The free press., 1895-02-07
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
cHE BROOKLYN DiVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject; "The Dangers ofPessimism." !"

liars. s.'-Psalm cXyi., IL.
/ Swindled, betrayed prosecuted David, in
paroxysm OF petulance and rage, thus In.
suited the human race. David himself falsf-
I fed when he said, "All men are liars" He
! apologies and says he was unusually pro-
voked, and that he was hasty when he hurled
such universal denunciation, 81 said In my
| haste" and so on. 1t was in him only mo.
mentary triumph of pessimism. There is
ever and anon, and never more than now, a
disposition abroad to distrus. everybody.
and because some bank employees defraud
to dstrust all hank employees, ami because
some police officers have taken brides to be-
lieve that all policemen take bri5es. and be-
cause divorce cases are in the court to be-
lieve that most, if not all. marriage relations
are unhappy.
There are men who seem rapidly coming
to adopt this creed All men are liars,
scoundrels, thieves, libertines When q new
case of peridy comes to the surface. these
people clap their hands in gee. 1t gives
piquancy to their breakfast II the morning
newspaper discloseS a new exposure or
new arrest. They grow fat on vermiD.
They join the devils in hell in jubilation over
recreancy and pollution. If some one
arrested is proved innocent, it is to them
disappointment. They would rather believe
evil than good. They are vultures, pre-
ferrng carrion. They would like to be on
n committee to find something wrong. They
wish that as eyeglasses have been invented
to improve the sight. and ear trumpets have
been invented TO help the hearing, a corre-
spending instrument might be invented for
the nose, to bring nearer malodor.
Pessimism says Of the church, "The ma
iority of the members are hypocrites,
although it is no temporal advantage 10 be
member of the church, and therefore there
is no temptation to hypocrisy" Pessimism
says that the influence OF newspapers is only
bad, and that they are corrupting the world.
when the fact is that they are the mightiest
agency for the arrest Of crime and the spread
OF intelligence, and the printing press, secn-
lar and religious. is setting the nations free.
The whole tendency of things is toward
cynicism. and the gospel OF Smashup. We
excuse David OF the text for a paroXysm OF
disgust. because heapologizes for it to all the
centuries, but it is a deplorable fact that
many have taken the attitude OF perpetual
Gistrust and anathematization. There ar,
we must a7mit, deplorable facts, and we
would not hide or minify them. We are
not much encouraged to find that thu great
work of official reform in New York City be-
gins by proposition to the liquor dealers
to break the law by keeping tneir saloons
open on Sunday from two in the afternoon
to eleven at night.
Never since America was discovered has
there been worse insult TO sobriety and de-
cency and religion than that proposition.
That proposition Is equal to saying: Let
law and order and religion have n chance on
Sunday forenoons, but Sunday afternoons
open all the gates TO gin and alcohol and
Schedam schnapps and sour mash and Jer-
sey lightning, and the variegated swill OF
breweries and drunkenness and crime. Con-
secrate the first half OF the Sunday to God
and the last half to the devil. Let the chill
dren on their way to Sunday-schools In New
York at 8 o'clock in the afternoon meet the
alcoholism that does more than all other
causes combined to rob children OF their
fathers and mothers and strew the nnd with
helpless orphanage. Surely strong drink
can kill enough people and destroy enough
families and sufficiently crowd tho aims
houses and penitentiaries in six days OF tho
week without giving it an extra half day for
pauperism ana assassination.
Although we are not very jubiant over a
municipal reform that opens tho exercises
by a doxology 10 ram, we have full faith in
Col and in the gospel which will yet sink
all iniquity rs the Atlantic Ocean melts a
flake OF snow. What we want, and what l
believe we will have, is a great religious
awakening that will moralize and Christian
iZe our great populations and make them
superior to temptations, whether unlawful
or LOCALIZED SO I see no cause for dis
heartenment. Pessimism is sin, and those
who yield 10 it cripple themselves for the
war, Oh Out Slhc VI Wultl arc tllt IOTctS
OF darkness, led on by Apollyon, and on the
other side OF which ure all the forces
of Eight, lei on by the Omnipotent.
risk the statement that the vast majority of
people are doing the best they can. n ne
hundred and ninety-nine out OF a thousand
OF the officials of the municipal and the
United States governments are honest.
Out of thousand bank presidents and
cashiers. nine hundred and ninety-nine are
worthy the position they occupy. Out OF a
thousand merchants, mechanics and profess
sional men, nine hundred and ninety-nine
are doing their duty as they understand it.
Out of one thousand engineers and couduc-
tors and switchmen, nine hundred and nine
ty-nine are true to their responsible posi-
tions. 1t Is seldom that people arrive at
positions OF responsibility until they hava
been tested over and over again. If the
theory of the pessimist were accurate. So
ciety would long ago have gone to pieces,
and civilization would have been submerged
with barbarsm, and the wheel OF the GEN.
turies would have turned back TO the dark
ages. A wrong impression Is made that be-
cause two men falsify their bank accounts
those two wrongdoers are blazoned before
the world, while nothing is said in praise OF
the hundreds of bank clerks who have stood
at their desks year in and year out until
their health is well nigh gone, taking not
pins worth of that which belongs to others
Tor themselves, though with skillu stroke of
pen they might have enriched themselves
and built their country seats on the banks Of
the Hudson or the Rhine.
1t is a mean thing in human nature that
men and women are not praised for doing
well, but only eXcoriated when they do
wrong. By divine arrangement the most Of
the families OF the earth are at peace, and
the most of those united in marriage have
for each o.her affinity and affection. They
may have occasional differences. and hero
and there season OF pout, but the vast ma
jority OF those in the conjugal relation chose
the most appropriate companionship, and
are happy in that relation. You hear nothing
Of the quietude and happiness OF sucH
homes, though nothing lut death will them
part. But one sound of marital dscord
makes the ears OF Il continent, and perhaps
of II hemisphere, alert.
The one letter that ought never to have
been written printed In newspaper makes
more talk than the millions OF letters that
crowd the postof1lces and weigh down the
mail carriers with expressions oil honest love.
Tolstoi, the great Russian author, Is wrong
when he prints a book for the depreciation
of marriage. II your observation has put
you in an attitude OF deploration for the
marriage state, Que of two things is true in
regard to you. You have either been un-
r.. 49,, ttgf hst. sNtt