The Abominations of Modern SocietyTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
The Abominations of Modern Society
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Conduct of life
But the dividends stop. What is the matter? Instead of the
advertisement which covered a whole column of the newspapers,
there comes a modest little notice that "a special meeting of the
stockholders will be held for the purpose of transacting business
of importance." Perhaps it may be to assess the stockholders for the
purpose of keeping the little land they have, if they have any. Or it
may be for the election of a new group of officers, for the present
incumbents do not want to be always before the public. They are modest
men. They believe in rotation of office. They cannot consent any
longer to serve. Where have they gone to? They are busy putting up
a princely mansion at Long Branch, Germantown, or Chelsea. They have
served their day and generation, and have gone to their flocks and
herds. Where is the Church of God, that she allows in her membership
such gigantic abominations? Were the thirty pieces of silver that
Judas received denounced as unfit, and shall the Church of God have
nothing to say about this price of blood? Is sin to be excused because
it is as high as heaven, or deep as hell? The man who allows his name
to be used as president or director in connection with an enterprise
that he knows is to result in the sale of twenty thousand shares of an
undeveloped nothing--God will tear off the cloak of his hypocrisy, and
in the last day show him to all the universe--a brazen-faced gambler.
His house will be accursed. God's anathemas will flash in the
chandelier, and rattle in the swift hoofs of his silver-bitted grays;
and the day of fire will see him willing to leap into a burning
oil-well to hide himself from the face of the Lamb. The hundred
thousand dollars gotten in unrighteousness will not be enough to build
a barricade against the advance of the divine judgments.
Think of the elder in a church who, from the oil regions, sends an
exciting telegram, so that one man buys a large amount of stock at
twelve, on Wednesday. The next day it is put on the stock-board at
six. The enterprising man, who sold it at twelve, goes out to buy
one of the grandest estates within ten miles of the city. The man
who bought it goes into the dust; and the secret gets out that the
exciting telegram sent by the elder arose, not from any oil actually
discovered, but because in boring they had found a magnificent odor of
oil.
If he who steals a dollar from a money-drawer is a thief, then he
who by dishonesty gets five hundred thousand dollars is five hundred
thousand times more a thief. And so the last day will declare him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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