The Washington herald., 1918-01-11
CHARACTER Is NODDED
BY YMOTHERSAND HOMES
SOF TRUE CHRISTIAN KIND
EVENING SERMON
H,O N E

er. and sixty-five per cent of them
came from homes where the par
ents had been divorced.
So. broken homes and wrecked
lives seem to be synonymous and in
separable, and many times sons and
daughters brought up in idleness.
unrestrained in the expenditure of
money, rapidly acquire profiigate
habits, and they figure conspicuously
in the disgraceful escapades in scan
duIous society and they indulge in
fast horses and fast women. wines.
champagne, the most costly from the
vineyards OF France or California,
and the long lists of the diversions
of the indolent. idle. Indifferent.
apathetic, stolid. lazy, and they go
to premature graves and they are
only remembered because of the dis
solute. disreputable, drunken. licen-
tious lives they lived.
And of many of the women. too
much cannot be said in just condem-
nation. Oh! many of them, they are
frivolous, and they are silly. and
they are extravagant. and they will
throw to the winds all restraint of
modesty and of prudence. and of re-
ligion, and the many virtues which
are so noble and attractive in wo-
manhood. and they allow themselves
to be fiattered. and bambozzled, and
cajoled by a lot Of good-for-pothing
empty-headed ginks who cali them
selves men. They ought to be ar
rested for going around disguised as
men!
limitations OF Men.
You wouldn't call some Of them
men If they didn't have whiskers
presence to vaudeville. have It In
their homes; they indulge in drink
ing and in gambling and they are
more familiar with poker chips. they
are more familiar with these terms
than they are with English and clas-
sic literature-more familiar with
the costly brands of champagne and
wines = they know more about
Piper-Heidsick, and they know more
about the names of the expensive
champagnes and wines than they do
about the Word of God.
1 think one of the prettiest pic
lures that God or the world ever
looked upon Is to see father and
mother who are Christians lock
arms and then take hold of the hand
of the Oldest child and the next old
est and the next and then the next
and on down to the youngest, and
see the whole family go on singing
and praying toward heaven.
And the blackest, vilest picture that
God or man ever looked upon is
( father who is not a Christian. a
mother not a Christian. lock arms and
take hold of the oldest child and then
the next and then the next and see
| the whole family go shrieking on TO
! hell. And the biggest monstresity that
\ God or the world ever looked upon is a
mother with children playing around
her knees, and theS never hear from
her lips a prayer, and never are taught
Jesus Christ. OH the stepmother
would be a godsend IL she only had
religion. That is not ALL 1t Is a dis
grace to you that IL your boy or girl
has ever been saved and goes to
heaven because of what some stranger
taught them. Somebody else! II they
ever go to heaven 1t won't be because
of any good thing they ever learned
at your knee.
Train up a child IN the way that It
/ should go. and when it is old it will
not depart from thee. and II they are
properly trained they will not often go
iastray.
Flags the Saloon.
The normal way to get rid Of drunk
ards is to get rid of the dirty, rotten,
sinking hell-holes that are making
them drunkards. I don't know, 1t al
ways makes my blood boil to see a
cop walk up and pinch a drunkard
i and take him on to the police station
while they throw the protecting arm
of the law around the dirty. sinking
hell-hole that sold him the liquor. 1t
gets my goat. 1t makes my blood boil,
don't you know 1t. I can hardly wait
to get at that dirty. sinking gang
So the normal way to get rid OF
thieves Is to stop raising them, and
when I tell you that three-fourths OF
all the girls ruined.in this country fell
because OF the influence of the dance
then you know why hit that so hard.
as hard as l know how, and 1 win
give that institution all that Is COM
ing to 1t before I am through.
/ want you to know I am not a
crank about anything, but I am the
eternal, sworn, uncompromising. ire
vocable enemy of anything and ev-
erything that Is driving men and
women to wreckage and making them
a band of derelicts out upon the high
seas of lust and passion. I am
against II. don't believe that is the
way to be decent. That is all there
is to 1t. I don't give three whoops
how popular it is with you. So, that
is the way to win out-get rid of the
things that are producing it all in the
world. and when the child leaves
home It will be morally and socially
and religiously according to the influ-
ence that surrounded it when in the
formative period.
There are multitudes of families
that just live. The rearing of one
or more children. II IL is a girl.
means another prostitute, IL it is a
boy II means another drunken sot.
staggering down to perdition, and
wherefore the national life will
never rise higher than the home
life and never will sink lower than
the home life.
One of the great papers Of New
York City had picture while I
was preaching there of a poor boy.
with a troubled carewornt face. hid
ing on a strange doorstep, afraid
to go home because of the drunken
father, and the LOOK on that boys
face haunts me yet. There are
thousands and tens Of thousands in
that great busy, whirling. teeming.
rich. poor. praying. cursing. vir-
tuous, licentious city.
O.. Metropolisi 1t Is not your
great builings. it Is not your dazzling
wealth that staggers mel It is not
your Riverside Drive with your sky
line Of buildings or one side OF the
majestic river, and your palisades on