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HYPOCRISY REBUKED WHAT WAS IT THAT CHRIST WROTE IN THE DUSTt Dr. Talmaca Explain* the Story ot the Saviour and the Sinning Woman—Sym pathy For the Penitent Boundleu lloean of Divine Morey. (Copyright, 1818, American Frets Ano- WASHISGTON, July 81,—In this dis course Dr. Talmage gives heroic treatment of a delicate subject and applies to mod ern society th® lesson taught by Christ on a memorable occasion ; text, John viii, 6, “Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground. ” You must take your shoes off and put on the especial slippers provided at the ’ door if yeu would enter the Mohammedan mosque which stands now where once stood Herod’s temple, the scene of my text. Solomon’s temple had stood there, but Nebuchadnezzar had thundered it down. Zerubbabel's temple had stood there, but that had been prostrated. Now we take our places in a temple that Herod bqjlt, because he was fond of great archi tecture, and he wanted the preceding .tem ples to seem insignificant. Put eight or ten modern cathedrals together, and they would not equal that structure. It cov ered 19 acres. There were marble pillars supporting roofs of cedar and silver tables on which stood golden cups, and there were carvings exquisite and inscriptions resplendent, glittering balustrades and ornamented gateways. The building of this temple kept 10,000 workmen busy jO years. < In that stupendous pile of pomp and magnificence sat Christ, and -a listening throng stood about him when a wild dis turbance took place. A group of men are pulling and pushing along a woman who had comitted a crime against society. When they have brought her in front of Christ, they ask that he sentence her to death by stoning. They are a critical, merciless, disingenuons crowd. They want to get Christ into controversy and public reprehension. If he say, “Let her die,” they will charge him with cruelty. If he let her go, they will charge him with being in complicity with wickedness. Whichever way he does they would howl at him. Then occurs a scene which has not been sufficiently regarded. He leaves the lounge or bench on which he was sitting and goes down on one knee or both knees, and with the forefinger of his right hand he begins to write in the dust of the floor, word after word. But they wore not to bo diverted or hindered. They kept on de manding that he settle this case of trans gression, until ho looked up and told them they might themselves begin the woman’s assassination if the complainant who had never done any thing wrong himself would open the fire. “Go ahead, but bo sure that the man who flings the first missile is immaculate. ” Then he resumed writ ing with his finger in the dust of the floor, word after word. Instead of looking over his shoulder to see what he had written, the scoundrels skulked away. Finally the whole place is clear of pursuers, antago nists and plaintiffs, and whon Christ has a finished this strange ohirography In the * dust he looks up and finds the woman all alone. A Divine Judge. The prisoner is the only one of tho courtroom left, the judges, the police, the prosecuting attorney having cleared out. Christ is victor, and he says to the woman: “Where are the prosecutors in this case? Are they all gone? Then I discharge you. Go and sin no more.” I have wondered what Christ wrote on the ground. For do you realize that is the only time that he ever wrote at all? I know that Eusebius says that Christ once wrote a letter to Ab garus, the king of Edessa, but there is no good evidence of such a correspondence. The wisest being the world ever saw, and the one who had more to say than any one who ever lived, never writing a book or a chapter or a paragraph or a word on parch ment! Nothing but the literature of the dust, and one sweep of a brush or one breath of a wind obliterated it forever. Among all the rolls of the volumes of the first library founded at Thebes there was not one scroll of Christ. Among the 700,000 books of the Alexandrian library, which by the infamous decree of Caliph Omar were used as fuel to heat the 4,000 baths of the city, not one sentence had Christ penned. Among all the infinitude of volumes in the libraries of Edinburgh, the British museum or Ber- * lin or Vienna or the learned repositories of all nations not one word written directly by the finger of Christ. All that he ever wrote he wrote In dust, uncertain, shifting dust. . My text says he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Standing straight up a man might write on the ground with a staff, but ’if with his fingers he would write in the dust ho must bend clear over. Aye, he must get at least on one knee or he cannot write on the ground. Be not surprised that