Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-07-19

| thrills great audience with Tragedy, you
| know as we'll as / do that the vast major
| ity of the theatres are as debased as de-
based they can be, as unclean as uncieaIh
they can be and as damnable as damna PIE
| they can be. Three million dollars-the
vast majority of those dollars going in the
wrong direction.
| Over a hundred millions paid in this
| country for cigars and tobacco year!
About $4,000 ,OO6, 900 paid for strong drink
in one year in this country! With such
| extrayacance. - nerniciQna -extraYacance.
can there be any permanent prosperity!
| Business men, cool headed business men,
is such thing a possibility? These ex-
! travagances also account, as 1 have al
| ready limited, for the positive crimes, the
forgeries, the abscondings of the officers
| of the banks. The store on the business
street swamped by the residence on the
bands craft capsized by carrying too
much domestic SAIL That is what springs
the leak in the merchants money till.
| That is what cracks the pistols of the sui
cides. That is what tears down the banks.
That is what stops insurance companies.
That is what halts this nation again and
again in its triumphal march of prosper
ity. In the presence of the American peo-
pie, so far as l can get their attention,
want to arraign this monster curse of ex-
travagance, and want you to pelt it with
your scorn and hurl at it your anathema.
know it cuts close. did not know
but some of you in high dudgeon would
get up and go out. You stand it well.
Some of you make a great swash in life,
and after awhile you will die, and minis
tiers will be sent for to come and stand by
| your coffin and lie about your excellences,
but they will not come. If you send for
me, will tell you what my text will be:
He that provideth not for his own, and
especially for those in his own household,
| is worse than an infdel!"
What an apportionment! Twenty thou.
| sand dollars for ourselves and one cent
for God! All, my friends, this extrava-
| gance accounts for a great deal of what
the cause of God suffers!
And the dissertation goes on even to the
funeral day. You know very we'll that
there are men who die solvent, but the
expenses are. so great before they get un.
der ground they are insolvent.
There are families that 60 into penury
in wicked response to the demands Of
this day. They put in casket and tomb
stone that which they ought to put in
| bread. They wanted bread; you gave
them tombstone.
| One would think that the last two OBJ
| legations people would be particular about
| would be the physician and the under
taker. Because they are the two last OBJ
| legations, those two professions are almost
| always cheated. They send.for the doctor
! in great haste, and he must come day and
night. They send for the undertaken
amid the great solemnitie;s, and, often
these two men are the very last to be met
with compensation. Merchants sell goods,
and the goods are not paid for: They take
back the goods, am told. But there is
no relief in this case. The man spent all
he had in luxury and extravaganza while
he lived, and then he goes out of the
world, and has left nothing for his family,
nothing for the obsequies, and as he goes
out of the world he steals the doctors
pills, and the undertaker's slippers. Twas
reading in New York paper an account
of the obsequies in family of very moder-
ate estate, and the aggregate was $4,000.
| A man in New York of moderate estate
dies. He has lived in extreme luxury.
He departs this life. The family, DESTROYS
Of keeping up the magnifcence, orders the
following things. They were produced and
never paid for to this day: ..,,i>,nu
Casket, covered with Lyons velvet, f2"'
silver holdings :,.................. $500
Heavy plated handles. ............... go
Solid silver plate, engraved in Roman
| .leCCerS ........ Observation-Disclosures. 70
Ten linen scarfs. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. $50
Floral decorations. ..t.............. 225
Music and quartet choir at the house do
twenty carriages ..........k l40
Then fifteen other important expen-
dltures amounting to.............. 336
Making an aggregate of..............s lS76
And all that to get one poor mortal to
his last home and never paid forl Swim
died his family. Swindled the world. He
is swindling it now. It is one of the great
curses of this day, the extravaganza, tie
wicked extravaganza, of the country.
And then look how the cause of God Is
impoverished: Men give so much some
times for their indulgences they have
nothing for the cause of God and religion.
Twenty-Five million dollars expended In
this country q year for religious purposes;
but what are the twenty-five millions ex-
pended for religion compared with the
hundred millions expended on cigars and
tobacco and then two thousand millions
of dollars spent for rum! So man who
had fortune of S75O,0OO or what amount
ed to that in London spent it all in in
dulgences, chiefly in gluttonies, and rent
hither and yon for all the delicacies and
often had meal that would cost 500 or
5000 for himself. Then he was reduced to
one guinea, with which he bought rare
bird, had it cooked in best style, ate it,
took two hours for digestion, walked out
on Westminster bridge, and jumped into
the Thames--on a large scale what men
ore doing on small scale.
Oh, my friends, let us take our stand
against the extravagances of society Do
not pay for things which are frivolous
when you may lack the necessities. Do
not put one months wages or salary into
trinket, just one trinket. Keep your
credit good by seldom asking for any.
Do not starve whole year to afford one
Belshazzar's carnival. Do not buy coat
Of many colore, and then in six months be
put at the elbows. Flourish not, as some
nents at a fashionable hotel and had ele-
CANT drawing rooms attached and then
vanished in the night, not even leaving
their compliments for tho landlord.
| | tell you, my friends, in the day OF
| Gods Judgment we shall not only have to
| give an account for the way we made our
money, but for the way we spent it. We
have got to leave all the things that sur.
| round us now.
felt like the dying actress who asked that
| the casket of jewels be brought to her and
then turned them over with her pale hand
and said, "Alas, that have to leave you
so soonW Better in that hour have one
treasure of heaven than the bridal trous.
seau of a Marie Antoinette, or to have
been seated with Caligula at banquet
which cost its thousands of dollars, or to
have been carried to our last resting
place with Senator'S and princes as pail.
! bearers. They that consecrate their
wealth, their time, their all, to God shall
he held in everlasting remembrance,
while I have the authority of this book
for announcing that the name Of the
wicked shall rot.