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Les diagrammes suivants lllustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 1^ 1^ m iim r-'.i 13.2 ISA m bS m 1.25 iu 1.8 ^ /^PPLIEU l^/HGE ^^ 1653 Eost Main Street r^S Rochester, New York 14609 LISA ^S (716) 482 - 0300 -Phone ^S (716) 288 - S989 - Fax 5/ ojjff T IS i "%. "Talmage'^ Ghoi^e Wopfe. COMPRISING TMIKTY-ONK OF THK MOST POPULAR SERMONS EVER DELIVERKI) nv REV. T. DHWITT TALMAGE, D. D. PASTOR OF BROOKLYN TABERNACLE. TOGETHER WITH THE LIFE OF THIS FAMOUS PREACH INCLUDING A RECORD OF DR. TflLMBGE's Trip to the Holy LRm. EH, i } TWENTY fm.t PACE ILLUSTIiATIONS. St. John, N. B. K. il, H, MDRRDW, 59 Garden Street. Am I 1 % f-'.'ist m .- I mruoft Memorial . Contcnil of ScFmoni Tlie Clioicf „f a Wifi-. The a,„i(.,> ,.n. IIuslm.Kl. Cliiii(l(.,^tiii(! A[an-iii<,'os, Matrimonial Ilanuony .,r Di^mul. Marital Duties. Costume and Morals. Duties of Wives to HiKsbands. Hotels vemis Homes. The Domestic Circle. Sisters and JJrothers. The CJ.ildren's Patrimony. " Motherhood." Trials of iron^ekeepin.,'. Women who Fight the Battle of Life alone. Worldly Marria**ess»»j,;j».. 1^ '^ The Wedding Ring. ■ o ««» The Choice of a l^Vlfe. brethren o-n n''°'"'" ^"^""» *''« daughters of thr w?fe nf M ^''"^' ''^ '"^ people, that thou goest to take a wife of tlie unc.rcumcised Philistines? "-Judges xiv 3 Samson the giant, is here asking consent of his atlior and inotlHu- to niamage with one whom tJioy thought n t for liini. He was wise in ask- iiig their comiso], but not wise in rejecting it. Captivated with hor looks, tlie big son wanted to rnarrj a daughter of one of the hostile families, a deceitful, hypocritical, whining and saturnine creature, who afterward made for him a world of trouble till she quit him forever. In my text his parents forbade tlie banns, practically saying: When there are so many honest and beautiful maidens of your own country, are you so hard put to for a hfefcmie partner that you propose con- jugahty with tins foreign flirt ? Is there such a dearth of lilies in our Israelitish gardens that you must wear on your heart a Philistine thistle ? Do you take a crabapple because there are no pome- granates ? Is there never a woman among th« daughters of thy brethren, or among all my peo- ^1, V/ * THE CHOICE OF A WIPE. pie, that thou goest to tate a wife of the uncir cumcised Philistines?" BEACTIPUL JEWESSES. Excuseless was he for such a choice in a land and amid a race celebrated for female loveliness and moral worth, a land and a race of whicS denying Abigail and heroic Deborah, and d^Xg Mmam, and pious Esther, and glorious Euth, and Mary, who hugged to her heart the blessed Lord were only magnificent specimens. The midnigM folded in their hair, the lakes of liquid beauty h then, eye the gracefulness of spring morning n their posture and gait, were only typical of th^ greater brilliance and glory of their soS! Lifo! TOseexcuselessisanyman in om- time who makes bfelong aUiance with any one who, because of her disposition, or heredity, or habits, or intellect^ rhe^pShSl""'^'^'''™' ""^^ '" -'<• ^ '^ MODEEN FEMALE LOVELINESS. The world never owned such opulence of worn anly character or such splendor of womanlv manners or multitudinous instances of wifely motherly daughterly, sisterly devotion, as it owJa tion for good womanhood. Woman is not only which IS the best part of us, she is seventv five per cent, his superior. YeL, during the S twenty years, through the increased opportu. rtv opened for female education, the women of the f t ,? f t THE CHOICE OP A WIFE. 9 coi. - *y are better educated than the majority of meij; and if they continue to advance mentality at the present ratio, before long the maiority of men will have difficulty in finding in the opposite sex enough ignorance to make appropriate con- sort. If I am under a delusion as to the abund^ ance of good womanhood abroad, consequent upon my surroundings since the hour I entered this life until now, I hope the delusion will last until I embark from this planet. So you will under, stand. If I say in this course of sermons something that seems severe, I am neither cynical nor dis- gruntled. NO NEED TO MARRY A FOOL. ^ There are in almost every farmhouse in tU countiy ni ahiiost every home of the gi-eat town conscientious women, worsliipful women, sell sacrificing women, holy women, innumerable IthllT^'* the feet of Christ; innmnerable mothers^ helping to feed Christ in the person of His sufl^ermg disciples; a thousand capped and spectacled grandmothers Lois, bending over Bibles whose precepts they have foUowed from early girfhood; and tens of thousands of young wonian that are dawning upon us fromschoolanl seminary, that are going to bless the world with good and happy homes, that shall eclipse all their l^edecessors, a fact that will be acknowledged by all men except those who are struck through with moral decay from toe to cranimn; and more inex cusable than the Samson of the text is tS man who, amid aU this unparaMed mumficence of 10 THE CHOICE OF A WIFE. ■i womanhood, man-ies a fool. But some of you are ab'oad suffering from such disaster, and to halt others of you from going over the same pi-ec ipice, I cry out in the words of my text: "Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thougoest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?" MARRIAGE NOT FOR ALL. That marriage is the destination of the numan mce is a mistake that I want to coiTect before I go further. There are multitudes who never wiU li^arry, and stiU gi-eater multitudes who are not fit to many. In Great Britain to-day there are nine hundred and forty-eight thousand more women than men, and that, I understand, is about the ratio m Amenca. By mathematical and in- exorable law, you see, millions of women will never marry. The supply for matrimony greater than the demand, the first lesson of which is that every woman ought to prepare to take care of herself If need be. Then there aro thousands of men who have no right to maiTy, because they have become so comipt of character that theh- offer of mamage is an insult to any good woman. Socety will have to be toned up and corrected on this subject, so that it shall reahze that if a wom an who has sacrificed her honor is unfitted for marriage so is any man who has ever sacrificed ftLn^ ^^^*/isht have 2/0., 0.^a.c^.Z/^ beastf whose life has been loose, to take under your care the spotlessness of a virgin reai^ in ■I THE CHOICE OF A WIFE. 11 the sanctity of a respectable home? WiU a buz .ard dare to comt a dove? THE FIRST STEP. But tlie majority of you will maiTy, and nave a right to maiTy, and as your relii;-ions teacher I wish to say to these men, in the choice ot a wifo first of aU seek divine direction. About thji-ty-five yeai^; ago, when Martin Farquhar , Tupper, the F.nghsh poet, urged men to prayer before they decided upon matrimonial association, people laughed. And some of them have lived to laugh on the other side of their mouth. EMINENT BLUNDERERS. The need of divine direction I argue from the fact that so many men, and some of them strong and wise, have wrecked their lives at this junc- ^ture. Witness Samson and this woman of Tim- nath ! Witness Socrates, pecked of the histori- cal Xantippe ! Witness Job, whose wife had nothing to prescribe for his carbuncles but allo- pathic doses of profanity ! Witness Ananias, a liar, who might perhaps have been cured by a truthf al spouse, yet marrying as great a har as himself— Sapphira ! Witness John Wesley, one of the best men that ever lived, united to one of the most outrageous and scandalous of women, who sat in City Eoad Chapel making mouths at him while he preached ! Witness the once con- nubial wretchedness of John Ruskln, the great art essayist, and Frederick W. Robertson, the gi-eat preacher. Witness a thousand 'A] 12 THE CHOICE OP A WIPE. HELLS ON EARTH kindled by unworthy wives, termagants that scold like a March northeaster; female spend- thrifts, that put their husbands into fraud^olent schemes to get money enough to meet the lav- ishment of domestic expenditure; opium-using women— about four hundred thousand of them in the United States— who will have the drug, though it should cause the eternal damnation of the whole household; heartless and overbearing, and namby-pamby and unreasonable women' yet married— married perhaps to go5d meni These are the women who build the low club- houses, where the husbands and sons go because they can't stand it at home. On this sea of matrimony, where so many have wrecked, am I not right in advising divine pilotage 2 NUMEROUS PITFALLS. Especially is devout supphcation needed, be^ cause of the fact that society is so full of artifi. cialities that men are deceived as to whom they are marrying, and no one but the Lord knows. After the dressmaker, and the milliner, and the jeweler, and the hair-adjuster, and the dancing- master, and the cosmetic art have completed their work, how is an unsophisticated man to decipher the physiological hieroglyphics, and make accurate judgment of who it is to whom he offers hand and heart ? That is what makes so many recreant husbands. They make an honorable marriage contract, but the goods de^ "■■* ^* . f T^; ^^'^ ^^^« «"^Ply Bwindled, and they backed out. They mistook Jezebel fo^ M 1? .n^^^"^^^"'^' ^"^ L^cretia Borgia for Martha Washmgton. Aye as the Indian chief boasts of the scalps he has taken, so there are in society to-day many coquettes who boast of the masculine hearts they have captured. And these women, though they may hve amid richest upholstery, are not so honorable as the cyprians of the street, for these advertise their infamy, while the foi-n^er profess heaven while they mean heU ^ There is so much counterfeit womanhood abroad It IS no wonder that some cannot teU the genuine com from the base. Do you not realize yfu need tZliUuT '• ^'^^ ^ '^^^^^ y^^ that mistake Srvotwe^ ""^^^^^^ ^^^^' -^' ^ -^e, A MISTAKE lEEEPAEABLE. The worst predicament possible is to be unhap- pjy yoked together. You see it is impossibleto break the yoke. The more you puJl apart the more gaUing the yoke. The ministL Lght bHng you up agam, and in your presence read the mamage ceremony backward, might put you on the opposite sides of the altar from where you Tff T^r r ""'"' "'"*^'^' ""■«'•* t'^'^^ the ring off Jf the finger, might rend the wedding-vefl asunder might tear out the maiTiage leaf fr^n the fa^Jy Bible record, but all that woi^d fS to 14 THE CHOICE OF A WIFE. I un.nariy you. It is better not to make the mis- take than to attempt its coiTection. But men a.na women do not reveal all their characteriatica till after man-iage, and how are you to avoid committing the fatal blunder ? There is only one Being in the universe who can tell you whom to choose, and that is the Lord of Paradise. He made F.ve for Adam/ and Adam for Eve, and both for each other. Adam had not a largo group of women from whom to select his wife, but it is fortunate, judging from some mistakes which she afterward made, that it was Eve or nothing. There is in all the world some one who was made for you, as certainly as Eve was made for Adam. All sorts of mistakes occur because Eve was made out of a rib from Adam's side. No- body knows which of his twenty-four ribs was taken for the nucleus. If you depend entirely upoji yourself in the selection of a wife, there are twenty-three po.isibilities to one that you will select the wrong rib. By the fate of Ahab, whose wife induced him to steal ; by the fate of Mac- beth, whose wife pushed him into massacre ; by the fate of James Ferguson, the phUosopher, whose wife entered the room, while he was lecturing and willfuUy upset his astronomical ap. paratus, so that he turned to the audience and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have the misfor- tune to be married to this woman"; by the fate of Bulwer, the novelist, whose w^ie's temper was so mcompatible that he furnisned her a beautiful house near London and withdrew from her com- '^'^i ^i>%^au^>*--- . ^. -^-laiVK^" t-'rr ^■:X: *^ THE CHOICE OP A WIFE. ^7 the roof with a mattress for his only furniture and the open sky his only covering. aTS- rtweU nthe comer of the housetop than with a srfh ''°""" '" ^ "''"' ^"^-^ And oil; rhT.n^f . i?'"^ f ^''" tl'o ^'^t^r leaked through thereof of the palace and began to drop ^nS^ Ku'davT *"?.^** "• ^"'^ atleside"^ nim aU day long the water went drop 1 drool drop ! while on theother side a female SmpanS quarr^hng about this, and quarreling aZMhX the acnmomous and petulant words falConhk earm ceaseless pelting-drop! dropl d^I and P^^Tnl tr P«° ^"-^7™t« •• "A r/ntmS^ drop are alilce. If Solomon had been as prayerful a' thebegmmngof his lifo as he wasattCcto^" n Je"^ ^r^f ""* ^'^ ^ ^°"°* to "otWng are tascinated and the equilibrium of your soul Tnct tnd th '^ ^ ""r*'" ^"* -quisite Pro^ ence, and then you will answeryour own prawrs r v^w' iri'^^ ^^- o- infatua^'^S AVOID SCOFFERS. If you have this prayerful spirit you wiU surelv rn a^ S^f "'^r ^' '^^^ Christian r^J ion, and there are quite a number of them ia m 18 THE CHOICE OF A WnTB. ^•■, all communities. It must be told that, though ihe only influence that keeps woman from being estimated and treated as a slave— aye, as a brute and beast of burden— is Christianity, since where it is not dominant she is so treated; yet there are women who will so far forget themselves and forget their God that they will go and hear lec- turers mahgn Christianity and scoff at the most sacred tilings of the soul. A good woman, over- persuaded by her husband, may go once to hear such a tirade against the Christian religion, not fully knowing what she is going to hear; but she will not go twice. A woman, not a Christian, but a respecter of religion, said to me : "I was persuaded by my husband to go and hear an infidel lecture once, but going home, I said to him : * My dear hus- band, I would not go again though my declination should result in our divorcement forever.'" And the woman was right. If after all that Christ and Christianity have done for a woman, she can go again and agam to hear such assaults, she is an awful creature, and you had better not come near such a reeking lepress. She needs to be washed, and for three weeks to be soaked in carbohc acid| and for a whole year fumigated, before she is fit for decent society. While it is not demanded that a woman be a Christian before marriage, she must ha\e regard for the Christian rehgion or she is a bad woman and unworthy of being your compan- ion in a life charged with such stupendous solera nity and vicissitudes. t' ■--■fl-ii-: ^i&id»-.' r' tHE CHOICK Of A WIFE. jj w '™'° ^*'™'-'"'^I' QUALITIES, doubt as to vvlKTO w 'h ""■ "■'"''; '"'"•" y''" '" man begins b, 1 1 „ . '^'"^ ""* '''"•' «'« ^o- only Ia4h ;vl:^;;it ™-^7>; "'^ «"" —' Patlioflife, and you 'f'l »'' *'''"™' '">■""' when you como tn ti °"' '""^"t steadying ^^;en y„u..S.V;, ;« -^;^ then, I te„y^„u« totallcof treasures in }feave„ , "?'"" ""'' upon you with a bitter ''I 2' "°* """■«*' aslcananalyzeit IL V ^'""^''•" -\» far the foundalC of Zr^V" ""'''"''"''' '■"■« that, and you gef. !jl F n f '^ ;f '*°°'l- Get get not Jg btf :"at ^u til^'^ ^^ nadgot. ^ "">" you never Don't i^"'"'''"' ^ K'^NEDICTION. te:S™ade"lf.:ttt !!•"''•"'' *'''-" «'e™anoftbe are aU-important T wio f ^^ "^'""^ *''«'5»m wifely choice except a Zrl I "° ""^"^ f^r 1>" who should l,uf a ?a™r''^ ^'^T i^hke anmn the front doo.^arxlpL^?'"-"^"^*'''' '^-''hlias in God gives it Xi iends'ltt " 1 '^''"*' ^"<' ^^h"" a woman's face wtfl! '""'^'''S*'"" "PO" W'a^^.dismountedfrrmt e 'a tS '?'''"^^* "> -^Xaaw her radiant fac::l::rj;^'trC4' i^ TllE CHOICE Of A VnffK, What thi '^ told me th> day before, that, when at the groat military hoapit;il v^'here are now the wounded and the fiick from tlt^ Egyptian and otlier wars, the Princess passed through, all the Blck wore cheered at her coming, and those who (joHld be roused neithw by ''>ctor nor nurse from their a tupor, would get up on their elbows to look at her, and wan and wasted lips prayed an audi^ ble prayer: "God bless the Princess of Wales Doesn't she look beautiful ?" But how uncertain is the tarrying of beauty in a human countenance ! Explosion of a kerosene lamp turns it into scarification, and a scoundrel with one dash of vitriol may dispel it, or Time will drive hi ' chariot wheels across that bright face, cutting it up in deep ruts and gullies. But there is an eternal beauty on the face of some women, whom a rough and ungaUant world may criticise as homely; and though their features may con- tradict all the laws of Lavater on physiognomy, yet they have graces of soul that will keep them attractive for time and glorious through all eternity. There are two or three circmnstances in which the plainest wife is a queen of beauty to hei husband, whatever her stature or profile. By financial panic or betrayal of business partner, the man goes down, and returning to his home that evening, he says : "/aw ruined; I am in disgrace forever ; I care not whether T live or die." It is an agitated story he is telling in the housel.oJrt tf at winter night. He says : " The fumituM / /I THE CHOICE OF " ^u. j- dead, and the National Bank orH^von !'« "° suspended payment, and if yoiulonSd T^ "' care a cent. Wlnt littio ,./ <'°" « "md, I don'. me»t the rest TZ'uZ IT^l^-^.T, "J; propose to sit down and mope^nd^2;:f M^' SotS fotttr^:"^r '"^^ i^- whf]« cl ? ^^ "^'°^ ^^^ those cakr. » And "It can bring with it nothing, But He wiU bear us through ; Who gives the lilies clothing Will clothe His people too; Beneath the spreading heavens No creature but is fed ; And He who feeds the ravens Will give His children bread. "Though vine nor fig-tree either • Their wonted fruit should bear; Though all the fields should withe. Nor flocks nor herds be there; let God the same abiding, His praise shaU tune my' voice • For whUe m Him confiding I cannot but rejoice." 1 1 3« THE CHOICE OF A WIFE. n The husband looks up in amazement, and »Ay3! WeU, well, you are the gi'oatest woman I ever saw. I thought you v.-ould faint dead away when I told you." And as he looks at her all the glories of pliysiognoniy in the court of Louis XV, on the modern fashion plates, are tame as com pared with the su[)erhuman splendors of that woman's face. Joan of Arc, Mary Antoinette, and La B(^lle Hamilton, the enchantment of the court of Charles II, are nowhere. A wife's death. There is another time when the plainest wifw is a queen of beauty to her husband. She has done the work of life. • She has reared her chil - dren for God and heaxen, and though some of them may be a little wild they will yet come back, for God has promised. She is dying, an^^ her husband stands by. They think over aU the years of their companionship, the Aveddings and the burials, the ups and the down, the successes and the failures. They talk over the goodness of God and His faithfulness to children's children. She has no fear about going. The Lord has sus- tained her so many years she would not dare to distrust Him now. The lips of both of them tremble as they say good-by and encourage each other about an early meeting in a better world. The breath is feebler and feebler, ajid stops. Are you sure of it? Just hold that mirror at the mouth, and see if there is any vapor gathering on the surface. Gonel As one of the neighbors > I ii r , THE CHOICE OF A WIPE. 28 My friends I hope you do not call that death. That IS an autumnal sunset. That is a crystalline ^iver pouring into a crystal sea. That is the solo of human life overpowered by hallelujah choms. T at IS a queen's coronation. That is heaven, liiat is the way my father stood at eighty-two sa^mg my mother depart at seventy-nine. Per! haps so your father an- mother went I wondw II we will die as weW' "««*« I fl 24 THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. Tb« Choice of a Husband. "The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in «h« house of her husband."— Ruth i, 9. This w&s the prayer of pious Naomi for Ruth and Orpah, and is an appropriate prayer now in Ikehalf of unmanied womanhood. Naomi, the good old soul, knew that the devil would take their <;ases in hand if God did not, so she prays : *'Th*^ Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of yau in the house of her husband." Id this series of sermons on "The Marriage RiuK," I, last Sabbath, gave prayerful and Chris- tian advice to men in regard to the selection of a wife, and to-day I give the same prayerful and Christian advice to women in regard to the selec- tion of a husband, but in all these sermons saying much that I hope will be appropriate for all ages and all classes. VOLUNTARY CELIBACY. I applaud the celibacy of a multitude of women Who, rather than make unfit selection, have made none at all. It has not been a lack of opportunity for marital contract on their part, but their own culture, and refinement, and their exalted idea as to wJoat a husband ought to be. have caused their f '4 ^ 1 I i : A ty I K\ I I * i u V! THE CHOICE OF A HTOBA.NB. 25 declinature. They have seen so many women many imbeciles, or ruffians, or incipient sir or Me-t,me mcapables, or magnificent nothing, or men who before marriage were angelic and ^C sTot b^ck "%r *'^^ '''''' "-^ alarmeita maelstrom that they steered into other miers Better for a woman to lire alone, though she I. a thousand years, than to be annexed to one Jf etrih: 'nft '''""^^^^"* -"'* -cietyrsu? teited The patron samt of almost every familr arcle IS some such unmamed woman, and a= aU the families of cousins she moves around Za Sra-^rnS-""'""^'^''-"^^" A BENEFICENT SPINSTEHHOOD. tamuies in aU, it ^vas an Aunt Phosbe Pa.„l S "Ph»b " "' '"r ™«''" *° o- -horn t calls Phoeb^ our sister," as she went up from «: tT(^rf,r' ^"""--l-g f- for he? ^Z aTc^^L'^r usrfpa^"^ '°^ "^^^ after hor w *u Phoebe was named attei her Was there a sickness in any of the households, she was there ready to sTup and count out the drops of medicine Was Xm a ^mage, she helped deck the bride for tie attar JO rejoice at the nativity. Was there a sore be- reavement, she was there to console. The cM. ir.n ruahed out at her fet appeai^ce, c^ H (( THE CHOICE OP A HUSBAND. 4' ^/! ^ Here comes Aunt Phoebe," and but for parental interference they would have pulled her down with their caresses— for she was not very strong, and many severe illnesses had given her enough glimpses of the next world to niake her heavenly minded. Her table was loaded up with Baxter's "Saints' Rest," Doddridge's "Else and Progress," and Jay's "Morning and Evening Exercises," nnd John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and like books, which have fitted out whole generations for the heaven upon which they have already entered. A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN. "De Witt," she said to me one day, "twice in my life I have been so overwhelmed with the love of God that I fainted away and could hardly be resuscitated. Don't tell me there is no heaven. I have seen it twice." If you would know how her presence would soothe an anxiety, or lift a burden, or cheer a sorrow, or leave a bless- ing on every room in the house, ask any of the Tahnages. She had tarried at her early home, taking care of an invalid father, until the bloom of life had somewhat faded ; but she could interest the young folks with some three or four tender pas- sages in her own histoiy, so that we all knew that it was not through lack of opportunity that she was not the queen of one household, instead of being a benediction on a whole circle of households. At about seventy years of age she made her last visit to my house, and when she sat in my THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. 27 Pxiiladelphia chiirch I was more embarrassed at her presence than by all the audience, because I fin "' ''^"S^^^^ I ^^""'^ ^ot 110 furtlier than the ABC, while she had lerrned the whole alphabet, and for many years had finished the Y and Z When she went out of this life into the next wnat a shout tbjre must have been in heaven' from the front door clear up to the back seat in the highest gallery ! I saw the other day in the village cemetery of Somerville, N. J., her resting- place, the tombstone having on it the words which thirty years ago she told me she would like to have inscribed there, namely : "The Morn^ ing Cometh." ILLUSTRIOUS SPINSTERS. Had she a mission in the world ? Certainly As much as Carohne Ilorschel, first amanuensis for her illustrious brother, and then his assistant in astronomical calculations, and then discovering worlds for herself, dying at ninety-eight years of age, still busy with the stars till she sped beyond them ; as much as had Florence Nightingale the nurse of the Crimea ; or Grace Darfiiig, the oars- woman of the Long Stone Lighthouse ; or Mary Lyon, the teacher of Mount Holyoke Female Beminary; or Hannah More, the Cl^ristian author- ess of England ; or Dorothea Dix, the angel of mercy for the insane ; or Anna Etheridge, amono- the wounded of Blackburn's Fort ; or Margare^t Breckenridge, at Vicksburg; or Mary Shelton, distributing roses axid gi-apes and cologne in a ,f 98 THE CHOICE OP A HUSBAND. western hospital ; or thousands of other glorious women like them, who never took the marriage sacrament. Appreciate aU this, my sister, and it wiU make you deliberate before you rush out of the single state into another, unless you are sure of betterment. A DmnCULT BUSINESS. Deliberate and pray. Pray and deUberate. As I showed you in my former sermon, a man ought to supplicate Divine guidance in such a crisis. How much more important that you solicit it I It is easier for a man to find an appropriate wife than for a woman to find a good husband. This is a matter of arithmetic, as I showed in my former discourse. Statistics show that in Massachusetts and New York States women have a majority of hundreds of thousands. Why this is we leave others to surmise. It would seem that woman is a favorite with the Lord, and that therefore Ho made more of that kind. From the order of the creation in paradise it is evident that woman is an improved edition of man. But, whatever be the reason for it, the fact is certain that she who selects a husband has a smaller number of people to select from than he who selects a wife. There- fore a woman ought to be especially careful in her choice of hfe-time companionship. She cannot afford to make a mistake. If a man err in his selection he can spend his evenings at the club, and dull his sensibilities by tobacco smoke ; but woman has no club-room for refuge, and would Tflfi CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. 29 And it difficult to habituate herself to cigars If a woman make a bad job of marital selection, the probabihty is that nothing but a funeral can relieve It. Divorce cases in court may interest the pubhc, but the love letters of a married couple are poor reading, except for those who write them. Pray God that you be delivered from irrevocable mis take ! PARTNERS TO AVOID. Avoid affiance with a despiser of the Christian rehgion whatever else he may have or may not have. I do not say he must needs be a religious ^^'':-«''^;,^''l'^^' *^^ unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife; but marriage with a man who hates the Christian rehgion will insure you a hfe of wretchedness. He will caricature your habit of kneehng in prayer. He will speak de- preciatingly of Clirist. He will wound aU the most sacred feeUngs of your soul. He will put your home under the anathema of the Lord God Almighty In addition to the anguish with which he wiU fiU your hfe, there is great danger that he wiU despoil yom- hope of heaven, and make your marriage relation an infinite and eternal disaster it you have made such engagement, your first duty IS to break it. My word may come just in tone to save your soul. HUSBANDS SELDOM liEFORM. •f^u^^^-5^.''''*''''^*^ "^ marriage With a man •f bad habits m the idea of reforming him. It f-HgP'^ 30 THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. now, under the restraint of yonr present acquaint- ance, he will not give up his bad habits, after he has won the prize you cannot expect him to do so. You niiirlit as well plant a violet in the fac€ of a northeast stonn with the idea of appeasing it. You might as well run a schooner alongside fo a burning ship with the idea of saving the ship. The consequence will be, schooner and ship will be destroyed together. The almshouse coidd tell the story of a hundi'ed women who married men to reform them. If by twenty-five years of age a man has been grappled by intoxicants, he is under such headway that your attempt to stop him would be veiy much like running up the track with a wheelban*ow to stop a Hudson River express train. What you call an inebriate nowadays is not a victim to wine or whiskey, but to logwood and stiychnine and nux vomica. All those poisons have kindled their fires in his tongue and brain, and all the tears of a wife weeping cannot extinguish the flames. Instead of marrying a man to reform him, let him refonn first, and then give him time to see whether the reform is to be permanent. Let him undeistand that if he cannot do without his bad habits for two years he must do without you forever. ^'1 MEN WEDDED TO THE WORLD. Avoid union with one supremely selfish, or bo wound up in his occupation that he has no room for another. You occasionally find a man who i4 THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. di spreads himself so widely over the path of life that there is no room for any one to walk beside him. He is not the one Ijlade of a scissors in- complete without the other blade, but lie is a chisel made to cut his way through life alone, or a file full of roughness, made to l)o drawn across society without any affinity for other files. His disposition is a lifelong protest against mamage. Others are so married to their occupation or pro- fession that the taking of any other bride is a case of bigamy. There are men as severely tied to their literary work as was Clmtterton, whose essay was not printed because of the death of the Lorc^ Mayor. Chatterton made out the following ac- count: "Lost by the Lord Mayor's death, in this essay, one pound eleven shillings and sixpence. Gained in elegies and essays, five pounds and five shillings." Then he put what he had gained by the Lord Mayors death opposite to what he had lost, and wrote under it: " And glad he is dead by three pounds thirteen shillings and sixpence.'' When a man is as hopelessly literary as that, he ought to be a perpetual celibate; his library, hit laboratory, his books, are all the companionship needed. Indeed, some of the mightiest men this world ever saw have not patronized matrimony. Cow- per, Pope, Newton, Swift, Locke, Walpole, Gib- bon, Hume, Arbuthnot, were singlo Some of these marriage would have helpeu. The right kind of a wife would have cured Cowpor's gloom, and given to Newton more practicability, and »«6.««tJ..-:.W ^— _. . '■ ■;"»» || ""i i < ii n^ i M P id THE CHOICE OP A HUSBAND. li ij i I,- ii li ii been a relief to Locke's overtasked brain. A Christian wife might have converted Hume and Gibbon to a belief in Christianity. But Dean Swift did not deserve a wife, from the way in which he broke the heart of Jane Waring first, and Esther Johnson afterward, and last of all "Vanessa," the great wit of his day, he was outwitted by his own cruelties. PREDESTINATION IN MARRIAGE. Amid so many possibilities of fatal mistake, am I not right in urging you to seek the unerring wis- dom of God— and before you are infatuated? Be- cause most marriages are fit to bo made, convincen us that they are divinely arranged. Almost every cradle has an affinity toward some other cradle. They may be on the opposite sides of the earth, but one child gets out of this cradle, and another child gets out of that cradle, and with their first steps they start for each other. They may diveroje from the straight path, going toward ',},e North, or South, or East, or West. They may fall, down, but the two rise facing each other. They are ap- proaching all through infancy. The one all through the years of boyhood is going to meet the one who is coming through all the years of girlhood to meet him. The decision of parents as to what is best concerning them, and the changes of fortune, may for a time seem to arrest THE TWO JOURNEYS, but on they go. They may never have seen each other. They may never have heard of each other- 'i ^ m m^ to is ,«»,• 3, !*w^.**y-'*.aai>M i > .il # t |, - fll I fel i ft THE CHOlr» OP A HUSBAND. 88 «ul the two |)i/^;,„,,.s who started at the twocradles are ,ic„r.ng. After eighteen, twenty, or thirty yairs, to two come withi,, sight. At the t\A glance th.y ,„ay fM a .lislike, and they may cans fate, and that n>hgi„„ caUs frovidenoe, urges then, on and on. Thoy nn.st meet. Thev con o alter a while to jom hands in friendship after c™ W ' '"'" '■":;'" ■'"« "^^^^ ft-om he'o e her father%;''" * r^' "'''« "^ *« *nrch with Iier father. The delegate from the other cradle comes up the west aisle of the church S Biidal .oil. The two chains made out of many years are forged together hy the golden link w ich But tneroai-o so many exceptions to the general rule of imtural alHnity that only those afe safe who j.^y for a heavenly hand to Ld them ^. tod, there are thousands of women everv veir mns to the slaughter. I„ India ..ZZZpZ the funeral pyre of a dead husband. We ha vo a worse spectacle than that in America- women hu n— ,e leaping on the funeral pyro of T^, THE ADVERTISING BRUTE. Avoid all proposed a:iiances through uewspaDer tdvert^sements. Many worn:::, .iusUorf^S \ r t ■ I 34 THE CHOICE OP A HUSBAND. answered sucli advertisements, and Jiave been led on from stop to step to catastroplio infinite. All the men wlio write snch advertisements are vil- lains and lepers— all, without a single exception. All! All! Do you answer them just for fun? 1 will tell you a safer and healthier fun. Thrust your liand througli the cage at a menagerie, and stroke tlie hack of a cobra from the East Indies. Put your licad in the mouth of a Numidian lion, to see if lie will bite. Take a glass full of Paris green mixed with some dehglitful henbane. These are safer and liealtliier fan than answering news- paper advertisements for a wife. MARRY INDEPENDENT MEN. My advice is : Marry .•- man who is a fortiVAo in himself. Houses, land.- aid large iidieritanco are well enougli, but the Avlieel of fortune turris so rapidly that through some investment all those in a few years may be gone. Tliere are some things, however, that are a perjx^tual fortune— good man- ners, geniality of soul, kindness, intelligence, syin^ patliy, courage, perseverance, industry, and whole- heartedness. Marry such a one and you havfe m;aTied a fortune, wliether liehave an income now of $50,000 a yearoranincomeof$l.,000. A bank is secure according to its capital stock, and not to be judged by the deposits for a day or a week. A man is rich according to his sterling qualities, and not according to tlie mutability of circum' stances, wliich may leave M-itli himalargeamouni of resources to-day and withdraw them to-morrow. THE CHOICE OP A HUSBANIX 35 H ted. K a man l.ave upriglit clKuuctcr 1 o is rich Proimrty may c„„„, an.l g„, l.o j, ;, ,,' pondont of tl.o ,„..,vk,fe. Nothing „, uv Inn, out, ,K,thins- cn„ „„I1 hin, out. Ife ,nn y In™ more n,on..y one yoar than another, but I s be t« fortunes never v.acillato. AVOID PEIiFEOT MEN. Yet do not expect to find aperfect man. If you find one without ,auy faults, inca],able of mistakes never havmg ga.es.sed wrongly, his patience m^ having be<.n perturbe,!, iinn.aculato in spc'ch h tc-nper, m habits, ,lo notn.arry him. AV , l ' ',i cau.so you would enact a swindle. A\hat «„ W you do ,v,tha perfect n,an, you who are ' feet youi-self ? And l,ow dare you l,it,.b vo, r i , r^*ct on fast on such superLtura.'ox^Z, ',' W h,it a <«n,,,an„m you would n.akefor an ai,<.el I In other ,vords. theiv aiv no perfect men. Thl .ever was but one perfc.ct pair, and they si S down the ba,d.s of pa,,,dise tog<.ther. Wo"" Hioual ly n,d a man who says he never «ins» m kmm, heln-s ,vh.>n he .says it. We have had fhr n ml dealings with two or throe perfect n'en a d hey elicited vis wofully. Do' not, Z^e^^ look for an .imiiaoulato husband, for ^.u wiU iioi PLENTY OF GOOD HUSBANDS. But do not become cynical on this subject. Soci- ety has a great multitude of grmyl men who kn^ "^ «!*«»«->« L t'l I, I I immm Uii :tf =? I ,!. i S6 THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND fiow to make iiome happy. When they come to be husbands they evince a nobility of nature and a self-sacrificing spirit that sui'prise even the wife. These are the men who cheerfully sit in dark and dirty business offices, ton feet by twelve, in Bumnier time hard at work while the wives and daughters are off at Saratoga, Mount Desert, or the White Sulphur. These are the men who, hover having had much education themselves, have their sons at Yale, and Harvard, and Vir- ginia University. These are the men who w^ork themselves to death by fifty years of age, and go out to Greenwood leaving large estate and gen- erous life-insurance provision for their families. There are husbands and fathers here by the hundreds who would die for their households. If outlawry should ever become dominant in our cities they would stand in their doorway, and with their own ann would cleave down, one by one, fifty invaders face to face, toot to foot, and every stroke a demolition. This is what makes an army in defense of a country fight more desper- 9,tely thanan army of conquest. It is not so much the abstract sentiment of a flag as it is wife, and children, and home, that tmiis enthusiasm into a fury. The world has such men by the million, and the homunculi that infest all our communities must not hinder women from appreciating the glory of true manhood. FJD]:iATY IN ADVERSITY. I was reading of a bridal reception. The young f' ••f: THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. 37 man had brought homo the choice of his heart in her elaborate and exquisite apparel. As she stood mthe gay drawing-room, and amid the gay group the yomig man's eyes filled with tears of joy as he thought that she was his. Years passed by, and they stood at the same parlor on another festal occasion. She wore the same dress, for business . had not opened as brightly to the young husband as he expected, and he had never been able to purchase for her another dress. Her face was not as bright and smooth as it had been years before and a care-worn look had made its signature on her countenance. As the husband looked at her he saw the difference between tliis occasion and the former, and he went over where she sat, and said : -You remember the time w^ien we were here before. You have the same dress on. Cir- cumstances have somewhat changed, but you look to me far more beautiful than you did then " There is such a thing as conjugal fidelity, and ' many of you know it in your own homes. But, after all the good advice we may give you we come back to the golden pillar from which we started, the tremendous truth that no one but God can guide you in safety about this matter that may decide your happiness for two worlds, this and the next. So, my sister, I put your case where Naomi put that of Enth and Orpah, when she said : -The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband." i ' ". » i 38 THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. THE "WEDDING. I imagine the hour for which you pledged your trotli has arrived. There is much merry-making among your young friends, but there is an under- tone of sadness in all the house. Your choice may have been the gladdest and the best, and the joy of the whole round of relatives, but when a young eaglet is about to leave the old nest, and is pre- paring to put out into sunshine and storm for itself, it feels ite wings tremble somewhat. So she has a good cry before leaving home, and at the maiTiage father and mother always cry, or feel like it. If you think it is easy to give up a daughter in marriage, though it be with brightest prospects, you will tliink differently when the day coraes. To have all along watched her from in- fancy to girlhood, and from girlhood to woman- hood, studious of her welfare, her shghtest illne' ■( an anxiety, and her presence in your home an ever- increasing joy, and then havehergoawaytosa.no other home— aye, all the redolence of orange-bbs- soms, and all the chime of marriage bells, and all the roUing of wedding march in full diapason, and all the hilarious congratulations of your friends cannot make you forget that you are suffering a loss irreparable. But you know it is all right, and you have a remembrance of an embarkation just like it twenty-five or thirty years ago, in which you were one of the parties ; and, suppress- ing as far as possiblo your sadness, you say "Good-by." ^» p tfHE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND. VISIT THE OLD HOME. 39 1 ^cpD that you, the departing daughter, wiU ^ot forgefc to write often home; for whatever betido you, the old folks will never lose their interest m your welfare. Make visits to them also OS often, and stay as long as you can, for there wiU be changes at the old place after awhile, il^vexy time you go you wiU find more gray hairs on father's head and more wrinkles of nfothel^ hrow ; and after awhUe you will notice that the elastic step has become decrepitude. And some day one of the two pillars of yL early home ' :^ M, and after awhile the other pillar of tliat home w Ufal , and it will be a comfort to yourself if when thej are gone, you can feel that while 'you are faithful m your new home you never for^e^ your old hc.ne, and the first friends you ever hS and those to whom you are more indebted W you ever can be to any one else except to Gca-~ I mean your father and mother. Alexandei- Pop. put It m effective rhytlun whei^ he said : "Me Jet the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing aije • With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smootli the bed of death • Explore the thought, explain the asking eye And keep awhile one parent from the sky." ' .nW-/'"'^ ^ commend all this precious an.^ ft^!? rT^ womanhood before me to-da^^ to the God "who setteth the solitary in families il m .? i K'' ^ t u\ r i CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. Clandestine Ularrlag^e. " Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there "-v Prov. ix, 17, 18. The Garden of Eden was a great orchard of fruit-bearing trees, bushels, and bushdii of round, ripe, glorious fruit; but the horticulturist and his wife having it in charge hankered for one special tree, simply because it ^vas forbidden, starting a bad streak in human nature, so that children will now sometimes do something simply because they are forbidden to do it. This KINK IN THE HUMAN RACE is not easily unsnarled. Tell a company that they may look into any twenty rooms of a large house, except one, and their chief desire is to see that one, though all the others were picture gal- leries and that a garret. If there were in a region of mineral springs twenty fountains, but the pro- prietor had fenced in one well, against the public, the one fenced in would be the chief temptation to the visitors, and they would rather taste of that than of the other nineteen. Solomon recognized this principle in the text, and also the disaster that follows forbidden conduct, when he said; "Stdlen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. 4^ pleasant. But ho knoweth not that the dead are there." In this course of sermons on ''The Marriage King, 1 this morning aim a point-blank shot at LlandcFtiue Marriages and Escapades " Yonder comes up through the narrows of New York harbor a ship having all the evidence of tempestuous passage: salt water mark reaching to the top of the smoke-stack ; mainmast, fore mast nnzzenmast twisted off; bulwarks knocked in; lifeboats off the davit; jib sheets and lee-bo w^ lines missing; captain's bridge demolished; main shaft broken; all the pumps worldng to keep from sinking before they can get to wharfage. That .^■up is the institution of Christian marriage, aunched by the Lord grandly from the banks of the Euphrates, and floating out on the seas for the adnnration and happiness of aU nations. But .reeloyeism struck it from one side, and Mormon- ism struck it from another side, and hurricanes of hbertimsm have struck it on all sides, until the old ship needs repairs in every plank and beam, and sail, and bolt, and clamp, and transom, and stanchion. In other words, the notions of modern society must be reconstructed on thesubiect of the marriage institution. And when we have got it back somewhere near what it was when God bmlt it m Paradise, the earth will be far on toward resumption of Paradisaical conditions. DEPLORABLE LAXITY. Do you ask what is the need of a course of ser- ^^ikite fe^i^ ■ff 42 CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. mons on this subject? The man or woman who asks this question is either ignorant or guilty. In New England, which has been considered by n^any the most moral part of the United States, there are two thousand divorces per year. And in Massachusetts, the headquarters of steady habits, there is one divorce to every fourteen marriages. The State of Maine, considered by many almost frigid in proprieties, has in one year four hundred and seventy-eight divorces. In Vermont, swappmg tvives is not a rare transaction. In Connecticut there are women who boast that they have fom' or five times been divorced. Moreover, our boast- ed Protestantism is, on this subject, more lax than Eoman Catholicism. Eoman Catholicism admits of no divorce except for the reat on tliat Christ ad- mitted as a lawful reason. But Protestantism is admitting anything and everything, and the larger the proportion of Protestants in any part of the country, the larger the ratio of divorce. Do you not then think that Protestantism needs some toning up on tliis subject? GROWING POPULARITY. Aye, when you reahze that the sacred and divine institution is being caricatured and de- famed by clandestine marriages and escapades all over the land, does there not seem a call for such discussion ? Hardly a morning or evening pepar comes into your possession .without reporting them, and there are fifty of these occurrences where one is reported, because it is the interest of ■ ' : ' ■ - • gsaates as-r-- ■*■>■■»- - ^ CLAIJDESTINE JUKlilAGfi. "S over fro™ Itate ■ "^ Z' f*" "■""- ■ laws of greater laxitv h^'i i ^^ '"'''>' '•'^»* months after niarrheol If .!'^' ''' '"''""t'o" six tho first time tW ?1 ?r *" ''""'« know for "n«e„ in wUtl'^ ' SiS 'f "r""^ ^^•^- J"st.ees of tl,o peace, m n " '^"d "igly joining in naa;^; ™ ' ^^"'^ °* '^'*'™. wiU- Statesanrl ndgj hoZ^F ™»»^^'ay« from otlier "^«ok sei ofTle St ^^*^^^^^^ telegrams flaslu^'™ S^^/^^^ "' AiHation; arrest of abscondea sc W^ , ""'''^ f""' «'« «th a„nf„I, of ,oofa°;'' "ff^' whostarte,! oft meet their affiance ^,^1/"^' f^ ^'"^''^ to great storn, that ,s rec ntlvT"'*" ' "' *"« country some of tliem T ,„ ( f "' '"'e^ the thousands of people i'n , '' '''''™ Pe'fehed^ have never lieu nubhsL '""■'''*«" '^*°^° hanns society Wotclui all ore wit.', T^" '^ J"'^"' tl>fa subject which no one but tb "f'"^''''' "" can airest. *" ""* the Ahnighty God -fe^l tyranny or domlTi ^ Sn"t* ^^''^ been exceptional cases wbo,.„ . ""'■" ''■'^™ a monomania i„ i^gardot •'"'■''"*' ^''"^^ had tors, demanding til 0^^,^""' 'T ""'' ''""Sh- lations every wfyr't''^'^^^^ ^ forbidding re- ambition parentAnv'l T "Sh absurd family I H I, J-;' i 1 u I , l^ CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. to e:.pect or simply i.npossiblc .d'"*™ ^[« ""* exi,cct.Kl to many to ploaso tliou' i«uy..ts, but to S«o theinsclvei Given goo,l morals, nmans o a livdihoo,!, a,.i,roi,riato affo and -luaUty of Hocial position, and no i.a.eut l,as a right *» P''';'" " '^ muon that seonis doliUTato and a matter of tl o heart. Kev. Philip Henry, ondnent tor piety and good sense, used to say t,> h,« f "l''=-«'\= ,,"^^"" God and please yourselves, and you dual! ueve. displease me." A MATBIMONIAI, TR.iCl'.DY. Diirin- our Civd War a marriage w.'S about to ho elebrated at Charleston S. C betwee^ Lieutenant de Kochelle and M.ss Anna, the daughter of ex-Governor Tiekens. As the core- fZy was about to be soU^mi.od --^J^ through the roof and wounded mne of the g csts and the bride f<-ll dying, and, wrapped .n her w to wedding robe, her betrothed kneehng »t her side in two hours d.o expired. And there ha. beeA many as bright a union of hearts as tha proposed thatthebonibshellof outrageous parental [ndfgnation has wounded and scattered and sl.am^ If the hand offered in maraage bo blotched of intemperance ; if the life of the marital candidate has bien debauched; if he has no visible means of support, and po,-erty and abandonment see n only a httlo way ahead; if the twain seem e.> tirdy unmatched in disposition-pi-otest and for- bkl Ind re-enforce your opinion by that of othe^, ad put an lav.-ful obstacles in the way ; but do l*f. CJLANDKSTINE lIARBUaE. Edenic. Ix-'autiXul a,ul positively But while wo havo.iilmiftn.i ii i i. oa^'^of i"stiHablo,"t!-oM 1 ' *''"'■•''••" '■^'^' ty-i.iJie cases out of ^fl, '"'"- '""'*"I and nino- departures auTVe .C":™'l. ^'Z "fTr' to jump off thedocksof tho F ,st n . f"''.'' woman on heing ubl„ to swin, to ho ntb T"''''"''"'"' picked up hy a fe„.y.boV Tb -"' "'' «"' that slie may bo r, scued b,?!/™'''""'''^^ "« that she will not K,^i 'b *'^« l'™l«»'ility is i" the newspapers fo tt !st t™''°"'''''=^«M«des me a half dozen tba , . * " ^''"'''^' '""^ A"'' Brace, aband™^" en^ .oi.r'c •"r'VP"™'''^' ^^'^- and hell. "Stolen watt " '"''■ '''™'-^"' ''«^Hb eaten in secro.tis^^o';tr T^T'',' ■''"'' '"•«'><1 that the dead a o tC " c?''"' knoweth not tlie escapade. He intio In. u \ ^''"'''^'^ "^'er each other. Hegefthe T W'^" '"^'^'^^ *« Reappoints where tWs.n""'«" *''*"''- *'•»"'• • them where they can find tffi • T*' ^" ^''^^^ »fl \i ;l ,^^ CLANDESTINE MAttUIAQE. Off and loavos theiu in tlu, luirh; for, ^vhilo Satan hrs a goiuns in grttln^' iH'oplo intotiou bio, ho haa no gmuu. for getting ixn^pio out. Ho induced Jonah to take nhip for TarshishAvhon God told him to go to Kinov(.h, hut provided for the recijeant prophet no hotter landing pluco than tho middle of the Mediten-anoan Sea. TIIK DIME NOVEL. The modern novel is i-esponsihlo for many of these aV)scondings. Do you think that young women ^vo^dd sit up half a niglit reading novels m which tho hero and hcn-oiiu. get acciuamted in the usual Avay, and carry on their increased friendli- ness until, \vith the consent of parents, the day of marriage is appointed, and amid the ^^^^^'^^f^^^ erouT) of kindred tho vows are taken ? Oh, no . There must he flight, and pursuit, and narrow es- caT>e, and drawn dagger, all ending m suns nne and parental forgiv^nu'ss, and hliss unalloyed and gorgeous. In many of the cases of escapade the klea was implanted in the hot hrain of the woman by a cheap novel, ten cents' worth of unadulter- ated perdition. THE SCHEIME OF BAD MEN. These evasions of the ordinaiy modes of mar. riage are to be deplored for the rv^ason that nearly ■ all of them are proposed by bad men. If the man behave weU he has a character to which he can refer, and he can say : ^' If you want to inquire CUjfDESmE llAnRUOE. no aoout mo there iq o llcf ^^ , town or neigh J>r.t:,^^^^^^^^^ ^.^^o J"^'^ the of escapades are nearly ' lOi .tl ' ? ^"^'^^'^ tines, or dnnikank ^ ''V '^'^ '^^^^""ists, hl,or- ted, until thoy U^J-iTl, "-""Want-cravat- them, ''arrlf 1 ' •■''''''"'"■^- Bewaroof in secret ir;tew''-'l";''r™f. ™"1 1-read eaten the dead are thera" " ''""^'^''^ "»* that SOCIAL DEGRADATION. higherplane orthom! • """^'"'"'wasnotofa would beno^Me t!or™fr''""'l"'-'"*y' "-™ to clandestinv^ 't X^l^t r'™ "o inducen,, „t wian manyino- i xv.^.>, i "^^^^^^^^ tJ»J« law: n -ay ..ise il'v'^o a~- '^ 'fi "T"'''^ may reach- but if o „™ """ *'''' he iiimselt her in society le ^ J:"''':'"-'"^'-' ""■^" •'"""ath That is a la J in«.3 S!, ''''"■" ^ ^"' ''^^^l- afford to plorforro.r.n'''" "^' *"' *««-» '■■••"•(^••I^IPIW"'*'!*'"*' ' '^'^.'"w'tt h V H 48 CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. for the last twenty years furnished an instance of the sndden departure of some intelligent woman from an affluent home to spend herlii'o with some one who can make live dollars a day, provided he keeps very busy. Well, many a man has lived on five dollars a day and been happy, but he under- takes a big contract when, with live dollars a day, he attempts to support some one who has lived in a home that cost twenty thousand per annum. This has been about the history of most of such ' conjunctions of simplicity and extravagance, the marriage of ox AND EAGLE. The fu-st year they get on tolerably well, for it IS odd and romantic, and assisted by applause of people who admire outlawry. The second year the couple settle down into complete dislike of each other. The third year they separate and seek for divorce, or, as is more probable, the man becomes a drunkard, and the woman a blackened waif of tiie street. "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there." These truant marriages are also to be deplored because hi most instances they are executed in defiance of parental wisdom and kindness. Most parents are anxious for the best welfare of a child. If they make vehement and deternuned opposition, it is largely because it is a match unfit to be made, and they can see for their CLANDESTINE MARmAQE. 49 rS^Thof ;:?;;;! ^"^'*-'"- - that*-. tion that conios ft™, ,1 7 f"' •'"""^*''= '1™'""- They reaH.e to ^ ';*!?'"'""' '"-y"ung.na„. ries a man wh, h 'f, , ■" "■""""' '^^ ^^-'^ ■'™- to earn a U^e^^C^Z:^'^? '"''''^' statistics can teU „s tl > „, "'^- .^^' '""•''^" of after .namage h™ t : T "^ '™"'<'» ^^V fei/ .«»,«,//„„ /„„/., t,,_^t „/",^;, ^^"' t'leso great - «•»• pockets, a]l.,X ; ;rS^^^^ regurgitated ftZ s'ciet ' "'"' *" '"' KKVEKSED K1.:laTI0NS. ^^uZr:z:t "'^'/'"--""-.ecities family oxpensoV and f ''","' ^'"'' >""<-*« all the the heer f o r the lord t ,'""'"'" *'"' *"""'«» and Pavents ,,nt on al t I ^ '""*)'"'•'• No «-on,Ier of disastJ... "n,; " " "'itroft ""'" "'* ^^ "■■■'"^ ""Kpntoathefin '.\t t^ 'f''V «'■'■',' «'egold I>o the iron link o^^c li, 'f f "' ';"''""« ""' t» Whai a fa..co it is fl , ''"'"estic servitnd,. ".•n.«elf. and n ,r 1""'™'"-"';;""' ™""™-' wmm «ijg | ]ii mm mfiWimmtnm ■I ; ! I f ^m 80 CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE. tlieewed, and with all my worldly goods I theo endow." It is amazing to see how some women will marry men knowing nothing about them. No merchant would sell a hundred dollars' worth of goods on credit without knowing whether the customer was worthy of being trusted. No man or woman would buy a house with encmnbrances of mortgages, and hens, and judgments against it uncancelled; and yet there is not an horn* of the day or night for the last ten years there have not been women by hasty raamage entrusting theii earthly happiness to men about whose honesty they know nothing, or who are encmiibered with liens, and judgments, and first mortgages, and sec- ond mortgages, and third mortgages of evil habits. No wonder that in such circumstances parents in conjugating the verb in question pass from the subjective mood to tha indicative, and from the indicative to the imperative. In nearly all the cases of escapade that you will hear of the rest of your lives there will be a headlong leap over the baiTiers of parental common sense and forethought. "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there." INVOLVES DECEPTION. We also deplore these fraudulent espousals and this sneaking exchange of single life for married life because it is deception, and that is a corroding and damning vice. You must deceive your kin* CL,lM)ESm-E MAEBUGE. jj '^^'nr^'^ntmr "**^' '-"^^ --* 'In- ception does ™ti,Hn™^H" '-'"""" *'"''™- !>«• one's life to "dell^/r S Hf ^ "f^"" sort of j„eg]e,y ,vl,ich .^ '?ntl''^'"'' "''^ ^ow you SCO her, and no.v y„\; do^ 't " ' "'''™SeI Better to wait for yeirs fnl .• ^ improve. Time nin/f ™-«"n*>nces to cancTidatefo rnw L^^^^^^^ "U obstacles. The Will support 1 w,r the i':^^:, I'Tr *'"•" motiior niav bo nromnt, i ! '"™^We father and AttherigM Leh e 1 *r *'*"'' ««^»^hip. « I I.e end of ti' b^ «:; 'TnT'f '^ ^"""^ jomed hands, and nihiistornf,'' ^T'° '"»' to challenge he woriltha t " if7 '^'T '''^''™ ^^^ reason why these two , o^l/J 7 ^IT «* »"/ = hey state it now or fZvS t " """^^ then start out ^^■ith ^r , ¥'"'1'°''''<'' and neighbo,^a,7tho 'lorfT^r'' '"*?« "^^'I^e you can go out of Wb! '"" '™<^''°"- "^hen flying, do not t,y to"™" bLr," ^7*.'''"«"S' 111 view of all t^r?.?; *" "* ""'^"■a'lt- clandestine corr:p<^"ea'ce if 'v ^"" *°'^^^^'^"P it, and ha^^e no mom chnl f •' " ''"■'' *'"S'''K«1 *" ^t the feny, or oTtho *r nTtf T "*'"^ mutual friends or nt tl » *'" ''"'"^o of Do not have letC come f. '°""f °^ *''« ^^'''J^- that makes you m et '' U, " "" ^oiTespondenco open yourlettera nl^ 'f """f °"« ''^ »i«take J letters. Do not empV terms of en- ^ ■#>iji ! i i iM 62 CLiVITOESTINE MxVRRIAaE. ■■i ■ ! fl I dearment at tho beginning and close of letters unless you have a right to use thorn. That young Iddij is on the edge of danger tvho dares not allou her mother to see her letters. CONFIDE IX PARENTS. If you Jiave sensible parents take them into your confidence in all the affairs of the heart. They -will give you more good advice in one houi than you can get from all the world beside in five years. They havo toiled for you so long, and prayed for you so nnich, thoy have }'Our best in- terests at heart. At the same time let parents review their opposition to a proposed marital alliance, and see if their opposition is founded on a genuine wish for tl\e child's welfare, or on some whim, or notion, or prejudice, or selfishness, fighting a natural law and trying to make Niagara run up stream. WiUiam Pitt, the Prime Minister of England in tlie reign of G eorge III, was always saying wise tilings. One day Sir Walter Far- quhar called on him in gi-eat perturbation. Mr. Pitt inquired what was the matter, and Sir Walter told him that his daughter was about to be mar- ried to one not worthy of her rank. Mr. Pitt said: "lathe young man of respectable family'?" " Yes." **Is he respectable in himself?" "Yes." * ' Has he an estimable character?" ' 'Yes. " ' ' Why, then, my dear Sir Walter, make no oppos- ition." The advice was taken, and a happy mari'ied life ensued. Let ministers and officers of the l»w dech'ne officiating at clandestine mar- CLAKDESTIKE MAKEUQE. 5J "Tfl • 7^"" *''y ^'■^ ^'^^l to 'late a marriago certificate back, a3 we all are asked, let thfm peremptorily decliuo to say that the cer, ,o„y was m November instead of Januai^-. or dechne to leave the date blank, lest others fill oat the record erroneously Let aW !« passed in aU our States as It has aheady been in some of the btates, making a license from ofiicers of the law necessaor before we can unite couples, and then make it necessary to puUish beforehand in the newspapers, as it used to be puMished in the New England churches, so that if there be lawfiO objection It may be presented, not smn^ing th" lZ?L ""'" ''"«'• t"««l>Jpl«s«tmck and gone to pieces. And here it might be well for mo to take alT the romance out of an escapade by quotin- dozen lines ofEobert r<,llock, the great S^ot4 poe , where he desc.bes the ciied 4tim of o« of these escapades; ^. . • • • '^^'^t Jiad she many days Of sorrow m the ^vorM, but never ^yoJ. bhe hvpd on alms, ami curried in lier hand Some >. ithered stnlks she gatliered in the spring When any asked the cause she smiled, aiulLid^ They were her sisters, and would come and watch Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke Of her deceiver, f atlier. mother. Iiome. ^ Or cJuIa. or heaven, or liell, or God ; but stiU In lonely places walked, and ever gazed Upon the withered stalks, and tailed to them, 1^. wasted to the sliadow of her youtli, With woe too wide to see beyond, she died." 54 CLANDESTINE MARRUaS. UNDER THE LIGIIT. But now I turn on this subject an intenser light We have fifteen hundred hghts in this church, and when by electric touch they are kindled in the evening service it is almost starthng. But fchis whole subject of '' Clandestine Marriages and Escapades" I put under a more intense light than that. The headlight of a locomotive is terrible if you stand near enough to catch the full glare of it. As it sweeps around the "Horseshoe Curve" of the J lleghanies, or along the edges of the Sierra Nevadas, how far ahead, and how deep down, and how high up it flashes, and there is inr>.antaneous revelation of mountain peak and Vvald leasts hie- ing themselves to their caverns and cascades a ttiousand feet tall, or clinging in white terror to >he precipices I But more intense, r.iore far-reach- ing, more sudden, swifter and more tremendous is the headliglifc of an advancmg Judgment Day, under which all the most hidden affairs of life shall come to discovery aad. arraignment. I quote an overwhelming passage of Scripture, in which I put the whole emphasis on the word "secret." ■' God shall bring every work into judgment, with ifrery secret thing, whether it be good or evil." What a time that will be in which the cover yhall be lifted from every home and from every heart. The i)-i iquity may ha vo been so sly that it escaped all human detection, but it will be as well known on tb.at day as the ciimes of Sodom and Qt>moTP^.% unless for Christ's sake it has been for- CLANDESTINE MAKBUGE. gj stand tLe tiS upiSm "'""f ' '" "'■^«^ -»' strike it. The R„T , '''""''"'''"It ready to earthly socie J ^ST^r"/"'' P™""^ o? to be mentioned on erth^'^^^^^^ ""?"'"' ^""'^ «»« 'vho was unclean and ho ! '"'"'' ^'"' "^« """' pure, will, undera H t Wow "T ^^*° ^^'•■'s im- •xoonday suns, stand" ■ h (^' I* '"l''^ ""'"^»"<1 °n scalp, and foreheld ' d '"''*"y^™We» and feet ; the whole resn.^r f '' ''"''^ '^^"'^s, dripping with C d ,o, l'''''''™™^«^ sepulchral and ceSa „ nd T' "" *''™*'"'J ing, "Unclean, l)^*!, U^^ ,^'*"' -='^- AU marital intrigues and nU . 'vill be published a, tbm^ i u "'" '"'1"'*'''^ spoke them, and aU th^ f \ "*" *''<' *"""?«*» them, and all the e.^"h„u^, '^'*""f '^'''Pitali.ed 'nan, rec-eanttntir^ '"'"'"Med them. Oh 'n sinful cXs : I'^ wS'i: '"'" ',?''• ~.' thy poor souU TlietumbhL u' '"" ''"'=°'»« of and Mount WaZ'ZTrV ^^'J"""^ ^^™"ees, the consequences oftv-st?'™' '''''° *"« f™" of them low, so thai r*cam,otT'T"''^"* ftgaijist thee. For the c W p '"' ''""ght pardon, if y„u askit tathne tTiT ^'^^ '^ guess what chance there will b„ f *^'™ J'°" *" earth lived in clandestte "tt f '"j"^'^ ''^'^ «" ■ay the very Christ whohad In 'h 'b ?"" "" *''''' I'mUlKbAmur^-^liiiKmk • 4 I l ! : I li iiLy.SaS^. 66 MATRIMONIAI. HARMONY OR DISCORD. and all the multitudes of earth, and hell, and heaven, shall rise up and cry out from the three galleries : "Behold, the bridegi'oom cometh 1" • • « Matrimonial Harmony or Discord. "Can two walk together unless they be agreed V"— Amos No, Amos, they cannot. They will be tripping each other up, or pushing each other down. Married life under such circumstances will be the sounding of perpetual war-whoop. In this course of sermons on " The Marriage Eing," I will to-day speak of the MUTUAL DUTIES of husband and wife, preparatory to discourses on their individual duties. A church within a church, a republic within a republic, a world within a world, is spelled by four letters— Home ! If things go right tliere, they go right everywhere ; if things go wrong there, they go wrong everywhere. The door-sill of the dweUing-house is the foundation of Church and State. A man never gets higher than his own garret or lower than his own cellar. In other words, domt >tic life overarches and undergirds all other life. The highest House of Congress is the m „5| MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCORD. 57 domestic circl(3 ; tlio rocking-chair in the, nursei-v IS higher than a throne. George Washington comnianaecl the forces of the United States, hut Maiy Waslungton connnanded George. Clu^sos torn smother made his pen for him. If a inan should start out and run seventy years in a straight hue he could not get out from under the shadow of ns own mantelpiece. I therefore talk to you this morning ahout a matter of inlinite and eternal moment when I speak of your home. THE SOCIAL BALANCE. As individuals we are fragments. God makes the race m part, and then he gradually puts us ogether. What I lack, you make up ; what you lack, I make up ; our deficits and surpluses of diameter hemg the cog-wheels in the great social mechamsm. One person has the patience, another has the courage, another has the placiditv, another has the enthusiasm ; that which is lacking in one is made up by another, or made up by all Buf- faloes in herds, grouse in broods, quail in flocks, the human race in circles. God has most beauti: fidly arranged this. It is in this way that he balances society ; this conservative and that radi- cal keeping things even. Every ship must have ts mast, cutwater, taffrail, ballast. Thank God sites' ^^'^^^^^^1 ^'^"^ Andover, for the oppo- I have no more right to blame a man for being different from me than a driving-wheel has a right to blame the iron shaft that holds it to the centre .iW a ifamitBi'.'- 68 MATRDIONLXL ILVraiONY OR DISCOIID. Hi If *i , John Wesley bcalances Calvin's Institutes. A cold think(T gives to Scotland the strong boiu'S of theology ; Dr. Guthrio clotlies them witli a tlirob- bing heart and warm flesh. The difficulty ie that we are not satisfied with just the work that God hnth gi\ .11 us to do. The water-wheel wants to come inside the mill and grind the grist, and the hopper wants to go out and dabble in the water. Our usefulness and the welfare of society depend upon our staying in just the place that God has put us, or intended we should occupy. A RELIC OF EDEN. For more compactness, and that we may be more useful, wo are gathered in still smaller circles in the home gi-oup. And there you have the same varieties again : brothers, sisters, husband and wife ; all different in temperaments and tastes. It is fortunate that it should be so. If the husband be all impulse, the wife must be all prudence. If one sister bo sanguine in her tem- perament, the other must be lymphatic, ^^ary and Martha are necessities. There will bo no dinner for Christ if there be no Martha; there will be no audience for Jesus if there be no Mary. The home organization is most beautifully con- structed. Eden has gone; the bowers are all broken down; the animals that Adam stroked with his hand that morning when they came up to get their names have since shot forth tusk and Bting, and growled, panther at panther; in mid-air iron beaks plunge till with clotted wing and eye- i[?jHJjai>jiiiiiiiijii'. ■— «> MATRBIONIAI, HARMONY OB DISCORD. 69 less sockets the twain como wliiriing down from under the suuiu blood ana (ire. Eden has g, u" but there is just one httlo fragment left It aiso. It IS the marriage mstitution. It does not as at the beginning, lake away from man a rib Now It IS au addition of ribs. THE HOMK A&SAULTED. This institution of marriage has been defamed in our day, and intluenees are abroad try W to turn tins earth into a Turkish harem or a gre.a? Salt Lake City. Wliilo the jadpits have been compara ively silent, novel, -their cheapness oX lu reg.ard to holy marriage, which m,-ikes or breaks for time and eternity. Oh, this is not a question of residence or wardrobe ! It is a ques- tion charged with gigantic joy or son-ow, wUh heaven or hell. Alas for this new dispensa ion of Geo.se Sands! Alas f„r the mingUng of .he nightshade with the marriage garlands ! Alas for the venom of adders spit into the tankards 1 Al.as for the syhito frosts of eternal death that kill the orange blossoms! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to assert what is right and to assert what is wrong. ^cin K5 THE ASSAULT OF THE SORDH). Attempt has been made to take the marriage Institution, which was intended for the happineS I! i 60 MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCOHb. tii ' li and elevation of the race, jvnd make it a more commercial enteri)rise; an exchange of honsesand lands and <'(inij)|)ago; a business partnership of two; stuffed up with the stories of romance and knight-eiTantry, and ui' fait hfuhusss and feminine angelhood. The two after a while have rousoil up to find that, instead of the i)aradiso tlu^ dreamed of, thoy have got nothing but a Van Amburgh's menagin-ie, filled with tigers and wild- cal^. Eighty thousand divorces in Paris in one year preceded the worst revolution that France ever saw. It was oidy the first course in that banquet of hell; and I tell you what you know as well as I do, that wrong notions on the subject of Christian marriage are the cause at this day (jf more moral outrage before God and man than any other cause. There are some tilings that I want to bring before you. I know there avo those of you who have had homes set up for a great m.my years; and then there are those here who have just estab- lished their liome. Thoy have only been in it a few months or a few years. Then there are those who will, after awhile, set up for themselves a home, and it is right that I should speak out upon these themes. THE BENEFICENT GUEST. My first coimsel to you is, have Jesus in your new home, if it be a now home, ;iMdletHimwho was a guest at Bethany bo in your household; let the Di- vine blessing drop upon your every hope and plan and expectation. Those young people who begin MATKIMONUL lUBMOXV OB blsCOBD. ei With God end with hoavoii. ITavo on your right hand tho onBagomontrins,' of th,> divino affection. If one ol you ho a Christian, J.t that one tako a Bihlo and read a few vei-ses in lh„ eveuing-tinie au,l then kneel down and connnend yonrselven to H.m who sett,.th the solitary iu families. I want without tonclung or entering tho door-post sprink whvis i 'Ti ; '■" "' t''"--^*^«"8 «"•'-'• Why IS It tliat 111 some faniilies tliey never cet along, and in othei-s they always get idong wdU I have watched snoli cases, and have c<„„o to a togo pleasantly :-udal;-r awhilo came uevasta- tion, domestio di aster <,■■ estrangement. Why! They started wro.-s . L, he other case, although there were hardship ..a trial.,, and .some things that had to be e.xpl.ained, still il,ings went on gasantly until the very last. Why! They started FORBEARANCE NEEDED My advice to you in youi- homo is to exercise to the very last possibility of your nature the law of forbearance. Prayers in the household will not make up for everything. Some of the best people m tho world are the hai-dest to get along willi They are people who stand up in prayer-meetings and pray like angels, who at home are uncom- promismg and cranky. You may not have every- ttung just as you want it. Sometimes it will be le duty of the husband, and sometimes of the tfe, to yield; but both stand pmictihously or 62 MATIUMONIAL tIARMONY Oli DISCORD. your rights, and you will have a Waterloo with no Blucher coming up at nightfall to decide the conflict. A grandfather's apology. Never be ashamed to apologize when you have done wrong in domestic affairs. Let that bo a law of your household. The best thing I ever heard of my grandfather, whom I never saw, was this : that once, having uprighteously rebuked one of his children, he himself having lost his patience, and, perhaps having been misinfonned of the child's doings, found out his mistake, and in the evening of the same day gathered all his family together, and said: "Now, I have one explanation to make, and one thing to say. Thomas, this morning, I rebuked you veiy unfairly. I am very Sony for it. I rebuked you in the presence of the whole family, and now I ask your forgiveness in their presence." It must have taken some courage to do that. It was right, was it not? Never be ashamed to apologize for domestic inaccuracy. Find out the points; what are the weak points, if I may call them so, of your rcimpanion, and then stand aloof from them. Do not carry the fire of pour temper too near the (junpowder ? If the wife be easily fretted by dis' order i\\ the household, let the husband be careful where he throws his slippers. If the husband come home from tho store with his patience all exhausted, do not let the wife unnecessarily cross his temper; but both stand up for your rights, and I will promise the everlasting sound of the L^F-%. g,!,iLi. 'lap '^^'%h\:h ll Ui I Ai ^J-^' MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR WSCORD. 63 ^ar whoop. Your life wiU be spent in making "The kindest and the happiest pair. Will hnd occasion to forbear- And something, every day they hve, To pity, and perhaps forgive." I advise, aJso that y<,u make your chief pleas xtre circle around about that home. It is S tunate when it is otherwise. If the husband spend the most of his nights away from home? o* dioice, and not of necessity, he is not the head of the household; he is only the cashier. If the wi^e hrow the cares of the household in the servants lap, and then spend five nights of the week at the opera or theater, she may clothe her children wi?h s^itms and laces and ribbons that would confound a French milhner, but they are orphans. Oh it fa sad when a child has to say its praye.^ afone be cause mother has gone off to the evening entet tamment In India they bring children and t^l them to the crocodiles, and it «eems TerTcrae7 but the jaws of New York and Brooklyn di'sTpt' pahon are swallowing down more little children to-oay than aU the monsters that ever crawl J upon the banks of the GangesI A GODLESS Mother's griep the dZl 7" %Tr "* ^ g-xll^ mother oi, the death of a child she had neglected. It was not chiS w' T'/'^*.,**^ '"'' ^™™ *e fact tS the one said. If I had only watched over and tf4 MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCORD. cared for the child, I know God would not have taken it." The tears came not; it was a diy, blis- tering tempest— a scorching simoon of the desert. W hen she wnmg her hands it seemed as if she would twist her fingers from their sockets; when she seized her hair it seemed as if she had, in wUd ter ror; grasped a coiling serpent with her right hand. No tears! Comrades of the little one came in and wept over the coffin; neighbors came in, and the moment they saw the stUl face of the child the shower broke. No tears for her. God gives tears as the summer rain to the parched soul; but in aU the universe the driest and hottest, the most scorching and consuming thing is a mother's heart if she has neglected her child Avhen once it is dead. God may forgive her, but she will never forgive herself. The memory will sink the eyes deeper into the sockets, and pinch the face, and whiten aie hair, and eat up the heart Avith vul- tures that wiU not be satisfied, forever plunging deeper their iron beaks. Oh, you wanderers from your home, go back to your duty! The brightest flowers in all the earth are those which grow in the garden of a Christian houst^hold, clambering over the porch of a Christian home. MATRIMONIAL CONGENIALITY. I advise you also to cultivate sympathy of oc- cupation. Sir James Mackintosh, one of the most eminent and elegant men that ever hved, while standing at the very height of his eminence] said to a great company of scholars: '' MywiA made me." The wife ought to he the advising MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCORD. Oft partner in every finn. She ought to be interested m aU tlie losses and gains of shop and store. She ought to have a right-she has a right-to know everything If a man goes into a business transaction that he dare not tell his wife of vou may depend that he is on the way either to bank, i-uptcy or moral ruin. There may be some things which he does not wish to trouble his wife with- but If he dare not teU her, he is on the road to aiscomfiture. On the other hand, the husband ought to be sympathetic with the wife's occupation. It is no easy thing to keep house. Many a woman that could have endured martyrdom as weUas Margaret the Scotch girl, has actually been worn out by house management. There are a thousand martyrs of the kitchen. It is very annoying, after the vex- ations of the day, around the stove or the table or in the nursery or parlor, to have your husband say- You know nothing about trouble; you ought to be m the store half an hour." Sympathy of oc- cupation! If the husband's work cover him with the soot of the furnace or the odors of leather or soap factories, let not the wife be easily disgusted at the begnmed hands or unsavory aroma. Your gains are one, your interests are one, your losses are one; lay hold of the work of life with both hands. Four hands to fight the battles; four eyes to watch for the danger; four shoulders on V7 hich to carry the trials. It U a veiy sad thing When the painter has -^ wife who does not like 66 MATEIMONIAL H VRMONY OR DISCORD. pictures It is a ven sad thing for a pianist when ;ihe has a liusband who does not like music. GENTEEL BUSINESS. It is a very sad thing when a wife is not suii ed unless her husband has what is caUed a " genteel business." So inr as I understand a ''genifa business," it is somethisig to which a man goes at ten o'clock in the morning, and from wliich he comes home at two or thr.>. . o'clock hi the after- noon, and geU a large amount of money for doing nothing. That is, I believe, a gojitoel I usiness;" and thei u has been many a v.ifn who lias made t ■ ., : mistajce of not being satisfied until thehusbaiAil ha^; ??ivenui> the tanning of the hides, or the turnin,^ of ilm banisters, or the building of the walls, ami }-rt himself in circles where he has nothing to do l)ut smoke cigars and drink wine, and get himself into habits that upset him, going down in the maelstrom, taking his wife iuid childi'on with liim. There are a good many trains running from earth to destruction. They start all the hours of the day, and all the hours of the night. There are the freight trains; they go A^ery slowly and very heavily; and there are the acconmiodation trains going on towards destruction, and they stop very often and let a man get out when he wants to. But genteel idleness is an express train; Satan is the stoker, and T)(>ath is the engineer; and though one may come out in front of it and swing the red flag of ''danger," or the lantern o« II ii i MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCORD. 67 God's Word, it makos just one shot into pefdi- tion, coming down the embankment with a shout and a wail and a shriok-crash, crash ! There are two classes of people sure of destruction : First, those who have nothing to do; secondly, those vrho have something to do, but are too lazy or too proud to do it. LOVE TO PRESIDE, I have one more word of advice to give to those who would have a happy home, and that is, let lore preside in it. When yom- behavior in the domestic circle becomes a mere matter of calcula- tion ; when the caress you give is merely the result of deUberate study of the position you occupy, happiness lies stark dead on the hearthstone! When the husband's position as head of the house- hold is maintained by loudness of voice, by strength of arm, by fire of temper, the republic of domestic bliss has become a despotism that neither God nor man will abide. Oh, ye who promised to love each other at the altar, how dare you commit perjury ? Let no shadow of suspicion come on your affection. It is easier to kill that flower than it is to make it live again. The blast from hell that puts out that light leaves you in the black- ness of darkness forever. A HOUSE NOT A HOME. Here are a man and wife ; they agree in noth- ing else, but they agree they will have a home, They will have a splendid house, and they think that if they have a house they will have a home. Architects make the plan, and the mechanics exe es MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCORD. cute it ; the house to cost one hundred thousand dollars. It is done. The carpets are spread, lights are hoisted, curtains are hung, cards of invitation sent out. The horses in gold-plated harness prance at the gate ; guests come in and take their places ; the flute sounds ; the dancers go up and do-A^n ; and with one grand whirl the wealth and the fashion and the mirth of the great town wheel amidst the pictured walls. Ha ! this is happiness. Float it on the smoking Viands ; sound it in the music ; whirl it in the dance ; cast it on the snow of sculpture ; sound it up the brilhant ntairway; flash it in chande- liers. Happiness, indeed. Let us build on the center of the parlor floor a throne to happiness • let aU the guests, when they come in, bring their flowers and pearls and diamonds, and throw them on this pyramid, and let it be a throne ; and then let Happmess, the Queen, mount the throne and we will stand around, and, all chahces lifted, we WiU say : " Drink, O Queen. Live forever." LIGHTS OUT. But the guests depart, the flutes are breathless the last clash of the impatient hoofs is heard in the distance, and the twain of the household come back to see the Queen of Happiness on the throne Hmid the parlor floor. But, alas, as they come back the flowers have faded, the sweet odors have become the smell of a charnel-house, and, instead of the Queen of Happiness, there sits there the gaunt form of Anguish, with bitten lip and sunken eye, and ashes m her hair. MATRIMONIAL HARMONY OR DISCORD. 69 The romp and joyous step of the dancers who K .ve left secMjis runibhngyot, like jarring thunders tLao quake the lioor and rattle the glasses of the feast, rim o rim. The spilled wine on the floor tu vm into blood. The wreaths of plush have be- come migghng reptiles. Terrors catch tangled in the canopy that overhangs the couch. A strong gu3t of wind comes through the hall and the drawing-room and the bed-chamber, in which aU he lights go out. And from the lips of the wine beakers comethewords: "Happiness is not in us." And the arches respond: - It is not in us." And he silenced instruments of music, thrummed on ^l"t^T'l ---- "Happiness is no" in u.. And the frozen hps of Anguish break open and, seated on the throne of wilted flowers ^'^^T^''''''''^''^-' -^ loans': HAPPINESS IN POVERTY Tl,at ye^ night a clerk with a salary of a tlioueand dollars a year-only one thousand- goes to his home, set up three months ago, iust after the mamage-day. Love meets hint at the door 5 love sits with liim at the table ; love taC over the work of the day; love take^ down t^ Bible, ana reads of Him who came our souls to save; and they kueel, and while they are kneel? ing-nght m tl«.t plain room, on that Xin carpet-the angels of God build a throne 3 out of flowers that perish and fade away, but ou of garlands of heaven, wreath on top of w^eat^ wwwanth on amaranth, until the throne is done "TO MARITAL DUTIES. Then tho harps of God sounded, and suddenly fchero ajipeared one who mounted tho throne, with eye so bright and brow so fair that the twain knew it was Christian Love. And they kne't at the throne, and, pntti mm u,; id on each head, she blefwed them, i a ca-H. " Happiness is with me !" And that throne of celestial bloom withered not with the passing years ; and the queen left not the throne till one day the married pair felt stricken in years— felt themsolv^c^ -: iled away, and knew not which way t.. go, and the queen bounded from the throne, and said: ''Follow me, and I '.^ ill show you the way up to the reahn of everla^^ting love." And so they went up to sing songs of love, and walk on pavements of love, and f live together in mansions of love, and to rejoice forever in the truth that God is love. • • > Marital Duties. "And Isaac went out to meditate in tho field at evr-ntide: and lie lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming."— Gen. xxiv, 63. A bridal pageant on the back of dromedaries t The camel is caUed the ship of the desert Its swiii^ing motit.il in the distance i.; suggestive of a v«8sel rising and faUing with the billo^vs. Though Hae vl duties. 7i •wkward, how iinjios.iig these creatures as thpv move along, whether in aucient ornSn timt^ sonio ,n,eac,-,«-yingfo,,rlmn,lre.lorfourtI ou3 norr^sKiip'oTr i^rz r :fr*y, °f "f io". the lay ca^ri "on o saddle and girth, and awnhig, sheltering the ridei^ from the sun, and the hilarity of the Lunted past™ ge:^, and wo cry out: "Who are they r'~ Isaac has boon praying for a wife, and it isTi2 he had one, for he is forty veai-s of ^„« „ i u^ servant, directed „y the lUZl^^^Xitl of Rebecca, and, with her companio„d maddens, she is ,., her way to hei" new home carrying with her the blessing of all her friendT' THE NUPTIAL MEETING Isaac is in the fields, meditating upon his „ro posed passage from celibacy to monogamy C he sees a speck against the sky, then^ouns of people, and after a whilehe finds hat the^ndest earthly blessmg that ever comes to a nia^is an proaclung with this gay caravan ^' In this fifth discourse on "The Man-iage Eine " avmg spoken of the choice of a hfetfne com j..n.o->. I take t for gi^nted, O man, that yZ mamage was divinely airanged, and that hJ at the nght time, bnnging the one fi t uis in tended for yom- .■on,i ,-p should strike hi,u down the i, wiU Tot bl T pardonable. By as complete a s^ "nTe, as Z umve«.e ever saw-except that of the Son of G^ for your salvation and mine-she has a fet mortgage on your body, mind, and so^ Tnd Me mmioaae ,,. for^iosed; and you do no "„1 thoroughly own your two eyes or your two ha mte «.an she owns you. The longer the i„ Rebekah makes and the g,-eator the risks of her expedition on the hack of the can.ols, the mo^ thoroughly IS Isaac bou..J to be kind, and indT gent and worthy. ' "luui- lover's promises binding. No-wr, be honest and pay your debts Vn» thh4 i^!i 1 1 7, ■'*•■' ^" ^'"'''' '"'■'" "> »«'«? coSt Tf i'" -nportance of keeping a contract. If you have induced her into i c- n jugal partnership under certain pledges of kinS" "7 and valuable attention, and then have flHed oful ,1 yom- word, you deserve to haveasuU brought against you for getting goods imder false pLtenses, and then you ougM to be ml'^ Memorjai 76 MARITAL DUTIES. W: in I in a large amount of damages. Review now all the tine, beautiful, complimentary, gracious, and glorious things you promised her before marriage, and reflect wh(^ther you have kept your faith. Do you say, " Oh, that was all senthnentalism, and romance, and a joke/' and that "they all talk that wayl" Well, let that plan be tried on yourself. Suppose I am interested in Western lands, and I fill your mind with roseate speculation, and I tell you that a city is already laid out on the farm that I propose to sell you, and that a now railroad will run close by, and have a depot for easy transportation of the crops, and that eight or ten capitahsts al-e going to put up fine residences close by, and that the climate is delicious, and that the ground; high up, gives no n»m for ma- laria, and that every dollar planted will gi'ow up into a bush bearing ten or twenty dollars, and my speech glows with enthusiasm until you rush off with me to an attorney to have the deed drawn, and the money paid down, and the bargain com- pleted. You can hardly sleep nights because of the El Dorado, the Elysium, upon which you are soon to enter. A WESTERN EDEN. You give up your home at the East, you l)id good-by to your old neighbors, and take the train, and after many days' journey you arrive at a quiet depot, from which you take a wagon thirty miles through the wilderness, and reach your new place. You sec a man seated on a w^et log in a swamp, and shaking with the lifteenth a,t- MARITAL DUTIES. 77 tack of chills and fever, and ask him who he is. He says: "I am a real estate agent, having in charge the property around here." You ask hira where the new depot is. He tells you that t has not yet been built, but no doubt Will be if the company get their bill for the track through th« next legislature. You ask him where thf new city IS laid out. He says, with chattering teetl^ If you w,ll wait till this chill is off, I will show It to you on the map I have in my pocket." You askhmi where the capitaUsts are going to build heir fine houses, andhesays: "SonTe where along those lowlands out there by those woods, when the water has been drained off." That night you .sleep in the hut of the real estate agent and though you pray for everybody else, y^u do „oi pray for me. Being more fortunate than many men who go out in such circumstances, you have money enough to get back, and you come to ml and out of breath in yourindignatioryousar ' You have swindled me out of eveiything Whf do you mean m deceiving me about that Western pi-opertyr "Oh," I reply, "that was Irf^h" joke. That's the way they all talk " But more excusable would I be in such decep- tion than you, O man, who by glow of words and sumundings which you have taken no care to make attractive, so that she exchanged her father's house for the dismal swanip of mrri^ expenence-treeless, flowerless, shetterlesT^^ 78 ilAlliTAL DUTIES. fortless, and Godless. I would not be half bo much to blame in cheating you out of a farm as you in cheating a woman out of the happiness of a lifetime. lovers' j\ttention! My brother, do not get mad at what I say, but honestly compare the promises you made, and see whether you harve kept them. Some of you spent every evening of the week with your betrothed before marriage, and since then you spent every evening away, except you have influenza or some sickness on account of wiiich the doctor says you must not go out. You used to fill your conversa- tion with interjections of adulation, and now you think it sounds silly to praise the one who ought to be more attractive to you as the years go by, and life gi-ows in severity of struggle and be- comes more sacred by the baptism of tears- -tears over losses, tears over graves. Compare the way some of you used to come in the house in the evening, when you were attempting the capture of her affections, and the way some of you come into the house in the evening now. don't f.e pee-occttpied. Then what politeness, what distillation of smiles, what graciousness, sweet as the peach orchard in blossom week! Now, some of you come in and put your hat on the rack and scowl, and say: "Lost money to-day!" and you sit down at the table and criticize the way the food is cooked. You shove back before the others are done eating, and snatch up the evening paper and read, ob- oh' MARtl'AL DUTIES. 7g Kvious of what has been goiiif? on in ih'.i h all day. The children ar! ini:" befre heT mestic autocrat. Bubbling oyer with fun vetthev mus be quiet; with healthfvd curiosity ' yet tt^ must .Kb nn nnestions. The wife has h^d enough annoj^ncesmthenurse,y,andparior,andWch"n to fiU her nerves with nettles and spikes. As you have provided the money for food and wardrobe you feel you have done aU squired of you Toward the good cheer, and the intelligent^m provement and the moral entertainment of that home, which at the longest can last but a few years, you are doing nothing. You seem to have noreahzationof thefactthat soon these chilS ™ll be grown up or in then, sepulchres, and ,^ be far removed from your influence, and that Ihe wife wil soon end her earthly mission, and that X^n^""'''^"^^*'*-'-''^™™ Gentlemen, fulfill your contracts. Christian mamage is an affectional bargain. In heathen lands a man wins his wife by achievements S r:.!!™'-^^?,:™-" bought by the payment or so . ..„ ^„..ars, as .so many cattle or sheen Tn one countiy the man gets on a horse andride" down where a gi-onp of women are standing l*! seizes one of them by the hair, andtff her strugghng and resisting, on his horse and if hTr brothers and friends do not overtake her befo" she gets to the jungle, she is his lawful wife In another land, the m,.,scnline candidate ft r ma. nage ls beaten by the dub of the one wkom he 80 MARITAL DrriES. would make his bride. If he cries out under the pounding, he is rejected. If he receives the blows uncomplainingly, she is his by right. Endurance, and bravery, and skill, decide the marriage in bar- barous lands, but Christian marriage is a voluntary bargain, in which, you promise protection, sup- port, companionship, and love. THE TERMS OF THE CONTRACT. Business men have in their fire-proof safes a file of papers containing their contracts, and some- times they take them out and read them over to see Avhat the party of the first part and the party of the second part really bound themselves to do. Different ministers of religion have their own pe- culiar forms of man-iage ceremony; but if you have forgotten what you promised at the altar of wedlock, you had better buy or boiTovv an Epis- copal Church Service, which contftins the sub- stance of all intelligent marriage ceremonies, when it says: " I take thee to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sick- ness and in health, to love and to cherish tiU death us do part., according to God's holy ordi- nance, and thereto I pledge thee my troth." Would it not be a good idea to have that printed in tract form and widely distributed? NEVER FLIRT. The fact is, that many men are more kind to everybody else's wives than to their own wives. Ihcy will let the wife carry a heavy coal scuttle upstairs, and will at one bound clear the width under the the blows Indurance, age in bar- voluntary ;tion, sup- 3f safes a and some- m over to the party ^^es to do. r own pe- >ut if you e altar of 7 an Epis- the sub- remonies, Ided wife, ward, for ^r, in sick- lerish till loly ordi- ." Would i in tract } kind to 7i\ wives, al scuttle he width MARITAL DUTIES. 81 ^i a parlor to pick up some other lady's pocket- handkerchief. There is an evil which 1 have seen under the sun, and it is connnon among men— namely, husbands in flirtation. The at- tention they ought to put upon their own wives they bestow upon others. They smile on them coyly and askance, and with a manner that seems to say ; ''I wish I was free from that old drudge at home. What an improvement you would be on my present surroundings!" And bouquets are sent, and accidental meetings take place, and late at night the man comes to his prosaic home, whistling and hilarious, and wonders that the wife is jealous. There are thousands of me«i who, while not positively innuoral, need radical cor- rection of their habits in this direction. It is meanness immeasurable for a man by his be- havior to seem to say to his wife; "You can't help yourself, and I wiU go where I please, and achnire whom I please, and I defy your criticism." Why did you not have that put in the bond domestic Shylock ? Why did you not have' it understood before you were pronounced husband and wife that she should have only a part of the dividend of your affections ; that when, as time rolled on and the cares of life had erased some of the bright lines from her face, and given un- wieldmess to her form, you would have the reserved right to pay obeisance to cheeks more rubicund, and figure lither and more agile, and as you demanded the last pound of patience and endurance on her part, you could, with the em- 83 MARITAL DUTIES. phasis of an Edwin Forrest or a Macready, have tapped the eccentric marriage document and Eebekah had understood beforehand where she drivers to turn the caravan backward toward Padan-aram. Mrtation has its origin eitCIn dishonesty or hcentiousness. The mamed man who indulges in it is either a fraud or a rake However high up in society such a one may be' and ho,v-ever sought after, I would not Jve a three-cent piece, though it had been three times clipped, for the virtue of the masculine flit?. TONE UP. The most worthy thing for the thousands of mamed men to do is to go home and apolole for past neglects, and brighten up their old if^ Take up the family Bible and read the record of the marriage day. Open the drawer of reuS in the box mside the drawer containing the trinket! of your dead child. Take up the pa!k of ™ colored letters that were m-itten before yon bT <^e one. Rehearse the scenes of joy and »™w in which you have mingled. Put aU these thing, reUdleThe '^'"'■■'•r' '^^ ^ ^°^' "' ^--d fi™ fZ^hell *», f*'n"'^!i'"'''' ^'Sht. It was a blast wTfStlara'r*'^"'^^*^'"™''-- Ye who have broken marriage vows, speak out ) take your wife into all your pkns, youi su"s your defeats, your ambitions. Tell her eveythhig Walk araa-in-a^i with her into places of ln.Z' MARITAl, DUTIES. 33 ment, and ou the piazza of summer watering, places and up the n,gge« « ^-rong tWng 1 arier me. If there is any heavpn ai a'l t she WiU go there." ' ^ ^'" ^'^"^ 84 MARITAL DUTIES. THE PRIEST OP rHE HOUSEHOLD. Ay, my brother, do you not think it would be a wise and a safe tiling for you to join her on i)\(t road to heaven ? You think you have a happy home now, but what a home you would have if you both were religious. Wliat a new sacrodness it would give to your marital relation, and what a new light it would throw on the forehead of your children. In sickness what a comfort. In reverses of fortune what a wealth. In death what a tri- umph. God meant you to be the high priest of your household. Go home to-day and take the Bible on your lap, and gather all your family yet living around you, and those not living will hear of it in a flash, and as ministering spirits will hover— father and mother and children gone, and all your celestial kindred. Then kneel down, and if you can't think of a prayer to offer, I will give you a prayer— namely: ''Lord God, I surrender to Thee mysel* and my beloved wife and these dear children I'nr Christ's sake forgive all the past, and h< -1p ii-.^ tor all the future. We have lived together hcny, may we live together forever. Amen and amen !" Dear me, what a stir it would make among your best friends on earth and in heaven. A HUSBAND IMPRISONED. Joseph the Second, the emperor, was so kind and so philanthropic that he excited the unbound- ed love of most of his subjects. He abolished serfdom., established toleration, and lived in the bappineas of his people. One day while on his ?^p f't MARITAL DUTIES. 8.1 way to Ostend to declare it a free p. -r . ,d while at tlio Ii^'ad of a gr-eat procession, he ^ . a woman at llie . .or of hor cottage in dej(>ction. The em- peror dismounted, and asked the cause of her grief. She said her husband had gone to Ostend to see the emperor, and had decHne(] to take her with him; for as he w;.s an ahen lie could iio( un- derstand her loyal entliusiasui, and that it wa ; the one gi-eat desire of her life to see the nil erf or whose kindness, and goodness, and g, '.ess slie hadan unspeakable admiration; and ] sappointment 111 not being able to go and set mi was shnplv UDhearable. ^ '' The emperor Joseph took from his pocket a box decorated with diamonds sun'oui.iiiiga picture of himself, and presented it to her, and when the picture revealed to whom she was talking she knelt ill reverence and clasped her hands in glad- ness before him. The emperor took the naine of her husband, and the probable place where he might be found at Ostend, and had hhn imprison- ed for the three days of the emperor's visit, so that the husband, returning home, found that the wife had seen the emperor while he had not seen him In families of this earth the wife, throuc-h the converting grace of God, has seen the ''King in His beauty," and He has conforred upon her the pearl of great price, while the hu.l)and is an "alien from the covenant of promise, without God and without hope in the world," and imprisoned in worldhness mid sin. Oh, that they might, arm-m- ami, go this day and see Him, who is not only MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 14.5 tii lU 3.2 14.0 2.2 2.0 i.8 ^ APPLIED IM/^GE Ir 1653 Eosl Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 USA (716) 482 -0300 -Phone (716) 288- 5989 -Fax 86 COSTUME AND MORALS. greater and lovelier than any Joseph of earthly dominion, but ''high over all, inearth, and air, and sky ! " His touch is life. His voice is music. His smile is heaven. » • »- Costume and Morals. '• Moreover the Lord said. Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretclied-forth necks and wan- ton eyes.'walkingandmincingasthey go, and making a tinkUng with their feet: in that day tlie Lord will take away the brav- ery of their tinkhng ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like tlie moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, tlie bonnets, and the orna- ments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, and nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisp- ing pins, the glasses, and the fine Unen, and the hoods, and the veils."— ISA. iii, 16, 18-23. This is a Jerusalem fashion plate. It puts us two thousand six hundred years back, and sets us down in an ancient city. The procession of men and women is moving up and down the gay streets. It is the height of the fashionable sea- sou. The sensible men and women move with so much modesty that they do not attract our attention. But here come the haughty daugh- ters of Jerusalem. They lean forward; they lean very much forward— so far forward as to be unnatural— teetering, wobbling, wriggHng, COSTUME AND MORALS. 87 flirting, or as my text describes it, they -walk ^^^ea,or^ ,ecH walking ^.ndLnLng See. That is a princess. Look. Tlmt is a Damascus sword-maker. Look Thitisn^J^f merchant. The Jingling „f the J^^ iTZ laslnngof the hea.l-bamis, and the exhibSoLo? unrver^l swagger attract the attention of the n-ophet Ismah, and he brings his can^era to bear upon the scene, and talfes a picture for nil fV ages But where is that scene? Va« wl' «' are those g,ay streets? Vennin-covered popuir ^^r^zfr-the^^Cs^-^tS' opii:; '''"'"'' ^" "" ^-^ - P-ved by the ■ T> ,. ™^ ^^^^^T WARDROBE m Paradise, with its apparel of dark otppi. ficribable gracefulness. Wlien T ^^Tii . i^ nature eve/l^slr. rS^^r^SLthl 88 COSTUME AND MORALS. may be a Quaker in the silence of her worahip she never will be a Quaker in the style of her dress. Why the notches of a fern leaf or the stamen of a water lily? Why, when the day de- parts, docs it let the folding doors of heaven stay open so long, when it mij^ht go in go quickly? One summer morning I saw an army of a million spears, each one adorned with a diamond of the first water— I mean the grass with the dew on it. When the prodigal came home his father not only put a coat on his back, but jewelry on hi* hand. Christ wore a beard, Paul, the bachelor apostle, not afflicted with any sentimentahty, ad- mired the arrangement of a woman's hair, t 'hen he said in his epistle: "If a woman have long hair, it is a glory unto her." There wiU be fashion ui heaven as on earth, but it wiU be a different kind of fashion. It will decide the color of the dress; and the popidation of that country, by a beautiful law, will wear white. THE GODDESS OF FASHION. I say these things as a background my ser- mon, to show you that I have no prim, orecise prudish, or cast-iron theories on the subject of human apparel ; but the goddess of fashion has set up her tin-one in this country, and at the sound of the timbrels we aie all expected to fall down and worship. Her altars smoke with the sacrifice of the bodies and souls of ten thousand vjctims. ^'■'^ ( COSfUME AND MORALS. gg When I coine to count the victims of fashion I find as many masculine as feminine Men Tewe^rthTw'^ '^'"'^' women, nsthougl" sW and no r u"*'''''^^ ""' '^is idolatrot gances at the more il^part ^f^ the ^tt^ tS e™o72n7 "* " ^''"^'■°"^ distribution My MASCULINE FOLLIES. wo^'n^-nTut^^te.l^V'rt:^/ ^^ - the altar. WithU™,; fa 1 i' u'''^^ ^ P?t:' and club-rooms, and yachting partS ™d S suppers. In the United States ttfm^fctew un and smoke one nundred millions of Zlars' worth of tobacco eveiy year. That is their faXon h inewitn ^7o0,000; but he ate it aU un in Hnf tomes, sending his agents to all parts oTtl e ell for some rare dehcacy for the ml.fp L f o-ie plate of food costmg him tliree or f om- hundred doUars Heateuphis wholefortune, andhad onlv one gumea left. With that h^ i.^ T. ^ cock, and had it dised t he va^btt In^J' o^w:tm;:.strB'^'^'«-^'*'^-^^^^^^ iL !r^^"^^^«*^r Bridge and threw himself into tt IndThaTe'oS '""1 °" ^ '^^^^ ^-'^-^^ . u ana 1 nave often seen done on a small srale • ,l«h^ r" t "°* ^'^^t^i" fr"" milline.^ i?-, elaboration of skirt through any superiority^f 90 COSTUME AND MORALS. It !( simplicity. It is only because such appendages would be a blockade to business. What would sashes and trains three and a half yards long do in a stock market ? And yet men are the disciples of custom just as much as women. Some of them wear boots so tight that they can hardly walk in the paths of righteousness, and there are men who buy expensive suits of clothes and never pay for them, and who go through the streets in great Strides of color, like animated checker-boards. I say these things because I want to show you that I am impartial in my discourse, and that both sexes, in the language of the surrogate's office, "share and share alike." INDELICATE APPAREL. As God may help me I am going to set forth the evil effects of improper dress or an excessive discipleship of costume. It is a simple truth that you all know, although the pulpit has not yet uttered it : that much of the womanly costume of our time is the cause of the temporal and eternal damnation of a multitude of men. There is a shamelessness among many in what is called high life that calls for vehement protest. The strife with .nany seems to be how near they can come to the verge of indecency without falling over. The tide of mascuhne profligacy wiU never turn back until there is a decided reformation in womanly costume. I am in full sympathy with the officer of the law who, at a levee in Phila- delphia last winter, went up to a so-called lady, and because of her sparse and incompetent ap •s^a COSTmiE AND MORALS. gj parel ordered her either to leave the house or habihtate herself immediately. It is 1^11^1 that our good and sensible women nlke ttme" protest against fashionable indecency, and" women of the household do ^ .t realize he de! lorable extremes of much of the female costume t^ tha T?.' -^l>^-?.