LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY ROBERT L. CASHMAN DOMINION OF FASHION AND OTHER SERMONS TITLES OF THE TWENTY VOLUMES VOL. I. GOD EVERYWHERE. II. AMERICA FOR GOD. III. THE GOSPEL OF HEALTH, AND OTHER SERMONS. IV. DIVINE SATIRE, AND OTHER SERMONS. V. GATES OF CARBUNCLE, AND OTHER SERMONS. VI. THE TEN PLAGUES OF OUR TIME. VII. THE CHRIST-LAND, AND OTHER SERMONS. VIII. WEDDING ELLS, AND OTHER SERMONS. IX. GOSPEL OF THE PYRAMIDS, AND OTHER SERMONS. X. THE SONG OF THE DRUNKARDS, AND OTHER SERMONS. XI. DOMINION OF FASHION, AND OTHER SERMONS. XII. THE STAR WORMWOOD, AND OTHER SERMONS. XIII. RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN HEAVEN, AND OTHER SERMONS. XIV. THE SUN-DIAL OF AHAZ, AND OTHER SERMONS. XV. THE IVORY PALACES, AND OTHER SERMONS. XVI. FAR LANDS, AND OTHER SERMONS. XVII. LITERATURE OF THE DUST, AND OTHER SERMONS. XVIII. ANGELOLOGY, AND OTHER SERMONS. XIX. A PASSION FOR SOULS, AND OTHER SERMONS. XX. SELAH, AND OTHER SERMONS. For a Comprehensive General Index to the entire work see Volume Twenty, the last of the series For Contents of the Twenty Volumes, see advertisement at the end of this volume 5oo Selected.. Sermone ^^^^i T. DEWITT TALMAGE i\ In Cwenty Volumes VoL 'Cbc Christian f)erald Louts Klopech, proprietor Bible Rouee H. D. ipoo PREFACE* In opening the front door of these twenty volumes contain- ing over five hundred sermons which were selected from thou- sands of sermons, first with reference to usefulness, and next with reference to variety an explanatory statement is appropriate. Many of these sermons were preached during my pastor- ates in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Washington, and others in Europe and Asia and the Islands of the Sea. Chronological order has not been observed. Some of them were delivered thirty years apart, a fact that will account for certain dates and allusions. Some reference in almost every discourse will indi- cate the approximate time of its delivery. The publication of these volumes is partly induced by the kindness with which my previous books have been received by the press here and abroad. I am more indebted than any other man to the news- paper fraternity for the facilities they have given me for preaching the Gospel for over thirty years, without the excep- tion of a single week, in almost every neighborhood of Chris- tendom and in " the regions beyond "; and I gladly avail myself of every opportunity for thanking them and I thank them now. Of the more than fifty different books published under my name in this country and in other lands, the large majority were not authorized by me for publication, and were pirated. 1 knew nothing of them until I saw them advertised. I have personally corrected the proofs for these twenty volumes, and their publi- cation is hereby sanctioned. If they shall alleviate the fatigue of some travelers on the rough road of this life, and help some to find the way to the sinless and tearless Capital, whose twelve gates stand wide open, my prayer will be answered. Reprinted from Volume I.) COPYRIGHT, 1900, LOUIS KLOPSCH CONTENTS. PACE. DOMINION OF FASHION. 9 TEXT : The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, ntither shall a man put on a woman's garment : for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. Deuteronomy 22 : 5. Woman's attire Fashion-plates and morals Womanish men and masculine women Bluntness not a virtue Outlandish apparel Rudeness a sin Christianity and aestheticism False standards of rank The power of clothes Rivalries in social life Wrong fashion incompatible with happiness Bitterness in pewter mugs and golden chalices Fashion and disease Intellectual depletion Blasting the soul The worldling's death and doom Queen Elizabeth of Castile. THE OLD HOMESTEAD. 23 TEXT : As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24 : 15. Busy Joshua's decision What will religion do ? Not wanted if it will sour the bread Never paid a cent to near a groan Isaac Watts' long stay Family prayers in the old home " Is God dead ? " The man who fought while wife prayed and children dug Talmage's mother's prayer Let religion in at front door The Western trapper and the traveler Wanting religion at a distance Talmage's grand- parents at a revival meeting A mother's evening of prayer Tal- mage's parents converted A subject with two arms. WOMEN OF AMERICA. - 37 TEXT : Every wise woman buildeth her house. Proverbs 14 : i. Woman not a mere appendage The final creation Men supported by wives Marriage of the vulture and the dove Civil War ana women Celibacy due to strong drink Woman and music Saleswomen Pottery painting Elocutionary accomplishments Things that a woman can do -Virginia Penny's book An awful choice Two sad sights Caught in the whirlpool Justice for women Christ the friend of women The daughter of the regiment. WORLDLY MARRIAGES. 53 TEXT : A nd there was a man in Maon whose possessions wert in Car- mel ; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats . I. Samuel 25 : 2. A drunken bloat Ingratitude to David Abigail's unfortunate alli- ance A domestic tragedy oft repeated Poor Madame Roland First requisite in a husband Noble men of wealth Advantages of means Infidelity incipient insanity The sacrifice of woman -The roue as a suitor Marrying for money and position Launched on a Dead Sea Imprisoned in a castle Jupiter's garlanded sacrifices Tragedy in ducal palaces Why not marry a king Celibacy honored Cleopatra and Czsar The heavenly lover. VOL. XI. 3 Contents PAGE. THE FIRST WOMAN. 67 TEXT: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her ; and he did eat. Genesis 3 : 6. Adam's deep sleep The first marriage A lost world Curiosity healthful and unhealthful Ministers and the mysteries Inquisitive- ness and gossip Sweet fruits and bitter results The cup of death Results of the fall Votaries of pleasure Danger ahead Attractive- ness of sin Regal influence of women Charlotte Corday and the assassin Marie Antoinette and the mob. THE QUEENS OF HOME. 7q TEXT : There are threescore queens. The Song of Solomon 6 : 8. Imperial character of a true Christian woman Woman's superlative right The dying husband Woman in war Cheers for Mrs. Hodge A-soldier's tribute to Mrs. Shelton Woman's care for the poor Working in the haunts of sin Talmage in Helen Chalmers' chapel No fear for the teacher Begging for charity's sake No fool's errand when _ God sends Woman in disaster Woman's responsive heart Married for immortality A dying man's awful testimony Woman in heaven. WOMAN'S HAPPINESS. 93 TEXT : She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. I. Timothy 5: 6. The Boston editor's question about happiness Life improves with age Discovering diamonds Greenough's testimony A disappointed bride_ Filial love called for Personal attractions no foundation for happiness Beauty not to be despised Hoof-marks of time A plain face_ made beautiful The soldier's dream Mrs. Harris among the soldiers No lasting happiness in flattery Improvements in fashion Jewish styles Happiness in Christ The pearl of great price Dying Margaret s joy. A WEDDING PRESENT. ...... 109 TEXT : Thou hait given me a south land ; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the tipper springs and the nether springs. Joshua 15: 19. A victory and its prize A wedding present The queen and the shadowless picture George III. and Hogarth Sir Walter Scott's sigh for rest Girard's hard toil Lamb^; pathetic reminiscence Talleyrand's complaint Religion's nether springs The upper springs of Heaven Heaven's welcome guests The happy o_ld man with the dropsy Dr. Goodwin's dying acclamation Crevice glimpses of Heaven Dying Florence Reaching the Narrows Disintegration and destruction Hindu belief about Brahma The foundation for hope. HARBOR OF HOME. - - - - 123 TEXT : Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee. Marks: 19 Looking for a large sphere Faithful in small things Home and its meaning Home a test of character Philanthropists and Neros Audubon s lost work Home as a refuge Around the camp-fire Better dead than homeless Home a political safeguard Corner-stone of the Republic Home a school Building for the next generation Making home bright Talmage's early home Heaven our home. 4 VOL. XI. Contents PACK. TREATMENT OF PARENTS. 135 TEXT : A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. Proverbs 10 : i. Parental delight Parents sometimes responsible for unfilial behavior of children At dinner with four generations A disagreeable father An untidy grandfather Henry Wilson's drunken father Parents' faithfulness recalled Dying soldier and the rye loaf Hurting the family pride Blotting the family name Son's dissipation causing parental distress When death is a mercy The defense of a marble slab A father's sacrifices A mother's devotion Talmage's family cradle The dead mother. ORPAH'S RETREAT. ....... 149 TEXT: And they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother in law ; but Ruth clave unto her. Ruth i : 14. Three widows At the parting of the ways Grace often takes hold of hard hearts Love and sympathy for all but Christ -Doves that will not come in Perishing between Sodom and the city of refuge Road to death not all easy travelling Sin's cross heavier than the Christian's Drawbacks in sins' pleasures A sepulchre in the garden Ahab has his Naboth The hand upon the wall Family divisions caused by re- argam What money ships Sinful doubt of God's mercy. THE BEAUTIFUL GLEANER. 165 TEXT: And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech. Ruth 2 : 3. Ruth in the harvest-field An ancestress of Christ Trouble develops character The brilliant pastor Finishing touch of trouble The changed doctor The fountain of Hippocrene Scotch martyrs devel- oped by persecution Dark paths and joyous endings Christ's humiliation and compensation Luther and the discovered Bible Sickly sentimentality about women's work Horace Vere's brother Dying from nothing to do Madame de Stael and her many trades The value of gleaning Elihu Burritt and Abercrombie. THE GRANDMOTHER. ... 179 TEXT : The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois. II. Timothy i : 5. Paul to Timothy Woman's influence Margaret, mother of crimi- nals Godly ancestors alive for g_ood Our times and old times American women in 1796; in 1782; in 1812 A glorious race Grand- mothers a benediction Living for all time Cradle's beating between two eternities A powerful river The Ceylon column and the end of the world Ancestral consecration God's long memory Dr. Bethune's grandmother Isabella Graham's letter Grandmothers in Heaven Pompon ius At ticus and his mother Religion a good heirloom. THE OLD FOLKS' VISIT. - 195 TEXT : / will go and see him before I die. Genesis 45 : 28. Centenarians A countess's three sets of teeth Jacob's bad boys News from Joseph Royalty and rusticity Strength of parental at- tachment Tender sorrow of Talmage's parents Are they still chil- dren? A thrilling visit President Fillmore's father at the White VOL. XI. 5 Contents House Blessing of parental visits An empress's hint to her husband Ill-treatment of parents Last years of Talmage's father Queens of self-sacrifice Parental fidelity Meeting and greeting in the palaces of God. MARTYRS OF THE NEEDLE. 209 TEXT: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye o/antedle. Mat- thew 19: 34. Camels and needles Royal needle plyers Work ablessing to women Why Ashbel Green worked What the women are taught Madame de Stael's boast Drunken Boggsey's death Remunerative work not dishonorable Idleness a disgrace Idleness bad for health Woman's rights in the field of work Havoc with the needle God to redress woman's wrongs Woman human, not an angel Worse than martyr- dom In convulsions in Brooklyn Tabernacle The ballot not the cure Studying to excel Oaks and ivies The dying. THE SHEIK'S DAUGHTER. 223 TEXT : Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in tait>, the priest of Midian. Exodus 3 : i. Moses in Midian An Oriental well fight Industrious Zipporah A model for American girls W. W. Corcoran's Louise Home Useless women Moses at school John's austere life Elijah's training John Knox a French slave Earl of Morton's magnificent tribute Work for aged men Had death forgotten them? Gladstone the great Courage of Moses Cheers for the overcomer A call written in fire The two bowls Jehovah and his friend The sepulture of Moses. SPIDERS IN PALACES. 241 TEXT : The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces. Proverbs 30: 28. Talmage in Edinburgh Dr. Cook on spiders Lessons from things ordinary Illustrations from nature A spider in the palace Exquis- iteness of divine mechanism God through telescope and microscope Insignificance no excuse for inaction Doing lowly work God's work well done Loathsomeness on the climb Evil in the church Invading the home Perseverance will mount Heaven a palace Splendor of apartments Splendor of associations Splendor of ban- quet In the Mammoth cave The grave illuminated. A MOTHERLY GOD. 255 TEXT: As one whom his mother comfortefh, so will I comfort you. Isaiah 66: 13. The Bible a parental letter of affection More about mercy than wrath The child and father in the thunder-storm Thunder God's voice Calm is God's smile God's simple way of teaching A moth- er's patience in instruction Spelling faith Teaching by pictures The lesson of the fish-net The folly of sinning The gladness of mercy The silver refiner's story The field and the farmer The perfected statue The rocking of the cradle Tending little hurts No ciphers in God's arithmetic God's patience with the erring Won by forgiveness Gentleness of God's hand The sleep of death The dying Scotchman to his daughter. VOL. XI. Contents GARRISON DUTY. 271 TEXT : As kit part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his fart be that tarrieth by the stuff. I. Samuel 30: 24. Changing army quarters Invalid troops Ainalekite ravages A maudlin banquet David's triumph Distributing the spoils Garri- son duty important An earl's request Help for discouraged workers Honors for the home workers Brakeman or director alike to God Engineer earned gratitude as well as captain Story of a hymn Visiting Napoleon s veterans God not unmindful of his veterans Rewards for Christian wives and mothers. THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 287 TEXT: And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening. I . Kings 17 : 6. Birds in the Bible Audubon's delightful studies The wren crowned king of the birds Ravens to the rescue What the rabbis said God sent the purveyors The world's great battle for bread Not home rule but a home to rule God a sensible parent What the ravens did not bring Gold eagles versus black ravens Rochelle and its siege A memorable pea crop Mr. Birdseye and the water famine Pray and dig Mistaking the color of Providences The lost child Gods abundance of ravens A Chicago woman's great faith Praying for coal Bread for soul hunger. HEAVY LOADS. 303 TEXT : Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. Psalm 55 : 22. A burden-be-ring world Bishop Wiley's death Talmage's father's itory : trust and deliverance A timely barrel of flour _The Straits of Magellan Contrary winds Burdens in business Grip, Gouge & Co. The drowning young man and the bag of gold The Bible as an offset Divine sympathy with the toilers Across for all saviours Believing; in universal damnation Egmont the martyr and the loos- ened collar Ill-treated in good company The world a hospital Prayer and the abscesses The burden of sin. ISAAC RESCUED. 317 TEXT : Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb ! Genesis 2: 7. Abraham and Isaac A thunderbolt from a clear sky Reaching the mount Isaac's searching question Binding the sacrifice The lifted knife The divine arrest The ram in the thicket Behold the Lamb of God The aged minister's interpretation Implicit obedience called for God's sure help in extremity The restored son Carrying an old woman upstairs The two "Only's" Isaac and the wood Jesus and the cross Over-mastered by humanity's sorrows The pigeons at St. Mark's The Gospel's noontide Come and feed. PAIN. 331 TEXT : Neither shall there be any more pain. Revelation 21 : 4. A hot-weather sermon Sanitary conditions of Heaven Its freedom from pain of disappointment Life's many extinguished anticipations No more blasted hopes Weariness over The holiday approaches Poverty over Parting over Earth'ssad separations Wine-presses of sorrow Many hand-clasps but none of farewell No more pain of body Disease from cradle to grave Pain universal Suffering armies The lexicography of pain The glad offsetting sound Well for- ever A summer's draught on the Green Mountains A draught from the Throne. VOL. XI. 7 PAGE. WHERE'S MOTHER? 343 TEXT : The mother of Sisera looked out at a window. Judges 5 : 28. Sisera's mother Watching at the window Sad news Defeat and death Her court ladies God against Sisera Where's mother? The great home question An Oriental palace and its embroideries The Heavenly palace Striking contrast The old-time mother Her multitudinous qualifications Mother's influence on children's char- acter The impressive age Maternal inconsistencies The train and the broken bridge Charlie's letter from mother A mother's selfish expectations Praise for the needle Making shipwreck on the ward- robe Mothers in the country Terrible news What mothers in glory see Answered once and forever. HOME-SICKNESS. 359 TEXT : / will arise and go to my father. Luke 15 : 18. The carob tree Sin a mean thing A wise resolution Seeing a heretic in the glass Disgusted with his environment Sin the soul's ruin Easily proved Home-sickness sends a sinner home A disloyal son and his prayer at sea Mourned as lost, but saved Prompt execu- tion Broken vows Story of two prodigals Never got home Con- demned and in irons Pardoned A father's love and kiss. CONTENTMENT. 375 TEXT: Be content -with such things as ye have. Hebrews 13 : 5. _Off on vacation The many stay-at-homes American restlessness Life's indispensables generally possessed Health man's greatest lux- ury Hypocritical effusiveness over pictures Happiness not depend- ent on outward circumstances Looking for the happiest people Growling from a throne; singing from a dungeon Napoleon's disgust Shipwrecked but singing All over soon Royalty as a fertilizer Departed greatness Calling the roll No response Kissing the fagot A martyr's joy An improvident crowd A glorious vacation. REMINISCENCES. 387 TEXT : While I was musing the fire burned. Psalms 39 : 3. A reminiscent Sunday Sunset at the Bay of Fundy Looking back- ward Giotto's fresco Early home and its blessings Setting up a household The first born The hour of conversion The shadow in the home Two cups On a bed of sickness Financial trouble Be- reavement Interval lands A lesson from the banks of the St. John Napoleon and Mrs. Judson Dying utterances contrasted Paul and Augustus Caesar. The following indexes will be found at the end of each volume : INDEX OF TEXTS, INDEX OF TITLES AND TEXTS, INDEX OF ANECDOTAL AND HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS, INDEX OF SUBJECTS. TOL. XI. DOMINION OF FASHION Deut, 22: 5: "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." God thought womanly attire of enough im- portance 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 resurrec- tion, writes about the arrangement of woman's hair and the style of her jewelry ; and in my text, Moses, his ear yet filled with the thunder at Mount Sinai, de- clares that womanly attire must be in marked con- trast with masculine attire, and infraction of that law excites the indignation of high heaven. Just in pro- portion as the morals of a country or an age are de- pressed 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. Bloomerism in this country years ago seemed about to break down this divine law, but there was enough of good in American society to beat back the in- decency. Yet ever and anon we have imported from France, or perhaps invented on this side the sea a style that proposes as far as possible to make women dress like men ; and thousands of young women catch the mode, until some one goes a little too far in imi- tation of masculinity, 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 or- dered dissimilarity which must be forever observed. VOL. XI. Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage 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 her- self George Sand, by her corrupt but brilliant writ- ings depraved homes and libraries innumerable, and was a literary grandmother of all the present French and American authors, who have written things so much worse that they have made her putrefaction quite presentable. That French authoress put on masculine attire. She was consistent. Her writings and her behavior were perfectly accordant. My text abhors mannish women and womanish men. What a sickening thing it is to see a man copy- ing the speech, the walk, the manner of a woman. The trouble is that they do not imitate a sensible woman, but some female imbecile. And they simper, and they go with mincing step, and lisp, and scream at nothing, and take on a languishing look, and bang their hair, and are the nauseation of honest folks of both sexes. O man, be a man ! You belong to quite a respectable sex. Do not try to cross over, and to become a hybrid; neither one nor the other, but a failure, half-way between. Alike repugnant are mas- culine women. They copy a man's stalking gait and go down the street with the stride of a walking-beam. They wish they could smoke cigarettes, and some of them do. They talk boisterously and try to sing bass. They do not laugh, they roar. They cannot quite manage the broad profanity of the sex they rival, but their conversation is often a half-swear; and if they said, " O Lord ! " in earnest prayer as often as they say it in lightness they would be high up in saint- 10 VOL. XI. Dominion of Fashion hood. Withal there is an assumed rugosity of ap- parel, 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 unac- countable aesthetics. O woman, stay a woman ! You also belong to a very respectable sex. Do not try to cross over. If you do you will be a failure as a woman and only a nondescript of a man. We already have enough intellectual and moral bankrupts in our sex without your coming over to make worse the deficit. My text also sanctions fashion. Indeed, it sets a fashion! There is a great deal of senseless cant about fashion. A woman or man who does not regard it is unfit for good neighborhood. The only question is what is right fashion and what is wrong fashion. 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 the mother of abom- inations. As the world grows better, there will be as much fashion as now, but it will be a righteous fashion. In the heavenly life white robes always have been and always will be in the fashion. There is a great outcry against this 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. There has been a canonization of bluntness. There are men and women who boast that they can tell you all they know and hear about you, especially if it be unpleasant. Some have mistaken rough behavior for frankness, when the two qualities do not belong to the same family. You have no right, with your eccentricities, VOL. XI. II Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage to crash in upon the sensitiveness of others. There is no virtue in walking with hoofs over fine carpets. The most jagged rock is covered with blossoming moss. The storm that comes jarring down in thun- der strews rainbow colors upon the sky and silvery drops on the orchard. Then 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 disagreeable. Their rough corners have never been worn off. They prefer a hedgehog to a lamb. The accomplishments of life are in nowise pro- ductive of effeminacy or enervation. Good manners and a respect for the tastes of others are indis- pensable. The Good Book speaks favorably of those who are a " peculiar " people ; but that does not sanc- tion the behavior of queer people. There is no ex- cuse, under any circumstances, for not being the lady or gentleman. Rudeness is sin. We have no words too ardent to express our admiration for the refine- ment of society. There is no law, moral or divine, to forbid elegance of demeanor, or artistic display in the dwelling, gracefulness of gait and bearing, polite salutation or honest compliments ; and he who is shocked or offended by these had better, like the ancient Scythians, wear tiger-skins and take one wild leap back into midnight barbarism. As Christianity advances there will be ba$ter apparel, higher styles 12 VOL. XI. Dominion of Fashion of architecture, 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 producing 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 standard by which people are to be judged. Our common sense, as well as all the divine intima- tions on the subject, teach us that people ought to be esteemed according to their individual and moral attainments. 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, earl, viscount, lord, esquire or par- trician 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. or LL. D. or A. M. Truth, honor, charity, heroism, self-sacrifice, should win highest favor ; but inordinate fashion says : " Count not a woman's virtues ; count her adorn- ments." " Look not at the contour of the head, but see the way she arranges her hair." "Ask not what noble deeds have been accomplished by that man's hand; but is it white and soft?" Ask not what good sense is in her conversation, but " In what was she dressed?" Ask not whether there were hospitality and cheerfulness in the house, but " In what style do they live ? " As a consequence, some of the most ignorant and vicious men are at the top, and some of the most virtuous and intelli- gent at the bottom. During our Civil War we suddenly saw men ele- vated into the highest social positions. Had they suddenly reformed from et*i habits or graduated in VOL. xi. 13 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage science or achieved some good work for society? No; they simply had obtained a government con- tract! This accounts for the utter chagrin which people feel at the treatment they receive when they lose their property. Hold up your head amid finan- cial disaster like a Christian! Fifty thousand sub- tracted from a good man leaves how much ? Honor ; truth ; faith in God ; triumphant hope ; and a kingdom of ineffable glory, over which he is to reign forever and ever. If the owner of millions should lose a penny out of his pocket, would he sit down on a curb- stone and cry? And shall a man possessed of ever- lasting fortunes wear himself out with grief because he has lost worldly treasure? You have only lost that in which hundreds of wretched misers could have surpassed you; and you have saved that which the Caesars and the Pharaohs and the Alexanders could never attain. And yet society thinks differ- ently, and we see the most intimate friendships broken up as the consequence of financial embarrassments. Proclamation has gone! forth : " Velvets must go up and plain apparel must come down," and the question is: "How does the coat fit?" not "Who wears it ? " The power that bears the tides of ex- cited population up and down our streets, and rocks the world of commerce, and thrills all nations, trans- Atlantic and cis-Atlantic, 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 gingham. 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 ruin- ous rivalry. The expenditure of many households is adjusted by what their neighbors have, not by what they themselves can afford to have; and the great 14 VOL. xi. Dominion of Fashion 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 Dahl- gren guns and Hotchkiss shells, but chairs and mir- rors and vases and Gobelins and Axminsters. Many household establishments are like racing steamboats, propelled at the utmost strain and risk, and just com- ing to a terrific explosion. " Who cares," say they, " if we only come out ahead ? " There is no one cause to-day of more financial embarrassment and of more dishonesties than this determination at all haz- ards to live 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, everything, in the effort to shine like others. Though the heavens fall they must be " in the fashion." The most famous frauds of the day have resulted from this feeling. It keeps hun- dreds of men struggling for their commercial exist- ence. The trouble is that some are caught and in- carcerated if their larceny be small. If it be great they escape and build their castle on the Rhine or the Hudson. Again, wrong fashion makes people unnatural and untrue. It is a factory from which has come forth more hollow and unmeaning flatteries and hypocrisies than the Lowell mills ever turned out shawls and garments. Few people are really natural and unaffected. When I say this I do not mean to deprecate cultured manners. It is right that we should have more ad- miration for the sculptured marble than for the un- hewn block of the quarry. From many circles in life fashion has driven out vivacity. A frozen dignity VOL. xi. 15 Sermons by T. DeWitt Taimage 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 across the room; you must glide. There is a rouad of bows and grins and flatteries, and oh's and ah's and simperings, and namby-pambyism a world of which is not worth one good, round, honest peal of laughter. From such a hollow round the tortured guest retires at the close of the evening, and assures his host that he has enjoyed himself. Thus social life has been contorted and deformed, until, in some mountain cabin, where rustics gather to the quilting or the apple-paring, there is more good cheer than in all the frescoed icehouses of the metropolis. We want in all the higker circles of society more warmth of heart and naturalness of be- havior, and not so many refrigerators. Again, wrong fashion is incompatible with happi- ness. Those who depend for their comfort upon the admiration of others are subject to frequent disap- pointment. Somebody will criticise their appearance, or surpass them in charm, or will receive more atten- tion. Oh, the jealousy and detraction and heart- burnings of those who move in this bewildered maze ! Poor butterflies ! Bright wings do not always bring happiness. " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." 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 demons of the pit for hate. The misery that will to-night in the cellar cuddle up in the straw is not so utter as the princely disquietude which stalks through splendid drawing-rooms, brooding over the slights and offenses of luxurious life. The bitterness of life seems not so unfitting when drunk out of a 16 VOL. xi. Dominion of Fashion pewter mug as when it pours from the chased lips of a golden chalice. In the sharp crack of the volup- tuary'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 withering. Apparel insufficient to keep out the cold and the rain, or so fitted upon the person that the functions of life are restrained ; late hours filled with excitement and feasting ; free drafts of wine that make one not beastly intoxicated, but only fashionably drunk ; and luxurious indolence are the instru- ments by which this unreal life pushes its disciples into valetudinarianism and the grave. Along the walks of prosperous life death goes a-mowing and such harvests as are reaped! Materia medico, has been exhausted to find curatives for these physio- logical devastations. Dropsies, cancers, consump- tions, gout and almost every infirmity in all the realm of pathology have been the penalties paid. To counteract the damage, pharmacy has found forthwith medicament, panacea, elixir, embrocation, salve and cataplasm. With swollen feet upon cushioned otto- man, and groaning with aches innumerable, the votary of luxurious living is not half so happy as his groom or coal-heaver. Wrong fashion is the world's under- taker, and drives thousands of hearses to Greenwood and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn. But, worse than that, this folly is an intellectual depletion. This endless study of proprieties and eti- quette, patterns and styles, is bedwarfing to the in- tellect. I never knew a woman or a man of extreme fashion who knew much. How belittling the study of the cut of a coat or the tie of a cravat or the wrinkle in a sleeve or the color of a ribbon ! How VOL. xi. 17 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage they are worried if something gets untied or hangs awry or is not nicely adjusted ! With a mind capa- ble of measuring the height and depth of great sub- jects; able to unravel mysteries, to walk through the universe, to soar up into the infinity of God's attri- butes hovering perpetually over a new style of cloak ! I have known men, reckless as to their char- acter 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 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 destruction are not all clothed in rags. In the wild tumult of the Last Day the mountains falling, the heavens flying, the thrones up- rising, the universe assembling; amid the boom of the last great thunder-peal, and under the crackling of a burning world what will become of the disciple of fashion? Watch the career of one thoroughly artificial. Through inheritance, or, perhaps, his own skill, hav- ing obtained enough for purposes of display, he feels himself thoroughly established. 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 immediately ! " 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 whom you put in my 18 VOL. xi. Dominion of Fashion 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 de- lighted with some doubtful story of Parisian life, but thinks there are some very indecent things in the Bible. Walks arm and 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. Upstairs he dies. No angel wings hovering about him. No Gospel promises kindling up the darkness; but exquisite embroidery, elegant pictures, and a bust of Shakespeare on the mantel. The pulses stop. The minister comes in to read of the resur- rection, 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, saying : " He was the best friend I had." 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 I 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 shud- der, as though a calamity had happened. Standing on heaven's battlement, a watchman will see some- thing shoot past, with fiery downfall, and shriek: " Wandering star for whom is reserved the black- ness of darkness ! " But sadder yet is the closing of a woman's life VOL. XI. IQ Sermons by T. De Witt Talmage who has been worshipful of worldliness, all the wealth of a lifetime's opportunity wasted. What a tragedy ! A woman on her dying pillow, thinking of what she might have done for God and humanity, and yet hav- ing done nothing! Compare her demise with that of a Harriet Newell, going down to peacefully die in the Isle of France, reviewing her lifetime sacrifices for the redemption of India; or the last hours of Elizabeth Hervey, having exchanged her bright 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, it has not a dark spot in it ; all is light, light ! " or the exit of Mrs. Lenox, falling under sudden disease at Smyrna, breathing out her soul with the last words, " Oh, how happy ! " or the departure of Mrs. Sarah D. Corn- stock, spending her life for the salvation of Burmah, giving up her children that they might come home to America to be educated, and saying as she kissed them good-by, never to see them again : " O Jesus ! I 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 and the allevia- tion of human suffering. That was a brilliant scene when, in 1485, in the campaign for the capture of Ronda, Queen Elizabeth of Castile, on horseback, side by side with King Fer- dinand, rode out to review the troops. As she, in bright armor, rode along the lines of the Spanish host, and waved her jeweled hand to the warriors, and ever and anon uttered words of cheer to the worn veterans who, far away from their homes, were risking their lives for the kingdom, it was a spectacle which illumines history. But more glorious will be the scene when some consecrated Christian woman, crowned in heaven, shall review the souls that on 20 VOL. xi. Dominion of Fashion earth she clothed and fed and medicined and evangel- ized, and then introduced into the ranks celestial. As on the white horse of victory, side by side with the King, this queen unto God shall 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 Semi- ramis or Aspasia or Marianne or Margaret of An- jou. Ride on, victor ! VOL. XI. 21 THE OLD HOMESTEAD Joshua, 24: 15: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." THE OLD HOMESTEAD Joshua, 24: 15: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Absurd Joshua! You have no time for family re- ligion. You are a military man and your entire time will be taken with affairs connected with the army. You are a statesman and your time will be taken up with public affairs. You are the Washington, the Wel- lington, the MacMahon of the Israelitish army, and you will have no time for religion. But Joshua in the same voice with which he commanded the sun and the moon to halt and stack arms of light on the parade ground of the Heavens, cried out: " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Before we make the same resolution it is best for us to see whether it is a wise and sensible resolution. If religion is going to put my piano out of tune, and clog the feet of my children racing through the hall, and sour the bread, and put crape on the door bell, I do not want it to come into my house. I paid six dollars to hear Jenny Lind warble. I never paid a cent to hear anybody groan. I want to know what religion is going to do if it gets into my house; what it is going to do in the dining hall, in the nursery, in the parlor, in the sleeping apartment, in every room from cellar to attic. It is a great deal easier to invite a disagreeable guest than to get rid of him. If you do not want religion, you had better not ask it to come, for after coming, it may stay a great while. Isaac Watts went to visit Sir Thomas and Lady Abney at their place in VOL. xi. 25 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage Theobald, and was to stay a week, and stayed thirty- five years, and if religion once gets into your house- hold, the probability is it will stay there forever. Now, the question I want to discuss is, what will religion do for the household? Question the first, What did it do for your father's house if you were brought up in a Christian home? This morning the scene all flashes back upon you. It is time for morn- ing prayers in the old homestead. You are called in. You sit down. You are somewhat fidgety while you listen to the reading. Your father makes no pretense to rhetorical reading of the Scripture, but just goes right on and reads in a plain way. Then you kneel. You remember it now just as well as though it were yesterday. If you were an artist you could photograph the scene. You were not as devotional perhaps as your older brother or sisters, and while they had their heads bowed solemnly down, you were thought- less and looking around, and you know just the posture of your father and mother, and brothers and sisters. The prayer was longer than you would like to have had it. It was about the same prayer morning by morning and night by night, for your father had the same sins to deplore and the same blessings to thank God for. You were somewhat impatient to have the prayers over. Perhaps the game of ball was waiting, or the skates were lying under the shed, or you wanted ;to look two or three times over your lesson before you started for school, and you were somewhat impatient. After a while, the prayers were over. Your parents did not rise from the floor as easily as you, for their limbs were rheumatic and stiffened with age. You recall it all this morning. A tear trickles down your cheek and it seems to melt all that scene, but it comes back again. There is father, there is 26 VOL. xi. mother, there are your brothers and your sisters. Was that morning exercise in your father's house degrad- ing or elevating? As you look back now thirty, forty, fifty years, you hear the same prayers the prayers of 1830, 1840, 1850, just as familiar to your mind now as though you had heard them from lips long ago turned to dust. But all that scene comes back. Was it elevating or degrading? Do you not realize that there has been many a battle in life when that scene upheld you? Do you not remember, O man, when once you proposed to go to some place where you ought not to go, and that prayer jerked you back? Do you know, my brother, my sister, reviewing that scene, bringing it to your mind do you really think it was good economy or a waste of time that your father and mother spent those moments in prayer for themselves and prayer for their families? Ah ! my friends, we begin to think of it this morn- ing, and we come almost to the conclusion that if those scenes were improving to our father's household, they would be improving to our own household. They did no damage there; they do no damage now. " Is God dead?" said a little child to her father. "Is God dead?" " O, no," he said, "my child; what do you ask that question for?" "Oh," she said, "when mother was living we used to have prayers, but since mother has been dead we have not had prayers. I thought perhaps God was dead too." A family well launched in the morning with prayers goes with a blessing all day. The breakfast hour over, the family scatter some to household cares, some to school, some to busi- ness life in the city. Before night comes there will be many temptations, many perils, perils of misstep, perils of street car, perils of the ferryboat, perils of quick temper; many temptations threatening to do VOL. xi. 27 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage you harm. Somewhere between seven o'clock a. m. and ten o'clock p. m. there may be a moment when you will want God. Oh, you had better launch the day right! It will not hinder you, my brother, in business life. It will be a secular advantage. A man went off to the war and fought for his country, and the children stayed and cultivated the farm, and the mother prayed. One young man was telling the story afterward and some one hearing the story said : " Well, well, your father fighting, children digging on the farm, and mother praying at home; it seems to me all these agencies ought to bring us out of our national troubles." My friends, what is your memory of those early scenes? Do you think we had better have God in our own household? " But," says some one, " I can't formulate a prayer; I never prayed in my life." Well then, my brother, there are Philip Henry's prayers, and McDuff's prayers, and Doddridge's prayers, and Episcopal Church prayers and a score of good books with supplications appropriate to your family. If you do not feel yourself competent to formulate a prayer, just take one of those prayer books, put it down on the bottom of the chair, kneel by it and then commend to a merciful God your own soul and the souls of your family. " But ! " says a father, " I couldn't do that at all; I am naturally so retiring and reticent it is impossible." Well, I think sometimes it is the mother's duty to lead in the prayer. I say, sometimes. She knows more of God, she knows more about the family wants, she can read the Scriptures with more tender enunciation. To put it in plain words, she prays bet- ter. I remember my father's praying morning by morning and night by night, but when he was absent from home and my mother prayed it was very dif- ferent. Though sometimes when father prayed we 28 VOL. xi. The Old Homestead were listless or indifferent, we were none of us listless or indifferent when mother prayed, for we remember just how she looked as she said : " I ask not for my children riches or honor, or fame, but I ask that they all may become subjects of thy converting grace." " Why," you say, " I never could forget that; " neither could you. These mothers seem to decide everything. Nero's mother was a murderess. Lord Byron's mother was haughty and impious. So you might have judged from their children. Walter Scott's mother was fond of poetry. Washington's mother was patriotic. St. Bernard's mother was a noble-minded woman. So you might have judged from their children. Good men have good mothers. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are only exceptions. The father and the mother loving God, their children are almost cer- tain to love God. The son may make a wide curve from the straight path, but he will almost be sure to curve back again after a while. God remembers the prayers and brings the son back on the right road, sometimes after the parents are gone. How often we hear it said : " Oh, he was a wild young man until his father's death; since that he has been very different; he has been very steady since his father's death; he has become a Christian." The fact is that the lid of the father's casket is often the altar of repentance for a wandering boy. The marble pillar of the tomb is the point at which many a young man has been revolu- tioned. O young man ! how long is it since you were out to your father's grave? Perhaps you had better go this week. Perhaps the storms of last winter may have bent the headstone toward the earth, and it may need straightening. Perhaps the letters may be some- what defaced by the elements. Perhaps the gate of the lot may be open. Perhaps you might find a ser- mon in the faded grass. Better go out and look. O VOL. xi. 29 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage prodigal ! do you remember your father's house? Do you think that religion which did well for the old peo- ple would do well for you? It seems to me we are all resolved to have religion in our homes, but let it come in at the front door and not at the back door. In other words do not let us try to smuggle religion into the household. Do not let us be like those families that feel very much morti- fied when they are caught at family prayers. They do not dare to sing at family prayers lest the neighbors should hear them, and they never have prayers when they have company. If we are going to have religion in our house let it come in at the front door. Some of our beautiful homes have not the courage of the western trapper. A traveller passing along far away from home was overtaken by night and by a, storm, and he put in at a cabin. He saw firearms there. It was a rough-looking place, but he did not dare to go into the darkness and storm. He had a large amount of money with him and he felt very much ex- cited and disturbed. After a while the trapper came home. He had a gun on his shoulder. He put the gun roughly down in the cabin, and then the traveller was more disturbed. He was sure he was not safe in that place. After a while he heard the family talking together, and he said, " Now, they are plotting for my ruin; I wish I was out in the night and storm instead of being here ; I would be safer there." After a while the old trapper came up to the traveller and said: " Stranger, we are a rough people ; we get our living by hunting, and when we come in at night we are quite tired and we go to bed early, but before we go to bed, we are in the habit of reading a few verses from the Scriptures and say a short prayer; if you don't believe in such things, if you would just please to step outside the door for a little while, I'll be obliged 30 VOL. xi. The Old Homestead to you." There was the courage to do one's whole duty under all circumstances, and a house that has prayers in it is a safe house, it is a holy house, it is a divinely guarded house. So the traveller found out as he tarried in the cabin of that western trapper. But there are families that want religion a good way off, yet within calling distance for a funeral; but to have religion dominant in the household from the first day of January, seven o'clock a. m., to the thirty- first day of December, ten o'clock p. m., they do not want it. I had in my ancestral line an incident I must tell about for the encouragement of all Christian parents. My grandfather and grandmother went from Somer- ville to Baskenridge to attend revival meetings under the ministry of Dr. Finney. They were so impressed with the meetings that when they came back to Somer- ville, they were seized upon by a great desire for the salvation of their children. That evening the chil- dren were going off to a gay party, and my grand- mother said to the children, " When you get all ready for the entertainment come into my room; I have something very important to tell you." After they were all ready for the gay entertainment, they came into my grandmother's room and she said to them, " Go and have a good time ; but while you are gone I want you to know I am praying for you and will do nothing but pray for you until you get back." They went off to the gay entertainment. They did not en- joy it much because they thought all the time of the fact that mother was praying for them. The evening passed. The children returned. The next day my grandparents heard sobbing and crying in the daugh- ter's room, and they went in and found her praying for the salvation of God, and her daughter Phebe said: " I wish you would go to the barn and to the wagon VOL. XI. 31 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage house, for Jehiel and David (the brothers) are under powerful conviction of sin." My grandparent went to the barn, and Jehiel, who afterward became a use- ful minister of the Gospel, was imploring the mercy of Christ, and then having first knelt with him and commended his soul to Christ, they went to the wagon house, and there was David crying for the salvation of his soul David, who afterward became my father. The whole family was swept into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. David could not keep the story to him- self, and he crossed the fields to a farmhouse and told one to whom he had been affianced the story of his own salvation, and she yielded her heart to God. It was David and Catherine, and they stood up in the vil- lage church together a few weeks after for the story of the converted household went all through the neigh- borhood in a few weeks two hundred souls stood up in the plain meeting house at Somerville to pro- fess faith in Christ, among them David and Catherine, afterward my parents. My mother, impressed with that, in after life, when she had a large family of children gathered around her, made a covenant with three neighbors, three mothers. They would meet once a week to pray for the salvation of their children until all their children were converted this incident not known until after my mother's death, the covenant then revealed by one of the survivors. We used to say : " Mother, where are you going? " and she would say, " I am just going out a little while; going over to the neighbors." They kept on in that covenant until all their families were brought into the kingdom of God, myself the last, and I trace that line of results back to that evening when my grandmother commended our family to Christ, the tide of influence going on until this hour, and it wm never cease, 32 VOL. xi. The Old Homestead I tell this for the encouragement of fathers and mothers who are praying for their children. Take courage. God will answer prayer. He will keep his bargain. He will remember his covenant. O ! my friends, take your family Bible and read out of it this afternoon. Some of you have such a Bible in the household. I have one in my home. It is a perfect fascination to me. If you looked at it, you would not find a page that was not discolored either with time or tears. My parents read out of it as long as I can remember; morning and evening they read out of it. When my brother Van Nest died in a foreign land, and the news came to our country home, that night they read the eternal consolations out of the old book. When my brother David died in this city, then that book comforted the old people in their trouble. My father in mid-life, fifteen years an invalid, out of that book read of the ravens that fed Elijah all through the hard struggle for bread. When my mother died that book illumined the dark valley. In the years that fol- lowed of loneliness, it comforted my father with the thought of reunion which took place afterward in Heaven. Dore never illustrated a Bible as that Bible is illustrated to me, or your family Bible is illustrated to you. Only three or four pictures in it, but we look right through and we see the marriages and the bur- ials, the joys and the sorrows, the Thanksgiving days and the Christmas festivals, the cradles and the death- beds. Old, old book. The hand that leafed you has gone to ashes; the eyes that perused you are closed. Old, old book! What a pillow thou wouldst make for a dying head! I believe this morning that, under the power of the Holy Ghost, there are hundreds of people here who are going to invite religion into their household. Let religion come into the dining-room to break the VOL. xi. 33 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage bread, into the parlor to purify the socialities, into the library to select their reading, into the bed-room to hallow the slumber, into the hallway to warch us when we go out and when we come in. There are hundreds of people here this morning, I believe, who are ready to say from their heart with the old soldier of the text, " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." My subject has two arms. One arm, of this sub- ject puts its hand on the head of parents and says: " Do not interfere with your children's happiness, do not intercept their eternal welfare, do not put out your foot and trip any of them into a ruin. Start them under the shelter and benediction of the Christian religion. Catechisms will not save them, though catechisms are good; the rod will not save them, though the rod may be necessary; lessons of virtue will not save them, though such lessons are very important. Your be- coming a Christian through and through, up and down, out and out, will make your children Chris- tians." The other arm of this subject puts its hand on all those who had good bringing up, but as yet have not yielded to the anticipations in regard to them. I said that the path of the son or the daughter might widely diverge, and yet it is almost certain that the wandering one would come around again on the straight path. There are exceptions, and you, my brother, might be the exception. You have curved out long enough ; it is time to curve in. Would it not be awful after all the prayers offered for your salva- tion, if you missed Heaven? If your parents prayed for you twenty years and they offered two prayers a day for twenty years, that would make twenty-nine thousand two hundred prayers for you. Those twenty- nine thousand two hundred prayers are either the mountain over which you will climb into Heaven, or 34 VOL. xi. The Old Homestead they will be an avalanche coming down upon your soul. By the cradle that rocked your childhood with the foot that long ceased to move; by the crib in which your children sleep night by night under God's pro- tecting care; by the two graves in which the two old hearts are resting, the two hearts that beat with love toward you since before you were born; by the two graves in which you, the now living father and mother, will soon repose, I urge you to faithfulness. O! thou glorified Christian ancestry. Bend from the skies to-day and give new emphasis to what you told us once with tears and many anxieties. Keep a place for us by your blissful side, for to-day in the presence of earth and Heaven and hell, and by the help of the cross, and amid these overwhelming and gra- cious memories we all resolve, each one for himself and for his loved ones : " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." May the Lord God of Joshua have mercy on us! VOL. xi. 35 WOMEN OF AMERICA Prov., 14: I : " Every wise woman buildeth her house." WOMEN OF AMERICA Prov., 14: I : " Every wise woman buildeth her house." Woman a mere adjunct to man, an appendix to the masculine volume, an appendage, a sort of after- thought, something thrown in to make things even that is the heresy entertained and implied by some men. Woman's insignificance, as compared to man, is evident to them, because Adam was first created, and then Eve. They do not read the whole story, or they would find that the porpoise 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 independent creation, and was intended, if she chose, to live alone, to walk alone, act alone, think alone, 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-fold better off if they were alone. Who are these men who, year after year, hang around hotels and engine-houses and theatre doors, and come in and out to bother busy clerks and mer- chants 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 support masculines too. A great legion of men amount to nothing, and a woman, VOL. xi. 39 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage manacled by marriage to one of these nonentities, needs condolence. A woman standing outside the marriage 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 night- shade, and, instead of the wedding 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 appropriately spread a table covered with apples of Sodom, which are outside fair and inside ashes. 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 dis- position, and I like peace, and was 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 car- nivorous habits and cease longing for blood of flock and herd, at an altar of rock covered with moss and lichen, the twain were married, a bald-headed eagle officiating, the vulture saying : " With all my do- minion of earth and sky, I thee endow, and promise to love and cherish till death do us part." But one day the dove in her fright, saw the vulture busy at a carcass, and cried : " Stop that ! did you not promise me that you would quit your carnivorous and filthy habits if I married you?" "Yes," said the vulture, " but if you do not like my way, you can leave," and with one angry stroke of the beak, 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 40 VOL. xi. Women of America 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. Besides all this, in our country about one million men were sacrificed in our Civil War, and that de- creed a million women to celibacy. Besides that, since the war, several armies of men as large as the Federal and Confederate armies put together, have fallen under malt liquors and distilled spirits, so full of poisoned ingredients that the work was done more rapidly, and the victims fell while yet young. And if fifty thousand men are destroyed every year by 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 one hundred and fifty thousand women to celibacy. Take, then, the fact that so many women are unhappy in their marriage, and the fact that the slaughter of two million one hundred and fifty thou- sand men, by war and rum combined, decides that at least that number of women shall be unaflfianced for life, my text comes in with a cheer and a potency and appropriateness that I never saw in it before when 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. Rejoice forever that you will not have to navigate the faults of the other sex, when you have faults enough of your own. Think of the bereave- VOL. XI. 41 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage ments 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 out- side usefulness from which marital life would have partially debarred you, and that you are free to go and come as one who has the responsibilities of a household can seldom be. God has not given you a hard lot, as compared with your sisters. When young women shall make up their minds at the start that masculine companionship is not a necessity in order to happiness, and that there is a strong proba- bility that they will have to fight the battle of life alone, they will be getting the timber ready for their own fortune, and their saw and ax and plane sharp- ened for its construction, since " Every wise woman buildeth her house." As no boy ought to be brought up without learn- ing some business at which he could earn a liveli- hood, so no girl ought to be brought up without learning the science of self-support. The difficulty is that many a family goes sailing on the high tides of success, and the husband and father depends on his own health and acumen for the welfare of his household, but one day he gets his feet wet, and in three days pneumonia has closed his life, and the daughters are turned out on a cold world to earn bread, and there is nothing practical that they can do. The friends come in and hold consultation. " Give music lessons," says an outsider. Yes ; that is a use- ful calling, and if you have great genius for it, go on in that direction. But there are enough music teach- ers now starving to death in all our towns and cities to occupy all the piano stools and sofas and chairs and front-door steps of the city. Besides that, the daughter has been playing only for amusement, and is only at the foot of the ladder, to the top of which 42 VOL. xi. Women of America a great many masters on piano and harp and flute and organ have climbed. " Put the bereft daughters as saleswomen in stores," says another adviser. But there they must compete with salesmen of long ex- perience, or with men who have served an apprentice- ship in commerce and who began as shop boys at ten years of age. Some kind-hearted drygoods 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 question comes up, Why do not the female employees of that establish- ment get as much wages as the male employees ? For the simple reason, in many cases, the females were suddenly flung by misfortune behind that counter, while the males have from the day they left the public school been learning the business. How is this evil to be cured? Start clear back in the homestead and teach your daughters that life is an 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 every father and mother say to their daughters : " Now, what would you do for a livelihood if what I now own were swept away by financial disaster, or old age, or death should end my career ? " " 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 enough busy at that now to make a line of decorated hardware from here to the East River and across the bridge. " Well, I could make recitations in public and earn my living as a drama- tist ; I could render ' King Lear ' or ' Macbeth ' till your hair would rise on end, or give you ' Sheridan's Ride ' or Dickens's ' Pickwick.' " Yes ; that is a beau- tiful art, but ever and anon, as now, there is an epi- VOL. xi. 43 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage demic of dramatization that makes hundreds of house- holds 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 surpass Ristori and Charlotte Cushman and Fanny Kemble of the past, to say nothing of the present, you could not, in the way of living, in ten years earn ten cents. My advice to all girls and all unmarried women, whether in affluent homes or in homes where 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 have found out that there are hundreds of practical things that a woman can do for a living 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 men went forth from North and South; and to conduct the business of our cities during the patriotic absence, women were demanded by the tens of thousands to take the vacant places; and multitudes of women, who had been hitherto supported by fathers and brothers and sons, were compelled from that time to take care of themselves. From that time a mighty change took place favorable to the employment of females. Among the occupations appropriate for woman I place the following, into many of which she has already entered, and all the others she will enter: Stenography, and you may find her at nearly all the reportorial stands in your educational, political and religious meetings. Savings banks, the work clean 44 VOL. xi. Women of America and honorable, and who so great a right to toil there, for a woman founded the first savings bank Mrs. Priscilla Wakefield? Copyists, and there is hardly a professional man that does not need the service of her penmanship; and, as amanuensis, many of the greatest books of our day have been dictated for her writing. There they are as florists and confectioners and music teachers and bookkeepers, for which they are specially qualified by patience and accuracy; and wood-engraving, in which the Cooper Institute has turned out so many qualified; and telegraphy, for which she is specially prepared, as thousands of the telegraphic offices will testify. Photography, and in nearly all our establishments they may be found there at cheerful work. As workers in ivory and gutta percha and gum elastic and tortoise-shell and gilding, and in chemicals, in porcelain, in terra cotta, in em- broidery. As postmistresses, and the President is giving them appointments all over the land. As keep- ers of lighthouses, many of them, if they had the chance, ready to do as brave a thing with oar and boat as did Ida Lewis and Grace Darling. As proof- readers, as translators, as modelers, as designers, as draughtswomen, as lithographers, as teachers in schools and seminaries, for which they are especially endowed, the first teacher of every child, by divine arrangement, being 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 lecturing platform; for you know the brilliant success of Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. Hallowell and Miss Willard and Mrs. Lathrop. As physiological VOL. xi. 45 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage lecturers to their own sex, for which service there is a demand appalling and terrific. 