Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-03-02
HYPOCRISY AND FORGIVENESS.
DIR. TAI.MAGE EXPLAINS cHRIsr,s
WRITING IN THE DUST IN
HERoD's TEMPLE.

HlNe anyways wondered what
Christ wrote on the ground. For ,lo
yon realize that is the only tine
He ever wrote at all | know that
Eusebius says that Christ onca
wrote a letter to Abgarus, tile kinv
of Odessa, bat there Is no good eyi
dence of such correspondence. The
wisest being the world ever saw and
the one who had more to say than
any one who had ever lived, never
writing book or chapter, or n
page or paragraph, or a word on
parchment. Nothing but this litera.
ture of the dust, and one sweep of n
brush or one breath of wind obliter.
ated that forever. Among all the
rolls of the volumes Of the first Ii.
brary founded at Thebes there was
not one scroll Of Christ. Among the
100000 books of the Alexandrian Ii.
bIary, which, By the infamous de-
cree of Caliph Omar, were used as
fuel TO heat the 400 baths OF the city,
not one sentence had Christ penned
Among all the infinitude of volumes
now standing in ths libraries of
Edinburgh, the British Museum, OR
Berlin or. Vienna, or the learned re.
positories of all nations, not one
word written directly by the finger
of Christ. All that he ever wrote
he wrote in dust, uncertain, shifting.
vanishing dust.
He might have written other
things, but kneeling there in the
temple, surrounded by a pack of
hypocrites, who were a self appoint.
ed constabulary, and having in his
presence prosecuted woman, who
evidently was very penitent for her
sins, | am snre he wrote two words,
both OF them graphic and tremen.
dous and reverberatiug. Aud the
one word was Hypocrisy and the
other word was forgiveness. From
the way these Pharisecs and scribes
vacated the premises and got out in
the fresh air, as Christ, with iuston
Iironical sentence, unmasked them, |
know they were first class hypo
critics.
''All of these Iibertines, dramatic
ing Indignation against impurity,
Blind bats lecturing on optics. A
flock of crows on their way up from
a carcass, denounclng carriou. Yes,
| think that one word written on
the ground that day by the finger
of Christ was the awful word llypoc.
risy. But / am sure there was
another word in that dust From
her entire manner / am sure that ar.
raigned woman was repentaut.
She made no apology, and Christ in
no wise belittled her sin. But her
supplicatory behavior and her tears
moved him, and when he stopped
down to write en- the ground he
wrote that mighty aud imperial
word forgiveness.
Sand so the world has had for
offending women, scourges and oh.
ljurgation, and for just one offense
she becomes an outcast, while for
men whose lives have been sodomic
for twenty years the world swings
open its doors of brilliant welcome,
and they may sit in legislatures and
senates aud parliaments or on
thrones. Unlike the Christ of my
text, the world writes mans de.
meanor in dust, but chisels a wO-
mans offence with great capitals
upon incffaceable marble. For for
eign lords and princess, whose
names can not even be mentioned
in respectable circles abr DAD because
they are walking lazarettos Of abom
ination, our American princesses for
fortune wait, and at the first beck
sail out with them into the blackness
OF darkness forever. And in what
are called higher circles OF society
there is now not only the imitation
Of foreign dress and foreign manners,
but OF foreign dissoluteness.
81 like an Englishman and like
an American, but the sickest crca
ture on earth is an American play
ing the EnglishmaD. Society needs
to be reconstructed on this subject.
Treat them alike, masculine and
feminine crime. Ifyou cut one in
granite, cut them both in granite.
III yon write one In dust, write the
other in dust. No, no, says tho
world, let woman go down and let
man go up. What is that ! hear
splashing in the East River at mid
night, and then there is gurgle as
if from s.rangulation, aud all IL still.
Never mind. 1t Is only woman
too discouraged to live. Let the
mills of the cruel world grind right
on"