The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1898-04-09

GRAFTON to generation, IL Is not a very
great credit to him IL he turns out good,
and honest, and pure, and noble. He
could hardly help it. But suppose
he is born in an ancestral line, in an
hereditary line, where the influences
have been bad, and there has been a
coming down over a moral declevity,
| If the man surrender to the influences
he will go down under the overmaster-
ing gravitation unless some superpat-
ural aid be afforded him. Now, such a
person deserves not your excoriat,on,
but your pity. Do not sit with the lip
curled in scorn, and with an assumed
air of angelic innocence looking down
upon such moral precipitation. You
had better get down on your knees
and first pray Almighty God for their
rescue, and next thank the Lord that
you have not been thrown under the
wheels OF that juggernaut.
In Great Britain and in the United
States, in every generation, there are
tens of thousands of persons who are
fully developed criminals and incar-
cerated. l say In every generation.
Then suppose there are tens OF thou
sands of persons not found out in their
criminality. In addition to these there
are tens of thousands of persons who,
not positively becoming criminals, new
ertheless have a criminal tendency.
Any one Of all those thousands by the
grace Of God may become Christian,
and resist the ancestral influence, and
open new chapter of behavior;
but the vast majority of them will
not, and it becomes all men, profess
sional, unprofessional, ministers of re-
ligion, judges of courts, philanthro-
pists, and Christian workers, to recog-
nize the fact that there are these At
lantic and Pacific surges of hereditary
evil rolling on through the centuries.
l say, of course, man can resist this
tendency, just as in the ancestral line
mentioned in the first chapter of Mat
thew. You see in the same. line in
which there was wicked Rehoboam
and a desperate Manassas, there after
ward came n pious Josiah and glori-
GUS Christ. But, my friends, you must
recognize the fact that these influ-
ences go on from generation to genera
ton. l am glad to know, however,
that river which has produced moth
ing but miasma for 100 miles, may,
after awhile, turn the wheels of fac
tories and help support industrious
and virtuous populations; and there are
family lines which were poisoned that
are a benediction now. At the last
day it will be found out that there are
men who have gone clear over into all
forms of iniquity and plunged into
utter abandonment, who, before they
yielded to the first temptation, resisted
more evil than many man who has
been moral and upright all his life.
But, supposing now, that in this age,
when there are so many good people,
that L come down into this audience
and select the very,best man in it. do
not mean the man who would style
himself the best, for probably he is a
hypocrite; but mean the man who be-
fore God is really the best. / will
take you out from all your Christian
surroundings. 1 will take you back
to boyhood. l will put you in a
depraved home. 1 will put you in
cradle of iniquity. Who is
toxicated mother. Who is that
swearing in the next room? Your
father. The neighbors come in and
talk, and their jokes are unclean.
There is not in the house Bible or a
moral treatise, but only few scraps
of an old pictorial.
After awhile you are old enough to
get out of the cradle, and you are
struck across the head for naughtiness,
but never in any kindly manner repri-
manded. After awhile you are old
enough to go abroad, and you are sent
out with basket to steal. If you
come home without any spoil you are
whipped until the blood comes. At Is
years of age you go out to fight your
own battles in this world, which seems
to care no more for you than the
dog that has died of fit under the
fence. You are kicked and
cuffed and buffeted. Some day, rally
ing your courage, you resent some
wrong. A man says: 'Who are you?
know who you are. Your father had
free lodgings at Sing Sing. Your
mother, she was up for drunkenness at
the criminal court. Get out of my
way, you low-lived wretch My BROTH
err, suppose that had been the history
of your advent, and the history of your
earlier surroundings, would you have
been the Christian man you are to-day,
seated in this Christian assembly? l
tell you nay. You would have been a
vagabond, an outlaw, a murderer on
Che scaffold atoning for your crime.
All these considerations ought to make
us merciful in our dealings with the
wandering and the lost.
Again, have to remark, that in our
estimation of the misdoing of people
who have fallen from high respecta-
bility and usefulness we must take
into consideration the coniunc-
ton of circumstances. In nine
cases out of ten man who goes
astray does not intend any positive
wrong. He has trust funds. He risks
a part of these funds in investment.
He says: "Now, if 1 should lose that
investment have of my own property
five times as much, and if this invest
ment should go wrong, could easily
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