«-ir wives on this sub "t' ana that fathers prohibit their daughters The evil IS temfic and overshadowing. STAGE COSTUMES. for mucrJ^v^'T^r™'**" '^^S^ irresponsible mL Ti n -"i ^ ''° "<" SO to theaters, so I mua take the evidence of the actoi-s and managera of dioaters such as Mr. John Gilbert, Mr. A T Palmer, and Mr. Daniel E. Bandmann They hare recently told us that the crime of undress k blasting the theater, which by many is con idered a school of morals, and indeed superior o the Church, and a forerunner of the miUenium Mr Palmer says: " The bulk of the performances ^^i he stage are deg,..ading and pernicious. The man agers stnve to come just as near the line as pos sible without fla.rrantly breaking the law Them never have bee., costumes worn on a stage of tSs city, either m a theater, hall, or 'dive ' so in proper as those that clothe some of the chorus n tion whether theylan sM^but uSt^S has been twenty-nme years on the stage and before almost all nationaUties, says: "I unhes^ 92 COSTUME AND M0R\L8. !i:- tatingly state that the taste of the pi--sent {;her.ter. going people of America, as a body, is of a coarse and vulgar nature. The Hindoo v ould turn with disgust at such exhibitions whi(^h are sought after and applauded on the stage of this country. Our shop windows are full of, and the walls covered with, show cards and posters which should be a disgi-ace to an enlightened country and an insult to the eye of a cultured community." Mr. Gilbert says: *'Such exhibition is a disastrous one to the morals of the community. Are these proper pic- tures to put out for the public to look at, to say nothing of the propriety- of females appearing in public dressed like that? It is shameful!" I must take the testimony of the friends of the theater, and the confirmation which I see on the board fences and in the show windows containing the pictures of the way actresses dress. I suppose that those representations of play-house costume are true, for if they are not true, then those highly moral and religious theaters are swindling the pubhc by inducing the people to the theater by promises of spectacular nudity which they do no^u fuimi. Now, all this familiarizes the public with such improprieties of costume, and depresses the public conscience as to what is allowable and nght. DRAWING-ROOM RIVALRY. The parlor and drawing-room are now nmning a race with the theater and opera bouff e They are now nearly neck and neck in the race, the latter a little ahead; but the parlor and drawing- H w '■ "' '- -'^f^iiriiiii'iiiin'ii VBfiaianMj t ^ ■■ ' ■liw. «f*3»;jwm.iU. r>t theiiter, )f a coarse turn with »iight after itry. Our Is covered loiikl be a an insult fr. Gilbert >ne to the roper jiic- ^t, to say )earing in ■'■•;>• V' .y^yy ■r:::^^—.-* ,;z^-~ mS- :'■:■,, % iW't M^^ J ^' "^ ^ 7(^»r :^^3 ^,^ni \?j^^Pl*^, ',.'/.:' -<<^\>^ir --/^ V^ 'V/^J'-- COSTUME AXD MOEALS. yg ItTTsrefwin'f "","'" "'''"''■ ■^"" »'- P-l'.-"'i'- iiy IS tney will soon boeivoii anrl niuu +i i , so neadyat the samo tin.o l^' 'i , '::f IC' .lemommn will clap its han.ls l,ocn„»o „n„ i, ' 2 has beaten, and the other half lS,„e he .lraw„,g.room has beaten. Let printinsMres" "d platfomi, an.l pnlpit hurl red-hit anathima at'Tl e gt;t/tl;rar:!;:ri"7t;-'-- France, and Henry VIIT nf tt, /"^^^^^ ^^'^ of ten yon the ^V^^^Z^ ^^^^^^ T, . EXTRAVAGANCE. It IS not only such boldness tlnf i« +^ i volution proposed to sell his con nJr! • f ^^' dare i u ^^^ ^T . ^^o^e wardrobe? I de- perjured statements about their assets, H COSTUME AND MOKALSJ. and somo of thoin to the pouitentiary, and has completely ups(>t our American finances. But Avliy should I go to thesf^ famous defauli- higs to show what men will do in order to keep up great home style and exp(Mi,sive wnrdrol)(>, when yon and I know scores of uion who nre jtut to their wit's end and are laslKMl from Jannniy to Decem- ber in the attempt ? Our Washington politicians may theorize until the expiration of their terms of office as to the best way of iiriproving our mone- tary condition in this country. It will be of no use, and things will be no better, until we learn to put on our heads and backs and feet and hands no more than we can i)ay for. AN INCENTIVE TO DISHONESTY. There are clerks in stores and banks on limited salaries who, in the vain attempt to koe]) the ward- robe of their family as showy as other folks' ward- robes, are dying of muffs, and diamonds, andcam- el's-liair shawls, and high hats, and they have noth- ing loft except what they give to cigars and wine suppers, and they die before their time, and they will expect us ministers to preach about them as though they were the victims of early piety; and after a high-class funeral, with silver handles at the side of their coffin of extraordinary brightness, it will be found out that the undertaker is cheated out of his legitimate expenses. Do not send to me to preach the funeral sermon of a man who dies like that. I would bhu-t out the whole truth, and tell that he was strangled to death by his wife's ribbons. Thfi country is dressed to death. .^a^' ^^ium .A. COS'l'UMK AND MORALS. 9b You aro not surprised to find tlmt th^ putting? up of Olio public buildiii- in Now York c-oHtuiillioiiHof dollars inor*' than it ouj-lit to have cost, wh(>n you find tliattho man wlio gav(> out tho contracts |>aid moro than tivc rlioiisand dollars for his danolit(>r's wcddinir dross. Oashniojosof a thousand dollars oadi aro not raro on T^roadway. It is ostiniatod that thoi'o are eight thousand wonion in those two cities wlio have expcMidi^d on their personal array two thousand dollars a year. What are the men to do in order to keep up such home w.ardrohes ? Steal— that is tho only respectable thing they can do. During the last fifteen years tlicre have boon innumerable fi'ne busmess men shipwrecked on the wardrobe. The temptation comes in this way : a man thinks more of his family than all the world outside, and if they spend the evening in describing to him the superior wardrobe of the family across the street that they cannot bear the sight of, the man is thrown on his gallantry and his pride of family and without translating his feelings into plain language, he goes into extortion and issuing of false stock and skilful penmanship in writing somebody else's name at the foot of a promissory note; and they all go down together— the husband to the prison, the wife to the sewing-machine the children to be taken care of by those who were called poor relations. Oh, for some new Shakes- peare to arise and write THE TRAGEDY OF CLOTHES. Act the first of the tragedy : A plain but bei^u- 96 COSTUME AND MORALS. tif ul home. Enter the ne wly-mamed pair. Enter simphcity of manner and behavior. Enter as much happiness as is over found in one home. Act the second : Discontent with the humbL- horne. Enter envy. Enter jealousy. Enter de eire of display. Act the third : Enlargement of expenses. En- ter all the queenly dressmakers. Enter the French milliners. Act tJie fourth : The tip-top of society. Enter pnnces and princesses of New York life. Enter magnificent plate and equippage. Enter every- thing splendid. ' Act the fifth and last, winding up the scene, hunter the assignee. Enter the sheriff. Enter the creditors. Enter humiliation. Enter the wrath of God. Enter the contempt of society Enter death. Now, let the sUk cariain drop on the stage. The farce is ended, and the lights are out. Will you forgive me if I say in tersest shape pos- sible, that some of the men in this country have to forge, and to perjure, and to swindle, to pay for their wives' dresses ? I will say it whether you forgive mo or not CURTAILS BENEVOLENCE. Again, extravagant costume is the foe of all Christian alms-giving. Men and women put so much m personal display tliat they often have nothing for God and tlie cause of suffering hmnan- ity— a Christian man cracking his Palais Eoyal gloves across the back by shutting up his hand to COSTmiE Am) JIORALS. 97 hide the ono cent he puts into the wor box I a Christian woman at the stoiy of the Hottentots crynig copious tears into a twenty-five dollar hand- kerchief, and then giving a two-cent piece to' the collection, thrusting it down under the bills so people wiU not know but it was a ten-doUar gold piece. One hundred dollars for incense to f ashioi . -two cents for God. God gives us ninety cents out of every dollan The otlier ten cents, by com- mand of His Bible, belong to Him. Is not God liberal according to this tithing system laid down in the Old Testament— is not God hberal in giving us ninety cents out of a dollar when He takes but ten ? v\^e do )t hko that. We want to have mnety-mne cents for ourselves and one for God. Now, I would a great deal rather steal ten cents from you than God. I think one reason wdiy a gi-eat many people do not get along in worldly accumulation faster is because they do not ob- serve this Divine rule. God says : ' ' Well, if that man is not satisfied with ninety cents out of a dol- lar, then I will take tlie whole dollar, and i will give it to the man or woman who is honest with me." The greatest obstacle to charity in the Christian church to-day is tlie fact that' men ex- E)end so much on their table, and women so nnich on their dress, they have got nothing left for the work of God and the worid's betterment. DISTRACTS ATTENTION. Again, extravagant costume is distraction to public worship. You know very well there are a pjood many people who go to church just as they ' li ii ' rf 'i i 98 COSTUME AND MORALS. go to the races, to see who will come out first Men and women with souls to be saved passing the hour in wondering where that man got his cravat, or what store that woman patronizes. In many of our churches the preliminary exercises are taken up with the discussion of wardrobes. It is pitiable. Is it not wonderful that the Lord does not strike the meeting-houses with lightning? What distraction of public worship. Dying men and women, whose bodies are soon to be turned mto dust, yet before three worlds strutting hke peacocks. People sitting down in a pew or taking up a hymn book, all absorbed at the same time in personal array, to sing : " Rise, my soul and stretch thy wings, Thy better portion trace ; Rise from transitory things Toward heaven, thy native place I '• I adopt the Episcopalian prayer, and say« "Good Lord deKver us 1" MENTAL IMPOVERISHMENT. Extravagant costume behttles the inteUect Ourmmds are enlarged or they dwindle just in proportion to the importance of the subject on which we constantly dweU. Can you imagine anything more dwarfing to the human inteUect than the study of dress ? I see men on the street who, judging from their elaboration, I think must have taken two hours to arrange their apparel. After a few years of that kind of absorption, which one of McAllister's magnifying glasses wilJ be powerful enough to make the man's charactex COSTITME AND MORALS. m visible ? What wiU be left of a woman's intellect after giving years and years to the discussion of such questions ? They all land in idiocy. I have seen men at the siunmer watering-places through fashion the mere wreck of what they once were. SaUow of cheek. Meagi-e of limb. Hollow at the chest. Showing no animation save in rushing across a room to i)ick up a lady's fan. Simpering along the corridors the same compliments they simpered twenty years ago. BARS HEAVEN. Yet, my friends, I have given you only the milder phase of this evil. It shuts a g^^eat mul- titude out of heaven. The first peal of thunder that shook Sinai declared: " Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and you wiU have to choose between the goddess of fashion and the Christian God. There are a gi^eat many seats in heaven, and they are all easy seats, but not one seat for the devotee of costume. Heaven is for meek and quiet spirits. Heaven is for those who think more of their souls than of their bodies. Give up this idolatry of fashion or give up heaven. What would you do standing beside the Countess of Huntingdon, whose joy it was to build chapels for the poor; or with that Christian woman of Boston, who fed fifteen hundred chil- dren of the street, at Fanueil Hall, one New Year's Day, giving out as a sort of doxology at the end of the meeting a pair of shoes to '=^ach one of them; or those Dorcases c^. modern society who 100 COSTUME AXD MORALS. I ^ have consecrated their needles to the Lord, and who will get eternal reward for every stitch they take? PERPETUAL ENVY. Oh, men and women, give up the idolatry of costume I The rivahies and the competitions of such a life are a stupendous wretchedness. You will always find some one with brighter array, and with more palatial residence, and with lavender kid gloves that make a tighter fit. And if you buy this thing and w^ear it you will wish you had bought something else and worn it. And the frets of such a life will bring the crow's feet to your temples before they are due, and when you come to die you will have a miserable time. I have seen men and women of excessive cos- tume die, and I never saw one of them die well. The trappings off, there they lay on the tumbled pillow, and there were just two things that bothered them— a wasted life and a coming eternity. I could not pacify them, for their body, mind and soul had been exhausted in the worship of costimie, and they could not appreci- ate the Gospel. When I knelt by their bedside they were mumbling out their regrets, and say- ing: ''0 God! O God!" Their garments hung up m the wardrobe never again to be seen by them. Without any exception, so far as my memory serves me, they died wdthout hope, and went into eternity unprepared. The two most ghastly death- beds on earth are the one where a man dies ©£ deliri^mi tremens, and the other where a woman COSTUME AND MORALS. 101 die after having sacrificed all her faculties of body, mind, and soul in the worship of costume. JUDGMENT TO COME. My friends, we must appear in judgment to answer for what we have worn on our bodies as well as for what repentances we have exercised with our souls. On that day I see coming in Beau Brunnnell of the last century without his cloak; Aaron Burr, without the letters that to old age he showed in pride, to prove his early wicked gal- lantries; and Absolom without his hair; and Marchioness Pompadour without her titles; and Mrs. Arnold, the belle of Wall Street, when that was the center of fashion, without her fripperies of vesture. And in great haggardness they shall go awaj into eternal expatriation, while among the queens of heavenly society will l)e found Vashti, who wore the modest veil before" the palatial bacchanahans; and Hannah, who annually made a Uttle coat for Samuel at the temple; and Grandmother Lois, the ancestress of Timothy, who imitated her virtue; and Mary, who gave Jesus Christ to the world; and many of you, the wives, and mothers, and sis- ters, and daughters of the present Christian church who, through gi-eat tribulation, are entering into the kingdom of God. Christ announced vv^lio would make up the royal family of heaven vhen He said: " Whosoever doeth the will of God, th© same is my brother, my sister, my mother;^* ' 102 DUTIES OP^ AVIVES TO HUSBANDS. Duties of Wives to Husbands. "The name of liis wife was Abigail ; and she was a woman ef good understanding and of a beautiful countenance "— I Samuel xxv, 3. The ground in Carmel is white, not with faUen snow, but the wool from the backs of three thous- and sheep, for they are being sheared. And I hear the giinding of the iron blades together, and the bleating of the flocks, held between the knees of the shearers while the clipping goes on, and the rustic laughter of the workmen. Nabal and his wife Abigail preside over this homestead. David, the warrior, sends a delegation to apply for aid at this prosperous time of sheep- shearing, and Nabal peremptorily declin es his request. Eevenge is the cry. Yonder over the rocks come David and four hundred angry men with one stroke to demolish Nabal and his slieepfolds and vineyards. The regiment marches in doul)le quick, and tlie stones of the mountain loosen and roll down, as the sol- diers strike themwuth their swift feet, and the cry of the comi'mider is, ''Forward ! Forward !" A FAIR PROPITIATOR. Abigail, to save her husband and his property hastens to the foot of the hill. She is armed, not witli sword or spear, Init with her own beauty and self-sacrifice, and when David sees her kneel- ing at the base of the crag, he cries : " Halt !" ■ ' Halt I" and the caverns echo it : ''Halt 1" Halt 1" DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. 103 Abigail is the conqueress. One woman in the right nnghtier than four lunidred men in the wrong A hurricane stopped at the sight of a water-hly. A dewdrop dashed back Niagara By her prowess and tact she has saved her husband and saved her home, and put before all ages an lUustrious specimen of what a wife can do if she be godly, and prudent, and self-sacrificing, and vigilant, and devoted to the interests of her hus- band, and attractive. As Sabbath before last, Itookthe responsibility of telling husbands how they ouglifc to treat their wives-and, though I noticed that some of the men squirmed a little in their pew, they endured It well— I now take the responsibility of telliiiir how wives ought to ta^eat their husbands. I hope your domestic alhance was so happily formed that while married life may have revealed in him some frailties that you did not suspect, it has also dis played excellencies that more than overbalanced them. I suppose that if I could look into the heart of a hundred wives here present and ask them where is the kindest and best man +,hev know of, and they dared speak out, iiinet>-iiine out of a hundred of them would say : " At the other end of this pew. " ABIGAIL'S BAD BARGAIN. I hope, my sister, you have married a man as Christian and as well balanced as that But even if you were worsted in conjugal bargain you cannot be worse off than this Abigail in my text. Her husband was cross and ungrateful, an 104 DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. inebriate, for on the veiy evening after her heroic achievement at the foot of the hill, where she cap- tured a whole regiment with her genial and strat- egic behavior, she retnrned iiome and fonnd her hns band so dnmk that slie conld not tell him the story, but liad to postpone it luitil the next day. So, my sist(H', I do not want you to keep saying within yourself as I proceed : " That is the way to treat a perfect husband;'' for you are to remem- ber that no wife was ever worse swindled than this Abigail of my text. At the other end of her table sat a mean, selfish, snarling, contemijtible sot, and if she could do so well for a dastard, how ought you to do with that princely and splendid man with whom you are to walk the path of life ? Fir.,t, I counsel the wife to remen^ber in what a severe and terrific battle of life her husband is engan^ed. Whether in professional, or commer- cial, or artistic, or mechanical life, your husband from morning to night is in a Solferino, if not a Sedan. It is a wonder that your husband has any nerves or patience or suavity left. To get a living in this next to the last decade of the nine- teenth century is a struggle. If he come home Sitid sit down preoccupied, you ougkt to excuse him. If he do not feel like going out that night for a walk or entertainment, remember he has been out all day. You say he ought to leave at his place of business his annoyances, and come home cheery. But if a man has been betrayed by a business partner, or a customer has cheated him out of a large bill of goods, or a protested DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. 105 note has boon Aimg on his desk, or somebody has called him a liar, and oveiything has 1^0110 wrong fr(«ii morning to night, ho must have great gomusat forgetfulness if ho do not bring some of the perplexity homo with him. When you tell me he ought to leave it all at the store, oV bank T.i'^"^?' 7'''-'^ "^'^^'^ '^' '^'^" ^^^1 ^ «torm on the Atlantic to stay out there and not touch the coast or ripple the harbor, RESPECT SELF-SACRIFICE. Remember, he is not overworking so much for himself as he is overworking for you and the chil- dren It is the effect of his success or defeat on the homestead that causes him the agitation The most of men after forty-five years of age live not for themselves, but for their families They begm to ask themselves anxiously the question; How If I should give out; what would become of the folks at home ? Would my children ever get their educaiion ? Would my wife havu to go out into the world to earn bread for herself and our httle ones ? My eyesight troubles me; how if my eyes should fail ; my head gets dizzy; how if I should drop under apoplexy r' The hi4i 't press- ure of business life and mechanical hfo and agricultural Lte is home pressure. Some time ago a large London firm decided that If any of their clerks married on a salary less than £150-that is, $750 a year-he shorild be discharged, the supposition being that the t. mpta- tion might be too great for misappropriation . The large majority of families in America l7Te by IOC DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. utmost (lint of oconoiny, and to be honest and yet meet one's family expenses, is the appalhng question that turns the Hfe of tens of thousands of men into martyrdom. Let the wife of the overborne and exhausted husband remember this, and do not nag him about that, and say you might as trell have no husband, when the fact is he is dying by inches that the home may be kept up. BE LOVABLE. I charge also the wife to keep herself as attract- ive after marriage as she was before man'iage. The reason that so often a man ceases to love his wife is because the wife ceases to be lovable. In many cases what elaboration of toilet before marriage, and what recklessness of appearance after! TJie most disgusting thing on earth is a slatternly woman — I mean a woman wlio never combs her hair until she goes out, or looks like a fright until somebody calls. That a man married to one of these creatures stays at home as little as possible is no wonder. It is a wonder that such a man does not go on a , whaling voyage of three years, and in a leaky ship. Costly wardrobe is not required; but, O woman! if you are not wiUing, by all that ingenuity of refinement can effect, to make yourself attractive to your hus- band, you ought not to complain if he seek in other society those pleasant suiToundiags which you deny him. DO NOT COMPLAIN. Again I charge you never talk to others about ill U (If as attract- others about DVTifcS 0^ WtVES TO HUSBANDS. lOt the u-ailties of your husband.* Some people have a way, in banter, of elaborately doscribinK to others the shortcomings or unhappy eocen tncities of a husband or wife. Ah, the world wiU find out soon enough all the defects of j^our companion. No need of your advertising them. Better mutate those women who, having made mistake in affiance, always have a veil to hide miperfections and alleviations of conduct to mention We must admit that there are rare cases where a wife cannot live longer with her husband, and his cruelties and outrages are the precursor of divorcement or separation. But until that day comes, keep the awful secret to yourself -keep It from every being in the universe except the God to whom you do weU to teU your trouble. Trouble only a few years at most, and then you "'o f or^l'v ^^^.^^^'' '^^' "^ *^^ ^^^'' ^^d «^7 •• h.w u\ 1 ^P.* *^ "'^"^^^ '"^^^*- Thou knowest howweUIkept it, and I thank Thee that the release has come at last. Give me some place where I can sit down and rest awhile from the horrors of an embnited earthly aUiance, before I begin the full raptures of heaven." And orders the best room of the palace, and let twenty of the anTyel"'''' ""' '" ^" ''' *^^ ^^^^ *^°^ m ^u ^^^^ MEDDLERS. J]?^^!^^lifh^^^Jo^ j,o Outside •As Abigail did (1 Sara, xxv, 86). 108 PTJTIES OP WIVES TO HUSBANDS. 'nterferenct' vk'ith the coiijuf^nl i-'lation. Neither neighbor nor coniideirtial friend, nor brotlier nor sister, nor fither nor mother, have aright to come in here The married t^ossip will como around, and by thu liour fi'll you how she manages her husband. Youitii' her ])lainly that if she will attend to the affairs of lu r household you will attend to yomu What damago some people do with their tongues. Natiu-e indicates that the tongue is a dangerous thing, by the fact tlint it n shut in, first by a barricade of teeth, and then by the door of the lips. One insidious talker caix keep a whole neighborhood badly stirred up. The Apostle Peter excoriated theses busybodies in other people's matters, and St. l\iid, in his letter to the Thessalonians and to Timothy, gives then? a sharp dig, and the good housewife will bo on the lookout for them, and never ret urn their calj* aud treat them with coldest frigidity. For this reason) better keep house as soon as possible. Some pea- pie are opposed to them, but I thank God for what are called fiats in these cities. They put a fae titrate homo within the means of nearly all the population. In your married relatiojis you do not need any advice. If you and your husband have not skill enough to get along well alone, with all the advice you can import you will get along worse. What you want for your craft on this voyage is plenty of sea-room. Bi; INTELLIGENT. I charge you, also, make yourse'"-' ilviiittUigent "companion of your husband. Wliat with these DUTIf^S OP WIVES TO '. .^ANDS. 100 ftomls of no^v papers ai„l hooks there is no oxmise for ho w,h>'signomnce, either uhout the jm .ent ortliepast Tfyouhavo no more than a half, hour every day to yourself you iuay fill your nn.Ml with entei-tamnigainl useful knowledi<(> J.-tthe merchant's wife read up (,n all niercai'.tilo ques. tions and niechanie's wife on all that pei^ ains to hiH s y eof work, and the professional man's wife on all the legal, orinedical, or theological, or polit- ical discussions of the day. It is very stupid for a man, after having h.en amid active nnnds all day to find his wife ^vlthout information or opin- ions on anything. If the wife knows nothing ahout what IS going on in the world, after the tea hour has passed, and the hu. band has read the newspaper, he will have an engagement and must " go and see a man." In nirle case, out ot ten when a man does not stay at 1 onie in the evening, miless positive duty calls him away It 18 because there is nothing to stay foi IjL would rather talk with his wife than any one else If she could talk as well. ^ ADORN THE HOME ^^ I Charge you, my sister, in every way ic n.ake your home attractive. I have not enoug of practical knowledge about house adornment to know just what makes the difference, but her- is an opulent house, containing aU wealth of brie a. brae, and of musical instniment; and of paintin - and of upholstery, and yet there is in it a ch.li Wee J\ova Zembla. Another home, with one twentieth part of the outlay, and small supply of no DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. \ ^ art, and cheapest piano purchasable, and yet, as you enter it, there comes upon body, mind, and soul, a glow of welcome and satisfied and happy domesticity. The holy art of making the most comfort and brightness out of the means afforded, every wife should study. At the seige of Argus, Pyrrhus was killed by the tile of a root thrown by a woman, and Abimelech was slain by a stone that a woman threw from the tower of Thebes, and Earl Mont- fort was destroyed by a rock discharged at him by a woman from the walls of Toulouse, But without any weapon save that of her cold, cheer- less household arrangement, any wife may slay all the attractions of a home circle. A wife and mother in prosperous circumstances and greatly admired v/as giving her chief time to social life. The husband spent his evenings away. The son, fifteen years of age, got the same habit, and there was a prospect that the other children, as they got old enough, would take the same turn. One day the wife aroused to the consideration that she had better save her husband and her boy. Interesting and stirring games were introduced into the house. The mother studied up interest- ing things to tell her children. One morning the son said: "Father, you ought to have been home last night. We had a grand time. Such jolly games and such interesting stories!" This went on from night to night, and after awhile the husband stayed in to see what was going on, and he finally got attracted and added som* DUTIES OP WIVES TO HUSB.VND8. Ill tliing of his own to the evening entertainments; and the result was that the wife and mother saved her husband and saved her boy and saved her- self. Was n ot that an enteri)rise woi-th the atten- tion of the greatest woman tha.t ever lived since Abigail— at the foot of the rock— arrested the four hundred anned warriors? THE TRUE SPHERE. Do not, my sister, be dizzied and disturbed by the talk of those who think the home circle too insignificant for a woman's career, and who want to get you out on platforms and in conspicuous enterprises. There are woman who have a special outside mission, and do not dare to in- terpret me as derisive of their important mis- sion. But my opinion is that the woman who can reinforce her husband in the work of life, and rear her children for positions of usefulness, is doing more for God and the race and her own happiness than if she spoke on every great plat- form, and headed a hundred gTeat enterprises. My mother never made a missionary speech in her hfe, and at a missionary meeting I doubt whether she could have got enough courage to vote aye or no, but she raised her son John, who has been preaching the Gospel and translating religious hterature in Amoy, China, for about forty years. Was not that a better thing to doJ Compare such an one with one of these die- away, attitudinizing, frivolous, married coquetteii of the modern drawing-room, her heaven an opera box on the night of Meyerbeer's ''Robert • ■"u MET'Tigt iBtfr m w j t aa 112 DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. 1 ! ( i! ,! le Diable," the ten commandments an inconve nience, taking arsenic to improve the complexion, and her appearance a confused result of bella- donna, bleached hair, antimony and mineral acids, until one is compelled to discuss her character, and wonder whether the hne between a decent and indecent hfe is, like the equator, an imagin- ary line. A PRESSING WANT. What the world wants now is about fifty thous- and old fashioned mothers, women who shall realize that the highest, grandest, mightiest in- stitution on earth is the home. It is not neces- sary that they should have the same old time manners of the country farmhouse, or wear the old-fashioned spectacles and apron that her glorified ancestry v.^ore; but I mean the old spirit which began with the Hannahs and the Mother Lois and the Abigails of Scripture days, and was demonstrated on the homestead where some of us was reared, though the old house long ago was pulled down and its occupants scat- tered, never to meet until in the higher home that awaits the families of the righteous. While there are moro good and faithful wives and mothers now than there ever were, society has. got a wrong twist on this subject, and there are influences abroad that would make women be- lieve that there chief sphere is outside instead of inside the home. A DEADLY SIN. Hence in many households cliildren, instead of a DUTIES OP WIVES TO HUSBxVNDS. 113 blessing, are a nuisance. It is card case versus child's primer, carriage versus cradle, social popu- larity versus domestic felicity. Hence infanticide and ante-natal murder so common that all the physicians, allopathic, hydropathic, homoeopathic, and eclectic are crying out in horror, and it is time that the pulpits joined with the medical profes- sion in echoing and re-echoing the thunder of Mount Sinai, which says: "Thou shalt not kill," and the book of Eevelation, which says: "Al] murderers shall have their place in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." And the man or the woman who takers life a minute old will as certainly go straight to hell as the man or woman who destroys life forty years old. And the wildest, loudest shriek of Judgment Day will be given at the overthrow of those who moved in the liigh and respected circles of earthly society, yet de- creed by their own act, as far as they could pri- vately effect it, the extermination of the advanc- ing generations, abetted in the horrid crime by a lot of infernal quacks with which modern medi- cine is infested. When, on the Last Day, the cry- ers of the Court shall with resounding ''Oyez," •'Oyez!" declare the ''Oyer and Terminer" of the Universe opened, and the Judge, with gavel of thunderbolt, shall smite the nations into si- lence, and the trial of all the fratricides, and par- ricides, and matricides, and patricides, and uxori- cides, and regicides, and deicides, and infanticides of the earth shall proceed, none of my hearers or readers can say that they knew not what they 114 DUTIES OF WIVES TO ITUSBANDS. I '• -: were doing. Mighty God! arrest the evil that is overshadowing this century. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD. I charge you, my sister, that you take your husband along with you to heaven. Of course this imphes that you yourself are a Christian. I must take that for granted. It cannot be possible that after what Christianity has done for woman, and after taking the infinitely responsible position you have assumed as the head of the household, that you should be in a position antagonistic to Z^hrist. It was not a slip of the tonguG when I spoke of you as being at the head oi the house- hold. "We men rather pride ourselves as being at the head of the household, but it is only a pleasant delusion. To whom do the cliildren go when they have trouble? When there is a sore finger to be Dound up or one of the first teeth that needs to be removed to make way for one that is crowding it out, to whom does the child go? For whom do children cry out in the night when they get fright- ened at a bad dream? Aye, to whom does the hus- band go when he has a business trouble great or too dehcate for outside ears? We, the men, are heads of the household in name, but you, wives! are the heads of the household in fact, and it is your business to take your husband with you into the kingdom of God, and see that house prepared for heaven. You can do it! Of course God's almighty grace alone can convert him, but you are to be the in- strument. Some wives keep their husbaoda ovst ilM DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS. 115 of heaven, and others garner them for it If voiir reigion, O wife! is simply the joke of the house- hold; If you would rathor go to the theater than the prayer-meeting; if you can beat all the neigh- borhood m progressive euchre; if yom- husba^Kl never sees you kneel at the bedside in prayer be- fore retirmg; if the only thing that reminds the family of your church relations is that on com- munion-day you get home late to dinner, you will not be able to take your husband to heaven, for the simple reason ihat you will not get there yom- nnLw J ^"Pf ^^t^^^^^^ yo^^r religion is genuine, and that the husband realizes there is in your soul a divine principle, and that, tliough you may be naturally qmcker-tempered than ho is and have maiiv imperfections that distress you more than mey can any one else, still you are destined for the skies when the brief scenes of this hfo are over. How will you take him with you ^ There are two oars to that boat-prayer and holy ex- ample. -^ But you say he be ongs to a worldly club, or he does not beheve a word of the Bible, or he is an inebriate and very loose in his habits? What vou teU me shows that you don't understand that while you are at the one end of a prayer, the omnipo- tent God IS at the other end, and it is simply a question whether Ahnightiness is strong enough and keeps His word. I have no doubt there will be great conventions in heaven, called for cele- brative purposes, and when in some Celestial ^emblage the sam^s shall be telHng what brought g ^mrra s 116 DUTIES OI' ^VIVES TO HUSBANDS. i-t: -li h i them to God, I believe that ten thousand times ten thousand will say: *' My wife." A CONTRAST. I put beside each other two testimonies of men wnceniing their wives, and let you see the con- trast. An aged man was asked the reason of his salvation. With tearful emotion he said: ''^ly wife was brought to God some years before my- self. I .persecuted and abused her because of her religion. She, however, returned nothing but Idndness constantly, maintaining an anxiety to promote my comfort and happiness; and it was her amiable conduct when suffering ill-treatment from me that first sent the arrows of conviction to my soul." The other testimony was from a dying man: "Hamet, I am a lost man. You opposed our family worship and my secret prayer. You drew me away into temptation und to neglect every religious duty. I believe my fate is sealed. Harriet, you are the cause of my everlasting ruin." How many glorious married couples in heaven— Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Lapidoth and Deborah, Isaac and Eebekah, Jacob and Rachael, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, and many whom we have known as good as the most of them. As once you stood in the village or city church or in your father's house, perhaps under a wed- ding-bell of flowers, to-day stand up, husband and wife, beneath the cross of a pardoning Redeemer, while I proclaim the banns of an eternal marriage. Join your right hands. I pr» .nounce you one forever. sand times HOTELS VERSUS HOMES 117 The circle is an emblem of eternity, and that ia the shape of the Marriage Ring. Hotels versus Homes. 3 known as "And brought Iiim to an inn, and took care of him And on the morrow when he departed, lie took out two 'pence and gave them to tlie iiost, and .aid unto luna, Take cnre of ium: and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I como again, I will repay thee."— Luke x, 34, 35. This IS the good Samaritan paying the hotel bi of a man who had been robbed and almost kiUed by bandits. The good Samaritan had found the unfortunate on a lonely rocky road where, to this very day, depredations are sonm tmies committed upon travelers, and had nul the mjured man into the saddle, while this mer. ciful and well-to-do man had walked till thev ffoi to the hotel, and the wounded man was put to bed and cared for. It must have been a veiy superior ho-cel m Its accommodations, for, though in th. country, the landlord was paid at the rate of what m our country would be four or five dollars a dav a penny being then a day's wages, and the two pennies paid m this case about two days' wa-es Moreover, it was one of those kind-hearted land! ords who are wrapped up in the happiness of Uieiv guests, because the good Samaritan leaves the ■%!* ■%»•»■ 118 HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. pool wounded fellow to his entire Ccare, promising thnt when he came that way again he would pay all the hills until the invalid got well. THE VALUE OF HOTELS. Hotels and hoarding-houses are necessities. In very ancient times they were unknown, hccause- the world had comparatively few inhahitant&, who w( ve not much given to travel, and private, hospitality met all the .-^ants of sojourners, as when Abraham rushed out at Mann-e to mvite the three men to sit down to a, dinner of veal; as when the people were positively commanded to be given to hospitality; as in many of the places m the East these ancient customs ar'* practiced to- day But we ha^-e now hotels presided over by good landlords, and boarding-houses presided over by excellent host or hostess, in all neighbor- hoods, villages, and cities, and it is our congivatu- lation that those of our land surpass all other lands They rightly become the permanent resi- dences of many people, such as those who are without famihes, such as those whose bnsmess keeps them migratoiy, such as those who ought not for various reasons of health or peculiarity of circimistances, take upon themselves the cares of housekeeping. QUEENLY CATERERS. Many a man faUing sick in one of these boards ing-houses or hotels has been Idndly watched and nursed; and by the memory of her own suf- ferings and losses, the lady at the head of such a house has done aU that a mother could do for a HOTELS VERSUS EIOMES. II9 >»ick Child, and tho slumberloss eye of God sees and appreciates her sacrifices in behalf of tiio stranger. Among the most marvelous cases of patience and Christian fidelity are many of those who keep boarding-houses, enduring witliout resentment the unreasonable demands of their giies s for expensive food and attentions for which they are not willing to pay an equivalent -a lot of CTanky men and women who are not vvorihy to tie tlie shoe of their queenly caterer The outrageous way in which boarders some, times act to their landlords and landladies show that these critical guests had bad early rearinir and that in the making-up of their natures ali that constitutes the gentleman and lady weiu left out Some of the most princely men and some of the mo^t elegant woman that I know of to-day keep hotels and boarding-houses in^thlT'fl/^'f ^T* '^^^' ^^ *'""^ '"^^y i« fo^nd in the fact that a large population of our towns and cities are giving up and have given up their homes and taken apartments, that they mayhave more freedom from domestic duties and more time for social hfe, and because they like the whiri of publicity better than the quiet^and p " ^acy of a residence they can call their own. The awful use of these hotels and boai.hr houses is for most people while they are in transitu bu as a terminus they are in many cases demoraliza ta, u ter and complete. That is the point at winch fannhesinnmnerable have begun to dTsin tegi-ate. There never has been a time when o 120 HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. many families, healthy and abundantly able to 8U])poi't and direct homes of their own, hav« struck tent and taken permanent abode in those public establishments. It is an evil wido as Christendom, and by voice and through the newspaper press, I utter warning and burning protests, and ask Almighty God to bless the word, whether in the hearing or reading. PROAIOTERS OF GOSSIP. In these public caravansaries the demon of gossip is apt to get full sway. All the boarder's run daily the gauntlet of general inspection— how they look when they come down in thfj morning, and when they get in at night, r.nd what they do for a living, and who they receive as guests in their rooms, and what they wear, and what they do not wear, and hovv they eat, and what they eat, and how much they eat, and how little they eat. If a man proposes in such a place to be isolated and reticen' and alone, they will begin to guess about him: Who is he? Where did he come from? How long is he going to stay? Has he paid his board? How much does he pay? Perhaps he has committed some crime and does not want to be known; there must be something wrong about him, or he would speak. The whole house goes into the detective busi- ness. They must find out about him. They must find out about him right away. If he leave his door unlocked by accident, he sviU find that his rooms have been inspected, liis trunk exnlored, HOTELS VERSUS IIOMEH. 121 his letters folded differently from the way they were folded when ho put th«3.n away. Wlio is he IS the question, asked witli intenser interest, untd the subject lias become a monomania. The smiple fact is, that he is nobody in particular, but nnnds his own business. The best landk,rds and landladies c.umot sometimes hinder their places from becoming A PANDEirONIUM Of Whisperers, and reputations are torn to tatters and evil suspicions are aroused, and sc.andals staited, and the parliament of the family is blown to atoms by some Guy Fawkes who was not caught m time, as was his En ghsh predecessor ot gunpowder r(>putation. The reason is, tliat while in private homes fam- ilies have so mucli to keep them busy, in these promiscuous and multitudinous residences there are so many wlio have nothing to do, and that always makes mischief. They gather in each other s rooms, and spend hours in consultation about others. If they had to walk a half mile before they got to tlie willing ear erf some listener to detraction, they would get out of breath before reaching there, and not feel in full glow of ani- mosity or slander, or might, because of the dis- tance, not go at all ' But rooms 20, 21 23 23 24 and 25, are on the same corridor, and when one carrion crow goes "Caw! Caw!" aU the other cTrcTss "oh n'^'T^ 'r'""'' «-r*hesame carcass. Oh, I have heard something rich' Sit down and let me tell you all about it." And the i' I 4 p^^y m mi wn^ »!'■ 1 it 122 HOTELS VEKHUS IIOMEfl. first pn^ff'^w incroiisos tho gatlioring, and it has to bo told jdl ()V(T again, and as they separate, each caiTies a spark trt)iu the altar of Gab to somo ether circle, until from the coal-heaver in the cellar to the ni;iid in tho top room of tho garret, all aro awaro of the defamation, and that evening all who leave the house will bear it to other houses, until autumnal fires sweeping across Illinois praiil^s are less raging and swift than that ilamo of consuming reputation blazing across the village or city. Those of us who were brought up in the coun- try know tliat tho old-fashioned hatching of eggs in tho hay mow required four or five weeks of brooding, but there are new modes of hatching by machinery, which take less time and do the work in wholesale. So, wliilo the private home may brood into life an occasional falsity, and take a long time to do it, many of the boarding-houses and family hotels afford a swifter and more mul titudinous style of moral incubation, and one old gossip will get ofl: the nest after one hour's brood- ing, clucking a flock of thirty lies after her, each one picking up its Httlo worm of juicy regale- ment. It is no advantage to hear too much about your neighbors, for your time will be so much oc- cupied in taking care of their faults that you wiU have no time to look after your own. And while you aro pulling the cliickwced out of their garden, yours wull get all overgi'own with horse sorrel and muUen stalks. w 1 i i 1 (hI 1 ! '^1 » ." ^W .., Iff 5 fj [m lluwi kM wild 1 ■> 5a* ii^vJ^i&i^. HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. J23 ^„ t.i. ^ ^''°™ ™ CHILDEE?!. heritor „f """■"* ''^"''"Sos that comes from the X ™ ^ n '^™"™* ™"''^ °f dozens of peo- woMhout /^" 'f '"" "^" «« -* ""to «"3 memory have escaped. It srira a rnnnl 1'? years, if he hves so long. nZt h^ , flT *^ doors into which he f therwl^ vo™d ;: t ''T sm.es him with contrition in the vermidJ of h. d.ss.pations. As the fish alr^adyT^-o^^S THE LONO WIDE NET swim out to sea, thinking they can go as far n, they please, and with gay toss of silveMe thev defy the sportsman on the beach, and aftefawMe While before the captured ■th5uto%:e/th? iiiigiw w iii tt aii ipi S fli i i B 124 HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. net, and then they dart this way and that, hoping to get out, but find themselves ap- proaching the shore, and are brought up to the very feet of the captors. So the memory of an early home sometimes seems to relax and let men out further axid further from God, and further and further from shore— five years, ten years, twenty years, thirty years; but some day they find an irresistible mesh drawing them back, and they are compelled to retreat from their prodi- gahty and wandering; and though they make des- perate effort to escape the impression, and try to dive deeper down in sin, after a while are brought clear back and held upon the Eock of Ages. If it be possible, O father and mother! let your sons and daughters go out into the world under the semi-onmipotent memory of a good, pure kome. About your two or three rooms in a boarding-house or a family hotel you can cast no such glorious sanctity. They will think of these public caravansaries as an early stopping- place, malodorous with old victuals, coffees perpetually steaming, and meats in everlasting stew or broil, the air surcharged with carbonic acid, and corri- dors along which drunken boarders come stngger- ing at one o'clock in the morning, rapping at the door till the affrighted wife lets them in. Do not be guilty of the sacrilege or blasphemy of call- ing such a place a home. WHAT A HOME IS. A home is four walls enclosing one family with identity of interest, and a privacy from outside 1 \ HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. 125 mspection so complete that it is a world in it- .self, no one entering- except by permission-bolt- ed and barred and chained against all outside in- qmsitiveness. The phrase so often used in law books and legal circles is mightly suggestive- every man's house is his castle. As much so as though It had drawbridge, portcuUis, redoubt, bastion, and armed turret. Even the officer of the law may not enter to serve a writ, except the door be volmitarily opened unto him; burglarv or the nivasion of it, a crime so offensive that the law clashes its iron jaws on anyone who attempts It. Unless it be necessary to stay for longer or Hhorter time in family hotel or boarding house- and there are thousands of instances in which it IS necessary, as I showed you at the beginning- unless in this exceptional case, let neither wife tior husband consent to such permanent residence. HAZARDOUS TO MORALS. The probability is that the wife will have to divide her husband's time with public smoking or reading-room, or with some coquetish spider in search of unwary flies; and if you do not entirely lose your husband it wiU be because he is divinely protected from the disasters that have overwhelmed thousands of husbands with as good intentions as yours. Neither should the husband, without im- perative reason, consent to such a life unless he is sure his wife can withstand the temptation of social dissipation which sweeps across such places with the force of the Atlantic Ocean when driven by a September equinox. Man^ wives give up in 126 HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. their homes for these pubhc residences so that they may give their entire time to operas, theaters, balls, receptions, and levees, and they are in a per- petual whirl, like a whip-top si)inning round and round and round very prettily until it loses its equipoise, and shoots off into a tangent. But the difference is, in one case it is a • top, and in the other a soul. THE LARES AND PENATES. Besides this there is an assiduous accumulation of little tilings around the private home which in the aggregate make a gi^eat attraction, while the denizen of one of these pubhc residences is apt to say : ' ' What is the use ? I have no place to keep them if I should take them. '' Mementoes, bric-a- brac, curiosities, quaint chair or cosey lounge, upholsteries, pictures, and a thousand things that accrete in a home are discarded or negiecteu be- cause there is no homestead in which to arrange them. And yet they are the case in which the pearl of domestic happiness is set. You can never become as attached to the appointments of a boarding-house or family hotel as to those things that you can call your own, and are associated with the different members of your household, oi with scenes of thrilling import in your domestic histoiy. Blessed is that home in which for a whole lifetime they have been gathering, until every figure in the carpet, and every panel of the door, and every casement of the window, has a chirography of its own, speaking out something about father or mother, or son or daughter, or HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. 127 friend that was with us awhile. What a sacred place it becomes when one can say: ''In that room such a one was born; in that bed such a one died; in that chair I sat on the night I heard such a one had received a great public honor- by that stool my child knelt for her last evening prayer- here I sat to greet my son as he came back from sea voyage; that was father's cane; that was mother's rocking-chair! What a joyful and pa- thetic congress of reminiscences ! HOSPITALITY CURTAILED. Thepublic residenceof hotel and boarding house abohshesthegi-ace of hospitality. Your guest does not want to come to such a table. No one wants to nin such a gauntlet of acute and merciless hyper- cnticism. Unless you have a liome of your own you will not be able to exercise the best rewarded of all the graces. For exercise of this grace what bless- ing came to the Shunamite in the restoration of her son to life because she entertained Ehsha and to the widow of Zarephath in the peipetual oil weU of the miraculous cruise because she fed a hungry prophet, and to Eahab in the preseiwation of her life at the demolition of Jericho because she en- terliained the spies, and to Laban in the forma- tion of an interesting family relation because of his entertainment of Jacob, and to Lot in his rescue from the destroyed city because o^ his en tertainment of the angels, and to Mary and Martha and Zaccheus in spiritual blessing bee iuse they entertained Christ, and to Publius in the isb.ud of Melita in the heahng of his father he 128 HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. cause of the entertainment of Paul, drenched from the shipwreck, and of innumerable houses throughout Christendom upon which have come blessings from generation to generation because their doors swung easily open in the enlarging, ennobling, irradiating, and divine grace of hospi- tality. I do not know what your experience has been, but I have had men and women visiting at my house who left benedictions on every room —in the blessing they asked at the table, in the prayer they offered at the family altar, in the good advice they gave the children, in the gos- pelization that looked out from every lineament of their countenances; and their departure was the sword of bereavement. The Queen of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark had a royal CUP OF TEN CURVES, or lips, each one having on it the name of the s distinguished person who had drank from it. And that cup which we offer to others in Chris- tian hospitality, though it be of the plainest earthenware, is a royal cup and Goa can read on all its sides the names of those who have taken from it refreshment. But all this is im- possible unless you have a home of your own. It is the delusion as to what is necessary for a home that hinders so many from establishing one. Thirty rooms are not necessary, nor twenty, nor fifteen, nor ten, nor five, nor three. In the right way plant a table, and couch, and knife, and fpjk, and a cup, md ft chair, md you can rai§e a HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. m ure was ifoung paradise. Just start a home, on however smaU a scale, and it will grow. When King Cyrus was invited to dine with an himible friend the knig made the one condition of his coming that the only dish bo one loaf of broad, and the most imperial satisfactions have sometimes ban- quoted on the plainest fare. Do not be caught in the delusion of many thousands in postpoidng a home until they can have an expensive one. That idea is the devil's trap that catches men and women innumerable who wdl never have any home at all. Capitalists r>f America build plain homes for the people. Let this tenement house system, in which hun- dreds of thousands of the people of our cities are waUowing in the mire, be broken up by smaU homes, where people can have their own firesides and their own altar. In this gi-eat continent there is room enough for every man and woman to have a home. Morals and civihzation and re- ligion demand it. SMALL HOMES NEEDED. We want done all over this land what George Peabody and Lady Burdett-Coutts did in Eng- land, and some of the large manufacturers of this country have done for the villages and cities in building smaU houses at cheap rents, so that the middle classes can have separate homes They are the only class not provided for The fich have their palaces, and the poor have their poorhouses, and criminals have their jails- bui what about the honest niiddle classes, who are 130 HOTELS VERSUS HOMES. able and willing to work, and yet have small in- come? Let the capitahsts, inspired of God and pure patriotism, rise and build whole streets of small residences. The laborer may have, at tho close of the day, to walk or ride further than is desirable to reach it, but when he gets to his destination in the eventide, he will find some- thing worthy of being called by that gloriousr and impassioned and heaven-descended word— ''Home." SOMETHING TO SAVE I'OR. Young married; man, as soon as you can buy such a place, even if you have to put on it a mortgage reaching from base to capstone. The nnich-abused mortgage, which is ruin to a reck- l.(3SS man, to one prudent and provident is the beginning of a competency, and a fortune for the i-eason he will not bo satisfied until he has paid it off, and all the household are put on stringent economies until then. Deny yourself all super- fluities and all luxuries until you can say, ' ' Every- thing in this house is mine, thank God ! every timber, every brick, every foot of plumbing, every door-sill." Do not have your children born in a boarding-house, and do not yourself be buried from one. Have a place where your children can shout and sing and romp without being over- hauled for the racket. Have a kitchen where you can do something toward the reformation of evil cookery and the lessening of this nation of dys- peptics. As Napoleon lost one of his great battles 1ii HOTELS VERSUS HOSIES. 131 by an attack of in(^ ;^ jstion, so many men have such A DAILY WRESTLE with the food swallowed that they have no strength left for the battle of life ; and thon<>-h your wife may know how to play on all miisictil histruments and rival a prima donna, she is not well educated unless she can boil an Irish potato and brou a mutton-chop, since the diet sometimes • decides the fate of families and nations. Have a sitting-room with at least one easy- chair, even though you have to take turns at sit- ting in it, and books out of the pubhc lil)rary or of your own purchase for the making of your family mteUigent, and checker-boards and guessin^ matches, with an occasional blind man's buff which is of all games my favorite. Kouse up your home with all styles of innocent mirth, and gathci- up in your children's nature a reserv-oir of exuber- ance that will pour down refreshing streams when life gets parched, and the dark days come, and the lights go out, and the laughter is smothered into a sob. CHRLST IN THE HOTIIE. First, last, and all the time, have Christ in your home. Juhus Ca:^sar calmed the fears of an affrighted boatman who was rowing him in a stream, by saying : '' So long as CcBsar is with you in the same boat, no harm can happen." And whatever storm of adversity or bereavement or poverty, may strike your home, all is weU as long as you have Christ the King on board. Make 182 HOTELS 7ERSUS HOMES. j-our home so far-rea«'hing in its influence that down to tli'3 last moment of your children's life you may hold tlu^ii wiMi a heavenly charm. At BGveiity-six years of a>je the Deniostlienes of the American Senate la,v dying at Washington — I mean Henry Clay, of Kentucky. His pastor sat at his hed-side, and 'the old man eloquent," after a long and exciti^.g public life, trans- Atlantic and cis-Atlantic, ^raa back again in the scenes of his boyhood, and 'le kept saying in his dream over and over again : ''My mother! mother! mother!" May the parent^il influence we exert be not only potential but h'/iy, and so the home on earth be the vestibule of our hoiiie in heaven, in which place may v/e all meet — father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, grandfather, and grand- mother, and grandchild, and the entire gi'oup of precioup jues, of Avhom we must say in the words of tranapoi'ting Charles Wesley : "One fiiniiiy we dwell in Him,'' One chuvx'li above, beneath ; Tliough now divided by the stream — The naiTOw st)"eani of death. One aniiy of the living God, To His f ommand we bow ; part of the liost liave crossed the flocki, A»Ki p»Tt we croasing now." THK DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 13h Tlie Domestic Circle. "Gohometotliy friends and toll them how great thinMi ivhe Loni huth done for thee."— Mark v, 10. There are a great iiiaiiy people longing for soni'i grand sphere in which to mn^Q God. They admire Lnthc r at the Diet of Worms, and only wi'ih that they had some such great opportunity in which to display their Christian prowess. They admire Paul making Felix tremhle, and they only wish that they had some such gi-aml occasion in which to preach righteousness, teni pcrance, and judgment to come; all they want is only an opportunity to exhibit their Christian heroism. Now the evangelist comes to us, and he practically ays: ''I will show you a place wdiere you can exhibit all that is grand, and beautiful, and glorious, in Christian character, and that is the domestic circle." EVERY man's opportunity. If one is not faithful in an insignificant sphere he will not be faithful in a resounding sphere If Peter will not help the cripple at the gate of the temple, he will never be able to preach three thousand souls into the kingdom at the Pentecost. If Paul will not take pains to instruct in the w^ay of salvation the jailer of the Philippian dungeon, he will never make Felix tremble. Ho who is not faithful in a skirmish would not be faithful in an 134 THK DOMESTIC CIRCLE. Armageddon. The fact is, wo aro all i)lacod in just tho j)()siti()u in wliic^h we can most gi'andly ser/e God ; and wo ought not to be chiefly thoughtful al'out some sphere of usefulness which wc may after a wirile gain, hut tho all-ahsorhijig question with you and with me ought to be: "Lord, what wilt thou have mo now and here to do r WHAT A HOME IS. There is one word in niy text around which the most of our thoughts will this morning re- volve. That woid is ' ' Home. " Ask ten different men the meaniiig of that word, and they will give you ion different definitions. To one it means love at the hearth, it means plenty at tho table, industry at the workstand, intelligence at tho books, devotion at tho altar. To him it means a greeting at the dov)r and a smile at the chair. Peace hovering like wings. Joy clapping its hands with laughter. Life a tranquil lake. Pillowed on tho ripples sleep the .shadows. Ask another man what home is, and he will tell you it is want, looking out of a cheerless fire- grate, kiieading hunger in an empty bread tray. The damp air shivering with curses. No Bible on the shelf. Cliildren robbers and mui-derers in embryo. Obscene songs then- lullaby. EA'ery face a picture of ruin. Want in the backgi-oand and sin staring from the front. No Sabl*ath wave roUing over that door-sill. Vestibule a* the pit. Shadow of infernal walls. Fmnace for forging everlasting chains. Faggots for an un- Tiri? DOMESTIC rmcLK. 185 «mding funeral pile. Awful anoivI I It is spoiled with curses, it weeps with ruin, it cholo-s with woo, it sweats witli the death agony of dcvspair Tho word ''Home" in the one c;.se means oveiything bright. Tho word ''Home" in tho other case means everything terrific. I shall speak to you this morning of home as a test of chanv-ter, home as a refuge, homo as a political safeguard, homo as a school, and homo as a type of heaven. And in tho first place I remark, that home is a powerful test of character, ^^he disposition in public may bo in gay costume, while in private it is in dishabille. As play a(;tors may ai)pear in one way on the stage, and may appear in another waybehmdtho scenes, so private character may bo very different from public character. Private character is often pubhc character turned wrmi) side Old. A man may receive you into his parlo'r as though he were n distillation of smiles, and veV his heart m;.) be a swamp of nettles. There aro business men who all day long are mild, anc^ courteous, and genial, and -ood-natured in' com" mercial life, damning back their irritability, an(3; their i.ctulance, and their discontent; but at night- fall the dnni breaks, and scoldin.- pours forth in floods and freshets. HOME MANNERS. Reputation is only the shadow of character, and a very small house sometimes v, iU cast a very long shadow. The lips may seem to drop with myrrh and cassia, and the disposition to be as THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. bright and warm as a sheaf of sunbeams, and yet they may only be a magnificent show window to a wretched stock of goods. There is many a man who is affable in public life and amid com- mercial spheres who, in a cowardly way, takes his anger and his |)etulanco home, and dropa them on tlio domestic circle. The reason men do not display their bad tem^ per in public is because they do not want to be knocked down. There are men \vho hide their petulance and their irritability just for the sam6 reason that they do not let their notes go to pro- test. It does not' pay. Or for the same reason that thoy do not w^mt a man in their stock com- pany to sell his stock at less than the right price, lest it depreciate the value. As at sometimes the wind rises, so after a sunshiny day there may be a tempestuous night. There are people who in public act the philanthropist, who at home act the Nei'o with respect to their slippers and their gown. Audubon's greatness. Audubon, the great ornithologist, with gun and pencil, went through tlie forests of America to bring down and to sketch the beautiful birds, and after years of toil and exposure com})leted his manuscript, and put it in a trunk in Phila- delphia for a few days of recreation and rest, and came ba(;k and found tliat the rats had utterly destroyed the manuscript; but without any dis- composure and Avitliout any fret or bad temper, he again picked up his gun and pencil, and visited THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 137 again all the great forests of America, and repro- duced his immortal work. And yet there are people with the ten thousandth part of that loss who are utterly unreconcilable, who at the loss of a pencil or an article of raiment will blow as long and sharp as a northeast storm. Now, that man who is affable in pubhc and wli« is irritable in private is making a fraudulent over- issue of stock, and he is as bad as a bank that might have four or five hundred thousand doUars of bills in circulation with no specie in the vault. Let us learn to show piety at home. If we have it not there, we have it not anywhere. If we have not genuine grace in the family circle, all our outward and public plausibility merely springs from a fear of the world or from the slimy, putrid pool of our own selfishness. I teU you the home is a mighty test of character. What you are at home you are everywhere, whether you demon- strate it or not. HOME A REFUGE. Again, I remark that home is a refuge. Life is the United States army on the national road to Mexico, a long march with ever and anon a skirmish and a battle. At eventide we pitch our tent and stack the arms, we h£.ng up the war cap and lay our head on the knapsack, wo sleep until the morning bugle calls us to marching and action. How pleasant it is to rehearse the victories, and the sm-prises, and the attacks of the day, seated by tho still camp-fire of the home circle I 138 THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. i t Yea, life is a stormy sea. With shivered masts, and torn sails, and hulk aleak, we put in at the harbor of home. Blessed harbor. There we go for repairs in the dry dock of quiec life. The candle in the window is to the toiling man the hghthouse guiding him into port. Children go forth to meet their fathers as pilots at the "Narrows" take the hand of ships. The door- sill of the home is the wharf where heavy life is unladen. There is the place where we may talk of what we have done without being charged with self- adulation. There is the place where we may lounge without being thought ungi-aceful. There is the place where we may express affection with- C\it being thought silly. There is the place whero we may forget our annoyances, and exaspera- tions, and troubles. Forlorn earth pilgrim ! no home ? Then die. That is better. The grave in brighter, and grander, and more glorious than this world with no tent for marchings, with no harbor from the storm, with no place of rest from thinj scene of greed, and gouge, and loss, and gain. God pity the man or the woman who has no home. A POLITICAL SAFEGUARD. Further, I remark, that home is a political safe- guard. The safety of the State must be built on the safety of the home. Why cannot France come to a placid republic ? Ever and anon there is a threat of national capsize. France as a nation has not the right kind of a Christian home. The Christian hearthstone is the only corner-stone for THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 18» a republic. The virtues cultured in the family circle are an absolute necessity for the State. If there be not enough moral principle to make the family adhere, there will not be enough pohtical principle to make the State adhere. "No home " means the Goths and Vandals, means the Nomads of Asia, means the Numideans of Africa, chang- ing from place to place, according as the pasture happens to change. Confounded he all those Babels of iniquity which would overtower and destroy the home. The same storm that upsets the .hip in which the family sails will sink the frigate of the constitution. Jails and peniten- tiaries and armies and navies are not our best ■lefense. The door of the home is the best fort- ress. Household utensils are the best artillery, and the chimneys of our dweUing houses are the grandest monuments of safety and triumph. No home ; no republic. AS A SCHOOL. Further, I remark, that home is a school. Old ground must be turned up with subsoil plough, and it must be harrowed and re-harrowed, and then the crop will not be as large as that of the new ground with less culture. Now, youth and childhood are new ground, and all the influences thrown over their heart and life will come up in after life luxuriantly. Every time you have given u smile of approbation, all the good cheer of your life will come up again in the geniality of your children. And every ebullition of anger and eveiy uncontrolable display of indignation will be fuel H 140 THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. to their disposition twenty, or thirty, or forty years from now— fuel for a bad fire a quarter of a centur^ from this. You piaise the intelligence of your child too much sometimes when you think he is not aware of it, and you wnll see the result of it before ten years of age in his annoying affectations. You praise his beauty, supposing he is not large enough to understand what you say, and you will find him standing on a high chair before a flattering mirror. Words and deeds and example are the seed of character, and children are very apt to be the second edition of their parents. Abraham begat Isaac, so virtue is apt to go down in the ancestral line ; but Herod begat Archelaus, so iniquity is transmitted. What vast responsibility comes upon parents in view of this subject. Oh, make your home the brightest place on earth, if you would charm your children to the high path of virtue, and rectitude, and rehgion- Do not always turn the blinds the wrong way. Let the light which puts gold on the gentian and spots the pansy pour into your dwellings. Do not expect the Uttle feet to keep step to a dead march. Do not cover up your walls with such pictm'es as West's " Death on a Pale Horse," or Tintoretto's ' ' Massacre of the Innocents. " Rather cover them, if you have pictures, with "The Hawking Party," and "The Mill by the Mountain Stream," and "The Fox Hunt," and the "The Children Amid Flowers," and "The Harvest Scene," and "The Saturday Night Marketing." THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 141 CHEERFUL HOMES. Get yen no hint of cheerfulness from grass- hopper's leap, and lamb's frisk, and quail's whistle, and garrulous streamlet, which from the rock at the mountain top clear down to the meadow ferns under the shadow of the steep, comes looking for the steepest place to leap off at,' and talking just to hear itself talk? If all the skies hurtled with tempest and everlasting storm wandered over the sea, and every mountain Btream went raving mad, frothing at the mouth with mud foam, and there was nothing but fjimoons blovdng among the hills, and there were neither lark's carol nor humming-bird's triU, nor waterfall's dash, but only a bear's bark, 'and panther's scream, and wolf's howl, then you might well gather into your homes only the shadows. But when God has strewn the earth and the heavens with beauty and with gladness, let us take into our home circles all innocent hilarity, all brightness, and all good cheer. A dark hon makes bad boys and bad girls in prep- aration for bad men and bad women. Above all, my friends, take into your homes Christian principle. Can it be that in any of the comfortable homes of my congregation the voice of prayer is never hfted? Wha-t! No suppUca- tion at night for protection? What! No thanks- giving in the morning for care? How, my brother my sister, will you answer God in the Day of Judgment, with reference to your children. It is a plain question, and therefore I ask it. In the ,J, ;i fi %42 THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. ' 1! I t tenth chapter of Jeremiah God says He will pour out His fuiy upon the families that call not upon His name. O parents, when you are dead and gone, and the moss is covering the inscription of the tombstone, will your children look back and think of fatber and mother at family prayer? Will they take tbo old family Bible and open it and see the mark of tears of contrition and tears of consoling promise wept by eyes long before gone out into darkness? children's curses. Oh, if you do not inculcate Christian principle in the hearts of your children, and you do not warn them against evil, and you do not invite them to holiness and to God, and they wander off into dissipation and into infidelity, and at last make shipwreck of their immortal soul, on their death-bed and in their Day of Judgment they will curse you. Seated by the register or the stove, what if on the wall should come out the history of your children? What a history— the mortal and immortal life of your loved ones. Every parent is writing the history of his child. He is writing it, composing it into a song or turning it into a groan. My mind runs back to one of the best of early homes. Prayer, like a roof, over it. Peace, like an atmosphere, in it. Parents, personifications of faith in trial and comfort in darkness. The two pillars of that earthly home long ago crum- bled to dust. But shall I ever forget that early home? Yes, when the flower forgets the sun '1 THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 143 that warms it. Yes, when the mariner forgets the star that guided him. Yes, when love has gone out on the heart's altar and memory has emptied his urn into forgetfulness. Then, the home of my childhood, I will forget thee! the family altar of a father's importunity and a mother's tenderness, the voices of affection, the funerals of our dead father and mother, with in- terlocked amis like intertwining branches of trees making a perpetual arbor of love, and peace, and kindness — theu I will forget them — then and only then. You know, my brother, that a hundred times you have been kept out of sin by the mem- ory of such a scene as I have been describing. You have often had raging temptations, but you know what has held you with supernatural grasp. I tell you, a man who has had such a good home as that never gets over it, and a man who has had a bad early home never gets over it. Again, I remark, that home is a type of heaven. To bring us to that home Christ left His home. Far up and far back in the history of heaven there came a period when its most illustrious citizen was about to absent Himself. He was not going to sail from beach to beach; we have often done that. He was not going to put out from one hemisphere to another hemisphere; many of us have done that. But he was to sail from world to world, the spaces unexplored and the immensi- ties untraveled. No world had ever hailed Imaveu^ and so far as we know heaven had never hailed any other world. I think that the win- 4 it " IM THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. dows and the balconies were thronged, and that the pearUne beach was crowded with those who had come to see Him sail out the harbor of light into the ocean beyond. THE EXILE. Out, and out, and out, and on, and on, and on, and down, and down, and down, He sped, until one night, with only one to greet Him, He ar- rived. His disembarkation -^o unpretending, so quiet, that it was not known on earth until the excitement in the cloud gave intimation that something grand and glorious had happened? Who comes there? From what port did He sail? Why was this the place of His destination? I question the shepherds, I question the camel drivers, I question the angels. I have found out! He was an exile. But the world has had plenty of exiles — Abraham an exile from Ur of the Chal- dees; John an exile from Ephesus; Kosciusko an ex- ile from Poland; Mazzini an exile from Rome; Em- mett an exile from Ireland; Victor Hugo an exile from France ; Kossuth an exile from Hungary. But this one of whom I speak to-day had such resound- ing farewell and came into such chilling reception —for not even an hostler went out with his lan- tern to help Him in — that He is more to be cele- brated ' han any other expatriated one of earth or heaven. HOMESICKNESS. It is ninety-five milhon miles from here to the sun, and all astronomers agree in saying that our solar system is only one of the small wheels of THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. 145 the great machinery of the univtrse, turning round some one great center, the center so far dis- tant it is beyond all imagination and calculation and if, as some think, that groat center in tlw distance is heaven, Christ came far from home when He came here. Have you ever thought of the homc^sickness of Christ? Some of you know what homesickness is, when you have been only a few weeks absent from the domestic Circle. Christ was thirty-three years away from home. Some of you feel honiesicknc^ss when you are a hundred or a thousand miles away from the domestic circle. Christ was more millions of miles away from home than you could calculate if a-U your hfe you did nothing but calcubte. You know what it is to be homesick even amid pleas- urable surroundings; but Christ slept iiD huts and he was athirst, and he was a-hungered and He was on the way from being born in another man's barn to being buried in another man's grave. I have read how the Swiss, when they are far away from their native country, at the sound of their national air get so homesick that they faU into melancholy,.and sometimes they die under the homesickness. But, oh, the home- sickness of Christ ! Poverty homesick for celestial nches. Persecution homesick for liosanna. Weari- ness homesick for rest. Homesick for angehc and archangelic companionship. Homesick to go out of the night, and the storm, and the world's exe- cration, and all that homesickness suffered to get us home. ^ THE DOJIESTIC CIRCLE. THE HOME-GATHERINa. At our best estate wo are only pilgi-ims and fttrangers here. " Heaven is our liome." Death will never knock at the door of that mansion, and in all that country thore is not a single gi-ave. How glad parents are in holiday times to gather tlieir children homo again. But I have noticed that there is ahuost always a son or a daughter absent— absent from home, perhaps ab- sent from the country, periiaps absent from the world. Oh, how glad our Heavenly Father will be when He gets all His children home with Him in heaven ! And how delightful it will be for brothers and sisters to meet after long separation ! Once they parted at the door of the tomb; now they meet at the door of immortahty. Once they saw only through a glass darkly; now it is face to face; corruption, incorruption; mortality, immor- tality. Where are now all their sins and sorrows jmd troubles ? Overwhelmed in the Red Sea of ]3eath while they passed through dry shod. Gates of pearl, capstones of amethyst, thrones of dominion, do not stir my soul so much as the thought of home. Once there let earthly sorrows howl like storms and roll like seas. Home. Let thrones rot and empires wither. Home. ' Let the world die in earthquake struggle, and be buried amid procession of planets and dirgo of spheres. Home. Let everlasting ages roU irresistible sweep. Home. No sorrow, no cryirg, no tears, no death. But home, sweet home, home, beauti- THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. U7 fill home, everlasting home, home with each other, homo with God. A DREAM, One night lying on my lounge, when very tired, my children all around about me in full romp, and hilarity, and laughter— on the lounge, half awake and half asleep, I dreamed this dream : I was in a far country. It was not Persia, although more than Oriental luxuriance crowned the cities. It was not the tropics, although moro than tropi- cal fruitfulness filled the gardens. It was not Italy, although more than Italian softness fdled the air. And [ wandered around looking for thorns and nettles, but I found that none of them grew there, and I saw the sun rise, audi watched to see it set, but it sank not. And I saw the people in holiday attire, and I said : "When will they put ofif this and put on workmen's garb, and again delve in the mine or swelter at the forge ?" But they never put oft" the holiday attire. And I wandered in the suburbs of the city to find the place where the dead sleep, and I looked till along the hue of the beautiful hills, the place where the dead might most blissfully sleep, and I saw towers and castles, but not a mausoleiam or a monument or a while slab could I ^ee. And I went into the chapel of the gi-eat town, and I said: "Where do the poor worship, and where are the hard benches on which they sit f And fche answer was made me : "we have no poor." m this comitry." And then I wandered out to 148 THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE. find tho hovels of tho destitute, and I found man- sions of amber and ivory and gold; but not a tear could I see, not a sigli coidd I hear, and I was bewildci-ed, and I sat down under the branches of a great tree, and I said : " Whero am 1 1 And whence comes all this scene ?" And then out from among the leaves, and up the flowery paths, and across the bright streams there came a beautiful group, thronging all about me, and as I saw them come I thought I knew their step; and as they shouted I thought I knew their voices; but then they were so gloriously ar- rayed in apparel such as 1 had never i.efore wit- nessed that I bowed as stranger to stranger. But when again they clapped their hands and shouted : ''Welcome, w^olcome," the mystery all vanished, and I found that time had gone and eternity had come, and we were all together ago in in our new home in heaven. And I looked around, and said: ''Are wo all here ?" and tho voices of many generations responded : " All here." And while tera-s of gladness were raining down our cheeks, and the branches of the Lebanon cedars were clapping their hands, and the towers of the great city were chiming their welcome, we all together began to leap and shout and sing ' ' Home, home, home, home l" WSTERS AUD BROTlUilRd. 149 I II . w Slflterg and Brotlierft. ''And his sister stood afar oft to know what vo^^iJ beoi>Ui« of lum."— Ex. ii, 4. Pnncess Thei-mutis, daughter of Pharaoli, looking out tlu'ougli th(^ i .ttico of her bathiii^'-- liouso, on tho banks .1 tlio Nile, saw a curious boat on the river. It hod neither oar nor holm, and they would have bo^n usel'ss anyhow. There was only one passonge. a.id that a baby ])oy. But the Mayflower that brought t]i«j Pilgrini Fathers to America carried not so precious a load. The boat was made of the broad loaves of papyrus tightened together by bitumen. Boats wore some- times made of that material, as mo learn from Pliny, and Herodotus, and Theophrastus. mirlvm's vigil. "KiU every Hebrew boy when he is born," had been Pharaoh's order. To save her son, Jochebc> BROTHERS. 153 pat lawgiver's eyes and they closed; and his lungs and they ceased; and his heart, and it stopped; and commanded, saying: "To the skies Uiou immortal spirit !" And then one divine hand was put against the back of Moses, and the otlier hand against the pulseless breast, and God laid him softly down on Mount Nebo, and then the lawgiver, lifted in the Ahnighty's arms, was carried to the opening of a cave and placed in crypt, and one stroke of the divine hand smoothed the features into an everlasting calm, and a rock wasroUedtothedoor, and the only obsequies at Jhich God did all the offices of priest, and un- mded^''' grave-digger, and mourner, were THE WORLD INDEBTED. Oh, was not Miriam, the sister of Moses, doing a good thing, an important thing, a glorious thmg, when she watched the boat woven of river plants and made water-tight with asphalfcum carrying its one passenger? Did she not put all the ages of time and of a coming eternity under obhgation, when she defended her helpless brother from the perils aquatic, reptUian, and ravenous? She It was who brought that wonderful babe and his mo her together so that he was reared to be the deliverer of his nation, when otherwise, if saved at all from the rushes of the Nile, he would have been only one more of the God-defying Pharaohs; for, Princess Thermutis, of thr bath mg-iiouse, would have inherited the crown of Ji^gypt, and as slio had no cliild of her own this iM X54 SISTEttS ANB BROTHERS. I 1 ill adopted child would have come to coronation. Had there been no Mmam there would hi vo l-oea no Moses. What a garland for faithful ml&t hood! For how many a. lawgiver, and how mi^ny a hero, and how many a deliver.-r, and how many a saint, are this world and thf Church indebted to a watchful, loving, faithful, godly sisterl Come up out of the farm-houses, come up out of the iiAonspicsious homes! Come up from fcha bankt^ of tbe Hudson, and the Penobscot, and the Savanncih, and tlie Mobile, and the Mississippi, angre(^t him, and for a long time sui)per liad Ixmmi waiting. So may it be when the niglit of dcvitli c;omes and our earthly friends cannot go with us, and we dare not go alone; may our Brother, our El(l(>i- JJrollicr, our EYiend, closer than a brother, come out to meet us with the hght of tlio ])romises, which shall be a lantern to oiu- feet^ and then wo will go in to join oiu- loved ones waiting for us, supper all ready, the mai-riage supper of the L:unl). II' I ■ffif m ■}'; !l i fSt.?! 164 THE children's PATRIMONY. Tlie Children's Patrimony. "Whose son art thou, thou young man?"-l Sam. xvii, 58. Never was there a more unequal fight than that between David and GoHath. David five feet high; Goliath ten. David a shepherd boy, brought up amid rural scenes; Goliath a wan-ior by pro- fession. Gohath a mountain of braggadocia; David a marvel of humility. Goliath armed with an iron spear, David armed with a sling with smooth stones from the brook. But you are not to despise these latter weapons. There was a regiment of slingers in the Assyrian army and a regiment of slingers in the Egyptian army, and they made terrible execution, and they could cast a stone with as much precision and force as now can be hurled shot or shell. The Greeks in their army had shngers who would throw leaden plum- mets inscribed with the instating words, "Take fhis!" So it was a mighty weapon David employed in that famous combat. A Jewish rabbi says that the probability is that GoUath was in such contempt for David, that in a paroxysm of laughter he tlirew his head back, and his helmet fell off, and David saw the un- covered forehead, and his opportunity had come, and taking this sling and swinging it around hib head two or three times, and aiming at that ua- THE children's PATRIMOifY. 165 covered forehead, he crushed it in hke an egg. shell. The battle over, BEHOLD A tableau: King Saul sitting, little David standing, his fingera clutched into the hair of decapitated Gohath. Am Saul sees David standing there holding in his hand the ghastly, reeking, staring trophy, evidence of the complete victory over God's enemies, the king wonders what parentage was honored by such heroism, and in my text he asks David his pedi- gree : " Whose son art thou, thou young man ?" The king saw what you and I see, that this question of heredity is a mighty question. The longer I live the more I believe in blood —good blood, bad blood, proud blood, humble l)*ood, honest blood, thieving blood, heroic blood, cowardly blood. The tendency may skip a gener- ation or two, but it is sure to come out, as in a little cliild you sometimes see a similarity to a great-grandfather whose picture hangs on the wall. That the physical and mental and moral quahties are inheritable is patent to any one who keeps his eyes open. The similarity is so striking sometimes as to bo amusing. Great famiUes, regal or literary, are apt to have the character- istics all down through the generations, and what is more perceptible in 8uch families may be seen on a smaller scale in all families. A thousand years have no power to obliterate the difference. ROYAL RASCALS. The large lip of the House of Austria is seen in ^j .1 si liii 100 THE CHILDREN S PATRIMONY. all the generaliorifi, and is called tiae Hapsbiirg lip. The House of Stuart always means in all gener- ations cruelty and bigotry and sensuality. Wit- ness Queen of Scotts. Witness Charles I and Charles II. Witness James I and James II, and all the other scoundrels of that imperial line. Scottish blood means persistence, English blood means reverence for the ancient, Welsh blood means religiosity, Danish blood means fondness for the sea, Indian blood means roaming disposi- tion, Celtic blood means fervidity, Roman lJ(X)d means conquest. The Jewish facility for accumulation you may trace clear back to Abraham, of whom the Bible says, " he was rich in silver and gold and cattle," and to Isaac and Jacob, who had the same FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS. Some families are characterized by longevity, and they have a tenacity of life positively Methu- selish. Others are characterized by Goliathian stature, and you c;in see itforonegent^-ation, two generations, live geiicrations, in all the genera tions. Vigorous theology runs on m the lino of the Alexanders. Tragedy runs on in the family of the Kembles, Literature runs on in the line of Ihe Trollopes. Philanthropy runs on in the line of the Wllberforccs. Statesmanshi}» runs on in the line of the xVdanises. Henry and Caiharine of Navarre religious, all tlieir families r^'ligious. The celeln-ated family of th;; Casiiii, all mathe- maticians. •I'lie celebrate/! family rf the Medici — grandfatlier, son andCalhari!i(> — all remarkabU 1 THE children's patrimony. 167 for keen iuteUect. The celebrated family of Gus- tavus Adolphus, all warriors. This law of heredity asserts itself without ref- erence to social or political condition, for you Bometunes find the ignoble in high place and the honorable m obscure place. A descendant of Edward I a toU-gatherer. A descendant of Ed- ward III a door-keeper. A descendant of the Duke of Northumberland a trunk-maker. Some of the mightiest famihes of England are extinct while some of those most honored in the peerage go back to an ancestry of hard knuckles and rough extenor. This law of heredity entirely in- dependent of social or polirical condition. Then you find avarice and jealousy and sensu- ahty and fraud having full swing in some fami- hes.^ The violent temper of Frederick William is the inheritance of Frederick the Great. It is not a theory to be set forth by worldly philosophy only, but by divine authority. Do you not re- member how the Bible speaks of -a chosen gen- eration," of "the generation of the righteous,'' of the generation of vipers," of an "untoward generation," of "a stubborn generation," of "the iniquity of the past visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation?" So that the text comes to-day with the force of a projectUe hurled from mightiest catapult, "Whose son art thou, i,hou young man?" " Well,"sayssomeone, "thattheory discharges me from m iPsponsibiHty. Born of sanctified i?arents we ^xf bound to be good and we cannot i; I m THE CmtibKETTS tAtRtMONY. help oiirselves. Born of unrighteous parentage we are bound to be evil and we cannot help ourselves." TWO INACCURACIES. As much as if you should say, " the centripetal force in natiu-e has a tendency to bring every- thing to the center, and therefore all things come to the center. The centrifugal force in natiu-^ has a tendency to throw out everything to the periphery, and therefore everything will go out to the periphery." You know as well as I know that you can make the centripetal overcome the centrifugal, and you can make the centrifugal overcome the centripetal. As when there is a mighty tide of good in a family that may be over- come by determination to evil, as in the case of Aaron Biur, the libertine, who had for father President Burr, the consecrated; as in the case of Pierrepont Edwards, the scourge of New York society seventy years ago, who had a Christian ancestry; while on the other hand some of the best men and women of this day are those who have come of an ancestry of which it would not be courteous to speak in their presence. YOUR DUTY. The practical and useful object of this sermon is to show to you that if you have come of a Chris- tian ancestry, then you are solemnly bound to preserve and develop the glorious inheritance; or if you have come of a depraved ancestry, then it is your duty to brace yourself against the evil ten- dency by all prayer and Christian determination. .ri t^'^ai.'imggii^i^-iac.i 1 ia^' THE children's PATRIMCSY. 168 andjouaretofindoutwhatarethefamilyfrailties and m a™,„g the castle put the strongest^S from the brook I hope to strike yo,i, rot where David struck Goliath, in the head, bu ZhZ arc tnou, thou young man?" bi'up ' '""""^^"S i" i^o periodical holidays to THE OLD POLKS. acc^ltr j:^*'^«;"°ter holiday, when wea.e fc^pfhT g^'ther our famihes together, old times have come back again, and our thoughts have been set to the tune of " Auld Lang S™e " The old folks were so busy at such times in mak- ng us happy, and perhaps on less resource iTde heir sons and daughters happier than you on Wger resource are able to make your sonrand danghtei-s happy. The snow lay two feet above their graves, but they shookoffthewWteRaniSs «f th "' *'" ''f''^ festivities-th'am wrinUes the same stoop of sh6ulder under the weight of age, the same old style of dress ot colt the same smile, the same tones of voice I hope you remember them before they went away ?£ you whTtbr "■" ^'^T -ho have recited to you what they were, and that there may be in your house some article of dress or fumitu^ wiS which you associate their memories. IwaXto SVi^kHt ^•'^"' --o-esofyorw wmie i make the mipassioned interrogatory in i :\ Hi ■( |l 170 THE CHlLUIt^V'^ PATRIMONY. I H regard to your p-^ligree: " Whose son art thoti, thou young man?" I. First, I acrost aU those who are descended of a CHRISTIAN ANCESTRY. [ do not ask if your parents were perfect. There are no perfect people noio, and I do not suppose there were any perfect people then. Perhaps there Tvras sometimes too much blood in then- eye when they chastised you. But from what I know of you, you got no more than you deserved, and perhaps a httle more chastisement would have been salutary. But you are willing to acknowl- edge, I think, that they wanted to do right From what you overheard in conversations and from what you saw at the family altar and at neighborhoc»d obsequies, you know that they had invited God into their heart and hf e. There was Bomething that sustained those old people super- naturally. You have no doubt about their destiny. You expect if you ever get to heaven to meet them as'certainly as you expect to meet the Lord Jesus Christ. That early association has been a charm for you. There was a time when you got right up from a house of iniquity and walked out into the fresh air because you thought your mother was looking at you. You have never been very happy in sin because of a sweet old face that would present itself . Tremulous voices from the past accosted you until they were seemingly audible, and you looked around to see who spoke. There THE CHILDREN'S PATRIMONY. I7l was an estate no^ mentioned in the last will and testament a vast estate of prayer and holy exam- ple and Christian entreaty and glorious memory The survivors of the family gathered to hear the wiU read and this was to be kept, and that was to be sold, and it was share and share ahke. But there was AN UNWRITTEN WILL that read something like this: " In the name of God, Amen. I, being of sound mind, bequeath to my children aU my prayers for their salvation; I bequeath to them all the results of a hfetime's toil; I bequeath to them the Christian religion which has been so much comfort to me, and I hope may be solace for them; I bequeath to them a hope of re-union when the partings of life are over; share and share ahke may they have in eternal riches. I bequeath to them the wish that they may avoid my errors and copy anything that may have been worthy. In the name of God who made me, and the Christ who redeemed me, and " the Holy Ghost who sanctified me, I make this my last wiU and testament. Witness, all ye hosts of heaven. Witness, time; witness, eternity feigned, sealed, and delivered in this our dvine hour. Father and Mother." You did not get that will proved at the sur- rogate s office; but I take it out to-day and I read it to you; I take it out of the alcoves of your heart; I shake the dust off it; I ask you will you accept that inheritance, or will you break the will? ye of Christian ancestry, you have a re- 1 I I' it 172 THE children's PATRIMONY. sponsibility vast beyond all ineasureinentl Qod will not let you off with just being as good as or- dinary people when you had such extraordinary advantage. Ought not a flower planted in a hot- house be more thrifty than a flower planted out- side in the storm? Ought not a factory turned by the Housatonic do more work than a factory turn- ed by a thin and shallow mountain stream? Ought not you of great early opportunity be better than those who had a cradle unblessed? THE CAPITAL ACCOUNT. A father sets his son up in business. He keepa an account of all the expenditures. So much for store fixtures, so nmch for rent, so much for this, so much for that, and all the items aggregated, and the father «vpects the son to give nti account. Your heavenly Father charges against you all the advantages oi c* pious ancestiy — so many prayers, so much Chri-iJ.'in example, so many kind en- treaties — all these gracious influences one tre- mendous aggregate, and He asks you for an ac- count of it. Ought not you to be better than those who had no such advantages? Better have been a foundling picked up off the city commons than with such magnificent inheritance of consecration to turn out indifferently. Ought not you, my brother, to be better, hav- ing had Christian nurture, than that man who can truly say this morning: "The first word I re- member my father speaking to me was an oath; the first time I remember mjr father taking hold THE children's PATRIMONY. 178 of mo was in wrath; I never saw a Bible till I was ten years of age, and then I was told it was a pack of lies. The first twenty years of my life 1 was associated with the vicious. I seemed to bo walled in by sin and death." Now, mv brother, ought you not-I leave if n. a matter of fairness with you-ought you not be far bet- ter than those who had no earl xiristian in- fluence? Standing as you do between tlio generation that is past and the generation that is to come are y i gcnig to pass the blessing on, or are you going to have your life the gulf in which that tide of blessing shall drop out of sight forever? I ou are THE TRUSTEE OF PIETY in that ancestral hue, and are you going to augment or squander that solemn trust fund? Are you going to disinherit your sons and daughters of the heirloom which your parents left you? Ah! that cannot be possible, that cannot be possible that you are going to take such a position as that. You are very careful about the life insurances, and cr.reful about the deeds and careful about the mortgages, and care- ful about the title of your property, because when you step off the stage you want your chil- dren to get it all. Are you making no provision that they shaU get grandfather and grandmother's religion? Oh, what a last will and testament you are making, my brother! "In the name of God Amen. I. bemg of goujjd mind, n^al^e this my urn -,1 ) ! MICROCOPY RESOLUTION 'EST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 1.25 I 4-5 1^ 2.8 ■ 4.0 11 1^ 2.2 1 2.0 1.6 ^ APPLIED IIVMGE Inc ^Sr 1653 East Main Street S'.S Rochester, New York 14609 USA '.^ (716) 482 - 0300- Phone SaaS (716) 288 - 5989 - Fox 174 THE children's PATRIMONY. last will and testament, i bequeath to my chil- dren all the money I ever made and all the houses I own; but I disinherit them, I rob them of the ancestral grace and the Christian in- fluence that I inherited. I have squandered that on my own worldliness. Share and share alike must they in the misfortune and the everlasting outrage. Signed, sealed and dehvered in the pres- ence of God and men and angels and devils and all the generations of earth and heaven and hell, March, 1S8G." ye of highly favored ancestry, wake up this morning to a sense of your opportunity and your responsibility. I think there must be AN OLD CRADLE, or a fragment of a cradle somewhere that could tell a story of midnight supplication in your behalf. Where is the old rocking-chair in which you were sung to sleep with the holy nursery rhyme? Where is the old clock that ticked away the moments of that sickness on that awful night when there were but three of you awake —you and God and mother? Is there not an old staff in some closet? is there not an old family Bible on some shelf that seems to ad- dress you, saying: "My son, my daughter, how can you reject that God who so kindly dealt with us all our lives and to whom we commended you in our prayers living and dying! By the memory of the old homestead, by the family altar, by our dying pillow, by the graves in which our bodies sleep while our spirits hover, we beg you to twtt THE CHILDREN'S PATRIMONY. 175 over a new leaf for the new year." Oh the power of ancestral piety, well illustrated by a young „,a„ of New York who attended a pmL meetmg one night and asked for prayer and then went home and wrote down these wordsf un^ AN ENTRY IN A DIARY. wenrtTtf''" ^'"^'-^^SO to-night my mother andTl^vlT N'"^ "'■'""f"'' "^«««' mother, and lime hecn alone, tossed up and down upon the bdlows of life's tempestuous ocean. ShaU I e^-er go to hea™,? She told me I must meet er heis and turned her gentle, loving eyes on me tT4trdtr"?"r'"' '°""" "^^'jyC, ri then 1 fted them to heaven in that last prayer she prayed that I might meet her in heaven. I won derif I over shall* " My motlKfs prayers! Oh, my sweet WpsspH mother's prayers! Did ever'boy hX' uch a mother as I hadi For twentyfive years I hive not heard her pray until to-nigM. / W ht^ all her prayej-s over again. They have had n fact a terrible resurrection. Oh, how she was won to pr,,y! She prayed as they prayed to n^H so earnest, so importunate, so'hdeWng fflfl w bri ht' "';■"'"" • "'^^ ™^ - ChristiS Uh, how br ght and pure and happy was her lifei She was a cheerful and happy ChLian. Tht ^ , ^^Y mother's bible. I ri"l'''"''/\'7 ^^^"•^- ^^^ '"^^ Relieve J- eouia exev neglect her precious Bible ? She ' I- >. ':hV \ l\ } / SI ftf l.;',f'mii i. j>K i nTi'Tnjn.r i ri >» I 176 THE CHILDREN S PATRIMONY. surely thought I would read it much and often. How often has she read it to me. Blessed mother, did you pray in vain for your boy? It shall not be in vain. Ah! no, no, it shall not be in vain. I will pray for myself. Who has sinned against so much instructions as I have ? against so many precious prayers put up to heaven for me by one of the most lovely, tender, pious, confiding, trasting of mother's in her heavenly Father's care and grace? She never doubted. She believed. She always prayed as if she did. My Bible, my mother's Bible and my conscience teach what I am and what I have made myself. Oh, the bitter pangs of an accusing conscience. I need a Saviour mighty to save. I must seek him. I will. I am on the sea of existence, and I can never get off from it, I am afloat. No anchor, no rudder, no compass, no book of instructions, for I have put them all away from me. Saviour of the perisliing, save or I perish." Do you wonder that the next day he arose in a prayer-meeting and said: "My brethren, I stand before you a monument of God's amazing mercy and goodness, forever blessed be His holy name; all I have and all I am I consecrate to Jesus, my Saviour and my God." Oh, the power of ances- tral prayer. Hear it ! Hear it ! n. But I turn for a moment to those who had EVIL PARENTAGE, and I want to tell you that the highest thrones in heaven, and the mightiest triumphs, and the brightcBt crowns will be for those w^ho had evil THE CHILDKEN-S PATHIMOXy. J 77 iTuse*?,?r' ''"* 'f "y "''' S^^^'' °f God conquered mos consecmted and useful Christian u,L* founded by an^an who, after helaT va ' str two* ett ;.r V^ ttX- -~ twentieth generation. The f hir«f f • ^ one torm of evil, sometimes anotherform of evil ., , , ^'^ MAY BE RESISTED. it has been resisted. If thef-mii^fvo-u i, ice, cultivate unselfishnera^h^t*^,^^^ your children np^mr. f ^ ^ «-^i'iriiy, and teach fng so Jbody: sriaS fit"" ?ft T'""-* »«- combativeuess, keen ou ' J/ *" ^^■"'lyfeilty quick-tempere^ peZe and never '"""^"^ ^^ v.^^' J jr"^'-'iJitj, ana never answpr nn it>t dred both ways, and after you have writteft^o \l \ < , 1 !t 1)^ 178 THE children's PATRIMONY. angiy letter keep it a week before you send it, and then burn it up. Is the family frailty timidity and cowardice, cultivate backbone, read the biography of bravo men like Joshua or Paul, and see if you cannot get a little iron in your blood. Find out what the family frailty is, and set body, mind, and soul in battle array. CONQUER YOUR WILL. I think the genealogical table was put in the first c>iapter of the New Testament, not only to show our Lord's pedigree, but to show that a man may rise up in an ancestral Hue and beat back success- fully all the influences of bad heredity. See in that genealogical table that good King Asa came of vile King Abia. See in t hat genealogical table that Joseph and Mary and the most illustri- ous Being that ever touched our world, or ever will touch it, had in their ancestral hue scandal- lous Rehoboam and Tamar and Bathsheba. If this world i'.' ever to be Edenized— and it will be— all the infected famihes of the earth are to be regener- ated, and there will some one arise in each family line and open a new genealogical table. There will be some Joseph in the line to reverse the evil influence of Rehoboam, and there will be some Mary in the line to reverse the evil influence of Bathsheba. Perhaps the star of hope may point down to your manger. Perhaps you are to be the hero or the heroine that is to put down the brakes and stop that long train of genealogical tenden- cies and switch it off on another track from that on which if has been running for a centmy, Tou THE children's Patrimony. 179 do that, and I wiU promise you as fine a palace as the architects of heaven can build, the archway inscribed with the words: -More than con- queror." ADOPTED CHILDREN. But Whatever your heredity, let me say, you may be sons and daughters of the Lord God Ahmghty. Estranged children from the home- '^'f'^''^^^?