The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-05-11
SERMON AIMED AT CONGRESS.
~BEFORE THEY ADJOURN~ THE IT,
TIE OF DIR. TAMAGE's DIS
DISCOURSE.


stitutiOn an Oversight-POssfbiIi
of a Republic OF The Pacific.
Appropriations for Sectarinn
schools DiScountcnanced-H
God Answered the Prayers of the
North and south.
Washington. May 10. 1ss5--Never was a
rimener or more appropriate sermon than
that preached 10y Rev. Dr. Talmase this
morning. The subject was: Before They
Adjourn" having reference TO the early
dissolution Of congress, and the text Sc
lected was; Psalms 1852, "And teach
hss senators wisdom"
Senators in this text stand for law
makers. Joseph was the lord treasurer
OF the Egyptian government and among
other great things which he did, accord
ing 10 my text, was 10 teach his senators
wisdom; and il any men on earth ought
10 be endowed with wisdom, it is sena-
tors, whether they stand in congresses, par
liaments or reichstags, or assemblies or
legislatures. BY their decisions nations
go up or down. Lawmakers are some
times so tempted by prejudices, by sec
tional preferences. by opportunity OF per-
sonal advancement. and sometimes what
is best TO do is so doubtful that they
ought to be prayed for and encouraged
in every possible way, instead of severe
~ criticised and blamed and eXcoriated,
as is much Of the time the case. Our
public men are so often the target to be
shot al, merely because they obtain emf
hence which other men wanted, but could
not reach. that more injusuees are hurl-
ed at our national legislature than the
people of the United States can possibly
imagine.
The wholesale belying OF our public
men is simply damnable. By residence
in Washington 1 have come to find out
that many of our public men are persist
entity misrepresented, and some of the
best of them, the purest in their lives
and most faithful in the discharge Of
their duties are the worst DETAINED. Some
day want to preach a sermon from the
text in II. Peter: They are not afraid to
speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels.
which are greater in power and might,
bring not failing accusation against them
before the Lord. But these as natural
brute beasts, made to be taken and de-
stroyed, speak evil of the things that
they understand not" So constant and
malignant is this work of depreciation
and capitalization in regard to our pub
lie men that ali over the land there are
those who suppose that the city Of Wash
ington is the center of all corruption,
while, what with its parks and its eques-
TRAN stautary, and its wide streets, and
its architectural symmetries, and its
lovely homes, it is not only the most
beautiful city under the sun, but has the
highest style of citizenship. ] have seen
but one intoxicated man in the more than
six months of my residence, and do not
think any man can give similar test--
mony of any other city on the American
continent.
tional legislature will soon fan, and adj
1ournment of two bodies of men as tall
ented, as upright, and as patriotic as
ever graced the capitol will take place.
The two or three unfortunate outbreaks
which you have noticed only make more
conspicuous the dignity, the fraternity.
the eloquence, the fidelity which have
characterized those two bodies during all
the long months of important and anxious
elaboration. We put a halo around great
rare in their time. Our Senate and House
of Representatives have five such men
where once they had one. But il viii not
be until after they are dead that they
viii get appreciated. The world finds It
safer to praise the dead than the living,
because the departed, having a heavy pile
of marble above them, may not rise TO
become rivals. But, before the gavels of
adjournment drop and the doors of Capitol
Hill shut, there are one or two things that
ought TO be done. and let us pray God
forcibly than ever before, congress has
been implored to acknowledge God in our
constitution. The Methodist church.
church that is always doing glorious
things, has in it's recent Wilmington con-
ference requested our congress to amend
the immortal document, which has been
the foundation and wall and dome of our
United States government, by inserting
the words, Trusting in Almighty God"
If that amendment is made it will not
only please all the good people of the
country Ia
II was only an oversight or a mental ac-
cldent that the fathers who made the con-
stitution did not insert a divinely worship
Iul sentence Ihey all, so far as they
amounted to anything, believed in God,
the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaV-
en- enly ana 6 eaftn and son IN Iesus Christ his
would have been a failure had il not been
Tor the Divine interference. The mem
Ders of the convention could agree on
nothing until in response to Benjamin
Franklins request that the meetings be
opened by prayer, the Lord God was cali
ed on to interfere and help, and then the
way was cleared, and all the states signed
the document; a historical fact that all the
rat-terriers of modern infidelty cannot
bark out of existencel I know that there
was an exception to the fact that the
prominent men of those times We're good
men Tom Paine, a libertine and a sot
did not believe in anything good until he
was dying, and then he shrieked out for
Gods mercy. And Ethan Allen from one
OF whose descendants l have received with
dent / mentioned in a recent sermon. as
saying to his dying daughter that she
had better take her mothers Christian re-
lgion than his own infidelity The ar
ticle sent me says: '"The story has been
denied by some of the Allen family. but
the Bronson family, some of whom We're
with the dying girl. affirm that it is sub
stanually true. In such a matter one
confirmation is worth more than many
denials." So says the article sent me.
There is no doubt that Ethan Allen was
the vulgarest sort of an inhdel, for, sit
ting in a Presbyterian church, his add
mirers say he struck the pew in front
of him and swore out loud, so as to dis
turb the meeting, and no gentleman would
do that. l do not wonder that some of
his descendants are ashamed of him: but
of course, they could not help it, and are
not to blame. But all the decent men
of the revolution believed in God and
our American congress, now assembled.
will only echo the sentiments Of
the fathers when they enthrone the name
of God IN the constitution. We have now
more reason for inserting that acknowl-
edgment of divinity than our fathers had
Since then the continent has been peopled
and great cities from the Atlantic to The
Pacific built, and all in peace showing
that there must have been supernol SUI
pervisaL Since then the war of 1872 and
ours the victory Since then great finan-
cial prostratOns, out of which we came To