Newspaper Page Text
Banks County Gazette.
VOL 2.---NO. 2.
Written for The Gazette.
TEMPERANCE.
An Appeal to the Youth of Banks
County.
There is an evil that will cross your
path which will decoy you in its train
of destruction if you yield to its de
ception.
Remember that which would lead
you from the paths of temperance and
virtue is your inveterate enemy. And
whatever may lie its pretense its ob
ject is your ruin.
And a youth that will be so cau
tious as to reject aud abstain from
temptations and de’usions of this ad
versary of our peace, the treacherous
arts by which it fl itters us from the
paths of rectitude, and the syren song
by which it lures us into its foul em
brace, will one day be a noble, gener
ous and honored youth, from whose
heart will flow a living fount of puie
and holy feeling, which will spread
around ar.d fertilize the soil of friend
ship, while warm and generous hearts
will croud about and inclose him in a
circle of pure and godlike hapincss.
The eye of woman will britghon at
his approach, and wealth and honor
smile to woo him to their circle. And
his days will spend onward in spark
ling peace of joy as the summer brook
sparkles, all joyous, on its gladsome
way.
Am! now, dear reader, you will
find all around you pretended friends,
—pretended I say becouse they will
talk and express their sympathy and
appreciation of your good course—
then go and indulge in that miscalled
social cup, until dishonor and shame
will come upon them, and transfi nn
them (who was fashioned in the ex
press image of their Maker) into
mere brutes.
Temperance is a Masonic virtue,
and let it be held in everlasting re
inembran -e tli s Intemperance i>
a most fatal and distructivo vice
which bribes votes, corrupts elections,
poisons our institutions, degrades our
citizens, lowers our legislators, and
dishonors our statesmen.
Now, in conclusion, do not be de
coyed in its path of distinction. If
you want to enjoy that eternal bliss
of perpetual summer, where the
bright sun never retires behind a
cloud; where pleasure will last for
evermore, and every tear shall be
wiped away.
T. E. Anef.rson.
A Scotchman's Plain Speech.
Rev. John Robertson of Stone
haven, Scotland, feels that he hay a
mission to his countrymen, and he
means to bring it home. This is
clipped from an exchange which
credits it to him:
Two hereditary diseases in our
veins act and react on one another as
cause and effect. They are always
together, always were and always
will be.
They are whisky and moderatism!
Moderatistn! Just look at it—a wiz
ened, blasted thing that can grow
only on a drunk-sodden soil. Scor
laud is a drunken ditch. .The gospel
cannot thrive in it. For the sake of
never dyingsonls, off with the drink!
One primal necessity to the spiritual
crop of pure gospel preaching among
us is total abstinence. Fling the hell
ish thing out of our hearts and homes,
sweep the steps to our own kirk door
ere we ring the gospel bell in the
summons to the cross, or it will c ! ank,
clank, a cracked and cursed farce.
Before now I have sat on a gospel
platform where the thick mumble m
my ear and the fuming breath told of
inspiration derived, not from the open
Bible, but from the open bottle, and
the result of that ‘toiling all night’
was of course—nothing.
The gospel of Christ from a glass
licking lip!—that is moderatism, and
no gospel. .
The great preacher and worker,
Jesus Christ, would no more be a mod
erate drinker in Scotland to-day than
he would be a moderate cannibal.
What must I do to be saved ? put
to thousands, in the Free Church of
Scotland would being but this one
reply: ‘Drink, but don’t get drunk;
make money and marry, and if thou
wouldst be perfect do not work on
the Sabbath.’
Mere go-to churchism is mere go-to
liellism. That communicant’s card,
that clinking sacrament token, may
be from the minister’s hand a mere
ticket for—the bottomless pit. To
reach heaven by that, as soon ship to
Calcutta in a cockle-shell.
Ah, thou robber of the heritage of
Judah’s message, thou doomed and
deluded garroter of Christ’s holy
covenant, thou kirk-going child of
the devil, stop—as God’s word is true,
as his oath, reverlxTating from end
to end of his moral universe, is sure,
there is no morning for thee, no
dawn, no purple glow in the eastern
sky. Tlie message of Judah is not
for thee. The burden of Dumah is
thine. “Also the night,”—night, firstly
falling night; dark, dense, starless
eternal; forever and ever night.”—
Northwestern Christian Advocate.
