Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-08-13
lR. TALMAGE'S SERMON,
MEASURED BY YOUR OWN YARD
STICKS.

sermon about fifteen minutes long. ACCORDING
70 the ordinary rate of speech--a sermon on
the Mount of Olives, the Preacher, SITTING
Whlie lie spoke, according to the ancient
nloue OF oIatory, the people were given to
understand that the same yard stick that
tney employed upon others would be EN-
| ployed upon themselves. Measure others bv
marsh rule, and you will be mea sured by a
marsh rule. Measure others by a charitable
rule, and you will be measured by a charita-
| Ole rule. Give no mercy to others, and no
mercy Will be given to you s'With what
again. w ="
| There is great deal of unfairness in tho
| cFllclsm OF human conduct. ltwa; to smite
Gnat unialrness tnat Christ uttered the words
| o6 Ihe teXt and my sermon will be re-echo
| ol the DIVINE sentiment In ESTIMATING tha
msbehavlor of others we must lake into CON
slueratlon the pressure Of circumstan ,es 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 indlscrlminately to tumble them all
over the bank of cOnde nnation Suffer thev
oug ht and suffer they must; but in difference
OF degree ~--0N
IN the first place, in estimating the mis-
uollS oI others we must take into calculation
the hereditary tendency. There is such a
Chlhg as good blood and there is such a thing
as bad blood. There q o families that bav9s
years back. They have not BEEN careful 10
Keep the family record in that regard. There
nave been esCapades and maraudinUs and
scoundrelsms and moral deficits all the wav
DICK, whether you call it kleptomania or
hyromanla or dipSomania or whether 1t be
~ III d 4Irluer Ill. form and amount to no mania at
all: ne strong probability is, that the nres
Cnt criminal sta ted life with nerve. muscle
ana bone contain mated. AS some start life
win natural tendency to nobility and gan
crosby, ana Kindness and truthfulne,s there
are others who start life with Just the oppo-
SITE tendency, and they are born liars, or
born malcontents, or born outlaws or horn
sWindlarS. A '0AN
=, There is in England school that Is called
the frlnceSs Mary School All the children
IN that school are the children of convicts
Inc school is supported by high patronage
4 had the pleasure of being present at one of
tneiT anniversaries in 1879, presided over by
iaj Tne EuII e OIL hlntore. BY wise law in Eng
lana, after parents have committed a certain
number OF crimes and thereby shown them
serves incompetent rightly to bring I'M thei,.
chllaren, tne little ones are taken from under
pernlclous influences and put in reformatorv
schools, where all gracious and kindly inau-
ehCeS snail be brought upon them. OF course
tne experiment is young and it has pot to he
demonstrated how large a percenta2e Of tho
children OF convicts may be brought nm to
Tespectabllty and usefulness Bnt we ali
Know that 1t is more difficult for ch ldren Of
pau parentage to do right chan for children
OF good parentage
In this country we are taught by the De-
claratlon of American independence that all
people are born equal. There never was a
greater representation put in one sen.
Cehce than in that sentence which imnlies
Chat we are all born equal You NAV as we'll
say that flowers are born equal, or trees are
gn goln equal; OF animals are born equal. Why
ooes @ one morse cost 500 aud another horse
cost 500, OJOs Why does one sheen cost S10
ana al another sheep S5003 Difference in blood
we are wise enough to recognize the differ
ence OF blood in horses in cattle in sheen
puC we are not wise enough to make allow
ance Tor the difference in the human blood
NOW demand, by the law of eternal fair
ness, Inat you be more lenient in your criti-
clsm OF those who were born wrong, In
whose ancestral line there was hangman's
knoV, OF who came from tree the fruit of
Hhlch FOR centuries has been gnarled and
worm-eaten. DR.. Harris, a reformer gave
some marvellous statistics in his story of
wnaG ne called Margaret, the mother Of
.;m. rt;ImLllnalS. Ninety years ago she lived in a
village in Upper New York State. She was
not only poor, bat she was vicious She was
hoC wei provided for. There We're no aims
houses there The public however, some
What looked after her, but chiefly scoffed al
ana derlded her, pushed her further down
IM ~ her crimes; That was ninety years ago
adrt, aneIe nave been 6?3 persons in that an
branch of that family there were twenty,
ana ana n,ne of them have been in
oGate Prison, and nearly all of the
Others have turned out badly. It is esti-
mated mated that that family cost the County and
oIaCe SlOO,0JO, to say nothing of the prop
elty they destroyed. Are you not wiling,
as sensible people, to acknowledge that it is a
fearful disaster to be born in such an ances-
tral llne9 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 a 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 yolr
summer recreation. If a man find him
self III an ancestral current where
there is good blood flowing smoothly
from generation to generation it il
not a very great credit to him if
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 a
hereditary line--where the influences have
been bad and there has been a coming down
over moral deolivity, if the man surrender
TO the influences he will go down under
tne 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 curled
in scorn, AMI with an assumed air of an yelic
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 wheels
of that Juggernaut
In Great Britain and il the United States
in every generation, there are tens of thou
sands of persons who are fully de7elo led
criminals and incarcerated. say, in every
generation. Then, suppose, there are tens
of thousands of persons not found out in
their criminality. In addition to these there
are tens Of thousands of persons who, not
positively becoming criminals, nevertheless
have criminal tendency. Any one of all
those thousands by the grace of God may
become Christian, and resist the ancestral in
huence and open new chapter Of behavior;
but the vast majority of them will not, and
it becomes all men, professional, unpro-
fessional, ministers of religion, judges OF
courts, philauthropistS and Christian work
ers to recognize the fact that there are these
Atlantic and Pacific surges of hereditary evil
rolling on through the centuries.
| say, Of course, a man can resist this ten.
dency, Just as in the ancestral line mentioned
in the first chapter of Matthew You see
in the same line in which there was a wicked
Rehobaam and desperate Manassas, there
afterward came pious Joseph and q glorl.
Gus Christ. But, my friends, you must recog,
nize the fact that these influences 90 on from
generation to generation. 1 am glad to
know, however, that river which has pro,
duced nothing but miasma for hundred
miles, may, after awhile, turn the wheels of
factories and help support industrious and
virtuous populations; and there are family
lines which were poisoned that are bene
diction now At tho Last Day it will be
found out that there are men who have gone
clear over into all forms of iniquity and
plunged into utter abandonment, who, be.
fore they yielded to the first temptation, re-