^^^''oughfheopen gate of adop- tion. There is royal blood in our veins. There are crowns m our escutcheon. Our Father is King Our Brother IS King. We may be kings an^l queens unto God forever. Come and sit dLn on the ivory bench of the palace. Con.e and wash in the fountains that fall into the basins of crystal and alabaster. Come and look out of the uphol- stered window upon gardens of azalea and Ama- ranth. Lear the full burst of the orchestra while wW^lT ;'^'*^ potentates and victors. Oh, fT.? ?f tft sweeps backward, let it not stop a cradle that rocked the first world, and when the text sweeps forward, let it not stop at your grave but at the throne on which you m'ay rein ffreve^- man"% T^T ^^^ ^'' *^--' «-" "o-g man Son of God ! Heir of mortality I Take your inheritance! ^ *-■* 180 "motherhood." ** motlierhood/* ii " Moreover his mother made hun a little coat, and brought it ore than enough in another Whippnig and a dark closet do not exhaust Ji "e:n'Sen^.t'ht ^^^ ^^ S.o^withouteveri:rX^;:;fr^^^^^^^^ Oh how much care and imellige, are neces sary nj the rearing of children ! But in LIZ when there are so many books on the subiect no parent ,s excusable in being ignora.rt of the best mot "of S^' Z " ^'""'- " I-'-t "'ntw more of d etetics there would not he so nnnv potent livers among children. If parents knew more of physiology there would no be so m^" tS rr,-""' c-n>ped chests, and infircl cMdtn V '''T\'""«''^^ "'^'-^ •■^■•e among children. If parents knew more of art, and were m sympathy withall that is beautiful, therewouU wl bo° T^ ","'*"^ ^™""g «»t i" the w»ld o/chrisT T"'™''''- "'''-^''""^ knew more of Christ, and practiced more of His religion sti'nron t."°* '"' '" '""'^ "*«<' *-t «>'--<'y starting on the wrong road, and aU around us voices of riot and blasphemy would not coma up <»-ith such ecstasy of infernal triumpU. ; I','' ■ t i h I I ,! 'I - H ( 'I ,0iimmti»m 186 (( MOTHERHOOD )» The eaglets in the ejrie have no advantages over the eaglets of a thousand years ago; the kida have no superior way of climbing up the rocks than the old goats taught hundreds of years ago; the whelps know no more now than did the Whelps of ages ago— they are taught no more by the lions of the desert; but it is a shame that in this day, when there are so many opportunities of improving ourselves in the best manner of cul- tivating children, that so often there is no more advancement in this respect than there has been among the kids and the eaglets and the whelps. III. Again, Hannah stands before you as a Christian mother. From her prayers and from the way she consecrated her boy to God, I know that she was good. A mother may have the finest culture, the most brilliant surroundings; but she is not fit for her duties unless she be a Christian mother. There may bo well-read libraries in the house, and exquisite music in the parlor, and the canvas of the best artists adorning the walls, and the wardrobe be crowded with tasteful apparel, and the children be wonderful for their attain- ments, and make the house ring with laughter and innocent mirth; but there is something woe- ful-looking in that house, if it be not also the residence of a Christian mother. I bless God there are not many prayerless mothers— not many of them. The weight of responsibility is so gre..c that they feel the need of a Divine hand to help, and a Divine voice to comfort, and a Divine heart to sympathize. (( MOTI, ;tHOOD." 187 Thousands of mothers have been led info +h« tiren There were hundreds of mothers whn ?;°"!<'"'"l;f-ebeen Christians had i S b"en dav in ^f *'' "' *'^'^" ""'« »"'^«- S'-°'ling some "ThircMd Srr *'^ '''"^""S'^' themilves! wrw • °'' ^^^ Siven me to raise for eternitv What IS my influence upon it? Not being a Chnstian myself, liow can I ever exnect W™ i^ oecome a Christian ? Lord lielp me'"*^ ^^ Are their anxious mothers, who know nothino- of themfinitehelpof religion? ThenIcoI°end? hen. Hannah, the pious mother of Samud Do not thmlc It IS absolutely impossible that your cWldren come „p miquitous. Out of just such fair brows and bright eyes, and soft hands, and innocl hearts cnme gets its victims-ext rpating purf * rem the heart, and rubbing out the smoothes, from the brow, and quenching the luster of th" eye, and shriveling up, and polonhig and putrt fyiiig, and scathing, and scaldh,g, and Uasti ^ and burning with shame and woe ^' Every child is a bundle of tremendous rossi biht.es; and whether that child shaU come forth o Me, ,ts heart attuned to the eternal hamonies and after a life of usefulness on earth~a ,ife of joy m heaven; or whether across it shaU jar etenial discords, and after a life of ~ doing on earth it shall go to a home of impS be darkness and an abyss of imm™frraW« bath lesson, and evening prayer, and walk, and t 'I hM , f mtmmmmm 188 '* MOTHERHOOD." ride, and look, and frown, and smile. Oh ♦ ,k^< many children in glory, crowding all the battle- ments, and lifting a milUon-voiced hosanna, brought to God through Christian parentage. One hundred and twenty clergymen were to- gether, and they were telling their experience and their ancestry; and of the one hundred and twenty clergymen, how many of them, do you suppose, assigned as the ni ins of their conversion the in- fluence of a Christian mother ? One hundred out of the one hundred and twenty! Phihp Dod- dridge was brought to God by the Scripture lesson on the Dutch tiles of a chimney fireplace. The mother thinks she is only rocking a child, but at the same time she may be rocking the fate o£ nations, rocking the glories of heaven. The same maternal power that may lift the child up may press a child down. A daughter came to a worldly mother and said she was anxious about her sins, and she had been prapng all night. The mother said : " Oh, stop praying. I don't believe in praying. Get over all these rehgious notions and I'll give you a Iress that wiE cost five hundred dollars, and you may wear it next week to that party." The daughter took the dress, and she moved in the gay circle, the gayest of all the gay, that night; and sure enough, all religious impressions were gone, and she stopped praying. A few months after she came to die, and in her closing moments said: "Mother, I wish you would bring me that dress %]i^i cost five huudre4 doUarg," The mother t( . OTHERIIOOD, 189 thcteight it a very strange request, but she brou£?ht It to please the dying child. "Now," said the daughter "mother, hang that dress on the foot of my bed, and the dress was hung there, on the foot of the bed. Then the dying girl got up on one elbow and looked at her mother, and then pointed to the dress, and said, "Mother, that dress IS the price of my soul!" Oh, what a momentous thing it IS to be a mother. IV. Again, and lastly, Hannah stands before you the rewarded mother. For all the coats she made for Samuel, for all the prayers she o^ered for him, for the discipline exerted over him, she got abundant compensation in the piety, and the usefulness, and the popularity of her son Samuel; and that is true in all ages. Every mother gets tirll pay for all the prayers and tears in behalf of her children. That man useful in commercial life; that man prominent in a profession; that master mechanic-why, every step he takes in life has an echo of gladntjs in the old heart that long ago taught him to be a Christian, and heroic and earnest. The story of what you have done, or what you have written, of the influence you have exerted has gone back to the old homestead- -for there is some one always ready to carry good tidings and that story makes the needle i]i the r.ld mother's tremulous hand fly quicl^er, and t]io flail in the father's hand come down upon the Itju floor with a vigorous thump. Parents lovf, to hear good »h]'. ' f 190 "»i;jTHERHOOD." news from their children. Do you send them good news always? Look out for the young man who speaks of hiu father as "the governor, ' the "squire," or th<) " old chap." Look out for the young v. oman who <^alls her mother her "maternal ancestor," or the " old woman." "The eye that mocketh at his father, and ref useth to ohey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." God grant that all these parents may have the great satisfaction of seeing their children grow up Christians. But oh! the pang of that mother who, after a life of street-gadding and gossip-retailing, hanging on the children the fripperies and follies of this world, sees those children tossed out on the sea of life like foam on the wave, or nonentities in a world where only bravery and stalwart character can stand the shock. But blessed be the mother who looks upon her children as sons and daugh- ters of the Lord Almighty. Oh! the satisfaction of Hannah in seeing Sam- uel serving at the altar; of Mother Eunice in seeing her Timothy learned in the Scriptures. That is the mother's recompense: to see children coming up useful in the world, reclaiming the lost, healing the sick, pitying the ignorant, earnest and useful in every sphere. That throws a new light back on +he old family Bible whenever she reads it, and thai will be ointment to soothe the aching limbs of decrepitude, and light up the closing hours of life's day with the glories of 9.1; ^mturnuaJ sunset. "motherhood." 191 There she sits, the old Christian mother, ripe for heaven. Her eyesight is abtiost gone, but the splendors of the Celestial City kindle fp h^r v" io^T The gray hght of Heaven's morn has struck through the gray locks which are folded back over the wrinkled temples. She stoops very much now under the bm-den of care she used to carry for her to the house of God; but while she sits there aU the past comes back, and the children that forty yeai^ ago tapped around her arm-chair with their gnefs, and joys, and sorrows-those children are gone now. Some caught up into a better realm where they shall never die, and others out to the broad world, testing the exceUency of a Christian mother's discipline. Her last days are lull ofpeace; and calmer and sweeter will her spirit become, until the gates of life shall Hft and let m the worn-out pilgrim into eternal springtide and youth, where the limbs never ache, and the ed and decrepit pilgiim shall become the pahn oi the immortal athlete. ^ I i Ml i'i M' { I 'T:»: TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPING. Trials of Housekeeping:. •'Lord, dost Thou not care that my sister hath left me to ««rve alone? Bid her, therefore, that she help nie." Luke x, 40. Yonder is a beautiful village homestead. The man of the house is dead, andhis widow is talcing charge of the premises. This is the widow Mar- tha of Bethany. Yes, I will show you also the pet of the household. This is Mary, the younger sister, with a book under her arm, and her face having no appearance of anxiety or perturbation, Company has come. Christ stands outside the door, and, of course, there is a good deal excite- ment inside the door. The disarranged furniture is hastily put aside, and the hair is brushed back, and the dresses are adjusted as well as, in so short a time, Mary and Martha can attend to these matters. They did not keep Clu-ist standing at the door until they were newly appareled, ol until they had elaborately arranged their tresses, then coming out Avith their affected surprise as though they had not heard the two or three pre- vious knockings, saying: ' ' Why, is tha,t you?" No. They were ladies, and were always presentablCf although they may not have always had on their best, for none of us always have on our best; if we did, our best would not be worth having on. They throw open the door and greet Christ, They TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPING. lyy seated. Christ did iu>t come alone; He had a group of tneiids with hhn, and such an mflux of city visitors would throw any country homo hito perturba ion. I suppose also the walk from the city had been a good appetizer. The kitchen de- partment that day was a very important depart- . ment and I suppose that Martha had no sooner greeted the guests than she fled to that room. Mary had no anxiety about household affairs She had full confidence that Martha could get up the best dinner in Bethany. She seems to say: iNow let us nave a division of labor. Martha you cook, and I'll sit down and be good." So you have often seen a great difference between two sisters. There is Martha, hard-working, pains- taking, a good manager, ever inventive of some new pastry, or discovering something in the art of cooking and housekeeping. There is Mary also, fond of conversation, literary, so engaged in deep questions of ethics she has no time to attend to the questions of household welfa-e. It is noon Maiy IS in the parlor with Christ. Martha is in the kitchen It would have been better if they had divided the work, and then they could have divided the opportunity of listening to Jesus; but Mary monopoHzes Christ while Martha swelters at the fire It was a very important thing that they should have a good dinner that day. Christ vras hungry, and He did not ofi;en have a luxurious «ntertamment. Alas, me! if the duty had devolved upon Mary, what a repast that would have been t fj i'- ' -i ■*if « r!* '- 194 TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPING. But something went wrong in the kitchen. Perhaps the fire would not bnrn, or the bread would not bake, or Martha scalded her hand, or something was burned black that ought only to have been made brown; and Martha lost her patience, and forgetting the proprieties of the occnsion, with beswcatcvl brow, and, perhaps with pitcher in one hand and tongs in the other, she rushes out of the kitchen into the jn'csence of Christ, saying: "Lord, dost Thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone^" Christ scolded not a word. If it were scolding, I should rather have His scolding than anybody else's blessing. There was nothing acerb. He knew Martha had almost worked herself to death to get Him something to eat, and so He throws a world of tenderness into His intonation as He seems to say: "My dear woman, do not worry; let the dimier go; sit down on this ottoman beside Mary, your younger sister, Martha, Martha, tliou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful." As Mai-tha throws open that kitchen door, I look in and see a great many household perplexities and anxieties. First, there is the trial of non-appreciation. That is what made Martha so mad with Mary. The younger sister had no estimate of her older sister's fatigues. As now, men bothered Avith the anxieties of the store, and office, and shop, or coming from the Stock Exchange, they say when they get home : " Oh, you ought to be in our factory a little while; you ought to have to man- TRIALS OP HOUSEKEEPINa. l' *" <'-W>mte a Kept for Chnstian hoiisokeepei-s. Oh wliat a change fi-om here to therc-fr„ni the time ,^ieu they put down the rolling-pin to when they t ke derbilt Mansion on Fifth Avenue were to be lifted mto the Celestial City, they would be coi^iderel unmhabitablo rookeries, and o-lorifl,.,) T.,l„ woum.e ashamed to he goin«iirSt oVX ai^itrth^STt--^^^^^^^^^^^ and troiililo Ti, c i- ^"- """' ™i sickness of tl,»T r ^'"'' '"' ™^-'>'*'f "t the women of the land are more or less nivalids. The no tarn lass who has never had an ache 01 n" nayconsi,Ier Jiousehold toil inconsi.leniWe ; d u..ateuo-c.ocrru^a;:-"-tuts 11 'f I 200 TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPING. laughing racket; but oh, to do the work of life with worn-out constitution, when whooping- cough has been raging for six weeks in the house- hold, making the night as sleepless as the day— that is not so easy. Perhaps this comes after the nerves have been shattered by some bereavement that has left desolation in every rooiii of the house, and set the crib in the garret, because the occu- pant has been hushed into a slumber which needs no mother's lullaby. Oh, she could provide for the whole gi'oup a great deal better than she can for a part of the gi'oup, now the rest are gone. Though you may tell her God is taking care of those who are gone, it is mother-like to brood both flocks; and one wing she puts over the flock in the house, the other wing she puts over the flock in the grave. There is nothing but the old-fashioned religion of Jesus Christ that will take a woman through the trials of home Uf e. At first there may be a romance or a novelty that will do for a substitute. The marriage hour has just passed, and the per- plexities of the household are more than atoned by the joy of being together, and by the fact that when it is late they do not have to discuss the question as to whether it is time to go. The mis- haps of the household, instead of being a matter of anxiety and reprehension, are a matter of merriment— the loaf of bread turned into a geolo- gical specimen; the slushy custards; the jaundiced or measly biscuits. It is a very bright sunlight TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPING. £01 of 't fri!: h» 'J '"""^ ^"^ *" --'«' -~ts But after awhile the romance is all gone and table that the book called " Cookery Taught in Twe ve Lessons" will not teach. The roceint for n.a tang ,t is not a handful of this, a 0,1 ' that a,Kl a spoonful of something else. It fa not somethmg sweetened with ordinaiy con limen s or flavored with ordinary flavors, oi baked no': dinary ovens. It is the loaf of domestic haJne^s- a. all the ingredients come down from "n and the fruits are plucked from the tree of ife ^.«I It IS sweetened with tho new wine of he kmgdom and it fa baked in the oven of ho e tiial Solomon wrote out of his own experience aX s^s, Si::;:! 7,t 'r ^'^ '^'-''^ '(■o li. • y^^^^fc. out ot Ins own exDerieiipp • Better ,s a dinner of herbs where love fa than a stalled ox and hatred therewith " kefnZ ^'X.T *' '■<'«P°">^iWlities of house- fooTbv its eT ""'' ''" """g-'stible article of tood, by Its efJect upon a commander or king has flefeated an army or overthrown an em, e Housekeepers, by the food they provide, Wffie couches they spread, by the books they introduce are Secillw'tr ''^ 't« """"'^ "-"■ ''- -^ 'Hi li •I' 'If- 202 TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPING. Nightingale's life ; that was Payson's life ; that was Christ's life. We admire it in others ; hut how very hard it is for us to cultivate ourselves. When in this city, young Doctor Hutchison, hav- ing spent a whole night in a diphtheretic-room for the relief of a patient, hecanie saturated with the poison and died, we all felt as if we would like to put garlands on his grave; everyhody appreciates that. When in the burning hotel at St. Louis, a young man on the fifth story broke open the door of the room where his mother was sleeping, and plunged in amid smoke and fire, crying: "Mother! where are you?" and never came out, our hearts applauded that young man. But how few of us have the Christian-like spirit — a willingness to suffer for others. A rough teacher in a school called upon a poor, half -starved lad, who had offended against the laws of the school, and said: "Takeoff your coat directly, sir." The boy re- fused to take it off. Whereupon the teacher said again : "Take off your coat, sir," as he swung the whip through the air. The boy refused; it was not because he was afraid of the lash — ^he was used to that at home— but it was from shame; he had no undergarment, and as at the third com- mand he pulled slowly oft' his coat, there went a Bob through the school. They saw then why he did not 'w^ant to remove his coat, and they saw the shoulder blades had almost cut through the skin, and a stout healthy boy rose up and went to the teacher of the school, and said: "Oh, sir, please don't hvu-t tliis poor fellow- whip me: sea TRIAIS OF HOUSEKEEPING. 203 he's notliing but a poor chap; don't you hurt him '-t'!^' Ti """ " ^^"'" -i'> the z:z: bov^'lT-f "" «"«tute." "WeU," said the boy, I don't care; you whip me, if you will let h,. poor fellov ■ go." The stout hea'iy boy tool the scourging without an outcry. " Bravo." says h?f.i, , *! """"'•S'ng. and the suffering, and the toil and the anxiety for other people. Beau h^ oMf Vd™"' '"* '^"^^ '''«^ -« havHf tnat spirit. God give us that self-denvina- snirit so hat whether we are in humble sEo'ii; durfor'Jb'P^'^'';™™'^^ P«rf~-™ «"r whole dutj -for this struggle will soon be over. One of the most affecting reminiscences of my mother IS myremembrance of lier as a Christian housekeeper. She worked veiy hard, and when we would come in from summer pay, and srt down at ,he table at noon, I remember\ow she the me 77 "' r* '^'"* "' P-«P"-'^«on along the line of gray hair, and how some times ^hn would ,it down at the table, and put ^7 head wet lb, Im too tired to oat." Lonsr after*, might have delegated this duty to others she would not be satisfied unless sh/attonded to he her do so, for somehow things tasted better when she prepared them. Some time ago, in an e^ looked'^'i 'J^ "''' *'^* °''' homestead, i looked out of the window, and tried to peer ' ,t i- M Li Iff- ^ m'\ J I f ilidika 204 TRIALS OF HOUSEKEEPINa. through the darkness. While I was doing sa one of my old schoolmates, whom I had not seen for many years, tapped me on the shoulder, and said : " DeWitt, I seo you are looking out at th« scenes of vour boyhood." "O, yes," I replied, "I waslodk' Jigout at tha old place where my mother lived and died." That night, in the cars, the whole scene came back to me. There was the country home. There was the noonday table. There were the children on eisher side of the table — most of them gone never to come back. At one end of the table, my father, with a smile that never left his countenance even when he lay in his coffin. It was an eighty-six years' smile— not the smile of inanimation, but of Christian courage and Christian hope. At the other end of the table was a beautiful, benignant, hard-working, aged Christian housekeeper, my mother. She was very tired. I am glad she has so good a place to rest in. "Blessed are the dead who die in the I ord; they rest from their labors, and their work» do follow them." V\^OMAN AND HER POWER, Women ^iiio Figisi the Hattle of l,ife Aloue. "Every wise womau bu;idolli lier house."— Prov. 14: 1, Woman a mere adjunct to man, an ap})e]idix to the masculine volume, an appendage, a sort of after-thought, something thrown in to make things even— that is the Jiuresy entertained and imphed by some men. Tliiy is evident to them : Woman's insignificance, as compared to man, is evident to them, because Adam was firot created, and then Eve. They don't read the whole story, or they would find that the porpoih:e and the bear and the hawk were created before Adam, so that this argument, drawn from priority of creation, might prove that the sheep and the dog were greater than man. No. Woman was an inde- pendent creation, and was intended, if she chose, to live ale: 3, to walk alone, act alone, think alonoi and fight her battles alone. The Bible says it is not good for man to be alone, but never says it is not good for woman to be alone ; and the simple fact is, that many women who are harnessed for life in the marriage relation would be a thousand toH better off if they were alone. It li!f> ^ir*. 8 WOMEN WHO FIQITT THE Who are these men who, year after year, hang around hotels and engine-liouses and theatre doors, and come in and out to bother busy clerks and merchants and mechanics, doing nothing, when there is plenty to do ? They are MEN SUPPORTED BY THEIR WIVES and mothers. If the statistics of any of our cities could be taken on this subject, you would find that a vast multitude of women not only support themselves, but masculines. A great legion of men amount to nothing, and a woman by mar- riage, manacled to one of these nonentities, needs condolence. A woman standing outside the mari'iage relation is several hundred thousand times better off than a woman badly married. Many a bride, instead of a wreath of orange blossoms, might more properly wear a bunch of nettles and nightshade, and, instead of the Wed- ding March, a more appropriate tune would be the Dead March in Saul, and, instead of a banquet of confectionery and ices, there might be more ap- propriately spread a table covered with apples of Sodom. THE DOVE AND THE VULTURE. Many an attractive woman, of good sound sense in other things, has married one of these men to reform him. What was the result ? Like when a dove, noticing that a vulture was rapacious and cruel, set about to reform it, and said, "I have a mild disposition, and I hke peace, and was llli tl BATTLE OF LIFE ALONE. & brought up in the quiet of a dove-cote, and I will bring the vulture to the same liking by marrying him." So, one day, after the vulture declared he would give up his carnivorous habits and cease longmg for blood of flock and herd, at an altar of rock covered with mossnndhchen, the twain were married, a bald headed eagle officiating, the vulture saying, " With all my dominion of earth and sky, I thee endow, and ])romise to love and cherish till death do us pait." But one day the dove in her fright, saw the vulture busy at a car- cass, and cried, " Stop that ! did you not promise me that you would quit your carnivorous and filthy habits if I married you 2" " Yes," said the vulture, "but if you don't like my way, you can leave," and with one angry sti-oke of heak, and another fierce clutch of claw, the vulture left the dove eyeless and wingless and lifeless. And a flock of robins flying past, cried to each other and said, " See there ! that comes from a dove's marrying a vulture to reform him . " Many a woman who has had the hand of a young inebriate offered, but declined it, or who was asked to chain her life to a man selfish, or of bad temper, and refused the shackles, will bless God throughout all eternity that she escaped that earthly Pandemonium. ENFORCED CELIBACY. Besides all this, in our country about one mil- lion men were sacrificed in our Civil War, and that decreed a million women to cehbacy.' Be- ■jj 1 >['■' i: 10 WOMEN WHO FIOHT THE sides that, since tlie war, several armies of men as large as the Federal and Confederate ainiies put to^-ether, have fallen under niidt li(iuors and distilled spirits, so full o2 poisoned ingredients that the work was d(jni; more raindly, and the victims fell while yet young. And if fifty tliou- sand men are destroyed every yeju* hy strong drink before marriage, that makes in the twenty-three years since the war one million one hundred and fifty thousand men slain, and decrees one million Due hundred and fifty thousand women to celibacy. Take, then, the fact that so many women are un- happy in their marriage, and the fact that the slaughter of two million one hundi-ed and fifty thousand men, by war and rum cond)iiK>d, decides that at least that mimber of women shall be un- affianced fdi- lift% my text comes in with a cheer and a potency and appropriateness that I never saw in it before whc^n it says, "Every wise woman buildeth her house ;" that is, let woman be her own architect, lay out her own plans, be her own supervisor, achieve her own destiny. In addressing these women who will have to fight the battle alone, I congratulate you on YOUR HAPPY ESCAPE. Eejoice forever that you will not have to navigate the faults of the other sex, when you have faults enough of your own. Thiiik of the bereavements you avoid, of the risks of unassimilated temper which you will not have to run, of the cares you will never have to carry, and of the opportunity of BATTLE OF UPE ALONE. jj yon a ha,.d lot, a. ccupaa.! wiU y ."tiCl" As no boy onght to be brought iin witlio„t withouSn- V" ^"^ ""«'" '" "^^ "'-t'Lt u, THE SCIENCE OF SELF-SUPPORT. o'.l'lho'S^fl,:'. t'' ™""^ '-^ *'""'y Soes sailing on tlio high tides of success, and the liusbaud and father depniids on his own health and a ',1 Ss tr; f" ?' >'fe ''onsehold, but one d ^ . nas Closed Ins hfe, and tlie daiightei's are turn,.rl out on a cold world to earn bLl, and t "r" is nothing prac ical that they can do. The f ™d, come in and hold consultation 'Give music lessons," sny.s an outsider. Yes that IS a useful calling, and if y„„ i,,,.^ „,e J genius for it, go ou iu tliat direct ou. Bui Ce '«!. W' i!^i 11 H\ 12 WOMEN WHO FIGHT THE are enough music teaclieis now starving to death in all our towns and cities, to occui»y all the piano stools and sofas and chairs and front-door steps of the city, besides that, the daughter has heen playing only for ainusenieiit, and is only at the foot of the ladder, to the top of which a great multitude of masters on piaoo and harp and llute and organ have climbed. "Put the bereft daughters as saleswomen in stores," says another adviser. But there they must compete with salesmen of long experience, or with men who have served an apprenticeship in commerce and who began as shop boys at ten years of age. Some kind-hearted diy goods man, having known the father, now gone, says, " We are not in need of any more help just now, but send your daughters to my store, and I will do as well by them as possible. Very soon the ques- tion comes up. Why do not the female employes of that establishment get as much wages as the male employes ? For the simple reason, in many cases, the females were suddenly flung by mis- fortune behind that counter, while the males have from the day they left the public echool been learning the business. How is this evil to be cured ? Start clear back in the homestead and TEACH YOUR DAUGHTERS that life is a,n earnest thing, and that there is a possibility, if not a strong probability, that they will have to fight the battle of life alone. Let BATTLK or LTFR AI.ONR. 13 every father and mother say to tlieir cluuf^hters NoNv, what would you do for a HveHli.jod if what I now own wore swept away by financial disaster or old age, or death should end my career r ^ '' Well, I could paint on pottery and do such decorative work." Yes, that is beautiful, and if you have genius for it go on in that direction. But there are enougli busy at that novv to make a hue of hardware from here to the East River and across the bridge. ''Well, I could make recitations in public and earn my living as a dramatist ; I could render King Lear or Macbeth till your hair would rise on end or give you Sheridan's Ride or Dickens' Pickwick." Yes, that is a beautiful art,, but ever and anon, as now, there is an epidemic of dram- atization that makes hundreds of households nervous with the cries and shrieks and groans of young tragediennes dying in the fifth act, and the trouble is that while your friends would like to hear you, and really think that you could sur- pass Ristori and Charlotte Cushman and Fanny Ivemble ot tha past, to say nothing of the present you could not, in the way of living, in ten yeai4 earn ten cents. j ^^o My advice to all girls and all unnmmed women whether in affluent homes or in homes wher^ most stringent economies are grinding, is to learn to do some kind of work that the world must have while the world stands. I am glad to see a marvelous change for the better, and that women 'ill' a 14 WOMEN \V1I0 FIGHT THE have found out that there are hundreds of prac- tical THINGS THAT A WOMAN CAN DO for a Uving if she begins soon enough, and that men have been compelled to admit it. You and I can remember when the majority of occupations were thought inappropriate for women ; but our Civil War came, and the hosts of nu^n went forth from Nortii and South ; and to conduct the business of our cities duiing the patriotic absence, women were demanded by the tens ( ' thousands to take the vacant ])lac(S ; and mull udi^s of wo- men, who liad been hitherto supportc^d by fat/iers and brothers and sons, were compelled from that time to take care of themselves. From that time a mighty change took place favorable to female employment. Among the occupations appropriate for woman I place the following, into many of which she has already entered, and all the othi^rs she will enter: Stenography, and you may find her at nearly all the ro])ortorial stands in onr educational, political and religious meetings. Savings banks, the work clean and honorable, and who so great a right to toil there, for a woman founded the first savings bank— Mrs, Priscilla Wakefi(>ld ? Copyists, and there is hardly a prof(^ssional man that does not need the service of her pcMmianshi]-) ; and, as amanuensis, many of the gr(\itest l)ooks of our day have been dictated for her wi-iting. There tjiey are as florists and ct^nfectioners and music BATTLE OF LIFE ALONE. 15 QUALIFIED BY PATIENCE AND ACCURACY ; and wood-engraving, in wliich the Cooper Insti- *"'".r f "-^"y qualified; andtele- ffiapliy, for winch she is specially i.ivpdred -.s thousands of the telegraphic offici will tc^stify .hotogmphy, and in nearly all onr estahlishments they may he fonnd there at cheerful work As workers in ivory and gutta-percha and ■gum chemicals, in porcelain, m terra cotta. As post- mistresses, and the President is given them a, pointments all over the land. ^ As proof-readers, as translators, as modelers as designers as draughtwomen, as hthographers' as teachers in schools and seminaries, for which they are especially endowed, THE FIRST TEACHER. Of every child, hy Divine arrangement, bc^ino- a woman. As physicians, having graduated after a regular course of study from the female colleges . of our large cities, where they get as scientific and thorough preparation as any doctors ever had, and go forth to a work which no one but women could so appropriately and delicately do. On the lec- m1 ^1,^^«- L^^^"^^o^-« '^nd Mrs. Plallowell and Mis. Wdlard and Mrs. Lathrop. As physio- logical lecturers +- +i- ' — - - - ■ - i'l i i rs to tlK^ir own sex, for which ser 16 WOMEN WHO FIGHT THE vice there is a deiiiaiid appalling and terriiic. * As preachers of the Gospel, and all the protests of ecclesiastical courts cannot hinder them, for they have a pathos and a power in their reli- gious utterances that men can never reacli. Witness all those who have heard their mother pray. 0, young women of America ! as many of you will have to fight your o^^a^ hattles alone, do not vvait until you are flung of disaster, and your father is dead, and all the resources of your fam- ily liave heen scattered ; but now, while in a good house and envii-oned by all prosperities, learn how to do some kind of WORK THAT THE ^VORLD MUST HAVE. as long as the world stands. Turn your atten- tion fro ill the embroidery of fine slippers, of which there is a surplus, and make a useful shoe. Ex- pend the time in which you adorn a cigar-case in learning how to make a good, honest loaf of bread. Turn your attention from the making of flimsy nothings to the manufacturing of important some- thitigs. Much of the time S])ent in young ladies' sem- inaries in studying what are called the "higher branches," might better be expended in teaching them something by which they could support themselves. If you are going to be teachers, or if you have so much assured wealth that you can always dwell in those high regions, trigonometry of course, metaphysics of course, Latin and Greek BATTLE OP JJPE ALONE. j^ and German .™,l French nnvould go through an apprenticeship as men n and a p,'mter advertised that he would ake a cl ° of ,™men to learn the printers trade if ty would go through an apprenticeship as men do ^nd h w many, according to the account of thlaXc^"^ o you si,ppose applied to become dlle t the l™gg.st business and printh,g busines No : ! r| in 1 18 WOMEN WHO FIGHT TH* ''But," you .ask, 'Svhat would my father and mother say if they saw I was doing such UNFASHIONABLE WORK?" Throw the whole responsibility upon the pastoi of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, who is constantly hearing- of young women in all these cities, who, unqunlified by .. ir previous luxuiious suiTOund ings for the aAvful struggle of life into which they have been suddenly hurled, seemed to have nothing left them but a choice between starvation and danmation. Tliere they go along the street seven o'clock in the wintry mornings, through the slush and storm, to the place where they shall earn only half enough for subsistence, the daughters of once prosperous merchants, lawyers, clergymen, artists, b;i:,kers and capitalists, who brought up tlmir children under the infernal de- lusion that it was not high-tone for women to learn a profitable calling. Young women ! take this affair in yoiu' own hand, and let there be an insurrection in all prosperous families of Brook- lyn and NeAV York and Christendom on the part of the daughters of this day, demanding knowl- edge in occupations and styles of business by which they may be their own defence and their own support if all fatherly and husbandly and brotherly hands forever fail them. I have seen TWO SAD SIGHTS, the one a woman in all the glory of her young life, stricken by disease, and in a week lifeless in a BATTLE OP LIFE ALONE. I9 home of which she had been the i)ride As Jier hands wore folded over tiie still heart and hex eyes closed for the last slunib(>r, and slio was taken out amid the Imneniations of kindred and friends I thoiioht that was a sadness immeasur- able But I have seen somethij.^' compared with winch tliat scene was briglit aiid songful. It was a young woman who had been all her days amid wealtiiy surroundings, by the visit of death and bankruptcy to the lK,useJiold turned out on a cold world withont ojie lesson about how to got food or shelter, aud iiito the auful whirlpool of city life, where strong ships liave gone down, and for twenty years not one word has been heard from her. Vessels last week went out on the Atlantic Ocean lookmg for a shipwrecked craft that was left alone and forsaken on the sea a few weeks ago, ^^nth the idea of bringing it into port. But who shall ever bring agniii into the harbor of peace and hope and heaven that lost womanly imniortal, driven in what tempest, aflame in what conflagration, sinking into what abyss ? God ncip ! Christ, rescue ! ' My sisters, give not your time to learning fancy work which the world may dispense with in hard times, but connect your skill with THE INDISPENSABLES OF LIFE. The world will always want something to wear and something to ent, nnd shelter and fuel for the body, and knowledge for the mind, and religion 'JU I'fd'ill^ \^iss> \ 20 WOMEN WHO FIGHT THE for the soul. And all these things will continue to be the necessaries, and if you fasten your ener- gies upon occu])ations and professions thus related, the world will be unable to do without you. Re- member, that in proportion as you are skillful in anything, your rivalries become less. For un- skilled toil, women by the millions. But you may rise to where there are only a thousand ; and still higher, till thei-e are only a hundred ; and still higher, till there are only ten ; and still higher, in some particular department, till there is only a unit, and that yourself. For a while you ma> keep wages and a place through the kindly sym- pathy of an employer, but you will eventually get no more compensation than you can make your- self worth. Let me say to all women who have already en- tered upon the battle of life, that the time is com- ing when woman shall not only get as much salaiy and wages as men get, but for certain styles of employment women will have higher salary and more wages, for the reason that for some styles of work they have more adaptation. But this JUSTICE WILL COIME TO "WOMAN not through any sentiment of gallantry, not be- cause woman is physically weaker than man, and, therefore, ought to have more consideration shown her, but because through her finer natural taste and more grace of manner, and quicker perception, «md more delicate tduch, aud more educated BA^rTLE OP LIFE Af-ONE. 21 adroitness, she will, iu certain callinjvs, l,o to her employer woi-th ten jier cent mow, or twcnity i)er cent more than the other sex. She will not get it hy asking for it, hnt hy earning it, and it shall be liei-H by lawful conqu'^st. Now, men of America, be fair, and GIVE THE WOMEX A CHANCE. Are you afraid that they will do some of yoiii work, and hence harm your prosperities ? Re^ member that tliere are scores of tliousands of men doing women's work. Do not be afraid ! God knows the end from the l)eginning, and He knows how many people this world can feed and shelter and when it gets too full He will end the world,' and, if need be, start another God will halt the inventive faculty, which, by producing a machine that will do the work of ten or twenty or a hun- dred men and women, will leave that number of people without work. I hope that there will not be invented another sewing machine, or reaping machine, or corn thresher, or any other new machine, for the next five hundred years. We want no more wooden hands and iron hands and steel hands and electric hands sub- stituted for men and women, who would other- wise do the w^ork and get the pay and earn the livelihood. But God will arrange nil, and all we have to do IS to do our best and trust Him for the rest. Let me cheer all women fighting the battle of life alone, with the fact of thousands of J% '^i'\ 92 WOMEN WHO FIGHT THE W^OMEN WHO HAVE WON the day. Mniy Lyon, fouiulcr of Mount Holyoke Fomalo Seminary, t'oii}j;lit tlio battle alone ; Adelaide Newton, the tract disti'ilmtor, alonc^ ; Fidelia Fisk, the consecrated missionary, nlone ; Dorotlu^a Dix, the angel of the insane asylums, alone ; Caroline Herschel, the indispc^nsnble rein- forcement of her brother, alone; IVIaria Takrzew- ska, the heroine of the Berlin hospital, alone ; Helen Chalmers, patron of the sewing-schools for the poor of Ediidmrgh, alone. And thousands and tens of thousands of women, of whose bravery and self-sacritice and glory of character the world has made no record, but whose deeds are in the heavenly archives of martyrs who fought the battle alone, and, though um-ecognized for the short thirty or fifty or eighty years of their earth- ly existence, shall through the quintillion ages of the higher world be pointed out with the admiring cry, "These are they who came out of great trib- ulation and had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." Let me also say, for the encouragement of all women fighting the battle of life alone, that theit conflict will soon end. There is one word written over the faces of many of them, and that word is Despair. My sister, you need APPEAL TO CHRIST, who comforted the sisters of Bethany in their domestic trouble, and who in His last hours foi got BA'^TLE OF LIFE ALOxVE. 28 all tlio pangs of His own hands ami f(^ot and hoart as ho looked mto the faco of maternal nnguish' and called a friend's attention to it, in snhstanco saymg, 'John, I cannot take caro of hov nnv onger. Do for her as I wonld have done, if I hnil lived. Beliold thy niotlun- !" If, under the nres- snreof innxnvanled and unappreciated work, your han- IS whitening and the wrinkles come, rejoice that you are neaiing the hour of escape from your very last fatigue, and may your d.-partnre he as pleasant as that of Isahella Graham, who closed her life with a smile and the word "Peace." The daughter of c, r(>giment in any army is all surrounded hy hayon.^ts of defence, and, in the hattle, whoever falls, slio is kept safe. And you are the daughter of th(^ regimer^ commanded hy the Lord of Hosts. After all, you are not fi-hting the hattle of life alone. All heaven is on your side. You will ho wise to appropriate to yourself the words of sacred rhythm : One who has known in storms to sail I havG on board ; Abovo the roarin.i,'- of the gale I iioar my Lord. He holds me ; when the billows smite I sliall not fall. If short, 'tis sliarp; if long, 'tis light?, He tempers all. ' liT . (I I % ^■1 . liki i; I 'Ah il' I! 24 WORLDLY MARRIAGES. i;i Worldly Ufarrlnges. •'And there was a man in Maun whose possessions were in Carniel, and tiie man was very great, and In- had three thou- sand slieep and a tliousand goats."— 1 Sam. 25 : 2. My text introducos iis to a drunken bloat of largo j>roi)erty. Before the day of safety de[)0sit8 and government Ixjnds and national banks, peo- ple had tbeii- investment in flocks and lu'ids, and this man, Nabal, of the text, had much of his possessions iv live-stock. He came also of a dis- tingnished family, and had glorious Caleb for an ancestor. But this descendant was a sneak, a churl, A SOT AND A FOOL. One instance to illustrate : It was a wool -raising country, and at the time of shearing a grcit feast was prepared for the shearers ; and David and his warriors, who had in otlier days saved from de- struction the threshing-floors of Nabal, sent to him, asking, in this time of plenty, foi' some bread for their starving men. And Nabal cried out : "Who is David r As though nn Englishman had said, "Who is Wellington?" or a German should say, " Who is Von :Moltke f ' or an Ameri- can should say, " Who is Washington C Nothing did Nabal give to tlio starving men, and that night the scoundrel lay dead drunk at homo ; and ■VVOHLDLV MARRIAGRH. d5 the Biblo gives m a fiill-l,Migtli picture of iu.n sprawling and maudlin and li('l|>l('ss. ' Now that was the man whom Ahjoajl, tholovo- ly and gracious and good woman, marricd-a tuberose i)lanted beside a thistle, a palm-branch twmed mtoa wreath of deadly nightshade. Sure- y that was not one of the matches made in heaven ! We throw up our hands in liorror at that wedding. How did she ever consent to liidc her dcstnues with such a cn^ature ? Well she no doubt thought that it would be an honor to bo associated with an aristocratic family ; and no one can despise a great name. Beside this, wealth would come, and with it CHAINS OF GOLD and mansions lighted by swintriug lamps of aro- matic oil, and resounding witn the cheer of ban- queters, s.-ated at tables laden with wines from the richest vineyards, and fruits from lij.est orchards, and nuts threshed from foreign woods and meats smoking in platters of gold, set on by slaves in bright uniform. Before she plighted her troth with this dissi- pated man, she sometimes said to herself : ''Ih.w can I en(hire him 'i To be associated for life wit), such a debauchee I cannot and will not !" But then again she siid to herself : " It is time I was married, and this is a cold world to dei)end on, and perhaps I might do worse, and maybe I will make a sober man out of him, and marriage is -i lottery, anyhow." And when, one day, this rep- fill riR'i: 1*1 '1 »■' t'l II h I f i M /iM' ij I 1^6 WORLDLY MARMAGES. resentative of a great house presented himself in a parenthesis of sobriety, and with an assumed gentihty and gallantry of manner, and with promises of fidelity and kindness and self- ahnegation, a Jinie morning smiled on a March squall, and th(» great-souled woman surren- dered lier liappiness to the keeping of this infa- mous son of fortune^ whose possessions were in Carinel ; "and the man was very great, and ho had thr(^o thousand sheep and a thousand goats." Behold hei'c^ a domestic ti-agedy re])eated every liour of every day, all over C'ln-istendom— mar- riage for worldly success, without regard to char- acter ; so Marie J(>anno Pliilipon, the daughter of the humble engraver, bc'3ame THE FAMOUS MADA]\IE ROLAND of history, the vivacious and brilliant girl, united with the cold, formal, monotonous man, because he came of an adluent family of Amiens, and had lordly blood in his veins. The day when, through political revolutions, this jiatriotic woman was 1(m1 to tlie scalTold, around whicli lay piles of human heads that had fallen from the axe, and she said to an aged man wiiom she had comforted as they ascended the scaffold, " Go first, that you may not Avitness my death,'' and then, undaunted, took her turn to die— that day was to her only the last a(;t of a tragedy of which her marriage day was the first. WuliLDLV AlAlililAGES. ^7 Good and gcjiial duiracter in a man ia TIIE VEKY l-'lliST KEt^UrsiTI-: for a woman's liapi)y niarria^^o. Mistake mo not as dopi-eciativo of worldly i)iOH[)eiitlos. There is -i religious cant that would seem to represent pov- erty as a virtuo,and wealth as a crime. I can take you tlirougli a thousand mansions, where God is as niuch worshipp,Hl as He ever was in a cahin. lhoU)spel mculcates the virtues which tend to- ward wealtli. In the milh>nninm we will all dwell m pa,laces, and ride in chariots, and sit at sumptuous banquets, and sleep undcn-ricli end)roid- eries, and live four or live hundred years fov if according- to the liihlo, in those times a child shall Jiio a hundred years old, the average of human liro will be at least fivo centuri(\s. The whole tendency of sin is toward poverty and the whole tendency of righteousn(>ss is toward wealth. Godliness is profitable for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come. No in- ventory can be made of the picture-galleries con- secrated to God, and of sculpture and of I'bi-ari(>s and pillared magnificence, and of parks and foiin- ..au.^ and gardens in the ownership of good men and women. The two most lor.lly residences in which I was over a gu(>st, had morning and even- jng pi-ay(M-s, all the employes i)res(Mit, and all day long tliere was an air of ch(H'rfiil i.iety in the con versation and behavior. Lord Radstock carried the Gospel to th(^ Russian noI)ility. Lord Cavan and Lord Cairns spent ilieir vacationin ovangelis- f ' It* it 1 s ■^^ln'9 1 1 ^8 WORLDLY MARRIAGES. Lord Conuietoii be tic services. to Bagdad. Eastern caravansary has lived in a palace t,xvi.wxx Mccarne missionary And the Clirist Avho was born in an WHAT RICHES CAiS DO. It is a grand thing to have plenty of money; and horses that don't compel you to take the dust of every lumbering and lazy vehicle; and books of his- tory that give you a glimpse of all the past ; and shelves of poetry to w hich yoii may go and ask Milton or Tennyson or Spencer or Tom Moore or Robert Burns to step down and spend an evening with you ; and other shelves to which you may go while you feel disgusted with the shams of the world, and ask Thackeray to ex})ress your chagrin, or Charles Dickens to expose PecksniUfianisn, or Thomas Carlyle to thunder your indignation ; or the other shelves where the old Gospel writers stand ready to warn and cheer us, while they open doors into that City which is so bright the noonday sun is abolished. There is no virtue in owning a horse that takes four minutes to go a mile, if you can own one that can go in a little over two minutes and a half ; no virtue in running into the teeth of a northeast wind with thin apparel if you can afford furs ; NO VIRTUE IN BEING POOR w^hen you can honestly be rich. Theio are names of men and women tliat I have only to mention, and they suggest iK^t only wealth, l)ut religion ^nd generosity and philanlhio)>y. such as Amos I : WORLDLY MARRIAGES. 20 w^"Tr' '^r'? ^?T' ^'^'' ^«^P^^'' William Wif ?\. '''?.^^'^^*''^"^'^' Mi«« Catherine Wolf and Mrs. Astor. A recent writer says, that of fifty leading busniess men in one of our Eastern cities, and of the fifty leading business men of one of our Western cities, three-fourths of them are Christians. The fact is, that about all the brain and the business genius is on the side of religion. Infi- dehty IS incipient insanity. All infidels are cranks. Many of them talk brightly, but you soon find that 'Zt lu'^'^^^^ '^-chinery there is a screw loose. When they arr .t lecturing against Christianity they are sitting ai bar-rooms, squirting tobacco juice and when they get mad swear till the place IS sulphurous. They only talk to keep their cour- age up, and at best will feel like the infidel who begged to be buried with his Christian wife and daughter, and when asked why he wanted such burial, replied: -If there be a resurrection of the gogd, as some folks say there will be, my Chris- tian wife and daughter will someho^. get me up and take me along with them." Men may pretend to despise religion, but they are rank hypocrites. The sea-captain was right when he came up to the villnge on the seacoast, and insisted on paying ten dollars to the church, although he did not attend himself. When asked his reason, he said that he had been in the habit of carrying cargoes of oysters and clams from that place, and he found, since that church was built, the people were more honest thnn they used to be ■-1 so "WORLDLY MARRUGE8. for before the church was l>uilt, he often found the load, when he came to coant it, a thousand clams short. Yes, godliness is profitable for both worlds. Most of the great, honest, PERMANENT WORLDLY SUCCESSES are by those who I'everence God and the Bible. But what I do say is tliat if a man have nothing but social position and financial resources, a woman who puts her happiness by marriage in his hands, re-enacts the folly of Abigail when she accepted disagreeable Nabal, "whose possessions were in Carmel ; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats." If there be good moral character accomx)anied by affluent circumstances, I congratulate you. If not, let the morning lark fly clear of the Eocky Mountain eagle. II ("1 THE SACRIFICE OF WOMAN on the altar of social and financial expectation is cruel and stupendous. I sketch you a scene you have more than once witnessed. A co::ifortable home, with njthing move than ordinary surround- ings ; but an attractive daughter carefully and Christianly reared. From the outside world comes in a man with nothing but money,unless you count profanity and selfishnc^ss and fondness for cham- pagne and general recklessness as a part of his pos- sessions. He has his coat collar turned up when WORLDLY MARRIAGES. 31 there is no chill in the air, but because it gives him an air of abandon ; and eyeglass, not because he IS near-sighted, but because it gives a classical ap- pearance ; and with an attire somewhat loud, a cane thick enough to be the club of Hercules a'lid clutched at the middle, his conversation interlard- ed with French phrases inaccuiately pronounced, and a sweep of maimer indicating that he was not born like most folks, but terrestrially landed. By ARTS learnp:d of the devil he insinuates himself into the affections of the daughter of that Christian home. All the kin- dred congratulate her on the almost supernatural prospects. Reports come in that the young man is fast in his habits, that he has broken several young hearts, and that he is mean and selfish and cruel. But all this is covered up with the fact that he has several house , in his own name, and has large deposits at the bank, and, more than all, has a father worth many hundred thousand dol- lars and very feeble in health, and may any day drop off, and this is the only son ; and a round dollar held close to one's eye is large enough to shut out a great desert, and how much more will several bushels of dollars slmt out ! The marriage day comes and goes. The wed^ ding ring was costly enough, and the orange blossoms fragrant enough, and the benediction solemn enough, and the wedding march stirring enough. And the audience shed tears of sym- pathetic gladness, supposing that the craft coii- k \>^\ r- in. 82 WORLDLY MARRIAGES. tailing the two has sailed off on a placid lake, although God knows that they are LAUNCHED ON A DEAD SEA, its waters brackish with tears, and ghastly with ghastly faces of despair, floating to the surface and then going down. There they are. the newly married pair, in their new home. He turns out to be a tyrant. Her will is notliing, his will every- thing. Lavish of money for his own pleasure, he begrudges her the pennies he pinches out into her trembling palm. Instead of the kind words she left behind in her former home, now there are complaints and fault-findings. He is the master, and she the slave. The worst villain on earth is the man who, hav- ing captured a woman from her fathers house, and after the oath of the marriage altar has been pronounced, says, by his manner if not his words : " I have you now in my power. What can you do ? My arm is stronger than yours. My voice is louder than yours. My fortune is greater than yours. My name is mightier than yours. Now crouch before me like a dog. Now crawl away from me like a reptile. You are nothing but a woman, anyhow. Down, you miserable wretch!" Can halls of mosaic, can long lines of Etruscan bronze, or statuary by Palmer and Powers and Crawford and Chantry and Canova, can galleries rich from the pencil of Bierstadt and Church and Kenset and Cole and Cropscy, could flutes played on by an Ole Bull, or pianoe fingered by a Gotte WORLDLY JIABRLIOES. 33 Chalk or solos warMcl l,y aSoi.ntng, co„I,l «ard. •obos like that Ota Mario Antoinotto, oo„kl j.nvot hke thoso Ota Eugenio, n.akc a wito ill such a compamoiishii) liapi)y » IMPRISOXED IN A CASTLE ! Her gold bracelets are the chains of a hfelontr sorvitiKle. There is a swor.1 over her every feast not like that of Damocles staying suspended, but dropping through her lacerated heart. Her ward robe is full of shrouds for deaths which she dies dai y, and she is buri,.d alive, though buried under gorgeous upholsteiy. There is one M-ord that sounds under the arches, and rolls along the corridors, and weeps in the falling fountains, and echoes nithe shutting of every door, and gi'oans 1 eveiy note o stringed and wind instrnnien Woe ! Woo !" Tlio oxeo and sheep, in olden times brought to a temple of Jupiter to be sac- rificed, used to be covered with ribbons and flowoi-s-rihhons on the horns and flowers on the neck. But the floral and ribboned decoration did not ' make he stab of the buteher's knife less deathtul and all the chandeliers you hang over such a wo' man, and all the robes with which you enwmn her, and all the ribbons with which you adora her, and all the bewitching charms with ,vS you embank her footsteps, are the ribbons and flowers of a horrible biitcheiy. As if to show how wretched a good woman may 34 WORLDLY MARRIAGES. he in splendid sunounclings, we have two recent illustrations, TWO DUOAL PALACES in Great Britain. Tlioy are the focus of the best things that are possible in art, in literature, in archit(>ctnro, the acciminlation of other estates, until their Avenlth is beyond calculation, and their grandeur beyond description. One of the castles has a cabinet set with gems that cost two million five hundved thousand dollars, and the walls of it bloom with Kembrandts and Claudes and Poussins and Guides and Raphaels, and there are Southdown flocks in sunnner grazing on its lawns, and Arab steeds prancing at tlie doorways on the " first open day at the kennels." Fi'om the one castle the duchess has removed with her children, because she can no longer endure the orgies of her husband, the duke, and in the other castle the duchess remains, confronted by insults and abominations, in the ])resence of which I do not think God or decent society requires a good woman to remain. Alas for those ducal couiitry-seats ! They on a large scale illustrate wlia^ on a smaller scale may be seen in many i)lace>, that without moral character in a husband, .dl the accessories of wealth are to a Avife's soul tantalization and mockery. Wlien Abigail finds Nabal, her hus- band, beastly drunk, as she comes home from in- tprceding for his fortune and life, it was no alle- viation that the old b'ute had in possessions WORLDLY JLVRRIAOES. 35 Carmel and -was very great, and bad three thousand sheep, and one thousand goats," and he the worst goat among tlieni. The animal in hid nature seized the soul and ran off with it. Before Uiings are right in this world GENTEEL VILLAINS are to be expui-gated. Instead of being welcomed .into respectable society because of the amount ot stars and garters and medals and estates they rep, resent, they ouglit to be iiimigated two or three years before tliey are allowi'tl, without peril to themselves, to put tb.ir Lands on the door-knob ot a moral house. TIk^ time must come when a masculme estray will be as repugnant to good society as a feminine estray, and no coat-of-arms or fannly emblazonry or epaulet can pass a Lothario unchallenged among the sanctities of home life. By what law of God or common sense, is Absa- lom better than a Delilah, a Don Juan better than a Messalina^ The brush that paints the one black must paint the other black. But what a spectacle it was when last summer much of " watering-place " society went wild with enthusiasm over an unclean foreign dignitary, whose name in both hemispheres is a synonym for profligacy, and princesses of American society from all parts of the land had him ride in their carriages and sit at their tablort, though they knew him to be a portable lazaretto, a cliarnel home of moral putrefaction, his breath ^ typho^ Ht f-o^ 86 WORLDLY MARRIAGES. that of a Satyr and his touch death ! Here is an evil that men cannot btop, but women may. KEEP ALL SUCH OUT of your parlors, have no recognition for tb^m in the street, and no more think of allying your life and destiny Avith theirs than "gales from Arabia'* would consent to pass the honeymoon with an Egyptian plague. All that money or social posi- tion a bad man brings to a woman in marriage is a splendid despair, a gilded horror, a brilliant agony, a prolonged death; and the longer th(i marital union \asts, the more evident will be the fact, that she might better have never been born. Yet yc-u and I have been at brilliant weddings, where, be- fore the feast was over, the bridegroom's tongue was thick, and his eyes glassy, and his step a stagger, as he clicked glasses with jolly comrades, all going, with lightning express train, to the fatal crash over the embankment of a ruined hfe ftnd a lost eternity. Woman, join not your right hand with such a right hand. Accept from such a one no jewel for finger or ear, lest that sparkle of precious stone turns out to be the eye of a basilisk ; and let not the ring come on the finger of your right hand, lest that ring turns out to be one link of a chain that shall bind you in never-ending captivity. In the name of God and heaven and home, in the name of all time and all eternity, I forbid the banns ! Consent not to join one of the many regiments of WO»L]>LY MAUUrAQES, fl7 wo.n3n vy),G have mariied for worldly success w.tl.out regard to moral charactor. an!^C"i; not ^"^^^' "^ "^"^^^"' ^^^ ^^^^ ^«^- MARRY A KIKO » And to that lionoi- yon .„•« i,n it,,] by tlie Monarch of hoavon ami oarth, and this .lay a voice frun> h„ sky sound, ortlu "As the l.iksToon, rped her in them, and she was admitted ashore in this wrapping of goods, which was announced as A PRESENT FOR C^SAR. This bundle was permitted to pass the guards of the gates of the palace, and was put down at tlit feet of the Roman general. When the bundle was unrolled, there rose before Caesar one whose courage and beauty and brilliancy are the aston- ishment of the ages. This exiled Queen of Egypt told the story of her sorrows, and he promised her that she should get back her throne in Egypt and take the throne of wifely dominion in his own heart. Afterward they made a triumphal tour in a barge that the pictures of many art galleries have called "Cleopatra's Bargo," and that barge was covered with silken awning, and its deck was soft with luxuriant carpets, and the oars w^ere sil- ver-tipped, and the prow was gold-mounted, and the air was redolent with the spicery of tropical ^> I !i WORLDLY MARRIAGES. 39 gaidenH, and msonant witli the niusic that made tlio niglit glad as tho day. ^ You may rejoice, O woman, that you aro not a Cloopatra, and that the One to whom yim may bo affianced had none of the sins of C'a'sar, tlio Con- queror. But it suggests to me how you, a souJ exiled fiom happiness and i)eace, viay i.nd your way to the feet of tlio Conqiu-ror of eruth a; d sky. Thon«,di it may he a dark night of . nn itual igita- tion m which you put out into the hnr'^r ,1 peace, you may sail, and when all the wra])])mgs of fear and doubt mid sin shall be removed you will be found at the feet of Ilim who will inityou on a thrc^ne to be ncknowledged as His in th(^ day when all the sdv(M- trumi)ets of the sky shall i)roelaim : B(.hold the Bri(l(-ro()m com«>th ;" and in a bai-ge of light you sail wilJi Him the river whose source 18 the foot of the throne, nnd whoso mouth is at the sea of glass mingled with fu-e. M' 40 BROKEN PROZkllSES OF MARRIAGE. Broken Promises of Marriage. " I nnvc opened my inoutli uiito the Lord, and I cannoi g* back."— J UPUES 11 : y5. Geiiei-al Jcplitliah, the Conimander-in-cliief of the Israehtish forces, is budding on tlie sword for the extermination of the pestiferous Aniinonites, and looking up to the sky, he promises that if God will give him the victory, lie will put to death and sacrifice as a burnt ottering the first thing that comes out from the door of his homestead when he goes back. The hurrahing of triumph soon runs along the line of all the companies, regiments and divisions of Jephthah's army. A worse beaten enemy than those Ammonites never strewed any plain with their carcasses. General Jephthah, fresh from his victory, is now on his way home. As he C(jmes over the hills and through the valleys, the whole inarch for his men is a cheer, but for ■lini A r.REAT ANXIETY, for he remembers his vow to slay and burn tho first thing that comes ^ortli from his house to greet liim aftei his victory. Perhaps it may be the old watch-dog that sliall first come out ; and who could get heart to beat out the life of a faith- BROKEN PROMISES OP MARRIAGE 41 against his master in nioiTv welcomo .f absence ? No • it wn^ n f f 1 '^^';'' "^ ^^^^^^^i' ^^ng to meet Jo^th^,"^ it":t:f"^ househoM N ■.*" '"'"''' '"■"'• «"- '■"""ted nouse loia i No ; it was not that wl icli ca.no forth to meet Jeiihtliali. ami out of It comes one whose appearance under sciiDable joy, but unaer THE PLEDGE OF A SACRIFICE theo'rt '"«/'■'■,'"•";''•■'>"''-* '""•'« l.i... flat to me eaith His cinid, his only cliild, his danehter comes skippms "ut to Rivet him, lie ■ step ke,M i /. Wtoa tm.hrel which sh,. shakes and sm te M ever a conqueror's cheer end in such a litter All the glories of victorious war ara hlott^d out ,n 42 BROKEN PROMISES OF MARRIaGH. from Jephthah's momoiy, and his banner is fold, ed in grief, and bib sword goes back nito the scabbard with a dolorous clang, and the muffled drum takes the place of the cymbals and the "tremolo" the place of the trumpet, and he crie« out : " Alas, my daughter, thou has brouft me very low, and thou art one of them tha trouble me- for I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot go back." During two months, amid the mountains, without shelter, the maidens who would have been at her wedding, ranged with Jephthah's daughter up and dow)i, bewaihng her coming sacrifice. . Commentators and theologians are m dispute as to whether that girl was slain or not, and as to whether, if she were slain, it was right or wrong in Jephthah to be the executioner a discussion into which I shall not be diverted from THE OVERIMASTERING CONSIDERATION that we had better look out what we promise, better be cautious what engagements we make, better that in regard to all matters of betrothal and plighted vow we feel the responsibility, lest we have either to sacrifice the truth or sacrifice an immortal being, and aw be led to cry out with the paroxvsm of a Jephthah : * 1 have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back " ' There is one ward in almost all the insane asy- lums, and a large region in almost every ceme- BROKEN PKOMISES OF MAEBIAOE. 43 tery, that you need to visit. They are orr„n;o.7 1 the men aiad women who ai-e tla7 "'™'"""y VICTIMS or BROKEN PROMISES Of maiTiage. The women in tliose warfs and in th,..e mortuary receptacles are in tte rf^aloritv because woman Uves more in her afSectbnftl , does man, and laceration of them "n ho^c ,sn more apt to be a dementia and afetatv Tn ' regions of tliis laud the nroiX^f '^' "'" considered to have .0 .lO^T^Z^ mmd. The engagement may stand untS some one more attractive in person, or opulent 1 estate, appea., on the scene ; then the'itg a e returned, and the amatory letters, and aluX JeSah-rr- ,t'" ^° *'"^^ are' ten thousand inga The whole subject needs to be taken out women , f """'f^ '"*° *'''''8«'y' »"<> "«» and women need to .mdei-stand that, while there are exceptions to the rule, once having solemnly pledged to each other heart and hand, the "^ feiture and abandonment of that pledge makes the trans,g..essor in the sight of oid a perinrei and so the Day of Judgn.ent will reveal it. S one has hed to the other ; and all lim-s shall have Drimstoiie. If a man or woman make A PROMISE IN THE BUSINESS WORLD is there any moral obligation to f uUfil it ? If a I :iJ''l >' > ill .£1 44 BROKEN PROMISES OF MARRIAGE. man sign a note for five hundred dollars, ought he to pay it ? If a contract be signed involving the building of a house, or the furnishing of a bill of goods, ought they to stand by that contract ? " Oh, yes," always answered. Then I ask the further question : Is the heart, the happiness, the welfare, the temporal and eternal destiny of a man or woman worth as much as the house, worth five hundred dollars, worth anything ? The realm of profligacy is filled with men and women as a result of tlie wrong answer to that question. The most aggravating, stupendous and God-defying lie is a lie in the shape of a broken espousal. But suppose a man changes his mind, ought he not back out ? Not one in ten thousand. WHAT IF I CHANGE MY MIND about a promissoiy note, and deoliae.Jo pay it, and suddenly put my property in such shape that you could not collect your note ? How would you like that ? That, you say, would be a fraud. So is the other a fraud, and punish it God will cer- tainly, as you live, and just as certainly if you do not live. I have knoAvn men, betrothed to loving and good womanhood, resigning their engage- ment, and the victim went down in hasty con- sumption, while suddenly the reci'eant man would go up the aisle of a church in brilliant bridal par- ty, and the two promised " I will," with a solem- nity that seemed ensurance of a lifeMme happi- ness. But the simple fnct was, that was the first act of a Shakesperian play entitled ''Taming the a do ii{ (,' [.I.I ;<•( < i \ m^ II 91 M 11 i ^^HHsn m^' iflBMiJ mmi vHHh H r If 1 ^'fl^^^HS 19 |f BROKEN Promises ob' MARRiAaE., 45 Shrew." He found out, when too late, that he h-ut not married into the family of the " Graces " but into the family of the " Furies." To the day of his death the murder of his first betrothal fol- lowed him. The Bible extols one who "sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not." That is, when y.^u make a promise, keep it at all hazards. There may be cases where deception has been used at tfio time of engagement, and extraordinary circumstances where the promise is not binding, but in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, engagement is AS BINDING AS MARRIAGE. Robert Burns, with all his faults, well knew the force of a marital engagement. In obedience to some rustic idea, he standing on one side of the brook Ayr, and Mary Campbell on the other, they bathed their hands in the water and then put tlieni on he boards of a Bible, making their pledge of fidelity. On the cover of the Old Testament of that book, to this day in Robert^Burns' hand- writing may be found the words, ''Lev. 19-12 .^Y^flr^'K^'^'^'''' ^'^ my name falsely ; lam the Lord.' - And on the cover of the New Testa- ment m his own handwriting : "Matt. 5: 33 i Ihou Shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt per- form unto the Lord thine oatlis. ' " Suppose a ship-captain offers his sei-vices to take a ship out to sea. After he gets a little way he «omes alongside of a vessel with a more beautiful it i ^-#i n •?ii! a Broken pkomises of MAimtAGi!. flag, and which has perhaps a richer cargo, and is bound for a more attmctive port. Suppose he rings a bell for the engineer to slow up, and the screw stops. Now I see the captain being low- ered over the side of the vessel into a small boat, and he crosses to the GAYER AND W^EALTHIER CRAFT, and chmbs up the sides, and is seen walking the bridge of the other ship. I pick up his resigned speaking-trumpet and I shout through it : " Cap- tain, what does this mean ? Did you not promise to take this ship to Southampton, England?" "Yes," says the captain, "but I have changed my mind, and I have found I can do better, and I am going to take charge here. I shall send back to you all the letters I got while managing that ship, and everything I got from your ship, and it will be all right. " You tell me that the worst fate for such a captain as that is too good for him. But it is just what a man or woman does who promises to take one through the voyage of life, across the ocean of existence, and then breaks the promise. What American society needs to be taught is that betrothal is an act so solemn and tremendous that all men and women must stand back from it until they are sure it is right, and sure that it is best, and sure that no retreat will be desired. Before that promise of hfetime companionship, any amount of romance that you wish, any ardor of friendship, any coming or going. But BROKEN PROMISES OF MARRIAGE. ESPOUSAL IS A GATE, 47 a golden gate, which one should not pass, unless he or she expects never to return. Engagement is the porch of which marriage is the castle, and you have no right in the porch if you do not mean to pass into the castle. The trouble has always been that this whole subject of affiance has been relegated to the realm of frivolity and joke, and considered not worth a sermon, or even a serious paragi-aph. And so the massacre of human lives has gone on, and the devil has had it his own cruel way, and what is mightily needed is that pulpit and platform and printing-press all speak a word of unmistakable and thunderous protest on this subject of infinite importance. We put clear out into thin poesy and light read- ing the marital engagements of Petrarch and his Laura, Dante and his Beatrice, Chaucer and his Philippa, Lorenzo de Medici and his Lucretia, Spencer and his Rosalind, Waller and his Sac- charissa, not reahzing that it was the style of their engagement that DECIDED THEIR HAPPINESS or wretchedness, their virtue or their profligacy. All the literary and military and religious glory of Queen Elizabeth's reign cannot blot out from one of the most conspicuous pages of history her infa- mous behavior toward Soymour and Philip and Melville and Leicester and others. All the eccle- Biftwuicai roDcs uiiau i/ean kjwiit ever rustied l':v!li« ■l,ii;:i'ir *1^-\,v. 48 RROKEN PROMISES OF jlAHRir.Gft. through consecrated places cannot hide from in- tolhgent people of all ages tJu^ fact tl.at by promises of marriage, ^v]lich he never fulfilled, he brokfi the heart of Jane Waring after an engag.iuent of seven years, and the heart of Stella after an engagement of fourteen years, and the poetic stanzas he dedicated to their excellences only make the more imnurtal his own pei fidy. "But suppose 1 should make a mistake," says some man or womni, "■ and I find it out after the engagement and before marriage ?" My answer is, you have NO EXCUSE FOR A MISTAKE on this subject. There ar.- so many ways of find- ing out all about the character and preference!* and dislikes and habits of a man or woman, that if yuu have not brain enough to form a right judgment in regard to him or her, you are not so fit a candidate for the matrimonial altar as you are for an idiot asylum. Nv ;ce \,hat s^niety your especial friend prefers, whether he is indus- trious or lazy, whether sho is nra^ or slatternly, what books are read, what was the style of an- cestry, noble or depraved ; and if there be any unsolved mystery about the person under con- sideration, postpone all promise until the ■ ys^ ly is solved. Jackson's Hollow, Brooklyn, was part of tiie city not buiii on for many years, and every time I crossed it I said to myself or to others, why is not this land built on? I found out afterward f;! ».V BROKEN PROMISES Ot-' MARIUAaE. 49 that the title to tho land was in controversy and no one wanted to build tliore until that qui'stion was decided. Afterward I understood the title was settled, and now buildings are mAuir ud all over it. Do not build your Juippiness for this world on a character, masculine or feminine that has not a settled and undisput* d title to honor and truth and sobriety and righteous ess. woman, you have more need to pause before makmg su-li an important promise than man, be- cause if you n) ike a mistake it is worse for you. If a man blunder about pioniise of marriage or go on to an uaifortunate marriage, he can spend his evenij igs away, and can go to the club or the KepublicL> or D( tnocratic headquarters, and ab- sorb his mind in city or state or national elections smoke him stupid or drink himself drunk! But there no pi -e of regular retreat for you, O woman, and yo>. ould not take narcotics or intoxicants and keep juir respectability. Be- fore you promise, pray and think and study and advise. There will never again in your earthly his< ory be a time when you so much need God. It seems to me that the world ouglit to cast out from business credits and from good neigl diorhood those who boast of the number of h(\arts they have won, as the Indian boasts of th. number of scalps he has taken, if a man will lie to a woman and a woman wiU lie to a man about so importapta matter as that of a 1 fetime'^ wel- fare, they ^vill li^ about a bill jf goods and li« .Hi V \ 50 BROKEN PR0M18KS OF JLARRIAQE. about finances and lie about anyt' ing. Society to-day is brim full of gallants and niau-millineri and CARPET KNIGHTS AND COQUErfES, and those most God forsaken of all wretches- flirts. And they go about drawing-rooms and the parlors of watering- [)laces, simpering and bowing and scraping and whispering, and then return to the club-rooms, if they be men, or to their special gatherings, if they be v/omen, to chatter and giggle over what was said to them in confidence. Condign punishment is apt to come upon them, and they get paid in their own coin. I could point you to a score whom society has Vt drop very hard, in return for their base traffic in human hearts. And here my idea widens, and I have to say, not only to those who have made a miotake in solemn promise of marriage, but to those who have already at the altar been pronounced one when they are two, or in diversity of tastya and likes and dislikes are neither one nor two, but a dozen— make the best you can of an awful mistake. And here let me answer letters that come from every State of the American Union, and from across the sea, and are coming year after year from men and women who are terrific- ally allianced and tied together in a hard knot— a very hard knot. The letters nm some- thing like this : '* What ought I to do ? my hus- band is a drunkard." "My wife is a gad about BROKEN PROMKEa OP MARRIAOE. fij and will not stay at homo." " My companion is Ignorant, and luitos books, and I rovel in thoni." •'1 liko music, and a piano sets my husband crazy. " '*! ain fond of social life, and my hus- band is a reclus(^ " "1 am trying to be good, and my hfe-long associate is very bad; what shall I do?" My answer is, there are certain good reasons for divorcement. The Bible recognizes them J but it must be THE VERY LAST RESORT, and only after all reasonable attempts at reclama- tion and adjustment have proved a doad failure. When such attempts fail, it is generally because of meddlesome outsiders ; and women tell the wronged wife how she ought to stand on her rights, and men tell the wronged husband how he ought to stand on his rights. And let husband and wife, in an unhappy marriage relation, stand punctiliously on their rights, and there will be no readjustment, and only one thing will be sure to khem, and that is a hell on earth. If you are unhappily married, in most cases I advise you to make the best you can of an aw fully bad bargain. Do not pi-oject your pecuharities more than is necessaiy. Perhaps you may have some faults of your own, which the other party in the marital alliance may have to suffer You are in the same yoke. If you pull aside, the yoke will only twist your neck. Better pull ahead. The world is full of i 52 BROKEN PROMISES OF MARRIAGE. PEOPLE WHO MADE MISTAKES about many things, and among other things about betrotluil and marriago, and yet have been tolerably hai)py and very useful in the strength of God, and by the grace promised in eveiy time of need, if those who seek it conquer the disadvan- tageous circumst.ances. I am acquainted with lovely women, married to contemptible men, and genial m(?n yoked witli termagants inspired of the devil. And yet, under these disadvantages my friends are usefvd and ha])i)y. God helps people in other kinds of martyrdom and to sing in the flame, and He will help you in your lifelong mis- fortune. Remember the patience of Job. What a wife he had ! At a time when he was one great blotch of eruptions, and his property was destroy- ed by a tornado, and, n)ore than all, bereavement had come and tlu; poor man needed all-wise counsel, she advised him to go to cursing and swearing. She wanted him to poultice his boils with blasphemy. But he lived right on ..hrough his MARITAL DISADVANTAGES, recovered his health ;md his fortune, and raised a Bplendid family, and the (-losing paragraph of the Book of Job has such a jubilance that I w^onder people do not oftener read it : " 80 the Lord blessed the latter end of Job moiv tlV'VH his begin* ning." BROKEN PROMrSKS OP JFARRIAOE. 53 J-ub could stand it by tlio bolp of God, then ' VOC CAN STAND IT V the same .livino reinforconiPnt. Yon have o hor ro. fauns, O wen.,,, ,„.(,,„ the wifely ,e ofac,nu.oh,he,pnK;™:n/^^:';;;:4rY;: neait, that .'ill yen,. i,o,„o trials will seem ins.V niflcant, lUnv little .li/fe.-enee ,l,„.s it n ke^ft Immer.se yo,n«elf in some ki„,l of outside "^fulness, .son,etln-UK that will enlist yur yom vo.ce G<.t your hen,rt on Are with love ace, a,i,l tlu! ti'„nhl,.s of your home will 1« .10 te, out in the «Iory of y^r oonse -at", h f Ws let r ;7h"' p "'""""• ■■" ''^"" -<^'-...« i" tho, o ' 1 ', ^ ,"■""'''''"« = " What knowest h..u,l j Ana ,f y,„, oanuot save hin, y„n can hdp u, the grander, „,i,htier ent,.rpris , of ,eh o y Tm "'ri?'''" *•"* '"' ""■ '"•^'" "-'■'*' seiCrifl: r ic,,;-;;;;;;' 'I'." «',""■■>-' "f^-' "f fitenrl „f „ Jn- snfifernijj; luunauity. In- SW of sctthug down to mope over yourdomostia u BROKEN PROMISES OF MARRIAG3. woes, enlist your energies for the world's redemp. tion. Some parts of Holland keep out the ocean only by dykes or walls of stout masonry. THE DUTCH ENGINEER having these dykes in charge was soon to be mar- ried to a maiden living in one of the villages, the existence of which depended on the strength of these dykes. And there was to be a gi-eat feast in one of the villages that approaching evening, in honor of the coming bridegioom. That day a great storm threatened the destruction of the dykes, and hence the destruction of thousands of lives in the villages sheltered by that stone wall. The ocean was in full wrath, beating against the dykes, and the tides and the terror were still ris- ing. " Shall I go to the feast," says the engineer, "or shall I go and help my workmen take care of the dykes V " Take care of the dykes," he said to himself, "I must and will." As he appeared on the wall, the men working there were exhaust- ed, and shouted: ''Here comes the engineer. Thank God ! Thank God !" The walls was giving way, stone by stone, and the engineer had a rope fastened around his body, and some of the workmen had ropes fastened around their bodies, and were let down amid the wild surges that beat the wall. Everything was giving way. "More stones!" cried the men. " More mortar !" But the answer came : " There is no more !" " Then," cried the engineer, " take iiRokm PROMISES OF MAKKIAGE. §5 tu y^^,f«*hes and with them stop the holes in he wall. And so in the chill and darkness and surf It was don^s and with the workmen's apparel the openings in the wall were partially filled But stiU the tide rose, and still the ocean reared Itself for more awful stroke and for the over- whelming of thousands of lives in the villages Now we have done all we can," said the engi- to God for help." And on the trembling and parting dykes they prayed till the wind changed and the sea subsided, and the villages below which, knowing nothing of the peril, were full of romp and dance and hilarity, were gloriously WHAT WE WANT in this work of walhng back the ocean of poverty and drunkenness and impurity and sin is the help of more womanly and manly bonds. O, how the tides come in ! Atlantic surge of sorrow after Atlantic surge of sorrow, and the tempests of human hate and Satanic fury are in full cry O woman of many troubles, what are all the feasts of worldly delight, if they wore offered you, com- pared with the opportunity of helping build and support barriers which sometiuK^s seem givin- way through man's treachery and the world's assault? O WOMAN, TO THE DYKES I Bring prayer, bring tears, bring cheering words ! Help ! Help ! And having done all, kneel with Pn 66 BROKEN PROMISES OF M ARIUAGa. US on the quaking wall until the God of the wind and the sea shall hush the one and silence the other. To the dykes! Sisters, mothers, wives, daughters, of America, to the dykes ! The might- iest catholicon for all the wounds and wrongs of woman or man is complete absorption in the work to rescue others. Save some man, some woman, some child ! In that effort you will forget or be helped to bear your own trials, and in a little while God will take you up out of your disturbed and harrowing conjugal relation of earth into a heaven all the happier because of preceding dis- tress. When Queen Elizabeth of England was expiring it was arranged that the exact moment of her death should be signalled to the people by the dropping of a sapphire ring from a window into the hands of an o^cer, who carried it at the top of his speed to King James of Scotland. But your departure from the scene of ycitt earthly woes, if you are ready to go, will not be the drop- ping of a sapphire to the ground, but the setting of a jewel in the King's coronet. Blessed be His glorious name forever ! *. I)OMINION OF FASHION. 6f Dominion of Fashion. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment : for all that do so are abomination unto the Loid thy God."— Deut. God thought womanly attire of enough import- ance to have it discussed in the Bible. Paul the Apostle, by no means a sentimentalist, and accustomed to dwell on the great themes of God and the resurrection, writes about the arrange- ment o£ woman's hair and the style of her jewelry • and in my text, Moses, his ear yet filled with the' thunder at Mount Sinai, declares that womanly at- t.- must be in marked contrast with masculine attn-e, and infraction of that law excites the in- dignation of high heaven. Just in proportion as the morals of a country or an age are depressed is that law defied. Show me the fashion plates of any century from the time of the Deluge to this and I will tell you the exact state of public morals! BL00MERI8M in this country years ago seemed about to break down this divine law, but tliore was enough of good in American society to beat back the inde- cency. 1 et ever and anon w,^ ha ve imported from i^^'ance, or perhaps invented on this side the sea, a ii I ^T > PT: *i! , \ \\ !> I'i !! I' W: H »i DOMINION OF FASHION. style that proposes as far as possible to make women dress like men ; and thousands of young women catch tlie mode, until some one goes a little too far in imitation of mascuhnity, and the whole custom, by the good sense of American womanhood, is obliterated. The costumes of the countries are different, and in the same country may change, but there is a divinely ordered dissimilarity which must be for- ever observed. Any divergence from this is administrative of vice and runs against the keen thrust of the text, which says: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." Many years ago a French authoress, signing herself George Sand, by her corrupt but brilliant writings depraved homes and libraries innumer- able, and was a literary grandmother of all the present French and American authors, who have written things so inucli worse that they have made her putrefaction quite presentable. Tbat French authoress put on masculine attire. She was consistent. Her writings and her behavior were perfectly accordant. My text abhors masculine women and WOMANISH MEN. What a sickening thing it is to see a man copying i;he speech, the walk, the mnnner of a woman. The trouble is that they do not imitate a sensible ^ ci*j-.'.. = ..--nSS^fl,;>i*t, > . > AJg » y.»W|.>,feilt»:ib, JWiUNlON OF FASHION. M %T>m&)i, h\ii some female imbecile. And they simper, and Vney go with mincing step, and hsp and scream at notliing, and take on a languishing iook, and bang their hair, and are the nauseation of honest folks of both sexes. man, h. a man I i^ou belong to quite a respectable sex. Do not try to cross over, and so become a hybrid ; neither ZleT'' *^^ ''^^^''' ^""^ ^ ^'*'^'"'®' half-way be- Ahke repugnant are MASCULINE WOMSN. They copy a man's stalking gait and go down the stree with the stride of a walking-beam. Ihey wish they could smoke cigarettes, and some of them do. They talk boisterously, and t^y to smg bass. They do not laugh, they roar. Thev cannot quite manage the broad profanity of the sex they rival, but their conversation is often a iialf-swear ; and if they said - Lord - in earnest p-ayer as often as they say it in lightness they would be liigh up in sainthood. Withal there is an assumed rugosity of apparel, and they wear a man s hat, only changed by being in two or three places smashed in and a dead canary clinging to the general wreck, and a man's coat tucked in here and there according to an unaccountable aesthetics. woman, stay a woman ! You also belong to a very respectable sex. Do not try to cross ov^. If you do you will be a failure as a vvoman aid only a nondescript of a man We already aave enough intellectual and moral 'V m ,• E ' 'i II ■; 60 t)OMlNtON OP FASHfoN. bankrupts in our sex without your coming ovtl to make worse the deficit. My text also sanciions fashion. Indeed, it seta a fashion. There is a great deal of senseless CANT ABOUT FASHION. A woman or man who does not regard it is ur^H for a good neighborhood. The only question is w^hat is right fashion and what is wrong fasliion. Before I stop I want to show you that fashion has been one of the most potent of reformers and one of the vilest of usurpers. Sometimes it has been an angel from heaven, and at others it has been the mother of abominations. As the world gi-ows better there will be as much fashion sja now, but it will be a righteous fashion. In the future life white robes always have been and altvays will be in the fashion. There is a great outcry against thiB submission to social custom, as though any consultation of the tastes and feelings of others were deplorable ; but without it the world would have neither law, order, civilization nor common decency. Thero has been A CANONIZATION OF BLlrNl^NESS. There are men and women wht> boast that they can tell you all they know and hear about you, especially if it be unpleasant. Some have mis- taken rough behavior for frankness, when the two qualities do not belong to the same family. You have no right, with your eccentricities, to DOMINION OF FASHION. 6] crash in upon the sensitiveness of others. Thero is no virtue in walking with hoofs over fine carpets. The most jagged rock is covered with blossoming moss. Tlie storm that comes jarring down in thunder strews rainbow colors upon the sky and silvery drops on the orchard. There are men who pride themselves on their capacity to " stick" others. They say, ''I have brought him down ; didn't I make him squirm !" Others pride themselves on their outlandish apparel. They boast of being out of the fashion. They wear a queer hat. They ride in an odd carriage. By dint of perpetual application they would persuade the world that they are perfectly indifferent to public opinion. They are more proud of being '' out of fashion " than others are of being in. They are utterly and universally dis- agreeable. Their rough corners have never been worn off. They prefer a hedgehog to a lamb. The accomplishments of life are in no wise pro- ductive of effeminacy or enervation. Good man- ners and a respect for the tastes of others are indispensable. The Good Book speaks favorably of those who area ''peculiar " people ; but that does not sanction the behavior of queer people. Ihere is no excuse, under any circumstances, for not being the lady or gentleman. RUDENESS IS SIN. We have no words too ardent t(? express our admiration for the refinements of sc iety. There is no law, moral or divine, to forbi-i elegance of C2 DOMliJlON OF FASHION. demeanor, or ornaments of gold, or gems for tho person, artistic display in the dwelling, graceful- ness of gait and bearing, polite salutation or honest Cdmpliments ; and ho who is shocked or offended by these had better, like the old Scythians, wear tiger-skins and take one wild leap back into midnight barbarism. As Christianity advances there will be better apparel, higher styles of archi- tecture, more exquisite adornments, sweeter music, more correct behavior and more thorough ladies and gentlemen. But there is another story to be told. Wrong fashion is to be charged with many of the worst evils of society, and its path has often been strewn with the bodies of the slain. It has set up A FALSE STAND \'ai» by which people are to be jiv'';^,-'(t. Our common sense, as well as all the divia*' i'li imations on the subject, teach us that people ought to be esteemed according to their individual and moral attain- ments. The man who has the most nobility of soul should be first, and he who has the least of such qualities should stand last. No crest or shield or escutcheon can indicate one's moral peerage. Titles of Duke, Lord, Esquire, Earl, Viscount or Patrician ought not to raise one into the first rank. Some of the meanest men I have ever known had at the end of their name D.D., LL.D. andF.R.S. Truth, honor, charity, hero- ism, self-sacrifice, should win highest favor; but inordinate fashion says : *' Count not a woman's <^. DOMDilON OP FASmoK. (g Virtues ; count h, , a•'« As a consequence, some of tlie most ignorant .• .d VICIOUS men nreatthe top, and some of the ZLXT\ "'" '"**""«->' -* «- l-oTtom m" into tL , rV" '"f''''"'^ ^'™ ™'^" hurled up into the highest social positions, a, 1 they n t±f r^'v °"7"' •'"'^"^' »g-duated societ? N "' "'"'■^^^'^ f ™« good work for society? No: they simply had obtained a Govern- ment contract ! This accounts for the utter chagrin whicli people feel at the treatment "hev rec.ve^when they lose their property,"" tlt^ AMID FINANCIAL DISASTER like a Christian ! Fifty thousand subtracted from Lfhtrd" r'' J;"^ "'"'='>« Honor; tnitn" of i.?n ; '"""Phait hope; and a kingdom and ever. If the owner of millions should lose a penny out of his pocket would he sit down on a curbstone and cry ? And shall a man p^sseZd of everlasting fortunes wear himself out wfth grief because he has lost worldly treasure ? You )l I i mfts MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHAFf (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1^ tarn 1^ !■■ m 116 i^ US ISS •i u li£ IM 1.8 ^ x^PPLIED IIVHGE Inc 1653 East Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 USA (716) 482 -0300- Phone (716) 288-5989 -Fox 64 DOillMO^ OF FASHION. have only lost that in which Iiundreds of wretched misers surpass you ; 9,nd you have saved that which the Ceesars and the Pharaohs and the Alex- Anders could never afford. And yet society thinks dhterently, and you see the most intimate friend- ships broken up as the consequence of financial embarrassments. Proclamation has gone forth: '' Velreis must go up and plain apparel nuist come down,-' and the question is: "How does the coat fit f^ not " Who wears it ?" The power that bears the tides of excited population up and down our streets, and rocks the world of commerce, and thrills all na- tions, transatlantic and cisatlantic, is clothes. It decides the last offices of respect ; and how long the dress shall be totally black ; and when it may subside into spots of grief on silk, calico or ging- ham. Men die in good circumstances, but by reason of extravagant funeral expenses are well nigh insolvent before they get buried. Wrong fashion is productive of a most RUINOUS RIVALRY. The expenditu^-e of many households is adjusted by what their neighbors have, not by what they themselves can afford to have ; and the great anxiety is as to who shall have the finest house and the most costly equipage. The weapons used in the warfare of social life are not Minie rifles, and Dahlgi-en guns, and Hotchkiss shells, but chairs and mirrors and vases, and Gobelins and Axminsters. Many household estabhsliinents ,ij! DOMINION OF FASHION. ^5 are like a racing steamboat, propelled at the utmost 8 lam and risk and just coming- to a terrific ex- plosion. -Who cares," say they, "if we only come out ahead r There is no i^ causlto-day ot more financial embarrassment and of more dis- honesty than this determination at all hazards to hve as well as or better than other people. There are persons who will risk their eternity upon one pier mirror, or who will dash out the splendors of heaven to get another trinket. There are scores of men in the dungeons of the penitentiary who risked honor, business, every thing, in the effort to shine like others. Thoudi the heavens fall they must be ''in the fashion" f om this feeling. It keeps hundreds of men struggling for their commercial existence. The trouble IS that some are caught and incarcerated Ind'r-nT-^ ^' r""- ^^ '^ ^'^'^^^ they escape and build their castle on the Rhine. Again: Wrong fashion makes people unnatural and untrue It is a factory from which has come torth more hollow and unmeaning FLATTERIES AND HYPOCRISIES than the Lowell mills ever turned out shawls and garments. Fashion is the greatest of all liars. It has made society insincere. You know not what to believe. When people ask you to come, you do n.t know whether or not they want yout'o'^ome When tney send their regards, you do not know ^^hether it is an expression of their heart, or an 5'' si ' m pi- 1 \ ■Mi e> 1 ^ t ? .^iv^s*- ■ it! • :•? Hal 66 DOmNIOX OF FASHION. external civility. We have learned to take almost everything at a discount. Word is sent, "Not at home," when they are only too lazy to dress themselves. They say: " The furnace has just gone out," when in truth they have had no fire in it all winter. They apologize for the unusual barrenness of their table, when they never live any better. They decry their most luxurious enter tainments to win a shower of approval. They apologize for their appearance, as though it were unusual, when always at home they look just so. They would make you believe that some nice sketch on the wall was the work of a master- painter. ' ' It was an heir-loom, and once hung on the walls of a castle ; and a duke gave it to their grandfather." People who will not lie about any- thing else will lie about a jjicture. On a small income we must make the w^orld believe that we are affluent, and our life becomes a cheat, a coun- terfeit and a sham. Few people are really natural and unaffected. When I say this I do not mean to slur cultured manners. It is right that we should have more admiration for the sculptured marble than for the unhewn block of the quarry. From many circles in life fashion has driven out vivacity. A FROZEN DIGNITY instead floats about the room, and iceberg grinds against iceberg. You must not laugh outright ; it is vulgar. You must smile. You must not dash rapidly acrps* tlti« room ; you must glide. Thev^ DOMINION OF FASHION. 67 is a rouna of bows and giins and flatteries, and oh s and ah's and siniperings, nanibypaniLyisni -a worJd of which is not worth one good, round honest peal of laughter. From such a hollow round the to.tured guest retires at the close of the evennig, and assures his host that he has eniovtd hnnself "* *^ Thus social life has been contorted and deformed until, m some mountain cabin, where mstics gather to the quilting or the apple-paring, there is more good cheer than in all the frescoed icchouc-s ot the metropolis. We want in all the highe- Circles of society more warmth of heart and naturalness of behavior, and not so many refrige- raxors. Again : Wrong fashion is INCOMPATIBLE WITH HAPPINESS. Those who depend for their comfort upon the admiration of others are subject to frequent disappointment. Somebody will criticise their appearance, or surpass them in brilliancy, or will receive more attention. Oh, the jealousy and detraction and heart-burnings of those who move in this bewildered maze! Poor butter- flies ? Bright wings do not always bring happi- ness. " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she hveth." The revelations of high life that come to the challenge and the fight are only the occasional croppings out of disquietudes that are, underneath, like the stars of heaven for multitude^ but like the demcm? of \X^ pit |or m^ m m u 68 DOMINION OF FASHION. hate. The misery tliat will to-niglit in the cel- lar cuddle up in the straw is not so utter as the princely disquietude which stalks through splen- did drawing-rooms, brooding over the sights and offences of luxurious life. The bittern«:^ss of life seems not so unfitting when drunk out of a pewter mug as when it pours from the chased hps of a golden chalice. In the sharp crack of the voluptuary's pistol, putting an end to his earthly misery, I hear the confirmation that in a hollow, fastidious life there is no peace. Again : Devotion to wrong fashion is PRODUCTIVE OF PHYSICAL DISEASE, mental imbecility and spiritual Avithering. Ap- parel insuiificient to keep out the cold and the rain, or so fitted upon the person that the func- tions of life are restrained ; late hours filled with excitement and feasting ; free draughts of wine that make one not beastly intoxicated, but only fashionably drunk ; and luxurious indolence— are the instruments by which this unreal life pushes its disciples into valetudinarianism and the grave. Along the walks of prosperous life death goes a-mo wing— and such harvests as are reaped! Materia Medica has been exhausted to find cura- fives for these physiological devastations. Drop- sies, cancers, consumptions, " gout and almost every infirmity in all the realm of pathology have been the penalties paid. To counteract the dam- age. Pharmacy has gone forth with medicamei'.t, panacea., ehxir, embrocation, salve and cataplasm- DOMINION OF FASHION. 69 To-night, with swollen feet upon cushioned ot loman, and groaning with aches innumerable, wi(l be the votary of luxurious living, not half so happy as his groom or coal-heaver. Wrong fashion is the world's undertaker, and drives thousands of hearses to Greenwood and Laurei Hill and Mount Auburn. But, woise than that, this folly is an INTELLF]CTUAL DEPLETION. This endleus study of proprieties and etiquette patterns and styles, is bedwarfing to the intel lect. I never knew a woman or a man of ex treme fashion that knew much. How belittling the study of the cut of a coat, or the tie of a cra- vat, or the wrinkle in a sleeve, or the color of a ribbon! How they are worried if something gets untied, or hangs awry, or is not nicely ad- justed ! With a mind capable of measuring the height and depth of great subjects ; able to un- tavel mysteries, to walk through the universe, to soar up into the infinity of God's attributes- hovering perpetually over a new style of cloak. I have known men, reckless as to their character and regardless of interests momentous and eter- nal, exasperated by the shape of a vest-button. Worse than all— this folly is not satisfied until it extirpates every moral sentiment and BLASTS THE SOUL. A wardrobe is the rock upon which many a soul has been riven. The excitement of a luxurious ;i Hi' ' 'A rii 70 DOMINION OF FASHION. life has been the vortex that has swallowed up more souls than the Maelstrom off Norway ever destroyed ships. What room for elevating themes in a heart filled with the trivial and unreal! Who can wonder that in this haste for sun-gilded baubles and winged thistle-down men and women should tumble into ruin ? The travelers to de- struction are not all clothed in rags. In the wild tumult of the Last Day— the mountains falling, the heavens flying, the thrones uprising, the universe assembling ; amid the boom of the last great thunder-peal, and under the crackHng of a burning world— what will become of the disciple of fashion ? THE worldling's CAREER. But watch the career of one thoroughly arti- ficial. Through inheritance, or, perhaps, his own skill, having obtained enough for purposes of dis- play, he feels himself thoroughly estabhshed. He sits aloof from the common herd, and looks out of his window upon the poor man and says: "Put that dirty wretch off my steps immediate- ly 1'" On Sabbath days he finds the church, but mourns the fact that he must worship with so many of the inelegant, and says : " They are perfectly awful ! That man that you put in my pew had a coat on his back that did not cost five dollars." He struts through life unsympathetic with trouble, and says: "I cannot be bothered." Is deJighted with some doubtful story of Parisian yfe, but thinks there are some very in^eqeii^ DOMINION OP f ASmoN. 71 things in the Bible. Walks arm in arm with the successful man of the world, but does not know his own brother. Loves to be praised for his splendid house, and when told that he looks younger, says: "Well, really, do you think so?" But the brief strut of his life is about over. Up-stairs he dies. No angel wings hovering about him. No Gospel promises kindling up the darkness ; but exquisite embroidery, elegant pic- tures, and a bust of Shakspeare on the mantel. The pulses stop. The minister comes in to read of the Kesurrection, that day when the dead shall come up— both he that died on the floor and he that expired under princely upholstery. He is carried out to burial. Only a few mourners, but a great array of carriages. Not one common man at the funeral. No befriended orphan to weep a tear on his grave. No child of want pressing through the ranks of the weeping, say- ing : '' He is the last friend I have." What now ? He was a great man. Shall not chariots of salvation come down to the other side of the Jordan and escort him up to the palace ? Shall not the angels exclaim; ''Turn out! A prince is coming?" Will the bells chime ? Will there be harpers with their harps, and trumpeters with their trumpets ? No ! No ! No ! There will be a shudder, as though a calamity had happened. Standing on heaven's battlement, jsi watchman will see some- thing shoot past, with fiery downfall, and shriek; .i..i.i »f l4^1 m i'k' I I -4t t' } ' i s 72 DOMINION OF FASinON. "Wandering star— for whom i;-! reserve^ the blackness of Jarkness !" But sadder yet is the CLOSING OF A WOMAN'S LIFf] that has been worsliipfni of worldhness, all tin wealth of a lifetime's oi)portunity wasted. What a trag(Hly! A woman on her dying pillow, thinking of what she might have done for God and humanity, and yet having done nothing! Compare her demise with that of a Harriot New. ell, going down to peacefully die in the Isle of France, reviewing her lifetime sacrifices for thb redemption of India ; or the last hours of Eliza- beth Hervey, having exchanged her briglit New England home for a life at Bombay amid stolid heathenism, that she might illumine it, saying in her last moments : " If this is the dark valley, ii. has not a dark spot in it ; all is Kght, light !" or the exit of Mrs. Lennox, falling under suddei, disease at Smyrna, breathing out her soul with the last words, "Oh, how happy!" or the de parture of Mrs. Sarah D. Comstock, spending hev hfe for the salvation of Bm-mah, giving up her children that they might come home to America to be educated, and saying as she kissed them g-od-by, never to see them again, "0 Jesus! T do this for Thee !" or the going of ten thousand good women, who in less resounding spheres have lived not for themselves, but for God anJ. the alleviation of human suffering That was a brilhant scene w^hen, in 1485, in the campaign for the capture of Ronda, 1' 1 Dominion of fashion. 