Be Happy To-day.
In 1852 Bishop Simpson thus
wrote to his wife: “Be careful of
your health; be cheerful. Look
aloft. The stars display their beauty
to us only when we look at them; and
if we look down at the eartli our
hearts are never charmed. Be re
solved to be happy to-day—to be
joyful now—and out of every fleet
ing moment draw all possible pure
and lasting ple.mirC.”
If ibis advice were generly followed,
multitudes of people who are wretched
now would he comparatively happy.
The mother, who is continually look
ing forward o the time when her
children will be grown and .able to
take care of themselves, misses the
happiness she might have if she gave
lieiself up to enjoying their ba“y
ways, their innocent prattle, and
their mischief pranks. “I suppose you
think your children will be a great
comfort to you when they’re grown
up,” said a care-taking, trouble
anticipating old lady to a young
mother who was absorbed in her
little ones.
“O, no,” was the reply, “I don’t
think about that; 1 take comfort in
them now; they pay me every day
they live for all I can do for them,
in the delight they give me.” And
ihey went on paying her in the same
way all adoujg to manhood and wo
manhood, and so long as they lived.
The business inun looks forward to
tli© day when he can retire, and
then have “a good time.” But when
he is able to retire, his capacity for
having a good time is largely dimin
ished, if not entirely gone. The in
firmities of age begin to creep upon
him, the taste has gone out of things,
desire fails. lie might have had “a
little good time” often if he had only
thought so, and planned for it, and
thus have cultivated his capacity for
enjoyment as lie went on accumu
lating.
The student looks forward to the
day when he shall receive his diploma
as a great day; and so it is. But on
that day be will be at the bottom
round of a long ladder, reaching up
higher and higher as life goes on.
If he postpones every-day happiness,
the postponement will be likely to
continue as long as he lives, and ho
will “die without the sight.”
We may lay plans that run through
all the years to come, and it is right
we should do so; we may build high
hopes of future achievement—the
man is to be pitied who does not
thus build—but, while working out
i our plans, while cherishing our hopes,
| we may each and every day nourish
1 souls at the fountains of pure pk-as
ure springing everywhere around us.
The sky above us is full of varied
beauty. “Day unto day uttereth
speech, night unto night showeth
knowledge.” Flowers are bursting
I into bloom at our feet, birds make
i
the air vocal with song; we can but
i be happy if we let our hearts beat in
time with the great heart of Nature.
“Man is born unto trouble as the
' sparks fly upward,” but man is born
j equally to joy; nay, be is born more
|to joy than to sorrow. The sensa
, tion of life is one of joy; there is
I pleasure in seeing, in hearing, in
lIOMER, BANKS COUNTY, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1891.
tasting, in smelling, in tlie use of
those wonderful instruments, our
hands, in the use of our feet, in the
growth of our minds. Sickness and
sorrow develop our capacities of en
joyment. How keen are the sensei)
of the invalid; and if we will resolve
to make the best of every thing,
trouble will prove but a stepping
stone to higher jhy.—Christian Ad
vocate.
A good show in springtime does
not always promise a good show in
the autumn. Weeds grow faster, and
often attract more attention, than
plants that bear berries. So it is in
the held of character. A lad who
makes a display in dress and cigar
ette-smooking may seem to have the
advantage over a plodding youth who
has something to do and does it. A
few years hence will tell the story of
the comparative worth of these two
hoys. Even in the springtime of life
it is well to consider for what harvest
one is sowing.—Sunday School Times.
Saying that a thing is not as it
should be, seems to imply that the
critic knows how that thing ought to
be; yet many a man is ready to find
fault with what is, without being
able to say bow it can be bettered.
