The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-05-29
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Weekly Discourse OF tho Great
Brooklyn Preacher.

American and European cities filled with
professions of workmen carrying banners,
brings the subject OF LABOR AMI Capital to
the 'front.' That all this was done in peace,
aud thai as result, In many places, aroitra-
ZION mistaken pace, is hopeful sign,
The greatest war the world has ever seen
Is between capital and labor. The strife Is
not like that which in history is called the
Thirty Years War, for it is a war OF CEN
turtles, II is war OF the five continents, it
isa war hemisphere. The middle classes
in this country, upon whom the nation has
depended for holding tho balance of power
and Tor actinS as mediators between the
two extremes, are diminishing; and II
III ngs go on at the same ratio as they have
Tor the last twenty years bean going on, it
will not be very long before there will bs no
middle class in this country, but all will be
very rich or very poor, princes or paupers,
ana the country will be given up to palaces
and novels
The antagonistic forces have again and
again closed in upon each otaer. You may
pooh pooh IL; You may say that this trou-
BILE, ike an angry child, will cry itself to
sleep; you may belittle it by calling it Foul
rierism, or Socialism, or st. Simonism, or
Nihilsm, or Communism but that will not
hinder the fact that it is the mightiest the
darkest the most terrific threat of this
century. Most of the attempts at pacii-
cation have been dead failures, and monop-
oily is more arrogant and the trades unions
more bitter. Give us more wages" cry the
employees. "You shall have less" says the
capitalists compel us to do fewer hours
Of toll in a day" "You shall toll more
tain conditions, we will not work at ALL"
say these. Then you sail starve," say
tn use, and tho workmen gradually csing up
that which they accumulated in better times,
urless there be some radical change, we shall
have soon in this country three million
hungry men and women. Now, three mill
ion hungry people cannot be kept quiet. All
the enactments of legislatures and all the
constabularies of the cities, and all the army
an navy Of the United States cannot keep
three million hungry people quiet. what
them Will this war between capital and
labor be settled By human wisdom? Never.
ThebI ow of the one becomes more rigid, the
list of the other more elincae1.
But that which human wisdom cannot
achieve will be accomplished by Christian
ity if it be given full sway. You have heard
OF medicines so powerful that one drop
would stop a disease and restore patient
and ! have to tel You that one drop of my
text properly administered will stop all
these woes of society and give convalescenca
and complete health to all classes. "What
soever We would that men should do to you,
10 you even so to them" l shall first show
We this morning how this controversy be-
tween monopoly AMI hard work cannot be
stopped, and then | will show you how this
controversy will be settled.
Futile remedies, In the first place there
will come no paciication to this trouble
through an cutlery against rici men merely
because they are rich. There is no laborins
man on earth that would not be rich if he
could be. Sometimes through fortunate in
Vention, or through soma accident OF pros
perity, u man who had nothing comes to
large estate, and we seq him arrogant and
supercillous, and taking people by tha throat
just as other people took him by the throat.
There Is something very mean about
human nature when it co mes to the top.
But tits no more sin to be rich than it IS a
sin to be poor. There are those who have
gathered a great estate through fraud, and
then there are milfoaaires who have
gathered their fortune through foresigh. in
regard to changes in the markets, aud
through brilliant business faculty, and every
dollar of their estate is as honest as the
Collar which the plumber gets for mendin5 a
pipe, OF the mason gets for building wall.
There are those who keep in poverty because
OF. their own fault. They might have been
well of, but they smoked or chewedu up their
earnings or they lived beyond their means,
while Others on the same wages and on the
same salaries went en- to competency.
know man who is all ths time nplaining
OF his poverty AMI crying out against rich
men, while he himself keeps two dogs, and
chews and smokes, and is filed to the chin
with whisky and beer!
Micawber said to David Copperfeli:
"Copperfeld, my boy one pound income,
twenty shillings and sixpence expenses; re-
suit misery. But Copperield my boy, one
pound income, expenses nineteen shillings
and sixpence; result, happinessn And there
are vast multtudes of people who are kept
poor because they are the victims OF their
own improYidence. 1t is no sin to be rici,
and it is no sin to bepoor. tprotest against
this cutlery which l hear against those who,
through economy and sef-denial and
assiduity, have come to large fortune. This
bombardment OF commercial success will
never stop this controversy between capital
and labor.
Neither will the contest be settled by
cynical and unsympathetic treatment Of
the laboring classes. There ara those who
speak of them as though they were only cat
tie or draught horses Their nerves are
nothing, their domestic comfort is nothing.
They have no more sympathy for them than
hound has for hare, or hawk for hem
Or a tiger Tor a calf. When Jean Vatican,
the greatest hero of Victor Hugo's writings,
after a life of suffering and brave endurance
goes into incarceration and death, they clap
the book shut and say. GOOD for himm They
stamp their feet with Indignation and say
just the opposite of Save the working
classes" They have all their sympathies
with Shylock, and not with Antonio AMI
Portia. They are plutocrats, and their feel
ings are Internal. They are filed with irrita-
ton and Feasibility on this subject. To stop
this awful imbroglio between capital and
labor they will lift not 50 much as the tip end
of the little finger.
=, Neither will there be any pacifcatioa of
this angry controversy through vio!ancs
God never blessed murder. Blow u, to-
morrow the country seats on the banks OF
the Hudson, and all the fine houses OF Madi.
son Square and Brooklyn Heights and
and Brooklyn Hill and Rittenhouss SQUARE
and Beacon street, AMI all the bricks and
timber and stone will Just fall back on the
bare head of American labor. Tie worst
enemies OF the working classes in the United
States and Ire,anl ara their demente1 CO.
auJutors. A few years ago Assassination
the assassination OF Lord Frederick, Cavern
DISH and Mr.. Burke in Phoenix PARK, Dub
lin, ireland in the ATTEMPT to ayeups thu
wrongs OF Ireland-only turnei away from
That afflicted people millions OF sympa-
thizer5. The attempt to blow up the House
otCommons. in London, had only this effect:
To throw out of employment tens OF thou.
sands ofinnocent Irish people in England.
In this country the torch put to the fac
tories that have discharged hands for good
or bad reason; distractions on the rail track
in front OF midnight express trains because
the offenders do not like the President of the
were going to sail, or in printing Offices the
hour the paper was to go to press. or in mines
the day the coal was to be delivered or on
house scaffoldings 50 the builder fails in
keeping his contract-all these are only a hard
blow on the head of American labor, and
cripple its arms, and lame its feet, and
pierce its heart. As a result OF one of our
great American strikes You find that the
operatives lost four hundred thousand dol
lars worth of wages and have had poorer
wages ever since. Traps sprung suddenly
upon employer, and violence, never tool
one knot out of the knucxle of toll, or put
one farthing OF wages into a calous palm
Barbarism will never curs the wrongs Of
civilization. Mark that
Frederick the Great admired some land
near his palace at Potsdam AMI he resolve
to get it. 1t was owned by miller He of.
fered the miller three times the value of the
property. Ths miller would not take it. be
cause it was the old homestead. AMI he felt
about it as Naboth felt about his vineyard
wien Ahab wanted it. Frederick thu Great
was rough and terrible man, an he or iere |
the miller into his presence: aud the King.
with a stick in his hlui-a stick with which
he sometimes struck his officers of state-said