ho stooped down. His whole life was a stooping down. Stooping down from castle to barn. Stooping down from celestial homage to monocvatlo jeer. From residence above the stars to where a star had to fall to designate his landing place. From heaven’s front door to the world’s back gate. From writing in round and silvered letters of constellation and galaxy on the blue scroll of heaven to writing on the ground in the dust which the feet of the crowd had left in Herod’s temple. If in January you have ever step ped out of a prince’s conservatory that had Mexican cactus and magnolias in full bloom into the outside air, 10 degrees be low zero, you may get some idea of Christ’s change of atmosphere from celes tial to terrestrial. Hojv many heavens there are I know not, but there are at least three, for Paul was “caught up into the third heaven.” Christ came down from the highest heaven to the second heaven and down from second heaven to first heaven, down swifter than meteors ever fell, down amid stellar splendors that himself eclipsed, down through clouds, through atmos pheres, through appalling space, down to where there was no lower depth. From being waited on at the banquet of the skies to the broiling of fish for his own break fast on the banks of the lake. From em blazoned chariots of eternity to the saddle of a mule’s back. From the homage che fublc, seraphic, archangelic, to the paying of 62% cents of tax to Caesar. From the deathless country to a tomb built to hide human dissolution. The uplifted wave of Galilee was high, but he had to come down before with his feet he could touch-it, and the, whirlwind that arose above the billow was higher yet, but he had to come down before with his lip he could kiss it into quiet. Bethlehem a stooping down. Naz areth a stooping down. Death between two burglars a stooping down. Yes, it was in consonance With humiliations that went before and self abnegations that h< ' HOOPed | How Christ Writes. I YWW 1 » • I In Greek or Latin or Hebrew, I cannot say, for he knew all those languages, but he Is still stooping down and with his fin ger writing on the ground. In the winter in letters of crystals, in the spring in let ters of flowers, in summer in golden let ters of harvest, in autumn in letters of Are on fallen leaves. How it would sweeten up and enrich and emblazon this world could we see Christ’s caligraphy all over it! This world was not flung out into space thousands of years ago and then left to look out for itself. It Is still under the divine care. Christ never for a half sec ond takes bis hand off of it, or it would soon be a shipwrecked world, a defunct world, an obsolete world, an abandoned world, a dead world. “Let there be light,” was said at the beginning, and Christ stands under the wintry skies and says, Let there bo snowflakes to enrich the earth, and under the clouds of spring and says, Come, ye blossoms,and make redolent the orchards, and In September dips the branches in the vat of beautiful colors and swings them into the hazy air. No whim of mine is this. “Without him was not anything made that was made. ” Christ writing on the ground. If you could see his hand In all the pass ing seasons, how it would Illumine the world! All-verdure and foliage would be allegoric, and again we would hear him say, as of old, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow,” and we would not hear in the whistle of a quail or the caw ing of a raven or the roundelay of a brown thrasher Without saying: “Behold the fowls of the air. They gather not in barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them,” and a Dominic hen of the barn yard could not cluck for her brood but we would hear Christ saying, as of old, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as d hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 1 ’ and through the redolent hedges we would hear Christ saying, “lam the rose of Sharon.” We could not dip the seasoning from the salt cellar without thinking of the divine sug gestion, “Ye are £he salt of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its savor it is fit for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.” Let us wake from our stupidity and .take the whole world as a parable. Then, if with gun and pack of hounds we start off before dawn and see the morning coming down off the hills to meet us we would cry out with the evangelist, “The day spring from on high hath visited us, ” or, caught in a snowstorm while struggling home, eyebrows and beard and apparel all covered with the whirling flakes, we would cry out with David, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." In a picture gallery of Europe there is on the ceiling an exquisite fresco, but the people having to look straight