The Princeton union., 1898-08-18
TALMAGE'S s ERMON,
HONESTY" THE SURJEcTMAT-
TER LAST SUNDAY.
erom the Text, I. Timothy, VII, 8: "They
That VIII BE Rich Fall Into q Temp
tatton and Snare, and Into Many
Foolish and Hurtful Lusts.~ h

b.
rush multitude of souls, namely the
determination to have the money any
now, right or wrong. Tell me how
man gets his money and what he does
with it, and will tell you his character
and what will be his destiny in this
world and the next. propose to speak
today about the ruinous modes of get
ting money.
In all our city, state and national
elections large sums of money are used
In bribery. Politics, from being the
science of good government, has often
been draggled into the synonym for
truculency and turpitude. A monster
sin, plausible, potent, pestiferous, has
gone forth to do its dreadful work IN
all ages It's two hands are rotten with
leprosy. It 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 courtroom,
the legislative hall, the congress and
the parliament. The door swings open
and the monster enters and glides
through the aisle of the council cham
Der as softly as a slippered page, and
then it takes it's right hand from its
deep pocket and offers it in salutation
to Judge or legislator. 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 a 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 Bible arraigns it again and
again. Samuel says of his two sons,
who became judges, "They took br1bes
and perverted Judgment" David says
of some of his pursuers, "Their right
hand is full of bribes.'' Amos says OF
some men in his day, "They take a
bribe and turn aside the poor in the
gate, Eliphaz foretells the crushing
blows of Gods indignation, declaring,
Fires shall consume the tabernacles
of bribery"
1t is no light temptation. The might
lest have fallen under it. Lord Bacon,
Lord Chancellor of England, founder
of our modern science, author OF
"Novum Organum," and whole Ii
brary of books, the leading thinker of
s his century, so precocious that when a
little child he was asked by Queen Eliz-
abeth, How old are you?" he respond
ed, 'I am two years younger than your
Majesty's happy reign" of whose ora
tory Ben Jonson wrote, "The fear OF
every man that heard him was lest he
SHOULD make an end;" having an in
come which you would suppose would
have put him beyond the temptation
of bribery-thirty-six thousand dollars
a year, and Twickenham Court, gift,
and princely estates in Hertfordshlre-
yet under the temptation to bribery,
falling fiat into ruin, and on his con-
fession of taking bribes, as excuse that
all his predecessors took them; he was
fined two hundred thousand dollars-or
what corresponds with our two hun
dred thousand dollars-and impris-
oned in London Tower.
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 GorgeyF betrayed
Hungary, Ahithopel forsook David and
Judas kissed Christ. When see so
many of the illustrious going down un-
der this temptation it makes me think
of the red dragon spoken of in Reve-
lation, with seven heads and ten horns
and seven crowns, drawing 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," says
some one, there's no need of talking
against bribery by promise or by dol
lars, because every man has his price,
I do not believe it. Even heathenism
and the Dark Ages have furnished
specimens of incorruptibility. A cadi
of Smyrna had case brought before
him on trial. A man gave him five hun
dred 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 has no witnesses, he
thinks; shall produce in his behalf
five hundred witnesses against the
other side.'' Then pulling out the bag
Of ducats from under the ottoman, he
dashed it down at the feet of the briber
laying, II give my decision against
You" Epaminondas offered a bribe
said. 81 will do this thing if it be right,
and il it be wrong, all your goods can
not persuade me-
The President of the American Con
gress during the American Revolution
General Reed, was offered ten thou
sand guineas by foreign commissioners
Il he would betray his country. He re-
piled: Gentlemen, I am very poor
man, but tell your King he is not rich
enough to buy me-" But why go so far,
when you and I, If we move in honor
able society, know men and women
who by all the forces Of earth and hell
could not be bribed. They would no
mora he hrihad than Won would think