The Macon news. (Macon, Ga.) 189?-1930, March 28, 1898, Page 6, Image 6

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6 GOD’S JUST MEASURE. IT WILL BE THE MEASURE YOU APPLY TO OTHERS. The Rrv. Dr. Talmage’s Rermou </n the Hln of Unfairness—“ With What Mew nre You Mete It Shall Be Measured to You Again" Is His Text. {Copyright, 18&8, by American Press Aaao claXion.) WASHINGTON, March 27.— 1 f the spirit of this sermon of Dr. Talmage were carried out, the world would be a better place to live Id, and the fallen would find it cosier to recover themselves; text, Matthew vii, 2, “With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again.” In the greatest sermon over preached— a sermon about 15 minutes long according to the ordinary rate of speech—a sermon on the Mount of Olives, the preacher sit ting while he spoke, according to the an cient mode of oratory, the people were giv en to understand that the same yardstick that they emplpyed upon others would be employed upon themselves. Measure oth ers by a harsh rule, and you will be meas ured by a harsh rule. Measure others by a charitable rule, and you will be meaa wed by a charitable rule. Give no mercy to others, and no mercy will be given to you. “With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.” There is a great deal of unfairness in criticism in human conduct It was to smite that unfairness that Christ uttered the words of the text, and my sermon will be a re-echo of the divine sentiment In estimating the misbehavior of others we xuust take into consideration the pressure of circumstances It is never right to do wrong, but there are degrees of culpability. When men misbehave or commit some atrocious wickedness, wo arc disposed in discriminately to tumble them all over the bank of condemnation. Suffer they ought, and suffer they must, but in a dif ference of degree. The Hereditary Tendency. In the first place, in estimating the mis doing of others wo must take into calcula tion the heiedltary tendency. There is such a thing as good blood, and there is such a thing as bad blood. There are fam ilies that have had a moral twist iu them for a hundred years back. They have not been careful to keep the family record in that regard. There have been escapades and maraudings and scoundrelisms and moral deficits all the way back, whether you call it kleptomania or pyromania or dipsomania or whether it be in a milder form and amount to no mania at all. The strong probability is that the present crim inal started life with nerve, muscle and bone contaminated. As some start life with a natural tendency to nobility and generosity and kindness and truthfulness, there aro others who Start life with just the opposite tendency, and they are born liars or born malcontents or born outlaws or born swindlers. There is in England a school that is called the Princess Mary school. All the children in that school are the children of convicts. The school is under high patron age. I had the pleasure of being present at one of their anniversaries, presided over by the Earl of Kin tore. By a wise law in England after parents have committed a certain number of crimes and thereby shown themselves incompetent rightly to bring up their children the little ones are taken from under pernicious influences and put in reformatory schools, where ail gracious and kindly influences shall be brought upon them. Os course the experi ment is young, and it has got to be dem onstrated how large a percentage of the children of convicts may be brought up to respectability and usefulness. But we all know that it is more difficult for children of bad parentage to do right than for chil dren of good parentage. All Born Equal. In this country we are taught by the Declaration of American Independence that all people aro born equal. There never was a greater misrepresentation put in one sentence than in that sentence which implies that we are all born equal. You as may as well say that flowers are born equal or trees are born equal or animals aro born equal. Why does one horse cost SIOO and another horse cost 85,000? Why does one sheep cost 810 and another sheep cost $500? Difference in blood. We are wise enough to recognize it in horses, in cattle, in sheep, but wo are not wise enough to mako allowance for the difference in the human blood. Now, I demand by the law of eternal fairness that you be more lenient in your criticism of those w’ho were born wrong, in whose ancestral line there was a hangman’s knot, or who came from a tree the fruit of which for centuries has been gnarled and worm eaten. Dr. Harris, a reformer, gave some mar velous statistics in his story of a woman ho called “Margaret, the mother of crim inals.” Ninety years ago she lived in a village in upper New York state. She was not only poor, but she was vicious. She ■was not well provided for. There were