The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1889-03-22

w tiC ldDtIDdfl
this morning, six thousand voices supper
ed by organ and cornet, rolled out the hymn
beginning:
Ne'er think the victory won,
Nor once ct ease SIT down;
Thine arduous work wifi not be line
I'll thou hast got thy crown.
The Rev. I. De Witt Talmage. II. d
preached the sermon. His subject was
Wrong Uses Of Money! and his text.
Timothy vi, @: "They that will be rich fall
snso temptation and a snare, and into man,
Tfo3ish and hurtful lusts, which drown me-
an destruction and perdition.n
That is the Niagara Falls over which
: rush a multitude of souls, namely thedeter
mination to have money anyhow, right O
wrong. Tell me how a man gets his none,
and what he does with it. and l will tell Vol
his character, and what will be his DESTINY
IN this world n the next. | propose I.
speak this morning about some OF the ruin
Gus modes of getting money.
we recently passed through a nationa
electioni In which it has been estimated that
thirty million dollars were expended. ]
think about twenty million of it were spent
an out and out bribery. Both parties raised
all they could for this purpose. But that
was only on a large scale what has beer
done on a smaller scale for fifty years anG
in all departments.
Politics from being the science of good
government has often been b~edraggled into
the synonym for truculency and turpitude
A monster sin, plausible, potent, pestifer-
GUS, has gone forth to do its dreadful work
in all ages. Its two hands are rotten with
teprosy. 1t keeps its right hand hidden in
a deep pocket. The left hand is clenched,
and with It's lchorOuS knuckle it taps at the
Ioor OF the court room, the legislative hall,
NE congress and the parliament. The door
tNyings open and the monster enters, and
Elides through the aisle of the council cham
Der as softly as a slippered page, and then it
takes its right hand from its deep pocket
and offers 1T in salutation to Judge or legisla-
tor. If that hand be taken, and the palm of
the intruder cross the palm OF the official,
the leprosy crosses from palm to palm in a
: round blotch, round as a gold eagle, and
the virus spreads, and the doom is fixed,
and the victim perishes. Let bribery, ac-
cursed OF God and man, stand up for trial.
The Bible arraigns it again and again.
Samuel says OF his w sons who became
Judges, 'They took brides and perverted
judgment" David says of some of his pur-
suers, :"'Their right hand is full of bribes.'
Amos says of some men in his day, "They
take a bride and turn aside the poor in the
gate" Eliphaz fOretclls the crushing blows
of Gods indignation, declaring, Fire shall
consume the t~abernacles of bribery
1t is no light temptation. The mightiest
have fallen under it. Sir Francis Bacon,
lord chancellor of England. founder of our
1nedern philosophy, author of ''Novum
Organum," and a whole library of books,
the Leading thinker OF his century, SO prec-
Queen Elizabeth, "How old are you?n he
responded, II am two years OUNCE than
your majesty's happy reign of whose ora
tory Ben johnson wrote, 1.-THE fear of every
man that heard him was lest he should
make an end :" having an income which YOU
yy0ni0 grnDQSa yyOn16 have mt him hovnnl
the temptation of bribery-thirty-six thous-
and dollars a year, and Twickenham court
a gift, and princely estates in Hertforhshire
and Gorhambury-yet under this temptation
TO bribery falling fiat into ruin, and on his
confession of taking brides, giving as excuse
that all his predecessors took them: he was
fined two hundred thousand dollars, or what
corresponds with our two hundred thousand
dollars, and imprisoned in London tower.
So also Lord Chancellor Macclesfield fell;
SO also Lord Chancellor Waterbury perish
The black chapter in English, Irish,
French and American politics is the chap
ter OF bribery. Some of you remember the
Pacific Mail subsidies, Most of you re-
member the awful tragedy of the Credit
MObilier. Under the temptation to bribery
Benedict Arnold sold the fort in the High
n for SSl,515. For this sin Gorgey be-
trayed Hungary, Ahithophel forsook David
and Judas kissed Christ. When l see so
many OF the lluStriouS going down under
this temptation, it makes me think of the red
dragon spoken of in Revelation, with seven
drawing a third part of the stars of heaven
down after him. The lobbies of the legisla-
lures of this country control the country.
The land is drunk with bribery.
IQh," says some one, there's no need of
talking against bribery by promise or by
do not believe it. Even heathenism n
n dark ages have furnished specimens of
of incorr1ptibility. A cadi of Smyrna had
a case brought before him on trial. A man
gave him five hundred ducats in bribery.
The case came on. The briber had many
had no witnesses. AT the close of the case
the cadi said: "This poor man has no wit
neSses, he thinks; | shall produce in his be-
half five hundred witnesses against the
other side" And then pulling out the bag
of ducats from under the ottoman, he dash
ed it down at the feet of the briber, saying,
II give my decision against you" Epam-
inondas, offered a bride, said: 81 will do
this thing if it be right, and if it be wrong
all your goods cannot persuade me-" Fab
5rfcias of the Roman senate was offered a
bride by Pyrrhus of Macedon. Fabricius
answered, "What an example this would be
to the Roman people; YOU keep your riches
and I will Keep my poverty and reputation"
The president of the American congress
during the American revolution, Gen. Reed,
was offered ten thousand guineas by foreign
commissioners if he would betray his
country. He replied: "Gentlemen, [ am a
very poor man, but tell your king he is not
rich enough to buy me-" Butwhy go so far,
when you and l, IT we move In honorable
society, know men and women who by all
the consecrated force of earth and hell could
mot be bribed. They would no more be
bribed than you would think of tempting an
angel of light to exchange heaven for the
pit. To offer a bride is villiany, but it is a
very poor compliment to the man to whom
1t is offered.
I have not much faith in those people who
go about Dragging how much they could
get IL they would only sell out. Those
who complain that they are very
often insulted need to understand that there
is something in their carriage to invite in
suit. There are men at Albany and Harris
burg and at Washinton who would no more
be approached by a bride than a pirate boat
with a few cutlasses would dare to attack
a British man-of-war with two banks of
guns on each side loaded to the touch hole.
They are i~ncorruptible men, n they are
n few men who are to save the city and
save the land. Meanwhile, my advice is to
all people to keep out of politics unless you
are invulnerable to this style of temptation.
Indeed, if you are naturally strong, you
need religious buttressing. Nothing but
the grace of God can sustain our public men
and make them what we wish. l wish
there might come an old fashioned revival
of religion. that it might break out in con-
gress and in the legislatures and bring many
of the leading Republicans and Democrats
down on the anxious seat of repentance.
That day will come, or something better,
for the Bible declares that kings and queens
shall become nursing fathers and mothers
to the church, and if the greater in author
ity, then certainly the less.
My charge also to parents is, remember
that this evil of bribery often begins in the
home circle and in the nursery. Do not
bride your children. Teach them to do that
which is right, and not because of the ten
cents or the orange you will give them.
There is a great difference between reward
Ing virtue and making the profits thereof
the impelling motive. That a who is
honest merely because honesty is the best
policy is already a moral bankrupt.
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