The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-01-19
THE NATIONS POOR.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage Discourses
on Poverty.
There Are Many Causes ConspirIng TO Keep
Men Poor, and They Are National
M Wen as Individual to
Large Extent.

Large Extent.
The following timely discourse was
delivered by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage
an the Brooklyn tabernacle, being based
ON the text:
Ye have the poor always with you.-Matthew,
XVI. II.
Who said thatP The Christ, who
never owned anything during His
earthly stay. His cradle and His grave
were borrowed. Every Hg He ate was
from some one easeS tree. Every drop
of water He drank was from some ore
else's well To pay His personal tax,
which was very small, only thirty-one
and one-quarter cents, lie had to per-
form miracle and make a fish pay ii.
All the heights and depths and lengths
and breadths of poverty Christ meas
Ured in His earthly experience, and
when He comes to speak of destitution
He always speaks sympathetically,
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 pecpla
crowding up to Joseph in
Egypt. Witness the famine IN Samaria
and Jerusalem. Witness the seven
thousand hungry people for whom
Christ multiplied the loaves Witness
the uncounted millions of people now
living, who. I believe, have never vet
had one full meal of healthtul 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 the
hoof of hunger year before last in Rus
sia. The failure of the Nile to overflow
for the seven years in the eleventh
century left those regions depopuleted.
Plague Of insects ia England Plague
OF rats n Madras Presidency. Plague
of M 4ce in Essex. Plague of locusts in
Cfna. Plague of grasshoppers in
America. Devastation wrought bv
drsught, 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 1924
The FIRST reason we have slWavs the
poor with us is because OF the perpet-
oal overhauling of The tariff question.
or, as I shall call it, the tarific con-
troversy. There is a 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 l was fsve
ye.rs of age l remember hearing my
father and his neighbofs IN vehement
discussion of this very question. 1t
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
snE the tariff On the day the world
is destroyed there will be three men
standing on the post Office steps-one
high tariff man, another low tariff
man and the third free trade man
each Ghe red in the face from excited
argup ent on this subject. Other ques-
tions nay get settled, the Mormon
questis n, the silver question, the PEN
sion question, the civil-service ques-
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
warming our continent, or annexation
of the moon, dethroning the Queen of
Night, who is said to be dissolutc, and
bringing the populations under the in
Auence of our free institutions; yea, all
other institutions, national and in
transitional, 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 a time. each party get
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 we'll because
of too many doctors. 1t is with sick
nations as with sick individuals Here
is man terribly disordered as to his
body. A doctor is called-in and he ad-
ministers febrifuge, spoonful every
hour. But recovery is postponed, and
the anxious friends cali in another
doctor, and he says: What this pa
tient needs is blood-letting; now roll
up your sleeve." and the lancet flashes.
But still recovery is postponed, and
homeopathic doctor is called in, and he
administers some small pellets, and
says: "All the patient wantsois rest"
Recovery still postponed, the family
says that small pellets can not amount
to much anyhow, and an allopathic
doctor is called in, and he say: what
this patient wants is calomel and
jalap." Recovery still postponed. a
hydropathic doctor is called in, and he
says: what this patients wants is
hot and cold baths, and he must have
them right away Turn en- the faucet
and get ready the shower baths" Re-
covery still postponed, an electric doc
tor is called in, ard he brings all the
schools to bear upon the poor sufferer,
and the patient, after brave struggle
for life, expires. What ckilled him?
Too many doctors And that is what
is killing our national finances. My
peasonal friends, Cleveland and Harri-
son and Carlyle and Mckinley and
Sherman, as talented and lovely and
splendid men as walk the earth, all
good doctors, but their treatment Of
our languishing finances is SO differ
ent that neither treatment has
full opportunity, and under the
constant changes it is simply
wonderful that the nation still
fyw~ar The 4awsH raroSffNu will