The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-07-26
SIN IN HIGH PLACES.
Tendency to Excuse Brilliant Faults
Because They Are Brilliant.
DIR. TaImaEe Says the Same Law
Ought to BE Applied to the High
as to the Low-The Sacred
ness of Life.
copyright, 1901, by Louis Klopsch, N. VI
WASHINGTON.

In this discourse DIR. Talmage shows
| that there is tendency to excuse bril-
| liant faults because they are brilliant,
when the same law of right and wrong
ought to be applied to high places and
| low; text, Daniel 4:33: THE same
| hour was the thing fulfilled upon Neb-
uchadnezzar, and he was driven from
| men and did eat grass as oxen"
Here is the mightiest of the Baby
| lonish kings. Look at him. He did
more for the grandeur of the capital
| than did all his predecessors or sue
| cessors. Hanging gardens, reservoirs,
aqueducts, palaces, all of his own plan
ming. The bricks that are brought up
| to-day from the ruins of Babylon have
his name on them, "Nebuchadnezzar,
son of fNabopolassor, king of Ba bylon.
He was great conqueror. de
stretched forth his spear toward a ma
ton, and it surrendered. But he plum
dered the temple of the true God He
lifted an idol, Bel Merodach, and COM
PEELED the people to bow down before
it, and if they refused they must go
through the redhot furnace or be
crunched by lion or lioness. So God
pulled him down.
He was smitten with what physicians
call lycanthropy and fancied that he
was a wild beast, and he went out and
pastured amid the cattle. God did not
excuse him because he had committed
the sin in high places or because the
transgression was wide resounding.
He measured Nebuchadnezzar in high
places just as he would measure the
humblest captive.
But in our time, you know s well as
/, that there is a disposition to put a
halo around iniquity if it is committed
in conspicuous place and if it is wide re-
sounding and of large proportions.
Ever and anon there has been an epi-
demic of crime in high places, and
there is not state or city and hardly
village which has not been called to
look upon astounding forgery or an alb
sconding bank cashier or president or
the wasting of trust fund or swindling
mortgages. 1 propose in carrying out
the suggestion of my text, as far as 1
can, to scatter the ia selma tions around
iniquity and show you that sin is sin
and wrong is wrong whether in high
place or low place and that it will be
dealt with by that God who dealt with
impalaced Nebuchadnezzar.
All who preach feel that two kinds of
sermons are necessary, the one on the
faith of the Gospel, and the other on
the morality of the Gospel, and the
one is just as important as the other,
for you know that in this land to-day
there are hundreds of men hiding be-
hind the communion tables and in
churches of Jesus Christ who have no
business to be there as professors of
religion. They expect to be all right
with God, although they are all wrong
with man. And, while 1 want you to
understand that by the deeds of the
law no flesh living can be justified and
a mere honest life cannot enter us into
Heaven, 1 want you as plainly to un-
derstand that unless the life is right
the heart is not right. Grace in the
heart and grace in the life; so we must
preach sometimes the faith of the
Gospel and sometimes the morality of
the Gospel.
1t seems to me there has not been a
time in the last so years when this lat
ter truth needed more thoroughly to
be presented in the American churches.
1t needs to be presented to-day.
A missionary in the islands of the
Pacific preached one Sabbath on hon
esty and dishonesty, and on Monday he
found his yard full of all styles of
goods, which the natives had brought.
He could not understand it until ma
tive told him: Our gods permit us to
purloin goods, but the God you told us
about yesterday, the God of Heaven
and earth, it seems, is against these
practices, and so we brought all the
goods that do not belong to us, and
they are in the yard, and we want you
to help us distribute them among their
rightful owners" And if in all the pull
pits of the United States to-day rous-
ing sermons could be preached on hon
esty and the evils of dishonesty and the
sermons were blessed of God and ar
rangements could be made by which all
the goods which have been improperly
taken from one man and appropriated
by another man should be put in the
city halls of the country there is not
city hall in the United States that
would not be crowded from cellar to
cupola. Faith of the Gospel; that we
must preach and we do preach. Moral
ity of the Gospel we must just as GER
tainly proclaim.
Now, look abroad and see the fasci-
nations that are thrown around differ
ent styles of crime. The question that
every man and woman has been asked
has been: Should crime be excused
because it is on a large scale? Is in
iquity guilty and to be pursued of the
law in proportion as it is on a small
scale? Shall we have the penitentiary
for the man who steals an overcoat
from a hatrack and all Canada for a
man to range in if he have robbed the
public of millions?O
Look upon all the fascinations
thrown around fraud in this country.
You know for years men have been
made heroes of and pictorialized and in
various ways presented to the public
as though sometimes they were worthy
of admira tion if they have scattered
the funds of banks or swallowed great
estates that did not belong to them.
Our young men have been dazed with
this quick accumula tion. They have
said: That's the way to do it. What's
the use of our plodding on with small
wages or Insignificant salary when we
may go into business life and with
some stratagem achieve such fortune