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 religious utterances that men can never reach. Witness all those who have heard their mother pray. O young women of America! as many of you will have to fight your own battles alone, do not wait until you are flung of disaster, and your father is dead, and all the resources of your family have been scattered; but now, while in a good house and environed by all prosperities, learn how to do some kind of work that the world must have as long as the world stands. Turn your attention from the em- broidery of fine slippers, of which there is a surplus, and make a useful shoe. Expend 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 manu- facturing of important somethings. Much of the time spent in young ladies' semi- naries 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, meta- physics of course, Latin and Greek and German and French and Italian of course, and a hundred other things of course; but if you are not expecting to teach, and your wealth is not established beyond misfortune, after you have learned the ordinary branches, take hold of that kind of study that will pay in dollars and cents in case you are thrown on your 46 VOL. xi. Women of America own resources. Learn to do something better than anybody else. Buy Virginia Penny's book, entitled The Employment of Women, and learn there are five hundred ways in which a woman may earn a living. " No, no ! " says some young woman, " I will not undertake anything so unromantic and commonplace as that. An excellent author writes that after he had, in a book, argued for efficiency in womanly work in order to success, and positive apprenticeship by way of preparation, a prominent chemist advertised that he would teach a class of women to become drug- gists and apothecaries if they would go through an apprenticeship as men do; and a printer advertised that he would take a class of women to learn the printer's trade if they would go through an appren- ticeship as men do : and how many, according to the account of the authoress, do you suppose applied to become skilled in the druggist business and printing business? Not one! One young woman said she would be willing to try the printing business for six months, but by that time her elder sister would be married and then her mother would want her at home. My sister, it will be skilled labor by which women will finally triumph. " But," you ask, " what would my father and mother say if they saw I was doing such unfashion- able work ? " Throw the whole responsibility upon this preacher, who is constantly hearing of young women in all these cities, who, unqualified by their previous luxurious surroundings for the awful strug- gle of life into which they have been suddenly hurled, seemed to have nothing left them but a choice be- tween starvation and moral ruin. There they go along the street at seven o'clock in the wintry mornings, VOL. XI. 47 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage . through the slush and storm, to the place where they shall earn only half enough for subsistence, the daugh- ters of once-prosperous merchants, lawyers, clergy- men, artists, bankers and capitalists, who brought up their children under the infernal delusion that it was not high-toned for women to learn a profitable call- ing. Young women ! take this affair in your own hand, and let there be an insurrection in all prosper- ous families of Christendom on the part of the daugh- ters of this day, demanding knowledge in occupations and styles of business by which they may be their own defense 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 home of which she had been the pride. As her hands were folded over the still heart and her eyes closed for the last slumber, and she was taken out amid the lamentations of kindred and friends, I thought that was a sadness immeasur- able. But I have seen something compared with which that scene was bright and songful. It was a young woman who had been all her days amid wealthy surroundings, by the visit of death and bank- ruptcy to the household turned out on a cold world without one lesson about how to get food or shelter, and into the awful whirlpool of city life, where strong ships have gone down, and for twenty years not one word has been heard from her. Vessels last week went out on the Atlantic Ocean looking for a ship- wrecked craft that was left alone and forsaken on the sea a few weeks ago, with the idea of bringing it into port. But who shall ever bring again into the harbor of peace and hope and heaven that lost im- mortal woman, driven in what tempest, aflame in what 48 VOL xi. Women of America conflagration, sinking into what abyss? O God, help! O 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 eat, and shelter and fuel for the body, and knowledge for the mind, and religion for the soul. And all these things will continue to be the necessaries, and if you fasten your energies upon occupations and professions thus related, the world will be unable to do without you. Remember, that in proportion as you are skilful in anything, your rivalries become less. For unskilled toil, women by the million. But you may rise to where there are only a thousand ; and still higher, till there 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 may keep wages and a place through the kindly sympathies 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 coming when woman shall not only get as much salary and wages as men get, but for certain styles of employ- ment will have higher salary and more wages, for the reason that for some styles of work they have more adaptation. But this justice will come to woman, not through any sentiment of gallantry, not because woman is physically weaker than man, and, there- fore, ought to have more consideration shown her, but because through her finer natural taste and more grace of manner and quicker perception, and more VOL. xi. 49 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage delicate touch and more educated adroitness, she will, in certain callings, be to her employer worth ten per cent, more or twenty per cent, more than the other sex. She will not get it by asking for it, but by earning it, and it shall be hers by lawful conquest. Now, men of America, be fair, and give the women a chance. Are you afraid that they will do some of your work, and hence harm your prosperities? Re- member that there are scores of thousands of men doing women's work. Do not be afraid! God knows the end from the beginning, 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 hundred men and women, will leave that number of people without work. I hope that there will not be invented an- other 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 substituted for men and women, who would otherwise do the work and get the pay and earn the livelihood. But God will arrange all, 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 women who have won the day. Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Hoi- yoke Female Seminary, fought the battle alone ; Ade- laide Newton, the tract distributor, alone; Fidelia Fisk, the consecrated missionary, alone; Dorothea Dix, the angel of the insane asylums, alone; Caro- 50 VOL. xi. Women of America line Herschel, the indispensable re-enforcement of her brother, alone ; Maria Takrzewska, the heroine of the Berlin hospital, alone; Helen Chalmers, patron of sewing-schools for the poor of Edinburgh, alone. And thousands and tens of thousands of women, of whose bravery and self-sacrifice and glory of char- acter the world has made no record, but whose deeds are in the heavenly archives of martyrs who fought' the battle alone, and, though unrecognized for the short thirty or fifty or eighty years of their earthly 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 tribulation 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 their conflict will soon end. There is one word written on 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 domestic trouble, and who in his last hours forgot all the pangs of his own hands and feet and heart, as he looked into the face of maternal anguish, and called a friend's at- tention to it, in substance, saying: "John, I cannot take care of her any longer. Do for her as I would have done, if I had lived. Behold thy mother ! " If, under the pressure of unrewarded and unappreciated work, your hair is whitening and the wrinkles come, rejoice that you are nearing the hour of escape from your very last fatigue, and may your departure be as pleasant as that of Isabella Graham, who closed her life with a smile and the word " Peace." The daughter of a regiment in any army is all sur- rounded by bayonets of defense, and, in the battle, VOL. xi. 51 whoever falls, she is kept safe. And you are the daughter of the regiment commanded by the Lord of Hosts. After all, you are not fighting the battle of life alone. All heaven is on your side. You will be wise to appropriate to yourself the words of sacred rhythm : One who has known in storms to sail I have on board; Above the roaring of the gale I hear my Lord. He holds me; when the billows smite I shall not fall. If short, 'tis sharp; if long, 'tis light; He tempers all. 53 VOL. XI. WORLDLY MARRIAGES I Sam., 25: 2: " And there was a man in Maon whose pos- sessions were in Carmel, and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats." WORLDLY MARRIAGES I Sam., 25: 2: " And there was a man in Maon whose pos- sessions were in Carmel, and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats." My text introduces us to a drunken bloat of large property. Before the day of safety deposits and gov- ernment bonds and national banks, people had their investment in flocks and herds, and this man, Nabal, of the text, had much of his possessions in live-stock. He came also of a distinguished family, and had glo- rious 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 great feast was prepared for the shearers; and David and his warriors, who had in other days saved from destruction the threshing-floors of Nabal, sent to him, asking, in this time of plenty, for some bread for their hungry men. And Nabal cried out: "Who is David?" As though an Eng- lishman had said, "Who is Wellington?" or a German should say, " Who is Von Moltke? " or an American should say, " Who is Washington? " Noth- ing did Nabal give to the starving men, and that night the scoundrel lay dead drunk at home; and the Bible gives us a full length picture of him, sprawling and maudlin and helpless. Now that was the man whom Abigail, the lovely and gracious and good woman, married a tuberose planted beside a thistle, a palm-branch twined into a wreath of deadly nightshade. Surely that was not one of the matches made in heaven. We throw up our VOL. xi. 55 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage hands in horror at that wedding. How did she ever consent to link her destinies with such a creature? Well, she no doubt thought that it would be an honor to be associated with an aristocratic family; and no one can despise a great name. Beside that, wealth would come, and with it chains of gold, in mansions lighted by swinging lamps of aromatic oil, and re- sounding with the cfieer of banqueters, seated at tables laden with wines from the richest vineyards, with fruit from ripest orchards, and nuts threshed from for- eign woods, and meats smoking in platters of gold, carried by slaves in bright uniform. Before she plighted her troth with this dissipated man, she some^ times said to herself: " How can I endure him? To be associated for life with such a debauchee I cannot and will not! " But then again she said to herself: '' It is time I was married, and this is a cold world to depend on, and perhaps I might do worse, and may be I will make a sober man out of him, and marriage is a lottery anyhow." And when, one day, this repre- sentative of a great house presented himself in a par- enthesis of sobriety, and with assumed geniality and gallantry of manner, and with promises of fidelity and kindness and self-abnegation, a June morning smiled on a March squall, and the great-souled woman surren- dered her happiness to the keeping of thisi infamous son of fortune, whose possessions were in Carmel; " and the man was very great, and he had three thou- sand sheep and a thousand goats." - Behold here a domestic tragedy repeated every hour of every day, all over Christendom marriage for worldly success, without regard to character. So Marie Jeanne Philipon, the daughter of the humble en- graver, became the famous Madame Roland of his- tory, the vivacious and brilliant girl, united with the cold, formal, monotonous man, because he came of 56 VOL. xi. Worldly Marriages an affluent family of Amiens, and had lordly blood in his veins. The day when, through political revolu- tion, this patriotic woman was led to the scaffold, around which lay piles of human heads that had fallen from the ax, and she said to an aged man whom she had comforted as they ascended the scaffold, " Go first, that you may not witness my death," and then, undaunted, took her turn to die that day was to her on4y the last act of a tragedy, of which her mar- riage day was the first. Good and genial character in a man, the very first requisite for a woman's happy marriage. Mistake me not as depreciative of worldly prosperities. There is a religious cant that would seem to represent poverty as a virtue and wealth as a crime. I can take you through a thousand mansions where God is as much worshiped as he ever was in a cabin. The Gospel in- culcates the virtues which tend toward wealth. In the millennium we will all dwell in palaces, and ride in chariots, and sit at sumptuous banquets, and sleep un- der rich embroideries, and live four or five hundred years, for, if according to the Bible, in those times a child shall die a hundred years old, the average hu- man life will be at least five centuries. The whole tendency of sin is toward poverty, and the whole tendency of righteousness is toward wealth. Godliness is profitable for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come. No inventory can be made of the picture galleries consecrated to God, or of sculpture, or of libraries, pillared magnificence, of parks and fountains and gardens in the ownership of good men and women. The two most lordly resi- dences in which I was ever a guest had morning and evening prayers, all the employees present, and all day long there was an air of cheerful piety in the con- versation and behavior. Lord Radstock carried the VOL. xi. 57 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage Gospel to the Russian nobility. Lord Cavan and Lord Cairns spent their vacation in evangelistic ser- vices. Lord Congleton became missionary to Bag- dad. And the Christ who was born in an Eastern car- avansary has lived in a palace. It is a grand thing to have plenty of money; to own horses that do not compel you to take the dust of every lumbering and lazy vehicle, and books of history that give you a glimpse of all the past, and shelves of poetry to which you 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 express your chagrin, or Charles Dick- ens to expose Pecksniffianism, 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 vir- tue in running into the teeth of a northeast wind with thin apparel if you can afford furs; no virtue in being poor when you can honestly be rich. There are names of men and women that I have only to mention, and they suggest not only wealth, but religion and gener- osity and philanthropy, such as Amos Lawrence, James Lenox, Peter Cooper, William E. Dodge, Lord Shaftesbury, Miss Catherine Wolfe, Mrs. Astor, and Miss Helen Gould. A recent writer says that of fifty leading business men in one of our Eastern cities, and of the fifty leading business men of one of our West- ern cities, three-fourths of them are Christians. The fact is, that about all the brain and the business genius 58 VOL. xi. Worldly Marriages is on the side of religion. Infidelity is incipient in- sanity. All infidels are cranks. Many of them talk brightly, but you soon find that in their mental ma- chinery there is a screw loose. When they are not lecturing against Christianity they are sitting in bar- rooms, squirting tobacco juice, and when they get mad swear till the place is sulphurous. They only talk to keep their courage up, and at last 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 good, as some folks say there will be, my Christian wife and daughter will somehow 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 village 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 than they used to be, for before the church was built he often found the load, when he came to count it, a thousand clams short. Yes. Godliness is profitable for both worlds. Most of the great, honest, perma- nent worldly successes are by those who reverence God and the Bible. But what I do say is that if a man have nothing but social position and financial re- sources, a woman who puts her happiness by marriage in his hand, 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 accompanied by affluent circumstances, I congratulate you. If not, VOL. xi. 59 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage let the morning lark fly clear of the Rocky Mountain eagle. 