no almshouses there. The public, however, somewhat looked after her, but chiefly scoffed at her and derided her and pushed her further down in her crime. That was ©0 years ago. There have been 628 persons in that ancestral line, 200 of them crim inals. In one branch of that family there were 30, and nine of them have been in state prison, and nearly all of the others have turned out badly. It is estimated that that family cost the county and state SIOO,OOO, to say nothing of the property they destroyed. Are you not willing, as sensible, fair people, to acknowledge that it is a fearful disaster to be born in suoh an ancestral line? Does it not make a great difference whether one descends from Mar garet, the mother of criminals, or from some mother in Israel; whether you are the son of Ahab or the son of Joshua? Against the Current, ♦lt is a very different thing to swim with the current from what it is to swim against the current, as some of you have no doubt found in your summer recrea tion. If a man find himself in an ancestral current where there is good blood flowing smoothly from generation to generation, it is not a very great credit to him if be turn out good and honest and pure and noble. He could hardly help it. But sup pose he is born in an ancestral line, in a hereditary line, where the influences have been bad and there has been a coming {own over a moral declivity, if the man surrender to the influences he will go down under the overmastering gravitation unless some supernatural aid be afforded him. Now, such a person deserves not your excoriation, but your pity. Do not sit with the lip curled in scorn and with an assumed air of angelic innocence look ing down upon such moral precipitation. You had better get down on your knees and first pray Almighty God for their res cue, and next thank the Lord that you have not been thrown under the wheels of 4bat Juggernaut. In Great Britain and in the United States in every generation there are tens of thousands of persons who are fully de- velopod criminals and incarcerated. T say in every generation. Then I suppose there arc tens of thousands of persons not found out in their criminality. In addition to these there are tens of thousands of persons who not positively becoming criminals nevertheless have a criminal tendency. Any one of all those thousands, by the grace of God, may become Christian and resist the ancestral Influence and open a new chapter of behavior, but the vast ma jority of them will not, and it becomes all men, professional, unprofessional, minis ters of religion, judges of courts, philan thropists and Christian workers, to recog nize the fact that there are these Atlantic and Pacific surges of hereditary evil roll ing on through the centuries. I say, of course, a man can resist this tendency, just as in the ancestral line mentioned in the first chapter of Matthew. You see in the same line in which there was a wicked Rehoboam and a desperate Manasses there afterward came a pious Josiah and a glo rious Christ But, my friends, you must recognize the fact that these influences go on from generation to generation. lam glad to know, however, that a river which has produced nothing but miasma for a hundred miles may after awhile turn the wheels of factories and help support in dustrious and virtuous populations, and there are family lines which were poisoned that are a benediction now. At the last day it will be found out that there are men who have gone clear over into all forms of iniquity and plunged into utter abandon ment who before they yielded to the first temptation resisted more evil than many i man who has been moral and upright all his life. The Best Man Before God. But supposing now that in this ago, when there are so many good people, that I come down into this audience and select the very best man in it. I do not moan the man who would style himself the best, for probably he is a hypocrite, but I mean the man who before God is really the best. I will take you out from all your Chris tian surroundings. I will take you back to boyhood. I will put you in a depraved home. I will put you in a cradle of in iquity. Who is bending over that cradle? An intoxicated mother. Who Is that swear ing in the next room? Your father. The neighbors come in to talk, and their jokes are unclean. There is not in the house a Bible or a moral treatise, but only a few scraps of an old pictorial. After awhile you aro old enough to get out of the cradle, and you are struck across the head for naughtiness, but never in any kindly manner reprimanded. Aft er awhile you are old enough to go abroad, and you are sent out with a basket to steal. If you come homo without any spoil, you are whipped until the blood comes. At 15 years of age you go out to fight your own battles in this world, which seems to care no more for you than the dog that has