V;
CURSING AND SWEARING.
REV. Dft TALMAGE DISCOURSES ON
THE HABIT OF PROFANITY.
Tbr la Ko Eicom for It tVlien W
!! Bach m Magnificent Language.
It Cornea from Inflrtnltj of Temper
and the l'rofuae Vam of Djworda.
BROOKLYN, April 8. One of the
hymns sung at the Tabernacle this morn-
uig ocgins wun me worn 3 :
Ho lt our 11 pa and Uvea exprewa
The Holy Oonpel we prof ww.
After reading appropriate passages of
Scripture, the Kev. T.. De Witt Talmage,
u.u., preacneu on tno nanit or cursing
and swearing. Ilia text was from the
Book of Job ii, 7, 8 and 9: "So
went Satan forth from the presence
of the Lord, and smote Job with core
boils from the sole of his foot unto his
crown. And he took him a potsherd to
scrapo himself withal ; and he Eat down
among the ashes. Then said his wife
unto him, Drat thou still retain thine iu-
. r tegrity ? Curse God, and die.
A story oriental and marvelous. Job
was the richest man in all the East. lie
liad camels and oxen and asses and sheep,
and, what would have made him rich
without anything else, seven sons and
three daughters. It was the habit of
these children to gather together for fam
ily reunion. One day. Job is thinking of
ins children as gathered together at a
- banquet at the elder brother's house.
While the old man is seated at his tent
door, he sees some one running, evident
ly from his manner bringing bad news.
What is the matter now? "Oh," says
the messenger, 'a foraging rarty of
Sabeans has fallen upon the oxen and
the asses, and destroyed them, and butch
ered all the servants except myself.1
Stand aside. Another messenger run
nine. What is the matter now! 'Oh,'
says the man, "the lightning has struck
the sheen and the shepherds, and all the
shepherds are destroyed except myself."
Stand aside. Another messenger run
ning. What is the matter now? "Oh,"
he says, "the Chaldean9 have captured
the camels, and slam all the camel driv
ers except myself." Stand aside. An
other messenger running. What is the
matter now? "Oh," he says, "a burri
can? struck the four corners of the tent
nhprn vour cliildren were assembled at
the banouet. and they are all dead."
But the chapter of calamity has not
ended. Job was smitten wita eiepnanti
asis, or black leprosy. Tumors from
head to foot forehead ridged with
tubercles eyelashes fall out nostrils ex
coriated voice destroyed intolerable
exhalations from the entire body, until
with none to dress his sores, he sits down
in the ashes with nothing but pieces of
broken pottery to ut In the surgery of
his wounds. At thiJ moment, when he
needed all encouragement, and all con
eolation, his wife comes in, in a fret and
sy rage, and sayst "This is intolerable.
Our property gone, our children slain,
and now you covered up with this loath'
some and disgusting disease. Why don't
you swear f Curt God, and die !"
Ah. Job knew right well tliat swearing
i would not cure one of ilia tumors of his
agonized body, would not bring back one
of his destroyed camels, would not re--0toro
one of his dead children. lie knew
hat profanity would only make the pain
more unbearable and the poverty more
distressing and the bereavement moro
excruciating. But judging from the
profanity abroad in our day, you might
come to the conclusion that there was
come great advantage to be reaped from
profanity.
Blasphemy is all abroad. You hear it
In every direction. The drayman swear
ing at liis cart, the sewing girl imprecate
jng the tangled skein, the accountant
cursing the long line of troublesome fig
ures. Swearing at the store, swearing in
the loft, swearing in the cellar, swearing
on the street, swearing in the factory.
Children swear. Men swear. Women
swear. Swearing from the rough calling
on the Almighty in the low restauranj
clear up to the reckless "Oh, Lord!" of a
glittering drawing room; and the one i3
as much blasphemy as tbe other.
There are times when we must cry u$
to thC Lord by reason of our physical
ngony or" our mental distress, and that is
only throwing out our weak hand toward
the strong arm of ft father. It was no
profanity when James A. Garfield, 6hot
in the Washington depot, crjed out:
My God. what does this mean?'' The
is no profanity in calling out upon God
in the day of trouble, in the day of dark
ness, in the day of physical anguish, in
the day of bereavement; but I am speak.
Ing now of the triviality and of the reck
lessness with which the name of God is
sometimes managed. 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,
pnj he made up his mind that he would
make a record of their profanities, and a 5
the end of two days several sheets of
paper were covered with these impreca
tions, and at the close of ' the journey ho
handed the manuscript to one of the per
sons In front of him. "Is.it potable,"
said the man, "that we have uttered so
many profanities the last few daysr't "It
is," replied the gentleman. "Then,"
said the man who had taken the manu
script, "I will never swear again."
