The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-21

the pr0pnecy or te8k- oE uiSsSoua- Niagara might have come down In lwinEed spray.
 I Look out of your window any morn- ing after there has been a dew and l see whether God loves jewels. Put a I crystal of snow under a microscope and see what God thinks of architect | ure. God commanded the priest of olden times to have his robe adorned with a wreath of gold and the hem of 1 his garment to be embroidered in pome- l granates. The earth sleeps. and God
 blankets 1t with the brilliants of the | night sky. The world wakes and God | washes 1t from the furnished layer of 1 the sunrise. So I have not much | patience with a man who talks as l though decoration and adornment and | the eIegances of life are sin when they are divinely recommended. But l there Is a line to be drawn between adornment and decorations that we can afford and those we cannot afford. and when a man crosses that line he be- 1 comes culpable. cannot tell you what is extravagent for you. You cannot tell me what is | extravagant for me. What. Is right for a queen may be squaeder- ing for a duchess. What may be | | income. will be wicked waste for me. with smaller income. There is no iron | rule on this subject. Every man be- fore God and on his knees must judge | what is extravagance, and when man goes into expenditures beyond his | means he is extravagant. When man buys anything he cannot pay for. | he is extravagant.
 There are families in all cities who l can hardly pay their rent and who | owe all the merchants in the neighbor- 1 hood and yet have an apparel unfit for their circumstances and are all the time sailing so near shore that busi- 1 ness misfortune or an attack of sick ness prepares them for pauperism. | You know very we'll there are thou sands of families in our great cities | who stay in neighborhoods until they l have exhausted all their capacity to i get trusted. They stay in the neighbor- hoods until the druggists will jet them have no more medicines, and the | butchers will sell them no more meat. and the bakers will sell them no more bread. and the grocerymen will self them no more sugar. Then they find the region unhealthy, and they hire a carman. whom they never pay. to take them to some new quarters where the
 merchants, the druggists. the butchers.
 the bakers and the grocerymen come
 and give them the best rounds of beef and the best sugars and the best mer-
 chandise of all sorts until they find
 out that the only compensation they
 are going to get Is the acquaintance
 of the patrons. There are thousands
 of such thieves in all our big cities.
 You see call them by the right name.
 for if a man buys anything he does | fz.- 1- kts
 E. Meeting Ones Obligations,
 Of course sometimes men are flung of misfortunes and they cannot pay. I
 know men who are just as honest in
 having failed as other men are honest
 in succeeding. suppose there is hardly man who has gone through life but
 there have been some times when he
 has been so hurt of misfortune he could I not meet his obligations. but all that put aside. There are multitude of people who buy that which they never intend to pay for, for which there is no
 reasonable expectation they will ever be able to pay. Now. if you have be-
 come oblivious of honesty and mean to defraud, why not save the merchant as much as you can? Why not go some day to his store and when nobody Is looking just shoulder the ham or the sparerib and in modest silence steal away? That would be less criminal,
 because in the other way you take
 not only the mans goods. but you take
 the time of the merchant and the time
 of his accountant, and you take the
 time of the messenger who brought
 you the goods. Now, if you must
 steal. steal in a way to do as little
 damage to the trader as possible.
 John Randolph arose in the Ameri- | tA Af
 national finance was being discussed,
 and. stretching himself to his full
 height, in shrill voice he cried out,
 MT. Chairman, I have discovered the
 philosophers stone, which turns every
 thing into gold-pay as you go!" Socie-
 ty has got to be reconstructed on this
 subject or the seasons of dedication
 will continue to repeat themselves. You
 have no right to ride in a carriage for
 which you are hopelessly in debt to the
 wheelwright who furnished thetfandau.
 and to the horse dealer who provided
 the bloded span, and to the harness
 maker who caparisoned thetgay steeds,
 and to the liveryman who has provided the stabling, and to the driver who,
 with. ,rosetted hat. sits on the coach
 box. isioi
 Oh, I am so glad it is not the abso- lute necessities of life which send peo-
 pie out into dishonesties and fling them
 into misfortuneS. It is almost always | the opportunities. God has promised
 us house, but not a palace; raiment,
 but not chinchilla; food, but not, can
 vasback duck. l am yet to see one of i, these great defalcations which is not / connected in some way with extrava- . gance.
 s Extravagance accounts for the dis
 turbance of national finances. Aggrega-
 tions are made up of units. and when one half of the people of this country , owe the other half how can we expect 5 financial prosperity? Again and again at the national election we have had . spasm of virtue. and we said. "Out
 with one administration and in with
 another and let us have new deal of
 things and then we will get all over
 our perturbation" l do not care who
 is President or who Is Secretary of the
 Treasury or how much breadstuffs go
 out of the country or how much gold
 is imported until we learn to pay our
 debts and it becomes general theory
 in this country that men must buy no
 more than they can pay for. Until
 that times comes there will be no per | Epapent prosperity. Look at the perni- | cious extravagance. Take the one fac . | that New York eevry year pays $S.000,- 900 for theatrical amusements. While once in awhile a Henry Irving or ar Edwin Booth or a Joseph Jefferson thrills a great audience with tragedy i you know as well as I do that the vas;