73 QUEEN ELIZABKTfl OF CASTILE, on horseback, side by side with King Fordinand, rodo out to review the troops. As she, in bright armor, rode along the hnes of tlie Si)anish liost, and waved her jewelled hand to the warriors, and over and anon uttered words of cheer to the worn veterans who, far awny from their homes, were risking their lives for the kingdom, it was a spectacle that illumines history. But more glorious will be the scene when that consecrated Christian woman, crowned in heaven, shall re- view the souls that on earth she clothed and fed and medicined and evangelized, and then intro- duced into the ranks celestial. As on the white horse of victory, side by side with the king, this queen unto God forever sliall ride past the lines of those in whose salvation she bore a part, the scene will surpass anything ever witnessed on earth in the life of Joan of Arc, or Penelope, or Semiramis, or Aspasia, or Marianne, or Margaret of Anjou. Kide on, victor ! m \ ' .'Lit. li s • n h n ^^^^V^R L/JKIb^B^KI' ^B^MtfW ^|9B^H ^^lifl hBH ^^^^^^^H > HB 9Hi ^^^^^^H ^i^^9 H t^^H^H ^^^^^^Mm^ f! f4 THE VEIL Of MODESTY. si} ri Tlie Yell of Modesty. " The Queen Vasliti refused to come."— Esther 1:12. If you will accept my arm I will escort you into a throne-room. In this fifth sermon of the series of sermons there are certain womanly excellencies which I wish to commend, but in- stead of putting them in dry abstraction, I pre- sent you their impersonation in one who seldom gets sennonic recognition. We stand amid THE PALACES OP SHUSHAN. The pinnacles are aflame with the morning light. The columns rise festooned and wreathed, the wealth of empires flashing from the grooves ; the ceilings adorned with images of bird and beast, and scenes of prowess and conquest. The walls are hung with shields, and emblazoned until it seems that the whole round of splendors is exhausted. Each arch is a mighty leap of architectural achievement. Golden stars shining down on glowing arabesque. Hangings of em- 'broidered work, in which mingle the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass, and the white- ness of the sea-foam. Tapestries hung on silver rings, wedding together the pillars of marble. Pavilions reaching out in every direction. These for repose, filled with luxuriant couches, in which M( f «^' i. L f m THE VEIL OF MODESTY. 75 weary limbs sink until all fatigno is submoigod Amazing spectacle ! It seems as if a billow of celestial glory had dashed chvir over heaven's battlements upon tliis metropolis of Persia. In connection with this palace there is a gar- den, where the mighty men of foreign lands are SEATED AT A BAA'QUET. Under the spread of oak and linden and acacia the tables are arranged. T > breath of honey- suckle and frankincense fills the air. The waters of Eulaeus filling the urns, and sweating outside the rim in flashing beads amid the traceries. Wine from the royal vats of Ispahan and Shiraz, in bottles of tinged shell, and lily-shaped cnps of silver, and flagons and tankards of solid gold. The music rises higher, and the revelry breaks out into wilder transport, and the wine has flushed the cheek and touched the brain, and louder than all other voices are the hiccough of the inebriates, the gabble of fools, and the song of the drunkards. In another part of the palace, QUEEN VASHTI is entertaining the princess of Persia at a bou- quet. Drunken Ahasuerus says to his servants; ' You go out and fetch Vashti from that banqiu^t with the women, and bring her to this banquet with the men, and let me display her beauty." The servants immediately start to obey the king's command; but there was a rule in Oriental society that no woman might appeal- m pubhc ' ' J ', f' f ''11 I t I t'\l •It 'ii'j mnsott Memorial i.ibrarv 76 THE VEIL OP MODESTY. without having her face veiled. Yet here was a mandate that no one dare dispute, demanding that Vashti come in unveiled before the multitude. However, there was in Vashti's soul a principle more regal than Ahasuerus, more brilliant than the gold of Shushan, of more wealth than the realm of Persia, which commanded her to disobey this order of the king; and so all the righteous- ness, holiness and MODESTY OF HER NATURE rises up into one sublime refusal. She says: "I will not go into the banquet unveiled." Of course Ahasuerus was infuriated; and Vashti, robbed of her position and her estate, is driver forth in poverty and ruin, to suffer the scorn of a nation, and yet to receive the applause of after generations who shall rise up to admire this martyr to kingly insolence. Well, tlie last vestige of that feast is gone ; the last garland has faded ; the last arch has fallen ; the last tankard has been destroyed, and Shushan is a ruin ; but as long as the world stands there will be multitudes of men and women, familiar with the Bible, who will come into this picture gallery of God, and admire the divine portrait of Vashti the queen, Vashti the veiled, Vashti the sacrifice, Vashti the silent. In the first place, I w^ant you to look upon Vashti the queen. A blue ribbon rayed with white, drawn around her forehead, indicated THE VEIL OF MODESTY. 71 HER QUEENLY POSITION. It was no small honor to be queen in such a ronlm as that. Hark to the rustle of her robes ' See the blaze of her jewels ! And yet, my friends, it IS not necessary to have palace and regal robes in order to be queenly. When I see a woman with stout faith m God, putting her foot upon all meanness and selfishness and godless display, gomg right forward to serve Chiist and the race by a grand and glorious S'rvice, I say ''That woman is a queen," and the ranks of heaven look over the battlements upon the coronation ; and whether she come up from the shanty on the commons or the mansion of the fashionable square, Igreet her with a shout ! "AU hail ! Queen Vashti !" What glory was there on the brow of Mary of Scotland, or Elizabeth of England or Margaret of France, or Catherine of Russia, com- pared with the worth of some of our Christian mothers, many of them gone into glory ?— or of Ruth, who toiled under a tropical sun for poor old, helf)less Naomi ?-or of Mrs. Adoniram Jud- son who kindled the hghts of salvation amid the darkness of Burmah ?-or of Mrs. Hemans, who poured out her holy soul in words which will forever be associated with hunter's horn and captive's chain, and bridal hour, and lute's throb and curfew's knell, at the dying day ?-and scores and hundreds of women, unknown on earth, who have given water to the thirsty, and bread to the hungry, and medicine to the sick, and smUes to ^' 78 THE VEIL OP MODESTY. "N the discouraged— their footsteps heard along dark lane, and in Government hospital, and in alms- house corridor, and by prison gate ? There may- be no royal robe— there may be no palatial surroundings. She does not need them ; for all charitable men will unite with the crackling lips of fever-struck hospital and plague-blotched lazaretto in greeting her as she passes: "Hail, Queen Vashti." Among the QUEENS WHOM I HONOR are the female day-school teachers of this land. I put upon their brow the «^a..sonov,-s. Tu„ vorsos of patli.ti, littU- rou^^li, and so I change a word or two : JlIU HIIUISOS VOlCOWilsllflud AmUhoyaUlmcl trust i» his s(ul,l,onmo8s, An.i know he would kcop his wo.d. And sur..\s you'ro l,c„.n th..y all -ot olF Afoi-ft the snioko-s(aclvs fi^ll ; And Uludso's ^^host went up above, In tlio snioko of the Prairie Belle. •' lie weren't no saint, but at Judgment IM run my chance with Jim, LouH-side ol- some pious Kentlemen That wouldn't shake hands with him. He d seen his duty, a dead sure thing And went for it there and ttien, And Ciirist is not going to be too liard On a man tliat died for men." Oi.ce more: I want you to look at Vashtl the "'lent. \ ou do not hear any outcry from this woman as she goes forth f,.om the palace gate. From the very dignity of her nature you know there w.ll be no vociferation. Son,etimos in life I H iiocessary to n.ake a retort; hut there ai-e crises when tlien.ost triumphant thing to do is to keep silence. The philosopher, confident in his newlv discovered principle, waited for tl,e coming of more mteUigent generations, willing thatlhemen fid THE VEIL OF MODESTY. should laugh at the lightning-rod and cotton-gin and stoaml-:r.t-v iting for long years thi-ough the scoffing of philosphical schools, in grand and MAGNIFICENT SILENCE. Galileo, condennied hy mathematicians and monks and cardinals, caricatured everywhere, yet wait- ing and watching with his telescope to see the coming up of stellar reinforcements, when the stars in their courses would fight for the Coperni- can system; then sitting down in their complete blindness and deafness to wait for the coming generations who would build his monument and bow at his grave. The reformer, execrated by his contemporaries, fastened in a pillory, the slow fires of public con- tempt burning under him, ground under the cylinders of the printing-press, yet calmly waiting for the day wdien purity of soul and heroism of character will get the sanction of earth and the plaudits of heaven. Affliction, enduring without any complaint the sharpness of the pang, and thf violence of the storm, and the heft of the chain, and the darkness of the night— waiting until a divine hand shall be put foi-th to soothe the pang, and hush the storm, and release the captive. A wife abused, persecuted, and a perpetual exile from evt^ry earthly comfort-— waiting, w\aiting, until the Lord shall gather up His dear children in a heavenly home, and no poor Vashti will ever be thrust out from the palace gate. Jesus, in silence, and answering no+ a word, drinking the gall, tHE VEIL OF MODESTY. 8» bearing the Cross, in prospect of the rapturous consummation when " Angels throng' His chariot wheel, And bore Him to His throne : Then swept their golden harps and sung, The glorious work is done." An Arctic explorer found a ship floating help- lessly about among the icebergs, and going on board he found that the captain was frozen at his logbook, and the helmsman was frozen at the wheel, and the men on the lookout were frozen in their places. TJiat was awful, but magnificent. All the Arctic blasts and all the icebergs could not drive them from their duty. Theirs was A SILENCE LOUDER THAN THUNDER. And this old ship of a world has many at their posts in the awful chill of neglect, and frozen of the world's scorn, and their silence shall be the eulogy of the skies and be rewarded long after this weather-beaten craft of a planet shall have made Its last voyage. THE PALACE GATE OF HEAVEN ! You can endure the hardships and the privations and the cruelties and the misfortunes of this life, if you can only gain admission there. Through the blood of tlie everlasting coveuant, you go through those gates, or never go at all. When Rome was besieged, the daugliter of its ruler saw the golden bracelets on the left arm of the enemy, iv ]■> I I I i : ! if,,: ,itii,tttJla^j • f M 90 THE VEIL OP MODESTY. and she sent word to them that she would betray her city and surrender it to them, if they would only give her those bracelets on their left arms. They accepted the proffer, and by night this daughter of the ruler of the city opened one of the gates. The army entered, and, keeping their promise, threw upon her their bracelets, and also their shields, until under the weight she died. Alas, that all through the ages the same folly has been repeated, and for the trinkets and glittering treasures of this world men and women swing open the portals of their immortal soul for an ever- lasting suiTender, and die under the shining sub- mergement. Through the rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may you be enabled to imitate the example of Rachel and Hannah and Abigail and Deborah and Mary and Vasbti. Amen! -^4 WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. 91 Wittely Ambition, Good and Bad. " Arise and eat bread, and let tliine heart be merry : I will 67ve thee the viueyard of Naboth."— 1 Kings 31:7. One day King Ahab, looking out of the window of his palace at Jezreel, said to his wife, Jezebel • ^' We ought to have these royal gardens enlarged. If we could only get that fellow, Naboth, who owns that vineyard out there, to trade or sell, we could make it a kitchen garden for our palace." " Fetch in Naboth," «ays the king to one of his servants. The plain gardener, w^ondering w^hy he should be called into the presence of his majesty, conies m, a little downcast in his modesty, and with very obsequious manner, bows to the king. The king says: "Naboth, I want to trade vine- yards with you. I WANT YOUR VINEYARD for a kitchen garden, and I will give a great deal better vineyard in place of it ; or, if you prefer money for it, I will give you cash." ''Oh, no," says Naboth, "I cannot trade off my httle place, nor can I sell it. It is the old homestead ; I got it of my father, and he of his father, and I cannot let the old place go out of my hands." ' 'ft n\ i ' ^ i', J 92 WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. In a great state of petulancy, King Ahab went into the house and flung himself on the bed, and turned his face to the wall, in a gi'eat pout. His wife, Jezebel, comes in, and she says : " What is the matter with you ? Are you sick ?'* " Oh," he says, "I feel very blue. I have set my heart on getting that kitchen garden, and Naboth will neither trade nor sell, and to be de^ feated Iw a common gardener is more than I can stand.'- ' "Oh, pshaw!" says Jezebel, "don't go on in that way. Get up and eat your dinner, and stop moping. I will get for you that kitchen gar- den." Then Jebezel borrowed her husband's signet, or seal — for then, as now, in those lands, kings never signed their names, but had a ring with the royal name engraved on it, and that impressed on a royal letter or document, was the signature. She stamped her husband's name on a proclama- tion, which resulted in getting NABOTH TRIED FOR TREASON against the king, and two perjured witnesses swore their souls away with the life of Naboth, and he was stoned to death, and his property came to the crown, and so Jezebel got for her husband and herself the kitchen garden. But while the v/ild street dogs were rending the dead body of poor Naboth, Elijah, the prophet, tells tiK^m of other canines that will, after a while, have a free banquet, saying : " Where dogs lick Si tl WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. 93 ihe blood Of Naboth, shall dogs Lck thy blood, even thine.' "^ ' And sure enough, three years after, Ahab wounded ni battle, his chariot dripping with the carnage, dogs stood under it lapping his life's blood And a little afterward his wife, Jezebel who had been his chief adviser in crime, stands at her palace window and sees Jehu, the enemv approaching to take possession of the palace And to make herself look as attractive as possible" and queenly to the very last, she decorated her person, and according to Oriental custom closed her eyes and ran a brush dipped in a black powder along the long eyelashes, and then from the win, dow she glared her indignation upon Jehu As fte rode to the gates hi his chariot he shouted to the slaves in her room: ''Throw her down'" But no doubt the slaves halted a moment from 8uch WORK OF ASSASSINATION, yet, knowing Queen Jezebel could be no more to them, and the conqueror Jehu would be every- thing, as he shouted again, '' Throw her down " they seized her and bore her struggling and curs- ing to the window casement, and hurled her forth till she came tumbling to the earth, striking it ]ust m time to let Jehu's horses trample her and the ch*dot wheels roll over her. While Jehu is inside at the table refreshing himself after the excitement, he ordered his servants to go out and bury the dead queen. But the wild street dogs r. if < III ' lit ■ i I i/ 94 WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. had for the third time appeared on the scene, and they had removed all her body except those parts which in all ages dogs are by a strange instinct or brutal superstition kept from touching after death —the palms of the hands and the soles of t>io feet. All ■■ • 'S appalling scene of ancient history was the result of A wife's BAD ADVICE to a husband, of a wife's struggle to advance her husband's interests Dy unlawful means. Ahab and Jezebel got the kitchen garden of Naboth, but the dogs got tliem. The trouble all began when this mistaken wife aroused her husband out of his melancholy by the word of the text : " Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry : I will give thee the vineyard." The influence suggested by this subject is an influence you never before heard discoursed on and may never hear again, but a most potent and semi- omnipotent influence, and decides the course of individuals, families, nations, centuries, and eternities. I speak of wifely ambition, good and bad. How important that every wife have her ambition— an elevated, righteous and divinely approved ambition. And here let me say, what I am most anxious for is that woman, not waiting for the rights de- nied her or postponed, promptly and decisively employ the rights she already has in possession. WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. 95 Some say she will be in fair way to get aU hei rights when she gets the RIGHT TO THE BALLOT-BOX. I wish that the experiment might be tried and settled. I would hke to see all women vote, and then watch the result. I do not know that it would change anything for the better. Most wives and daughters and sisters would vote as their hus- bands and fathers and brothers voted. Nearly all the famihes that I know are solidly Eepubli- can or Democratic or Prohibition. Those families all votmg would make moi-e votes but no difference m the results. Besides that, as now, at the polls men are brought up by the thousands, women would be brought up by the thousands. The more voters the more opportunities for political corrup- tion. We have several million more voters now than are for the pubhc good. We are told that female suffrage would con-ect TWO EVILS, the ram business, and the insufficiency of woman's Avages. About the rum business I have to say that multitudes of women drink, and it is no unusual thing to see them in the restaurants so over- powered with wine and beer that they can hardly sit up, while there are so many so-called respect- able restaurants where thev can go and take their champagne and hot toddy all alone. Mighty temperance voters those women would make: Besides that, the wives of the iiim-seUers would y ■ (, > k m ■ j fl; f V ;> 96 Wifely ambition, good and bad. have to vote in the interest of their husband's business, or have a time the inverse of felicitous. Besides that, nilHons of respectable and refined women in America would probably not vote at all, because they do not want to go to the polL, and, on the other hand, womanly roughs would all go to the polls, and that might make woman's vote on the wrong side. There is not much pros- pect of the expulsion of drunkenness by female suffrage. As to woman's wages to be corrected by wo- man's vote, I have not much faith in that. WOMEN are harder ON WOMEN than men are. Masculine employers are mean enough in treatment of women, but if you want to hear beating down of prices and wages in perfection, listen how some women treat washer- women and dressmakers and female servants. Mrs. Shylock is more merciless than Mr. Shylock. Women, I fear, will never get righteous wages through woman's vote, and as to unfortunate womanhood, women are far more cruel and un- forgiving than men are. After a woman has made shipwreck of her character, men generally drop her, but women do not so much drop her as hurl her with the force of a catapult clear out and off and down and under. I have not much faith that woman will ever get merciful consideration and justice through woman suffrage, yet I like experiments, and some of my friends, in whose Judgment I bav© WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. 97 confidence, are so certcain that alleviation would come by such process that I would, if I had the power, put in every woman's hand the vote. I cannot see what right you have to make a woman pay taxes on her pro[)erty to lielp support city, Stata and national Government, and yet deny her the opportunity of heli)ing decide who shall be Mayor, Governor or President. But let every wife, not waiting for the vote she may never get, or, getting it, find it outbalanced by some other vote not fit to be cast, arise now in the nn'ght of the eternal God and wield the power of a sancti- fied wifely ambition for a good approximating the infinite. No one can so inspire a man to noble purposes as a noble woman, and no one so thoroughly de- grade a man as a wife of unworthy tendencies. While in my text we have illustration of wifely ambition employed in the wrong direction, in society and history are instances of WIFELY AMBITION TRIUMPHANT in right directions. All that was worth admira- tion in the character of Henry VI. was a ref tion of the heroics of his wife Margaret. William, Prince of Orange, was restored to the right path by the grand qualities of his wife Mary. Justin- ian, the Roman emperor, confesses that his wise laws were the suggestion of his wife Theodora. Andrew Jackson, the warrior and President, had his mightest reinforcement in his plain wife, whose inartistic attire was.the amusement of tlw '1,1 !'( .' ,' 'i ;j ,. I' :,f P':'t !| ^^^^^^^^^H ''' t\ ^^^^^HffllffllMM i i^ ^^^^^H ^^^HH^^^HIi!^ \ : ^h^Hm ^^^B'flN^HHol 1 ^^^■IMMHB^B f ^^^^i^H^j^M MM ' ^^^^^^^^B^^SJ||BMr^HHHMg|n^H i ^^^^^^^^R'.l^ jHnB^Snil|«yi^B|tgS^ I ^^^^^^P,s H^MnMB^BlD M .' 1 ^^^^H' jh^^^^hM'UI ' ^^^^^^i j^ inl^^^BW m'^ ^Hi^^^^ni: 1. 1 HUHHi :■ 1' !' ii ^^^^H -SHfli^l^^BlM •'1 ^^^■MffiH^wHilil i 1 ^^^^H HBIw-^'Imv , I 98 WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. elegant circles in which she was invited. Wash- ington wlio broke the chain that h(.'kl America in foreign vassalage, wore for forty years a chain aronnd his own neck, that chain holding the niin- iatnre likeness of her who had l)een his greatesi inspiration, whether among the snows at Valley Forge or the honors of the Presidential chair. Pliny's pen was driven through all its poetic and historical dominions by his wife, Cali)urnia, who sang his stanzas to the sound of flute, and sat among audiences em-aptured at her hushand's genius, herself the most em-ai)tured. Pericles said he got all his eloquence and statesmanship from his wife. When tlie wife of Grotius rescued him from long imj)risonment at Lovestein by means of a bookcase that went in and out, carry- ing his books to and fro, he was one day trans- ported, hidden amid the folios; and the women of beseiged Weinsberg getting permission from the victorious army to take with them so much of their valuables as they could carry, under cover of the promise shouldered and took with them as the most important valuables, their husbands— both achievements in a literal way .illustrated what thousands of times has been done in a figurative way, that wifely ambition has been the salvation of men. Do Tocqueville, whose writings will be poten- tial and quoted while the world lasts, ascribes his successes to his wife and says : '' Of all the blessings which God has given to me, the great- est of all in my eyes is to have lighted on Maria •VVIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD, 90 Motley." MMi'tin Lutlier says of his wife: *'I would not oxchaiigo my poverty with lier for all the riches of Croesus without her." Isabella of Spaiu, by lior suiH>rior faith in Columbus, put hito the hand uf Ferdinand, lu>r husband, America. John Adams, Pn^sident of the United States, said of his wife: "She never byword or look dia. couraged me from running all luwaixls for tho Salvation of my country's liberties." THOMAS CAKLYLE spent the last twenty years of his Jife in trying by his pen to atone for the fact that duriiig his wife's life ho never appreciated her influence on his career and destiny. Alas, that having taken her from a beautiful home and a brilliant career, he should have buried her in the home of a recluse and scolded her in such language as only a dys- peptic genius could manage, until one day while in her invalidism riding in Hyde Park, her pet dog got run over, and under the excitement the coachman found her dead. Then the literary giant woke from his conjugal injustice, and wrote the lamentations of Craigen-Puttock and Cheyne Row. The elegant and fullsome epitaphs that husbands put upon their wives' tombstones are often an attempt to make up for lack of apprecia- tive words that should have been uttered in the ears of the living. A whole Greenwood of monu- mental inscriptions will not do a wife so much good after she has (piit the Avorld as one plain sentejice like that which Tom Hood wrote to his ill h 1} >n iim i UM t ! ' J 1 ! ! 1 ! loo WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. living wIRi when lie said : "I iiover was anything till I know you." O woman, what is your wifely ambition, noble or ignoble ? Is it HIOII SOCIAL POSITION ? That will then probably direct your husband, and he will climb and scramble and slip and fall and rise and tumble, and on what level or in what depth, or on what height he will, after a while, be found,- 1 cannot even guess. The contest for social position is the most unsatisfactory contest in all the world, because it is so uncertain about your getting it, and so insecure a possession after you have obtained it, and so unsatisfactory even if you keep it. The whisk of a lady's fan may blow it out. The growl of one bear, or the bel- lowing of one bull on Wall Street, may scatter it. Is the wife's ambition tlie political preferment of her husband ? Then that will probably direct him. What A GOD-FORSAKEN REALM is American politics, those best know who have dabbled in them. After they have assessed a man who is a candidate for office, which he does not get, or assessed him for some office attained, and he has been whirled round and round and round and round among the drinking, smoking, swearing crowd, who often get control of public affairs, all that is left of his self-respect or moral gtamina would find plenty of room on a geomet- ♦. ; •? WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. lOl rical point, which is said to liave ncithor lengtli, breadth or thickness. Many a wife has not bwii eatisfiod till \wv husband wont into pohtics, but would afterward have given all she possessed to get him out. I knew a highly moral man, useful in tlui church and possessor of a bri^dit home. He had a useful and prosperous business, but his wife did not think it genteel. There were H !... ODOKS ABOUT THE BUSINESS, and sometimes they would adiiere to his garments when he returned at night. Sh(> insisted on his domg something more elegant, although he was quahlied for no business except that in which ho was engaged. To please hei- he changed his busi- ness, and, in order to get on fast(^r, abandoned church attendance, saying, after he had made a certain number of hundreds of thousands of dollars he would return to the church and its services. Where is that family to-day ? Obliter- ated. Although succeeding in business forwhiuii he was qualified, he undertook a style of merchan- dise for which he had no qualification, and soon went into bankruptcy. His new style of business put him into evil association. He lost his morals as well as his money. He broke up not only his own home, but broke up another man's home, and from being a kind, pure, generous, moral man as any of you who sit here to-day, has be- come a homeless, penniless libertine. His wife'd ( I •.' , ' t 102 WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. ambition for a more genteel business destroyed him, disgraced her, anil bhglited their child. But suppose, now, there be in our homos, as thank God there are in hundreds of homes here represented, on THE wife's throne one who says not only by her words, but more powerfully by her actions: "My husband, our destinies are united ; let us see where industry, honesty, and conmion sense and f 'th in God will put us. I am with you in all your enterprises. I caiuiot be with you in person as you go to your daily business, but I will be with you in my prnyers. Let us see what wo can achieve by hav- ing God in our iioarts, and God in our [lives, and God in our homo. Be on the side of everything good. Go ahead and do your best, and though everything should turn out different from what we have calculated, you may .always count on two who are going to hi!li) you, and God is one and I am the other." That man may have fee^ ble health, and may meet with many obstacles and business trials, but he is coming gloriously through, for ho is reinforced and inspired and si)urred on by a woman's voice. Some of us could tell of what influence upon us has been a wifely ambition consecrated to righteousness. As MY WIPE is out of town, and will not shake her head be- WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. Iu3 cause I say it in public, I will state that in niv own protessional life I have often been called of Cxod as I thought, to run into the very teeth of pubhc opnnon, and all outsiders with whom I advised told me I iiad better not, it would ruin me and mm my church, and at the same tim(^ I was receivmg nice little letters threatening mo with dn-k and pistol and poison if I persisted in attackmg certain evils of the day, until the Com- missioner of Police considered it his duty to take h^ place in our Sabbath services with forty officers scattered through the house for the preservation of order ; but in my home there has a ways been one voice to say: -Go ahead, and caies If only God is on our side ?" And though sometimes it seemed as if I was going out agaiiis lime hundred iron chariots, I went ahead cheered by the domestic voice: ''Up' for this IS the day in which the Lord hath dehvered bisera mto thme hands." A man is no better them his wife will let him be- O wives of America, swing your sceptres of witely influence for God and good homes ! Do not urge your husbands to annex Naboth's vine- yard to your palace of success, whether right or wrong, lest the dogs that come out to destroy Naboth come out also to devour you. Right- eou^iess will pay best in life, will pay best in death will pay best in the judgment, will pay best through all eternity. f t I- I -1 if,' 1,^ i t 104 WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. I : EXTINCT FAMILIES. In our effort to have the mother of every household appreciate her influence over her children, we are apt to forget the wife's influ- ence over the husband. In many households the influence upon the husband is the only- home influence. In a great multitude of the best and most important and most talented families of the earth, th^re have been no de- scendants. There is not a child or a grandchild, or any remote descendant of Washington, or Charles Sumner, or Shakespeare, or Edmund Burke, or Pitt, or Lord Nelson, or Cowper, or Pope, or Addison, or Johnson, or Lord Chtitham, or Grattan, or Isaac Newton, or Goldsmith, or Swift, or Locke, or Gibbon, or Walpole, or Canning, or Dryden, or Moore, or Chaucer, or Lord Byron, or Walter Scoot, or Oliver Crom- well, or Garrick, or Hogarth, or Joshua Rey- nolds, or Spencer, or Lord Bacon, or Macaulay. Multitudes of the finest families of the earth are extinct. As though they had done enough for the world by their genius or wit or patriot- ism or invention or consecration, God withdrew them. In multitudes of cases all woman's op' portunity for usefulness is with her contempo- raries. How important that it be an improved opportunity ! While the French warriors on their way to Rheims had about concluded to give up attacking the castle at Troyes, because it was so heavily garrisoned, ^^H ■■p^^^H ^^KflMM H^^HiC^^^nJ^^Hil HH^HHHH ^^^H ^n^B^^BMH i^H_^miFi^fflHi m WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. 105 JOAN OF ARC insde the castle in thaee days. -We would wd mgly wait six days," said one of the leldez^ ^ix! she cried out, -you shall be in it to- moriw,"and under her leadership, on the mor- ow they entered. On a smaller scale, every man lias garrisons to subdue and obstacles to level, and every wife may be an hispired Joan of Arc to her husband. tmrp'r,"f •"' ^5<^'y '-""l-ition. the determina- tion, God lielpnig, to accompany her companion acioss tlie stormy sea of tiiis life and together gain tt.e wharf of the Celestial City! Coax^in. afo. g with you! You cannot drive him there. Y^Z c there That IS God's plan. He coaxes us all the ,vaZ coaxes us out of onv sins, coaxes us to accept parion, coaxes us to heaven. If we reach tha lessed place, .t wdl he through a prolonged and divme coaxn,g. By the same process take your companion, r„d then you will get there as well and all your household. Do just the opposite of your neighbor. Her wifely AMBITION ALL FOR THIS WORLD, and a disappointed and yexed and unhappy may be better than yours for the few years of hody, into a house about five and a half feet long 'Hi t ,vBf" 106 WIFfiLY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. and about three feet wide and two feet high ; and concerning her soul's destiny you can make your own prognostication. Her husband and her sons and daughters, who all, hke her, live for this world, will have the same destiny for the body and the soul. You, having had a SANCTIFIED AND ENNOBLED wifely ambition, will pass up into palaces, and what becomes of your body is of no importance, for it is only a scaffolding, pulled down now that your temple is done. You will stand in the ever- lasting rest and see your husband come in, and see your children come in, if they have not pre- ceded you. Glorified Christian wife ! Pick up any crown you choose from off the Kings foot- stool and wenr it; it was promised you long ago, and with it cover up all the scars of your earthly conflict. Sixteen miles from Petersburg, Russia, was one of the royal palaces, and there one night Catherine the Empress entertained Prince Henry. It was severe winter and deep snow, and THE EMPRESS AND THE PRINCE rode in magnificence of sleigh and robe and canopy never surpassed, followed by two thousand sleighs laden with the first people of Russia, the whole length of the distance illumed by lamps and daz- zhng temples built for that one night, and imita- tions of mosques and Egyptian pyramids ; and people of all nations, in all styles ot costume, til WIFELY AMBITION, GOOD AND BAD. 107 me luxuiieh of kii]i>doms were gathered nn.l splendors that will be tnthi Irt o^^« , ^■'''''*''' Ohm p^il::;; s;- «^^^^^^^ and d umined palaces of heaven. With m" the nhttt T ''^ '"'"' ^ *"^Sg^^''' «™st- And ncher and grander regalement. "^ " ^,.'.t ' 1 .1 1 A M' *'*-■-._ IL: .' jj..^. 108 WHAT CAN AND WHAT C.VNNOT Woman's Happiness— What Can and What Cannot make a Woman Happy. " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,**- TlMOTHY 5 : 6. The editor of a Boston newspaper, a few days ago wrote me the terse qnestions : " What is the road to happiness ?" and "Ought happiness be the chief aim of hfe?" My answer was : "The road to happiness is the continuous effort to make others happy. The chief aim of hfe ought to be usefuhiess, not happiness, but HAPPINESS ALWAYS FOLLOWS USEFULNESS." This morning's text in a strong way sets forth the truth that a woman who seeks in worldly advant- age her chief enjoyment, will come to disappoint- ment and death. " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. '' My friends, you all want to be happy. You have a great many recipes by which it is proposed to give you satisfaction — solid satisfaction. At times you feel a thorough unrest. You know as well as older people what it is to be depressed. As dark shadows sometimes fall upon the geogra- phy of the school girl as on the page of the spec- tacled philosopher. I have seen as cloudy da}^ in May as in November. There are no deeper MAKE A WOMAN HAPPY. 109 eighs breathed by tlie gmndn.otlier than by th« granddaughter. I correct the populai p f,s^ lat poople are happier in childhood ^ yoZ than they ever will be ao-nin Tf , r ^ the older the hapt)ler ^ ^ ""' ^'^" ^"^'^^^^ THE HAPPIEST WOMAN thatlevorknowvvasaChristian octogenarian • her han- wh,te as white could be; the s«nl|ht of] «; ' en ate ,„ the afternoon gilding the „eaks of tw I have to say to a great n,a„y of the ymX people that the most n,is,.rahle ti.ne yen ar J" f to have IS just now. As you advance in l,f as you come out into the world and W y^:; head and heart all full of good, honest Z pZ. ticaJ Christian work-, then you will know what it IS to begn, to he happy, There are there who would have us believe that life is chasing Ihitte down and gasp„,g bubbles. We have ifot fon^d It so. To many of us it has been discovering diamonds larger than the Kohinoor, and I tWnk that our joy will continue to increase until no thing short of everlasting jubilee of heaven v^l be able to express it. Horatio Greenangh, at the dose of the hardest Me a man ever lives-the life of an American ari^ist-wrote : "I don't want to leave this wo^ d until I give some sign that, horn by the grace of God n Ins land, I have found life to be a ve^ cheerful thing, ami not the dark and bitter thW llb^rt B ™^ ";■?' •^'•"^■"^ ^-- clouded "^ Albeit Barnes, the good Christian, known the t., i t, IN »i| W^h 110 WHAT CAN AND WHAT CANNOT I! !■ \ i; I world over, stood in his pulpit in Philadelphia, at seventy or eighty years of age, and said : " This world is so very attractive to me, I am very sorry I shall have to leave it." I know that Solomon said some very dolor- ous things about this world, and three times declared : " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity/' I suppose it was a reference to those times in his career when his seven hundred wives almost pestered the life out of him. But I would rather turn to the description he gave after his conver- sion, when he says in another place: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." It is reasonable to expect it will be so. The longer the fruit hangs on the tree, the riper and more mellow it ought to grow. Hear, then, while I discourse upon some of the MISTAKES WHICH YOUNG PEOPLE MAKE in regard to happiness, and point out to the young women what I consider to be the source of com- plete satisfaction. And, in the first place, I advise you not to build your happiness upon mere social position. Persons at your age, looking off upon life, are apt to think that if, by some stroke of what is called good luck, you could arrive in an elevated and affluent position, a little higher than that in which God has called you to live, you would be completely happy. Infinite mistjfike ! The pal- ace floor of Ahasuerus is red with the blood of Vashti's broken heart. There have beau no J J MAKE A WOMAN H.VI'PY 111 raore sc-ilding tears wept than tliose which coursed the cheeks of Josephine. If the sob of unliappy Avoniannood in tlio great cities could break t Hough the tapestried wall, tiiat sob would come along your stroots to-daj like the simoom of tlie desert. Sometimes I have heard in the rustliiiir of the robes on the city pavement the hiss of the adders that followed in the wake. You have come out from your home, and you have looked up AT THE GREAT HOUSE, and coveted a life under those arches, when per. haps, at th \t very moment, within thct house there may have been the wringing of hands, the start of horror, and the very agony of hell I knew of such a one. Her father's house was plain, most of the people who came there were . plam ; but, by a change in fortune such as some- times comes, a hand had been offered that led her into a brilhant sphere. All the neighbors congratulated her upon her grand prospects ; but what an exchange ! On her side it was a heart tull of generous impulse and affection. On his ''AV^r?^ ^ '''''^ ^'^ ^''^ withered as the stubble of the field On her side it was a father's house, where God was honored and the Sabbath light flooded the rooms with the very mirth of heaven On his side it was a gorgeous residence and the coming of mighty men to be enterteined there ; but withm it were revelry and godlessness. ilardly had the orange-blossoms of the marriage ' )i fc ii .'T \i. T I**" Hi m i'' If • 1 '* • ■ IHM 113 WTTAT CAN AND WIIAT CANNOT foast lost their fragranco, than tho night of dis- content began to cast its sliadow. CRUELTIKS AND UNKINDNE8SES changed all those splendid ti-appings into a hollow inock(;iy. The j)laiters of sohd silver, tho caskt'ta of imregold, th(^ headdress of gleaming diamonds, were therci ; hnt no God, no jteace, no kind words, no Christian sym[>athy. Tlui festal nnisic that broke on tho captive's ear turned out to be a dirge, and the wreath in tlie plush was a rei)tile coil, and tlu^ upliolstruy that swayed in the wind was tho wing of a destroying angel, and the bead-drops on the pitcher were the sw(3at of everlasting i A mi i ( iiiiid l|nti < ii , \mn iltm0>:^*^ t' > m Lx* Make a woman happv. ny try to cover the wrinkles and hide the ravages on TZL "" "^'"^^ "^^^ "'^^-^^^^ ^-^'"t^p" THE HOOF-MAEKS remain and you cannot l.ide them. It is siUv to f7l° *^ ?■'''"• ^ """"^ «'« "'°«t repu sfve fool m the world is an old fool i Whv nw f, ,i should you be ashan,ed of gettSw? Ts ^ s.gn-1 IS prima facie evidence that you have hvtdTo t T'"*^ "^"' "■ y- --'d ™" have years "" '" '"'"^'' "l* «i' «-""«««« nerof' '^""ftTf -tf»*theattractive- whTte as snow " P V '\'^^l ' "^^ I'^"- ^«B wmte as snow. But when the color goes from thecheeJc, and the lustre from the eye and t,« r "?i T.:'r*!f ' ^''V'^ gracefirsff.™ tne gait alas ! for those who built their time and their eternity upon good looks. But "u to passage of years cannot take out of oLrface benignity and kindness, and conipars":: t" Culture your heart and you culture your face The brightest glory that ever beamed ftoni a w"' man's face is the religion of Jesus Chrfet LiThe last war wo hundred wounded soldiei7came to Philadelp na one night, and came unheralded Jd they had to extemporise a hcspital for them ' and the Christian women of my church and nf 'J churches went out that iiii.t to take far^'of tl I f hi; ;i! i; I lis WIIAT CAI^ ANt) WHAT CANNOT poor wounded fellows. That night I saw a Chri* tian woman IN THE WARDS OP THE HOSPITAL, her sleeves rolled up ready for hard work, her hair dishevelled in the excitement of the hour. Her face was plain, very plain; but after the wounds were washed and the new bandages were put round the splintered limbs,, and the exhausted boy fell off into his first pleasant sleep, she put her hand on his brow and he started in his dream, and said, "0, I thought an angel touched me!" There may have been no classic elegance in the features of Mrs. Harris, who came into the hospital after the *' Seven Days" awful fight, as she sat down by A WOUNDED DRUMMEK-BOY, and heard him soliloquize: " A ball through my body, and njy poor mother will never again see her boy. What a pity it is !" And she leaned over him and said: " Shall I be your mother, and comfort you ?" And he looked up and said, "Yes, I'U try to tJiink she's here. Please to write a long letter to her and tell her all about it, and send her a lock of my hair and comfort her. But I would like you to tell her how much I suffered— yes, I would like you to do that, for she would feel so for me. Hold my hand while I die." There may have been no classic elegance in her features, but all the hospitals of Harrison's Landing and Fortress Mom-oe would have agi*eed that she was beautiful. •i^^*L Make a Woman happy. jx«j and if any rough man in aU that ward had insulted her some wounded soldier would have leaped from his couch on his best foot, and struck him dead with a crutch. Again : I advise you not to depend for happi- tiess upon ^^ THE FLATTERIES OF MEN. It is a poor compliment to your sex that so many men feel obliged, in your presence, to oifer un- meaning comphments. Many capable of elegant and elaborate conversation elsewhere, sometimes feel called upon at the door of the drawing-room to drop their common sense and to dole out sicken- ing flatteries. They say things about your dress ajid about your appearance, that you know, and they know, are false. They say you are an angel You know you are not. Determined to tell the truth in office, and store and shop, thev consider it honorab: • to lie to a woman. The same thing that they told you on this side of the drawing-room, three minutes ago they said to ^me one on the other side of the drawing-room O, let no one trample on your self-respect The meanest thing on which a woman can build her happiness is the flatteries of men. Again : I charge you not to depend for happi- ness upon THE DISCIPLESHIP OF WOELDLINESS. I have seen m-n as vain of their old-fashioned and eccentri' hat as your brainless fop is proud I. 'i'' 'If!.' •H 1 F ; I' '■^mII f')f no WHAT CAN AND WHAT CANNOT of his dangling fooleries. Fashion sometimea makes a reasonable demand of us, and then a\'o ought to yield to it. The daisies of the field have their fashion of color and leaf ; the honey- suckles have their fashion of ear-drop ; and the snowflakes flung out of the winter heavens have their fashion of exquisiteness. After the summer shower the sky weds the earth with ring of rain- bow. And I do not think we have a right to de- spise the elegancies and fashions of this world, especially if they make reasonable demands upon us'; but the discipleship and worship of fashion is death to the body, nnd death to the soul. I am glad the world is improving. Look at the fashion plates of the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries, and you will find that the world is not so extravagant and extraordinary now as it was then, and all the marvellous things that the granddaughter will do will never equal that done by the grandmother. Go still farther back, to the Bible times, and you find that in those times fashion wielded a more terrible sceptre. You have only to turn to the third chapter of Isaiah, a portion of the Scriptures from which I once preached to you, to read : THE JEWISH FASHION PLATE. " Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched -forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet : In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling orna- MAKE A WOMAN HAPPY. 12 i ments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tire3 hke the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the nnifflers, and bonnets, and the head-bands, and th(^ tablets, and the ear-rings, the rings, and the nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wim- ples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils." Only think of a woman having all that on ! I am glad that the world is getting better and that fashion which has dominated in the world so ruinously in other days has, for a little time, for a httle degree at any rate, relaxed its energies. All the splendors and the extravaganza of this world dyed into your robe, and flung over your shoulder, cannot wrap peace around your heart for a single moment. The gayest wardrobe will utter no voice of condolence in the day of trouble and darkness. The woman is grandly dressed, and only she, who is wrapped in the robe of a Saviour's righteousness. The home may be very humble, the hat maybe very plain, the frock may be very coarse ; but the halo of heaven settles in the room when she wears it, and the faintest touch of the resurrection angel will change that garment into raiment of exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth could whiten it. I come to you, young woman, to-day, to say that this world cannot make you happy. I know it is a bright world, with glorious sunshine, and golden rivers, and fire- worked sunset, and bird orchestra, and the dai kest cave has its crystals, and the wrathiest wave baa .n :p.-, m ,1, " ' fl ■ "'':m li - -^-4t^- .iit. 122 WHAT CAN AND WHAT CANNOT its foam wreath, and the coldest midnight lt& flaming aurora ; but God will put out all these lights with the blast of His own nostrils, and the glories of this world will perish in THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. You will never be happy until you get your sin forgiven, and allow Christ Jesus to take full pos- session of your soul. He will be your friend in every perplexity. He will be your comfort in every trial. He will be your defender in every strait. I do not ask you to bring, like Mary, the spices to the sepulchre of a dead Christ, but to bring you all to the foot of a hving Jesus. His word is peace. His look is love. His hand is help. His touch is life. His smile is heaven. 0, come, then, in flocks and groups. Come, like the south wind over banks of myrrh. Come, like the morning hght, tripping over the mountains. Wreathe aU 5'our affections on Christ's brow, set all your gems in Christ's coronet, let this Sabbath air rustle with the wings of rejoicing angels and the towers of God ring out the news of souls laved. " This worltl > ts fancied pearl may crave, 'Tis not he pearl for me ; 'Twill dim its lustre in the grave, 'Twill perish in the sea. But there's a pearl of price untold, Which never can be bought with gold ; O, that's the pearl for me." The snow was very deep, and it was still falliug MAKE A WOMAN HAPPY. 123, rapidly, ^hen, in the first year of my Christian ministry, I hastened TO SEE A YOUNG WOMAN DIE. It was a very hanille home. She was an orphan • her father had been shipwrecked on the banks of Newfoundland. She had earned lier own living As I entered the room I saw nothing attractive. No pictures. No tapestry. Not even a cushioned chair. The snow on the window casement was not whiter than the cheek of that dying girl It was a face never to be forgotten. Sweetness and majesty of soul, and faith in God, had given her a matchless beauty, and the sculptor who could have caught the outlines of those features, and frozen them into stone, would have made himself immortal. With her large, brown eyes she look- ed calmly into the great eternity. I sat down by her bedside and said : ''Now tell me all your troublf s, and soitoavs, and struggles, and doubts." She replied : " t have no doubts or struggles. It IS all plain to me. Jesus has smoothed ihe way for my feet. I wish when you go to your pulpit next Sunday, you will tell the people that RELIGION WILL MAKE THEM HAPPY. ''O death, where is thy sting? Mr. Talmage, I wonder if this is not the bUss of dying ?" I said, " Yes, I think it must be. " I lingered around the couch. The sun was setting, and her sister light- ed a candle. She hghted the candle for me. The dying gii-1, the dawn of heaven in her face, needed i 'i 121: WOMAN'S HAPPINESS. ( i< no candle. I rose to go, and she said : "1 thank you for coming. Good night! Wlien we meet again it will be in heaven— in heaven ! Good night ! good night !" For her it was a good night to tears, good night to poverty, good night to death ; but when the sun rose again it was good morning. The light of another day liitd burst in upon her soul. Good morning ! The angels were singing her welcome home, and the baud of riirist was putting upon her brow a garland. Good morning! Her sun rising. Her palm waving. Her spirit exulting before the throne of God. Good morning ! Good morning ! The white lily of poor Margaret's cheek had blushed into the rose of health immortal, and the snows through which we carried her to the country graveyard were symbols of that robe which she wears, so white that no f\iller on earth could whiten it. My sister, my daughter, may your last end b* like hers 1 THE GRi\>-DMOTHER. 125 The Grandmother. "The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first ip tliy grandiuothei'Lois."— a Tm. 1 : 5. In this love-lottor whidi Paul, tho old minister is writing to Tiniotliy, liio young minister, the family record is biought out. Paul i)ractically says : " Timothy, what a good grandmotlicr you had ! You ought to he better than most folks, because not only was your mother good, but your grandmother. Two preceding generations of piety ought to give you a i)jighty push in tlie right di- rection." The fact Wi\s that Timothy needed en- couragement, lie was in poor health, having a weak stomach, and was dyspeptic, and Paul pre- scribed for him a tonic, " a little wine, for thy stomach's sake "—not mi\ch wine, but a little wine, and only as a medicine. And if the wine then had been as much adulterated with logwood and strychnine as our modern wines, lie would not have prescribed any. But Timothy, not strong physically,*is encour- aged spiritually by the recital of grandmotherly excellence, Paul hinting to him, as I hint this day to you, thnt God sometimes gathers up, as in a reservoir away back of the active generations of to-day, a godly influence, and then in response to prayer, lets down the power of children and «^^ i ^ '11 ' I ' gi,.U, J h %iim ■■'r ■# 126 THE GRANDMOTHER. grandcliildrcn and great-grandchildren. The world is woefully in want of a table of statistics m regard to what is the protractedness and im- Jnensity of INFLUENCE OP ONE HOOD WOMAN in the church and world. We have accounts of liow much evil has been wrought by Margaret, the mother of criminals, who lived near a hundred years ago, and of how many hundreds of crimi- nals her descendants furnished for the penitentiaiy and the gallows, and how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they cost this country in their arraignment and prison support, as well as in the property they burglarized or destroyeiL But Avill not some one come out with brain com- prehensive enough, and heart warm enough, and pen keen enough to give us the facts in regard to seme good woman of a hundred years ago, and let us know how many Christian men and women and reformers and useful people have been found among her descendants, and how many asylums and colleges and churches they built, and how many million dollars they contributed for human- itarian andj^^hristian purposes ? The good women whose tombstones were I lanted in the eighteenth century are more ALIVE FOR GOOD iii. the nineteenth century than they were before, as the good women of this ninoteenth century will fee ynore alive for good in the tweQ'J;)^*^?! p?vv)*<^ , if eOE GRANDMOTHER. 127 gian.lmotl,(..s were any better than thoir Rrand- daughters You cannot get very old peo* , talk much ahout how things were when th, v were boys and girls. They havea retioeiice a d^ no.^.•o„mUttali»n. which nuakes „rth,'nhe; tatioii of then- early comrades. While our dear old folks a,-e rehears,.-:- «'- .-•■lies of the present xrir th"'" "" ^ -"— t-d and cro : t'Aainiiie them as fn Vir.i, i-i.,*,. yeai-s ago, the silence becc.os oppressive ^ A colebrated Frenchman :,/ the name of Volney visited this counfy in ITflO, and he says of ^ woman's diet in those times: "If a premium was offered for a regrnieii most destructive to health, none that th.t • "'" "'"'" '''"^'■'^'•'"^ f- thes; end than that in use ahiong these people." That eclipses our lobster salad at midnight. Eveiy body talks about the dissipations of modern umfe 'it tt fr "'^^"'^ '^^''"* eoes down under it, but it was worse a hundred years ago for the chaplain of a French regiment in Z Kevolutionaiy war wrote in 1782, in his book of Amencan women, saying: "They are tall and regular, their complexions are generally fair and without color. At twenty yfar, of age the It" a^v'''™ rJ°"r *' freshness" ofTouS' At thirty or forty tjjey are decrepit." In isia i |.,)|-^''^ •'I ! IP 128 THE GRANDMOTHER. a foreign consul wrote a book entitled, " A Sketch of the United States at the Oonnnencenient of the Present Centuay," and he says of the women of those thnes: "At the age of thirty all their charms have disappeared." On*^ glance at the portraits of the women a himdnxl yt^ars ago and tlieir stylo of dress makes us wonder how they ever got their breath. All this makes me think that the express rail train is no more an im- provement on the old canal-boat, or the tele- gi-aph no more an improvement on the old-time saddlebags, than the wonien of our day are an improvement on the women of the last century." But still, notwithstanding that those times Were so much worse than ours, there was A GLORIOUS RACE OF GODLY ^VOMEN seventy and a hundred years ago, who held the world back from sin and lifted it toward virtue, and without thdr exalted and sanctified influ- ence before this, the last good influence would have perished from the earth. Indeed, all over this land there are seated to-day— not so nuich in churches, for many of them are too feeble to ^.Qnie— a gi-eat many aged grandmothers. They sometimes feel that the world has gone past them, and they have an idea that tliey are of li'^le account. Their head sometimes gets ach- ing from the racket of the grandchildren down- stairs or in the next room. They steady them- selves by the banisters as ihey go up and d(nvn. When they ,get a cold, it hangs on to theji) H! THE GEANDMOTHEB. 139 ionger than rt „,od to. Thoy cnnnot boar to have tlio g,u,.,lchil,h-,.u „u„isl,,,l, „v..„ "vho^ they desei-ve it, and have «o relaxc^l their i,k^ of fann y .hscpline that tl,ey wouKl spoil al 1^ St!" of the hoasehoM hy ' too grt^I TIjeseold follcs are the resort Avhen g,-oat troubles come, and there-is a <:aln,ing and sooth »'g power n. the touch of au aged han.l 1 " t thiough « ith the journey of life, and read ll„> old book more than thoy us=d to, hardly kno^v f which IS the most they enjoy, the Old T... .,3 over tlfe'r- T' "'*™, *" '^'"' "-" t™*' ly over the fanuly r« ^^-""t "1- out of this life before I began it, I have heard of 1 erfiith m God, that brought all herchildren into tl e k " rtom and two of then, into th,3 ministry, and th<^, brought all her grandchiWren into the kingdom mjself the last and least worthy Is it not" i, ^ thM you and I do two things, swing open a picture" gi>ilery of the wrinkled faces and stooped shoulder If m i, • r' H ■IP'*' ^ffp 130 THE GRANDMOTHER. of the past, and call down from their heavenly thrones the godly grandmothers ; to give them our thanks, and then persuade the mothers of to- day that they are living for all time, and that against the sides of every cradle in which a child is rocked beat THE TWO ETERNITIES? Here we have an untried, undiscussed and un- explored subject. You often hear about your in- fluence upon your own children — I am not talking about that. What about your influence upon the twentieth century, upon the thirtieth century, upon the fortieth century, upon the year two thousand, upon the j ear four thousand, if the world last so long ? The world stood four thou- sand years before Christ came ; it is not unreason- able to suppose that it may stand four thousand years after His arrival. Four thousand years the world swung off in sin, four thousand years it may be swinging back into righteousness. By the ordinary rate of multiplication of the world's population in a century, your descendants will be over three hundred, and by two centuries at least over fifty thousand, perhaps two hundred thou- sand, and upon every one of them you, the mother of to-day, will have an influence for good or evil. And if in four centuries your descendants shall have with their nances filled a scroll of hun. dreds of thousands, ^ U some angel from heaven to whom is given the capacity to calculate the number of the stars of heaveu and the sands qt vi m THE QBANDMOTHER. ^3, ttio seashore, step down and m us how many descendants you wUl have in the four thousandth year of the world's possible continuance ° *., <.°*r ^^^ gi-audmothers any longer think that ttey are retired, and sit cleai bal out of relat.ou to it. The mothers of the last century are tt St :r.'''t*''r"^"^^°*^' *« p-i-e™ ch^r ?h„' ""^"^^ *'""'<^^' *>>« professional chau-s the pnsons, the almshouses, the company of,mjdnight brigands, the cellars, the ditches of this countiy. You have been thinking aboufth' unportanc„ of havmgthe right inflnenfe upon one St nnti? ^f "^ .^o^^ t™ little feet on the S. T :■ ^°" ''''^^ "^^e" thinking of your P^sontr'"*^"'^'''^'''^^«^-'^«*ou"d pass on to be an octogenarian. That is ^«u but my subject sweeps a thousand years, a miUio„ one'S.dl''"'^""r "' ^''^- I "-not "«? at au aiound the world and across all times I am along with It we cannot appreciate the force. In ESTIMATING MATERNAL INFLUENCE tje generally run along with it down the stream of tune, and so we don't understand the fuU f^^ ]im jvi*''i 132 THE GBANDMOTMEft. Let US come to it from the eteriiitj side, after it has been working on for centuries, and see all the good it has done and all the evils it has accom- plished niultii)lied in magnificent or appalling compound inteiest. The difference between that mother's influence on her children now, and the influence v/hen it has been nniltiplied in hundreds of thousands of lives, is the difference between the Mississippi river way up at the top of the conti- nent, starting from the little lake Itasca, seven miles long and one ^vide, and its mouth at the Guif of Mexico, where navies might ride. Be- tween the birth of that river and its burial in the sea, the Missouri pours in, and the Ohio pours in, and the Arkansas pours in, and the Red and White and Yazoo rivers pour in, and all the States and TeiTitories between the Alleghany and Rocky mountains make contribution. Now, in order to test the power of a mother's influence, we need to come in off of the ocean of eternity and sail up to- ward the one cradle, and we will find ten thousand tributaries of influence pouring in and pouring down. But it is, after all, ONE GREAT RIVER OF POWER roUing on and rolling forever. Who can fathom it? Who can bridge it? Who can stop it? Had not mothers better be intensifying their prayers ? Had they not better be elevating by their example ? Had they not better be rousing themselves with the consideration that by their faithfijOiiess or neglect they are starting an in- •if THE GRANDMOTHER. 133 Huence which will be stupendous after tlie last mountam of earth is flat, and the last sea has been dried up, and the last flake of the ashes of a consumed world shall have been blown away, and all the telescopes of other worlds directed to the track around which our world once swung shall discover not so much as a cinder of the burned-down and swept-off planet ? In Ceylon there is a granite column thirty-six square feet in size, which is thought, by the natives, to decide the woild'g continuance. An angel with robe spun from zephyr is once a century to descend and sweep the hem of that robe across the granite, and when, by that attrition the colunm IS worn away, they say time wiU end. But, by that process, that granite column would be worn out of existence before mother s influence wiU begin to give way. MOTHERS SOWING SEED. If a mother tell a child he is not good some bugaboo will come and catch him, the fear excited may make the child a coward, and the fact that he finds there IS no bugaboo may make him a liar and the echo of that false alarm may be heard after fifteen generations have been born and expired If a mother promises a child a reward for good behavior, and after the good behavior forgets to give the reward, the (^heat may crop out m some faithlessness half a thousand vears further on. If a mother culture a child's vanity, and eulogize his curls, and extol the night-bla(i 134 THE GftANDMOfm'ft. or sky-blue or nut-brown of the child's eyes, and call out in his presence the admiration of spectators, pride and arrogance may be prolonged alter half a dozen family records have l>een obliterated. If a mother express doubt about some statx'ment of the Holy Bible in a child's preFtuce, loi^g after the gates of this historical era have closed and hhe gates of another era ha\e opened, the result may be B'^c u in a cftarnpion blasphemer. But, on the r-.her haAd, if a mother walking with a child see i? 3ii*?'!:;ring one by the wayside and says: "My ('^iil, giTe that ten-cent piece to that lame boy," the result may be seen on the other side of the toliowing century in some George Muller building a ^vhole village of orphanages. If a mother sit almost every evening by the trundle- bed of a child and teach it lessons of a Saviour's love and a Saviour's example, of the importance of truth and the horror of a lie, and the virtues of indiistry and kindness and sympathy and self- sacrifice, long after the mother has gone, and the child has gone, and the lettering on both the tomb- stones shall have been washed out by the storms of innumerable winters, there may be standing, as a result of those trundle-bed lessons, flaming evangels, world-moving reformers, seraphic Summerfields, weeping Paysons, thimdering Whitefields, emancipating Washingtons. Good or bad influence may skip one generation or two generations, but it will be sure to land in THE THIRD OR FOURTH GENERATIONS, just as the Ten Comrr; -ndments, speaking of tl m mi: -•fc^i^;^ ■ mm Lt 1 i ' fpi f 'Wf''W ■■ . 1 ^^ i 1 ■■H rl 1 ^^1 iSytliia —^Ju mm' J K I H -% Mi UL» i n ; ji ■ J THE GRAXDMOTIIEB. 135 .»».;t:itiOTi vrOodonfaniilios, says nothing about the ,ecoxA gei,.ootion, but entirely skips tlu second and speaks of the tlii.d and fourth Liera- Z ih- ?"'i"f '^}-'^^^<^^ -f the fathers up< n the third and fourth generations of them that hate me." Parentaliniluer.ee, right and wro..,.- may jump over a generation, but it will con?.' down further on, as sure as you sit there and I stand here. Tmiothy's ministiy was i.rcjected by his gmndmother Lois. There are men ami women here, the son and daughter of the Christian Ohorch who are such as a result of the consecration of great-great-grandmothers. Why. who do voti thnik the Lord is ? You talk as though His mem- ory Avas weak. He can no easier remembcu- a prayer five minutes than he can five centuries. This explains what we often see— some mai'i oi woman distinguished for her benevolence wlu^r^ the father and mother were distinguished for penuriousness ; or you see some young man or woman with a bad father and a liard mother come out gloriously for Christ, and make the church sob and shout and sing under their ex- hortations. We stand in corners of the vestry and whisper over the matter and say: " How is this, such great piety in sons and daughters of such parental worldliness and sin ?" I will ex- plain it to you if you will fetch mo the old family Bible containing the full record. Let some sep- tuagenarian look with me clear upon the page of births and mari-iages, and tell me who that woman was with the old-fashioned name of 136 Ni THE GRANDMOTHER, Jemima or Be( y or MohiUbel. Ah, there she is, the old graii(lmoth(>r or gro it grandmother, who had enougli RELIGION TO SATURATE A CENTURY. There she is, the dear old soul, grandmother Lois. In our beautiful Green wor ^...^j vve all sleep there when our work is done, for wlien I get up in tlio Resurrection morning, I want my congrogatitju all about me) — in Greenwood there is the resting-place of George W. Bethune, once a minister of Brooklyn Heights, his name never spoken among intelligent Americans without s^iggesting two things — eloquence and evangel- ism. In the same tomb sleeps his grandmother, Is.ibella Graham, who was the chi f inspiration of his ministry. You are not rim-prised at the poetry, and pathos and pulpit power of tlm grand- son when you read of the faith and devotion of his wonderful ancestiess. When you read THIS grandmother's LETTER, hi which she poured out her widowed scul in longing for a son's sa^'^ntion, vou will not wonder that succeeding genera. >ns nave been blessed : "New York, May 20, 1791. " This day my oniy sun loft me in '.!■ ter wring- ings of heart ; he is again launched on the ocean, God's ocean. The Lord saved him honi ship- wreck, brought him to my home r id all j wed me once more to indulge my affec+ iis ver him. He has been with me but a shoii thiie, and iU THE f.KANDMOTIIER. have I improy,.,! it; l,o in gon,. f,.om mv stht and my heart l,ur»t.s «ith tu„ml.uou; gdef LonI have mercy ou the widow'a son, Hhe <.„lv' son ot lus mother.' ^ "I ask nothing in all this world for him • I re- peat my ,«.tition-save hi. soul alive, giv^ h ,„ salvation fron. sin. It is not the dangtr oV^ seas that distresses me ; it is not the hardshin.s le nmst undergo ; it is not the d,x..ad ot never seeing hnn more m this world ; V is because I cam., d s^ cern the fulfilment of the ,,r„n,ise in him, I can ot discern the new birth, nor its fruit, ut eZ selt-will. This, tins is what distresses me • in^. m connection with this, his being shut out Ct ord nances at a distance from Christians ; sliu np with those who forget God, profane H s n"u"e and bn-ak his Sabbaths : men 'who often 1^^^ J.e hke beasts, yet a.^ accountable creatures >.no must answer for eveiy moment of time and «very ..1, thought, and action. • i„„d, • any wonders hast Thou shown me Thy ways of ,,eahug with me and mine ZyeZi been common ones ; add tliis wonder to the rest ThJ V r''' ''" """S" '■"■« P»««"'Ie with Thee ; g orify Thy son and extend His kingdom by Bea and land; take the prey from the stLig I ro h,m over upon Thee. Many friends t.y to comtoi! me: miserable comforteis are .hey aJl Thou art the God of consolation ; only confi™ to me Thy precious word, on which Thuu causedst m li: ' vll m iri I i HI llr M ICS THE OR.VNDMOTHEB. mo to liopo ill tho d.-iy when Thou saidst to me, •Loav(? thy f.ithnrlo-is chiiari^n, T will prosorvo thoin iilivo.' Only M this Hfo he a spintual hfe, and I put a blank iu Thy I aid as to all temporal things. " I wait for tliy salvation, Amen." With such a p-andinoth(n-, would you not have n right to oxpec. a George W. Bothune? and all the thousands converted through his ministry nay date ehe saving power hack to Isabella Gra- ham, God fill the earth, and the heavens with such grandmothers ; we must some day go up and thank th(*,o dear old souls. Surely, God will let us go up, and tell them of the results of their in- fluence. Among our FIRST QUESTTONS IS HEAVEN will he " where is grandmother ^ " They will point her out, for we would hardly know her even if we had seen her on earth, so bent over with years once, and there so straight, so dhn of eye through the blinding of earthly teai-s, and now her eye as clear as heaven, so full of aches and pains once, and now so agile with celestial health, the wrink- les blooming into carnation roses, and her step hke th(3 roe on the mountains. Yes, I nmst see her, my grandmother on my father's side, Mary McCoy, descendant of the Scotch. When I first spoke to an audience in Glasgow, Scotland, and felt somewhat diffident, being a stranger, I began TIIE IliAXDMOTlrKR. You niustsre those won.oii of the ,.nrly „i„e t onth century au.l the oi«ht,.,.Mth contury fi answer of whose ,,rnye.« is i„ you,, welfare to-day GOD Bl.lfflS ALL TIIE AOKD WOMKN up an,l down the land and in all lauds ! M^hat a happy thing, Pon,ponin« Attieus, to say W.en makn,g the funeral a.Mress of his n oZr Though I have resi,le-"Iof reconcilia' tion. Make It as easy for the ol,l folks as you can When they are sick, get for then, the S docto,^. Give then, your arm when the streets are shppei-y. Stay with then, all the time you can. Go home and see the old folks. Find th« place for then, in the hyiun-hook. Ne ver o t,quat«l. Never say anything (hat implies they are m the way. Make the road for the last , le as smooth as you can. Oh u.y 1 HOW YOU WILL MISS HER when she is gone. I would give the house f,x,m over n,y head o see n,„ll,er. I have .so n aZ things I wo,dd like to tell her, things tint Ce happened in twenty-four yeaA siil 1 e enl f T 140 THE GRANDMOTHER. away. Morning, noon and night let us thank God for the good influences that have come down from good mothers all the way back. Timothy, don't forget your mother Eunice, and don't forget your gi-andmother Lois. And hand down to othei-s this patrimony of blessing. Pass along the coronets. Mal^o religion an heirloom from genera- tion to generation. Mothers of America, con- secrate yourselves to God, and you will help con- secrate all the ages following I Do not dwell so much on your hardships that you miss your chanco of wielding an iniluence that shaU look down upon you from the towers of an endless future. I know Martin Luther was right when he con- soled his wife over the death of their daughter, by saying : " Don't take on so, wife ; remember that this is a hard world for girls " Yes ; I go further and say : It is A HARD WORLD FOR WOMEN. Aye, I go further and say: It is a hard world for men. But for all women and men who trust their bodies and souls in the iiand of Christ, the shining gates will soon swing open. Don't you see the sickly pallor on the sky? That is the pallor on the cold cheek of the dying night. Don't you see the brightening of the clouds? That is the flush ontho warm forehead of the morning. Cheer up, you axe coming within sight of THE CEI.ESTIAL CITY. CairO;, capital of Egypt, was caUed " City of THE QliAM)MOTll[:i(. 141 City "f Ma-sts. Lucian's inuaginary n.otropol s terns. But the city to whici, you journey hath of tbr/r ??' *?"^*"^' t"<"™wis, the masts of those that have been harbored after the storm Aye, aU but the lanterns and the sun, because hey have no need of any other hght, 'sinrth^ Lamb is the hght thereof. b , " ^ ma kisiij f*'' f^SD^.^K f^Wi 43 woman's opportunitt. 'Woman's Opportunity. ** So God created man in His own image, in the image of Glod created He liim; male and female created He then." — Gen 1; 27. In other words, God, who can make no mistake, made man and woman for specific work, and to move in particular sphca'es — man to be regnant in his realm, woman to be dominant in hers. The boundary line between Italy and Switzerland, between England and Scotland, is not more thoroughly marked than this distinction between the empire masculine and the EMPIRE FEMININE. So entirely dissimilar are the fields to which God called them, that you can no more compare them than j^ou can oxygen and hydrogen, water and grass, trees and stars. All this talk al)out the superiority of one sex to the other sex is an ever- lasting waste of ink and speech. A jeweler may have a scale so delicate that he can weigh the dust of diamonds, but where are the scales so delicate that you can weigh in them affection against affection, sentiment against sentiment, thought against thought, soul against soul, a man's word against a woman's word ^ You come out with your stereotyped remark, th's man is superior to woman in intellect, and wojian's opportunity. 14 then I open on my desk the swarthy, iron-typed thunder-bolted writings of Harriet IVIartineau, and Ehzabeth Browning, and George Ehot. You come on with your stereotyped remark about woman's superiority to man in the item of affection, but I ask you where were there more capacity to love than in John the disciple, and Eobert McClieyne the Scotchman, and JohnSunnnerfield, the Metho- dist, and Henry Martin, the missionary ? The heart of those men was so large that after you had roUed into it two hemispheres, there was room still left to marshal the hosts of heaven, and set up the throne of the eternal Jehovah. I deny to man the throne intellect. I deny to woman the throne affectional. No human phraseology will ever define the spheres, while there is an iutui- tion by which we know when a man is in his realm, and when a woman is in her realm and when either of them is out of it. No bung- ling legislature ought to attempt to make a defi- nition, or to say, -This is the hue, and that is the line." MY THEORY is that if woman wants to vote, she ought to vote and that if a man wants to embroider and keep house, he ought to be allowed to embroider and keep house. There are masculine women and there are effeminate men. My theory is, that you have no right to inteifero with anyone's doing anything that is righteous. Albany and Washiii«-. ton might as well decree by legislation how hlffh'^a f?. ---x^^i oxiuuiu iiy, or now aeep a trout t ' l.£ w^ 144 woman's OPPORTtmiTY, should plunge, as to try to seek owt the height or depth of a woman's duty. The question of capa- city will r>ettle linalJy the whole question, the whole subject. When a woman is prepared to preach, she will preach, and neither Conference nor Presbytery can liinder. When a woman is pre- pared to move in highest commercial spheres, she will have great influence on the Exchange, and no Boards of Trade can hinder her. I want woman to understand that heart and brain can overfly any barrier that politicians may set up, and that nothing can keep her back or keep her down but the question of capacity. I know there are WOMEN OF MOST UNDESIRABLE NATURE, who wander up and down the country — having no homes of their own, or forsaking their own homes— talking about their rights ; and we know very well that they themselves £vre fit neither to vote, nor fit to keep house. Their mission seems to be to humiliate the two sexes at the thought of what any one of us might become. No one would want to live under the laws that such women would enact, or to have cast upon society the children that such women would raise. But I shall show you this morning that the best rights that women can own, she already has in her pos- session, that HER POSITION in this country at this time is not one of com- miseration, but one of congratulation; that the WOMAN'S OPPORTUNITY. 145 grandeur and power of her realm have never yet been appreciated ; that she sits to-day on a throne so mgh that all the thi-ones of earth piled on Z of each other would not make for her a footstool Here ..s the platform on which she stands. Away down uelow it are the ballot-box, and the Con- gressional assemblage and the legislative haU Woman always has voted and always will vote Our great-grandfathers thought they were by fcheir votes putting Washington into the presi- dential chair. No. His mother, by the princl ples she taugjit him, and by the habits she incul- cated, made him President. It was a Christian mother's hand dropping the ballot when l!^d Amwl 7h P ""'f ^'^^^^"^ philosophized, and Alfied the Great governed, and Jonathan Ed- wards thundered of judgment to come. How many men there have been in high political sta- tion who would have been insufficient to stand the test to which their moral principle was put, had It not been for a wife's voice that encouraged them to do right, and a wife's prayer that Bounded louder than the clamor of partisanship f Why, my friends, the right of suffrage, as we men exercise it, seems to be a feeble thing. You a Christian man, come up to the ballot-box, and you drop your vote. Right after you comes a libertine or a sot-the offscouring of the street --and he drops his vote ; and his vote counteracts wT" y. ni '"^ *^'^ ^''^"* ^^ ^^"^^ l^f« ^ daugh- ter by her ChristL^n demeanor, a wife by her in- dustry, a mother bj her faithfuhiess, ca^ts a vot^ 146 WOMAN'S OPPORTUNiry. in the right direction, then nothing can resist it, and the influence of that vote will throb through the eternities. My chief anxiety then is, not that woman have other rights accorded her ; but that she, by the grace of God, rise up to the appreciation of the GLORIOUS RIGHTg she already possesses. This morning I shaU only have time to speak of one grand and aU-absorb. mg right that every woman has, and that is to make hojne happy. That realm no one has evei disputed with her. Men may come home at noon or at night, and they tarry a comparatively little while ; l)ut she, all day long, governs it, beautifies, it, sanctifies it. I(; is within her power to make i<, the most attractive place on earth. It is the only calm harbor in this world. You know as well a^ I do, that this outside world, and the business world is a long scene of jostle and contention The man who has a dollar struggles to keep it the man who has it not struggles to get it. Price* up. Prices down. Losses. Gains. Misreprs,. sentations. Gougings. Underselling. Buyer» depreciating ; salesmen exaggerating. Tenants seeking less rent; landlords demanding more Gold fidgety. Struggles about office. Me.i who are in trying to keep in ; men out trying t) get in Slips. Tumbles. Defalcations. Pamcs. Catas^ trophcs. O woman! Thank God you have a home, and that woman's opportunity. U1 YOU MAY BE QUEEN inPt p!fr k' »'''" *''"" ^vea. Victoria's cor- Zees, V *T *™ ^'"•••y«'« !»'■«« »f a pruicess. Your abode may be liunible but you can by your faith in God and your ch^rfubvss of demeanor gild it with splendors such as on upholsterer's hand never yet kindled. T ere a™ abodes m the city-humble, two stories four plam unpapered rooms ; undesirable nethbor- hood ; and yet there is a n^an here this moving who would die on the threshold rather t an sm^ender it Why? It is home. Whenetr around it. The ladders of heaven are let down to this house. Over the child's rough crib there ai-e IT LS HOME. These children may come up after a while, and theT may wm high position, and they may have an af- fluent residence ; but they will not until their dv- mg day forget that humble roof, under which their fatJier rested, and their mother sang, and thrir sisters played Oh, if you would gfther up S tender memories, all the lights and shades of the heart all banquetingsand reunions, all filial fra ternal, paternal and conjugal .affections, and you had only just four letters to spell out that height and depth and length and hre.adth and magnitude and eteriuty of moa^iing, you would, with stre^ ? i',1 m woman's OPPORTUNlTy. tl/^'\^'^f trembling voice, and agitated What right does woman want that is grander than to be queen in such a reahn ? Whv the eagles of heaven cannot fly across that dominion. Holies, pantmg and with lathered flanks, are not swift enough to run to the outpost of that realm, ihey say that the sun never sets upon the English empire; but I have to tell you that on this realm of woman's ii;fluence, eternity never marks any bound. Isabella fled from the Spanish throne, pursued by the nation's anathema : but she who IS queen in a home will never lose her throne, and death Itself wiU only be the amiexation of heaven- ly pnncipahties. When you want to get your grandest IDEA OF A QUEEN, you do not think of Catharine of Russia, or of AnneofEngland,orof Maria Theresaof Germany, but when you want to get your grandest idea of a queen, you think of the plain woman who sat o/^ posite your father at the table, or walked with him the thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to the grave but always together-soothing your petty griefs,' correcting your childish waywardness, joining in your infantile sports, hstening to your evening prayers, toiling for you with needle, or at the spinmng wheel, and on cold nights wrapping you up snug and warm. And then at last on that day ^^.^iimL-'^i.- Woman's opportunity. j^^ when she lay m the I . kiA.om dvmcr ,„^ , her take those thin handrwlhTih 2°toZ for you so long, and put them t'g therl at mg prayer that commended you to God whom st The chS of God '""*:;^' *^ -»^ «- q"-" ine chanots of God came down to fetch her • and as she went m aU heaven rose up. You cannot thmk of her now without a rush of tenderness that etn's the deep fountains of your soul, and you fee as much a child again as when you ct"ed on her pe^'lust or """ "^""^ ■•''■ "-^ a^^'t: speak just once more your name as tenderly as she used to speak it, you would be wiUiW to throw yourseU on the gi-ound and kis the sod ih srr,t^' '"^'^■- "«°*^^' -"^ An.' sne was the queen — SHE WAS THE QUEEN. Now, can you teU me how many thousand mik, a woman like that would have to^n^velTotn be fore she got to the baUot-box ? Compared tm, th.s work of training kings and qS for Go and etern, y, how insigmficant seem's al Itwrw^rk of votmg for aldermen and conurion councilmen and shenffs and constables, and mayors Td presidents. To make one such giand wom'an a^ I have described, how many thoulid Zh yo^ want of those people who go in the round of god essness and fashion and dissipation, distortW then- body until in their monstrosities they seen to outdo the dromedary and hippopotamus gl" as far toward disgraceful apparel as they da^go i^H. 1 > I'H r til ti ISLxm'M I i: 'J J'. ^ ■i I r'^'Pf ■% 150 woman's opportunity. BO as not to be aiTested of the police- theii' be. havior a sorrow to the good and a caricature of the vicious, and an insult to that God who made them women and not gorgons ; and tramping on down through a frivolous and dissipated hfe, to temporal and eternal damnation. O, woman, with the lightning of your soul, strike dead at your feet all these allui-ements to dissipation and to fashion. Your immoi-tal soul cannot be fed upon such garbage. God calls you up to empire and dominion. Will you have it ? O, give to God your heart ; give to God your best energies ; give to God all your cul- ture ; give to God all your refinement ; give your- self to Hun, for THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT. Soon all these > i;,' ht eyes will be quenched, and these voices vvjil be hushed. For the last time you will look upo/i this fair earth, father's hand, mother's hand, sister's hand, child's hand, will bo no more in yours. It will be night, and there will come up a cold wind from the Jordan, and you must start. Will it be a lone woman on a track- less moor? Ah, no, Jesus will come up in that hour and offer His hand, and He will say : " You stood by Me when you were well ; now I will not desert you when you are sick." One wave of His hand, and the storm will drop ; and another wave of His hand, and midnight shall break into midnoon; and another wave of his hand, and the chamberlains of God will come down woman's OPPOrrrUNITY. 161 from the treasure-houses of heaven, witli robes lustrous, blood-washed, aud heaven-gh.it. .1, h which you will array yourself for the niai . ac^e- eiipper of the Lamb. And then with Mhiam who struck the timbrel by the Ked Sea; and wiTh l^ borah who ed the Lord's host into the fi^bf and w.th Hannah, who gave her Hamnel 1 Lord • and with Mary, who rocked Jesus to while Wiere were angels singing in the air; ad with Florence Nightingale, who bound up ibe battle junds of the Crimea, you will, froni tb. diahce of God, drink to the soul's eternal resciu- One twib^ht, after I had been playing with the clHldren for some time, 1 laid down on the lounge to rest : and half asleep and half awake, I sp:emed to drkam this dream : It seemed to me that I was in a far> distant land-not Persia, although more than Oriental luxuriance crowned the citi(>s ; nor the tropics although more than tropical fruitfulness filled the gardens ; nor Italy-although more than Itahan softness filled the air. And I wanderec^ around, looking for thorns and nettles. 1)utIfound none of them grew there. And I walked forth and I saw the sun rise, and I said : "When will It set again ?" and the sun sank not. And I saw f/Jxrf® P^^'P^® "' ^'""^'^'^y apparel, and I said: When will they put on workingmen's garb again, and delve in the mine, and swelter at the forge ?" But neither the garments nor the robes «hd they put off. (1 m ill w ii MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I ■M || 3.2 us 1^ 14.0 L25 III 1.4 [2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 M -APPLIED ItVMGE Ir ^^ 1653 Eost Main Street S'.S Rochester, New York 14609 USA '•i^ (716) 482 -0300 -Phone ^S ('''6) 288-5989 -Fax 152 woman's opportunity. And I wandered in the suburbs, and I said: "Where do they bury the dead of this great city ?" And I looked along by the hills where it would be most beautiful for the dead to sleep, and I saw castles, and towns, and battlements ; but not a mausoleum, nor monument, nor white slab could I see. And I went into the great chapel of the town, and I said : ''Where do the poor worship f "Where are the benches on which they sit ?" And a voice answered : "We have no poor in this great city." And I wandered out, seeking to find the place where were the hovels of the destitute, and I found mansions of amb6r and ivory and gold, but no tear did I see or sigh hear. I was bewildered ; and I sat under the shadow of a great tree, and I said, "What am I, and whence comes all this ?" And at that moment there came from among the leaves, skipping up the flowery paths and across the sparkling waters, a very bright and sparkling group ; and when I saw their step I knew, and when I heard their voices I thought I knew them ; but their apparel was so different from anything I had ever seen, I bowed, a stranger to strangers. But after a while, when they clapped their hands, and shouted, (( WELCOME ! WELCOME !" the mystery was solved, and I saw that time had passed, and that eternity had come, and that God had gathered us up into a higher home ; and I said, " Are all here f and the voices of innumer able generations answered: "All here." Aad woman's opportunity. 553 while tears of gladness were raining down our cheeks, and tlie branches of the Lebanon cedj^rs were clapping their hands, nnd the towers of the great city were chiming their welcome, we began to laugh, and sing, and leap, and shout, "Romt I Home! Home!" *fi 'I ! :r: 5 >' !f' M, 'i^r HI 154 THE QUEE^■S OF HOME. The Queens of Home. hi "There are three-score queens."— Solomon's Song, «:8. So Solomon, by one stroke, set forth the impe- rial character of a true Christian woman. She is not a slave, not a hireling, not a subordinate, but a queen. In a former sermon I showed you that crown and courtly attendants and imperial ward- robe were not necessary to make a queen ; but that graces of the lieart and life will give corona- tion to any woman. I showed you at some length that woman's position was higher in the world than man's, and that although she had often been denied the right of suffrage, she always did vote and always would vote by her influence ; and that her chief desire ought to be that she should have gi-ace rightly to rule in the domhiion which f?b has already won. I began an enumeration , . some of her rights, and this morning I resume the subject. I. In the first place, woman has the special and superlative right— not again going back to what I have already said— v/oman has the special and su- perlative right of blessing and COMFORTING THE SICK. What land, what street, what house, has not felt the smitings of disease ? Tens of thousands of 91 9h THE QUEENS OF HOME. 16d sick, beda ! What shall we do with them? ShaU man with his rough hand and clumsy foot, go .tumbling around the sick-room, trying to soothe .he disti-acted nerves and alleviate the pains of the tossing patient ? The yomig man at college may «coff at the Idea of being under maternal influence ; but et the first blast of typhoid fever on his cheek he says, - Where .s mother?" Walter Scott wrote pai-tly m satire and partly in compliment : " Oh woman, in our hcurs of ease, Uncertain, coy and iiard to please ; Wlien pain and anguish wring the brow. A ministering angel thou." I think the most pathetic passage in all the Bi- ble is the description of the lad who vent out to he harvest field of Shunem and got sun-struck- thro wing his hands on his temples and ciying out • Oh my head ! my head !" And they said : -Car- ry him to Ms mother. ' And then the record is • He sat on her knees till noon, and then died " It IS an awful thing to be ill away from home in a Btrange hotel, once in a while men coming in to .ook at you, holding their hand over their mouth for fear they will catch the contagion. How roughly they turn you in bed. How loudly they talk. How you long for THE MINISTRIES 9F HOME. I know one such Who went away from one of the brightest ot homes, for several weeks' busmess absence at the West. A telegram came at mid- night that he was on his deathbed f Ar away from ;*iil ^ ih,) 156 THE QUEENS OF HOME. If ^. home. By express train the wife and daughters went westward ; but they went too late. He feared not to die, but he was in an agony to hve until his family got there. He tried to bribe the doctor to make him Uve a Httle while longer. He said: *'I am willing to die, but not alone. " But the pulses fluttered, the eyes closed, and the heart stopped. The express trains met in the midnight ; wife and daughters going westward— hfeless remains of hus- band and father coming eastward. Oh, it was a sad , pitiful, overwhelming spectacle ! When we are sick we want to be sick at home. When the time comes for us to die we want to die at home. The room may be very humble, and the faces thaf look into ours may be very plain ; but who cares for that ? Losing hands to bathe the temples. Loving voices to speak good cheer. Loving lipi to read the promises of Jesus. IN OUR LAST DREADFUL WAR, men cast the cannon, men fashioned the musket- ry, men cried to the hosts, "Forward, march!" men hurled their battahon on the sharp edges oi the enemy, crying, "Charge! charge!" bui woman scraped the lint, woman administered th of socks may make a homely load to carry, hut tlie angels of God wiS come out to watch, and the Lord Almighty will give His messenger hosts a charge, sayin.^- "Look after that won.an; canopy her%;itlyl^; wings, and shelter her from all harm ;" and while you are seated in the house of destitution and snfiermg the little ones around the room will wlnspei- - Who is she ? Ain't she beautiiul ! " and if you will listen right sharply, you will hear dripping down through the leaky roof, and rolling ovei-thf rotten stairs, the angel chant that shook Bethlehem; .^^^■^^\ "\,^^' ^''^^'''^' ^^^^ ^"^^^^-"^ peace, good-will to men." Can you tell me why a Chris' tian woman, going down among THE HAUNTS OP INIQUITY, on a Christian errand, never meets with any in- dignity? I stood in the chap.l of Helen Chalmers, the daughter of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, ic the most abandoned part of the city of Edinburgh and I said to her as I looked around upon the fearful surroundings of that place: -Do you come here nights to hold a service?" -Q, yes, " she said. Can it be possible that you never meet with an insult while performing this Christian eirand ?" Never, she said, -never." That young woman who has her father by her side, walking downtho V ' il! 'tl i'n i r <\t ' • )| 1' i H: i I 160 THE QUEENS OF HOME. I ! street, armed police at each comer, is not so well defended as that Christian woman who goes forth on Gos])('l work into the hannts of iniqnity, cariy- ing the iJil)l(\s and bread. God, with tl)e red right arm of His wrath onniipotent, wonld tear to pieces anyone who slionld offer indignity. He would smite him with lightnings, and drov/n him with floods, and swallow him with earthquakes, and damn him with eternal indignations. Some one said: ''I dislike very much to see that Christian woman teaching those had boys in the mission schools. I am afraid to have her in- struct them." "So," said another man, "I am afraid too." Said the first : "I am afraid they will use vile language before they leave the place. " "Ah," said the other man, "I am not afraid of that. What I am afraid of is, that if any of those boys should use a bad word in her presence, the other boys would tear him to pieces and kill him on the spot." That woman is the best sheltered who is sheltered by the Lord God Almighty, and you need never fear going anywhere where God tells you to go. It seems as if the Lord had ordained woman for an especial work in the SOLICITATION OF C^IARITIES. Backed up by barrels in which there is no flour, and by stoves in which there is no fire, and by wardrobes in which there are no clothes, a woman is irresistible ; passing on her errand, Qod says to her ; ' ' You go into that bank or store or shop and l!!!.| \^*^ \t it \: •fHE gtTEEXfl OP HOME. Jej get the money. " She goes in anrl soU if Th. . 13 hard-fistod, but slie m.ts it Sh!. 1 1 f '''''" febi, ic. jNo need of your turiiiiig yom- bai-lc .i,,,! inetc, s no „„■(] ot your wasting your time ■,n,I you nnght as well submit first n^as Y^ i ', t better ngUt away take down your chonue book mark the number of the chenuo fill , X , ■ ' ..aek street S tr Jn^Q^^^ ^^^^ sick man must have some fariui T ,.* ' tive must have something to "L h^l T'K D^ you get the money? "Of course," le s7, I got he money ; that's what I went for Th« Lord told me to eo and wf if „„ i i "® me on a fool's ermnd -' ^ ' ^""^ ''' "^^^'^ ^^^''^ specL""^"" '■ ""^-^ "'*^" ^""th'^t'"^ --Oman's RIGHT TO COMFORT wefkeJt tTr/t "u" 'r '*"•• ^^^^ '^ --"«! the weaKei vessel; but all profane as well as sirred ^^rh^^■ X :"^^'^' changed to a heroine Oh >vhatagreat.^stakethosebusi„essmen„Xwh^ M (■'I ■1 * 'M i«3a THE QUEENS OF HOME never tell their lni;siiiosH troubles to their wires. There coines oome great loss to their store, or some of their conii)aiii(»ns in business ]»l;iy them a sad trick, and tht^y cany the l)urden all alone. He is asked in the liousehold again and again : What is the matter i But he believes it is a sort of Ciu'istian duty to kee]) all that trouble within his own soul. Oh, sir ! your first duty was to tell your wife all about it. She, perhaps, might not have disentangled your finances, or extended yom' credit, but she would liave helped you to bear misfortune. You have no right to carry on one shoulder that which is intended for two. There are business men here who know what I mean. There came A CRISIS IN YOUR AFFAIRS. You struggled bravely and long ; but after a while there came a day when you said, "Here I shall have to stop ; " and you called in your partners, and you called in the most prominent men hi your employ, and you said : "We have got to stop." You left the store suddenly. You could hardly make up your mind to pass through the street and over on the ferry-boat. You felt everybody would be looking at you, and blaming you and denouncing you. You hastened home. You told your wife all about the affair. What did she say ? Did she play the butterfly ? Did she talk about the silks and the ribbons and the fashions ? No. She came up to the emergency. She quailed not under the stroke. She offered to go out of the comfort- THE QUEENS OF HOME. 193 c .«.k anotl,...- w,„t,.,-. Sl„. WMs <„„. ,vl,o und^ stood von,, atrairs «itl,„»t l,l,„„i„g you. yIu looked ,.,,„„ what you thought „a» a thin w -ak woman sa„n UMi,.^ y„„ ,,^,j «^;* ooKed at tha ann, tlK.,.e came into the fJZ Ih r n' "" r'™'St'' of tho eternal G,k1. No b. ant tul house of 1,,.,. fafhe,. f,,„„ „.l,ich yor hmught hor ten, twenty, „,. thirty ye«,-.s .n^o You B.U1 : " Wol. this is the hap„io.t day of my Me. I am g ad I havegotf.om under my hn.dcu My wife don't care-I don't care." At the uo^ ment you were exhausted, OOD .SENT A DEBORAH iriL"l'; '«'' -^f «'«Amalekitesand scatter them like chaff over tlie plain. There are some times women who sit reading sentin.,.ntal novds' and who wish that they had some grand uZin wh,ch to d,.s,,lay their Christian powers. O ^dr^ gr.nd and glorious thh,gs «„>; could do 4 l^^;y w nf^ "''''"■■'"■"'y' My sister, you need "ot w.ut for any sncli time. A crisis will come |n your affairs. There will be a Thern onyTJ st'md"' tT" '"'"'*''''' "■''™' ^<"' ^"" t''" y'u to bt. nd There are scores and lunidreds of house- holds to-day where as nmch braveiy and ccur-ge ae demamled of women as w.as exhibited by G.ace Darhng, or Marie Antoinette, or Joan qf IV. Again : I remark it is woman's right to '•If: r ■1 ■ / Wf^, 164 THE gUEENS OF HOME. i i ,1 :!' BRING TO US THE KINGDOM of heaven. It is easier for a woman to be a Chris- tian than f ( < a man. Why ? You say she ia weaker. No. Her heart is more responsive to the pleadings of Divine love. She is in vast ma- jority. The fact that she can more easily become a Christian, I prove by the statement that three- fourths of the members of the churches in all Chris- tendom are women. So God appoints them to be the chief agencies in bringing this world back to God. I may stand hore and say the soul is im- mortal. There is a man who will refute it. I may stand here and say we are lost and undone without Christ. There is a man who wall refute it. I may stand here and say there will be a judgment day after a while. Yonder is some one who will refute it. But a Christian woman in a Christian household, living in the faith and the consistency of Christ's gospel — nobody can refute that. Tlae greatest sermons are not preached on celebrated platforms ; they are preached with an audience of two or three, and in private home life. A consistent, consecrated Christian service is an unanswerable demonstration of God's truth. A sailor came slipping down the ratlines one night, as though something had happened, and the sailors cried : "What's the matter ? " He said : (( MY mother's prayers HAUNT ME like a ghost." Home influences, consecrated Christian home influences, are the mightiest of all influences upon the soul. There are men her« i*-^.-. \ u •5f 111 , Mf' b: }. iM i'l I'HE QUEENS OF HOME. Jgg influences praying for them aU the time Th? PWers will keep u^wrth tLm '' ''"*' "^"^ *« eter^nLSr„;;r;rz;tv^- .r hand On fi^^ • ""'^'^^^^cls in then- ri^ht tion? istherei„;i:ft;i;',!:;' *■•-' -P-- AN IMMORTAL MARRIAGE, anri f^ 1 • priest of the most liixrh f- alUlfr 'T' '"•' '™"^ "f ^" ""-ortal m ^ worn™ irt" '""I'T"^ '" "'« S™- "f Chdst redem„t;L t , * ^® '^"''^ ileniiffcls their reaemption at your liands. Tjiere are i,,-,™,. * as Pa^Usaid to the C^ri^t^^^^^l ^f^ ■if Hi PI', if <.s'!t i" t" 'lift I II' ' ll y ': 1 1 ? Ill 1 1 '^1 ll 1 166 THE QUEENS OF HOME. knowest thou, but thou canst save thy hus- band !" A man was dying ; and he said to his wife : " Rebecca, you wouldn't let me have family pray- ers ; you laughed about all that, and you got me away into worldliness ; and now I'm going to die, and my fate is sealed, and you are the cause of . ly ruin?" O woman, what knowest thou but thou canst destroy thy husband ? —are there not some here who have KINDLY INFLUENCES at home ? Are there not some here who have wandered far away from God, who can remember the Christian influences in their early home ? Do not despise those influences, my brother. If you die without Christ what will you do with your mother's prayers, with your wife's importunities, with your sister's entreaties ? What will you do with the letters they used to write to you, with the memory of those days when they attended you so kindly in times of sickness i Oh, if tliere be just one strand holding you from floating off on that dark sea, I would just like this morning to tpke hold of that strand and pull you to the beach ! For the sake of your wife s God, for the sake ot your mother's God, for the sake of your daughter's God, for the sake of your sister's God, come this day and be saved. V. Lastly : I wish to say that one of the specific rights of woman is, through the grace of Christ, finally to reach heaven. 0. what a multitude of •tOTr Ct)EENS OF HOME. 1^7 WOMEN IN HEA\-EN » rJ, ?'. *^'*arlotte Elizabeth in heaven thl was from the small room with nol '1'^""^' ^* dow (the glass bro Jn ^^ ; 'n^tt' th'^'^^- and wornout eyes to the-hT ! ^'"^ ''^^ sions !" No mo?; TJl !^ ^^ ^^^^ "^^n- of ,.,• U4. stitchmg until twelve o'clorU- at mght, no more tlirusting of the f hnmh V 1 employer through the work to .L^T ^ *^^ done quite rigl/ PlentrofttcHt Lt ' T "'' or aching heads! heLn ^ t^^^ f^T^ heaven for angaish-bitten frames No fn temnlfltii M„ ™ ,! *^" '^™^^ '''cross tho rempies ! No more sharp, keen bitter curses i Some of you will have no rest in this wmM ' M i«ok le w:ii\x:ur :^,tTrr r '"^ iiaffe Rut ar.ri i. ^ ^' ^^^ with car- •o ^eahzftLfmotL' rri/'''^ ^°"- ^ «'^"'y- and whenever ^oTwet a t^f '^n""'" r'''" V'' gem in that "^ro™" ttar';, ^ ^^ h""""' "arlttr^"'b:"'"' -^t-/-hile, i„ all'th" ara there will be no room for another splendor. 168 THE QUEENS OF HOME. and God will say to his angel: "The crown is done ; let her up, that she may wear it." And as the Lord of Righteousness puts the crown upon your brow, angel will cry to angel, "Who is she ? " and Christ will say: "I will tell you who she is. She is the one that came up out of great tribula- tion, and had her robe washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. " And then God will spread ^ BANQUET, and He will invite all the principahtiesof heaven to sit at the feast, and the tables will blush with the best clusters from the vineyards of God and crimson with the twelve manner of fruits from the Tree of Life, and waters from the fountains of the rock will flash from the golden tankards, and the old harpers of heaven will sit there, making music with their harps, and Christ Avill point you out, amid the celebrities of heaven, saying : " She suf- fered with Me on earth, now we are going to be glorified together. " And the banqueters, no longer able to hold their peace, will break forth with con- gratulation : "Hail! hail!" And there will be handwritings on the w^all— not such as struck the Babylonian nobleman with horror — but fire-tipped fingers, writing in blazing capitals of light and love, " God hath wiped away all tears from all faces ! " PARENTAL BLtTNDERS. 169 Parental Blunders. «' He fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, This IS the end of a long story of parental neg- lect. Judge Eli was a good man, but he let his two boys, Hophni and Phinehas, do as they pleased • and, through over-indulgence, they went to ruin' The bhnd old Judge, ninety-eight years of age, is seated at the gate, waiting for the news of an im- portant battle, in which his two sons were at the front. An express is coming, with tidings from the battle. THIS BLIND NONAGENARIAN puts his hand behind his ear, and hstens, and cries : " What meaneth the noise of this tumult ?" An excited messenger, all out of breath with the speed, said to him: ''Our army is defeated ; the sacred chest, called the ark, is captured ; and your sons are dead on the field!" No wonder the father fainted and expired. The domestic tragedy in v/hich these two sons were the tragedians had finished its fifth and last act. "He fell from off the seat backward, by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died : for he was an old man, and heavy." Eli had made an awful mistake in regard to hig 'ji Ul » i ' ' if l^'l u ft i .j-fi 170 PARENTAL BLUNDERg. children. The Bible distinctly says : "His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." Oh, the ten thousand mistakes in rearing children— mistakes of parents, mistakes of teach- ers in day-school and Sabbath classes, mistakes which we all make. Will it not be useful to con. sider them ? AMERICA'S FUTURE CONQUERORS. This country is going to be conquered by a great army, compared with which that of Bald- wm the Fu-st, and Xerxes, and Alexander, and Grant, and Lee, all put together, were in numbers msignificant. They will capture aU our pul- pits, storehouses, factories, and halls of legislation- all our shipping, all our wealth and all our honors.' They will take possession of all authority, from the United States Presidency down to the humblest constabulary-of everything between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They are on the march now, and they halt neither day nor night. They will soon be here, and all the present active population of this country must surrender and give way. I refer to the great army of children. Whether they shall take possession of everything for good or for bad, depends upon the style of preparation through which they pass. Cicero acknowledges he kept in his desk a col- lection of prefaces for books, which prefaces he could at any time attach to anything he wanted to pubhsh for himself or others ; and all parents and teachers have all prepared the preface of every PARE-NTAL BLUNDERS. 