314. Save the Cities

Save the Cities

Eze_27:3 : ’93Oh! thou that art situate at the entry of the sea.’94

This is a part of an impassioned apostrophe to the city of Tyre. It was a beautiful city’97a majestic city. At the east end of the Mediterranean it sat, with one hand beckoning the inland trade, and with the other the commerce of foreign nations. It swung a monstrous boom across its harbor to shut out foreign enemies, and then swung back that boom to let in its friends. The air of the desert was fragrant with the spices brought by caravans to her fairs, and all seas were cleft into foam by the keels of her laden merchantmen. Her markets were rich with horses, and mules, and camels from Togarmah; with upholstery, and ebony, and ivory from Dedan; with emeralds, and agate, and coral from Syria; with wine from Helbon; with finest needlework from Ashur and Chilmad. Talk about the splendid state-rooms of your transatlantic lines of international steamers’97why, the benches of the state-rooms in those Tyrian ships were all ivory, and instead of our coarse canvas on the masts of the shipping, they had the finest linen, quilted together and inwrought with embroideries almost miraculous for beauty. Its columns overshadowed all nations. Distant empires felt its heart-beat. Majestic city! ’93situate at the entry of the sea.’94

But where now is the gleam of her towers, the roar of her chariots, the masts of her shipping? Let the fishermen who dry their nets on the place where she once stood; let the sea that rushes upon the barrenness where she once challenged the admiration of all nations; let the barbarians who build their huts on the place where her palaces glittered, answer the question. Blotted out forever! She forgot God, and God forgot her. And while our modern cities admire her glory, let them take warning at her awful doom.

Cain was the founder of the first city, and I suppose it took after him in morals. It is a long while before a city can get over the character of those who founded it. Were they criminal exiles, the filth, and the. prisons, and the debauchery are the shadows of such founders. New York will not for two or three hundred years escape from the good influences of its founders’97the pious settlers whose prayers went up from the very streets where now banks discount and brokers’92 bargain, and companies declare dividends, and smugglers swear custom-house lies; and above the roar of the drays and the crack of the auctioneers’92 mallets is heard the ascription’97’94We worship thee, O thou Almighty Dollar!’94 The church that stands at the head of Wall street still throws its blessing over all the scene of traffic, and upon the ships that fold their white wings in the harbor. Cities are not necessarily evils, as has sometimes been argued. They have been the birthplace of civilization. In them popular liberty has lifted up its voice. Witness Genoa and Pisa and Venice. The entrance of the representatives of the cities in the legislatures of Europe was the death-blow to feudal kingdoms. Cities are the patronizers of art and literature’97architecture pointing to its British Museum in London, its Royal Library in Paris, its Vatican in Rome. Cities hold the world’92s scepter. Africa was Carthage, Greece was Athens, England is London, France is Paris, Italy is Rome, and the cities in which God has cast our lot will yet decide the destiny of the American people.

I have thought it might be useful to talk a little while about the moral responsibility resting upon the office-bearers in all our cities’97a theme as appropriate to those who are governed as to the governors. The moral character of those who rule a city has much to do with the character of the city itself. I have noticed that according to their opportunities there has really been more corruption in municipal governments in this country than in the State and national Legislatures. Now, is there no hope? With the mightiest agent in our hand, the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, shall not all our cities be reformed, and purified, and redeemed? I believe the day will come. I am in full sympathy with those who are opposed to carrying politics into religion; but our cities will never be reformed and purified until we carry religion into politics. I look over our cities and see that all great interests are to be affected in the future, as they have been affected in the past, by the character of those who in the different departments rule over us, and I propose to classify some of those interests:

In the first place, I remark, commercial ethics are always affected by the moral or immoral character of those who have municipal supremacy. Officials who wink at fraud, and who have neither censure nor arraignment for glittering dishonesties, always weaken the pulse of commercial honor. Every shop, every store, every bazaar, every factory in the cities feels the moral character of the City Hall. A merchant may stand in his store and say: ’93Now, I will have nothing to do with city politics; I will not soil my hands with the slush;’94 nevertheless, the most insignificant trial in the police court will affect that merchant, directly or indirectly. In the city of New York, Christian merchants for a great while said: ’93We will have nothing to do with the management of public affairs,’94 and they allowed everything to go at loose ends until there rolled up in that city a debt of nearly one hundred and twenty million dollars. The municipal government became a hissing and a byword in the whole earth, and then the Christian merchants saw their folly, and they went and took possession of the ballot-boxes. I wish all commercial men to understand that they are not independent of the moral character of the men who rule over them, but must be thoroughly, mightily influenced by them.

