The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1894-02-23

In time or temptation he gave an affirm
alive or q negative to some temptation
which another, hearing of, was induced
to decide in the same way.
Clear ON the other side of the mex
million years may be the first you hea
of the long reaching influence Of tina
yes or no, but hear of it you will. Viii
that father make path to shine afte
him? Will that mother make path t,
shine after her? You will be walking
along these streets or along that country
road 200 years from now in the character
of your descendants. They will be affect
ed by your courage or your cowardice
your purity or your depravity, your holi
ness or your sin. You will make the patti
to shine after you or blacken after you.
Why should they point out to us OF
some mountain two rivulets, ono o.
which passes down into the rivers which
pour out into the Pacific ocean, and the
other rivulet flowing down into the rivers
which pass out into the Atlantic ocean,
Every man, every woman, stands at 8
point where words uttered, or deeds
done, or prayers offered, decide opposite
destinies and opposite eternities. We see
man planting tree, and treading sod
firmly on either side of it, and watering
it in dry weather, and taking great
care in it's culture, and he never plucks
any fruits from its bough. But his chill
dren will. We are all planting trees
that will yield fruit hundreds of years
after we are dead-orchards of golden
fruit or groves of deadly upas.
am so fascinated with the phosphor-
escence in the track of ship that I have
sometimes watched for long while and
have seen nothing on the face of the deep
but blackness. The mouth of watery
chasms that looked like gaping jaws of
hell. Not spark as big as the FREELY;
not white scroll of surf; not a taper to
illuminate the mighty sepulchers of dead
ships; darkness 5000 feet deep, and more
thousands of feet long and wide. That
is the kind of wake that bad man leaves
behind him as he plows through the
ocean of this life toward the vaster ocean
of the great future.
THE GROWTH OF SIN.
Now, suppose man seated in a cor
ner grocery or business Office among
clerks gives himself to jolly skepticism.
He laughs at the Bible, makes sport of
the miracles, speaks of perdition in
jokes and laughs at revivals as frolic,
and at the passage of funeral process
sion, which always solemnizes sensible
people, says, ''Boys, let's take drink"
There is in that group young man who
is making great struggle against temp
tation and prays night and morning and
reads his Bible and is asking God for
help day by day. But that guffaw
against Christianity makes him lose his
grip of sacred things, and he gives up
Sabbath and church and morals and
goes from bad to worse, till he falls un-
der designations, dies in a lazar house
and is buried in the potter's field.
Another young man who heard that
Jolly skepticism made up his mind that
''it makes no difference what we do or
say, for we will all come out at last at the |
light place" and began as consequence
% purloin. Some money that came into
10 hands for Others he applied to his
,wn uses, thinking perhaps he would |
make it straight some other time, and |
Ill would be well even if he did not
make it straight. He ends in the peni-
;entiary. That scoffer who uttered the
okes against Christianity never realized |
what bad work he was doing, and he
passed on through life and out of it and
nto future that am not now going to
lepict.
do not propose with searchlight to
how the breakers Of the awful coast on
which that ship is wrecked, for my bust
less now is to watch the sea after the
reel has plowed it. No phosphorescence
n the wake Of that ship, but behind it
wo souls struggling in the wave-two
'oung men destroyed by reckless skep-
icism, an unillumined ocean beneath
nd on all sides of them. Blackness of
arkness.
You know what a gloriously good man
Rev. John Newton was the most of his
ife, but before his conversion he was a
cry wicked sailor, and on board the ship
Iarwich instilled infdelity and vice in
he mind of young man-principles
which destroyed him. Afterward the
wo met, and Newton tried to undo his
ad work, but in vain. The young man
ecame worse and worse and died prof
gate, horrifying with his profanities
nose who stood by him in his last mo-
lents.
Better look out what bad influence
on start, for you may not be able to
sop it. 1t does not require very great
)rce to ruin others. Why was it that ,
lany years ago "a great food nearly de- {
royed New Orleans? A crawfish had
urrowed into the banks Of the river I'M :
| the ground was saturated and the /
anks weakened until the food burst \
THE SHINING PATH. 9
But find here man who starts out
life with the determination that he will Z
ever see suffering but he will try to al f,
viate it, and never see disbursement /,
ut he will try to cheer it, and never a
eet with anybody but he will try to do a
m good. Getting his strength from Q
cd, he starts from home with high DIR .
use of doing all the good he can possibly 1
, in one day. b
Whether standing behind the counter. h