Habakkuk 2

Habakkuk 2:1-20

—-OR A HARD Habakkuk 1:1 to Habakkuk 3:19. IT is no easy task to treat the Book of Habakkuk and be silent concerning its difficulties. While every one of the Minor Prophets has been the subject of much discussion on the part of students, conservative and critical, this Book of Habakkuk has been the storm-center for such controversy. Its date is undetermined. And while it probably belongs to the reign of Jehoiakim, about 607 B. C., no man can affirm that to be a fact. The peculiar circumstance of a separate style in each of the three chapters has also raised the question as to whether Habakkuk wrote them all; and if so, whether at one time, or on separate, possibly somewhat widely removed, occasions.

The enemy here described has also been made the ground of much dispute, although that, to me, is settled by the text itself—he was the Chaldean. It were vain to lead you into the intricacies of these questions, presenting the arguments pro and con upon each separate point, since the same could not result in an agreement of opinion. I purpose, therefore, to pass them over, grave as they may be, with merely having called attention to them. Of Habakkuk himself we know nothing save his name. There are many traditions about him, the most popular of which is that he was a priest, and the son of Joshua of the tribe of Levi. But that this may not be the truth is clear from the fact that other traditions, with equal weight of age, speak concerning the birth of Habakkuk and his parentage, and lay claim to equal exactness. Some have insisted that he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, which is probably true. The one thing we do know is that he was the Prophet of God.George Adam Smith calls attention to a unique fact concerning this Prophet, namely, he assumes a different attitude from that which characterized his contemporaries. The most of them had addressed the nation Israel on behalf of God.

They called attention to Israel’s sin; they proclaimed Israel’s doom; they pleaded with Israel to repent; they promised Israel pardon and peace when once he had turned about. Habakkuk, on the contrary, speaks to God on behalf of Israel. He sees the awful condition of his people and propounds to God the question, “Why is this permitted?” He strives to find out the Divine purpose in permitting tyranny and wrong; he seeks the solution of the great problems of life; he wants to know why God’s work in the world is not successful at every point, why sin is not overthrown, and the adversary brought to an ignominious end.The Book takes the form of a dialogue, with questions by the Prophet, and answers on the part of God. Sharp questions they were, and hard questions every one; questions that men before him had asked, questions everyone of which skeptics now make capital. The very name of the Prophet Habakkuk—or Struggler— is suggestive of the fact that, as Jacob wrestled with God for his blessing, so Habakkuk strives with God for a solution of the problems of life.This leads me, therefore, to the first suggestion,THE PROPHET’S HARD These problems assume three or four phases at his lips. He wants to know several things.First of all, Why are my prayers unanswered?“O L,ord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save”! (Habakkuk 1:2). It is an old question! Many a man had asked it before Habakkuk. Many a man, since that time, has repeated the sentiment. In fact every man, at some point in his life, is troubled with this very problem, Why are my prayers unanswered? What one of us but has had an hour with this interrogation point? What one of us but has been in anguish over this problem?

I listened only a few days since to one who asserted that she was angry when her prayers were unanswered, and felt tempted not to pray again. And in that respect she was not alone. We have seen our own children in the same mood. They have made requests of us and we have not granted them. Requests which to them seemed reasonable enough, and we have not regarded them; and they have plied and pestered us with that troublesome “Why!” “Why!” “Why!” It is a word with which men have annoyed God from time immemorial.But the Prophet has another problem of equal importance.Why is gross iniquity permitted?“Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. “Therefore the Law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth” (Habakkuk 1:3-4). How many, many times must the minister meet that same inquiry? John Stewart Mills raised that question and saw no sufficient answer to it, and turned skeptical and said, “If there is a God He is not Almighty or He would put an end to war, and pain, and death and trouble and every cry.”Mr. Ingersoll gave expression to the same idea in these words, “But here is my trouble, I find this world made on a very cruel plan. Life feeds on life; justice does not always triumph; innocence is not a perfect shield; I do not understand it—A God that has life feeds on life; every joy in the world born of some agony! I do not understand why in this world, over the Niagara of cruelty, should run this flood of blood. If there be a God He understood this.

