TALMAGE’S SERMON.
Tells Hcvz to Secure Safety for
Our Cities.
Mnnieipnl Government from n Moral
mid KellKlouM Standpoint —
Counsel to Those Holding;
Public Positions.
Dr. Talmage, in the following sermon,
•discusses from a moral and religious
standpoint the welfare of all the towns
and cities of our country. His text is
Ezekiel xxvii, 3: “O thou that art situ
ate at the entry of the sea!”
This is a part of an impassioned apos
trophe to the city of lyre. It was a beau
tiful city —a majestic city. At the east
end of the Mediterranean it sat with
one hand beckoning the inland trade
and with the other the commerce, of for
eign nations. It swung a monstrous
boom across its harbor to shut out for
eign enemies, and then swung back
that boom to let. in its friends. The air
of the desert was fragrant with the
spices brought by caravans to her fairs,
and all seas were cleft into foam by the
keels of her laden merchantmen. Iler
markets were rich with horses ana
mules and camels from Togarmah;
with upholstery and ebony and ivory
from Dedan; with emeralds and agate
mid coral from Syria; with wine from
Helbon; with finest needlework from
Ashur and Chilmad. Talk about the
splendid staterooms of your Cunard
and Inman and White Star lines of
international steamers — why, the
benches of the staterooms in those.
Tyrian ships were all ivory, and instead
ot our coarse canvas on the mast of
the shipping, they had the finest linen,
•quilled together and inwrought with
cmoroideries almost miraculous for
beauty. Its columns overshadowed all
nations. Distant empires felt its heart
beat. Majestic city, "situate at the
entry of the sea.”
But where now is the gleam of her
towers, tiie ,oar of her chariots, the
masts of her shipping? Let the fisher
men who d>y their nets on the place
where she once stood, let the sea that
rushes upon the barrenness where she
cnee challenged the admiration of all
nations, let the barbarians who build
tbeir huts on the place where her pal
oces glittered, answer the question.
Blotted out forever! She forgot Cod,
and God forgot her. And while our
modern cities admire her glory let
them take warning at her awful doom.
Cain was the founder of the first city,
and 1 suppose it took after him in mor
als. it is a long while before a city can
get over the character of those who
founded it. Were they criminal exiles,
the tilth, and the prisons, and the de
bauchery are the shadows of such
founders. New York will not for 200
or 300 years escape from the good in
fluences of its founders, the pious set
tlers whose prayers went up from the
very streets where now banks discount,
and brokers shave, and companies de
cdare dividends, and smugglers swear
customhouse lies, and above the roar
of the drays and the crack of the au
tioneers’ mallets is heard the ascrip
tion: “We worship thee, O thou al
mighty dollar!” The church that once
stood on Wall street still throws its
blessing over all the scene of traffic
and upon the ships that fold their
■white wings in the harbor. Originally
men gathered in cities from necessity.
It was to escape the incendiary’s torch
or the assassin s dagger. Only the Very
poor lived in the country, those who
had nothing that could be stolen or
vagabonds who wanted to be near
their place of business, but since civili
zation and religion have made it safe
for men to live almost anywhere men
congregate in cities because of the op
portunity for rapid gain. Cities ure
not necessarily evils, as has sometimes
been argued. They have been the
birthplace of civilization. In them pop
ular liberty has lifted up its voice.
Witness Genoa and Pisa and Venice.
The entrance of the representatives of
the cities in the legislatures of Eu
rope was the deathblow to feudal king
doms. Cities are the patronizers of
art and literature—architecture point
ing to its British museum in London,
its Royal library in Paris, its Vatican in
Home. Cities hold the world’s scep
ter. Africa was Carthage, Greece was
Athens, England is Loudon, France is
Puris, Italy is Home and the cities in
Which God has cast our lot will yet de
cide the destiny of the American peo
ple.
At this season of the year I have
thought it might be useful to talk a lit
tle while about the moral responsibility
resting upon the office bearers in all our
cities, a theme as appropriate to those
who are governed as to the governors.
The moral character of those who rule
a city has much to do with the char
acter of the city itself. Men, women and
children are all interested in national
politics. When the great presidential
election comes, every patriot wants to
be found at the ballot box. We are all
interested in the discussion of national
finance, national debt, and we read the
laws of congress, and we are wondering
who will sit next in the presidential
chair. Now, that may be all very well
—is very well. But it is high time that
we took some of the attention which we
have been devoting to national affairs
and brought it to the study of municipal
government. This it seems to me now
is the chief point to be taken. Make
the cities right and the nation will be
right. I have noticed that, according
to their opportunities, there has really
been more corruption in municipal
governments in this country than in
the state and national legislatures.