died of a fit under the fence. You are kicked and cuffed and buffeted. Some day, rallying your courage, you resent some wrong. A man says: “W’ho are you? I know who you are. Your father had free lodgings at Sing Sing. Your mother, she was up for drunkenness at the criminal court. Got out of my way, you low lived wretch!” My brother, suppose that had been the history of your advent and the history of your earlier surroundings. Would you have been the Christian man you are today, seated in this Christian as sembly? I tell you nay. You would have been a vagabond, an outlaw, a murderer on the scaffold atoning for your crime. All these considerations ought to mako us merciful in our dealings with the wander ing and the lost. Swayed by Circumstances. Again, I have to remark that in our es timation the misdoing of people who have fallen from high respectability and useful ness we must take into consideration the conjunction of circumstances. In nine cases out of ten a man who goes astray does not intend any positive wrong. Ho has trust funds. He risks a part of these funds in investment. He says: “Now, if I should lose that investment I have of my own property five times as much,and if this investment should go wrong I could easily make it up. I could five times make it up.” With that wrong reasoning he goes on and makes the investment, and it does not turn out quite as well as he expected, and he makes another investment, ami strange to say at the same time all his oth er affairs get entangled, and all his other resources fail, and his hands are tied. Now he wants to extricate himself. He goes a little further on in the wrong in vestment. He takes a plunge further ahead, for he wants to save his wife and children, be wants to save his home, he wants to save bis membership in the church. Ho takes one more piunge, and all is lost. Some morning at 10 o’clock the bank door is not opened, and there is a card on the door signed by an officer of the bank, indicating there is trouble, and the name of the defaulter or the defrauder heads the newspaper column, and hundreds of men say, “Good for him!” Hundreds of other men say, “I’m glad he’s found out at last.” Hundreds of other men say, “Just as I told you.” Hundreds of other men say, “We couldn’t possibly have been tempted to do that—no conjunction of cir cumstances could ever have overthrown me.” And there is a superabundance of indignation, but no pity. The heavens full of lightning, but not one drop of dew. If God treated us as society treats that man, we would all have been in hell long ago. Temper Wrath With Mercy. Wait for the alleviating circumstances. Perhaps be may have been the dupe of others. Before you let all the hounds out from their kennel to maul and tear that man find out if he has not been brought up in a commercial establishment where there was a wrong system of ethics taught; find out whether that man has not an ex travagant wife who is not satisfied with his honest earnings and in the temptation to please her he has gone into that ruin into which enough men have fallen, and by the same temptation, to make a proces sion of many miles. Perhaps some sud den sickness may have touched his brain, and his judgment may be unbalanced. He is wrong, he is awfully wrong, and he must be condemned, but there may be mitigating circumstances. Perhaps under the same temptation you might have fall en. The reason some men do not steal $200,000 is because they do not get a chance. Have righteous indignation you must about that man’s conduct, but tem per it with mercy. But, you say, “I am sorry that the in nocent should suffer.” Yes, I am, too — sorry for the widows and orphans who lost their all by that defalcation. I am sorry also for the business men, the honest busi ness men, who have had their affairs all crippled by that defalcation. I am sorry for the venerable bank president, to whom the credit of that bank was a matter of pride. Yes, lam sorry also for that man who brought all the distress—sorry that he sacrificed body, mind, soul, reputation, heaven, and went into the blackness of darkness forever. You defiantly say, “I could not be tempted in that way.” Perhaps you may be tested after awhile. God has a very good memory, and be sometimes seems_to MACON NEWS MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 28 1898. eay: “This man Dels so strong in Tils In nate power and goodness be shall be test ed- He La so full of bitter invective against that unfortunate it .