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 wit- nessed. A comfortable home, with nothing more than ordinary surroundings; but an attractive daughter carefully and Christianly reared. From the outside world comes in a man with nothing but money, un- less you count profanity and selfishness and fondness for champagne and general recklessness as part of his possessions. He has his coat collar turned up when there is no chill in the air, not because he is cold, but because it gives him an air of abandon; and eyeglass, not because he is nearsighted, but because it gives a classical appearance ; and with an attire somewhat loud, a cane thick enough to be the club of Hercules and clutched at the middle, his conversation interlarded with French phrases in- accurately pronounced, and a sweep of manner indi- cating that he was not born like most folks, but terres- trially landed. By arts learned of the devil he insinu- ates himself into the affections of the daughter of that Christian home. All the kindred congratulate her on the auspicious 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 houses in his own name, and has large deposits at the bank, and, more than all, has a father worth many hundred thousand dollars and in very feeble health, who may any day drop off, and this is the only son. If a round dollar held close to one's eye is large enough to shut out a great desert, how much more will several bushels of dollars shut out! The marriage day comes and goes. The wedding ring was costly enough and the orange blossoms fragrant enough and the benediction solemn enough and the 60 VOL. xi. Worldly Marriages wedding march stirring enough. The audience shed tears of sympathetic gladness, supposing that the craft containing 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 upturned 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 nothing, his will everything. Lavish of money for his own pleasure, he begrudges her the pennies he doles out into her trembling palm. In- stead 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, having captured a woman from her father's 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 miser- able wretch!" Can halls of mosaic, can long lines of Etruscan bronze, or statuary by Palmer and Pow- ers and Crawford and Chantry and Canova, can gal- leries rich from the pencil of Bierstadt and Church and Kenset and Cole and Cropsey, could flutes played on by an Ole Bull or pianos fingered by a Gottschalk or solos warbled by a Sonntag, could wardrobes like those of a Marie Antoinette, could jewels like those of a Eugenie, make a wife in such a companionship happy? Imprisoned in a castle! Her gold bracelets are the chains of a lifelong servitude. There is a sword over her every feast, not like that of Damocles, VOL. xi. 61 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage not staying suspended, but dropping through her lace- rated heart. Her wardrobe is full of shrouds for deaths which she dies daily, and she is buried alive, though buried under gorgeous upholstery. There is one word that sounds under the arches, that rolls along the corridors and weeps in the falling fountains, that echoes in the shutting of every door, and groans in every note of stringed and wind instrument: " Woe! Woe! " The oxen and sheep, in olden times, brought to a temple of Jupiter to be sacrificed, used to be covered with ribbons and flowers ribbons on, the horns and flowers on the neck. But the floral and ribboned decoration did not make the stab of the butcher's knife less deathful, and all the chandeliers you hang over such a woman, and all the robes with which you enwrap her, and all the ribbons with which you adorn her, and all the bewitching charms with which you embank her footsteps are the ribbons and flowers of a horrible butchery. As if to show how wretched a good woman may be in splendid surroundings, we have two recent illus- trations, two ducal palaces in Great Britain. They are the foci of the best things that are possible in art, in literature, in architecture, the accumulation of other estates, until their wealth is beyond calculation, and their grandeur beyond description. One of the cas- tles has a cabinet set with gems that cost two million five hundred thousand dollars and the walls of it bloom with Rembrandts and Claudes and Pouissins and Gui- des and Raphaels, and there are Southdown flocks in summer grazing on its lawns, and Arab steeds pranc- ing at the doorways on the " first open day at the kennels." From the one castle the duchess has re- moved 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 62 VOL. xi. Worldly Marriages insults and abominations, in the presence of which I do not think God or decent society requires a good woman to remain. Alas for the ducai country seats: They on a large scale illustrate what on a smaller scale may be seen in many places, that without moral character in a husband, all the accessories of wealth are to a wife's soul tantalization and mockery. When Abigail found Nabal, her husband, beastly drunk, as she came home from interceding for his fortune and life, it was no alleviation that the old brute had possessions in Car- mel, and " was very great, and had three thousand sheep and one thousand goats," and he the worst goat among them. The animal in his nature seized the soul and ran off with it. Before things are right in this world genteel villains are to be expurgated. Instead of being welcomed into respectable society because of the number of stars and garters and medals and es- tates they represent, they ought to be fumigated two or three years before they are allowed to put their hand on the door-knob of a moral house. The time must come when a masculine estray will be as repug- nant to good society as a feminine estray, and no coaf of arms or family emblazonry or epaulet can pass a Lothario unchallenged among the sanctities of home life. By what law of God or common sense is an Absalom 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 one summer much of " watering-place " society went wild with en- thusiasm 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 tables, though they knew him to be a portable laza- VOL. xi. 63 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage retto, a charnel house of moral putrefaction, his breath a typhoid, his foot that of a Satyr, and his touch death. Here is an evil that man cannot stop, but woman may. Keep all such out of your parlors, have no recognition for them in the street, and no more think of allying your life and destiny with theirs than " gales from Araby " would consent to pass the honeymoon with an Egyptian plague. All the 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 the marital union lasts, the more evident will be the fact that she might better never have been born. Yet you and I have been at brilliant weddings, where, before the feast was over, the bridegroom's tongue was thick and his eye 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 life and a lost eternity. Woman, join not your right hand with such a right hand. Accept from such an one no jewel for finger or ear, lest that sparkle of precious stone turn out to be the eye of a basilisk; and let not the ring come on the finger of your left hand, lest that ring turn 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 eter- nity, I forbid the banns! Consent not to join one of the many regiments of women who have married for worldly success without regard to moral character. If you are ambitious for noble affiancing, why not marry a king? And to that honor you are invited by the Monarch of heaven and earth, and this day a voice from the sky sounds forth : " As the bridegroom re- joiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee." Let him put upon thee the ring of this royal 64 VOL, xi. Worldly Marriages marriage. Here is an honor worth reaching after. By repentance and faith you may come into a mar- riage with the Emperor of universal dominion, and you may be an Empress unto God forever, and reign with him in palaces that the centuries cannot crumble, or cannonades demolish. High, worldly marriage is not necessary, or mar- riage of any kind, in order to your happiness. Celib- acy has been honored by the best Being that ever lived and by his greatest apostle Christ and Paul. What higher honor could single life on earth have? But what you need, O woman, is to be affianced for- ever and forever, and the banns of that marriage I am now ready to publish. Let the angels of heaven bend from their galleries of light to witness, while I pronounce you one a loving God and a forgiven soul. One of the most stirring passages hi history with which I am acquainted tells us how Cleopatra, the ex- iled Queen of Egypt, won the sympathies of Julius Caesar, the conqueror, until he became the bride- groom, and she the bride. Driven from her throne, she sailed away on the Mediterranean sea in a storm, and when the large ship anchored, she put out with one womanly friend in a small boat, until she arrived at Alexandria, where was Caesar, the great general. Knowing that she would not be permitted to land or pass the guards on the way to Caesar's palace, she laid upon the bottom of the boat some shawls and scarfs and richly dyed upholstery, and then laid down upon them, and her friend wrapped her in them, and she was admitted ashore in this wrapping of goods, which was announced as a present for Caesar. This bundle was permitted to pass the guards of the gates of the palace and was put down at the feet of the Roman general. When the bundle was unrolled, there VOL. xi. 65 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage rose before Caesar one whose courage and beauty and brilliancy are the astonishment of the ages. This ex- iled 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 do- minion in his own heart. Afterward they made a triumphal tour in a barge which the pictures of many art galleries have called " Cleopatra's Barge," and that barge was covered with silken awning, and its deck was soft with luxuriant carpets, and the oars were silver-tipped, and the prow was gold-mounted, and the air was redolent with the spicery of tropical gardens, and resonant with the music that made the night glad as the day. You may rejoice, O woman, that you are not a Cleopatra, and that the One to whom you may be affi- anced had none of the sins of Caesar, the conqueror. But it suggests to me how you, a soul exiled from happiness and peace, may find your way to the feet of the Conqueror of earth and sky. Though it may be a dark night of spiritual agitation in which you put out, you may sail into the harbor of peace, and when all the wrappings of fear and doubt and sin shall be removed, you will be found at the feet of him who will put you on a throne to be acknowledged as his in the day when all the silver trumpets of the sky shall proclaim: " Behold the bridegroom cometh; " and in a barge of light you sail with him the river whose source is the foot of the throne, and whose mouth is at the sea of glass mingled with fire. 66 VOL. xr. THE FIRST WOMAN Gen., 3:0: " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." THE FIRST WOMAN Gen., 3:6: " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." It is the first Saturday afternoon in the world's existence. Ever since sunrise Adam has been watch- ing the brilliant pageantry of wings and scales and clouds, and in his first lessons in zoology and ornith- ology and ichthyology he has noticed that the robins fly the air in twos, and that the fish swim the water in twos, and that the lions walk the fields in twos, and in the warm redolence of that Saturday afternoon he falls off into slumber; and as if by allegory to teach all ages that the greatest of earthly blessings is sound sleep, this paradisaical somnolence ends with the dis- covery on the part of Adam of a corresponding intelli- gence just landed on the new planet. Of the mother of all the living I speak Eve, the first, the fairest, and the best. I make me a garden. I inlay the paths with moun- tain moss, and I border them with pearls from Ceylon and diamonds from Golconda. There are woodbine and honeysuckle climbing over the wall, and starred spaniels sprawling themselves on the grass. And yet the place is a desert filled with darkness and death as compared with the residence of the woman of the text, the subject of my story. Never since have such skies looked down through such leaves into such waters! Never has river wave had such curve and VOL. xi. 69 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage sheen and bank as adorned the Pison, the Havilah, the Gihon, and the Hiddekel, even the pebbles being bdellium and onyx stone! What fruits, with no cur- culio to sting the rind ! What flowers, with no slug to gnaw the root! What atmosphere, with no frost to chill and with no heat to consume! Bright colors tangled in the grass. Perfume in the air. Music in the sky. Great scene of gladness and love and joy. Right there under a bower of leaf and vine and shrub occurred the first marriage. Adam took the hand of this immaculate daughter of God and performed the ceremony when he said : " Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." A forbidden tree stood in the midst of that ex- quisite park. Eve sauntering out one day alone, looks up at the tree and sees the beautiful fruit, and wonders if it is sweet, and wonders if it is sour, and standing there, says: " I think I will just put my hand upon the fruit; it will do no damage to the tree; I will not take the fruit to eat, but I will just take it down to examine it." She examined the fruit. She said: " I do not think there can be any harm in my just breaking the rind of it." She put the fruit to her teeth, she tasted, she allowed Adam also to taste the fruit, the door of the world opened, and then Sin entered. Let the heavens gather blackness, and the wind sigh on the bosom of the hills and cavern and desert and earth and sky join in one long, deep, hell-rending howl " The world is lost! " Beasts that before were harmless and full of play put forth claw and sting and tooth and tusk. Birds whet their beak for prey. Clouds troop in the sky. Sharp thorns shoot up through the soft grass. Blast- ings on the leaves. All the chords of that great har- mony are snapped. Upon the brightest home this world ever saw, our first parents turned their back and 70 VOL. xi. The First Woman led forth on a path of sorrow the broken-hearted myriads of a ruined race. Do you not see, in the first place, the danger of a poorly regulated inquisitiveness? She wanted to know how the fruit tasted. She found out, but six thousand years have deplored that unhealthful curiosity. Healthful curiosity has done a great deal for letters, for art, for science, and for religion. It has gone down into the depths of the earth with the geologist, and seen the first chapter of Genesis written in the book of nature illustrated with engraving on rock, and it stood with the antiquarian while he blew the trum- pet of resurrection over buried Herculaneum and Pompeii, until from their sepulcher there came up shaft and terrace and amphitheater. Healthful curiosity has enlarged the telescopic vision of the astronomer until worlds hidden in the distant heavens have trooped forth and have joined the choir praising the Lord. Planet weighed against planet and wildest comet las- sooed with resplendent law. I say nothing against healthful curiosity. May it have other Leyden jars and other electric batteries and other voltaic piles and other magnifying-glasses with which to storm the barred castles of the natural world, until it shall surrender its last secret. We thank God for the geo- logical curiosity of Professor Hitchcock, and the chemical curiosity of Liebig, and the zoological curi- osity of Cuvier, and the inventive curiosity of Edison ; but we must admit that unhealthful and Irregular in- quisitiveness has rushed thousands and tens of thou- sands into ruin. Eve just tasted the fruit. She was curious to find out how it tasted, and that curiosity blasted her and blasted all nations. So there are clergymen in this city, inspired by unhealthful inquisitiveness, who have tried to look through the key-hole of God's mysteries VOL. xi. 71 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage mysteries that were barred and bolted from all human inspection, and they have wrenched their whole moral nature out of joint by trying to pluck fruit from branches beyond their reach, or have come out on limbs of the tree from which they have tumbled into ruin without remedy. A thousand trees of religious knowledge from which we may eat and get advantage ; but from certain trees of mystery how many have plucked their ruin! Election, free agency, trinity, resurrection in the discussion of these subjects hun- dreds and thousands of people ruin the soul. There are men who actually have been kept out of the king- dom of heaven because they could not understand who Melchisedec was not! Oh, how many have been destroyed by an un- healthful inquisitiveness ! It is seen in all directions. There are those who stand with the eye-stare and mouth-gape of curiosity. They are the first to hear a falsehood, build it another story high and add two wings to it. About other people's apparel, about other people's business, about other people's financial con- dition, about other people's affairs, they are over- anxious. Every nice piece of gossip stops at their door, and they fatten and luxuriate in the endless round of the great world of tittle-tattle. Whoever hath an innuendo, whoever hath a scandal, whoever hath a valuable secret, let him come and sacrifice it to this Goddess of Splutter. Thousands of Adams and Eves do nothing but eat fruit that does not belong to them. Men quite well known as mathematicians failing in this computation of moral algebra: good sense plus good breeding, minus curiosity, equals minding your own affairs! Then, how many young men through curiosity go through the whole realm of French novels, to see whether they are really as bad as moralists have pro- 72 VOL. xi. The First Woman nounced them! They come near the verge of the precipice just to look off. They want to see how far it really is down, but they lose their balance while they look, and fall into irremediable ruin; or, catching themselves, clamber up, bleeding and ghastly, on the rock, gibbering with curses or groaning ineffectual prayer. By all means encourage healthful inquisitive- ness, but by all means discourage ill-regulated curi- osity. This subject also impresses me with the fact that fruits that are sweet to the taste may afterward pro- duce great agony. Forbidden fruit for Eve was so pleasant she invited her husband also to take of it; but her banishment from Paradise and six thousand years of sorrow and wretchedness and war and woe paid for that luxury. Sin may be very sweet at the start, and it may induce great wretchedness afterward. The cup of sin is sparkling at the top, but there is death at the bottom. Intoxication has great exhilaration for a while, and it fillips the blood, and it makes a man see five stars where others can see only one star, and it makes the poor man think himself rich, and turns cheeks which are white red as roses; but what about the dreams that come after, when he seems falling from great heights, or is prostrated by other fancied disasters, and the perspiration stands on the forehead the night dew of everlasting darkness and he is ground under the horrible hoof of nightmares shrieking with lips that crackle with all-consuming torture? " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment! " Sweet at the start, horrible at the last. Go into that hall of revelry, where ungodly mirth staggers and blasphemes. Listen to the senseless gab- ble, see the last trace of intelligence dashed out from VOL. xi. 73 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage faces made in God's own image. "Aha! aha!" says the roistering inebriate ; " this is joy for you ; fill high your cups, my boys. I drink to my wife's misery and my children's rags and my God's defiance." And he knows not that a fiend stirs the goblet in his hand and that adders uncoil from the dregs and thrust their forked tongues hissing through the froth on the rim. Sin rapturous at the start, awful at the last. That one Edenic transgression did not seem to be much, but it struck a blow which to this day makes the earth stagger. To find out the consequences of that one sin, you would have to compel the world to throw open all its prison doors and display the crime, and throw open all its hospitals and display the disease, and throw open all the insane asylums and show the wretchedness, and open all the sepulchres and show the dead, and open all the doors of the lost world and show the damned. That one Edenic transgression stretched chords of misery across the heart of the world and struck them with dolorous wailing, and it has seated the plagues upon the air and the shipwrecks upon the tempest, and fastened, like a leech, famine to the heart of the sick and dying nations. Beautiful at the start, horrible at the last. Oh, how many have experienced it! Are there among us those who are votaries of pleasure? Let me warn you, my brother. Your pleas- ure boat is far from shore, and your summer day is ending roughly, for the winds and the waves are loud- voiced, and the overcoming clouds are all awrithe and agleam with terror. You are past the " Narrows," and almost outside the " Hook," and if the Atlantic take you, frail mortal, you shall never get to shore again. Put back! row swiftly, swifter, swifter! Jesus from the shore casts a rope. Clasp it quickly, now or never. Are there not some of you who are freighting 74 VOL. xi. The First Woman all your loves and joys and hopes upon a vessel which shall never reach the port of heaven? You near the breakers. One heave upon the rocks. What an awful crash was that ! Another lunge may crush you beneath the spars or grind your bones to powder amid the torn timbers. Overboard for your life, overboard! Trust not that loose plank nor attempt the wave, but quickly clasp the feet of Jesus walking on the watery pave- ment, shouting until he hear you : " Lord, save me, or I perish." Sin beautiful at the start oh, how sad, how distressful at the last! The ground over which it leads you is hollow. The fruit it offers to your taste is poison. The promise it makes to you is a lie. Over that ungodly banquet the keen sword of God's judg- ment hangs, and there are ominous handwritings on the walls. Observe also in this subject how repelling sin is when appended to great attractiveness. Since Eve's death there has been no such perfection of woman- hood. You could not suggest another attractiveness to the body or suggest any added refinement to the manner. You could add no gracefulness to the gait, no lustre to the eye, no sweetness to the voice. A perfect God made her a perfect woman, to be the com- panion of a perfect man in a perfect home, and her entire nature vibrated in accord with the beauty