He knew when He withheld His rains from Russia that the famine would come. He saw the dead mothers; He saw the empty breasts of love; and He saw the helpless babes. There is my trouble.” It was one of the hours in Ingersoll’s life when he came down from flippant rhetoric and really presented a serious problem. But it was a problem not original with Ingersoll; every man since Adam has felt the same perplexity, and propounded the same questions.And when God makes answer to Habakkuk, He raises a third question almost as difficult as those already presented, for in his answer, he says,“Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. “For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not their’s. “They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. “Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. “They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. “And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take if” (Habakkuk 1:5-10). This answer involves the Prophet in further difficulty, and he puts it in another question:Shall the sinner, used as a scourge, escape?“O Lord, Thou hast ordained [the Chaldeans] for judgment; and, O mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction. “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and boldest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he”? He cannot understand why God should take a people of insatiable ambition, or covetous character, of cruel customs, of drunkenness, debauch and idolatry and make them a scourge for His erring children; and he wants to know whether these Chaldeans will be allowed to devastate forever, and will not themselves have to stand in judgment? That question comes up under many circumstances. Here is an insolent child whose conduct invites chastisement, but her cruel guardian brutally beats her. She deserves a certain punishment, but shall one who is worse than she administer it, and then escape herself unscourged?Here is a man who has gone against his mother’s advice and despised his father’s counsel, and contracted the habit of drink, and by his debauches he has squandered his father’s substance and broken his mother’s heart and insulted God. He deserves reproof, and one day the saloonist knocks him down and beats him until he is blue in the face, and sends him home to be bedridden for many days. He has only reaped whereon he has been sowing; his judgment is perfectly just.

But shall that saloonist go unscathed? Will God approve this act and overlook the character of the man who accomplished it? That is Habakkuk’s question.These are not the questions of an Ancient. They are your questions and mine. They enter into the problems that now press upon the thoughtful for solution. They uncover some of the deepest, darkest mysteries of life, and while they are older than even Habukkuk, they are as new as the rising of this morning’s sun, or the last breath one has drawn.

But, thanks be to God, they are not unanswerable questions!Follow this prophecy of Habakkuk a little further and you will findJEHOVAH’S READY REPLIES He denies leaving true prayers in neglect. In answer to the charge that He had let Habakkuk’s cries go unanswered, God replies, “No, no!” “Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. “For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not their’s”. Mark you God does not say here that He is answering every man’s prayer; nor even that He is answering every prayer that any man may put up. There are some prayers that never will be answered. To some He is compelled to say, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts”. But we know, on the contrary, “This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him” (1 John 5:14-15).Delay on His part is no sign of indisposition. Because we cannot see the answer at once, it is not conclusive evidence that none is coming. Faith does not always ask to see; it accepts on the ground of a promise, and waits in confidence, God’s own good hour—“The just shall live by His faith”, we hear this same Prophet saying; and to live and believe that God is at work, even when the movements of His hand do not appear, is to show that one understands Him.I often think of that little poem which should be a comfort to praying people; to mothers whose prayers for their sons have not been answered, to wives who have watched, till weary, for the conversion of their husbands, to friends who have long sought the sobriety of some dear one addicted to drink: “Unanswered yet! The prayer your lips have pleaded In agony of heart these many years? Does faith begin to fail? Is hope departing? And think you all in vain those falling tears? Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer, You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere!

“Unanswered yet! Nay, do not say ungranted Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done. The work began when first your prayer was uttered, And God will finish what He has begun. If you will keep the incense burning there, His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere!” And God also answers his second question.Iniquity shall not go unpunished. He will execute judgment against apostate Israel by the terrible Chaldeans. And then He will call that Chaldean to account for his conduct. In other words every man, and nation, that forgets God and walks in folly, and delights in sin, shall feel the hand of correction, or hear the sentence of judgment. In my recent visit to the South I have been studying somewhat that ever present and disturbing question of mob-violence, although most of it has been occurring lately on our side of the Mason and Dixon line. It would seem that the last few weeks has recorded a carnival of that rapine and murder which is the expression of brute-lust on the part of those who wear the name of men, but whose behavior is below that of the basest beasts of the field.

