The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1899-07-26

turns out uelau4leI, Wual NiSp1dy
heads there are in many of the newspa-
pers Great primer type. Five line
plea. Another Saint Absconded, ,
''Clerical Scoundrelism, Religion at
Discount, while there are a thous-
and scoundrels outside the church to
one inside the church, and the misbe-
havior of those who never see the in
side Of church is so great that it is
enough to tempt man to become
Christian to get out of their company.
But in all circles, religious and irreli
gious, the tendency is to excuse sin in
proportion as it is mammoth. Even
John Milton in his Paradise Lost,
while he condemns satan, gives such
grand description of him you have hard
work to withhold your admiration. Oh,
this straining out of small sins like
gnats and this gulping down great iniq-
uities like camels!
This subjec. does not give the pic
ture Of one or two persons, but is gal
lery in which thousands Of people may
see their likenesses For instance, all
those people who, while they would not
rob their neighbors of a fartEing, appro-
pirate the money and the treasure OF
the public. \ man has house to sell,
aud he tells his customer it is worth
$40, 600. Next day the assessor comes
around and the owner says it is worth
S15, 900. The government Of the
United States took off the tax from per-
sonal income, among other reasons be-
cause so few people would tell the
truth, and many man with an income
of hundreds of dollars day made state
ments which seemed to imply he was
about to be handed over to the over
seer of the poor. Careful to pay their
passage from Liverpool to New York,
yet smuggling in their Saratoga trunk
ten silk dresses from Paris and half
dozen watches from Geneva, Switzer-
land, telling the custom house officer on
the wharf, there is nothing in that
trunk but wearing apparel, and putting
a five dollar gold piece in his hand to
punctuate the statement.
Described in the text are all those
who are particular never to break the
law Of grammar and who want all their
language an elegant specimen of syn
tax, stsaining out all the inaccuracies
Of speech with fine sieve of literary
criticism, while through their converse
ton 60 SANDER and innuendo and pro-
family and falsehood larger than whole
caravan of camels, when they might
better fracture every law Of the la"g-
uage and shock their intellectual ia
and better let every verb seek in N":'
for its nominative, and every noun ;..r
its government, and let every prop i.
ton lose its way in the sentence, AID
adjectives and participles and prononus
get into grand riot worthy of the
Fourth ward If New York on election
day, than to commit moral inaccuraey.
Better swallow thousand gpats than
one camel
Such persons are also described in
the text who are very much alarmed
about the small faults Of others and
have no alarm about their own great
transgressions. There are in every
community and in every church watch
dogs who feel called upon to keep their
eyes on others and growl. They are
full of suspicious. They wonder if this
man is not dishonest, if that man is not
unclean, if there is not something
wrong about the other man. They are
always the first to hear of anything
wrong. Vultures are always the first
to smell carrion. They are self ap-
pointed detectives. l lay this down as
rule without any exception, that
those people who have the most faults
themselves are most merciless in their
watching of others. From scalp Of
head to sole of foot they are full Of
iealousies and hypercriticisms. They
spend their life in hunting for muskrats
and mud turtles instead Of hunting for
RocSy mountain eagles, always for some
thing mean instead Of something grand.
They look at their neighbors' imperfec-
tions through microscope and look at
their own imperfections through tele
scope upside down. Twenty faults OF
their own do not hurt them so much as
one fault of somebody else. Their
neighbors' imperfections are like gnats,
and they strain t2em out; their own i'm
perfections are like camelS, and they
swallow them.
But lest too many might think they
escape the scrutiny Of the text, have
to tell you that we all come under the
divine satire when We make the ques-
tions Of time more prominent than the
questions of eternity. Come now, let
US all go into the confessional. Are
not all tempted to make the question,
Where shall I live now? greater than
the question. Where shall live forev-
er? How shall l get more dollars here?
greater than the question, How shall |
lay up treasures in heaven? the ques
ton, How shall pay my debts to man?
greater than the question, How shall |
meet my obligations to God? the ques-
ton, How shall | gain the world?
greater than the question, What if |
lose my soul? the question, Why did
God let sin come into the world? great
er than the question, How shall | get
it extirpated from my nature? the qucs
ton, What shall do with the ~ OF 10
or 20 years Of my sublunar existence?
greater than the question, What shall
do with the millions Of cycles of my
past terrestrial existence? Timc-how
small it is. Eternity-how vast it is.
The former more insignificant in COM
parison with the latter than gnat is
insignificant when compared with a
camel. We lodged the text. We said,
That does not mean ne, and that does
not mean me, and with ruinous be-
nevolence We are giving the whole ser
mon away.
But let US all surrender to the charge.
What an ado about things here! What