and song of Paradise. But she rebelled against God's government, and with the same hand with which she plucked the fruit she launched upon the world the crimes, the wars, the tumults that have set the universe a-wailing. A terrible offset to all her attractiveness. We are not surprised when we find men and women naturally vulgar going into transgression. We expect that people who live in the ditch shall have the man- ners of the ditch; but how shocking when we find sin appended to superior education and to the refinements VOL. xi. 75 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage of social life! The accomplishments of Mary Queen of Scots make her patronage of Darnley, the profli- gate, the more appalling. The genius of Catherine II of Russia only sets forth in more powerful con- trast her unappeasable ambition. The translations from the Greek and the Latin by Elizabeth, and her wonderful qualifications for a queen, make the more disgusting her capriciousness of affection and her hot- ness of temper. The greatness of Byron's mind makes the more alarming Byron's sensuality. Let no one think that refinement of manner or exquisiteness of taste or superiority of education can in any wise apolo- gize for ill-temper, for an oppressive spirit, for unkind- ness, for any kind of sin. Disobedience Godward and transgression manward can have no excuse. Accom- plishment heaven-high is no apology for vice hell- deep. My subject also impresses me with the regal in- fluence of woman. When I see Eve with this power- ful influence over Adam and over the generations that have followed, it suggests to me that great power all women have for good or for evil. I have no sympathy, nor have you, with the hollow flatteries showered upon woman from the platform and the stage. They mean nothing; they are accepted as nothing. Woman's nobility consists in the exercise of a Christian influence; and when I see this powerful influ- ence of Eve upon her husband and upon the whole human race, I make up my mind that the frail arm of woman can strike a blow which will resound through all eternity down among the dungeons or up among the thrones. I am not now speaking of rep- resentative women of Eve, who ruined the race by one fruit-picking; of Jael, who drove a spike through the head of Sisera, the warrior ; of Esther, who over- came royalty; of Abigail, who stopped a host by her 76 VOL. xi. The First Woman own beautiful prowess; of Mary, who nursed the world's Saviour; of Grandmother Lois, immortalized in her grandson Timothy; of Charlotte Corday, who drove the dagger through the heart of the assassin of her lover; or of Marie Antoinette, who by one look from the balcony of her castle quieted a mob, her own scaffold the throne of forgiveness and womanly cour- age. I speak not of these extraordinary persons, but of those who, unambitious for political power, as wives and mothers and sisters and daughters, attend to the thousand sweet offices of home. When at last we come to calculate the forces that decided the destiny of nations, it will be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home, where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting the little feet on the path to the Celestial City; and the sisters by their gentleness refined the manners of the brother; and the daughters were diligent in their kindness to the aged, throwing wreaths of blessing on the road that leads father and mother down the steep of years. God bless our homes! VOL. xi. 77 THE QUEENS OF HOME Sol. Song, 6:8: " There are three-score queens.' THE QUEENS OF HOME Sol. Song, 6:8: " There are three-score queens." So Solomon, by one stroke, set forth the imperial 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 wardrobe were not necessary to make a queen ; but that graces of the heart and life will give coronation 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 grace rightly to rule in the dominion which she has already won. I began an enumeration of some of her rights, and now I resume the subject. In the first place, woman has the special and the superlative right of blessing and comforting the sick. What land, what street, what house, has not felt the smitings of disease? Tens of thousands of sick- beds! What shall we do with them? Shall man, with his rough hand and clumsy foot, go stumbling around the sick-room, trying to soothe the distracted nerves and alleviate the pains of the distressed patient? The young man at college may scoff at the idea of being under maternal influences; but at the first blast of typhoid fever on his cheek, he says, " Where is mother? " Walter Scott wrote partly in satire and partly in compliment; VOL. XI. 8l Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage O woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy and hard to please; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou. I think the most pathetic passage in all the Bible is the description of the lad who went out to the harvest field of Shunem and got sunstruck pressing his hands on his temples and crying out: " Oh, my head! my head ! " And they said : " Carry him to his 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 strange hotel, once in a while men coming in to look 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 of home. I know one such who went away from one of the brightest homes, for several weeks' business absence at the West. A telegram came at midnight that he was on his deathbed far away from 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 live until his family got there. He tried to bribe the doctor to make him live a little 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 daugh- ters going westward lifeless remains of husband 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 that look into ours may be very plain; but who cares for that? Loving hands to bathe the temples. Loving voices to speak good cheer. Loving lips to read the comforting promises of Jesus. 82 VOL. xi. The Queens of Home In our Civil War, men cast the cannon, men fash- ioned the musketry, men cried to the hosts, " Forward, march ! " men hurled their battalions on the sharp edges of the enemy, crying, "Charge! charge!" but woman scraped the lint, woman administered the cor- dials, woman watched by the dying couch, woman wrote the last message to the home circle, woman wept at the solitary burial, attended by herself and four men with a spade. We greeted the generals home with brass bands and triumphal arches and wild huz- zas; but the story is too good to be written anywhere, save in the chronicles of heaven, of Mrs. Brady, who came down among the sick in the swamps of the Chickahominy ; of Annie Ross, in the cooper-shop hospital; of Margaret Breckinridge, who came to men who had been for weeks with their wounds undressed some of them frozen to the ground, and when she turned them over, those that had an arm left, waved it and filled the air with their " Hurrah ! " of Mrs. Hodge, who came from Chicago, with blankets and with pillows, until the men shouted, " Three cheers for the Christian Commission! God bless the women at home ; " then sitting down to take the last message : " Tell my wife not to fret about me, but to meet me in heaven ; tell her to train up the boys whom we have loved so well ; tell her we shall meet again in the good land; tell her to bear my loss like the Christian wife of a Christian soldier " and of Mrs. Shelton, into whose face the convalescent soldier looked, and said: " Your grapes and cologne cured me." And so it was also through all of our war with Spain women heroic on the field, braving death and wounds to reach the fallen, watching by their fever cots in the West Indian hospitals or on the troopships or in our smitten home camps. Men did their work with shot and shell and carbine and howitzer; women did their work with VOL. xi. 83 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage socks and slippers and bandages and warm drinks and Scripture texts and gentle strokings of the hot temples and stories of that land where they never have any pain. Men knelt down over the wounded and said, " On which side did you fight? " Women knelt down over the wounded and said, " Where are you hurt? What nice thing can I make for you to eat? What makes you cry? " To-night, while we men are sound asleep in our beds, there will be a light in yon- der loft; there will be groaning down that dark alley; there will be cries of distress in that cellar. Men will sleep, and women will watch. Again: woman has a special right to take care of the poor. There are hundreds and thousands of them all over the land. There is a kind of work that men cannot do for the poor. Here comes a group of little barefoot children to the door of the Dorcas Society. They need to be clothed and provided for. Which of these directors of banks would know how many yards it would take to make that little girl a dress? Which of these masculine hands could fit a hat to that little girl's head? Which of the wise men would know how to tie on that new pair of shoes? Man sometimes gives his charity in a rough way, and it falls like the fruit of a tree in the East, which fruit comes down so heavily that it breaks the skull of the man trying to gather it. But woman glides so softly into the house of destitution, and finds out all the sorrows of the place, and puts so quietly the donation on the table, that all the family come out on the front steps as she departs, expecting that from under her shawl she will thrust out two wings and go right up toward heaven, from whence she seems to have come down. O, Christian young woman! if you would make yourself happy, and win the blessing of Christ, go out among the destitute. A loaf of bread or a bundle of 84 VOL. xi. The Queens of Home socks may make a homely load to carry, but the angels of God will come out to watch, and the Lord Almighty will give His messenger hosts a charge, saying, " Look after that woman ; canopy her with your wings, and shelter her from all harm ; " and while you are seated in the house of destitution and suffering, the little ones around the room will whisper, " Who is she? Ain't she beautiful! " and if you will listen right sharply, you will hear dripping down through the leaky roof, and rolling over the rotten stairs, the angel chant that shook Bethlehem : " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men." Can you tell me why a Christian woman, going down among the haunts of iniquity, on a Christian er- rand, never meets with any indignity? I stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the daughter of the cele- brated Dr. Chalmers, in 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? " " O, yes," she said. " Can it be possible that you never meet with an insult while performing this Christian errand?" " Never," she said, " never." That young woman who has her father by her side, walking down the street, armed police at each corner, is not so well defended as that Christian woman who goes forth on Gospel work into the haunts of iniquity, carrying the Bibles and bread. God, with the red right arm of his wrath omnipotent, would tear to pieces any one who should offer indignity to her. He would smite him with lightnings and drown 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 bad boys in the mission school. I am afraid to have her VOL. xi. 85 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage instruct 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 charities. 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, God says to her: "You go into that bank or store or shop and get the money." She goes in and gets it. The man is hard-fisted, but she gets it. She could not help but get it. It is de- creed from eternity she should get it. No need of your turning your back and pretending you don't hear; you do hear. There is no need of your saying you are begged to death. There is no need of your wasting your time, and you might as well submit first as last. You had better right away take down your check- book, mark the number of the check, fill up the blank, sign your name, and hand it to her. There is no need of wasting time. Those poor children on the back street have been hungry long enough. That sick man must have some farina. That consumptive must have something to ease his cough. I meet this delegate of a relief society coming out of the store of such a hard- fisted man, and I say:. "Did you get the money?" " Of course," she says, " I got the money; that's what I went for. The Lord told me to go in and get it, and he never sends me on a fool's errand." 86 VOL. xi The Queens of Home " Again : I have to tell you that it is a woman's specific right to comfort under the stress of dire dis- aster. She is called the weaker vessel; but all pro- fane as well as sacred history attests that when the crisis comes she is better prepared than man to meet the emergency. How often you have seen a woman who seemed to be a disciple of frivolity and indolence, who, under one stroke of calamity, changed to a hero- ine. Oh, what a great mistake those business men make who never tell their business troubles to their wives! There comes some great loss to their store, or some of their companions in business play them a sad trick, and they carry the burden all alone. He is asked in the household again and again : What is the matter? But he believes it a sort of Christian duty to keep 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 your credit, but she would have helped you to bear misfortune. You have no right to carry on one shoulder that which is intended for two. Busi- ness men 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 in your em- ploy, 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 butter^ fly? 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 VOL. xi. 87 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage out of the comfortable house into a smaller one, and wear the old cloak another winter. She was the one who understood your affairs without blaming you. You looked upon what you thought was a thin, weak woman's arm holding you up; but while you looked at that arm, there came into the feeble muscles of it the strength of the eternal God. No chiding. No fretting. No telling you about the beautiful house of her father, from which you brought her ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.. You said: " Well, this is the hap- piest day of my life. I am glad I have got from under my burden. My wife don't care I don't care." At the moment you were exhausted, God sent a Deborah to meet the host of the Amalekites and scatter them like chaff over the plain. There are sometimes women who sit reading sentimental novels, and who wish that they had some grand field in which to display their Christian powers. What grand and glorious things they could do if they only had an opportunity! My sister, you need not wait for any such time. A crisis will come in your affairs. There will be a Ther- mopylae in your own household where God will tell you to stand. There are 'scores and hundreds of households to-day where as much bravery and courage are demanded of women as was exhibited by Grace Darling or Marie Antoinette or Joan of Arc. Again: I remark it is woman's right to bring us the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a woman to be a Christian than for a man. Why? You say she is weaker. No. Her heart is more responsive to the pleadings of divine love. She is in vast majority. 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 Christendom are wo- men. So God appoints them to be the chief agencies for bringing this world back to God. I may stand 88 VOL. xi. The Queens of Home here and say the soul is immortal. There is a man who will deny it. I may stand here and say we are lost and undone without Christ. There is a man who will contradict it. I may stand here and say there will be a judgment day after a while. Yonder is some one who will dispute it. But a Christian woman in a Christian household, living in the faith and the con- sistency of Christ's gospel nobody can refute that. The 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, con- secrated Christian service is an unanswerable demon- stration 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 in- fluences, consecrated Christian home influences, are the mightiest of all influences upon the soul. There are men who have maintained their integrity, not be- cause they were any better naturally than some other people, but because there were home influences pray- ing for them all the time. They got a good start. They were launched on the world with the benedic- tions of a Christian mother. They may track Siberian snows, they may plunge in African jungles, they may flee to the earth's end they cannot go so far and so fast but the prayers will keep up with them. Speak to women who have the eternal salvation of their husbands in their right hand. On the mar- riage day you took an oath before men and angels that you would be faithful and kind until death did you part, and I believe you are going to keep that oath; but after that parting at the grave, will it be an eternal separation? Is there any such thing as an immortal marriage, making the flowers that grow on the top of VOL. xi. 89 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage the sepulcher brighter than the garlands which at the marriage banquet flooded the air with aroma? Yes; I stand here as an ambassador of the most high God, to proclaim the banns of an immortal union for all those who join hands in the grace of Christ. O wo- man, is your husband, your father, your son, away from God? The Lord demands their redemption at your hands. There are prayers for you to offer, there are exhortations for you to give, there are examples for you to set, and I say now, as Paul said to the Corinthian woman: "What knowest thou, but thou shalt save thy husband? " A man was dying; and he said to his wife: " Rebecca, you wouldn't let me have family prayers; 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 my ruin?" O woman, what knowest thou but thou canst destroy thy husband? Are there not some of you who have kindly in- fluences at home? Are there not some who have wan- dered far away from God, who can remember the Christian influences in their early home? Do not de- spise those influences, my brother. If you die with- out Christ what will you do with your mother's pray- ers, 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 sick- ness? Oh, if there be just one strand holding you from floating off on that dark sea, I would just like to take hold of that strand now and pull you to the beach! For the sake of your wife's God, for the sake of 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. Lastly : I wish to say that one of the specific rights 90 VOL. xi. The Queens of Home of woman is, through the grace of Christ, finally to reach heaven. Oh, what a multitude of women in heaven! Mary, Christ's mother, in heaven, Elizabeth Fry in heaven, Charlotte Elizabeth in heaven, the mother of Augustine in heaven, the Countess of Hunt- ingdon who sold her splendid jewels to build chapels in heaven, while a great many others, who have never been heard of on earth, or known but little, have gone into the rest and peace of heaven. What a rest! What a change it was from the small room, with no fire and one window (the glass broken out), and the aching side and worn-out eyes, to the " house of many mansions ! " No more stitching until twelve o'clock at night, no more thrusting of the thumb by the em- ployer through the work, to show it was not done quite right. Plenty of bread at last! Heaven for aching heads! heaven for broken hearts! heaven for anguish- bitten frames ! No more sitting up until midnight for the coming of staggering steps! No more rough blows across the temples! No more sharp, keen, bit- ter curses! Some of you will have no rest in this world. It will be toil and struggle and suffering all the way up. You will have to stand at your door fighting back the wolf with your own hand, red with carnage. But God has a crown for you. I want you to realize this morn- ing that he is now making it, and whenever you weep a tear, he sets another gem in that crown; whenever you have a pang of body or soul, he puts another gem in that crown; until, after a while, in all the tiara there will be no room for another splendor, and God will say to his angel, " The crown is done; let her up, that she may wear it." And as the Lord of Righteous- ness 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 VOL. xi. 91 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage of great tribulation, and had her robe washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." And then God will spread a banquet, and he will invite all the principali- ties of 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 harp- ers of heaven will sit there, making music with their harps, and Christ will point you out, amid the celebri- ties of heaven, saying : " She suffered 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 congratulation: "Hail! hail!" And there will be handwritings on the wall not such as struck the Babylonian noblemen with horror but fire-tipped fingers, writing in blazing capitals of light and love, " God hath wiped away all tears from all faces!" 