171 young life under their charge and nnf nnW +u preface but the appendix, wh^re"thrvolu„fe'b: a poem or a farce. Families and schoX and legislatures are in our day busily engaged in dfa cu^smg what is the best mode o^f educ^^^^ng ehS-" rins^f;? *"' 'J"t1'°" "^'^y ""'•'^ dandles mto magnificance, while dependent upon the proper solution is the welfare of governments and Therein *^,^°°^ "ade against Quean Maria 'uZt Di.t ""' '^^^ *" ^PP'^"^'! before th: .ugust Diet, wearing mourning for her father and ?!' "P'"'^.<^'-^™^'"^f»«tl>emherchUd, the A^h duke This so wrought upon the officers and deputies of the people that, ,vith haU Lwn swords, they broke forth in the war-cry f-LZs dieforourQueen, Maria Theresa!" SothismomW oft'itui:' t ""^ 1 '"■"'' '^ to beThrs before the aI POP"'^"-,^"^''™^". I hold him betore the American people to arouse their en- thus asm m his behalf, and to evoke their oath for his defence, his education, and his destiny If a parent, you will remember when you were ™uT Vfr. «^"* ^<=«Pon«ibilities, and wTen you found that you had not done all required after you had admired the tiny hands ^d ^e g ossy hair, and the bright eyc^ that lly to tt cradle, you suddenly remembered that that hand would yet be raised to bless the worid S rts benediction, or to smite it with a cui^e In W e° ^ "^f r " *^^« '^ ^ character caJleS Kuggiero, who has a shield of insufferable sdI« hi f72 PARENTAL BLUNDERlS. dor, but it is kept veiled, save on certain occa- Bions; and whtm uncovered, it startled and overwhelmed its beholder, wlio before had no suspicion of its brightness. My hope to-day is to uncover the destiny of your child or student, about which you may have no special apprecia- tion, and flash upon you the splendors of its immoi-tal nature. Behold, the shield and the sword of the coming conflict! I propose in this discourse to set forth what 1 consider to be some of THE ERRORS PREVALENT in the training of children. First, I remark that many eiT in too great se- verity or too great leniency of family government. Between [)arental tyranny and ruinous laxative- ness of discipline there is a medium. Some times the father errs on the one side and the mother on the other side. Good family govern- ment is all-important. Anarchy and misrule in the domestic circle is the forerunner of anarchy and misrule in the state. In the attempt to avoid all this, and bring the children under proper law and regulations, parents have sometimes carried themselves with great rigor. John Hov/- ard, who was merciful to the prisons and laza- rettos, was merciless in the treatment of his children. John Milton knew everything but how to train his family. Severe and unreason- able was he in his carriage toward them. He made them read to him in fouj or five Ian- rABO'TAL BLUNDERS, 178 giiages, but .^Mild not allow them to learn any ot thorn ; for. he saul, that one tongue was enough lor a wo:nan. Their reading, was mechanical fimdgery, when, if tliey had und(>rstood tho angxiages they read, the emi)loyment of read- «.g might have been a luxury. No wonder his thildren despised him, and stealthily sold his books and hoped for his death. In all ages there IS need of a society for prevention of CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. When Barbara was put to death by her father because she had countermanded his order, and had three windows put in a room instead of two this cruel parent was a type of many who have acted the Is ero and the Robespien-e in the home circle. The heart sickens at what you sometimes see, even in families that pretend to be Christian -perpetual scolding, and hair-pulling, and ear- boxmg, and thumping, and stamping, and fault, hnding, and teasing, until the children are vexed beyond bounds and growl in the sleeve, and pout and rebel, and vow within themselves that ki after days they will retaliate. That child's nature IS too dehcate to be worked upon by sledtre- hammer, and ^ GOUGE AND PILE DRIVERS. Such fierce lashing, instead of breaking the high mettle to bit and trace, will make it dash off the more uncontrollable. Many seem to tiunk that children are fla^-not fit for use till li.-' 'H •i h )i t ' 174 PARENTAL BLUPTDERS. thoy have been hetcliod and swingled. Some one t;ilkii,g to a rhildsaid: "I wonder wlmt rrmVs that tree out thor> ro crooked." The child replied: -I suppon^, it was trod on while It was young." In some families all the disci- pline IS concentrated upon one child's head If anythmg IS done wrong, the supposition is that George did it. He broke the latch. He left open the gate. He hacked the bannisters. He whi tied sticks on the carpets. And George Bhall be the scapegoat for all misunderstandings and suspicions. In many a household there is such a one singled out for suspicion and castiga- tion. All the sweet flowers of his soul blasted under this perpetual north-east storm, he curses the day in which he was born. A mother was passing along the street one day and came up to her httle child, who did not see her approach, and her child was saying to her play mate: ''You good-for-nothing httle scamp, you come nght into the house this minute or I will beat you till the skin comes off." The mother broke in saying : - Why, Lizzie, I am surprised to hear you talk like that to anyone'" "Oh " s^'d the child, - 1 was only playing, and he is my little boy, and I am scolding him, as you did mo this morning." Children are apt to be echoes of their parents. Safer in a Bethlehem ma-;, or among cattle and camels with gentle Mary 'to watch the little innocent than the most extra^^a- gajit niii-sery over which God's star of peace never twc(L I PAKENTAL BLL.vDERS. 1^5 TOO GREAT LENIENCY The surgeon is not unkind because notvvitlmfan i of Its ovl ,„,,.linat,.,„s. Tho iiiblo^l ; "cl f thy son who there is hour. ..n.i i i \ ., ' spare for his cryi, J " r ii.r '"'""' "'^ »'"" will, after awh fe tcome ■'''^" "»d'<'oW petulance will m-ow nn infr. ,>„• . 1 ^-'"Iaky ship ? From this infinite blunder of paivnts, how many have come out in life with a genius that could have piled Ossa upon Pelion and mounted ur)on them to scale the heavens, and have laid down panting with physical exhaustion before a mole- Jnll. liny who might have thrilled senates and marshalled armies and startled the woi-ld with the shock of their scientilic batt(u-ies, have passed then- lives in picking up prescriptions for indiges- tion. ' They owned all the tlumderbolts of Jupiter >i«'.'.*fi H Ml V\ \\ u I im 178 PARENTAL BLtJNDKRa but could not get out of their rocking-chair to us€ them. George Washington in early life was a poor speller, and speUed hat h-a-double-t and a ream of paper he speUed "rheam," but he kne^ enough to spell out the independence of this coun try from foreign oppression. The knowledge of th* schools IS miportant, but there are other things quite as important. ^ ^ Just as great is the wrong done when the mind IS cultivated and THE HEART NEGLECTED The youth of this day are seldom denied any scholarly attainments. Our schools and semina nes are ever growing in efficiency, and the students are conducted through aU the realms of philosophy and art and language and mathematics. The most hereditaiy obtuseness gives way before the onslaught of adroit instructors. But there is a de- velopment of infinite importance which mathe- matics and the dead languages cannot effect The more mental power, the more capacity for evil unless coupled with religious restraint. Whether knowledge is a mighty good or an un- mitigated evil, depends entirely upon which course It takes. The river rolling on between round banks makes aU the valley laugh with golden wheat and rank grass, and catching hold the wheel of mill and factory, whirls it with great industries. But breaking away from restiaJnts and dashing over banks in red wrath, ii^Mv•,heM away liarvests from their moorings and m/'.Koa rhe vaUeys shrink with PARENTAL BLUNDERS. 179 catastrophe. Fire in the furnace heats the house or drives the steamer; but, uncontroUed, ware- houses go down m awful crash before it, and in a few hours half a city wiU lie in black ruin, waUa and towers and chui'ches^^nd monuments. You must accompany the education of the inteUect Tn wH V '^*'u M f ^^' ^^^^' ^' y«^ ^r« rousing up within youi- child an energy which will be blast mg and terrific. Better a wicked dunce than , wicked philosopher. inJnf fru^^"'"''.?^*^^"^^'^^**^ "^ the train, mg of children, is the SUPPRESSION OF CHILDISH SPORTFULNESS. Parents, having for a good many years been jostled about in the rough world, often lo.e the'r vivacity, and are astonished to see how their chil- dren can act so thoughtlessly of the earnest world esatrnf. )!";;• .?•"' " " ^^"^^ P^^^^^* -ho quench es any of the hght m a child's soul. Instead of ar- ff Tl' r'*^^^^'^^' SO forth and help him nindle the hoop, and fly the kite, and build tl^ 8now castle. Those shoulders are too little to car! fH f r' ^^* brow is too young to be wrinkled, pace QoaZ'"\T-^''''^ *' ^^"^^"^^* ^^^^-^r-i pace. God bless their young hearts ! now is the time tor them to be sportful. The fifth error in the training of childhood is nil .^^^*^*^^,^« of children, because of their precocity, have been urged into depths of study where they ought not to go, and their inteS •%f.-Sj* 1 1 If § (i^fl . i 1 Ith H^HHni 1 1 '' 1 1 11 j.! ' , '~4\ II II, mi r '.'ii AiU i'p IK i : ■ ■ i'R lli' 1- M. ' ■ ' '1' : '■:{ |. _,__.,. [ ■ : l,!f>;;-f:|;:'. Ii f ■'•■■■' fc' 1 1 ■t.:v-^!U .. V'^^^! ' i If;"' ••■■(■'r;'. '• :^ i-'l • , ' mI K;WL:?t!:i;]! ^lli Ii 1 MMi. !i [III 1 1 ' 1 1 IHIi i ^ Rin^iii [ii 1 1 i'ii «iHl i 1 \ , ;| ■^^^^n^^^H 1 G ' i ' ^hmH^ 1! 1 'i' ijii j,^ mr ' Jp'^P ■■■ ..'«t ..1 i i ■ H lr>''' -.t 1 '1 ii fHHIP 1 IMHHHHHIi ' i 'k wa if: 180 PARENIAL BLUlrtJERS. have been overburdened and overstrai.ied and battered to pieces against Latin grammars and algebras, and coming forth into practical life they will hardly rise to mediocrity, and there is now a stuffing and cramming system of education in the schools of our country that is deathful to the teachers who have to enforce it, and destructive to the children who have to submit to the process. You find children at nine and ten years of age with school lessons only appropriate for children of fifteen. If children are kept in school and studying from nine to three o'clock, no home study, except music, ought to be required of them. Six hour? of study is enough for any child. The rest of the day ought to be devoted to recreation and pure fun. But you cannot begin too early the MORAL CULTURE of a child or on too complete a scale. You can look back upon your own life and remember what mighty impressions were made upon you at five or six years of age. Oh, that child does not sit so silent during your conversation to be influenced by it. You say he does not understand. Although much of phraseology is beyond his grasp, he is gathering up from your talk influences which will affect his inmiortal destiny. From the question he asks long afterward you find he understood all about what you were saying. The song with which you sing the child to sleep will echo through all its life and ring back from the very arches «^ heaveu. PARENTAL BLUNDEIW. 181 I think that often the first seven years of a child's life decide whether it shall be irasciblOj waspish, rude, false, hypocritical, or gentle, truth- ful, frank, obedient, honest and Christii,n. The present generations of men will pass off very mu'^h as they are now. yVlthough the gospel ia offered them, the general rule is that drunkards die drunkards, thieves die thieves, libertines die libertines. Therefore to the youth we turn. Before they sow wild oats get them to sow wheat and barley. You fill the bushel measm-e with good corn, and there will be NO ROOM FOR HUSKS. Glorious Alfred Cookman was converted at ten years of age. At Carlisle, Pennsylvania, during the progress of a religious meeting in the Methodist Church, while many were kneeling at the foot of the altar, this boy knelt in a corner of the church all by himself and said : "Precious Saviour, thou art saving others, 0, wilt thou not save me ?" A Presbyterian elder knelt beside him and led him into the light. Enthroned Alfred Cookman ! Tell me from the skies, were you converted too early ? But I cannot hear his answer. It is overpowered by the huzzas of the thousands who were brought to God through his ministry. Isaac Watts, the great Christian poet, was converted at nine years of age. Kobert Hall, the great Baptist evangelist, was converted at twelve years of age. Jonathan Edwards, the greatest of the American logicians, was converted at seven years of aere. ^ V \ i l| 182 Parental blunders. I i under God are to decide wh^Lrw' '2 n^id.ightomelliveX'r^ira^o'gllo^,^ mill, or whether froiii voiir family, it i ,, tho ni, • 4- ,, •'"""^"iiilyaltai-sshaUcanie the Christians, tlie reformers, the teachere thn ministers of CW, the comforter, of the tru'ble^ the heate of the sick, the enactors of good™' the founders of charitable institutions, and a great many who shaJl in the humble s^heies ot !sl nf1."t"'"''' '^^^^ ^'"' »"" *« ^^i i"te^- ests of the human race. You cannot as parents shirk the responsibility God has charged you with a mission, and aU the thrones of heaven are waiting to see whether you wm do your duty We must not forget that it is not so much what we teach our children as what we are in their presence. We wish them to be be ter than we are but the probability is that they will only be reproductions of om-selves. German literature has much to say of THE ''spectre of BROCKEN." Among those mountains travelers in certain conditions of the atmosphere see themselves copM on a gigantic scale in the clouds. At first the travelers do not reahze that it is themselves on a It it. PAEENT.U, BLUNDERS. 183 the farger scale. When they lift a hand or move head this monster spectre does the same and with such enlargement of proportion Tat the scene IS most exciting, and thousands have gone to that place just to behold the spectre of Brocken The probability ,s that some of our faults which we consider small and insignificant, if we do not nut I,! end to them, will be copied on a large scale In he lives of our children, and perhaps dilated a^d exaggerated into spectral proportions. You need nol: go as far off as the Brocken to see that pro The first thing in importance in the education of God iit ejcamples for them to copy. From your side that son or daughter, bone of your bone heart of your heart, the father's brow his brow the mo her's eye his eye, shall go forth to I' eternal destiny. What will be your joy Vf a w you hear theirfeet in the same golden Wghw^ an] nU^rXXet'lr^^^^^^^^^^ ^ A DYING MOTHER who had all her children about her, and took each one of them by the hand, and askei them to meet thosron^T"' '"t T* "^^'^ --J -bs such i rfTrod ^r T^ "^t ^^ ^^ ^^^ •^^'^thbed •hetT ™°"'^''- ^•'"^ «" promised. But *ere wa? a young man of nineteen, who h^ \ ' lit*? -/'''^ fflf 184 PARENTAL BLUNDERS. Mi been very wild and reckless, and hard and prouiJ, and when she took his hand she said : "Now, my boy, I want you to promise me before I die, that you will become a Christian and meet me in heaven." The young man made no answer, for there was so much for him to give up if he made and kept such a promise. But the aged mother persisted in saying : " Fou won't deny me that before I go, will you ? This parting must not be, forever. Tell me now you will serve God and meet me in the land where there is no parting." Quaking with emotion ..3 stood, making up his mind and halting and hesi- tating, but at last his stubbornness yielded and he threw his arms around his mother's neck and said: ' ' Yes, mother ; I will, I will. " And as he finished the last word of his promise her spirit ascended. I thank God the young man kept his promise. Yes, he kept it. May God give all mothers and fathers the gladness of their children's salvation. For all who are trying to do their duty as par- ents, I quote the tremendous passage : " Train up a child in the way in which he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," If through good discipline and prayer and godly ex- ample you are acting upon tl lat child, you have the right to expect him to grow up virtuous. And how many tears of joy you will shed when you see your child honorable and just and truthful and Christian and successful — a holy man amid a world of dishonesty, a godly woman in a world of frivolous pretension. When you come to 'Ue PARENTAL BLUNDERS. 185 they will gather to bless your last hours. They will push back the white locks on your cold fore- head and say : "What a good father he always was to me ?"* They will fold your hands peacefully and say : "Dear mother ! She is gone. Her trou bles are all over. Don't she look beautiful ?" !■ * i ,»i '. if.' :$' 180 CHRIST THE SONO. Christ the Son^. "Now will I sing to my Well Beloved a 6oni?concerniiirm» Beloved."— ISA. 5:. * ^ The most fascinating theme for a heart properly- Attuned is the Saviour. There is Sf )mething in the morning Hght to suggest Him, and something in the evening shadow to speak his praise. The flower breathes Him, the star shines Him, the cascade proclaims Him, all the voices of nature chant Him. Whatever is grand, bright and beau- tiful, if you listen to it, will speak His praise. When I come in the summer-time anl pluck a flower, I think of Him who is " the Rose of Sha- ron and the Lily of the Valley." When I see in the fields a lamb, I say, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." When, in very hot weather, I come imder a projecting cliff, I say : " Rock of ages cleft for me, Let me hide mySfelf in Thee i" Over the old-fashioned pulpits there was « •ounding-board. The voice of the minister rose to the sounding-board, and then was struck back again upon the ears of the people. And the ten thousand voices of earth rising, find THE HEAVENS A SOUNDING BOARD iRrhich strike bagk tp the ear pf all the nations th< CHRIST THE 30N0. If raises Of Christ. The heavens tell His glorv and the earth shows His handiwork. The ^^tC\» witli one groat story of redemption. Upon ! b asted and faded paradise it poured the ligW "f a glorious restoration. It looked upon Abraham from the ram caught in the thicket It spokeT hebleatmg of the herds driven down ojernsa em for sacrifice. It put infinite pathos into tie speech of uncouth fishermen. It Wted Paul int! the seventh heaven ; and it broke upon the ei^^ St. John with the brazen trumpets and the doxolo ^phim^ ^"^■^' ^"' ">« ™^'>-^ -"«•' oTthe Instead of waitmg until you get sick and worn ™t before you speak the praise-of Christ, while four heart IS happiest, and your step is ligE and your fortunes smile, and your pathway bto soms and the overarching heavens drop upon you benediction, speak praises of Jesus. P™ y°" THE ELECTRIC WORD. The old Greek orators, when they saw their au diences mattentive and slumbering, had one worf with w iich they would rouse them up to the Jea^ est enthusiasm. In the midst of their orafens hey would stop and cry out, " Marathon !" and the people's enthusiasm would be unbounded Mr hearers, though you may have been borne do™ hardly like looking up, methinks tho« is one grand, royal, imperial word that ought to rouse ' 'i '1 : ! * i I if if 18S CHRIST THE SONQ. "it your soul to infinite rejoicing, and that word is "Josus!" Taking tho suggpstion of ilx; t(>xt, I ylinll speak to you of Cln-ist, our song. I reniarlc, iu tlie linat place, that Christ ought to be THE CRADLE SONG. What our mothers sang to us when they put us to sleep is singing yet. We may have forgotten the words ; but they went into the fibre of our soul, and will forever be a part of it. It is not so much what you formally teach your cliildren as what you sing to them. A hymn lias wings and can fly eveiywhither. One hundred and fifty years after you are dead, and ''Old Mortal- ity " has worn out his chisel in re-cutting your name on the tombstone, your great-gi-andchil- dren will bo singing the song wliich this after- noon you sing to your little ones gathered about your knee. There is a place in Switzerland where, if you distinctly utter your voice, there come back ten or fifteen' echoes, and every Christian song sung by a mother in the ear of her child shall have ten thousand echoes conu'ng back from all the gates of heaven. Oh, if mothers only knew the power of this sacred spell, how much oftener the little ones w^ould be gathered, and all our homes would chime with the songs of Jesus ! PRESERVING POWER. We want some counteracting influence upon CHKiar THE som. 189 acting iufiuenco iTi t ' tl, ' "° """"*"•■ culture and"x"„,I T iT'^i' "' '''''"*'"' ones the pu.. W^^ J^us 1 t u T' ''""'i ""'" ffive tl •■ ■" '™™*'« «^-" f'-""' their hearts Give to your instruction all the fasci.Ati., w. music, morning, noon an.I night k tit ^ I? ' the cradle-song ^ ' " "" •'*'>*"'*> Then there t^M ""'' "^ """«"« that'^.WR inS and^tLtn«ifur;::ie"::i,f r' '^ ?'^ '^-"■ and little hands wutiile] fof'! ,° ''"^■• cannot heln And » „> / '"^'P- ^"" yourheartan^ ' ^"'"' ^^'"'^ ^"" P*"* at THE CRADLE WILL BE EMPTY, till bi^enrnT'"'^.^"' ^' '^'"P*^' ^"d the world will be empty, and yom' soul will be emntr W„ Jittle feet standing on the stiirt -^"""P'^- ^° tered on the carnpf 1? • . ° '"^^ ^^*'- room to room N ^ """^ ^"""^""^ f™"! Question, tT' . ° /''■''"'^^ '■"'<> ^vondering questions. No upturned face, with laughing bluf mi:.M 190 CHRIST THE SONQ. ryes, come for a kiss ; but only a grave, and a wreath of white blossoms on the top of it ; and bitter desolation, and a sighing at nightfall with no one to put to bed, and a wet pillow and a fcTave and a wreath of white blossoms on the top of it. The heavenly Shepherd will take that lamb safely, anyhow, whether you have been faithful or unfaithful ; but would it not have been pleasanter if you could have heard from these lips the praises of Christ? I never read anything more beautiful than this about a child's departure. The ac uit said, ''She folded her hands, kissed her mother good-bye, sang her hymn, turned her face to the wall, said her httle prayer, and then died." Oh, if I could gather up in one paragraph the last words of the little ones who have gone out from all these Christian circles, and I could picture the calm looks and the folded hands and sweet departure, methinks it would be grand and beautiful as one of heaven's doxologies! I next speak of Christ as THE OLD man's SONG. Quick music loses its charm for the aged ear. The school-girl asks for a schottische or a glee ; but her gi-andmother asks for "Balerma" or the "Portuguese Hymn." Fifty years of trouble have tamed the spirit, and the keys of the music-board must have a solemn tread. Though the voice may be tremulous, so that grandfather will not trust it in church, still he has th# CUBIST THE som. ja, psalm-book open before him inH (,„ • his soul. He hum do not know it; but it s artrH,„ t ^ "? P'"'P'« cheek of the aced m-f, f *''■"'" ''°'™ t^e the revival sc,^^ In wh,', •! ''T""'* '>™ "^ of the radiant feces thrt't P'-^^cipated, and and of the graXi^d m,n ff T' '^''"" '° ''"^t- pulpit, andfouLtgLTd Hir'T °^T *" I was one Thankseivinr^ ^^'■''*''*J»y- Syracuse, New ^::^I^J Zi^J" t'™:^:5ar:"isr^-^- «at new^unrrnobod ten s t ffir^ thrv^n^^rre"'"'''^"'^'"-'"^^-^ oflh^^:gXrhoVflt^^..;■r^*T?^'' '-^^ ''^« THE SONG OF SALVATION. Jesus, Who fed them all their lives lonr. t who wiped away their teim t! V ^ ^'"^' by them when Til Z S- S t' T^ name their marrii0-p woo ' ^" ^^^^e resurrection haTp?;:r,Sr;mor?i "'"' "'"^« their departed. BleLe^t 'b b I .rT",! spectacled old age reads the pfomL "I wm never leave you, never fo^. J ^ , J ^ ' .!!] . i| ;. ' , 3 1 ,1 Uf : i' i' .i '. I llij 1^2 CHRIST THE S0N(5. the staflF on which the worn-out pilgrim totteM on toward the welcome of his Redeemer ! Blessed the hymn-book in which the faltering tongue and the failing eyes find Jesus, the old man's song. I speak to you again of Jesus as THE NIGHT SONG. Job speaks of him who giveth songs in the night. John Welch, the old Scotch minister, used to put a plaid across his bed on cold nights, and some one asked him why he put that there. He said, "Oh, sometimes in the night I want to sing the praise of Jesus, and to get do\7n and pray ; then I just take that plaid and wrap it around me, to keep myself from the cold." Songs in the night ! Night of trouble has come down upon many of you. Commercial losses put out one star, slan- derous abuse put out another star ; domestic bereavement has put out a thousand lights, and gloom has been added to gloom, and chill to chill, and sting to sting, and one midnight has seemed to borrow the fold from another midnight to wrap itself in more unbearable darkness ; but Christ has spoken peace to your heart, and you can sing : '* Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly, While the billows near me roll, While tlie tempest still is high. Hide me, oh, my Saviour ! hide Till the storm of life is past, Safe into the haven guide ; Oh, receive my soul at laat.** CHEIST THE SONO. 103 Js^l' '">*'";"'*''''• S"»g« in the night t For put ice on the temple, or pom- out i, T '° ■Hht ni,::7"^'- -- --- -'^^^^^^^ FOR THE POOR vyho freeze in the winter's cold, and swplf.. • blankets that cannot any to 1,^! L n H ' r*!; trembJe because rent-day s co me ■, ,^ J ' ^"'^ be set out on the side«^(k .,n?i f "'"^ "''^ ^^nd saying, in the presence of the HI J -f^' ones "Oil rr..r ^'''^"^"^^'^i the httle fannshed For .1, ScW i'SS loifu,;", "'; "«'" ' the pale cheek -mri fi,^ i j , ^^^w^j ana '■efnsing all relirf Yet , "*''•''''' ''y^' '^"'^ noonTfoS^h' 1 ' ^r^ *^^^ fresh wound, -^ po.ii.d iu,o his own groan, the hlai. W #^ ^ I' ,1 . ,' " I I' • , I Ha ,r;i ' 'I ! i»!:i J I fists 194 CHRIST THB SOMQ. phemy of others plowing up his own spirit, th& condensed bitterness of dying away from homo among strangers. Yet songs in the night ! Songs in the night! *'Ah!" said one dying soldier, ''tell my mother that last night there was not one cloud between my soul and Jesus." Songs in the night ! Songs in the night I THE SABBATH SONG. The Sabbath day has come. From the altars of ten thousand churches has smoked up tl:3 savor of sacrifice. Ministers of the gospel are now preaching in plain English, in broad Scotc' ^ in flowing Italian, in harsh Choctaw. God's people have assembled in Hindoo temple, and Moravian church and Quaker meeting-house and sailors' Bethel and kings' chapel and high-towered cathe- dral. They sang, and the song floated off amidst the spice groves or struck the icebergs, or floated off into the western pines or was drowned in the clamor of the gi-eat cities. Lumbermen sang it, and the factory-girls and the children in the Sab- bath-class and the trained choir in great assem- blages. Trappers, with the same voice with which they shouted yesterday in the stag-hunt, and mar- iners with throats that only a few days ago sound- ed in the hoarse blast of the sea hurricane, they sang it. One theme for the sermons. One burden for song ; Jesus for the invocation ; Jesus for the Scripture lessons. ; Jesus for the baptismal font ; Jesus for the sacramental cup ; Jesus for the benediction. But the day will go by. It will roll ipirit, the. Dm home e night ! tie dying ght there i Jesus." ! altars of 1:3 savor are now 3otc' ^ in 's people Moravian i sailors' id cathe- ff amidst r floated d in the sang it, the Sab- t assem- th which a,nd mar- ^0 sound- ihey sang [rden for for the lal font ; for the ; will roU '"'■'r-l^imian'imm .*#*' CHRIST THE SONO. 195 away on swift wheels of liglit and love. Again the chaiclies will be lighted. Tides of people agani setting down the streets. Whol(> families coming up the church aisle. We must have ont^ more sermon, two prayers, tliree songs nnd one benediction. What shall we preach to-night? What shall we read ? What shall it be, children « Aged men and women, what shall it be ? Youn- meii and maidens, what shall it be ? If you choose to break the silence of this auditory, there would come up thousands of quick and jubilant voices crying out, ' ' Let it be Jesus ! Jesus !" WE SING HIS BIRTH, aie barn that slieltered Him, the mother that nursed H:m, the cattle that fed besides Him, the angels that woI.e up the shepherds, .baking light over the midn.ght hills. We sing His mhdstr;- pha s; the lame men that forgot their crutches; the damsel who, from the bier, bounded out into the sunhght her locks shaking down over the flushed cheek ; the hungry thousand who bro e "wTh ^' ■'."o^*™'! i»to larger loaves-that riuacle by which a boy with five loaves and two fishes became the sutler for a whole army We W w'/T"''"""'' stone-bruised feet, Hisach- huni? R- f •""""*'"" loneliness. His desert hunger. His storm-pelted body, the eternity of an- guish that shot through His Last moments, Za the immeasurable ocean of torment that heaved up agamst His cross in one foaming, wrathful, om- 196 CHRIST THE SONG. uipotent surge, the sun dashed out, and the dead, shroud-wrapped, breaking open thou- sepulchres, and rushing out to see what was the niuiter. We SING HIS RESURRECTION — the guard that could not keep Him, the sorrow of His disciples : the clouds piling up on either side in pillared splendors as he went through, treading the pathless air, higher ai7d higher, until He came to the foot of the throne, and all heaven kept jubilee at the return of the Conqueror. I say once more, Clirist is THE EVERLASTING SONG. The very best singers sometimes get tired; the strongest throats sometimes ,ot weaiy;'and many who sang very sweetly do not sing now ; but I hope, by the grace of God, we will, after a while, go up and sing the praises of Christ where Vie will never be weary. You know there are some songs that are especially appropriate for the home circle. They stir the soul, they start the tears, they turn 'the heart in on itself and keep sounding after the tune has stopped, like some cathedral beU, which, long after the tap of the brazen tongue has ceased, keeps throbbing on the air. Well, it will be a home song in heaven ; all the sweeter because those who sang with us in the domestic circle on earth shall join that great harmony. " Jerusalem, my happy home, Name ever clear to me ; When shall iny labors have an end In joy and peace in thee ?" CUEIST THE BONO. 197 Tou know there is no sudi tinio on a farm a, when they get the cro,« in ; and .,o i,. hf^ " , • ^ill be a harrost song on tho part of tho.so who oneath sowed in tears and reaped in joy Lit up your heads, ye everlasting gates and et t ,„ sheaves come in! Angels slt,,^ antnlgl heaven^ and multitudes con» down the hill's c^- ing, Harvest home ! harvest home '" There is nothiag more bewitching to one's ear than the song of sailors far out at se.^ whithei ta day or mght, as they pull away at the ropes-the A sailor's soxo. They were voyagei-s once and thought they could never get to shore, and before they could get thmgs snug and trim the cyclone sLcl hem But now they are safe. Once they went wmI tile storm; but the pilot came aboai-d ] h„ n-ought them into the harbor. Now "h Vs^ of the breakei-s passed, the light-houses tlwt showed them where to sail, the pilot that took tl7em through the straits, the eternal shore on whkh they landed. Ay, it will he '''^ THE CHILDREN'S SONO. You know very well that the vast majority of our race die in iirfancy, and it is estimated that eiX een thousand milhons of the little ones arestand Z^f""' ^'^^ W'^*^" they shall rise uTaS the throne to sing, the miUions and themiUionsof 198 CimiaT THE SONO. the little ones— ah ! tliat will be imisic for you 1 These played in the streets of Babylon and lliebes; these plncked lilies from the foot of Ohvet while Christ was preaching about them ; these waded in Siloam ; these were victims of Herod's massacre; these were thrown to crocodiles or into the fire ; tliese came up from Christian homes ; and these were foundlings on the city conmions— children everywhere in all that land: children in the towers, children on the sea of glass, children on the battlements. Ah, if you do not Hke children, do not go there. They are in vast majority, and what a song when they lift it around the throne ! THE HEAVENLY SONG. The Christian singers and composers of all ages will be there to join in that song. Thomas Hast- ing will be there. Lowell Mason will be there. Bradbiny will be there. Beethoven and Mozart will be there. They who sounded the cymbals and the trumpets in the ancient temples will be there. The forty thousand harpers that stood at the an- cient dedication will bo there. The tw^o hundred singers that assisted on that day will be there. Patriarchs who lived amidst threshing-floors, shep- herds who watched amidst Chaldean hills, prophets who w\alked with long beards and coarse apparel, pronouncing woe against ancient abominations, will meet the moi'e recent martyi's who went up Avith leaping cohorts of fire ; and some will speak of the Jesus of whom they prophesied, and others of the Jesus for whom they died. Oh, what a % oiiuiar THE soxo. 1!)9 t-ilvm ,„ the prison ; ,t d,,,,,,,,.,, t„ j,,,,,, ,^, ." tl.e fu-c; and son„.tinH.s that song l.as come o your ear perhaps, for I think it somotin.eXi^ over tho battlements of heaven A Clnistian woman, the wife of a minister of the Gospel, was dying in the parsonage near tl o oW church, where on Saturday night the ch r used to assemble and rehea,^e for the llo i . &abl,ath,and she said, "Hou- strangely sweet the chou- rel,earsos t„.night ; they havt been re hearsnig there for an hour. " "K- " si d 1^ one about her, " The choh' is not ,.lv, " nio-lit " .< v„„ .. ,"-"'" "' ""t rchearsmg to- night, i-es," slie said " I know tliey are I bear them sing; how -ery sweetly they sing ." 'iVvas not a choir of earth that she heard, but THE CIIOIK or HEAVEN. I think that Jesus sometimes sets ajar the door of heaven, and a passage of that rapture greets Will I sing It ? Not unless our sins are pardoned and we learn now to sing the praise of Chris w 1 we ever smg it there. The first great concert « a the << P Ttir^ '" ''•'" ^''*' -"«" J"li™. ^ the Crystal Palace," stood before hundreds of ^ngers and hundreds of players upon instruments borne of you may remember that occasion; it was the first one of the kind at which I was pres™T and I shall never forget it. I saw th.at one m" n standing, with the hand and foot, wieldthltgTea harmony, beatmg the time. It was ovenvhelming i ; ,'j f I .» I ; V ;, viiiii.'. 200 CHRIST THE SONQ. i'l Hi I I il But oh, THE ORANDEB SCENE fTl! w"'f '•'.f "'""" f™"' "'« East, and from .1 grtMt multitude that no man can inunhor ^' mto the tomple of the skies, host heyond ho t "nd h~" t^ ,f °" "'"V"^* '° -"^^t 't Ucumony, with His woniidod hnnrk on.i xt- wounded feet ! Like the voic of ny wato^' hke he voice of mighty thundering L,ytS cy, "Worthy is the Lamb that was sC to f ce.ve Uessuigs, and riches, and honor, ^d 1^ and power, world without end. Amen m.d An ,en^' Oh, If my ear shall hear no other sweet to mds r?I^•rtr/"^-"-°"-•— i"^ battle was won, gloriously won, the king"™n ed orcCr;; If ^i^^ ''""•■ "'t^Po-tiof and he «« i ,'" chaplain to r.ad the hundred and woids Not unto us, O, Lord, but unto thy TXt 7"^'"-' *^ "^'"S :lis.no«nted, and aU the cavalry dismounted, and all the grea hosts officers and men, threw themselves on theirfaces Saviours dehverance, shall we not prostrate our- selves before^Him now, hosts of earth and hosts of heaven, falling „pon our faces, and crying THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. THE LABOR QUESTION. of God mo'ved upo -'The . It!!!: ..^"^ "^ ^P-' •fw i;2. pon the face of the waters."— GV//^. roa andvmd and water and ^hell. Thousmds of m.les ,„ d,a,neter. more thousands of „ni m arcu, .fcrencc. A great mass of uL™ ' f ::';h:"' "'"r''""- "^'^'-^--' S- ■ ness, and horror. It seemed like a o-rnf ^„„ j.rch::--:^;-r;^r'X o that black, rough, shapeless e^g our beauti lul world was hafrh^ri n a ^ oeauti- original '* ^^ ^^""'^ °^" 'hat 1 ^ ;1; \:\ (■ ] .1 lit!' La 1 ' , ' s f 1 I. ^f T 1 >_ ^U n 1 • i^il THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. ANARCHY OF ELEMENTS and said : "Atlantic Ocean, you go right away and lie down there ! Pacific Ocean, you sleep there ! Caucasian range of mountains, you stand there ! Mount Washington, )^ou be sen- tinel there ! Mont Blanc, you put on your cor- onet of crystal there ! Mississippi, you march there, and Missouri vqu marry it there !" And He gathered in His Almighty hands the sand and mud and rock, and rolled and heaved and moulded and dented and compressed them into shape, and then dropped them in four places ; and the one was Asia, and another was Europe, and another Africa, and another America, North and South. SOCIAL CHAOS THREATENED. That original chaos was like the confusion and anarchy into which the human race ever and anon has a tendency to plunge. God has said : " Let there be light of law, light of jus- tice, light of peace, light of love !" " No ! No !" say anarchic voices, " let there be dark- ness, let there be cut-throatery, let there be eternal imbroglio, let there be chaos." , Such a social condition many are expecting THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. because of the overshadowing contest h.n Labor and Capital ; there has^.ot bee a ^1" Lgent man or woman during the , ' n' months who has not asked th. " "Shall we have bloody relutt ''"''"""■ country?" I have t J 1 "^""'""O" '" this .uesti/n in tha'airmS ; t::l:: -r .r negative. answer it in the THE CHURCH AS PEACEMAKER There may be and there have been f„ •« outbursts of popular frenzy, bu the e til h' anarchy, for the Church of Chris th! , "° and grandest institution of The pi' t TiT '"S hold of the strength of ,f ^"ee'n r T capital, say, ':'rctSi:^re:aro?:;:itd' who turned rhinc ,-..^ . ^"^ ^^d .■I1 „ • • trains hurled over the ocL W T"'' ^^'''• to death within sight of ti;"'" ^^^"'" dren. Factories fssail.VK T^' ^"^ ^^1- f"l police of our citfe ' ^ "'°'''- '^''^ ^^'th- night and da^. n om "''"' ''^ ^'^"^"^ called out. The whnir ""''' '^^ '"'"'"y question, -. What next " '°r""-^ ^*'"g "^e one great riot. German v= ^ f " ^^ ^^'g'"'" 'heirwor^menquro^r'^trr'^-P'"^ so vast that thev are Mf- ^'f"'''"^ armies nations. The onTv 'f^ °f "''^ '''^^ °f 'hose Pe-" ' .= because shl \T"- ""/ '^'='^"'' '^ '" --..etriumphstfGiS*-"Tr^\"'^ quarrel is hemispheric ave o ,., "^ '''''°'" '•eUnd the whoLe;deJc; ;:S:'^'^ -l"-- But one wav in wh;^i ^^o^^ard anarchy. '^•>y'etti„g,i;';:^;,:\:-^y avoid WHAT ANARCHY IS. We must have the wreck nn;„. ,> fo steer clear of i^ An ^u ''^ °"' '" °"i^<- "Sht of propel uTf'y '' abolition of your house and ;our m ^°"'' ^'°^« ^nd "'ne, and mine you s TtTV," ?'" ^^"'"y ''l-veryman-s'han^-ag S^tr '--- and murder fndrS™- Jlllilfi} ll 1 R. ) 1 IB n,. 1 In u ' 1 llli Jn '- i ■illy Vm 1" ■ Wk 1 li i" n « 1 H 1 1 II 1 8 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. death triumphant. It means no law, no church, no defence, no rights, no happiness, no God. It means hell let loose on earth, and society a combination of devils incarnate. It means ex- termination of everything good and the corona- tion of everything infamous. Do you want it ? Will you have it ? Before you let it get a good foothold in America take a good look at the dragon. ! Look at Paris, where for a few days it held sway, the gutters red with blood and the walks down the street a stepping between corpses, the Archbishop shot as he tries to quell the mob, and every man and woman armed with knife or pistol or bludgeon. Let this country take one good, clear, scrutinizing look at anarchy before it is admitted, and it will never be allowed to set up its reign in our borders. No ; there is too much good sense dominant in this country to permit anarchy. All good people will, to- gether with the officers of civil government, cry " Peace !" and it will be re-established. Meanwhile, my brotherly counsel is to THREE CLASSES OF LABORERS. First, to those who are at work. Stick to it. Do not amid the excitement of these times drop THE BATTLE FOR ,,eaD. 9 whether he be railroadm ° ^"''' "^ ''°'^ "°^>'. clerk, oranyothe HnH ? ' """"''''"'"■ farmer ,^^'rfei/„ptt ;a,•:7'r■^^^"'-'^■ l'ke the line of steamer.?. ? °" '"''•3' "°t but do not ju.«p ove .|!t "f y°" ^--^ mailing i„. Atlantic. L I',t ,e fe") ''" "''""^ "^'^^ Postofworkvvhilethis u In " "'""* ^'>'°" to your occupation wilh ™ttV ' '"^ ""^"'' than has e.er characterizeV'' "°" ^"'""''^ My brotherly coun<.el ; .i to those Who h'ave75n r tr "1 '^'""' '^ for you and best for evervf -7 ^"' ''e" mediately. Do noUv2! ^^ '" ^o back im- Get on board th t I n " ''' '"'=" °"'"^ THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. ,, workmen You arc a free ma„, and let no mterests^ Do not let any man, or any body of men te you where you shall work, or whe^e you shall not work, when you shal wo7k or when you shall not work. If a man wants' to belong to a labor organization, let him belong ^at,on, let him have perfect liberty to stay out on^vourhrT'^'f ^^' "° '"='" P"' ^ --->e on your hand or foot or head or heart. i belong to a ministerial association that ."eets once a week. I love all the n^mbe very much. VVe may help each other in a hu" dred ways, but when that association shall tell me t, qu,t my work and go somewhere 1 e that I must stop right away because a brothe minister has been badly treated down in Tex s I will say to that ministerial association, "Ge; hee be ^d me, Satan r Furthermore, I ht ndtv to ^h"^" 7 P'='°'^"= °f ''''' ^l'"-b and say to the people, " I decline to work for pu any longer. I am going. Good-by'' Bu have no right, after I have quit this pulpit to nger around the doors on Sunday mornings Id evenings with a shot-gun to intimidate ! hmder the minister who comes to take my li. i. II'' ii^ t2 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. place. I may quit my place and continue to be a gentleman, but when I interfere with my sue- cessor in this pulpit I become a criminal, and deserve nothing better than thin soup in a tin bmyl m Sing Sing Prison. Your first duty, oh labormg man, is to your family ! Let no one but Almighty God dictate to you how you shall support them. Work when you please where you please, at what you please, and allovv no one for a hundred millionth part of a second to mterfere with your right. When we emerge from the present unhappiness, as we soon will we shall find many tyrannies broken, and Laboi and Capital will march shoulder to shoulder. MUTUAL DEPENDENCE. This day I declare the mutual dependence of Labor and Capital. An old tentmaker put it .]ust right— I mean Paul— when he declared : "The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee." You have examined someelab- orate machinery— a thousand wheels, a thousand bands, a thousand levers, a thousand pulleys but all controlled by one great water-wheel, all the part adjoined so that if you jarred one part you jan ^d all the parts. Well, society is a great piece of mechanism, a thousand wheels, a thou- ft Jit jWau»i,'^wttiL„i r-'^'^Z fl iiic to be my sue- nal, and in a tin St duty, t no one ow you please, d allow second emerge )n will, Laboi Ider. mce of put it blared : ive no eelab- •usand ulleys, 2el, all le part . great thou- THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. ,3 sand pulleys, a thousand levers but nil trolled by one o-mof . i ''''''^'^' '^ut all con- Ac vvheJl of Sod's n. 'T'"''^'''"^ '^^'='^~ sions interdependent 'Im" H "''' '''"^ ''™f^- so that the n,i, ,,ole? ""■ """''^P«n''<-"nt. hill, and the man who "aks'e'Ti'T"" "" ""= the foot of the hill, ffere'ch o ' "'°""^ "' tuneorprospenty.' iZ:':^,:^^"?'"'- rus without hurting his own foot T T hrow Shadraeh into thefu naee 't H '' "''" faces scorched and blackened N? ," ""■" as independence. Sm te so 'ietf I" ' "'"^ Pomt and ,ou smite the entircll:;7/- IDENTICAL INTERESTS Capitaf and L bo " Be" :T"'''"^' '■^'--" ™"ch furtheritwillbefoi'eh " ,r'"^ -"°^= are identical ; what helps one p"b:;"'^T'' injures one injures ho h rr . ^'' ^"'^^t doom there wllle no ;.• y"/" "" ""^ »' classes until the e is a ^.^ 'rl, '7 '" "■°''-V.- '^veen Labor and Ca'i ! "'"^"''^"^'"S he- Every speech Zt cVf '''"'' "''= "'«'■ ends. is an'adjf^urle: o^ it" T'"^' ^"^°' oi our national prosperity. -I. MIS jS.-»| * .Ik f" i\ WW^mmB it ■ [•>•■ -^^MafcfaaFi-nwfc-iiiirmiu.. *'=a»6li^featej.%. — — >r 14 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. Every speech that Labor makes against Capital is an adjournment of our national prosperity. The capitalists of the country, so far as I know them, are successful laborers. If the capitalists in this house to-day would draw their gloves, you would see the broken finger-nail, the scar of an old blister, hero and there a stiffened finger-joint. The great publishers of New York and Philadelphia, so far as I know them, were book-binders or printers on small pay. The carriage manufacturers of the country used to sandpaper the wagon-bodies in the wheel- wright's shop. PHILANTHROPIC CAPITALISTS. Peter Cooper was a glue-maker. No one begrudged him his millions of dollars, for he built Cooper Institute and swung open its doors for every poor man's son, and said to the day laborer : " Send your boy up to my In- stitute if you want him to have a splendid edu- cation." And a young man of this church was the other day walking in Greenwood Cemetery, and he saw two young men putting flowers on the grave of Peter Cooper. My friend sup- posed the young men were relatives of Peter Cooper, and decorated his grave for that reason. THE CATTLE FOR IJREAD. No," they said, 15 Ins our we put these flowers grave because it was through him we g, edueation.^ Abraham Van Nest was a harness- maker m New York. Through economy and •industry and skill he got a great fortune. He gave away to help others hundreds of thousands of dollars. I shall never forget the scene when I, a green country lad. stopped at his house, and after passing the evening with him became to the door and came outside and said : " Here De Witt, is fifty dollars to get books with! Uon t say anything about it." And I never did till the good old man was gone. Henry Clay was ''the Mill-boy of the Slashes." Hucrh Miller, a stone-mason; Columbus, a weave"; Halley, a soap-boiler : Arkwright, a barber • the learned Bloomfield. a shoemaker- Ho- garth, an engraver of pewter plate, and Hoi ace Greeley started life in New York with ten dollars and seventy-five cents in his pocket. The distance between Capital and Labor is not a great gulf over which is swung a Niagara suspension bridge ; it is only a step, and the laborers here will cross over and become capi- talists, and the capitalists will cross over and become laborers. Would to God they would ■t Kj iff ': w « ; 4 i8 1; 1 ~*....A^ i6 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. shake hands while they are crossing, these from one side, and those from tlie other side. WHO THE COMBATANTS ARE. The combatants in this ^rrcat conflict be- twcen Capital and Labor are chiefly, on the one side, the men of fortune, and. on the other hand, men who could get labor, but will not have It. will not stick to it. It is the hand curs- mg the eye, or the eye cursing the hand. I want it understood that the laborers are thc5 highest style of cai)italists. Where is their in vestment? In the bank ? No. In railroad stock ? No. Their muscles, their nerves, their bones, their mechanical skill, their physical health, are the highest kind of capital. The man who has two feet, and two ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers, owns a machinery that puts into nothingness Corliss's engine and all the railroad rolling stock, and all the carpet and screw and cotton factories on the planet. I wave the flag of truce this morning between these contestants. I demand a cessation of hostilities between Labor and Capital. What is good for one is good for both. What is bad for one is bad for both. ) '; THE BATTLE FOR I: READ. «7 CO-OPERATION. Again relief will come to the working, classes of this country through co-operative association. I am not now referring to trades- unions. We may hereaft.T discuss that nues- tion. But I refer to that plan by which laborers become the,, ^vru c, pitalists, taking their sur- pluses and putnno; tht n together and carryin k.ng .omefmes at the same bench di^n'^ "'/'' ''■"'= '^''l«.- "ncl there are those l'"t ;vho can remember the time when tl, c er f argeeommercialestablishments\tfecus 1 1 that ": """ '"'^ ''^^'^ ">- - 'h. m p%. wid'; rd \v r Th?f T '-'■ ^■"- mflt^ fK , ^''^^^^^- A he tendency s to make the empby(< fed fhi<- h^ '^e success or-'thlcapilaltlr.'rmri fU) f;ri 38 THK lUTTLE FOR BREAD. l|| w t 1: • ann I ■ 1 i^m^^^Hi 1 iH ■meWBI.i 1 11 *>lBi capitalist feel : *' Now, my laborers are only beasts of br den ; I must give so much money for so much drudp^ery, just so many pieces of silvi r for so many beads of sweat." In other words, the bridge of sympathy is broken down at both ends. That feeling was well described by Thomas Carlyle when he said : " Plugson, of St. Dolly Undershot, buccaneer-like, says to his men: 'Noble spinners, this is the hun- dredth thousand we have gained, wherein I mean to dwell and plant my vineyards. The hundred thousand pound is mine, the daily .wage was yours. Adieu, noble spinners ; drink my health with this groat each, which 1 give you over and above." Now, what we want is to rebuild that bridge of sympathy, and 1 put the trowel to one of the abutments to-day, and I pr-each more especially this morning to employers as such, although what I have to say will be appropriate to all who are in the house. THREE BRUTAL PRINCIPLES. The outrageous behavoir of a multitude of laborers toward their employers during the last three months — behavior infamous and worthy of most condign punishment — may have in- THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. j- diu:ed some employers to nejjloct the renl Christian duties that thov owe tn H. , they employ. Thereto 7 1 "'"^e ^vhom whomi^:nJ^ne?t ^r^JTl'^^- whomthesewordsmaycome r n nteresfpH In fi • ^^^"^"^^ bound to bf? niicrescca in the entire u'plfnr^ ..r *.i • . dinates. Vears a,o so,^'^ ^^^2:^^ scr.pt,ons for becoming a n,ll|?ori;e ff, f pond your hfe in Setting and keeping thee rn ■ngs of other people ; secondly, have no an vtt J about the worrimcnts, the losses ih^ ^ mcntsof others- thlrZ 7 .''"''''"""■ fh.t ""'crs, thndly, do not m nd the faef that your vast wealth implies the povertv of a great many people. Now, there is no 1 1„ -~: J- -::; s:„'° ;:- r THE RATE OF PAY naoie and as your business will afford Not necessarily what others pay certainl. , ; -at yo„ hired help say yoVmu^ }' Z that .s tyranny .^ ,,, p,,, ,^ ,,^^^ ^_^J^^3^- Joj ftik (' I- , i!) Iti- fi 30 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. The right of a laborer to tell his employe! what he must pay implies the right of an em- ployer to compel a man into a service whether he will or not, and either of those ideas is despicable. When an employer allows a labor- er to say what he must do or have his business ruined, and the employer submits to it, he does every business man in the United States a wrong, and yields to a principle which, carried out, would dissolve society. Look over your affairs, and put yourselves in imagination in your laborer's place, and then pay him what be- fore God and your own conscience you think i^ou ought to pay him. " God bless yous " are well in their place, but they do not buy coal nor pay house rent nor get shoes for the children. At the same time you, the employer, ought to remember through what straits and strains you got the fortune by which you built your store or run tiie factory. You are to remember that you take all the risks and the employe takes none, or scarcely any. You are to remember that there may l)e reverses in fortune, and that some new style of machinery may make your machin- ery valueless, or some new style of tariff set your business back hopelessly and forever. m TIIK h.vni.i: FOR nURAD. ,, You must take all that i„t„ consideration, and then pay what is reasonahlc. llIBI.li INJUNCTIONS. Do not he too ready to cut down wa-es. As for as possihle pay all, and pay pr'-oniptly. There ,s a Rreat deal of Bihle leaching on thi sub^-ct M.|ael,i : .. I will he a swift witn!^: agauist all sorcerers, and against all adulterers and agauist those who oppress the hireling hi h.s wages. Leviticus:- Thou Shalt not keep the wages of the hireling all night unto the niornuig." Colossians : ..Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and eoual • knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven ■' bo you see it is not a question hetwcen you jind your employ,; so much as it is a question between you and God Do not say to your eniployi5s : .' Now if you don't like this place get another," when you know they cannot get another. As far as possible once a year visit at their homes your clerks and your workmen. That is the only way you can hccome acquainted with their wants. Vou will hy such process lind out that there is a bhnd parent or a sick sister beincr supported. \-ou will flnd some of your youn" •3 . ! 1 J ! ! iXl 32 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. men in rooms without any fire in winter, and in summer sweltering in ill-ventilated apartments. You will find how much depends on the wages you pay or withhold. BENEFICENT EMPLOYERS. Moreover, it is your duty as employer, as far as possible, tp mould the welfare of the em- ploy^. You ought to advise him about invest- ments, about life insurance, about savings banks. You ought to give him the benefit of your experience. There are hundreds and thousands of employers in this country and England, I am glad to say,; who are settling in the very best possible way the destiny of their employes. Such men as Marshall, of Leeds ; Lister, of Bradford ; Akroyd, of Halifax ; and men so near at home it might offend their modesty, if I mentioned their names. These men have built reading-rooms, libraries, concert halls, afforded croquet lawns, cricket grounds, gymnasiums, choral societies for their employes, and they have not merely paid the wages on Saturday night, but through the contentment and the thrift and the good morals of their employes, they are paying wages from genera- tion to generation forever. V' THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 33 Again. I counsel all employers to look well after the physical health of their subordinates. Do not put on them any unnecessary fatigue I never could understand why the drivers on our city cars must stand all day when they might just as well sit down and drive. It seems to me most unrighteous that so many of the female clerks in our stores should be compelled o stand all day, and through those hours when there are but few or no customers. These peo- pie have aches and annoyance and weariness enough without putting upon them additional fatigue Unless those female clerks must ^o up and down on the business of the store let them sit down. Then, I would have you carry out this sani- tary idea, and put into as few hours as possible the work of the day. Some time ago-whether It has been changed I know not-there were one thousand grocer clerks in Brooklyn who went to business at five o'clock in the morning and continued until ten o'clock at night. Now that IS inhuman. It seems to me all the mer^ chants in all departments ought, by simultane- ous movement, to come out in behalf of the earl), closing theory. These young men ought to have an opportunity of going to the Mercan- 34 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. tile Library, to the readinjr-rooms, to the con. cert hall, to the gymnasium, to the church. They have nerves, they have brains, they have intellectual aspirations, ihey have immortal spirits. If they can do a good round day's work in the ten or eleven hours, you have no right to keep them harnessed for seventeen. But, above all, I charge you, O employers ! that you look after the moral and spiritual wel- fare of your employds. First, know where they spend their evenings. That decides every- thing. You do not want around your money drawer a young man who went last night to stt Jack Sheppard 1 A man that comes into the store in the morning ghastly with mid- night revelry is not the man for your store. The young man who spends his evenings in the society of refined women, or in musical or ar- tistic circles, or in literary improvement, is the young man for your store. THE GUARDIAN OF EMPLOYES. Do not say of these young men : " If they do their work in the business hours, that is all I have to ask." God has made you that man's guardian. I want you to understand that many of these young men are orphans, or worse THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 35 than orphans, flung out into society to strug- gle for themselves. \ young man is pitched into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and a plank is pitched after him, and then he is told to take that and swim ashore. Treat that young man as you would like to have your son treated if you were dead. Do not tread on him. Do not swear at him. Do not send him on a useless errand. Say " Good-morn- ing" and "Good-night" and "Good-by." You are deciding that man's destiny for two worlds. One of my earliest remembrances is of OLD ARTHUR TAPPAN. There were many differences of opinion about his politics, but no one who ever knew Arthur Tappan, and knew him well, doubted his being an earnest Christian. In his store in New York he had a room where every morn- ing he called his employes together, and he prayed with them, read the Scriptures to them, sang with them, and then they entered on the duties of the day. On Monday morning the exercises diifered, and he gathered the young men together and asked them vv'here they had attended cl = urch, what had been their Sabbath experieiice^>, and what had been the sermoa . m 'i'*l M,. ' i ,*,;• a- ! U ft' ,f. jj MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 15.0 IL6 12.8 3.2 3.6 4,0 2.2 1.8 A APPLIED IIVMGE Inc ^^ 1653 East Main Street S".^ Rochester. New York U609 USA '-= (7 1G) 482 - 0300 - Phone ^S (716) 288-5989 -Fax 4i THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. your crew sail ? Oh, you merchant grocers 1 are those young men that under your care are providing food for the bodies and families of men, to go starved forever ? Oh, you manu- facturers of this United States ! with so many wheels flying, and so many bands pulling, and so many new patterns turned out, and so many goods shipped, are the spinners, are the carmen, are the draymen, are the salesmen, are the watchers of your establishments working out everything but their own salvation ? Can it be that, having those people under your care five, ten, twenty years, you have made no everlasting impression for good on their immortal souls ? God turn us all back from such selfishness, and teach us to live for others and not- for our- selves. Christ sets us the example of sacrifice, and so do many of His disciples. A SELF-SACRIFICING PHYSICIAN. One summ.er in California a gentleman who had just removed from the Sandwich Islands told me this incident. He said one of the Sandwich Islands is devoted to lepers. People getting sick of the leprosy on the other islands are sent to that isle of lepers. They never come off. They are in different stages of dis- THE BATTLE FOR IJREAD. 43 e.e,^but a,, Who die on th.t island .ie of On one of the islands there was a physiei ,n wno always wore his hand gloved, and i t w often d,scussed why he always had a glote o- hat hand under all eireumstanees. oTZ he eame to the authorities, and he wi hdrtw h.s glove, and he said to the officers of the law- "-iou see on that hand a spot of the lenrosv' and that I am doomed to die. I ml t"^hi/e th.s for a „ttle while and keep away from he .sleoflepers;butIamaph;sicianfandIean go on that ,sland and administcrto the safe >ngs of those who are farther gone in the dl ease, and I should like to go ;;ow it .o, d fc selfish m me to stay amid these luxurbs surroundrngs when I might be of so much 1 e , o he w,etched. Send me to the isle of tt ~ took I'e nt '''' f "=P-^' ^' UK cue man into custody. He hadf^ arewell to his family and his friends. t wa 'epers, and there wrought among the sick nnfll P~edbyhisowndeath.wh,^ha:i:tcr' Oh, that was magnificent self-denial, nwgnifi.' cent sacrifice, only surpassed by that oT H m f j'!l ; 1 ! if '1 I l^'ff, 44 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. who exiled Himself from his home in heaven to this leprous island of a world, that He might physician our wounds, and weep our griefs, and die our deaths, turning the isle of a leprous world into a great blooming, paradisical gar- den ! Whether employer or employ^, let us catch that spirit. HSMIM mmm THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 45 HARDSHIPS OF WORKINGMEN. Vou have seen i„ factories a piece of m..t, an,sm passing fron. hand to haufanlT roon, to room, and one mechan j,;: ,' T another wi„ flatten it, and anoth^t i cnisei It, riiid another will nnW^h ,v work bedonp a a ^ " '^' ""^'^ the ' "eaven. I have thouirht if men In k ^ can ^ " ^" "^^ ^"ork H r Ms % . I' mi riifi 'lL t 1, I I Ml ft A • I* 46 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. ENCOURAGE EACH OTHER, ought not men engaged in honest artisanship and mechanism speak words of good cheer? Men see in their own work hardships and trials, while they recognize no hardships or trials in anybody else's occupation. Every man's burden is the heaviest, and every wo, man's task is the hardest. We find people wanting to get other occupations and profes- sions. I suppose, when the merchant comes home at night, his l)rain hot with the anxieties of commercial toil, disappointed and vexed, agitated about the excitements in the money markets, he says, - Oh, I wish I were a me- chanic ! When his day's work is done, the mechanic lies down ; he is healthy in body, healthy in mind, and healthy in soul, but I can't sleep ;" while, at that very moment, the mechanic is wishing he was a banker or a mer- chant. He says, "Then I could always have on beautiful apparel ; then I could move in the choicest circles ; then I could bring up my children in a very different sphere from that in which I am compelled to bring them up." Now, the beauty of our holy religion is that THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 47 "tisanship ::hecr ? hips and Lships or Every VGvy wo. i people d profes- it comes iiixieties I vexed, ; money e a mc- )ne, the n body, , but I ent, the r a mer- ys have nove in ^ up my )m that sm up." that GOD LOOKS DOWN UPON ALL the occupations and Professions, and while I cannot understand your annoyances and you thrill ""t"'';'"' "^'"'' ^^^ understands t. em all. He knows all about the troubles of these men mentioned in my text-the car. penter who encouraged the goldsmith, and he tl r""'^"'^' ''''^' '^'' '^^'""^-^' -"d the gold-beaters. I will speak this morning of the general hardships of the., working-elasses. yI may not belong to this class. I.ut you are bound as Chnstmn men and women to know their sor- rows and sympathize with then,, and as politi- cal economists to con,e to tl>eir rescue. There |s great danger that the prosperous classes because o the bad things that have been said hat all tins labor trouble is a "hullabaloo" about nothn,g. Do not go off on that tan- gent. \ ou would not, neither would I, sub- wh eh"' '""' r°'''' '° '^' oppressions to which many of our laborers are subjected. ANARCHISTS RKl'UUIATED. '^ou do a great wrong to the laboring classes 'f you hold them responsible for the tvork of H •" 48 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. the scoundrelly Anarchists You cannot hate their deeds more thoroughly than do all the industrial classes. At the head of the chief organ of the Knights of Labor, in big letters, I find the following vigorous disclaimer : " Let it be understood by all the world thai the Knights of Labor have no affiliation, asso- elation, sympathy or respect for the band of cowardly murderers, cut-throats, and robbers, known as Anarchists, who sneak through the country like midnight assassins, stirring up the passions of ignorant foreigners, unfurling the red flag of anarchy and causing riot and blood- shed. Parsons, Spies, Fielding, Most, and all their followers, sympathizers, aiders, and abet- tors, should be summarily dealt with. They are entitled to no more consideration than wild beasts. The leaders are cowards and their fol- iowers are fools." You may do your duty toward your em- ployes, but many do not, and the biggest business firm in America to-day is Grip, Gouge, GRIND AND COMPANY. Look, for instance, at the woes of the wo- manly toilers, who have not made any strike and THE BATTLE FOR BRE \U, 49 who are dy,„g by the thousands, a„d dyi„^ by mches. I read a feu- lines f^m the '^ Labor Report, just out, as spedm , , Tf «>at female employes endure :'•. Poi::„:J !;i'^o:'fifrrn;r\"i'"^"'='^^ it/ cents! Another: "Aboiif four n,onths of the year ean, by hard work iTot; :"'Vsr '"" '''-'- '""'"^- ^^' Another. She now makes wrappers it on^ do lar per dozen ; can „,ake eight ufr:,', p day. Another: " We girls in our I tablish ment have the following fines impo" t" washn,g your hands, twenty-five cen.s- e.tit a P,eee of bread at your loom, one dollir "o s.ttu,gon a stool, taking a drink of wnte; ad many tr^mg things too numerous tl m ! tion Some of the worst villains of our cities are the employers of these women. Th yte. hem down to the last penny, and try to che them out of that. The wr ,a„ must depo it a dollar or two before she ng who gets hungry when she has no food a.,dcod when she has no fire. Give her"' mo.c flattenes; g,ve her justice! There are a'n7 rIm""'""! ^"^'"S-g"'^ ■•" New York and B ooklyn. Across the sunlight comes then- death groan. It is not such a cry a, ■nesfromthose who are suddenly hurlcd'out ot I'.e, but a slow, grmding, horrible wasting t:u I ' n i;: 52 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. away. At a large meeting of these women lic'ld in a hall in Phihuielphia, grand speeches were delivered, hut a needlewoman lOok the stand, threw aside her faded shawl, and with her shrivelled arm hurled a very thunderbolt of clo(|uenee, speaking out the horrors of her own experience. Stand at the corner of a street at six or seven o'clock in the morning, as the women go to work. Many of them' had no hrcakfiist except the crumbs that were left over from the night before, or the crumbs they chew on their way through the street. Here they come ! THE WORKING-GIRLS OF NEW YORK and Brooklyn. These engaged in head work, these in flower-making, in millinery, paper-box making ; but, most overworked of all and least compensated, the sewing-women. Why do they not take the city cars on their way up ? They cannot afford the five cents. If, conclud- ing to deny herself something else, she gets into the car, give her a seat. You want to see how Latimer and Ridley appeared in the fire. Look at that woman and behold a more horri- ble martyrdom, a hotter fire, a more agonizing death. Ask that woman how much she gets THE BATTLE FOR IIRKAD. j, for her work, and she will tell you six cents for n.ak,„j.coarse shirts and n„« r; ! u into : T"'"^-"r-^'^'"«- A Christian man vitfasicT- f-U '':r' ' poor woman there «ith a sick ch.ld, and he was telling the woman e o ght to put her trust in God. " Oh," she said. I nave no God ; I work from Monday I i L> I l.i h- l^ Mf ■iA-^i^ i '''! f 'I 'fky-K;^^ 56 THE BATTLE FOk BREAD. morning until Saturday night and I get no rest and I never hear anything that does my soul any good ; and when Sunday comes I haven't a»y bonnet that I can wear to church and I have sometimes got down to pray and then I got up, saying to my husband, ' My dear, there's no use of my praying; I am so distracted I can't pray ; it don't do any good r Oh, sir, It is very hard to work on as we peo, pie do from year to year, and to see nothing bright ahead, and to see the poor little child getting thinner and thinner, and my man aL most broken down, and to be getting no nearer to God, but to be getting farther away from him ! Oh, if I were only ready to die !" May God comfort all who toil with the needle and the sewing-machine, and have compassion on those borne down under the fatigues of life. Another great trial is PRIVATION OF TASTE and sentiment. I do no; know of anything much more painful than to have a fine taste for painting and sculpture and music and glorious sunsets and the expanse of the blue sky, and yet not to be able to get the dollar for the ora- torio, or to get a picture, or to buy one's way ^ I get no it does my r comes, I to church, ) pray and >and, 'My ; I am so ny good ! ' IS we peo' e nothing ittle child y man al ■ no nearer ivvay from 2!" May eedJe and asslon on of life. anj^thing ■ taste for glorious sky, and ■ the ora- ne's way m^Ja,^ THE BATTLP. FOr' BREAD. , 5^ great affluence, who have ar „d h m lU " h" of luxuries in art, themselves entirely unawf„ appreciate these luxuries-b„v;nr { u by the sauirp fn,.^ !u ^ ^'"^ ""="■ books ;- luc square toot, their p ctures sent f„ ^j, t^o:tTtSr^-'--^^^^^^^^ of refined, delicat vt J„ "oT T''"'"' artists, who are denied every nicfnrp . ^ Uh let me cheer such persons by tellino- them to look up and behold the inheritance that God has reserved for them I '^ A HEART-BREAKING 'picture o»?^^t7rirtior1hr^arrt"^ r ' appr^hensi andtheoppr^^^ S:t te::^^^^';f -f ^'^ ^^ - En,iifh and Ir.„i ^i! , ''^ * poor man's child and look through the rails of the playo-rounH and envy richer boys for the sake of thefr manJ books, and yet to be doomed to ignorance To be apprenticed to some harsh strLger atd f II forever banished from a motherftendetnts 58 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. and a sister's love. To work when very weary, and work when the heart is sick and the head IS sore. To see a wife or a darling child wast- ing away, and not to be able to get the best advice. To think that the better food or purer air might set her up again, but that food you cannot buy, that air you must never hope to breathe. To be obliged to let her die. To come home froni the daily task some evening, and see her sinking. To sit up all night in hope to catch again those precious words you might have heard could you have afforded to stay at home all day, but never hear them. To have no mourners at the funeral, and even to have to carry on your own shoulder through the merry streets the light deal coffin. To see huddled into a promiscuous hole the dust which is so dear to you, and not venture to mark the spot by planted flower or lowliest stone." But I have no time this morning longer to dwell upon the hardships and the trials of those who toil with hand and foot, for I must go on to offer some grand and GLORIOUS ENCOURAGEMENTS for such ; and the first encouragement is, that one of the greatest safeguards against evil is SWHWWWWiMllWIB,^ TilK BATTLE FOR BREAD. plenty to do. Wh 59 of their country, where do ;en men sin against the la go to find them ? N the poJice detecti vv ves ones, not among those ot amid the dust of fac^ overalls," bu t am \vho have on th o"g those who stand eir their hands in thei7?o;i''"r ""° ''''"'' ^"'^ of saloons and rest unnK ', """"" '^' ^°°'-^ employment Is^TorT'tltT'- ^'"'' a pure and upright life "^ ! I ."tf '^ few men with character stalwart enoLl,;"^ dure consecutive idle.iess. ^ ''"' I see a pool of water in fi,„ s^y. "Thou slimy toid I ' "":""'^' """^ I this mean? DW^Vt t ' ^^' "' "^""^ ''l' those shuttles and f. ^°" P'''>''"ff ^^'th ;:oh.yes/.strjar.',sr-™"'''' lookt sick? vlh;; e ,;: "'"" '"^'^'^^ >'°" ^r.:rth"'''^^-"^^-"-""^^^^^^^ --;c\=:t;ie;rdS-?- mountain side, here l2 iZ to Tf '""" "^ aecursed of God because I I, ' ""'' '^'■•' do !■■ Sin is '""'^ "°"''"& to t, i M la m I ' M:mk mm w 60 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. AN OLD PIRATE that bears down on vessels whose sails are flap- ping idly in the wind. The arrow of sin has hard work to puncture the leather of an old working-apron. Be encouraged by the fact that your shops, your rising walls, your anvils are fortresses in which you may hide, and from which you may fight against the temptations of your life. Morning, noon, and night, Sundays and week-days, thank God for plenty to do. Another encouragement is the fact that their families are going to have the very best oppor- tunity for development and usefulness. That may sound strange to you, but THE CHILDREN OF FORTUNE are very^ apt to turn out poorly. In nine cases out of ten the lad finds out if a fortune is com- ing, by twelve years of age ; he finds out there is no necessity of toil, and he makes no struggle, and a life without struggle goes into dissipation or stupidity. You see the sons of wealthy pa- rents going out into the world, inane, nerveless, dyspeptic, or they are incorrigible and reckless, while the son of the porter that kept the gate learns his trade, gets a robust physical consti- THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. gl lutbn achieves high moral culture, and stands -n the front rank of Church and Stitc. Who are the men mightiest in our Le-^isla- tures and Congress and Cabinets? Did tie, walk up the steep of life in silver slippers ?S ;>. I !"°"'" P"' '"■'" ^1°^^" ""der the tree ■n he shade while she spread the hay. Many of hese m,8hty men ate out of an iron spoon and drank out of the roughest earthenware- . tle.r whole l,fe a forced march. They never had any lu..ur,es until, after awhile, God gZ them affluence and usefulness and renown as ! reward for their persistence. Remember then hat though you may have poor surround n's and small means for the education of your chH dren, they are actually starting undir bet advantages than though you had a fortune to g.ve them. Hardship and privation are not a rtr?: 'hif"-' '"' '"" "^^^"'^^- Aken'd rose to h,s emment sphere from his father's u tcher-shop. Robert Burns started as a si ep! herd. Pudeau used to sweep E..eter College G^ord was a shoemaker, and the son of evefy Z4I > """^ "f '° '"''^'''^ °f intellectual and^m.^ power ,f he will only trust God and Again. I offer as encouragement that you III hi'vi ' ' 62 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. have so many opportunities of gaining infor- mation. Plato gave thirteen hundred dollars for two books. The Countess of Anjou gave two hundred sheep for one volume. . Jerome ruined himself financially by buying one copy ofOngen. Oh, the contrast ! Now there are tens of thousands of pens gathering up infor- mation. Typesetters are calling for " copy " All our cities quake with the rolling cylinders of the Harpers, and the Appletons and the Lip- pincotts and the Petersons and the Ticknors and you now buy more than Benjamin Frank' hn ever knew for fifty cents ! There are peo- pie who toil from seven o'clock in the morninc until s,x o'clock at night who know more abou*t anatomy than the old physiologists, and who know more about astronomy than the old phi- losophers. If you should take the learned men of two hundred years ago and put them on one bench, and take twenty children from the com- mon schools in Brooklyn and put them down on the other bench, the children could examine the philosophers, and the philosophers could not examine the children. "Ah !" says Isaac Newton, coming up and talking to some intel- ligent lad of seven years, " What is that ?" " Oh that is a rail-train !" - What is that ?" '< Thai . .'j-. .iw- **'Ki*vQ**tUp'^pf^>»fff^, 1 IS a tcleph THE BATTLE I'UR UREA telegraph." -What is that one. l>ack to my bed De ?' It »• nie! I think I shall 63 is a go "ly t)cd in the dust for I ^m 1 • , "uai, lur 1 am uewil tiered and my head you have all thes( spread out befoi turns." Oh. rejoice that opportunities'of information chair at homeXT; '"' ''"'' ''^^^' '"^""'- •00k over^^nafiot Z'2 ^'iT'^r morn ofa universal day. ^^cendrng TOIL A DISCIPLINE. hol^d bring you glad tidings of crrc.t iov^' and tel you that Christ- ^u "^ J^^^^' arpfh ,-c .1 ^"'J^t, the carpenter of Nay are h ,s the vvorkingman's Christ. You m His Jove once in your hearf n , i ^ -dyoucansin,oi;:Lt'-;rS"J pain you Ce ter sXT^ ""^ """^ "^^^^ occupation Ar! " ^°"'' '^°'''dly Pation. Are you weary ? He will give a . « 1 IJ ( I 1 . 1 mm 64 THE BATTLE FOR UREAD. I! you rest. Are you sick? lie will give you health. Are you cold ? He will vvraj) around you the varm mantle of His eternal love. And besides that, my friends, you must re- member, that all this is ONLY PREPARATORY a prefatory and introductory. I see a great multitude before the throne of God. Who are they? "Oh," you say, "those are princes; they must hav^e always been in a royal family ; they dress like princes, they walk like princes, they are princes ; there are none of the com- mon people there ; none of the people that ever toiled with hand and foot !" Ah ! you are mistaken. Who is that bright spirit before the throne ? Why, that was a sewing-girl who, work as she could, could make but two shil- lings the day. What are those kings and queens before the throne ? Many of them went up from Lowell carpet factories. Birmingham mills and from THE SONG OF TliE REDEEMED. And now I hear a sound like the rustling of robes, and now I see a taking up of harps as though they were going to strike a thanksgiving *''^^:^tmmm^ti^^^-mH^m^^ P f! THE BATTLE FOR Rr^EAD. <5S anthem, and all the childiv,. nf *u d-ciples of the shuttle aVeiir'^'''"''^^ -Kl they lift a son,/so c eaV.nf ""%'"^^'^' vou could heir if 1/ , . '^ ''''^^^ ^ ^^isii very short. Not one vve k- 'T'^^ '"^at in that ..eat ass :.! r^T,: ''"''I 's as perfect as thoujjh thev H^h' I .^"•■'"■'' ni'y practising, and I a7 , ." "" "'^'■- name of that song the! stt? ^'^ '^ "'^ and they tell me it s ,[ '^ ""^"'■'' ^'"^ ""■<"'<^. worlcing-people A ' ?"« °^ "'^ ^^'''=<^'^<=d •■who^^^;tcso^n:,.t':ti:'^^'r^°"'= answer comes back .'rtse' ^ tl '■"''' V'' came out of o-reat tnh„ I, "^ '''''<* robes washed and L 'V''"';""'"' ^'"d had their the Lamb • ""'" ^''""= '" ^^c blood of mm-y :F 66 THE BATTLE FOU BREAD. MONOPOLY AND COMMUNISM. "Thy land shall be married." — /sa. 62:4. As the greater includes the less, so does the circle of future joy around our entire world in- clude the epicycle of our own republic. Bold, exhilarant, unique, divine imagery of the text ! So many are depressed by the labor agitation, and think everything in this country is going to pieces, I preach this morning a sermon of good cheer, and anticipate the time when the Prince of Peace and the Heir of Universal Dominion shall take possession of this nation and " Thy land shall be married." In discussing the final destiny of this nation, it makes all the difference in the world whether we are on the way to a funeral or a wedding. The Bible leaves no doubt on this subject. In pulpits, and on platforms, and in places of piib^ lie concourse I hear so many of the muffled drums of evil prophecy sounded, as though we were on the way to national interment, and be- side Thebes, and Babylon, and Tyre in the cem- etery of dead nations our republic was to be en- THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. tombed, that I wish 67 to be o bseq uies, but nuptial you to understand it IS not not mausoleum, orange ''"t carpeted altar; „orc7piess, but name some of ^ P^'^'P^^^ ^^ THE SUITORS who are claiming the hand of this republic upon .o/advice'::;e;t;\; fjr i:-^> accepted or rejected. ^ I. In the first place, I remirl- • Th MONOPOLY. tra^'' '7'? ''■' "'"^" °"' °f "^^ '■■•«" of the rail- roMferyJtt;:o;irT,"'''T""''^"''''^ iaw, It passes. If monopoly * '''if \ ^ Miill '^D4 '^' ""yr'7*-'i' if. i i If \i |HE!Tij ^|Md Ml 1 IHfli ' { t m im 68 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. oppose d law, it is rejected. Monopoly stands in this railroad depot, putting into his pockets in one year two hundred millions of dollars in excess of all reasonable charges for service. Monopoly holds in his one hand the steam- power of Jocomotives, and in the other the electricity of swift communication. Monopoly decides nominations and elections — city elec- tions, State elections, national elections. With bribes he sccuies the votes of legislators — giv- ing them free passes, giving appointments to needy relatives to lucrative positions, employ- ing them as attorneys, if they are lawyers ; carry- ing their goods fifteen per cent less if they are merchants ; and if he finds a case very stubborn, as well as very important, puts down before him the hard cash of bribery. But Monopoly is not so easily caught now as when, during the term of Mr. Buchanan, in one of our States a certain railway compay procured a donation of public land. It was found out that thirteen of the Senators of that State received one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars among them ; sixty members of the Lower House of that State received five thousand and ten thousand dollars each ; the Governor of the State received fifty thousand dollars ; his clerk THE 7,.vrTLK FOR „Kt..,c. ^^ received five thousand dollar.; • M, r ■ Governor received f,.n H ■ ^ lieutenant- clerks of the LetisH "'°"-'™'^ ''°"^'^-^ .• '"l the dollars eachwMe fi. ■'ir''"'' '^'"•' "-"^""^ divided an,idTheUl?at"r"^ '°""^ ^^- u.e''tiloL":^':r-r'""-ie.isaii Union, bSt i^ls no ' n' 1 '*'' ^'^"^= °f '^e be, ani therefore 1? '""^''"^ ■''^ '' "-^ to rested. I teHyouThlt ""'" '^^P"^"^" ^ -• THE SHADOWING CURSE of the United States tr. ,i, ■ p«ts his hand upo e e °;£i;:,™r°r '^- "^ every sack of silt ; upon eve 1 " "" ' "P°" every man, womm, and .M^ °^ '°'' ■ ™'' States feels the touch o.h. '" "'" ^"'"='' i^>"- I reioice t ^ , '"°"'^>''=^ despot. Union aliXand „ " ""'rf°"'- ^'^'esof the established, God pe'dt," "^"" """= '^-" 'i'-eration! I Vvlh L I " '" '^''" "°'k of the qeestion of fur P^S"?';"" "''«'" "^^ that we compel the n^'! ■ ' '=''^"'°ns, and it on their pCir" ''"''■" '° ^-S"- -.n'c:s::,r^,f •"- -pitansts. a '■oncstly. The c °s ,o Tu'^ "' ^^" "'"ke y here ,s not a laborer in the land IP' If 41 ;o THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. that would not be worth a million dollars if he could. I have nothing to say against corpora- tions as such — without them no great enterprise would beporssible ; but what I do say is that the same principles are to be applied to capitalists and to corporations that are applied to the poor- est man and the plainest laboi^r. What is wrong for me is wrong for great corporations. If I take from you your property without ade- quate compensation I am a thief, and if a rail- way damage the property of the people without any adequate compensation that is a gigantic theft. What is wrong on a small scale is wroncr on a large scale. Monopoly in England has ground hundreds and thousands of her best people into semi-starvation, and in Ireland has driven multitudinous tenants almost to madness. EUROPEAN LAND SHARKS. Five hundred acres in this country make an immense farm. When you read that in Dakota Territory Mr. Cass has a farm of 15,000 acres, and Mr. Grandon, 25,000 acres, and Mr. Dal- rymple, 40,000 acres, your eyes dilate, even though these farms are in great regions thinly inhabited. But what do you think of this which I take from the Doomsday Book, showing what THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. ., monopoly is on the other side the sea ? I „ive the sea .f ,n some lawful way the tendency is not resisted. In Scotland, / G. M. H dd e owns 50,400 acres ; Earl of Wemyss « r!^ acres ; Duke of Montrose, 68,00:"'"; 'cC eron of Lochiel, 109,500 acres; Sir C. VV Ros ' 'mJ^:T' ^•-"•' °f Fi'-^. U3,ooo acres ; tie Mackintosh, i .4,0^0 acres ; LordMaoDonald 130,000 acres; Ear of Dalhou.iie ,,fi„ Macleod of Macleod ",!"'"'"'' '■i'^f°o acres ; kenzie of rv , '^''^ooacres ; Sir K.Mac- kenzie, of Ganlock, ,64,680 acres; Duke of Argyle, 1 75.000 acres ; Dukeof Hamilton ,8, of °RTcr ■' H '' °'^"'°"^' '94.oooaeres ; bl'e of Richmond, 255,000 acres ; Earl of Stair 27^ rsSt6^^^"^^''''^'3°o,oooacres;E;H or beaheld, 306,000 acres ; Duke of Buccleu^^h T- i"T- ^^^' °f Breadalbane, r':!';- - Mak?- • ^f"'^"' "°'«3 ace; ;tfd |' i,?;/' "''' ^'"''Dukeof Sutherland, ^'VO»343 acres. ' THE RESULT. Such monpolies imply an infinite acreage of Wietchedness Th/^r,^ ,v ^ ilKlli 11 t ■p'r* 72 THE CATTLE FOR BREAD. Scotland, for the simple reason that in those lands monopoly has had longer and larger sway Last summer in Edinburgh. Scotland, after preachmg in Synod Hall. I preached in the Grass Market and to the wretched inhabitants of the Cowgate and the Canongate, the audience ex, hibitmg the squalor, and sickliness, and despair that remains in one's mind like one of the visions of Dante's Inferno. Great monopolies in any land imply great pri- vation. The time will come when our Govern- ment will have to limit the amount of accumula- tion of property. Unconstitutional, do you say ? Then constitutions will have to be changed un- til they allow such limitation. Otherwise the work of absorption will go on, and the large fishes will eat up the small fishes, and the shad will swallow up the minnows, and the porpoise swallow the shad, and the whales swallow the porpoises, and a thousand greedy men will own all the world. But would a law of limitation of wealth be unrighteous ? If I dig so near my neighbor's foundations, in order to build my house, that I endanger his, the law grabs me. If I have a tannery or a chemical factory, the malodors oi which injure residents in the neighborhood, the THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. law says: " Stop that r If I drain „ff • from its bed, and divert t to .t "™'' wheel, leaving the bed ofM ™^ '"'" P-for.aWia/theWssa;""^'"'^"'''"^ "QUIT THAT OUTRAGE r And has not a good Gove that a few men shall inment a n>ht to th not gorge themseli say n comfortj Your rio-htq enA „7u '"" """" '"'' "^ generations r " rifents end where my rm-hts beo-in repubh-c. He srretche. 1. ? ""^ ^"^ ^^''' 1 auctcnes It out ovor thf^ i^i Net^C ?e"rr^f' ^"^ 'h^ Erifa,; : T, Vo k Central railroads, and over the tele graph poles of the continent, and says • h'^" ■s-y heart and hand; be mineforeve^" L t the m.lhons of the people. North Som^, r ! ^^ West, forbid the bLns o/t^Z^,^ lorbid them at the ballot-box fnrhJH n. the platform, forbid then by "t 0^-°" s-xs-haiS^bftSir -g monopoly that this land is to I: marlT ,* ' '-'I >J ''ft ! rt i t ft, I ' ' ' Ma ' ' H THE BATTLE FOR BREAO. II. Another suitor claiming the hand of this republic is « NIHILISM. He owns nothing but a knife for universal blood-letting and a nitro-glycerine bomb for universal explosion, He believes in no God, no government, no heaven, and no hell, except what he can make on earth. He slew the Czar of Russia, keeps Emperor William, of Germany, practically imprisoned, killed Abraham Lincoln, would put to death every king and president on earth, and if he had the power would climb up until he could drive the God of Heaven from His throne and take it himself—///^ um'versa/ butcher. In France it is called communism ; in the United States it is called Socialism ; in Russia it is called Nihilism. That last is the most graphic and descriptive term. It means complete and eternal smash-up. Where does this monster live ? In St. Louis, in Chicago, in Brooklyn, in New York, and in all the villages and cities of this land. The devil of destruction is an old devil, and he is to be seen at every great fire where there is any- thing to steal, and at every shipwreck where there is anything valuable floating ashore, and THE BATTLE FOR IIREAD, 75 at every railroad accident where there are over- coats and watches to be purloined. On a small scale I saw ,t ,„ my college days, when, in our l.terary socety n, New York University, we had an exquisite and costly bust of Shakespeare and one morning we found a hole bored into thehpsof the marble and a cigar inserted. There has not for the last century been a fine picture ,n your art gallery, or a graceful statue in your parks, or a fine frescoe on your wall, or a r,chly bound volume in your library, but would have been despoiled if the hand of ruf- fianism could have got at it without peril of in- '■arceration. The philosophy of the whole business is, that there ,s a large number of people who either through the.r laziness or their crime own noth- ing, and are mad at those who through industry and w>t of their own, or of their ancestors, are m possession of large resources. The honest laboring-classes never had anything to do with such murderous enterprises. It is the villain, ous classes who wo,.' ' not work if they had plenty of work offered them at large wages Many of these suppose that by the demolition , of law and order they would be advantaged, and the parting of the ship of State would aUow \ I I ,f Mil: 1 -.{it! .4 ft ' A I '. 1'^:; ^I^ ^^^^^Hpf . |X Hr -jfi bI ^ ^Bm IwF ;6 THE BATTLE FOR DREAD. them as wreckers to carry off the cargo It offers Its hand to tliis fair republic. It proposes to tear to pieces the ballot-box, the legislative hall, the Congressional assembly. It would take this land and divide it up, or rather DIVIDE IT DOWN. It would give as much to the idler as to the worker, to the bad as to the gocd. Nihilism ! Ihis panther, having prowled acrr.ss other lands has set ,ts paws on our soil, and it is only wait- ing for the time in which to spring upon its prey. It was Nihilism that massacred the he- roic policemen of Chicago and St. Louis a few days ago and that buincd the railroad property at Pittsburgh during the great riots ; it was Nihilism that slew black people in our North- ern cities during the war; it was Nihilism that again and again in San Francisco and in New York mauled to death the Chinese; it is NihiU ism that glares out of the windows of the drunkeries upon sober people as they go by Ah ! its power has never yet been tested. It would, if it had the power, leave every church chapel, cathedral, schoolhouse, college, and home in ashes. Let me say, it is THE DATTLE FOR BREAD. 77 THE WORST ENEMY of the laboring-classes i„ any country. The honest cry for reform hftod by o,,prcsse,l labor- mgmcn ,s drowned out , by the vociferations for anarchy. The criminals and the vagabonds who range through our cities talking about their rights when their first right is the penitentiary —f they could be hushed uj,, and the down- rodden laboring men of this country could be beard, there would be more bread for huno-ry cm Idrcn Let not our o|,pressed laboring nten be begmled to coming under the bloody banner of Ndi.hsm. It will make your ta.xcs heavier your wages smaller, your table scantier, you^ einldrcn hungrier, your suffering greater Yet this Nihilism, with feet red of slaughter comes forth and offers its hand for the republia Sh.a 1 he banns be proclaimed ? If so, where .shall the marriage altar be } and who will be the omaatmg priest ? And what will be the music ? rha altar wdl have to be white with bleached skulls, the officiatmg priest must be a dripnino- assa,ssm, the music must be the smothered groan of mult,tudn,ous victims, the garlands must be tw,sted of n.ghtshade, the fruit must be apples of Sodom, the wine must be the blood of St li r: N r. »M > ,-l If i J ' •f t ' iiti i!ti ;8 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. Bartholomew's massacre. No! It is not 1 > Nihilism, thesanguinital monster, that this land is to be married. III. Another suitor for the hand of this na- tion is INFIDELITY. Mark you that all anarchists arc infidels. Not one of them believes in the Bible, and very rarely any of them believe in a God. Their most conspicuous leader was the other day pulled by the leg from under a bed in a house of infamy, cursing and blaspheming. The po^ lice of Chicago, exploring the dens of the an- archists, found dynamite, and vitriol, and Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," and obscene pictures, and complimentary biographies of thugs and assassins, but not one Testament, not one of Wesley's hymn-books, not one Roman Catholic breviary. There are two wings to infidelity : the one calls itself Liberalism, and appears in highly literary magazines, and is for the edu- cated and refined ; the other wing is in the form of Anarchy, and is for the vulgar. But both wings belong to the same old filthy vulture- infidelity ! Elegant infidelity proposes to con- quer this land to itself by the pen ; Anarchy proposes to conquer it by bludgeon and torch. THE HATTLE FOR BREAD. 79 When the midnight ruffians despoiled the grave of A. T. Stewart, in St. Marks chureh, yard, everybody was shoeked ; hut inlidehtv proposes sonietiiing worse tlian that-tlie rob bing of all the graves of Christendom of the hopo of a resurrection. It proposes to chisel out from the tombstones of your Christian dead the words, "Asleep in Jesus," and to sub, st.tute the words. "Obliteration -annihilation." Infidelity proposes to take away from this country the book that makes the difference be- tvveen the United States and the United King- dom of Dahomey, between American civUizt tion and Borncsian cannibalism. The only impulse in the right direction that this world has ever had has come from the Bible It was the mother of Roman law and of healthful jurisprudence. That book hrs been the mother of all reforms and all charities- mother of English Magna Charta and Ameri- t'hat '^^^" °^ Independence. I tell you THE WORST ATTEMPTED CRIME Of the century is the attempt to destroy this book ; yet infidelity, loathsome, stenchful, lep- rous, pestiferous, rotten monster, stretches oyt *l , i * h !J >im rifi 8o THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. its hand, ichorous with the second death, to take the hand of this republic. ^ And this suitor presses his case appalHngiy. Shall the banns of that marriage be proclaimed ? " No !" say the home missionaries of the West —a martyr band, of whom the world is not worthy, toiling amid fatigues, and malaria, and starvation. " No ! not if we can help it. By what we and our children have suffered we for- bid the banns of that marriage !" " No !" say all patriotic voices; "our institutions were boug ' at too dear a price, and were defended at too great a sacrifice, to be so cheaply surren- dered." " No !" says the God of Bunker Hill, and Independence Hall, and Gettysburg; "J did not start this nation for such a farce." "No," cry ten thousand voices; "to infidelity this land shall not be married !" IV. But there is ANOTHER SUITOR that presents his hand for the hand of this re- public. He is mentioned in the verse following my text, where it says : "As the bridegroon"^ rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God re- joice over thee." It is not my figure, it is the S THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 8l figure of the Bible. As often princesses at their birth are PLEDGED IN TREATY of marriage to princes or kings of earth, so this nation at its birth was pledged to Christ for Divine marriage. Before Coliivibus and his hundred and twenty men embarked on the Santa Maria, the Pinta. and the Nina, for their wonderful voyage, what was the last thing they did .? They kneeled down and took the holy sacrament of the Lord Jesus Christ. After they caught the first glimpse of this country, and the gun of one ship had announced it to the other vessels that land had been discovered, what was the song that went up from all the three decks? " Gloria in Excelsis." After Columbus and his hundred and twenty men had stepped from the ships' decks to the solid ground, what did they do } They all knelt and consecrated the New World to God. What did the Huguenots do after they landed in the Carolinas ? What did the Holland ref- ugees do after they had landed in New York ? What did the Pilgrim Fathers do after they landed in New England } With bended knee, and uplifted face, and heaven-besieging prayer \W ' 4 "! ! il f 82 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. they took possession of this country for God. How was the first American Congress opened ? By prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. From its birth this nation was pledged for holy mar- riage with Christ. And, then, see how good God has been to us ! Just open the map of the continent and see how it is shaped for immeasurable prosperities. Navigable rivers, more in number and greater than of any other land, rolling down on all sides into the sea, prophesying large manufac- tures and easy commerce. Look at the great ranges of mountains timbered with wealth on the top and sides, metalled with wealth under- neath. One hundred and eighty thousand square miles of coal, four hundred and eighty thousand square miles of iron. All fruits, all minerals, all harvests. Scenery displaying an autumnal pageantry that no land on earth^pre- tends to rival. No South American earth- quakes. No Scotch mists. No London fogs. No Egyptian plagues. No Germanic divisions. The people of the United States are happier than any people on earth. It is the testimon) of every man that has travelled abroad. For the poor, more sympathy ; for the industrious more opportunity. Oh, how good God was to tHE BATTLE FOR BREAD. ^3 our fathers, and how good He has been to us and our children ! We have during the past six or seven years TURNED A NEW LEAF in our national history by the sudden addition of millions of foreigners. At Kansas City I was told by a gentleman who had opportunity for large investigation, that a great multitude had gone through there, averaging in worldly estate eight hundred dollars. I was told in the city of Washington by an officer of the Gov- ernment, who had opportunity for authentic investigation, that thousands and thousands had gone, averaging one thousand dollars in pos- session each. I was told by the Commissioner ot Emigration that twenty families that had ar- rived at Castle Garden brought eighty-five thou- sand dollars with them. Mark you, families not tramps-additions to the national wealth' not subtractions therefrom. I saw some of them reading their Bibles and their hymn-books thanking God for His kindness in helping them cross the sea. They will turn your Tet ritories into States, and your wildernesses into gardens, if you will build for them churches \l I I fi I , ', tk;. 'h '! 84 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. and establish for them schools, and send Chris- tian missionaries. Are you afraid this continent is going to be overcrowded with this population ? Ah ! that shows you have not been to Oregon, that shows that you have not been to Texas. A fishing- smack to-day on Lake Ontario might as well be afraid of being crowded by other shipping before night as for any one of the next ten gen- erations of Americans to be afraid of being overcrowded by foreign populations in this country. The one State of Texas is far larger than all the Austrian Empire, yet the Austrian Empire supports thirty-five million people. The one State of Texas is larger than all France, and France supports thirty-six million people. The one State of Texas far surpasses in size the Germanic Empire, yet the Germanic Empire supports forty-one million people. I tell you the great want of the Territories and of the Western States is more population. While some may stand at the gates of the city, saying : '* Stand back !" to foreign popula- tions, I press out as far beyond those gates as I can press out beyond them, and beckon to foreign nations, saying : "Come, come !" "But," say you, " I am so afraid that they will bring THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 85 their prejudices for foreign Governments, and plant them here." Absurd. They are sick of the Governments that have oppressed them, and they want free America. Give them the great gospel of welcome. Throw around them all Christian hospitalities. They will add their industry and hard-earned wages to this country, and then we will dedicate all to Christ, "and thy land shall be married." THE SITE FOR THE NUPTIALS. But where shall the marriage altar be? Let it be the Rocky Mountains, when through arti- ficial and mighty irrigation, all their tops shall be covered, as they will be, with vineyards, and orchards, and grain fields. Then let the Bos- tons, and the New Yorks, and the Charlestons of the Pacific Coast come to the marriage altar on the one side, and then let the Bostons, and the New Yorks, and tne Charlestons of the Atlantic Coast come to the marriage altar on the other side, and there between them let this bride of nations kneel ; and then if the organ of the loudest thunders that ever shook the Sierra Nevadas on the one side, or moved the foundations of the Alleghanies on the other side, should open full diapason of wedding :''l it',' "*^^ml S6 tHE BATTLE fOR BREAD. march, that organ of thunders could not drown the voice of Him who should take the hand of the bride of nations, saying : "As a bridegroom rejoiceth over a bride, so thy God rejoiceth over thee." "And so thy land shall be mar- ried." W|1 f , i • ! ' ,1 ■f :l 1 i:! ■1 ■t f i t; i ■ 1 ■ i ' 1 ./ 1. j ^-%. THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 8; THE WORST FOE OF LABOR. -He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. •'-^<,^.^.,,/ ,, e. In Persia, under the reign of Darius Hystas- pes, the people did not prosper. They made money, but did not keep it. Tliey were like peo- ple vyho have a sack in which they put money not knowing that the sack is torn, or eaten of moths, or in some way made incapable of holdmg valuables. As fast as the coin was put m one end of the sack it dropped out of the other. It made no difference how much wa-cs they got, for they lost them. " He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE BILLIONS and billions of dollars in this country paid to the workmg classes? Some of these moneys have gone for house rent, or the purchase of homesteads, or wardrobe, or family expenses, or the necessities of life, or to provide comforts in Old age. What has become of other billions ? iii.l III] mm:! i 'i - I'M - I i..,h,i 88 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. Wasted in foolish outlay. Wasted at the gam- ing-table. Wasted in intoxicants. Put into a bag with a hundred holes. Gather up the money that the working classes have spent for rum during the last thirty years, and I will build for every workingman a house, and lay out for him a garden, and clothe his sons in broadcloth and his daughters in silks, and stand at his front door a prancing span of sorrels or bays, and secure him a policy of life- insurance, so that the present home may be well maintained after he is dead. The most persistent, most overpowering enemy of the working classes is intoxicating liquor. It is the anarchist of the centuries, and has l)oy- cotted and is now boycotting the body and mind and soul of American labor. It is to it a worse foe than monopoly, and worse than as- sociated capital. It annually swindles industry out of a large percentage of its earnings. It holds out its blasting solicitations to the mechanic or opera- tive on his way to work, and at the noon-spell, and on his way home at eventide ; on Saturday, when the wages are paid, it snatches a large part of the money that might come to the family, and sacrifices it among the saloon keepers. THE BAITLli FOR BREAD. h W, hm e,gl« hundred yards of Sands Street Methodist Church, Cruoklyu, it has hfty-fou saloons, and is plotting now for another. Stand the sa oons of this country side hy side, and it is care.ully estimated they would reach from New Vork to Chicago. Forward, march, says the naZ°' '"'' "'"' "''" 1'°'^'-''^'°" °f ^1"^ American The rum business is pouring its vitriolic and damnable liquids down the throats of hundreds of thousands of laborers, and while the ordinary ployees,''' '"'"""' ''°"' '° "^"""^^'"■^ ''"^ '^- I PROCLAIM A STRIKE universal against strong drink, which, if kept ^P. will be the relief of the working classes and he salvation of the nation. I will undertake to say that there is not a healthy laborer in the Lnited States who, within the ne.xtten years If he will refuse all into.xieating beverage and be saving, may not become a capitalist on a small scale. Our country in a year spends one billion five hundred million and fifty thousand dollars for rum. Of course the working classes do a great deal of this expenditure. Careful statistics show that the wage-earning classes of '! it ■ I : ' '' I . . ' r .1 ■■ I I t HI ! i ■';■*■■ '. \ i| ' ! ii ^ i % 1 ■' li ^^^^B' '^^^^^^^^^1 J ^^B^^wHBBB 1 ^Bhi^ li& 90 THE BATTLE FOK HREAD. Great Britain cx])en(I in liciiiors one hundred million pounds, or live hundred million dollars a year. Sit down and think, O workingman ! how mueh you have expended in these diree- tions. Add it all up. Add up what your neighbois have expended, and realize that in- stead of answering the beek of other people you might have been your own capitalist. When you deplete a vvorkingman's physical energy you deplete his capital. THE STIMULATED WORKMAN gives out before the unstimulated workman. My Hither said : " I became a temperance man in early life, because I noticed in the harvest- field that, though I was physically weaker than other workmen, I could hold out longer than they. They took stimulants, I took none." A brickmakcr in England gives his experience in regard to this matter among men in his employ. He says, after investigation : "The beer-drinker who made the fewest bricks made six hundred and fifty nine thousand; the abstainer who made the fewest bricks, seven hundred and forty-six thousand. The difference in behalf of the abstainer over the indulger, eighty-seven thousand." There came a very exhausting time Tllli nATTLK FOR IlRRAn. 