The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-07-28

Is SO great that 1t is enough to tempt
| a man to become a Christian I get out
| OF their company. But in all circles,
| religious and irreligious, the tendency
Is to xcu sin in proportion as IL Is
mammoth. Even John Milton in his
Paradise Lost" while he condemns
| satan, gives such a grand description
| Of him you have hard work TO withhold
| your admiration. Oh, this straining out
| Of small sins like gnats n this gulping
down Of great ~iniquities like camels!
DON'T MIND SMALL THINGS.
This subject does not give the picture
Of one or two persons, but is a gallery
in which thousands Of people may see
their Hkenesses. For instance, all those
people who, while they woul not rob
their neighbors OF a farthing, appro-
pirate the money and the treasure Of
the public. A man has a house to sell,
and he tells his customer it is worth
| $40, O00. Next day the assessor comes
| around and the owner say il is worth
SIS, 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 a man with an in
! come of hundreds of dollars a day made
| statements which seemed 70 imply he
was about to De handed over to the
| overseer 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
a half dozen watches from Geneva,
Switzerland, telling the custom house
officer on the wharf, There is moth
ing 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 neve~ to break the
law of grammar n NhO want all
their language az elegant specimen of
syntax, straining out all the inaccu-
racies Of speech with a fine sieve Of
literary criticism, while through their
conversation go SANDER n innuendo
and profanity and falsehood larger
than a whole caravan Of camels, when
they might better fracture every law
Of the language and shock their intel
lectual taste, and better let every verb
seek in vain for its nominative, and
every noun for it's government, and
let every proposition lose it's way in
the sentence, and adjectives and parti-
ciples n pronOuns get into a grand
riot worthy of the Fourth ward of
New York on election day, thar to
commit a moral inaccuracy. Better
swallow a thousand gnats than one
camel.
WASTED LIVES.
Such persons are also described in
the text who are very much alarmed
about the small faults of others and
AVE 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 n 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
a Iva We tha first t0 hear of 9nVthinp
wrong. Vultures are always the frs
to smell carrion. They are self ap-
pointed detectives. 1 lay this down as
a rule without any exception, thai
those people who have the most faults
themselves are most merciless in theil
watching of others. From scalp OF
head to sole of foot they are full OF
jealousies and hypercrfticisms. They
spend their life in hunting for musk.
rats and mud turtles instead of hunt.
ing for Rocky mountain eagles, Away:
for something mean in stead of some
thing grand. They 70 at their neigh
bors' imperfections through a micro
scope and look at their own imperfec.
tions through a telescope upside down
Twenty faults of their own do no
hurt them so much as one fault OF
somebody else. Their neighbors' imper'
fections are like gnats, n they straiI
them out; their own imperfectiOns are
I IKE CdIlclS III lllCy
But lest too many might think tt.
escape the scrutiny of the text, l have
to tell you that we all come under thu
divine satire when we make the ques'
lions of time more prominent than thu
questions of eternity. Come now, let u:
go into the confessional. Are not al
tempted to make the question, Wher'
shall 1 live now? greater than the ques
ton, Where shall I live forever? How
shall I get more dollars here? create
than the question, How sha I lay vi
treasures in heaven? the question, How
shall l pay my debts to man? create
than the question, How shall 1 meet M
obligations to God? the question, How
shall I gain the world? greater han tn
question, What if 1 lose my soul? tn
question, Why did God let sin come int
the world? greater than the question
How shall / get extH pated from my
nature? the question. What shall [ o.
with the 20 or 40 or 20 years Of my sub
lunar existence? greater than the ques
ton, What shall I do with the millions
Of cycles Of my past terrestrial exist
ence? Time-how small it is! Eterni
ty-how vast it is! The former NOR
insignificant in comparison with tn
latter thar a gnat is insignificant whel
compared with a camel. We dodget
the text. We said, THAT does no
mean me, and that does not mean me-
l liz WIFI d III I'll OAC1SC VIC al
giving the Whole sermon away.
But let US all surrender to III
charge. What an ado about thing
here!. What poor preparation for
great eternity! AS though a minnov
were larger than a behemoth, as though
a swallow took wider circuit than a.
albatrOss, as though a nettle were tai
!, Ter than a Lebanon cedar, as though
, gnat greater than a camel, as thong
a minute were longer than a century
as though time were higher, deeper
, broader tina neternity. So the ext whicl
!, flashed with lightning of wit as Chris
uttered it is followed by the crashing
, thunders of awful catastrophe to thOs
, who make the questions Of time create
than the questions of the future, tn
oncoming, overshadowing future. Oh
l Eternity! Eternity! Eternity.
| Durham Herald: The police office
who went to Norfolk on an excursiO
: and tfound that the policemen of tina
Z CITY we'll furnished with drinks free Q
: charge by the saloons, came lack HON
} very much Disguised with this town.