Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-12-06

! udGS gers we ndQ pOb taken huUWicUSt
of. Ii we were all extreme pessimists
we could see no good in the future anG
would doubtless resign ourselves IL
despair to the fate of the approaching
ruin. Il is better to avoid such ex
tremes as shall lead us to life o.
| abandon, but rather listen attentively
| to both extremists while we take q
firm stand on the side of God. Be
thoughtfully optimistic. Indeed be
Christian Optimfsts. and while we re-
joice in the victory of the good, take
| heed to the warnings of evil. So enter
the battle conscious OF the magnitude
of the conflict before US.
To-day our minds are fixed upon the
blessings of our country. We rejoice
in abundant harvests. We praise the
gracious Providence who has made Our
country great and good. Upon an oc-
casion of this kind we have a tendency
to feel secure against all dangers. This
is good time, therefore, to listen to
the complaint of the pessimist as well
as to rejoice with the optimist. II we
will cease but few moments in our
thanksgiving we may hear the story OF
of the pessimist. He points the finger
of warning to dangers all about US.
He shows us our great cities with their
teeming criminal and ignorant foreign
populations, centers of crime and
lniquity. Where anarchy, iuidelity,
poverty. drunkenness and vices in their
most hideous forms are rampant, and
crowded in congested quarters, and
all these evils increasing faster than
the civic law and moral and social and
religious instruction are able to counter
influence and to check. He tells US
that the hand of Romanism is laid
heavily upon the government, and is
minglirg in political power all over
the country, and that the cellars of
its cathedrals are filled with Krag-
Jorgeson rifles and Colts revolvers,
ready for the call of the insurrectionist
He warns US that the liquor element
is dominant in politics and business,
and that strong drink draws many
millions of dollars annually from the
pocket of the poor man, more than
he spends for bread or meat; that suf-
feriug and death, the cry of the orphan
and widow, the shrek of the denoniac,
the bloody hand of the murderer, and
crime aud poverty, and irretrievable
losses all follow the filthy and blood
stained train of this monster. He de-
clares our beloved American Sabbath
is fast fading into history. Foreign
Influence is converting it into holiday
"a day of sinfulness instead of wor-
ship and home enjoyment.
The Bible is attacked by heartless
hands and reduced by cruel processes
to a mere skeleton of truth.
The churches are unpopular and un-
attended; the public school, pride of
the American heart, is center for the
spread of immortality aud disease. He
declares the American home life and
family association is endangered by
the crowded tenement system in facto-
ry and mining districts, by hotel and
club life in the cities, and by immoral
ity and abuses of the sacred pledges of
secrecy and purity. Out in the great
west there is a growing monster, enemy
at once to home and church and coun-
try; protesting to be another church,
it is really another religion and dan
gerous political party combined. 1t is
rich and powerful now-what will it
become?
Down in the Southland there is the
troublesome race observation-disclosures,
unsettled. and fraught with mighty
possibilities for evil.
Everywhere the intricate social and
labor problems. with the growing dis
content, foretelling revolution.
He opens the books OF our great
churches, and shows the discouraging
progress in recent years. Churches
are operating on starvation economy
while wealth is lavished on the forces
of evil
Missionary work drags for lack of
support. and many years of heroic and
patient work is demolished by the re-
cent revolution in China. Japan. so
recently susceptible to the Gospel, is
now being swept by strong wave
of rationalism.
Christian Science, Dowieism. spirit
ualism, occultism. skepticism, agnos-
ticism, aud many other kind of false
isms and PHILOSOPHERS and religious
quackery are deceiving and duping
the eredulous public. Mankind is
worthless and evil, corruption and sin
are sweeping the world into hell The
world is growing worse! Men are faith
less and dishonest with one another,
and disobedient aud rebellious before
God. Such is the hopeless harangue OF
the pessimisti
Listen next to the story of the opti-
mist. Look here upon this picture.