Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1880-05-04
Talmage on the South.

| Talmage on the South.
The Brooklyn Tabernacle was filled
to over1owing Sunday morning. Dr
Talmage had announced sermon upon
what he had seen and heard in an in
uuiring visit to the Empire State of the
South, and when in his Introductory
PRAYER, he prayed that the North, the
South. the East. and the West might
be brought to feel that they are of one
nation. and that God might save the
the Queen and bless the President, eve
ry one felt certain that these invocations
| were leading up to q discourse on poll
tics. Then politics became moral GER
tainty when the pastor asked the vast
congregation to join Morgan's great or
gan and Ali's cornet and the boy choir
in giving volume to
| My country. tits of thee,
| Sweet land of liberty.
This inspiring national air having
been sung with all the power that a
Brooklyn Tabernacle congregation can
give to music when their hearts are in
it, DR.. Talmage read his text from
JuuScS, L, 10 OlV0 LILO q UACoSAuSi AOA
thou hast given me South land; give
me also springs. of water" Caleb's
daughters wedding gift on her En- mar
but it was land that required irrigation
and hence Achsah asked her father to
give her also Springs. The magnificent
South, into which the preacher recent
ly penetrated, also needed irrigation
watering from hesprings of Gods mer-
cy. DR.. Talmage said that he went into
the South in an 1nquiring frame of
mind, to see how the people are recov-
ering from the desolations of war. He
had a grave in Georgia to visit, the
grave of his Uncle Talmage, who was
for twenty years the head of Oglethorpe
University. But the preachers mis-
sion was not with any partisan feeling
for he had no political record to pre-
serve. His admiration for both pOliti-
cal parties, Democratic and Republican,
was SO small that it would require
Macalister microscope to see it. The po-
litical party steals the most that gets
the best chance. Both parties have been
malevolently misrepresented by the
press also.
The preacher drew picture of con-
sequential B0stonian strutting in
Charleston or in Savannah and assum-
ing to be better man than the men he
met, and taunting the Southerners with
their defeat in the great war. Such a
man would not be likely to return to
New England with favorable impress
sion of Southern hospitality. The fact
is, DIR. Talmage went on to say, ifa man
behaves well in the South he will be
treated well. 1t is not true that the
South desires to re-establish negro sla-
very. If you were to go to the ballot box
with the question, "Shall negro slavery
be reinstated ?" the vote would be
unanimously "Nou The whole sub
jeet of negro slavery Is dead and damned.
The owners of the land say that they
cangwork their lands better with free
negroes than with whites, who have to
be northumberland the landowners feel
that they depend on the negroes for la
Dor and negroes feel their dependence
their labor. The politicians who are
still agitating the slavery question are
talking nonsense, and the talk about
dragging lakes and rivers for the corpses
of murdered negroes is all malignant
falsehoOd. My observations teaph me
that the treatment of the women clerks.
and other clerks in the shcps of New
York and brooklyn. which Is eXecrable,
ia more deserving of public censure than
the treatment to which any negro is
subjected. This side of heaven there is
no more hospitable people than those of
the South. [Appluse.] Horace Gree
ley's advice to young men ia go West
should have the addeadum, "Go South"
Those WHO so Irst will make fortunes.
pr. Talmage gave his hearers brief
statistical view of the undeveloped ra-
sources of the Eastern, Gulf and South
Atlantic States, and wondered why men
will starve in the 0vercrowded cities.-
Land ia within the means Of the poorest
in the South, the heat is often greater on
a sultry summer day in New York than
in any part of the South, and the death
rate in Georgia and South Carolina is
lower than in New York. Therefore,
he said, "Stop cursing about the South
and go down and develop her wonder
full resources. Let ten Thousand North
ern men go down and marry ten thou
sand Southern girls, and let the quar-
reling of the North and South thereaf-
ter be done over ten thousand cradles"
He branded aa q falsehood the assertion
that the 2outh doesn't welcome North
erners, and as the politicians cry of an
tdSouisu 10 tHe u. .. he branded ClaG
also as a falsehood. ..'Talk about fire.
EATERS" he continued, ''if they aat fire
they have private tablss at which it is
eaten. They are the most placid, SYM
pathetic, hospitable people I ever saw.
The people Of the South are loyal to- day.
If foreign foe should try to set its foot
on this county by way of intimidation
or conquest, + believe that the forces of
McClelland and Beauregard, Bragg and
Geary, the ex>President and Lee would
come shoulder to shoulder, the blue and
the gray, and that there would be the
guns from forts Hamilton, Pickens and
Sumter joining in one great chorus of
thunder and flame. The fact is in this
country we have had a big family fight
and it il ID 1t might be if neighbor
should interfere in quarrel between
husband and wife. The great masses of
the people are right. If half dozen.
politicians at the North and half dozen
politicians at the South would only con
sent to die there would bs no moSe sec
tional acrimony. tApplause.) II they
vii! hn{y put of sight these few dena-
sogaes we will pay all the expenses of
catafalque and epitaph, and of brass
band TO play to them the 'rogue's
march,"