The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-07
w0RKIxoMEs AND HARD TIMES.
Able Sermon Preached by Rev. F. T..
 Root at Dwight Place Church.

"NN"AG" ASD A AN"' Able sermon Preached by Rev. E. T..
 Root at Dwight Place Church.
 Rev. Edward T. Root of Baltimore, Maryland. preached m able and elo- quent sermon at tho Dwight Place church Sunday morning, his subject being "A workingman's Theory of Hard Times" The sermon was of such unusual interest and dealt so ably with the vital issues of the " that the en- tire sermon Is printed Q, request. The text was from Amos, sih chapter, sth verse:
 '.shali not the land trcmble tor this and eve shall rise np wholly like the river. and it shall be troubled and sink again, like the river of Egypt
 The address was as follows:
 Of all the worlds great rivers there is none that can compare in natural or historical interest with the river 0. Egypt Thousands of years before Christ. when Europe was wilderness. when even Italy and Greece were in- habited only by barbarians. before even the holy civilization of Chaldca existed or the milleniums of Chinese history had begun, the lower valley of the Nile contained a civilization so splendid that It's scattered ruins to- day All the traveller with awe. For Egypt was. as 1t were. the hot-bed in which the first choice of fruits Of hu- man culture were rlpened. while all the rest of the world was still held In the icy-winter of barbarian. And so of all the many routes of travel there IS no voyage with such charm as that
 .whcre the, Nile reflects the endless length
 Of dark-red colonades."
 Scarcely less fascinating are .ts nat ural features. The narrow strip of and barren hills in the background, the islands and cataracts, the great river itself and above all the brilliant blue of a sky which is never obscured by clouds. The voyager on this mighty stream is filled with an overpowerins sense of infinitude and mystery; for the source of this Father of Waters" has never been discovered. AS Bayard Taylor, reluctantly returning from partial exploration, wrote, Although in standing upon the threshold oe his vast central realms, I felt that 1 had realized a portion of my cream; could not turn away from the vision of those untrodden solitudes. crowned by the flashing snows of Kilimondjaro, the monarch of African mountains. without keen pang of regret" Since Colum- bus first looked upon San Salvador the earth has but one emotion of triumph left in her bestowal, and that che re- serves for him who shall first drink from the fountains of the White Nile under the snow fields of Kilimandjaro. But the chief peculiarity of the Nile is that alluded to in our text by the prophet Amos. All other streams and rivers were known to be fed by rains and snows, and their freshets or low water could be accounted for. But throughout the valley of the Nile 1t al- most never rains, the river receives no tributary, and it's volume is as great at the furthest point known to the an, cients as where it empties into the Mediterranean. This mighty flood about the end of every June begins to rise without any apparent cause, and rises steadily until the middle of Octo- Der, when at Cairo it stands twenty four feet and at Thebes thirty-six feet above low water level. On this annual inundation the whole wealth and exis- tence of Egypt depends. If the rise is less than eighteen feet the land does not get its enrichment and irrigation, and starvation stares Egypt in the face. If 1t reaches thirty feet the villages are flooded, the fields undermined and washed away. In all the world there was no phenomenon so beneficent or so terrible, or to the ancients so inexpli- cable; and none made so deep an inn pression upon their imagination. We can reason out it's cause to-day; but none has ever seen the lofty mountain peaks within ten degrees of the equator whose melting snows. when the sun crosses the line northward in the spring, feed this mighty freshet. Amos compares the fluctuations of national prosperity to the Nile. This mysteri- ous river Is the Attest figure any poet could find to represent the course of human history, like the Nile in it's vast ness and the mystery of the causes which affect it. Or still more fittingly, since the Nile is the source of the fer tility and wealth of Egypt may repre- sent the history of the wealth of na- tiors. For of all the economical phe- nomena which history presents, one of the most remarkable is the periodic fluctuations of prosperity, which, in-' stead of disappearng, become more marked with the advance of civilization. Like the Nile, the mighty stream of business rises and falls, eras of great prosperity and eager investment being followed by panics and business de- pression. Such an era of hard times is now upon us. It needs no argument to prove that such periods bring untold suffering to capitalist and laborer alike; for who needs to be told that indiges- ton causes pain when he is at the very moment tortured by collie. Nor does any neneed to be convinced that these disastrous fluctuations ought to be pre- vented if possible. The inundations of the Nile are beneficial, but none would maintain that panics are. There is no possibility of controlling the mighty flood of business interests until we comprehend the causes which produce these crises. And so to-day men are eagerly discussing the cause of the pres ent hard times. Some say they are due to the depreciation of silver, some l to the appreciation of gold. Some as- cribe them to high tariff, others to the l fear of reduction in duties. But it is 1 clear that though one or the other of | these alleged causes may be; the occa- oRk | kN.~ I.z Ly- -S