The morning call. (Griffin, Ga.) 18??-1899, August 14, 1898, Image 3

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FAIR DEALING BEST. OR. TALMAGE EULOGIZES HONESTY IN MONEY GETTING. VM of Money In Polttloo » Fruitful Sourcu of Corruption— Bribery I* Villainy—Vio lation of a Solemn Trust an Unpardon able Offense, an Everlasting Blot. (Copyright. 1898, Pre “ A "°’ WASHINGTON, Aug. 7.—Dr. Talmage In thisdiscourse arraigns the various modes bv which some people get money that does not belong to them and commends the fair dealing that succeeds best at last; text I Timothy vi, 9, “They that will be rich'fall into a temptation and » snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and per dition.” That IS/the Niagara falls over which rush a multitude of souls—namely, the detemdnation to have the money anyhow, right or wrong. Tell me how a man gets his money and what he does with it and I will tell yoq his character and what will be his destiny in this world and the next. I propose to speak today about the ruinous modes of getting money. In all our city, state and national elec tions large sums of money are used in bribery. Politics, from being tho science of good government, has otten been be draggled Into the synonym for truculency and turpitude. A monster sin, plausible, potent, pestiferous, has gone forth to do Its dreadful work in all ages. Its two hands are rotten with leprosy. It keeps its right hand hidden In a deep pocket; The left hand is clinched, and with its Ichorous knuckle it taps at the door of the courtroom, the legislative hall, the cop gross and the parliament. The door swings open and the monster enters and glides through the aisle of the council chamber as softly as a slippered page, olid then it takes its right hand from its deep pocket and offers it in salutation to judge or leg islator. If that a hand be taken and the palm of the intruder cross the palm of the official, the leprosy crosses from palm to palm in a round blotch, round as a gold eagle, and the virus spreads, and the doom is fixed, and the victim perishes. Let bribery, accursed of God and man, stand up fontrial. The Bible arraigns it again and again. Samuel says of his two sons, who became judges, “They took bribesand perverted judgment.” David says of some of his pursuers, “Their right hand ts full of bribes.” Amos says of some men in his day, “They take a bribe and turn aside the poor in the gate.” Eliphaz foretells the crushing blows of God’s indignation, declaring, “Fire shall consume the taber nacles of bribery.” The Mighty Fallen. It is no light temptation. The mighti est have fallen under it. Lord Bacon, lord chancellor of England, founder, of our modern science, author of “Novum Organum” and a whole library of books, the leading thinker of his century, so pre cocious that when as a little child ho was asked by Queen Elizabeth, “How old are you?” he responded, “I am two years younger thanyour majesty’shappy reign; ” of whose oratory Ben Jonson wrote, "The fear of very man that heard him was lest ho shun’ d make an end," having an in .eomewMoh you would suppose would have put hint beyond the temptation of bribery —186,000 a year and Twickenham court, .a gift and princely estates in Hertford shire—yet under this tqjnptatlon to brib ery, falling flat into ruin and on his con fession of taking bribes giving as excuse that all his predecessors took them; he was fined 1200,000, or what corresponds with our $200,000, and imprisoned in Lon don Tower. The black chapter in English, Irish, French and American politics is the chap- 1 ter of bribery. Some of you remember the Pacific Wail subsidies. Most of you re member the awful tragedy of the Credit Mobilier. Under the temptation to brib ery Benedict Arnold sold the fort in the highlands for $31,675. Forthis sin Gorgey betrayed Hungary, Ahlthophel forsook David, and Judas kissed Christ. When I see so many of the illustrious going down under this temptation, it makes me think of the red dragon spoken of in Revelation with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns drawing a third part of the stars of heaven down after him. The lobbies of the legislatures of this country control the country. The land is drunk with bribery. “Oh,” says some one, “there’s no Seed of talking against bribery by promise or by dollars, because every man has his price. ” Ido not believe it. Evon heathenism and the dark ages have furnished specimens of incorruptibil ity. A Cadi of Smyrna had a case brought before him on trial. A man gave him 500 ducats In bribery. The case came on. The briber had many witnesses. The poor man on the other Side had no witnesses. At the close of -the case the cadi said: “This poor man has no witnesses, he thinks. I shall produce in his behalf 500 witftesses against the other side.” Then pulling out the bag of ducats from upder the ottoman he dashed it down at the feet of the briber, saying, “I give my decision against you.” Epamlnondas,* offered a bribe, said, *1 will do this thing if it be right, and if it bo wrong all your goods cannot persuade me. ” A Foor Compliment. The president of the American congress during the American Revolution, General Reed, was offered 10,000 guineas by for eign commissioners if he would betray this country. He replied, “Gentlemen, I am a very poor man, but tell your king he is not rich enough to buy me." But why go so far when you and I, if we move in