The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-03-15
THE AGE OF SWINDLE.


| THE AGE OF SWINDLE.
THE REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON
AT THE TABERNACLE.
vhen Mans business Life Does Net
Correspond with His Profession, His
Religion Is Humbug-When 1t Is
Right to Borrow.
BROOKLYN, March 1l.-The HYMN
eung at the Tabernacle this morning
begins:
cloud Of witnesses around
Hold thee in full survey;
Forget the steps already trod,
And onward urge thy way.
As, last Sabbath, the Rev. T. De Witt
Talnage, D. D., the pastor, had baptized
by sprinllling, he, this morning. baptized
by immersion, those who preferred this
mode, o baptistry having been built
sermon was: ''The Age of Swindle," and
the text Job viii, IA: "Whose trust
shall be SPIDERS web." DR.. Talmage
said:
The two most skillful architects in all
the world are the bee and the spider. The
one puts up sugar mandatory and the
other builds a slaughter house for flies
On a bright summer morning when the
sun comes out and shines upon the
egsk 9sa4sutys Murc1f:rwirn dew, tils
- Dright enough
AILROAD SGy5e for supernatural
beings to cress on. But, alas for the poor
fly which, in the latter. part Of that very
day, ventures ON it, and is caught and
dungeoned and destroyed. The fly was
Informed that it was a free bridge, and
would cost nothing, but at the other end
of the bridge the toll paid was its own
life. The next day there came down a
strong wind, and away goes the web, and
the marauding spider and the victimized
fly. So delicate are the slken threads of
the SPIDERS web that many thousands of
them are put together before they be-
come visible to the human eye, and
1t takes 100000 of them to make
a thread as large as a human hair.
Most cruel as well as most ingen-
ious is the spider. A prisoner in the
Bastile, France, had one 30 trained that
at the sound of violin it every day came
for its meal of flies. Job, the author of
my text and the leading scientist of his
day, had no doubt watched the voracious
process of this one insect with another,
and saw spider and fly swept down with
the same broom or scattered by the same
wind. Alas, that the world has SO many
designing spiders and victimized flies!
There has not been a time when the
utter and black irresponsibility of many
men having the financial interests of 9th
ers in charge has been moro evident than
in these last few years.
The unroofng of banks and disappear
ance Of administrators with the funds of
large estates and tine disorder amid post
office accounts and deficits amid United
States officials, have made a pestilence of
crime that solemnizes every thoughtful
man and woman, and leads every phil
anthropist and Christian to ask, What
shall be done to stay the plague2 There
is monsoon abroad, typhoon, SIR
occo. sometimes ask myself If it would
not be better for men making wills to be-
gueath the property directly to the exec
utors and officers of the court, and ap-
point the widows and orphans COM
mittee to see that the former got all
that did not belong to them. The simple
fact is that there are a large number of
men sailing yachts and driving fast
horses, and members Of expensive club
houses, and controlling country seats who
are not worth 81 if they return to others
their just rights, Under some sudden
reverse they fail, and with afflicted air
Seem to retire from the world, and seem
almost ready for monastic life, when in
two or three years they blossom out
again, having compromised with their
creditors, that is, paid them nothing
but regrets, and the only difference
between the second chapter of prosperity
and the first, is that their pictures are
Murillos instead of Kensetts, and their
horses go a mile in twenty seconds less
than their predecessors, and instead of one
country seat they have three. have
watched and have noticed that nine out
of ten of those who fail in what is called
high life, have more means after than
before the failure, and in many of these
cases failure is only strategem to escape
the payment of honest debts and put the
world off the track while they practice a
large swindle There is something woe
fully wrong in the fact that these things
are possible.
First of all, charge the blame OF
careless, indifferent bank directors and
boards having in charge great financial
institutions. 1t ought not to be possible
for president or cashier or prominent
officer of a banking institution to swindle
it year after year without detection.
will undertake to say that IL these frauds
are carried on for two or three yeart
without detection, either the directors
are partners in the infamy and pocketeG
part of the theft, or they are guilty of {
aculpable neglect of duty. for which Goo
will hold them as responsible as he hold
the acknowledged defrauders. VIVA
right have prominent business men tt
allow their names to be published a
directors in financial institution, so tina
,lnsophisticated people are thereby in
duced to deposit their money in or bu,
the scrip thereof, when they. the pub
lished directors, are doing nothing TO
the safety of the institution? 1t is cas-
of deception most reprehensible. Man,
people with a surplus of money no
needed for immediate use, although
may be little further on indispensable
are without friends competent to advis
them, and they are guided solely b
the character of the men who's
names are associated with tn
institution. When the crash came, an
with the overthrow of the banks wen
the small earnings and limited fortune
of widows aud orphans. and the helT
lessly aged, the directors stood wit
idiotic stare, and to the inquiry of tn
frenzied depositors and stockholders VIII
had lost their all, and to the arraignmer
of an indignant public had nothing
say except: "We thought 1t was a
right. We did not know there was any
thing wrong going on" 1t was the
duty to know. They stood in positio
which deluded the people with the ide
that they were carefully observant, Cal
ing themselves directors, they did n,
direct. They had opportunity of al
diting accounts and inspecting I'll
books. No time to do so2 The
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