Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1893-10-30

"o "iH OIeah! better not try to meas
ure the thundeTbolts Of the Almighty.
saying this has less blaze, this has less
momentum. Better not handle the guns.
better not experiment much with the di-
vine ammunition.
Cicero said he saw the "Iliad" written
on a nutshell, and you and l have seen
the Lords Prayer written on a s cent
piece, but the whole tendency Of these
times is to write the Ten Commandments
80 small nobody can see them. protest
this day against the attempt to revise
the Decalogue which was given on Mount
Sinai amid the blast Of trumpets, and
the cracking of the rocks, and the par
oxysm of the mountain of Arabia Petr@a.
l bring up the candidates for ward
and township and city and state office.
bring them up, and | try them by this
decalogue. Of course they are imper-
feet. We are all imperfect. We say
things we ought not to say; we do things
we ought not to do. We have all been
wrong; we have all done wrong. But
shall find out one Of the candidates who
comes, in my estimation, nearest to obe-
dience of the Ten Commandments, and
will vote for him, and you will vote for
him unless you love God less than your
party-then You will not.
Herodotus said that Nitocris, the
daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, was so fas-
cinated with her beautiful village of
Ardericca that she had the river above
Babylon changed so it wound this way
and wound that, and curved this way
and curved that, and though you sailed
on it for three days every day you would
be in sight of that exquisite village.
Now, / do not care which way you sail
in morals, or which way you sail in life,
If you only sail within sight of this beau
tiful group of divine commandments.
Although they may sometimes seem to
be little angular, do not care which
way you sail, if you sail in sight of them,
you will never run aground, and you will
never be shipwrecked. Society needs
toning up on all these subjects.
l tell you there is nothing worse TO
fight than the 10 regiments, with bay
onets and sabers of fire, marching down
the side of Mount Sinai. They always
gain the victory, and those who fight
against them go under. There are thou
sands and tens of thousands of men be-
ing slain by the Decalogue. What is
the matter with that young man of
whom l read, dying in his dissipations2
In his dying delirium he said: Nov
fetch on the dice. 1t is minel No, mo-!
1t is gone; all is gonel Bring on more
wine! Bring on more winel Oh, how
they rattle their chainsl Fiends, fends,
fiendsl l say you cheatl The cards are
markedl Oh, death! oh, death! oh, deathl
Fiends, fiends, fendsp And he gasped
his last and was gone. The Ten Com
mandments slew him.
Let not ladies and gentlemen In this
nineteenth century revise the Ten Com
mandments, but let them in society and
at the polls put to the front those who
come the nearest to this God lifted stand
ard. On the first Tuesday morning in
November read the twentieth chapter of
Exodus at family prayers. The moral
or immoral character of the officers elect
ed will add rs per cent unto or subtract
75 per cent from the public morals.
You and cannot afford to have bad
officials The young men of this country
cannot afford to have bad officials. The
the moral, the artistic, the
agricultural, the manufacturing, the re-
hgious interests of this country cannot
afford to have bad officials, and if you,
on looking over the whole field, cannot
find men who, in your estimation, come
within reasonable distance Of obedience
of the Decalogue, stay at home, and do
not vote at all.
GOOD CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT.
I suppose when in the city Of Sodom
there were four candidates put up for
Office, and Lot did not believe in any Of
them, he did not register. / suppose If
there came crisis in the politics of
Babylon, where Daniel did not believe
in any of the candidates, he staid at
home on election day, praying with his
face toward Jerusalem. But we have
no such crisis, we have no such exi-
gency, thank God. But ! have to say to
you today that the moral character Of
rulers always affects the ruled, and ap-
peal to history.
Wicked King Manasseh depressed the
moral tone of all the nation Of Judah
and threw them into idolatry. Good
King Josiah lifted up the whole nation
by his excellent example. Why Is 1t to-
day England is higher up in morals than
at any point in her national history II
is because she has the best ruler in all
the attempts to scandalize
her name failure. The political power
of Talleyrand brooded all the political
tricksters of the last 90 years. The dis
honest vice presidency Of Aaron Burr
blasted this nation until important let
ters were written in cipher, because the
people could not trust the United States
mail. And let the court circles OF Louis
XIV and Henry VIII march out, followed
by the debauched nations.
The higher up you put bad man the
worse is his power for evil. The great
fabulist says that the pigeons were in
fright at a kite flying In the air, and 90
these pigeons hoyered pear the dovecot.
But one day the kite saidi why areyou
50 afraidS Why do you pass your life IN
terrori Make me king, and I'll destroy
an your enemies" 50 the pigeons made
the kite king, and as soon a. he got the
throne hisregular diet was pigeon day.