hdnerable society, know men and women who by all the forces of earth and hell could not be bribed. They would no more be bribed than you would think of tempt ing an angel of light to exchange heaven for the pit. To offer a bribe is villainy, but it is a very poor compliment to the man to whom it is offered. I have not much faith in those people who go about bragging how much they could get if they would only sell out ♦ Those women who oomplain that they are very often Insulted need to understand that there is something in their carriage to invite Insult. There are m,en at Al bany and at Harrisburg and at Washing ton who would no mom be approached by a bribe than a ’pirate boat with a few cut lasses would dare to attack a British man- * of-warwith two banks of guns on each side loaded to the touchhole. They are incorruptible men, and they are the few men who are to save the city and save the land. Meanwhile my adtfico is keep out of politics unless you are invulnerable to this style of temptation. Indeed if even you are naturally strong you need religious buttressing. Nothing but the grace of God can sustain our public men and make them what we wish. I wish thet there might come an old fashioned revival of religion, that it might break out in con- gress and the legislatures and bring many of the leading Republicans and Democrats down on the anxious scat of repentance. That day will come, or something better, for the Bible declares that kings and queens shall become nursing fathers and mothers to the church, and if the greater , in authority then certainly the less. A Moral Bankrupt. My charge also to parents is, remember that this evil of bribery often begins in the home circle and in the nursery. Do Hot bribe your children. Teach them to do that which is right, and not because of the 10 cents or the orange which you will i give them. There is a great difference be i tween rewarding virtue and making the profits thereof the impelling motive. That man who Is honest merely because “hon esty is the best policy” is already a moral bankrupt. My charge is to you in all departments of life, steer clear of bribery, all of you. Ev ery man and woman at some time will be tempted to do wrong for compensation. - The bribe may not bo offered in money. It may be offered in social position. Let us remember that there is a day coming when the most secret transaction of pri vate life and of public life will come up for public reprehension. wo cannot bribe death, we cannot bribe sickness, we cannot bribe the grave, we cannot bribe the judgments of that God who thunders against this sin. “Fie!" said Cardinal Beaufort, “fie! Can’t death be bribed? Is money nothing? Must I die, and so rich? If the owning of the whole realm would save me, I could get it by policy or by purchase—by money.? No, death would not bo bribed then. He will not be bribed now. Men of the world often regret that they have to leave their money hero when they go away from the world. YoU can tall from what they say in thbir last hours that one of their chief sorrows is that they have to leave their money. I break that delusion. I tell that bribe taker that he will take his money with him. God will wrap it up in your shroud, or put it in the palm of your hand in resurrection, and there it will lie, not the cool, bright, shining gold as it was on the day when yon sold your vote and your moral principle, but there it will lie, a hot metal, burning and consuming your hand forever. Or, if there be enoughCt it fora chain, then it will fall over thewrlst, clanking the fetters of an eternal captiv ity. The bribe is an everlasting posses sion. You take it for time, you take it for eternity. Some day in the next world, when you are longing for sympathy, you will feel on your cheek a kiss. Looking up, you will find it to be Judas, who took 80 pieces of silver as a bribe and finished the bargain by putting an infamous kiss on the pure cheek of his Divine Master. Abuse of Trust Funds. Another wrong use of money is seen in the abuse of trust funds. Nearly every man during the course of his life, on a larger or smaller scale, has the property of others committed to his keeping. He is so far a safety deposit, he is an adminis trator and holds in his hand the Interest of the family of a deceased friend, or he is an attorney, and through his custody goes the payment from debtor to creditor, or he is the collector for a business house, which compensates him for the responsi bility, or he is treasurer for a charitable institution, and he bolds alms contributed for tho suffering, or he is an official of the city or the state or the natloq, and taxes and subsidies and salaries and supplies are in his keeping. It is as solemn a trust as God can make it. It is concentered and multiplied con fidences. On that man depends tho sup port of a bereft household, or the morals of dependents, or the right movement of a thousand wheels of social mechanism. A man may do what he will with file own, but he who abuses trust funds in that one act commits theft, falsehood, perjury and becomes in all the intensity of the word a miscreant. How many widows and or phans there are with nothing between them and starvation but a sewing machine or held up out of the vortex of destruction simply by the thread of a needle, red with their own heart’s blood, who a little while ago had by father and husband left them a competency! What is the matter? The