Now, is there no hope? With the might
iest agent in our hand, the glorious
gospel of Jesus Christ, shall not all our
cities be reformed and purified and re
deemed? I believe the day will come.
1 am in full sympathy with those who
are opposed to carrying polities into
religion, but our cities will never be re
formed and purified until we carry re
ligion into politics. 1 look over our
cities and I see that all great inter
ests are to be affected in the future,
as they have been affected in the past,
by the character of those who in the
different departments rule over us, and
J propose to classify some of those in
terests.
In the first place, 1 remark commer
cial ethics are always affected by the
moral or immoral character of those
who have municipal supremacy. Offi
c.als that wink at fraud and that have
neither censure nor arraignment for
glittering dishonesties always weaken
the pulse of commercial honor. Every
shop, every store, every bazar, every
factory in the cities feels the moral
character of the city hall. If in any city
there be a dishonest mayoralty, or an
unprincipled common council, or a
court susceptible to bribes, in that city
there will be unlimited license for all
kinds of trickery and sin. while, on the
other hand, if officials are faithful to
their oath of office, if the laws are
promptly executed, if there is vigilance
in regard to the outbranchings of
crime, there is the highest protection
for all bargain making.
A merchant may stand in his store
and say: “Now, I’ll have nothing to do
with city politics. 1 will not soil my
hands with the slush,” Nevertheless
the most insignificant trial in the police
court will affect that merchant direct
ly or indirectly. What style of clerk is
sues the writ? What style of constable
makes the arrest? What style of attor
ney issues the plea? What style of
judge charges the jury? What style of
sheriff executes the sentence? These
are questions that strike your counting
rooms to the center. Y’ou may not
throw it off. In the city of New York
Christian merchants for a great while
said: “We’ll have nothing to do with
the management of public affairs,” and
they allowed everything to go at loose
ends until there rolled up in that city
a debt of nearly $120,000,000. The mu
nicipal government became a hissing
and a byword in the whole earth, and
then the Christian merchants saw their
felly, and they went and took posses
sion of the ballot boxes. I wish all com
mercial men to understand that they
are not independent of the moral char
acter of the men who rule over them,
but must be thoroughly, mightily af
fected by them.
So also of the educational interests of
a city. Do you know that there are in
this country about 70.000 common
schools, and that there are over 8.000,-
000 pupils, and that the majority of
those schools and the majority of those
pupils are in our cities? Now this great
multitude of children will be affected
by the intelligence or ignorance, the
virtue or the vice of boards of ed ucation
and boards of control. There are cities
where educational affairs are settled in
the low caucus in the abandoned parts
of the cities by men full of ignorance
and rum. It ought not to be so. but in
many cities it is so. I hear the tramp of
coming generations. What that great
multitude of youth shall be for this
world and the next will be affected very
much by the character of your public
schools. You bad better multiply the
moral and religious influences about
the common schools than to subtract
from them. Instead of driving the
Bible out, you had better drive the
Bible further in. May God defend our
glorious common school system and
send into rout and confusion all its
sworn enemies.
I have also to say that the character
ot officials in a city affects the domestic
circle. In a city where grogshops have
their own way and gambling hells are
not interfered with, and for fear of los
ing political influence officials close
their eyes to festering abominations—
in all those cities the home interests
need to make imploration. The family
circles of the city must inevitably be af
fected by the moral character or the im
moral character of those who rule over
them.
I will go further and say that the
religious iuterests of a city are thus af
fected. The church to-day has to con
tend with evils that the civil law ought
to smite, and, while I would not have
the civil government in tiny wise relax
its energy in the arrest and punishment
of crime, 1 would have a thousandfold
more energy put forth in the drying up
of the fountains of iniquity. The church
of God asks no pencuniary aid from po
liticial power, but does ask that in ad
dition to all the evils we must necessar
ily contend against we shall not have
to fight also municipal negligence. Oh,
that in all our cities Christian people
would rise up, and that they would put
their hand on the helm before piratical
demagogues have swamped the ship!
Instead of giving so much time to na
tional politics, give some of your atten
tion tq municipal government.
I demand that the Christian people
who have been standing aloof from
public affairs come back, and in the
might of God try to save our cities. If
things are or have been bad, it is be
cause good people have let them be bad.
That Christian man who merely goes
to the pells and casts his vote does not
do his duty. It is not the ballot box
that decides the election; it is the po
litical caucus, and if at the primary
meetings of the two political parties un
fit and bad men are nominated, then the
ballot box has nothing to do save to
take its choice between two thieves.
