The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-09-26
TALMAGE'S SECULAR TALKS.
FRIDAYS TABeRNAcLE LECTURES.
The Southern Pestilence and Death OF
Proctor-Bad Odors-Clean Up the
Streets and Alleys-Practical
Sympathy and Aid.

large and attentive audience ana
his remarks were interesting and
timely. He said: The Umbria will not
take out the astronomical lecturer who
had engaged to go with that queen OF the
sea- Quick disease and quick burial have
put out of mortal sight Prof. Proctor.
When any inspiring and useful lecturer
leaves the platform never to return it Is
public calamity, since one of the most po-
tent means of affecting the public mind is
the lecture. Neither pulpit or newspaper
can take the place OF il. But when, as
this week, man abdicates this throne OF
literary influence, smitten down by
the yellow wing of the great
southern pestilence, the agitation
is unwonted. "Shall we have
the yellow fever raging here?" is the
question which every one asks either
aloud or in soliloquy. Some depending
on the latitude in which we live say: No;
it is impossible; Baltimore, Philadelphia,
New York and Brooklyn are too far north;
in our climate its ravages are forbidden
by atmospheric conditions" But my
hone that these regions may be excluded
from such a doom / would rather build
upon the mercy of God and the clearing
out OF the bad smells that curse this city
on one side when the winds blow from
Red Hook. and on the other side when
they blow from the flats back of Hunters
Point There are certain kinds OF chem
ical odors that are said to be healthful,
but the healthiest thing in the world is
pure air, and stagnant ponds and sluggish
canals, and dumping places on vacant
lots, and bad sewerage ought to
be swept by the bosom of municipal
indignation. Ii yellow fever could
get one good smell tonight of Cow
anus canal, or Newark flats, it would
in a week accept the invitation and our
Northern cities would be thrown into a
panic BY cremation of the offal of great
cities the garbage question might soon be
settled. Reduce the horses and dogs and
cats which have gone into state OF de-
mise into ashes through crematories, such
as have been successfully established in
some places, and burn the disgusting cab
bage, which was never intended for our
world, the seed for ii having been hurled
this way in a meteoric stone out OF some
world where the inhabitants are without
a nose, and change the suburbs of our
cities, which are a Gehenna, into gardens,
and the typhoid fevers and the agues and
the diphtherias which every year work
death among our populations would emf
CRATE, and the choleras and yellow fevers
could have for us no alright. But you
say, I've must have dumping grounds
for our cities, and soap factories, and gas
houses, and bone grinders, and chemical
Laboratories" Oh, yes; every city
like every house must have its
kitchen. But this is mighty
big world, and there is plenty OF
room yet for all the municipal sculleries
and the railtrain puts regions ten miles
OFF under twenty minutes of transit. There
is phase of this subject never touched,
and that is the fact that malodors are
deathful to good morals as well as TO
health. Find the regions that are in a
state OF half sutfocation or semi-asphyxia
from the breath of decaying vegetation
and you will find crime rampant and de-
cency 80 per cent. off. Virtue has keen
olfactory, while sin can stand anything,
and to her the stenches of gin shop are
like gales from Araby, and breath that
smells of rum and onions, ottar of roses.
We all admit the fact that the eve
and the ear powerfully affect the morals
by what they see and hear, and why do
we not recognize the moral mission
of the nostril? Nature certainly
indicates its importance, making it the
most prominent feature of the human
countenance, and no community can af-
ford to insult it. Enter any strange city
and be blindfOlded at the depot, and then
be led through all the wards and districts
of that city, and by the exhaations, red
olent or gravolent, the nostrils will right
~ decide in the first place whether it is a
moral or immoral city, and in the next
place which district is the most moral or
the most immoral. Thank God Tor a good
nose, and as man through il breathes
from fifteen to twenty times each minute
and from six to ten pints of air at
each respiration, you may get some idea of
how much depends on the composition of
the atmosphere. Through the nostril
nearly all epidemics and contagious find
entrance to the human system. 1t is
especially so among the intelligent classes.
Only the idiotic and small Drained walk
with their mouths open. The intelligent
classes walk with their mouths shut,
and so the only avenues TO distemper for
them is the nOstril. Give US pure air in
all our suburbs, in all our streets, in all
our houses, in all our churches. That the
threatened scourge may get no foothold
here, disinfect, ventilate, scrub, scour,
shovel, sweep and fumigate, and may God
In His mercy soon send the frosts that
shall kill the microbes-the frosts so often
Rpprehended, but never praised-the
frosts that are the best of tonics and the
healthiest of prescribers, and that pour
put OF their white, silver spoon enough
drops of health to convalesce a CONT
nent. But the time to stop epidemics is
the year before they start, and by prompt
execution OF all sanitary laws compel
those who do not appreciate their own or
the public health TO do their duty. There
is not neighborhOod in this city, however
cleanly itself, that can be independent
of the most squalid neighborhood in
town. Sir Robert Peel's daughter died of
typhoid fever in her fathers palace. The
mystery was where she caught the dis
ease. The solution came. Her father
bought her an elegant riding habit and
with him she rode out. IL was found out
that this elegant riding habit had been
made in a wretched garnet where there
was a typhoid patient and this riding
habit had been occasionally thrown over
the shivering sick man to keep him warm.
You cannot fence off disease. You can
not chain epidemics to one region so that
they may range there and not break out
and over. No part OF a city is safe until
the health of ali parts is looked after.
Aye. no latitude or longitude OF this
country is secure until every latitude and
longitude are well. New York is not
Independent OF Jacksonville. was
reading of a region in the far
East that had been struck OF
malaria for many years because of the
efaOnant waters Of the neiOhbOrhOOd