Some of these have met summary justice at the hands of an outraged public, and certain newspapers, with a mind for turning all things to political account, have been passing extended judgment upon the process. I am in sympathy with most all they have said against mob law.

It is not for the public weal; no good citizen will advocate it. But I have been chagrined, beyond measure, at the strange silence concerning the acts of those “brute-beasts” who make mob law almost a social necessity. A few days since I conversed with a colored barber in Texas and asked him what he thought of the likelihood of a race war. And he talked more good hard sense in ten minutes than some partisan newspapers would utter in ten months. He said, “The worst thing that ever happened in Texas in the way of mob violence was the burning and torture of a black man at Paris, but my opinion is they didn’t give him enough.” “When I recall,” he said, “that the child of his attack was only four years of age, and that he was not content to gratify his lusts on this darling little one, but in his murderous spirit, tore her limb from limb and scattered the fragments of one of earth’s white angels with ruthless hand, I said, let them do what they will, and I’ll never so far identify myself with that brute as to take up a race cudgel because he happened to be of my color. I have no objection to make to punishing the guilty.

If men don’t like the feel of the rope around their necks, and the flame against their flesh, let them quit the devilish conduct that calls for it.”“What I object to,” he added, “is such conduct as has lately characterized Evansville, Indiana, where, when one man commits a crime, a whole community are persecuted for it because they happen to be of his color.” It was refreshing to listen to such intelligence after some of the rantings to which the newspapers have lately treated us. Say what you will, the guilty man will answer somewhere for awful conduct.

He may have to answer to the flames; he may have to answer to the very enemies of God, for God sometimes makes His enemies to execute judgment for Him. A mob is the enemy of God, but who will say that its work is always unjust? A serpent is the very symbol of Satan himself, and rests under Divine condemnation, and yet, it is written into the Word, concerning certain ones,“Though they dig into hell, thence shall Mine hand take them; though they climb up to Heaven, thence will I bring them down: “And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them: “And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set Mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good”. Ah, these are the threats that turn pale the faces of brutal offenders, for God will make them good.And yet Jehovah always judges according to character. He knows the difference between the righteous and the wicked. He may send rain both upon the just and the unjust. But, after all, He will commend the just; and pass against the unjust His sentence of condemnation. Listen to this word from the Prophet, reporting God, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him:but the just shall live by His faith”. And then he continues to describe the “proud man” who “transgresseth by wine, * * neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied”, and he declares that against him that ladeth himself with thick clay enemies shall rise up suddenly to bite him, and vex him, and make booty of him, and because he spoiled many they shall spoil him.He uncovers also the character of the covetous man (Habakkuk 2:9-11) and lays bare his character who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity (Habakkuk 2:12).

He pronounces his woe against the man who gives his neighbor drink; that putteth the bottle to him and maketh him drunken; and the graven-imager whose proudest product is a dumb idol. And He reminds all these that “the Lord is in His holy Temple”, which is only another way of saying that He will call them every one to account.

God judges on the basis of character. He will not at all acquit the wicked; but the righteous shall forever find in Him a Friend. He does care whether the dwellers upon this earth are fair or foul, brutal or beautiful; He does not look upon all men, taking equal pleasure in every one. I tell you that God never loves the wicked, but He ever more loves the good, the true, the noble; His very character requires Him to hate baseness, falsehood, and evil. Iniquity is as an abomination unto Him; righteousness is His delight, and when at last the great white throne judgment is set up, men will be separated upon the basis of character, and judged every man according to his works. The righteous shall hear Him saying, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”.

And the impenitent and wicked shall listen to this sentence of doom, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”.Who would change? Who would take a single holy man and cast him out of Heaven, and who would bring into the Celestial City “any thing that defileth, [or] worketh abomination, or maketh a lie”?

