The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1895-02-02
DANGERS OF PESSIMISM.
Talmago Discourses Upon an
Unmitioated Evil.
An Enemy Tint Is Creating Much Trouble
in the Church as Welt rs in Society
A Better View of Life de-
Picted-

III II recent S'Iiilph at bI'''niN Y
4. DE Witt Talmagc took Tor his sub
icct. The Dangers of l'essimism." the
text selected being Psalm cXvi. H.: Il
said in my haste. all men are liars
Dr.. Taimagc said:
Swindlcd, betrayed, prosecuted David,
in u paroXysm Of pctulance and rage,
thus inSultcd the human race. David
himself falsitied when he said, ''all
men are liars He apologies and
says he was unusually provoked, and
that he was hasty when he hurled such
universal dcnunciation. Il said in my
haste and so on. II was in him only
a m~omentary triumph of pessimism.
There is everand non, and never more
than now, q disposition abroad to dis
trust everybody, and because some
bank employees defraud, to distrust
all bank employees; and because some
police officers have taken brides, to
believe that all policemen take brides;
and because divorce cases are in court,
to believe that most, if not all, mar
riaGe relations are unhappy. There
are men who seem rapidly coming to
adopt this creed: All men are liars,
scoundrels, thieves, libertines. When
a new ease of perfidy comes to the sur
face, these people clap their hands in
glce. 1t gives %piquancy to their break
fast if the morning newspaper discloses
a new exposure or "A new arrest. They
grow fat on vermin. They join the
devils in hell in jubilation over recre-
ancy and pollution. If some one ar
rested is proved innocent, it is to them
a disappointment. They would rather
believe evil than good. They are vul-
lures, prcferring carrion. They would
like to be on n committee to find some
thing wrong.
Pessimism says of the church,: THE
majority of the members are hypocrites,
although it is no temporal advantage
to be "a member of the church, and
therefore there is no temptation to
hypocrisy" Pcssimism says that the
influence of newsp pc s is bad, and
that they are c%orrupting 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, secular and re-
ligious, is setting the nations free. The
whole tendency of things is toward
cynicism, and the gospel of Smash-up.
We excuse David of the tex for u par
oxysm OF disgust, because he apologies
for it to- all the centuries, but it is q de-
plorable fact hat many have taken the
attitude of perpetual disgust and
anathematization. There are, we must
admit. deplorable facts, and We would
not hide or minify them. We are not
much encouraged to find hat the great
work of official reform in New York
city begins by n proposition to the
liquor dealers to open on Sunday from
2 in the afternoon to IL at night.
Although we are not jubilant over n
municipal reform that opens the exer-
cises by a doXology TO rum we have
full faith in God and in the gospel
which will yet sink all iniquity as the
Atlantic ocean melts n flake OF snow.
What we want, and what l believe we
will have, Is q great religious awaken
ing that will moralize and Christianize
our great populations and make them
superior to temptations, whether I'M
lawful or ~legalized. So | see no cause
for disheartenment. Pessimism is a
sin, and those who yield to it cripple
themselves for the war, on one side Of
which arc all the forces of darkness,
led on by Apollyon, and on the other
side of which are all the forces of light,
led on by the Omnipotent. risk the
statement hat the vast majority of
people are doing the best they can.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a
thousand of the officials of the munich
pal and the United States governments
are honest. Out of n thousand bank
presidents and cashiers, nine hundred
and ninoty-nine are worthy the posi-
tion they occupy. Out of n thousand
merchants. mechanics and professional
men, nine hundred and ninety-nine are
doing their duty as they understand it.
Out of a thousand engineers, and con
d~uctors, and switchmen, nine hundred
and ninety-nine are true to their re-
sponsiblc positions. 1t is seldom that
people arrive at positions of RESPONSE
biiity until they have been tested over
and over again. If the theory of
the pessimist were accurate, society
would long q have gone to pieces,
and civilization would have been sub,
merged with barbarism, and the wheels
of tho centuries would have turned
back to the Dark Ages A wrong i'm
preston is made hat because two men
falsify their bank accounts, these two
wrong-doers are blazoned before the
| world, while nothing is said in praise