Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-07-22
will take care of us now. Come out Of
False to Their Trust.

And remember that the man who
gets his gain by iniquity will soon lose
it all. One moment after his departure
from life he will not own an opera
house, he will not own a certificate of
stock, he will not own one dollar Of
government securities, and the poorest
boy that stands on the street with a
penny in his pocket looking at the fu-
neral procession of the dead cheat as it
goes by will have more money than
that man who one week previous boast
ed that he controlled the money mar
ket.
Oh, there is such a fearful fascina-
ton in this day about the use of trust
funds! It has got to be popular to take
the funds Of others and speculate with
them. There are many who are prac-
ticing that iniquity. Almost every man
in the course of his life has the proper
ty of others put in his care. He has
administered perhaps for dead friend;
he is an attorney, and money passes
from debtor to creditor through his
hands, or he is in a commercial estab-
lishment and gets a salary for the dis
treasurer of a philanthropic institu-
ton, and money for the suffering goes
through his hands; or he has some of
flee in city or state or nation, and taxes
and subsidies and supplies and salaries
are in his hands. Now, that is a trust.
That is as sacred a trust as God can
give a man. 1t is the concentration Of
confidence. Now, when that man takes
that mOney-the money of others-and
goes to specializing with it for his own
purposes, he is guilty Of theft, false
hood and perjury and in the most in
tense sense of the word is a miscreant.
There are families today-widows and
orphans-with nothing between them
and starva ton but a sewing machine,
or kept out of the vortex by the thread
of a needle red with the blood of their
hearts, Who were by father or husband
left a competency. You read the story
in the newspaper Of those who have
lost by a bank defalcation, and it is
only one line, the name of a woman
you never heard of, and just one or
two figures telling the amount of stock
she had, the number Of shares. 1t is
-
is line of agony long as time. 1t is
a story long as eternity.
Now, do not come under the fascina-
ton which induces men to employ
trust funds for purposes of their own
speculation. Cultivate old fashioned
honesty. Remember the example of
who when he was leading
the British army over the French from
tier, and his army was very hungry,
and there was plenty of plumber on the
French frontier, and some of the men
wanted TO take it, said: Soldiers, do
not touch that. God will take care
Of us. He will take care of the Eng
fish army. Plenty of plumber, know,
all around, but do not take it." He
told the story afterward himself, how
that the French people brought to him
their valuables to keep-he supposed
to be their enemy-brought him their
valuabIes to keep. And then, he said,
az a time when the creditors of the
army were calling for money and for
pay all the time, and they had so much
all around about, he did not feel it
right for him to take it or for the army
to take It.
Oh, that God would scatter these fas-
cinations about fraud and let us all I'M
1erstand that if l steal from you 81
am a thief, and if l steal from you
100000 1 am 100000 times more of
thief.
Society to Blame.
SO there has been a great deal of fas-
cination thrown around libertinism.
Society is very severe upon the impu-
rity that turks around the alleys and
OW haunts of the town. The law pur-
sues it, smites it, incarcerates it, tries
to destroy it. You know as we'll as l
that society becomes lenient in proper
ton as impurity becomes affluent or is
n elevated circles, and finally society
Is silent or disposed to palliate. Where
IS the judge, the jury, the police officer.
hat dare arraign the wealthy libertine?
He walks the streets; he rides the
parks; he flaunts his iniQuity in the
eyes of the pure. The bag of unclean-
ness looks out of the tapestried win
low. Where is the law that dares take
the braZen Wretches and put their
faces in an iron frame of q state prison
window?
Sometimes it seems to me as if So
,iety We're going back to the state of
morals Of Herculaneum, when it sculp-
-ured its yileneSs on pillars and temple
wall and nothing but the lava of
burning mountain could hide the i'm
nensity of crime. At what time God
will rise up and extirpate these evils
upon society know not nor whether
ne will do it by fire or hurricane or
but a holy God, l do not
hink, will stand it much longer. 1 be-
ieve the thunderbolts are kissing hot
md that when God comes to chastise
he community for these sins, against
which he has uttered himself more bit