The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-09-28
PARKHURST STIRRED ,EM UP.
New York Divine Talks Antf-SiIver
From the Pulpit.

NEW YORK, Sept. 27.-Rev. DR..
Charles I'll. Parkhurst signalized his re-
turn from Europe to the pulpit of Mad
ison Square Presbyterian church today
by preaching a sermon on the political
situation. The church was filed,
number of silver men who disapproved
of the doctors views being in the con-
gregation. Some of these made unf1at-
tering comments on leaving the church
after the sermon.
When the doctor was told Of these
comments he remarked: There Is more
in this thing than the silver question,
and some Sunday in the near future /
am going to speak my mind about the
treatment of labor by capital I will
not mince words, either"
One of the visitors to the church was
Treasurer William p. st. John, of the
Democratic national committee. He did
not wait to hear all the doctor had to
say. Mr. st. John is one Of our dea-
cons" said DR.. Parkhurst after SER
vice.
The preacher led up to what he had
to say about the campaign by an ar
gument in which he tried to show that
1t was impossible to make anything
without material and impossible to
build structure without a good foun-
dation. Among other things, he said:
I'VE are building forward into the fu-
ture without knowing what we are
building upon, or knowing whether we
are building upon, in particular, that
which contains in itself the indispens-
able elements Of permanence. Mater al
commodities In the shape of stocks and
bonds and products of soil and manu-
facture have the same intrinsic value
in the United States as they had six
months ago. But the idea Is in the air
that all of this Is presently to be
dumped upon foundations too fictitious
to sustain themselves, still less to sus-
tain the enormous weight of our ma
tional economies that 1t Is propose ed to
place upon them. There Is a feeling
that there are eternal principles that 1t
is proposed to mix with an alloy of
chiefly human invention, and that this
incoherent conglomeration is to be us ID
in mortaring up underneath the ter
rife weight Of our national veal and
destiny, and stocks go down. OF course
they go down, and they will continue
to go down until there Is restored the
conviction that the government Is to
be set upon bottom that will not
give.
81 am not here to argue financial
questions, but the present situation in
our country Is an illustration on a por-
tentous scale of the truth I am try
ing to drive home, that you cannot
move with vigor. nor strike with effect,
except as you feel on the instant the
everlasting fixity of the rock your foot
is planted upon. National prosperity
will come back when confidence comes
back, and confidence will return when
the nation gets its feet out of~the quag-
mire and back to granite Traffic, not
only, but the relations of our great
communal life, are conducted on the
credit system, on system of mutual
confidence and today that mutual con-
fidence does not exist. That Is the Sc
cret of our disquiet. And attempts are
being made deliberately and in hot
blood to crush out all lingering remains
of that mutual confidence, and this pro-
cedure I dare to brand on this altar
of God as thoroughly false to the spirit
of the gospel, and accursedly treason
able to our collective interests and ma
fioual dpStiny I"