Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1900-08-17


and then the boy answered, with o tear
FLASHING on the back of his hand. He
said IN defiance: NO. sir; | can't read
nor write neither. God, sir, don't want
me to read and write: Didn't He take
away nv father sd long ago | never re
member to have seen him? And haven't
| had to 90 along the streets to get some.
thing to fetch home to eat for the folks!
And didn't |. as soon as ] could carry a
basket. have to 60 out and pick up Gin
ders, and never have no schooling, sir!
God don't want Inc to read, sir. L cant
read nor write neither"
In all cities, east, west, north, south.
notice great temptations to commercial
fraud. Here is man who starts IN busll;;
ness. lie says, Pm going to be honest,
but on the same street, on the same
block, in the same business are Sbylocks.
Those men, to get the patronage OF any
one, will break all understandings with
other merchants and will sell at rulnous
cost, putting their neighbors AT great DIS
advantage, expecting TO make, up the de-
felt in something else If an honest prln-
cple could creep into that mans soul IL
would die of sheer loneliness. The man
twists about. irving to escape the penalty
of the law, and dcspises God, while he Is
lust little anxious about the sheriff;
The honest man looks about him and
says "Well, this rivalry is awful. Per
haps | am more scrupulous than need be.
This little bargain / am about to enter is
a little doubtful, but then | shall only do
as the rest And so | had friend who
started in commercial life, and as a book
merchant, with high resolve. lie said,
ON my store there shall be no books that
/ would not have my family read Time
passed on. and one day j went INTO his
store and found some iniquitous books on
the shelf, and ! said to him, How is It
possible that you can consent TO sell sucn
books as these" oh, he replied,
have cot over those Puritanical notions!
a man cannot do business IN this DAY
unless he does it in the way other people
do it." 10 make long story short, he
lost his hope of heaven, and in a little
while he lost his morality, and then he
went into q madhouse. In other words,
when man casts off God, God casts HIM
off.
Hundpeds Of mcn going down i'll our
cities every year through the pressure OF
politics.
That man in the fear ard love of God
goes into politics with that idea and with
the resolution that lie will come out UNI
contaminated and as good Is when he
went in, but generally the case -. when a
man steps into politics, many OF the news
papers try to blaclen his character and to
distort all his past history, and alter
little while has gone by, instead OF con-
sidering himself an honorable citizen, he
is lost in contemplation AID III admiration
of the fact that he has SO long been kept
out of jail
If d man should 60 into politics to re-
form politics, and with the right spirit,
he can come out with the right spirit and
unhurt. That was-Theodore FreSinghuy-
sen, of New Jersey. That was George
Briggs, of Massachusetts,. That was
Judge Mclean, of Ohio.
Then look around and sec the allure
ments TO dissipated life. Bad books, UNI
known to father and mother, vile as the
reptiles of Egypt. crawling into some OF
the 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
at night. Satan finds them Il smooth
plank on which he can slide down into
peridition some OF your sons and daush-
tiers.
Reading bad books, one never gets over
it. The books may be burned, but there
Is not enough pONCI III al NiiS "PCNHS
cary's preparations to wash ont the stain
from the soul Fathers hands, mothers
hands. sisters hands will not wash it out
None but the hand of the Lord can wash
it out.
And what is more perilous i'll regard to
some of these temptations we may not
mention them. While God in His Bible
from chapter to chapter Numbered His
denunciations against these crimes, people
expect the pulpit and the printing press
to be silent on the subject, and just III
proportion as people are impure arc they
fastidious on this theme. They arc so
full of decay and death they do not want
their sepulchers opened. God will turn
into destruction all the uneiean, and no
splendors of surrounding can make de,
cent that which He has smitten God
will not excuse sin merely because 1T has
costly array and beautiful tapestry and
palatial 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 it high life you
call it EAST living" you call it people
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 in purple and IN
linen. 90 unwhipped of public justice. An,
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 a man will have!
As the door opens to receive nm thou'
sands of voices will cry out, See here
what you have done" and the wretch
will wrap himself with fiercerr fame and
lean into deeper darkness, and the multi.
tude he has destroyed will pursue him 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 to
drink it to the dregs If i'll all the ocean
of the lost world that comes billowing UP
there be one wave more fierce than an
other it will dash over them. But there
is hope for all who will turn.
stood one day at Niagara Falls, and
saw what you may have seen therc.-siX
rainbows bending over that tremendous
plunge. / never saw anything like 1t be-
fore or since Six beautiful rambows
arching that great cataract! And SO over
the rapids and angry precipces OF SIN,
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 nghtfall the
voices and footsteps of the city dying
from your ear, and it gets so silent that
YOU can hear distinctly your watch under
your pillow going "tick, tick, then open
your eyes and look out upon the darkness
and see two pillars of light, one horizontal,
the other perpendicular, but changing
their direction until they come together,
and your enraptured vision beholds it
the cross.