The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-09-23


lips? Profane swearing is as much
forbidden by the law as theft, or arson,
or murder, yet who executes it? Pro-
family is worse than theft, or arson, or
murder. for these crimes are attacks
on humanity-that is an attack on God.
This country is pre-eminent for
blasphemy. A man travelling in Rus
STA was supposed to be a clergyman.
"Why do you take me to be a clergy
MANI" said the man. oh" said the
Russian. "all other Americans swear"
The crime is multiplying in intensity.
God very often shows what he thinks
OF it, but for the most part the fatality
is hushed up. Among the Adirondacks
| met the funeral procession of a man
who two days before had fallen under
a flash of lightning, while Boosting,
after a Sunday of work in the fields,
that he had cheated God out of one
day anyhow, and the man who worked
with him is still living, but helpless
invalid, under the same flash"
Years ago, in Pittsburgh prison,
two men were talking about the Bible
and Christianity, and one of them,
Thompson by name, applied to Jesus
Christ very low and villainous epi-
tibet, and, as he was uttering it, he fell.
A physician was called, but no help
could be given. After day lying
with distended pupils and palsied
tongue, he passed out of this world.
In a cemetery in sullivan county, in
New York state, are eight headstones
in line and all alike, and these are
the facts: In 1861 diphtheria ragged in
the village, and physician was re-
markably successful in curing his pa
tients. SO confident did he become
that he boosted that no case of diph-
liberia could stand before him, and
finally deted Almighty God to pro-
duce case of diphtheria that he
could not cure. His youngest child
soon after took the disease and died,
and one child after another, until all
the eight had died of diphtheria. The
blasphemer challenged Almighty God
and God accepted the challenge. Do
not think that because God has been
silent in your case, o, profane swearer!
that He is dead. Is there moth
ing now in the peculiar feeling of
your tongue, or nothing in the numb
ness of your brain, that indicates that
God may come TO avenge your bias
phemies, or is already avenging them?
But these cases i have noticed, | be-
lieve, are only few cases where there
are hundreds. Families keep them
quiet TO avoid the horrible conspicuity.
Physicians suppress them through
professional confidence. 1t is a very,
very, long roll that contains the names
of those who died with blasphemies on
their lips.
Still the crime rolls on, up through
parlors, up through chandeliers with
lights all ablaze, and through the
pictured corridors of club rooms, out
through busy exchanges where oath
meets oath, and down through all the
haunts of sin, minRling with the rat
Ting dice and cracking billiard balls,
and the laughter of her who hath for
gotten the covenant of her God; and
round the city and round the con.
tinent, and round the earth seething,
boiling surge filings its hot spray into
the face of long-sutfering God. And
the ship captain curses his crew, and
the master builder his men, and the
hack driver his horse; and the traveller
the stone that bruises his foot, or the
mud that soils his shoes, or the defec-
tive timepiece that gets him too late
TO the rail train. l arraign profane
swearing and blasphemy, two names
for the same thing, as being one of
the gigantic crimes of this land, and
for its eXtirpation it does seem as If il
were about time for God 10 arise.
Then look for a moment at the evil
of drunkenness. Whether You live in
Washington, or New York, or Chicago,
or Cincinnati, or Savannah, or Boston,
or in any of the cities of this land,
count up the saloons on that street as
compared with the saloons five years
ago, and see they are growing far out
of proportion to the increase of popu-
lation. You people who are so precise
and particular lest there should be
some imprudence and rashness in at
lacking the rum traffic win have your
son some night pitched into your front
door dead drunk, or your daughter
will come home with her children be-
cause her husband has, by strong
drink, been turned into a demoniac.
The drink fiend has despoiled whole
streets of good homes in all our cities
Fathers, brothers. sons on the funeral
pyre of strong drink! Fasten tighter
the victims! Stir up the flames! Pile
on the corpses More men, women and
children for the sacrifice Let us have
whole generations on fire of evil habit;
and at the sound of the cornet, flute,
harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer
let all the people fall down and wor-
ship King Alcohol, or you shall be
cast into the fiery furnace under some
political platform!
Others are ruined by the common
and all-destructive habit Of treating
customers. And it is treat on their
coming to town, and treat when the
purchase is made, and a treat as he
leaves town. Others, to drown their
troubles, submerge themselves with
this worse trouble. Oh, the world is
battered and bruised and blasted with
this growing evil! 1t is more and
more intrenched and fortified. They