Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-08-13
there are subterfuges and pretensions?

there are SubterfugeS and pretenSionS!
Oh, how many there are who swagger
and strut, and how few people who are
natural and walk While tops shipper
and fools smoker and simpletons gig
gle, how few people are natural and
laugh. 1 say these things not to create
in you incredulity or misanthropy, nor
do forget there are thousands of peo-
pie a great deal better than they seem,
but 1 do not think any man is prepared
for the conflict Of this life until he
knows this particular peril
Again, in all cities l am impressed
with the fact that there is a great field
for Christian charity. There are hun
ger and suffering and want and wretch
edness in the country, but these evils
chiefly congregate in our great cities.
On every street crime prowls, and
| drunkenness staggers, and shame
winks, and pauperism thrusts out it's
hand asking for aims. Here want is
most squalid, and hunger is most lean.
A Christian man going along a street
in New York saw a poor lad, and he
stopped and said: "My boy, do you
know how to read and writer" The
boy made no answer. The man asked
the question twice and thrice: "Can
you read and writer" and then the
boy answered, with a tear FLASHING on
the back Of his hand. He said in
defiance: t'No, sir; I can't read nor
write neither. God, sir, don't want me
to read and write. Didn't he take
away my father so long ago I never
remember to have seen him? And
haven't I had to go along the streets
to get something to fetch home to eat
for the folks? And didn't I, as soon
as I could carry a basket, have to go
out and pick up cinders, and never
have no schooling, sir? God don't want
me to read, sir. I can't read nor write
neither"
Oh! these poor wanderers. They
have no chance. Born in degradation,
as they get up from their hands and
knees to walk, they take their first
step on the road to despair. Let us go
forth, in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, to rescue them. Let us min
listers not be afraid of soiling our black
clothes while we go down on that mis-
sion. While we are tying an elaborate
knot in our cravat, or while we are in
rhetorically, we might be saving a soul
from death, and hiding a multitude
of sins.
Mighty Temptations.
In all cities, east, west, north, south,
I notice great temptations to CONNER
cial fraud. Here is q man who starts
in business. He says, "Pm going to
be honest" but on the same street, on
the same block, in the same business
are Shylocks. Those men, to get the
patronage of any one, will break all
understanding with other merchants
and will sell at ruinous cost, putting
their neighbors at great disadvantage,
expecting to make up the deficit in
something else. If an honest principle
could creep into that mans soul, it
would die of sheer loneliness! The
man twists about trying to escape the
penalty of the law, and despises God,
while he is just a little anxious about
the sheriff. The honest man looks
about him and says: "Well, this rivalry
is awful. Perhaps 1 am more scrupu-
lous than l need be. This little bar
gain l am about to enter is a little
doubtful, but then 1 shall only do as
the rest" And so 1 had Il friend who
started in commercial life, and as a
book merchant, with high resolve.
He said. "In my store there shall be no
books that [ would not have my family
read" Time passed on, and one day [
went into his store and found some
Ubiquitous books on the shelf, and I
said to him, How is it possible that
you can consent to sell such books as
these?" FEOh," he replied, 81 have got
over those PUritanical notions! A man
cannot do bc,ainess in this day unless
he does it in the way other people do
it." To make a long story short, he
lost his hope of heaven, and in a little
while he lost his morality, and then he
went into a madhouse. In other words
when a man casts off God, God casts
him off.
One Of the mightiest temptations in
commercial life in all cities today is
in the fact that many professed Chris
tan men are not square in their bar
gains. Such men are IN Baptist and
Methodist and Congregational church
es, and our own denomination is as
largely represented as any of them.
Our good merchants are foremost in
Christian enterprises; they are patron
izers Of art, philanthropic and pa
triotic. God will attend to them in the
day Of his coronation. I am not speak
ing ST them, but of those in CONNER
cial life who are setting a ruinous ex-
ample to our young merchants. Go
through all the stores and offices in
our cities and tell me in how many
of those stores and Offices are the prin-
ciples of Christ's religion dominant?
In three-fourths Of them? No. In
half Of them? No. In One-tenth Of |
e.