administrators or the executors have sacri ficed It—running risks with it that they would not have dared to encounter in their own private affairs. How often it is that a mafa will earn a livelihood by the sweat of his brow and then die, and within a few months all the estate goes into the stock gambling rapids of Wall street! How often it is that you have known the man to whom trust funds were committed taking them out of the savings bank and from trust companies and administrators, turning old home steads into hard cash, and then putting the entire estate into the vortex of specula tion. Embezzlement is an easy word to pronounce, but it has 10,000 ramifications. There is not a city that has not suffered from the abuse of trust funds. Where is the courthouse or the city hall or the jail or the postoffice or the hospital that in the building of it has not had a political job? Long before the new courthouse in New York city was completed it cost over $12,- 000,000. Five million six hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars for furniture! For plastering and repairs, $2,370,000; for plumbing and gas works, $1,281,817; for awnings, $23,553, the bills for three months coming to the nice little sum of $13,151,108.89. There was not an honest brick or stone or lath or nail or foot of plumbing or inch of plastering or inkstand or doorknob in the whole establishment. An Everlasting Crop. That bad example was followed in many of the oities, which did not steal quite so much because there was not so much to steal. There ought to be a closer inspec tion, and there ought to be less opportu nity for embezzlement. Lest a man shall take a 5 cent piece that does not belong so him, the conductor on the city horse car must sound his bell at every payment, and we are very cautious about small offenses, but give plenty of opportunities for sin ners on a large scale to escape—for a boy who steals a loaf of bread from a earner grocer to keep his mother from starving to death, a prison, but for defrauders who abscond with $500,000, a castle on the Rhine, or, waiting until the offense is for gotten, a castle on the Hudson! Another remark needs to be made, and that is that people ought not to go into places, into business or into positions where tho temptation is mightier than their character. If there be large sums of money to be handled, and the man is not sure of his own integrity, you have no right to run an unseaworthy craft in a hurricane. A man can tell by the sense of weakness or strength in the presence of a bad opportunity whether he is in a safe place. How many parents make an awful mistake when they put their boys in bank ing houses and stores and shops and fac tories and places of solemn trust without once dlscussirfg whether they can enduro the temptation! You give the boy plenty of money and have no account of it and make the way down become very easy and you may put upon him a pressure that he cannot stand. There are men wbc go into positions full of temptation, oots sidering only that they are lucrative posi tions. An abbot wanted to buy a piece of ground, and the owner would not sell it, but the owner finally consented to let it to him until he could raise one crop, and the abbot sowed acorns—a crop of 200 years! And I tell you, young man, that the dis honesties which you plant in your heart and life will seem to be very insignificant, but they will grow up until they will overshadow you with horrible darkness, overshadow all time and all eternity. It will not be a crop for 200 years, but a crop for everlasting ages. I address many who have trust funds. It is a compliment to you that you have been so intrusted, but I charge you in tho presence of God and tho world be careful —be as careful of the property of others as you are careful of your own. Above all, keep your own private account at the bank separate from your account as trustee of an estate or trustee of an institute. That is the point at which thousands of people make shipwreck. They get tho property of others mixed up with their own property, they put it into investment, and away it all goes, and they cannot re turn that which they borrowed. Then comes the explosion, and the money mar ket is shaken, and the press denounces, and the church thunders expulsion. Make Open Confession. > You have no right to use the property of others except for their advantage, nor without consent, unless they are minors. If with their consent you invest their prop erty aLwell as you can, and it is all lost, you arotaot to blame. You did the best you could, but do not come into the delusion, which has ruined so many men, of think ing because a thing is in their possession, therefore it is theirs. You have a solemn trust that God has given you. In any community there may be some who have misappropriated trust funds. Put them back or, if you have so hopeless ly involved them that you cannot put them back, confess tho whole thing to those whom you have Wronged, and you will sleep better nights, and you will have the better chance for your soul. What a . sad thing it would be if after you are dead your administrator should find out from the account books, or from the lack of vouchers, that you were not only bank rupt in estate, but that you lost your soul! A blustering young man arrived ata hotel in the west, and he saw a man on tho sidewalk whom he supposed to be a laborer, and in a rough way, as