Psalm 116:11 I said in my haste, All men are liars. Pessimism is a sin, and those who yield to it cripple themselves for the war, on one side of which are all the forces of darkness, led on by Apollyon, and on the other side of which are all the forces of light led on by the Omnipotent. I risk the statement that the vast majority of the people are doing the best they can. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of the officials of the municipal and the United States Governments are honest. Out of a thousand bank presidents and cashiers, nine hundred, and ninety-nine are worthy the position they occupy. Out of a thousand merchants, mechanics and professional men, nine hundred and ninety-nine are doing their duty as they understand it. Out of one thousand engineers, and conductors, and switchmen, nine hundred and ninety-nine are true to their responsible positions. It is seldom that people arrive at positions of responsibility until they have been tested over and over again. It is a mean thing in human nature that men and women are not praised for doing well, but only excoriated when they do wrong. By Divine arrangement the most of the families of the earth are at peace, and the most of those united in marriage have for each other affinity and affection. You hear nothing of the quietude and happiness of such homes, though nothing but death will them part. But one sound of marital discord makes the ears of a continent, and perhaps of a hemisphere, alert. The one letter that ought never to have been written, printed in a newspaper, makes more talk than the millions of letters that crowd the post-offices, and weigh down the mail-carriers, with expressions of honest love. We need a more cheerful front in all our religious work. People have enough trouble already, and do not want to ship another cargo of trouble in the shape of religiosity. If religion has been to you a peace, a defence, an inspiration and a joy, say so. Say it by word of mouth; by pen in your right hand; by face illumined with a divine satisfaction. If this world is ever to be taken for God, it will not be by groans, but by hallelujahs. If we could present the Christian religion as it really is, in its true attractiveness, all the people would accept it, and accept it right away. Exemplify it in the life of a good man or a good woman, and no one can help but like it. A city missionary visited a house in London and found a sick and dying boy. There was an orange lying on his bed, and the missionary said, "Where did you get that orange?" He said, "A man brought it to me. He comes here often, and reads the Bible to me, and prays with me, and brings me nice things to eat." "What is his name?" said the city missionary. "I forget his name," said the sick boy, "but he makes great speeches over in that great building," pointing to the Parliament House of London. The missionary asked, "Was his name Mr. Gladstone?" "Oh yes," said the boy, "that is his name; Mr. Gladstone." Do you tell me a man can see religion like that and not like it? Why do you not get this bright, and beautiful, and radiant, and blissful, and triumphant thing for yourselves; then go home telling all your neighbours that they may have it, too; have it for the asking; have it now? Mind you, I do not start from the pessimistic standpoint that David did, when he got mad and said in his haste, "All men are liars!" or from the creed of others that every man is as bad as he can be. I rather think from your looks that you are doing about as well as you can in the circumstances in which you are placed, but I want to invite you up into the heights of safety, and satisfaction, and holiness, as much higher than those which the world affords as Everest, the highest mountain in all the earth, is higher than your front doorstep. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: I said in my haste, All men are liars. |
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