Middletown transcript., 1888-11-15
TALNAGE ON POLITICS.

AnAM nun Vu 1 VAA AVUI
BROOKLYN, November AT the
tabernacle this morning the Rev. T.
De Witt Talmage, D. D., expounded
some passages of Scripture about
ancient politics. He gave out the
hymn !:
Arm of the Lord, awake, awake,
Put on thy strength, the nation shake"
The Doctors text was, Two cubits
and half was the length of it, and a
cubit and a half the breadth of it, and
cubit and a half the heighth of it. y
Exodus 81, i. He said:
Look at 1.-THE sacred chest of the
ancients. It was about five feet long,
three feet wide and three feet high. It
was within and out of pure gold. On
the top of it stood two angels facing
each other with outspread wings. In
that sacred box was the law, and
there were in it a great many precious
stones. With that box went the fate
of the nation. Carried in front of the
host, the waters of the Jordan parted.
Divinely charged, costly, precious,
momentous box. No unholy hands
might lay hold of it. It was called the
ark of the covenant. But you will un-
derstand it was box, the most pre-
cious box of the ages. Where is it
now2 Gone forever. Not crypt of
church or museum Of the world has a
fragment of it.
= First, 1 remark, ignor-
ance is mighty foe. Other things
being. equal, the more intelligence a
man has the better he is qualified to
exercise the right of suffrage. You
have been ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty
years studying American institutions !;
you have canvassed all the great ques-
tions about tariff and home rule and
all the educational questions, and
everything in American politics you
are Welt acquainted with. You con-
slider yourself competent to cast vote
in November, and you are competent.
You will take your position in the line
of electors, you will wait for your turn
to come, the judge of election will
announce your name, you will cast
your vote and pass out. Well done.
But right behind you there will come
man who cannot spell the name of
comptroller, or attorney or mayor. He
cannot write, or if he can write he
uses small 81" for the personal pro-
noun. He could not tell on which side
of the Allegheny mountains Ohio is.
Educated canary birds, educated
horses, know more than he. He will
cast his vote aud it will balance your
vote. His ignorance is as mighty as
your intelligence. That is not right.
All men of fair mind will acknowledge
that it is not right. Until a man can
read the declaration of independence
and the constitution of the United
States, and calculate the interest on
the American debt, and know the
difference between republican form of
government and monarchy or des-
potism, he is unfit to exercise the right
of suffrage at any ballot box between
Key West and Alaska.
In 1872, in England, there were g.
600, 900 children who ought to have
been in school. There were only l.
333, ,000-in other words about so per |
cent-and of the so per cent not more |
than 5 per cent got anything worthy |
the name of an education. Now,
take that foreign ignorance and add it |
to our American ignorance, and there |
will be in November thousands and
thousands of people who are no more
qualified to exercise the right of suff-
rage than to lecture on astronomy. |
How are these things to be corrected
By laws of compulsory education well
executed. 1 go in for a law which,
after giving fair warning for a few
years, shall make ignorance crime. |
There is no excuse for ignorance on
these subjects in this land, where the
common schools make knowledge as
free as the fresh air of heaven. /
would have board of examination
seated beside the officers of registra-
tion, and let them decide whether the
men who come up to vote have any |
to be monarchs in land
where we are all monarchs. One of
the most awful foes of the Amer lean
ballot-box to-day is popular ignorance.
Educate the people, give them an op-
portunity to know and understand what
they do. If they will not take the edu-
cation, deny them the vote.
Another powerful enemy of this
sacred chest, the ark of the American
covenant, the ballot-box, is spurious
voting. In 1880, in Brooklyn, there
were thousand names recorded
of persons who had no residence
here, and if there were a thou