But it is a comparatively unimportant
thing if a man makes record of our im
proprieties of speech. The more, memor
able consideration is that every improper
word, every oath uttered, has a record in
the book of God's remembrance, and
that the day will come when all our
crimes of speech, if unrepented of, will
be our condemnation. I 6hall not today
deal in abstractions. I hate abstractions.
I am going to have a plain talk with you,
my brother, about a habit that you admit
to be wrong. .
The habit grows in the community m
the fact that young people think it manly
to swear. Little children, hardly able to
t 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.
It is an awful thing the first time the
a little feet are lifted to have them set
- down on the burning pavement of hell !
nttx-wn ib and 20 vears of aire there
is apt to come a time when a young man ;
is as much ashamed of rJot being ablo to
wear gracefully as he ia of the dizziness
ot his first dgr. He has his hat. his
boot and his coat of the right pattern,
and now, if . he can only swear without
awkwardness, and as well as his com
rades, he believes he in in the fashion.
There are young men who walk in an at
mosphere 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 club house ring with their pro
fanities. They have no regard for God,
although they have great respect. for the
ladies! My young brother, thero is no
manliness in that. The most ungentle-
manly thing a man can do is to swear,
t athers foster this great crime. There
are parents who are very cautious not to
swear in the presence of their children;
in a moment of sudden anger they look
around-to sco if the children are present
when they indulge in this habit. Do you
not know, oh father, that vour child is
aware of the fact that you swear? lie
overuearu vou in the next room, or
some one has informed him of your habit,
He is practicing now. In ten years ho
will swear as well as you do. Do not, oh
father, be under the delusion that you
may swear and your son not know it. It
is an awful tiling to start the habit in
a family the father to be profane, and
then to have the echo of his example
cotne back from other generations; so
that generations after generations curse
the Lord
The crime is also fostered by master
mechanics, boss carpenters, those who
arc 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? It is not pray
ing, is it? The employer swears his em
ploye is tempted to swear. The man says:
I don't kuow why my employer, worth
$50,000 or $100,000, "should liave any
luxury I should be denied simply because
I am poor. Because I am poor and de
pendent on a day's wages, haven't I as
much right to swear as he has with his
large income?" Employers swear, and
that makes so many employes 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 an
gered they blaze with imprecation. Per
haps all the rest of the year they talk in
light language, but now they pour out
the fury of a whole year in one red hot
paragraph of five minutes. 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 my
self out."
The liabit comes also from the pro
fuse use of by-words. The transition
from a byword which may bo perfectly
harmless to imprecation and profanity, is
not a very large transition. It is "my
6tarsl" and "mercy on me!' and J'good
gracious!" and 'by George!" and "by
Jove!" and you go on with that a little
while, and then you swear. These
words, perfectly harmless in themselves,
are next door to imprecation and blas
phemy. A profuse use of bywords
always ends in profanity. The habit is
creeping up into the Highest styles ol
society. Women have no patience with
flat and unvarnished profanity. They
will order a man out of the parlor indulg
ing in blasphemy, and yet you will some
times find them with fairy fan to tho 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 express
ing all shapes of feeling and every de
gree or energy. Are you nappy, rsoan
Webster will give you ten thousand words
with which to express your exhilaration.
Are you righteously indignant, there are
whole armies in the vocabulary, righto
ous vocabulary wnoie armies or de
nunciation and scorn, and sarcasm and
irony, and caricature and wrath, You
express yourself against some meanness.
or hypocrwy, in all the oaths that ever
smoked up from the pit, and I will come
right on after you and give a thousand
fold moro emphasis of denunciation to
the same meanness and the same hypoc
risy in words across which no 6lime has
ever trailed and inty which the fires of
hell have never shot then forked tongues
the pure, the innocent, God honored
Anglo-Saxon in which Milton sang, and
John Bunyan dreamed, and Shakspeare
dramatized,
There is no excuse for profamtr when
we have such a magnificent language
such a flow of good words, potent words,
mighty words, words just to suit every
crisis nd every case. Whatever be the
cause of It, profanity is pn the increase,
and if you do not know it, it is because
your cars havo been hardened by the din
of imprecations so that you are not
stirred and moved as you ought to bo by
profanities in these cities which an)
enough to bring a hurricane of fixe liko
that which consumed Sodom.