Ah, beloved, God will be justified when He speaks, and clear when He judges, and His replies will be the solution of our hard problems.But there remains a third chapter to this Book. Its original form was doubtless blank verse. It is worthy to be bound with the Psalms. It isA HYMN OF PRAISE AND TRUST The new style is introduced into this third chapter. It is vivid, and even more vigorous than the foregoing prophecy. Here is a sweep of vision which includes centuries. And the exultation of spirit is indicative of the fact that when one gets at God’s reason for things he can rejoice in spite of adverse surroundings. I believe with St. Augustine, this Psalm has references to the first and second advents of Jesus Christ; and yet with Calvin also, I know that it refers to God’s guidance of Israel from the time of the Egyptian plagues to the days of Joshua and Gideon.But passing over this historical reference, and for present purposes leaving undiscussed the prophetic element, I want you to see what Habakkuk has to say concerning Jehovah.He remarks on the majesty of God.“God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Par an.

Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. “And His brightness was as the light; He had horns coming out of His hand: and there was the hiding of His power” (Habakkuk 3:3-4). But what tongue ever attempted this theme but to falter and fail? The majesty of God is beyond the flash of human imagination. One who contemplates it will speedily feel the insufficiency of speech, and yet long to express himself; so he may join with Kempthorn: “Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore Him, Praise Him, angels, in the height; Sun and moon, rejoice before Him, Praise Him, all ye stars of light.

“Praise the Lord! for He hath spoken, Worlds His mighty voice obey; Laws which never shall be broken, For their guidance He hath made.” He trembles before the might of God (Habakkuk 3:5-15). It is well for men to realize that God’s will is the law of the universe, and to that will all must bow, either by volition, or else coercion; for, when God cannot command our affectionate obedience, He will restrain, by His might, our disobedience; and He is able. He, whose voice breaketh the cedars of Lebanon, at whose touch the everlasting rocks tremble, who bindeth the clouds with a cord, and excels all angels in strength; He whose hand hurled, from the lofty battlements of Heaven, Satan, and sent after him his every satellite; at whose word the mountains rocked, and in answer to whose request the tempestuous sea ceases from its tossing and is calm, is One before whom the Prophet did well to tremble. And every knee does well to bow, and every tongue to confess. And yet, if one but make peace with Him, that infinite power becomes his security and defense and the subject of jubilant song.“In all our Maker’s grand designs, Almighty power with wisdom shines. His works through all this wondrous frame Declare the glory of His Name.” He rejoices in the grace of God.“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.“The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments” (Habakkuk 3:17-19). A few years since Dwight L. Moody and Robert G. Ingersoll passed from the stage of action. They were born within a few months of each other, and died within a few months of each other; and died each one as he had lived. As types of character they were poles apart. One was serious and the other scornful; one prayerful, the other profane; one reverent, the other addicted to ridicule of holy things.

One a student of the Bible for soul-culture, and the other a railer against it, for silver and gold. The deathbed scene of one was the gate of Heaven; that of the other the desolation of darkness. “One received and enjoyed the grace of God; the other resisted and rejected the same!” One still lives in thousands of converts, great schools, conquering churches, philanthropic and benevolent movements a multitude; the other in souls steeped in skepticism, and in bodies bloated by bad conduct.“Choose ye this day”! “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation”.

Habakkuk 2:12-16

PARK BOARD AGENTS OF THE BREWERS Habakkuk 2:12-16I AM in my 37th year as pastor of this church, and minister of the Gospel in this city. In that time I have passed through the somewhat infamous regimes of such mayors as “Doc” Ames and Haynes, but I say, without hesitation, that in spite of the fact that we have in the office of Mayor, at this present time, one of the best, if not the best man that has held that office in this entire time, the city itself has never been so outraged by certain public officials as it is being outraged today. I refer, of course, to the action of the City Council in opening the flood gates to brewers and beer, and still more directly to the infamous conduct of the Park Board in despoiling every park in this fair city, that contains Golf Links, with this same brew of hell.The first Sunday I ever spent in this city there was a protest meeting in the theater on Hennepin Avenue between 8th and 9th streets. The great throng assembled, and Dr. Pleasant Hunter of Westminster Presbyterian Church and Father Cleary, Catholic, were the spokesmen. They were deploring the city conditions and demanding reform, in course and conduct, on the part of the then Mayor.But never before in its history have the city fathers so completely sold out to the low element, and never has the Park Board descended to such depths as now!

