News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-05-18
FRAUDS UNPROFITABLENESS.
WHO THE VICTIMS OF IMPosTURE USUALLY
ARE-sERMoN BY DR. TALMAGE,

ARE-sERMoN BY DIR. TALMAaE.
An ovelflowing house greeted DIR
Talmage after his absence for a Sunday
from the Brooklyn Tabernacle. HAVING
announced his text, "Why feignest thou
thyself to be another?" from I. Kings,
xiv, 6, he said that he and his family
started on their return from the South
with small garden of flowers, but that
these had perished, the fragrance OF
Southern hospitality and kindness, how
ever, could not die while he lived.
Then applying himself to his text, he
said:
In the palace of wicked Jeroboam
there is very sick child. Medicines
have failed skill is exhausted. Young
| Abijah. the prince, has lived long
enough to become very popular, and yet
hemust die unless some supernatural
aid be afforded. Death comes up the
broad stairs of the palace and swings
back the door of the sick room of roy
atty and stands looking at the dying
prince with the dart uplifted. Wicked
Jeroboam knows that he has no right to
ask anything of the Lord in the way of
kindness. He knows that his prayers
would not be answered, and SO he sends
his wife on the delicate and tender
mission to the prophet of the Lord in
Shiloh. Putting aside her royal attire
she puts on the garb of a peasant
woman and starts on the road. Instead
of carrying gold and gems, as she might
have carried. from the palace, she car
ries only those gifts which Sc EN- to in
dicate that she belongs to the peasantry
"a few loaves of bread and few crack
nels and cruise of honey. Yonder she
goes, hooded and yelled, the greatest
lady in all the kingdom, yet passing
unobserved. No one that meets her on
the highway has any idea that she is a
queen in disguise. But the prophet of
the Lord saw the deceit. Although his
physical eyesight had failed he was di-
vinely illumined, and at one glance he
looked through the imposition, and he
cried out: "Come in, thou wife of
Jeroboam. Why feignest thou thyself
to be another? l have evil tidings for
thee. Get thee back to thy house, and
when thy feet touch the gate of the city
the child shall die"
After following the sorrowing mother
back to the gate of Tirzah, and looking
in upon the verifcation of the Prophet
Abiiah's words in the death of the
Prince, the preacher said that wicked
ness involves others, trying to make
them it's dupes, its allies and its scape-
goats. Jeroboam proposed to hoodwink
the Lords prophet. How did he do it?
Did he go and do the work himself?
No. He sent his wife to do it. Hers the
peril Of exposure, hers the fatigue of
the way, hers the execution of the plot.
His nothing. Iniquity is brag, but it
is great coward It lays the plan,
gets some one else to execute it; puts
down the gunpowder train, gets some
one else to touch it off contrives mis-
chief, gets some one else to work it
starts the lie, gets some one else to cir
culate it. In nearly all the great crimes
cf tha Vurst'7a1 s@s---lsd ont that those.
who planned the arson. the murder, tl1e
theft, the fraud, go free, while those
who were decoyed and cheated and
hoodwinked into the conspiracy clank
| the chain and mount the gallows. Aaron
Burr. with heart filed with impurity
and ambition plots for the overthrow OF
| the United States government and gets
off with few threats and little CEN
sure, while Blennerhassett, the learned
| Blennerhasett, the weet-tempered
Blennerhassett is decoyed by him from
| the orchards and the laboratories and
| the gardens and the home on the bank
of the Ohio River, and his fortunes are
scattered and he is thrown into prison
and his family, brought up in luxury,
is turned out to die. Abominable Aaron
Burr has 1t comparatively easy; sweet
tempered Brennerhassett has it hard.
Benedict Arnold proposed to sell out
the forts of the United States army, to
surrender the Revolutionary army and
to destroy the United States govern
ment. He gets off with his pocket full
Of pounds sterling, while Major
Andre, the brave and the brilliant, is
decoyed into the conspiracy and suffers
on the gibbet on the banks of the Hud-
son, so that even the tablature-the
marble tabIature that commemorated
that event-has been recently blasted
by midnight desperadoes. Benedict
Arnold has it easy /; Major Andre has it
hard. l have noticed that nine-tenths
of those who suffer for crimes are merely
the satellites of some great villains.
Ignominious fraud is iuggler which
by sleight-of- hand and legerdemain
makes the gold that it stole appear in
somebody else's pocket, Jeroboam plots
the lie, eontrives the imposition and
gets his wife to execute it. Stand off
from all imposition and chicanery. Do
not consent to be anybody's dupe, any
body's ally in wickedness, anybody's
scapegoat.
Here DIR. Talmage fell into doctrinal
discourse, and then counselled his
hearers not to be the dupes of pretend
ers, not to be of the superstitious class,
who see ghosts and dare not look at the
new moon over the left shoulder, nor of
those who will not embark upon any
venture on Friday, especially as he had
found on looking over the worlds calen-
dar, that more grand, bright, beautiful
things have happened on Friday than
on any other day of the week. In clos
ing he assured his hearers that God
- II T. Ill