Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-11
WRONG USE OF MONEY
DR.. Talmage Delivers Vigorous Dis
course on Dishonesty.
HE SCORES POLITICAL BRIBERS,
Persons of Weak Character Need to Avoid
Temptation.
F SCORES POLITICAL BRIBERS.
THE FREQUENT ABUSE OF TRUST FUNDS

Il
BRooKLYN, March 1O.-At the Taber-
nacle this morning, 5000 voices supported
by organ and cornet, rolled out the hymn
beginning:
Meier think the victory won,
Nor once at ease sit down;
Thine arduous work will not be done
Till thou hast got thy crown.
The Rev. 7. De Witt Talmage, d. D.,
preached the sermon. His subject was
"Wrong Uses of Money" and his text, 1.
Timothy vi, 9: ''They that will be rich fall
into temptation and snare, and into many
foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men
in destruction and perdition."
That is the Niagara Falls over which
rush a multitude ofsouls, namely, the de-
termination to have money anyhow, right
or wrong. Tell me how a man gets his
money and what he does with it, and 1 will tell
YOU his character and what will be his destiny
in this world and the next 1propose to speak
this morning about some of the ruinous modes
of getting money.
We recently passed through a national
election in which it is estimated that $4,000 QUO
were expended. I think about $50, 10000 of it
were spent in out and out bribery. Both par
ties raised all they could for this purpose But
that was only on large scale what has been
done on a smaller scale for SO years and in all
departments.
BEDRAGGLED POLITICS.
Politics from being the science of good gov
ernment has often been bedraggled into the
synonym for truculency and turpitude. A
monster sim plausible, potent, pesuferous, has
gone forth to do its dreadful work in all ages.
Its two hands are rotten with leprosy. Itkeeps
its right hand hidden in a deep pocket. The
left hand is clenched, and with its ichorous
knuckle it taps at the door of the court room,
the legislative hall, the Congress and the par
lament. The door swings open and the mon
ster enters, and glides through the aisle of the
council chamber as softly as slippered page,
and then it takes its right hand from its deep
pocket and offers it in salutation to judge or
legislator. 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
round blotch round as gold eagle, and the
virus spreads, and the doom is fixed. and the
victim perishes. Let bribery, accursed of God
and man. stand up for trial.
The Bible arraigns it again and again. Samuel
says of his two sons who became judges:
'They took bribes and perverted judgment"
David says of some of his pursuers: Their
right hand is full of bribes" Amos says of
some men in his day: "They take a bribe and
turn aside the poor in the gate" Eliphaz
foretells the crushing blows of Gods indigna-
tion, declaring: Fire shall consume the
1t is no light temptation. The mightiest have
fallen under it. Sir Francis Bacon, Lord
Chancellor of England, founder of our modern
philosophy, author of 'Novum Organum," and
a whole library of books, the leading thinker
of his century SO precocious that when little
child he was asked by Queen Elizabeth, How
old are vou?" he responded, Il am two years
younger than Your Majesty's happy reign;n of
whose oratory Ben Jonson wrote: THE fear
of every man that heard him was lest he should
make an end;' having an income which you
b would suppose would have put him beyond the
TEMPTATION OF BRIBERY,
$4,000 a year, and Twickenham court gift
and princely estates in Hertfordshire and Cor
hambury-yet under this temptation to bribery
falling fat into ruin, and on his confession of
taking bribes giving as excuse that all his
predecessors took them; he was fined $780, 600
or what corresponds with our 100000, and i'm
prisoned in London tower. So also Lord
Chancellor Macclesfield fell; so also Lord
Chancellor Waterbury perished. The black
chapter in English. Irish, French and Ameri-
can politics is the chapter of bribery. Some of
you remember the Pacific Mail subsidies.
Most of you remember the awful tragedy of
the Credit MobIlier. Under the temptation to
bribery Benedict Arnold sold the fort in the
Highlands for S3l, SO. For this sin Gorgey be-
trayed Hungary, Ahitophel forsook David
and Judas kissed Christ When / see so many
of the illustrious going down under this
temptation, it makes me think of the red
dragon spoken of in Revelation, with seven
heads and ten horns and seven crowns, draw
ing third part of the stars of heaven down
after him. The lobbies of the legislatures of
this country control the country The land is
drunk with bribery.
''Oh,'' SAYS someone, there's no need of talk
ing against bribery by promise or by dollars,
because every man has his price" do not be-
lieve it. Even heathenism and the dark ages
have furnished specimens of incorruptibility.
A cadi of Smyrna had case brought before
him on trial. man gave him 500 ducats in
bribery. The case came on. The briber had
many witnesses The poor man on the other
side had no witnesses. At the close of che case
the cadl SAID: This poor man has no witnesses,
he thinks; l shall produce in his behalf 500 wit
nesses against the other side" And then pull
ing out the bag of ducats from under the otto
man, he dashed it down at the feet of the
briber, saying, Il give my decision against
you" EDaminondas. offered bribe. said: II
will do this thing if it be right and if it be
wrong all your goods cannot persuade me-"
Fabrlclus of the Roman Senate was offered a
bribe by Pyrrhus of Macedon, Fabricius an
swered, What an example this would be to
the Roman people; you keep your riches and l
will keep my poverty and reputation"
TOO RICH TO BE BOUGHT.
The President of the American Congress
during the American Revolution, General
Reed, was offered 10000 guineas by foreign
commissioners if he would betray this country.
He replied: Gentlemen, L am a very Door
man, but tell your King he is not rich enough
to buy me-" But why go so far when you and
], if we move in honorable society, know men
and women who by all the concentrated force
Of earth and hell could not be bribed. They
would no more be bribed than you would think
of tempting an angel of light to exchange
heaven Tor the pit To offer bribe is villainy,
whom it is offered.
/ have not much faith in those people who 90
about Dragging how much they could get if
they would only sell out. Those women who
ha+
TO understand that there is something in their
carriage to invite insult. There are men at
Albany and at Harrisburg and at Washington
who W. lid no more be approached by a bribe
than 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 incorruptible men, and they are
the few men who are to save the city and save
the land Meanwhile, my advice is to all neo-
pie to keep out of politics unless you are invul-
nerable 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 that there might come
an old-fashioned revival of religion, that il
might break out in Congress and in the Legis-
latures and bring many of the leading RepubH-
cans and Democrats down on the anxious seat
of repentance. That day will come, or some
thing better, for the Bible declares that kings
and queens shall become nursing fathers and
mothers to the church, and if the greater in
authority, then certainly the less.
NY charge also to parents is remember that
this evil Of bribery often begins in the home
circle and in the nursery. Do not bribe YOUR
children. Teach them to do that which is
right. and not because of the 10 cents or the
orange You will give them. There is a great
difference between rewarding virtue and max
ing the profits thereof the impelllng motive
That man who is honest merely because
honesty is the best policy is already
A MORAL BANKRUPT.
My charge is to you, in all departments of
fife. steer clear of bribery, all of you. Every
man and woman at some time will be tempted
to do wrong for compensation. The bribe may
not be offered in money. 1t may be offered in