Do you know that this trivial use of
God's name result in perjury? Do you
know that people wno iase me name pi
God on their hps m recslessness and
thoughtlessness ere fostering the crimo
of perjury? Make the namo of God a
foot ball in the community, and it has no
power when in court room and in legis
lative assembly it is employed in solemn
adjuration! See the way sometimes they
administer the oath: "S'help you God
kiss tho book!" Smuggling, which is
alwavs a violation of tho oath, becomes
rlt's a grand joke, lousay
to a man: "IIow is it possible for you to
sell these goods so very cheap? I can't
understand it." 'AhJ' he replies, with
a twinkle of the eye, the custom house
tariff of these goods isn't as much as it
might be. ' An oath does not mean as
much as it would were the namo of God
used in reverence and in solemnity.
Why is it that so often jurors render un
accountable verdicts, and judges givo un
accountable charges, and useless railroad
schemes pass in our 6tate capitols, and
there are most unjust changes made in
the tariffs tariff lifted from one
and put upon another?
thing
What is an oath? Anvthing solemn?
Anything that calls upon the Almighty?
Anything that marks an event in a man s
history? Oh, no! It is kissing the book!
There is no habit, I tell you plainly and
I talk to hundreds and thousands of men
to-day who will thank me for my utter
ance I tell you, my brother I talk to
you not professionally but just as one
brother - talks to another on some very
important theme I tell you there is no
habit that so depletes a man's nature a?
the habit of profanity. You wight as
THlr '11A1LY lf. A'itk m t m-r invn i v nmr n
- " - luiuwuxiii 11 Eiiutnuivni iiviii,i i , ill fti IDS.
well try to raise vineyards and orcliard
on tle sides of belching Stromboli as to
raise anything good on a heart from
which there ours out the scoria of pro
fanity. You may swear yourself down ;
vou cannot swear yourself up. When
the Mohammedan finds a piece of
paper he cannot read, lie puts
it a&ido very cautiously for fear
the name of God may be on it. That is
one extreme. We go the other. Now,
wnat is the euro of this habit? It is a
mighty habit. Men have btruggled for
years to get over it. There are men in
this house of God who would give half
their fortune to get rid of it. An aged man
was in the delirium of a fever, lie had
for many years lived a most upright life
and was honored in all the community ;
but when ho came into the delirium of
this fever he was full of imprecation and
profanity, and they could not under
stand it. After he came to his right
reason ho explained it. lie said: "When
I was a young man I was very profane.
I conquered the habit, but I had to strug
gle all through life. You haven't for
forty years heard me say an improper
word, but it has been an awful struggle,
The tiger is chained, but he is alive yet.
If you would get rid of this habit, I
want you, my friends, to dwell upon the
uselessness of it. Did a volley of oaths
ever start a heavy load? Did they ever
extirpate meanness from a customer?
Did they ever collect a bad debt?
Did they ever cure a toothache? Did
they ever 6top the twinge of the rheu
matism? Did they ever help you for
ward one step in the right direction?
Come now, tell me, ye who have had the
most experience in this habit, how much
have you made out of it? Five
thousand dollars in all your life? No.
One thousand? No. One hundred?
No. One dollar? No. One cent? No.
If the habit be so utterly useless,
away with it.
But you say: "I havo struggled to
overcome the habit a long wlule, and I
have'not been successful." You strug
gled in your own strength, my brother,
ii ever a man wants uou, it is in such a
crisis of his history. God alono by his
grace can emancipate you from that
trouble. Call upon him day and nisrht
that you may be delivered from this
crime. Remember also in the cure of
this habit that it arouses God's inditma-
tion. The Bible reiterates, from chapter
to chapter, and verse after verse, tho fact
that it is accursed for this life and that
it makes a man miserable for eternity,
There is not a sin in all the catalogue that
is so often peremptorily and sud
den! v punished in this world as
tho sin of profanity. There is not a city
or a village but can give an illustration
of a man struck down at the moment of
imprecation. A couple of years ago.
briefly referring to this in a sermon, I
gavo some instances in which God had
struck swearers dead at he moment of
their profanity. That sermon brought to
me from many parts of this land and
other lands statements of similar cases of
instantaneous visitation from God upon
blasphemers. My opinion is that such
cases occur somewhere every day, but
for various reasons they are not reported.
in bcotianu a club assembled every
week for purposes of wickedness, and
there was a competition as to which
could use the most horrid oath, and the
man who succeeded was to be president of
the club. The competition went on. A
man uttered an oath which confounded
all his comrades, and he was made presi
dent of the club. His tongue began to
6well, and it protruded from the mouth,
and he could not draw- it in, and he died,
and the physicians said: "This is the
strangest tiling we ever saw; we never
saw any account in the books like unto
it; we can't understand it. " I under
stand it, He cursed God and died.