Here is a good test for any man to
apply to himself, when lie under
takes to complain of an existing state
of things. * If lie can only see a fault,
or what he supposes to be a fault,
without seeing how the thing can be
improved, be knows less than half
of what he needs to know in the field
of bis fault-finding, in order to make
his criticism tolerable. If, indeed, a
man does 'not know how a thing
ought to be, he is liable to be grossly
in error in supposing that the thing is
not already as it should be. Let a
man, for example, who observes a
heavy beam set as a brace against a
house wall point out the fact
that that beam is not in perpendicular,
lie can easily prove that point, but
lie cannot so easily improve the posi
tion of the beam, without knowing
whether a perpendicular position
would bo better than an oblique one
for that beam as a brace. And here
is the trouble with most of the critics
of legislation, of political manage
ment, of church action, of methods
of work in any and every field. They
are ready enough to say that a thing
is wrong, without knowing what is
right, and therefore without knowing
whether the thing in question is
wrong. Nine-tenths of the criticism
that is made among men, and women,
lack the basis of a fair knowledge of
what ought to be in the tiling crit
icised.—Sunday School Times.
Pruitt.
What? Did you say that you
heard we had stocklaw in Washington
district? If you did I tell you it is a
mistake, for the fence side whipped
the fight on every side. If you don’t
believe it just ask Mr. S. M. Strange
about that stocklaw election.
Mr. Bob Coker says lie don’t see
how he is going to stand three good
things all at once. First the good
result of the stock law election. Sec
ond, the cheapness of sugar, and
Third, the tax off of Tobacco. He
says he knows three good things will
not occur ag '.in at the same time in
one hundred years.
Rev. R. H. Rob, of Atlanta spent
Tuesday night of last week with your
! correspondent. We think he is a
! good man, and a zealous worker in
I the cause of the Master.
The prospecis for a cotton crop
looks rather gloomy at present.
Our meeting days at Damascus are
the 4th Sunday in each month and
i Saturday before.
Best wishes for The Gazette
Giving and Receiving.
I once went on an errand to a poor
woman who lived in a back street of
an over-crowded locality, at the east
end of London, and whose husband
had abandoned her. She was crip
pled by rheumatism, added to which
the landlord of her hovel had just
threatened to sell every bit of the
furniture for three weeks’ overdue
rent. The air was bitterly cold, and
the drizzling sleet beat in my face
that morning as I made my way to
the wretched abode.
One of her half-starved children
opened the door, revealing the
mother, lying upon the bed unable
to move: no fire in the grate; no
food in the cupboard; the whole
scene misery and squalor; the poor
creature in terrible anxiety, expect
ing each moment to see a landlord’s
agent, who was to take the bed from
under her, and to thrust her and her
poor babe into the street! As I en
tered the room, her terror stricken
countenance revealed that she looked
upon me as the one coming to demand
every tiling, she possessed. What
then was her astonishment and un
bounded relief to find that, instead
of coming to ask the least, thing from
her, I was the messenger from friends,
and sent with money to pay her
debts and buy food for herself and
her children! Her whole thoughts
were instantly changed, and the hap
less woman was ready to sing for joy.
Now man in his ruined and help
less state looks upon God just as that
poor creature at the first looked upon
me. He thinks of God as one who
came to exact the uttermost farthing
from him, and so lie tries to give
to God, instead of believing God’s
love and receiving from hnn. The
sinner believes not that God’s heart
is toward him in love, that God lias,
given his beloved Son to die upon
the cioss in the guilty one’s stead,
and that be demands nothing of the
broken and contrite heart.
How do you regard God, dear
reader ? Arc you doing the best you
can, or do you believe God’s gospel,
which brings to us pardon, life, and
salvation ? The father had every
thing to give to the prodigal, and
nothing to ask for—the robe, ring,
shoes, kiss, and fatted call! The son
had nothing to do but accept the
tokens of his lather’s love aid for
giveness— the proof that his heart
had been ever toward him, waiting to
lie gracious.
Will you take the low place of
having nothing, and of being nothing
but a lost sinner? and will you ac
cept God’s wondrous gift of his Son?