Fortunately for us, in a few days we shall have opportunity to voice ourselves at the polls, and if every wet Board member, who is up for re-election,—viz. Wm. Bovey, Francis Gross, and John Jepson, is not left at home and his place supplied by a man who loves sobriety, it will indicate that our citizenship has descended to kindred depths with our office holders.That is why I have Chosen the text of this night, and I propose to talk to you for a time on The Building of a City, The Burden of Citizens, and The Bottle of Shame.THE OF A CITY A city is a social necessity. Men cannot all live in the country; farming cannot be the sole occupation. The reason is not far to seek. Farm implements are a necessity to farming itself. That compels factories, and factories call men to a common center. Furthermore, the farmer must have some place to which he can go for his supplies, and at which he can market his products. That also demands a center. The village is the first response; the town later, and finally the city.There are a great many of us who would prefer rural life, but duty demands instead that we dwell where our fellows are thickest, and where opportunity of service is greatest.We recall that popular poem:— “I said, ‘Let me walk in the fields,’ He said, ‘No, walk in the town.’ I said, ‘There are no flowers there.’ He said, ‘No flowers, but a crown.’

“I said, ‘But the skies are black; There is nothing but noise and din.’ And He wept as He sent me back, ‘There is more,’ He said, ‘there is sin.’

“I said, ‘But the air is thick, And fogs are veiling the sun.’ He answered, ‘Yet souls are sick; And souls in the dark undone.’

“I said, ‘I shall miss the light, And friends will miss me, they say.’ He answered, ‘Choose to-night If I am to miss you, or they.’

“I pleaded for time to be given. He said, ‘Is it hard to decide? It will not seem hard in Heaven To have followed the steps of your Guide.’

“I cast one look at the fields, Then set my face to the town. He said, ‘My child, do you yield? Will you leave the flowers for the crown?’

“Then into His hands went mine, And into my’ heart came He; And I walk in the light Divine, The path I had feared to see.” City building, then, is essential service. This text recognizes that fact. It is unfortunate and suggestive that the first city was built by the first murderer, and ever since that time vice of every sort, iniquity of every kind has infested the city, until one Englishman said, “Hell is a city much like London.” But not so much like London, as like New York or Chicago, and like Minneapolis will become if such politicians as have recently determined our conduct are continued in office.The only explanation for the conduct of the Park Board that found any voice while we protestants were in their presence was that “the public wanted beer.” Evidently these gentlemen are still going on the old Latin Proverb,—“Vox populi, vox dei.” They are not astute enough to know that “vox populi” is “vox diaboli.”There is absolutely nothing so vaccillating, so non-dependable, so eternally on the down-grade, so often opposed to God, as the popular whim, the current opinion or desire of the day.Our Mayor is discerning enough to see that; but our City Council, and our Park Board, are so blinded by beer-foam that they can see nothing else, and they have imagined that they can build a city of the same, ignoring the significant passage in this text,—“Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood”.The city walls are laid in blood. “Life is in the blood” we are told, and blood is life. It is the only thing, then, with which you can build a city. But, the Prophet here is talking about building a city out of the blood of the sacrificed, and that is exactly what the City Council and the City Park Board seemed determined to do. The opinions of the best people in this city carry no weight with them.

They are only concerned in the majority vote; they are concerned alone to retain office and, believing that the majority prefer beer, they ignore even the existence of the minority.The newspapers faithfully recorded the fact that several of us pleaded the other day with the Park Board to give us two of the four Parks containing Golf Links; and then we finally urged that if that were not their will they should at least give us one set of Links where sobriety-loving citizens could play without the sight of beer guzzlers, or the dangerous presence of disgusting drunks, and where our church and Sunday School people, our wives and our children might walk or play unmolested!We had as well have talked to wooden Indians. They never heard a word of what we said.

It went in one ear and out at the other. We would have been better off had we gone direct to the Brewers; in fact, Mayor Anderson frankly said, and in their meeting and presence “It might be worth your while, ladies and gentlemen, to investigate the investments and offices of some of the members of this Board, to see whether they hold stock and place with the Brewing companies.”If they were judged by their actions, one could not conclude other than that they were salaried agents for Anheuser-Busch, or some other Brewers.There are some of us who have been up against the salaried agents, and we know their common course, their usual conduct; and these gentlemen behaved exactly so. They said but little; they voted on every question incident to this subject,—a solid block of nine. There was every indication of collusion in the matter of definite and distinct agreement to stand together, and flood with beer every park, even including our Flying Field. These gentlemen were:—A. C.

