Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1899-07-22

steals $4,000 baskets of peaches.
Go down into the public library, In
the reading rooms, and see the news
I paper reports of the crops from oil
parts of the country, and their phrase
Ology Is very much the same, aRd the
same men wrote them, methodically
and UNANIMOUSLY carrying out the huge
lying about the grain crop from year
to year and for score Of years. Aft
err awhile there will be corner" In
the wheat market. aud men who had
contempt for petty theft will bur-
glarize the wheat bin Of nation and
commit larceny upon the American
corn crib and some of the men will sit
in churches and III refOrmatory instl-
tutIons trying to strain out the small
gnats of scOundrellsm, while in their
grain elevators and In their store.
houses they are fattenlng huge camels
which they expect after awhile to
swallow. Society has to be entirely re-
constructed on this subject We are
to find that sin Is lnexcusable In pro-
/ portion MS it Is great. ! know in our
time the tendency is 10 charge reli-
gious frauds upon good men. They
say, ooh. what host Of frauds you
have in the Church of God in this
day. And when an elder Of church.
or deacon. or minister Of the ges-
pei. or n superintendent Of Sabbath
school turns out defaulter what dis
play heads there are In mgly Of the
newspapers. Great primer type. Five
line plea. Another Saint Abscond-
ed" Clerical Scoundrelism," "Reli-
gion ut Discount Shame on the
Churches" while there are thousand
scoundrels outside the church to one
inside the church, and the msbehaVior
of those who never see the inside OF
church is so great that II Is enough to
tempt man to become q 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 con-
dennis Satan, gives such grand de-
scription of him you have hard work
! to withhold your admiration. Oh. this
strainlng out Of small sins like gnats
and this gulping down great inlQuities
like camels!
Gallery of Pictures.
This subject does not give the pic
ture Of one or two persons, but ls
gallery in which thousands Of people
may see their ll1enesses. For instance,
all those people who. while they would
not rob their nelghbors Of a farthing,
appropriate the money and the treas
urc OF the public. A man has house
to sell, and he tells his customer 1t Is
worth $4,000 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 nom
personal income. among other reasons
because so few people would tell the
truth, and many man with all In
come of hundreds Of dollars day
maze statements WHICH scented ~ ini-
ply he was about to be handed over to
the overseer Of the poor. Careful to
pay their passage from Liverpool to
New York, yet smuggling In their Sar-
atoga trunk ten silk dresses from Paris
and a half dozen watches from Gene
va, telling the custom house officer on
the wharf, '"There Is nothing In that
trunk but wearing apparel" and put
ting a S. 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
syntax, straIning out all the inaccura-
cies Of speech with fine sieve of 1T
ernry criticism, while through their
conversation 20 Islander and innuendo
and profanity and falsehood larger
than 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 ey-
cry noun for it's government. and let
every proposition lose its way In the
sentence. and adjectives and partici-
pies and pronOunS get into q grand
riot worthy of the Fourth ward OF
New York on election day than to
commit moral inaccuracy. Better
swallow 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
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 II
This man Is not dishonest, If that man
is not unclean, if there is not some
thing 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 appointed detectives. lay this
down rs a rule without any exception
that those people who have the most
faults themselves are most mercilcss
in their watching Of others. From
scalp Of head to sole of foot they are
full of jealousles and hypercriticisms.
They spend their life in hunting for
musllrats and mud turtles instead OF
hunting for Rocky mountain eagles,
always for something mean instead Of
something grand They look at their
neighbors' imperfections through
microscope and look at their own Inn
projections through telescope upside
down. Twenty faults of their own do
not hurt them so much rs one fault of
somebody else. Their neighbors' I'M
projections are like gnats, and they
strain them out; their own Imperfect
tons are like camels, and they swal-
low them.
Treasures In Heaven.
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-
tons 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 live now? greater than
H. e.