Then shall you find, not only that
your debt is paid by Jesus, and there
fore that justice will never demand
it from you, but you shall also find
the bounty of God toward you in
giving you every needed thing lor
time and for eternity—you shall be
for ever at his charge and under his
care.—Southern Presbyterian.
Silver Shoals.
In company with Miss Martha
Chambers, one of Silver Shoals’ sweet
est girls, your correspondent h id the
pleasure of Visiting Hollingsworth
college some days ago. It is situated
in a beautiful oak grove in the sub
urbs of the town. It is a handsome
building—the largest in the county.
It speaks well for the community.
Banks is a grand old county, and we
are glad to see her corning to the
front in the way of education aiid we
hope Banks will some day send out a
Ben llill.
The recitations were good. The one
by Miss Sanobia Wofford. Subject—
“ Nobody’s Child,” was well rendered.
We had the pleasure of meeting
Professor W. H. Shelton, president
of the college, and we found him ex
ceedingly affable and pleasant and we
think him in every way worthy of the
high honor bestowed upon him.
Mr. Willie Chambers carried his
best girl to Homer Sunday. He likes
the State of “Georgia” better than
any other.
O, where are those noble souls to
be found, all unconcious of
themselves, daily pursue their career
like the sun, which rises each morning
in the heavens, and scatters its gold
to the left and to the right,, on the
mountains and in the valleys those
noble souls that, by an inward neces
sity, here create and renew, there
beautify and heal, and everywhere
bless, like the sun, that cannot but
give light? There Is but one In whom
such an image of high love has ap
peared to us in its entire purity; and
it is only by faith in I-lim that such
self-sacrificing love is produced.—
Tholuck.
Family worship though forming an
essential part of family religion, is by
no means the whole of it. Persist
ant, patient training of the household
in the habits, the facts, the princi
ples, and precepts ot the gospel must
be united to the stated seasons of
worship. The examples, the interest,
the influence which pervade the
home life must be profoudly and
consistently religious to secure the
end of bringing the children up in
the nurture and admonition of the
Lord. The whole atmosphere and
drift of the home-life must be heav
enly and heavenward.—Advocate.
A Cure for Unrest.
“I have not been able to sleep for
some time,” said a friend to me not
long since. “I have tried change of
air, and all kinds of doctors and
drugs, hut lam sleepless.” “Have
you tried change of thought?” “No,
for in my condition that is impossi
ble.” I was of another opinion, and
persuaded my friend to go away from
the place where his thoughts were
running in a groove, not on a pleas
ure excursion, but to anew and en
grossing occupation. For a time the
medicine seemed too strong for the
disease, and though lie slept, it was
the sleep of exhaustion, and not ot
refreshment. After a few weeks the
remedy began to take effect. The
work was easier, and the sleep became
natural. Instead of talking of him
self and his feelings, he was eager to
talk of his occupation and the plan of
life which grew out of it. The centre
had changed from self to an external
object, and the change of thought
had come naturally.
Much of our restlessness is only
exaggerated selfishness. One who is
fully occupied with plans for the good
of others, forge's himself and his woes
or weaknesses, and has no time or
place for that nervous excitement
which is often another name for in
tense egotism. There is a devotion
to others which only means gratifica
tion of self in another form. This is
the selfishness, of the master who
treats his servant with consideration
and kindness in order that he may be
well served; of the patron who be
stows favors upon his flatterers and
sycophants; of the the official and
politician who gives to others that he
may receive as much again. Such
varnished selfishness affords no satis
faction, and ministers no rest to a
weary and disturbed soul.
It is only as we subordinate self
that yve can be happy. Ambition,
vanity, envy, jealousy, are all selfish
sins. When each one esteems others
better than himself, the rivalry is not
to get, but to give, and there is no
care and anxiety and restlessness in a
struggle. “I came not to do mine
own will, but the will of him that sent
me,” were the words of Jesus, and he
bids us “take his yoke upon us and
learn of him, and yve shall find rest
unto our souls.” We shrink from
this yoke. We yvish our own will and
way, cost what it may. It is an age
of intense egotism and personal vani
ty. This appears in things great and
small, in the vulgar desire for notorie
ty yvhicli craves mention in the news
papers of the day, in the parade of
acts of trifling beneficence, yvhicli, in
another age, would have been matters
of course anil out <>f comment; in the
tedious descriptions of what people
wear, and eat, and build, and plan,
and imagine, and invent. It appears
in the craze for pictures and portraits
and illustrations,all of which are inor
dinately pressed into the seivice of
personal vanity and selfish egotism.
