St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-08-19

Ii 30 great that 1t is enough to tempt
o man to become a Christian to get out
of their company. But in all circles,
religious and irreligious, 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 iniquities like can,-
els!
This subject does not give the picture
Of one or two persons, but is gallery in
which thousands of people may see
their likenesses. For instance, all those
people who, while they would not rob
their neighbors of a far .iins. appropri-
ate the money and the treasure Of the
public. 4 man has n house TO sell, and
he tells his customer it is worth $780,
600. Next day the assessor comes
around and the owner says it is worth
| $4,000. The government of the United
States. took off the tax from personal
income, among other reasons, because
SO few people would tell the truth, and
many q man with an income of hum
dreds of dollars day made statements
which seemed to implyshe was about to
be handed over to the overseers 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, Switzerland, telling the
| custom house officer on the. wharf:
There is nothing in that trunk but
wearing apparel" and putting five
dollar gold piece in his hand to punctu-
ate the statement.
Described in the text are all those
law of grammar and who want all their
language an elegant specimen of syn
tax, straining out all the inaccuracies
of speech with fine sieve of literary
criticism. while through their converse
ton go Islander and innuendo and pro-
family and falsehood larger than a
whole caravan of camels, when they
might better fracture every law of the
language and shock their intellectual
taste, and better let every verb seek in
vain for its nominativc and every noun |
for its government, and let every prepo- |
sition lose its way in the sentence, and
adjectives and participles and pro-
nouns get into grand riot worthy of |
the Fourth ward of New York on cleo |
ton day, than to commit moral mac
curacy. Better swallow q Thousand |
gnats 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 COM
munity and in every church watchdogs
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 un-
clean, if there is not something wrong
about the other man. They are always
the first to hear of anything wrong.
Nultures are always the first to smell
carrion. They are self-appointed de-
tectives. lay this down Gs rule with
out any exception, that those people
who have the most faults themselves
are most merciless in their watchings
OF Others. From scalp of head to sole
of foot they are iull Of jealousies and
hypercriticisms. They spend their life
in hunting for mnskrats and mud
turtles instead Of hunting for Rocky
mountain eagles, always for something
mean instead of something grand.
They look at their neighbors' imper-
fections through microscope and look
at their own imperfectio1s through .
telescope upside down. Twenty faults
of their own do not hurt them SO much
rs one fault of somebody else. Their
impcrfections are like gnats,
and they strain them out; their own inn
PROJECTIONS 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-
ions of time more prominent than the
questions of eternity. Come, now, let I
rs all so into the confessional. Are not ,
Ill tempted to make the question:
Where shall live now? greater than
he question: Where shall live for I
yer? How shall l get more dollars ,
,ere? greater than the question: How ]
hall lay up treasures in Heaven? The
question: How shall pay my debts I
o man? greater than the question:
low shall l meet my obligations to s
Tod? The question:: How shall gain I
he world? greater than the question: |
What if lose my soul? The question: |
Why did God let sin come into the s
world? greater than the question:: How il
Lail l get it extirpated from my e
AZURE? The question: What shall l f
o with the 20 or 40 or 20 years of my t
nb-lunar existence? greater than the A
uestion: What shall do with the mil I
ons of cycles of my post terrestrial I
xistence? Time-how small it is! n
vast it is! The former i,
lore Insignificant in comparison with s
ne latter than gnat is insignificant r
hen compared with a camel. We I,
edged the text. We said: THAT does T
OF mean me, and that does not mean
&c, and with a ruinous benevolence we
b
But let us all surrender to the I,
,arge. What IN ado about things Il
ere! What poor preparation for q Il
rcat eternity! AS though a minnow a,
ere larger than a behemoth. as though b,
swallow took wider circuit than an as
as though nettle were taller Y
ian Lebanon cedar, as though gnat in
ere greater than a camel, as though b
minute were longer than a century, b.
though time were higher, deeper, m
oader than eternity. So the text DC
hich flashed with lightning of wit as to
lrist uttered it is followed by the or
ashing thunders of awful catastrophe II
those who make the questions OF II
ne greater than the questions of the ~
ture, the oncohing, overshadowing Ii,
turc. Oh! Eternity Eternity! Eter- st
ty! is
NOT ALL RELIABLE. :"