the love of
a mother. Why, if you were down
with the smallpox or any pestilentIal
disease five hundred miles away she
would come to you and love you and
care for you and take the disease into
her own devoted body with heart
full of willingness if she could relieve
your sufferings by doing it. Men.
think of your mothers. See what
kind of seed you are sowing and re-
place the tares with the wheat in the
name of the all merciful God"