IVe have neyvspapers whose entire
contents are presented in the first
person, with an arrogance that is
ridiculous when the topics are con
sidered, and an impudence which is
sublime yvhen the auditory is taken
into account. And this intense and
exciting personality is upon the in
SINGLE COPY THREE CENTS,
crease. Faster than the power
presses and the currents of electricity,
fly the subtle forces which arc mold
ing men into “lovers of their own
selves,” and thus starting into perni
cious activity that battery of passions
which will make multitudes restless
and miserable here and for ever. The
only cure tor this vicious self-love is
to be found in what Dr Chalmers
called “the expulsive power of anew
affection.” If the egotist can turn his
thoughts from self to an infinitely
higher being, he will find rest in the
change; if he selfish devotee will ex
change the altar of personal worship for
the altar of universal benevolence, he
will discover a multitude of opportu
nities for sacrifice, and in making
this discovery, he will make the other
more important one, that self-worship
is largely the cause of his dissatisfac
faction and weariness. Christ’s teach
ing, that we gain by losing, that we
live by dying, lias a precious kernel
of instruction.
There is a death into self which is
of prime necessity in order to happi
ness, and few are willing to endure it.
Many who talk of taking up the cross,
and crucifying the flesh, and of living
above the yvcrld, have not learned
that what they need to do is to lay
down the cross which they arc bear
ing so ostentatiously,to cease inviting
others to the spectacle of
their flesli torture, their morti
fications and austerities, their denials
and represssions, as if there were a
strange and fragrant virtue in self
cruciflxion without reference to its
object. Instead to trying to live like
Simon Stvlites on his toyver in the
desert, above a wondering world, let
them go down into the lowly places,
yea even into its cellars and alleys,
and help to remove its sins and re
lieve its miseries. There is no better
cure for neuralgia than the foul air of
a tenement if it is breathed with the
full inspiration of love to God and
love to men, and even seyver gas may
prove to be a tonic to a morbid egotist
which- shall cure him'' of a disease
more deadly than the typhoid.—New
York Observer.
There is a difference between a
busy man and a busy body. A man
is a soul, a character, a force. A
body is a soul’s material habitation.
The busybody flits about with every
moment occupied in an exteriorly
conspicuous way, but exerts no real
power. The busy man appears com
paratively inert, with no seeming
pressure upon bis time. The busy
body skims many square miles of
surface, and is hailed by many admir
ing on-lookcrs. The busy man, ob
livious to popularity, plunges straight
dowu to the bottom of his real inter
ests, which to the busybody scent so
feyv and so obscure. The busy man
has no skiff; the busybody lias no
plummet. Each fills bis place, per
haps: the one superficially, the other
profaundly; the one ns a bodily specta
cle, the other as a soul-force. The one
hinders more often than he helps,
while the other helps more often
than lie binders.—Sunday School
'limes.
A special to the Nashville Amer
ican says that the young br'.de near
Ducktown, Tenn., who was whipped
by women White Caps, has since died
after a terrible torture. Three men,
who were fired on, will die of their
wounds. The women who did the
whipping are under arrest, but their
friends say they shall never go to
jail, and a fight is imminent between
a mob and the officers. The outcome
will be more murder, as the inhab
itants of that section are a tough lot
and all drunk.
By fellowship with Christ the
believer is changed into the same
image. This is not merely a change
of appearance, eonunct, or feeling,
but a change of being. It is not a
change of something about us or
connected with us, but our very
selves that are changed so as to be
like Christ, like the Father in whose
image man was first created.
He that hath gained an entire con
j quest over himself, will find no
l mighty <1 faculties to subdue all other
I opposition; and this is a complete
I victory indeed.—Thomas Kempis.