The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1898-04-08

ANslAHr HfAN IsAH hHHNH alla FHtA hAtat
y0u have not been thrown under the
wheels ~ that fugpernaal
In Great Britain and iH The United
States 10 every generation there are
tens ~ thousands Of pefF3ns who are
fully developed criminals and inear-
ceratsd. ! say m every generation.
Then l. suppose there are Gems of thou
sands of persons NOT found out 10 their
arimiuaEity. IB addition ~ these there
are tens I'll thousands Of persons who,
not positively becoming criminals, ney-
erlhplcss have a criminal tendency,
Any oBe 81 Oh those thousands by the
grace OF God may become Christian,
and resist the ancestral influence, and
open a new chapter Of behavior
but tho vast majority OF them viii
not. and 10 becomes all mem profess
si0nal, unprOfss5iOnal, ministers of re-
+ iigign, Judges Of courts. phiianthro-
pists, and Christian workers, to recog-
uize the fact that there are these At.
laHtic and Pacific surges Of hereditary
evil rolling on through the centuries.
/ say, Of course, a 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 Ia
which there was a wicked Rehoboam
and q desperate Manassas, there after
ward came q piOuH Josiah and q glOri-
GUS Christ. Bnt, my friends, you must
recognize the fact that these inGu.
enees go on from generation b genera
ton / am glad 10 know, however,
that o river which has produced moth
Ing but miasna for 100 miles, may,
after awhile, turn the wheels Of fac
tories aud help support industrious
and v]irtuous populations and there are
family lines which we're poisoned that
are O henedietiOn now. At the last
day 70 viii Do found out that there are
men who have gone clear over into al
forms Of iuiquity and plunged into
utter abandonment, who, before they
yielded TO the first temptation, resisted
more evil than many d man who has
been moral and upright all his life,
Bat, supposinR now, that In this age,
when there are 50 many good people,
that / come down into this audience
and select the very,best man Ia it. / do
not mean the man who would style
himself the best, for probably he Is a
byp6eritei but / mean the man who be-
fore God is really the best. ! will
take you ont from all your Christian
surroundings. 1 will take you back
10 boyhood | will put you in a
depraved home, l viii put you in
u cradle of iniquity, Who is
bending over That cradle2 An in
toxicated mother. Who Is that
swearing in the next room2 Your
father. The npighbors come In and
talk, and their jokes are unelean
There Is not Ia the house "a Bible or "a
moral treatise, but only a few scraps
Of an old pictorial,
After awhile you are Old enough to
got out Of the cradle, and O are
struck across the head for naughtiness,
but never in any kindly manner repri-
manded, After awhile you are old
enough 10 90 abroad, and you are sent
out with q basket TO steal If you
come homo without any spoil you are
whipped until the blood comes. At IS
years of age you go out to fight your
IVA battles In this world which seems
TO care no more for you than the
dog that has died Of a tit under the
fence. You ure Kicked and
cutfed and bulfetcd Some day, rally
ing our courage, you resent some
wrong, A man says: who are your
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
wNy, o ulow-livsd wretchI" My broth
On, suppose that had beeu the history
OF your advent, and the history OF your
enrlier surroundings, would yOa have
been the Christian man you are to-day,
seated In this Christian assembly, /
tell you nay. You would have been a
vagabond, an outlaw, O murderer on
the scatfold at0ning for your crime,
All these considerations ought to make
MS merciful In our dealings with the
wandering and the lost.
Again, l have to remark, that in our
estimation Of the m~isdoing Of people
who have fallen from high respecta-
biltty aud usefulness we must take
Into consideration the uoniunc-
ton OF circumstances. In nine
cases out OF ten a man who goes
astrey does not intend any positive
wrong. He has trust funds He risks
q part of these funds in investment.
lie says: aNow, IL 1 should lose that
investment l have Of my property
five times as much, and il this invest
ment should go wrong, / could easily
make Il up; / could live times make it
up" With that wrong reasoning ne
goes on and makes the investment, and
It does not turn ont quite as well as he
expected, and he makes another in.
vestment, and, strange 10 say, at the
same time all his other affairs get en-
tangled, and ali his other resources
foil, and his hands are tied. Now he
wants 10 cxtrieate himself, He goes a
little further on ina the wrong Invest
ment, He takes a plunge further
ahead, for he wants to save his wife
and children; he wants o save hts
homes he wants to save his member
ship in the church, He takes n more
plunge and all is lost.
Some morning at 10 o'clock the bank
door is not opened, and there IL a card
ON the door signed by an officer Of the
bank, indicating there is trouble. and
the name Of the defaulter or the de-
trauder heads the newspaper column
and hundreds of mon say; ,sGoad for
himi hundreds Of other men say. "Im
glad he's found out at last, hundreds
Of other men say; I'VE couldn't possi- /
bly, have been tempted To do that--no
conjunction Of circumstances could
ever have %overthrown me; and there
Is n sHODpah tfntRqtna 40 s~n1tuuakt-.