Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1900-08-22

| ne country. but these evils chiefly con-
yregate in our great cities On every street
rime prowls and drunkenness staggers.
md shame 1winks, and pauperism thrIsts
,ut ITS hand asking for aims. Here want
s most squalid, and hunger is most lean.
"A Christian man going along street in
New York saw poor lad, and he stopped
and said: My boy, do you know how to
read and write:" The boy made no an
! 'wer. The man asked the question twice
and thrice. Can YOU read and write.'
and then the boy answered. with tear
| olashing on the back of his hand. He
nor write neither. God, sir. don't want
ne to read and write. Didn't He take
away my father so long ago / never re-
member to have seen -him2 And haven't
! had to go along the streets to get some
thing to fetch home to eat for the folks?
And didn't i, as soon as | could carry n
basket, have to go out and pick up Gin
1ers, and never have no schooling, sir?
sod don't want me to read, sir. l can't
read nor write neither"
In all cities. east. west. north, south,
aotice great temptations to commercial
fraud. Here is man who starts in busi-
ness. He says, I'm going to be honest"
but on the same street, OH the same
block, in the same business are Shylocks.
Those men, to get the patronage of any
one, will break all understandings with
other merchants and Will sell at ruinous
cost, putting their neighbors at great dis
advantage, expecting to make up the de-
icit in something else. III an honest prin-
,iple could creep into that mans soul 1t
would die of sheer loneliness, The man
twists about, trying to escape the penalty
of the law, and desDises God, while he ls
Just little anxious about the sheriff.
The honest man looks about him and
says: We'll, this rivalry is awful. Per
maps / am more scrupulous than | need be.
This little bargain l am about to enter is
little doubtful, but then | shall only do
IS the rest" And so / had friend who
started in commercial life, and as book
merchant, with 4 high resolve. He said,
In my store there shall be no books that
would not have my family read. lime
passed on, and one day | went into his
store and found some iniquitous books ON
the shelf, and l said to him, How Is 1T
books as these?" oh" he replied, Il
have got over those Puritanical notionsi
man cannot do business in this day
Inless he does it in the way other people
10 it." 10 make d 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 man casts off God, God casts HIM
off.
Hundreds of men going down in our
cities every year through the pressure of
politics.
That man in the fear and love of God
yoes into politics with that idea and with
the resolution that he will come out un
contaminated and as good as when he
went in, but generally the case Is, when
man steps into politics, many of the news
papers try to blacken his character and to
1istort all his past history, and after a
little while has gone by, instead OF con
sidering himself an honorable citizen. he
lost in contemplation and in admiration
Of the fact that he has SO long been kept
out of jail
If man should 90 into politics to re-
form politics. and with the right spirit
ne can come out with the right spirit and
sen, of New Jersey. That was George
Briggs, of Massachusetts. That was
Judge Mclean, OF Ohio.
| Then look around and see the allure
nents to dissipated life. Bad books, un-
Known to father and mother, wife as the
| reptiles OF Egypt. crawling into some OF
he best of families of the community,
who may read them while the teacher Is
looking the other way or at recess or on
| the corner of the street when the groups
are gathered These books are read late
1T night. Satan finds them a smooth
plank on which he can slide down into
peridition some of your sons and daugh
| ,ers.
| Reading bad books, one never gets over
| t. The books may be burned but there
$ not enough power in all the apothe-
,arys preparations to wash out the STAIN
rom the soul. Fathers hands, mothers
hands, sisters hands will not wash 1t out.
| None but the hand of the Lord can wash
| t out.
And what is more perilous in regard to
some of these temptations we may not
mention them While God in His Bible
from chapter to chapter thundered His
1enunciations against these crimes, people
| to be silent on the subject, and Just in
| proportion as people are impure are they
| fastidious this theme. They are 50
full of decay and death they do not want
| their sepulchers opened. God viii turn
INTO destruction all the unclean, and no
splendors of surrounding can make de
cent that which He has smltten. God
will not excuse sin merely because IL has
| costly array and beautiful tapestry and
paiatial residence any more than He will
excuse that which crawls, a blotch of
| sores, through the lowest cellar. Ever
and anon, through some lawsuit, there
flashes upon the people OF our great cities
| what is transpiring in seemingly respecta-
BILE circles. You call 1t high life, you
| call it fast living" you call 1t peoples
eccentricity," and while we kick off the
| sidewalk the poor wretch who has not the
means to garnish his iniquity, these Lords
and ladies, wrapped III purple and IN
linen, go unwhipped of public justice. All.
the most dreadful part of the whole thing
| is, that there are persons abroad whose
whole business it is to despoil the young.
/ What an eternity such man will have!
AS the door opens to receive him thou
sands of voices will cry out, ''See here
what you have done" and the wretch
viii wrap himself with fercer flame and
leap into deeper darkness, and the multi.
tude he has destroyed will pursue hlm and
hurl at him the long, bitter, relentless.
| everlasting curse of their own anguish. II
there be one cup of eternal darkness more
bitter than another, they will have tC
drink it to the dregs. If in all the ocean
Of the lost world that comes billowng uI
I there be one wave more fierce than an
other, it will dash over them. But there
is hope for all who viii turn.
/ stood one day at Niagara Falls, and
saw what you may have seen therc-siS
rainbows bending over that tremendous
plunge. | never saw anything like It he
fore or since. SIX beautiful ralnboWs
arching that great cataract And so over
the rapids and angry precipiccs oi sin
where so many have been dashed down
Gods beautiful admonitions hover.
warning arching each peril-siX OF them
fifty Of them, thousand OF them. BE
ware, beware, beware
Young men, while you have time TO re.
feet upon these things and before the
duties of the office and the store and the
shop come upon you again, look over this
whole subject, and after the day has
passed and you hear in the nphtfall the
voices and footsteps of the city dyius
from your ear, and it gets 50 silent TINT
you can hear distinctly your watch under
your pillow going tick, tick" then opeu
your eyes and look out upon the darl,ncs.
and see two pillars of light, one horiz 1tal
the other perpendicular. but charging
their direction until they come together
and your enraptured vision beholds it
the cross
An acre of performance is worth 2
whole world of promise.