The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-11-25
THE GOLDEN CALF.
DR. Talmage breaches Against the
Idolatry Of Money.
People Must Have a God of Some Kind
and Many of Them Worship the
Golden God-The Love of
Money Denounced.

The subject of discourse chosen by
Rev. DR.. Talmage for his first sermon
after the national election, was one pc
culiarly appropriate to the money max
ing spirit of the times 1t was "The
Golden Calf" the text selected being
Exodus xxi 20: ''And he took the
calf which they had made and burnt IL
in the fire, and ground it TO powder and
strewed it upon the water and made
the children of Israel drink of it,
People viii have God of some kind,
and they prefer one of their own max
ing. Here come the lsraelites, break
ing OFF their golden earrings, the men
as well as the women, for in those
times there were masculine as well as
feminine decorations. Where did they
get these beautiful gold earrings, COM
ing up as they did from the desert? o,
they borrowed" them of the Egyptions
when they left Egypt. These earrings
are piled up into a pyramid of glitter
ing beauty. "Any more earrings to
bring?" says Aaron. None. Fire
is kindled; the earrings are melted and
poured into mold, not an
eagle or a war charger, but of a
calf; the gold cools off; the
mold is taken away, and fle idol is set
upon its four legs. An altar is built in
front of the shining calf Then the
people throw up their arms, and gyrate,
and shrek, and dance nightly, and
worship. Moses has been six weeks on
Mount Sinai, and he comes back and
hears the bowling and sees the dancing
of these golden calf fanatics, and he
loses his patience, and he takes the two
plates of stone on which were written
the Ten Commandments and filings
them SO hard against n rock that they
split all to pieces. When a man gets
mad he is very apt to break al the Ten
Commandments Moses ruShes in and he
takes this calf god and throws it into
hot fire, until it is melted all out of
shape, and then pulverizes it-not by
the modern appliance of nitrO-muriatic
acid, but by the ancient appliance of
inter, or by the old fashioned file. He
makes for the people most nauseating
draught He takes this pulverized gOl-
den calf and throws it in the only brook
which is accessible, and the people are
compelled to drink of that brook or not
drink at all. But they did not drink
all the glittering stuff thrown on the
surface. Some of it flows on down the
surface of the brook to the river, and
then flows on down the river to the sea,
and the sea takes it up and bears it to the
mouth of all the rivers, and when the
tides set back, the remains of this gold
en- calf are carried up into the Hudson
and the Thames and the Clyde and the
Tiber, and men go out and they skim
the glittering surface and they bring it
ashore and they make another golden
calf, and California and Australia break
off their golden earrings to augment
the pile, and in the fires of financial ex-
citement and struggle all these things
are melted together, and while we
stand look:ng and wondering what will
come of it, To- we find that the golden
calf of Israelitish worl1ship has become
The golden calf of European and Ameri-
caa worship.
I shall describe to you the god spoken
Of in the text, his temple, his altar of
sacrifice, the music that is made in his
temple, and then the final breaking up
Of the whole congregation of idolators.
Put aside this curtain and you see the
golden calf of modern idolatry. It is
not like other idols, made out of sticks
or stone, but it has an ear so sensitive
chat it can hear the whispers on Wall
street, and Third street and State street
and the footballs in the bank of En-
gland, and the futter of Frenchman's
heart on the bourse. 1t has an eye so
keen that it can see the rust on the
farm OF Michigan wheat and the insect
inthe Maryland peach orchard, and the
trampled grain under the hoof of the
Russian war charger. 1t is so mighty
that it swings any way it will the
worlds shipping. 1t has its foot on all
the merchantmen and the steamers. 1t
started the American civil war, and uu-
der God stopped 1t, and it decided the
Turko-Russian contest. One broker in
September, 1859, in New York shouted:
zone hundred and sixty for million!''
and the whole continent shivered. This
golden calf of the text has its right
front foot in New York. its left front
foot in Chicago, its right back foot in
Charleston, its left back foot in New
Orleans, and when it shakes itself it
shakes the world o. this is a mighty
god-tbe golden calf of the worlds
worship.
But every God must have its temple,
+ Z ~
ception. Its temple is vaster than St.
PauI's of the English, and ST Peters
of the Italian, and the Alhambra of the
Spaniards, and the Parthenon of the
Greeks, and the Tai Mahal of the Hin
docs, and all the other cathedrals put
together. Its pillars are grooved and
fiuted with gold, and its floors are tes-
selated gold. and its vaults are crowded
heaps of gold, and its spires and domes
are soaring gold, and its organ pipes
are resounding gold, and its pedals are
tramping gold, and its stops pulled out
are flashing gold, while standing at the
head of the temple, as the presiding
deity, are the hoofs and shoulders and
ewes and ears and nostrils of the calf of
gold.
Further, every god must have not
only its temple, but its altar of sacri-
fee, and this golden calf of the text is
no exception. Its altar is not made out
of stone as other altars, but out of
counting room desks and fire proof
safes, and it is a broad, long, high
altar. The victims sacrificed on it are
innumerable. What does this god care
about the groans and struggles of the
victims before it? With cold. metallic
eye it looks on and yet lets them suffer
o Heaven and earth, what an altar!
what a sacrifice of body, mind and
L. IL =.