92 VOL. XI. WOMAN'S HAPPINESS I Timothy, 5: 6: "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." WOMAN'S HAPPINESS I Timothy, 5: 6: "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." The editor of a Boston newspaper some time ago wrote asking me the terse questions: "What is the road to happiness?" and "Ought happiness to be the chief aim of life?" My answer was: "The road to happiness is the continuous effort to make others happy. The chief aim of life ought to be usefulness, not happiness; but happiness always follows useful- ness." This morning's text in a strong way sets forth the truth that a woman who seeks in worldly advan- tage her chief enjoyment, will come to disappointment and death. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." My friends, you all want to be happy. You have had 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 geography of the schoolgirl as on the page of the spectacled philosopher. I have seen as cloudy days in May as in November. There are no deeper sighs breathed by the grandmother than by the granddaughter. I correct the popular im- pression that people are happier in childhood and youth than they ever will be again. If we live aright ; the older, the happier. The happiest woman that I ever knew was a Christian octogenarian ; her hair white as white could be ; the sunlight of heaven late in the afternoon gilding the peaks of snow. I have to VOL. xi. 95 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage say to a great many of the young people that the most miserable time you are ever to have is just now. As you advance in life, as you come out into the world and have your head and heart full of good, honest, practical Christian work, then you will know what it is to begin to be happy. There are those who would have us believe that life is chasing thistle-down and grasping bubbles. We have not found it so. To many of us it has been discovering diamonds larger than the Kohinoor ; and I think that our joy will continue to in- crease until nothing short of the everlasting jubilee of heaven will be able to express it. Horatio Greenough, at the close of the hardest life a man ever lives the life of an American artist wrote : "I don't want to leave this world until I give some sign that, born by the grace of God in this land, I have found life to be a very cheerful thing, and not the dark and bitter thing with which my early pros- pects were clouded." Albert Barnes, the good Chris- tian, known the world over, stood in his pulpit in Phil- adelphia, 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 dolorous things about this world, and three times declared: "Vanity of vanities, all is van- ity." Yet I do not think that Solomon was there de- claring a doctrine. I think he was giving his own per- sonal experience. I suppose 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 96 VOL. xi. Woman's Happiness mistakes which young people make in regard to happi- ness, and point out to the young women what I con- sider to be the source of complete 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 at an elevated and affluent position, a little higher than that in which God has called you to live, you would be completely happy. Infinite mistake! The palace floor of Ahasuerus is red with the blood of Vashti's broken heart. There have been no more scalding tears wept than those which coursed the cheeks of Josephine. If the sob of unhappy woman- hood in the great cities could break through the tapes- tried wall, that sob would come along your streets to- day like the simoon of the desert. Sometimes I have heard in the rustling of the robes on the city pave- ment 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 perhaps, at that very moment, within that house, there may have been the wringing of hands, the start of horror, and the very agony of hell. I knew of such an one. Her father's house was plain ; most of the people who came there were plain ; but, by a change in fortune such as sometimes comes, a hand had been offered that led her into a brilliant sphere. All the neighbors congratulated her upon her grand prospects ; but what an exchange ! On her side it was a heart full of generous impulse and affection. On his side it was a soul dry and withered as the stub- ble 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 VOL. xi. 97 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage men to be entertained there ; but within it were revelry and godlessness. Hardly had the orange blossoms of the marriage feast lost their fragrance than the night of discontent began to cast its shadow. Cruelties and unkindnesses changed all those splendid trappings into a hollow mockery. The platters of solid silver, the caskets of pure gold, the headdress of gleaming dia- monds, were there; but no God, no peace, no kind words, no Christian sympathy. The festal music that broke on the captive's ear turned out to be a dirge, and the wreath in the plush was a reptile coil, and the up- holstery that swayed in the wind was the wing of a de- stroying angel, and the bead-drops on the pitcher were the sweat of everlasting despair. Oh, how many rivalries and unhappinesses among those who seek in social life their chief happiness ! It matters not how fine you have things, there are other people who have them finer. Taking out your watch to tell the hour of day, some one will correct your timepiece by pulling out a watch more richly chased and jeweled. Ride in a carriage that cost you eight hundred dollars, and before you get around that park you will meet one that cost two thousand dollars. Have on your wall a picture by Copley, and before night you will hear of some one who has a picture fresh from the studio of Church or Bierstadt. All that this world can do for you in silver, in gold, in Axmin- ster plush, in Gobelin tapestry, in wide halls, in lordly acquaintanceship, will not give you the ten-thou- sandth part of a grain of solid satisfaction. The Eng- lish lord, moving in the very highest sphere, was one day found seated with his chin on his hand and his elbow on the window-sill, looking out and saying: " Oh, I wish I could exchange places with that dog! " Mere social position will never give happiness to a woman's soul. I have had wide and continuous ob- 98 VOL. xi. Woman's Happiness servation, and I tell young women that they who build on mere social position their soul's immortal happiness are building on the sand. Suppose that a young woman expends the bright- ness of her early life in this unsatisfactory struggle and omits the present opportunity of usefulness in the home circle : what a mistake ! So surely as the years roll around, that home in which you now dwell will become extinct. The parents will be gone, the prop- erty will go into other possession, you yourself will be in other relationships, and that home which only a year before was full of congratulation will be extin- guished. When that period comes you will look back to see what you did or what you neglected to do in the way of making home happy. It will be too late to correct mistakes. If you did not smooth the path of your parents toward the tomb; if you did not make their last days bright and happy ; if you allowed your younger brother to go out into the world unhallowed by Christian and sisterly influences ; if you allowed the younger sisters of your family to come up without feel- ing that there had been a Christian example set them on your part there will be nothing but bitterness of lamentation. That bitterness will be increased by all the surroundings of that home ; by every chair, by every picture, by the old-time mantel ornaments, by everything you can think of as connected with that home. All these things will rouse up agonizing mem- ories. Young woman, have you anything to do in the way of making your father's home happy? Now is the time to attend to it, or leave it forever undone. Time is flying very quickly away. I suppose you no- tice the wrinkles are gathering and accumulating on those kindly faces that have so long looked upon you ; there is frost in the locks ; the foot is not as firm in its step as it used to be ; and they will soon be gone. The VOL. xi. 99 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage heaviest clod that ever falls on a parent's coffin-lid is the memory of an ungrateful daughter. Oh, make their last days bright and beautiful. Do not act as though they were in the way. Ask their counsel, seek their prayers; and after long years have passed, and you go out to see the grave where they sleep, you will find growing all over the mound something lovelier than cypress, something sweeter than the rose, some- thing chaster than the lily the bright and beautiful memories of filial kindness performed ere the dying hand dropped on you a benediction, and you closed the lids over the weary eyes of the worn-out pilgrim. Bet- ter that, in the hour of your birth, you had been struck with orphanage, and that you had been handed over into the cold arms of the world, rather than that you should have been brought up under a father's care and a mother's tenderness, at last to scoff at their example and deride their influence; and on the day when you follow them in long procession to the tomb, to find that you are followed by a still larger procession of un- filial deeds done and wrong words uttered. The one procession will leave its burden in the tomb and dis- band; but that longer procession of unhappy mem- ories will forever march and forever wail. Oh, it is a good time for a young woman when she is in her father's house. How careful they are of her welfare! How watchful those parents of all her interests! Seated at the morning repast, father at one end of the table, children on each side and between; but the years will roll on, and great changes will be effected, and one will be missed from one end of the table, and another will be missed from the other end of the table. God pity that young woman's soul who, in that hour, has nothing but regretful recollections. I go further, and advise you not to depend for en- joyment upon mere personal attractions. It would be 100 VOL. XI. Woman's Happiness sheer hyprocrisy, because we may not have it our- selves, to despise or affect to despise beauty in others. When God gives it, he gives it as a blessing and as a means of usefulness. David and his army were coming down from the mountains to destroy Nabal and his flocks and vineyards. The beautiful Abigail, the wife of Nabal, went out to arrest him when he came down from the mountains, and she succeeded. Coming to the foot of the hill, she knelt. David with his army of sworn men came down over the cliffs, and when he saw her kneeling at the foot of the hill he cried "Halt !" to his men, and the caves echoed it, "Halt ! halt !" That one beautiful woman kneeling at the foot of the cliff had arrested all those armed troops. A dewdrop dashed back Niagara. The Bible sets before us the portraits of Sarah and Rebecca and Abishag and Job's daughters, and says : "They were fair to look upon." By outdoor exercise, and by skilful arrangement of apparel, let women make themselves attractive. The sloven has only one mission, and that is to excite our loathing and disgust. But alas for those who depend upon personal charms for their happiness ! Beauty is such a subtile thing, it does not seem to depend upon facial proportions or upon the sparkle of the eye or upon the flush of the cheek. You sometimes find it among irregular features. It is the soul shining through the face that makes one beautiful. But alas for those who depend upon mere personal charms ! They will come to disappointment and to a great fret. There are so many different opinions about what are personal charms ; and then sickness and trouble and age do make such ravages! The poorest god that a woman ever worships is her own face. The saddest sight in all the world is a woman who has built every- thing on good looks, when the charms begin to vanish. Oh, how they try to cover the wrinkles and hide the VOL. XI. 101 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage ravages of Time! When Time, with iron-shod feet, steps on a face, the footprints remain, and you cannot hide them. It is silly to try to hide them. I think the most repulsive fool in all the world is an old fool. Why, my friends, should you be ashamed of getting old? It is a sign it is prima facie evidence that you have behaved tolerably well, or you would not have lived to this time. The grandest thing, I think, is eter- nity, and that is made up of countless years. When the Bible would set forth the attractiveness of Jesus Christ, it says: "His hair was white as snow." But when the color goes from the cheek, and the luster from the eye, and the spring from the step, and the gracefulness from the gait, alas for those who have built their time and their eternity upon good look.s ! But all the passage of years cannot take out of one's face benignity and kindness and compassion and faith. Cultivate your heart and you cultivate your face. The brightest glory that ever beamed from a woman's face is the religion of Jesus Christ. During our Civil War two hundred wounded sol- diers came to Philadelphia one night, and came un- heralded, and we had to extemporize a hospital for them ; and the Christian women of my church, and of other churches, went out that night to take care of the poor, wounded fellows. That night I saw a Christian woman in the wards of the hospital, her sleeves rolled up, ready for hard work, her hair disheveled in the ex- citement of the hour. Her face was plain, very plain ; but after the wounds were washed and the new band- ages were put around the splintered limbs, and the ex- hausted boy fell off into his first refreshing sleep, she put her hand on his brow and he started in his dream, and said: "Oh, I thought an angel touched me!" There may have been no classic elegance in the fea- tures of Mrs. Harris, who came into the hospital after 102 VOL. XI. Woman's Happiness the "Seven Days" awful fight, as she sat down by a wounded drummer-boy and heard him soliloquize: "A ball through my body, and my 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'll try to think 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 Har- rison's Landing and Fortress Monroe would have agreed that she was beautiful, and if any rough man in all that ward had insulted her, some wounded sol- dier 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 happiness upon the flatteries of men. It is a poor compliment to your sex that so many men feel obliged, in your pres- ence, to offer unmeaning compliments. Many capable of elegant and elaborate conversation elsewhere, some- times feel called upon at the door of the drawing-room to drop their common sense and to dole out sickening flatteries. They say things about your dress and 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, they consider it honorable 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 some one on the other side of the drawing-room. Oh, let no one trample on your self-respect. The meanest thing on which a woman can build her happiness is the flatteries of men. VOL. XL 103 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage Again, I charge you not to depend for happiness upon the discipleship of worldliness. I have seen men as vain of their old-fashioned and their eccentric hat as the brainless fop is proud of his dangling fooleries. Fashion sometimes makes a reasonable demand of us, and then we 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 snow- flakes flung out of the winter heavens have their fash- ion of exquisiteness. After the summer shower the sky weds the earth with ring of rainbow. And I do not think we have a right to despise the elegances and fashions of this world, especially if they make reason- able demands upon us ; but the discipleship and wor- ship of fashion is death to the body and death to the soul. I am glad the world is improving. Look at the fashion-plates of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, and you will find that the world is not so ex- travagant now as it was then; and all the marvelous 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 scepter. 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 daugh- ters 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 ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the brace- lets, and the mufflers, and bonnets, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, and the nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the 104 VOL. xi. Woman's Happiness mantles, and the wimples, 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 fash- ion, which has dominated in the world so ruinously in other days, has for a little time, for a little degree at any rate, relaxed its energies. All the splendors and the extravaganzas of this world dyed into your robe, and flung over your shoul- der, 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 may be 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 gar- ment into raiment of exceeding white, so that 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 riv- ers and fire-worked sunset and bird orchestra, and the darkest cave has its crystals and the wrathiest wave has its foam wreath and the coldest midnight its flam- ing 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 sins forgiven and allow Christ Jesus to take full possession 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 sepulcher of a dead Christ; but to bring your all to the foot of a living Jesus. His word VOL. xi. 105 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage is peace. His look is love. His hand is help. His touch is life. His smile is heaven. Oh, come, then, in flocks and groups. Come like the south wind over banks of myrrh. Come like the morning light, trip- ping over the mountains. Wreathe all your affections on Christ's brow, set all your gems in Christ's coronet ; let the Sabbath air rustle with the wings of rejoicing angels, and the towers of God ring out the news of souls saved. This world its fancied pearl may carve, 'Tis not the pearl for me; 'Twill dim its luster in the grave, 'Twill perish in the sea. But there's a pearl of price untold, Which never can be bought with gold; Oh, that's the pearl for me! The snow was very deep, and it was still falling rapidly, when, in the first year of my Christian min- istry, I hastened to see a young woman die. It was a very humble home. She was an orphan ; her father had been shipwrecked on the banks of Newfoundland. She had earned her 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 looked calmly into the great eternity. I sat down by her bedside and said : "Now tell me all your troubles and sorrows and struggles and doubts." She replied: "I have no doubts or struggles. It is all plain to me. Jesus has smoothed 106 VOL. xi. Woman's Happiness the way for my feet. I wish when you go to your pul- pit next Sunday, you would tell the people that religion will make them happy. 