The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-04-18
THE PLAGUE OF LIES.
FIFTH SERMON IN THE SERIES ON
THE cITVs PLAQUES.

course which Will Apply Equally Well
An Country and City-''He Shall Not Sure
y DE-" Satan Told Eve. and He Lied
NEW YORK, March 22-"The Plague of
Lies" was selected by Dr. Talmage for the
subject of the fifth of his discourses on
The Plaques of These Three Cities which
he preached today. Both at the morning
Bervice in Brooklyn and at the evening
service under the auspices of The Christian
Herald in New York the vast buildings
were not large enough to hold more than
cue-half the crowd who came to hear the
sermon. His text. was Genesis iii, 4, '.Ye
shall not surely die"
That was point blank lie. Satan told
Il to Eve to induce her to put her semicir-
Gle of white, beautiful teeth into a forbid
den apricot or plum peach or apple
he practically said to her, "Oh, Eve, Just
take a bite of this and you will be omnipo-
tent and omniscient You shall be as
gods" Just opposite was the result. 1t
was the first lie that was ever told in our
world. 1t opened the gate for all the false
hoods that have ever alighted on this
planet. 1t introduced a plague that covers
all nations, the plague of lies. Far worse
than the plaques of Egypt, for they were
on the banks of the Nile, but this on the
banks of the Hudson, on the banks of the
East river, on the banks of the Ohio and
/. the Mississippi, and the Thames, and the
Rhine, and the Tiber, and on both sides of
All rivers The Egyptian plaques lasted
only a few weeks, but for six Thousand
years has ragged this plague of lies
There are hundred ways of telling
lie. A mans entire life may be false
hood, while with his lips he may not once
directly falsify. There are those who state
what is positively untrue, but afterward
say may be" softly. These departures
from the truth are called white lies;n but
there Is really no such thing as white lie.
A LIE May BE TOLD IN MANY WAYS
The whitest lie that was ever told was as
black as perdition. No inventory of pub
aac crimes will be sufficient that omits this
gigantic abomination. There are men
high in church and state actually useful,
self denying and honest in many things,
who, upon certain subjects and in certain
spheres, are not at all to be depended upon
nor veracity. Indeed, there are many men
and women who have their notions of
truthfulness so thoroughly perverted that
they do not know when they are living.
With many it is a cultivated sin; with
some it seems natural infrmity.- l have
known people who seemed to have been
born liars. The falsehoods of their lives
extended from cradle to grave. Prevari-
cations, Misrepresentation and dishonesty
of speech appeared in their first utter
ances, and were natural to them as any
ot moral Group spiritual scarlatina
But many have been placed in circum-
stances where this tendency has day by
day and hour by hour been called to
Larger development. They have gone from
attainment to attainment and from class
70 class until they have become regularly
graduated liars. ha..e
The air of the city is filled with false
hoods. They hang pendent from the
chandeliers of our finest residences; they
crowd the shelves of some of our merchant
princes; they fill the sidewalk from curb
stone to brown stone facing; they cluster
around the mechanics hammer and bios
som from the end of the merchants yard
stick. and sit in the doors of churches
Some call them fiction" Some style them
fabrication. You might say that thew
were subterfuge, disguised, delusion, ro-
nance, evasion, pretense, fable deception. /
misrepresentation but, as 1 am Ignorant
of anything to be gained by the hiding of
= God defying outrage under a lexicog-
raPher's blanket, shall call them what
my father taught me to call them-lies.
VARIOUS SORTS OF LIES
4 shall divide them into agricultural
mercantile, mechanical, ecclesiastical and
social lies -,
First, then, will speak of those that ara
more particularly agricultural. There is
something in the perpetual presence of
natural objects to make man pure. The
trees never issue false stock" Wheat
heids are always honest. Rye and oats |
never move out in the night, not paving
for the place they have occupied. Corn
shocks never make false assignments.
Mountain brooks are always sscurreut.,
Ihe gold on the grain is never counterfeit
The sunrise never faunts in false colors.
The dew sports only genuine diamonds. |
Taxing farmers as class, believe they |
are truthful and fair in dealing and kind |
hearted But the regions surrounding our !
cities do not always send this sort of men
70 our markets. Day by day there creak |
through our streets and about the market |
houses farm wagons that have not an |
honest spoke in their wheels or truthful |
r1yet from tongue to tailboard. i
During the last few years there have |
oeen times when domestic economy has /
toundered on the farmers firkin Neither |
high taxes, nor the high price of dry goods. |
nor the exorbitancy of labor, could ex-
cuse much that the city has witnessed in |
the behavior of the yeomanry. By the |
quiet fresides in Westchester and Orange |
counties hope. there may be seasons of
deep reflection and hearty repentance.
hnral districts are accustomed to rail at |
great cities as given up to fraud and every |
form of unrighteousness, but our cities do |
not absorb all. the denominations. Our citi-
Eens have learned the Importance of not |
always trusting to the size and style of ap- /
pies in thetop of farmers barrel as an |
iniication of what may be found farther /
down, Manyof our people are accustomed
20 watch and see how correctly bushel of T
seets is measured, and there are not many
honest milk cans. -
Deceptions do not all cluster round CITY y /
halls When our cities sit down and weep |
ever their sins, all the surrounding coun- |
tries ought tocome in and weep with them.
There is often hostility on the part OF pro-
ducers against traders, as though the man
who raises the corn was necessarily more /
honorable than the grain dealer who pours
4 into his mammoth bin. There ought to |