The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-27
DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
sv TIE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAeE. Q. D.

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 sermon turns the brighter side of the picture of our national life and shows us that we ought to be thankful that we are living in times that have undergone vast improvement since the good old days" of our grandfathers. The text is Psalm iv, 6. There be many that say, Who will show us any good?
 The depreciators, the carpers, the fault
 finders. the calamity howlers, the pessi- mists. who, like the blind fish of Ken tuclxy's Mammoth cave, cannot see the light of day, have an ancestral record as old as the human race. They belong especially to no one century or genera tion. Their family connections are not limited to the Caucasian race, or to the Ethiopian. or to the Malay, or to the red skinned American Indian, or to the Mongolian, or to the jandiced faced Chin aman. They are found alike in the poor mans hut and the rich mans palace among the sailors on shipboard and the citizens on land. Like the Eskimos they live among the arctic icebergs They thrive well in the temperate zone. They bask in the boiling heat of the tropics. They are found among all social classes of all nations of all times.
 Mythology placed a representative of the class among the Greek gods on Mount Olympus. His name was Momus, the god of fault finding and mockery. He took pleasure in finding fault with men, He found fault with the gods themselves. He criticised Vulcan because after he had made man he did not place a window in his breast, so that mans thoughts could be seen by the passersby. He denounced Minerva after she had built a house be- cause she did not make the house nova ble. He found fault with Neptune be- cause he did not place the horns of the beast he had created farther forward in bis forehead, so that he could fight bet ter. He kept on finding fault with every body and everything until at last the gods became disgusted and drove Momus out of heaven, because, said they. heaven can be no heaven with chronic fault finder around"
 What the Grecian mythological gods said In reference to heaven with.a Momus in it is literally true. No society on earth can be happy or eontented with a chronic grumbler around. And yet, coming ID to the glorious celebration of our autumnal Thanksgiving day of 1904, we find our ' the time when we ought to be making an inventory of all our blessings, instead of which these modern calamity howlers are making false collection of misan- thropic statements. They are also mak- ing their pessimistic prophecies. Not only are they saying that the world is going | to the dogs. Why they say, i've have nothing to be thankful for this Thanks giving day. Tis true there is more money in fI,r fJ,ox, I1f, l.t,k we do not have it. Our social civic and | spiritual conditions for the great mass of folks were never at as low ebb as they | are today. Who will show us any good?" they cry, as the calamity howlers of my text cried in David's time, thousands of years ago.
 Modern Times Versus Ancient. | Some of these modern fault finders are | trying to make our times out to be much worse than were the ancient times. l will pick up their challenge. They ask: | Who will show us any good?" answer. | T will" And I will show that the | church of Jesus Christ is better today | spiritually than the ancient church. | will show that modern governments are | better and the homes are better and peo- | pie in the mass are higher toned morally 1 and better The fact that a lot of chronic
 
 | going around finding fault with things does not in the least prove that most peo- pie are poorly clad, poorly fed, poorly housed and under the merciless heels of despotic tyrants As a rule, you will find that those people who grumble the most have the least to grumble about The Momus of political life declares that there is nothing in our national life to warrant thanksgiving. He says: Mod I,r. .ts-I., 1 pressors. They do not govern by Gods Golden Rule, but by force. The code of civilized nations is immoral, merciless and unjust. It connives at the crimes of government and condones the thefts of a province. Strong governments trample upon the rights of the weaker govern ments. Within those governments one social class places the yoke of tyranny upon the other social class. Within those | governments laws are not equitable and just. We find that the poor man who steals a loaf of bread to avert starvation is hustled off to jail, as Jean Valjean was sent to the galleys with a twenty years sentence for stealing two loaves of bread to feed the saunt and haggard and starv- ing children of his widowed sister. On the | other hand, man like James Fisk if he | is big enough scoundrel to steal a rail- | road, can defy justice, while a million | aire, like Edward Stokes, who shoots a | James Fisk, has no more to fear from | the gallows than leopard has who stays | a helpless fawn" "No," say the living | pessimists, "our modern governments and | their internal laws are all corrupt. There | are none that doeth good-no, not one, not one"
 Iris true O carping critic and calamity | howler against rulers and national laws | that modern governments are not all that l they should be. This is not the age of perfection even in legislative hall or pres | idential cabinet or privy council of the | king. Perhaps England did not do right in her dealings with the African Boers. 1 Possibly the United States government | did not do right in compelling Mexico at | the point of the bayonet to cede to her | all of Texas, all of New Mexico, one | half of the present. state of Colorado, all | of Arizona, all of Nevada, all of Utah and the whole of California. We know | that Russia trying to steal Manchuran, and Turkey, in her massacre of the | Armenians, have been outra geousy wick ed. We know that Spain in her cruelties | toward Cuba and the Philippines and | the United States government, in it's cruel treatment of the North American | Indians, have done wrong. But though | our modren governments Tin some of | their dealings with the weaker nations and with their own weaker subjects may | have been sinfully culpable the present governments are far ahead of the an- cient governments in righteousness and justice as the brightness Of midnoon is ahead of the darkness of midnight.
 EnqIand's Ways Versus Rome's.
 Compare the conquests of our day with
 the conquets of ancient times. Like the
 eagles of ancient Rome, the British
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