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Proverbs 25:11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. On Liquor, Drinking and Party Life
The biggest fool God's eyes ever looked upon is the woman who stirs the toddy
for her husband. |
From a governor
down to a dog pelter, I would not vote for a man that touches, tastes or handles
whisky to save my life, and you can never redeem America with a legislature whose
breath is tainted with whisky.
--
I have never seen but one man in America
that would stand up and say he drank whisky and never told his wife a lie about
it. Have you got one here to-day? Is there a man who drinks whisky
that never told his wife a lie about it? If there is, stand up. I
want to see you. I expect some of you would have stood up, but your wives
are here and you don't want to be caught in a lie.
--
Watch the association
of your children. Do not allow your boys to go with young debauchees for
the money. Why, some of these scoundrels can get drunk on Saturday night
and then on Sunday evening go to church with the sweetest girl in the family.
We need some old-fashioned daddies who would meet these young bucks at the
door and kick then clean out into the street. Some girls in a Southern city
married a lot of fellows to reform them. That town soon had a batch of whippoorwill
widows.
--
The liquor traffic has come down to where it is a question
of blood and death and hell. These women are getting tired of seeing their
husbands go down to a drunkards' graves; these mothers are tired of seeing their
sons go to a drunkard's hell.
--
The wedding over, the honeymoon passed,
and years of happiness come. One day the husband began to drink. There
is a volume of ten thousand pages in that very sentence. If woman knew what
it meant. If every man could see into the future. He could read it
and would not go on.
Temperance
is a great regulation force of man's life. No man can drink whisky and be
a Christian. Bob Ingersoll, the worst in the country, says whisky is God;s
worst enemy and the devil's best friend. I never got so low down as to discuss
a man who drinks vile lager beer. There ain't a four-legged hog in the country
that'll drink beer. But lots of two-legged hogs will. And the ladies
are absolutely drinking beer for their health. Shame on them! The
only hope of America is in her sober mothers, for when they debauch themselves
their children will be born full-fledged drunkards.The spirit of gentleness and
the spirit of temperance. Be not only temperate in regard to liquor, but
be a total prohibitionist on that subject.
--
I want to tell you, brethren,
that it takes more money to run one old red-nosed drunkard than it does to run
any member of the church in this city.
--
The girl that will marry a boy
whose breath smells with whisky is the biggest fool angels ever looked at.
--
I don't want to be a gentleman if I have to get drunk. Do you?
--
What do you think of an elder who has to think of the question about the
barrooms before he can answer? When you ask a preacher he says: "Why,
I consult my board, and if they are, why I are too."
--
How did I become
a drunkard? By drinking wine like some of you do. If any man had tasted
what I have and been where I have been, he'd be recreant if he did not preach
as I do. You get some letters as I do and it would go to your heart. I'm
not only not going to drink but I'll fight it to perdition, and when perdition
freezes, then I'll fight it on the ice. If you can make it any stronger
than that, put my name to it.
--
Nobody but an infernal scoundrel will
sell whisky, and nobody but an infernal fool will drink it.
Every
barroom is a recruiting office for hell.
--
So many men are reckless.
An Alpine hunter shoulders his gun and walks along an eight-inch path, while
the dog beside him quivers with fear. Don't rush into the face of God at
judgment unprepared. At best, we have only threescore years and ten. You,
with your constitutional vigor, may go to seventy and be pouring into you body
poison all the time. Strong drink sends many a man to his grave twenty years
before his time. Men are greedy to be lost, and anxious for damnation.
--
I want to see the day in this country when no decent woman will put anything
on her table that will make a fool of her husband. The biggest fool woman
in this State is the woman who will go to the closet and get a demijohn and bring
it out and fix up a drink for her husband. You have not sense enough to
keep out of the fire; your place is in the lunatic asylum.
--
I never
had much confidence in a man that would do things in New York that he wouldn't
do at home. You have some of that sort here. A fellow that is sober
as a judge at home, when he goes on a fishing tour can not get along without a
jug of whisky; and he drinks it all the way along and claims to be pious. [Times
haven't changed much have they?]
Hebrews
11:25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy
thepleasures of sin for a season; 26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of
the reward.
Society
Society is a heartless old wretch; and if you don't get out of it you will go to hell with it.