So, also, of the educational interests of a city. Do you know that there are in this country over a hundred thousand common schools, and that there are over fourteen millions of pupils, and that the majority of those schools and the majority of those pupils are in our cities? Now, this great multitude of children will be influenced by the intelligence or ignorance, the virtue or the vice, of boards of education and boards of control. There are cities where educational affairs are settled in the low caucus in the abandoned parts of the cities, by men full of ignorance and rum. It ought not to be so; but in many cities it is so. I hear the tramp of coming generations. What that great multitude of youth shall be for this world and the next will be affected very much by the character of your public schools.

I have also to say that the character of officials in a city affects the domestic circle. In a city where grogshops have their own way, and gambling hells are not interfered with, and for fear of losing political influence officials close their eyes to festering abom-inations’97in all those cities the home interests need to make imploration. The family circles of the city must inevitably be affected by the moral character or the immoral character of those who rule over them. I will go further and say that the religious interests of a city are thus influenced. The Church today has to contend with evils that the civil law ought to smite; and while I would not have the civil government in anywise relax its energy in the arrest and punishment of crime, I would have a thousandfold more energy put forth in the drying up of the fountains of iniquity. The Church of God asks no pecuniary aid from political power; but does ask that in addition to all the evils we must necessarily contend against we shall not have to fight also municipal negligence.

I demand that the Christian people who have been standing aloof from public affairs come back, and in the might of God try to save our cities. If things are or have been bad, it is because good people have let them be bad. That Christian man who merely goes to the polls and casts his vote does not do his duty. It is not the ballot-box that decides the election, it is the political caucus; and if at the primary meetings of the two political parties unfit and bad men are nominated, then the ballot-box has nothing to do save to take its choice between two thieves! In our churches, by reformatory organization, in every way let us try to tone up the moral sentiment in these cities.

I take a step further in this subject, and ask all those who believe in the omnipotence of prayer, day by day and every day, present your city officials before God for a blessing. If you live in a city presided over by a mayor, pray for him. The chief magistrate of a city is in a position of great responsibility. If in the Episcopal churches, by the authority of the Liturgy, and in our non-Episcopate churches, we every Sabbath pray for the President of the United States, why not, then, be just as hearty in our supplications for the chief magistrates of cities, for their guidance, for their health, for their present and their everlasting morality? But go further, and pray for your Common Council, if your city has a Common Council. They hold in their hands a power splendid for good or terrible for evil. They have many temptations. In many of the cities whole boards of common councilmen have gone down in the maelstrom of political corruption. They could not stand the power of the bribe. Corruption came in and sat beside them and sat behind them and sat before them. They recklessly voted away the hard-earned moneys of the people. They were bought out, body, mind and soul, so that at the end of their term of office they had not enough of moral remains left to make a decent funeral. They went into office with the huzza of the multitude. They came out with the anathema of all decent people. There is not one man out of a hundred that can endure the temptations of the common councilmen in our great cities. If a man in that position have the courage of a Cromwell, and the independence of an Andrew Jackson, and the public-spiritedness of a John Frederick Oberlin, and the piety of an Edward Payson, he will have no surplus to throw away. Pray for these men.

