Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1891-03-26
THE PLAGUE OF LIES.
DIR. TALMAGE SAYS 1T is ONE OF
THE EVILS OF THE TIMES.

whether Known as Fiction, Fabri-
cation, Subterfuge, Disguise, Ro-
nance, Evasion, Pretence, Fable,
FalsehoOd or Misrepresentation,
White Lies or Black Lies, Untruth
is Always Despicabie and TO be
Avoided.
NEW YoRK, March 22, 1S91-'The
! Plague of Lies" was selected by DR.. Tai
mage for the subject of the fifth of his dis
courses on 1.-The Plaques OF These Three
Cities, which he preached today. His
text was Genesis 8. A: ''Ye shall not
surely die"
That was roint blank lie. Satan told
1t to Eve to induce her to put her semi
circle of white, beautiful teeth into for
hidden apricot or plum, or peach, or
apple. He practically said to her, ''Oh,
| Eve! Just take bite of this and you will
| be omnipotent and cmniscient 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 alishted on this
| planet. 1t introduced plague that covers
all nations, the Plague of Lies. Far
worse than the plaques of Egypt, for they
/ "VlO Ou Ilic VI VIC ANhC, uuU tuIo ID
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 tho Tiber,
tnd on both sides of all rivers. The
Egyptian plaques lasted only 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 falsehood,
while with his lips he may not once direct
ly falsify. There are those who state what
is positively untrue. but afterwards say
''may be-" softly. These departures from
the truth are called "whtc lies," but there
is no such thing as white lie The white
est lie that was ever told was as black as
pcrdition. No inventory Of public crimes
will be sufficient that omits this gigantic
evil. There are men, high in church and
state, actually useful, sclf-denying and
honest in many things, who, upon certain
subjects, and in certain spheres, are not at
all TO be depended upon for veracity. In
deed, there are many men and women who
have their notions of truthfulness so
thoroughly perverted that they do not
know when they are lying. With many it
is a cultivated sin; with some it seems a
natural infilmity. | have known people
W ~ otSulSu W hdNC DtCH uUIll iC
| falsehoods of their lives extended from the
cradle TO the grave. Prevaricatlons, mis-
representation, and dishonesty of speech
appeared in their first usterances, and were
as natural to them as any of their infant;le
| diseases, and were sort of moral Group
or spiritual scarletina. But many have
been placed in circumstances where this
tendency has, day by day, and hour by
hour, been called to larger development.
| They have gone from attainment to attain
ment, and from class to class, until they
have become regularly graduated liars.
The air of the city is filed with false
hoods. They hang pendant from the
chandeliers of our finest residences; they
crowd the shelves of some of our mer-
chant princes; they fill the sidewalk from
curbstone to brown stone facing. They
! cluster around the mechanics hammer,
and blossom from the end of the mer-
chants yard stick, and sit in the doors of
churches. Some call them ''iction."
Some style them fabrication" You
might say that they were subterfuge, dis
guise, delusion, romance, evasion, pre-
tence, fable, deception, misrepresentation;
! but, as | am ignorant of anything to be
gained by the hiding of a God~defying out
rage under photographers blanket, l
| Snail CnleHy call Juem WndL my ldtuer
taught me to call them-lies.
l shall divide them into agricultural,
mercantile, mechanical, ecclesiastical and
social lies.
FIRST, then, 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 move out in the night, not paying
for the place they have occupied. Corn
shocks never make false assignments.
Mountain brooks are always current"
The gold on the grain is never counter
felt The sunrise never faunts in false
colOrs The dew sports only genuine
diamonds. Taking farmers as a class,
believe they are truthful and fair in deal
ing, 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
about the market houses, farm wagons
that have not an honest spoke in their
wheels, or a truthful rivet from tongue to
tail board. During the last few years
there have been times when domestic
economy has fOundered on the farmer S
frkin. Neither high taxes, nor the high
price of dry goods, nor the exorbitancy of
labor, could excuse much that the city has
witnessed in the behavior of the yeomanry.
By the quiet firesides in We3tchester and
Orange counties, l hope there may be
seasons of deep reflection and hearty re-
pentance. Rural districts are accustomed
to rail at great cities as given up to fraud
and every form of unrighte BUSINESS; but
our cities do not absorb all the abomina-
TORS. Our citizens have learned the i'm
Tortance of not always trusting to the size
and style of apples in the top of q farmers
barrel as an indication of what may DO
found farther down. Many of our peo-
Fle are accustomed to watch and see how
correctly bushel of beets is measured;
and there are not many honest milk cans.
Deceptions do not all cluste around city
rails. When our cities sit down and weep
over their sins, all the surrounding coun-
b tries ought to come in and weep with them.
There is often hostility on the part of the
producers against traders, as though the
man who raises the corn was necessarily
Iaore honorable than the grain dealer. who
pours it into his mammoth bin. There
: ought to be no such hostility. Yet pro,
ducers often think it no wrong to snatch
away from this trader; and they say to tn,
, 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 the excitements of commercial
life and see if they find it so very easy
D While the farmer goes to sleep with the as
, surance that his corn and barley will b,
, growing all the night, moment by momen
! adding to his revenues, the merchant trie
10 go to sleep, conscious that that moment
lis cargo may be broken on the rocks. o
. damaged by the wave that sweeps clea
I across the hurricane deck; or that rockies
= spectators, that very hour, be plotting
J.. some monetary revolution, or the burglar
be pry.ng open his safe, or his debtor flee
ing the town, or his landlord raising tn
a rent, or the fires kindling on the block tina
o contains all his estates. Easyi Is IL? Go,
: help the merchants! 1t is hard to have tn
palms of the hands blistered with out-doo
J work; but u more dreadful process when
through mercantile anxiet.es, the brain i
O consumed!
In tho pnxt rlaaa wa pntica II