-»hall be shown now whether be has the power to stand.” Fif teen years go by. The wheel of fortune turns several times, and you are in a crisis that you never oould have anticipated. Now all the powers of darkness come around, and they chuckle and they chatter and they say: “Aba, here is the old fellow who was so proud of his integrity and who bragged be couldn’t be overthrown by temptation and was so uproarious in his demonstrations of indignation at the de falcation 15 years ago! Let us see!” A Gteooe Backward. God lets the man go. God, who bad kept that man under bis protecting care, lets the man go and try for himself the majesty of his integrity. God letting the man go, the powers of darkness pounce upon him. I sec you some day in your office in great excitement. One of two things you can do—be honest and be pau perized and have your children brought home from school, your family dethroned in social influence; the other thing is you can step a little aside from that which is right, you can only just go half an inch out of the proper path, you can only take a little risk, and then you have all your finances fair and right. You will have a large property. You can leave a fortune for your children and endow a college and build a public library in your native town. You halt and wait and halt and wait un til your lips get white. You decide to risk it. Only a few strokes of the pen now. But, oh, bow your hand trembles, how dreadfully it trembles! The die is cast By the strangest and most awful conjunc tion of circumstances any one could have imagined you are prostrated. Bankruptcy, commercial annihilation, exposure, crime. Good mon mourn and devils hold carnival, and you see your own name at the head of the newspaper column in a whole congress of exclamation points, and while you are reading the anathema in tbe reportorial and editorial paragraph it occurs to you how much this story is like that of the de falcation 15 years ago, and a clap of thun der shakes the window sill, saying, “With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. ” You look in another direction. There is nothing like ebullitions of temper to put a man to disadvantage. You, a man with calm pulses and a fine digestion and per fect health, cannot understand how any body should be capsized in temper by an infinitesimal annoyance. You say, “I couldn’t be unbalanced in that way.” Perhaps you smile at a provocation that makes another man swear. You pride yourself on your imperturbability. You say with your manner, though you have too much good taste to say it with your words: “I have a great deal more sense than that man has. I have a great deal more equipoise of temper than that man has. I never could make such a puerile exhibition of myself as that man has made. ” Paid at Last. Let me see. Did you not say that you could not be tempted to an ebullition of temper? Some September you come home from your summer watering place, and you have inside away back in your liver or spleen what we call in our day malaria, but what the old folks called chills and fever. You take quinine until your ears are first buzzing beehives and then roaring Niagaras. You take roots and herbs; you take everything. You get well. Buttbe next day you feel uncomfortable, and you yawn, and you stretch, and you shiver, and you consume, and you suffer. Vexed more than you can tell, you cannot sleep, you cannot eat, you cannot bear to see any thing that looks happy. You go out to kick the cat that is asleep in the sun. Your children’s mirth was once music to you. Now it is deafening. You say, “Boys, stop that racket!” You turn back from June to March. In the family and in the neighborhood your popularity is 95 per cent off. The world says: “What is the matter with that disagreeable man? What a woebegone countenance! I can’t bear the sight of him.” You have got your pay at last—got your pay. You feel just as the man felt, that man for whom you had no mercy, and my text comes in with marvelous appositeness, “With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. ” In tbe study of society I have come to this cdnclusion—that the most of the peo ple want to be good, but they do not ex actly know how to make it out. They make enough good resolutions to lift them into angelhood. The vast majority of peo ple who fall are the victims of circum stances. They are captured by ambuscade. If their temptations should come out in e regiment and fight them in a fair field, they would go out in the strength and tbe triumph of David against Goliath. But they do not see the giants, and they do not see the regiment. Temptation comes and says, “Take these bitters, take this nerv ine, take this aid to digestion, take this nightcap.” Tbe vast majority of mor and women who are destroyed by opium and by rum first take them as medicines. In making up your dish of criticism in re gard to them take from the caster and tbe cruet of sweet oil and not the cruet of cay enne pepper. Remember tbe Process. Do you know how that physician, that lawyer, that journalist became the victim of dissipation? Why, the physician was kept up night by night on professional duty. Life and death hovered in tue bal ance. His nervous system was exhausted. There came a time