np, it wearied and dizzied them and bent their nocks almost beyond endurance, so a great looking glass was put near the floor, and now visitors only need to look easily down into this mirror, and they see the fresco at their feet. And so, much of the high heaven of God’s truth is reflected in this world as in a mirror, and things, that are above are copied by things around us. What right have we to throw away one of God’s Bible A-aye, the first Bible he ever gave the race? We talk about the Old Testament and the New Testament, but the oldest testament contains the lessons of the natural world. Some people like the New Testament so well they discard the Old Testament. Shall we like the New Testament and the Old Testament so well as to depreciate the oldest—namely, that which was written before Moses was put afloat on the boat of leaves which was calked with asphaltum—or reject the Gen esis that was written centuries before Adam lost a rib and gained a wife? No, no I When Deity stoops down and writes on the ground, let us read it The Bible In Nature. I would have no less appreciation of the Bible on paper that comes out of the paper mill, but I would urge appreciation of the Bible in the grass, the Bible in the sand hill, the Bible in the geranium, the Bible in the asphodel, the Bible in the dust. Some one asked an ancient king whether he had seen the eclipse of the sun. “No," said he. “I have so much to study on earth I have no time to look at heaven.” And if our faculties were all awake in the study of God we would not have time to go much farther than the first grass blade. I have no fear that natural religion will ever contradict what we call revealed re ligion. I have no sympathy with the fol lowers of Aristotle, who after the'telescope was invented would not look through it lest it contradict some of the theories of their great master. I shall be glad to put against one lid of the Bible the microscope and against the other lid of the Bible the telescope. But when Christ stooped down and wrote on the ground what did he write? The Pharisees did not stop to examine. The cowards, whipped of their own con sciences, fled pellmelL Nothing will flay a man like an aroused conscience. Dr. Stevens, in his “History of Methodism," says that when Rev. Benjamin Abbott of olden times, was preaching he exclaimed, “For aught I know therp may be amur rierer in this house.” And a man rose from the assemblage and started for the door and bawled aloud, confessing to a murder he had committed 15 years before. And no wonder these Pharisees, reminded of their sins, took to their heels. But. what did Christ write on the ground? The Bible does not state, yet as Christ never wrote anything except that once you cannot blame us for wanting to know what he rbally did write, but I am certain he wrote nothing trivial or nothing unimportant, and will you allow me to say that I think I know what he wrote on the ground? I judge from the circum stances. He might have written other things, but, kneeling there in the temple, surrounded by a pack of .hypocrites who were a self appointed constabulary and having in his presence a persecuted wom an, who evidently was very penitent for her sins, I am sure he wrote two words, both of them graphic and tremendous and reverberating, and the one word was “hy pocrisy,” and the other word was “for giveness.” From the way these Pharisees and scribes vacated the premises and got out into the fresh air as Christ, with just one ironical sentence, unmasked them I know they were first class hypocrites. It was then as it is now. The more faults and inconsistencies people have of their own the more severe and censorious are they about the faults of others. Here they are, 20 stout men arresting and arraigning one weak woman! Magnificent business to be engaged In! They wanted the fun of seeing her faint away under a heavy judi cial sentence from Christ, and then, after she had been taken outside of the city and fastened at the foot of the precipice, the scribes and Pharisees wanted the satisfac tion of each coming and dropping a big I as ixx.'S' [ Os saying that Christ never laughed, but I think as he saw those men drop every thing, chagrined, mortified, exposed, and laugh to read of It. All of those liber tines dramatizing Indignation against Im purity! Blind bats lecturing on optics! A flock of crows on their way up from a carcass denouncing carrion I Rebuking Hypocrisy. Yes, I think that one word written on the ground that day by the finger of Christ was the awful word hypocrisy. What pre tensions to sanctity afo the part of those hypocritical Pharisees i When the fox be gins to pray, look out for your chickens. One of the cruel magnates of elden times was going to excommunicate one