Theater
And there are women in St. Louis that will go and hear things in the theater whose
tendencies are the most vulgar of the vulgar, and she will be tickled all over,
and she will come to the church and she will have her poor nerves all shocked
to pieces at something Sam Jones says, and she will turn up her nose at me, and
I can always tell when the devil has got a mortgage on a woman's nose. It
is always turning up. And he is going to foreclose it some of these days, too,
sister, and he will get the gal when he gets the nose.
--
You take society
about this town. If I had the money that the Christian women, so-called,
pay at the theater during the year, I could run every charitable institution in
this town grandly. That is a fact. You can't walk to church -- it is too far;
but you will walk the next night a third farther to the theater, and your husband
does not really want to go. Let us try and reform ourselves on this line.
--
A man once asked me how long it had been since I had been at a theater.
I told him I had not been at the theater since I had quit being a vagabond.
Dancing
God never gave a woman a child to debauch it by sending it to a dancing-school
kept by a hook-nosed Frenchman.
--
Go into a ballroom with your Christian
light. It will go out. It won't burn there.
--
"Our church don't forbid
dancing," exclaims one. Which is your church? All of the grand churches
of the land are outspoken against it. If any church sanctioned dancing I
would not stay in the little thing long enough to get my hat -- I would run out
bareheaded.
Gambling
I know of one church where twenty were praying for the millennium and two hundred
were praying for the boody prize in a progressive euchre. Such Christians
as that would not be in heaven six months before they would be gambling for each
other's crown.
--
Don't allow your boys to learn gambling at home, and
then you, in hypocritical old age, go around bewailing their fate.
--
A woman in Chicago told me her husband worked hard all day, and she played
cards with him every night to amuse him. I told her to ship him to an asylum,
for there they play cards for amusement. A game of cards is the game of
stravelings, mentally and spiritually. Sisters, you who have such husbands,
I tell you what to do: Buy him a tin horse and a tin horn. Make him
straddle the tin horse and blow the horn for him. Sister, don't let the
children laugh at him. Tell the children that their little pap has worked
hard all day, and wants to be amused. Sister, sister, get him a tin horse.
Psalm 119:128 Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.
On the Bible
What
is culture worth if it is but the whitewash on a rascal? I would rather
be in heaven learning my ABC's than sitting in hell reading Greek.
--
I believe the Bible just as it was written, and I believe that the whale swallowed
Jonah. I would have believed it just the same if it had said that Jonah
swallowed the whale. I've got no better sense than to believe the Bible.
Call me a fool for it, and I'm a happy fool. I believe every word
in the Bible. I accept everything between the lids of the Book. I
have good reasons for my faith.
--
God Almighty was four hundred years getting up this Book and every want of the universe can be supplied out of this Book. If I had the billions of men of earth before me I would refer them to this precious Book. Here's a blessed balm for every wound, a cure for every ill. Thank God for this precious Book, divinely written and divinely given to save the world.
[Sam Jones was talking about the King James Authorized Version of the Bible too,
we might add. That was the only Bible for him, though others were available
in his day.]
--
If I understood all about the Bible I'd know somebody wrote it who didn't have
any more sense than I have.
--
The lawyer that knows as little about Blackstone and the Supreme Court reports as the average Christian does about the Bible would never have but one case. The sheriff would be his next client.
1 Corinthians
1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
On Preachers and Preaching
I'd
rather be a man than a dignified preacher.
--
I want to be a good man and a good husband, but God keep me from being a "nice"
preacher.
--
If I had ten thousand angels to preach to to-day, every word I should say would
be pure. Our Saviour preached to men. His sermon on the Mount would
not have had so much in it about adultery if He had been preaching to angels.
God keep me dead honest in dealing with souls. I want to lay my gun
on the rail and aim straight. If I hit you on the side, I did not mean to
hit you there, but right square in the head. If you think I hit you accidentally,
you never made a greater mistake in your life. I hit you with malice aforethought.
--
Shall I ask you little dudes and dudines how to preach the gospel?
--
I once knew a new pastor who, upon taking charge of his church, was met by a delegation
of the deacons previous to delivering his inaugural sermon. They said: "No,
brother, you musn't preach about fashion, because our fashionable members will
be out to hear you. You musn't preach about dram-drinking or liquor selling,
because several of our members who are liquor-sellers will be out to hear you.
you musn't preach about covetousness, because several of our millionaire
members will be out to hear you." "Well, what can I preach about?" he asked
in great perplexity. "About the Mormons," replied the good deacons; "give'em
blazes; there won't be a Mormon to hear you."