of epidemic, and whole families were prostrated, and his nervous strength was gone. He was all wjrn out in the service of the public. Now he must brace himself up. Now he stimulates. The life of this mother, the life of this child, the life of this father, the life of this whole family must be saved and of all these fam ilies must be saved, and he stimulates, and he does it again and again. You may crit icise his judgment, but remember the process. It was not a selfish process by which he went down. It was magnificent generosity through which he fell. That attorney at the bar for weeks has been standing in a poorly ventilated court room. listening to the testimony and con testing in tbe dry technicalities of the law, and now the time has come for him to wind up, and he must plead for the life of his client and his nervous system is all gone. If he fails in that speech, bis client perishes. If he have eloquence enough in that hour, his client is saved. He stimu lates. That journalist has had exhausting mid night work. He has had to report speeches and orations that kept him up till a very late hour. He has gone with much expo sure working up some case of crime in com pany with a detective. He sits down at midnight to write out his notes from a memorandum scrawled on a pad under unfavorable circumstances. His strength is gone. Fidelity to the public intelli gence, fidelity to his own livelihood, de mand that he keep up. He must keep up. He stimulates. Again and again he does that, and be goes down. You may criti cise his judgment in the matter, but have mercy. Remember the process. Do not be hard. Scold Less and Pray More. My friend?, this text will come to fulfill ment in some cases in this world. The huntsman in Farujsteen was shot by some unknown person. Twenty years after the sun of the huntsman wa= in the same for tat, and he accidentally shot a man, and tbe man in dying eaid: “Gcd is just. I shot your father just here 20 years ago.” A bishop said to Louis XI of France, “Make an iron cage for all those who do not think as we do—an iron cage in which the captive can neither lie down not stand straight up.” It was fashioned —the aw ful instrument of punishment. After awhile the bishop offended Louis XI, and for 14 years be was in that same cage and could neither lie down nor stand up. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. ‘‘With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.” Oh, my friends, let us be resolved to scold less and pray more! What headway will we make in the judgment if in this world we have been hard on those who have gone astray? What headway will you and I make in the last great judgment, when we must have mercy or perish? The Bible says, ‘‘They shall have judgment without mercy that showed no mercy.” I see the scribes of heaven looking up into the face of such a man, saying: “What! You plead for mercy, you whom in all your life never had any mercy on your fellows! Don’t you remember how hard you were in your opinions of those who were astray? Don’t you remember when you ought to have given a helping hand you employed a hard heel? Mercy! You must misspeak yourself when you plead for mercy here. Mercy for others, but no mercy for you. ‘‘Look,” say the scribes of heaven, ‘‘look at that inscrip tion over the throne of judgment, the throne of God’s judgment.” See it com ing out letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence, until your startled vision reads it and your remorseful spirit appropriates it: ‘‘Wit what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. Depart, ye cursed 1” fep. <\ \ AAi?m < W;...: ' <3&iL OYSPEPSIA 01D IT Weakened One Man’s Constitution Until It Brought Him to Death’s Door. Mr. James S. Harrison, a well-known and highly respected citizen of Cleve land, 0., was for years a sufferer from dyspepsia and general debility, and in his weakened condition, resulting from the above causes, he had the additional ill-luck to fall a victim to malaria from this complication of disorders. Mr. Harrison’s condition was becoming very serious, when he commenced to take P. P. P., Lippman’s Great Remedy. Its effects were marked and immediate. Read his letter to us. Its earnestness is apparent: Gentlemen: For the benefit of all suffering from dyspepsia and general debility I beg to submit my testimonial as to the efficacy of your P. P. P., Lipp man s Great Remedy, as a positive cure for all the distressing complaints from which I suffered. My system was also full of Malaria and tfiy condition was growing very serious; I had no appetite, was losing strength and was completely broken down in health, but now my health is completely restored, and I can eat like a field laborer, without the slightest fear of any serious results. I take great pleasure in telling the world that P. P. P. did the grand work of restoring me to my accustomed