The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-08-12

REV TALMAeE- city, state and ma
tonal elections large sums of money
= are used in bribery. Politics, from
being the science of good govern
ment, has often been bedraggled in
to the synonym for truculency and
turpitude. A monster sin, plausible,
potent, pestiferous, has gone forth 70
do its dreadful work in all ages. It's
two hands are rotten with leprosy.
1t keeps its right hand hidden in a
deep pocket. The left hand is
clenched and with its ichorous
knuckle it taps at the door of the
court room. the legislative hall, the
congress and the parliament. The
door swings open and the monster en-
ters and glides through the aisle of
Che council chamber as softly as a
slippered page, and then it takes its
right hand from its deep pocket and
offers il in salutation to Judge or leg
islator. If that hand be taken, and
the palm of the intruder cross the
palm of the official, the leprosy crosses
from palm to palm in round blotch,
round as gold eagle, and the virus
spreads, and the doom is fixed, and
the victim perishes. Let bribery, ac-
cursed of God and man, stand up for
trial.
The black chapter in English, Irish,
French and American politics is the
chapter of bribery. Some of you re-
member the Pacific mail subsidies.
Most of you remember the awful trag-
edy of the Credit Mobilier. Under the
temptation to bribery Benedict Arnold
sold the fort in the Highlands for $751;,
SIS. For this sin Gorgey betrayed
Hungary, Ahithophel forsook David,
and Judas kissed Christ When / see
80 many OF the illustrious go down
under this temptation, il makes me
think of the red dragon spoken of in
Revelations, with seven heads and ten
horns and seven crowns, drawing a
third part of the stars of Heaven down
after him.
The lobbies of the legislatures of
this country control the country. The
land is drunk with bribery! "Oh, 3"
says some one, there is no need of
talking against bribery by promise or
by dollars, because every man has his
price, | do not believe it Even
heathenish and the dark ages have
furnished specimens of incorruptibili-
~. A cadi OF Smyrna had case
brought before him on trial. A man
gave him 500 ducats in bribery. The
case came on. The briber had many
witnesses. The poor man on the other
side had no witnesses. At the close of
the case the cadi said: This poor man
xuff Ill
produce in his behalf 500 witnesses
against the other side" Then pulling
ont the bag of ducats from under the
ottoman, he dashed il down at the
feet of the briber, saying: Il give my
decision against you" Epaminondas,
offered bride, said: 81 will do this
thing If it be right, and if it be wrong
all your goods cannot persuade me-"
The president of the American con-
gress during the American revolution,
Gen. Reed, was offered 10000 guineas
by foreign commissioners If he would
betray this country. He replied:
"Gentlemen, l am very poor man,
but tell your king he is not rich
enough to buy me-" But why go so
far, when you and l, if we move in
honorable society, know men and
women who by all the forces of earth
and hell could not be bribed. They
would no more be bribed than you
would think of tempting an angel OF
light to exchange Heaven for the pit.
To offer bride is villainy, but it is a
very poor compliment to the man to
whom it is offered.
Meanwhile, my advice is keep out of
politics unless you are invulnerable to
this style of temptation. Indeed, If
even you are naturally strong, you
need religious buttressing. Nothing
but the grace of God can sustain our
public men, and make them what we
wish. | wish that there might come
an old.fashioned revival of religion,
that it might break out in congress
and the legislatures and bring many
of the leading republicans and demo-
Gratis down on the anxious seat of re-
pentance. That day will come or
something better, for the Bible de-
clares that kings and queens shall he
come nursing fathers and mothers to
the church, and If the greater in tu-
thority, then certainly the less
My charge also TO parents is, remem-
Der that this evil of bri berry often be-
gins in the home circle, and in the
nursery Do you bride your children?
Teach them to do that which is right,
and not because of the ten cents or the
orange which you will give them.
There is a great difference between re-
warding virtue and making the profits
thereof the impelling motive. That
man who is honest merely because
"hOnesty is the best policy" is already