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strand. "Oh," you say, "either strand is enough to hold fast a world!" No: I will take these strands and I will twist them together, and one end of that rope I will fasten, not to the communion table, for it shall be removed; not to a pillar of the organ, for that will crumble in the ages; but I wind it round and round the cross of a sympathizing Christ, and having fastened one end of the rope to the cross, I throw the other end to you. Lay hold of it! Pull for your life! Pull for heaven!

CHAPTER VI.

The Plague of Profanity.

Next to denying that there is a God is profaning his Name; and the worst kind of profanity is blasphemy or cursing God. This was "the head and front of the offending" of Job's wife.-EDITOR.

"CURSE God and die!" Job knew right well that swearing would not cure one of the tumors of his agonized body, would not bring back one of his destroyed camels, would not restore one of his dead children. He knew that profanity would only make the pain more unbearable, and the poverty more distressing, and the bereavement more excruciating. But judging from the profanity abroad in our day, you might come to the conclusion that there was some great advantage to be reaped from profanity.

Blasphemy is one of the ten plagues which have smitten. our great cities. You hear it in every direction. The drayman swearing at his cart, the sewing girl imprecating the tangled skein, the accountant cursing the long line of troublesome figures. Swearing at the store, swearing on the loft, swearing in the cellar, swearing on the street, swearing in the factory. Children swear. Men swear. Ladies swear! Swearing from the rough calling on the Almighty in the low restaurant, clear up to the reckless "O Lord!" of a glittering drawing-room; and the one is as much blasphemy as the other.

It was no profanity when James A. Garfield, in the Washington depot, cried out, "My God, what does this mean?" But I am speaking now of the triviality and of the recklessness with which the name of God is sometimes abused. The whole land is cursed with it.

A gentleman coming from the Far West sat in the car day after day behind two persons who were indulging in

profanity, and he made up his mind that he would make a record of their profanities, and at the end of two days several sheets of paper were covered with these imprecations, and at the close of the journey he handed the manuscript to one of the persons in front of him. "Is it possible," said the man, "that we have uttered so many profanities the last few days?" "It is," replied the gentleman. "Then," said the man who had taken the manuscript, "I will never swear again."

But it is a comparatively unimportant thing if a man makes record of our improprieties of speech. The more memorable consideration is that every oath uttered has a record in the book of God's remembrance!

IS IT MANLY?

That this habit grows in the community is seen in the fact that young people think it manly to swear. Little children, hardly able to walk straight on the street, yet have enough distinctness of utterance to let you know that they are damning their own souls, or damning the souls of others. Between sixteen and twenty years of age there is apt to come a time when a young man is as much ashamed of not being able to swear gracefully as he is of the dizziness of his first cigar. There are young men who walk in an atmosphere of imprecation-oaths on their lips, under their tongues, nesting in their shock of hair. They abstain from it in the elegant drawing-room, but the street and the clubhouse ring with their profanities. They have no regard for God, although they have great respect for the ladies! My young brother, there is no manliness in that. The most ungentlemanly thing a man can do is to swear.

Fathers foster this great crime. There are parents who are very cautious not to swear in the presence of their chil dren; in a moment of sudden anger, they look around to see if the children are present, then they indulge in this habit. Do you not know, O father, that your child is aware of the fact that you swear? He overheard you in the next

room, or some one has informed him of your habit. He is practising now.

The crime is also fostered by master-mechanics, boss-carpenters, those who are at the head of men in hat-factories, and in dock-yards, and at the head of great business establishments. When you go down to look at the work of the scaffolding, and you find it is not done right, what do you say? Employers swear, and that makes so many employés

swear.

The habit also comes from infirmity of temper. There are a good many people who, when they are at peace, have righteousness of speech, but when angered they blaze with imprecation. I knew of a man who excused himself for the habit, saying: "I only swear once in a great while. I must do that just to clear myself out."

The habit comes also from the profuse use of bywords. The transition from a byword to imprecation and profanity is not a very large transition. It is "my stars!" and "mercy on me!" and "good gracious!" and "by George!" and by Jove!" and you go on with that a little while, and then you swear. The habit is creeping up into the highest styles of society. Women have no patience with flat and unvarnished profanity. They will order a man out of the parlor for indulging in blasphemy, and yet you will sometimes find them with fairy fan to the lip, and under chandeliers which bring no blush to their cheek, taking on their lips the holiest of names in utter triviality.

Why my friends, the English language is comprehensive and capable of expressing all shades of feeling and every degree of energy, without any profanity-the God-honored Anglo-Saxon in which Milton sang, and John Bunyan dreamed.

This country is pre-eminent for blasphemy. A man travelling in Russia was supposed to be a clergyman. “Why do you take me to be a clergyman?" said the man. "Oh,' said the Russian, "all other Americans swear. Does it not seem to you that the abominations of this earth have gone

far enough? Were there ever before so many fists lifted toward God, telling Him to come on if He dare?

BLASPHEMY ABROAD!

What towering profanity! Would it be possible for anyone to calculate the numbers of times that the name of the Almighty God and of Jesus Christ are every day taken irreverently on the lips? So common has blasphemy become, that the public mind and public ear have got used to it, and a blasphemer goes up and down this country in his lectures defying the plain law against blasphemy, and there is not a mayor in America that has backbone enough to interfere with him save one, and that, the mayor of Toronto. Profane swearing is as much forbidden by the law as theft or arson or murder, yet who executes it? Profanity is worse than theft or arson or murder, for these crimes are attacks on humanity that is, an attack on God.

When the Mohammedan finds a piece of paper he cannot read, he puts it aside very cautiously for fear the name of God may be on it. That is one extreme. We go to the other.

The crime rolls on, up through parlors, up through chandeliers with lights all ablaze, and through the pictured corridors of club-rooms, etc., out through busy exchanges where oath meets oath, and down through all the haunts of sin, mingling with the rattling dice and cracking billiardballs, and the laughter of her who hath forgotten the covenant of her God; and round the city, and round the continent, and round the earth a seething, boiling surge flings its hot spray into the face of a long-suffering God. And the ship-captain damns his crew, and the merchant damns his clerks, and the master-builder damns his men, and the hackdriver damns his horse; and the traveller damns the stone. that bruises his foot, or the mud that soils his shoes, or the defective time-piece that gets him too late to the rail train. I arraign profane swearing and blasphemy, two names for the same thing, as being one of the gigantic crimes of this

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