Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-12

seemed appropriate that DIR. Talmage
should preach this sermon after
his personal contribution of 5000
pounds of meat and 1000
loaves 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: H. "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 drank was from some one
else's we'll To pay his personal tax,
which was very small, only thirty-one
and a quarter cents, he had to perform
miracle and make fish pay 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 restitution, he al
ways speaks alphabetically, and
what he said then is as true now; "Ye
have the poor always with you"
For 1000 years the bread question
has been the active and absorbing
question. Witness the people crowd
ing up to Joseph's storehouse in Egypt.
Witness the famine in Samaria and
cru salem. Witness the 1000 hungry
people for whom Christ multiplied the
| loaves, Witness the amounted 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 354 great fam
ines in England. Think of the %, 000,-
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
|
agement of national finances, by bale
full causes innumerable. i 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 i 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 l 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 oyer-eXertion in dis
cussing the tariff. On the day The
world is destroyed, there will be three
men standing on the postoffice steps
one a high tariff man, another a 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
Quoted 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
institutions; yea all other questions
national and international, may be
settled, but this tariflic question, never
1t will not only never be settled, but
it can never be moderately quiet foI
more than three years at time, each
party getting into power taking one OF
the four years to fix it up, and then
the next party will fix it down. Oui
finances cannot get well 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, 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
sleevel" and the lancet flashes. But
still recovery is postponed, and q
homeopathic doctor is called in, and he
administers some small pellets, and
says; "All the patient wants is rest. >
Recovery still postponed, the family
say that such small pellets can not
amount to much anyhow, and an allo-
pathic doctor is called in, and he says
What this patient wants is ealomel
and jalap," Recovery still postponed,
n hydropathic doctor is called in, and
he says: What this patient wants il