Yes; go further, and pray for your police. Their perils and temptations, best known to themselves. They hold the order and peace of your cities in their grasp. But for their intervention you would not be safe for an hour. They must face the storm. They must rush in where it seems to them almost instant death. They must put the hand of arrest on the armed maniac, and corner the murderer. They must refuse large rewards for withdrawing complaints. They must unravel intricate plots, and trace dark labyrinths of crime, and develop suspicions into certainties. They must be cool while others are frantic. They must be vigilant while others are somnolent, impersonating the very villainy they want to seize. In the police forces of our great cities are today men of as thorough character as that of the old detective of New York, addressed to whom there came letters from London asking for help ten years after he was dead’97letters addressed to ’93Jacob Hayes, High Constable of New York.’94 Your police need your appreciation, your sympathy, your gratitude, and, above all, your prayers. Yea, I want you to go further, and pray every day for prison inspectors and jail-keepers,’97work awful and beneficent. Rough men, cruel men, impatient men, are not fit for those places. They have under their care men who were once as good as you, but they have been tripped up. Bad company or strong drink or strange conjunction of circumstances flung them headlong. Go down that prison corridor and ask them how they got in and about their families and what their early prospects in life were, and you will find that they are very much like yourself, except in this: that God kept you from the temptations which overthrew them. Pray God day by day that the men who have these unfortunates in charge may be merciful, Christianly strategic, and the means of reformation and rescue.

Some years ago a city pastor in New York was called to the city prison to attend a funeral. A young woman had committed a crime and was incarcerated, and her mother came to visit her and died on the visit. The mother, having no home, was buried from her daughter’92s prison-cell. After the service was over, the imprisoned daughter came up to the minister of Christ, and said: ’93Wouldn’92t you like to see my poor mother?’94 And while they stood at the coffin, the minister of Christ said to that imprisoned soul: ’93Don’92t you feel today, in the presence of your mother’92s dead body, as if you ought to make a vow before God that you will do differently and live a better life?’94 She stood for a few moments, and then the tears rolled down her cheeks, and she pulled from her right hand the worn-out glove that she had put on in honor of the obsequies, and, having bared her right hand, she put it upon the chill brow of her dead mother, and said: ’93By the help of God, I swear I will do differently. God help me.’94 And she kept her vow. And years after, when she was told of the incident, she said: ’93When that minister of the Gospel said: ’91God bless you and help you to keep the vow that you have made,’92 I cried out, and I said: ’91You bless me! Do you bless me? Why, that is the first kind word I’92ve heard in ten years;’92 and it thrilled through my soul, and it was the means of my reformation, and ever since, by the grace of God, I’92ve tried to live a Christian life.’94 There are many amid the criminal classes that may be reformed. Pray for the men who have these unfortunates in charge.

My word now is to all who may come to hold any public position of trust in any city. You are God’92s representatives. God the King, and Ruler, and Judge, sets you in his place. Oh, be faithful in the discharge of all your duties, so that when all our cities are in ashes, and the world itself is a red scroll of flame, you may be in the mercy and grace of Christ rewarded for your faithfulness. I wish now to exhort all good people, whether they are the governors or the governed, to make one grand effort for the salvation, the purification, the redemption of our American cities. Do you not know that there are multitudes going down to ruin, temporal and eternal, dropping quicker than words drop from my lips? Grogshops swallow them up. Gambling hells devour them. Houses of shame are damning them. Oh! let us toil and pray and preach and vote until all these wrongs are righted. What we do we must do quickly. With our rulers, and on the same platform, we must at last come before the throne of God to answer for what we have done for the bettering of our great towns. Alas! if on that day it be found that your hand has been idle and my pulpit has been silent. O ye who are pure and honest and Christian, go to work and help me to make the cities pure and honest and Christian.

Lest it may have been thought that I am addressing only what are called the better classes, my final word is to some dissolute soul to whom these words may come. Though you may be covered with all crimes, though you may be smitten with all leprosies, though you may have gone through the whole catalogue of iniquity, and may not have been in church for twenty years, you may have your nature entirely reconstructed, and upon your brow, hot with infamous practices and besweated with exhausting indulgences, God will place the flashing coronet of a Saviour’92s forgiveness.

Who is that that I see coming? I know his step. I know his rags. Who is it? A prodigal. Come, people of God; let us go out and meet him. Get the best robe you can find in all the wardrobe. Let the angels of God fill their chalices and drink to his eternal rescue. Come, people of God, let us go out to meet him. The prodigal is coming home. The dead is alive again and the lost is found.

Pleased with the News, the Saints Below

In songs their tongues employ;

Beyond the Skies the Tidings Go,

And heaven is filled with joy.

Nor Angels Can Their Joy Contain,

But kindle with new fire;

’93The Sinner Lost Is Found,’94 They Sing,

And strike the sounding lyre.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage