Newport weekly independent., 1901-07-19

dom floating in and out. Everything on large and magnificent scale. En- ter contempt for other people.
 Act the fifth and last-Enter the assignee. Enter the sheriff. Enter the creditors. Enter humiliation. En- ter wrath of God. Enter the con- tempt of society. Enter ruin and death. Now drop the curtain. The play is ended, and the lights are out.
 I call it a tragedy. That is a mis- homer. It is a farce.
 ENtravagance counts for much of the pauperism. Who are these peo- pie whom you have to help? Many of them are the children of parents who had plenty, lived in luxury, had more than they needed, spent all they had, spent more, too; then died and left their families in poverty. Some of those who call on you now for aid had an ancestry that supped on bur- gundy and woodcock. l could name score of men who have every luxury. They smoke the best cigars, and they drink the finest wines, and they have i the grandest surroundings, and when they die their families will go on the cold charity of the world. Now, the death of such a man is a grand lar ceny. He swindles the world as he goes into his coffin, and he deserves to have his bones sold to the medical museum for anatomical specimens, | the proceeds to furnish bread for his children.
 I know it cuts close. I did not know but some of you in high Gud- geon would get up and go out. You stand it well. Some of you make great swash in life, and after awhile you will die, and ministers will be 1 sent for to come and stand by your coffin and lie about your excellences. But they will not come. If you send for me- I will tel you what my text will be: He that provideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, is worse than an infidel." And yet we find Christian men, men of large means, who some- times talk eloquently about the Chris tian church and about civilization, eX- pending everything on themselves and nothing on the cause of God. and
 
 Royal glove in trying to hide the one cent they put in the Lords treas ury. What an pportionment! Twen- ty thousand dollars for ourselves and one cent for God. Ah, my friends, this extravaganza accounts for a great deal of what the cause of God suffers.
 And then look how the cause of God is impoverished. Men give so much sometimes for their indulgences they have nothing for the cause of God and religion. Twenty-Five mill lion dollars expended in this country a year for religious purposes! But what are the twenty-two millions eX- pended for religion compared with the hundred millions expended on cigars and tobacco and then two thou sand millions of dollars spent for rum? So a man who had a fortune of $750,000, or what amounted to that, in London spent it all in indulgences, chiefly in gluttonies, and sent hither and yon for all the delicacies, and often had a meal that would cost $1O0 or $2OO for himself. Then he was re- duced to a guinea, with which he bought a 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 large scale what men are do- ing 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 a trinket, just one trinket. Keep your credit good by seldom asking for any. Pay! Do not starve whole year to afford one Belshazzar's carnival. Do not buy a coat of many colors and then in six months be out at the elbows. Flour ish not, as some people 1 have known, who took apartments at a fashionable hotel and had elegant drawing-rooms attached and then vanished in the night, not even leav- ing their compliments for the land- lord. I tell you, my friends, in the day of Gods judgment we will 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 surround us now.
 Alas, if any of you in the dying hour 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 I have to leave you so soon!" Better in that hour have one treasure of Heaven than the bridal trousseau of a Marie Antoinette or to