Andrews, F. A.

Gross, Frank A. Gustafson, William Bovey, Anthony W. Ingenhutt, John H. Jepson, Joseph J. Oys, Clinton L. Stacy, Washington Yale, and Alfred F.

Pillsbury, President;—men that we have honored by office, but who dishonor their own offices; men that we have elected to represent us, but who care to represent no section of society except the beer-guzzling and liquor-drinking.Who will say that such conduct is not “[building] a town with blood”, and laying its mortar in the cement of the same; and who will say that the blood so sacrificially shed in this interest is not the best blood that Minneapolis has, the cleanest blood, the most sober blood, the blood of its decent citizens ruthlessly slain in the interest of office-holding?These gentlemen believe that the majority are with them. That is the reason they treat what they imagine to be the minority with such contempt; and contempt it was.I Amos 72 years of age.

For fifty odd years I have been in public office, dealing with the public daily, and I never, in that entire time, addressed myself to such wooden heads, or, to change the figure, to such adamant hearts as I faced last Monday. If we were in New York or Chicago we could understand it better.In 1922 there were in New York 946,139 Hebrews, 803,048 Italians, 690,789 Germans, 231,153 Russians, 161,310 Poles, and only 297,452 English and Celtic descendants. The American minority was so hopeless that one would not expect officers chosen by popular vote to represent it at all.But in this city, made up so largely by Scandinavians, the best immigration that America knows, by Englishmen, Scotchmen, Canadians,—an ideal American city, —it is humiliating to find ourselves treated to a New York “brew,” and to know that our city is being built in the sacrificial blood of its best.It was Geo. A. Pillsbury, a member of this church, who did the courageous and far-sighted thing of limiting the liquor traffic below 6th street. What a travesty to have a descendant preside over a company of men who ruthlessly tear away all this, and, after having given every inch of the city over to beer sales, invade our parks, and so flood them with the same that the Christian citizenship can no longer conscientiously, if at all, enter there.Only Thursday of this week a Mission Sunday School Superintendent,—a Sunday School of one hundred and sixty boys and girls, in one of the most neglected sections of the city of Minneapolis, on the East Side said, “We do not know what to do about our Annual picnic this year.

We have been accustomed to go to Columbia Heights. It was not difficult for us to reach that point, but now that no city park is left us without exposing the children to the sight of beer sales, and the possible insult of drunks; and, by the circumstance that our children are too poor to pay for transportation to an outside county point, we are troubled as to what course to take and hardly know how to give them a picnic at all.” It is unimaginable!

