The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1894-03-03
TALMAGE'S SERlli
The Poor and their Beles
the Rest of Mar

Rev. I. Dewitt Talmage

Il wv - A>0 WIN AoAAu0kO
the following sermon in the b
tabernacle, taking for his text:
re have the poor always with you. Matti
xvi. II.
| Who said that? The Christ, v
never owned anything during -
earthly stay. His cradle and His grd1
were borrowed. Every fig He ate Il
from some one else's tree. Every df
of water He drank was from some
else's we'll To pay His personal Il
which was very small, only thirty-d
and one-quarter cents, He had to Pc
form miracle and make fish pay il
All the heights and depths and length,
and breadths of poverty Christ meas
ured in His earthly experience, and
when He comes to speak of destitutior
He always speaks alphabetically
and what He said then is as true now
''Ye have the poor always with you"
For six Thousand years the bread
question has been the active and alb.
sorbing question. Witness the people
crowding up to Joseph's store-house in
Egypt Witness the famine in Samaris
and Jerusalem Witness the seven
thousand hungry people for whom
Christ multiplied the loaves. Witness
the uncounted millions of people now
living, who. believe, have never vet
had one full meal of healthful and nu-
| tritious food in all their lives. Think
OF the three hundred and fifty-four
great famines in England. Think of
the twenty-five million people under tho
hoof OF hunger year before last in Rus
STA. The failure of the Nile to overflow
for the seven years in the eleventh
century left those regions depopulated.
Plague of insects 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
draught, by deluge. by frost, by war,
by hurricane, by earthquake, by
comets flying too near the earth, by
change in the management OF national
finances, baleful 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 p6rpet-
ual overhauling of the tariff question,
or. as shall call it, the tarific con-
troversy. There is need for such
word, and so l 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 nv
father and his neighbors in vehement
discussion of this very question. It
was high tariff or low tariff. or no tariff
at all. When your grandchild dies
at ninety years of age it will prob
ably be from overexertion in discuss
ing the tariff. On the day the world
is destroyed there will be three men
standing on the post Office steps-one
a high tariff man, another a low tariff
man and the third free trade man
each one red in the face from excited
argument on this subject. Other ques-
tions may get settled, the Mormon
question, the silver question, the PEN
sion question, the civil-service cues
ton. All questions of annexation may
come to peaceful settlement by the |
annexation of islands two weeks
voyage away and the heat of |
their volcanoes conveyed, through
pipes under the sea, made useful in |
our continent, or annexation
OF the moon, dethroniDg the Queen Of |
Night, who is said TO be dissolute, and |
bringing the populations under the in
duence of our free institutions; yea, all |
other institutions, national and in
may be settled. But this
tariffic question, never. 1t will not
only never be settled. but it can never
be moderately quiet for more than
three years at time. each party gek-f
ting into power taking one Of the four
Years to fix it up, and the next party
will fix it down.
Our finances can not get well because
If too many doctors 1t is with sick
nations as with sick individuals. Here
$ q man terribly disordered as to his
,ody. A doctor is called in and he adj
minister's febrifuge, spoonful every
Tour. But recovery is postponed, and
he anxious friends call in another
loctor, and he says: What this pa
lent needs is blood-letting; now roll
Up your sleeve!" and the lancet flashes
sut still recovery is postponed, and =
doctor is called in, and he
some small pellets, and
avs: All the patient wants sis rest"
recovery still postponed, the family
avs that small pellets can not amount
o much anyhow, and an allopathic ,
octor is called in, and he say: what |
his patient wants is calomel and
alap.' Recovery still postponed, = ,
ydropathic doctor is called in, and he
avs: What this patients wants is
OF and cold baths, and he must have
hem right away. Turn on the faucet
nd get ready the shower baths Re-
overy still postponed, an electric doc
pr is called in, and he brings ali the {
,hools to bear upon the poor sufferer,
nd the patient, after brave struggle ]
'r life, expires. What rkilled him? 8
90 many doctors. And that is what I
killing our national finances. NV
easonal friends, Cleveland and Harri. I
IN and Carlyle and Mckinley and c
herman, as talented and lovely and
olendid men as walk the earth, all a
pod doctors, but their treatment of c
ir languishing finances is SO differ t
ut that neither treatment has a a
Ill opportunity, and under the r
instant changes it is simply il