Connecticut western news., 1891-02-25
PLAQUES OF THE CITIES.
ABLE SERMON DELIVERED BY DR.
 T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

The Full Title of the Series, Of Which
 This Discourse IS One. Is '"The Ten
 Plaques of the Three Cities." and Gam
 bling Is Touched on This Time. .
 NEW YORK, Feb 22.-A decided sen sation was produced in this city and in Brooklyn today by Dr. Talmage's an nouncement of a series of sermons which he proposes to preach on ''The Ten Plaques of These Three Cities. In this sermon, which Is the first of the series. he pays his attention to the prev alent curse of gambling He preached 1t in the Academy of Music in Brook lyn in the morning, and again this evening at The Christian Herald serv- ice in this city His text was taken from Ex. K. 13, 14: Let my people go that they may serve me; for l will at this time send all my plaques.
 Last winter, in the museum at Cairo, Egypt, saw the mummy or e1nbalmed body of Pharaoh. the oppressor of the ancient lsraelites Visible are the very teeth that he gnashed against the 1s- raelitish brick makers, the sockets of the merciless eyes with which he looked upon the overburdened people of God, the hair that foated in the breeze of the Red sea, the very lips with which he commanded them to make bricks without straw Thousands of years after. when the wrappings of the mum my were unrolled, old Pharaoh lifted up his arn as if in irnploration, but his skinny bones cannot again clutch his shattered scepter. It was to compel that tyrant to let the oppressed go free that the memorable ten plaques were sent. ~ .4....-.-. s.....
 Sailing the Nile and walking amid the ruins of Egyptian cities, saw no remains of those plaques that smote the water or the air. None of tho locusts sounded their rattle in the other, and the cattle bore no sign of the murrain, and through the starry nights lowering through the pyramids no de stroying angel swept his wing. but there are ten plaques still stinging and befoul ing and cursing our cities, and like angels of wrath smiting not only the first born but the last born
 Brooklyn. New York and Jersey City though called three, are practi cally one The bridge already fasten ing two of them together will be fol lowed by other bridges and by tunnels from both New Jersey and Long Island shores until what is true now will, as the years go by, become more en: phatically true The average condi tion of public morals in this cluster of cities is as good. if not better. than in any other part of the world.
 Pride of city is natural to men in all times if they live or have lived in q metropolis noted for dignity or prov ess Cesar boasted of his native Rome. I.ycurgus of Sparta, Virgil of Andes, De1nosthenes of Athens, Archi1nedes of Syracuse. and Paul of Tarsus. should suspect a man of base heartedness who carried about with him. no feeling of conplacency in regard to the place of his residence. who gloried not in its arts or arms or behavior, who looked with no exultation upon it's evidences of prosperity it's artistic embe(lish. ments and it's scientific attachments THE PRIDE OF CITY.
 have noticed that men never like a place where they have not behaved we'll Men who have free rides in pris- on vans never like the city that fur nishes the vehicle When l see in his. tory Argos. Rhodes, Smyrna. Chios, Colophon and several other cities claiming Homer, conclude that Homer behaved we'll Let us not wal against this pride of city, not expect to build up ourselves by pulling others down Let Boston have it's Commons, it's Faneuil hall and it's magnificent scientific and educational institutions. Let Philadelphia talk about it's mint and Independence hall and Girard col Iege and it's old families. as virtuous as 1 venerable.
 When I find man living in one ol those places who has nothing to say in ! favor of them. feel like asking him,
 What mean thing did you do that 1 you do not like your native city" New
 York is a goodly city, and, when say that, mean the region between Spuy ten Duyvil creek and Jamaica in one direction and Newark flats in the other direction. That which tends to elevate part elevates all. That which | .A EI 0,<e DI Sc
 and he comes to the Hudson or Con
 necticut river. and passes it, as easily as we step across figure in the carpet.
 The blessing of God is an angel, and
 when it stretches out its two wings one of them hovers over that and tl1e other l over this.
 ! In infancy the great metropolis was
 laid down by the banks of the Hudson
 It's infancy was as feeble as that o1
 Moses sleeping in the bulrushes by the
 Nile, and. like Miriam. there our fathers
 stood and watched it. The royal spirit
 of American commerce came down te
 the water to bathe, and there she
 found it. She took it in her arms, anC
 the child grew and waxed strong, ani
 the ship ps of foreign lands brought golC
 and spices to it's feet, and stretching it
 self up into the proportions of a me
 trpolis it has looked up to the mount
 aims and off upon the sea-the mighti l est of the energies of American civiliza
 tion.
 The character of the founder of {
 city will be seen for many years in it
 inhabitants Roinulus impressed hi
 life upon Rome. The Pilgrims relaxe<
 not their hold upon the cities of Nov