It is, beyond question, the most infamous onslaught that I have ever seen handed to a Christian citizenship! It indicates that Adoniram Judson Gordon was right when he said,—“The earthly city that John saw was Babylon the great, which had become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird; which had made all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”The strange thing is that with such examples of immorality and moral break-down, and final financial bankruptcy before our very eyes as exist in Chicago and New York today, our blind officials lead us as blindly toward the precipice, over which they have already gone, as though they had never heard of either catastrophe.This text is further significant. It reveals the fact that such building of a city isTHE BURDEN OF “Behold, is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity” “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 3:13-14). How significant the phrase, “Is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity”?The burden of city dwelling is increasingly heavy. Taxes at the present time are a practical confiscation of property.Twenty-two years ago I went to Linden Hills, which at that time was a sparsely settled suburb, and selecting a beautiful spot, a spot that looked quiet and restful, I constructed a home in which to bring up my six babes.I was assured, by the few neighbors who lived along that street, at that time, that the street was not subject to park taxation. Only a few years after my house was finished, the Park narrowed the street to half its former width, and against the protest of ninety per cent of the people living along it, paved the same, creating, thereby, a thoroughfare for automobiles, and, taking the traffic off its own former Driveway, along the Lake, threw it in front of our residences. That taxation cost me over $800.00. Ninety per cent of the neighbors who had opposed it, and begged the Park Board not to convert their quiet dwelling street into a highway, took the case to court, and lost it. Then the city stepped in,—a city that exists not half so much in the interest of its citizens as in behalf of its office holders the chief occupation of many of whom is to draw a salary,—and the taxation upon that property has become so intolerable that I have decided deliberately to surrender it on mortgage, being unable to sell the same on account of high taxation.“The people shall labour in the very fire”. I have friends now who work in Minneapolis and build their homes in St. Paul to escape this excessive taxation, and I have still other friends who are quitting both places and dwelling in the country that they may have enough left upon which to live.If there is any single action for which Mayor Anderson ought to be appreciated by the public, it is his attitude on this matter of taxation; his dual attempt to reduce the average citizen’s taxation on the one side, and his successful endeavor to dig up such tax-evaders as the Gas Light Company and the Commonwealth Power Corporation. It was a magnificent contribution to the citizens of Minneapolis when he added those sixty-two millions in the form of money in “Credit Assessment Lists,” bringing into our treasury in new taxes $186, 000.00 With which to keep open our schools at a time when the schools of rum-ridden Chicago are only kept open by the living stream of teacher-blood, for which these noble teachers have received not a cent in two years.You let the lower element of this city elect your next Mayor; you ignore what Mayor Anderson has done and turn him down, and your honest tax-payers and noble teachers will be the saintly victims of such political insanity.Our text should read, if correctly translated, “Is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity”?Their suffering is the product of popular sin. It is the result of “vox populi” supremacy. When the blind lead the blind both go into the ditch. The Christian citizenship of this day are not extremists; in fact they have mingled with the citizenship of the world so long that even the majority of them have caught the contagion of compromise, and there are men on church rolls who will line up in the coming election with the lowest.

One of the men who refused to give a moment’s consideration to the thousands of petitions before the Park Board, that begged for at least one Golf Park free from this curse, boasted that he was a “church deacon.”John G. Woolley, made a drunkard in this city forty odd years ago, by the brews that were then sold, and later saved by the Blood of the Son of God, said,—“Three small boys were walking home from school.One said to the other, ‘My dad is a democrat,’ The second one said, ‘Mine is a republican.’ ‘What is yours, Ben?’ addressing himself to the third. ‘He ain’t neither; he is a Methodist’.”So little school children exalt the Christian confession, but oftentimes their fathers, who have made it, are disgracing it, not only by loyalty to godless political parties but by fellowship with godless institutions and godless customs.It may be that John Calvin, when he ruled in Florence, went too far when he arrested the citizens that indulged themselves in gaieties.

We do not contend that morals can be created by the best of laws; they can only be protected and encouraged thereby; but we do insist that disregard of human laws, and contempt for Divine laws, tend to licentiousness, violence, drunkenness, gambling, murder, and every other crime of which the human mind and hand are capable.Such a course is a contrast to the will of God. Our text tells us plainly what that will is. He would have the earth “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”.Our City Council and Park Board would float it in beer instead. While we stand amazed, perhaps we should not be; history is replete with illustrations of people who choose sin vs righteousness, and exalt iniquity while despising justice. Savonarola sought to save Florence, and for a time it looked as though he might succeed; but, like his Savior, he was crucified by the very city for whose safety he prayed, and in whose behalf he died. The liberty that he secured for its citizens was denied him, and when his sacrifice was finished, and the gibbet and the flame had killed and consumed him, Italy, as Herrick says, “Sank back once more into the old and indolent slavery of the mediaeval centuries.”I look upon my beautiful Minneapolis,—I think of God’s marvelous gifts to her, of her crystal dear river, her deep and limpid lakes, her wide, shaded avenues, her picturesque hills and vales, her neat clean-looking homes; and while I look, lo, I see a senseless set of city officials poisoning her river, muddying her lakes, defacing her landscapes, disgracing her parks, drowning with drunkenness her youth by a deliberate deluge of beer, and I marvel not that God, speaking by the mouth of His Prophet, sees our “glory” displaced by our “shame!”—THE BOTTLE OF SHAME Here is His word,—“Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! Thou art filled with shame for glory: * * the cup of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory” (Habakkuk 2:15-16).There are some things that are certified by this Scripture.The drink-giver is Divinely condemned.“Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him”. How senseless the excuse of these beer-defenders, and how false to fact when they say,—“If we can have beer it will save the country from the stronger liquors.”They wilfully lie! If there were a semblance of truth in what they say they would not be moving now to the repeal of the 18th Amendment. They have beer by the glass, by the keg, by the barrel, by the hogshead; there is beer to swim in, but they are not satisfied with it, and they are not confining themselves to it, intoxicating though it be.We were told that when beer was given them it would be an end to the hard liquors, and yet, I have a house at the edge of the city which had been vacant for three days only, when it was broken into and four empty whisky quart bottles were left behind by the marauders.Only two days ago your newspaper, the very paper that has been telling us that legalizing the traffic would end illegal sales, reported that a car containing 84 drums of 55 gallons each of alcohol arrived in Minneapolis, billed as Castor Oil, from Newark, N. J. Its market price was valued at $13,000.00. Fortunately the Government agents were lying in wait for it, and shortly after when four gentlemen arrived with five-ton trucks to take it away, the agents stepped forward and put them under arrest, and landed them in the city jail.

