Connecticut western news., 1891-03-25
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
pR. TALMAGE BREACHES ON THE
 PLAGUE OF LIES.

NEW YORK, March 22.-'The Plague of Lies" was selected by Dr. Talmage for the subject of the fifth of his dis courses on "The Plaques of These Three Cities" which he preached today. Both at the morning service in Brook lyn and at the evening service under the auspices of The Christian Herald in New York the vast buildings were not large enough to hold more than one half the crowd who came to hear the sermon. His text was Genesis iii, 4s "Ye shall not surely die."
 That was a point blank lie. Satan told it to Eve to induce her to put her semicircle of white, beautiful teeth into a forbidden 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 omniscient. You shall be as gods. Just opposite was the result. It was the first lie that was ever told in our world It opened the gate for all the falsehoods that have ever alighted on this planet. It introduced a plague that covers all nations, the plague of lies. Far worse than the plaques of Egypt, for they were on 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 Fiber, 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 a hundred ways of telling a 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 un- true, but afterward say ''may be- soft ly These departures from the truth are called white ies;" but there is really no such thing as a white lie.
 soME LIVES ARE ALL FALsEHooD.
 The whitest lie that was ever told was as black as perdition. No inven- tory of public crimes will be sufficient that omits this gigantic abomination. There are men high in church and state, actually useful, self denying and honest in many things. who, upon cer- tain subjects and in certain spheres. are not at all to be depended upon for veracity Indeed, 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 cultivated sin. with some it seems a natural in. fir1nity. I have known people who seemed to have been born liars. The falsehoods of their lives extended from cradle to grave. Prevarications misrep. resentations and dishonesty of speech appeared in their first utterances, and were as natural to them as any of their infantile diseases, and were a sort of moral croup 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 development 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 false hoods They hang pendent from the chandeliers of our finest residences they crowd the shelves of some of our merchant princes; they fill the side walk from curbstone to brownstone facing. They cluster around the me end of the merchants yardstick, and sit in the doors of churches. Some call them fiction" Some style them fabrication You might say thai they are subterfuge, disguise, delusion. romance. evasion. pretense. fable, de- ception. misrepresentation, but, as l an ignorant of anything to be gained by the hiding of God defying outrage under a photographers blanket, l shall chiefly call them what my father taught me to call them-lies.
 CLASSIFICATION OF LIES.
 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 a 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 counterfeit. The sunrise never flaunts in false col, mrs. The dew sports only genuine dia- ,nonds. Taking farmers as a class l believe they are truthful and fair in dealing, and kind hearted. But the regions surrounding our cities do not always send this sort of men to ouI markets. Day by day there creak through our streets, and about the market houses. farm wagons that have not all honest spoke in their wheels ol a truthful rivet from tongue to tail board.
 During the last few years there have been times when domestic economy has foundered on the farmers frkin. Neither high taxes, nor the high price o1 dry goods, nor the exorbitancy of labor could excuse much that the city has witnessed in the behavior of the yeo. u.,nry By the quiet firesides in West, chester and Orange counties hope there may be seasons of deep reflection and hearty repentance. Rural districts are accustomed to rail at great cite as given up to fraud and every form 1 of unrighteousness; but our cities dt