Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-12
NAN WITH MUCK RAKE
THEME OF SERMON BY DIR. WAL
LACE RADCLIFFE.

Rev. DR.. Wallace Radcliffe. pastor Of the
New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, in
a sermon last evening told what he
thought Of the man with the muck rake"
and his opinion was not complimentary. He
declared that the world is better today than
1t ever was and said he had no patience
with those who cry to the contrary.
Dr. Radcliffe spoke Of the muck-raker in
the following terms:
d.. His appearance Is peculiar. His eyes are
defective, so that straight truth becomes
to him a corkscrew of error, and he can
never look up. His ears are worse. At best
crooked organ, everything goes in with a
twist, SO that negative becomes posi-
tive, and he can hear words that have
never been spoken.
His tongue shutters and stammers, and
his whisper can be heard around the world
His nostrils are remarkable. He can smell
what he wishes to smell, and to him a
dunghill is more fragrant than a garden.
His portrait was painted by Bunyan, and
hangs in the house of the interpreter. It re-
veals a man who can look no way but
downward, and In his favorite position,
with a muck rake In his hands. Over his
head one who offers him a celestial crown,
but he does neither look up nor regard, but
rakes together the straws, small sticks and
dust of the floor
1.-THE man with the muck rake has mis-
sion. Straws and sticks and dust abound
The common scavenger has his place. No
earthly city is paved with god.
There are bad men and women, dishon-
est business, scheming politics, reckless So
ciety, defiant trusts, INSCRIPTIONS editors,
impure literature, and insincere profession
everywhere, and life and health require
their recognition and removal. That is not
high type of piety which swathes itself in
silks, and breathes in perfumed atmosphere,
and shutting its eyes, sings, Gods in the
heavens; alls right with the world
Sin is Muck.
''AIl is not right with the world. Sin
abounds, and sin is muck Gather it up,
that 1t may be cast into the hell
free. Our vry prosperity breeds in
difference. Our palace must not look
out upon the hospital. Our automo-
bile must whir past green field and beauti-
full forest. But many a palace is built on
wrong and decked in vice, and many an
automobile brushes over law and life and
human souls. knowledge is the process
toward conviction and redress This nation
needs more than anything else prophets
transgression.
"A muck rake is a good thing. All de-
ponds upon the man that uses it, He is apt
to see nothing but the muck. To him the
cannot, if he would see ANYTHING else
sometimes he is an editor and his columns
reek with the yellow muck of tainted
money and insurance scandal, cold blooded
commercialism and vi,eness of prostituted
life and tongue. Sometimes he is a novelist
and his lutte becomes a sewer for the pour
ing or filth and unfaithfulness into the
hearts and homes of the unwary Some
he uses his platform for the spectacular
panorama of vice and his brilliant rhetoric
LOT the gliding of the thing that should be
hidden and despised. The man with muck
rake may set on tripod, lounge in a
salon, or stand in a pulpit.
The Tattler.
Sometimes he is the friend and neigh
Dor who tattles from house to house adj
der's poison under his lips, dropping SANDER
and suspicion and ugliness as he goes and
leaving behind him the Uttered straw and
dust in clean homes and innocent hearts
He believes in total depravity with a big
u. HE thinks he knows human nature, and
does not believe in it. No shrewdness can
conceal from him, no simplicity mislead
Nehemiah could not fool Gashmu He might
talk as he pleased about the city of his
fathers and his fathers God. That will do
on the platform, but between men, l know
what you are after; no hoodwinking now;
you want to rebel. But human nature is a
mingling of good and evil If wrong
dpouIluS, Sood much more abOundS. Even
though all were true, why roll it under the
tongue as sweet morsel, or parade it as
an acquisition.
Some men are as proud of muck as
Others are of money. Why display it, even
II 1t is there? Most scavenger work is done
at night. A fact may be fact, but that is
no reason for it's publication. There are
crowns and angels If we would only look
up. All Christians are not hypocrites; all
corporations are not soulless; all merchants
are not thieves; all bankers are not gam
blers. The commercial wrongs are i'm
pressed by the contrast. The world is bet
ter than 1t ever was. The tone of public
life is purer, nobler, cleaner than ever Dis
lance iends enchantment to the virtues and
early days Of the republic
Inc man with the muck rake is a men,
ace to the community. He disseminates
disease. He undermines the foundations of
society. He chooses for himself straw
where he might have crown. And he that
spends his life with a muck rake becomes
assimilated to the muck Gashmu is NOT az
good as the vulture which, having no feath-
ers on head or neck, woes not become filthy
with the carrion. These human vultures
are vile with the filth on which they feed -