of the martyrs, and he began in the usual form —“ln the name of God. Amen." “Stop!” says the martyr. “Don’t say ‘in the name of God!’" Yet how many outrages are practiced under the gartj of religion and sanctity I When in synods and conferences ministers of the gospel are about to say something unbrotherly and unkind about a member, they almost always begin by being ostentatiously pious, the venom of their assault corresponding to the heaven ly flavor of the prelude. About to devour a reputation, they say grace before meal. But I am sure there was another word in that dust. From her entire manner I am sure that arraigned woman was re pentant. She made no apology, and Christ in nowise belittled herein. Bather sup plicatory behavior and her tears moved him, and when he stooped down to write on the ground he wrote that mighty, that imperial word, forgiveness. When on Sinai God wrote the law, he wrote It with finger of lightning on tables of stone, each word cut as by a chisel into the bard granite surface. But when he writes the offense of this woman he writes it in dust so that it can be •easily rubbed out, and when she repents of it, oh, be was a merciful Christ! I was reading of a legend that is told in the far east about him. He was walking through the streets of a city, and he saw a crowd around a dead dog. And one man said, “What a loathsome object is that dog!" “Yes," said another; “his ears are mauled and bleeding." “Yes,said another; “even his hide would not be of any use to the tanner." “Yes," said another; “the odor of his carcass is dreadful." Then Christ, standing there, said, “But pearls cannot equal the whiteness of his teeth. ” Then the people, moved by the idea that any one could find anything pleasant concerning the dead dog, said, “Why, this must be Jesus of Nazareth!" Reproved and con victed, they went away. Stirsly this legend of Christ Is good enough to be true! Kindness la a« his words and ways and habits I Word of 11 letters, and some of them thrones and some of them palm branches. Better have Christ write close to our names that one word, though he write it in dust, than to have our name, cut into monu mental granite with the letters that the storms es 1,000 yteGci cannot obliterate. Blshep Babington had a book of only three leaves. The first leaf was seeond leaf red, the third leaf white. TThe black leaf suggested sin, the- red leaf atonement, the white leaf purfflsation. That * the whole story. God wRI abun dantly.ptfrdon. Sympathy Ear the Penitent. I must not forget te say that as Christ, stooping down, with his finger wrote on the ground it is evident that his sympa thies are with this penitent woman and that he has no sympathy with her hypo critical pursuers. Just opposite to that is the world’s habit. Why didn’t these unclean Pharisees bring one of their' own number to Christ for excoriation and capital punishment? No, no! They over look that in a man which they damnate in a woman, and so the world has had for offending woman scourges and objurga tion, and for just one offense she becomes an outcast, while for men whose lives have been sodomlo for 20 years the world swings open its doors of brilliant welcome, and they may sit In high places. Unlike the Christ .of my text, the world writes a man’s misdemeanor in dust, but chisels a woman’s offense with great capitals upon ineffaceable marble. For foreign lords and princes, whose names cannot even be mentioned in re spectable circles abroad because they are walking lazarettos of abomination, some of our American princesses of. fortune wait and at the first beck sail out with them into the blackness of darkness for ever. And in what are called higher cir cles of society there is now not only the imitation of foreign dress and foreign manners, but an imitation of foreign dis soluteness. I like a foreigner, and I like an American, but the sickest creature on earth is an American playing the foreign er. Society needs to be reconstructed on this subject. Treat them alike, masculine crime and feminine crime. If you cut the one in granite, cut them both in granite. If you write the one in dust, write the other in dust. “No, no,” says the world; “let woman go down and let man go up. ” What is that I hear plashing into the Hud son or Potomac at midnight? And then there is a gurgle as of strangulation, and all is still. Never mind. It is only a woman too discouraged to live. Let the mills of the cruel world grind right on. But while I speak of Christ of the text, his stooping down writing in the dust, do not think I underrate the literature of the dust. It is the moat tremendous of all literature. It is the greatest of all libraries. When Layard exhumed Nineveh, he wan only opening the door of its mighty dusk The