9^ in the Bntisli Parliament. The session was pro- longed until nearly all the members got sick or worn out. Out of six hundred and lifty-two members oidy two went through undamaged- they were teetotalers. ' When an army goes out to the battle the soldier who has water or eollee in his canteen marches easier and figiits better than the soldier who has whiskey in his canteen. Rum helps a man to fight when he has only one contestant, and that at the street corner. Bi-t when he gees forth to maintain some great battle for God and his country, he wants no rum about him. When the Russians go to war a corporal passes nlong thelme and smells the breath of every soldier. If there be in his breath a taint of intoxicating liquor, the man is sent back to ihe barracks. Why / He cannot endure flitigue. All our young men know this. When they are prepar- ing for a regatta, or for a ball club, or for an athletic wrestling, they abstain. Our workino- people will be wiser after a while, and the money they fling away on h.ntful Indulgences they will put into co-operative associations, and so become capitalists. If the workingman put down his vvages and then take his expenses and spread them out, so they will just equal, he is not wise. II ' :! !■ i'-'-t-if- 't ^ — I ;1 I if ' f ! ; rtj ' THE UATTLE FOR BREAD. I know workingmen who are in a perfect fidget until they get rid of their last dollar. A COSTLY SACQUE. The following circumstances came under our observation : A young man worked hard to earr. his six or seven hundred dollars yearly. Mar- riage day came. The bride had inherited five hundred dollars from her grandfather. She spent every dollar of it on the wedding dress. Then they rented two rooms in a third story. Then the young man took extra evening em- ployment ; almost exhausted with the day's work, yet took evening employment. It almost extinguished his eyesight. Why did he add evening employment to the day employment ? To get money. Why did he want to get money ? To lay up something for a rainy day? No. To get his life insured, so that in case of his death his wife would not be a bi^ggar ? No. He put the extra evening work to the day work that he might get a hundred and fifty dollars to get his wife a sealskin coat. The sister of the bride heard of this achievement, and was not to be eclipsed. She was very poor, and she sat up working nearly all the nights for a great while until she bought a sealskin coat. I have not THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 93 heard of the result on that street. The street was full of those who are on small incomes, but I suppose the contagion spread, and that every- body had a sealskin coat, and that the people came out and cried, practically, not literally • " Though the heavens fall, we must have a seal- skin coat !" I was out West, and a mmister of the Gospel told me, in Iowa, that his church and the neigh- borhood had been impoverished by the fact that they put mortgages on their farms in order to send their families to the Philadelphia Centen- nial, It was not respectable not to go to the Centennial. Between such evils and pauperism there is a very short step. The vast majority of children in your almshouses are there because their parents are drunken, or lazy, or recklessly improvident. I have no sympathy for skinflint saving, but I plead for CHRISTIAN PRUDENCE. You say it is impossible now to lay up anything for a rainy day. I know it, but we are at the daybreak of national prosperity. Some people think it is mean to turn the gas low when they go out of the parlor. They feel embarrassed if sh , J . »i ft ' 'i I IHBHHHP I^P ^mIj, . J J^M^^K^BBBB. mm 94 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. the door-bell rings before they have the hall lighted. They apologize for the plain meal, if you surprise them at the table. Well, it is mean if it is only to pile up a miserly hoard. But if it be to educate your children, if it be to give more help to your wife when she does not feel strong, if it be to keep your funeral day from being horrible beyond all endurance, because it is to be the disruption and annihilation of the domestic circle— if it be for that, then it is mag- nificent. There are those who are kept in poverty be- cause of their own fault. They might have been well off, but they smoked or chewed up their earnings, or they lived beyond their means, while others on the same wages and on the same salaries went on to competency. I know a man who was all the time complaining of his poverty and crying out against rich men, while he himself keeps two dogs, and chews and smokes, and is full to the chin with whiskey and beer. Wilkins Micawber said to David Cop- perfield, " Copperfield, my boy, one pound in- come, expenses twenty shillings and sixpence; result, misery. But, Copperfield, my boy, one pound income, expenses nineteen shillings and six pence; result, happiness." But O work- THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. g; ingman of America, take your morning dram and your noon dram, and your evening dram' and spend everything you have over for to-' baceo and excursions, and you insure poverty for yourself and your children forever ' If by some generous fiat of the capitalists of th,s country, or by a new law of the Govern, ment of the United States, twenty-five "^ cent, or fifty per cent, or one hundred per eent were added to the wages of the workfng classes of America, it would be no advantaj to hundreds of thousands of them unless hfy s opped strong drink. Aye, until they quit hat ev,l hab,t, the more money, the more ruin the more wages, the more holes in the baa- ' My plea this morning is to those woXing people who are in a ^ CISCIPLESIIIP TO WillSKEY bottle the beer-mug, and the wine-flask. And what I say to them will not be more approprU a e to the working classes than to the business classes, and the literary classes, and the profes s.ona classes, and all classes, and not wkh the people of one age more than of all ages. Take one good square look at the sufferL of the man whom strong drink has enthralled! and re 1,1 'Mik 1'.' 'M fei,'l i I ^ a< ' ■ .1 n • .' ' ' ! if, ' • 96 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. member that toward that goal multitudes are running. The disciple of alcoholism suffers the LOSS OF SELF-RESPECT. Just as soon as a man wakes up and finds that he is the captive of strong drink, he feels demeaned. I do not care how reckless he acts. He may say, " I don't care ;" he does care. He cannot look a pure man in the eye unless it is with positive force of resolution. Three-fourths of his nature is destroyed ; his self-respect is gone ; he says things he would not otherwise say ; he does thing he would not otherwise do. When a man is nine-tenths gone with strong drink, the first thing he wants to do is to per- suade you that he can stop any time he wants to. He cannot. The Philistines have bound him hand and foot, and shorn his locks, and put out his eyes, and are making him grind in the mill of a great horror. He cannot stop. I will prove it. He knows that his course is bringing ruin upon himself. He loves himself. If he could stop he would. He knows his course is bringing ruin upon his family. He loves them. He would stop if he could. He cannot. Per- haps he could three months or a year ago, not now. Just ask him to stop for a month. He THE BATTLE FOR BI At>, 9; cannot ; he knows he cannot, so be does not I had a friend who was for FIFTEEN YEARS GOING DOWN under this evil habit. He had large means. He had given thousands of dollars to Bible societies and reformatory institutions of all sorts. He was very genial, very generous, and very lovable and whenever he talked about his evil habit he would say. " I can stop any time. But he kept going on, going on, down down, down. His family would say, • 'l wish you would stop." " Why," he would reply ..I can stop any time if I want to." After a while he had dehrium tremens; he had it twice ; and yet,aterthat, hesaid,..Icouldstopa any .me ,f I wanted to." He is dead now What k. led him? Rum! Rum! And yet among time " H r^" ^'"' " ' '"" ^'°P -' ^ tnrie. He did not stop it, because he could not stop It Oh, there is a point in inebriation beyond which if a man goes he cannot stop ! _ One of these victims said to a Christian man, Sir, ,f I were told that I couldn't get a drink until to-morrow night unless I had all my rn II 'i 1 '■ * "1 i - ■ - i ' ■ _j_ J^ ■ ■ ■: . bt^ 4;:.; 1 ^' I 1 ■ '■ i . ■ ■ ■■■ » '■. a- '- m lf;i: 98 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. fingers cut off, I would say, ' Bring the hatchet and cut them off now.' " I have a dear friend in Philadelphia whose nephew came to him one day, and, when he was exhorted about his evil habit, said, " Uncle, I can't give it up. If there stood a cannon and it was loaded, and a glass of wine were set on the mouth of that cannon, and I knew that you would fire it off just as I came up and took the glass, I would start, for I MUST HAVE IT. » Oh, it is a sad thing for a man to wake up in this life and feel that he is a captive ! He says, " I could have got rid of this once, but I can't now. I might have lived an honorable life and died a Christian death ; but there is no hope for me now ; there is no escape for me. Dead, but not buried. I am a walking corpse, I am an apparition of what I once was. I am a caged immortal beating against the wires of my cage in this direction ; beating against the cage un- til there is blood on the wires and blood upon my soul, yet not able to get out. Destroyed without remedy !" I go on. and say that the disciple of rum suffers from the TiiK BATTLE FOR BREAD. 99 LOSS OF HEALTH. The older men in the congregation may re- member that some years ago Dr. Sewell went hrough this country and electrified the peol by h.s lectures, in which he showed the effects of alcohohsm on the human stomach. He had s.ve,, or e,ght diagrams by which he showed the devastation of strong drink upon the physU cal system. There were thousands of peon L that turned back from that ulcerous sketch swearmg eternal abstinence from everything that could mto.xicate. * God only knows what the drunkard suffers. Ham files on every nerve, and travels everv nruscle and gnaws every bone, and burns with every flame, and stmgs with every poison, and pulls at h,m with every torture. What reptU s crawl over his creeping limbs - What fi'end stand by h,s m,dn,ght pillow ! What groans tear h,s ear J What horrors shiver through h oul ! Talk of the rack, talk of the Inquisi- t.on, talk of the funeral pvre. talk of the crush. '"g Juggernaut-he feels them all at once Have you ever been in the ward of THE HOSPITAL Where these inebriates are dying, the stench of 1 f i f ' 's red, when it moveth itself aright i„ he cup for at the last it biteth like a serpen and It stingeth like an adder." It is about time that we have ANOTHER woman's CRUSADE like that which swept through Ohio ten or twelve years ago. With prayer and son'tL reir„r"' '■"'" "'^ ^™i'g--. and wh'e b 'their nf'' T"l "'" "'"''' ^™- -d-n-d by the.r Chr,st,an heroics. Thirty women e eared out the rum traffic from a village of o e thousand mhabitants. If thirty women sur charged of the Holy Ghost, coul.l r ^vate a town of a thousand, three thousand consented vome resolved to give themselves no pe e unt 1 th,s cr,me was extirpated from this c could m s,x months clear out three fou „s o^ he grog-shops of Brooklyn. If there be three thousand women now in this city who wil put i t -Jil. t04 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. their hands and their hearts to the work, I will take the contract for driving out all these moral nuisances from the city — at any rate, three fourths of them — in three months. If, when that host of three thousand consecrated women is marshalled, there be no one to lead them, then, as a minister of the Most High God, I will offer to take my position at the front of the host, and 1 will cry to them, "Come on, ye women of Christ, with your songs and your prayers ! Some of you take the enemy's right wing and Jiome the left wing. Forward ! The Lord of Hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge ! Down with the dram-shops !" But not waiting for those mouths of hell to close, let me advise the working and the busi- ness classes, and all classes, to stop strong drink. While I declared some time ago that there was a point beyond which a man could not stop, 1 want to tell you that while a man cannot stop in his own strength, the Lord God by His grace can help him to stop at any time. I was in a room in New York where there were many men who had been reclaimed from drunkenness. I heard their testimony, and for the first time in my life there flashed out a truth I never understood. They said, "We Bl 111 1 |i 1 lllj In vwtSBj M » THE BATTLE FOk HREAD. ,05 were victims of strong drinlc. VVe ti, ,1 m „• ■t up, but always fai,.:^ ; ,„, somch 1i "ef ^^ gave our hearts to Christ, Ho has take J^ nlin r"'V'^''''''« "'"t- although you fed gra,> pl.nr .r the .oots of your tongues a„ alnio t quer,' Tr;i;.'tii°""^'''^^""^^'"-»- VOt/R LAST CHANCE. I have iool^ed off upon the desolation Sit- t.ng .n our religious assemblages there J a good „,,, people in awful perif; and HgL from ordinary creumstances, there is not one chance m five thousand that they will .et clear of . . There are men in my congregati^c! f on remark, that ,f they do not change their course, w.thin ten years they will, aslo he to I'rei'rtutT 1 <'™"^-''^'^-es; and a, other souls, 1 e down m a drunkard's perdi- .on. I know that is an awful thing to say but I cannot help saying it. '' u t . I , 1 io6 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. Oh, beware ! You have not yet been cap- tured. Beware ! Whether the beverage be poured in golden chalice or pewter mug, in the foam at the top, in white letters, let there be spelled out to your soul, " Beware !" When the books of Judgment are open, and ten mil- lion drunkards come up to get their doom, I want you to bear witness that I, this morning, in the fear of God and in the love for your soul, told you, with all affection and with all kind- ness, to beware of that which has already ex- erted its influence upon your family, blowing out some of its lights—a premonition of the blackness of darkness forever. Oh, if you could only hear this morning In- temperance with drunkards' bones drumming on the head of the liquor-cask the Dead March of immortal souls, mcthinks the very glance of a wine-cup would make you shudder, and the color of the liquor would make you think of the blood of the soul, and the foam on the top of the cup would remind you of the froth on the maniac's lip ; and you would go home from this service and kneel down and pray God that, rathe i than your children should become cap- tives of this evil habit, you would like to carry them out some bright spring day to the ceme- THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. lo; tery, and put them away to the last sleep, un- til at the call of the south wind the flowers would come up all over the grave sweet prophecies of the resurrection ! God has a balm for such a wound ; but what flower of comfort ever grew on the blasted heatii of a drunkard's sepulchre ? !1|U^ >n m I fit '"J \ a •: ■i I U, If! I ' S4 io8 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. BLACK SERVANTS OF THE SKY. " And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening."— I Kings, xvii. 6. 1 The ornithology of the Bible is a very inter- esting study. The stork which knoweth her appointed time. The common sparrows teach- ing the lesson of God's providence. The os- triches of the desert, by careless incubation, illustrating the recklessness of parents who do not take enough pains with their children. The eagle symbolizing riches which take wings and fly away. The pelican emblemizing solitude. The bat, a flake of the darkness. The night hawk, the ossifrage, the cuckoo, the lapwing, the osprey, by the command of God in Leviti- cus, flung out of the world's bill c : fare. I would like to have been with Audubon as he went through the woods, with gun and pen- cil, bringing down and sketching the fowls of heaven, his unfolded portfolio thrilling all Christendom. What THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 109 WONDERFUL CREATURES of God the birds are! Some of them, this morning, like the songs of heaven let loose, bursting through the gates of heaven. Consider their feathers, which are clothing and convey- ance at the same time ; the nine vertebrae of the neck, the three eyelids to each eye, the third eyelid an extra curtain for graduating the light of the sun. Some of these birds scavengers and some of them orchestra. Thank God for quail's whistle, and lark's carol, and the twitter of the wren, called by the ancients • THE KING OF BIRDS, because when the fowls of heaven went into a contest as to who should fly the highest, and the eagle swung nearest the sun, a wren on the back of the eagle, after the eagle was exhausted, sprang up much higher, and so was called by the ancients the king of birds. Consider those of them that have golden crowns and crests, showing them to be feathered imperials. And listen to the humming-bird's serenade in the ear of the honeysuckle. Look at the belted king- fisher, striking like a dart from sky to water. Listen to the voice of the owl, giving the key- note to all croakers. And behold the condor Hvn * M f f| no THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. among the Andes, battling with the reindeer. I do not know whether an aquarium or aviary IS the best altar from which to worship Cod. There is an incident in my text that baffles all the ornithological wonders of the world. The grain crop had been cut off. Famine was in the land. In a cave by the brook Cherith sat a minister of God, ELIJAH, WAITING for something to eat. Why did he not go to the neighbors ? There were no neighbors • it was a wilderness. Why did he not pick some of the berries ? There were none. If there had been, they would have been dried up. Seated one morning at the mouth of his cave the prophet sees a flock of birds approaching.' Oh, if they were only partridges, or if he onfy had an arrow with which to bring them down ! But as they come nearer, he finds they are not comestible, but unclean, and the eating of them would be spiritual death. The strength of their beak, the length of their wings, the"^ blackness of their color, their loud, harsh " cruck ! cruck !" prove them to be ravens. They whirr around about the prophet's head, and then they come on fluttering wing and THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. Ill pause on the level of his lips, and one of the ravens brings bread, and another raven brings meat, and after they have discharged their tiny cargo they wheel past, and others come, until after awhile the prophet has enough, and these black servants of the wilderness table are gone. For six months, and some say a whole year, morning and evening, a breakfast and A SUPPER-BELL sounded as these ravens rang out on the air their " cruck ! cruck !" Guess where they got the food from. The old rabbins say they got it from the kitchen of King Ahab. Others say that the ravens got their food from pious Obadiah, who was in the habit of feeding the persecuted. Some say that the ravens brought the food to their young in the trees, and that Elijah had only to climb up and get it. Some say that the whole story is improbable; for these were carnivorous birds, and the food they carried was the torn flesh of living beasts, and that ceremonially unclean ; or it was carrion, and it would not have been fit for the prophet. Some say they were not ravens at all, but that the word translated " r;)vens" in my text ought to have been translated " Arabs ;" so k v'ould !l (i I Hi ;fi;i fi ! ) ^^mm^ 112 THE BATTLE FOR BRKAD. have read, "The Arabs brought bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evenin/r " Anything but admit the Bible to be true. Hew avay at this miracle until all the miracle is gone. Go on with the depicting process, but know, my I rother, thai you are robbing only one man — and that is yourself- of one of the most comforting, beautiful, pathetic, and tri- iiiophavit: lessons in all the ages. I can tell you WHO THESE PURVKYORS WERE —they were ravens. I can tell you who freighted them with provisions— God. I can tell you who launched them- God. I can tell you who taught them which way to fly— God. I can tell you who told them at what cave to swoop— God. I can tell you who introduced raven to prophet and prophet to raven— God. There is one passage I will whisper in your ear, for I would not want to utter it aloud, lest some one should drop down under its power "If any man shall take away from the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall take away His part out of the book of life and out of the Holy City." While, then, this morni< p we watch the tHE BATTLE FOR BREAt>. 113 u ravens feeding Elijah, let the swift dove of God's Spirit sweep down the sky with divine food, and on outspread wing pause at the lip of every soul hungering for comfort. On the banks of what rivers have been the great battles of the worid ? While you are looking over the map of the worid to answer that, I will tell you that THE GREAT CONFLICT to-day is on the Thames, on the Hudson, on the Mississippi, on the Kennebec, on the Savannah, on the Rhine, on the Nile, on the Ganges, on the Hoang-Ho. It is a battle that has been going on for six thousand years. The troops engaged in it are fourteen hundred millions and those who have fallen are vaster in nun-- ber than those who march. It is a battle for bread. Sentimentalists sit in a cushioned chair, in their pictured study, with their slippered feet on a damask ottoman, and say that this worid is a great scene of avarice and greed. It does not seem so to me. If it were not for the ABSOLUTE NECESSITIES of the cases, nine tenths of the stores, factories, / i iU-H «*i fit g -f t tii. . # f! 114 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. shops, banking-houses of the land would be closed to-morrow. Who is that man delving in the Colorado hills > or toiling in a New England factory ? or going through a roll of bills in the bank ? or measuring a fabric on the counter ? He is a champion sent forth in behalf of some home circle that has to be cared for, in behalf of some church of God that has to be supported, in behalf of some asylum of mercy that has to be sustained. Who is that woman bending over the sewing-machine, or carrying the bundle, or sweeping the room, or mending the garment,' or sweltering at the washtub ? That is Deborah,' one of the Lord's heroines, battling against Amalekitish want, which comes down with iron chariot to crush her and hers. THE GREAT QUESTION with the vast majority of people to-day is not " Home Rule," but whether there shall be any home to rule ; not one of tariff but whether they shall have anything to tax. The great question with the vast majority of people is, " How shall I support my family ? How shall I meet my notes ? How shall I pay my rent ? How shall I give food, clothing, and education to those who are dependent upon me ?" Oh, THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. IIS if God would help me to-day to assist you in the solution of that problem, the happiest man in this house would be your preacher ! I have gone out on a cold morning with expert sports- men to hunt for pigeons ; I have gone out on the meadows to hunt for quail ; I have gone out on the marsh to hunt for reed-birds ; but this morning I am out for ravens. I. Notice, in the first place in the story of my text, that these winged caterers came to Elijah DIRECTLY FROM GOD. "I have commanded the ravens that they feed thee." we find God saying in an ac',: ining passage. They did not come out of some other cave. They did not just happen to alight there. God freighted them, God launched them, and God told them by what cave to swoop. That IS the same God that is going to supply you. He IS. your Father. You would have to make an elaborate calculation before you could tell m2 how many pounds of food and how many yards of clothing would be necessary for yon and your family ; but God knows without any calculation. You have a plate at His table, and you are going to be waited on, unless you i it/? THE BAirLlu FOR BREAD. act like a naughty child, and kick, and scramble, and pound saucily the plate and try to upset things. God has a vast family, and everything is methodic u, iiuu you arc going to be served if you will only wait your turn. God has already ordered all the suits of clothes you will ever need, down to the last suit in which you shall be laid out. God has already ordered all the food you will ever eat, down to the last crumb that will be put in your mouth in the dying sacrament. It may not be just the kind of food or apparel \/e would prefer. THE SENSIBLE PARENT depends on his own judgment as to what ought to be the apparel and 'he food of the minor in the family. The child would say, "Give me sugars and ronfeciions." "Oh, no," says the parent; "y \i mus* have something plainer first." The child would say, "Oh, give me these great blotches of color in the garment." " No," says ne parent ; " that wouldn't be suit- flble." Now, God IS our Father and we arf» minors, and He g ng to clot iC us and feed us, although ..e may not always yield to our infan- ■ '^^^^^^H bIb ''WM WA I i Hi H^^;i| 1 M Ur THE BATTLE FOK BREAD. ii; tile wish for sweets and glitter. These ravens of the text did not bring pomegranates from the glittering platter of King Arab. They brought bread and meat. God had all the heavens and the earth before Him and under Him, and yet he sends this plain food, because it was best for Elijah to have it. Oh, be strong, my hearer, in the fact that the same God is going to supply you! It is never "hard times" with Him. His ship never breaks on the rocks. His banks never fail. He has the supply for you and He has the means for sending it. He has not only the cargo, but the ship. If it were necessary, He would swing out from the heavens a flock of ravens reaching from His gate to yours, until the food would be flung down the sky from beak to beak and from talon to talon. H. Notice again in this story of the text, that the ravens did not allow Elijah to hoard up a surplus. They did not bring enough on Monday to last all the week. They did not bring enough one morning to last until the next morning. They came twice a day, and brought just enough for one time. You know as well as I, that i1|.f Mlh 'U ' iil .M >V> y- ¥. -m ii8 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. THE GREAT FRET of the world is that wc want a surplus ; we want the ravens to bring enough for fifty years You have more confidence in the Fulton Bank, or Nassau Bank, or Bank of England than you have in the Royal Bank of Heaven. You say, ••All that is very poetic, but you may have the black ravens ; give me the gold eagles." We had better be content with just enough. If in the morning your family cat up all the food there is in the house, do not sit down and cry and say, " I don't know where the next meal is to come from." About five, or six, or seven o'clock in the morning just look up, and you will see two black spots on the sky, and you will hear the flapi)ing of wings, and instead of Edgar A. Poe's insane raven alighting on the chamber door, " only this and nothing more," you will find Elijah's two ravens, or two ravens of the Lord, the one bringing bread and the other bringing meat— plumed butcher and baker. God is inhnite in resource. When the city of Rochelle was besieged and the inhabitants were dying of the famine, the tides washed up on the beach as never before, and as never since, God THE nATTI.E FOR BREAD, enough shcll-fish to feed the whol 119 Hi IS good. Thcrt city„ IS no mistake al)oiit that. [istory tells us that in 1555 i„ England there was a great drought. Tiie erops failed ; but in Essex, on the roeks, in a place where they had neither sown nor cultured, a great crop of peas grew until they filled a hundred measures ; and there were Wossoming vines enough, promising as much more. ^ But why go so far ? I can give you A FAMILY INCIDENT. Some generations hack there was a crreat drought in Connecticut. New England. ^1ic water disappeared from the hills, a'nd ihe farm- ers livmg on the hills drove their cattle down toward the valleys, and had them supplied at the wells and fountains of the neighbors But these after a while began to fail, and the nei.rj,. horssaid (o Mr. Hirdseye, of whom I sluill speak, " V ou must not send your Jlocks and herds down he:e any more ; our wells aregivincr out." Mr. Birdseye. the old Christian maif gathered his family at the altar, and with his family he gathered the slaves of the household —for bondage was then in vogue in Connccti- cut— and on their knees before God they cried U ii I. . ff '1 •* n ri, r I I20 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. for water ; and the family story is, that chere was weeping and great sobbing at that altar that the family might not perish for lack of water, and that the herds and flocks might not perish. The family rose from the altar, Mr. Birds- eye, the old man, took his staff and walked out over the hills, and in a place where he • had been scores of times, without noticing anything particular, he saw the ground was very dark, and he took his staff and turned up the ground, and water started ; and he beckoned to his servants, and they came and brought pails and buckets until all the family and all the flocks and the herds were cared for ; and then they made troughs reaching from that place down to the house and barn, and the water flowed, and it is a living fountain to-day. Now I call that old grandfather Elijah, and I call that brook that began to roll then, and is rolling still, the brook Cherith ; and the lesson to me and to all who hear it is, when you are in great stress of circumstances PRAY AND DIG, dig and pray, and pray and dig. How does that passage go ? " The mountains shall depart and THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 121 the hills be removed, but Mv loving-kindness shall not fail." If your merchandise, if your mechanism, if your husbandry, fail, look out for ravens. If you have in your despondency put God on trial and condemned Him as guilty of cruelty, I move this morning for a new trial. If the biography of your life is ever written, I will tell you what the first chapter, and the middle chapter, and the last chapter will be about, if it is written accurately. The first chapter about mercy, the middle chapter about mercy, the last chapter about mercy. The mercy that hovered over your cradle. The mercy that will hover over your grave. The mercy that will cover all between. III. Again, this story of the text impresses me that relief came to this prophet with the most unexpected and with seemingly impossible conveyance. If it had been a robin-redbreast, or a musical meadow lark, or a meek turtle- dove, or a sublime albatross that had brought the food to Elijah, it would not have been so surprising. But no. It was a bird so fierce and inauspicate that we have fashioned one of our most forceful and repulsive words out of it ravenous. That bird has a passion for picking out the eyes of men and of animals. It loves % i\ I' ^ ! ' 1i iV^ ( ' 122 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. to maul the sick and the dying. It swallows with vulturous guzzle everything it can put its beak on ; and yet all the food Elijah gets for six months or a year is from ravens. So your supply is going to come from AN UNEXPECTED SOURCE. You think some great-hearted, generous man will come along and give you his nam<> on the back of your note, or he will go security for you in some great enterprise. No, he will not. God will open the heart of some Shylock toward you. Your relief will come from the most unexpected quarter. The Providence which seemed ominous will be to you more than that which seemed auspicious. It will not be a chaffinch with breast and wing dashed with white and brown and chestnut ; it will be a black raven. Here is where we all make our mistake, and that is in regard to THE COLOR OF GOd's PROVIDENCE. A white providence comes to us, and we say, " Oh, it is mercy !" Then a black providence comes towards us, and we say, " Oh, that is cfisaster !" The vyhite providence comes to you, THiJ BATTLE FOR BREAD. 123 *nd you have great business success, and you have fifty thousand dollars, and you get proud and you get Independent of God, and you be' gin to feel that the prayer, "Give me this day my daily bread," is inappropriate for you, for you have made provision for a hundred years. 1 hen a black providence comes, and it sweeps everythmg away, and then you begin to pray and you begin to feel your dependence, and be' gin to be humble before God, and you cry out for treasures in heaven. The black providence brought you salvation. The white providence brought you ruin. That which seemed to be harsh, and fierce, and dissonant was yourgreat- est mercy. It was a raven. There was A CHILD BORN in your house. AH your friends con^rat- ulated you. The other children of the family stood amazed looking at the new-comer, and asked a great many questions, genealogical and chronological You said-and you said truth- tully-that a white angel flew through the room and left the little one there. That little one stood with its two feet in the very sanctu- ary of your affection, and with its two hands it rooir hold of ^€ altar of your soul. But one n 124 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. day there came one of the three scourges of children — scarlet-fever, or croup, or diphtheria — and all that bright scene vanished. The chat- tering, the strange questions, the pulling at the dresses as you crossed the floor — all ceased. As the great Friend of children stooped down and leaned toward that cradle, and took the little one in His arms and walked away with it into the bower of eternal summer, your eye began to follow Him, and YOU FOLLOWED THE TREASURE He carried, and you have been following them ever since ; and instead of thinking of heaven only once a week, as formerly, you are thinking of it all the time, and you are more pure and tender-hearted than you used to be, and you are patiently waiting for the daybreak. It is not self-righteousness in you to acknowledge that you are a better man than you oised to be — you are a better woman than you used to be. What was it that brought you the sanctifying blessing ? Oh, it was the dark shadow on the nursery ; it was the dark shadow on the short grave ; it was the dark shadow on your broken heart ; it v^^as the brooding of a great black trouble ; it was a raven — it was a raven ! Dear THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 125 Lord, teach this people that white providences do not always mean advancement, and that r)]ack providences do not always mean retro- gression. Children of God, get up out of your de- spondency. The Lord never had so MANY RAVENS as He has this morning, Fling your fret and worry to the winds. Sometimes under the vex- ations of life you feel like my little girl of four years, who said, under some childish vexation " Oh, I wish I could go to heaven and see God and pick flowers !" He will let you go when the right time comes to pick flowers. Until then, whatever you want, pray for. I suppose Llijah prayed pretty much all the time. Tre- mendous work behind him. Tremendous work before him. God has no spare ravens for idlers or for people who are prayerless. I put it in the boldest shape possible, and I am willino- to risk my eternity on it : ask God in the ri " I 126 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. was palsied, and had a mother ninety years of age to support. The widowed soul every day asked God for all that was needed in the house- hold, and the servant even was astonished at the precision with which God answered tlie prayers of that woman, item by item, item by item. One day, rising from the family altar, the servant said, " Voti have noi asked for coal, and ) THE COAL IS OUT." Then they stood and prayed for the coal. One hour after that the servant threw open the door and said, " The coal has come." A p-en- erous man, whose name I could give you, had sent — as never before and never since — a sup. ply of coal. You cannot understand it. I do. Ravens ! Ravens ! My friend, you have a right to argue from precedent that God is going to take care of you. Has He not done it two or three times every day ? That is most marvellous. I look back and I wonder that God has given me food three times a day regular all my lifetime, never missing but once, and then I was lost in the mountains ; but that very morning and that very night I met the ravens. THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. Ja; Oh, Che Lord is so good that I wish all this people would TRUST HIM With the two lives-the life you are now living and that which every tick of the watch and every stroke of the clock inform you is an- proaching Bread for your immortal soul comes te-day See! They alight on the platform. They alight on the backs of all the pews. Thev svving among the arches. Ravens! Ravens' Blessed are they that hunger after righteous- ness, for they shall be filled." To all the sin- nmg, and the sorrowing, and the tempted deliv- erance comes this hour. Look down, and you see nothing but your spiritual deformities Look back, and you see nothing but wasted opportunity. Cast your eye forward, and you have a fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary But look up, and you behold the whipped shoulders of an interceding Christ, and the face of a pardoning God, and the irradiation of an opening heaven. I hear the whirr of their wings. Do you not feel the rush of the air on your cheek? Ravens! Ravens! There is only one question I want to ask : L j 1 1 1£ t. it -i S f ^^■i'll'll'' BHHIlU IHi 128 TIU<: BATTLE FOK DREAD. Ilowmany of this audience are willing to trust God for the supply of their bodies, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ for the redemption of their immortal souls? Amid the clatter of the hoofs and the clang of the wheels of the judg- ment-chariot, the whole matter will be demon, strated. LIFE ')P REV.T. DE\V.rrTALMAGE,J).D. <"IIAPTER I. rURTir AM) VXltKSTXr.K. II"' youngest of ,„.,.lv.. ,.|,ii,l,., „(■ J.''r """™ f ■-...•'1 ap|,<.,„.an™ 1,„ f ' , I, r"''" -'''■'^• l'""iil Willi 1,1m. „>... ; ■^""■" "'" "'"liinii ^. <'.^ -' o^'i u :r::;:; (;,r; ,.;: "'-'r"- '"■ -"- !;"■= years of a«„ ,„y fat,,..,, e.d.a ^o. . .«,, f^H ';:'"''• ' '"' ^vlleat was rino in,! W 'i i , "^ heaven. "•*■'' 'ipc, and It lias hcon Inrwvtn,! Al- t'" ^ penc 1, no poet's H. vt i,. , , " "^^ P'**!"*" ' o poets ih^ thru could describe that magnifi. MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) A >1PPLIED IIVHGE Ir 1653 Eost Main Street Rochester. New York U609 USA (716) 482 -0300 -Phone (716) 288 - 5989 - Fox LIFE OF KEV. T, DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. cent sunsetting. It was no Imrrieanc blast let loose, but ;i galo from heaven, that drove into the dust the blossoms ot: that almond tree! His death furnished lessons for me to learn, and for the many friends Avho knew him. As tlio child of his old age, I pay an humble tribute to my fatlui, who took me into his watchful care, and to my mother, whose i)arental faithfulness succeeded in bringing my er.'iiij feet to the Cross, and kindled in my soul the anticpatioii of immortal blessedness! I must therefore not fail to sji 'ak of my fathers death. ^Methinks the old family Ibhle which I brought away from home would rebuke my sileiue, and the very Avails of my youthful home would tell the story of my ingratitude. Therefore, I nnist speak, even with a broken xitterance, and in terms which may seem loo strong for some who have never had the opportunitx of gathering the fruit of a luxuriant almond tree. Tii the death of my father I discover the beauty of old age. " Solomon announced that ' the almond tree shall tlourisii.' Kow, it is well known that in the month of January Pal- estine is adorned with the blossoming of tiie almond tree. It breathes its life into that winter month, as a ])romise i)f God sometimes lights np and sweetens the coldness and des- olation of a sorrowing spirit. It was not a useless tree, lie made just to bloom and die, or, like the willow by water-courses, to stand weeping into the stream; but it dis- puted with terebinth and cassia, for a high place in the com- merce of the world. Its wealth bore down the dnuncilii- ries of the- desert, and in ships of Tarshish struggled with the sea. Its rugged trunk parted into gracefulness of l)r;iiich, and burst into a lavishness of bloom, till tlie Teini)le imi- tated it in the golden candlestick, and Jeremiah belield its branches shaking in his dream! The pomegranate had more pretentious color, and rung out its fragrance with red bbs- ^LMAGE, D.D. LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. those .„„ „„.cn ' ai :!;":i:: '""^ ™>,!"" """•^'■^■' "^ "■as in full Uuom it ,„„.t 1, ,' , , '" '''™°"<' "■'••o ™o,>-, ,vlK.„ i„ I ;:; "7"'-; '■"-• » ■"gl..fall of «.om a white an.I f<.a° .t, , "'t '"^''f 'f ''' ""y »; full bioo,„ ™„,t Lave '.■„:, „;^ '.t tT '"" of punty; when tJioy be '«'k«> •'- net o„i - ti: :;,;„,;:: Thrhiirr; '""' '- -- ment of the heaut.v of ol,, a.-e 1 ,';,'"' "!' »";.""""""- man are hut the rratlieiv,! f^ , ^J" ,"'""' '"«!'» "f a l.a.l "•ay of rightoousness. There ,n "■' "' '"""' no luster in the eve no \ ' \ "" ""'"'' '" ""' 'l'"'''. t'.o voice, au., :.:;\ ;;„';:«;.;;,'-*■.•.•;" «■■ o«i„ 'ifo has heen n.ri.r ,f n , i "'">' "''' ""'" "''osc •"■ighterthan z:'!::',:';;:"- "rr " ^"-^ tioe. If the voieo ouiver^t ''■' "^ "'" ■''''"""'' -n,vheea„se.heho.,i,,ustrt.r;:::t;r;ft;J ?; I i 1 1 i ti I.J Hi • rl't 10 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. slec']). If tlio liaiul trcinblo, it is because God is unloosing it from "worldly (lisappointnionts, to clasp it on ringing liarp and Avaving jjalin. If the hair is turned, it is only the gray ilawn of Heaven's day streaming through the scant locks. If the brow, once adeemed by a luxuriance of auburn or raven, is smitten with l)allace to set the everlasting crown. The falling of this aged Christian's staff ■will be the signid for the heavenly g'ate to s\\ ing open. The scattering of the almond blossoms will only discover the setting fruit. Elijah's flaming equipage W9re too tame for this ascending spirit. The arms of Jesus are grander than bounding liorses of fire. " The old age of my father revealed the beauty of a cheer- ful spirit I never remember to have heard liini ntter a a gloomy expression. This was not because he had no per- ce})tion of the pollutions of society. lie abhored anything like impui'ity, or fraud, or double-dealing. He ne\ er failed to lift up his voice against sin, when he saw it. He was terrible in his indignation against wrong, and had an iron grip for the throat of him Avho trampled on the helpless. Better meet a lion robbed of her whelps than him, if yc liad been stealing the bread out of the mouth of the fath '. less. It required all the placidity of my mother's voice to calm him when once the mountain storm of his ri<,"hteoiis "wr.'ith was in full ])last; while as for liimself, lie woulil submit to more imposition, and say nothing, than any man I ever knew. *' But while sensitive to the evils of society, he felt confi- dent that all Avould be righted. When he prayed, you could hear in the very tones of his voice the expcctalidii that Christ Jesus would utterly destroy all iniquity and lill the earth with His glory. ' "My Christian father, too, was not a misanthrope, did not nlhropo, did not """ '' ''^^' '- ^-^ -HT TALMAaE, ..^. u th ink that evcrythiru world a very good pi dc-,si,ondoMt, but took thin r::f'"^^^'r'''^-^^--i-^--ithe I>i;iO(« to Jive i If t' never ,sat i God coidd and "woidd make tiieiii J g>^ as tliey n-cre, ]. no|)iiig or ', Knownig that est surge of cahunity canit cbeerfiu a count 'Otter. Wlieiithe] ']>«" liiiM, he met it MitJi leavi- the iucorning Atlant ;;'"ai.eo as ever a bather at tl as 10 beach met. cvcT ],ri„t„I i„ old 'Xoi,-T!,,, '.""''"ItNii.,, .|,at ivcro :s..u„...,, a,.d .,0 «t:::.;t :;;:;;it/ir,;r'!;;" ' ■-;, "- Jngs ever composed. I thinl- t].. . ^ ''<>'nas Ilast- erviJIeand Bo nulbrook c ,tl i "'''T^''""'' ^" ^''^^ ^'^'^"^- fook the piteh of s^:^ ^ r^j?^^ ^ '^'^'^:^' ''''''- "^ ^^ -^^ through all the week. tl'^^^H '""?""«' ^"^ '-^ annd the aggravations of a ' n "j " ' " ^'"^^^''-'^^''-.^ "^g writs, examining deeds , 'L. ' '"'" ^^■'"■'^' ^^''v- touse and by the .vav at h P' '['•''' "■^"^'"=^'-'^' ^" ^^^^ "When the chu.e .'.1 ? *'"'^^ ^" the street. looked around ' ' l.: T '"'^ ^^^'^'^'^ ^^--' --^"-y'-ay «toek; ' Mount Pis.! b ' ,r ' Vl " /"' ^'""^^^ "^"^'^ ' ^^'^"^ familiar tunes fail^ 1 ,,1;^.:": '" • ^"' -''--'^'n.is would take up his pen Wfi. 1 '.^"^ ''^ ^""^ -'^ '>« P"* "^ the i.otes/a i ; ;' : Ir^^"''""^^^^^^^^^ 'i^oundbrook/bc^in'^'tg:.!'^ *'" *^'"^ ^^-t he called ^l^^"^'".^';°^^-«"y traveler gains H^strength revives, if 'ercstl.^plL Heeycsh.I.o„.e, thou,, distam :;;■;, iiyM(h,]„snini,.s,oniu the skies And wmss Lis speed to reach the^Wzc. ! / i ■ ■ M 4 is I 1 ' ' ' 1 . ' ii . ^■ Mi :, 12 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. ' 'Tis there,' he says, ' I am to dwell WithJesus in the realms of day There I shall bid my cares farcAvell, And lie shall wipe my tears away.' But few I'ainilios fall heir to so large a pile of Avell-stutlied note-books. " He was ready at proper times for all kinds of innocent amusement. lie often felt a merriment that not only touched the li2)s, l)ut played upon every fiber of the body, and rolled down into the very depths of his soul with long reverberations. Xo one that evi'r I knew understood more fully the science of a good laugh. He was not only quick to recognize hilarity Avhen created by others, but was al- ways ready to do his share towards making it. Before ex- treme old age, he could outrun and outleaj) any of his chil- dren. He did not hide his satisfaction at having out- walked some one Avho boasted of his pedestrianism, or at having been able to swing the scythe after all the rest of the harvesters had dropped from exhaustion; or having, in legislative hall, tripped up some villainous scheme for rob- bing the public treasury. "We never had our ears boxed, as some children I wot of, for the sin of being happy. In long winter nights it Avas hard to tell who enjoyed sportfulness the bettei" — the chil- dren who romj^ed on the floor, or the parents who, Avith lighted countenance, looked at them. Great indulgence and leniency characterized his family rule, but the remem- brance of at least one correction more emphatic tliaii pleasing proves that he was not like Eli of old, Avho liiid wayward sons and restrained them net. In the multitude of his Avitticisms there Avere no flings at religion, no carica- tures of good men, no trifling Avith the things of eternity. His laughter Avas not the 'crackling of thorns under a of wcU-stmliod ^'S 01. uEv. T, on WITT T.u,,r;K, „.a l;? pot,' but the merrv Jioirf Yi.^f i ^i For Ibi, all tho cofil , , i ,, ''°"'' «""'• ''l^" ^' "-licino. <" 11.0 la.t .lay "1 '''■'•■"'"•'''''.^- '''"■»• l,i,. ,„, No gall, no acorMfv „„ V '.' 'f «mK.»g,,,M.Ifall,o,: • aii tiK. „iaco, „,i.,.o i,r.,t "::,!:::/ ""■' '-» "•■""•■' - exhilanuion of sj.h-it. « I'o a s.v,:oii,„i for "Cut wlioiKv Ihis cii(.crriil,„.« » u . . a" to „a.,„.al .lis,,oAi„„, X ;,,,;'; '"'■ '"'»''* -'•'■''- i' to .1.0 a.,„o,„,.J,„a„™- „',«::» ■-•0 '>.■;,„„„., -k, with a f,.olic»onu.,;*;,';^ :'"''•-■■". "'ft I- folio. No ,l„„l,t con.lit,,,;,, , "■"•"itaoi „itli with tm. 01,00,,,,,,:' t;:":',7 'r" ■-'• <« ,i„ -rvod hi. f,.o.,h„o.., an, vi : ,' ^-, ' V ™'f"-'' I"'- habi.» a,.o botto,. „,a„ s„oaki,,:.t„ ,;''-;';" •''■^',K"«' than a staff to the ha„l; boL, t , I ' "■■"■ '■'■'""■ tb.-oat; bottc- tl,a„ ,va,„, l,a„ ' , ,' "f ^ '."f" '° ,"'" b.ttc,-., f„,. (ho stomach. His ii,,, ,,,,,' '"''"■■'• "'■•"' ".at has sappo,, t„r,ifo li, ,o ;::„.: J ^ ':r' - "" .o,.,bst„„o ,loda,-c,,, - Sac-ificod by Sye ., ;, , '";'' ' I" vi,ioya,< :' who,, if fl„. „„,.,, , •, ' "^ V '"'o Lo'd s W.,c,.L^.I,.^;^,~j!;^;-^"""noWvo,.agos. ill 1 1 1 r ; '' ' If ! f i !i M il ■i ' 1 r 14 LIFE OF REV. T. EIC AVITT TALMAGE, D.D. his car could catch acliihrs whisper, and at fourscore years his eyes rct'usfd .siicctiick-s, uUliough lie would sonietiuu's have loliold tlie hook olT on tlio other side of tiie li-,dit, as octogenarians are wont to do. No treinbliiig of the hands, no rheum in the eyes, no knocking together of the knees, no hobbling on crntclies willi wli.'it polite society terms rlieumatisni in the feet, but what everybody knows is noth- ing but gout. Death canu', not to fell the gnarled truidiof a tree worm-eaten and lightning-bhisted, but to hew down a Lebanon cedar, whose fall made the mountains tremble and the heavens ringi But jdiysical health could not ac- count for half of this sunshine. "Seventy-eight yeai's ago a coal from the lieavenly altar Lad kindled a light that shone brighter and ])righter to the perfect day. Let Almighty grace for nearly three-quarters of a century trium]>h in a man's soul, and do you wonder that lie is ]ia])])y? l'\)r twice the length of your life and mine he had sat in the l)ower of the i)romises, plucking the round, ripe clusters of Eshcol. While others bit their tongue for thirst, lie stood at the wells of salvation and put his lips to the bucket that came up dripping with the fresh, cool, sparkling waters of eternal life. This joy was hot that which breaks in the bursting bubble of the cham- pagne glass, or that Avhich is thrown out with the orange- peelings of a mi(hiight bacchanalia, but the joy whieli, planted l)y a Saviour's jjardoning grace, mounts up higher and higher, till it rolls forth in the acclaim of the hundred and forty and four thousand who have broken their last chain and Avept their last sorrow. O mighty God! How deep, how wide, how high the joy Thou kindlcst in the heart of the believer! "Let not his cheerfulness give you the idea that he never had trouble. But few men have so serious and overwhelm- LIFE OF KEY. T. DK AVITT TALMAGE, D.D. 15 aiiunu-u /ni,i J!, (h.^. ',^•ultor months, in -m oM d.i.Hatc.,! s,.i„.„!.i„.,.s,, f,.„,„ i,,„,„,j„,,, „;",:"'; Ix. aWo, at c.„„.,„c.„cc.„K.nt of tbo c,.„j„yal nOati.,,,, ,., ,., , :V;;:t''T f ;■''''■'"''■'•■'■''''■ "'■'^•''-' '»"-t "' „ ,,,,,0.0-- ,0 ol,„«, „„ .,,,ri, ,,Mi„,.,, ,,i„, „„^, „,,j, „., J^^ , .V b„ aW<. ,„..„,,„, „„, „„.,,„, „,. ,, ,,„^ ^^. « I, 1,CT „«„ „-,li,„,^, |,,,,„|. !,„ .,,.|,i,.vo it. A,„Is„ ■lie iibttl, also wl„|„ „ „ ., i I "TV" 'Ti '"r" '■ ^''^' '"Vhi. 1,;,- ,„„„. rJ ,' ►|..„.llo, a,„l h,,. l,a„,l.s l,„l,| ,1,, ,|is,an'. Sho is ,„„ .,IV, ,1 .IO.SO, ; 1,0,. l„„|,a„.I a,,„, .„„, ,,„ ..,; " .«IUo,.. I,avo .,„„o vi,.„ .,,, ,„,tS,,.,„ o«.ollo.t . Z all. 8o that tho l„„„o.l oslalo of ,l,o Xo,v .J„,,., f,„„^l ■™- l""...lo,.o,, „„ „,i„i„..,., oMaI,li»l„„o,„s a„.l ,, f . "■'"■'■.V »l>o,.s. A„,l tho„„h «,, ,vo,... ..n», voa,., o 1. "- - hoa,.., ,1,0 „.il, „r a ,,ia„„, .o b.oj v 1 ° , , Stars, cockade or ciw.^f 'im> . . "^-v ' , ' ' ^''■^^- I ''i''« was oiico a lamilv coaf-nf '"g. 1^0 o,„. host, ,vo oa„„ot lincl a„v,l,i„g about „,„. f„,.o' -nno,.., e.copt that thoy behavod .-ell, ° amo ove" fri' im M ■t A ), 'i '\ Mi I';*! ,i^ IM. ilv j ■ .i . . i 1 i ;' 16 LIFE OF UEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Wales or Holland a j^ood whilo ago, and died when their time came. Some of them may have had iine e(iuii»ago and caparisoned postilion, but the most of them were sure only of footmen! " My father started in life belonging; lo the aristocracy of hard knuckles, but had this higli honor, that no one could despise: he was the son of a father who loved God and kept His conimaiulments. What is the House of Hapsburg, or Stuart, compared with the honor of being a son of the Lord God Almighty? Two eyes, two hands and two feet were the caj/ital my father started with. For lifteen years an invalid, he liad a fearful struggle to su])port his largo family. Nothing but faith in God uidield him. His recital of help afforded and deliverances wrought w.is more like a romance than a reality. He walked through many a desert, but every morning had its manna, and every night its pillar of fire, and every hard rock a rod that could shatter it into crystal fountains at his feet." More than once he came to his last dollar; but right behind that last dollar he found Him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and out of the palm of whose harf« all the fowls of heaven peck their food, and who hath given to each one of his disciples a war- rant deed for the whole universe in the words, 'All are yours.' " The path that led him through financial straits prepared him also for sore bereavements. The infant of days was smitten, and he laid it into the river of death Avith as much confidence as infant Moses was laid into the ark of the Nile, knowing that soon from the royal palace a shining one would come to fetch it. " In an island of the sea, among strangers, almost unat- tended, death came to a beloved son; and though I remem- ber the darkness that dropped on the household when the black-sealed letter was opened, I remember also the utter- a,nces of Christian submission, UFE OF i,EV. T. „li WITT TALMAGt:, D.i.. n latioM of that ,I-u-k , T ', ^^■'"'""■'"'•"' '^"•' <'-*■ .loso- -. ..m;:^s '.i;!;■slr;:^:r= iiilic veils'" Tl , , "'" '"■'■" ''Wlli''i-fifty- lake. , ,1„.,, r„„t t„K,.|„.,. i„ „„,„, , ti, „|,.^ .,,.a . s ;T' &■::;, :,::'::«^;r 'r'^::;r'"" "■'«'^'"^-- •I rwiii , ■? "■'"= "'""■'•' ^^'''^" '""1"'^' "P' 1.0 can .„ .,„, „„„,,.,.,... ,.„„. .„ »„„,,„„,„ „„;';:; , V "'■' "SO? Jfy ..,otI,"" -"-"'j » l •;;;;". '■"-;'»»•.. o,.. a,.t,„„„ai ,.„.::;„„„' ,r ,: ■ t,„g , ,0 ,„.„„„.„, and attesting ll,e Divine ,.o„.I„e,. t^trrti::,:;:::;^^'"" ----■"---; "He had not retired fro™ the (ield. He bad been busy «„ \w M'0% 1 I a I'M t ■1 i^ III i^ 'fM ! S Un ■-mum 18 MFE OF UEV. T. DK WITT TAl.MAOE, D.D. ^^^^^H'io( afraid f.. hcsliul at. Onlairwd, ....t I.v tlio laviii-on of I'mnai. Iiaii.ls, bin h) the imiK.sJt ion of a Savior's love lio prcaclicd by Lis life in oHicial position, and h -isiativr liall, and comnifrcial ciivli-s, a practical Christianitv. He showed that there was such a lhin,Lf as honesty in p..liUcs. IU> «Ian. •I»'n'd n.) party, slnlfed no haliot-ho.v, for-ed ,,.. naturaliza- tion paiKMs, intoxicated „,, sutvvH, told no lies, surrendere.l no principle, countenanced no dcnia,L>o,ad one just like him. Re- membered wlien the first steamer striick the North River with its wheel-buckets. Flushed with excitement in the tifiie of National lianks and Sub-Treasury. Was startled at the birth of telegraphy. Saw the United States grow from a speck on the world's map till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen, and our ' National Airs ' have been heard on the steeps of the Himalayas. Was born while the revolutionary cannon were coming home from Yorivtown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops re- turning from the war of the Cireat Rebellion. Lived to speak the nanu's of eighty children, grand-children, and great-gr.andchildrcn. Nearly all his contemporaries gone. Aged Wilberforce said that sailors driidvto 'friends astern' until half way over the sea, and then drink to ' friends ahead,' With him it had a long time been ' friends ahead.' So also with my father. Long and varied pilgrimage. Nothing but sovereign grace could have kei)t him true, earnest, useful, and Christian through so many exciting scenes. " He worked unweariedly from the sunrise of youth to the sunset of old age, and then in the nightfall of deal!', lighted hy the starry j)romises, Avent home, taking his sheaves with him. Mounting from earthly to heavenly ser- vice, I dou'ot not there was a great multitude that thronsjcd heaven's gate to hail him into the skies — those whose sor- rows he had appeased, whose burdens lie had lifted, whose guilty souls he bar' pointed to a })ardoning God, whose dying moruents lie had cheared, whose ascending spirits ho had helped upon wings of sacred music. I should like to tiFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 21 r::'::;;;;xtil';;-;f;:;'::rvr tbo coronation! ' ^'^ "Now, after s„c], a life, what sort of death wonl.I von ..-,v .::,:. ".•„;, ^: ,::;::, ■ :Tr\ "■■■°"«" "- "■""«"■ ■■■;i;7-"»i""g ™i-t.-ain,i,i, ■ ,1,,.,, „„,;'• ; ;^ k.,„. for winch tl,i, aj-od aenant ,„ (iodhad u.,, r' ie„tly had c.,„u, a„d ho rcjoiood with a j„v at ^J to.guo fa tored. Thoro «a,s „o t„,.„i„s fm,,. »i o „ , 1 O" tl'» IMlIow, as iflooking for o,,.,,,,.. fro,,, ,n-i,„ p„ °, ,t 01 ll,„j, JoM,». 11,0 ,„-ay,.r which the older so„s 1„„| h,-„d k„, ,„ako fifty yc,„.» ago, asking that at la»t he .ail,,.; .othn,gt„d„ h„t die,' wa., literally answc-cd. °AI , i"ldro„, .avo that o„c which ho set fo,th with l,i c ■"« a few ,„o„ths ago, i„ the good ship 'S„,.„ne' o , " cW™ to glories of the Messial, o„ the othe'; sid'e .■' " to bathe h,s hrow. All to watch, a„d wait, a„.I wc lu.st. ll.v,>,.cssed his a„ti<.ipatio„s of |l,e f .,, sl,.,„ ""u l„oko forth with tl,.. „tle,.a„ce: '(ioo.li.e.s a„d --.V have followed ,„„ all ,I,e davs of ,„y ,i „ "^ 'W t ... «„ , ,t„ the valley, ,i„,i| ,l,e ve,.y gale of l,e.,vei, a fatthful say,„g a,.d worthy of all aclcptatio,,, that II, f !■ i ■> ' I I' Mm '\iri 'il * .1 ii 22 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.' 'Of wliom I am the chief,' responded the dying Christian. We said, ' To live is Christ.' He answered, 'To die is gain;' and, lest we did not understand him, he repeated, ' To die is gain! ' And, as if the vision grew more enrapturing, he continued to say, 'To Jio is gain! ' Ministers of the Gos- pel came in, and, after the usual greeting, he said, ' Pray, Pray.' " We sang somp of his favorite hymns, such as: Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on His breast I lean my head, And breathe my life out sweetly there. He would seem almost to stop breathmg in order to listen, and then at the close would signify that he remembered the old tune right well. He said: ' I shall be gone soon, but not too soon.' Some one quoted: ' Though I walkthi-ough the valley of the shadow of deatli, I Avill fear no evil.' And he replied: ' Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.' ' Can you testify of God's faithfulness ? ' said another. He an- swered: 'Yes! I have been young and now I am old, yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed beg- ging bread.' He said: ' I have it good; I could not have it any better; I feel well — all is well.' Again, and again, and again, he repeated, 'AH is well!' Then, lifting his hand, exclaimed: 'Peace! peace!' "On the morning of October, 27, 1871, just three years from the day Avhen the soul of his companion sped into the heavens, it was evident that the last moment had come. Softly the news came to all the sleepers in the house, and the quick glance of lights from room to room signaled the coming of the death-angel. We took out our watches and said, ' Four o'clock and fifteen minutes!' The pulse flut- LIFE OP BEF. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. a3 Sl'wl " "T"'"™"'' '■'■" "'"' '■■'"' ■■" "'« "O'lo,, of a ok .^f 'tr '" '■'"'"■ "^ "•''>• """ "'" '--«■»■ No I 1 , , ^ ' ^ glassy .stare; but eyol d li"-".„<; action. V\^e listened, but heard nothino- Still' sti I? Ti. wuk. l.,ce! Clear the way for a conqnerin- spirit' nto .gilt. And when Jaeol, had made an end of com- n.an|l...g h„ son^.e gathered np his feet into the bed and pelded,,, the ghost and was gathered n„to his peopl'e • ] he day for hunal eame. An autumnal Sabha h was let down e ear fron. heaven. At the first gush of the dawn we said: J his is just the day iu which for a ri„.; ,• . . ""Hed!. Fading leaf, iuLd, uikW tot" S' ^Tr dt"^ y.i.g bod., but streaming sunshine spoke of resur eetion JO}. IJiey came totterini? on their sf'iff nil ;;.... ill 1«12. had marched\eside him,tnirg i„r fit/ H'ady for heroic Strife. Tliev came H,n ,. ''^'^^ n^'^', i-risou They :me-\ ™^ T" " '"'" ''" ''■■"' '»""' °'" <>' ail.' played 'vr.is L: ' 'dMd'ofr ""'^'T' ''"'"'^' i ' ■' ■ I ) I i I ( ; ' t' tmi: Sd LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D D. " Passing along the roads where he had ofton gone, and by the birthplace of most of his children, we laid him down to rest, just as the sun was setting in the country graveyard, close beside her with whom for more than half a century he had walked, and prayed, and sung, and counselled. It seemed as if she must speak a greeting. But no voice broke tlie sod, no whisper ran through tlie grass, no word of recog. Ition was uttered. Side by side, Jacob and Rachel were buried. Let one willow overarch their graves. In- stead of two mArble slabs, as though these of whom we speak were twain, let there be but a single shaft, for they were one. Monument not pretentious, but plain, for they were old-fashioned people. On one side the marble set tho date of their coming and going. On this side the name of David— the husband and father. On that third side the name of Catherine— the wife and mother. Then there Avill be but one side unchiselled. IIow shall we mark it ? With a story of Christian zeal and self-sacrifice for God ? No! Father and mother would sliake their heads if they wore awake to read it. This rather let it be: 'The morning Cometh.' — Isaiah xxi. 12. " Henceforth we shall be orphans. Sad thing, even at manhood, to become fatherless and motherless. No one but God can make np for the loss of a father's counsel and a mother's tenderness. Hope thou in God! Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morninsT Quaint John Bunyan caught a glimpse of the glorious cikI- ing of all earthly trial when he said: 'Just as the gates were open to let in the men, I looked in after them, and behold, the city shone like the sun; the streets were also paved with gold, and in them walked many men with _ crowns on their heads, and golden harps to sing praises withal. And after that they shut up ihe gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.' D D. one, and by im down to graveyard, a century iselled. It t no voice >s, no word and Hacliel raves. In- whom we 't, for tbey ), for they ble set tho 10 name of ■d side the I there will it? With rod? No! they wore B morning ig, even at No one Junsel and Weeping ! morning, rious cnd- the gates them, and were also men with ig praises 3; which, CHAPTER II. MY noYirooD. "The Old Cradle! We wero oil i . ■ about fifteen years tint orad] """^''^ '" '^'^'- ^^'^ When tue oklr oh 1 1 \ as .1"'' ^""^ "'"*'' "^ ^'^^' ^--• put in. The craelt f 1 r.:"^' 'V'"'^"^"'" ^'^"^^^ ™ ears. There I took n vL ^\ pleasant yet in my Bang to me. Have he d I;''""' "' ""'^'^ ^^"^ "-^^-^ singing since then;bu;;l:\Hrt'hr''', T'^ '^^' '^'"^^• She never got .ve lumdred t ,: '; rifl/?"?^^^' -' tbree songs at the Academy, with t vo <^ ^-'^ '^^"gmg grudgefully thrown in •1.nt/-.i ^^''"''^ ^"^^^''es an mght, aL ^a^ .'t' : ^'i-y ^----'^o, sang only two little ears for a, a > , T ' T'«" ''" '""■ tone .„at sing, to „„ ,et aotr;;,..' ;:" '""•' ""«"'«'' Tbat^:Xet;ttl:;::: 7'?:, -■■••' o-^- "«p? knitting or se.ing, » 'srn!^:^,^^:':,:: :;"', "- Inimmed at the door and the ,honf , f T > " '"''' was heard afield Prnm tl, "'"•»' "' "'" »™ tl.at s„n,etim the 1" Z^l , ''''^" '' "■"■"' ' """k ankle very sore ta I I . . ^'" '■'■"•>' "'"' ""<' 'l'" When sne^. a'^i', J„lt, gt a^ttSr'' '"" '""■ "Sfovir^* 4? fe *"<■ feuirig It kept on for years fecarlet fever came in at the door, and we all had Jt n "i oh, how the hridlp rllri n,^t iir "t an nad it and lie in it tLl I ^ ^^^ contended as to who should «Htolieinit.hnthesee.edso:t;:r;r^^^^^^^^^^^^^ i1 1 1 ' I fil: f i I' f 2C LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. in the cradle it Avas * Rock!' ' Rock!' ' Rock!' But one day, just as long ago as I can remember, the cradle stopped. When a child is asleep there is no need of rocking. Charlie was asleep. lie was sound asleep. Nothing Avould wake him. He needed taking up. ]\Iothcr Avas too Aveak to do it. The neighbors came in to do that, and put a flower, fresh out of the garden dew, between the two still hands. The fever had gone out of the cheek and left it white, very- white — the rose exchanged for the lily. There was one less to contend iot the cradle. It soon started again, and with a voice not quite so firm as before, but more tender, the old song came back: 'Bye! bye! bye!' which meant more than ' II Trovatore,' rendered by opera troupe in the presence of an American audience, all leaning forward and nodding to show how well they understood Italian. "There was a wooden canopy at the head of the old cradle that somehow got loose and was taken ofF. But our infantile mind Avas most impressed Avith the face Avhich much of the time hovered over us. Other women some- times looked in at the child and said, * That child's hair Avill be red!' or, 'What a peculiar chin!' or, 'Do you think that child Avill live to groAV up ?' and although Ave AA'ere not old enough to understand their talk, by instinct Ave kncAV it Avas something disagreeable, and began to cry till the dear, SAveet, familiar face again hovered and the rainboAv arched the sky. Ob, we never get aAvay from the benediction of such a face! It looks at us through storm and night. It smiles all to pieces the Avorld's froAvn. After forty-seven years of rough tumbling on the Avorld's couch, it puts us in the cra- dle again and hushes us as Avith the very lullaby of heaven. ''Let the old cradle rest in the garret. It has earned its quiet. The hands that shook up its pilloAvhave quit Avork. The foot that kept the rocker in motion is through with iti UFE OF REV. r. M WITT TAU.AGE, D.U. ,7 Cradle that r„,te.l so n,':; tig;;:,!'.;"""' ^° ■■'""^' "°'--' " PRAYEKS I.V nOTIIOOr). *• I had many sound tliraslnngs wJ.eu I was a hn,. / * -any as I onght to l.avo I.ad, L I Z 1 h" t I • '? my parents ]ot m/. ^m i / , ".is mt last child and o i'"j<-'o. X cannot lorfor h i. t . i p squirming around on the floor ,n]' i '^ f''' '" ^' they ^.vere praying. '"'^ ^""'^'"'^ '''^ '^'"^ ^'^'^^^ " LEAP-FROG. ...:tl':!;rat^ij„.?:tr/,t" t t- ^'■"°°'' -" °»'' hardly „ito, is m! , F,."r T/:"""'' "' '} "" "''" ' -' It is so humiliating I , "„°i,„ ' , ,: """IT-'" "',"' '""""'>■■ put. hi. hand, do,v„ „ li k : ' , d" : U T """ the boy, who nlaei,,., 1,1. 1 i , ^ "" l"^^'''""" to the case that wo bc.fli f,li„,i ■ " ""■"* ""<■» together. I.C thirja r s V ; °"'' ''■■''',•■""' "^' «''■"' •'°-» down a-purpose " B, nt T'T ''" '""''^ ' '""'''-' ''™ time, Jh tobefontr" '" '°''«'~'=" "^ '*>'"'- will eome thi, va wi , , i V" f """'T- I"'l««l, if Jack looping downtamv d *" ^ "''""S "' "'''-' 'i""^ by as my child™ do ' ' ""' ''"'"S Lim spring over me 4»u so says, ^ou make me governor and ; I t ' ( i ■ ir i:i I I L 28 LIFE OF KEV. T. EE WITT TALMAGE, D.D, M tm Vm I will sec that you fret to be senator. Make me mayor and I will see that you become assessor. Get mc the office of street-sweei.er an.l yon shall have one of the brooms. Yon stoop down and let me jumj) over yon, and then I will stoop down and let you jump over me. Elect me deacon, and you shall be trustee. You write a good thing about me, and I will write a good thing about you.' "hoys' trouules. " We feel sorry for boys, because they are not exempt fi-om troubles; and one of the worst is suppressed hilarity, lowant to laugh, and still maintain gravity; to see the minister's wig getting twisteeople; to have the deacon drop the contribution plate and spill the pennies, and yet look sorry for the mis- fortune; in a word, to be a boy with fun from the top hair on the crown of the head to the tip-end of the great toe and yet make no demonstration, is a trial with which we are deeply sympathetic. To sit on a long bench at school with eight or ten other boys, all able to keep quiet only by utniost force of resolution, and something happen that makes all the rest snicker, while you abstain, requires an amount of heroic endurance we never reached. I remem- ber Avell how a rattan feels when it arrives in the open palm at the rate of sixty miles an hour. In my first ten years I suppressed enough giggles, smiles, chuckles, and yells to have ruined me for all time. I so often retired from the sitting-room, when we had company, to the wood-shed where my mirth would be no disturbance to anything but the ash-barrels, that I have all allowance to make foMhat age of life which is apt to be struck through with titter. I still feel the boy in my nature when ludicrous things hap- UFE OF mv. T. DB Wir,. TAUIAGK, .,.„. .„ ."a,.vo„,.„„, „.,„„vc.,M,. H,unn,,'' ::''::, ;;;' > I'U^iMiouldhavc. Wn Iiopdossly ruined. ^ "MV l-IKST lioors. 1 nave seen many d.-ivs of ir.v imf t .. i Hi toivnconic to this crisis l,,.f,„.,. ,i.. ,. '. ^ ^V bo are you looking at- or wl.at is worse ll.u. u - „ si' l>]o insult, IS to have so.neb<.' ^'''^' ^^v-i^tsan.! -•^ac.iH.ahit-Tiu.yro].osition,s of a syllo.isn r "^ ^^"''" ^'^« ought not to be evtra,.txv^' „ ""'' ''^""'^'^'^ ^eoth tootb; but bef,,re I eould .InuvT e ,''''• '' '' ^^^'•"'^'•^** I'a.l Logun to ,],-a;v the toot , /^'?,;""^'"'^">" the doctor ■^^-din.baek and abo e e /'^ « ?" ^'^'^tep, and ho l<"c.es,one knee ti^ht a ^i t , "'^' ^'"'"^ '^^'^^^''-" In'.s tl"-o knees will nc^e ful " ""^ ' ""'• '^^'"^ '-"-7 of sot into my „,outh, for it u-is s. n / '''^ ^'^'"'^ ^^'^''^ to ';oy-aii.hona,^;.:;:^^;;^-^^ 'f"^ ^vnonyme. IJut ^.ettin.. hll) , ^ "'^'^'* ^'"""l strained yell, and Instr k ^^ *'" """' ^''^^' ^''^ "'"•- " ^^"t at last tic 01 s 7 "" '^' ''''^"•' ^'' ^^'"'t in. '"•gcrs as Lard as I could and tl 'T' '"^^ ^'''"^^ '^''^ ■"' '''■••-tions, and giving S t , ? "^'^^--nminately i„ '01<1 fellow, if I lif ' "^ T ""^ ^'' '""^'^^ ^^ to sav you,' the do'otor J 1 kX^r ''''• "°"'^ ^ ^^^ ^^ ^o' ;- -solute pnli, and H Z^::'^^^'''^' ''''''' ^'^^ ^--„ away, and the .awb^tThl^tS^:™ 32 LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. and everything, down to the last joint of the too, had boon dislocated, grubbed out, smashed, caved in, and annihi- lated with a general convulsion. The operation was success- ful. The dentist only did his duty, and has been for some years in the good place where teeth never ache and they never use forceps; but my memory of him is not ecstatic. I do not take him into my hoj)e of future recognition. I can think of five hundred j)eople whom avc would rather meet than he. ' "seeing a ghost. " I never met but one ghost in all my life. It Avas a very dark night, and I was seven years of age. There was a German cooper, who, on the outskirts of the village, ha<^ a sfiop. It was an interesting spot, and I frequented it. There Avas a congregation of barrels, kegs, casks and firkins, that excited my boyish admiration. There the old man stood, day after day, hammering away at his trade. lie was fond of talk, and had his head full of all that Avas Aveird, mysterious and tragic. During the course of his life he had seen almost as many ghosts as firkins; had seen them in Germany, on the ocean, and in America. "One summer afternoon, perhaps having made an un- usually lucrative bargain in hoop-poles, the t'n\o. of his . 33 "Tl,i, last .tor. r„° 1, „ ', "■^'"'S ' "'''^■'■'■■'« J'iHy ?' tbo strictly pe,-,>e„„ic„la '■ Mv «'";; *' "'""' "" ""'• '""'' had been shaken, I believe,! „ i , '" "''■'> ""ng solid intangible. What eo d . i: 'f T """"" •■""' "' "'" "I'on if one of ,l,„so beadle 7b ^'''"'' "''' ''"l'""-! ment ride him down, o one of r'"'r ""»'" "' '"'y ""'- ,,._,_ _^p J, . one of these sheeted creatures pick ■ "I started up the road barefooted T by any useless apparel It i„„P '" '"" ""P«le(l «y. I felt tba f I „„ , 1 . , '"." "" '""" •" g« under »» near the doorsil, of h L' 'ts iT'^'t '" """ '" ««' I was only spared this onee to get " ^ T IT™' "'•■"' '^ allow the night to eateh n c a 1 T' "T"'''."''"-- "Sain flew under my feet. N„ b "^le ' "''""• ^'''" S™™'! '■I'- Not a star w.,s out It t^ .t'T,""l' '■"'""' '"" ^' ''"'" I bad n,ado half ,ho dis aneo ,' V .'""'' "' *"*"'"^- n.ost lonely a„d dauge :",.,' f":,! """"■'■»"»«• '-the in a minute more I mi-ht, b , ''V~:m} felt ,bat •n-oatb. But, alas. ; ,". " ""f f""' ""'l '"k" fuller Suddenly my feet s'trnV ^°'"' '"'"""' •''"•"itod n,c. ■nan. inferna' or u ^ ^^ a m„„s,er-whether beastly, ,,„: ;;o-nan I could no "ii:::;; [j^tn"'?';;;,;- "-'"- "'}• hands passinff over a ].-„•,.,. J " P'-ostrato, •"to tho air. To tins day if u- n 7' ^^'''''''^'S my feet ^'-1 "Ota fearful bellon rev Vr' '""' '"'"' '-^ "^^''^^-T' <^--^ to peaceful s^ ^^^^ :::^ ^ 7- ^^;^^-i' i-d laL t^'mble collision. She wasted,!' ' •'^"^^^-'l^'^ting the '^'^'"^ "^ t»"c. J^ut started nj. the m 'wi U'' Ml:: it I * i ill mhui , mi; 1 1 hi -— ^F^^Pr''"^<' snatch for ir "' '" ""^'^ "^*'"S «"' y^ ">-' '' With these sentiments I passed down the village street and towards my country home. My head did not fed ex ac«y nght, and the street began to roek from side to s de so that ,t was uneertam to me which side of the street I w.as Yn Sol crossed over, but found myself on the same side Z I ™on before I crossed over. Indeed, I in>agined that wa on both s.des a the same time, and several Fast teams dr" ng between I met another boy, who asked me why I looked so pale, and I told him I did not look pale, b,rt ,at he was pale himself. ' ' "' prosnect If 7, ""''';■' "■^' ''"''S'^' ""'^ '"'8- «» ■■eAect on the prospect of early decease, and on the uncertainty of all earthly e.vpecta.,o„s. I had determined to sn>oke tie ei.a a up, and bus get the worth of my money; but it-" obbged to throw three-fourths of it away, yJt k„ w ,' where I threw it, in ease I felt better the next day ' Gettmg home, the old people were frightened and de- manded that I state what kept mc so late, and what was the matter w.th me. Not feeling that I w„'s calle to go i o part cnlars, and not wishing to increase „,y parcnts^ap e" h..r..onti,atlw.,sgoingto turn out bad y I s„„„n 1 up e case w,th the statement that I felt misaUle at I c..rtf, 1 natchmg for some hours, when I fell asleep and orgot my d.sappoi„tment and humiliation in beinglii" o 1 row aw.ay three-fourths of n.y first cigar. Bcin,. fat- urally reticent, I have never mentioned it until this m nil! H^ I 1-!' tVl 1 ill ■' 1 !■ 1 ) ■', in " h 5 [' I It" ) 1 j Mrnv f tf iMamfm 8(5 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. " But how about my last cigar ? It was three o'clock, Sabbath morning, in my Western home. I had smoked throe or four cigars since tea. At that time I wrote my sermons, and took another cigar with each new head of dis- course. I thought I was getting the inspiration from above, but Avas getting much of it from beneath. My hand trembled along the line, and, strung up to the last tension of nerves, I finished my work and started from the room. A book standing on the table fell over, and although it was not a large book, its fall sounded to my excited system like the crack of a pistol. As I went down the stairs their creak- ing made my hair stand on end. As I flung myself on a sleepless pillow, I resolved, God helping, that I had smoked my last cigar, and committed my last sin of night- study. •' I kept my promise. "With the same resolution went over- board coffee and tea. That night I was born into a new physical, mental, and moral life. Perhaps it may be better for some to smoke, and study nights, and take exciting temperance beverages; but I am persuaded that if thou- sands of people who now go moping,and nervous, and half- exhausted through life, down with ' sick head-aches' and rasped by irritabilities, would try a good large dose of ab- stinence, they would thank God for this paragraph of per- sonal experience, and make the world the same bright ])laoo I find it — a place so attractive that nothing short of heaven would be good enough to exchange for it. "The first cigar made me desperately sick; the throwing away of my last made me gloriously well. For the croak- ing of the midnight owl had ceased, and the time of the singing of birds had come." H ?ick: the throwing CHAPTER III. ENTERIXO Tino JflNlSTBY. tn,„ic, from hi, oaHie.t cluWhooT ,,„ ", , ""''"' nmrkablc. for enthusiasm in nomd la, o,- ^' f T' T devotion to all those hranche, of ,!,l', °' '"" ;;-wc.. he fe,t the g-oato:!' x^ T : J:;"?,:,:": the Tnivorsitv of Xow Yo,l- ,n,l , ? through when hi doIivLa a,: al, e^'^ Zj^'i:^"''? "''■ ^:ri- ^I'z- r^in- f r '-^ - - the age of eighteen ta,; """'""n'"'"^-'"' religion at a.lo,„:., the lciT;™e,;i'n Ift/'r",'^ '"""'""'""^ .i.o la„, ho„..l,'he :r:;, tt^N-; nlnXi^-TT"' preacliea for three vear, n, n ii . , "'°"' "'• Talmage vear, at Syracuse NY ", ^<^"'=""''' New Jersey, three iaboriug t^t gre-it ,;;ofi; T" '""' "' Philadelphia, Ration „°f,.hioh,e'™,asto "t' f'T"'^ °' "" '^""S- vil!e he beeame convTueed of rt ■ ' '""'"""^ ■>" J^^"'^- Christ the .nain ""t „f hi! T"""'' °' '""""« "^^'"^ suoeoss and he I,,! / , ™°"' "' essential to mainly d™,„ his hi ''""""^ '^'"•''"■"' "''" "» ™«»»» i» HimcmemeA'' *'°""''''"yP'^^"''^<' "C^*' aud 3 ilcl i I .'. ii i ' [ - ' ■ - " j;,:' ' ' Jfl 1 lil j ' . ii ■ III ' : ■ ; i; i = i' if ■ ' i. ]■■ it l! f ^ I 38 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. BEGINS EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING. "I entered the ministry with a mortal horror of extempo- raneous speaking. Each -weok I wrote two sermons and a lecture all out, from the text to the amen. I did not dare to give out the notice of a prayer-meeting unless it was on paper. I was a slave to manuscript, and the chains wen; galling ; and three months more of such work would have put me in the graveyard. I resolved on emancipation. The Sunday night was approaching when I intended to make violent rebellion against this bondage of pen and paper. I had an essay about ten minutes long on some Christian sub- ject, which I proposed to preach as an introduction to the sermon, and resolved, at the close of that brief composition, to launch out on the great sea of extemporaneousnoss. "It so happened that the coming Sabbath night was to he eventful in the village. The trustees of the church had been building a gasometer at the back of the church, and the night I speak of, the building Avas for the first time to l)e lighted in the modern way. The church was, of course, crowded — not so much to hear the preacher as to see hnv the gas would burn. Many were unbelieving, and said that there would be an explosion, or a big fire, or that in the midst of the service the lights would go out. Sovcnil brethren, disposed to hang on to old customs, declared that candles and oil were the only fit materials for lightinij: a church, and they denounced the innovation as indicative of vanity on the part of the new-comers. They used oil in the ancient Temple, and it was that which ran doAvn on Aaron's beard, and anytb'"^ that was good enough for the whiskors of an old-time priest was good enough for ;. country meet- ing-house. These sticklers for the oil were present tliat night, hoping — and I think some of them were secretly praying — that the gas might go out. .LMAGE, D.D. LIFE OF REV. T, DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 30 «3 its fric.,Kl» ha,l honed, «iMv.;t ",' '"'='"'■'■ ..■.Ti<.ati„„, and .,„pp„.,e„ :;r:ta„'^';?':.;::;::i 2 gas wotila go out. Alas ! My fear was ,h.lT, 1 eo o„t. As I came .owar„s tl e elose „ m b If'l" "".' ■""; ''"'i-8-. party, and prayed .,,at befo"o I ,„ o'^hf ...0 buyers, .,,:;; atrr oVrxTfrfS^'rv^ lay before me would be io.m enonM, f„ l '"'"'''' 1.0SCS, aud that the hour otrttn'l';™"'""' ""- to seme other uigbt. As I earn" „ tC" . ''°"''™'='^ the last the Hghts^eU do,™ Talf t Ir ™ "r, T l', just manage to see the audience as theywer flo" L " from my vision. I said to myself ' Wl,v 1 "°f ""S ;?"ay l-o obliging, and go out enti" ^ "' TkoUT '■"'"' As I finished the last line of my brio " , J"'T"""';'^- voro-o nf vi.^^ -IT ^ ' '^"*^' stood on the euingui.hcd. 'It IS impossible to proceed ' I o,!^ out; 'receive the benediction!' ^ ' '''^*^ "I cmvled doM-n the pulpit in a state of evhiliration- T never before sa. such handsome darkness. TeoTor'of t I I I f \Ei If.-*. 40 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. " But after I got hoiue I saw the wickedness of being in such dread. As the Lord got me out of that predicament, I resolved never again to bo cornered in one similar. Forth- with tlie thrahlom was 1)rokon, I ho])e never atrain to be felt. How demeaning that a man with a message from the Lord Almighty should be dependent u])<)n paiter-mills and gasometers! Paper is a non-conductor of Gospel electric- ity. If a man has a live-thousand-dollar bill of goods to sell a customer, he does not go up to the i)urchaser and say, 'I have some remarks to make to you about these goods, but just wait till I get out my manuscript.' Before lie got through reading the argument th.e customer would be in the next door, making purchases from another house. "What cowardice! Because a few critical liearcrs sit with lead pencils out to mark down the inaccuracies of ex- temporaneousness, shall the pulpit coAver? While the great congregation are ready to take the bread hot out of the oven, shall the minister be crippled in his work because the village doctor or lawyer sits carping before liim? To please a few learned ninnies a thousand ministers sit writing sermons on Saturday night till near the break of day, their heads hot, their feet cold, and their nerves a-twitch. Sermons born on Saturday night are apt to have the rickets. Instead of cramping our chests over writing- desks, and being the slaves of the i)en, let us attend to our physical health, that we may have more i)ulpit independ- ence. " Which thoughts came to me this Aveek as I visited again the village church aforesaid, and preached out of the same old Bible in which, years ago, I laid the ten-minute manu- script, and I looked upon the same lights that once behaved so badlv. But I found it had been snowiner since the time I lived there, and heads that then were black are Avhite now, UFE OP REV. T. nE WITT TALMAOE, „,n. .,( an.l «„mo of tl,o eyos wlncl> l„„ko.I „„ ,., „,„ ,,,„ , e.o»e<, „„„, a„a f„. uL a,;::.',, ■ i h',': ,.C'\r' "7 forever. •' 'o'"^^ ''•^^t» gone out " now I TOOK EXERCISE. "Soon after entcrlno- the mini^f,.,- t upon me so ovcrnowcrin-lv tl.nf T , i V ^ ^ ^''"'''''*^ Ponsod such „„ in^i,„.i„,,/j,:;™ f;„,/j-; .V .'l'^'""- on began exercise T vn« i • " ™'^'^ f^" -^'"l slippers and cii„>bod d took «<;;;/:';'''''■'' """ ^"""« '"■■• ''''«' tWro wa, a knock tit ,7;""""- '"""' ''■""' demolition of tl,o par'on.-^ ' B !^'™ .^-^l'--'"' '"■■ tl.o l.ave,tartedina„y l,i„. To 1 1 ' , „ t • '" ""'' """ ' pulley, and ,valki L ,ir„ 1,„,.L„V 1 ^" ,'f ""■'^' "' "'" backward till my head w' T <, " "'"' '"''"''"8 °'-" all varieties of tnmm.I T ' 1° 7l "'' '"'"'" ""'""■''' excruciating, because oF'.o r ''"*' "'>' '■■''^■'■'^'»<= «"•' thethirdda;irS™rd f """',"""' "'"' '""■«■'-• »» lar gymuasil I ? f ,"'" "'" ''""™ "' "'••" l«rti«- lowfL^rof irur:,!?:,;;;;'' -V";' ;'""■■ ^ 1'''- '.adw„r:a:::Lz^''i:-^^^ rates on tl,e otl.er side I I,a,l Cf ""' ■'"'™- arguments in il,„ .1, r '" '"" '"<> in'movable cof tin, ?t ; I 7° "^. '"•" "■•'1""'^"' '-^S'- I "ould have ~n,e,a:diru ^h r:;'' 't';'"' '"-'^y ■'-' tl'o most difficult entetn- r ° *" '''""''' "••■"' <•"» »f '°"Hop„,pt™To'l? rbirrndl'di'Tf t V""'™'-'^' Cite tlio symDathv of f i i ' ''*^ """^ '^^'"'^* ^« c-^'- '•-I. •>„; ti;r:'e^«o„ :d"i :;::a tm'r ^"' "".'™ '- , auu i A^ aitea till he went to ring the li H f mi ^■/^ f^-^. 42 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. bell before I began to climb the sacred hill. The six steps seemed like the sides of the Matterhorn for difficult ascent. The first step up I took sldevvisc, the second backward, the the third by a strong pull on the banisters. I then stopped to rest and wipe the perspiration from my brow, all flushed with the manly achievements of the last five minutes. Noth- ing but the fact that I was half-way up, and that it would hurt me as much to go down as to go up, encouraged me in the work of ascent. But the last two steps wore stimula- ted by the sound of advancing feet in the vestibule, and an indisposition on my part to create unseemly mirth in church, or to tempt any one to irreverent laughter at an ambassador from the skies. The audience coming in were surprised to find their pastor so early waiting for them. If I had that day taken the text nearest to my heart, it Avould have been Paul's advice to a young minister by the name of Tii.v thy, ' Bodily exercise profiteth little.' *' I learned by these experiences that anything overdone had better not be done at all. Gymnasiums are grand things; but let common sense dictate quantities and quali- ties, and do not allow the dumb-bells to drag down the shoulders, nor had you better hang by your feet to a ring till you get black in the face. Fencing is good; but do not be rough, nor play with loafers. Pedestrianism is health- ful; but do not forget that the road back is a little farther than the road out, though it may be the same road. IIiuil- ing is good, if you do not shoot sparrows, nor go to sleep on the edge of a marsh. Rowing is good, if you do not take a bottle in the boat, nor pull so hard that you get aneurismal trouble with the heart. When I forsook the fitful and extravagant use of gymnastics, and came to their gradual and intelligent use, I found them, next to religion, the best panacea for all earthly ills. I have put down all UFE OF UEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D 43 Only do „„, .,.ki»„ L„.„ „ff,„: ,:,«["'-■"■>■■ not take any more of it a„.,i„ \r -'■""'"""»' yo'iran- which it taiL .oi„:r ;,,;::::?'■■' '^ " '"t- "•"■■-'• ".T a iurig iiino to Jt'iinihoH'toHpell." C'ATCIIINO TlIK HAY MAKK. .no,.t. mammu IHI Mi ^^flHMHHHH^II HI MHi mni n II 41 LIFK OF KKV. T. J)K WITT TAI,MA(Ji:, 1>.1). was 8eizf With an oorasional lu-i^.l, chvorMW re nio m tlm m. ......:* r •' 45 rage nie in tlio pursuit. I ^MVt'II to cll- « ji,i,I M Hoiil Tor the ii'iK'u lined the I iiiDrc naiictiiai '}'■ CIU'C aiii|»liitlic.iii-c. at f excited Koiiia tll(! cortaln wlu-tluT tlio and till- "bay man ii/'ontest with wild beasts, and 't'noo W...S ill sympathy witl lis 111 an it was 1111- •Atth me for ' bettor or f in the hitl '■"^ unhappy juncture she who or worse ' came to the » iiiu or some years a -'o took wash-basin full of t'rccndition. She a "" "' '" '"^ ""'''• '■"■■"»■ nut I ,„.,:•, '„"""' '"■■""1""I !">"-. a.n. „„ '« f..ll-W„„.u,,, „1 ,, ';■""" ^ -v tl.at«-a, .ai,l to fooi i,„„lu,l by wl,.; I.,ay; ; ■ ', : ":""" ™">-fandc.r to say smooth t!,i„.,s . ,,„" "" , ' ''" "■'"">al.o„ ahray, cent, f„ll.l,|o„,U„, !.„;, ,.",";;" ■» '":• '■'"■ "- -agnii five dollatV «l.o„„.,, .,;„„ ''V""'">'-\ '«-™"ty made it „i„cty. Sumfl.o 1- ,. ■ , ' " " "'S'''^- "« After tl,c bids had " „ t" ''';""'^/ ■'""'" " •■' '"-Ii-o-l. «"v- If it tooli ,„y last f „,„ . A , ""'/ """'<' 'lave that .'»"a,v s>,o„tcd „y oUo ;,,t ^';?,""'- ™' -• '"-'y .1"1- tl.c finest co,v he had c 7 "id r''''™"''' ■="''' '' "' aboutvonduos, of course! iL.'m ""' ''"''"'"'« "'«''■ of.no„eyf„ra™iJ::™'-f J;- It -a- matter off ,„y hands by g vim' '''".''«""'''= "■''°'« of cvorythmg, I cried onf • of , , ', ^" """' '^^'''anco '«oingat thT. . said\r.;„' ''--- i'™l-l the =. -("ea,lj- to death a group „f school ehil- } '■. ■ u Mi 'It 48 LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TAL3IAGE, D.D. dren, and by the time I got home we ml felt as if we had been out all day on a fox chase. " We never had any peace with that cow. She knew more tricks than a juggler. She could let down any bars, open any gate, outrun any dog, and ruin the patience of any minister. I had her a year, and yet she never got over wanting to go to the vendue. Once started out of the yard she was bound to see the sheriff. I coaxed her with car- rots, and ajjples, and cabbage, and sweetest stalks, and the richest beverage of slops, but without avail. "As a milker she was a failure. ' ^Nlike,' who lived just back of our place, would come in at nights from his 'Kerry cow,' a scraggy runt that lived on the commons, with liis pail so full he had to carry it cautiously lest it spilt ovei'. But after our full-blooded had been in clover to her eyes all day Bridget would go out to the barn-yard, and tug au'l pull for a supply enough to make two or three custards. I said, ' Bridget you don't know h )w to milk. Let me try.' I sat down by the cow, tried the full forc3 of dynamics, but just at the moment when my success was about to be dem- onstrated, a sudden thought took her somewhere between the horns, and she started for the vendue, with one stroke of her back foot upsetting the small treasure I had accumu- lated, and leaving me a mere wreck of what I once aviis, "She had, among other bad things, a morbid apiietile. Notwithstanding I gave her the richest herbaceous diet, she ate everything she could put her mouth on. She was fond of horse-blankets and articles of human clothing. 1 found her one day at the clothes-lino nearly choked to death, for she had swallowed one leg of something and seemed dis- satisfietl that she could not get down the other.. The most perfect nuisance that I ever had about my place was that full-blooded. lAGE, D.D. felt as if we had UFE OF KEY. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. 49 high price upon her and ^ot it • that i. T t. ' . manuscripts. ^ "'' ""^ ^'^'^^ •'^"^«"K "ly " My friend, never depend on liidi-brood, ^^ the grass she eats. -^ \\oUIi ™w make he,, own name, and eve y I'^a hie, • "'"■^ posu „„. It i3 no groat credit to a'Cl h "t .ad '' ""'" vaMhioin Proponio^ar' tyt "„:;?,7":V-:™' •^^ Ix^at my full-blooded. '^^'^'^ ' ^"^^ "my dog IX TROUBLE. veil: ei|,t ™,:.r'it"' '""""^r- """ » ■"-' ™"- "■I'on cither h„ue"r "•'"'. " "■"'" ^"'"'"^'^ "" 'h"' row of the ot^r Th '";'■•■"","' •■"'>""'« it shonl.l bor- "". -the: WV J he^ndX^'r" '"'■"■° '"'^'""•^«'' J' "^ i-^e neighbor, because on my side of r M '0 = |.: ■'1 Ih'' .yjpi li^a^;.^ m 50 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. the fence I had just begun to keep house, and needed to borrow everything, while I had notliing to lend, except a few sermons, which the neighbor never tried to borrow, from the fiict that she had enough of them on Sundays. There is no danger that your neighbor will burn a hole in your new brass kettle if you have none to lend. It will excite no surprise to say, that I liad an interest in all that hap- pened on the other side of the parsonage fence, and that any injury inflicted on so kind a woman would rouse my sympathy. "On the wintry morning of which I speak my neighbor had been making ice-cream; but there being some defect in the machinery, the cream had not sufficiently congealed, and so she set the can of the freezer containing the luxr-y on her back steps, expecting the cold air would completely harden it. What was my dismay to see that my dog Carlo, on whose early education I was expending great care, had taken upon himself the office of ice-cream inspector, and was actually busy with the freezer! I hoisted the window and shouted at him, but his mind was so absorbed in his undertaking he did not stop to listen. Carlo was a grey- hound, thin, gaunt, and long-nosed, and he was already making his way on down towards the bottom of the can. His eyes and all his head had disappeared in the depths of the freezer. Indeed, he was so far submerged that when he heard me, with quick and infuriate pace, coming up closo behind him, he could not get his head out, and so started with the incumbrance on his head, in what direction he knew not. No dog was ever in a more embarrassing posi- tion — freezer to the right of him, freezer to the left of hira, freezer on the top of him, freezer under hira. " So, thoroughly blinded, he rushed against the fence, then against the side of the house, then against a tree. He VJ\ .MAGE, D.D. tIPK OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 61 barked a, though he thought he might explode the m,i,,„oe w.th loud sound, but the sound waseouflned in sZZtl a speafang-tnunpet that he could not have known ho™ vo.ee. II„ way seemed hedged up. V,igU .and anA . and .emo.,e and shame whWed him about without me'o- A feelmg of mn-thfulness, whieh sometimes take, me on most mapprepriate oeeasious, seized me, and I sat dow, on the ground powerless at the moment when Carlo mos needed help, f I only could have got near enou^d. I w"dd h.ave p„ my toot on the freezer, and, taking ht.ld of he sr r if h":n;e 'r r '™ -' " '■•- appeared with a look V^renXr L^'L'St: "g .n the CO d wind. I tried to explain, but t'he f"re,!fd untimely h.Ianty hindered me. All I could do waT o pomt to the flying freezer and the .adjoining do! and a k her to eal off her freezer, and, with .assume! tdi:,ati:, demand what she meant by trying to kill n.y greyhound ' The poor dog's every attempt at escape only wed..ed himself more thoroughly fast. But after i while n tfme te save the dog, though not to save the iee-elm ™ mghbor and myself effected a rescue. Edwin La,"',^ he great pamter of dogs and their friends, mi.,sed hi e t ance by not being there when the parishioner took 1 1, of the f eezer and the pastor seized the dog's tail, and ,„dl "Carlo was cured of his love for Inxurie.,, and the si.^ht l-e more delicious than while ho wls'eSg hist:;^;;';";. (• ( ^ I' 1 62 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, t>.D. what must have been his feelings when he found it impos- sible to get out! While he was stealing the freezer the freezer stole him. " Better moderate our desires. Carlo had that morninsr as good a breakfast as any dog need to have. It was a law of the household that he should be well fed. Had he been satisfied with bread and meat all would have been well. .F"<^. he sauntered out for luxuries. He wanted ice-cream. He got it, but brought upon his head the perils and dam- ages of which I have written. As long as we have reason- able wants we get on comfortably, but it is the struggle after luxuries that fills society with distress and populates prisons and sends hundreds of people stark mad. Dissatis- fied with a plain house and ordinary apparel and respectable surroundings, they plunge their head into enterprises and speculations from which they have to sneak out in disgrace. Thousands of men have sacrificed honor and religion fur luxuries, ' A died with the freezer about their ears. " Our poor old Carlo is dead now. We all cried when we found that he would never frisk again at our coming nor put up his paw against us. But he lived long enough to preach the sermon about caution and contentment of v.-hicb I have been the stenographer. "lessors from my dogs. " I said when I lost Carlo, that I would never own anotlior dog. We all sat around, like big children, crying about it; and what made the grief worse, we had no sympathizers. Our neighbors Avere glad of it, for he had not always done the fair thing with them. One of them had lost a chicken when it was stuffed and all ready for the pan, and suspi- cions were upon Carlo. I was the only counsel for the defendant; and while I had to acknowledge that the cir- itti .MAGE, h.i). LIFE OF KEY. T. DE WIT- TALMAGE, D.D. 53 cnmstantial eyulence was against him, I proved his .eneral oharactcn- for nUegrity, and showed that' the cornn.Sn 'nd ^t^o^ and a long h.s. of authorities and decisions- I Kovised Statutes, Xew York, 132, § 27; also, Wad/. Jowser, Cronipton and Meeson, p. ,-375 • also Stnfo fxr Jersey . Sieen. Blanehard. wLn 1^;:^,'^ . t^^ my neiohbnr and is wife Avho ^vovn h,n i .^"^^^^ ^a .tago I l.a.l ga,„o,l with ,1,„ la,, maxim, X,J„ °,st nth Im l.fo; an,, „„ tl.c way l,„„,o, l,e ,vo„t «,,i„„i„„ ,Z1 ko a top, and ,,«n,:tua,i„g ,,i, g|,, ,,i,„ , ,,;„,„,,„= ■°™^ « . , ,,a,vs on my n«v olotU,. Yo,, notwithstandin I a I Ins „c, .camonls an.l frailtk-s, at his docease wo ro.ol "S on. rouble ,l,at wo would uovor own ano.hor dog. But broken; and In^re i, Niol, tl,o Newfoundland, ly „„ l.„ ...son, e mat. IIo ha» a jaw .et with strength, a e,l" i.anv ^muhanties from stranger.,; a nostril large enono-h . ..uilaw,ld duck across the „,e,adows, UoL 1 "w °o ^l.ake hands, and can talk with head, and lar, and tail and -^ave an uureason.ablo antipathy to e.«s-i nerfec and always goes with me in my walk out of town. ' we take a w alk, but the poodles, and rat-terriers and the gnzzlyeurs with stringy hair aud da„>p n..o'X^^^ wrr^rathmtn^rd'^T, "•''-'"' 'i- ^aid to him (not loud 2^::v;jy^x:^^ n '•% 1 1 !n' I f «'fi 'p%«&„ ^Um^BBm ■1 ■ II ■ i|H ll II I B UHHI li 1 ^Hfei^^sfli mM 1 m h^Mi^Wfflff'' '' B 64 UFE OP REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, t>.D. » *Nick! why do you stand all this? Go at them!' He never takes my advice. He lets them bark and snap, and passes on unprovokedly without a sniff or growl. lie seems to say: 'They are not worth minding. Let them bark. It pleases them and don't hurt me. I started out for a six mile tramp, and I cannot bo diverted. Newfoundlands like me have a mission. My father pulled three drowning men to the beach, and my uncle on my mother's side saved a child from the snow. If you have anything bravo, or good, or great for me to do, just clap your hands and point out the work, and I will do it, but I cannot waste my time on rat- terriers.' If Nick had put that in doggrel, I think it would have read well. It was wise enoi gh to become the dogma of a school. Men and women are more easily diverted from the straight course than is Nick. No useful people escape being barked at. " If these men go right on their way, they perform their mission and get their reward, but one-half of them stop and make attempt to silence the literary, political, and eccle- siastical curs that snap at them. Many an author has got a drop of printer's ink spattered in his eye, and collapsed. If a fool, no amount of newspaper or magazine puffery can set you up; and if you are useful, no amount of newspaper or magazine detraction can keep you down. For evei-y po- sition there are twenty aspirants; only one man can get it; forthwith the other nineteen are on the offensive. People are silly enough to think that they can build themselves up with the bricks they pull out of your wall. Pass on and leave them. What a waste of powder for a hunter to go into the wood to shoot black flies, or for a man of great Work to notice infinitesimal assault. My Newfoundland Would scorn to be seen making a drive at a black.and-tan terrier. .MAGE, D.D. f jo at them ! ' lie )ark and snap, and T growl. He seems Let them bark. It ,arted out for a six 1. Newfoundlands led three drowninjf nothor's side saved anything brave, or lur hands and point not Tvaste my time 1 doggrel, I think it •I gh to become the I are more easily s Nick. No useful they perform their -half of them stop political, and eccle- an author has got eye, and collapsed, agazine puffery can lount of newspaper wn. For every po- )ne man can get it; offensive. People 1 build themselves our wall. Pass on ier for a hunter to for a man of great My Newfoundland it a black.and-tan IB III If .1 fi M 't V ' :m;»3»ir k i IP I II' 1! LIFE OF REV T. m WITT TAUfAOE, D.,). i,' 55 I«f' of them but a l.Jk, Xn , J ■• '""'' ""■''• '» """""K l-iM-ou had hotter itVZo"" """""' "' '"^''^ character „-i|| he an invitation ,"'".«'""■'""' }-"u>-o«n 0"g, clean ear wa, a ten , tl .:;,':r T"''- N''*'» have en„„gh hatti™ „f '„, '" ' '" " "'^' ''"«»• V„„ will connicts at t„-enty per eeTt T, V T «''"'""' •'' '"^" "f ^"^^ a country ^™L, an „:, '^t « u"," "■'"' """ ' "P I'y my «i,l.. an,, |„„k, „, , : " "'°S-*>S';t, I.e comes cl„«c of the tongne over hi., cho , 7" "'"' «"« '""S wi,„ g<=t into ,a fight than to get ™ ' , T- '" '''•'^■' ' ■^•^'•" '» "'^n way,, and then I prea , hi '' ^^T"' '"' "^""^ ""' Proverbs xxvi. n, 'HetlJ.T , ''"'" "'■'"">" from strife belonging n^t ,' m isZ" '■^''T" '""''"<^'" -"" by the ears.' " ' ' '''"' ™o that takcth a dog J^^ M I. 1 1 niAPTEll TV. VISIT IC N (M- A N 1) "My friend looked M'hito as tlie AV.ill, flung the 'London Times' half across the room, kicked one slippc'r into tlie air, and shouted, ' Talniage, where on earth did you como from':" as this summer I stepped into liis English home. 'Just come over the ferry to dine with you,' I responded. After some explanation about the health of my family, which demanded a sea voyage, and this necessitated my coming, we planned two or three excursions. " A ^ eight o'clock in the morning we gathered in the jiar- lor in the 'lied Horse Hotel' at Stratford -o'i-iVvon. Two pictures of Washington Irving, the chair in which the father of American literature sat, and the table on which he wrote, immortalizing his visit to that hotel, adorn the room. Froni thence we sailed forth to sec the clean, quaint village of Stratford. It was l)uilt just to have Shakcspi ;ire born in. "We have not heard that there was any one else ever born there, before or since. If, by any strange possi- bility, it could be proved that the great dramatist was born anywhere else, it would ruin all the cab-drivers, guides, and hostelries of the place. " We went of course to the liouse where Shakespeare first appeared on the stage of life, and enacted the first act of his first play. Scene the first: Enter John Shakespeare, the father; Mrs. Shakespeare, the mother; and the old nurse, wdth young William. " A very plain house it is. Like the lark, which soars rk, which soars LIFE OF Ki:v. T. DE WITT TAL^UGE, D.D. r,7 hi/jhost hut huilds its hie hf nost lowest, so with largt g"'Mint.s. I think ten tlunisawl l,U ff'^nius; itliashum- ai'l)i'aisc'iiK'nt for all the 1 wnv horn. IJi.t . -ill the world Walter Seott iiouse come !»rs would Lea and you Alhert Smith, JMark I of tl was glad to scratch 1 s where t lie great ^nvU I to this lowly dwellin.'. may see it now. (^harles Diekens, Ed icn rr Th( u>ir autographs, Iiave left (1 loii and Tennyson, •IS name on the window, iiiund Kean. so very sj)aring 'i-c are the jamhs of the old fire-i.l 'til- signatures on the wall. place where tl wa,™,.,, ,,i,„,.,,f „,„, .,„„,„„, „.,„,,_ ';_^^j ^^^ le for all time. If Hiding at the cluh, f him at the last, hi t'l-o IS the ehair i„ ,vhich I ])oet gan to think 10 sat while pre- "••»;".? I'.'ihits of drink wliieh killed , his own lilV' endin lo as any he ever Vrot ZZZ 'l 1 ^"''''' " '"""'' shopkeepers Drivton !• f '' '"^■■'^'^''^^''■^' topers, grog- .>-. ne.;:]:r;;;ei:;u::sR;:^^^^ to Shakespeare askin,. to i itichard Quyney sent thcopita,,!, written by Lin, "if ' ''^"'"''P""'- •■•"<• ''■"d ■• ■Oood frkwl, f„r Jesus' sake iMibrarc "» uig Uio dust enclosed Ijcrc- BIcsle l,c yo uu,„ jl s,„„„ ihi'so stouM. And curst be lie i|,at „,„ves „,y bones ■ them I,, j I , "'" ''°"™> '«" '"y Richard Coeur do Lion; in this chapel burned tho tomb* :^*.«!- LIFE OF KEY. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 50 liffhts ghts over the grave of Geoffrey do CI geoiis kings groaned; i,i tlicsc <1 Scene of gold, and sil arch, and mosaic. JIcm iaton; in tliose dun- !iesc doorvvays dncluvs.ses fainted. vcr, and scroll-work, and chiselled Hound Table; from tl hor •0 Avero Jieard the carousals of the y fit.ibles the caparisoned lose voi : came prancing „„t t.n- the tonrnamcnl; , In- ,„.-lul,at gateway, strong, weak, l,e,,,ie, ,nea„, s,,lo.„,i I (i„ ^ , ,, . abeth a,lvan,.o.I to tl,o easti,, ,vl,iie tl,e Vate,» of to hko g^carae,] nn,Ior toroh-Mg,,,., ,„„! ,!,„ I,atMe,nen. \te atla„,e „•„„ n.eket.,; an.I eon.et, „,„, l,,,,,,,,,,, an, ,„ ,et roure. „„t tl,eir nn,,i„ „n tl,e air; an,lg„,l,,Le»l i led o .t fmn, tl,e grove, to n.eet l,er; an,l fron, ?,„.,. ,„ f', , , t™' Ken,hv„rth treu.l.ie.l ,„„.,.■ a eanno„a,le, and for «.v™t ™ la -s, at a cost of of tive tl.onsand dollar, a dav, ,l,e t" valwaske,,t Four l.nndred ,ervan,,, „ta ,g i , e„,t l ve,>, ,l,an, battles .,et,vo..,knigld, on l,or,el,a;k; jn'!^ met of the guests; Ibreo hnndred ;u,d ,,ve„lv ho-sheads ^clu ? Who ,vears the jewels? «" l Amy Kohsart nnn? 1\ hero are those who were waited on, and those who watted f What ha, beco„,e of Kli.al,eth the i ,■ and Robert Dudley the visited ? Oron,weir, nten da Id |.P".. the scene ; they drained the lakes ; they befouled' the ban.,„et.hal , they turno.1 the castle into a t.nnb, o„ w ,l,e scarred and nven sides a.nbition an.I ernelty a„i lust mav well read their doon,. -So lot all thine enemies ,.osO goeth forth in hia might,' " TnO.MAS (ARr.VLE. ''In Chelsea, a suburb of London, an.I on a narrow «trect, m Ml L if^k*^ ill 60 LIFE OF REV. T. DE AVITT TALMAGE, D.D, with not even a house in front, but, instead thereof, a h)ng range of brick wall, is the house of Thomas Carlylc. You go through a narrow hall and turn to the loft, and are in the literary workshop Avhere some of the strongest thunder- bolts of the world have been forged. The two front win- dows have on them scant curtains of reddish calico, hung at the top of the lower sash, so as not to keep the sun from looking down, but to hinder the street from looking in. " The room has a lounge covered Avith the same material, and of construction such as you would find in the plainest house among the mountains. It looks as if it had been made by an author not accustomed to saAv or hammer, and in the interstices of mental work. On the wall are a few woodcuts in plain frames or pinned against the Avail; also a photograph of Mr. Carlyle taken one day, as his family told me, Avhen he had a violent toothache and could attend to nothing else. It is his favorite picture, though it gives him a face more than ordinarily severe and troui)le'=- 1-llar, who was w.ecked at Ven.o ,„ the middle of the last century, and IT "")"''" ^"f 'T° "^ ""^ 'l-cendants of the celeb ated Braggadoco Thundergusto, of the fourteenth century, was hard up for , ,ney, and must have a drink or die. but! n my diary this record- cZro'f f' 0"'; V" "'°'°°''' ^ ^^■' '" ""* National iTallery of Scotland, I first saw a Titian. "'July 9, 1870, at ten minutes to three o'clock, in the ^•:';""'"' fi""''-)- of Engfand, first saw a Murillo ■ .