The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-12-23

| day night, after had gone on the plat
form of neighbOTing city, received a
telegram from Detroit saying, in sub
| stance: "HOw is this? What you said
here last night was Identical with lee
ture delivered by another person in
Chicago two days before" Editorials
appeared in many of the newspapers,
anda journalist of Chicago tod me that
he had received four kilograms one
night from the newspaper press of New
York on the same subject. 1t so hap
pened that the lecture l delivered that
Friday night in Detroit was the first
one | ever prepared, and was twenty
one years old, and has been delivered in
at least 100 cities on this and the other
side of the sea. l will not take the re-
spOnsibility of saying that the lecturer
in Chicago plagiariZed mine, but had l
not been able by 10000 witnesses to es-
tablish the priority of my lecture, 1t
would have been vast damage to me.
Another illustration of the wrong done
me: Just after coming to Brooklyn,
thirteen years ago, preached sermon
on 'Hagar in the Wilderness" and the
sermon was stenOgraphed and went into
print. About ten years after member
of my church expressed desire that
reproduce that discourse, as 1T had done
him some good. L read over the stenO-
graphic report of it, and reproduced it
as nearly as could. Before that week
was out received four letters, one from
Pittsburgh, another from Chicago,
another from Louisville, another from
Boston, in substance saying: How is
| this? Our Monday morning papers had
| this sermon from you, preached the day
before in Brooklyn Tabernacle on
'Hagar in the Wilderness which ser
mon was preached by the minister or
evangelist in our city or neighbOrhOod
ha
were exactly alike. Did they take 1t
from you, or did you take it from them"
These letters were not answered, be-
cause saw the plight in which these
plagiaTists would be put if l had re-
| feTred my correspondents to papers
which ten years before had printed that
sermon. l did wrong in cOndOning the
| fault. | shall never again let such
| thieves escape. l say now, as L have
desire to employ the sermons here
preached, as in case of no pastor they
are read by Christian workers Sabbath
by Sabbath in churches and halls,
and school houses in this and other lands,
| utmost liberty is given to do so. | be-
| lieve what preach is the truth, and the
wider it goes the better l am pleased. 1t
is we'll understood among the officers of
! this church that whoever else is crowd
| be crowded. In answer to my prayer
years ago, God has opened the way up
| through the secular, as well as the re-
| ligiOus press here and abroad, for the
| full publication of my sermons in all
| the cities of ChTistendOm, and | am very
grateful to God and to journalists and
reporters for this privilege. But this
opportunity ought not to be taken ad'
vantage of by plagiaTists, to put one in
/ u Iiph a afi
upon me in this direction have become
unbearable. Another illustration: l re-
| ceiYed a letter from the President of a
| Wesleyan Conference in Australia, say
ing in substance: yesterday we suspen-
man from the ministry, not exactly
for preaching your sermons, but for per-
sistence in declaring that one of your
sermons was his" The subject was the
mutiIatiOn of the Scriptures, the text,
jeremiah 1928, "And it came to pass
that when Jehuiah had read three or
four leaves he cut it with his penknife."
The President of the Conference went
on to inform me that the minister spo-
ken of had been preaching in several
of the Australian and New Zealand cit
les on that text, and was announced to
preach the next day in Melbourne. "A
few days before that gentleman had
obtained from London book of fifty of
the one in question. The gentleman
carried the book with him, and as the
stranger arose in the pulpit to preach,
this inquisitive auditor opened the afOre
said book of sermons in the pew, and
the preacher, without notes, recited the
sermon without a change, from begin
ming to end. Arraigned before the Ec-
clesiastical Court, he denied the Plagia-
rism, for a man who Will steal will lie.
The book produced, immediate suspen-
sion from the ministry followed. More
striking illustration "On the 25th last
month the Pittsburg Dispatch, one of
the most prominent newspapers of the
country, published the following r9pOr-
tOrial statements, and in no unfriendli-
ness to me, for 1 personally know the
editor. The reporter had interviewed
some one whom he calls ian eminent
divine" of PittsbuTg, and the eminent
divine had said: "The sermons of Tai
mage are frequently stolen by rural
ministers, yet L once heard of case
where he was caught in the act himself.
On the occasion referred to he preached
an unusually eloquent sermon, which
was afterwards published as his own.
On the following Sabbath Methodist
minister of Brooklyn preached the same
sermon. A friend asked him why he had
preached Talmage's sermon so soon af-
ter he had delivered it himself. He de-
MED the insinuation Indignantly, and
being pressed on the point, produced an
English newspaper containing the SER
mon, thus admitting his own guilt, but
pulling Talmage from his pedestal at
the same time" Now, that eminent di-
vine owes me an apology, for he who
peddIes a falsehOOd is as unrighteOus as
he who originates it. If that eminent
divine will prove what he says about a
minister in Brooklyn preaching a ser
mon identical with mine, and can not
prove 1 first preached it, here or in Eu
rope, will put $1,000 for distribution
among the poor of Pittsburg, in the
hands of the editor of the Pittsburg Dis
patch, the pastors of the churches of
Pittsburg to be the jury in the matter.
A 81 600 will buy a great many shoes
for bare feet in this cold winter. pro-
nounce that eminent divine a calumni-
atOT.
Now, these are only specimens, and it
seems to me that justice to myself and
to my church demand that L file cav
eat. When these persons are caught
they sometimes set up the plea of "un-
conscious appropriation" They say
they read it and it stuck fast to them;
and thav did not realiZe it. Falsal