The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-08-23

pared Tor the COnIliCL Oh lliS INC uhSiA IL
knows this particular peril.
Again, in all cities ! am impressed with
the fact that there is great field tor
Christian charity. There are hunger and
suffering and want and wretchedness In
the country, but these evils chiefly con-
gregate in our great cities. On every street
crime prowls and drunkenness staggers,
and shame winks, and paupersm thrusts
out its hand asking for aims. Here want
is 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 wrte?" The boy made no an
swer The man asked the question twice,
and thrice; Can you read and writ 1e:.
FLASHING on the back of his hand. he
said in defiance: mo, sir; l 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 l never re
member to have seen him? And haven't
| had to go along the streets to get some,
thing to fetch home to eat for the folks!
And didn't l, as soon as I could carry a
basket, have to go out and pick up GIN,
ders, and never have no schooling, sir!
God don't want me to read, sir. L can't
read nor write neither.
In all cities, east, west, north, south,
notice great temptations to commercial
fraud Here is man who starts in busl-
ness. He says, I'm 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 understandings with
other merchants and will sell at ruinous
COST putting their neighbors at great DIS
advantage, expecting to make up the de-
felt in something else. If an honest prln-
ciple could creep into that mans soul 1t
L. ITl,n
twists about, trying to escape the penalty
of the law, and despises God, while he u
just 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
LITE a2qStfg h Ras tfs n shf. ag g99y w 99
started in commercial life, and as book
merchant, with 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 iniqutous books on
the shelf, and l said to him, How is it
possible that YOU can !o consent to sen sucn
have got 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 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 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
goes into politics with that idea and with
the resolution that he will come out I'M
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
distort all his past history, and after a
little while has gone by, instead of con-
sidering himself an honorable citizen, he
is lost in contemplation and in admiration
of the fact that he has so long been kept
out of Jail
If man should go into politics to re-
form politics, and with the right spirit,
he can come out with the right spirit and
unhurt. That was Theodore Frelinghuy-
sen, of New Jersey. That was George
Briggs, of Massachusetts. That was
Judge Mclean, of Ohio.
Then look around and see the allure
ments to dissipated life. Bad books, ,un-
known to father and mother, vile as thee
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 smooth
plank on which he can slide down into
peridition some Of your sons and daugh-
tiers.
Reading bad books, one never gets over
it. The books may be burned, but there
is not enough power in all the apothe
carys preparations to wash out 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 in regard to
some of these temptations we may not
mention them. While God in His Bible
from chapter to chapter Numbered His
expect the pulpit and the printing press
to be silent on the subject, and just in
proportion as people are impure are they
fastidious on this theme. They are so
full of decay and death they do not want
their sepulchers opened. God will turn
into destruction all the unclean, and no
splendors of surrounding can make de-
cent that which He has smitten. God
will not excuse sin merely because it 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 transpring in seemingly respecta-
bic circles. You call it "high life," y94
call it fast living" you call it 'people,I
eccentrcity," 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, go unwhipped of pEblic 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
will wrap himself with fercer fame and
leap 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 in 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.
1 stood one day at Niagara Falls, and