The Monitor-register., 1896-05-15
ACKNOWLEDGES GOD.
Or. TALMAaE WOULD AMEND THE
CONSTITUTION.

God,s Name left Out by q Mental over
s,rht of Our Forefathers = Congres
shonId Make No Appropriations For Sec
...,.n s.hools-Bright Days to Come.
WASHINGTON, May 1O.-Never was a
.;mal;er or more appropriate sermon
than that preached by Rev. DIR. Talmage
Ahis morning. The subject was Before
They Adjourn, =" having reference to the
esrIy dissolution OF congress, n the
taxi selected was Psalms cv, ~, And
teach his 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, &C.
oordinQ to my text, was to teach MS
senators wisdom. And if any men ON
earth ought to be endowed with wisdom
ID is senators, whether they stand III
ooasresses, parliaments or reichstags OF
assemblies or legislatures. By their oe-
sisiens nations go up or down Law
makers are sometimes SO tempted ny
preiudices, by sectional preferences py
onnortunity of personal Advancement
and sometimes what is best to DO Is SO
doubtful that they ought to be prayed
Cor and encouraged in every possible
way instead Of severely criticised and
blamed and excoriated, as Is much Oh
the time the case. Our public men are
40 often the target to be shot a. merely
because they obtain eminence which
othar men wanted but could not reach,
shot more iniustices 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 1 have
come to find out that many of our public
men are persistently misrepresented, and
some of the best of them, the purest in
their lives and most faithful In the DIS
oharQe-of their duties, are the worst de-
famed. Some day 1 want to preach a ser
mon from the text in II Peter: "They
are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Whereas angels, which are greater in
mower and might, bring not railing &C.
cusation against them before the Lord.
Rut these. as natural brute beasts, made
To be taken and destroyed, speak evil of
the things that they understand not.
SO constant and malignant is this work
of depreciation and standardization in re-
gard to our public men that all over the
land there are those who suppose that
The city of Washington is the center of
all corruption, while what with its
parks, and its equestrian statuary, and
its wide streets, and its architectural
symmetries, and its lovely homes, it is
not only the most beautiful city under
the sum-, but has the highest style of citi-
zenship. I have seen but one intoxicated
man in the more than six months of my
residence, and I do not think any man
can give similar testimony of any other
city ON the American continent.
Gods Name In the Constitution.
The gayels of our two houses of ma
tional legislature will 500 fall, and ad-
journment of two bodies Of men as tai
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 anx.
ious d~eliberation. Weput a halo around
great men of the past because they were
10 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 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 that
thew may be accomplished. More forcl-
bly than ever before, congress been
implored to acknowledge God IN our
constitution. The Methodist church, a
church that is always doing glorious
things, has in its recent Wilmington con-
ference requested our congress to amend
the immortal document which has been
the foundation and wall and dome of
u United States government by in
sorting 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 over
sight or a mental accident that the ia
theirs 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 interference. The members
of the convention could agree Oh nothing
until, in response to Benjamin Frank
Inns request that the meetings be open
ed by prayer, the Lord God was called
on to interfere and help, and then the
way was cleared, and all the states sign
ed the document, a historical fact that
all the rat terriers of modern infidelity
cannot bark out of existence. / know
that there was an exception to the fact
that the prominent men in those times
were good men.
Tom Paine and Ethan Allen.
Tom Paine, a libertine and a sot, did
not believe in anything good until he
was dying, and thenshe shrieked out for
Gods mercy. And Ethan Allen, from
one OF whose DESCENDANTS l have received
within a few day$a confirmation of the
incident l mentioned in a recent SER
mon, as saying to his dying daughter
that she had better take her mothers
CHRISTIAN religion than his own infidel-
lty. The article sent me says: 1.-The
story has been denied by some of the
Allen family. but the Bronson family,
some of whom were with the dying girl.
affirm that it 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 vulgarest sort Of
an infidel, for. sitting in a Presbyterian
church, his admirers say he struck the
pew in front of him and swore out loud
SO as to disturb the meeting, and no gem
tleman would do that. / do not wonder
that some of his descendants are ashamed
OF him, but of cours they could not
help it and are not to blame. But all
the decent men of the Revolution be-
lieved in God, and our American con-
gress. now assembled, will only echo
the sentiments of the fathers when they
enthrone 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 peopled and great
cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific
built. and all in peace, showing that
there must have been supernal super