The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-04-01


DR.. Talmage for the subject of the fifth
of his discourses on 1.-THE Plaques
of These Three Cities" which he preached
Sunday. Both at the morning service In
Brooklyn and at the evening service I'M
der the auspices of the Christian Herald
in New York, the vast buildings were not
large enough to hold moro than one-half
the crowd who came to hear the sermon.
His text was Genesis iii, 4: aye shall
not surely die"
That was a point black lie. Satan told
II 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: ooh, Evel
Just take bite of this and you will be
omnipotent and omniscient. You shall
be as gods" Just opposite was the re-
suit. 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 4 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 Tlber,
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 a lie.
A mans entire life may be falsehood,
while with his lips he may not once di-
rectly 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
white lie. The whitest lie that was ever
told was as black as perdition. No in
ventory of public crimes viii be sufficient
that omits this gigantic abomination.
There are men, high in church and state,
actually useful, self-denying and honestin
many things, who, upon certain sub
jects, and in certain spheres, are not at
al to be depended upon for Verscity. In
deed there are many men and women
who have their notions of truthfulnesss SO
thoroughly perverted that they do not
know when they are lying. With many
it is a cultivated sin; with some 1t seems
a natural infirmity. / have known peO-
pie who seemed to have been born liars.
The falsehoods of their lives extended
from the cradle to the grave. PrevarIca-
tions, misrepresentation, and dishonesty
of speech appeared in their first utter
ances, and was as natural to them as any
of their infantile diseases, and were a sort
-f,Nsv
But many have been placed in circum-
stances 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 pendant from the
chandeliers of our finest residences; they
crowd the shelves of some of our mer-
chant princes; they fill the sidewalks
from curbstone to brown stone facing.
They cluster around the mechanics ham,
mer, and blossom from the end of the
merchants yard-stick, and sit in the doors
OF the churches. Some call them fiction"
Some style them fabrication" You
might say that they were subterfuge, dis
euise, delusion, romance, evasion, pre-
tense, fable. deception, misrepresentation;
but, as / am ignorant of anything to be
gained by the hiding of a Goddefying out
rage under photographers blanket, l
shall chiefly call them what my father
taught me TO call them-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 counter
felt. The sunrise never flaunts in colors.
The dew sports only genuine diamonds.
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
20 our markets. Day by day there creak
through our streets, and about the market
houses, farm wagons that have not an hon.
est spoke in their wheels, or truthful rivet
from tongue to tailboard. During the
last few years there have been times when
CIOuOml ndo vi lU6
farmers frkin. Neither high taxes. nor
the high price of dry goods, nor the ex-
orbitancy Of labor could excuse much
that the city has witnessed in the behavior
of the yeomanry. By the quiet tiresides
IN Westchester and Orange counties
hope there may be seasons of deep re-
Election 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 citi-
zens have learned the Importance of not
slways trusting to the size and style of
apples in the top of a farmers barrel as
IN indication OF what may be found far
ther down. Many of our people are ac-
customed to watch and see how correctly
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 coun-
tries ought to come in and weep with
them. There is often hostility on the part
of producers againt traders, as though the
man who raises the corn was necessarily
more honorable than the grain dealer,
who pours il 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