The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-02-08
DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALmAeE. D. D.

been legally an honorable man. but in 1 the sight of God and of the community in which he lived shylock was fiend and a murderer at heart. Like-a panther crouching among the long grasses of the 1 African prairie, waiting for the time he could spring upon a helpless antelope, shylock was longing for the time when he could lay Antonio corpse at hls feet.
 A Defect in Character.
 Elder brothers, you have no ground | for pride if the restraint that has kept you from prodigality Is itself defect of character. It is true that you have not gone off as a prodigal into 2 far coun- try of sin. You have not given a mid- night banquet and started your young friends on the path to a drunkard's grave by teaching them how to bury their lips In the red poison of the wine cup. You may have been too stingy for that; you may have been so mean and stingy that l there Is no fear that you would drink a glass of wine or smoke a cigar unless some one else paid for It. It is not prin- ciple that saves some men from going to destruction by the broad highway of dissoluteness, but penuriousness. They hold on to every dollar they have and are too stingy to spend q cent. They keep their money as long as they can and never give a cent to q friend unless they make that friend give them first class security and pay full interest But, my so-calied respectable and upright pharisaical friend, though you are not prodigal, you may be usurer, an ex- tortioner and slanderer. You may be robber Of the poor widows mite and Q contemptible tyrant in your dealings with your debtors and your employees. You may be a peddler of evil reports and murderer of your neighbor's reputa- tion. You may be one of those keen, cold automations without one drop of human kindness in your heart. You may be so merciless in your dealings with mankind that you will not stop for one moment to consider the sad causes which led your friends into sin or into financial difficulty. And elder brother, if your faults are meanness and ayarice, though you may have never violated the crim- inal code of your state, you are at heart sinful monster, a financial tyrant: you are at heart a merciess calumniator. God despises your unrepented sins just as much as he despises the sins of the prodigal in the far country.
 Satan is no nearer being a Christian gentleman for dressing himself in broad cloth. The hangman's moose Is no less fatal for being deftly placed about the
 
 with diamond rings. Because you, oh. elder brother stay at home and live under your fathers roof. that is no req son why you may not be living 10000 miles away from your fathers love. I do not believe there Is a more contempt ible character painted in all the word pictures of the Bible than this cold blooded, unforgiving, sneerlng, carping elder brother, who was ready to take every advantage he could over his fel low men If he could only do so without disobeying the letter of the law. Instead of being drunk with wine he was intoM- cated with self-conceit and selfishness. Instead of being a beggar or earning his bread by tending swine he was ready to unkennel the bloodhounds of vindictive rancor which would tear a repentant brother limb from limb.
 A DesplcabIe Spirit.
 The elder brother thinks that his Di- vine Fathers house is not big enough to hold two sons. He feels that if his brother is allowed to come pack the re- turning prodigal will crowd him out of some room which rightfully belongs to him. He says to himself: There is that drunken loafer of boy. He has taken his one-half of the property; now he is coming back to eat up part of my half.
 
 that he will give part of my rightful in heritance to this lazy spendthrift. this boon companion of absolute characters. If he has spent his all, then let him starve. That is just what he deserves. He has no right coming back, to be a vampire upon my property" So the selfish elder brothers in many of our large churches refuse to let the prodigals come among them and will not allow them to be received as equals in their Fathers house. They seem to think that the advent of the poor and outcast means their own social extinction and their spiritual debasement.
 Where can the despicable, pharisaic- al spirit of the elder brother be found more conspicuous than in some of your modern Sunday school classes? Oh" say the well dressed young girls of that class, you are not going to put that poor girl in our class. Why, it will ruin the whole classi You can't expect the daughters of millonaires to associate with sewing girls even in Sunday school" Where can you find a more de- spicable. pharisaica1 spirit than in the missionary life of some of our large city churches? There are many large and wealthy churches that are supporting missions in the foul slums of the city, yet those members would not for one in- stant allow the poor to sit in their own pews or kneel at their communion tables And, mark you, this pharisaical spirit of old is not only found among the rich. but also among the poor. Some years ago the Avondale church of Cincinnati. of which the Rev. Charles F. Goss Is pastor, tried to run a mission in the slums. Dr. Goss declared that that mis- sion had to be abandoned because of the