.a
At Catskill, N. Y., a group of men
stood in a blacksmith's shop during a
violent thunder storm. ' There came a
crash ot thunder and some of the men
trembled. One man saidi Why, I
don't see what you are afraid of. I am
not afraid to go out in front of the shop
and defy the Almighty. I am not afraid
of lightning. " And he laid a wager on
the subject, and he went out, and he
shook his fist at the heavens, crying:
'Strike, if you dare!" and instantly, he
fell under' a bolt.' ' What destroyed him?
Any mystery about it?' Oh, no. He
cursed God and died.
Oh, my brother, God will not allow
this sin tq go unpunished. There are
styles "of writing with manifold sheets,
so that a man writing on one leaf writes
clear through ten, fifteen or twenty
sheets, and so every profanity we utter
goes right down through the leaves of
the book of God's remembrance. It is
no exceptional sin. Dq you suppose you
could count the profanities of last week
tho profanities of office, store, shop.
factory? They cursed God, they cursed
liis word, they cursed his only begotten
son.
One morning, on Fulton street, as I
was passmg along, 1 heard a man swear
by the name of Jesus. My hair lifted.
My blood ran cold. My breath caught.
My foot halted. Do you not suppose that
God is aggravated ? Do you not suppose
that God knows about it? Dionvsius used
to havo a cave in which his culprits wero
incarcerated, and ho listened at the top
of that cave, and he could hear every
groan, he could hear every 6igh, and he
could hear every whisper of thoso who
were imprisoned. He was a tyrant. God
ii not a tyrant ; but he bends over this
world and he hears everything every
voice of praise every voice of impre
cation, lie hears it all. The oaths seem
to die on tho air, but they have eternal
echo. They come boclj from the ages to
come.
Listen! Listen! "All blasphemers
shall have their place in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, which
is the second death." And if, according
to the theory of some, a man commits in
the next world the sins which he com
mitted in this world if unpardoned, un-
regenerated think of a man s going on
cursing in the name of God to all eter
nity!
The habit grows, ou start with a
small oath, you will come to the large
oath. I saw a man die with an oath be
tween his teeth. Voltaire only gradually
came to his tremendous imprecation; but
the habit grew on him until in the last
moment, supposing Christ stood at the
bed, he exclaimed: 'Crush that wretch!
Crush that wretch 1" Oh, my brother,
you begin to swear and there is nothing
impossible for you in the wrong dircc-
i no is in is voa wnose namo vou are
i using in swearing? Who is he? Is he a
j tyrant? Has he pursued you all vour
iue longf lias he starved you, frozen
you, tyrannized over you? No. Ho has
loved you, he has sheltered vou, h
watched you last night, ho will watch
you to-night. He wants to love you,
wants to help you, wants to save yo.i.
wains io counon you. lie waa youe
father's God and your mother's God. lie
has housed them from the blast, and lie
wants to shelter you. Will you spit in
his face by an imprecation? Will you
ever thrust him back by an oath?
Who is this Jesus whobe name I heard
in the imprecation? Han he pursued you
all your life long? What vile thing has
he done to you that you should eo dis
honor his name? Why, he was the lamb
whose blood simmered in the fires of
sacrifice for you. He is the brother that
took off his crown that you might put it
on. He has pursued you all your life
long with mercy. He wants you to lovo
him, wants you to 6erve him. He comes
with streaming eyes and broken heart
and blistered feet to save you. On the
craft of our doomed humanity he pushed
out into the sea to take you olf the
wreck.
Where is the hand that will ever be
lifted in imprecation again? Let that
hand, now blood tipped, be lifted tliat I
may see it. Not one. Where is the
voice that will ever be uttered in dis
honoring the name of that Christ? Let
it speak now. Not one. Not one. Oh,
I am glad to know that all these vices of
the community, and these crimrt of v-r
city will be gouo. Society is going to lj
bettered. The world by the power of
Christ s gospel is going to be saved, and
this crime, this iniquity, and all tho
other iniquities will vanish before tho ris
ing of the sun of righteousness upon the
nation.
There was one day in New England
memorable for storm and darkness. I
hardly ever saw such an evenincr. The
clouds which had been Catherine: all day
unli inhered their batteries. The Housa-
tonic, which flows quietly, save as the
paddles of pleasure parties rattle the oar
locks, was lashed into foam, and tho
waves hardly knew where to lay them
selves.
