Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1903-09-03
TALMACE
SERMON
BY Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMACE. DID,,
y Pastor Of Jefferson Park Presby.
terrain Church. Chicago


truthfulness in all the relations of
life-in business, in politics, in our so
cial intercourse and our religion. His
text is Acts v, 8: Tell me whether ye
sold the land for SO much7 And she
said, Yea, for so much"
Morbid curiosity ia to the eye what
gossip is to the ear. The grewsome,
the hideous, the diseased, the appall-
ing, are objects at which some Of us
never tire of looking. Let poor work
man tumble from scaffolding and
have his brains despatched upon the
city pavements below or let helpless
washerwoman, staggering under her
load of clothes, be crushed by the
truckmans wheel or a drunken human
brute be battered by policeman's club
and the crowds will collect as rapidly
as do carrion eating birds at the scent
of carcass. All day long a steady
stream Of sightseers passes In and out
Of the Partisan morgue. The more
boated and deformed the corpses the
stronger the fascination and the bigger
the crowd.
Such ia the scene of my text. There
| is great excitement in Jerusalem. The
agitation is spreading everywhere. AS
the people are rushing along toward a
common center some bystander asks
runner, What is the matterT' Why"
answers he haven't you heard the
news? You know Ananias, who used
to live next door to me? He was my
dearest neighbor. Well, Peter was
preaching this morning near the tenn
pie. He took up a collection for the
poor. Ananias came forward and laid
his contribution at the feet of the
apostle ard pretended that he had Civ
en- all his money to the church. He
wanted to appear we'll before his fellow
church members. But Ananias told a
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, 'Ananias, thou
hast not lied unto men, but unto Cod
Immediately Ananias clutched at his
heart. He gave one shrek and dropped
dead. Come on; let us 20 up and see
what is next going to happen
Lies Cannot he Clothed In White.
These two men rush on toward the
temple. They come to the outskirts Of
Il great throng. There the multtudes
are crowding and pushing and iostling
their neighbors and trying to get near
to the speaker. Suddenly the cry is
raised. Make way, make way The
sea of human faces surges to the right
and to the left Every head uncovers.
The murmur of many voices is hushed
to the silence of the tomb. Slowly and
way come the pallbearers, carrying be-
tween them a shrouded form. For,
the young men arose, wound him up
and carried him out and buried him"
Hardly had the noise of the shutting
feet ceased when a newcomer, a WON
an, began to elbow her way through
the crowd. She asks the people as she
pushes along: What is the matter? Is
any one hurt| No one answers. They
pretend they do not hear her, but they
J do. AS soon as she passes along many
an eye is moist, many a lip quvers
"God pity her, God pity her. This
is Sapphira, the wife of the dead per
+: jurer. She is her husbands conied
crate in the premcditated lie. AS sool
, rs Peter sees her he points to the pill,
, Of silver and gold and says unto her
: Woman, tell me whether We sold the
land for so much?' And she says
yea, for so much" Quick rs a flasl
! the lightning of Gods wrath struck
. Then fell she down straightway n
his feet and yielded up the ghost, anC
e the young men came in and found he
3 dead, and, carrying her forth buriet
e her by her husband" Such is the Bib
lical description of two capital punish
ments. The record stands there on tn
sacred page as "A perpetual warning
. against falsehood an object lesson, ter
rible and exemplary, of the divine att
n tude toward all kinds of lies and I'm
y truths and prevarications and inten
n tona distortions and misrepresenta
& tons, wherever they may be found.
To catalogue some of the equivoca
tions by which the Ananiases and tn
|, Sapphiras Of the present day perver
i the truth ia the purpose of this sermon
; We would prove that business lies an
social lies and political lies and PAL
- entail lies and church lies can never h
h clothed in white and called whit
y lies" Every falsehood ia covered wit
d the black pail of death-black as tn
- darkness of the bottomless pit. w
would try to do this because there is
II theory abroad that some lies are innC
l. cent and respectable and that there
y no harm If their black garments han
II In the wardrobes of honest men.
is Business FaIsehoods.
ic Falsehoods in the business world
They nest and thrive especially we
n In the haunts of barter and gain. The
3 greet you at the opened doors of OF
% large department stores. They pi
D toralize themselves in circulars an
IS newspaper advertisements which al
y sent broadcast over the cities and coul
try districts. They pose in fictitior
az reports of our large corporations an
el sxaggerate the annual dividends. The
to have for their passports white slips
paper, purporttng to represent Dor
-, y, fde stock, whereas the gold and silv'
D. and copper mines are purely imaginar
They enthrone themselves in the pits
re of the produce exchanges. They iing'
to the keys of the telegraph instrumen
IN when the breadstuffs are about