--
When you think a preacher has got wings you are mistaken.
--
Now the general pulpit style of America is about like this: "Here I am, Rev. Jeremiah
Jones, D.D., saved by the grace of God with a message to deliver. If you
repent and believe what I believe, you will be saved, but if you do not, you will
be damned, and I don't care much if you are." [Some things in America
haven't changed!]
--
Whenever you see me with a grubbing-hoe on my shoulder I'm out after grubs, and
if you ain't a grub sit still -- I'm not after you. Do you catch the idea?
--
A great many people object to pointed preaching because it pains them, they say.
This suggests the story of the old lady whose daughter's tooth ached. She
sent for a dentist. he came and pulled out a pair of big, old-fashioned
forceps. The old lady screamed out, "Don't put them things in my daughter's
mouth; pull it out with your fingers!" That would be mighty nice if
it could be done. God bless you all! if you will let me get the old gospel
forceps hold of these teeth, I will bring them out, but I can not pull them with
my fingers. I want that understood.
--
If any one thinks he can't stand the naked truth rubbed on a little thicker and
faster than he ever had it before, he'd better get out of here.
--
I am sorry for the preacher that has got so low down in his theology that he is
trying to establish the fact that there is no hell. I know of men trying
to establish the fact that there is no hell. A gentleman said to me a few
days ago that the fact was nearly established. I said to him: "When did
you start your exploring party down there, and when will they return to report?"
--
If God will empty your heads and hearts of all the error you have packed away
in them, I will preach enough truth to save you to-night.
--
At every conference you notice delegations going up to the bishop from the leading
churches. One delegation will got to the bishop and say: "Bishop, we want
you to send us a preacher this year that is popular with the young people." Another
delegation will say: "We want you to send us a preacher that is popular with other
denomination." Another crowd will go in and say: "Please send us a preacher
that in popular with sinners." Another crowd will say: "Send us a preacher
that is popular with everybody." But I tell you that I never hear of a delegation
going up to conference and asking the bishop to "Please send us a preacher that
is popular with God Almighty."
--
The devil has no better servant than a preacher who is laying feather-beds for
fallen Christians to light on.
--
A fellow said to me: "I can raise the devil as well as you can, but I always get
licked." I told him he had better stop. There is no use in raising
the devil if you are going to get licked.
--
The difference between Christ and the modern preacher is that Christ said, "Follow me," and the preacher says, "Get down there at the altar and agonize."
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
On Salvation
Now
is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. When God's dinner-bell
rings all you want is an appetite, and you can walk in and there's a place for
you.
--
Don't imagine that because you have burned up no meeting-house and killed no preachers you will get in at the fool's door. [speaking of heaven]
James
1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but
deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27 Pure religion
and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
On
Religion,
Which meant biblical Christianity to Sam Jones
There is so much sham in
this country -- a religion with a brown stone front and brickbat, mortar and stick
back. Let's have a brown-stone religion all around.
--
Let's make it fashionable to love God and keep His commandments.
--
Religion is like the measles: if it goes in on you, it will kill you. The
trouble with a great many Christians in this city is, religion has gone in on
them. Keep it broken out on hands, feet and tongue.
--
There is more religion in laughing than in crying. If religion consists
of crying, I have the best boy in the world.
--
Old sinners are not satisfied with us unless we live better than they do.
--
The church of God is the last place to be solemn in, provided you have lived right. If I have lived a true and upright life, when I meet Christians I will smile. If I have been swindling widows and dishonoring my God and myself, when I come to church there will naturally be the solemnity of the graveyard.
--
"Quit
your meanness and let God empower you to live right until you die; for after death
is the Judgement, and Jesus will not be with you then if you have not let him
clean you, transform you and guide you in life."
VARIOUS SUBJECTS
Ignorance
is round as a ball and slick as a button; it's got no handle and you can't manage
it.
--
Foolishness is the stuff what you rub on fools.
--
Let me say to you: If you can't help but one family in town, let that be the family which needs the help. I have a profound contempt for folks who are always helping those who don't need any help.
--
Everybody ought to keep good company. There is not an angel in heaven that
would not be corrupted by the company that some of you keep.
--
The greatest rascals are those who are scrupulously honest. If I see a man
walk across town to pay a nickel, I watch him.
--
I have known women too poor to own a pair of shoes; but I never knew one too poor
to own a looking-glass.
--
Many a fellow is praying for rain with his tub turned up-side-down.
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