Wickedness in High Places

’ Their right hand is full of bribes.” — Psalm xxvi., 10. “Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning.” — Ecclesiastes x., 16.

THOSE two passages are descriptive of wickedness in high places. The morals of a nation hardly ever rise higher than the virtue of the rulers. Henry YIII. makes impurity national and popular. William Wilberforce in the Parliament is perpetual elevation to an empire. Sin, epauleted and bestarred, comes to respect and canonization; vice, elevated, is recommended. Malarias rise from the marsh, float upward and away; but moral distempers descend from the mountain to the plain. The “Five Points” and Coal Street disgust men with the bestiality of sin; but dissolute French court and corrupt Congressional delegation put a premium upon crime. The most of the vices of the world are kingly exiles that had a throne once, but, driven out, they have come down in tattered robes to be entertained by the humble and the insignificant.

I do not believe that there is any nation on earth “which has more noble-minded and pure-hearted men in places of authority than this nation. There is not a meetinsf of Leoislature or Cons-ress or Cabinet but* has in it the best specimens of Christian character — men whose hands would consume a bribe; whose cheek has never been flushed with intoxication; whose lips have never been smitten of blasphemy, or stung of a lie; men whose speeches against the wrong and in behalf of the right make us think of the fiery words of the Scotch Covenanters, and of the daring challenge of Martin Luther, and of the red lightning of Micah and Habakkuk. I do not believe that our legislative and political councils are any more corrupt than they were in olden time. I will not believe it so long as I read in history of Aaron Burr, stuffed with corruption until he could hold no more — body, mind, and soul soaked in abomination, the debaucher of the debauched, yet a member of the State Legislature, afterward Attorney-general, afterward United States Senator, and, last of all, Vice-president of the Union. You can not make me believe that political dishonesty is peculiar to our day when I find out that the governor of this very State, almost fifty years ago, disbanded the Legislature because it was too corrupt to sit in council; and when, in the State of Massachusetts, there was a man in the gubernatorial chair so offensive that when he made his proclamation for Thanksgiving-day, ending with his own signature as governor, and the stereotyped phrase, “God save the Commonwealth,” a minister of Christ, while reading the Governor’s proclamation for Thanksgiving, put this emphasis after reading the proclamation, saying, “Marcus Morton, Governor of Massachusetts? Ood save the Commonivealih T

There has been a tendency to contrast the past with the present, to the advantage of the former; and I suppose that sixty years from now political writers will make angels out of us, although the material now seems so very unpromising. But the crimes in high places in olden times are no apology for the crimes in high places in modern times; and I shall this morning, in the fear of Grod, and with reference to my last account, unroll before you the scroll of public wickedness.

If there was ever a time when the minister of the Gospel and the philanthropist should speak out, this is the time. King David must feel the rebuke of Nathan; Felix must be made to tremble; sin must be denounced; God must be honored; the nation must be saved. We may hold back the truth on these subjects, and walk with muffled feet lest we wake up some big sinner. But what will we answer in the day when men who have stood in the high places of the earth, warring against God, shall fall like lightning from heaven? or, as John Milton has it:

“Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition.”

I stand this morning in the presence of men who hold in their hands the suffrages of the nation, and by whose vote, and by whose printing-press, and by whose social influence, and by whose prayer, the future character of this country is to be decided.

