The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-06

(nlcaBO, August oU.-ln lllS SeIinOh tHe preacher inculcates the duty of truthful ress in all the relations of lifs-ia brsi- ness, in politics. in our social intercourse and our religion. His text Is Acts V, 5; Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much And she said, Yea, for so much"
 Morbid curiosity is to the eye what gos- sip is to the ear. The grewso1ne, the hid- eous, the diseased. the appalling, are ob. jects at which some of us never tire of looking. Let a poor workman tumble from a scaffold and have his brains be- spattered upon the city pavements below or let a helpless washerwoman, stagger- ing under her load of clothes. be crushed by the truckmans wheel or drunken human brute be battered by polceman's club and the crowds will collect as rap- idly as do carrion eating birds at the scent of a carcass. All day long a steady stream of sightseers passes in and out of the Parisian morgue The more bloatad and deformed the corpses the stronger the fascination and the bigger the crowd.
 SlIch is the scene of my text. There is great excitement in Jerusalem. The asi- tation is spreading everywhere. As the people are rushing along toward q com mon center some bystander asks a run- ner, What is the matter?" why" an- swers he. haven't you heard the news? You know Ananias. who used to live next door to me? He was my dearest neigh bor Well, Peter was preaching this morning near the temple. He took up collection for the poor. Ananias came forward and lad his contribution at the feet of the apostle and pretended that he had given all his money to the church. lie wanted to appear well before nis fellow church members But Ananias told falsehood. He had not given all, as he had pledged himself to do, but had kept back part of the money for his own use. Then Peter raised his finger toward heaven and said Ananas, thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. Immediately Ananias clutched at his heart. He gave one shriek and dropped dead Coma on: let us go up and see what is next going to happen"
 Lies Cannot Be Clothed in White.
 These two men rushed on toward the temple. They come the outskirts of a great throng. There the multtudes are crowding and pushing and jostling their neighbors and trying to get near the speaker. Suddenly the cry is raised, Make way, make wayi' The sea of hu- man faces surges to the right and to the left. Every head uncovers The murmur of many voices are hushed to the silence of the tomb. Slowly and solemnly down through the open pathway come the pail bearers, carrying between them shroud- ed form. For, "the young men arose. wound him up and carried him out and buried him."
 Hardly had the noise of the shufling feet ceased when a newcomer a woman, began to elbow her way through the crowd. She asks the people as she pushes along: What is the matter? Is anyone hurt?" No one answers. They pretend they do not hear her. but they do. As soon as she passes along many an eye is moist, many lip quivers. God pity her! Cod pity herl" This is Sapphira, the wife of the dead perjurer. She is her husbands confederate in the premedtated lie. As soon as Peter sees her, he points to the pile of silver and gold and says unto her, "Woman, tell whether ye sold the land for so much?' And she says. 'Yea, for so much" Quick as a flash the light ming of Gods wrath struck. "Then fell she down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost, and the young men came in and found her dead. and, carry ing her forth buried her by her husband." Such Is the Biblical description of two capital punishments. The record stands there on the sacred page as a perpetual warning against falsehood, an object les son, terrible and exemplary. of the divine attitude toward all kinds of lies and un- truths and prevarications and intentional distortions and misrepresentations wher- ever they may be found.
 To catalogue some of the equivocations by which the Ananiases and Sapphiias of the present day pervert the truth is the purpose of this sermon. We would prove that business lies and social lies and polit- ical lies and parental lies and church lies can never be clothed in white and called white Hes" Every falsehood IS covered with the black pail of death-black as the darkness of the bottomless pit We would try to do this because there is theory abroad that some lies are innocent and re- speetable and that there is no harm if their black garments hang in the ward robes of honest men.