The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-08-12
pR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
MEASURED by YOUR OWN YARD
STICKS.
preached at AshoyIlls, N. o.l

Text: with what measure We mete, IL
shall be measured to you again" Matthew
vii 2.
In tho greatest sermon ever preached-a
sermon about fifteen minutes long, according
70 the ordinary rate of speech-a sermon on
the Mount OF Olives, the Preacher, sitting
while He spoke, according to the ancient
mode OF oratory, tho people We're given to
understand that the same yard stick that
they employed upon others would DO EN-
ployed upon themselves. Measure others by
harsh rule, and you will be measured by a
harsh rule. Measure others by charitable
rule, and you will be measured by charita-
bic rule. Give no mercy to others, and no
mercy VIII be given to you. with what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you
again"
There is a great deal of unfairness in tho
criticism of human conduct. twas to smite
That un1alrness that Christ uttered the words
OF the text, and my sermon will be a re-echo
OF the Divine sentiment. In estimating the
mlsbehavior OF Others we must take into con-
slderatlon the pressure of circumstances. 1t
Is never right to do wrong, but there are de-
| grees of culpability. When men misbehave
or commit some atrocious wickedneSs we are
disposed unfortunately to tumble them all
over the bank of condemnation. Suffer they
ought and suffer they must; but in difference
| of degree.
| In the first place, in estimating the mis-.
doing of others we must take into calculation
the hereditary tendency. There is such a
thing as good blood and there is such a thing
| as bad blood. There are families that have
| had moral twist in them for hundred
| years back. They have not been careful to
keep the family record in that regard. There
have been escapades and maraudngs and
scoundrelisms and moral deficits all the way
back, whether you call it kleptomania or
| pyromania or dipsomania, or whether 1t be
in milder form and amount to no mania at
| all. The strong probability is, that the pres
ent criminal started life with nerve, muscle
and bone contaminated. AS some start life
with natural tendency to nobility and gen.
erosity, and kindness and truthfulness, there
are others who start life with just the oppo-
| site tendency, and they are born liars, or
born malcontents, or born outlaws, or Worn
| swindlers.
There is in England school that is called
the Princess Mary School. All the children
in that school are the children of convicts
The school is supported by high patronage.
had the pleasure of being present at one of
their anniversaries in 1879, presided over by
the Earl of Kintore. By wise law in Eng
| land, after parents have committed certain
number of crimes and thereby shown them
selves incompetent rightly to bring up their
| children, the little ones are taken from under
pernlclous influences and put in reformatory
schools, where all gracious and kindly in6u-
ences shall he brought upon them. OF course
the experiment is young and it has got to be
demonstrated how large percentage of the
children of convicts may be brought I'D to
respectability and usefulness But we all
know that it is more difficult for Oh jldren of
bad parentage to do right than for children
/ of good parentage.
In this country we are taught by the De-
claration of American Independence that all
| people are born equal. There never was q
| greater misrepresentation put in one SEN
tence than in that sentence which implies
that we are all born equal. You may as well
say that flowers are born equal, or trees are
born equal, or animals are born equal Why
does one horse cost 500 and another horse
cost $50, 900: Why does one sheep cost $40
and another sheep $500! Difference in blood.
We are wise enough to recognize the differ
ence OF blood in horses, in cattle, in sheep,
| but we are not wise enough to make allow
ance for the difference in the human blood.
Now demand, by the law of eternal fair
ness, that you be more lenent in your criti-
cism of those who were born wrong. in
whose ancestral line there was hangman's
Knot, or who came from tree the fruit of
which for centuries has been gnarled and
worm-eaten DIR. Harris, a reformer, gave
| some marvellous statistics in his story Of
what he called Margaret, the mother of
criminals Ninety years ago she lived in a
village in Upper New York State She was
not only poor. but she was vicious. She was
not well provided for There were no aims
houses there The public, however, some
what looked after her, but chiefly scotfed at
and derided her, pushed her further down
In her crimes: That was ninety years ago.
There have been 623 persons in that an
ctestral line, 200 of them criminals In one
branch of that family there were twenty,
and nine of them have been In
State Prison, and nearly all of the
others have turned out badly. 1t is esti-
mated that that family cost the County and
state IS. slo9, oO, to say nothing of the prop
as sensible people, to acknowledge that it is a
fearful disaster to be born In such an ances-
trail line! Does it not make great differ
ence whether one descends from Margaret,
the mother of criminals, or from some
mother in Israeli Whether you are the son
of Ahab or the son of Joshua? 1t is very
different thing to swim with the current
from what it Is to swim against the current,
as some of you have no doubt found in your
summer recreation. If a man find him
self In an ancestral current where
there is good blood flowing smoothly
from generation to generation it is
he turns out good and honest and pure and
noble. He could hardly help it. But sup
pose he is born in an ancestral line in q
hereditary line-where the influences have
been bad and there has been a coming down
oNSi % IIioI uoSLfiby, VIC IMAM SURRENDER
to the influences he will go down under
the overmastering gravitation unless some
supernatural aid be afforded him, Now,
such person deserves not your excoriation
but your pity. Do not sit with the lip curleG
in scorn, and with an assumed air of angelic
innocence, looking down upon such moral
precipitation. You had better get down on
your knees and first pray Almighty God for
their rescue, and next thank the Lord that
you have not been thrown under the wheel:
of that Juggernaut.
In Great Britain and in the United States
in every generation, there are tens of thou
sands of persons who are fully deyelopeC
criminals and incarcerated. Isay, in every
generation. Then, suppose, there are ten,
OF thousands OF persons not found out il
their criminality. In addition to these there
are tens Of thousands of persons who, mo-
positively becoming criminals, nevertheless
have criminal tendency, ANY one of nj
those thousands by the grace of God may
become Christian, and resist the ancestral in
fuence and open new chapter of behavior
but the vast majority of them will not anC
\ it becomes all men, professional, unpro
fessional. ministers of religion, Judges o.
courts, philanthropists and Christian work
ers to recognize the fact that there are thes
Atlantic and Pacific surges of hereditary eyi
rolling ON through the centuries.
| say, OF course, q man can resist this ten
dency, just as in the ancestral line mentioned
in the first chapter OF Matthew. You Sc,
in the same line in which there was WICKED
Rehobcam and desperate Manassas, Their
afterward came pious Joseph and glori
GUS Christ. But, my friends, you must recoe
nize the fact that these influences go on fron
generation to generation. I am glad t
know, however, that river which has pro
dueed nothing but miasma for a hundre
miles, may, after awhile turn the wheels o
factories and help support industrious am
virtuous populations; and there are famil
lines which were poisoned that are a bene
diction now. AT the Last Day it will b
found out that there are men who have gon
clear over into all forms of iniauity an
plunged into utter abandonment, who, be
fore they yielded to the first temptation, re
sisted more evil than many man who ha
been moral and upright all his life. Blu
supposing now that in this age when ther
are so many good people that l come dow