In our churches, by reformatory or
ganization. in every way let us try to
tone up the moral sentiment in these
cities. The rulers are those whom the
people choose, and depend upon it that
in all the cities, as long as pure hearted
men stand aloof from politics because
they depise hot partisanship, just so
long in many' of our cities will rum
make the nominations, and rum control
the ballot box, and rum inaugurate the
officials.
I take a step further in this subject
and ask all those who believe in the
omnipotence of prayer, day by day and
every day, present your city officials
before God for a blessing. If you live
in a city presided over by a mayor,
pray for him. The chief magistrate of
a city is in a position of great responsi
bility. Many of the kings and queens
and emperors of otherdays had no such
dominion. With the scratch cf a pen he
may advance a beneficent institution or
balk a railway confiscation. By ap
pointments he may bless or curse every
hearthstone in thecity. If in the Episco
pal churches, by the authority of the lit
any, and in our nonepiscopate churches
we every Sabbath pray for the president
of the United States, why not, then, be
just as hearty in our supplications for
the chief magistrates of cities, for their
guidance, for their health, for their
present and tbeir everlasting morality?
But go further, and pray for your
common council, if your city has a
common council. They hold in their
hands a power splendid for good or ter
rible for evil. They have many temp
tations. In many of the cities whole
boards of common council men have
gone down in the maelstrom of po
litical corruption. They could not
stand the power of the bribe. Corrup
tion came in and sat beside them, and
sat behind them, and sat before them.
They recklessly voted away the hard
earned moneys of the people. They
were bought out, body, mind and soul,
so that at the end of their term of of
fice they had not enough of moral re
mains left to make a decent funeral.
They went into office with the huzza
of the multitude. They came out with
the anathema of all decent people.
There is not one man out of 100 that can
endure the temptations of the common
council men in our great cities. If a
man in that position have the courage
of a Cromwell and the independence of
an Andrew Jackson, and the public
spiritedness of a John Frederick Ober
lin, and the piety of an Edward Pay
son, he Will have no surplus to throw
away. Pray for these men. Every
man likes to be prayed for. Do you
know how Dr. Norman McLeod be
came the queen’s chaplain? It was
by a warm-hearted prayer in the
Scotch kirk in behalf of the royal fam
ily. one Sabbath when the queen and
her son were present incognito.
Yes, go further, my friends, and
pray for your police. Their perils and
temptations are best known to them
selves. They hold the order and peace
of your cities in their grasp. But for
their intervention you would not be
safe for an hour. They must face the
storm. They must rush in where it
seems to them almost instant death.
They must put the hand of arrest on
the armed maniac and corner the mur
derer. They must refuse large re
wards for withdrawing complaints.
They must unravel intricate plots and
trace dark labyrinths of crime and de
velop suspicions into certainties. They
must be cool while others are frantic.
They must be vigilant while others are
somnolent, impersonating the very vil
lainy they want to seize. In the po
lice forces of bur great cities are to-day
men of as thorough character as that
of the old detective of New York, ad
dressed to whom there came letters
from London asking for help ten years
after he was dead —letters addressed to
“Jacob Hayes, High Constable of New
York.” Your police need your ap
preciation, your sympathy, your grati
tude, and, above all, your prayers. Yea,
1 want you to go further and pray every
day for prison inspectors and jail keep
ers, work awful and beneficent. Rough
men, cruel men, impatient men, are not
fit for these places. They have under
their care men who were once as good as
you, but they got tripped up. Bad
company or strong drink or strange
conjunction of circumstances flung
them headlong. Go down that prison
corridor and ask them how they got in
and about their families and what their
early prospects in life were, and you
will find that they are very much like
yourself, except in this, that God kept
you while He did not restrain them.
Just one false step made the difference
between them and you. They want
more than prison bars, more than jail
fare, mure than handcuffs and hop
piers, more than a vermin-covered couch
to reform them. Fray God day by day
that the men who have these unfortu
nates in charge may' be merciful, Chris
tianly strategic and the means of refor
mation and rescue.
Some years ago a city pastor in New
York was called to the city prison to
attend a funeral. A young woman had
committed a crime and was incarcer
ated, and her mother came to visit her,
and died on the visit. The mother, hav
ing no home, was buried from her
daughter’s prison cell. After the serv
ice was over the imprisoned daughter
came up to the minister of Christ and
said: "Wouldn’t you like 10 see my
poor mother?" And while they stood
at the coffin the minister of Christ
said to that imprisoned soul: "Don’t
you feel to-day, in the presence of your
mother’s dead body, as if you ought to
make a vow before God that you will
do differently and live a better life?”
