The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-06-19


breeding, minus curiosity, equals
minding your own affairs!
This subject also impresses me with
the fact that fruits that are sweet Il
the taste may afterward produce great
agony. Forbidden fruit for Eve wa:
SO pleasant she invited her husband
also to take of it; but her banishment
from Paradise and 5000 years of sor
row, and Indebtedness, and war, and
woe, paid for thai luxury. Sin a. be
very sweet at the start, and it may in
duce great w~retchedness afterward.
The cup of sin is sparkling at the top
but there is death at the bottom. In.
t~oxication has great exhilaration for
awhile, and it fillips the blood, and il
makes a man see five stars where others
can see only one star, and it makes the
poor man rich, and turns cheeks which
are white red as roses; but what about
the dreams that come after, when il
seems falling from great heights, or
is Frustrated by other fancied disas-
tiers, and the perspiration stands on
the forehead-the night dew of ever-
lasting darkness-and he is ground
under the horrible roof of Nightmares
shrieking with lips that crackle with
all-consuming torture? Rejoice, o
young man, in thy youth, and let thy
heart cheer thee in the days of thy
youth; but know thou that for all
these things God will bring thee into
Judgment" Sweet at the start, horri-
BILE at the last. Go into that hall of
revelry, where ungodly mirth staggers
and biasphemes. Listen to h sense
less gebble, see the last trace of intelli-
gence dashed out from the faces made
in God's own image. "Ahal aha" says
the registering inebriate; this is joy
for you; fill high your cups, my boys.
1 drink to my wife's misery and my
children's rags and my Gods defiance"
And he knows not that a fiend stirs
the goblet in his hand and that adders
uncoil from the dregs and thrust their
forked tongues kissing through the
froth on the rim. The Philistines
jeered and laughed and shouted at
Samson. Oh, they wanted him to
make sport for them, and he made sport
for them! How bright and gay was
the scene for a little while! After
awhile the giant puts one hand against
this pillar and the other hand against
that pillar, and bows himself and 5000
merry-makers are mashed like grapes
in a wine press. Sin r%apturous at the
start, awful at the last.
That one Edenic transgression did
not seem to be much, but it struck a
blow which to this day makes the
earth stagger. To find out the conse-
quences of that one sin you would
have to compel the world to throw
open all its prison doors and display
the crime, and throw open all its hos
pitfalls and display the disease, and
throw open all the insane asylums and
show the wretchedness, and open all
the sepulchers and show the dead, and
open all the doors of the lost world
and show the damned. That one
Edenic transgression stretched chords
of misery across the hear of the world
and struck them with dolorous vail
ing, and it has seated the plaques upon
the air and the shipwrecks upon the
tempest, and fastened, like a leech,
famine t o the heart of sick and dying
nations. Beautiful at the start, horri-
BILE at the last. Oh, how many have
experienced It'll
Are there here those who are voteries
of pleasureP Let me warn you, my
brother. Your pleasure boat is
far from shore, and your summer day
is ending roughly, for the winds and
the waves are loud-voiced, and the
overcoming clouds are all awrithe and
agleam with terror. You are past the
"'Narrows," and almost outside the
Hook" and If the Atlantic take thee,
frail mortal, thou shall eve get to
shore again. Put back, row swiftly,
swifter, swifter. Jesus from the shore
casteth a rope. Clasp it quickly, now
or never. All, are there not some of
you who are freighting all your
loves and joys and hopes upon
a vessel which shall never reach
the port Of Heaven Thou near
est the breakers. One heave upon n
rocks. Oh, what an awful crash was
thatl Another lunge may crush thee
beneath the spars or grind thy bones
to powder amid the torn timbers.
Overheard for your life, overboardl
Trust not thai loose plank nor attempt
the wave, but quiekly'clasp the feet of
Jesus walking on the watery pavement,
shouting until He. hear thee: Lord,
save me, or l perish" Sin beautiful
at the start-oh, how sad, how dis
tressful at the lastl The ground over
which it leads you is hollow. The
fruit it offers to your taste is poison.
The promise it makes to you is a lie.
Over that ungodley banquet the keen
sword of Gods judgment hangs, and
there are ominous handwritings on the
walls.
Observe also in this subject how re-
polling sin is when appended to great
attractiveness. Since Ewes death
there has been no such. perfection of
womanhood. You could not suggest
an attractiveness to the body or sug-
gest any refinement to the manner
You could add no gracefulness to the
gait, no luster to the eye, no sweet
ness to the voice. A perfect God made
her a perfect woman, to be the com-
panion of a perfect nan in a perfect
home, and her entire nature vibrated
in accord with the beauty and song of
Paradise. But she rebelled against
Gods government, and with the same
hand with which she plucked the fruit
she launched upon the world the
crimes, the vars, the tumults that
have set the universe a-wailing,
A terrible offset to all her attractive
ness. We are not surprised when we
find men and women naturally vulgar
going into transgression. We expect
that people who live in the ditch shall
have the manners of the ditch; but
how shocking when we find sin APP
pended to superior education and to
the r~efnements of social lifeI The ae-
complishments of Mary Queen of Scots
make her patronage of Darnley, he
profigate. the more appalling. The
genius of Catherine II. of Russia only
sets forth in more powerful contrast
her u~nappeasable ambition. The trans
lations from the Greek and the Latin
by Elizabeth, and her wonderful quail
ifcatiops for a queen, make the more
disgusting her caprieiousness of affec-
ton and her holiness of temper. The
greatness of Byron's mind makes the
more alarming Byron's sensuality.
Let no one think hat refinement of
ann or exquisiteness of taste or
superiority of education can In any