no man has a right to address a laborer, said to him, “Carry this trunk upstairs.” The man carried the trunk up stairs and came down, and then the young man gave him a quarter of a dollar which was clipped, and Instead of being 25 cents it was worth only 20 cents. Then the young man gave his card to the laborer and said: “You take this up to Governor Grimes. I want to see him.” “Ah,” said the laborer, “I am Governor Grimes.” “Oh,” said the young man, “you—l—excuse me.” Then ths governor said: “I was much impressed by the letter you wrote me asking for a cer tain office in my gift, and I had made up my mind you should have it, but a young man who will cheat a laborer out of 5 cents would swindle the government of the state if he got his hands on it. I don’t want you. Good morning, sir.” I do not suppose there was ever a better specimen of honesty than was found in the Duke of Wellington. He marched with his army over the French frontier, and tho army was suffering, and he scarcely knew how to get along. Plenty of plun der all about, but he commanded none of the plunder to be taken. He writes home these remarkable words, “We are over whelmed with debts, and I can scarcely stir out of my house on account of public creditors, waiting to demand what is due to them. ” Yet at the very time the French peasantry were bringing their valuables to him to keep. A celebrated writer says of the transaction: “Nothing can be grander or more nobly original than this admis sion. This old soldier, after 30 years’ serv ice, this iron man and victorious general, established in an enemy’s country at the head of an immense army, is afraid of his creditors? This is a kind of fear that has seldom troubled conquerors and invaders, and I doubt if the annals of war present anything comparable to its sublime sim plicity. ” Return to God. Oh, is it not high time that we preach the morals of the gospel right beside the faith of tho gospel? Mr. Fronde, the cele brated English historian, has written of his own country these remarkable words: “From the great house in the city of Lon don to the village grocer the commercial life of England has been saturated with fraud. So deep has it gone that a strictly honest tradesman can hardly hold his ground against competition. You can no longer trust that any article you buy is the thing which it pretends to be. We have false weights, false measures, cheat- j ing and shoddy everywhere. And yet the , clergy have seen all this grow up in abso- , lute indifferenoe. Many hundreds of ser- ( mens have I heard in England on the di- ( vine mission of the clergy, on bishops and on justification, and the theory of good , works, and verbal inspiration, and the , efficacy of the sacraments, but during all these 30 wonderful years never one that I ( can recollect on common honesty.” Now, that may be an exaggerated state ment of things in England, but I am very certain that in all parts of the earth we ( need to preach the moralities of tho gospel ( right along beside the faith of the gospel. ( My hearer, what are you doing with ( that fraudulent document in your pocket? My other hearer, how are you getting ( along with that wicked scheme you have .. now on foot? Is that a “pool ticket” you ( have in your pocket? Why, O young man, . were you last night practicing in copying ( your employer’s signature? Where were you last night? Are your habits as good . as when you left your father’s house? You had a Christian ancestry perhaps, and you • have had too many prayers spent on you to go overboard. Dr. Livingstone, the ( famous explorer, was descended from tho highlanders, and he said that one of his < ancestors, one of the highlanders, one day called his family around him. The high- . lander was dying. He had his children . around hiarieathbed. He said: “Now, my j lads, I have looked all through our history < as far back as I can find it, and I have ( never found a dishonest man in all the ( line, and I want you to understand you inherit good blood. You have no excuse. J for doing wrong. My lads, be honest.” Ah, my friends, bo honest before God, • be'honest before four fellow men, be hon- ( est before your soul. If there be those { who have wandered away, come back, ( come heme, come now, one and all, come j into the kingdom of God. - ,11 Werntaff Signal. f lam glad some one has set to music ( that scene in August, 1881, when a young j girl saved from death a whole rail train of passengers. Some of you remember , that out west in that'year on a stormy , night a hurricane blew down part of a I 1 Vnilrrmri '.l A A. e ■ I along, and itmushed into the rained the engineer and conductor perished. There was a girl living ia her father’s I cabin, near the disaster, and the heard the crash of the freight train, and she knew that in a few moments an express was I due. She lighted a lantern and clambered up on the one beam of tho wrecked bridge on to tho main bridge, which was trestle work, and started to cross amid the thunder and the lightning of the tempest and the raging of tho torrent beneath. One mis step and it would have been death. Amid all that horror tho lantern went out. Cmwling sometimes, and sometimes walk ing over tho slippery rails and over the treetiework, she came to the other side of the river. She wanted to get to tho tele graph station where tho express train did not stop, so that the danger might be tele graphed to the station where the train did stop, The train was duo in a few minutes She was one mPe off from the telegraph station, but fortvnatal.