Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-12-18
TALMAGE.
The Eiuhth Commandment Applied
to Literary People.
A Severe Arrangement Of all Those Who
Appropriate the Results Of the Bran
Labor Of Others, Claiming it
as Their Own.
THE MINISTERS WHO STEAL SERMONS

SUBJEcT:-''literary Theft"
TExr:-Exodus xx. Is: Thou shalt not
steal"
Steal what? Overcoats, furniture, horses'
United States bonds, dry goods, hardware,
merchandise, gold, silver? Do not so limit
the command. The Siniatic thunder no
more rolls out against the appropriation
of the goods Of others than it denounces
the theft of intellectual possessions, 1t IS
high time that some pulpit somewhere
spoke out in unmistakable terms against
what is called plagiarism, sin that comes
down through the centuries and -is--stnl
abroad among the people.
The subject is intensely practical, ior
there are in this house many. who earn
their livelihood by the pen, and there are
here young men who as lawyers anu as
editors and as clergymen, are forming tnelr
intellectual habits and many whose HE
time work is that of giving instructions,
and above all. there are hundreds OF par
ents who need to give right bias on this
subject to their children living in time
when all our boys and girls come TO the ART
of literary comDOSition. 1t is not SUD-
iect 10 be adjourned to the realm OF taste
and whimsicality, but it is a question OF
ripht and wrong, OF practical morals and
charged with tremendous issues. Mach
of the worlds knowledge is common pos
session, and no more to be fenced In or
kept under lock and key or chained last 70
an authors desk than is the atmosphere
to be bought or sold. Such are all the tactS
of history, such are all the statistics oil the
world, such is the realm OF auecdote, such
II A. Nnf
Every age borrows and appropriates all the
accumulation of past ages. Each year is
the lawful heir Of the preceding year, and
every century the legatee OF the former
century. But the arrangement OF factS, the
peculiar presentation Of knowledge may
be private property.
Plagiarism Begins
when YOU take without recognition or COM
pensation mans way of putting things
Historical facts are the common property
of all the people, but no one would dispute
Bancroft's copyright to the History of the
United States" or Motley's copyright to
the "Dutch Republic" or Prescotts copy.
right to the Conquest of Mexico" All
the world has the privilege OF telegraphy,
but it is only fair that Professor Morse
have a patent to his invention. The Eng
lish language Is in legitimate use by all the
people, but Noah Webster was right in
Keeping a royalty on his unabridged die
tionary. All the world has right to the
use of the cotton gin, but no one synpa-
thizes with the attempt to swindle Eli
Whitney out of his patent. There are hun
dreds of the best men and women Of Eng
land and America kept in semi pauperism,
coughing their life away at writing desks
from which they would long ago have been
emancipated if they had been able to have
adequate financial interest in their literary
children. The lack of sufficient interna-
tional copyright law between Great Britain
and the United States has caused an
amount Of depreciation that is equivalent
TO wholesale and Infamous brigandage.
The punishment on both sides the sea for
stealing a bale OF cotton, OF cask OF rice,
or a shoulder OF beef, or barrel OF apples,
or a can of oil or load of wood is impris'
onment, Tombs Court, disgrace and eject.
ment from respectable society, but for the
larceny of literary production, which may
have cost man many days and nights OF
anxious toll on hard fare, and with aching
brain and worn out nerves and declining
health, there Is only the punishment OF a
deriSive smile.
For wears without word of objection,
and contrary to the advice of my friends,
have submitted to an amount OF
Wrong Done Me
that propose to submit to no longer.
speak without any acerbity, and in all
Christian kindness / make protest In
Justice to myself and as practical lesson
to all Christian workers, | give you three
or four incidents ont OF fifty. Last Friday
a week lectured in Detroit, Michigan. On
Saturday night after | had gone on the
platform of a neighboring city l received 6
telegram from Detroit saying in substance
"HOw is this? What you said here last
night was identical with lecture delivered
by another person in Chicago two days be-
fore?" Editorials appeared in many OF the
newspapers, and a journalist OF Chicago
told me that he had received four kilograms
one night from the newspaper press Of New
York on the same subject. II so happened
that the lecture l delivered that Friday
night was the first one ever prepared and
was twenty-one years old, and has been de
livered in at least one hundred cities or
this and the other side of the sea. l will
not take the responsibility OF saying thai
the lecture in Chicago plagiarized mine, bu
had not been able by ten thousand wit
nesses to establish the priority of my lee
ture it would have been vas
damage to me. Another illustration
of the wrong done me. Just after coming
to Brooklyn, thirteen years ago, and in the
old chapel preBched sermon on "Hagal
in the Wilderness" the sermon was steno
graphed and went into print. About ter
years after a member of my church ex
pressed desire that reproduce that dis
course, as il had done him some good.
read over the stenographic report OF it and
reproduced it as nearly as could. Before
that week was out received four letters
one from Pittsburgh, another from Chica
go, another from louisville, another from
Boston, in substance saying, How is this?'
Our Monday morning papers had the ser
mon from you, preached the day before IL
the Brooklyn Tabernacle, on "Hagar in tht
Wilderness" which sermon was preached
by the minister or evangelist in our city oil
neighborhood a month or two months ago
| They were exactly alike. Did they take il
| from you, or did you take it from them
| These letters were not answered, because
saw the plight which these plagiarist:
would be put in if had referred my CORE
spondents to the papers which ten yeaI
before had printed that sermon. l die
wrong in condoning the fault l shal
never again let such thieves escape. l say
now, as have said before, il any pers on
| having the desire TO employ the sermon
| here preached, as, in case of no pastor, the!
| are read by Christian workers Sabbath b!
| Sabbath, in churches and halls and schoe
| houses IN this and other lands utmost lib
erty is given to do so. ! believe what
preach is the truth, and the wider 1t goe
the better
! lam Pleased.
1t is well understood among the officer
of this church that whoever else are crowd
ed the gentlemen of the press must not b
crowded. In answer to my prayer year
ago, God has opened the way through tn
secular as well as the religious press her
and abroad for the full publication OF ny
sermons in all the cities Of christendom
and am grateful to God and to Journal
lists and reporters for this privilege. Bu
this opportunity ought not to be taken ad
vantage of by plagiarists to put me IN
| wrong light. The outrages practiced upor
me in this direction have become intolers
BILE. Another illustration-l received
letter from the President of Wesleya a
conference, in Australia, saying in sut
stance: Yesterday we suspended ma
| from the ministry, not exactly for preach
| ing your sermon, but for persistence in dc
claring that one of your sermons was his
The subject was the Mutilation of the Scrip
lures, the text jeremiah, S6th chapter an
23d verse, "And came to pass that whe
| Jehudiah bad read three or four leaves h
cut il with his penknife." The President
the Australian conference went on TO In
form me that the clergyman spoken