They gave their names and addresses as:—Roy Rogers, —13 Willow St.,Eddie Dramer, —2460 Girard Ave., N.,Victor Wallace —Seven Corners, Park Hotel,Andrew Carlson —Park Hotel.They ought to announce themselves now as candidates for the four vacancies in the Park Board. Doubtless they would be elected.The day of woe, however, awaits the drunkard-maker.

It is as impossible for the city fathers of this Municipality, who voted this deluge upon us, and the nine members of the Park Board who turned a deaf ear to all that sober Christian citizenship had to say, to escape the consequences of their action as it is to separate sin from judgment.There is a story told of a man who invented an iron cage into which certain victims were to be crowded until the door of the same could be closed and the cage locked. They could neither sit nor stand nor straighten themselves, but in this cramped position endured a thousand agonies till death should relieve. Fate so ordered it that the first man to be incarcerated was the inventor.Personally I lived within one block of a Chicago millionaire who transported negroes from the South to that city on a cheap labor basis. He imagined he could make his millions, and he did. But their presence on the south side destroyed property of other people valued only by multiplied billions, and the time came when those same colored people took possession of the very mansion in which the millionaire lived. The mills of the gods that grind but slowly, and yet grind exceeding fine, chewed up his fortune at the rate of a million dollars a day for one hundred and fifty days, and the last year of his life, though he died in comparative youth, his income was not sufficient for him to pay income tax.There will come a day of judgment, and the men who are selling out this Municipality to the brewers will blanch in the presence of God when that day is on.Their present glory is to become their burning shame.

They may laugh today, but there are tears ahead for them as sure as there is a God in Heaven. They may despise the Christian citizenship of Minneapolis, but the time will come when the saints shall rule the world.

They may forget the Son of God for the present, but in the Great Assize He will sit as their Judge.In the meantime, men will line up for and against this diabolical business. Some, in their worship of Mammon, will adopt, defend, and take filthy profit from it. Others will resent its imposition, refuse its bloodstained coin, and thereby save their own souls and make their contribution to a better social state.A leading groceryman of this city had to face this proposition. He decided that when legalized beer was brought in he would have to sell it in order to retain his customers. He called together his managers, for he controls a multitude of stores, held a prayer meeting on the subject, and left it open for them to vote, promising to accept the decision of the majority as final.Retiring from the conference, he prayed again, so he reports. His sleep was taken from him, and in the watches of the night it became increasingly clear that he must take a determined stand against it.

The result was that the P. P.

Hove Groceries have flung out the stuff that has made more drunkards than almost any other intoxicant, and the owner is happy accordingly.It is easy to see why his decision was thus. In prayer he consulted the will of the Lord. That is every man’s way out. Let God speak, and you will never put the bottle to your neighbor’s lips.Far better be a Lazarus in Heaven, in Abraham’s bosom, having perished in poverty, than a rich member of the Park Board of Minneapolis, suffering, like another Dives, forever in hell, where neither beer nor one drop of water is provided for those who, in their life time, forgot God and despised His righteous laws.