\ the train was late. With out and bru’sed fret she flew like tho wind. Coming up to She' telegraph sta tion, panting with almost deadly exhaus tion, she had only strength to shout, “Tho bridge ia down I” when she droppod un conscious and could harldy be resuscitat ed. The message was sent from that sta tion to tho next station, and tho train . halted, and that night that brave girl saved the lives of hundreds ot passengers and saved many homes from desolation. But every street is a track, and every style of business is a track, and every day is a track, and every night is a track, and multitudes under tho power of temptation come swooping on and sweeping down to ward perils raging and terrific. God help us to go out and stop tho train! Let us throw some signal. Lot us give some warning. By the throne of God let us flash some influence to stop the downward progress. Beware! Beware! The bridge is down, the chasm is deep, and the light nings of God set all the night of sin on fire with this warning: “He that, being often reproved, hordeneth his neck shall sud denly be destroyed, and that without rem edy.” An Ordinance. Be it ordained by the Mayor and Conn oil of the City ot Griffin that from and after the passage of this Ordinance: Sec. 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 ot 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 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 tor 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 unlawfal for any person to allow their spigots, hose or sprinkler to ran between the hours of 9:00 o’clock >an. and 6:00 o’clock a. m., for 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 ran for that purpose, Sec. 7th. The employes of the Water Department shall have access to the premises of any subscriber for the purpose meters, examining pipes, fix tures, etc., and it shall be unlawful for any person to interfere, or prevent their doing so. Sec. Bth. Any person violating any of the provisions of the above ordinance 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 the 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 ana power ot regular policemen of the 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. An Ordinance. An ordinance to prevent the spreading of diseases through tbe keeping and ex- , posing for sale of second hand and cast off clothing, to provide for the disinfection of such clothing by the Board of Health of tbe City of Griffin, to prescribe fees for the disiniection and tbe proper registry thereof, and for other purposes. Sec. Ist Be it ordained by tbe Mayor and Council of the City of Griffin, that from and after the passage of this ordi nance, it shall be unlawful for any person or persons, firm or corporation to keep ana expose for sale any second hand or cast off clothing within tbe corporate lim its of the City of Griffin, unless the said clothing has been disinfected by the Board of Health of the City of Griffin, and the certificate of said Board oi Health giving the number and character of the garments disinfected by them has been filed In the office of the Clerk and Treasurer of the ‘City of Griffin; provided nothing herein contained shall be construed as depriving individual citizens oi the right to sell or otherwise dispose of their own or their family wearing apparel, unless the same is known to have been subject to conta geous diseases, in which event this ordi nance shall apply. Sec. 2nd. Be it further ordained by the authority aforesaid, That for each garment disinfected by the Board of Health of Griffin, there shall be paid in advance to said board the actual cost of disinfecting the said garments, and for the issuing of the certificate required by this ordinance the sum ot twenty-five cents, and to the Clerk and Treasurer of the City of Griffin for the registry of said certificate the sum of fifty cents. Sec. 3rd. Be it further ordained by the authority aforesaid, That every person or persons, firm or corporation convicted of a violation of this Ordinance, shall be fined and sentenced not more than one hundred dollars, or sixty days is the chain gang, either or both, in the discretion of the Judge of the Criminal Court, for each of fense. It shall be the duty of the police force to see that this ordinance is strictly enforced and report all violations the Board of Health. Sec. 4th. Be it further ordained by the authority aforesaid, That all ordinances and parts of Ordinances in conflict here with are hereby repealed. . I BM m H H ■ M| H ■ I J I IM JDvUid IiJI y A h signature / zi 11 Prcmotes DigesfionJGheetfid-!■ X ness and ItestContains neither ■ Z > agyssroEcT* 1 1 of Air > ft i AB 1 IJI Vi I, A perfect Remedy for Constipa- Ml 11 a IF tion,SourStomach.Diarrhoea.|M|l VgT „ Worms.Convukitias,Feverish-1 «Ik L m Il sf Ajta I ness end Loss of Sleep. |M Vr rvl UVuT ~; Esc Sunue Signature ot 'fl YI * NEW YORK. H • IHI II | UU| 0 ___ cxactcopyof wrappeh. MBl S 1 I Stus . .i,..,.. .. ....,mm ■ z; -GET YOL’K- JOB PRINTING ■ DONE A.T The Morning Call Office. ■ . ■■■■——■hit «... We hare just supplied our Job Office with a complete hue of Btafcomr* kinds and can get up, on short notice, anything wanted In the way w J LETTER HEADS, BILL IIEADH ■ STATEMENTS, IRCULARB, ENVELOPES, NOTES,*. 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