Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-03-28


in an ancestral current, where there is
good blood lowing smoothly from gen.
Grafton to generation, it is not a very
great credit to him if he turn out good
and honest and pure and noble. He
could hardly help it. But suppose he is
born in an ancestral line, in a hered-
itary line, where the influences have
been bad, and there has been coming
down over moral declivity if the man
surrender to the influences he will 20
down under the overnastering gravita-
tion unless some supernatural aid be af-
forded him. Now, such a person de-
serves not your excoriation, 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.
Beset by Temptation.
In Great Britain and in the United
States in every generation there are
tens of thousands of persons who are
ated. say in every generation. Then I
suppose there are tens of thousands of
persons not found out in their criminal
ity In addition to these there are tens
of thousands of persons who, not posi-
lively becoming criminals, nevertheless
have criminal tendency. Any one of
all those thousands by the grace of
God may become Christian and resist
the ancestral influence and open a new
chapter of behavior, but the vast ma
joriGy Of them will not, and it becomes
all men, professional, unprofessional,
ministers Of religion, judges of courts,
philanthropists and Christian workers,
to recognize the fact that there are these
Atlantic 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
Matthew You see in the same line in
which there was wicked Reboboam
and desperate Manassas, there after
ward came pious Josiah and glorious
Christ. But, my friends, you must recog-
nize the fact that these influences go on
from generation to generation. l am
glad to know, however, that river
which has produced nothing but miasma
for 100 miles may after awhile turn the
wheels of factories and help support in
dustrious and virtuous populations, and
there are family lines which were poi
soned that are 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 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 hypocrite,
but l mean the man who before God is
really the best. [ will take you out
from all your Christian surroundings. [
will take you back to boyhood. l will
put you in a depraved home. I will put
you in cradle of iniquity. Who is
bending over that cradle? An intoxicat-
ed mother. Who is that swearing in the
next room? Your father. The nelghbors
come in to talk, and their jokes are I'M
Clean There is not in the house a Bible
or moral treatise, but only a 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 reprimand-
ed. After awhile you are old enough to
go abroad, and you are sent out with
basket to steal. If you come home with
out any spoil, you are whipped until the
blood comes. At 10 years of age you go
out to fight your own battles in this
world, which seems to care DO more for
you than the dog that has died of fit
under the fence. You are kicked and
cuffed and buffeted. Some day, rallying
your courage, you resent some wrong.
A man says: "Who are you? I know
who you are. Your father had free lodg-
ings at Sing Sing. Your mother, she
was up for drunkenness at the criminal
court. Get out of my way, you low lived
wretch!'' lily brother, 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 today, seated in this Christian
emily? I tell you nay. You would
have been a vagabond, an outlaw, a
murderer on the scaffold atoning for
your crime. All these considerations
ought to make us merciful in our deal
ings with the wandering and the lost.
Consider the Sinner.
Again, have to remark that in our
estimation the misdoing of people who
have fallen from high responsibility and
usefulness, we must take into considera-
ton the conjunction 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
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