The semi-weekly messenger., 1901-01-08

work, and you took stimulus to keep up
and do the work you must do;" or, Il
suppose it was through illness, and you
took an intoxicant FIRST as medicine"
or, You are a hail fellow well met, and
you took the liquid in sociability;" or,
You were the representative OF q com
mercial house that expected you to treat
Customers. / understand 1t ali. IL had
been in the same circumstances, would
probably be fast in the same -thraldom."
By some such alleyiating introduction
prepare the way for ."Bewarey' that
win halt your friend on the wrong road
as suddenly as any platoon Of soldiers
was ever halted. Swing the red lantern
across that track, and stop that train be-
fore it reaches the chasm!
Speak With Patience.
There must be no impatience in the
warning we give others. We must real
ize that but for the kindness Of God to
us we would have been in the same rap
ids. That man going wrong may be
struggling with a tide Of evil inherited
from father and grandfather and great
grandfather. The present temptation
may be the accumulated force Of genera
tons and centuries. ''No," you say. "his
4dlueT WIS u SOOQ AucW
But did you know his grandfather? Evil
habit is apt to skip one generation, feet
recognized in the Ten Commandments,
which speak of the third and fourth gen.
erations. but say nothing of the second
generation.
Or the man astray may have an un-
happy home, and that is enough to wreck
any one. We often speak Of men who
destroy their homes, but do not say any
thing about the fact that there are thou
sands Of wives in America who by petu-
lance and fretting and reconsideration
and lack Of economy and all manner of
disagreeableness drive their husbands into
dissipation. The reason that thousands
of men spend their evenings in club
houses and taverns is because they can
not stand it at home. / know men who
are 80 year martyrs in the fact that they
are awfully married. That marriage
was not made in heaven. Without ask
ing divine guidance they entered into an
alliance which ought never to have been
made. That is what Is the matter with
many men you and l know. They may
be very brave and heroic and say moth
ing about it, but all the neighbors know.
Now, if the man going wrong has such
domestic misfortune, be very lenient and
excusatory in your word of warning.
The difference between you and him may
be that you would have gone down fast
er than he is going down if you had the
same kind of conjugal wretchedness.
Besides that, you had better be merci-
full in your word of warning, for the day
may come when you may need some one
to be lenient and excusatory to you.
There may be somewhere ahead Of you
temptation so mighty that unless you
have sympathetic treatment you may go
under. "Oh, no." says some one, 81
am too old for that" How old are you?
"Oh," you say, 81 have been so long
in active business life that I am clear
past the latitude Of danger" There is a
man in Sing Sing penitentiary who was
considered the soul of honor until he
was so years Of age and then committed
q dishonesty that startled the entire COM
mercial world. was on a ship crossing
the Atlantic, and all went well from the
time we left Liverpool until within a
few hours of New York, when, because
Of some defect of compass or some lack
of fidelity on the part Of those response
BILE, the Nantucket lighthouse suddenly
warned us that we were driving straight
for the rocks, and the vessel turned in
time to save the ship and the hundreds
Of passengers and crew. And many a
man has got nearly through the voyage
of life in safety and then gone into the
breakers. So you had better not hold
your chin too high, as though you were
forever independent Of all moral disas-
ter. Better, in the way you pronounce
your word of warning to those astray, in
dicate that you yourself have weaknesses
that may yet fling you down unless God
help you and that you realize there may
be temptations ahead with which you
will find it as hard to grapple as the
temptations with which that man is
graphing.
Art of Doing Good.
In mentioning fire arts people are apt
to speak of music and painting and
sculpture and architecture, but they FOR.
get to mention the finest of all the fine
arts-the art of doing good, the art of
helping others, the art Of saving men. An
art to be studied as you study music, for
it is music in the fact that it drives out
moral discord and substitutes eternal har-
mony; an art to be studied like sculpture,
for it is sculpture in the fact that it
builds q man, not in the cold statue, but
in immortal shape, that will last long
after all pentelican marble has crum-
bled; an art to be studied as you study
architecture, for it is architecture in the
fact that it builds for him house of
God, eternal in the heavens. but an art
that we cannot fully learn unless God
helps US. Ourselves saved by grace di-
vine, we can go forth to save others, and
with a tenderness and compassion and
pity that we could not otherwise exercise
we can pronounce the warning word
with magnificent result. The Lord said
to the prophet Amos, Amos, what seest
thou?'' And he answered, "a basket of
summer fruit" But do not think Amos
saw in that basket Of summer fruit any
thing more inviting and luscious than
many q saved man has seen in the warn
ing word of some hearty, common sense
Christian adviser, for a word fitly spoken
is "like apples Of gold in baskets Of sill
ver."
So also is word of invitation potent
and beautiful. Who can describe the
drawing power of that word. so small
and yet so tremendous, Gomez 1t is q
short word, but its influence is as long as
eternity. Not sesquipedalian word,
cnroohipo ifc aporov ovor cytta hloc