Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1893 — TALMAGIAN POLITICO. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGIAN POLITICO.

The Brooklyn Divine Again Ta lks About the Campaign. Denunciation of Political Falsehoods and Condemnation of Political Dissipations. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn, last Sunday. Text — Acts xix. 32: “Some therefore cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together. And they therefore drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand and would have made his defense unto the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians!’ ” Ephesus was upside pown. It was about the silver question. A manufacturer of silver boxes for holding heathen images had called his laborers together to discuss the behavior of one Paul, who had been in public places assaulting image worship, and consequently very much damaging that particular business. There was great excitement in the city. People stood in knots along the streets, violently gesticulating and calling each other hard names. Some of the people favored the policy of the silversmith. Other people favored the policy of Paul. There were great moral questions involved, but these did not bother them at all. Having there assembled, they all want to get the floor, and they all want to talk at once. You know what excitement that always makes in a convention, where a great many people want to talk at once. Some cried one thing, some another. Some wanted to denounce, some wanted to resolve. After awhile a prominent man gets the floor, andhe begins to speak, but they very soon hiss him down, and then the confusion rises into worse uproar, and they begin to shout, all of them together, and they keep on until they are red in the faee and hoarse in the throat, for two long hours crying out, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” While there are honest men, true men, Christian men, who stand forth in both political parties, and who come into the autumnal elections resolving to serve their city or their State or the Nation in the best possible way, I have also noticed that with many it is a mere contest between the ins and the outs —those who are trying to stay in and keep the outs out, and those who 1 are trying to get in and thrust the ins out. And one party cries, “Great is Diana of the Epheseans!” and the other party cries, “Great is Diana of the Epheseans!” neither of them honest enough to say, ‘ ‘Great is my pocketbook!” The Rev. Dr. Emmons, in the early history of our country, in Massachusetts, preached about the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency. The Rev. Dr. Mayhew, of Boston, in the early days of our republic, preached about the repeal of the stamp act. There are times when ministers of Christ must look off upon public affairs and discuss them. We need go back to no example. Every man is, before God, responsible for his own duty. First, set yourself against all political falsehood. The most monstrous lies ever told in this country • are during the elections. I stop at the door of a Republican meeting and listen and hear the Democrats are scoundrels. Our public men microscopized, and the truth distorted. Who believes a tenth part of what he reads or hears in the autumnal elections? Men who at other seasons of the year are very careful in their speech become peddlers of scandal. The trouble is that we have in this country two great manufactories—manufactories of lies —the Republican manufactory of lies and the Democratic rrtanufactory of lies — and they are run day and night, and they turn out half a dozen a day all equipped and ready for full sailing. Large lies and small lies. Lies private and lies public and lies prurient. Lies cut bias and lies cut diagonal. Long-limbed lies and lies with double back action. Lies complimentary and lies defamatory. Lies that some people believe, and lies that all the people believe, and lies that nobody believes. Lies with humps like camels, and scales like crocodiles, and necks as long as storks, and feet as swift as an antelope’s, and stings like adders. Lies raw and scalloped and panned and stewed. Crawling lies and jumping lies atid soaring lies. Lies with attachment screws and rufflers and braiders and ready wound bobbins. Lies by Christian people, who never lie except during elections, and lies by people who always lie, but beat themselves in a political campaign. Nothing but Christianity will ever stop such a flood of indecency. The Christian religion will speak after awhile. The billingsgate and low scandal through which we wade plmost every autumn must be rebuked by that religion which speaks from its two great mountains, from the one mountain intoning the command, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” and from the other mount making plea for kindness and love and blessing rather than cursing. Again, I counsel you as Christian men to set yourselves against the

