The Bossier banner., 1893-11-30
TALMAGES SERMON.
A Discourse on the Decaiogue for
Voters to Consider.
The Need of Pure Men In Omce-Ihe
Breaking of One Commandment
as Bad as Breaking ANY
of the Others.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered
the following discourse on the duties OF
the citizen in the Brooklyn tabernacle,
taking for his text:
And all the people saw the thunderings and
the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet
and the mountain smoking.-Exodus XXX, l8
On the eve of elections in the sixty
counties of this state, and in all the
counties of some of the other states,
while there are many hundreds of nom
inees to office, it is appropriate and I'M
portant that preach this before-elee-
tion sermon.
Ny text informs you that the light
nings and earthquakes united their
forces to wreck mountain of Arabia
Petrea in olden time, and travellers to-
day find heaps of porphyry and green
stone rocks, bowlder against bowlder,
the remains of the first law library,
written, not on parchment or papyrus,
but on, shattered slabs of granite. The
corner-stones of all morality, of all
wise law, of all righteous jurispru-
dence, of all good government, are the
O"o I'd OlCJS VI oIOuC OLL WI wa
written the Ten Commandments. All
Roman law, all French law, all En-
glish law, all American law that is
worth anything, all common law, civil
law, criminal law, martial law, law of
nations were rocked in the cradle of
the twentieth chapter of Exodus. And
it would be well in these times of
great political agitation if the news
papers would print the Decalogue
some day in place of the able editorial.
The fact is that some people suppose
that the law has passed out of exist
ence, and some are not aware of some
of the passages of that law and
others say this or that is of the more
Importance, when no one has any right
TO make such an assertion. These laws
are the pillars of society, and if you
remove one pillar you damage the
structure. l have noticed that men
are particularly vehement against sins
to which they are not particularly
tempted, and find no especial wrath
against sins in which they themselves
indulge. They take out one gun from
this battery of ten guns, and load that,
and unlimber that, and fire that. They
say: ''This is an Armstrong gun, and
this is Krupp gun, and this is Nor
denfeldt five-barreled gun, and this is
a Gatling ten-barreled gun, and this
is a Martigny thirty-sevenb barreled
gun" But I have to tell them that
they are all of the same caliber, and
that they shoot from eternity to eter-
nifty. Many questions are before the
people in the coming elections all over
this land, but I shall try to show you
that the most important thing to be
settled about all these candidates is
their personal, moral character. The
Decalogue forbids idolatry, image
making, rofauity, maltreatment of
parents, Sabbath desecration, murder,
theft, incontinence, lying and covet-
BUSINESS. That is the Decalogue by
which you and will have to be tried,
and by the same Decalogue you and l
must try candidates for office.
Of course we shall not find anything
like perfection. If we do not vote un-
til we find an immaculate nominee we
will never vote at all. We have so
many faults of our own we ought not
to be censorious or maledictory or hy-
percritlcal in regard to the faults of
others. The Christly rule is as appro-
pirate for November as any other
month in the year: Judge not that
We be not judged, for with what meas
ure We mete it sh:.n be measured to
you again"
Most certainly are we not to take
the statement of red-hot partisanship as
the real character of any man. From
nearly all the great cities of this land
receive daily or weekly newspapers
sent to me regularly and in compli-
ment, so see both sides-I see all
sides-and it is most entertaining and
my regular amusement to read the op-
posite statements. The one statement
says the man is an angel, and the other
says he is devil; and split the differ
ence, and find him halfway between.
There never has been an honest or re-
spectacle man running for the United
States presidency, or for iudgeship,
or for the mayoralty, or for the shriev-
atty, since the foundation of the
American government, if we may be-
lieve the old files of newspapers in the
museums What q mercy it is that
they were not all hanged before they
were inaugurated! If man believe
one-half of what he sees in the news
papers in these times his career will be
very short outside of Bloomingdale in
sane asylum. l was absent two or
three years ago during Que week of a
political canvass, and was dependent
untirely upon what read in regard to
what had occurred in these cities, and
! read there was n procession in New
York of five thousand patriots, and a
minute after l read in another sheet
that there were seventeen thousand;
and then I read in regard to an
other procession, that there were
ten thousand, and then 1 read
In another paper that there were
sixty thousand. A campaign orator in
the rink or at the academy or music
received very cold reception-a very
chilling reception-said one statement.
The other statement said that the au-
dience rose at him, so great was the en-