News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-03-26
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches ON THE
PLAGUE OF LIES.

PLAGUE OF LIES.
This Is His Fifth Discourse in the Series
the Plaques of the Cities-Satan's
Statement, I'VE Shall Not Surely DE-"
the Text.
New YORK, March 22.-''The Plague
of Lies" was selected by DIR. Talmage
for the subject of the fifth of his dis
courses ON 1.-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, 4,
I'VE shall not surely die"
That was 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 a 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 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 Tiber and on both
sides of all rivers. The Egyptian
plaques lasted only few weeks, but
for six thousand years has ragged tins
plague of lies.
There are hundred ways of telling
lie. A mans entire life may be a
falsehood, while with his lips he may
not once directly falsify. There are
those who state what is positively I'M
true, but afterward say may be" soft
ly. These departures from the truth
are called white lies" 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 GER
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 a cultivated
sin. with some it seems q natural in
trinity. l have known people who
seemed to have been born liars. The
falsehoods of their lives extended from
cradle to grave. Prevarications, misrep-
reservations 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 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
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 filed 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-
chanic's 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 are subterfuge, disguise, delusion,
romance, evasion, pretense, fable, de-
ception, Misrepresentation, but, as
am ignorant of anything to be gained
by the hiding of a God defying outrage
under a photographers blanket, /
shall chiefly call them what my father
taught me to call them-lies.
CLASSIFICATION OF 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 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 naunts 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 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 farmers firkin.
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 yeo-
manry. BY the quiet fresides in West
chester and Orange cCdnties | hope
there may be seasons of deep reflection
and hearty repentance. Rural districts
are accustomed to rail at great cities
as given up to fraud and every form
of unrighteousness; but our cities do
not absorb all the denominations. Our
citizens have learned the Importance of
not always trusting to the size and style |
of apples in the top of the farmers bar
rel as an indication of what may be
found farther down. Many of our peo-
pie are accustomed to watch and see
how correctly a bushel of beets is
measured; and there are not many
honest milkcans.
Deceptions do not all cluster round
city halls. When our cities sit down
and weep over their sins, all the sur
rounding countries ought to come in
and weep with them. There is often
hostility on the part of producers
against traders, as though the man
yfan fI,n /