The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-08-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
dow Men Are Measured by Their
Own Yard-Stick.

now 40u are M0aSuF0Q Oy I00x
Own Yard-Stick.
Bard Theoghta Conserving Others Reing
Their Own Retribution-The Question
81 Hereditary Tendency-Deal
Kindly with Others Faults.
Rev. T. De Witt Taimage, while visiting
the summer watering place, Ashevilie,
| N. c., preached the following sermon to a
! large congregation, hundreds going from
the surrounding region to hear him. He
| took for his text:
With what measure ye meet. II shall be
measured to you again.-Matthew vii..a
DR.. Talmage said: In the greatest ser.
mon ever preached-a sermon about d.
teen minutes long according to the ordi-
nary rate Of Speech sermon on the
Mount of Olives, the preacher sitting
while he spoke, according to the ancient
mode ct oratory, the people were given to
understand that the same yard.stick that
they employed upon others would he sm.
ployed upon themselves. Measure others
by harsh rule, and you will be measured
by harsh rule. Measure others by
charitable rule, and you will be measured
Ly q charitable rule. Give no mercy to
others, and no mercy will be given to you.
with what measure 70 mete, II shall be
measured to you again.
There is . great deal of unfairness in
the criticism of human conduct. It was
to smite that unfairness that Christ ut.
tered the words of the text. and my SER
mnn will be q re. echo of the divine senti-
ment. In estimat ting the misbehavior Of
others we must take into consideration the
pressure Of circumsi ances. It is never
right to do wrong, but there are degrees
Of culpability. When men misbehave or
commit some atrocious wickedness we are
disposed unfortunately to tumble them
oil 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-.
doings of others, we must take into calcu-
lation the hereditary tendency. Tn re is
such thing as good blood and there is
such a thing as bad blood. The 9 are
families tn t. have had a moral twist in
them for q hundred years back. They have
not b. en- careful to keep the family ecord
in that regard. There have been esca-
pa, es and maraudings, and scoundrelisMs
and moral deficits all the way back,
whether you call it kleptomania. or pyro-
mania, or dipsoman a, or whether it be in
q milder form and amount to no mania at
all he strong probability is that the
present criminal STARTED life with nerve,
muscle and bone contaminated. As some
start life with a natural tendency to no.
Lility and generosity, and Kindness and
truihfulness, there are others who start
life with just the opposite tendency, AMI
hey are Lorn liars, or born malconte nts,
: horn outla VS., or born swinafers.
There 10 in England a school that is
called the Princess Mary School. All the
children in that school are the children of
convic.s. The school is supported
bv high patronage. had the pleas.
ure of being present at one of their an
niversaries, in 1879 presided over by the
Eerl of Kintore. By wise law in En-
gland, after parents have committed .
pertain number of crimes, and thereby
shown themselves incompetent rightly to
bring up their children, the little ones are
taken from their pernicious influences and
put in reform atory schools, where all gra-
oious and kindly influences shall be
brought upon them. OF course the expert
ment 10 young, and it has got to be demon
strated how large percentage Of the chill
dren of conyicts may be brought up to
respectability and usefulness. But we all
know that it is more difficult for children
4 fo,, ok,sI
dren or good parentage.
In this country we are taught by the
Declaration of American Independence,
that all people are born eGnal. There
never was q greater Misrepresentation ut
I'm one sentence than in that sentence
which implies that we are all born equal.
You may as we'll say that flowers ara born
equal or trees are born equal, or animals
are born equal. Why docs one horse cost
$50 aud another horse cost 5000? Why
does one sheep cost ten dollars and an
We are wise enough to recognize the diff
ference of blood in horses, in cattle, in
sheep, but we are not wise enough to
make allowance for the difference in the
human blood. Now demand by the law
of eternal fairness that you be more
lenient in your criticism of those who were
born wrong, in whose ancestral line there
was hnngman's knot, or who
came from a 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
be called Margaret, the Mother of Grim
inals." 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
alms.houses there. The public, however,
somewhat looked after her, but chiefly
scoffed at her, and derided her, and pushed
her farther down in her crimes. That was
ninety years ago. There have been six
hundred and .wenty.three persons in that
ancestral line, two hundred of them Grim.
mails. 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 estimated
that that family cost the county and State
one hundred thousand dollars, 10 say MOTH
ing of the property they destroyed. Are
you not willing, as sensible people, to &C.
knowledge that it is a fearful disaster to
be born in such an ancestral line? Does it
not make a great difference 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 a very different thing
to swan 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 q man find himself In IN ancestral
current where there is good blood flowing