The Yazoo sentinel. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1878-1916, 1891-05-07
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BRooKLN DIvINE's SUNDAY
SERMON.

wealth OF Egypt Ia fish the food its watel
! the irrigation Of garden and fields. IT, COZ
dition decides the prosperity or the doom
the empire. What happens % the Nile hal
4 pens TO ~ Egypt. And now in the text thi
! great river Is incarnadined. It's a red gas
across an empire. In poetic license we spea
q wars which turn the rivers into bloot
But my text Is not poetic license. II wa
TACT great crimson, appalling conditio
described The Nile rolling deep OF blooc
Can you imagine a more awful plagueg
The modern plague which nearest CORE
spends with that Is the plague OF crime /
All our cities. IL halts not for bloodshed
cuts and strikes down and destroys. Il re
vels in'the blood Of body and soul, this plagu
OF crime rampant for ages, and never bolde
or more rampant than now.
The annual police reports OF these cities a
examine them are TO me more suggestiv
than Dante's Inferno and all Christian peopl
asweil as reformers need to awaken 10 a pres
ent and tremendous duty. II you want thi
'Piagne Of Crime" 10 stop there are severa
Kinds OK persons you need to consider. First
the public criminals. You ought not 10 b.
surprised that these people make up a IarR,
portion in many communities The vas
majority OF the criminals who take ship from
Europe come into our own port In 1869 o
the forty-nine thousand people vino were In.
carcerated in the prisons of the country
thirty-two thousand were of foreign birth.
Many Of them were the very desperadoes OF
society. oozing into the slums Of our city.
waiting for an opportunity to riot and steal
and debauch, joining the large gang of
American thugs and cut-throats.
There are in this cluster of cities-New
York Jersey City and Brooklyn-four
thousand people whose entire business In
life is to commit suicide That is as much
their business as Jurisprudence or medicine
or merchandise is your business To IL they
bring all their energies of body, mind and
soul, and they look upon the intervals which
they spend In prison as so much unfortunate
loss Of time, just as you look upon an attacl,
of influenza and rheumatism which fasteps
you in the house for few days. 1t is their
lifetime business TO pick pockets and blow
up safes and shoplift and ply the panel game
and they have as much pride of skill in their
business as you have in yours when YOU up-
set the argument OF an opposing counsel, or
cure a gunshot fracture which other sur
geons have given up, or foresee turn in the
you buy goods just before they go
up twenty per cent. Ii is their business to
crime, and | do not suppose that
once in a year the thought of the immortality
strikes them.
Added to these professional criminals
American and foreign, there are a large
class OF men who are more or less industrious
IN crime. In one year the police in this
cluster OF cities arrested ten thousand people
lcr theft and ten thousand for assault and
battery, and fifty thousand for intoxication.
drunkenness is responsible for much of the
theit since 1t confuses a mans ideas of
and he gets his hands on things
that do not belong to him. Rum isresponsi- |
Die Tor much OF the assault and battery, in |
spring men to sudden bravery, which they
must demonstrate though it be ON the face |
Df the next gentleman
I Ten million dollars worth of propertv |
stolen In this cluster of cities in one year! |
You cannot as good citizens, beindependent |
oL that fact twill touch your pocket since |
nave TO give You the fact that these three
cities pay about eight million doilarsf wortlA |
" taxes year to arraign, try and support
the criminal population. You help to pay
The board OF every criminal from the sneak
thief that matches spool of cotton up to
some man who swamps a bank. More than
hat 1t touches your heart in the moral de-
preston OF the community. You might as
we'll think to stand in q closely confined
DOM where there are fifty people and yet
lot breathe the vitiated air, as to stand in
! community where there is such great
multitude OF the depraved without some |
What being contaminated. What is the fire |
hat burns your store down compared with |
he condagration which consumes your |
noralsS What is the theft of the gold and |
liver from your money safe compared with |
he theft of your childrens virtnes
We are all ready to arraign criminals. |
We shout at the top of our voice, stop |
hiefW and when the police get on the track |
We come out, hatless aud in our slippers, and |
ssist in the arrest. We come around the |
awning rufiian and hustle him of to justice, |
nd when he gets in prison what do we do for |
imP With great gusto we put on the hand |
uffs and the hopples; but what preparation |
re we making for the day when the hand |
utfs and the hopples come otfs Society |
GEMS to say to these criminals, William, go
n there and rot" when it ought to say,
You are an offender against the law, but
We mean 10 give you an opportunity to re-
tent; we mean to help you. Here are Bibles
nd tracts and Christian influences. Christ
lied for you. Look and live
vast improvements have been made by
Introducing industries into the prison; hut
We want something more than hammers
nd shoe lasts to reclaim these people. Aye,
Ve want more than sermons on the Sabbath
Icy. Society must impress these men with
he fact that i does npt enjoy their. suf-
ering, and that it is attempting to reform
nd elevate them. The majority of Grimm
is suppose that society has grudge against
hem and they in turn have a grudge against
ociety.
They are harder in heart and more infuri-
te when they come out of jail than when
hey went IN. Many Of the people who so
0 prison so again and again and again.
'ome years ago, of fifteen hundred prisoners
vho during the year had been in Sing Sing,
our hundred had been there before. In a
ouse of correction in the country, where
uring a certain reach Of time there had
zen FIVE thousand people, mere than three
housand bad been there before, So. in one
ase the prison, and in the other the house Of
left them just as bad as they were
efore.
The secretary of one of the benevolent
ocieties Of New York says a lad fifteen years
{ age hsd spent three years of his life in
risen. and be said to the lad, What have
hey done for you to make you betterln
Well" replied the lad, 1.-THE first time
las brought up before the judge he said.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself And
hen 1 committed a crime again, and was
rought ap bef9re the same judge. and be
nd You rascalr And after while
ommitted some other crime, and l was
rought before the same judge, and he said,
on ought 70 be hanged. Tint was all
iey had done for him in the way Of reforma-
on and salvation. s'Oh, you say. ''these
eople are incorrigible.n I suppose there
ne hundreds Of persons this day lying in the
risen hunks who would leap up at the
respect OF reformation il society would
MY allow them a way into decency and
speciality.
''oh.n you say, Il have no patience with
iese roguesn I ask you in reply, how
Iuch better would you have been under the
me circumstances Suppose your mother
I'd been a blasphemer and your father a
4 and you had started life with q body
uffed with eva proclivities, and you had
,enf much Of your time in a cellar amid /
1scsnities and cursing, and Il at ten years