The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-06-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
He Offers Some Advice to Our Ma
tional Legislators.
Important Things Tint shouIL re Doas
Before Adjpurnm-nt-TI. also Sug-
Kests Plan for the National
Conventions to Follow.


congress. The text selected was:
Psalms cv:22, ''and teach his senators
wisdom" DR.. Talmage said, among
other things:
Senators in this text stand for law
makers. Joseph was the lord treas
urer of the Egyptian government, and
among other great things which he
did, according to my text, was to teach
his senators wisdom; and if any man
ON earth ought to be endowed with
wisdom it is senators, whether they
stand in congresses, parliaments. or
reichstags, or assemblies, or legisla-
lures. BY their decisions, nations go
up or down. Lawmakers are some
times SO tempted by prejudices, by sec
tional preferences, by opportunity of
personal advancement, and sometimes
what is best to do is so doubtful
that they ought to be prayed
for and encouraged in every pos
sible way, instead of severely
criticised and blamed and ex-
coriated, as is much of the time the
case. Our public men are so often the
target to be shot at, merely because
they obtain eminence which other men
wanted, but could not reach, that more
injustices are hurled 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 have come to lind out
that many of our public men are per-
sistently misrepresentation, and some OF
the best Of them, the purest in their
lives and most faithful in the dis
charge of their duties, are the
worst DETAINED. So constant and
malignant is the work of de-
probation and standardization in
regard to our public men that all over
the land there are those who suppose
that the city of Washington is the CEN
ter of all corruption, while, what with
its parks, and its equestrian statuary,
and its wide streets, and its architect
ural symmetries. and its lovely homes,
IL Is not only the most beautiful city
under the sun, but has the highest
style of citizenship 1 have seen but
one intoxicated man in the more than
ak months of my residence, and / do
not think any man can give similar
testimony of any other city on the
American continent.
tional legislature will soon fall and
adjournment of two bodies of men as
talented, 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 dig
nifty, the fraternity. the eloquence,
the fidelity which have characterized
those two bodies during all the long
months of important and anxious
deliberation. We put a halo around
great men of the past because they
were so rare in their time. Our
senate and house of representatives
have five such men where once they
had one. But it will not be until after
they are dead that they will get ap-
preciated. The world finds 1t safer to
praise the dead than the living. be-
cause 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 hall shut, there are one or two
things that ought to be done, and let
us pray God that they may be ac-
complished. More forcibly than ever
before, congress has been implored to
acknowledge God in our con stitution.
The Methodist church, a church that
Is always doing glorious things, has in
it's recent Wilmington conference re-
qussted our congress to amend the
immortal document which has been
the foundation and wall and dome of
our United States government, by in
sertinR the words, Trusting in AL
mighty God" If that amendment is
made, it will not only please all the
good people of the country, but will
please the heavens 1t was only an
oversight or a mental accident that
tha fathers who made the constitution
did not insert a divinely worshipful
sentence. They all, so far as they
amounted to anything, believed in
"God, the Father Almighty. the
Maker of Heaven and earth, and
In Jesus Christ, His only be-
gotten Son." The constitution
would have been a failure had it
not been for the divine inference. The
members OF the convention could agree
ON nothing until, in response to Benja-
min Franklin's request that the meet
ings be opened by prayer, the Lord
God was called on to interfere and
and all the states signed the document;
q historical fact that all the rat terriers
of modern infidelity cannot bark out
of existence! know that there was
an exception to the fact the prominent
men of those times were good men.
Tom Paine, a libertine and sot, did
not believe In anything good until
he was dying, and then he shrieked
nd L..
len, from one of whose descend
ants have received within a few
days q confirmation of the incident
ment toned in q recent sermon, as say
ing to his dying daughter that she had
better take her mothers Christian re-
ligion than his own intidelity. The
article sent me says: The story has
been denied by some of the Allen fam
ily, but the Bronson family, some
of whom were with the dying girl,
affirm that il is substantially 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 vulgar
est sort of an infidel, for, sitting In n
Presby terian church, his admirers say
he struck the pew in front of him and
swore out loud, so as to disturb the
meeting, and no gentleman would
do that. | do not wonder that some of
his descendants are ashamed of him;
but of course they could not help 1t,
and are not to blame. But all the de-
cent men of the revolution believed in
God, and our American congress, now
assem- bled, will only echo the senti-
ments of the fathers when they en-
throne the name of God in the consti-
tuition. We have now more reason for
inserting that acknowledgement of Di-
vinity than our fathers had. Since
then the continent has been peo-
pied and great cities, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, built. and
all in peace, showing that there
must have leen supernal supervisal
Since then the war of 1872. and ours
the victory! Since then great financial
prostratiOn, out of which we come to
greater prosperity than anthing that
preceded. Since then sanguinary
1869, 1863, 1864 and 1868. and notwith-
standing the fact that all the foreign
despotisms were planning for our
demolition, we are a united people,
and tomorrow you will find in both
houses of congress the men who fought