In unrolling, then, this scroll of wickedness in high places, the first thing that I mark especially is incompeiency for office. If a man seek for a place and win it when he is incompetent, he is committing a crime against God and a crime against man. It is not a sin for me to be ignorant of medical science; but if, without medical attainment, I set myself up among professional men, and trifle, in my ignorance, with the lives of those whose confidence I have won, then my charlatanism becomes high-handed knavery. The ignorance that in the one case was innocence, in the other case becomes a crime. It is not a sin for me to be ignorant of machinery; but if I attempt to engineer a steamer across the Atlantic, amidst darkness and hurricane, holding the lives of hundreds of people in mj grasp, then the blood of all the shipwrecked is on mj garment. But what shall we say of men who attempt to engineer our State and national affairs over the rough waters, without the first element of qualification? — men not knowing enough to vote “aye” or “no,” until they have looked for the wink of others of their party? So we have had Legislative and Congressional committees to make tariffs and homestead bills, and arrange about the fisheries, and think out the best way of collecting indemnities — men whose incompetency has been the laughing-stock of the country. In this country, to-day, qualification for office is not the question, but “How much has the man done for the party?” And so we had a Congressional committee that made one tariff for flaxseed-oil and another for linseed-oil — not knowing, in their stupidity, that flaxseed and linseed oil are the same thing. No depth or length or breadth of disqualification in this country hinders a man from holding office. The polished civilian of acknowledged integrity, profoundly acquainted with the spirit of our institutions, is run over by the great stampede of men who rush out from their bloated and unthinking ignorance to take the positions of trust in this country. So we have had, in some parts of the country, school-commissioners nominated in a grog-shop, hurraed for by the rabble, hardly able to read their own commissions when they were handed to them; judges of courts in important cases giving the charge with so much inaccuracy of phraseology that the thief ii, tdQ prisoner’s-box was more amused at the stupidity of the bench than alarmed at his own prospective punishment. We arraign, to-day, incapacity for office as one of the crimes to be seen in our national and State councils. I unroll the scroll a little farther, and find intemperance and the co-ordinate crimes. I admit there has been some improvement in this thing. The grog-shop that used to flourish in the basement of the Capitol, where senators once went to get inspiration for their speeches, has been abolished. There is a temperance society in Congress. But the plague is not yet stayed. I knew a man who, only a few years ago, was an example of integrity, and honored everywhere. Last winter I went to Washington. I had not seen him for years, and I thought I would send my card into the House of Representatives, and call him out. The card went in by the sergeant-at-arms, and my old friend that I had not seen in ten years came out staggering drunk. In this country, the temptations to intemperance in public life are so great that more of our men in office die o delirium tremens and the kindred diseases that come from intemperance and an impure life, than from all the other causes combined. There is one weapon that slays more senators and congressmen and legislators and common councilmen than any other, and that is the bottle. How few of the men who were in prominent political offices twenty-five or thirty years ago, when they died, came

to honorable graves! The family physician, to relieve the family and keep them from national disgrace, said it was gout, or it was epilepsj”, or it was obstruction of the liver, or it was exhaustion from patriotic services! But God knew it was whisky. It was the same habit that smote the great man down that smote the dark villain in the alley. The one you wrapped up in a coarse cloth, and threw into a rough coffin, and carried out in a box-wagon, and put down in a pauper’s grave, without prayer or benediction; the other gathered the pomp of the city, and the name was on the silver plate, and lordly men walked uncovered beside the hearse with tossing plumes, on the way to a grave soon to be adorned with a marble pillar of four sides, which shall be covered with the story of the man who died o exhaustion from patriotic services! The difference between the two was this: the one put an end to his existence with logwood-rum at two cents a glass, and the other perished in a beverage at three dollars a bottle. I write both of their epitaphs: on a shingle over the pauper’s grave I write it with a lead-pencil; on the white shaft over a senator’s tomb I cut it with a chisel — Slain by strong drink F’’

It is a simple fact that dissipated habits have not, in this country, been a hinderance to a man’s getting office: if he be sober sometimes; if the governor can get straight enough to write his message; if the judge’s tongue is not positively thick when he delivers the charge; if the vice-president is not drunk when he is sworn in — that will do. So we have had world-renowned secretaries of state carried out drunk from their office, and senators of the United States arrested at midnight in houses of shame for uproarious behavior; judges and jurors and lawyers by night, while the trial is going on by day, gambling and singing the song of the drunkard. Oh, it is a sad thinsj to have a hand tremulous with intoxication holding the scales of justice, when the lives of men and the destinies of a nation are in the balance: to have a charioteer with unskillful hands on the reins while the swift destinies of governments are harnessed, on a road where governments have been dashed to pieces and empires have gone down in darkness and woe!

What was it that drove back your armies in the last war so often? Were your sons and fathers cowards and poltroons? ISTo! It was because so often drunkenness sat in the saddle. What are those graves on the heights of Fredericksburg, as you pass down to Eichmond? Was it the sword or the bottle that slew them? The bottle! for that day drunkenness rode in some of the stirrups, leading forth your sons and fathers to death. Dissipation in all the high circles as well as the low. A trial in the courts ever and anon reveals the fact that Impurity walks in robes, and dances under the palatial chandelier, and drowses on the damask upholstery. Sin is tolerable, if it is only rich. Stand back and let the libertine go by, for he rides in a three -thousand- dollar turn-out. The Congressional galleries are thrilled by the appeals of men who on the following night fulfill what Solomon said, “He goeth after her straightway, as an ox to the slauo-hter and as a fool to the correction of stocks, until a dart strike through his liver.” Meanwhile, political parties are silent, lest they lose votes; and newspapers are quiet, lest they lose subscribers; and ministers of the Gospel are still, lest some affluent pew-holder should be disgusted. But God’s indignation gathers like the fiery flashes around the edges of a blackening cloud just before the swoop of a tornado. His voice sounds through this country to-day, in the words of the text: “Woe unto thee, 0 land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes drink in the morning.” Oh, the land groans to be delivered! It sweats great drops of blood! It is crucified — not between two thieves, but between a thousand, while the nations ride past, wagging their heads and crj’ing, “Aha! aha!”