She stood for a few moments, and then
the tears rolled down her cheeks, and
she pulled from her right hand the
wornout glove that she had put on in
honor of the obsequies, and, having
bared her right hand, she put it upon
the chill brow of her dead mother and
said: “By the help of God, 1 swear 1
will do differently! God help me!”
And she kept her vow. And years
after, when she was told of the inci
dent, she said: “When that minister of
the Gospel said: ’God bless you and
help you to keep the vow that you have
made,’ 1 cried out, and I said: ’You
bless me! Do you bless me? Why,
that’s the first kind word I’ve heard
in ten years.’ And it thrilled through
my soul, and it was the means of my
refoimation, and ever since, by the
grace of God, I’ve tried to live a Chris
tian life.” Oh, yes, there are many
amid the criminal classes that may be
reformed. Pray for the men who have
these unfortunates in charge, and who
knows but that when you are leaving
this world you may hear the voice of
Christ dropping to your dying pillow,
saying: “I was sick and in prison
and you visited me.” Yea, 1 take the
suggestion of the Apostle Paul and ask
you to pray for all who are in authori
ty, that we may lead quiet a..d peaceful
lives in godliness and honesty.
My word now is to all who may come
to hold any public position of trust in
any city: Y’ou are God’s representa
tives. God, the King and Ruler and
Judge, sets you in His place. Oh, be
faithful in the discharge of all your du
ties, so that when all our cities are in
ashes and the world itself is a red scroll
of flame, you may be in the mercy
and grace of Christ rewarded for
your faithfulness it was that feel
ing which gave such eminent
qualifications for office to Neal Dow,
mayor of Portland, and to Judge
McLean, of Ohio, and to Benjamin F.
Butler, attorney-general of New York,
and to George Briggs, governor of Mas
sachusetts, and to Theodore Freling
huysen, senator of the United States,
and to William Wilberforce, member of
the British parliament. You may make
the rewards of eternity the emoluments
of your office. What care you for ad
verse political criticism if you have God
on your side? The one, or the two, or
the three years of your public trust will
pass away, and all the years of your
earthly service, and then the tribunal
will be lifted before which you and 1
must appear. May God make you so
faithful now that the last scene shall be
to your exhilaration and rapture! 1
wish to exhort all good people, whether
they are the governors or the governed,
to make one grand effort for the salva
tion, the purification, the redemption of
our American cities. Do you not know
that there are multitudes going down
to ruin, temporal and eternal, dropping
quicker than words drop from my lips?
Grogshops swallow them up. Gambling
hells devour them. Houses of shameare
damning them. Oh, let us toil and pray
and preach and vote until all these
wrongs are righted! What we do we
must do quickly. With our rulers, and
on the same platform, we must at last
come before the throne of God to an
swer for what we have done for the
bettering of our great towns. Alas, if
on that day it be found that your hand
has been idle and my pulpit has been
silent! O, ye who are pure and honest
and Christian, go to work and help to
make the cities pure and honest and
Christian!
Lest it may have been thought that 1
am addressing only what ure called the
better classes, my final word is to some
dissolute soul to whom these words
may come. Though you may be cov
ered with all crimes, though you may
be smitten with all leprosies, though
you may have gone through the whole
catalogue of iniquity and- may not
have been in church foi 20 years, you
may have your nature entirely recon
structed, and upon your brow, not
with infamous practices and besweated
with exhausting indulgences, God will
place the flashing coronet of a Saviour’s
forgiveness. "Oh, no!” you say. “If
you knew who 1 am and where 1 came
from, you wouldn’t say that to me.
I don’t believe the Gospel you are
preaching speaks in my case.” Yes, it
does, my brother. And then, when you
tell me that, 1 think of what St. Teresa
said when reduced to utter destitution.
Having only two pieces of money left,
she jingled the two pieces of money in
her hand arid said: "St. Teresa and
two pieces of money are nothing, but
St. Teresa and two pieces of money and
God are all things.” And 1 tell you
now that while a sin and a sinner are
nothing, a sin and a sinner and an all
forgiving and all compassionate God
are everything.
Who is that that 1 see coming? 1
know his step. 1 know his rags. Who
is it? A prodigal. Come, people of
God; let us go out and meet him. Get
the best robe you can find in all Die
wardrobe. Let the angels of God fill
their chalices and drink to his eter
nal rescue. Come, people of God; let
us go out to meet him. The prodigal
is coming home. The dead is alive
azain.- and the lost is found.
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
fntnrn.-ttlonnl Lennon for Jnly 11,1 MIT
—Paul and the Philippian Jailers
Acts
[Arranged from Feloubet’s Notes.]