^enius Z"Z^ n "'"'""■'' " '""'"' ^"''j'™' '° «''" <>»<■ tl>e M T, ■ °l '"""'""■ °" ''''^'"■•"- ''"""■■'^ "'«y often lailed. Ihey knewnot,asdo the moderns, how to pluck up a plant from the earth and make it live on canvas! Del mo„,co, for the adornment of a shoulder of bacon, w th hta Imfc cuts out of a red beet a rose more natural tian the forget-me-not of old Sigisn,ond Holbein, or the lily by Lo h rush ouTf '^''ri""?" ■""■'"^ " ""■•-^y °f ^=""os "lat lush out from the bath-tub into the hall before their mo h,r has t,me to dress them. The masters failed w h " Mdle but shook the earth with a diapason. Give tl m I Cruc.S«on ■ or a ■Judgment,' and they triumph '• \. m r-ii M h il \ mil »B' t CHAPTER V. MY RETURN- TO AMERICA. [In company with Dr. Talmage, on board the "Gallia," up the Channel, he remarked to us that he had recently passed the steamship *' Greece," in which vessel he once encountered, with seven hundred other sc 'jund for New York. We had on board seven hundreds <;^'eW and passengers. We came together strangers — Englishmen, Irishmen, Italians, Swedes, Norwegians, American's. Two flags floated from the masts: British and American ensigns. So may they ever float, and no re'', liand of war ever snatch either of them down! In tbe f»a:ne prayer that we put up for our own national pro^psiity, we will send up the petition, ' God save the Queen!' We had a new vessel, or one so thoroughly remodeled that the voyage had around it all the uncertain- ties of a trial trip. The great steamer felt its way cau- tiously out into the sea. The pilot was discharged; and committing ourselves to the care of Him who holdeth tlio w^inds in His fist, we were fairly started on our voyage of three thousand miles. It was rough nearly all the way — the sea with strong bufft''.;ing disputing out path. But oiu; week ago last night, at 'eleven o'clock, after the lights had been put out, a cyclone — a wind just made to tear ships to LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TAL3IAGE, D.D. G3 pieces-caught us in its clutches. It came down so sud- denly that we had not time to take in the sails, or to fasten tiie hatches. You must know that the bottom of the Atlantic IS strewn with the ghastly work of cyclones Oj, ' they are cruel winds. They have hot breath, as thouwi they came up from infernal furnaces. Their merrimont\s the cry ot affrighted passengers. Their play is the founder- ing of steamers. And when a ship goes down they laugh until bo h continents hear them. They go in circles, or, as I describe them with my hand-rolling on! rolling on! With finger of terror writing on the white sheet of the wave this sentence of doom: * Let all that come within this circle perish! Brigantines, go down! Clippers, go down' Steamships, go down !' And the vessel, hearing the terrible voice, crouches in the surf, and as the waters gurgle through the hatches and portholes, it lowers away, thousands of fc^et down, further and further, until at last it strikes the bot tom; and all is peace, for they have landed. Helmsman dead at the wheel! Engineer, dead amid the extinguished furnaces! Captain, dead in the gangway! Passengers, dead in the cabin! Buried in the great cemetery of dead steamers, beside the «Cit; of Boston,' the ' Lexington,' the President,' the 'Cambria '-waiting for the aichan^el'! trumpet to split up the decks, and wrench open the cabin- doors, and unfasten the iiatches. "I thought that I had seen storms on the sea before; but all of them together might have come under one win.; of that cyclone. We were only ei<,ht or nine hun Jre.l mile's from home, and in high expectation of soon seeing our friends, for there was no one on board so poor as not to have a friend. But it seemed as if we were to be disap- pomted. The most of us expected then and there to die Ihere were none who made light of the peril, save two: one i , ■! l¥t\ '•' I I ! 'f 64 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. was an Englishman, and he was drunk, and the other was an American, and he was a fool! Oh! what a time it was! A night to make one's hair turn white. We came out of the berths, and stood in the gangway, and looked into the steerage, and sat in the cabin. While seated there, we heard overhead something like minute-guns. It was the bursting of the sails. We held on with both hands to keep our places, Those who attempted to cross the floor came back bruised and gashed. Cups and glasses were dashed to fragments; pieces of the table, getting loose, swung across the saloon. It seemed as if the hurricane took that great ship of thousands of tons and stood it on end, and said: 'Shall I sink it, or let it go this once?' And then it came down with such force that the billows trampled over it, each mounted on a fury. We felt that everything de- pended on the propelling screw. If that stopped for an instant, we knew the vessel would fall off into the trougli of the sea and sink; and so we prayed that the screw, which three times since leaving Liverpool had already stopped, might not stop now. Oh! how anxiously we listened for the regular thump, thump, thump of the machinery, u])on which our lives seemed to depend. After a while some one said: ' The screw is stopped! ' No; its sound had only been overpowered by the uproar of the tempest, and we breathed easier again when we heard the regular pulsations of the overtasked machinery going thump, thump, thump. At three o'clock in the morning the water covered the ship from prow to stern, and the skylights gave way! The deluge rushed in, and we felt that one or two more waves like that must swamp us forever. As the water rolled backward and forward in the cabins, and dashed against the wall, it sprang half-way up to the ceiling. Rush- ing through the skylights as it came in with such ter- ,MAGE, D.D. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 65 'Jv'^l nfic roar, there went up from the cabin a sliriek of horror .v^ich I pray God I may never hear again. I have drean"! the whole scene over again, but God ha. mercifully kept me from hearing that one cry. Into it seemed to be com- pressed the agony of expected shipwreck. It seemed to say: I shall never get home again! My children shall be orphaned, and my wife shall be widowed! I am launch- mg^now mto eternity! In two minutes I shall meet my "There were about five hundred and fifty passengers in he steerage; and as the waters rushed in and touched the furnaces, and began violently to hiss, the poor creatures in the steerage imagined that the boilers were giving way Those passengers writhed in the water and tn the mud some praying, some crying, all terrified. They made a rush' for the d.ck An oftic... stood on deck, and b fat them back Zt ^IZ '"• ^' ""^ "^^^^-^'^'-y- Tb«y could not have stood an instant on the deck. Oh! how they beg..ed to get out of the liold of the ship! One woman with a ^l^Id m her arms rushed up and caught hold of one of the officers andcriea:;Doletmeout! Iwillhelpyou! Do let me out! I cannot die here.' Some got down and prayed to the Vir- gin Mary, saying: 'O blessed Mother! keep us! Have mercy on us!' Some stood with white lips and fixed gaze, •OrT, T"\ '""^ ^^™^^ thei/ hands, and cried out, O God! what shall I do? what shall I do?' The time he cry of the oflicers was: 'IJelow! all hands below!' Our stli?ot c/'T't' ?P'""" ^-^— whose praise I shall not cease to speak while I live-had been swep by the wav n. ! • '^''^'"' '"'""''^ ^" «*^"^^ °" the deck, wavmg Its wmg, crying: < This ship is mine! I have cap! ■r i li i\li Ill 66 LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. turedit! Ha! lia! I will command it. If God will per- mit, I will sink it liere and now! By a thousand shipwrecks, I swear the doom of this vessel." There was a lull in the storm; but only that it might gain additional fury. Crash! went the life-boat on one side. Crash! went the life-boat on the other side. The great boomsi got loose, and as with the heft of a thunder-bolt, pounded the deck and beat the mast— the jib-boom, studding-sail boom, and square-sail boom, with Iheir strong arms, beatin^^ time to the awful march and music of tlie hurricane! "JNIean while the ocean became phosphorescent. The whole scene looked like fire. The water dripping from the rigging; there were ro])es of fire; and there were masts of fire; and there was a deck of fire. A ship of fire, sailing on a sea of fire, through a night of fire. O, my God! lermo never see anything like it again! "Everybody prayed. A lad of twelve years of age got down and prayed for his mother. * If I should give up,' he said, ' I do not know what would become of mother.' There were men who, I think, had not prayed for thirty years, who then got down on their knees. When a man who has neglected God all his life feels that he has come to his last time, it makes a very busy night. All our sins and shortcomings passed through our minds. My own lilV seemed unsatisfactory. I could only say ; ' Here Lord, t4e me as I am. I cannot mend matters now. . Lord Jesus, thou didst die for the chief of sinners. That's me! Into Thy hands I .mmit myself, my wife, and children at home, the Tabornacle, the College— all the interests of Thy kingdom. It s.ems, Lord, as if my work is done, and poorly done, and upon Thy infinite mercy I cast myself, and in tliis hour of shipwreck and darkness commit myself and her whom I hold by the hand to Thee, O Lord Jesus! praying VLMAGE, D.D. LIFE OP REV. T. DE ^VITT TALMAGE, D.D. 67 that it may be a short struggle in the water and tint .t tl, sa,ne n.stant we n.ay both arrive ingiory!' ' O - ,'0 " a man prays straight to the mark wlu-n l.n I " T ' wattliot the night, Jesus came walkiiumn ti.. r wave-cliff to wave-cliff- an,l J J, '"^ "" ^''« sea, from edn-P of r^ 1 .1 ^ ^^' ^^'^^'^^ with the know!- ef heaven cast before anod over the taffrail an before: 'Thy Avay, path in the great MPE OF REV. T. DE WITT TAUIAGE, D.D. •• ' Into the harhoi- of heaven now wo glide, llonio lit last! Softly wc drift on the bright silver tide, noineatJastl Glory to GodI All our dangers are o'er; VVe stand secure oi, the glorified shore Rl<'ry to GodI wo will shout evermore. Home at last! HomeatlMtl'" ao •ff of the storm and larkness will fold its the rising morn will md all the wrathful ito the splendors of The cyclone behind is always good, all w and the passengei-s vould have answered )as8, that wc all es- tnd my comrade^;, to t for the storm ami > Ilim now, and --eek all our Sabbatlis on 3Ugh the rich iiierey jave weathered the n m ^^mm ^^^^^^H'Hm !H^H ^■fl ^^^^H^DH ^^B^BB ^^^^^H 19 ^^^H^^^B BH jBH ^^^■.9 ^^^^^BimO ^^H HHHHI ;'/M MHBBMBMUBfM H^H ^^H ^H ^^^HHwH ^^1 ^^^H^^^^ tion in a mission Sunday-school. This school Avas organizc V n ,M„„j;|,i,y, E».|., at (l„. ronuT of Wil -Hp A «a,o of .„e Win..,,^;;^,™ , ; . Vl-f; fectod on January 24, ls.5:} j , , ' .,. ♦ i ' '> ^"^ "" ™aclo. It wa« place! at the corner of St and Nc v'^ streets ami wa, „|,c„cd f„, ,„„,„„ ,,„^,| ^^^ ™ four pews o„ the groun.l floor an.l fortylwo h, ,l,c I'Zi The o,l,fiec ha, a ba,cm„„t „,o full „i Jof tl,o Ini^t on „ decorated M-itl, a portico of ,l,c Grc-ian Tij ed fiee ,s now ocoup.od by the present Taben.aclo Congre gallon for the Sundaysebo,,!, ,),„ Lay Colle.>e prayer ":: ;:f „T' hf T" r'"'"- ^-^ »"- '■■■» a'.- ti: erection of this eburch considerable success attended tl,. muiistrafons of the Rev. Dr. Kookweli. In tbewitt of [■: : I I' Mi IS' M M| i , • i '^'' ^' i^H fll l^^^Hln 'mIi^H ]£■■■ Y2 TilFE OF UEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D.- 185r> an extensive revival occurred, during which a large number were added to the inemberslup. In the succeeding years a decline followed these succ(\sses. The great popu- larity and power of Rev. Dr. Cuyler, whoso church was so nearby, drew away numbers, and a want of interest began to tell sadly upon the condition of affairs in the Central Presbyterian (Church. The Rev. Dr. Rockwell continued or until 1 808, when he felt it to be his duty to resign. The churcli was without a minister for a year following, and during that time i^s members dwindled rapidly, untd, it is said, only nineteen persons had the courage to make an ef- fort to get a first-class minister and to resuscitate the church. Among those who did much to rouse the courage of this handful of faithful ones was Judge E. C. Con- verse, a gentleman of great faith, eloquence and influ- ence. He cast about him for a minister whose power as a preacher and a worker would build up the church. Through connections and acquaintances in the city of Philadelphia, the attention of Judge Converse was drawn to the then al- ready rising local fame of the Rev. T. De Witt Talmagc, then pastor of the First Reformed Church of that city. Mr. Converse determined on a vigorous effort to obtain Dr. Talmage as the minister of the Central Presbyterian Church. It seemed like a forlorn hoi)e that a i)ulpit oratoi-, whose fame was already beginning to fill the land, woul.l heed, much less accept, a call from a poor strugglinir church. Re the result what it might, Judge Converse felt that the needs of the Central Presbyterian Church dc- nandcd the liighest effort, and, besides, he felt that the rising preacher could win a noble fame, and do as glorious a work in P>rooklyn as anvwherc else. Emboldened by tli.> faithful Judge Converse, his associates commissioned him to 1>« the bearer of a call to Dr. Talmage. It did iu)t damp which a large tlie succccJinj^ 'ho great poj)!!- ) churc'li was so ' interest begun in tlic Central ;well eontinned to resign. The • following, and (idly, until, it is to make an ef- resuseitate the use the courage ge E. C. Con- MJce and influ- ose power as a uireh. Through if Philadelphia, I to the then al- Witt Tahnagc, h of that city, effort to obtain \\ Presbyterian t, a j)ul})it orator, the land, wotiid )oor struggiitiii: ro Converse fi'lt an Church de- he felt that the [I do as glorious boldened by (lit' minissioned liiin It did not danqt LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 73 the ardor of his hopes to find when he reached tl Dr. Talmage that four other calls, lacked 1^ ence and ])ower, were already ahead of that whidi 1 One was from a leading church in San 1 was from Uoston, and another from CI _.. Smith, the present editor-in-chief of the " I »e home of >y great intlu- of the committee from that city, wl Dr. Talmage. Now that tl le hure. 'rancisco, another liicago, and II. JVI. 'nion," was one »o carried that (;all to lat gentleman, whose leission at isappointineiit, iias, like I the time resulted oidy in keen d Dr. Talmage, beeonu; a resident of Uro'oklyn, and iilen'tifi with its material and rel , , , . '.in""« niterests, he is no doubt abundantly satished with the choice of the calls then made Dr. Talmage has told to a few friends wl contending influence! Kcntation of those five call lat strui^nflc of was i)ro(luced in his mind by the j )re- s, and the beseeching cry imt to leave them set up by the church in the midst of Avas so hai)pi!y situated, and by which 1 beloved. After repeated le was so «r which he really ■peated jirayer for three days, he decided in tavor of Brooklyn. The moment he made and announced his decision his "Mnd grew at ease, and though many of his congregation <-ame to him with tears in their eyes to induce him to change his determination, he never wavered, as he saw his way clear. His first sermon under his present pastorate jvas preached on March 7, 18(10, from the text, 'Cod is ove.' ir,s fame as a preacher had preceded him to lirook- lyn, and from the very first every service he conducted was largely attended. IJcfore the close of his first year the H'Mrch saw that it would be necessary to construct a laim-r MHlding to accommodate the crowds who flocked to hear luni. Ihe work of building a new edifice was begun in .luneof the following year, 1870, and completed in three months. This rapidity of construction was duo to a re- ! \i m n : 1 'Iv, f' n i I r f I iff ' ' m f ;l Wl i H LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. markable peculiarity of design from an original plan made and elaborated by Dr. Talmage himself. The principal idea was that of a half-circle auditorium, with the platform placed midway between the two ends of the arc connecting the extremes of the semi-circle, and the passage-ways or aisles radiating out from the platform, and the floor rising from the platform outwardly. The construction of the building was also unique and peculiar. A rough wooden frame formed the exterior outline of the building. This frame was inclosed by strips of corrugated sheet iron so lapped as to form a continuous covering. The frame being covered in this way, both on the inside and the outside, gave to the structure the appearance of one-half of an iron cylinder set on end. The roof over the structure was sup- ported by a scries of eight pillars extending in serai-circular form along a radius drawn parallel to the outer radius, and about half-way from the platform to the main entrance. The organ, a splendid one by Hook of Boston, who built the Plymouth Church organ, was, as in the present Tab- ernacle, placed at the back of the platform, and the organ- ist's bank of keys and pedals Avere situated immediately in front of the platform. This new style of church auditorium was not only original with Dr. Talmage, but it was revolutionary in character. It upset the whole previous theory of church architecture and church seating. The superior acoustic properties of buildings thus internally arranged, and the advantages they possess in the matter of obtaining a good view of the speaker, were soon rendered so apparent that the style has since become exceedingly and deservedly popular. Mujiy new churches have since adopted this plan. Among them maybe mentioned the Central Congregational (Rev. Di-. Scudder's), and the younger Dr. Tyng's Church, LIFE (Ji' KEY. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. at Forty-second street and Madison avenue, New York. A church is now being built at Toronto, which is a perfect fac-simile of the present Tabcniaclc. The okl Tabernacle had no gallery. It had seats for two thousand nine hundred persons, and by bringing in camp- stools three thousand four hundred persons could be seated in it. During its construction Dr. Talniage was allowed leave of abserce to visit Europe. He was escorted down the bay on the day of his departure by a large number of his congregation, and anu»ig the last sounds borne on his ears, as the escort-boat turned to go back to JJrooklyn, were cheers for the Tabernacle, which the congregation had })romised to have ready against his return. The con- gregatioji -loLly redeemed their i.k'dge; the old Tabernade was completed early in September, is 70, and dedicated on Sunday, the 26th of tl- same nu^nth. The dedication ser- mon was preached by Dr. Talmage himself, in the presence of about four thousand people. Amcuig the ministers who assisted on the occasion were the Rev! Messrs. Lockwood, Edward Egglcston, D.D., Calium, P.utler, and Taylor! The text of the sernujii was Luke xiv. L'.'J, ' Compel them to come in.' From that time on, the history of the church was a constant series of successes. Many things about its edifice and its church management were regarded as experi- ments, and yet all of them iiad the happiest results. Beside the innovation of the church structure itself, Dr. Talmage set aside the practice of choir-singing, so much then in vogue, and insisted that all theChunh music in the Tabernacle should be exclusively congregational. He also enunciated the principle of free pews, and carried it into practical effect. THE OLD TABEKNAOI.E EXLARGED. During the following year the old Tabernacle was en- larged by an addition which increased its sitting capacity 'I ,'mHI HI il -. t m ,i'i m 1 1 lli' TG LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. about five hundred. It was re-dedicated on Sunday, Sep- tember 10, 1871. The dedication sermon was preached by the venerable Rev. Dr. Steplien H. Tyng; the Kev. Ur. Iren«us S. Prime, of the New York "Observer," and the Kev. J. Hyatt Smith, assisted at the service. The Rev. ]>. I. Ives, of the ]\Iethodist Church, made an appeal for pecuniary aid, and succeeded in obtaining pledges of sixteen thousand dollars towards the removal of the debt. At that time the whole cost of the edifice, including the organ, was about eighty thousand dollars, nearly all of which Avas paid, or pledged to be paid, by responsible members of the church. On a certain Saturday afternoon, a few days antecedent to Christmas of 1872, the church session uiet at the residence of ]\[ajor B. R. Corwin, and having settled up the finances for the ye.ar,se])arated, congratulating themsejves that they had passed through a series of glorious successes. t;ii: <)I.!> rAiiKUNAci.K iu'Rxi:i>. As the menibt'i-i of tlie Tabernacle congregation were l)rei)aring to assemlile for worship on Sunday morniug, December 22, ISTJ, ihey were startled and saddened at finding their ]io;ise eiivelo])e(l in fiames. At half-past ten, the time (»f co-nmcnclng service, the building was falling in ruins bt-fore their eyes. The fire broke out in less than an hour before, but so rapid was its progress that in thirty minutes the entire edifice was involved and doomed to destruction, despite the elforts of the firemen. The intelligence of thedisaster spread rapidly over the city, and immediately expressions of sym])athy flowed in from othei- churches to the houseless congrega- tion. Ten of them offered their own edihces to the Taber- nacle peoj)le for services in the afternoon and evening, in- u > oration were LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 77 ohuling Plymouth Church, the Classon, Clinton and Lafav^ ette Avenue Churches, the Ehn Place Cono-ro^utional, tho i-irst and becond Presbyterian, two IJapti.st, and one Meth- odist Church. The invitation of Mr. Beecher's church vvaa accepted, and the congregation attended services there iu the evennig, the occasion drawing a crowded audience Tho pastor, Rev. T. De Witt Talmagc, preached the sennon he liad intended for the morning, alluding first, as follows, to the event of the day: "In the village where I once lived, on a cold night, there was a cry of fire. House after house was consumed But there was in the village a large hospitable dwelliiur, and as soon as the people were burned out they came into this common center. The good man of the house stood at the door and said, ' Come in,' and the little children as they were orought to the door, some of them wrapped in blankels and shawls, were taken up to bed, and the old people that came in from their consumed dwell inch's were seated around the fire. And the good man of the bouse told them that all would be well. This is a very cold day to be burned out. But we come into this hospitable home to night, and gather around this great warm fire of Chris- iian kindness and love, and it is good to be here The Lord built the Tabernacle and the Lord let it burn down Blessed be the name of the Lord! We don't feel like sit- ting down m discouragement, although the place was very dear. Our hearts there were filled with comfort ; and to us many a time, did Jesus appear-IIis face radiant as the sun' 1 o-day, when Christian sympathy came in from Plymouth ( hurch, and from ten other churches of the city, all offer- ing tlKur houses of worship to us, I must sav I was deeply moved. Tell me not that there is no kindness between rhurches, or that there is no such thing as Christian l.rother- mi Ik M • C ( '' 9 78 LIFE '; Kjav. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. hood. Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love!" A. CARD FROM DR. TALMAGE I'O THK " CHRISTIAN ACxE,'' (-ONDON. " Our Free Tabernacle is in ruins. We do not feel as if our work is yet done. We want u place to preach and hoar the old-fashioned gospel of pardoi> ;\nd help i\>r all nu-ii, through Jesus. We have during the past two years builf the Tabernacle and sustained the Lay f^'ollegc. Jlence, v\ e have !:',< fmancial strength !eft to meet this disaster. I jisk the people, Nor^h, South, East and West, who lovo tlie cause of God, to i^-lp -.v out of tijis misforttine. " We want large help, a'sd wo want it immediately. "T. De Witt Talmagk.' That the readers of the Christian Age promptly and gen- erously responded to this appeal will be seen by the follow- ing letter; A LETTER FROM DR. TALMAGE. I7i acknoioledgment of the contributions from the readov of the Christian Age toioards the erection of the Nevi Tab- ernacle: "Brooklyn, April 23, 187:? " My dear Mr. Dickinson: "I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you, and the readers of the ' Christian Age,' for the very handsome con- tribution just received from you towards the rebuildinif of our Tabernacle. My congregation feel your kindnet-s vi ry much. Convey to all our transatlantic friends our thanks and love; and tell them if they ever have a big fire ovir there, to let us know. " The rebuilding haa'already begun, and we shall have a church by the latter part of next September very mucij • LIFK OF UEV. T. Ml WITT llLMAGE, D.D. 79 learts in Cliristian CHRISTIAN AGE,' April 23, 1873 /arger than beforo— liolla/,ing church. People "who had given until they deeply felt it, saw all the results of their benevo- lence going down into ashes, and, on that cold morning, the tears froze c;i the checks of God's j)Cople as they saw they were being burned out. Brooklyn Tabornaelo is gone I T!ie i)l;'.tf(i:i!i on which it was my joy to stand with messages of salvation; the pews in which you listened and prayed, and wept and rejoiced; the altars around Avhich you and your children were consecrated in baptism; the communion- table where we celebrated the Havior's love — all that scene which to us was the shining gate of heaven, is gone! I will not hide the loss. If I ever forget the glorious Sab- baths Avo spent there, and the sweet reunions, and the mighty demonstrations of God's spirit among the people, may my right hand forget hercunning, and my soul be left desolate! But we have not come liere to sound a dirge. 'All things work together for good to them that love God.' Sorrows are loathsome things, but they are necessary. They are leeches that suck out the hot inflammation from the soul. ' Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' I could cover up all this place ■s/ith promises of liope and peace, and comfort and deliver- ance. Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reignetl,. "I am here to-night not to preach a formal sermon, but to tell you of some things that last Sabbath were nut burned up. " First, the spirit of Christian brotherhood was not con- sumed. You never greeted the members of our church with such cordiality as this week on the street, in cars, and on the ferries. You stood on no cold formalities. Tlie people who during the last two years sat on the other side LMAGE, D.D. IJFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 81 of the aisle, whoso faces were familiar to you, but to wl.om you had never si^oken, you greeted them this week with smiles and tears, as you said: ' Well, the old place is gone.' You did not want to seem to cry, and so you swept the sleeve near the corner of the eye, and j.retended it m... fl.o sharp wind that made your eyes weak. Ah! there Avas nothing the matter with your eyes; it was your soul Ijub- hling over. T tell ycu that it is impossible to sit for two or three years around the same church fireside and not have sympathies in common. Somehow you feel that you would like those peoi>le on the other side of the aisle, about whom you know but little, prospered and pardoned, and blessed and saved. You feel as if you are in the same boat, and you want to glide up the same liarbor, and want to disem- bark at the same wharf. If you put gold and iron and lead and zinc in sufficient heat, they will melt into a conglom- erate mass; and I really feel that last Sabbath's fire has fused us all, grosser and finer natures, into one. It seems as if we all had our liands on a wire connected with an electric battery, and when this church sorrow started, it thrilled through the whole circle, and we all felt the sho'ck. The oldest man and the youngest child could join liands in this misfortune. Grandfather said : ' I expected from those altars to be buried;' and one of the children last Sabbath cried: 'Idon'tAvant the Tabernacle to burn, I have been there so many times.' You may remember that over the organ we had the words: ' One Lord, one faith, one bap- tism.' That was our creed. Well, that is all burned down, hut the sentiment is engraved with such durability in our soul that no earthly fire can scorch it, and the flames of the judgment-day will have no poAver to burn it. "Another thing that did not burn up is the cross of Christ. That is used to the fire. On the dark day when i ]■' I I tf 1-1 I '%-'J>z ,p-^ I ? )'■( 82 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. .Tosns (lied, the ligl'tr'u^ ..i.nok it from abo,o, and the riaiues of hell (l:i«'i '1 uji ar'.riusc it from benoath. That tearful, painful, tender, blessed cross still stands. On it we hang all our hopes; beneath it we put down all our sins; in the light of it we expect to make the rest of our pilgrim- age. Within sight of such a sacrifice, who can feel he has it hard? In the sight of such a ><• ' ' 'o can be dis- couraged, hoAvever great the darkness that may come down upon him? Jesus lives ! The loving, patient, sympathizing, mighty Jesus ! It shall not be told on earth, or in hell, or in heavei., that three Hebrew children had the Son of God beside tl.em in the fire, and that a whole church was fur- sak i by the Lord when they went through a furnace one hundred and fifty-three feet front by one hundred deep. O Lord Jesus ! shall we take out of Thy hand the flowers, and the fruits, and the brightness, and the joys, and then turn away be; ause Thou dost give i s one cup of bitterness to drink? Oh ! no, Jesus, we will drink it dry. But ho' it is changed ! Blessed Jesus, what hast thou put into the cup to sweeten it ? Why, it has become t he wine of heaven, and our souls grow strong. I come down to-night, and place both of my feet deep down into the blackened ashes of our consumed church, and I cry out with an exhiliration that I never felt since the day of my soul's emancipation: ' Victory ! victory ' through our L< d Jesus Christ. " 'Your iiarps, ye trembling saints, Down from the willows take; TiOud to th praise of Love divine Bid CVP'T string awak>. . "I remark, again, that the catholicity of the Christian churches has not been burned up. \V o are in the Acadoiu) to-day, not because we have ;i othr place to go. L.ist Sabbath morning, at nine o'clock ^e 1 but one ch ireh; LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. 83 now we liavo twenty-five at our disposal. Their pastors and their trustees sny: ' Vou m.ay take our main au- dience-rooms, you n.ay take our lecture-rooins, you may take our church parh)rs, you may hapti/e in our bajx tistenes, and sit on our anxious seats.' OIi! if there bo any hirger-heartod ministers or larger-hearted churches anywhere than in Brooklyn, tell me where they are, that I may go and see them before I die. The millen- nium has come. I'cople keep wondering when it is coming It has come. The lion and the lamb lie down together, and the tiger eats straw like ai. ox. I should like to have seen two of the old-time bigots with t ' ir swords fighting through that great tire on Schermerhorn street last Sabbath. I am t,ure the swords would have melted, and tluy who wielded them Avould have learned war no more. I can never say a M'ord against any other denomination of Christians. I thank God I never have been tempted to do it. I eaimot be a sectarian. I have been told I ought to be, and I have Tied to be, but I have not enough material in mo to make mch a structure. Every time I get the thing most done, ilic' comes a fire, or something else, and all is gone Th. angels of God sing out on this Christmas air: HJlory to (}od in 1 highest, and (fti earth peace, good will toward men.' I do i,..t Wmk the day is far distant when all the diiTerent branches of the Presbyterian Church will be one, and all the different branches of the Methodist Church will he one, and all the different branches of the Episcnal Chm-ch will be one. I do n(n know, l)ut I see on the ri- zon the first gleain of the morning which shall unite all evangelical denominations in one organization; churches distmguished from each other, not by a variety of creeds but difference of locrality, as it was in the tine of the Apostles. It was then the Church of Thyatira, and the 'l ll ■i f f } i I • I I I '-^>. 'Oh!' you say, ' my father that went into glory nmst have set that light in the window.' No, guess atain My mother, who ,licd tilt.en years ago in Jesus, I ndnk must Inne set that light there.' Xo, guess again. You say: 'My darh g little child that last summer I put awav «>r the resurrection, I think she must have set that licW.t iH.re m the wuulow.' No, guess again. Josus set it th^re, and le will keep .t bunung until the day we put our liuger on he latch of the door, and go in to be at home forever Oh when my sight gets black in death, put ou my eyelids that sweet omtment. When in the last weariness I cannot 1 1' 4 I \. 86 LIFE OP KEV. T. DE AVITT TALMAGiE, D.D. take another stop, just hclj) iiu' to j)ut my foot on that door-sill. \Vh('n my civrcatchos no ]noro the voices of wife and child, let nie go right in to liavo my deafness cured hy the stroke of the harjters, Avhose lingers lly over the strings Avith the anthems of the free. Heaven never burns down ! Tlio fires of the hist day, that are already kindled in the heart of the earth, hut are hidden because (}od keeps down the hatches — those internal iires will after a Avhile break tliough tlie crust, and the ])lains and the mountains and the seas will be consumed, and the flames will fling their long arms into the skies, but all the terrors of a l>urning world will do no more barm to that heavenly tem])le than the fires of the setting sun which kindle up the window glass of the house on yonder hill-top. Oh, blessed land ! IJut I do not want to go there until T see the llrooklyn Taber- nacle rebuilt. You say, ' Will it be ?' You might as well ask nie if the sun will rise to-morrow morning, or if the next spring will i)ut garlands on its head. You and I may not do it — you and I may not live to see it; but the Church of God does not stand on two legs nor a thousand legs. I am here to tell you that among the things not burned u]) is our determination, in the strength and help of God, to go forward. " Vou say: 'Whore are you going to got the moans? ' Don't know. The buildint'' of tu.i Tabernacle within two years, and then an enlargement, at groat ex'])onse, within that same time, and the establislniient and the maintenance of th') Lay C\)llege, have taken most of our funds. Did I say just now that T did not know where the fuiuls arc to come from? I take that back. I do ! I do ! from the hearts of the (christian peo})le, and the lovers of the cause of morality, all over this land. 1 am sure they w ill he!]) us, and avo shall go on, and the new structure shall rise. UFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, h.D. 87 How did the Israelitos got tbroiigli tlu; Rod 8oaV I sup. pose somebody may huvo como and .sai.]: ^Thovo is no mZ] of trying; yoti will get yo„r feet wot, you will sp,.il yon,- clothes, you will drown yoursolvos. AVh„ over hoard of getting through such a ,soa as that?' How di.l thov rret through it? Did they go back V No! Did t hoy go to the right ? No ! Did they go to the loft ? No - Thov went forward in the strength of the Lord Almightv, and that IS the way we mean to get through t he Ro rjt :•.:. "ft : ^i:': !! ♦ a „• „fi ^^■1^":> n^y^r*; Iq-nH k b8 LIVE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. if tho people North, South, East and West will help us, we shall build on a largei'' scale, and the hundreds and thou- sands who have wanted to bo with us, but could not, shall h,i\ e room for themselves and families, where they may come and be comforted in their sorrows, and by the grace of the Lord Jesus, find out tlic way to heaven. Do you tell me that the human voice cannot reach more people than Ave used to have there ? It is a mistake. I have been wearing myself out for the last two years in trying to keep my voice in. Give me room where I can preach the glories of Christ and the grandeurs of heaven. " The old iron-clad has gone down by a shot midships. We will build next time of brick. Tlie buiidiiig shall be amphi theatrical in shape; it shall be very large; it shall be very plain. Whether the material will be any better than the one used in the old structure, I cannot say, for there are four things that God has demonstrated within a short time are not lire proof. One is corrugated iron; witness the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Another is brick; Avitness the fire last week in Centre street, New York. Another is Joliet stone; witness Chicago. Another is Quincy granite; wit- ness Boston. Why, Avhen (iod rises up to burn anything, a stone Avail is shavings. Hear that, O you men who are building on nothing but earthly foundations. The j)eopI(' will rise up, and all our frie.uls North, South, East and West, who have been giving us their sympathies, Avill Iriuis- late their sympathies and their 'God bless you's' into * greenbacks,' and next Avinter the people will cry out : ' Tlie glory of the second temple is greater than the first.' "There Avas a king of olden time v.ho prided himself on doing that which his peo])le thought inij)ossible; and it ought to be th.e joy of the Christian Church to accomplish that Avhich the Avorld thinks cannot be done. t'if LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 89 " But I want you to know that it will require more prayer than we have ever offered, and more hard work than wc have ever put forth. JMero skirmishing around the morcy- seat will not do. We have gut to take the kin^^dom of heaven hy violence. We have ^nt to n.arch o„, i.reakin.^ down all bridges behind ns, making retreat impossihl' Throw away your knapsack if it in.pe.les y.u.r march" Keep your sword-arm free. Strike Cur Christ a.M His kingdom while you may. Xo people ever had a bettc- mis' sion than you are sent on. J>rove yourselves worthy If I am not fit to bo your leader, set mo aside. The bri-rhtest goal on earth that I can think of is a country parsona^re amid the mountains. IJut I am not afraid to lead you "l have a few hundred dollars, tlu.y are at your re sung, and the prayers there offered, and the sermons there preached' Good-bye, old place, where some of us first felt the Gospel ffa fi hrn •^^^•■^^v 90 LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. peace, and otheis beard the last message ere tliey fled away into the skies! Good-bye, Brooklyn Tabernacle of 1870! "But welcome our tk-w eburch (I see it as plainly as though it were already built)! Your walb firmer; your gates wider; your songs more triumphant; your ingatherings more glorious. Rise out of the ashes, and greet our wait- ing vision. Burst on our souls, O day of our church's res- urrection! By your altars, may we be prepared for the hour when the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. Welcome, Brooklyn Tabernacle of 1873! " 7-mf. I'l. ! CHAPTER Vir. THE NEW TABERXACLE. UNDiSMArED by the loss, uliilo the sirioko of the n.ini was yet arising, measures were adopted for the erection of a new Tabernacle, and for raising funds for that purpose. The sympathy of the surrounding congregations was warm and hearty, ^i o congregation sought a"tcnii)()rary home m the Academy of Music, und for fourteen months they worshiped there. The very first service was preccU-.l by a prayer-meeting held in the directors' room of the Aca.lemy, followed by a general prayer-meeting at the close of the sermon. Iliesi^ prayer-meef ings Mere i.rominent features of religious worship as conducted by Dr. Talmage during the time he occui)ied the Ac.-idemy of Music, und are stiii continued. Architect John Welsh was called upon to furnish plans for the new Tabernacle. He emphatically made it a labor of love, and set himselC studiously to the task of evolving designs, which, while th.-y carried out the main features of the old Tabernacle, would introduce many improvemciits. That he succeeded most admirably in the universal venlict of all who have visited the new Tabernacle. The corner- stone of the new edifice was laid June, 1^3, in the j.resence of a great crowd of jn'ople. The services were conducted by the Rev. Dr. Prime, of the Pi-esbyterian Church: Rev. Dr. Dowling, of the Haptist Cluircb; and the Rev. Dr. Ward, of the Congr-'gational Church. Th.e erection of the building was puslireople came in from all ranks and conditions, and, in looking over the audience to-day, I cannot see more than four or five families who were with us six years ago. Some of them have been advanced into the better society of heaven, while some of them dropped oif because they thought we were goin^r too fast and they could not keep up. We went on gatherinn- the people in from all ranks and conditions, until we have here to-day the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant; those who toil with pen, with printing-press, with yard- stick, and with hammer. Enough physicians— allopathic homa3opathic, hydropathic, and eclectic— to treat us in all our disorders. Enough lawyers to defend us in all our legal contests. Enough artists to cover our walls with pictures. Enough merchants to give us the necessary fabrics, whether foreign or domestic. Enough mechanics to build and polish, and make comfortable for us our residences And I will say that never did there come together in one church * crowd of more genial, intelligent, sympathetic, r I ■* . f: ? I fsk- l^nm 90 LIFE OF BEV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. enthusiastic, and warm-lioartod Cliristian people than those wliich assemble liere. We are all of one mind and heart. We cordially grc. t, all who come, and give a God-speed t- of God, and with the blessing of all denominations of Christ- ians in this land and in Great Britain; and since we have been here the Lord has mightily blessed us, j)ouring out His Spirit from Sabbath to Sabbath, so that I can ask yon, well knowing what your answer will be, Avhethcr you have made any too great sacrifices for Christ and His kingdom ? During these six years the Lord has sorely tried us; in tlio first place, by calling us to build a church with a new con- gregation that had not at all been consolidated; then by the demolition of that building; then by taking us a mile \LMAGE, D.D. ) that I can ask V' urn OF HEV T. DE WITT Ivr.MAOE, U.U. ,; olT fn„„ tho con.or „f „ur .■.,„gr.gati„„, ,„ woH.ip i„ an- ,.utl,„g ,„, . „» l,uil,li„g ,,un„g a fi„.„Ki„l .U.,,„.,.i „ J, ..Y'-vcr before afflic.e,! ,l,is eoun.r.v. If ( „.l ,..,1 Wpcl the „„.|„fe,.,, a,„l l,el,„.,, the tr„,.ee,, a,„l h ll severance and sacrifices of the eongrcration I „ , God .jelongs the glory. „„ ,.h c", 11:^:21, ,„,;;,: t pcrfee ,„_aeo„,,ties; raising n.oney for the huililing 1 of tie very jaws of a national panic; filling the hoesc with '"rsh.pers. O, ht us praise IIi,„ „„w ah.l I., llini fniovn- T '"" ""w and let us i)raiBo '"'" '°'"7- , ' ^'^y >■"" '"■'■■ «"> "orry f„r any of the sacri- flees or to,l, through which yon havj gone. We Hve Ir 1 so perpetually the blessing of Go., i,r this c urel , a 'u oxctes no ren,ark when from a single service hun r s o souls step ont i„,o ,he kingdom of Jesns. Th "e ar^ in ahnost all the towns an.l cities of this country ,llo7e i" dents who .n th,s building first woke up ,„ tllir iW, , i nccess,.,es Letters come from north iud sou. nd west, frou. the Cana.las, an.l fro.u both sidcV te hug me of .h,s fact, O that to-day we u.ight n,ak som c fittmg e.xprcssK,„ to the Lord! Shall i, be i,rcarvc.l „w ^ nponthe pillars y «„„„ ,-, ,,„ ,, „,,^,^,,,^ upo , l; ' Shall ,t be „, the organ's open diapason? A th.ti,,:;,' l...trath..rletitbe that our hearts shall rise ,„ , ,.Ti , ^ ntense a,u all-conqncriug acclamation of , , k , ..t" a .U r,rr'" "° '" '""""•'" •■' "-"-''alanccl S "h' ::;tt:roid::A; ™^^ ohnrch When the old peopLI;;^. ^ 'C 'l .' ^Lf;; when the young people have all the management 7, ft ' one ease the church will g„ on too slow, inlhc olr it wiu iit ' • r.if ' li! :l^ k( MICROCOPY RESOl'JTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. i, 1.0 I.I 1.25 1 4.5 15.6 US us ^ IIIIIM IM III Z2 ■ 3.6 lis^ 140 mil 2.0 1.4 i.8 1.6 A x^PPLIED IN/MGE Inc 1653 East Main Street Rochester, New i-ork 14609 (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone (716) 288- 5989 -Fax USA 98 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. go too fast. We want the fast men to keep the slow men from going too slow, and tlie slow men to koop the fast peoj)le from going too fast. Here are many of the aged. U'liey have (^omo down to us from another day. Not on their brow the snows of many winters, as people often say, hut the white crocuses of an everlasting spring-time in»o which they are about to blossom. And how many of tlio young coming to us kSabbath by Sabbath! We want them all equipped for God, We want them for flyii'.g artillery in a double-(piick march. When there is a storming ])arty to be made up, we want to wheel them into line — old men for counsel, young men for action. " We are also trying to maintain a musical church. Wo have an inborn antipathy to anything like stilted and precise song in the house of God. We like orato- rios, orchestras, concerts, and prima donnas in their places; but we want vociferous singing in the house of the Lord. David cries out; 'Sing aloud unto God.' In other words, do not hum or mumble it. O for an anthem strong enough to surge the whole audience on the beach of heaven! Persuaded that we could not do the work so well by the use of a choir, we have called into the service of the church two Bible instruments — the organ and the cornet, and so the music of the church has been sustained, and led, ami developed. O what grand and glorious singing we have had during the past years; oven people who had bronchitis forgetting their infirmity, and lifting aloud their voice bo- fore God; people who could not sing a note opening their mouth, reckless as to what kind of a sound came out of it; but the little discord is overwhelmed in the great symphony — a chirp drowned in the great rush of waters. And yet we feel this morning that we have not done what we might, or ought, or will do, in this department of Christian service. :almage, d.d. We n-ant more lioart i.n.Ior it more «„„r ,i want ,!,„ „.l,„l„a„.lic„<.„ ,„; ?,;,"""" 'I""."- "'•■ Wo want tl,e ,,c.„,,lo to <■„„ r ., """"' "' "''"'■■'■• «'"■■ I'V , .0 want tlu,„ , , , T^Z "'"'" "'"'"""<■<■ airstretcli thomsolvus „„.„ , " " '. "'" '"nirt cm tl.o "!:■ wore stntuK.,,, an. .n;;,:;;: >,;■«; -^^^ «eo.K],Osongofheavon! ^^^^^' ^ ^"''g oi earth! De- "Still further: we are trvinr, f^ • • . • . tain anyXe^; ,lr !^\«'!'^'-^-T- Why buiid or nralu- to go to the l.use of God on ctabl nth J ^ "T ''''''' than enough? If vou ,,,, J ^f I"*''^^''"^"^^ P^''-''ap« more "ni'ino, no?hin/diffe ., " ""^ particular, nothing ''^•"^''•'^••^^ -^'^" nenspapers and of h? ? ' "''' '^^•'^•^^''^"Ited <.f nuny I pel s, and of the outside world, who eannot understand vi 1 \: ''-! i i I I jlll |i tj i ■j " 1 ii f'i |h f 1 i • : 100 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAQE, D.D. its policies and its principles, stand clear of this church. We mean until the day of our death, and for a few days after, to keep society stirred up by the discussion of themes vital to its interests, and vital to ine interests of the imniortai soul. During the past six montlis theatrical people have been after us, and the Spiritualists have been after us, and the Unitarians have been after us, and the Universal- ists Jiave been after us — one of their prominent men recently saying that he did not think there Avould be any hell except for one man, and that the pastor of the Brooklyn Taber- nacle! But still we go on, as God gives us strength, and health, and spirit to do His will. We have only taken, as it were, the outside casement of this great rampart of in- iquity. On! on! 'If God be for us, wh( can be against us?' " Still further: we are trying here to maintain a generous church. We have as a church been able to do but little for outside charities, for the reason that we have been all tliu time building churches or enlarging them. Bit we are trying to maintain an organism on the voluntary principle. We believe that a church can be educated up to the 'liiiy and the joy of giving. AVe put no nremium on iinaiuial meanness. We believe that peoV' ight to give to die cause of God every farthing they eau })ossibly give. 'Mow- oxer, we believe that all can give sonu thing, and that the vast majority of the people could give more in our clunvhes than they do and be better off. We believe that the graini- est investment a man ever makes for this Avorld, or tlie world to come, is what he gives to the Church of (Jod, since Christ pays him back five-fold, ten-fold, fifty-fold, a hundred-fold. In other words, we believe that a man is better off in tliis world if he is generous, and Avell-off just in proportion as be is generous; and we believe that thusu TALMAQE, D.D. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D, ,01 -tun, to t„;e tftir; ,;::?' f ;•;'';■'• ^"" ■' ""»" takes tho olJ UiUo priudl;,' • ''^'''"■^' 'f a "'a,, not g ve him I l,oIi,.,-n J^^nglaiul can- tott,o.ti;e'.:^!;r'^:Hr^^;crr'^n-'"''"'' ran bo so built o, a l,,-..e s • • f ■ '"^^''"'""l«t men '.'"^ ove,Mu.i,. ,,,.o;e;;;r;:riw .r-/;:,,;''^'^ "•"' '-vanl» tl,o .,,i,.itu.,, o„l„„,. .,;';. l,^" ^Zr ■"""''' iiHich towards the snirif,,.,! i. . ^ ^vill guo so give so m„el, tow ^l T f '7 '•'"''''■'•"• ' «'" am giving to Clnist who gave eve i, ,""""' "T ""' ' wore five hnnd,.,, thonsam 1^ ' ^ :^' '" r'' ' :^f '^ that the time will en,„„ „ . , ' ""' "™ '"'lieve thi. matte,- of CiZ ''•"'"° "''" '"' «" «'"<'at«l in '■y "hat other' ri::r:'>;;''- "t"-"' -^ "<■'■' « churehes, thev .slnl .n>°e , '"'"''''■■ »"'■' ''" """■r 'i""of telK^ij;a^\, ';•;■'''•''■';» '" •l'-'-"»na,,,„e,.ia. "'«"ihere. I really ihink that if those old Jews gave one-tenth for their half-and-half advantages, we ought to give one-fifth for the glorious privileges°which God in this day lias bestowed upon us. We talk a great deal about the evangelization of this world and the salva- tion of men; but there is more talk than contribution, and I do not believe that the prayer of a man for the salvation of this world ever amounts to anything unless he by his own generosity shows that he is in earnest in the matter. I like the style of Elias Van Bendeschatten, the old man who came into a meeting of the General Synod of the Kc- formed Church in 181-t, and after there had been a great many long and brilliant speeches made about the education of young men to the ministry, got up and said he would like to speak. The people looked chagrined. They thou-ilit to themselves: 'He can't speak.' 'Mr. President, 1 will give eight hundred and forty dollais in cash towards thai object, and thirteen thousand dollars in bonds.' And then sat down. While the theory is abroad in many of the churches that men give only as they are compelled to give, I believe that the people can be educated up to a graii.l and glorious voluntary contribution for the supjiort of the TALMAGE, t>.D. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TAI.MAGE, T>.D. m o::;i;::K^;c;;;z:i:;;.:i::;™;,i'7.;' "-t an opportunity of c JLt , . '"'"' T"!"'. ''"''"'■" """■' not the courage to ca ,, t 2. T '' '""'"'"''■' ""'J'''"'' suspipion that if ov... ,T ' ' ' """■' "'•'"■< 'l'" vi h ; ";, : "'j'-'^s'^" "> 5»", a,„. ...at ,„„ , ;„ ,i r ft I Ifif F .. f ." Ill- '^■■' 1- 'i i I ' i ^fWj r ! -,; . u t jffc' ' ! fW-p-' 104 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. pay any attention to those who have entered into the kincf- (lom of God and have really become Christians?' ]\Iy theory is, the way to develop a man for this world, and for the world to come, is to throw him chin deep in Christian work, and if after a man lias been drawn out of the miro of his sin on to the * Rock of Ages,' he wants to jump back, then he will have to jump; I am not going to stand and watch liim ! I believe the great work of the Christian Church is to bring men out of their sin into the hope and the joys of Christ's salvation, and then if with all the ad- vantages of this century, with open Bible and the constant plying of the Holy Ghost, a man cannot grow in grace, he is not worth a great deal of culture. We want this a church set apart for the one grand ol)ject of bringing men out of their sin into the hope of the Gospel. There will in this coming year be two hundred thousand strangers who will be seated within these gates. How many of them will you bring to Christ by your prayers and your personal solicitations? Will you bring a score, or will it be a hun- dred or a thousand ? I must tell you that compared with this work of saving immortal souls all other work is cold, and stale, and insipid. To this one work, God helping me, I consecrate the remaining days and years of my life, and I ask you to join with me in this crusade for the redemption of immortal souls. " Now can it be possible that six years of my pastorate have passed away never to return ? How many squandered days and years — squandered by you and by me. God for- give us for the past and help us to be more faithful for the future. Through what a variety of scenes we have gone ! I have stood by you in times of sickness and by the graves of your dead. When you came back from exhausting sick- ness that we feared would be fatal, I praised God that the ;. '( TALMAGE, D.D. LIFE OF UKV. T. DE WTTT TALMAGE, D.D. 105 color came back to your cl.oek and tl.c sprint to yo„r stnn Am.1 so,no of you in tl.e pa.st six years hfvo i^Jso 1 tL I' c re beroaven.ents. How few of the fumil es of ^ f gM".^ut.on have not been inva.le.l ! Uosv many of e J people have gone in tl.e las. tno or three years »Tll went away so gently that they ha.l en.le.l t rLonc 3 third stanza in eternal n-lorv Iw-fr..-. i "^'^""a or o. .o them ,ri,h\.„,.r ,.^„t a2 i you s":', '''"o I i' Lot mc keop tl,.m a iittlo longer.' Jiuttiuy bmkeTJv from your arm, into the ligbt of I.oaven. l/sonu , h if thoT ''"t*"°r--'».''«'-n>ine.I to I.avo then. '„ ; those who are desolate, and it is my ambition to be to a son of consolation. Standing as we do '^ he on ^'" MsofanotherpastoraIyear,lctnsrrv .1 ^ ^"''" of.nsee.t.n. Lot uAe ^aith;::!:^^;^^ -J- ani clisciplin'a^y l:ll': fj^^^ ''' "'^'""' ^^^''^^'^^^"'' Brooklyn.'' ^^^"^^^^^es of this my pastoral year in 1% m CHAPTER VIII. MIDNIGHT KXI'LORATIOXS. I)n. Talmaok's ''mi.lnitrlit c"xi)loratio!is" in Brooklvt. and Now York, and his discourses (Icscribiiig the tcnipii- tions and vioos^ of cify HtV, as socn by him in the haunts of vice, and lus scoreliing cxi.osure of " leprosy in the hi.dies) places of society," j.rodnced the greatest exeiteraen" all over the counlry. He states the reasons whieh led liini to take this so.nen-hat perilous step, as follows:— "I, as amin- istcr of religion, felt I had a Divine commission to explon. the inirpiities of our cities. I did not ask counsel of mv session, or of my presbytery, or of the newspapers, l,ut askmgthe companionship of three j.roniinent police ofli- cials and two of the elders of my church, I unrolled niv commiss.on, aud it said: 'Son of man, dig into the wall • and when I had digged i,.to the wall, behold a door; and' he said, Go in anraet.cal ami useful iuforu.alion I uiight get. That would be a foolish doctor who wo.dd Xand ot.tside the door of an invalid wn.mg a Latin p.<.M.rip,ion. AVheu the lecturer in a n.edu.al eolhp ,.s done w.th his uvlure he takes the .uclentsmrothed,ssectiug-r<..>n^an.lhesl.^^^^^ re I.ty. I am here tins morning to r..port a plague, and to tel you liow sm destroys the body, an.l destn.ys the nund a.,d destroys the souk ' (>b! ' say yo„, ' are y.m m>t afraid tha inconscjuence of your exploration of the inic.uities of the o.ty, other persons n.ay n.ake exploration, and do tlu-mselves dan.agc^' 1 reply -If, i,. ,„„j,„ ,j,,^ ^,^^ Conmussioner of T>ohce, and the Captain of Police, and tbo nspector of Police, and the con,panv of two C'hrLdan gentlemen,.:- ^-t .vith the spirit of curiositv, but that you may see s.. in the bullets were bu.zing around his head, saw a -viban on the iield. Ho said to him, SSir, what are you ^lon,g hcre'^ ];e off.' ' >Vhy,' ,,,n,, ^.e c-ivilian, < the/e is m. more danger lu.-e for me than there is for you.' Then \A ollmgton ib.shed up, and said, 'God and n,v country de- mand that I be here, but you have no errand 'here.' k'v Vli i 'I n m 108 LIFE UF lii:\, T. DE WITT TAt-MAfJE, D.D. I, as mi olliror in il... army of J.-sus Cl.rist, wont ..n this .'xplomtion, un.l like con.nusM.on, k„; if ..ot, stay .-uvav . Uut yo,. Nuy, ' Don't you think that .sonu'ii.nv y.M.r .|,scTi|,li„n of thcsu i.hiccH M-lll uulucc iK.oj,!,. to g„ iuul sec r,,,- themselves?' I answer, * Ves. just as much as the .K'seription of the yeUow ft.v^er at Grana.hi wonM in.Ii.ce people to go .lovvn there an.l get the pestilence. It was t..hl i.s there were lianlly enough ,.,.opl,. Mlive t<. hury the .lea.l, ami I am goin- to tt-il you a Htory in these Sal,l,ath .norning sermon" of places where they are all .lea.l or .lying. An.) 1 shall not gihl ini.p.ities. I shall play a dirge an.l liot an anthe.n, an.l while I shall „.,t put fai.itest Mush on fairest cheek, I will kin.lle the cluu.ks of many -i nian into a c.mHagrati.m, an.l I uill „iak.. his ears tin.-l.. lint you say, 'D.m't y..u kn..w that ll,.. papers ar,. cH(i- <-ising you l.,r the position you take? I say, Yes; an.l ,1,. you know how I feel almut it? There is no man who is more in.lel.ted to the newsj)ai.er press than I am. My luisi- nes8 IS to preach the truth, an.l the Avi.ler the au.lien.-e tl,.. newspaper press giyes m.., the wi.ler my field is. As the press of the United States, and the Canadas, and of E,,-- Land, and Ireland, and Scotland, and Australia, and Xcw Zealand, are giying me eyery week nearly three million souls for an audience, I say I am indebted to the press a.iv- llo^y. Go on! To the day of my death I cannot pay them what I owe them. So slash away, gentlemen. The more llic better. If there i.s anything I despise it is a dull time Brisk criticism is a cxirse Turkish towel, with which eyery public man nccdseyery day to be rubbe.l down, in or.ler t.. keep healthful circulation. Giye my hne to all the secular and religious editors, and full permission to run their pens clear through my sermons, from introduction to ai)plica- tiou," ^! ALMAGE, D.D. Christ, \roiit <>ii this ir you hoar ;> like I'lit you Niiy, ' Don't •tioii of these j»lac('M for thc'iiisc'lvfs':" J •ril»ti(»n of the ycHow lilo lo gi) (hiHii thcio IIS there Mere liardly ad, aiul I am j,'()in^ th morning sermon.'S 1 or (lying. An(l ph'iy a dirge and i>t i»iit faintest Ithish checks of jnany a lake Ills ears tingle, lie iiajiers are ei'iii- I say, Ves; ;u)d d>> ■c is no man who is lan I am. My hnsi- Icr tlie audieneo tlie my Held is. As the madas, and uf Kng- Australia, and New early three million c'd to the jiress, anv- 1 I cannot j»ay them tlemen, 'J'he nuM-e ise it is a dull tinu-. 1, with Avhich every d down, in order to ve to all the secular )n to run their pens luction to a])jilica- >-'™ Oy «KV. T. UK ,VITT T.V,.MA.., n.n. I,, Thoro can be no doubt tlnf ♦!,« »i.i.i.i«v,.i„ ,vi,i..iv Luif , ">' '•''■'•."•""I ■■'"•' »i.l,. M.„sati„ I, , ' '"''"'"'■'■'' '"" ""'y » 'l"'l' "•"•'p^ '^ -;1:;:,: :z/;i;:i;;:;; i'"'' ;■ '^ "p «o„,c of ,1... i,i,u,,,,,t r<...ii 1 I , '" '■""'•' '■"' '" "* -nn,>,H ,t,a ,l„. ,|„„.,.| Z" 1 ; !' '"■ "■ '"■••"■ """"' 'I- »l.v.,. ,„,„„„l 1,1,,,"^ ';■'"-"■■' "■•™"'l •l™"Hl.ti„„. !»"» c..lnl,ki„„,'„f „,o ,,.;,, ,'"' "'■'■" » ••"•'■ ."•■.rvel- ".i.iu.,. n,.i, ,„:,;'„:;:' '"'"™' •■"■""■« ''!«'- -'' lo-, »,.»„« 'tp'h:!:;:!::^-;!;;::':;/;::;;'- -''■■-' ■n,avou,„ i.-i..-.„„i,;:;.i].;:;; "'""'■«-- "f o„o, o„,i.,e„ ..-ra' o.:L;:t:\;;:;::i,;;;r;:;^;:2::t°"'"' '''-'■=«'■ of moans a,„I wcalll, Tl,. v,! ^' "'W""'«'l ^v rac,, - ■-.-, of „,',:: I If™;- ';'-•"''>■-- f«." '.'"•••li salan-, an.I ,!,„. ,avc mi' """'"'"=' "" "" »iii, m.y m™ „,., 0^':' ™ ';;^"»,f ■■"'[-•••Va- ' ». mansion; of ,;„1';''T ""'' '■™'" '°™^- "f 'I- '- B„.o„, a„, p,,4m, :rcr4or'ira:;: 'J ! i «l ':^frrf r I" ■ UO LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. nati patronize tliese places of sin. I eoul.l call tlie names o ..ronin.ent men i„ one cln.ivv u ho ,.a(n.ni/,(> these places of inHjM.f y, and I may call (heir „u,nes bei\,re I j^et thro,,-!, this course ol sermons, thouo-h \]u' fahric of New VoH.- and Brooklyn society tumble inio wreck. Jud-es „r courtH, distinguished lawyers, ollieers of the Chuivh political orators standing on dillVrent i.latforms talki,,..- about (nxland good morals until you might suppose Ihe.n to be evangelists expecting a thousand cmverts in o„. night. Call n.e roll of dissipation in the haunts of inin„i, v any night and if the inmates will answer, you will lind there stockbrokers from AVall street, large importers from i>roadway, iron merchants, leather merchants, cotton mer- chants, hanlware merchants, wholesale grocers, representa- tives from all the commercial and Avealthy classes. Talk about the heathenism below Canal street' There is u AA-one heathenism above Canal street. I prefer that kind of heathenism which wallows in filth and disgusts the behohW rati er than that heathenism Avhich covers u,. its walking putrefaction with camel's-hair shawl and ,,oi„t- ace,_and rides m turn-outs worth three thousand dollar. ivcried driver ahead and rosetted tlunkv behind. We InvJ been talking so much about the Gospel for the masses, now h't us talk a little about the Gospel for the lepers of soeielv Ici- the millionaire sots, for the portable lazzarettos of ui.' per-tendom. It is the iniquity that comes ,lown from ll'e higher circles of society that supports the hauntsof erin.e and IS gradually turning oureities intoSodoms and (Jomnr- rah.s waiting f,>rthe fire and brimstone tempest of the 1 ord God who whelmed the ..ities of the plain. We want aboul five iundred Anthony Cmistocks to go fortli and exploiv and expose (he abominations of high life. For eight or (eu years there stood within sight of the most fashionable New ^LMAGE, D.D. coiiM ciill tlu' names •:itroiiiz(> tlicsc, ])l;icos before I o-ct tliroii^li 'al»ric of New \ovk Avreck. Ju(Io-(>s of i-s of llic Cliurcli, It itlatforms talking- luigiit Kiipposc (Ikmii nd c'oiivci'ls ill one !0 Iiamits of iiii(|ui( V •swer, you Mill lind u-go iini)or(('r,s from rcliaiits, cotton nwv- gi'oooi-s, roproscnta- iltliy classes. Talk 'tivot! 'Vlunv is a I prefer that kind and disgusts (he ■vliieh covers up its ■ shawl and jsoini- thousand dollars, y behind. We have or the masses, now lie lepers of socieiv, lazzarettos of up- les down from (he he haunts of crime, xlonis and (iomur- 'nipest of the I.ord 1. AVe want about •th and explore and For ciglit or (en it fashionable New LIFE OK UEV. T. „E WTT TAL,U«E, «.„, J„ loss tlian ;iv™-,. „i,v,i,..,l , , , '"■""■"' '"•'" "I' by ti,o icifo X ui^ ,:'::"■• ;"" y'' '■'■"■^ — ,. i".o that ,,„,a.,, on; ';■';,;; '■"! -■-'-'. "-„..,, ^■<-ndG.,.rhavinK.r;r: \,;:;::;''^^;!i;7'; ^^^'y'>- -^Ithenongradaal/t; . ;i'rr''''^"^^-'^''-i->y' ^'-vhoie course, fri th: ;«;! ;r,f:;:' ;-;f - avenue Clear down to the cellars of \vu !^""' tl.o ofliccrs on that nddni-ht evph u If' • Ti ' ""'"' '' at them now, and look atlh t ^ " ^^l' "' ""' ' ^^'^^ <-^lI this glory has departed- thevM ^ ""'"' ''^'''' station hons'e.' Another;- h v ' ' ''^' ''^ '"'^' ''" "'^ ^■^ the daughter of on of be ' m" •" '"' ''' """' ' ''^''•''t .on Square.' '^'' ^^'^^'^'^^"^"^^^ ^''^""^'^'^ in 3Jadi- " But I have something more amazing to tell vou t hnn < i . tl.0 men ot means and wealth .npport thes' Inu q'nt.v, an.] that is that thev are H, n ' *'* ""■ ^•'' '•aniilies-fathers^n 1 ,; i '' r'''^'^"''^"' ''•>' ^'^'-'''^^ ofbrokenma.;'! ; V^^^^^ '-<^'<''-^^tiu.m;fo: : ;.^;:;^;:'!''-''^^^^ f<"-tb with their thousands 11 '"' 'T'^'^^'^ ^''''^ -Wandcquipageof , a ' ' ^ ^; <'-numds and ward- 'J-onnce tins public, iiZ. r ^' '^'^ "--onieaven, I of decent circles uZ , f '',"''' "'^"' '^ '"•'•'^"^ -t fi' 1^^ II 1 1 I 1. fi #*■ n >f?1?^ 112 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. blasted pato of offending man! Society needs a ncAV division of Its anathema. By what law of justice does burning excoriation pursue offending woman down the precipices of destruction, while offending man, kid-gloved, walks in refined circles, invited up if he has money, ad- vanced into political recognition, while all the doors of high life oprn at the first rap of his gold-headed cane? I mj, if you let one come back, let them both come back If one must go down, let both go down. I give you as my opinion that the eternal perdition of all other sinners will be a heaven compared with the punishment everlasting of that man who, turning his back upon her whom he swore to protect and defend until death, and upon his children whose destiny may be decided by his example, goes forth' to seek affectional alliances elsewhere. For such a man the portion will be fire, and hail, and tempest, and darkness and anguish, and despair forever, forever, forever' My friends, there has got to be a reform in this matter or American society will go to pieces. Under the head of ' incompatibility of temper,' nine-tenths of the abomination goes on. What did you get married for if your disposi- tions are incompatible? 'Oh!' you say, 'I rushed into it without thought.' Then you ought to be willing to suffer the punishment for making a fool of yourself! Incompati- bility of temper! You are responsible for at least a half of the incompatibility. Why are you not honest and will- ing to admit either that you did not control your temper or that you had already broken your marriage oath ? In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of the thousand incompatibility is a phrase to cover up wickedness already enacted. I declare in the presence of the world that heads of families are supporting these haunts of iniquity. I wish there might be a police raid lasting a great while, that they li ALMAGE, D.D. march them do Jro,"»h ,t ?'' 'T "' ""^ «''>■. ■''"d twenty reporters to takefhei ■"" '°"°*'"' ''}' ■''''out undertaken in our cities .«/• """'' " ™"''^« l'» '■'.Uy per cent o^' ^^^ 1 ;'47"'/;;.''™ »-o„,d be i» places of iniq iJt'd ,:" t""'""™^"'"'-'™" crumble to ruin." ^' " " '*''°'' """= 'toy would extl:trr::A.~i„:' "■;'• r ^^^ '° "- '»«--« sermons were betg ddu" Jed '" ""''""' "' ""^ ''"^ «■« taunts of sin in New York T ^^T" '"'=""•"=' ™ ""e ply in lis last sermon and I„I ,"'t '^""'"^ ""«•« •■«- with which the cler^^e lr„t ° "" '^"'"™« '-? cl^arge down upon centrry owt •"■ ""■'«'«es and -Iphur at Sod^m, andZ ^t o! °'' "TT '^''^^ >"■" come to handle modern sins thev tr™,','''" "''™ "'"^ chiefs, wipe gold-rimmed,! .'^ °"' ''"'"'y '>""*«■■. their hands/ No """ shonW rt ' ?'' '"" ''''' S'"'"" ™ ™-e,igi„„s conte;;.S,:t::: r->''-"y-'ions ;n .nvestigating the facts. 4 if l^ tV"™t"^ ^ »""« that such paths take lioM m,jl,^ !>olcmon's assertion i"g the unwary agai^ " ^''^ ™47' -"-'b' «r„. another exploration of the iriir;. 1 ,,"""''' "»' advise a* his medical friend to'hl "' " '"' "■" ■"'"■»'" i" the hospitals and lltr.^"" f"' "' ""^'' 1«"H ""d for it, it will toS Wst'on """ "T' '=''"•"•"• ''"'^> ""^ He will try to save y u g m "n fs'I" " ''"r °™' <" ^-^^l' j-vuiig men as he never beforetried." J' 'I I in \f J, ' ) "fwir-fi CHAPTER IX. AUTOBIOGRArillCAL SERJION, OR IIOW MINISTERS ARE LIED ABOUT. [Our readers will see by tills sermon something of what Dr. Tal- mago has had to contend with in the course of his remarkable career as a Christian minister, and it will also help to prepare for a more righteous judgmbnt upon the merits of the Trial which has just taken place, and of which an account is given farther on.— Ed.] "You may not know that this is a double anniversary. It is nearly ten years since I became pastor of this church. Besides, on Tuesday, January 7, of this year (1879) I was forty-seven years of age. This being a double anniversary, you will not be surprised if my sermon this morning is autobiographical. I started life in an old-fashioned Chris- tian family, where they had prayers morning and night, and always asked a blessing on meals; and there was no exception to the rule, for, if my father was sick or away, my mother led, and while sometimes, when my father leil, we found it hard to repress childish restlessness, there Avas something in the tones of my mother, and there was some- thing in the tears which always choked her utterance before she got through with the prayer, that was irresistible. Tiic fact is that mothers get their hearts so wound around their children that when they think of their future, and the trials and temptations to which they may be subjected, they can- not control their emotions as easily as men do. While he had a very sympathetic nature, I never saw my father cry but once, and that was when they put the lid over my pfff V MIKTISTERS ARE LIED LIFE OP REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Il5 mother. Her Jialr was white as the snow lud hr. f.. very mucli wrmkled, for she hid workoV ' '''"' not know ]iow she apno'inMl fn ti,^ 7i '''"'-"'^'^- -^ <«o may l,avc. ti.„„,,u 'h U^ 'fC'' f ""■■ 7''^" »«i-"' »io., with an admiral r ^, , ' il' J°'' ''^ '^•S'" I'-f™" I oa„„„t „„>v walk alo, . . a c .ri ""T' """'"'■ '^ ■■ation f„.. a ,,.„fe.si„„ adon.o.l w , C , Tf 7 "'"ir a„ S.o,.v, a,,., Ko„,, and Il.,f.. c.,.:'; ^dTu .S: ^ a ',:;r:f "'^- ™'"' ^"o i™' ■» -'o t,. ,„ ; ; ") a vaiictj of circmstaTicis, sliulti„„ „„ „„ f„ fl /, glono,,, profession. And ,vl,at a work uJl^Z 0™ every day for the l,o„or of boino- a,,oHnf ,1 !f" ,''°'l consider .he nrost elevated, e, St T Xd ," '' '■rated band of men on this plan t-t he < ■' "■"'" I .;..o., I think, ahont five't.lLd'^of l^r^JZ^ a, . ey are as near perfeetion as hunran natnr eve, g ,' ^^'iivt'. i>iit ^ve all have -w-ni-L- ' n^ , "^•-'ua to 18G9 and isTo An y. t . "^-I'lu \ tais i^. {^ , ...f.vi; • '^''^Z^-^- '^^ I "ent to work to find the old- tne ixarden of Eden, where the serpent's head l-f % m h^ !l I ..tfifl 't&'r-rr. 116 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. is promised a bruising by the heel of Christ. T said, ' Thit IS the religion,' and I went to work to see what kind of men that religion made, and I found Joshua, and Moses and Paul, and John the P:vangelist, and John Bunyan, and' John Wesley, and John Summerfield, and five hundre.l other Johns as good or approximate. I said: 'Ah! that is the religion I want to preach— the Edenic relLnon that bruises the serpent's head.' That is what I have been try- ing to do. The serpent's head must be bruised. I hate him. I never see his head but I throw something at it. That IS what I have been trying to do during these courses of sermons, to bruise the serpent's head, and every time I bruised him he hissed, and the harder I bruised him the harder he hissed. You never trod on a serpent but he hissed. But I trod on him with only one foot. Before I get through I shall tread on him with both foot If God will help me I shall bruise the oppros- ■lon, and the fraud, and the impurity coiled up amid our great cities. Come now, God helping me, I declare a war of twenty-five years against iniquity and for Christ, if (iod will let me live so long. To this conflict I brin*^ every muscle of my body, every faculty of my mind, evmy pas- sion of my soul. Between here and my grave there shall not be an inch of retreat, of indifference, or of compm- mise. After I am dead, I ask of the world and of the church only one thing-not for a marble slab, not for a draped chair, not for a long funeral procession, not for a flattering ovation. A plain box in a plain wagon will l,e enough, if the elders of the church will stand here and sav that I never compromised with evil, and always ])resente.'l Christ^ to the people. Then let Father Pearson, if he be Btill ahve, pronounce the benediction, and the mourners ijo home. I do not forget that my style of preaching and luy TALMAQE, t>.D. UFE OF 8EV. T. DE W,TT TALJUGB, D.D, U7 work in general have been sometimes severolv ... .■ ■ , , some of my clerical brethren u, ^ <'"ticis«l by «t«od that at installa. ' L t t,- "';" '" '""'"'"- assailed. I have some no '''-■'ll™t,o„s I shall be iH'ar thorn excoriate Tal ';!'', '" "" '"^''"'"'i"". »"'! always gratifie,!! I l,av"i;e u,! , ''■^"' "'"' ""■>■ "'■'•■ whe„ an audience get " I ,''■■' TT'T "' ''"■"""y"- nanfes. Som " f t " ' T, """■"""" ''•'" ""> »" ™«» »« n.o anothe,, „,t I tl nk Z """ '"'«' "'"' ^"""' -« gl^blv „sc,I i , tl s CO ; cti, '' " "'"'* "'"' "'■" ■»»»' »"-.V').uiro„„crv;: a ■::r'";''^''^"V'"™»""°»- so.ncof mvlcarHcr !| , ;. *^ l'I"-asos showing that '-■-■■'■a.ivan.a.;;;' t:;;r;i ';;,:, !'^''"'-'-- f"---' that I never ass,, ill il, V , ''"■'l'r<'ii m the fact 'loarsonls I ',,;■'■ '''''■''' ''7 •■'--"^- -'■ The a".H..m.cs.,argesai;;-::': ':r'f,T';;;':;'^r-'"'»« heaven to boot' T ri,l , i , -T "'"•" "S--t 'i-t I an, so busy ; a „:;;'"' ""'• ''''"■ '■■"■• -. ri!::;;:;:;:--:-:' --•'.- ^^o^rtS! I ".i^ht answer .n.e'^V tlZT::,:^' T "l^f =:^:;,:^.;;;rre^"7-^""-"'-- ^-wo„,athatadva.r:.,r;!;r.^~»t';:; V' 118 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. not know that there is notliing tliat so prejudices people against Christianity as to see ministers figliting? It takes two to make a battle, so I will let them o-o on. It relieves them, and does not liurt me! I suppose that in the war of words I might. ,A)e their etpial, for nobody has ever charged me with lack of vocabulary! But then, you plainly see that if I assaulted them with the same bitterness with which they assaulted me, no good cause would be advanced. There is another way, and that is by giving them kindly, loving, and brotherly advice. *Ah!» you say, * that's the way; that's a Christian way.' Then I advise my critical brethren of the clergy to remem- ber what every layman knows, whether in the church or in the world, that you never build yourself up by trying to pull anybody else down. You see, my dear critical breth- ren—and I hope the audience will make no response to what I am saying— you see, my dear critical brethren, you fail in two resi)ects Avhen you try to do that. First, you do not build yourselves up; and secondly, you do not inili anybody else down. Show me the case m live hundied years where any pulpit, or any church, has been built uj) by bombarding some other pulpit. The fact if, v.e have iiii immense membership in this church, and they are all niv personal friends. Then, Ave have a great many regular at- tendants who are not church members, and a great niaiiv occasional attendants, from all parts of the land, and those people know that I never give any bad advice in this place, and that I always give good advice, and that (Jod by con- version saves as many souls in this church every year ;!s He saves in any other church. Now, my dear critical brctli- ren of the clergy, why assault all these homes throughout (lie world ? When you assault me, you assault them. Besides that, ' To every man his work.' I wish you all prosperity, 'i'* >T PALM AGE, D.D. It so prejudices people iiisters ligluiug? It I will let tliem go liurt me! T sujipose t,J-)o their ecjiml, for lack of vocabuljiry! assaulted them -with 3y assaulted me, no e is another way, and and brotherly advice. nt's a Christian way.' the elergy to renieni- her in the church or U'self up by trying to y dear critical bretli- nake no response to critical brethren, you do that. First, von idly, you do not j)ull ^ase in live lumdiHMi has been built up by fact if", v,c have an md they are all iny 'at many regular at- s, and a great many the land, and those advice in this jdacc, id that (lod by coii- hurch every year as y dear critical bretli- omes throughout llic sault them. Uesides h you all prosperity, UFE or REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, n.U. 119 critical brethren. You, for i„„,,„ee, .„e n,cl.apl,y,ical M,ay you succeed i„ driving ,,e„,,lo into la.ave,/w ra .^ pen,, ,„.,, glory by tbo born, of a diie,,,,;,. V„, e , ecaotal^ Ci,arm tbe pco,,,.. t„ .,„.„ ,,,, ..,,,„„, ,,„ ,■; "„ told T.0,, arc .llustraMve. Twi«t all tl,o (l„w.rs of tl e held and all .1,0 , tar, of heaven into y,„„. ,ermon, Y are cla^sieal. Wield the elnbof r.ereni;... f!,; " [h l' make Parn.a».„„ bow to ("alvary. Vo„r work i, n.'.t at,on Ihe Lord j-o „,„, j.„„ ,„ ,^ the old lad,eyndhold the children i„ your lap and t cml„„v„,neh thoy look bkotheirfathertuuln.other! S . ' a the a erno.u, and evening, and if it i., a damp night, .st.ay all n.gbl All prosperityto you in .i,is|,a»,ord ,™,.k .and may you by that mean, get tbe whole fandlv into the kin dom of God. You will reach people I uJver will reach, .and I W.11 reach peo,,le you never will re.ach, (i„ ahead Ju «very po».«iblc w.ay, „,y dear crilieal brethren of ihe. clergy I w II help you. If you have .anything g. . on your ehureh-locture, eoncert, religion,, n,eeth,g_«°,d me thonofeeand IwiU read it here with eon,plimen,ary Z m.,rk», and when you call „,e a hard nan.e I will eall you a blessed fellow, and when you throw a briekl.at at n,e- an ecele»™t,cal briekbat-then I will pour holy oil on y^ur Head nntd ,t run., down on yonr eoat colbar! There i, no.hi, ' »o niv.gorates and inspire., me as the opportunity to sav pleasant tinng, about my ..lorieal bre, hren. (iod prosper vm, my ermcal brethren of the ministry, and put a blessing „ ,' your head, and a blessing in y„„r shoe, .and a blessing i your g„wn-,t you wear one-and a blessing before T-o and a blessmg behind yon, and a ble.ssing nncbu- you ami a btes,„g on the top of y„n, ,„ that you e'annot ge o 't til rP^^ -rv^^ I 120 LIFE OF KKV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. you mount into lioavon, Ml.cro I .appoint a meeting will, you on the north hide „f the river, under the tree of lilV, to talk over tlie honor Ave had on earth of working eaeli one in hi.s own way. ' To <.vry man his work.' We ought to be an exanipl,., my critieal brethren, to other oceuj.ationa. How olten we hear lawyers talking against lawyers, and doetors talking against doctors, and merehants talkin.^ against merchants. You would hardlv go into a store on one side of the street to get a merchant's opinion of a mer- eliantontlu. oth.-r side of the street in the same line of business. We ought, in the ministrv, to be examples to all other occupations. If we have spites and jealousies, h-t us hide them forever. If we have uot enough divine grace to do It, let common worldly ].rudenee dictate. "r.ut during these ten years in which T have preached to you, I have not only received the criticism of the world, but I have often received its misrepresentation, and I do not supi)ose any man of any age escaj.es if he be tryin.. to do a particular work for God and the Church. It was laid that Rowland Hill advertised he would on the followincr Sabbath make a i)air of shoes in his pul],it, in the presence of his audience, and that he came into the pulpit with a pair of boots and a knife, and having shaved off the top of the boots, presented a i,air of shoes. It was said that M hitelield was preaching one summer day, when a ilv buzze.l around his head, and that he said, "J'he sinner will be destroyed as certainly as I catch that fly.' He clutched at the fly and missed it. The story goes that theii he said that after all perhaps the sinner might escape through sal- vation ! Twenty years ago the pictorials of London were full of pictures of Charles Spurgeon astride the rail of a pulpit, riding down in the presence of the audience to show how easy it was to go into sin; and then the pictorials MAUE, 1).D. y.' lie ciutclii'il LIFE OF HKV. T. 1)E WITT TAUl.lCL:, I.l re|>ro,o„,e, Inm a, ,.|i„,l,i,,,- „,, ll,o raili,,,^ „f ,l,e ,,„||,i, ,„ «a„l ,0 have. c.n,.,.,,l l,is p,,,,,,, ,„„. „,,,,„ ,,,, ,„ ^; tl«. |.c..-»|MnU,„„ f,.,„„ l,i, r,„,.|„..,l, , a,, sai.l, ■ ll"l!""^ wr^h an cx,,lo.,v.. ,,,,,,,. ,.,,,, ,l,a an ,l..v,„i„„,„ ; u,.'! Ln'»! Al ol tl,™ l,„s. N„ n,lni«l,.r of ,|„. (|,„„„l o«.a,K.». vWn I wa» lH.,,,,Mn l.|,iM..I,,l.i„. r,.an,M. „ni, Via X' .".mage. I),.. M,n„l„n, ,l„. ..|,„|,„,„ ,,. ;,,,, |,„.,^^^ ^^ cc-omony ,„ the parlovx of ,1,.. m„ Av,.,„„. rr,,.,-! rC 'Y by ,,orf„,.mn,g it a mil,. Iiigl,, al,„v.. ll,„ „a,.,|,, i„ ,, Wlloon ! And thc-c are tl.onsa,,,!,, „f , „ „ ^,^ ■ ay jvho l,oI,c.ve that I .„,..„,„,„„, „„j „',,„.,,„ J^^ he cloud, Al,„nt eight or nine year, ago, in onr ehao 1° atathnstnm festival one week nigh,, a,ni,l siv or eil, Imnclred ch.ldren roaring i,a,,,,y, with ean.lie, an,I oranT^ .UKl eor„-balI,,a„, with the re,n...sen,ati„n of a .starch ( hr,stmas-green., right i,efore n,e, I ,ai,l, ' l!oy,, I fod lil,„ a n,ornn,g.star.> It so happened that that phr. se i: o ho o e. the name of a man who said he was 'a n.e.a lir of a e.ghl,or„,g ehnreh;' that I h.ad the prev s Sunday ni"h, . my pulp.t, quoted two or three verses from 'Shoo LMv" And moreover, it went ou to say that wo sang that every Sunday m our Sunday school! And a, it was su,,posed that, a member of a neighboring ..hnrel,. would nit He grave ed.torna s appeared in pron.inent newspapers depbr: »g the fact that .he pulpit should bo .o disicrated. and ''■I !* .■ . 19! .Uili' .. V -ryy^, j-.-.i '11; M ».^i fill ''i I' I iff 122 UPI! OF llEV. T. [;P WITT TALMAGE, D.D. thAt tho .Sal>l)atli Hchoohoi this country soonuMl to bo point? to ruin. Sonio yoai^ isfo, in tho New V<,riv ' Indej.cHU.nt,' I wrote an article denouncing thocxclusivenoss of clnirchoH and inakinir a ,,],,.i f,„. the working classes. In tho midst of that article there were two ironical sentences, in which I exi)resse.I the disgust which sonic people have foranyl,o l,il,. I have f,„. ,„„„;. years I,,.,., ,ll,nv ,1 tl,e pr,v lego of proaehing the Gospel tl!,.?,,,,,,, t ,^ pros,, all arc,,,,., the woM.I, I wa„tee, weel by ,eek, tS pjaeh nwi f!' ; m LIKE or liEV. T. m WITT TALMAOE, D.D. ropontanco ,a,„l Cl„.i«t ,„ ,|,o po„,,l<.. An., flr.t of „li, „„w, ll,.ml. Ik. «,™lar pros, „r ,|,.,o two .iti™ f,„. tlioir ki„,I "es,, „„a afl,.,- ,l,at I pul.lidy tl,ank-r„,.Ishail ,„.vorl,av„ anyoppo,,,,,,,,,. „r ,„i„. ,„ ,„, ,|,i^_^,,„ ,,_^^^_^^^ . ^ ;■ a. I 1,0 (,„o,„„al, '|.;,„p,i,,.,-,' H,o l>l,ila,lolpI,ia • Press ' .0 -iMnos' „l |.l,ila,lolpI,ia, the Albany ' Ar.n.s ' th^ Intor-Oooan- ..fri.ioa.,,, ,„o ' A.Uanoo' ,f; 0,1,^', ' Cour,c.r.,r„„r„ar „f l.oMisvillo, ,!,„ ■ Thnos.J„„r!,a > If St. Lou,s, the .,DispatcI,,'.,f J.it,sb„r. tl,c Roa„i,„Etlo' i:;'":.^ s.;r , ■ ""■■■■'■"r-'"'"™'''" '''<--. "- •'"-■' Can, 1 1. .'■;'.'"■'";'■'' ;'"' "''"'"S™!.!.- of St. ,r„l,n, th, C T'. ,?;■• ','" '*''"''""^"' "-■•■"■'.' -'I .1,0 Tl," Tt an "■'.■; '"■'"'""•""■ '^'""""■" '•'■- or JIoll,„„,.no, 'wl'lf, "'/"""'"'""'>■' "'■ •'^'''"'^J'- Australia; ll„ Monlso «,.aoo'„f ,Syrt„oy, Anstralia, a,,., ,„any „, ,o,. ' ; 1::;;:;;;',:"" r::"- ;^'"' ' ™" "> '"' >- ti.i« . r . s allo,l 1,0,0 t„ tins pla.-o, «.l,i|„ I roooivod the oall r,„,„ -.Otoe, po„plo, „,y onon.los „„„• giv,. n,o tho opport, " evo,.y «-..,.k „f ,,roao,,i„g tl,o (iospol t„ ,,o.,vo™ o™ , o gl, „,„l,„„ .s „|, n.y l,avo cvoito., tho crios ty ,■ an. hoar what I ,v„„l.l say, an.l thon tho lea.!!,,,., tl I 0,-ahlo „o,v»,,apo,-s of tl,o ..„,„,try havog,.atifio.lTi,at ^'i,,: .U. Go .„,,„„„. ..„o„„os ! If y„„ ,,„, „„„,.,, . «o,,l I o,u, So (;„.l ,nakostl,o ,v,atl, .,f ,„o„ topraiso Mi, an. ,vh,lo , ,a,,k n,y fri,.„,.,s I thank n,v o„o„,ios. ].nt, wlMlo fl,„ falsol,.«.ls to ,vl,i..h I hav,.,.ofo,.,.,.,I ,„av so„,o„.l,at „avo s.i,.,.o., y„„r hnn,,,,-, ,ho,.o is a fals 1 >l".-l. .st,-,kosa.,flo,ont k<.y, for it i„va.los the sanoli.v ■ny .on,,.; a„.l, when I t..|| tho sto,.y, the fair-min,,,., m,',, ,„.[ ,v.„„o„ an,l olnhh-on .,f tho lan.l will l,o iM.ii.„,a„, I >v.ll r<.a.l ,t, „„ (hat if any ,,,,0 „,av want to oopv it J can aft..,-, (Reading f,.„,n ,na„„soript). It ha, be,,, TALMAGE, D.D. • An(l first of all, now, A'o cities for tlieir kinrl- ^— for I shiill never Iiave Ills— tlio Jjostoii ' Iler- ' I'liiliidclpliia ' Press,' Albany ' Argus,' the ranee' of Cliicairo, tlie le ' Times-Journal' of ■g, the Reading Eagle,' r of Texas, the 'Evan'- g'-aph' of St. John, >i-onto, (\anada, the orald,' and the 'Chris- Cross' of Melbourne, idney, Australia; fhj ilia, and many others tell 3'ou that when [ received the call from e me the opportunity to between seven and h1 the curiosity to see ihe leading, the hon- ■ gratified that curios- •an afford it in vour >f men to praise Jlim, my enemies. I have referred mav there is a falselu.oil nvades the sancdiy >ry, the fair-minded id will be indignant, 'ant to copy it they It has been staled LIFE OP liEV; T. 1)10 UJTT TALMAGE, D.D. 125 } iiij.iH), i|,;it tlic l,„at cai.s z(>,l, ami tl,.,t l.av,„g 1,0 o,,,.,„.u,„i,y „f „avi„a .ill,,.,. ,„j. ;;,■ ,, ; ..»tc.,-, I I..t „,y wife .l,o,v„ „„., ,,v,,l 1,..,. His, .-, r „ a, V iW iorclK.a,i „t ..v..,.j- viilai,,, „,„„ „, ,„„,,„_ „.,,„ ^|, ' er,t again and ,„ invoke tl. ia. t„ l„.l , n,... " lioaiitilul inoinin.' nivmvii sisf.,1- 1„. 1 I i . • Tiinia.r,. U-hif I 7 V, ''.V l'l"'"l rolatn.n, .Sarah i ..I nag., « 1, t .|;na.-k, ai«l l,,.,- ,lansl,l,.,-, Ma,v, ;„.in.- „„ . ».t „ ns ,n !■ ,la,i..l,,l,ia, I ,„.„,,„».,, ,,,,,t „.;.,. ,; Z^ """"" >''"k an,| n,al<,. i,, ploasan, f,,,- tiu.n. WHU n.y „ „ .is.o,, Saral,, an,, ,,..,■ ,,an„|,„„, , ,„,„„, ,. „. „., „ J ;vn,,.,ns,,n,n...,, ,„ |.|,ila.,c.|,,l,ia I was i, .,,,.t ' ^H in,.u,I not lin.Hving anyll,i„gof ,l,„ ,n„„ ,,„„,, jhe . an,l nn,va,.n..,l ,.y Uu- k„,„„. .„• „,., ,„„,t J^ «.'., I imlio-I s.nugl.t for ,lu. I.rink-, sus|,«.,i„g notl.iZ ""111 «■<■ saw son.o ono wii.iiy wavin.r n , ,l„. ., ' ;.."KMi,,.row„.„.,ang,.r. ul^^a C;CJi^Z2 • . y .n tl,o ,.nrr..nt of tl.o om»l,ori.,...s,.„i,lns. Afl,.r an lu.nr of 'fe. t, rosuscitato ,.,y ,..„!,,,, w„„ wa, „i„e-t™ti:: Zd- •I'l . '■n-'^nn 126 .^.JFE OF Ri,V. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. and ..an sc-e Ler Slackened body yet, rolling over the ban 1, such as is used for restoring the drowned-sho brep (led again. A carriage came up, and leaving my wife in tl J bottom of the Schuylkill River, and with my little girl in sem .-unconsciousness, and blood issuing frJm hiT nostril and lip, wrapped in a shawl on my lap, and with mv sister, &arah, and her child in the carriage, we rode to ou.- desolate home. Since the world was created a more ghastly and agonizing calamity never happened. And that is the scene over wh;ch some ministers of the Gos])el, and men and women pretending to be decent, have made sport. ¥v present wife was no5 within a hundred miles of the placi" So far from being sisters, the two were entire stran^-ors Ihey never heard of each other, and not until nine months after that tra^^dy on the Schuylkill did I even know of the existence of my present wife. Nine months after that calamity on the Schuylkill, she was in- troduced to me by my brother, her pastor. Rev. Goyn Talmage, now of Port Jervis, New York. My first wife's name was Mary R. Avery, a member of the Reformed Church, Harrison street, South Brooklvn, where there are many hundreds of people who could tell the story. My present wife, I say, Avas not within a hundred miles of the spot. Her name was Susie Whittemore, and she was a member of the Reformed Cliu/ch in Greenpoint, Brooklyn where multitudes could tell the story. With multitudes ,.l' people on the bank of the Schuylkill who witnessed niv landing on that awful day of calamitv, and hundreds oV people within half an hour's wdlk of this place who kncu Mary Avery, add hundreds of people in Greenpoint, J}n>..k- lyn, who knew my present wife, Susie Whittemore-wii;.t do you think, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers editors and reporters, of a He like that manufactured outuf r TALMAGE, D.J). ly yet, rolling over tlio )ring the drowned — she up, and leaving my wife iver, and with my little blood issuing from hor on my lap, and with my carriage, we rode to our s created a more ghastly ened. And that is tho )f the Gos])el, and men :, have made sport, ¥y dred miles of the placi'. were entire stranc-crs. •, and not until nine Schuylkill did I even present wife. Nine Schuylkill, she was in- ler pastor, Rev. Goyn York. My first wife's tiber of the Reformed oklyn, where there are Id tell the story. My I hundred miles of the 2more, and she was a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, r. With multitudes (»r ill Avho witnessed my lity, and hundreds of this place who knew in Greenpoint, Jirook- ie Whittemore — what fathers and mothers, it manufactured out of LIFE OP REV. T. DE WITT TAUIAGE, D.D. (27 kc who e cloth? I „ovci- have spoke, cf ,l,i, ,„bioct be- for. and I „evcr shall again; h„t I gho fair „oti,.o that if any two responsible witnesses will gfve n,e the n n e , an responsible person after this affirming this slan.Ier I H pay the informant one hun.lrc.l dollar^ an,l I will ,„ t , , teTt'CLf '"""^™"' ™"-'' ^''^ "-- ■''' "■« '■"" " But while I have thus referred to falsehoods and criti- csms, I want to, ell you that in the nptnrned faees , f m' congregation and in the syn,,,athy of a e vh always V dnlgent,and m the perpetnal blessing of tk^ tep, of ...sefulness and honor. God help the young tr, s.aj,ng, My son h,as gone to the cilv; he is in such a ■ank, or s,ore, or .shop. AVill y„u l„„k ,,f, ,,. ,, ^"^^ , ?• ,}':'^ '" .'"'"' '""1 «'">'»^'l 1 •' I want ,0 help the ol.l. They begin to feel in the wav; they be.-in to feel nogleeted, perhaps. I want at the edg'e of\he :;i:w:;[::k i'^ Si'" il! *i »i im.t^t pf'^f^ 1 128 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Of o d age to show them the crocus. I want to put in thei hands the staff and the rod of the Gospel. God bless you gray hairs. I want to help these wives and mothers in th. struggle of housekeeping, and the training of their childre, for God and for Heaven. I want to preach a Gospel as an propnate to Martha as to Mary. God help the martyrs of th, kitchen and the martyrs of the drawing-room, and the mar tyrs of the nursery, and the martyrs of the sewing-machine 1 Avant to help merchants; whether the times are good o." bad they liave a struggle. I want to preach a sermon that will last them all the week; when they have notes to pay, and no money to pay them with; when they are abused and assaulted. I want to give them a Gospel as appro- priate for Wall street, and Broadway, and Chestnut street and State street, as for the communion table. I want ul help dissipated men who are trying to reform. Instead of coming to them with a patronizing air that seems to say How high I am up, and how low you are down,' I want lo come to them with a manner which seems to say, 'If I I,,d been in the same kind of temptation, I might have done worse. I Iiave more interest in the lost sheep that bloats on the mountain than in the ninety-nine sheep asleep in the fold. I want to help the bereft. Oh! they are all around us. It seems as if the cry of orphanage and chil.l- lossness and widowhood would never end. Only last ^^ ednesday we carried out a beautiful girl of twenty ^■oa^s Pond parents could not cure her. Doctors could not cure her. Oceanic voyage to Europe could not cure her She went out over that road over which so many of your love.l ones have gone. Oh! we want comfort. This is a wo.M of graves. God make me the sun of consolation to the troubled. Help for one. Help for all. Help now. While this moinent the sun rides mid heaven, may the eternal noon of God s pardon and comfort flood your soul." ITT TALMAGE, D.D. / CHAPTER X. THE TRIAL. and tittlo-tattlo, "C *;., f^h" ' T','^:"'' "' K^«'" they bolicve thev ,>™ \ f"''nago, we will l,o,w that -u,.e,i that net 7, .'r/:r',""i; ''"'"]• "■"'-' i»4 a,K, t,,e ch";;!:::!: « ' "T" ,:"^ ?"™'t' "■"'- of the hretliien with II,. T i ''■'"'' «""foi-«H!e aatot God sin™ ir ^' , ,^V ' "'" «>■«■ "eal„,„ «erv- '"""= ""' ^'o--''' Ix'gan.that " eommon fame " ^li, I:;:v4 a'' 130 UFE OF 8EV. T. DB WITT TALMAGE, D.C. ha, not „„,, „ ,„, calumniated ? Has it „ot been tl,e I unii)]c, tJiat lie was seditions, and .sfin-orl „.. fi , ;''"'' ""• l"-<"«'<-"t."S l-any ,>,-ooo«U..l against tZ" ;-:xxt:;n:ry^:— r^™''" :^::::^t:r-^i?i-Fr^■'-- encounter. AVe s v tl wi ' '"'' '"'"''' ""'^ '"'"''^ + .1 . ' '^ M'ltliout any refei-encp u-I,nf-, to .1.0 ,„o„.. of ,1,0 oa«, and ,vitl,out tI,o .s ilto, \v . oreate proj„,,ioo. Tho Brooklyn Prosb;, f \ ',' Xrro^4iir,r::;ri'"-^"- i-od a ,.o.o,„tio„ o,,„.o.inr:L:^:ri; tz::: court in\,.o ,ti;to s:"i,trtrr'"V" ""^ '"■''"■'■ again boforo tbo largoi- court- Ju, r *^""" """ mo.e at present. It ,. ev.dont from Talmage's doclarati.m V'ITT TALMAGE, D.D. ?d ? Has it not been the lot be reviled and slandered by it not thus that tbe life of en away? The "common iiinsees, tbe priests and the t Jesus was "a wine-bibber sinners;" that lie had "a said He would destroy the ind stirred up the people to lie was a blasphemer, &v. that He was apprehendc.,] onfess that the manner in roceeded against Tahna-o us as cowardly and ineaii; common fame" was cn- •lesire to sti-ike him do^^■„, fair and honest and manly It any reference whatever thout the slightest wish to 1 Presbytery has decided mage is innocent of (ho the same majority ha\o nfidenceinjiis characi,.,-, ml his work; and so far lis favor, which ought at treatment as an acquitted thereby terminated. The appealed to the higher the Synod, and in eoase- ease must be gone into therefore respect for that olf precludes our saying n Talmage's declaratioi^ before the Presbvtcrv th^t u tii<^^ action. He said " We LT'',""' ""P^^P'^''«^ for hos- "i"^ years in the BrooklvnTd T '■*'="^>' ^'^r trial for '•••" of the threats of t I'Ax' b r"'" '^ •^''' '^- "^een been conunitted and c.n m Z ? r""'"'^ "" ^^'^^ ^''^-^ t-^I -^ tin. tune would be a 'v" T '" '" "'^^'-^' ^■-• month ago I stood up here on/i ' f'"'^'^' thing. 0,,e -i^'- ^-^;viamU;;:::;:;rt overy question put to me and T 1 '''''' ^"^ ^"^1 ;;vestig.ion L fort^s^e. ; ^^ "^f f ^^n. An I'^'anl. I M-ant an inve.ti.rotion . . ^ '''^^ ""t for forty-seven years. AlF ^^r' '"'• ^^ >--•> '>nt -between God and n.y soul the'l' '"""'''"'"^^ "'>' 'ife and imperfections-butb-fu-, ?"'' ''" thousand sins ^^■t^ve<.n myself and m^rhfn^ I waive the ten days wl.^. . I "^ o /"'^' '"^"•^^'■^^'''^^•''''• pa- for trial.. I L rea< y m^^^^^f l^^---' ^o pre- l'oeket,and with Mitnesses he.'e o , ' '^"^"'"^'"*'^ '" "'y ;-nmes have been comnn-tted arnins.^,. '''" •'* atrocious I^ord Jesus Christ." These do°n ' Tr? '" """'''"'" ''^ ^he "^an who had anythin! o 1 ?^'^^^^^'^^^-o'-^l«ofa against Dr. Talmie^ls!:^::^:;';^;-^ tions: ^' ^"^ loIJowing speciHca- '" tlie month of October, 1870 '"' '''^ ^^ '''■'^''" o'- allowed to be publish I LtV'"'"''?' ''""''' ^'^ P"'''''^''<^^. f'^ -itbout eoL-ad?!^ j^\ :r t"f ^ ^^-'^^^^ -th I^-new to be false, or calculate It .''"'^"^^'"^^ ^^hich he '■" 'l^fensc of his action 7 ^'''' '" ^'^''^^ impression «-t specification. °" '"' ^'^^^'"-^^« ^-^fen-ed o in the •I 1;' fir 1' Ir I'l m ?fir A? II 11 132 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMxVOE, D.D. Specification III.~h\ that lio ropoatcdly jiiado public declarations, in various and cni]>hati(' forms of spt'cch, from his pulpit, that the church of which ho was pastor was a free church, and that the sittings were assigned without reference to the dollar (jucstion, although he knew such de- clarations to be false. Spec iJicatio)i I V.~\nt\\^i,'\n tlie winter of 187G-7, he falsely accused J. W. Ilathaw .y of dishonest practices, and afterwards denied that he had done so. Specijication V.—ln that, in the early part of the year 1878, he endeavored to obtain false subscriptions towards the payment of the debt of the church, to be deceitfully used for the purpose of inducing others to subscribe. Specification VL~l\\ that, in the year 1878, he acted and spoke deceitfully in reference to the matter of the re- engagement of the organist of the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church. Specification F//— In that he publicly declared, on Sun- day, February 2, 1870, that all the newspapers said he wa> to be arraigned for heterodoxy, and used other expressioi calculated to give the impression that he expected to 1 arraigned on that charge, although he knew that he would be arraigned, if at all, on the charge of falsehood, thereby deceiving the peoi)le. The prosecution was conducted by the Rev. Arthur Crosby and Rev. Archibald McCuUough. The defense was committed to the Rev. Dr. Spear, a venerable minister of the new school, who certaiidy had not been prejudiced in Talmage's favor. Dr. Spear said : "I have heard of hini and talked about him, and sniil some things adverse to him Avhich, if I had known him as well as I now do, I would not have said. I lind that I was mistaken in some very important respects rALMAQE, D.D. . ppatedly made public ! lorias of spt'C'ch, I'roiu I ho was pastor A\-as a I'ere assigned without ough lie knew such du- winter of 18V0-7, lie lislionc'st practices, and early ])art of the year subscriptions towards roll, to be deceitfully ers to subscribe. 3 year 1878, he acted » the matter of the re- ibernacle Presbyterian )licly declared, on Sun- ewspa[)ers said he was used other expressions lat he expected to be le knew that he would of falsehood, thereby ])y the Rev. Arthur ugh. The defense was venerable minister of lOt been i)rejudiced in I about him, and said if I had known liiiii )t liave said. I liml ;'y imi^ortant rcspcci.'i UFK OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, 1>.I.. VM) Tie ho IS not in all i)articulars (1 was, and not tli le II !i:ui iliaL J supposed fame I heard said 1 I'laii iliaf, tli, strange, startling and 10 was. I took 1 but I liin now see, as I did not tl .sensational by d <'onini(Mi '"' to be odd. es m - ' -^^^t •*•"' A OKI not tUen s 1 such forms of thought and igii, study and .art '» «t"(', that Natii'-e 1 ust carry along with tl modes of expi people call indiscretioi lem much of what 111 in as a man wIk » and iinjirudence. I looked las given 'ession as very sober >m It would 1 straighten, and put into a nu)i not then see, as I d intellectual organizat o now, that he li;i i])on H' well to chisel, and •G comely shape; but I did not another's, and that 1 ion remarkably unique- ] '111 emotional and frozen powers. I did not tl le cannot be trimmed without undermining the fo,„„i must be him; and an immense inself, how H'n see, as I d( '^ own, and <'ram])ed or ''ion of his great ever much the cril now, that he is and '^t when and where he is himself tl amount of that which ics may snarl at lere is in him regarded him as a genius of li IS good and s( I'OII"". tl 10 peculiarities and infirmiti sown type; but I did not r see genius, which sometimes shade the el ti'i". I did not see, as I emotional nature that ^'f^, Jiist as natural as the that will 'low do, the f, necessarily involve son '•"• 1">^<<'1- of the lat- ''•vor and rush of his not permit the tongue to M'ith the n.ost perfect i<'imj)riidc'nce measure its own word.v the cool and careful analysis of del IS one of those men who of vibrations t^ heart, I exactifudc.an.l that will not M-aitl or )o raj)id for their ow ten make '1 il)er;ile judgment. Ife 10 air trein])Ie with was greatly mistaken. I .lid lu.t t^l ii('ou.,,,ng. And as to 1 us do, its natural simnl pecting artlessness, and, iK'iH'st zeal for God and plK'ify, its generous overflow, it 1011 see, as I now 1 di unless I , iLS unsus- I'laii. Mv affecl nil now mistaken, its ■awn towards liim in this hour of ] '•'US have been the reason why I am befor lis trouble, and tl '(^ you to plead his cause. us IS Ih .'i I I .0 f''^'Wr;^f^ 134 LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TxiLMAUE, D.D. Subscquoiitly the sixth and seventh specifications were \vlth(h-a\vii. 'rfic trial lasted six weeks and attracted gen- eral attention and much eoninient, not only hecanse of the eminence of the accused minister and the nature of the charges preferred against him, hut on account of the man- ner in which the whole alFair was conducted. It ended, as we have already stated, in a verdict of acquittal by a majority of five. At the close of the trial Dr. Talmagc delivered the following address: " Mu. MoujiUATon — ' I think myself happ ' because I shall be permitted to answer for myself this Jay before thee, touching all the things whereof I have l)cjen accused, because I know thee to bo expert in all customs and queS' tions.' Conscious as I have been of my thorough integrity, I am glad that the Presbytery have come to the same mind. You will all, as Christian brethren, want to know liow I feel now. First, a sense of gratiti.d^'," (Here Dr. Talmage extended thanks to the Moderator, to his counsel and to the press). " How do I feel towards my severe opponents in this Presbytery? I feel well. I would, if need be, go any distance to servo them. ]>y the blessing of God I shall come out of this trial without the slightest grudge. I feel that these o})ponents have done me no harm. They have opened for me Avider fields of usefulness. They have marshaled all Christian people and the world on my side. Whatever they meant God has turned it for good. Every blow struck has somehow passed my head and knocked open a new door of work. How do I feel towards Brothers Van Dyke and Crosby and Greene and Dr. Sherwood ? I feel as though I would like to meet them all in heaven, although I am not very anxious to meet them tlie first tno or three days ! It is only through the help of God that I ALMAGE, D.D. he trial Dr. Taliua one second to the liearing of one of my friends, Avhile they spent two weeks in gathering \\\> the venom of my enemies. That is a regret ill whicli all fair-minded men will share. *' Tlie actions of that committee have made more infidels than all of them will over he able to make Christians. At some of the committee I was not much surprised, but I Avould have thought that the senior member of it would have been very careful about uiaking the scandal of tliis trial, because of his own past experience. There has been much discussion as to whether my church and its pastor would leave the Presbyterian denomination on account of the atrocity attempted on mc. 1 was born in the Presby- terian Church, the Reformed Church being one !)ranch of the great Presbyterian family. I shall go with my people wherever they go. I believe in them as much as they be- lieve in me. A more highly-educated, refined and con- VLMAGE, D.D. 12 the scandal of this >n{*o. Tlicrc lias hci'tj UFE Ol' Ui:V. T. DE WITT TAUIA(iK, D.D. UT Borvativo group of nicii and woriuMi is not to li(> found on this iilani't. J hopo for t hi" present tlicy will slay in tliin denomination (Van Dyke's). 'J'|„. p„\vi.r (hai was t In- l.anc of this Presbytery is now broken, and there is ^'oinj,' to be more room for free action. The thiimbserewsare yferl,inism than they are South Sea eannibalism. More Hl»erty uf thought and dee.l hereafter in tlie Brooklyn Presbytery. We eannot all v, ork the same way. Some of tlu- brethren have said that they do not like my way of jtreaehing. I just asmueh dislike theirs. They do not sanction mine. I could not endure theirs. It is certain that as many people like mine as theirs. 3[y way of preaching is poor'enough; but I know theirs will never save the world! God seems to have blessed my AVork as much as He has theirs; but I will make a bargain with them. I will let tliem have tlie.r way if they will let nu' have mine. It has been said on this trial that I have eccentricities. If so, they are natural. I have never cultured but one eccentricity, and that is, never to pursue any one engaged in Christian work! It uuilces but little difl'ereneetome whether a fisherman uses Conroy tackle with tly of golden pheasant, or a crooked stick which he cut out of the woods with his own jack-knife, if he only catches the fish Get men into the Kingdom of (Jod. Who cares about the way you get them in? Six yeais ago I went to the Adirondacks -with a hunting and iishing ai»paratU3 loaned me by a friend. The apparatus was worth about five hundred dollars. If the trout and the deer of Saranao Lake and John Brown's Tract could have understood my baggage, they would have been very apprehensive. Such reels! Such bait boxes! Such cartridges! Such Bradford flies! Such pocket flasks for soda water and lemonade! 4 i II; h ii ' U' ■Is, 1 ;i,;iL.i!. muim ,1 ' t i' ' . i i' 1 1 2'>B'|i Ij B ^ ,:I 138 LIFE OF UEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Sufllcc it tosayldi.l not interfere with the happiness of the l)iscat(ny or zoological world. While I Avas laboriously getting ready, a nioiinlaiiieer with an old blunderhuss wliot throe deer. I found that splendid apparatus did not imply great execution, ^\]uxt is true in tlie woods is true in the Cliureh. All our elaborate and costly tlieological aj.paratus IS a failure if we eaiiiiot catch souls. "On this trial my methods have been criticised because some of you do not und<.rstand what my theory of preach- ing IS. When I go int.. the pulpit I sav, ' DuHng this one hour and a hajf I am going to see how many people I can help, and help ri. ■ away.' We all want help. Our chil- dren an. ,h'ad, ana we want to know whether tliere is any place this side or the other of the sun where we can get them into our arms again. To most of us life is a stru-.^e and we want a Christ to sympathize with us in the MvutZ]o live hundred thousand people in Brooklyn who want help* I welve hundred millions of a race wanting help. Eternal God help us to help them. ]?rethren, I pi-each tlie best'l can. lou could not stand it to hear me preach, and I would not for a salary of five thousand dollars a year sit and hear some of you preach. If you want me dilTerent you will liave to make me over again; but if you do under- take tlie j,)J> of making me over again, like nnto which of these presbyters will you make me? Do let me have a choice of models. "This is certain: I will hereafter bo more intense in my way I have been stupid long enough in sermonizing; I am hereafter going to be interesting, if such a thing is ,,os- s.ble. I he brethren say I am orthodox, and I admit that they are orthoaratus did not imply woods is true in the theological ai)j>aratus on criticised because ny theory of ])reacli- lay, 'During this one w many peoi)le I can lant help. Our chil- whether there is any HI where Ave can get us life is a struafirlc. h us in the strusrLde. ilyn Avho want helji, iting lielp. Eternal '. in-each tlie best I I- me preacli, and I I dollars a year sit want me dilfereut )ut if you do undei-- like unto which of Do let me have a more intense in my in sermonizing; f such a thing is pos- , and I admit that ice that I am here- eresf ing way. No Lliis from the news- LIFE OF REV. T. DE AVITT TAI^MAGE, D.D. 139 papers of the country. Why do all the people road the newsj)apers? ]3ecause the newspapers are interest i,,... i u,,y are we to get our churches thronged with worshipcTs"^ IJy making our religious services interesting, nercafler count me out of the old way of .h.iug things. I have hecu asked whether I intend to withdraw from this Prcsbvlerv I might, perhaps, but for brother Van Dyke's asscHion ('hit he should withdraNv in case of my ac(pn((:d. What would become of the Presbyterian Clnurh if we should both leave it? I think perhaps I ha.I better stay and watch the wreck. Hut I must a.ljoun, m..st <.f what \ have fo say to ...y own pulpit, where I i\.,\ uunv at honu. and have la.-er audiences. Meanwhile I ,,ray for you and vour fan.ilies^tll happiness and prosperity. 