I unroll the scroll of wickedness in high places still farther, and I see the crime of bribery. It was that which corrupted Lord Bacon in his magnificent position — it was that which led Chief-justice Thorpe to the gal* lows. You know as well as I that in the past few years it has been almost impossible to get a law passed by State or National Legislature unless there was some financial consideration. When a bill has appeared at the door, the question among your representatives has been, “How much money is in this?” Reformers and philanthropists, with some scheme for the elevation of the nation, approach the door of the Legislature, or the door of Congress, and are laughed at because their hands are empty. Political bribes, offered in the shape of preferment for office: “If you vote so and so, you shall have so and so.” “If you will vote for my bill giving a monopoly to my moneyed institution, then I will vote for your bill giving a monopoly to your moneyed institution.” “Here is a bill with which we shall have a great deal of trouble, but it must go through. Crowd the lobbies with railroad men, and manufacturers, and contractors. Make an entertainment for the members, and when they are good and drunk, have them promise to vote that way. Put a thousand dollars or five thousand dollars in the hand of this man, who will be prudent in the disLiibution of it. Put two thousand dollars in the hand of this man, vio will see that ‘it does good.’ Be very cautious how you approach men. Now we want only four more votes, and this matter will be all right. Give a thousand dollars to that very intelligent member from Westchester. Give five hundred dollars to that stupid member from Ulster. Now we have but two more votes to regulate. Give three hundred dollars to this man, and he will be sick and stay at home, and then give three hundred to this man, and he will go to the bedside of his great-aunt languishing in her last sickness!” The day for the passage of the bill has come. The speaker thumps his gavel on the desk and says, “Senators, are you ready for the question? All in favor of this bill that wnll vote one or two hundred thousand dollars, or a million dollars, into the hands of unprincipled speculators, will say. Aye.” Aye! aye! aye! aye! “All opposed, No.” “The a yes have it.” The money is wasted, the public treasure is gone, business is embarrassed, and our National and State Legislatures become the sewers into which the filth and the vomit of this nation empty themselves. If you think that I exaggerate the matter, go to any of these places just before a bill is to be passed, and learn that I have not more than half represented the truth in the case, and that this crime of bribery is smiting the whole country, depleting your wealth, oh, you men of affluence! grinding harder your faces, oh, you children of the poor!

The Democratic party filled its cup of iniquity before it went out of power at the beginning of the war. The Republican party came along, and as it had more opportunity, by reason of the contracts, filled its cup of iniquity in shorter time; and there they are, two carcasses lying side by side — the Republican party and the Democratic party — putrefied until they have no more power to rot!

The bribery during the war is cursing us yet, and I fear will curse us for a century. You know how it was then. “If you give me the contract above all others who apply for it, I’ll give you ten per cent, of the profits. If you will only pass these worn-out cavalry horses and certify that they are fit for service, I’ll give you five thousand dollars bonus.” “Bonus” was the word. So it went down to your sons and fathers in the army — rice that was worm-eaten, crackers that were mouldy, garments that were shoddy, meat that was rank, horses that stumbled in the charge, tents that sifted the rain into the faces of the exhausted. But it was all right, for they got the bonus!

The argument in behalf of the stability of republics is stronger in my mind now than it ever was. If our Government had not been thoroughly established, all this bribery and theft and outrage would have swamped it forever. The amount of money that has been spent in this country in railroads that ought never to have been constructed, in canals that ought never to have been dug, in loans that ought never to have been allowed, in fiircical schemes that ought never to have been countenanced, would have swamped any three monarchies.

We sit to-day, this whole nation, under the shadow of Congressional dishonor. The white marble of our beautiful Capitol has become the vast mausoleum of the slain. Both political parties implicated. The stables of Augeas, uncleaned after three thousand oxen had stood there for thirty years, was a small job for Hercules, compared with what the Poland Committee found of national dirt in the Congressional halls. On that Union Pacific Railroad many of your representatives took a through ticket to hell. They paid their fare in eighty per cent, dividends.