GOLDEN TEXT.—Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,
end thy house.—Acts 16: 31.
THE SECTION includes chapter 16 from
verse 16 to the end.
TIME.— A. D. 52, 22 years after the found
ing of the church.
, THE LESSON.
I. Possessed Damsel Redeemed.— Vs.
16-18. ’1 he apostles frequently met in
the streets a jxior slave girl, owned by
a company of speculators, who made
no little money out of her as a fortune
teller. She was supposed to be pos
sessed with "the spirit of Python.”
Python, in the Greek mythology, was
the serpent which guarded Delphi. The
name Python was subsequently used to
denote a prophetic demon, and was also
used of soothsayers who practiced ven
triloquism, or speaking from the belly.
11. Paul and Silas Arrested. —Vs. 19-
23. The owners, angry at their loss,
seized I’aul and Silas and dragged them
into the public square, where trials
were held, and 1 charged them, not with
interfering with their gains, which
w ould have been quickly dismissed, but
with breaking the laws of the Roman
empire.
22. “The multitude rose up togeth
er:” An excited mob. “The magis
trates,” without investigation or trial,
“rent off their clothes:” The clothes
of Pawl and Silas. “Commanded to beat
them:” The word means “beat with
rods.” The custom was with the
Remans to inflict blows with rods Upon
the naked body (Livy 11., 5).
24. “Thrust them into the inner pris
on:” There was the outer and airier
compartment, where people were
herded together to await trial, or in
punishment of trivial offenses. Then
there was the “inner prison,” gloomy,
oppressive, filthy, in which great or
dangerous criminals were confined, in
chains or otherwise. “Their feet fast
in the stocks:” An instrument of tor
ture as w’ell as of confinement, con
sisting of a heavy piece of wood with
holes, into which the feet were placed
in such a manner that they were
stretched widely apart, so as to cause
the sufferer great pain.
HL Songs in the Night.—V. 25.
“Paul and Silas prayed, and sang
praises:” Their position was one of
torture. Sleep was out of the ques
tion. But they passed the night in
devotions.
IV. The Wonderful Deliverance.— V.
26. “And suddenly there was a great
earthquake:” This was the Lord’s an
swer to prayer, whether it came by
miracle or was timed by special provi
dence. “All the doors were opened, and
everyone's bands were loosed:” Either
by the action of the earthquake or by
the same supernatural power which
produced the earthquake.
V. The Conversion of the
Vs. 27-34. 27. “The keeper • • •
awaking out of his sleep:” He prob
ably slept in such a place that on rising
he could observe at a glance whether
the prison doors were secure. “Would
have killed himself: ” “If the prisoners
had escaped, he was liable to the same
punishment which they were to suf
fer.”—Gloag.
28. “Paul cried with a loud voice:"
Lest the jailer should fail to notice in
time. “For we are all here:” It was a
wonder, greater than the earthquake,
that a prisoner should care for the wel
fare of a jailer, who had treated him so
cruelly. “Do thyself no harm” is the
message of the Gospel to man in de
spair.
29. “Called for*a light:" The Greek
is plural, lights, torches, or lamps.
“Fell down before Paul and Silas:” He
connected the earthquake with their re
ligion, of which he must have heard, as
well as stories of their miraculous
power.
30. “And brought them out:” From
the inner prison where they were con
fined, probably into the court of the
prison. “Sirs, what must I do to be
saved?” YVhat shall Idoto be saved?
is the most important question any
person can ask, for it determines not
only (1) his happiness, but (2) his char
acter; (3) the best use of lifehere; (4) his
usefulness in the world; (5) his relations
to God; (6) his redemption from the
guilt and punishment of sin; (7) his
eternal destiny, character, and useful
ness in Heaven.
31. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved:” Saved from
sin, from its punishment, and to holi
ness and Heaven. “And thy house:”
By leading his family to the same faith.
33. “The same hour of the night:"
Not very long after midnight (v. 25).
“Washed their stripes:” The first ef
fect of faith in Jesus was a kindlier
disposition, and a desire to help. “Was
baptized, he and all his, straightway:”
As soon as they were sure they believed,
they confessed Christ in. baptism.
34. “Brought them into his house:”
The most comfortable place he could
find for them. It of course was con
nected with the prison. The jailer knew
this was perfectly safe, since Paul had
refused to escape when he had the op
portunity. “Set meat (food) before
them:” The two sufferers may have
well needed food, as there is no record
of their having any since their arrest
the day before. The next morning, by
a proper use of their Roman citizenship,
aided, no doubt, by the miraculous
event of the night, the two missionaries
were set free, and returned to the hous»
of Lydia.