The Monitor-register., 1896-09-18
T%HECHANGED CITIES.
DEW oR. TALMAGE SHOWS HOW THE
GOSPEL WILL AFFECT THEM.

that is depressing IS SAID ABOUT lh'
uickadness of the cities it will cheel
ne to read what DR.. Talmage says IL
this sermon about their coming redemp
tion. The text is Zechariah viii, 3,
'And the streets of the city shall be
full of boys and girls playing in the
streets thereof.
Glimpses of our cities redeemed!
Now boys and girls who play IN the
streets run such risks that multltudes
of them end in ruin. But, i'll the COM
ing time spoken of, our cities will be so
moral that lads and lasses shall be as
safe in the public thoroughfares as in
the nursery.
Pulpit and printing press for the
most part in our day are busy IN dis
cussing the condition of the cities at
this time, but would it not be health
fully encouraging to all Christian work
ers, and to all who are toiling to make
the world better, if we should for a lit
tie while look forward to the time when
our cities shall be revolutionized by the
gospel of the Son of God, and all the
darkness of sin and trouble and crime
and suffering shall be gone from the
world?
Every man has a pride in the city of
his nativity or residence, if it be a city
distinguished for any dignity or PROV
ess. Caesar boosted of his native Rome,
Virgil of Mantua, Lycurgus of Sparta,
Desmosthenes of Athens, Archimedes
of Syracuse and Paul of Tarsus. l
should have suspicion of base hearted
ness in a man who had no especial in
terest in the city Of his birth or resi-
dence-no exhilaration at the evidence
OF its prosperity or its artistic embellish-
ments or its intellectual advancement.
A Noticeable Point.
l have noticed that a man never likes
a city where he has not behaved WE'LL
People who have had a free ride in the
prison a never like the city that fur
nishes the vehicle. When l find Argos
and Rhodes and Smyrna trying to prove
themselves the birthplace of Homer, 1
conclude at once that Homer behaved
we'll. He liked them and they liked
him. We must not war on laudable city
pride, or, with the idea of building our
selves up at any time, try to pull others
down. Boston must continue to point
to its Faneuil hall and to its Common
and to its superior educational advan-
tages. Philadelphia must continue to
point to its Independence hall and its
mint and its Girard college. Washing
ton must continue to point to its Won
drous capitoline buildings. If I should
find a man coming from any city, hav-
ing no pride in that city, that city hav-
ing been the place of his nativity, or
now being the place of his residence,
would feel like asking: "What mean
thing have you done there? What out
rageous thing have you been guilty Of
that you do not like the placer"
/ think we ought-and / take it for
granted you are interested in this great
work of evangelizing the cities and saw
ing the world-we ought to toll with
the sunlight in u faces. We are not
fighting in a miserable Bull Run of de-
feat. We are on our way to final VIC
tory. We are not following the rider on
the black horse, leading US down to
death and darkness and doom, but the
rider on the white horse, with the moon
under his feet and the stars of heaven
for his tiara. Hail, Conqueror, hall
I know there are sorrows, and there
are sins, and there are sufferings all
around about us, but as in some bitter,
cold winter day, when we are thrashing
our arms around US to keep DUR thumbs
from freezing, we think of the warm
spring day that will after awhile come,
or in the dark winter night we look up
and see the northern lights, the win
dows of heaven illuminated by some
great victory, just so we look up from
the night of suffering and sorrow and
~wretchedness in our cities, and we see a
light streaming through from the other
side, and we know we are on the way
to morning-more than that, on the
way to "a morning without Clouds"
l want you to understand, all you who
are telling for Christ, that the castles
of sin are all going to be captured. The
victory for Christ in these great towns
is going to be SO complete that not a
man on earth, or an angel in heaven, or
a devil in hell will dispute it. How do
I know? l know just as certainly as
God lives and that this is holy truth. The
old Bible is full of it. If the nation is
to be saved, of course all the cities are
to be saved. 1t makes a great difference
with you and with me whether we are
toiling on toward a defeat or toiling
ON toward a victory.
A Glorious Time.
Now, in this municipal elevation Of
which I speak I have to remark there
will be greater financial prosperity than
our cities have ever seen. Some people
seem to have a morbid idea of the mil
lennium, and they think when the bet
world people will give their time up to
psalm singing and the relating of their
religious experience. and, as all social
life will be purified, there will be no
hilarity, and, as all business will be
purified, there will be no enterprise.
There is no ground for such an absurd
anticipation. In the time of which I
speak where now one fortune is made
there will be a hundred fortunes made.
We all know business prosperity de-
ponds upon confidence between man
and man Now, when that time comes
of which I speak, and when all double
dealing, all dishonesty, and all fraud
are gone out of commercial circles,
thorough confidence will be established,
and there will be better business done
and larger fortunes gathered and
mightier successes achieved.
The great business disasters of this
country have come from the work Of
goddess spectators and infamous stock
gamblers. The great foe to business is
crime. When the right shall have hurled
back the wrong, and shall have purified
the commercial code, and shall have
thundered down fraudulent establish
ments, and shall have put into the hands
OF honest men the keys of business
blessed time for the bargain makers. /
am not talking IN abstraction. am not
making a guess. I am telling you Gods
eternal truth.
In that day of which I speak taxes
will be a mere nothing. Now our bust
ness men are taxed for everything. City
taxes, county taxes, state taxes, United
States taxes. stamp taxes, license taxes,
manufacturing taxes - taxes, taxes,
taxes! Our business men have to make
a small fortune every year to pay their
taxes. What fastens on our great indus
tries this awful load? Crime, individual
and official. We have to pay the board
Of the villains who are i~ncarcerated in
our prisons. We have to take care of the
orphans of these who plunged into their
graves through sensual indulgences. We
have to support the municipal govern
ments, which are vast and expensive,
just in proportion as the criminal pro-
n1iv;{;oc w. voc+ anl +r~anopdous Who