Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-05-22
CAPITAL AND LABOR.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches ON THEIR
PROPER RELATION.

To the Common Eye There Seems
Great Conflict just Now, but the Eye of
Faith Discerns Remedy Near-There
Is Straight Road to Reconciliation.
BROOKLYN, May ls.-The Tabernacle
congregation is still worshiping in the
Academy of Music, but expects next Sap
TENDER to have the main auditorium of
the New Tabernacle ready for use in the
holding Of services. After the usual pre-
liminary exercises this morning. DR.. Tai
mage preached on ''The Old Fight to Be
Settled" from the text: whatsoever We
would that men should do to you, do We
even so to them. Matt. vii, Il. Follow
ing is the sermon in full:
Two hundred and fifty thousand laborers
in Hyde park, London, and the streets of
American and European cities filled with
professions of workmen carrying banners,
brings the subject of Labor and Capital to
the front. That all this was done in peace,
and that as result, in many places, arbi-
tration has taken place, 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 war of cen
v
is a war hemisphere. The middle classes
in this country, upon whom the nation has
depended for holding the balance of power
and for acting as mediators between the
two extremes, are diminishing; and if
things go on at the same ratio as they have
for the last twenty years been going on, it
viii not be very long before there will be no
middle class in this country, but all will be
very rich or very poor, princes or paupers,
and the country will be given up to palaces
and novels
DANGER IN PRESENT METHODS.
The antagonistic forces have again and
again closed in upon each other. You may
pooh pooh it; you may say that this trou-
bic, like an angry child, will cry itself to
sleep: you may belittle it by calling il Fou
rierism, or Socialism, or ST. Simonism or
Nihiism, or Communism, but that will not
hinder the fact That it is the mightiest, the
darkest, the most terrific threat of this cen
tury Most of the attempts at pacification
have been dead failures, and monopoly is
more arrogant and the trades unions more
bitter. Give us more wages" cry the en-
ployes. "You shall have less, say the capt.
talists. Compel us to do fewer hours of
toll in a day. "You shall toll more
hours" say the others. ''Then, under GER
tain conditions, we will not work at all, -
say these. 'Then you shall starve," say
those and the workmen gradually using
up that which they accumulated in better
times, unless there be some radical change,
we shall have soon in this country three
million hungry men and women. Now,
three million hungry people cannot be kept
quiet. All the enactments Of legislatures
and all the constabularies Of the cities, and
all the army and 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 wis
DOM Never. The brow OF the one be-
comes more rigid, the fist of the other more
clinched.
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 disease and restore a
patient and have to tell you that one
drop of my text properly administered will
stop all these woes Of society and give con-
valescence and complete health to all
Classes Whatsoever We would that men
should do to you, do We even so to them"
shall first show you this morning how
this controversy between monopoly and
nAfu NOfk idullHl W HlbDItus anu liitu
will show you how this controversy will be
settled.
Futile remedies In the first place there
will come no pacification to this trouble |
through an cutlery against rich men mere
ly because they are rich. There is no labor
ing man on earth that would not be rich if !
he could be- Sometimes through fortu-
nate invention, or through some accident |
bn had hfncf |
comes to large estate, and we see him AFRO
giant and supercilious, and taking people |
by the throat just as other people took him |
by the throat.
There is something very mean about hui
man nature when it comes to the top. But |
it is no more sin to be rich than it is a sin |
to be poor There are those who have |
gathered great estate through fraud, and
then there are millionaires who have
gathered their fortune through foresight
in regard to changes in the markets, and
through brilliant business faculty, and
every dollar of their estate is as honest as
the dollar which the plumber gets for
mending a pipe, or the mason gets for
building a wall. There are those who
keep in poverty because of their own fault.
They might have been well off, but they
smoked or chewed up their earnings, or
they lived beyond their means, while Others
on the same wages and on the same salar
les went on to competency. know man
who is all the time complaining of his
poverty and crying out against rich men,
while he himself keeps two dogs, and
chews and smokes, and is filled to the chin
with whisky and beerl
POVERTY AND RICHES BOTH HONORABLE.
Micawber said to David Copperfield:
"Copperfeld, my boy, one pound income,
twenty shillings and sixpence expenses;
result, misery But Copper6eld, my boy,
one pound income, expenses nineteen shil-
lings and sixpence; result, happiness. And
there are vast multitudes of people who
are kept poor because they are the victims
of their own improvidence. 1t is no sin to
be rich, and it is no sin to be poor. | pro-
test against this cutlery which | hear
against those who, through economy and
self denial and assiduity, have come to
large fortune This bombardment of COM
mercial success will never stop this contro-
versy between capital and labor.
Neither viii the contest be settled by
a,,l ,,nus-r,, r,af hatir Treatment of