1 n>mmeud you to (}o.l and to the \\ord of II.s grace, whirl, is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them (hat are san,-ti- Jied. ' On this e.xtraordinary trial the Kev. Ib-nry Ward Beecher eommented as follows in his p.apcr, the "Christian rnion"- "N>ithlhe majority (he verdict seems to have been a matterof calm and deliberate conviction, while theminority .1 we may judge from their arguments, were not wholly tree from passion and vindictive sentiment " In truth, however, the J]rc,oklyn Presbytery, rather than ).. lalmage, has been on trial, and ecclesiast icism more "';"» ^''t';^"'-- 1 lu- unbelieving world has looked on, at first with curiosity, and then with anything l,ut reverence or even respect, at the i.roceedings of this 'Court of Jesus (M.rist ' it has wondenxl what exam,,lc of ..harity, mutual forbear- unee mutual consideration, and, above all, of disinterested and dispassionate love of truth and ecp.al justice, the Church J'ad to show to the world, auut Ave think we are LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMxVGE, D.D. 141 quite prei)ared to say that trial by wager of battl Court of Jesus Christ e in a is not such an invention as will commend itself to the average unbeliever as any imiirove- meiit on Christ's forgotten i)laii." Ill the " Christian World " of London, under date June 6, 1879, an article appeared from the i)en of the Hev. Dr. Parker of the City Temple, Ilolborn, which was generally regarded as a kind of " summing up " against Dr. Talmage. But since tJien Dr. Parker has published a sort of recanta- tion of that judgment, and as the change in his mind was Avrought by a visit from the Rev. Charles AYood, of Buifalo, United States, a Presbytc-ian minister, and now in England as one of the representatives of the Ameri- can Presbyterians to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, we think it only fair to Dr. Parker and Dr. Tal- mage to give the article referred to: ".Aly readers Avill unanimously bear me Avitness that from first to last I have had only kind Avords for Dr. Talmage. Some time since it Avas rumored that he had acted a very singular part in the matter of a fatal accident on an American river. Ilo made a complete and triunij)liant reply, Avhich I repro- duced, adding a few Avords of most hearty sympathy and interest. AVlien I Avas in Brooklyn six years ago, Dr. Tal- mage received me most kindly; he asked me to preach to his jieople; he said kind things in his paper; and, in short, he showed all possible friendliness. These are things Avhich I do not easily forget, so Avhen this trial business came up my whole heart Avent out after Talinage and my confidence in him Avas unreserved. I had made up my mind to ask him to preach in the City Temple, and to "show him all hosi)i(ality and affection. AVhilst in this state of mind the ' New York Evangelist ' came into my hands, and it con- tained the first and only connected and ajiparently complete mi i y'.\ I' . 4'i . ■::l h\ 142 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D D. !» [|l Statement of the trial I had seen, and I perused it with eager interest. Being almost wholly ignorant of Presby- terian methods of procedure, I supposed that Dr. Van Dyke was making the formal accusation, and that Dr. Tal- mage said about all he had to say in self-explanation and defence. Van Dyke's statement Avas so clear, so moderate, and so detailed, and Dr. Talmage's speech was so off-handed' and so jocular, that I began to fear that there was more substance in the accusation than I at first supposed. But on Saturday night last the Rev. Charles Wood called uj)on me, and gave me a copy of the speech which had been used by Dr. Talmage's counsel, that I might see exactly how the defense stood. I have learned that Dr. Van Dyke is a near neighbor of Dr. Talmage's, that he is a good and able man, but that his congregation is small. I do not know the effect of this upon an American Presbyterian, but I do know exactly what it would be in the case of some English Congi-cgationalists. The effect would be a most virulent and unreasoning prejudice against the suc- cessful man, and all sorts of snarling criticisms would bo passed upon him. If 'John Strong,' for example, were in Van Dyke's position, nothing would be too venomous or cruel for him to say; as for a few perversions here and there, they would be of very small account if the object in view, namely, the torment of the successful man, re- quired their aid. It has come to pass that Van Dyke has done exactly what 'John Strong' has done; that is to say, he has, under a feigned name, written a letter to a Philadelphia newspaper respecting Talraage, which letter is, in my opinion, shamefully disgraceful. The man who could write sixch a letter, under an assumed name, about a brother minister and a near neighbor, is capable of making any accusation, and ought not to' be LMAGE, D D. LIFE OF KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. US listened to for one moment. I hate cowardice I have suifered so much from it ,„ysolf, and have so n o fro quently the damnable treatmontof one minister hy anoth • envy and jealousy of the vilest kind being in common use, that I am determined to denounce it by ^eech """' whenever I fi,Hi it. Had I rea7;> tw lo'-n oii. lU Ji,LROIE IN 18/9— DEPATURE PROM A3IERICA, MAY 28, 1879. The imcnso encitcmont croatc.l in IJrooklvn by tl.c an- nouncemont that Dr. T„ta„„., m,-,. Tain.ago, and in", Jos>.,e lalmago wouW vi.it E„gla,„l, f„„„., i.^ J.ulot in t e tollowng manner. An-angemcnt, ,ve,c n.aJo to frei'ht' ho paat,al steamer, "Grand KepuUie," to convey over three thousand people, men.bers and othjr friends, so^ar a Sandy Hook, ,0 bid them good-bye. The vessel vas Zuy deeked w,th flags from stem to stem. .^„,„ng the frk" ds on Wdtbe "Grand Repnblic" .ere Revs. E. S. Por ot son BL Brake, O. S. St. John, A. Taylor, T. Evans, J A Baldw,n, G. C. Lneas, L Parker, amU.: Gilbert. In attendance also, were M.ayor Howell, Aldern.en French and t P^ ^°'' ''T'' ^"^ Tr— .-Mr.Littt l! tee hloora. Assessor Norton, Police Comnussioner Jonrdan the Unaed States District Attorney, A. W. Tenney Me r ' Boeke, Fa rfield. Lane, Voorhee.s, Marti,., Broekarday Q umby, P,erson, Van Benehoston, Jones, Smith.WinsI t' Janhne, Masters, Miles, Temple, Qnaekenboss Adan • r rofessors West Dnteber, Arbnckle, Crittenden, L M^ e by A cr„,gs2M Regiment Band, was played in stirrin-. ans from the Tabernacle "collection." Under the pilot" age of Major Corwin, Dr. Talmage passed throngh crowds of people to Jewell's dock, and punetnally at 9 A°M. found ,1 S'' ' I ' I .■■■I I, 14(3 LIFE OP REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. himself in (ho midst of over three thousand friends and members of ],is diurch. A largo number of the Presby- terian clergy, and of other denominations, Avere on board to express their best Avlshes for Dr. Tahnage and family. The "Grand Republic" then swung off into the stream, amid a chorus of music and steam-whistles, followed by a volley of cheers which rang over the water in the steamer's wake. A rapid run was made to the Battery, Pier 40, North Kiver, where the magnificent "Gallia," of the Cunard line lay swarming with passongei-s and their friends. Here an- other volley of cheers n-ent up, as Dr. Tahnage and his lamily stepped upon the deck. They immediately took their station on the quarter-deck of the "Gallia," and waved their farewells. Cheer aft-r cheer was given by the Taber- nacle people, as their boat hauled out into the stream, the band playing "Sweet I5y-and-l]y." About 11 A. M. the Cunarder steamed rapidly seaward, followed sharply by the "Grand Republic." Soon both vessels were off Staten Island, when the "Grand Republic" steered alongside the " Galha," and the band played another lively air. This brought Dr. Tahnage and family again on deck, who waved their liankerchiefs, as the great vessel swept out to sea. Both vessels having passed the Narrows, and out into the lower bay, the passengers of the "Gallia" were thrilled by the pro- longed cheers of " the Tabernacle excursionists," and were themselves prompted to throng the port gunwale, and re- turn the cheers. From the "Grand Republic" Mr. Ar- buckle, of the Tabernacle, with his silver trumpet, sent the strains of the Doxology after the Doctor, the regimental band furnished the accompaniment, and then the company of three thousand lifted their voices, and gave the last "Farewell! " This was overwhelming to the Doctor; but quickly putting his hands to his mouth, he shouted a last ALMAOE, D.J). UFE OP B.-,.. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. U7 " Goo4.byc, God l,lo.« y„„! " s„.oral Inm.lrcl yards .ci,a med these vessel.,, yet Ins words fell ,„,„„ , , iu v Sa THE " GALLIA " OFP QUKEXSTOAVX. T.h!!.^^'^-'! '^77'-'^^'^"^^ ^ '^^^^ telegram annonnoingDr Tallage s n.tended visit to England, and innnediatoly Ido an-angements to meet and welcome him off Queenstown By ^hecomtesyoftbef.^^ D. & C. Melver, the necessary documents were completed for our transit by the steam-tender, which wolfbe sent out to receive the mails from the "Gallia" i mid ocean. After a storn.y passage of several hours, the st am- onder bravely accomplished her task, and .ve were duTy anded on board The Doctor and his family had retiS tt "^^rr *^" '''' ^^ ''' '''-^'^^'- ^^ n« the Gallia. The surprise was great when we were announced, and a cordial greeting followed. Arriving safely in Liverpool, we accompanied the distinguished visftors to London, where the journey M-as safely completed on Satur- day, June 7, at 2:30 P. M. IN EXGLAND. On Sunday, Juno 8, Dr. Talmage twico attended the servjees at Westminster Abbey to hear Canon Farrar th„° he "L,feof Christ") and the famous Dean S^ In the evening he worshiped with the largest regular col' ZVZ '," ^"f •"" "' '"•■ 'P'" -™"'» MeiopoiiTan Tab" pa soratt el, ^"f °"''"" °' ^'""'■'•8 "-^s with the pastor at the close of the service. We have pleasure in reprinting an article which appeared ft I: '11 1 * I s III' m ! : ' "^'^ry^^f^ \A 148 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. in the " Liverpool Protestant Standard," under date Juno 14, 1879: LAXDINO OP THE REV. DR. TALMAGE. " The great Talmagc of America landed in Liverpool on last Saturday, and alter a brief stay journeyed on to Lon- don. This eminent divine and Christian warrior has of late months hcen made the target for abuse and vituperalion from men whose ehief oharaeteristiesare('()m[)osed of envy, jealousy, and wind. The accusations which these men brought against Dr. Talmage were almost too silly and absurd to command attention at all; but as the wisest of men surrirested that there are times when even fools should be answered according to their folly lest they be wise in their own conceit, we sui)pose that it was considered necessary that the accusers of Dr. Talmage should have a grand and unrestricted opportunity of making their folly known to all men. And in this not very enviable particular they have been most eminently successful; aiul so it h.appcns that Dr. Talmage instead of being crushed by his des- picable persecutors has risen higher and higher in the estimation of all good, true and noble men, while his traducers are sinking lower and lower into the pit of un- utterable yet well-merited contempt. For our part we have never at any time considered that Dr. Talmage or his character needed one word of defense from the pen of any writer. The mighty Avork Avhich he has a<'C()in- plished through his heart-stirring sermons proclaims him to be a man sent of God. No one puli)it orator of modern times, that we know of, has more vigorously, bravely, and valiantly attacked sin and evil in every shape and form than Dr. Talmage, of Brooklyn. lender his scathing denunciations of vice and iniquity he has caused the devil ^'^, lT.MAOE, d.d. tl," under dato Juno TALMAGK. LTFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAOE, D.D. U[) to roar with rago and hia satellites to gnash their teeth with pain. No wonder was it that the spirits of demonism both m and out of the flesh eombined together in order to try to accomplish the ruin of so groat and sueh an uncom- promising enemy of the kingdom of darkness. To blast the reputation of Talmage meant Satanic triumphs at which all hell would rejoice. Did not Dr. Talmage fearlessly attack official corruption in high quarters? Did he not stand up as the champion of the Bible in the i.ublic schools when Its enemies tried to shut it out from the educational department? Did he not openly expose the vices of wealthy profligates who reveled in lust and unholy pleasures in the gilded palaces of debauchery of Brooklyn and New York cities? Did he not proclaim with apostolic earnestness and zeal a free and full salvation for every repentant sinner who sought pardon and forgiveness through the all-suffi- cient merits of the blood of Christ? Has he not charmed tens of thousands of young men and young women through- out the length and breadth of America, and also in the fatherland, by his sermons, and won them over from the lollies of low, grovolliug pursuits to the bigher platform of noble thoughts and actions? Having done then so many things to ameliorate the condition of humanity and to make the world wiser and better, brighter and happier, it becomes a matter of no wonder that a special legion of unclean and calumniating spirits were let loose against him— for surely the Prince of the power of the air which now worketh in the children of disobedience saw that his kingdom and his craft for the destruction of souls was becoming seriously endangered through the merciless onslaughts made upon it by the brave and valiant Talmage. To destroy the repu- tation of such a man was an object worth struggling for on the part of such a master mind in the realms and literature ill i ffyjf 1:1 fi InKBiiMi WKBM * J^^Bfi^SHnl ^^^^^^^^^^■Hi^vl'it^^^ii^ 160 UFK OP REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. of iniquity as that of Bcckobnb. Hut the old serpent, with all his Hubtility, has again lu-c-ii foik-d; and so it lia.s conic to pass that Tahnage, like fShadrach, ]\[c!. Ut Wington l.,rg., „,„„,,„, „f . ,|^ O'o d,„.-,. , at a ,„„t r,.,o |.. J,., ,,„. u,., „u.,„l„.,. t adn„,„„„, enter..,, at ,l„. „i,,,. ,|,„„, ■,, ,„„,.„ „ | ! fi o< a,„. at o ol„ck wa, ul,„„.,t i,u.„„v,.„i,.,„ly ,.,.„ Al. fl.lr,, umwahnu, j, tl,c ,.row,l..,l „tat. „f tl„. ,.i„„.,.i, tnno ,..,.,, „.a,-,l, «•..,■„ ,l„.„„,, „,„.„, a,„l part .,f ,l„. I,, ,' crow,l. wl,K.|, l,a,l l,y ,|,at .i„„. a»,«„l,l,.,l rusl„.,l i„. N?, ™...y m,,,uto, cla,,....,l l,..r„rc. .1,,. e.lili,.,, was r„ll ,„ „v., flowing, ,„ the crowd continued to pre.,, forward inl„ i e a..l™ and the gallery. Innncdiatcly l.^an a «<■..„« „ Z. fn»,o„ and nproar, wluol, wo think it is sale to assert l"", never been seen in this ,■ ,.,, hofore; and a .st cries ,f ere, Sh Davulson ascended the pnlpit an.l a|,,„,Uc,I to the people to rcoember that they were in th, ,,„,„e of ion». 1 ,„. ,„bl,nh ..eased for a few minut,.,, bnt ore.sentlv recom„K.„c..d and with the s.a,nc cries repealed. A ge, tie man ,n the gallery was lK..rd to remind thepeopt.la thj were not ■„ the pit of a theater, but in L ,',„„,„ „f Dr. Davidson then announced the well-known hy„u, on,mene,„g .; Jesns shall reign where'er the snn," and aid- Before we s.ng these w..rds I want ,„ say a word „r two he way of g,v„,g a cordial wel. .,mo to the distinguishcl «t . nger bestde me in this pnlpi,. j ,„,, ,„„ ,=,,, „,^' p legeo l,e,„g a hearer in ,ny own church since the .la^ when my late dear and hdoved friend. Dr. (iuthrie of »'ght. 1 had chanced to remark last Sun.iay evening, that 'i 1 *! ii^^Hni im ^■'^^HR^^H HHHPl ^^^1 ^' lifHBlf'wiBHBl ^^Ij^^^B^^B iV^^MnS ■ 152 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. I had often longed to be a bearer instead of a preacher here, but I had no idea then that I Avas so soon to have the privilege and the joy of listening to one who, by his inex- haustible originality, his fearless* plainness of speech, and his unmatched pictorial j^ower, has not only got around him the largest congregation in America, but has secured in all parts of the world, from week to week, through the press, his hundreds of thousands of interested and profited hearers. Well, speaking for myself, I welcome Dr. Talmage with my whole heart, and feel honored that his first sermon in Eng- land should be preached in this pulpit, and not only so, but I rray mention to him a gratifying circumstance which oc- curred to-day. My elders and deacons, at an improvised meeting, unanimously requested me to convey to Dr. Talmage, in their name as well as my own, a cordial and lovinpT welcome. Well, my friends; this is not the largest, but it is one of the oldest of our Presbyterian churches in London. When Dr. Talmage kindly offered to give me the benefit of his first sermon here, I thought it would be selfish to have him here, I pressed upon him and his friends the duty of his going to the Agricultural Hall; but for reasons which I can quite understand, Dr. Talmage desired to spend a quiet evening in London. I am afraid that is a luxury he will hardly have here to-night. Let me say, however, for the consolation of those who are disap- pointed, that Dr. Talmage has kindly promised me that before be returns to America he will hold an afternoon service at the Agricultural Hall. I may say, in conclusion, that I have very often read his graphic sermons with a feeling of wonder; for, unless it be Dr. Guthrie, I regard my friend beside me as the greatest word-painter the age has produced; and I pray God that, unharmed by the lip of flattery or the tongue of slander, this splendid gift may loner be consecrated to the service of his Master." •'^f> lAQE, D.D. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 153 The text which Dr. Talmagc selected on tliis occasion is found in Kcv. vii. 17: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The late Rev. John Angell James, of Birmingham, was accustomed to say that he never cared to hear an "unbruised minister," for that it was only those who had passed under the bruising Hand of God that could speak so as to comfort and help troubled minds. We think we could see in the deep and exquisite tenderness, and the far-extending sympathies which, like precious odors, per- fumed the sermon on the " tearless world," the l)enefit and blessing with Avhich God is already sanctifying His serv- ant's troubles to make him not only a Boanerges, "a son of thunder," but a Barnabas also, "a son of consolation." May it be so ! THE TESTIMONY OK AN AMEKICAN JOURNAL. The following remarks concerning Dr. Talniage recently appeared in a first-class American journal: " No other i)reacher addresses so many constantly. The Avords of no other i)reacher were ever before eari-ied by so many types, or carried so far. Types give him thi-ee con- tinents for a church, and the English-speaking Avorld for a congregation. The judgment of his gejieration will, of course, be divided ui)on liini, just as that of the next will not. That he is t topic in every newspaper, is much more significant than the fact of what treatment it gives him. Only men of genius are universally commented on. The universality of the comment makes friends and foes alike prove the fact of the genius. That is what is impressive. As for the quality of the comment, it will, in nine cases out of ten, be much more a revela- tion of the character behind the pen which writes it than a true view or review pf the man, This is necessarily so. II i liljll ilnfl 11 fl (rS n IP'" 'Wf '^ ';ll ■ !l ■m 154 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. The press and the pulpit in the main are defective judges of one anotlier. The former rarely enters the inside of the latter's work. There is ac(iuaintanceship, hut not intimacy hetween them. Journals find out the fact of a preacher's power in time. Then they go looking for the causes. Long before, however, the masses have felt the causes and have realized, not merely discovered, the fact. The penalty of being the leader of great masses has, from Whitfield and Wesley to Spurgeon and Talmage, been to serve as the target for small wits. Their attacks confirms a man's right to respect and reputation, and are a proof of his influence and greatness. It can be truly said that while secular criticisms in the United States favorably regards our sub- ject in proportion to its intelligence and uprightness, the judgment of foreigners on him has long been an index to the judgment of posterity here. No other American is read so much and so constantly abroad. His extraordinary imagination, earnestness, descriptive powers and humor, his great art in grouping and arrangement, his wonderful mastery of words to illumine and alleviate human condi- tions, and to interpret and inspire the harmonies of the bet- ter nature, are appreciated by all who can put themselves in sympathy with his originality of methods and his high consecration of purpose. His manner mates with his na- ture. It is each sermon in action. He presses the eyes, hands, his entire body, into the service of the illustrative truth. Gestures are the accompaniment of what he says. As he stands out before the immense throng, without a scrap of notes or manuscript before him, the effect pro- duced cannot be understood by those who have never seen it. The solemnity, the tears, the awful hush, as though the audience could not breathe again, are oftentimes pain- ful. ILMAGE, D.D. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 155 M ;l " His voice is peculiar, not musical, but productive of startling, strong effects, such as characterize no preacher on either side of the Atlantic, Ills power to grapple an audience and master it from text to peroration has no equal. No man was ever less self-conscious in his work. He feels a mission of evangelization on him as by the im- position of the Supreme. That mission he responds to by- doing the duty that is nearest to liiin with all his might — as confident that he is under the care and order of a Divine Master as those who hear him are that they are under the spell of the greatest prose-poet that ever made the Gospel his song and' the redemption of the race the passion of his heart." An English correspondent, who recently heard Dr. Tal- mage in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Avrites as follows: " I Avorshiped in the Tabernacle on the Sabbath. It was only by sending my card to an acquaintance that we ob- tained scats. Hundreds Avent away who could not obtain standing room. The throng packed into the great church was estimated at about 0,000, The singing Avas congrega- tional, and as good as any heard in the Moody Tabernacle in Chicago. The Scripture reading, the praise, the sermon Avcre all delightful. Every utterance of the preacher is evangelical, the pure old Gosjjel, comforting to saints, full of Avarning to sinners. No effort Avas made to touch the sen- sibilities, and yet I saAv tears on many strong faces. This is the Gospel of our fathers. It is the Gospel of our Church. It is the Gospel of our Blessed God. Why should not Satan seek the destruction of such a far-reaching instru- mentality of the truth as it is in Jesus? " ' ' . ■ #^;-i lit t, ■:H' CHAPTER XII. THE WELCOME HOME, Brooklyn's welcome to Dr. Talmage was tendered on the evening of October third, 1879, at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. It was a great demonstration and showed the high estima- tion and love iii which the celebrated preacher is held, not only by his own flocli, but by the people generally. The Tab- ernacle never contained a more magnificent audience. There were between five and six thousand persons present, fully one-half of whom were ladies. It was an assemblage repre- senting the wealth, the culture and the best people of Brook- lyn. The professions Avere largely represented. In point of enthusiasm, the occasion has had but few equals in this city; the audience appeared to be fairly carried away by their feelings, and applauded the sentiments of the preacher, and the various other speakers, to the echo. Skillful hands had decorated the interior of the Taber- nacle with flowers and bunting. A floral bulwark had been erected about the platform, and from it depended curling vines. Fronting the great organ pipes was a crayon por- trait of Dr. Talmage, executed and presented by Mr. E. II. Hart, of Philadelphia, and directly under it was the floral legend "Welcome. " The same word appeared on numer- ous pillows of flowers about the platform. Surmounting the frame Avork of the organ a star of gas jets blazed forth, and about half Avay down the front of the instrument, in letters of fire, shone the Avords "Glory to God. » American and British flags, intertwined, helped also UFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, P T). 157 to sot off the organ front. Facing the gallorv, all around, were Sunday-school banners and flowers in great profusion, and the atmosphere of the room was redolent with the per- fume of the choicest products of the conservatory. Excellent arrangements had been made to receive the people. Long before seven o'clock a great crowd assem- bled on Schermcrhorn street, near the church, awaiting an opportunity to enter. Only those Avho had tickets were admitted up to half-past seven o'clock, and at that hour nearly every seat in the house was occupied. At a quarter to eight o'clock the doors Avere opcjied to all, and within five minutes every inch of standing room was filled, while the street was thronged by those unable to get inside. On the platform were United States District Attorney A. W. Tenney, the Chairman of the evening. Mayor Howell sat at his left and Rev. Dr. Farley on his right. Sitting on either side of them were ex-Mayors Hunter and Schroeder, Judge Neilson, of tlie City Court; Rev. Dr. Ingersoll, Rev. Dr. J. O. IVck, of the St. John's M. E. Cliurch; Rev. Dr. Lans- ing, Rev. Hugh Smith Carpenter, JJernard Peters, ex-Dis- trict Attorney Winslow, Commodore Nicholson, Captain Andrews, of the steamship firin; John Williams and others. Scattered througli the house were noticed numer- ous well known citizens, including Hon. Henry C. Tilurphy, Dr. Joseph C. Hutchinson, Rev. Dr. Spear, Superintendent Police Campbell, ex-Superintendent Folk, Dr. H. A. Tuck- er, Frederick Baker, J. R. Hutchinson, Isaac Hall, K L. Munro, Major Culyerand many others. Mr. PoAvell, the assistant organist, played a voluntary and filled in the time till eight o'clock, when Mr. George W. jMorgan took his seat at the big organ and began to I)lay " Home, Swept Home," Professor Peter Ali, cornetist, accompanying Lira,, % il ' ' < ■ ,' i ' y ififti' IB' lw:4i 158 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. At that moment there was a movement in the back part of the house, and Dr. Tahnage was observed making his way down the aisle leading to the platform. He was es- corted by Dr. Tucker on his right and Mr. 0. 11. Franken- bergh on his left. The audience arose, and amid a storm of applause Dr. Tal- mage passed down the aisle, ascended the platform, shook hands with each gentleman there and then took a seat on the right of Mr. Tcnney. The applause was renewed and the enthusiasm increased. The ladies waved their hand- kerchiefs and claj)ped their gloved and jeweled hands, and the gentlemen stamped and caned the floor, until it seemed as if the building shook. Dr. Talmage looked on with evi- dent pleasure. TIIK PROCEEDINGS. Quiet having at length been restored, the Chairman opened the proceedings. At his request the audience united in singing the song of welcome to the pastor, and they sang it with a will, Mr. Morgan playing the accompaniment, and Professor Ali leading Avith his cornet. Rev. Dr. Farley offered up a fervent prayer and Mrs. Eve- lyn Lyon liegeman sang in her usual artistic style, '' Thy People Shall be My People," from Ruth and Naomi. She responded to an e)icore with " The Dearest Spot on Earth to Me is Home, Sweet Home." The applause was great and Mr. Talmage joined in it heartily. The Chairman announced that letters had been received from a large number of gentlemen, who had been invited to be present, regretting their inability to attend and con- gratulating Dr. Talmage upon his success and his safe re- turn. Among those who sent letters were: Rev. Dr. Rock- well, Rev. George E, Read, Rev. C, C, Hall, Rev. J. M. ■■^^■.^^^ ILMAGE, D.D. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. lYJ Buckley, D.D., Rev. F. N. Zabriski, S.O., llov. C). S St John, Rev. Joseph Demarest, D.D., J. J. Ik-iny, Ho,, s ]]" Chittenden, Rev. U. D. Gulick, Rev. W. A. Leonard, Rev. F. Peck, and many others. The Chairman introduced as the first speaker of the even- ing, Mr. Bernard Peters, editor of the "Brooklyn Times." Mr. Peters was received with ai)plause, and in tiie course of his speech said that Dr. Talmage was the Ca'sar of the oc- casion, but he differed from the Roman in that his enemies had stabbed but could not kill him. Rev. Dr. Lansing, Rev. J. O. Pwk, ex-District Attorney Wmslow, and Rev. Dr. Ingersoll, each delivered brief, ap- propriate addresses assuring the Doctor of the high place he held in the estimation of good people. Miss Gracie Wattles, one of the scholars of the Sunday- school, then delivered the following Avelcome poem: Oft befoi-c our Ileavouly Father Have Thy people bowed in prayer; Prayed that lie wouUl guide aud iruard thee, Keep thoe safe, will, tendcrest care. God has answered— we behold thee, Perils threatened thee in vain. Now our liearts aud arms enfold thee; Welcome to thy home again. Welcome to thy holy calling, To the path thou long liast trod. Welcome, teacher, friend and pastor; Welcome, messenger of God. And when o'er death's swollen river All thy flock have safely passed, May we all, with joy foi-ever, Welcomed be in Heaven at last. A. W. Tenney, United States District Attorney, then spoke as follows: ^ 160 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. I 11 SPEECH OF A. W. TENNEY. *' Ladies and Gentlemen — The Committee of Arrange, ments have announced upon the programme that at this stage of the proceedings an address of welcome would be delivered by the Chairman. You can hardly expect any extended remarks from me after the interesting addresses which have already been made, the songs that have been sung and the sweet poem of welcome which has just been so exquisitely rendered by tLe little girl orator of the Sun- day-school of this church. Indeed, no words of mine are necessary to fittingly welcome Dr. Talmage and his hon- ored wife ' home again.' "It is this magnificent audience of five thousand and more; it is the thronged streets around and about this church; it is the Christian households and family altars of this great city that welcome them back to Brooklyn and to the holy services of this church. Yea, more, it is the Christian men and women of this entire land who bid them welcome to-night, and with their welcome they mingle their thanksgivings to Almighty God, who held the wind and the waves in Ilis hands, who stayed calamity and stopped disaster, and made it possible for them and theirs to journey the land and the sea unharmed, and after many days to return with renewed vigor and health to the scenes of their labors and the kindly greeting of friends and the loved ones at home. " And the question naturally arisc^, why is it that this roya. welcome is tendered to Dr. Taluiage to-night? Why do we welcome him back to this church where he has preached so long and with such signal success, and to this platform, where, by divine appointment, he has a better right to stand than you or I ? ^'^'^v ** It is not because he is a citizen of Brooklyn merely. ILMAGE, D.D. «rNEY. nmittee of Arrange. )grarnme that at this f welcome would be m hardly expect any- interesting addresses ongs that have been ! which has just been irl orator of the Sun- 10 words of mine are 'almage and his hon- jf five thousand and ound and about this and family altars of k to Brooklyn and to ifea, more, it is the re land who bid them relcorae they mingle , who held the wind stayed calamity and i for them and theirs mcd, and after many d health to the scenes tig of friends and the s, why is it that this lage to-night ? Why hurch where he has I success, and to this aent, he has a better of Brooklyn merely. LIFE OF REV, T. DE WlTf TALMAGE, b.D. iGl It is not because of his magnificent and unprecedented re- ception by all classes of people in England, in Ireland, in Scotland and Wales. It is not because his recent visit to European shores had added new lustre to the American name. But it is because we with whom he lives, his neigh- bors and his friends, who have watched his coming in and going out among us for these many years, know full well what manner of man he is. It is because we, who have felt the sunshine of his life upon our own, know what a faithful and sincere minister of Christ he is, and we come here to- night in these mighty numbers to say to him, ' Welcome,' and ' Well done.' "We know, better than strangers know, how he has wrought for good in our midst. We know better than they what has been the work of his hand and brain for the last ten years. We know what battles he has fought and what victories he has won. We know, too, that other sublime fact, that Dr. Talmage is one of those ministers who believes in something, and who is brave enough and man enough to preach what he believes without first asking permission of the presbyteries or consociations. Yea, more, and what is even better, we know that he vitalizes, day by day, his precepts and belief into generous acts and friendly deeds. •' The Brooklyn Tabernacle has long been famed as a sort of ecclesiastical shooting gallery, where sin, with all its armor on, has been pierced to its very center, no matter whether it was the gilded sin of the palace or the wretched sin of the hovel. In such a conflict as this, and with such such an experienced archer as he, is it any wonder that somebody has been hit ? And is it any wonder, too, that the wounded and the routed should sting and snarl and bite the dust. ?l!j; m I ■ I f ^''■'■^-f'.',..^.^^ I t I 1C2 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. "Said one of the most ^Hfted men of our times, *If you would know liow m-and a blow you have struck for any course, mark its rebound.' If you would know, my coun- trynion, Mhat kind of blows Dr. Tnlraage has struck for (Jod and man, for truth and the right, for law and order, for good government and good so<-iety, mark the rebound of his critics and defaniers. "Dr. Talmage, liowever cordial may have been your wel- come in foreign laiuls, for which we, your friends, are justly proud, and to those who tendered you the same we here and now gijve them - ratei ul thanks. Nevertheless, let me assure you that none of these welcomes were more gen- erous and sincere than thcone Avhich it is our high jn-ivilege to tender you to-night. And let me assure you, further- more, that this greeting is not tendered you by your church and congreg.'ition alf)ne. "It is true they are here in goodly numbers, anxiously waiting to greet you one by one. But this is Brooklyn's welcome, and I jir.ay you receive it as such. Here are assembled the men and women of this great city, without regard to creed, sect or church affiliations. Here ure the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists, the Baptists and the Unitarians, the JNIothodists and the Episcopalians, each mingling their congr.atulations with the other as they unitedly welcome you back to the land of your birth and the city of your choice. "In the name, then, of your church and congregation, in the name of all the peo])le of all the city, I congratulate you upon your auspicious journey and happy return, and I now welcome you, with all the enthusiasm this hour inspires, to our hearts and to our homes, to our friendship and to our love; but above all, I welcome you to the sacred service of our Lord and Master, whom you have so faithfully served JS.i TALMAOE, D.D. LIFE OF UKV. T. DK WITT TALMAOK, D.I). lo;i .n the years that arc gono. An,] may this groctin,., so .oner- ous so hearty an< so nin.-ere, aroh the future ^ your fe w.th eourage, w.th hope an.l with eheer, as vou go fo th huttlii.gfortho welfare of the raee. ' " And now, ladies and gcntlemen/reeognizing how expeet- ant you are, and not desiring to detain you' ny hZ I have the extreme delight of introdueing to you'the ^u^ f tue evening, the pastor of ,he JJrooklvn T.-vWrnaeie As Doctor Tahnage eame forward, the audieneo rose at onee, n.en and women clapping their hands and waving their handkerclnefs and fans. He was visibly atfeeted by the demonstration. The applause eontinueiMps parted, lias its eeho in this magnilieent reeeption I feel altogether unworthy. It is only by extreme effort that T have eome to the mastery of my emotion. T do not so Zl!:T T "V T""^' -^^ '^'^'^ ^-^ ^»>-'Jf. to be your sen ant lor Jesus sake. "AVh.n I see on this platform and around it the leading men in the legal, the medieal, the literarv, the elerieal pro fess.ons, men mighty in ehureh and State; our Mayor, vhom I thank God has been so far restored unto health as to be present to-night; our ex-Mayors Hunter and Sehroe- clor, each one of them having lifted one layer in the wall of our municipal prosperity; our Judge Neilson, honored on '. *: .. \sk ''• %-/rr>'"^ f'^tf' i»^ F > IU4 Ul<'E OF KKV. T. UE WITT TALMAGE, D.0. both Bides for the manner in wliichhe lias worn the ermine; this great array of Christian clergymen, as kind and genial and talented and consecrated as any men who ever adorned the American pulpit, and this great throng of men and women, through whose prayers to Aliniglity God we safely crossed the stonny sea— :when I consider all this, I feel that any attempt to make ade .■■;3-r ] ■ .) i '%il i1 III ■Ami n 166 UFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Hugh Miller and Christopher North and James Simpson and Sir William Hamilton and John Knox, Avithont lialf trying. Why, if you turn over a stone among the high- hinds of Scotland, you almost expect to sec a Roderick DIiu bound out from under it. "And then you ought to feel liow a Scotclnnan, a genu- ine Scotcliman, shakes hands. He just takes your Iiand and lays it across the palm of his hand, and then closes tlic fingers from one way, and then doses the thumb from the other way ami puts on your liand tlic j)rcssurc of a great heart until your knuckles fairly crack, and then ho gives you the up and down motit)n with the force of a steam- boat Avalking beam. When a Scotchman shakes Iiands with you in (Glasgow or Edinburgh, you kiunv he wants to see you and is glad to see you. There is England! the great factory of the world! Smoke stacks, tli(> organ pipes through which roll forth the grand march of the world's industries, while innumerable hannners beat time. And you run up to Nottingham and seethe witchery of the lace they make there. And you run up to Henley and see the wonderful pottery, the brightest pictures of the world iii- M'rought into the ]>late and the vase and the mantels. And you go to Shefheld and see the poetry of steel. Mi-. Hod- gers' great establishment, where he turns the trunks of four liundred elei)hants, every year, into the handles of knives, so that if you happen to lose your baggage on the way to Shetlicld, you are very mu;'h in sympathy with those ele- phants that lose their trunks. And then }()u go over to Luton and see thtni making straw hats. An■ '"K'.t Winn he Hothn.a ^une up through Ih,. Narrows .„„!„„ one snlo of us we had the «an,ly „ook I.igh.ho^J a,' d Z I'Wil !;■;< •7 "--_-' ^^■'i^aKw^H jp^HPMi ■-' ill HflnHHiMi^iiill ■■'iMMHI ii'MB9BH9i!fflM! 168 LIFE OF REY. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. the other side we had the rows of lamps of the Brighton and Manhattan Beach, and then my imagination looked further, and I saw the bright homes of Brooklyn, where there were so many friends waiting for us — friends with whom we hope to live and hope to die. And then on the right of us there lay beautiful Greenwood in the soft moon- light, the place where you and I expect to lie down for cool and refreshing slumber when the hard work of all our occu- pations and professions is ended forever. And then when the 'Bothnia' dropped anchor at (piarantine and we were waiting for the morning, two boats came, one bearing a jolly committee from this church, to take me off and bring me ashore; the other steamer bringing the Government officers to take the Eurojjcan mails, and bringing to us the dear reporters. " What a stupid world this would be without reporters. Some of my friends are as a'fraid as death of reporters. I don't know why they should be afraid of them. They hover over us by day, and they watch our steps by niglit. There is no enterprise in all the earth among the newspoper press like the enterprise of the American press. On Monday morning you open the papers in London, and though the day before there were five hundred powerful sermons preached, you will not see a sketch of any of them. And then, the much criticised art of interviewing is purely Ameri- can. The Scotch and Irish and English reporter never gets much nearer a speaker than the rej)orters' desk, and has no opportunity to ask questions, while the American reporter comes up and surrounds him, covers him with affability, and cut - nim off where he is too long, and stretches him out where he is too short, and sticks him with a pin if he is too windy. Oh, blessed be the reporters! When, on Tues- day night, eight or ten of them came on the ' Bothnia,' I ^m-4w TALMAGE, D.D. LIFE OF KEV. T. DE NVITT TAl.MACiK, ]jj). 109 fokkHl my bands and said, < Home at last.' Oh, l.ow r^ood It .s, my friends, to look into your faces. I hoard it Mas said on this side of the water that I was having so good a time abroad I wo« d not come back. Why, that Mould be as absurd as to think that because a man went to an evening party and had a good time with creams and almond nut's and pickled oysters-, that therefore, at the close of the enter tamment, he should go up to the host and say: SMv dear sir, I have enjo^-ed myself so much to-night I think I shall spend the rest of my life with you! ' "While there are many things on the other side of the water I like better than on this side of the water, there are more things on this side of the water I like better than on the other side of the water; and I hope I have come home in the highest style, in what might be callea the highest style-a democrat. By that I don't mean I am always going to vote the Democratic ticket It M'llI always depend upon which are the best men that the parties put up who we will v lefor. " I received many messages from the other side of the water I was to bring here. I have not time now to deliver them. I will simply say I invited all the English people to come to America and see us, and I told them all to come to my house, but I warned them not to come all at once Oh my fnends, we want to swing wide open the gates of this continent. Whether emigration to this country is helpful or damaging, all depends upon the kind of men and women that come. "The more good men and women you can get from En<.- and, Ireland and Scotland to come to this country, the better, and I have just now to tell you in my closim. re- marks that there are tens of thousands of the best of Eng- hshmen who are ready to embark for America, and they arc Hi m i ' ' ^ i\ ITU LIf'E OV KEV. T, DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. coming. Wc had a large number of thorn on the * Bothnia.' Let tliem come. Let us swing wider open the gates of our continent. Let us remember that the coming American is is to be an admixture of all foreign bloods. " In about twenty-five or fifty years the model American will step forth. He will have the strong brain of the Ger- man, the polished manners of the French, he artistic taste of the Italian, the staunch heart of the English, the high- toned piety of the Scotch, the lightning wit of the Irish, and when he steps forth, bone, muscle, nerve, brain inter- twined with the fibers of all nationalities, heaven and earth will break out in the cry, ' Behold the man ! behold the American !' " ' The Chairman then announced that the proceedings would be brought to a close with the benediction by Rev. Hugh Smith Carpenter. Dr. Carpenter pronounced the benediction, and the vast atulience began to disperse. Dr. Talmage took up a position in the centre aisle, and shook hands with hundreds of the people as they passed out. It was nearly eleven o'clock before all had departed, and the memorable reception was at an end. t ' LMAGE, D.D. CHAPTPJR XIII. PHREXOLOGICAI, DESCRIPTION OF THE REV. DR. TALMAGe' BY PROF. L. N. FOWLER. ' Professor Fowler, the eminent phrenologist, has iust furnished us with tiie following delineation of Sr. Tain ag ' aaeiso iLslifo. L.,.e,l u,,on most carefnl examination and scientihc inductum, it supplies a key to the menta and |ru,ral cons titufon of the g.vat preacher, and throw m«h liglit upon his ministry and lift. "The organization of Dr. Tiilinage h most marked, men- tall,- aiKl physicallj., Plij.io.ogi.all,. lie i, tall, ^pareTnd angular, having a ,,rert„inina,i..e of the mi„c,i ai olons an., nervous systems. Though lie has good iung.p^verTnd aircireulation yet his ability to generate vitll ,y Lit equal to his inelniatioii to work it off " lie is indebted to a po«-erf„! hereditary eonstitution for 1..S abii, y to endure so mneli labor; p.II his vital fC are very ae.ive, henee he reenii.s quiekly when cxliaus eland recovers speed ly when ill, espeeially i'f l,e ean see, re enty ■fresh air He nas all the .naehiiiery for working, Lds never more .„ his element than when his hands „|.rf,iU o plans he labors with great ease and without frietion ills brain ,s somewhat above the average in size, which gives strength and eomprehcisivenes, of nTind, but i Tot «.. large as to be cnmbersonie or i„,,vieldv. Having an abunuanee of both nerve and musele, he is' vigoro "s"^."," ! < "t hi, great intrfkc „„, powor is C™ '"'"!""""'"'' crimination and can-u-ifv , l-ompanson, gniug ,Iis- Tlns faculty Is '^ I "',■';■■"" T "'"'« "'"' """"""■• Imu .0 fully p™,t I „ • ;^ ","'' •"''"""•■"''>■. '-I'lo, distinct to hiilrl? "'••■""• '" '■™'"-'^ *-»"<• ,.,•" "1 ''"';*'*" '" '"*"' '■"■'■J'l.ing filtcl to i„ place cverv U.n,g^ha„dyana convenient, an., ho „a„g,.eat'a:;u':hiUtV tio'l?," '" T '"' I'"''"''"^'' 'otl'O Lost advantage. Intui- rt::i^,;:-.';:--:\-r:-ri-4 fir::?- '^'» -"''--''> -'''^^^^^^^ f..t.ue, to know ,vhat » true connecto.1 with the Divine "Ho has the peculiar power of expanding thon.>ht and fecl.ng, or concentrating and co,ulcn4)cr «oi ,,„,?' ..iea can be enlarged intfa.o„gdi»c:n:t. 'a eVrr ?0reu: "T; ^''"'"''— - 'arge, giving a duel, It forethought, general prudence, au,I p„w« to keep °o, o - of co„hatwe„rrrCrt:i~r^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I' p *f^ ^.^ iTti LIFE QV KEV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. flictatorial and f^^tcrmlnpd under the infl.iciice of Self-esteem and Firmrosr. auctiveness is not large; he is not cruel or rtM-n^.tui, does not liarbor hard feelings, and would sei.ii eiy punish an iiieiny if he had him in his hands. "lie is greatly opposed to shedding Mood, going to war, or causing uni)e(;essary j)aln. Acquisitiveness and Secret- iveness aru small; hence he i " ::i; in worldly wisdom. Ho needs money and property to carry out his large opera- tions, and that need may be a powerful stimulant for him to acquire property; but he is not naturally a good financier or manager of money. Secretiveness being rather small, be is inclined to great openness and frankness, and there- fore liable to expose liimself to unnecessary criticism. lie is perfectly frank, candid, ai'd open-hearted, and the oppo- (site to a hypocrite or deceiver. More Ac(iui8itiveness and Secretiveness would help to give a kind of wisdom which would l)e much to his advant ige. •' He has not much of tlie qualities of Approbativen...- and Agrecableness, is no flatterer, and cannot cater or say and do things simply to please. He «" insurmountable drfflcnitieX: f" °^^' ""'' ^''»™* llie lire was discovered soon after '>-30 nVln v • *t. *t Tr*i^f%^ :r If 178 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAQE, D.D. sioiml jets of tlamo bmikiiij,' through tlio groat cathedral window on the eastern side of the church, near the Third avenue entrn" je. lie ran to the engine-house on State street and giivu the uhirm ; tiie dents of hin club on the heavv door will remiiiti there as long as tli'' engine-house stands. Three minutes later the lire eonii)any was laying a line of hose from the nearest hydrant to the burning church. Fuiemau Dooley saw at a glance that its interior was al- most a solid mass of tlame, and that the chances of saving it wore slim indeed. He ordered Assistant Foreman Frank Duffy to sound a third alarm, and soon fire-engines and hose-carts were clattering into Sciiermorhorn street from every direction. The rain was pouring down licavily and the work of the firemen was cold and cheerless. Chief Nevins waa one of the first to arrive and directed the move- ments of the men, who soon had a dozen streams of water playing upon the flames. HARD WORK FOR THE FIREMEN. The Tabernacle stood on the south side of Schermerhoru street, near Third avenue. A stiff breeze blew from the east, driving the intense heat full into the firemen's faces, greatly impeding their work, and rendering their positions in front of the burning structure almost intolerable. Op- posite the Third av(mue entrance, in front of a newly- finished dwelling, was a large pile of mortar, and the fire- men stationed there were only able to hold their ground by standing knee-deep in the mortar, packing it closely about their rubber boots. Meanwhile the fire, the heat of which appeared at that time to be to the right of the nave and around the platform, progressed with great rapidity, until it embraced the library on the right and the lecture- TALMAQE, D.D. FIREMEN. LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAQE, D.D. 179 roon, „„ tho kft. Omit t„„g„o« „f flame I™,k,1 ,„„var,l fmm tho .ktod rool on all »kl,., |i,,|,u„„ „,, I „ dul kv l.™vy nun nor tl.o torront» of wato,- from tl.o lin™ „f ,o' d,.d „tay the conna«n,ti„n, and the roof fell i I" A ,n, f /,' """ '"'"" '"""»•"<' ''y "'« ""*"' wall. mrnaco to tlio hoine»and safety of U,e citizen.s livinL' on e tl,„r „d„ and acros. the „trect. Snoh of those aa w "e n„t already aronsed wore .peodily apprmod of the in. «ndl .anger and warned to vacate thoir honscs. Th'^'Ir' who wa. on the aeene immediately after tho alarm to g.v™ and before the arrival of the firemen, assirtedTn I workofawaken„,gthepc.o,,le. In several of the homes here was a short-lived panie. Eseape from the frenTw, .mp„ss.ble. Sueh of the residents as had the temerity to 12d T, '";"'■" '''>°'- "J" "--l-hot fnrnaoe is opened, Ihe exposed woodwork of thoir homes was -oroW and bhstered, and nearly every window warb'kr 1 some eases the glass was not knoeked out, but shattered amicraekedma thousand elosely intersected veins, and almost fused by tho terrible heat. FIRE IN THE NEIOHBOBISO HOUSES. About .■):30 o'clock the houses on each side of tho church Torn t° '" ""T" ^''T "" *''" "PP"*'-' ''1» ««-« «.o Are when hey started for their customary Su d- v present all day Ihe great cathedral window in front S- mamod of the ornate and pillared front. The small entrance M 111 'i I P ii '^'f^' '-fm^: 182 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. to tlie west was also staudiug. It led into the lecture-room, which was the least damaged part of the church, and the only portion over which a roof yet remains. Some china- ware packed in this room was found unbroken, and a piano in one corner, although now incapable of producing sound, appears externally but little damaged. Piles of blackened ruins and brick cover the platform. Not a ves- tige remains of the magnificent thirty-five thousand dollar organ. Scattered through the smoking embers were the re- mains of half-burned hymnals and church books. The library, which consisted of many hundred volumes, is en- tirely wiped out. WAS IT CAUSED BY ELECTRICITY? The fire apparently raged fiercest in the northern end of the church, in that part of the nave nearest the altar. It is on this side that the electric wires enter the church, which was lighted by 600 incandescent Edison lamps. The dynamo which operates them is at the headquarters of the Edison Company on Pearl street. These had only been placed in position recently, and the work was not com- pleted until Saturday, when Foreman Clark, of the Edison Company, worked with a number of men in the church all day. They finished their labors about 3 o'clock. What was the cause of the fire ? Was it, as before, caused by a defective flue, or did an electric wire or a bolt of lightning start the flames? These were questions in every- body's mouth. The last man in the church Saturday night was Sexton James E. Dey. " I left the church," said Mr. Dey, "about 6:30 o'clock Saturday night. I went through the entire building, as was my custom, seeing that all the lights were out and that everything was all right. Not a single gas Jet was burning ■^ TALMAGE, D.D. into tho locturc-room, the church, and the smaius. Some china- nd unbroken, and a icapable of producing 3 damaged. Piles of platform. Not a ves- y-five thousand dollar ig embers were the re- church books. The ndred volumes, is en- TRICITY ? n the northern end of nearest the altar. It es enter the church, jsccnt Edison lamps, at the headquarters of eet. These had only the work was not corn- 1 Clark, of the Edison men in the church all ut 3 o'clock, '"as it, as before, caused ic wire or a bolt of ere questions in every- the church Saturday r, "about 6:30 o'clock le entire building, as gilts were out and that jle gas Jet was burning LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 183 ^^en Heft. I never keep a light in the church over " Were the furnaces burning ?" not put in over a peck of coal ' ' ,' '"''■''• ^ '"'' electric currents from tlio building. ^^'' roof fellm,\:rlt7,,;;::^ J-^^^^^^^^^^^ f"« when sections of sl-ito foil f ., f ^'^^"^^"^ crashes c«.po' fell in, but of the most ™tnilicLtw,; t"'"^ P™™'"" """ .laAnes, andX fal i ; !l . /"T"' ,''™- '^'"■'"«'' "'» -''oic!::;':r;:rt,!;zroo7r" 1 1 184 UFE OF REV. T. DS WITT TALMAQE, D.D. this morning. That may have struck the church, although no crash of thunder accompanied that particular flash." I THE HISTORY OF THE TABERNACLE. The Brooklyn Tabernacle was probably the most famous Protestant church in America, next to Trinity in this city. It was built in 1873 and cost over $175,000. The organ was one of the largest and best in the world, built by George Jardine & Son. Its cost, 135,000, was borne by the ladies of the congregation. It included a chime of bells, trumpvjt and various other novel appliances. The corner-stone of the church was laid June 7, 1873, the ceremony being performed by the late Dr. S. Irena?us Prime. Dr. Talmage also delivered an address, declaring that the structure would ever be a stronghold against rationalism. The corner-stone bore the inscription : " Brooklyn Tabernacle, built 1870 ; 4i'i^troyed by firo December 22, 1872 ; rebuilt 1873." The customary box containing the Bible, secular and re- ligious journals and coins, was deposited under the stone. T)ie building was completed in March, 1874, and was dedicated March 22. It was the largest Protestant church buildi.ig in the country, capable of seating 2,000 peoi)l('. It was built on the siti; of the old Tabernacle, and covered 150 by 112 feet. The organ was in a recess in the rear of the church, 60 feet in width. Prior to the recent intro- duction of the Edison lamps the churc^ was lighted by ii thousand gas Jets. A deep gallery extended around three sides of the church. The edifice was constructed of brick and stone. It was of the (iothic style of architecture, and generally conceded to be one of the most elegant and at- tractive churches in the country. A notable event in its m TALMAQE, D.D. 3ERNACLE. UPE OF BEV. T. DE WOT TAaU..E, D.D. 185 Arbucklo appeared '' ^""^ '"""^■■""^ '^■<>™»"''t 18~?l°!f l"?*'^." Tabernacle was dedieated Sent o, «iifloe just b„r.et ruZ ' rc ';w:;r?" '""" ""• trances, a sm. ., tower aud a pi ^^ ' S 'e "r„al'" ;"- men who worked on the bun„-,,„ l„!,-i i • ""- '"■'-" i:!r=toki?r-?---^ "I remember the occasion wel] " said ho <^ u That lire also occurred on « J V'^"™^"^"-^^^^^- o'clock." ^"^ ^ ^"^^^^y "^^^-r^i^g. about 10 DR. TALMAGE GETS TO WORK. was 1;^- zri": sStt' ;:f f "r'-''"™'™»- "-' sultation with his oh nlhl * ''''■'' '" '"'""'^'- ™n- modiate and1„t:'S„ '^' t:t;or ™f f 'r '■" '"'- udopted : loiiowmg resolutions were We the trustees of the Bronlvlvn T.,i i Sa})bat}i, Oct. 13 at fchp Wm=^ ^* Tabernacle, assembled following: ' ''^'^ ^^'"'^ of o«^- pastor, adopt the P.SS S^, ^Ji^ - .^--bl« -bmission to the of that Frr. rid«nce weCrlfH I/'i'^.T'*^"^^^ *^« "^«a»^ng wellase..-.,;^irthe ^;^^^^^^^^ there is kmdness uf i! 'fpprv?!^,^ ii t86 LIFE OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. Resolved, That if God and the people will help us we pro- ceed imnicdiatoly to rebuild, and that we rear a structure largo enough to meet the demands of our congregation, locality and style of building to be indicated by the amount of contributions made. Resolved, That our hearty thanks be rendered to the owners of public buildings who have offered their audi- toriums for the use of our congregation, and to all tlioso who have given us their sympathy in this time of trial. Resolved, That Alexander McLean, E. H. Branch, Jno. Wood, F. M. Lawrence be appointed a committee to secure a building for Sabbath morning and evening services. Many were the offers received fi'om sister churches and theatre managers proffering the use of their auditoriums for service, or, as Dr. Talmage said himself : *' The kindness shown us in our hour of need is most manifest. Nearly every auditorium within a radius of three miles has been tendered us, but the committee has finally decided to take the Academy of Music, and we shall hold service there at the usual hours on Sunday next." Among the many offers was one from the Key. Lyman Abbott, Plymouth Church, a former classmate of Dr. Tal- mage. It was couched as follows : Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, Oct, 13. My Dear Dr. Talmage : The Board of Deacons of J*W- mouth Church authorize me to tender to your people the use of our church edifice on Sunday evenings until your permanent arrangements for your future church have been made. It is quite at your service and theirs for as long a period as you may desire. I am sure that I need not add that 1 cordially unite with them and that I am sure thnt their action represents the sentiment and feeling that Ply- mouth Church bears to the Tabernacle in this calamity which has befallen them. Your old friend, Lyman Abbott. M r TALMAGE, D.D. )plo will help lis we pro- ;]uit we rear a structure s of our congregation, idicatcd by the amount ks be rendered to the ave offered tlieir audi- ation, and to all tliose n this time of trial, an, E. II. Branch, Jno. d a Committee to secure i evening services. om sister churches and 30 of their auditoriums himself : ir hour of need is most within a radius of three le committee has finally [usic, and we shall hold Sunday next." from the Kev. Lyman 3r classmate of Dr. Tal- , Brooklyx, Oct. 13. 5oard of Deaconw of I^- ider to your people tfw lay evenings until your 'uture church have been and theirs for as long ii lire that I need not add md that I am sure tliiit nt and feeling that Ply- rnacle in this calamity our old friend, Lyman Abbott. LIFE OP Rfiv. T. DE WITT TAUIAGE, D.D. 187 AK APPEAL TO CHKISTEXDOM '^"'jingaSit^^i^f rm^^hlli'r* ^^'--^^• The ashes. In behalf of my st^i k n ' '''"''' *° "« i« in appeal for help, as our ^hurc ho? ""^"^''•^'^''tion I „,,ike to this localitV. Ou e re ZT'' 'T^"^^^^ ^^s work either in size ^r appointS for th'''' ^T' «"«^'''^'"t \Vo want to build sVmeth MvmfhvnJ ^'^^P'^' ''^'^^ ^•«'"^"- of the cause of God. We wlint * {(, o^ ' '^^^ ^"^ ^^^''tl'J the insurance will build wht,\\?^T/ '''^"'"'>' ndded to to all our friends tlnl^ugho ;\' C n sSf ' V"'^^ '^l^'^^ tijbijtf ^^:ttu: s^^nr ^^f -•• ^« - Church depends upon t he i mmedi ^'' ^^ ^'^^ ''' ^« ^^« ^ call, r was on the eve of mv Ii 1 '^'^Ponse made to this the Holy Land, that I mLlr^b^e fe""'' ^'' ^''"''^ '^'^^ to here but that visit iS Kp T*!''' P'T^'^'^^ fo^' my work until something is done to IS ^^'"'^^V } °^""^«t leave God who has our desthiv a. iniT i ?"' ^?^'''''' ^^^^ the hand appear for our dK^cr^^"'^' ""^ '^'''''^'''' ^^ 1"« " fee Ti: "^^Ta r */ff P-Pl^^ -ay be sent to me, knowledge the receipt Jheieol '"'^^ "'^ "^^^ ^^^^^^^«> ^c-' T. De Witt Talmage. HISTORY REPEATII.-G ITSELF. ^o21:Sy%TTr''^^^^ '''''''' "''' ^'- — d "PonaSabblth mol-rC -ven teen years ago, and of fire. Myse f and fWi "^"V"',^^^ '" ''"^'^^^ ^'^^^ation in the glasfcLl i'"^'' ' "^^' ^'"^ '''''' ^^^^^™< «tood bolov.d^SrbatKlfr";"^ ''" 1-n-, and saw our home moulder away. We could distin- I'' 188 LIFE OP REV. T. DE WITT TALMAQE, D.D. guiah every arch, beam and rafter, and see them crumble beneath the cruel flames. Shortly after I visited the scene myself, and it made my heart sad. The subject of my sermon was to have been, * Looking unto Jesus, the Author of Our Faith.'" Within two weeks a new site had been purchased for a new building, plans had been adopted, and Dr. Talmage started on his proposed trip for the Holy Land to procure material for his new work, " The Life of Christ." '«%fe u .1 Rev. Br. Tabnage^Trtp^to the H.ly l^a. On tJie 30tli ()ct.)l)er T)i- T..1 private secretary and wife left ]?'«■''?' t" '''^'"' ^'""^''t^"'-. Holy Land, on board th^' cL of ]>} '• ^' '" -'r^' ^'''' ^ho of good-byes. November lOtl, H,p .i: • ' •"■"".'' "" ''^utio,, iirrived in Rome when /). T i '''•"'^'".i^""«''.that h s desi.^^ ^ • ''T fl''^^-<'i'»'8<^ Talnm-^e fied by the fact th u h v n ed to b.^' "i"'" "'/^ ^^'^^ '»^^'"^i- that hunmn life is bri f/ b 1 i li k I^^^^^^^^ '" *^'" ^^"''".^ fore," says he "show ,, li "'^^V'^^'^ 'asts f;)rever. "There- »^"ojmv^ i,r;e bee ,"4d,;yr''rs^v'''''^,''' «"'-.«'«'" We want to see the b>.; KKn .lifctnue, but nev-r seen were erected hund -ed'^^^^^^^^^^ '^^'^ buildir.gs, thTt bands. I can hardly w" t u ?til \r f. / ^''^'"^ "^'^ '^-^ '^"•»'^» also see Rome." ^ ""'"' ^^r<>»<^»y morning. I „H,,,t th^r:.^ie5l;E o?'S,;!r.S^ -i,^--. visiting all f ery quarter, until his Z'S ttn L^ !i'''"^ ''^''' ^'-""^ fractured masonrv. One f ll "ni 'T^ ••."^^'" ^''o weioht of lured nmrble which IZ d n d rS"-''' ^P,"^' -"'P- Another is a portion of the mttrm. ,"• ^T " P'^^'^^^- luM- renowned orators th Hied the T V^'''^ ^''^^''^ '^"^ J'lo'iuence in the great ll nuL T '^"•^'^''^es with their labeled as a ^specfftreis re" i '""• ^^'f' ^^''"^^' he- t.n.e-honored mortar of th^i,' " ^T' "^ ^'^^ '-^"^"ient incarcerated. Di T'LZl }-?T /'''^'^ "^t- I'^ul was Mamertine prison three t if m i^^ *^^r '"'» «^ ^'"« ^^^^ 'surroundings. No other n!t • ^'"^ ^ ^^'^^'^''a'" '^^ 't.^ outire j'Pon his n^nd. '^^7 J PJ;'^^^^ » R^ made such in.pression 'ere,"hesaid,"andsee itl ll '^^ '"""'^^^'-^ ''°"'d come '«ve suffered, and tfen go home S T' '"'''' ^'^"^ >^"'^^ J"s life." The great preacher wn.^1 *" ."''•'''"'''' ''^^^^6 -e other old .L. i J th:t;S ^l?. '^^S^^ ^^ ] , COLOSSEUM Ita y of having it duplcatedh, a!,, ■'''''' ?""*' Minister to ^«» i.e *,i 5.1 ha';rSoiti"-;retMJ: 7C^^f i^ II »l ■^. I'r m 2 Rev. Dr. Talmage'8 Trip fn the Holy Land. which I have never heard spoken of. I allude to its acoustic qualities. I tried them to-dav. Some of my f uail^ tood on the opposite side of the Colo-sseum, which was capiil)le of holding 100,000 people, while I stood on the place onro occu- )ied bv Nero, and they heard every word I uttered, thus proving that in a building of this kind the human voice couUl )e heard by 100,000 people. Huch a structure, devoted t(» arts, science, education and religion, would somewhat atone for the horrid cruelties that were, during five centuries, enacted in its Roman Original." This stupendous structure is the crowning ruin of Rome. It was erected over 1,800 years ago by Vespasian, wl>o conj- pelled, it is said, 60,000 captive Jews, taken at the destructi(Mi of Jerusalem, to labor ten yeai-s in building it. It was one of the grandest and most renowned of all the ancient am| hi- theatres, and, although used as a quarry for ages from which to furnish material for other buildings, still remains in gigan- tic form, apparently defying the corroding tooth of tiine. At its inauguration, which lasted one hundred days, it is com- puted 5,000 beasts and several thousand men were slaughtered in the games for the amusement of the spectators. The architectural arrangement of this structure is admir- able, i 'le building is oval in fori.i, and covers five acres of grouui its circumference is 1,900 feet. Being an ( Uipse, Its loa^^t^r -liameter is 658, and its shorter 558 feet. Its outer wall ia'of granite, four stories, rising to the height of 202 feet. Insidb (r; building three tiers of galleries were erected around the wall, each projecting beyond the one above it, so that all the spectators might be able to see the central space on the ground floor, called the arena. This arena was 281 feet in length, and 176 in breadth. The first gallery was supported by a row of eighty arches of Doric style, arising from the ground, between which were the entrances, chambei-s and dens, where the gladiators and savage beasts were kept await- ing the combats. On top of these arches an equal number of Ionic order supported the second gallery. A third series of florid Corinthian order overtopped the others, and supported the upper gallery. Over all these a row of grand old arches gave finish to the whole. This great arena had no roof further than a huge awning, which was folded or expanded as desired. Although only fragments of the upper portions remain, a large number of the lower arches are apparently as solid as ever they were. Some of the stones used in this inside work are six feet long, five and a half wide by two ^e^'. Dr. Tahnarfe's Trip to ;. .^y Land. 3 anr' a half thick, nn.irloselycenionto.lf .fi interior of tlio buii.li.m a numW.T ^'^p^'cr. Around the A high cross is also ?oast ctl in Z ^ ."''''V^':^^'•^^**'*^• ynrietie8of plantsan.l tlo've^amlr " '"" "V'" ^'^''^^ tlie walls, anil the whole ^C "Lvito. C''T ^'^''''' '"«'^« «i"d try to picture to hinS'th. ' • T ''''^:''* '*'"'' ^^"^vn crossed Italy by rail to Brinfli^i « "i "^ ?'"' ''^'^'<'«' »"J Shipwreck,'^eiorded Act "27 V. H •'', ^'?"V'''f «" "^«"''« Adriatic is said to 1 e th o nL' 1 *'"' "^^orical port of the being shipwrecLd, Dr. Talt St a ''' ^7^- ^'^"^^^^ "ft-' welfare. Convinced, however IL.n 'f '"'' "'^"'^^^ »» '^s liiodious to winter in '' ,1 i ' • '''^ ''^^^'^^ ^^'«« "ot com- vain for throlfnlansir 1^'!,^ l^^^^^ -^"^f - see Greece, and proceeded In L.,i ^ "as hom, resolved to A few hours afler eacdn! P^^T f^'J''^^^'''''' and consorts were bow lin' "L. „ r ' *•' ^'"".^^^y^^ divine way to Athens at the m e^'of" fiI^,u^^^''•"" .^"^^''^'^J ^^ the being used to faster "go,'' and i roVnf ?• " ''°"'' , ^'^^'"^S^ felt like jumping oH' the trai m 1 1 •'" "'r^^^^'^ P^^'tion. of it, as advaiceViard for ex .ct Hou^ ^ ^^^ ™"^'^ ^^^^^ ment that Corinth Avas r 4ched mn^/ n -'T' ^'^^ ^""ounce- «hort tiine was here s )e it l.^stiSi "f ^T' "°^ '^ greatly impressed with the appear mce^.V H • ^"^""'^.^ ^^'"'^ guished city, the dorv of uS J j *^",^ °"^*« ^istin- now a small village fut its n«t has departed. Corinth is ^e.oconn^A,,,,ava^st^itade of t ^f^l""''- '^"^^'^ «« ^he the height of 2 000 feet .HI I ' '^^ "''"' ^^'""P^ly to protect ^the IsSus bS LS?' "*.'^^^«^, ^ ^ fo^tri to from this "Nebo"r)r T« W 1- i T''' ^'^^ storied land was well repaid by the oiSS a"''''^ ''' '^ ^"'"""^' -"^ eornible from this no int ?= /i •. ^T'}''^ "^^^r things dis- nomen were foSdC o alf and'tho '^" ^^^ ^^-^chWe runners contended for "corruntrii ^^^^^ course where the the great Apostle to JheG^X ''"^'"'' '^^^"^^ '^' ^7 pasfhto^^nS'lft^^^^^^^^ great'i^eacher had a vision of its the old iXl^^'^S^.tT'^^^^^'J''^-^'' "Standing on u '.;|l !il' n Acro-Corinthus, out from the ■ti MrCROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1 4.5 1^ |A0 2.8 3.2 14.0 Z5 2.2 1.8 A >!PPLIED IM/IGE Inc 1653 East Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 USA (716) 482 -0300 -Phone (716) 2B8 - 5989 - Fax i 4 Jiev. Dr. Tahmtje's Trip to the Holy Lmid. ruins at it? base arose in mv imagination the old city, just as Paul «aw it. I have been told that for splendor the world beholds no such wonder to-day as that ancient Connth stand- ing on an isthmus washed by two seas, the one sea !)rmging the commerce of Europe, the other sea bringing the commerce of Asia. From her wharves, in the construction ot which whole kingdoms had been absorbed, war galleys with three banks of oare pushed out and confounded the navy yards ot all the world. Huge handed machinery, such as modeni invention cannot wiual, lifted ships from the sea on one side and transiiorted them on trucks across the isthmus and sat them down in the sea on the other side. The revenue officers of the city went down through the olive groves that lined tlie beach toVollecta taritt' from all nations 1 he mirth of a people si)orted in her Isthmian games, and the beauty ot a 1 lands sat in her theatres, walked her porticos and threw itsei (.11 the altar of her stupendous dissipations. ( olumn, and statue, and temple bewildered the beholder. There were white marble fountains, into which, from ai)ertures at the side there guslied waters everywhere known tor healtli-giving nuaiities. Around these basins, twisted into wreaths of stone, there were all the beauties of sculpture and architecture ; while standing, as if to guard the < ostly display was a statue of Hercules of burnished Corinthian brass. Vases of terra cotta adorned the cemeteries of the dead — vases so costly that Julius Caesar was not satisfied until he had captured them for Rome. Armed officials, the corintharii, paced up and down to see that no statue was defaced, no pedestal overthrown no bas-relief touched. From the edge of the city the hill held its magnificent burden of columns and towers aiid temples (1,000 slaves waiting at one shrine), and a citadel so thor- ouehlv impregnable ^that Gibraltar is a heap of sand com- pared^ with it. Amid all that strength and magnihcence Corinth stood and defied the world." _ , , n "All aboard for Athens!" was the signal to depart from Corinth, and in a few hours Dr. Talmage and family ^vere snudy ensconced in the " Hotel de la Grande Bi-etonge in the once famous Capital of Attica. The arrival at Athens was on the evening of Kov. 20th. Ihe following morning Dr Talmage preached on Mars Hill to a mixed audience, taking for liis text. Paul's address to the ancient citizens of this place, recorded Acts 17, and on his way to that eminence beheld a temple bearing the inscription, "To the I nknowu God," whom some of tiie Athenians yet ignorantly worship. ^^m^ (oly Lnnn. the old city, just as splendor the world cient Corinth stand- be one sea bringing nging the comnierce iistruction (»f which • galleys with three d the navy yards of ry, such as modern the sea on one side the isthmus and sat The revenue officers '•roves that lined the L The mirth of all tid the beauty of all_ icos and threw itself tions. Cohnnn, and older. There were om ajjcrtures at the )\vn for health-giving nto wreaths of stone, re and architecture ; display, was a statue i-ass. Vases of terra —vases so costly that ' had captured them harii, paced up and ) pedestal overthrown, ■ the city the hill held towers and temples tid a citadel so thor- a heap of sand com- ith anil magnificence ;ignal to depart from lage and family were Grande Bretonge " in he arrival at Athens he following morning to a mixed audience, he ancient citizens of wav to that eminence n, " To the Unknown ignorantly worship. i»V". t)r. Tahmifie'R Trip U, thr Huhj Lnn,l. 5 Dr. Talmage says of this mission • " T .,,^f +i t^- Q,,ee,j „f G,lo.„ X,ri„g ,„y vi'.i;™.AH,r 'l' ,e™tr' a , eelr ; ;T.lf M 't • '"'"'■" '1'"" -'"'■ ' "'* '""l" P ™ ' aiii meetmg witli M. Irieoiipis, tlie pr jiic minist..,- of C'lJ n.tj> a pulpit for my new tabernlr;:?,'^" in'V.; 'klv,^ ''''''' more classic associations a!-e connec^rwi l/thiVH^^^ t J "! ' any city under the sun, hecai,se he e Soc te niVcM f^^^ ^''^'l Anstotle, and Demosthenes, and Pericles ml h1/i-1 ' '''"' Pythagoras, Xenophon, and Cxitelt wrot^ Herod.tus and taught or thundei4d o sung, e?in m mi^^d nil if '^'' "'' and their teachings were edited bv P nl nnH f n""'^ ?T preached in this c^ty and if;:' nlr^ " i ;'of cL S''' '^ rhere are many attractions in the vidnifv nf m" i built. Its educational and art buildings are at ractivJ nn handsome Among its anticiuities are tlfe ren aii "of" thl.n remple of Jupiter Olympus, the Partheon, Acropolis T^-fb.^, of Demosthenes, and Areopagus, or Mars Hjif'^^^^'^' ^"b""« Slaving examined all the historic ruins of Athens .. cf might have ample accommodatinn. This '• l„rd of orMH^n ' T.ne fetateJy packet, allowing unwashed Ai-il>s ..nH ^y " < ■•-gjpi, a 911 oil ot two hours permitted a look at iMki ■» i 'I fll^f^' ■|,llii tm 6 liev. hr. Tatnuiges Trip to the Hohj Land. Pompev's Pillar, and a drive to the palace of the Khedive. Ilis highness, being absent, could not be e.oen, but the visitors were taken through the palace gardens, and after partaking of its fruit, the ladies were presented with boucpicta from its foliage. Few objects of s})ecial interest being here to detain the travellers a departure was made by rail for Cairo, A long this route of 130 miles, Dr. Talmage discovered several ijlaces of historic interest, including the modern battle-field of Tel- el-Kebir. On the evening of November 26th the tourists arrived iit Cairo, weary and " heavy laden," O'ving to their lack of rest and pebbles collected by Dr. Talmage. However, good bed and board soon revived the drooping spirits, and in the morniug, when all met at the breakfast table refreshed and cheerful, a portion of Dr. Talmage's " grace" was, "Thank God for sleep." After breakfast a visit was made to the Boulak^ museum, where the nunnmies of many ancient kings of Egypt are preserved. On visiting this charnel-house, Dr. Talmage had no trouble selecting the gentleman (iVIenephtha), who held so many disastrous interviews with Moses, /.fter investigating this "imperishable type of evanescence," with Bible in hand, he describes it thus to Mrs. Talmage : " Here, visible, are the very teeth Pharoah gnashed against the Israelitish brick- makers. Here are the sockets of the merciless eyes with which he looked at the overburdened people of God. Here are the locks of yellow hair that Hoated in the breeze as he stood on th nks of the Red Sea. Here are the very lips with which jmmanded the people to make bricks without straw. Notice Hiis uplifted arm. Thousands of years after the wrappers o. this munnny are unroiied, Pharoah lifts up his hand as if imploring. But his skinny fingers can never again clutch his cruel sceptre." Dr. Talmage, referring to this mummy afterwards, says : " One of the most intensely interesting things I saw in Egypt was Pharaoh of olden times, the very Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites. The inscrip- tion on his sarcophagus, and the writing on his mummy bandages, prove beyond controversy that he was the Pharaoh of Bible times. AH the Egyptologists and the explorations agree that it is the old scoundrel himself." After seeing the museum, the next place visited was that where Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus, are said to have resided while in Egypt. On approaching the sacred spot. Dr. Talmage uncovered his head and stood a few minutes in silent meditation. He also paid a second visit to the place, drawing '):-"^-'^.m. Hev. Dr. Tahmge\« Trip to the Holy Land. 7 'eenT??''T/' ""*' ^^^'"'"^'^ to the Iu>to] savin. "T have • »een vii 1 want tospp f ^ nuvo until t„.niom, V ° T-f , ?? ' ' ""' ''"™ ""' '"'"«' "«""' piued the sun™ ''^^\'|,f„iS':^.3''''i-^-' "' '''"V """ S nded Xtkrf''i:'"V'"'' !'"■■''■ l'''»««S«Pl- l-"tni tT Sphrx St L . ; "r" '"'"T'''"' "' "'^'^ "'« Sl'l""" «., the c;;r,k; ;':/,t'; ' p s 'Tt" ''"'^fh "■"' thcpa,., „,anirr!,,^fw^5'adrg"fd'i,;:^^^ die™' S'^'d^'tT^ '»'»'="■■'''""•" Another Z t he ™x;S^^v^f'-:»T£fi^dSed once^||r„»fe^Ltp,^;t^ «.atli^r;:n1£-e;-S:t^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 11 ff r ^WSW^^^,'((ilS»^f.YK ^^■■1 B|[|MWji ra H B 1 HUH UIBH M ^^^l3^ ■|B~%nB^^H|^^| MM^M^aH Jn Hi ^n 1 8 Rev. Dr. Talmagc'si Trip to the HoJij iMud. and other attractions of thi. important city. Dr. Talmage and party took their exodus for Palestine. f>roceeding bv Rail and Canal to Port Said, a steamer was then taken for Joi)pa. d one month after leaving New York the reno^^^ed Brook- _ Jvn divine had his foot firmly planted on the Holy Land, nothwithstanding his foreboding 'Hn^^'^l^ension which he re- cords as follows^ "Tlie onlv part of my recent journey that Tmdly d ei ded. although Idid n.)t say much about it beforcv- hand, was the lamling at Joppa. That is tlu' port of entire for the Holy Land, and there are many rocks, and u lougn eather people cannot land at all. The boats taking the people frim the steamer to the docks must run between reets tha looked to me to be about fifty feet apftrt, and one nu«- strc,ke of an oarsman or an unexpected wave has sometimes be^rfh at and hun.lreds have perished along those ree s Beskles that, as we left Port Said the evening before an old traveller said: 'The wind is just right to give you a rough indi g at Joppa; indeed, I think you will not be able to lai d S all.' Tl e tact was that when our Mediterranean sSmer dropped anchor near Joppa and we put out for shore in the small boat, the water was as still as t^^^g^^J^^^^^^*^ V^'f { sound asleep a hundred years, and we landed as easily as i came on this platform." , , , As Dr. Talinage set foot on land he said, ' Ihauk (.od, ^^e are here safe at last;" and after entering his name on the hotel register he wrote, " We last night made our exodus froin Egypt and this morning entered the Promised Land We came through dry shod. May our entmnce of th^ heavenU Canaan be as placid and glorious a disembarkation A feast of fiit things" was soon prepared at the hotel, and after reealinVon the " corn of the lai»d " the renowned preacher Sed out to investigate, and soon found the house once occSed by " Simon, a tanner." The old building had been ■eSSby a new one, and Dr. Talmage, standing on its roof vff Bibk in hand, read and expounded the graphic story of Peter and Cornelius, recorded Acts x. The beaches Avhere Hiram landed his mfts for Solomon's Temple and Jona embarked for Tarshish were also discovered. Even the old S where Peter quenched his thirst, and the dwellmg where Paul restored Tabitha to life were seen, After visiting these places and discoui-sing on Ihe Birtn , pla^e of SewinI SocieL." organized by ^^-ca. the as^^^^^ to Mount Zion began under the leadership of David Janiai, a Nazarhic dragoman, >vho had served in the same capacity. u said, " Thank ( iod, we in Jin\ Dr. Tulmnricx Trip to f/ie HoJij Land. 9 Dean Stanley Piincr of AVules, Duke „f' Edinb.n-Kh, and other distinguished persons in their visit to Palestine. In the T/u- 'f t, "'*" T"^ S"''^" *'■''"' '^"i'l"' to .lerusalein, u distance of hirty-hve miles, the^e are several places of undying interact to the Bible reader. Nine miles from Joppa in a fertile valley IS situL the Rama of Kphriam, said to be the New Testa- ment Ariinathea, where Joseph who buried the body of Christ resided. Dr. falmage and company had breakfast here A Latin convent, founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Bur- gundy, Armenian and Greek convents and two Turkish mosques are here located. The most conspicuous feature of the plac-e is a tower rising one hundred and twenty feet from the midst of an ohve plantation. If Dr. Talmage had had time he should have climbed a winding staircase leading to its summit and feasted his eyes with the sight of the country of the ancient Philistines down by the sea. A few miles further Jerusalemward the caravan drove through the valley of Ajalon and entered the mountain scenery of ' the hill country of Judea." This is one of the most rugged places in Palestine. Some of the hills here arise in towering grandeur to the height of over one thousand feet and many of them are of a round and hand.some shape, meet- ing at the base and separated at the tops, like two balls placv,: T„l,m„c-H Tn,, fo tkc. Hohi huul. ] , tire great preaciicr felt (Inf ,.,'," ''''-'Ire"'"." Here trod^ the At the earliest p,,8slff date X "i""^,^ ^-U-'y i" this world. Hjl the chief plaeSoFs : :^^^^^^^^ visited vicinity of the Holy Citv lU fi ^''*^ ^ hristian in the the Mount of OHvef, Serof rp't!""'' ^"'"^r'^ veneration, and site of the CVudfi.i^7"otSn! "'","'' -^''^^ Sepulchre tlirilling memories of ^ZSZ i^ aNvaken.ng fn his boson these localities. The fi s nln.p"' ^'^^'at.ons connected with arrival were GollXInf tTrtS^T tu'rT^^^ closely connected. These ^,huZ i A '^^^^^' ^vhich are by the Scripture nJr^.tZ^'^^ ^. 'T^^ where He was crucified there vvn- i '^^ "* ^'^^ P^ace a new sepulchre.'' The Lme Zw.r't"' ^"^^ " *^^« S'^'^en morning of the resurrec^bn A?" ^ '? '^^^"'^''^ ^^^^ on the gardener. The ru?b 1? 'aCt thi7.n"f "''' ^^'^' ^^' ^^e years ago, and as it i he on v tt 1, ?n ' ''^ ''r'''^ '^'^^ enter which it is neccMsa V o .tnnn Vl "'''''' ^^^"salen,, to respects with the sac^^d C.-dT; Tnl ^"''"T!^ '" "^'^^^ that it is the real place Se th, " hn'"T /'^' convinced Regarding Golgotha the ™t nrln . ^' °* '^T^ ''^' ^'^^^J- ed Mount Calv^y Idnow T 1^^^^ '''7'^^^ ^ have ascend- of the Skull. To' ne i is I .ZV^V '' ^""^^''^ '^'^ Pl^^e dispute as to th identity of tL 1 ' ^Y f^"'*^ ''^' ^ver a from a distance . SaX^ L^^^^^^ .^'^^^^"^ ^^ the peak the two sightless St ^Sts bi'ow"T T""'"'^^'^"^ place where the three crosses stood n,!" 'T^"I^ '" '^e precise location. There islust rno. '^*^' "^^ '^''"''^ ^^ their die. I stood on the ske of Iho T '"""^''^ f^'' three men to . nmst have stoorand% kL'roTLy B^^^^^^^ iriends around me the ^tnrv m+- Vi r«^ -n- ^ ^'®"^ to the finish it; my feehnot ovpt7n. ' Cruciftxion. I could not stood lookinVSn^he sTooe^^^^ ^ /^^^e down. As I below me. I rolled it down ff ^^l^^^'^J '^'' ^ '■^^dish rock had it carried on the backs S' " ^f V"^' °^^'" ^^»d«. «"d put on shipboaS and it is now '^'"f ^' *^ "^"PP^' ^^^ere it was stone is to\e the'corne \C^ ^hat building to replace S^'^Lt::^/^;^^^^^^^^ ^ - ■»rn^,^ 12 Hev. Dr. T(ihiuiffe« Trip to Ihfi ITohf Land. As Dr. Talinnge stood on Calvary ho grasped " an idea which prompted him to speedily remount his donkey and ride back to Jerusalem. His errand was to purchase, if possible, the piece of ground containing both the scene of th(> crucifixion and of the rmrial of Jesus." To this object he devoted the remainder of the day without avail, as no amount of money could purchase it. " Had he succeeded in his ])lau, he would h^ve made over the property to the Christian Church at large." The following morning after visiting Calvary, a journey was made to Bethlehem. Here Dr. Tnlmage was shown the exact spot where Christ was born, and after viewing it said : " The gate through which our Lord entered this world was a gate of rock — a hard, cold gate — and the gate through which he departed was a swing gate of sharpened spears." After seeing Bethlehem a return was made to Jerusalem, where some time was ^spent viewing and reviewing the Holy City, Dr. Talmage preached here on the lamentation of our Saviour over the doomed city, "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" During this discourse the great divine tells his hearei-s that he was "thrilled and overpowered with the remembrance that yonder where now stands a Mohammedan mosque, stood the temple, the very one that Christ visited." He also says: " Standing in this old city all other facts are eclipsed when we think that near here our blessed Lord was born, that up and down the streets of this city he walked, and that in the outskirts of it he died." The whole history of Jerusalem seems to present itself to Dr. Talmage in cyclorama. Its history is a remarkable one. No other place has got such a record. It has seen the bright- est and darkest days. Every particle of its dust has its tale to unfold, and there is evidently something about it that has never yet been revealed. Its future is a subject of discussion, and its origin Is enshrouded in mystery. Its hallowed associa- tions, however, are beyond all controversy, and the name " Jerusalem " is ever dear to the Christian, being synonymous with the Church of God, and an emblem of His eternal abode. To the Jew, Jerusalem is the most sacred spot on earth. Although it has been pillaged and destroyed seventeen times, and millions of his race been slaughtered within its walls, yet nothing can prevent him from turning his thoughts Zionward and desiring that his dust may repose in Jehoshapliat's Vale, under the shadow of the Temple Hill. Jerusalem has also a fascination for all people, and as the city bursts upon the view Hev. Dr. Talmac,e\, Tnp to the Uohj Land. 1.3 th ini;:,:iL: ,,^L;:;r::!'"'';''j'j^»''"Av."i'«n,ni„,,io,,. There ia nothing like it in the worl, " • '' "'Vl'"-'' all Bides except the no h-west S /* '^ ^"'"^'''''^H "" k he Garden of rl? """ ™";^^ "»'' ""^ ''"»« »f'li« mount Vallev nf Hi„„ Gethsen.ane. On the west and south is the diSet^X'eil^tthetV"'!; J''T'l»I*at a short Zfoi!^l'7"E„fM"ir Sjp»*'k»own as '; Mount Vallev nf RJrl ^^f^"^"- A he lyropean opens into the jSaohat Ar."""^1r*^^y "^^^^^ ^^^ i"««tion with simHn £ 1 1 *J'''® 'T"®y' commence in gentle depres- un Uhev ht'n^ ^""f ""'^^ "^ *^'« '^y^ ^^^ (leLnd rapWlv nee tS 17^^!^ TV "^''T ^^^"^"^^- ^^ ^heir co^nfl^- The Mm L 7- ^^^/eet lower than the summit of the citv MST\fe"'TheV'^ larger and lies to the westS latter and waLSed-riir'^'f^^^ \'^ higher than the hold was buflt f Upper City," where David's strong- was built. It was here the last tragic act was compl^t^ 14 JtetK Dr. TulmtujeH Trip to the Holy Land. by Titurt, in the destruction of Jenisaleni, after a niege of IIM dayH, wiien "The eii^leH Hew victorioUH to tlie MUiiiiuit of tlie citadel, while JewiMli blood ran m deep down Zion that burn- ing hourtca were (jui'iichod in the red Htreiun!" Mount Moriah was the place where Solomon's temple was built, the site of which is r^»v occupied by the Mosque of Omar. The bare side ul' this mount rises precipitously about 200 feet from the valley of the Kidron, and presents a formid- able barrier to the advei-sary. An Armenian ccmvent is located on Mount Zion. It contanis, besides accommodation for the monks who dwell therein, 1,000 chambers ii);- the use ofpil- Srinia. Mount Calvary or CJ()lf,'otha is a rocky mound a short Lstance outside the walls of the city to the nin'th-east. It is reached by the St. Stephen gate, which also leads across the Kidron to Gethsemune and Olivet. In the vicinity of Jerusalem there are no fewer than 4f5 places pointed out to the visitor as sacred, among which is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, situated in tlie 8"»uth-ea8t corner of the city, on the stony bill known as Acra. The sepulchre occupies a position directly beneath the dome of the building. The visitor to this shrine is assured that the struc- ture not only covers the site of Calvary and the tombs of Joseph and Nicodenuis, but also the place where the Saviour appeared to Mary Magdalene and his mother after the resur- rection, where Constantine's mother found the true cross, and numerous other important places. Here Dr. Talniage's faith began to waver, as he could not believe that Christ was cruci- fied inside the walls of Jerusalem in such a place as this, and after satisfying himself around the city, started for the Jordan in regular caravan order. The menibers constituting the camp were the five tourists of Talmage's party, one dragoman or guide, one sheik, as pro- tector against Bedouin marauders ; a cook, two waitei's, and seven muleteers, a Nubian negro to carry the sheik's double barreled gun. Of animals there were eight horses, nine mules, and five donkeys, making in all twenty-two animals and eighteen persons. Besides the pei-sonal baggage of the tourists there were in the camp a complete outfit of bedding, five tables, a dozen Turkish rugs, stove and cooking utensils, an elaborate table service, toilet requirements, kitchen tent, saloon tent, three sleeping tents, and two smaller tents, provisions, and other requisites to comfort. Travelling eastward from Jerusalem, a few houi-s brought the caravan to the old "Inn" where the "Good Samaritan" Urn. Dr. Tn/mageS Trip U> th. Holy Lanil. U tm ™™'ir" A '■;,',„"',""■ V"' i''r'> ''"^ •""■« i' «•■« *,w<7U yuirw Jljro. A lllMcIl WUH Ihtc <»)taiU'(l 1111(1 fll.. «..m,.. moved on pu«t the JJruok Chori.l.. wIut, ' ja t, 'V, fZ mvciH urnvuig l,y ni^.lutull at the rui.iH ,,f , c ; t J^^^^^^^^^ l>arty retin^d to their tent. Vl "U K S h .^e'rSZ' u piunl of Arab., armed with guns, pistols, bmi 'k„ X S l.arlv the next morning a jouniev wa.s taken to the Dead hea % the way, Mount Nel.o an.fthe dwelling o ^ oee med .by /uecheus were pointed out. Passing ^ age I " ralmaps party was oined by a number ..t\.enUTO\vh o Trealso travejhng in the Holy Land. One^.ftCwa'a tl.eolog.cal 8 udent f.oin Manhattan, Kansas, nained Ulvss, s Gran Houston, who luul often hearl Dr. TalZ'e Scl pJlefa sE.^^'-"'?^'/ \'""^>'' '^^- g-Xrex-' Jorda Iv n T i^"'""' *'\r' 'f ^-^^^^^^^ '^>^ inunersion in the t r.oV7 ? ^'^'""^J^T- ^^'« ^l^'«ire was complied with, and fcnH M ''"''. 'V»I>«"'t*'J f"r the ceremony to take I 'o Meantime, the whole party proceeded to the Dead Sea ,1 on reachnig .ts shores Dr. tvlmage took .,ut h 1 ible a read the st.jry of the overthrow of " the ci/^ oAl rplai '' whose w^ctc^ed ruins this expansive lake hides from C 'n view. Di. Tal nage tasted the water of this lake, and found It anything but iialatable. He also collected fro n ite bead many pebbles of various color and shape, and discovered th ZhhTofm ^^^-f^- "f^^^ ^^""^ '" ^*« shores, dhotd notrung ot life exists in its watei-s. ^ Ihe day was delightful and a tour was made to the Jordan S?v lanTXrf^^ T^ '^' P'"^^ ''^''' ^^^^^1 ''«ss d hlUhut f? ^'; ^*^™^^' ^^^ fi"«d ^^'tli «olemn joy on wel Se forT\''7'"' ^ft^r J"»«heon, prepaitbn t![L 1'^^ baptism. At the hour appointed Dr ralmage emerged from his tent clad in a long^Lwn robe tSTv?. f"" '\t '^'^\- ^'" '^''^''^^'^ h^d s^ecure a long white io.y. from the Nubian attendant of his party, and thus bers Tth'n 'r.^'"''-r^'^%^u" '^':^''"^g« and'the'other mem! bers of the party waited. The circle was composed of the American ladies and gentlemen, the shiek, the muleteers and 16 Hev. Dr. Talmage's Trip to the Holy Land. other attendants. The service was opened by singing the hymn : " On Jordan's stormy banks I stand," etc. After singing, Dr. Talmage led in prayer, examined the candidate, read the story of Jesus' baptism and his own commission to baptize ; then taking the candidate by the hand, led him into the water and immersed him, repeating the usual formula after which he pronounced the benediction. Dr. Talmage gave the candidate a certificate of baptism. Soon after the service Dr. Talmage and party bade adieu to their friends and returned to their camp at Jericho which had not been removed, passing Gilgal, where Saul, the first king of Israel, was crowned. Upon reaching the camp they found an excel- lent dinner awaiting them. A large bonfire gave warmth and light to the evening meal. In a short time this illumi- nation was surrounded by some fifty Bedowins of both sexes, sparsely attired, who hjad come from a neighboring village to entertain the renowned visitors with a " Jericho dance." After this "ball" which baflHes description, the tourists retired and enjoyed another night's rest. Such was Dr. Talmage's first experience of camp life in the " wilderness of Judea." At an early hour the camp was on its way to Jerusalem. Dr. Talmage having twice passed in safety the place where the man fell among thieves, arrived at the Holy City, and gives his experience thus : " At Bethany on the ruins of the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. We dismounted from our horses on the way up from Jordan and the Dead Sea. We went into the traditional tomb of Lazarus, and it is deep down and dark, and with torches we explored it. We found it all quiet that afternoon of our visit. * * Think of how I felt when I reached the Jordan, after sleeping the previous night in the ruins of Joshua's Jericho ! Think of how I felt when a man in our party came and asked me to baptize him ! He wished to be immersed in the very waters where our Saviour was baptized. I found the candidate a professing Christian and an earnest man, and consented. There was a sheik who preceded our caravan, aiid his robe was just like a baptismal robe, and I put it on, and we found anotiher white robe for the candidate. Then, standing on the shore of the Jordan, I read from my Bible the story of the baptism of Christ, when ' the Spirit of God descended like a dove from heaven, and a voice was heard saying, ' This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.' ' My daughter wrote out some copies of a favorite hymn which we sing at home, and all present — friends, pilgrims and strangers — I^ev. t)r Tnhnage', Trip to f/ie tTolij land. 11 joined in singing it there on Jordan's hflnk« Ti down into the water and unrl^r vv ii •;, ^''^" ^^« ^ent winter, I baptized the Sir" tan Tl'1' '''" F'''' ^" '^"d" whelming moment of my life '' '^''^ """^ ^^^ '"o«t over- saIemTnd'rSfcir&^^^^ -mp arrived at Jeru- the discourse already efS^^ On 'm ''• J^^'^f ^^^^'^^^^^ Jerusalem, the great melohVl i ^^onday, before leaving and some other ^sacredplaces rTtt T?'^^^^'^' '' ^^^^^^ of David which had notVrev ou.Iv L ^^ ^''l '^^'^ ^ower attraction. On ^itin^ E Z ^h " T-''['^ ^'^^^ ^^^ «P^^'«1 an arsenal, Dr. l?Se Ld^ if "^'^ '« "^^ used as handsome prince stolTthe hearts if 1'^'' ''Vr'^ ^'"'^ ^^e rebellion and his terr ble Pnrl ,\- f ™^" ""^ ^^''^«^- «f his soldiers surrounded the reaSer as tl%'^\'^ *^^ ^^'''^^'^ flowed from his lips ^''"^ touching narrative and moaning because of tht Soto £" rf tl'l"*' "r---"* imploring Jehovah with imn«..i„!lJ . "" ''■"plc, and ation. 1 number of nerCen !fnd S'"''' '^'' '" "''''"■ engaged in chanting the mPsafmfli''' "'"^ ''''° ''''" earnest were they in their devotionsre' ,„, '° ""■°'" »"<' tbe^pale ohee.J, that I^r.^^l^^'^^^Zr:^!^^ ■ I'r';Sfa;i';r^^ "hleStitVh""^ "■"'™''' of its return by the pSL^tin'V'"^"'"'^, ^^°'^' ^^^^ ^^''"e , i-ecorded 2 Samuel 6 s 4 Vu? • ''^'" ^^ ^^^^'^' «« Samuel lived and iied One hnlf h '^'' 'i^ P^«^« ^^^^e Ramah. where thp ni.nK.f u ^^"^ ^ "^^ farther, and 'r and a h^'f L'iirrv r.'TlT.Jff!.''' -^ -"t^er &Srer'!(Vom'thi,"'™iL*''^j'T''^ '•^ '''» P-'ents. 'he caravl'e'rm'J 'd'?„'r° Se'^nES^dT T^"' H^^ on the identic"! -A -V- t ? ,' • " ^'- Talmage slent '"' "''"'' ■'»™6 JjMjgwith stones for his r" ffJ^'-^ 18 tlev. t)r. iahnage*s Trip to the Holy Land. pillow, had the nocturnal vision of " Jacob's Ladder." Tal- raage says of his experience at this place : " The night I slept there the heavens were full of ladders, first a ladder of clouds, then a ladder of stars, and all up and down the heavens were angels of beauty, angels of consolation, angels of God ascend- ing and descending." . • -^ i The ruins of Shiloh, eight miles ahead, are next visited. This place is of great interest, being the centre of Jewish worship in the days of the Judges, and one of the earliest and most sacred of the Hebrew sanctuaries. The Ark was kept here from the last days of Joshua to the time of Samuel, when it was captured by the Philistines. Many a scene must have been witnessed in this place. Hannah here prayed for a son, devoted her darling Samuel to the Lord and brought his "little coat from* year to year." Here, good old Eli saw his sons carry forth the Ark of God on the fatal day of Aphek, and the widowed mother, dying of a broken heart, left the name of "Ichabod" for her infant son destined to see " the glory departed from Israel." Ten miles further onward and the ancient city of Shechem is reached. Here Dr. Talmage stopped over night and exam- ined a manuscript of the Pentateuch, written over 3,000 years ago This city was once called Samaria, and is now known as Nablous. It is situated in a fertile valley running east and west between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. This valley m Scripture is called " the plain of Moreh." It is the most beautiful landscape in Palestine. Joseph's tomb is located m this vale. Jacob's Well, where Jesus talked to the vyoman of Samaria is also here. The well is an excavation in the solid rock, seventy-five feet deep and seven wide ; its covering is a stone with a hole in the centre large enough to admit drawing up water with a skin bucket. Shechem is one of the most sacred classic spots on earth. Abraham had his first residence in Canaan here. Here he built his first altar to God and received one of his earliest promises. The proof is also very strong that his " faith was made perfect" hfere by oflferiug Isaac on Mount Gerizim. Here, too, Abraham's seed after gaining possession of the Promised Land, assembled to erect an altar and proclaim the law in obedience to Moses' injunction, recorded Deut. xxvii. This vast assemblage of men, women and children, was one of the most august ever witnessed by man on earth. Extending along the plain were the millions of Israel with the banners of their tribes marking their allotted positions ; half of the Toly Land. )b's Ladder." Tal- " The night I slept t a ladder of clouds, 'n the heavens were gels of God ascend- iid, are next visited, le centre of Jewish one of the earliest ries. The Ark was the time of Samuel, Many a scene must oah here prayed for Lord and brought e, good old Eli saw Du the fatal day of of a broken heart, t son destined to see ent city of Shechem ver night and exam- ;ten over 3,000 years I, and is now known ley running east and ira. This valley in ;h." It is the most l's tomb is located in talked to the woman n excavation in the n wide ; its covering 'ge enough to admit assic spots on earth, aan here. Here he i one of his earliest ; that his " faith was on Mount Gerizim. jg possession of the tar and proclaim the ecorded Deut. xxvii. children, was one of n earth. Extending lel with the banners ositious ; half of the Jiev. l)r Tnlmage's Trip to ike Holy Land. 10 below with 'the ffoHe fcuft ' fjf '" ^^^ ^^"^^^ Joshua at their head A^ Tn«hno i x. *^^ ^^"tre, and the tribes on GSm^sloutd'""! '-'-^rfrlf'^^^^^^' and those on Ebal to the curses VhoL i • *!^ blessings, cov^ with God, Wch tulTnev^r ^e^ t^^^ ati^rSri^otS?^^^^^^^^^^ P^T arrived ern entrance to this vaLy I S pS ^^'>"- The south- five miles north of JerSlem Fro^"fhTtn ' '"? '' '""''y- lead across the plain to Nazareth w?,- u- °'''" *'^° ^^^^t's n^iles distant amLgthl^iK'^^^^^^^^^ '^CZ'' '''''''' of these roads passes the villaap nf 5 , ™^^® eastern scripture. This plain extenrl !t . ?^''^^"' *^^ J^zereel of and^est, and thi^t^ ^ mUes Lross" n 17"'^/'"^ ""^^« ^^^ bounded on the north-west by he anLe ?m ^Tn ^' ''' which melts down into its nkin Til ^ .u ^°""t <^armel ria bound it to the sou h-£ Motf'T l''^ ^"^^«^«^'»«- north-eastern border, and a few mHe WW ''"?.'" '^'' direction are the city and lake of Tihl • "t *^^ ^^""'^ border extends to the vallev of fho V^T^^- Jts eastern Shunem, Moreh, Me Sonf^of fct rlh''"^ ^f Bethshean, are all situatpH w,'fK;» -7 '• .^9"°^ Gilboa and Nain, whe;e Jesus raed the Jtl'^ '''''"^^^- ^he city of This is one of the most remarkll?'?' • ' ^l'? ^""'^^^ ^e^e. physically in PalestinT Tn T • ! ^^ P^^-'"" historically and of Jezree^ and K^of Me3o V' ^' '""'^ *^^ ^^"^^ times it has been the chLe blttle fiel//""'''!?- ^"^ "^^^^^^ Jews and Gentiles, Assyrians and S^ conflicting armies. Saracens, Turks, Ambs and P-nt P ^'^'^"f ' Crusaders and upon its' fertile' foil 'l^^hf vi'dnitv V>"' '}l'^' ^^^^^ Josiah was slain. Saul and h\^T^ u^ *H'' ^^"^^ King The four hundred aSfty ti^^'/ b\^^? if '^^^ lives^ ished at its centrp hv Toflk i , ^^^' ^ho were nour- "orth-westeVc trer'']^:r^f^^^^^^^^ ^/ f^^^h at ite the teeming host o^ MSfan w>,n i i*^"""^^ hundred routed grasshoppers, for multitude " hX n ?> '^'l " "^"^^ ^^^e niarshall^d their forces in pursuU of £''"'' f 1 ^^'^^ has been inimortalized by firah's so^ ^'''f f -'^ *\' ^^^«^ posed on that occasion ^ ^^^""^^^s song of triumph, com- 20 liev. l)r. Tahiage*s Trip to the tloty Land. Proceeding over this plain the caravan encatnpeJ at Nazareth for the night. The first house Dr. Talmage entered in the village was a carpenter's shop. The Church of the Annunciation, which is claimed to enshrine the house of Mary and Joseph, was carefully investigated. This village was intensely interesting to Dr. Talmage. The loca- tion of Nazareth is romantic. The town is situated on the declivity of a projecting h'.ll, to the brow of which the people led our Saviour " that they might thrust him down head- long." This elevation is surrounded by fifteen other hills, which rise like the edge of a shell, giving this delightful hamlet the appearance of a rose inclosed by its leaves. An adjacent plain, about a mile in length and from two to four hundred yards in breadth, extending into a declining ravine which terminates in an immense chasm with steep rocks on either side, and commanding a view of the noble plain of Megiddo, conveys the impression that such surroundings were well adapted to the meditations of our Saviour's early life. Amid the hills and dells of Nazareth nature seems to sit enthroned in its most impressive solitude and grandeur. Onward fifteen miles from this village in a north-easterly direction Capernaum is reached in time for Talmage to preach on the following Sabbath after discoursing at Jerusa- lem. Here, Dr. Talmage states to his audience, " It has been the wish of my life to stand on the banks of Galilee. What a solemnity and what a rapture to be here! I can now understand the feelings of the Scotchman, 'Kobert Murray M'Cheyne, when, sitting on the banks of this lake, he wrote: ' It is not that the wild gazelle comes down to drink thy tide. But He that was pierced to save from hell oft wandered by thy side. It is not that the fig-tree grows, and palms in thy soft air, But that Sharon's fair and bleeding Rose once spread its fragrance there. Graceful around thee the mountains meet, thou calm reposing sea, But ah ! for more th . beautiful feet of Jesus walked o'er thee.' " The day previous to the delivery of this discourse Talmage had a sail on the Lake of Gennesaret, and says : " I wanted to realize how the Apostles felt in the storm. To give you an idea of how quickly storms arise on this inland sea I will say that within five minutes after we had glided out on the surface as smooth as glass a tempest arose and swept down so fiercely, and the waves ran so high that we could only escape by landing at Capernaum." Around this Sea of Galilee Dr. Talmage seems to have felt more at home than in any other part of the Holy Land. ' m^ Rev. Dr. Tahnageh Trip to the Holy Lan^, 2I P^^^^^^^t^llZ^^r"^ -one arouses Joes this sea. The public \\l .1 t^ ^\"«tian traveller as ch>f development around the s-n'^""^' '-^'^ ''' ''"*'" ""^* n^ighticst works were here wtou Jit H?'^'/'!' ,^".'"^ ^^ ^is lere ; and some of his molt rem^;i.„M^ '!^^"*"^^ ^'^ ^Po^tles livered in this vicinity Dr T^fl ' discourses were de- entire surroundings of this laJcP o!^-^®' ^ • "" .surveying the ts bosom, and bathing in fts wll "^ a^ l'' t^' ^^^""g on IS coming when the Sp« fn rf '' Predicts that, " The dav sheet of laterwitl a h\S feol"' ^''^^ ^ ^-«'-"J ing a meagre existence wil been mpfi ""'' '^' '^"'""^ '^"PP^i't- great commercial activity u'hoJm^T? '^ ^^ealth and fleets of merchantmen and thrnn.Tl '-i' ^^ '""^'^^e^ ^vith with populations reachingtto C hnnd'"^? H '''^^ ^' ^^^'^^ ^ea of Tiberias, althouglf desolat^on^^ '^ thousand." The JS "surrounded by objlctrwen ^ni .^'/'^ solemn inipression,^and !« IL i? '" ^^^g^'^en the pects of the Holy' Land •' Thfwa er 'fTh" f f ^^^ P^^^' and pure. Several hot sprinel ZTL •^'' u ^"^ '' ^^^et are pebbly. It abounds n fi h of var n?^ I*' t''''' ^^^^^^ resort of great numbers of tho Lh :5 ?"1 '''°^'' ^"^ is the ous villages which once clusfpr^f .*"'''• ^^*^« ""'°er- now remlin. The h" Hs rise in lr"i "* '^' ^^"^^«' ^^^ t^^ces on either side attaining 7 ^O.OOO of his congreg". »^g of the 6th February ni,fer--V, ^'"^^'y^ on the evli- "•-e for the Holy Land ^' ""^"^^'^^g^^t days after his depart- ' ■■ '• ^"^^ ''™»""'J'- I have already seat to 24 Rev. Dr. Talmage's Trip to the Holy Laud. J! * I America my Holy Land observations for my " Life of Christ " JUKI they were written on horseback, on muleback, on camel- hack on ships deck, bv dim candle in tent, in mud hovel of Arab village, amid the ruins of old cities, on Mount of Jieatitudes, c.n beach of Gennesaret, but it will take twentv j^ears of sermons to tell what I have seen and felt on this journey through Palestine and Syria." "Every nerve in my body has thrilled as I have reached one place after another and read the gospels of Matthew, Mark J.uke and John on the very spots where Christ once stood. I not only recognized the localities by their descriptions, but recognized every object referred to in the sacred passages Had 1 gone there an infidel I would have been converted to ^Christianity. I should have said, ' It is impossible that the scriptures are a concoction or the invention of iniposters.' " " Leaving aside all questions of sacred associations and historical suggestiv^ness, Palestine, the natural scenery itself is majestic beyond description. I took my dragoman one atternoon just as the sun was setting, and pointing to the landscape before me I said : ' I have stood on ^he summits of the bierra Nevada mountains, I have climbed the hic^hest Alps, 1 have gone through the Yoseraite valley, but never betore in my life have I looked on such a sight as this.' " The Holy Land is a vast wilderness of mighty rocks, ranging in size from mountains down to the sands of (he ocean. These rocks are becoming skeletonized. A process ot disintegration is going on, and the lime is melting into the soil and enriching it." " I was on nearly all the fields of Herodic, and Solomonic, and Uavidic, and Mosaic, and Abrahamic history. I took Kome and Naples and Athens, and Alexandria and Cairo on the way out, and take the Greek Archipelago, and Constanti- nople, and Vienna on the way back. What more can God in his goodness grant me in the way of natural scenery, and classic association, and spiritual opportunity? Ah yes' I can think of something gladder than that He can grant me. Safe return to the people of my beloved flock, the field of my work, and the land where my fathers died, and in the dust of whose valleys I pray God I may be buried." ■W f*f ■!; the Holy Laud. IS for my "Life of Christ," {,011 nmleback, on caniel- e in tent, in mud hovel of old cities, on Mount of t, but it will lake twenty ive seen and felt on this a." rilled as I have reached gospels of Matthew, Mark, here Christ once stood. I by their dcscrijitions, but ^ in the sacred passages. 1 have been converted to It is impossible that the vention of iniposters.' " sacred associations and the natural scenery itself, took my dragoman one ing, and pointing to the stood on *he summits of ave clindied the highest )seraite valley, but never jch a sight as this.' lerness of mighty rocks, own to the sands of the skeletonized. A process 3 lime is melting into the Herodic, and Solomonic, 'ahamic history. I took Uexandria and Cairo, on chipelago, and Constanti- What more can God in of natural scenery, and portunity? Ah yes! I that He can grant me. red flock, the field of my I died, and in the dust of Juried." - lan ' jBi 'i' ^j * — I