The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-11-25
WHATEVER NJ WERE
Timely Sermons from Pulpits Suggested
by, Subjects of Current Interest.
Evils That Disturb Society as the Rev. John
Baltzly Sees Them-The Brazilian Revolu-
t%ion-Esrly Catholic Work in Indiana.
Some OF the Evils That Are Not in Keepin
with Thankseivfng.

Some OF the Evils That Are Not in Keeping
with Thanksgiving.
1t is the custom to have the Tbanksgiv-
ing sermon at the First English Lutheran
Church delivered Oh the Sunday immedi-
ately preceding that holiday. In accord
ance with it the Rev. John Baltzly. pastor
OF the church. yesterday morning gave q
discourse suggested by the sixth verso of
the sixteenth chapter of Psalms: THE
lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;
yea. 1 have a goodly heritage" In the
outset he said he could not understand
why it appeared to be customary to
make a Thanksgiving sermon a
review of the various evils of
society. He could not understand the
appropriateness Of such sermons. But do
you know" he continued, there always
seems to me something a little bit out of
keeping. something not just exactly adj
mirable. in the well-fed. well-clothed, we'll
warmed, and well-housed people of a com
munlty, coming together in a warm church
to hold a Thanksgiving service, saying.
with all sorts OF variations, the lines have
fallen unto me in pleasant Places and lis
tening to An eloquent preacher. as he tells
over their almost in14merable reasons for
thanksgiving. Perhaps | am wrong: per-
maps this-is one day in the year on which
the comfortable people have a right to get
worlds misery. and be thankful just by and
Tor themselves. Certainly, it becomes the
comfortable to be thankful. But perhaps
tnere Is q better way TO improve q Thanks
81 wing occasion than this way. Perhaps
the very way We ought to improve it is
just to think on the %multitudes whose
lines have not fallen unto them in pleasant
PLACES.
tbat there Is no misery in the world; at the
least, mono near enough home for us to
worry about it. i have known persons
that have succeeded in making themselves
believe this. But D my brother, that is
not Christian thing TO do; SO to juggle
with che sad realities of the human lot that
one can at the last manage to attain to that
cold. cheerful skepticism in which one can
shut ones heart to the outrage of the
poor We hear so much nowadays of the
deserving poor. None but the deserving
poor are TO be relieved. Why, isn't hunger
hungry and the troubled are deserving or
undeservingf / grant hat in this day of
professional tramping and begging we
must protect our very charities by a wise
organization of them; but l do believe that
aman in need of help is not the less to be
pitled and relieved because he has himself
TO blame for getting where he is. / warrant
you 1t isn't any relief to him to re-
fleet that he deserves his misery.
But if you differ with me here, let that go.
Your deserving poor are not far to seek.
And do mot say that nobody needs to be
poor in this country. Don't say, You that
have gotten on a bit, that every body else
could have gotten on just as you have done.
and that whatsoever has not gotten on has
himself to blame for it. Men are differ
emily endowed. One man may have the gift
OF making money, another may not succeed
In this direction, try he ever so hard. And
yet he may have qualities that make him
Dor, rich in Gods eyes.
ut is idle to talk of mems having all
equal chances in life. Even if all men
were equals, so far as the outward chances
go, the Unborn disabilities many of them
Der o mar is not responsible for having been
born lacking the gift of money-making.
And / do not know that 1t ever has been
taken as the sign of anything very precious
in a mans character that he knows how to
get rich. / do not find this dwelt on in the
lives of the saints. But it is idle longer to
speak of every mans having a fair chance,
even so far as outward things are concerned.
1t is not true-at the least, it is true no
longer. Such books as Progress and Pow
erty' and Looking Backward however
~fanciful we may judge them, touching the
remedies suggested in them, such books are
but two OF the many signs OF a social
wrong-being.
0cu Ouc StSS tDo tOtul wealth. VI IUlS
country piling up year by year almost be-
y0nd ones owe TO conceive of it, and sees
at the same time the poverty spreading.
and deepening, and deadening almost be-
yond hope; when one sees the great mer-
chant crOwding to the wall and swallowing
up each his hundred small traders, and sees
the hundred taking places at starving
wages behind his counters; when one sees
the former free men of the land made ma
chines of, mere cogs in the great grinding
49, - 40 - - -4-
possible to say much of q common wealth,
or of a social well-being. 1t is a social
wrong-beIng. i do not mean to say that
the great merchant is to be condemned; not
at all. He is no more responsible for what
has come to be than the man he swallows
up. 1t is a drift, and we all are in it. Drift
we must, except so far as we can manage to
steer a little. But we may and should look
around to see the facts. The people, as a
whole, grow vastly. richer year by year,
and yet, somehow, there are ever more and
more poor, people; ever poorer and poorer
people. There is Progress and Poverty
The rich are growing richer, the poor are
growing poorer. Make what you will of
the fact, a fact it is. The majority. have
never yet been able to buy enough of any
thing. The minority have too much
of everything TO sell And we
are told that overproduction is the
cause of the trouble. Think of it
overproduction the cause of want; too
LiuC1 COdA 1ifCQ tnC Cduo VI IL "a W
ing; too many yards of cloth woven the
cause of people going IN rags. What Rus
kin said once of England Is coming true of
America faster than we like to believe:
Though England is deafened with spin
ning-wheels, her people are not clothed;
though she is black with the digging of
coal, her people die of cold All the people
have more and more, and yet the increasing
mass of them nave less and less.
w once thought all things could be
right by competition. We are wiser to-day.
Competition has been brushed aside by
combination. Ii is as nothing before the
new giant. Does coal sell at what it does
because il is scarees . no. Because there
are not men enough to mine itf o no.
Miners are permitted to dig only a few
months in the year. for fear-not of OK
hausting the coal fields, but for fear of
bringing down the price of the coal Isn't
il queer that men should be clamOring
everywhere for work. 1t would be so much
more natural for them to clamor for rest.
But what is one to do. We are are in the
drift. We trust that. somehow. good will
we cannot see.' A thoughtful man wrote,
several years ago: 1t may be that the
coming age of combination viii issue in a
nobler aud fuller liberty for the
individual than has yet been seen,
but the contamination will be possible
not in a day of competitive trade, but i'm
one of competitive morals Competitive
morals.' 1t is a good thought for Thanks
giving. We untO whom the lines are fallen
in pleasant places, what better time than