The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-06-26
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

| DIVINE.
Subject: The Curse of Speculation-In-
tsgrity and villainy in Wall Street.
Lessons Drawn From Gambling Crazes
Which Have Swept Over the World.
tcopyrisht 1eOl.l
WASHINGTON, D. Gin this discourse
DR.. Talmage arraigns the spirit of wild
speculation and gives some account OF
the financial ruin Of other days; Proverbs
xiii, 5, "Riches certainly make them
selves wings; they fly away as an eagle
toward heaven"
Money is gold breasted bird with
silver beak. It alights on the Office
desk or in the counting room or on the
parlor centre table. Men and. women
stand and admire it. They, do not notice
that it has wings larger than a ravens,
larger than famingo's,. larger than an
eaele's. One wave Of the hand of mis-.
| fortune, and it spreads its beautiful
plumage and is gone, "as an eagle toward
heaven" my textbook says, though some
times + think it goes in the other direc-
ton.
What a veri6cation we have had OF
the flying capacity OF riches in Wall
Street! And Wall Street is one of the
longest streets in all the world. It does
not begin at the foot of Trinity Church,
New York, and end at the East River, as
many suppose. It reaches through all
our American cities and across the seas:
Encouraged by the revival of trade and
by the fact that Wall Street disasters OF
other years were so far back as to be
forgotten, spectators run up the STOCKS
from point to point until innocent people
on the outside suppose that the stocks
would always continue to ascend. They
| gather in from all parts of the count try.
Large sums of money are taken into
Wall Street and small sums of money.
The crash comes, thank God, in time to
warn off a great many who were on
their way thither, for the sadness of the
thing is that a great many of the young
men of our cities who save little money
for the purpose of starting themselves
in business and who have $500 or $1,000
or $1,000 or $4,000 go into Wall Street
and lose all. And if there was time fol
the pulpit to speak out IN regard to GER
tain kinds of nefarious enterprises now
is the. time.
Stocks rose and fell, s-' now they
begin to rise again, and - will tai!
be ruined unless the printing press and
the pulpit give emphatic utterance. My
counsel is to countrymen, 30 far as they
may hear of this discourse, if they have
surplus, to invest it in first mortgages
ard in moneyed institutions which, though
| paying comparatively small interest, are
sound and safe beyond dispute, and to
stand clear of the Wall Street vortex,
where 30 many have been swamped and
swallowed. What compliment it is to
the healthy condition Of our country that
these recent disasters have in no wise
depressed trade! I thank God that Wall
Streets capacity to blast this country
| has gone forever.
Across the island of New York in
1886 a wall made of stone and earth
and cannon mounted was built to keep Oh
the savages. Along by that wall a street
was laid out, and as the street followed
| the line of the wall it was appropriately
called Wall Street. 1t is narrow, it is
unarchitectural, and yet its history is
UNIQUE. Excepting Lombard street, Lon
| don, it is the mightiest street on this
/ planet. There the Government of the
| United States was born. There Washing
ton held his levees. There Mrs. Adams
and Mrs. Caldwell and Mrs. Knox and
other brilliant women of the Revolution
son and Jonathan Edwards and George
Whiteield sometimes preached. There
| DR.. Mason chided Alexander Hamilton
for writing the Constitution OF the Uni
ted States without any God in it. There
negroes were sold in the slave mart
| There criminals were harnessed to wheel
| barrows and, like beasts of burden, com
PEELED to draw or were lashed through
| the streets behind carts to which they
were fastened. There fortunes have come
to coronation or burial since the day
when reckless speculators in, powdered
hair and silver shoe buckles lodged Du'
esty, clear down to yesterday at o'clock
The history Of Wall Street is to a Ger.
tain extent the financial, commercial,
agricultural, mining, literary, artistic
moral and religious history Of this coun'
try. There are the best men in. this
country, and there are the worst. Every
thing from answering integrity to tip
top Notwithstanding from heav'
en- born charity to bloodless Shylock
ism. I want to put the plow in at the
curbstone of Trinity and drive it clear
through to VIII Street ferry, and SO i
shall 60 if the horses ere strong enough
to draw the plow.
First of all, Wall Street stands as O
tyne in this country for tried integrity
and the most outrageous vil!ainy. Farm
crs who have only few hundred dol
lars worth of produce to put on the mar
ket have but little to test their charac
ter, but put q man into the seven time:
heaSed furnace of Wall Street excite
ment and he either comes out Shadrach
with hair unsinged, or he i" burned iato
O black moral ciader. No hal wsy worE
about it. If I wanted to find integrity
bombproof, I would 60 among the bank
ers and merchants of Wall Street, yet be-
cause there have been such villainies enact
ed there at different times some men
have supposed that it is great financial
debauchery, and they hardly dare &C.
near the street or, walk up and down n
unless ther have buttoned up their last
pocket and had their lives insured or re-
fic;ously crossed themselves. Yet if you
start at either end of the street and
read the business signs you will find the
names of more men of integrity and
Christian benevolence than you can find
in the sar,e space in Gny street OF any
Of our cities. When the Christian com
mission and the sanitary commission
wanted money to send medicine and band
eyes to the wounded, when breadstutts
were wanted for famishing Ireland, when
! colleges were to be endowed and churches
were to be supported and missionary SO
cieties were to be equllppd, tor their WorR
of sending the gospei all around Iht
world, the first street, to respond has
been Wall Street, and the largest re
sponses ia all the land have come from
Wall Street.
Eut, while that street is type of tried
integrity on ono hand, it is also type oi
unbounded swindle on the other. There
are the spiders that wait for innocent
flies: there are the crocodiles that craw
up through the slime to cra7ch the calf
there are the anacondas, with lifted loop
ready to crush the unwary; there are Il
nancial wreckers who stand on the
beach praying for Caribbean whirlwino
to sweep over our commercial interests
Let me say it is no place for a man tc