Thej sold out political influence, honor, Christian principle, and immortal soul. But be careful, my friends, lest you smite the innocent with the guilty. I think the nation is on the track of some men who have not been proven guilty. We take men to be innocent until they are found villainous. I can not believe that men, after thirty years of integrity, amidst temptations where they might have made millions of dollars, would now sell heaven for a few hundred. A solid column of defamers reaching from Biooklyn to Washington, with uplifted hand in solemn oath, could not make me believe that some of the men arraigned are iniquitous. But, my friends, we must admit that this nation sits to-day in the shadow of national dishonor and Congressional disgrace. The crimes found in public places are only the index of political abandonment. The blotches on the surface only show the disease within. I do not believe the men inculpated in public places to-day are any worse than thousands of the political hucksters who in your legislatures and your congresses have been bought up by moneyed institutions. Some of the finest houses ever built on Fifth Avenue, and Beacon Street, and Eittenhouse Square, have been built out of money paid for votes by railroad companies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. I was glad when the explosion came. Public men will see that they must beware, since there are thunders on the track, and God has said that he “will wound the hairy scalp of him who goeth on still in his trespasses.” You throw up your hands and say, “Why, we can’t help it.” Can you not? If I thought there was nothing for you and me to do, I would not preach this sermon. There are four things for you to do.

First, stand off from all political office unless your own principles are thoroughly siittlcd. Do not go into the blaze of temptation unless you are fire -proof. Common council, water-board, legislative hall, and congressional assemblage have been the damnation of a great many respectable people. But if you go into political life without your principles thoroughly settled, before you get through with it you will drink, and you will swear, and you will lie, and you will take bribes. “Ah!” you say, “that is not complimentary.” Well, I always was clumsy at compliments.

The second thing to do is to take the counsel of Paul, and pray for your rulers; pray for all in authority. Do you know that Shadrach and Abed-nego did not need the Son of God beside them in the fire so much as your rulers do? We pray every Sunday for the President of the United States, because that is in the liturgy. But have we been editirely cleared of all responsibility for the national corruption, from the fact that we have not prayed as we should for our representatives? When I take up the paper and see this awful defalcation in character, I feel just as I did when I saw the account of the wreck of the Northfleet a few nights ngo in English waters — the Northfleet run down by a strong steamer; for those men were crashed into by temptations, with fiery furnace and thundering wheel-bucket; and there was no life-boat. Pray for your rulers!

In the next place, be faithful at the ballot-box. Do not stand on your dignity and refuse to vote because the rabble go. Put on your old clothes, and elbow your way through the unwashed, and the wretched, and the abandoned, and go to the polls. Cast your own vote.

Make up your mind in a Cbi’istian way as to who are the men best for office; then vote for the man who loves God and hates rum, and believes in having the Bible read every day as long as the world stands in all our common schools. Refuse to vote, or vote the wrong way, and you sin against the graves of the men who died for the Government, and you sin against your children, who may live to feel the curse of your negligence or your political dishonesty.

But I have a better prescription than all. It is the fiL fourth thing I have to say in the way of counsel, and Tthat is. Evangelize tJie 2:>eo2:)le. Gospelize this country, and you will have pure representatives and pure men everywhere. I have no faith in the conversion of an old politician. I never knew one to be converted. I suppose the grace of God can do it, but seldom tries it. I should be no more surprised to see the Pope of Rome and the cardinals come in and sit down on the “anxious-seat” in a Methodist meetinsf-house than I would to see a long row of politicians converted. What work we have to do we are to do with the great masses of the people who cast the votes, and with our children who are coming up to be the sovereigns. That woman who this afternoon, in the Sabbath -school class, teaches six boys how to be Christians, does more for our political future than all the fine essays that were ever written about the Constitution, or the arraignment of the American Senate for holding stock of the Credit Mobilier. I want you to understand there is work for you and me to do. Change men’s hearts, and their lives will be right. fy> There were good men this last week in Cooper Institute, New York, trying to have the Christian religion recognized in the Constitution of the United States. But, my friends, you get the people converted by the grace of God, and I do not care about the mere technicality of a Constitutional recognition. What we want in this country is just four revivals — revivals that come like those in the days of Nettleton and Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. We want four revivals all at once: one starting from the North, rolling South; one starting from the South, rolling North; one starting from the East, rolling West; one starting from the West, rolling East. And then I want to stand on the spot where the four seas meet, that I may shout, “Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah! for the kingdoms of this world are becoming the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ.” But remember, that if there be forty millions of people in this country, upon you personally rests a forty-millionth of the responsibility. The least thing you can do for the country is to contribute toward it a heart changed by the grace of God, and a life all pure. Remember that it is net as nations we are at last to be judged, but as individuals, each man answering for himself in that day when monarchies and republics alike shall perish, and the earth itself shall become a heap of ashes, scattered in the blast of the nostrils of the Lord God Almighty I

THE FOURTH ANNIVERi^ARY. 147