misuse cd money in political campaigns. Of the thousands of dollars already spent this autumn, how much of the amount do you suppose has been properly used. You have a right to spend modey for the publishing of political tracts, for the establishment of organizations for the carrying out of what you consider to be the best; you have a right to appeal to the reason of men by argument and statistics and by facts. Printing and renting of public halls and political meetings cost money, but he who puts a bribe into the hand of a voter or plies weak men with mercenary and corrupt motives commits a sin against God and the Nation. ‘ : Joseph was a politician, but he maintained his integrity. Daniel was a politician, but he was a teetotaler to the last. Abraham was a politician, but he was always characterized as the father of the faithful. Moses was a politician, the grandest of them all, but he honored God more than he did the Pharaohs, and there are hundreds of Christian men now in the political parties maintaining their integrity, even where they are obliged to stand amid the blasted, lecherous and loathsome crew that sometimes surrounds the ballot box —these Christian men now doing their political duty and then coming back to the prayer meetings and Christian circles as pure as when they went out. But that is not the ordinary circumstance—that is the exception. --- How often you see men coming back from the political conflict, and their eye is glazed, and their cheek has an unnatural flush, and they talk louder than they usually do, and at the .least provocation they will bet, and you say they are con vivial, or they are exceeding vivacious, or you apply some other sweet name to them, but God knows they are drunk! Some of you, a month or six weeks ago, had no more religion than you ought to have, and after the elections are over to calculate how much religion you have left will be a sum in vulgar fractions. Oh, the pressure is tremendous! How many mighty intellects have gone under the dissipation of politics! 1 think of one who came from the West. He was able to stand out against the whole American Senate. God had given him faculties enough to govern a kingdom, or to frame a constitution. His voice was terrible to his country’s enemies and a mighty inspiration in the day of national peril. Rut twenty glasses of strong drink every day were his usual allowance, and he went down into the habits of a confirmed inebriate. Alas for him! Though a costly monument has. been reared over his resting place, the young men of this country shall not be denied the awful lesson that the agency by which the world was robbed of one of its mightiest intellects, and our country of one of its ablest constitutional defenders, was the dissipation of political life. You want to know who I mean? Young man, ask your father when you get home* The adverse tide is "fearful, and I warn you against it. Again, I counsel you that when you go to the ballot-box at the city, or the State, or the national elections, you recognise God and appeal to Him for His blessing. There is a higher power than the ballot-box, than the gubernatorial chair, than the presidential white house. It is high time that we put less confidence in political platforms and more confidence, in God. See what a weak thing is human foresight! How little our wise men seem to know,! See how, every .autumn, thousands. of men who are ' clambering up for . higher positions are turned under! God upsets them. Every man, every party, every nation, has a mission to perform. Failing to perform it, f down he goes. If God could spare Luther before the Reformation was done and if He could spare Washington before free government had been fully tested and if He could spare Howard before more than one out of- a thousand dungeons had been alleviated, and if He could spare Robert McCheyne fust as Scotland was gathering to tis burning utterances, and if He could spare Thomas Clarkson while yet miilions of his fellow men had chains rusting to the bone—then He can spare any man, and He can spare any party. That man who through cowardice or blind idolatry of party forsakes the cause of righteousness goes down, and the armed battailions of God march over him. O Christian man, take out your Bible this afternoon, and in the light of that word make up your mind as to what is your duty as a citizen. Remember that the highest kind of a patriot is a Christian patriot. Consecrate yourselves first to God, then you will know how to consecrate- yourselves to vour country. Next Tuesday questions of state will be settled* but there eomes' a day when the questions of eternity will be decided. You may vote right and get the victory at the ballot-box and yet suffer eternal defeat. After you have cast your last vote, where will you go to? In this country there are two parties. You belong to the one or the other of them. Likewise in eternity there will be . two parties and only two- “These shall go away into everlasting punishment and the righteous into life eternal.” To which party will you belong? God grant that, while you look after the welfare of the land in which God has graciously cast your lot, you may not forget to look after your soul—blood bought, judgement bound immortal! God save the people! • „ The man who continues to back racehorses seldom gets to the front •»