The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-04-15
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: THE Plague Of Lies"

Subject: "The Plague Of Lies"
TEXT: eye shall not surely die."-Genesis
ILL.,, 4.
That was point blank lie. Satan told il
to Eve to induce her to put her semicircle Of
white, beautiful teeth into forbidden
apricot or plum or peach or apple. He prac
tically said to her, ton, Eve, just take bite
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 falsahoods 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 OH 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 few weeks, but for six thousand years
has ragged this plague Of lies.
There are hundred ways Of telling q
lie. A mans entire life may be falsehood,
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;" but there is really no
such thing as a white lie.
The whitest lie that was ever told was as
black as perdition. No inventory Of public
crimes will be sufficient that cmits this gi-
gantic abomination. There are men high in
church and state actually useful, self-denyiug
and honest in many things, who upon GER
tain 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 thor
oughly perverted that they do not know
when they are lying. With many it is cul-
tivated sin; with some it seems natural in
trinity. I have known people who seemed
to have been born liars. The falsehoods Of
their lives extended from cradle to grave.
Prevarications, Misrepresentation and dis
honesty Of speech appeared in their first ut
terauces and were as natural to them as any
of their lnfantile diseases, and were 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 filled with falsehoods.
They hang pendent from the chandeliers Of
our finest residences; they crowd the shelves
Of some our merchant princes; they fill the
sidewalk from curbstone to brown stone
facing; 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 "hction." Some
style them Fabrication" You might say
that they were subterfuse, disguised, delu-
sion, romance, evasion, pretense, fable, decep'
nfofiN hItf oo | am
rant Of anything to be gained by the hiding
Of a God defying outrage under lexico-
grapher's blanket, / shall call them what my
father taught me to call them-lies.
shall divide them into agricultural, mer-
camille, mechanical, ecclesiastical, and social
lies.
First, then, I will speak of those that ere
more particularly agricultural. There Is
something in the perpetual presence OF
natural objects to make man pure. Tho
trees never issue false stock" Wheat fields
are always honest. Rye and oats never more
out in the night, not paying for the place
make false assignments. Mountain brooks
are always current" The sold on the grain
is never counterfeit. The sunrise never
haunts in false colors. The dew sports only
genuine diamonds. Taking farmers as a
class believe they are truthful and fair in
dealing and kind hearbed. 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 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 exorbitancy Of labor, could excuse uiuch
that the city has witnessed in the behavior
of the yeomanry. BY the quiet fresides IN
Westchester and Orange Counties l hope
there may bs seasons Of deep reflection and
hearty repentance. Rural districts are ac-
customed to rail at great cities as given up
to fraud and every form OF unrighteousness,
| but our cities do not absorb all the abomina-
tions. Our citizens have learned the import
ance of not always trusting to the size and
| style Of apples in the top Of q farmers bar.
rel as an indication Of what may be found
farther down. Many Of our people are ac-
| customed to watch and SEQ how correctly a
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
| to be no such hostility. Yet producers often
think it no wrong to snatch away from the
trader; and they say to the bargain maker,
"You get your money easy" DO they get
it easyY Let those who in the quiet field
and barn get their living exchange places
with those who stand to-day amid the e1-
elements of commercial life and see If they
find so is very easy.
While the farmer goes to sleep with the
assurance that his corn AMI barley Will De
growing all the night, moment by moment
! adding to his revenue, the merchant tries to
| 60 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 oeck, 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. Easyl Is it? God help
the merchants It Is hard to have the palms
Of tho hands blistered with outdoor work,
but moro dreadful process when through
mercantile anxeties the brain is consumed.
In the next place we notice mercantile
lies, those before the counter and behind the
counter I will not attempt to specify the
different forms of commercial falsehood.
There are merchants who excuse themselves
for deviation from truthfulness because of
what they call commercial custom. In other
words, the multiplication and universally
of sin turns it into virtue. There have
been large fortunes gathered where there
was not one drop of unrequited toll in the
wine; not one spark Of bad temper flashing
from the bronze bracket; not one drop OF
needle woman's heart blood In the crimson
plush. while there are other great establish