health. Yours truly, JAMES S. HARRISON, Cleveland, O. If you get up feeling tired and stupid, P. P. P. should be taken —it will make you feel well. P. P. P cures eczema, that tortur ing, itching disease of the skin and blood. If your blood is kept pure, you will not be disfigured with pimples, boils and blotches. P. P. P. is the deadly foe and van quisher of rheumatism. Its effects are immediate and lasting, and it lot only relieves, but permanently cures. Scrofula, which is hereditary and deep-seated in the blood can be cured by P. P. P. It is the one and only posi tive cure for this dread disease. Sufferers from kidney troubles find immediate relief when they take P. P. P. as it cures all irregularities and re stores to nature her proper functions. Sold by all druggists. LIPPMAN BROS., Apothecaries, Sole Prop’rs, Lippman’s Block, Savannah, Ca. You Can Afford io Patronize Home Industry When you get the best work and the low est prices by doing so. I ask no concession in my favor. I sim ply offer you the best work for the least money. A comparison is all I ask. W. H. Schatzman Builder and Repairer of Buggies, Wagons, Carriages Everything that can be done by anj wheelright or blacksmith. Buggy an<s carriage painting a specialty. FOB- Artistic Dressmaking Lames’ Tailoring In swell styles see MISS GAUGHAN, 285 Washington Avenue. There Are Hats, and Hats, but the famous HA WES HA T is always right. We guarantee that and back our judgment with our money. All the popu lar shapes and colors are here for your inspec tion. To see them is to wear them. The price? Only $3.00 BESSON 4 HOUSER, The Up-to-date Clothiers. Florida Gulf Coast Hotels ON Plant System. TAMPA, FLA.— Tampa, Bay Hotel, Now Open. D. P. HATHAWAY, Manager. PORT TAMPA, FLA.— The Inn, Now Open, J. H. EURDICK, Manager. WINTER PARK, FLA. — The Seminole, Open Jan. 17 A. E. DICK, Manager. OCALA, FLA.— The Ocala House, Now Open P. F. BROWN, Manager. BELLEAIR, FLA.— The Belleview. Open Jan 17 W. A. BARRON, Manager. PUNTA GORDA, FLA—The Punta Gorda Hotel, Open Jan. 17 F. H. ABBOTT. Manager. FORT MYERS, FLA.— The Fort Myers Hotel. Open Jan. 17 F. H. ABBOTT, Manager. KISSIMMEE, FLA.— The Kissimmee Hotel, OnenJan.3 L. E. BULLOCK Manager. Send to each manager as to rates and rooms and to the undersigned as to rail way or steamship rates, or sleeping car lines and times cards. W. WRENN. Passenger Traffic Manager, Savannah, Ga Building Lots at Auction. Ocinulgee Land Improvement Company will sell vacant lots at public sale Tuesday, April 5. 1898, at Bibb county court house. These lots adjoin Pleasant Hill and Vineville, and a.e on the “Race Track,” which has been specially set aside for homes for the better class of the colored population, situated on a commanding view of the city and laid out in regular avenues and blocks. No better opportunity has ever been offered for such fine invest ment to make improvements for an income. To be sold at public outcry to the highest bidder. Easy terms. Smail cash payment; four deferred annual payments, with 6 per cent, interest. These lots are in block A, B, C, D and Eon Poe street. Grant avenue, Lincoln avenue, Sheridan avenue, summer avenue and the Boulevard. See plat of lots for full information. On each lot the deferred payment of SIOO will devided in four annual payments oi $25 each, with 6 per cent, interest. All 1 alance over must be paid in cash. Ocmulgee Land Improvement Co. U I G. BERND CO. Are Leaders In STYLE QUALITY AND PRICE When in Need of Fine Harness, Saddles, Robes, Blankets, Whips, etc., call and see us. Riding and Huntng Leggings in all styles.D TRUNK REPAIRING A SPECIALTY. — -- - ... -- - - HR TALK IS CHEAP! | DON’T PAY SIOO FOR A TALKING MACHINE S when you can buy one which for amusement will make the children happy and cause the old folks to r x ' war smile. Complicated machines get out of order THE UNITED STATESTALKING MACHINE y—:is simple, durable ; no parts to break or get out or^er - Any child can operate it. C. It is neatly encased in a hard-wood box, K ■■ ■ ~ we n finished, size inches, •.La with brass hinges and catch ; has hearing tubes for two persons, one (Ber liner s uramopnone) record and twenty-five needle points. Price complete with one Record, (express charges prepaid) $3.50, weight 4 lbs. Remit by Bank Draft, Express, or Post- Ornce money order. Agents wanted. For terms and particulars address a UNITED STATES TALKING HACHINE CO., (DEPT. I ) 57 E. 9th ST., NEW YORK CITK - r fr President McKinley Must get a great deal of satis faction and comfort when seated tn ithat famous chair known as the presidential chair! That is the only species we can fur nish you with. Anything else in the way of furniture in new and handsome designs in parlor, library, dining room or cham ber sets or odd and fancy pieces, we will furnish you at a reasonable price. ThesWood=Peavy Furniture Co.