Oh, what a time it was! Tho hills
jarred under the rumbling of God's
chariots. Blinding sheets of rain drove
tho cattle to the bars, or beat amiinst tho
window pane as though to dash it in.
The grain fields threw their crowns of
gold at the feet of the storm king. When
night came in it was a double night. Its
mantle was torn with the lightnings, and
into its locks were twisted tho leaves of
uprooted oaiis ana me shreds or canvas
torn from tho masts of the beached ship
ping, it was such a night as makes vou
thank God for shelter, and open the door
to let in the spaniel howling outside, with
terror.
o went to 6leep under the full blast
of heaven's great orchestra, the forests
with uplifted voices, in chorus that fiiled
the mountains, praising the Lord. Wo
woke not until the fingers of tiie sur.ny
morn touched our eyelids. We loo'red
out the window, and the Housatonio
6lept as quiet as an infant's dream. Pil
lars of clouds set against the sky looked
liko the castles of tho blessed, built for
heavenly hierarclis on the beach of tho
azure sea. All the trees sparkled
as though there had been some creat
grief in heaven, and each' leaf had
been God appointed to catch an angel's
tear. It seemed as if our Father had
looked upon the earth, his wayward
child, and stooped to her tear wet cheek
and kissed it. So will the darkness of
sin and crime leave our world before the
dawn of the morning. The fight shall
gild the city spire and strike the forests
of Maine and the masts of Mobile and
all between. And ono end restino- nn
the Atlantic coast and the other resting
on the Pacific beach, God will spring a
great rainbow arch cjf peaoe, in token of
everlasting covenant that the world 6hall
never more see a deluge of crime.
But," say3 some one, "preaching
against the evils of society will accom
plish nothing. Do you not see that the
evils go right on?" I answer, we are not
at all discouraged.
It seemed insignificant for. Moses to
stretch liis hand over the lied sea. Wha'.
power could that have over the waters?
But the east wind blew all night; the
waters gathered into two glittering pali
sades on either side. The billows reared
as God's hand pulled back upon their
crystal bits. Wheel into line. Oh Israel!
March! March! Pearls crash under tho
feet. The shout of host3 mounting the
beach answers the shout of hosts mid sea :
until, as the last line of the Israelites
have gained the beach, th shields clang,
and the cynibal3 clap; and as, tho
waters wheliQ tlie, pursuing foe, the
swift fingered winds on the white keys
of the foam play the crand march of
Israel delivered, and the awful dirge of
Egyptian overthrow. So we go forth;
and stretch out the hand of prayer jad
Christian effort over these dark.'boilinz
waters of crime and tin. "Aha! Aha!"
Eaya the deriding world. But wait.
The winds of divine help will begin to
blow; the way will clear for the great
army of Christian plulanthropists; thq
glittering treasures of the world's benefl-
cenco will jina tho path of our feet:
and to the other shore we will' be.
greeted with the clash of ail heaven's
cymbals; whilo those who resist and do
ride and pursue us will fall under tho
sea, and there will be nothing left of
them but here and there, cast high and
dry upon tho beach, the pplintered wheel
of a chariot, and, thrust out from thq
6urf, the breathless nostril of a riderles3
charger.
Swellest Mourning Paper.
It may interest fastidious letter writers
to know that the very swellest mourning
paper used by the elite of trance
measures eight by five inches, and lias a
black border half an inch wide. The ent
velopes measure four and a quarter by
live and three-quarter inches. ey
York Tribune,
Teeth by Subscription.
A woman at Albany, Go., wanted a
new set of false teeth and hadn't money
to pay for it. She went around among
the business men of the place with a sub
scription paper and succeeded in raking
the required sum.
While the bee keepers convention was
in session at watervilie recently, not
one of the fifty men who attended was
seen to use tobacco in any form.
; : .
The Plattsmouth Herald
Ts njoyiixg a Boom in. both, its
ATD WEEKLY
EDITIONS.
The Tear 1888
Will be one during which the subjects of
national interest and importance will be
strongly agitated and the election of a
President will take place. Ihe people of
Ca68 County who would like to learn of
Political, Commercial
and Social Transactions
of this year and would keep aj ace
the times should
FOK EITHER THE. -
Daily or Weekly Herald.
Now while we have the
people we will venture
0)
0)
IE? MTImIEGIITd
Which is lirst-class in all respects and
from which our job printers are turning
out much satisfactory work.
PLATTSMOUTH,
with
subject before the
to speak ot our
NEBRASKA.
i
4