excavations of Pompeii have only been the unclasping of the lids of a volume of a nation’s dust. When Admiral Farra gut and his friends visited that resurrected city, the house of Balbo, who had been one of its chief citizens in its prosperous days, was opened, and. a table was spread in that house which 1,810 years had been burled by volcanic eruption, and Farragut and his guests walked ovte the exquisite mosaics and under tho beautiful fresco, and it almost: seemed like being entertain ed by these who 18 centuries ago had turned to-dust. -ft t -• Literature of ttse Dust. Oh, thia mighty literature of, the dust! Where are the remain* Mfwpacherib and Attila and Epaminondas and Tamerlane Bnd Trajan and Philjp Os Macedon and Julius Gresarf Dust! Wfrarer ate'ihe he roes who fought on both sides at Chaer onea, at Hastings, at Marathon, at’Cressy, of the H 0,650 men who fought Agin court, of the-250,008 men wHb faoej death at Jena; of the. 400,000 Whose armoKgllt tered la the sub at'Wagram’, of tbe.1,000,- 000 men under Darius at Arbela, ’of the 8,641*,000 men under Xerxes at Thermep yle? Dust! Where are the guests who danced the floors of the Alhambra or tho Persian palace of Ahasuerus? Dust! Where are tho musicians who played or the orators who spoke and the sculptors Who chiseled and the architects who built tn all the centuries except our own? Dust! Where aro tha most of the books that onoe 90 books of history; all lost. The wort of I dies of Plautus all gone but 20. Euripides wrote 100 dramas; all gone but 19. lus wrote 100 dramas; all gone but seven. Varro wrote tbs laborious biographies of 700 Romans; not a fragment toft. Quin tillanj wrote his favorite book on thooor ruptlon'of eloquence,* all lost. Thirty books of Tacitus lost, Dion Cassius wrote 80 books; only 80 Remain. Beroriiu* his tory all lost. ■ Whhro there is one living book there are a thousand dead books. The greatest library in tho world, that which has tho widest shelves and longest aisles and the most multitudinous vol umes aid tho vastest wealth, is the under ground library. It is tho royal library, tho continental library, the hemispheric library, the planetary library, the library •f the dust. And all those library oases will ba opened, and all these scrolls un rolled, and all these volumes unclasped, and as easily as In your library or mins we take up a book, blow the dust off of it and turn over its pages so - easily will the Lord of the resurrection pick out of this library of dust every volume of human life and open it it and display it, and the volume will be rebound, to be set in the royhl library of tho king’s palace or in the prison library of the self destroyed. Boundless Morey. Oh, tills mighty literature of the dust! It is not so wonderful, after all, that Christ chose instead of an inkstand the impressionable sand on the floor of an an cient temple, and instead of a hard pen put forth his forefinger with the same kind of nerve and muscle and bone and flesh as that which makes up our own forefinger, and wrote the awful doom of hypocrisy, and full and complete forgive ness for repentant sinners, even tho w ( orst. Wo talk about the ocean of Christ's mercy. Put four ships upon that ocean and let them sail out in opposite directions for 1,000 years and see if they can find the shore of the ocean of the divine mercy. Let them sail to the north and the south and the east and the west, and then after the 1,000 years of voyage let thorn come back and they will report, “No shore, no shore to the ocean of God’s mercy I" And now I can believe that which I read, how that a mother* kept burning a candle in the window every night for ten years, and one night very late a poor waif of the street entered. The aged woman said to her, “Sit down by the fire.” And the stranger said, “Why do you keep that light in the window?" The aged woman said: “That is to light my wayward daughter when she returns. Since she went away, ten years ago, my hair has turned white. Folks blame me for worry ing about her, but ypuyse I am her moth er, and semetimes mU- a dozen,times a night I open the door i*d look apt into the darkness and cry, ‘Lizzie!’ -Lizzie!’ But I must not tell you any mere about my trouble, for I guess from the way you cry you have trouble enough of y.our own. Why, how cold and sick you seem I Oh, my! Can it be? Yes, you are Lizzie, my own lost child I Thank God that you are heme again!” And what » time of re joicing there was in thaf house that night! And Christ again stooped down and in tho ashes of that hearth,-now lighted up, not more by the great blazing logs than by the joy of a reunited household, wrote the same liberating words that had been written more than 1,*09 years ago in the dust of the Jerusalem temple. Forgive ness! A word broad enough and high enough to let pass through it all the ... armies of heaven a million abreast on < white horses, nostril te nostril, flank to flank. An Ordinance. Be it ordained by the Mayor and Coun cil of the City ot Griffin that from and after the passage of this Ordinance: Bee. Ist. That it shall be unlawful for any person to damage, injure,' abuse or tamper with any water meter, spigot, fire plug, curb-box, or any other fixture or machinery belonging to the Water Depart ment of the City of Griffin; provided That a licensed plumber may use curb 'service box to test his work, but shall leave ser vice cock as he found it under penalty of the above section. Sec. 2nd. It shall be unlawful for any consumer to permit any person, not em ployed by them, or not a member ot their family, to use water from their fixtures. Sec. 3rd. It shall be unlawful for any person to use water from any spigot or spigots other than those paid for by him. Sec. 4th.. It shall be unlawful for any person to couple pipes to spigots unless paid for as an extra outlet. Sec. sth. It shall be unlawful for any person to turn on water to premises or add any spigot or fixture without first obtain ing a permit from the Water Department. Sec. 6th. It shall be unlawful for any person to allow their spigots, hose or sprinkler to ran between the hours of 9:00 o’clock p. m. and 6:00 o’clock a. m., sot any purpose whatever, unless there is a meter on the service. Spigots and pipes must be boxed or wrapped to prevent freezing; they will not be allowed to run for that purpose, ■Bee. 7th. The employes of the Water Department shall have access to the premises of any subscriber for the purpose of£readlng meters, examining pipes, fix tures, etc., and it shall be unlawful for any person to interfere, or'prevent their doing a». Sec. Bth. Any person violating any of the provisions oftheabovdordinance shall be arrested and carried before the Criminal Court of Griffin and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, or sentenced to work on the public works of the City of Griffin for a term not exceeding sixty days, or be im prisoned in tfee city prison for a term not exceeding sixty days, either or all, in the discretion of the court. Sec. 9th. The employees of the Water Department shall have the same authority and power ot regular policemen of ths City of Griffin, for the purpose of enforc ing the above ordinance. Sec. 10th. All ordinances and parts of ordinances in conflict of the above are hereby repealed. ft aW Epilepsy, without ■mm ■ ■ W doubt treated and cur -1 H. IQ ewuisate gg years’ sundiag Cure® large bot tle of his abeohrte care, free to aay sufferers who may send their P. O. and Express address. aaoaane* Tn MOTHERS ■ v I I IlmlAWi WE ARE ASSERTING IN THE COURTS OUR RrrtiT 'THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE WORD “CASTORIA," AND “PITCHER’S CASTORIA,” AS OUR TRADEMARK. Z, DR. SAMUEL PITCHER, of Hyannis, Massachusetts, was the originator of “CASTORIA,” the same that has borne and does now bear on enery the sac-simile signature of wrapper. This is the original “CASTORIA” which has been used in the homes of the Mothers of America for over thirty years. LOOK CAREFULLY at the wrapper and see that it is the kind you have always bought on and has the signature of wrap- per. No one has authority from me to use my name except The Centaur Company, of which Chas. H. Fletcher is President. Do Not Be Deceived. Do not endanger the life of your child by accepting a-cheap substitute which some druggist may offer you (because he makes a few more pennies on it), the in- ’ gradients of which even he does not know. * “The Kind You Have Always Bought” BEARS THE SIGNATURE OF » Z -A- Insist on Having The Kind That Never Failed You. YMC OKRTAUR ORMPARV, TT MURRAY RTRCCT, NtW YO«A CITY. ■ T-" | ." 11 * —GET TOJJK — JOB PRINTING DONE A.T The Morning Call Office. . ®BBHBSBBHEBBHHSSSBBBHBHBBBSBBBk 1' • ' -ft ■ » We have just supplied our Job Office with * complete line 01 StaUcnery kinds and can get up, on short notice, anything wanted in the way at „ LETTER HEADS, BILL HEADS STATEMENTS, > IRCULARB, ENVELOPES, NOTES, , > MORTGAGES, PROGRAMS . • JARDB, POSTERS’ • ■ -311 DODGERS, E.J., EU We Wj ue 'xet ine of ENVEIZTER ya ;Trtd : this trad*. An ailracdvt POSTER cl aay size can be issued on short notice ' ■'• •’T y .—ft • ; r«jf; Our prices for work of all kinds will compare favorably with those obtained *o» •J- any office in the state. When yon want fob printing of*>ny ;<k»< lij tk n five call Satisfaction guarantees. ■ • **•♦**’■ JLTala WORK DONE • - ■•'• ■•■'•-■ -1 • ■ With Neatness and Dispatch. ~-■ ■■■■——~~ x - :. . . Out of town orders will receive ■ • prompt attention. J.P.&S B.Sawtell. . ■