The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-10-03
CROOKED THINGS.
The Subject Of q Late Sermon By
DR.. Talmage.
Capitalists Defended For Their Good Deeds
Crooked Things Made straight-Ths
Gospel In Daily Undertaking the
Best OF Life.

ne SuOJeCJ O1 u lat6 SERMON at DrOOk
Ign by Rev. I. De Witt Talmage was
Crooked Things" Text Isaiah XII. 4
1.-THE crooked shall be made straight.
DR.. Talmage said:
Geometry, from the time IL was dis
covered on the banks Of the Nile, which.
by its overflow annually obliterated the
landmarks, and the restoration of these
landmarks made such a science neces.
sary-I say, geometry, ever since then,
has been busy with lines, straight lines,
curved lines lines in angles and cones
and spheres, but has never been able to
evolve any beauty from line that was
merely crooked The circle and the
square were always considered admir-
able. Isaiah recognizes the circle, and
says: "The Lord sits upon the circle of
the earth" The altar of ancient tab
ernacle was "four square, land Heaven,
according to John. is ''four square. "
But the Bible has no admiration for
lines that are merely crooked Indeed,
my text in prophesying the worlds com.
plete rectification. declares: 'The
crooked shall be made straight"
There have been SO many moral
earthquakes that many things have got
into a terrible twist-crooked laws,
crooked governments, crooked fortunes,
crooked dispositions-and many Of the
efforts to straighten things have only
made them more crooked. And some
good people sit down in despair and be-
come pessimistic and give up life and
the church and the world as dead fail.
ures With such lachrymose behavior
have no sympathy. 1t is a promise Of
the Lord Almighty: 1.-THE crooked shall
be made straight" / propose, as may
be divinely helped, to mention some OF
the crooked things that are going to be
Strengthened.
Much OF the wealth OF the world is in
the hands Of the profigate, while many
of the best people are subjected to dis
tressing privation; and there is going to
be redistribution of property. II it
were possible it would be bad thing to
have things divided equally. Some men
are able to endure more success than
Others and prosperity that might not
unbalance you might destroy me. The
Declaration of American Independence
declares that all men are borne equal,
but the opposite is the truth,
for they are born unequal In
no respect is this more evident than in
their capacity to endure success, finan-
cial or social have seen men, by the
acquisition of $4,000, made arrogant
and overbearing, and 1 have known
others with their millions of dollars
childlike and unassuming and Christian.
We would all be affluent but the Lord
can not trust us. l am glad there are
those He can trust Much is said against
capitalists, but the world would be a
very shaky world without them. Who
built the great railroads which, while
they give such facilities of travel, en-
ploy tens Of thousands of laborers, sup
porting them and their families? Capt.
talists Who built great ships that stir
the rivers and bridge the ocean? Capt.
talists- Who reared the thousands of
factories all over the land in which
hundreds of thousands of employees
earn their daily bread? Capitalists.
Who endowed your colleges, and opened
free libraries, and built asylums for the
orphan, the crippled and the insane?
Capitalists. But for them there would
not be an academy of music,
or picture gallery, or a free
library, or a steamboat, or rail-
road in America Who put the world on
seventy-five years beyond what it would
have been in enterprise, in comforts, in
educational advantage, in good things
without number? Capitalists! The
more money a man gets the better, if it
eously. Nevertheless we all see that
there needs to be redistribution of
property. Communism proposes to make
that distribution by torch and dagger
and dynamite. Throw the midnight ex-
press train off the track and put the
factory into confagration. Disrupt So
ciety. Burglarize. Assassinate. Such
people believe neither in God nor man
nor woman and they know how to make
things worse, but never have made and
never can make any thing better.
/ tell you how there will come re-
distribution of property. Under the di-
vine blessing good people will get more
alertness and acumen and assiduity.
Many good people are kept in strait
ened circumstances because they have
been indolent or lacked the courage to
take honest advantage of circumstances
and were too stupid to get on. With
the very same surroundings others
went on to competency. In the
better days to come good men will
have their faculties Weakened and will
In consequence rise to larger shares of
prosperity. On the other hand estates
wrongfully accumulated will dissolve.
If not the sons, then the grandsons, will
make the money fly and it will gradually
scatter in their hands and become part
of the general wealth. Then. as to vast
properties righteously gathered-and
there are thousands of them-such es-
tates will contribute toward helping the
unfortunate, not more by charities than
by helping struggling people into lu-
crative business, and the man who has
amassed enough and surplus will say:
''There is young merchant without
any capital, will start him on Fulton
street." and there is young mechanic
who has no means of his own. and will
put him on a career Of prosperity" and
"there is farmer with too big a mort
gage on his land, and I will help him
lift the incumbrance." The fact is that
II the kindliness and generosity mani
tested by moneyed men toward the
struggling during the last fifty years,
increases in the same ratio for the next
fifty years, there will be condition of
society paradisaic.
Mind this: God never yet undertook
a failure. The old book. which is worth
all other books put together, makes it
plain that God has undertaken to regu-