Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-11-19
REV. DR.. TALMAGH.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
subject: .The Golden cair..

TEXT; "And he took the cd'f which they
had made and burnt it IN the fire, and
ground it to potcder aud ,stretoed il upon
the mater and made the children of Israel
drink Of it ."-Exodus xxxii., 20.
People will have God of some kind, and
they prefer one of their own making. Here
come the lsraelites, breaking Off their gold.
en- earrings the men as well as the women.
Tor IN those times there vera masculine as
well as feminine decorations. Where did
they, get these beautiful gold earrings.
coming up as they did from the desert? On,
they borrowed" them fron the Egyptians
whom they left Egypt Thess earrings are
| piled up into pyramid of gatherings beauty.
ANY more earrings to bringS' says Aaron.
None. Fire is kindIed, thu earrings are
melted and poured into mold not of an
eagle or a war charger, but of calf; the
| gold cools off, the mold is taken away, and
the idol is set upon its four legs.
| An altar is built in front OF the shining
call. 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 thesa
golden calf fanatics, and be loses his pa
thence, and he takes the two plates of stone
on winch were written the Ten Command.
ments and filings them SO hard against
rock that they split all to pieces. When
man gets mad he is very apt to freak all the
len Commandments.
Moses rushes in, and be takes this calf
god and throws it into a hot fire until it is
melted all out of shape and then pulverizes
it--not by the modern appliance Of nitro
murlatlc acid, but by the ancient appliance
OF inter, or by the old fashioned file. He
makes Tor the people most nauseating
graft; He takes this pulverized golden calf
and throws it into the only brook which is
accessible, and the people are compelled to
drlnk 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 IL
up and bears it TO the mouth of all the
rivers, and when the tides set back the re-.
mains of this golden calf are carried up into
the Hudson and the East River, and the
Thames and the Clyde and the Tiber, and
men go out and they skim the glittering sur
face, and they bring it ashore, and they
make another golden calf, and California
and Australia break off their golden ear
rings to augment the pile and in the fires of
financial excitement and struggle all these
these things are melted together, and while
we stand looking and wondering what will
come of 1t, lol wa find that the golden calf
OF lsraelitish worship has become the golden
calf of European and American worship.
shall describe TO you the god spoken OF
IN the text, his temple, his altar of sacrifice,
the music that As made in his temple, and
Then the final breaking up of the whole
congregation of idolatera.
Put aside this curtain and YOU see the
golden calf of molern idolatry. 1t Is not
like other idols, made out of stocks or
stones, but it has an ear 50 sensitive that it
can hear the whispers on Wall street and
Third street and State street, and the foot
tails ia the Bank of England, and the hut.
ter or a Frenchmans heart on the Bourse.
IL has an eye so keen that it can see the rust
on the farm Of Michigan wheat, and the in-
sect in the Maryland peach orchard, and the
trampled grain under the hoof Of ths Rus.
Sian war charger.
I6 is so mighty that it swings any way it
Will the worlds shipping. It has its foot on
all the merchantmen and the steamers. 1t
started the American civil war, and under
God stopped it, and it decided the Turko-
RUSSIAN contest. One broker in September
1859. In New York, shouted Zone hundred
and sixty for milionm and the whole con-
tinent 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 Or
leans. and when it shakes itself it shakes tue
world Oh this is mighty god--the golden
calf of the worlds worship
But every god must have its temple, and
this golden calf of the text is no exception.
Its temple is vaster than St Pauls of the
English, and st. Peters of the Italians, and
the Alhambra of the Spaniards, and the
Parthenon of the Greeks, and the Tai Mahal
OF the Hindoos, and all the other cathedrals
put together. Its pillars ara groovei and
tiuted with gold ana its ribbed riches are
towering gold, and its chandeliers are de-
scending gold, and its floors are tecsellatad
gold, and its vaults are crowded heaps of
gold, and its spires and domes are soaring
gold, and its organ pipes are resouuding 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 eyes and ears and nostrils Of the calf of
gold.
Further, every god must have not only its
temple, but its altar of sacrifice, and this
golden calf of the text is no exception. Its
altar is not made out OF stone, as other al
tars but cut of counting room desks and
hreproof safes, and it is a broad, q long,
high altar. The victims sacrificed on it are
innumerable. What does this god care about
the groans and struggles of the victims be-
fore it, With cold, metallic eye it looks on
and yet lets them suffer. Oh, heaven and
earth, what an atari What a sacrifice O.
body, mind and SOUL Tae physical health
OF great multitude is flung on this sacri-
cnloral and morphine and intoxicants
Some OF them struggle in nightmare of
stocks and at l o'clock in the morning sud.
denly rise up shouting: "a thousand shares
of railroad stock-one hundred and eight
and half, take it" until the whole family
Is affrightsd, and the spectators fall back
on their pillows and sleep until they are
awakened again by a corner or a sudden
rise" in something else. Their nerves gone.
their digestion gone their brain gone-they
die. The clergyman comes in and reads the
funeral service. BLESSED ara the dead who
die in the L)rd.'' Mistake. They do not
die in the Lord'-the golden calf kicked
them
The trouble is when men sacrifice them
selves on this altar suggested in the text
they not only sacrifice themselves, but they
sacrifice their families. II a man by an iii
course is determined to go to perdition, I
suppose you will have TO let him go; but he
puts his wife aud children in an equipage
that is the amazement of the avenues, and
the driver lashes the horses into two whirl-
winds, and the spokss fash in the sun, and
the golden headgesr of the harness CLEANS,
until Black Calamity takes the bits of the
horses and stops them, and shouts to the
luxurious occupants of the equipage, Get
out" They get out. They get down. That
husband and father flung his family 50 hard
they never got up again. There was the
mark on them for life--the mark OF split
hoos-the death dealing hoof of the golden
calf
Solomon offered in one sacrifice, on ons
occasion, twenty two thousand oxen and one
hundred and twenty thousan sheep; but
that was tame sacrifice compared with the
multitude of men who are sacrificing the n
selves on this altar of the golden calf, and
sacrificing their families with them. The
soldiers OF General Havslock in India
walked literally ankle deep in ths blood OF
the mouse of massacre where two hun.
dred women and children hal been slain by
the Sepoys, but the blood around about
this altar of the golden calf flows up to tho
knee, flows to the girdie, flows to the
shoulder, flows to the lip. Great Col OF
heaven and earth, have mercy! The golden
calf has none
Still the degrading worship goes on, AMI
the devotoes kneel AMI kiss the dust. and
count their golden beads. aat cross them.
selves with the blood of their own sacrifice.
The music rolls on under the arches; it is
made of clnkiug silver and elinking gold
and the rafting specie of the banks AMI
brokers shops and the voices of ali the ex-
changes. The soprano of the Worship is
carried by the timid voices OF men who have
just begun to speculate, while the deep bass
rolls out from those who for ten years of mi
guilty have bean dou6ly damned. Chorus OF
voices rejoicing over what they have made.
Chorusof voices waiting over what thew