Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-04-10
REV. DIR. fALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE,s sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: The Plague of Lies"

70 Eve to induce Ter TO put her semiclrcie OF
white, beautiful teeth into a forbidden
apricot or plum or peach or apple He prac
tlcaliy said to her, oh, Eve, just take bite
of this and YOU will be omnipotent 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 falsehoods that have ever
alighted on this planet. 1t introduced
plague that covers all nations the plague OF
lies. Far worse than the plaques Of Egypt,
for they were 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
OF all rivers. The Egyptian plaques lasted
only few weeks, but for six thousand years
has RACED this plague of lies.
There are a hundred ways of telling a
lie. A mans entire life may be a falsehood,
while with his lips he may not once directly
fa!Sify. There are those who state what is
positively untrue but afterward say may
be" softly. These departures from the truth
are called ''whte lies but there is really no
ouch thing white lie.
The whiteSt lie that was ever told was cs
black perditiOn. No inventory of public
crimes will be sufficient that omits this gi-
gantic abOmination There are men high in
church and state actually useful, self-denying
and honest In many things, who, upon GER
tam subjects and in certain spheres, are not
al all to be depended upon for veracity. In
deed, there are many men and women VINO
have their notions of truthfulness SO thor
Oughly perverted that they do not know
when they are lying. With many it is a Gull
tlvated sin; with some it seems natural in
trinity. l have known people who seemed
to have been born liars. The falSehOods of
their lives extended from cradle to grave.
PrGVarlCatlOnS, misrepresentation and dis
honesty or speech appeared in their first ut
teranceS, and were natural to them any
of their lnfantile diseases, and were a sort of
moral Group or spiritual scarlatina. But
many have been placed in circumstances
where this tendency has day by day and
hour by hour been called to larger develop
ment. They have gone from attainment to
attainment and from class to class until they
have become regularly graduated liars.
The air of the city is filed with falsehoods.
They hang pendent from the chandeliers Of
our finest residences; they crowd the shelves
o. some our merchant princes; they fill the
sidewalk from curhstOne to brown stone
"a cling; they cluster around the mechanics
hammer, and blossom from the end Of the
merchants yardstick, and sit in the doors Of
churches. Some call them fiction" Some
style them fabrication" You might say
that they were subterfuge, disguised, delu-
sion, romance, evasion, pretense fable, decep-
ton, Misrepresentation, but, as | am igno-
rant of anything to be gained by the hiding
If a God defying outrage under a lexlcO-
graphers blanket l shall call them what my
1 shall divide them into agricultural, mer-
camille mechanical, ecclesiastical, and social
lies
First, then I will speak of those that are
more particularly agricultural. There is
something in the perpetual presence of
natural objects to make man pure. The
trees never issue false stock" Wheat fields
are always honest. Rye and oats never more
out in the night, not paying for the place
they have occupied. Corn shocks never
To folS oo10fc foir hr0n
are always current" The sold on the grain
is never counterfeit. The sunrise never
fauntS in false colOrs The dew sports only
genuine diamonds. Taking farmers as a
class, l believe they are truthful and fair i'll
dealing and kind hearted. But the regions
surrounding our cities do not always send
this sort of men to our markets. Day by day
there creak through our streets and bout
the market houses farm wagons that have
not an honest spoke in their wheels or a truth
tul rivet from tongue to tailbOard.
During the last few years there have been
times when domestic economy has foun-
dered on the farmers firkin. Neither high
taxes, nor the high price Of dry goods, nor
the exOrbltancy Of labor, could excuse much
that the city has witnessed in the behavior
of the yeomanry. BY the quiet firesides in
Westminster and Orange Counties I hope
there may be seasons of deep reflection and
hearty repentance. Rural districts are &C
customed to rail at great cities as given up
but our cities do not absorb all the abomina-
tons. Our citizens have learned the import
ance of not always trusting to the size and
style of apples in the top of a farmers bar
rel as an Indication of what may be found
farther down. Many of our people are &C
custOmed to watch and see how correctly
bushel of beets is measured, and there are
not many honest milk cans.
Deceptions do not all cluster round CITY
halls. When our cities sit down and
weep over their sins, all the surrounding
countries ought TO come in and weep with
them. There is often hostility on the part of
producers against traders, as though the
man who raises the corn was necessarily
more honorable than the grain dealer who
pours it into his mammoth bin. There ought
60 be no such hostility. Yet producers often
think it no wrong to snatch away fl ON the
trader; and they say to the bargain maker.
You get your money easy" Do they get
it easy? Let those who in the quiet field
and barn get their living exchange places
with those who stand to-day amid che ex-
lind so is very easy.
While the farmer goes to sleep with the
assurance that his corn and barley will DE
growing all the night, moment by moment
adding to his revenue, the merchant tries 10
go to sleep conscious that that momeut his
cargo may be broken on the rocks or dam
aged by the wave that sweeps clear across
the hurricane Qeck, or that reckless specu-
lators may that very hour be plotting some
monetary revolution, or the burglars be
prying open his safe, or his debtors fleeing
the town, or his landlord raising the rent or
the fires kindling on the block that contains
all his estate. Easy! Is it? God help
the merchants 1t is hard to have the palms
of the hands blisUered with outdoor work,
but more dreadful process when through
mercantile anxietieS the brain is consumed
In the next place we notice mercantile
lies those before the counter and behind the