The Progress., 1894-01-13
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches ABOUT
POVERTY.
After Delivering Three Thousand Pounds
of Meat and Two Thousand Loaves Of
Broad to the Hungry Ones OF Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, n. Y, Jan. :, lS94.-I
seemed appropriate that DIR. Talmag
should preach this sermon after
his personal contribution of 5000
pounds of meat and 2.OOC
losves of bread to the poor who
gathered shivering in the cold around
the bakery and meat store of Brooklyn
where the food was distributed with
out tickets, and no recommendation
required except hunger. The text
was: Matthew &c: ii: "Ye have the
poor always with you"
Who said that? The Christ who
never owned anything during his
earthly stay. His cradle and his grave
were borrowed. Every fig he ate was
from some one else's tree. Every drop
OF water he d-ank was from some one
else's well. To ray his personal tax,
which was very small only thirty-one
and quarter cents, he had to perform
miracle and make fish pa it. All
the heights and depths and lengths and
breadths of poverty Christ measured
In his earthly experience, and when he
comes to speak of destitutiOn, he al
ways speaks sympathetically, and
what he said then is as true now; "le
have the poor always with YOU.
For 5000 years the bread question
has been the active and absorbing
question. Witness the people crowd
Ing up to JOseph's storchouse in Egypt.
. Witness the famine in Samaria and
Jerusalem. Witness the 1000 hungry
people for whom Christ multiplied the
loaves. Witness the uncounted mill
ions of PEOPLE now living, who. | be-
lieve, have never yet had one full meal
of healthful and nutritious food in all
their lives. Think of the 35I great fam
ines in England. Think of the -. OOO.-
600 people under the hoof of hunger
year before last in Russia The fail
ure of the Nile to overflow for seven
years in the eleventh century left those
regions depopulated Plague of in
sects in England. Plague of rats in
Madras presidency. Plague of mice
in Essex. Plague of locusts in China.
Plague of grasshOppers in America
Devastation wrought by drought, by
deluge. by frost, by war, by hurricane,
by earthquake, by comets flying too
near the earth, by change in the man
agement of national finances, by bale
fui causes innumerable | proceed to
give you three or four reasons why my
text is markedly and graphically true
in this year 1894
The first reason we have always the
poor with us, is because of the perpetual
overhauling of the tariff question, or.
as | shall call it. the tariffic contro-
versy. There is need for such a
word and so / take the responsibility |
of manufacturing it. There are mil |
lions of people who are expecting that /
the present congress of the united |
States will do something one way or |
the other to end this discussion. But |
it will never end When | was five .
years of age | remember hearing my
father and his neighbors in vehement |
discussion of this very question. 1t
was high tariff or low tariff or no tariff
at all. When your great-grand-
child dies at 90 years of age, it will
probably be from over-exertion in dis
cussing the tariff. On the dav the
world is destroyed, there will be three
men standing on the postoflice steps
one a high tariff man. another low
tariff man, and the other free tariff
man - each one red in the face
from excited argument on this
subject, Other questions may get
quieted the Mormon question, the sill
yer question, the pension question, the
civil service question. All questions
of annexation may come to peaceful
settlement by the annexation of isl
ands two weeks voyage away and the
heat of their volcanoes conveyed
through pipes under the sea made use
full in warming our continent, or an
nexation of the moon, dethroning the
queen of night, who is said to be dis
solute, and bringing the lunar popu-
lations under the influence of our free
yea all other questions,
and international, may be
settled, but this tariffic question, never
1t will not only never be settled, but
1t can never be moderately quiet for
more than three years at time, each
tSAh y SSSSAi6 AheC PC"NA waning OhC vi |
the four years to fix it up, and then
the next party will fix it down. Our
finances cannot get we'll because
of too many doctors. 1t is
with sick nations as with sick in
dividuals. Here is man terribly dis
ordered as to his body. A doctor is
called in, and he administers a febri-
fuge, a spoonful every hour. But re-
covery is postponed, and the anxious
friends call in another doctor, and
he says: What this patient needs is
blood letting; now roll up your
sleeve!" and the lancet flashes. But
still recovery is postponed. and
doctor is called in, and he
some small pellets, and
says; "All the patient wants is rest
Recovery still postponed, the family
say that such small pellets can not
mount to much anyhow, and an allo-