'O Death, where is thy sting ?' Mr. Talmage, I wonder if this is not the bliss of dying?" I said: "Yes, I think it must be." I lingered around the couch. The sun was setting, and her sister lighted a candle. She lighted the candle for me. The dying girl, the dawn of heaven in her face, needed no candle. I rose to go, and she said : "I thank you for coming. Good night ! When we meet again it will be in heaven in heaven. Good night! Good night!" For her it was 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 an- other day had burst in upon her soul. Good morning ! The angels were singing her welcome home, and the hand of Christ 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 fuller on earth could whiten it. My sister, my daughter, may your last end be like hers ! VOL. xi. 107 A WEDDING PRESENT Joshua, 15: 19: "Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs." A WEDDING PRESENT Joshua, 15: 19: "Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs." The city of Debir was the Boston of antiquity a great place for brain and books. Caleb wanted it, and he offered his daughter Achsah as a prize to any one who would capture that city. It was a strange thing for Caleb to do; and yet the man that could take the city would have, at any rate, two elements of man- hood bravery and patriotism. Besides, I do not th : k that Caleb was as foolish in offering his daugh- ter to the conqueror of Debir, as thousands in this day who seek alliances for their children with those who have large means, without any reference to moral or mental acquirements. Of two evils, I would rather measure manly worth by the length of the sword than by the length of the pocket-book. In one case there is sure to be one good element of character; in the other there may be none at all. With Caleb's daughter as a prize to fight for, General Othniel rode into the battle. The gates of Debir were thundered into the dust, and the city of books lay at the feet of the conquerors. The work done, Othniel comes back to claim his bride. Having conquered the city, it is no great job for him to conquer the girl's heart; for, however faint-hearted a woman herself may be, she al- ways loves courage in a man. I never saw an excep- tion to that. The wedding festivity having gone by, Othniel and Achsah are about to go to their new home. However loudly the cymbals may clash and the laugh- VOL. XI. Ill Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage ter ring, parents are always sad when a fondly-cher- ished daughter goes off to stay; and Achsah, the daughter of Caleb, knows that now is the time to get almost anything she wants of her father. It seems that Caleb, the good old man, had given as a wedding present to his daughter a piece of land that was moun- tainous, and sloping southward toward the deserts of Arabia, swept with some very hot winds. It was called " a south land." But Achsah wants an addi- tion of property; she wants a piece of land that is well watered and fertile. Now it is no wonder that Caleb, standing amidst the bridal party, his eyes so full of tears because she was going away that he could hardly see her at all, gives her more than she asks. She said to him, "Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs." The fact is, that as Caleb, the father, gave Achsah, the daughter, a south land, so God gives to us his world. I am very thankful he has given it to us. But I am like Achsah in the fact that I am not satisfied with the portion. Trees and flowers and grass and blue skies are very well in their places; but he who has nothing but this world for a portion has no portion at all. It is a mountainous land, sloping off toward the desert of sorrow, swept by fiery siroccos; it is "a south land," a poor portion for any man that tries to put his trust in it. What has been your experience? What has been the experience of every man, of every woman that has tried this world for a portion ? Queen Elizabeth, amidst the surroundings of pomp, is un- happy because the painter sketches too minutely the wrinkles on her face, and she indignantly cries out, " You must strike off my likeness without any shad- ows ! " Hogarth, at the very height of his artistic triumph, is stung almost to death with chagrin be- 112 VOL. XI. A Wedding Present cause the painting he had dedicated to the king does not seem to be acceptable; for George II cries out, "Who is this Hogarth? Take his trumpery out of my presence." Brinsley Sheridan thrilled the earth with his eloquence, but had for his last words, " I am absolutely undone." Walter Scott, fumbling around the inkstand, trying to write, says to his daughter, " Oh, take me back to my room ; there is no rest for Sir Walter but in the grave ! " Stephen Girard, the wealthiest man in his day, or, at any rate, only second in wealth, says, " I live the life of a galley-slave; when I arise in the morning my one effort is to work so hard that I can sleep when it gets to be night." Charles Lamb, applauded of all the world, in the very midst of his literary triumph, says, " Do you remem- ber, Bridget, when we used to laugh from the shilling gallery at the play? There are now no good plays to laugh at from the boxes." But why go so far as that? I need to go no farther than your street to find an il- lustration of what I am saying. Pick me out ten successful worldlings and you know what I mean by thoroughly successful world- lings pick me out ten successful worldlings, and you cannot find more than one that looks happy. Care drags him to business; care drags him back. Take your stand at two o'clock at the corner of the streets and see the anxious physiognomies. Your high officials, your bankers, your insurance men, your importers, your wholesalers, and your retailers, as a class as a class, are they happy? No. Care dogs their steps; and, making no appeal to God for help or comfort, many of them are tossed everywhither. How has it been with you, my hearer? Are you more contented in the house of fourteen rooms than you were in the two rooms you had in a house when you started? Have you not had more care and worriment VOL. xi. 113 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage since you won that fifty thousand dollars than you did before? Some of the poorest men I have ever known have been those of great fortune. A man of small means may be put in great business straits, but the ghastliest of all embarrassments is that of the man who has large estates. The men who commit suicide because of monetary losses are those who cannot bear the burden any more, because they have only fifty thousand dollars left. On Bowling Green, New York, there is a house where Talleyrand used to go. He was a favored man. All the world knew him, and he had wealth almost unlimited; yet at the close of his life he says, " Behold, eighty-three years have passed without any practical result, save fatigue of body and fatigue of mind, great discouragement for the future, and great disgust for the past." Oh, my friends, this is a " south land," and it slopes off toward deserts of sorrows ; and the prayer which Achsah made to her father Caleb we make this day to our Father God: "Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs." Blessed be God! we have more advantages given us than we can really appreciate. We have spiritual blessings offered us in this world which I shall call the nether springs, and glories in the world to come which I shall call the upper springs. Where shall I find words enough threaded with light to set forth the pleasure of religion? David, un- able to describe it in words, played it on a harp. Mrs. Hemans, not finding enough power in prose, sings that praise in a canto. Christopher Wren, unable to de- scribe it in language, sprung it into the arches of St. Paul's. John Bunyan, unable to present it in ordinary phraseology, takes all the fascination of allegory. Handel, with ordinary music unable to reach the 114 VOL. xi. A Wedding Present height of the theme, rouses it up in an oratorio. Oh, there is no life on earth so happy as a really Christian life! I do not mean a sham Christian life, but a real Christian life. Where there is a thorn, there is a whole garland of roses. Where there is one groan, there are three doxologies. Where there is one day of cloud, there is a whole season of sunshine. Take the humblest Christian man that you know angels of God canopy him with their white wings; the light- nings of heaven are his armed allies; the Lord is his Shepherd, picking out for him green pastures by still waters; if he walks forth, heaven is his body-guard; if he lie down to sleep, ladders of light, angel-blossom- ing, are let into his dreams; if he be thirsty, the po- tentates of heaven are his cup-bearers; if he sit down to food, his plain table blooms into the King's banquet. Men say, " Look at that odd fellow with the worn-out coat; " the angels of God cry, " Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates, and let him come in ! " Fastidious people cry, " Get off my front steps ! " the door-keepers of heaven cry, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, in- herit the kingdom! " When he comes to die, though he may be carried out in a pine box to the potter's field, to that potter's field the chariots of Christ will come down, and the cavalcade will crowd all the boule- vards of heaven. I bless Christ for the present satisfaction of re- ligion. It makes a man all right with reference to the past; it makes a man all right with reference to the future. Oh, these nether springs of comfort! They are perennial. The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal, "The Lord knoweth them that are his." " The mountains shall depart and the hills be re- moved, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, who hath mercy upon thee." Oh, VOL. xi. 115 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage cluster of diamonds set in burnished gold! Oh, nether springs of comfort bursting through all the val- leys of trial and tribulation! When you see, you of the world, what satisfaction there is on earth in re- ligion, do you not thirst after it as the daughter of Caleb thirsted after the water-springs? It is no stag- nant pond, scummed over with malaria, but springs of water leaping from the Rock of Ages ! Take up one cup of that spring-water, and across the top of the chalice will float the delicate shadows of the heavenly wall, the yellow of jasper, the green of emerald, the blue of sardonyx, the fire of jacinth. I wish I could make you understand the joy re- ligion is to some of us. It makes a man happy while he lives, and glad when he dies. With two feet upon a chair and bursting with dropsies, I heard an old man in the poorhouse cry out, " Bless the Lord, oh, my soul!" I looked around and said, "What has this man got to thank God for? " It makes the lame man leap as a hart, and the dumb sing. They say that the old Puritan religion is a juiceless and joyless re- ligion; but I remember reading of Dr. Goodwin, the celebrated Puritan, who in his last moment said, " Is this dying? Why, my bow abides in strength! I am swallowed up in God!" "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Oh, you who have been trying to satisfy yourselves with the " south land " of this world, do you not feel that you would, this morning, like to have access to the nether springs of spiritual comfort? Would you not like to have Jesus Christ bend over your cradle and bless your table and heal your wounds and strew flowers of con- solation all up and down the graves of your dead? Tis religion that can give Sweetest pleasure while we live; 'Tis religion can supply Sweetest comfort when we die. 116 VOL. xi. A Wedding Present But I have something better to tell you, suggested by this text. It seems that old Father Caleb, on the wedding day of his daughter, wanted to make her just as happy as possible. Though Othniel was taking her away, and his heart was almost broken because she was going, yet he gives her a " south land; " not only that, but the nether springs; not only that, but the upper springs. O, God! my Father, I thank thee that thou hast given me a " south land " in this world, and the nether springs of spiritual comfort in this world; but, more than all, I thank thee for the upper springs in heaven. It is very fortunate that we cannot see heaven un- til we get into it. O Christian man, if you could see what a place it is, we would never get you back again to the office or store or shop, and the duties you ought to perform would go neglected. I am glad I shall not see that world until I enter it. Suppose we were allowed to go on an excursion into that good land with the idea of returning. When we got there and heard the song and looked at their raptured faces and mingled in the supernal society, we would cry out, " Let us stay! We are coming here anyhow. Why take the trouble of going back again to that old world? We are here now; let us stay." And it would take angelic violence to put us out of that world, if once we got there. But as people who cannot afford to pay for an entertainment sometimes come around it and look through the door ajar, or through the openings in the fence, so we come and look through the crevices into that good land which God has provided for us. We can just catch a glimpse of it. We come near enough to hear the rumbling of the eternal orchestra, though not near enough to know who blows the cor- net or who fingers the harp. My soul spreads out both wings and claps them in triumph at the thought VOL. xi. 117 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage of those upper springs. One of them pours from be- neath the throne; another breaks forth from beneath the altar of the temple ; another at the door of " the house of many mansions." Upper springs of glad- ness! upper springs of light! upper springs of love! It is no fancy of mine. " The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water." O, Saviour divine, roll in upon our souls one of those anticipated raptures! Pour around the roots of the parched tongue one drop of that liquid life! Toss before our vision those fountains of God, rainbowed with eternal victory. Hear it! They are never sick there, not so much as a headache or twinge rheumatic or thrust neuralgic. The inhabitants never says, " I am sick." They are never tired there. Flight to farthest world is only the play of a holiday. They never sin there. It is as easy for them to be, holy as it is for us to sin. They never die there. You might go through all the outskirts of the great city and find not one place where the ground was broken for a grave. There is health in every cheek. There is spring in every foot. There is majesty on every brow. There is joy in eve~ry heart. There is hosanna on every lip. How they must pity us as they look over and look down and see us, and say, " Poor things, away down in that world ! " And when some Chris- tian is hurled into a fatal accident, they cry, " Good, he is coming ! " And when we stand around the couch of some loved one whose strength is going away, and we shake our heads forebodingly, they cry, " I am glad he is worse ; he has been down there long enough. There, he is dead! Come home! come home!" Oh, if we could only get our ideas about that future world untwisted, our thought of transfer from here to there would be as pleasant to us as it 118 VOL. xi. A Wedding Present was to a little child that was dying. She said, " Papa, when will I go home? " And he said, " To-day, Flor- ence." " To-day? so soon? I am so glad! " I wish I couFd stimulate you with these thoughts, O Chris- tian man, to the highest possible exhilaration. The day of your deliverance is coming, is coming rolling on with the shining wheels of the day, and the jet wheels of the night. Every thump of the heart is only a hammer-stroke striking off another chain of clay. Better scour the deck and coil the rope, for the harbor is only six miles away. Jesus will come down in the " Narrows " to meet you. " Now is your sal- vation nearer than when you believed." Man of the world! will you not to-day make a choice between these two portions, between the " south land " of this world, which slopes to the desert, and this glorious land which thy Father offers thee, run- ning with eternal water-courses? Why let your tongue be consumed of thirst when there are the nether springs and the upper springs : comfort here and glory hereafter? You and I need something better than this world can give us. The fact is that it cannot give us anything after a while. It is a changing world. Do you know that even the mountains on the back of a thousand streams are leaping into the valley. The Alleghanies are dying. The. dews with crystalline mallet are hammering away the rocks. Frosts and showers and lightnings are sculpturing Mount Wash- ington and the Catskills. Niagara every year is dig- ging for itself a quicker plunge. The sea all around the earth on its shifting shores is making mighty changes in bar and bay and frith and promontory. Some of the old seacoasts are under water now. Off Nantucket, eight feet below low-water mark, are found now the stumps of trees, showing that the waves are VOL. xi. 119 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage conquering the land. Parts of Nova Scotia are sink- ing. Ships to-day sail over what, only a little while ago, was solid ground. Near the mouth of the St. Croix river is an island which, in the movements of the earth, is slowly but certainly rotating. All the face of the earth changing changing. In 1831, an isl- and springs up in the Mediterranean sea. In 1866, another island comes up under the observation of the American consul as he looks off from the beach. The earth all the time changing, the columns of a temple near Bizoli show that the water has risen nine feet above the place it was when these columns were put down. Changing! Our Colorado river, once vaster than the Mississippi, flowing through the great Ameri- can desert, which was then an Eden of luxuriance, has now dwindled to a small stream creeping down through a gorge. The earth itself, that was once vapor, afterward water nothing but water after- ward molten rock, cooling off through the ages until plants might live, and animals might live, and men might live, changing all the while, now crumbling, now breaking off. The sun, burning down gradually in its socket. Changing! Changing! an intimation of the last great change to come over the world even infused into the mind of the heathen who has never seen the Bible. The Hindoos believe that Bramah, the creator, once made all things. He created the water, then moved over the water, out of it lifted the land, grew the plants and animals and men on it. Out of his eye went the sun. Out of his lips went the fire. Out of his ear went the air. Then Bramah laid down to sleep four thousand three hundred and twenty million years. After that, they say, he will wake up, and then the world will be destroyed, and he will make it over again, bringing up land, bringing up 120 VOL. xi. A Wedding Present creatures upon it; then lying down again to sleep four thousand three hundred and twenty million years, then waking up and destroying the world again creation and demolition following each other, until after three hundred and twenty sleeps, each one of these slumbers four thousand three hundred and twenty million years long, Bramah will wake up and die, and the universe will die with him an intimation, though very faint, of the great change to come upon this physical earth spoken of in the Bible. But while Bramah may sleep, our God never slumbers nor sleeps; and the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all things that are therein shall be burned up. " Well," says some one, " if that is so; if the world is going from one change to another, then what is the use of my toiling for its betterment? " That is the point on which I want to guard you. I do not want you to become misanthropic. It is a great and glori- ous world. If Christ could afford to spend thirty- three years on it for its redemption, then you can af- ford to toil and pray for the betterment of the nations, and for the bringing on of that glorious time when all people shall see the salvation of God. While, there- fore, I want to guard you against misanthropic notions in respect to this subject I have presented, I want you to take this thought home with you: This world is a poor foundation to build on. It is a changing world, and it is a dying world. The shifting scenes and the changing sands are only emblems of all earthly expec- tation. Life is very much like this day through which we have passed. To many of us it is storm and dark- ness, then sunshine, storm and darkness, then after- ward a little sunshine, now again darkness and storm. Oh, build not your hopes upon this un- VOL. XI. 121 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage certain world! Build on God. Confide in Jesus. Plan for an eternal residence at Christ's right hand. Then, come sickness or health, come joy or sorrow, come life or death, all is well, all is well. In the name of the God of Caleb, and his daughter, Achsah, I this day offer you the " upper springs " of unfading and everlasting rapture. 122 VOL. xi. HARBOR OF HOME Mark, 5: 19: "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee." HARBOR OF HOME Mark, 5: 19: "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee." There are a great many people longing for some grand sphere in which to serve God. They admire Luther at the Diet of Worms, and only wish that they had some such great opportunity in which to display their Christian prowess. They admire Paul making Felix tremble, and they only wish that they had some such grand occasion in which to preach righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. All they want is an opportunity to exhibit their Christian heroism. Now the apostle comes to us and he prac- tically says : " I will show you a place where you can exhibit all that is grand and beautiful and glorious in Christian character, and that is the domestic circle." 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 the sheriff of the Philippian dun- geon in the way of salvation, he will never make Felix tremble. He who is not faithful in skirmish would not be faithful in an Armageddon. The fact is, we are all placed in just the position in which we can most grandly serve God, and we ought not to be chiefly thoughtful about some sphere of usefulness which we may after a while gain, but the all-absorbing ques- tion with you and with me ought to be : " Lord, what wilt thou have me (now and here) to do ? " VOL. xi. 125 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage There is one word in my text around which the most of our thoughts will revolve. That word is " home." Ask ten different men the meaning of that word and they will give you ten different definitions. To one it means love at the hearth, it means plenty at the table, industry at the workstand, intelligence at the books, devotion at the altar. To him it means a greeting at the door and a smile at the chair. Peace hovering like wings. Joy clapping its hands with laughter. Life a tranquil lake. Pillowed on the rip- ples sleep the shadows. Ask another man what home is, and he will tell you it is want, looking out of a cheerless fire-grate and kneading hunger in an empty bread-tray. The damp air shivering with curses. No Bible on the shelf. Children, robbers and murderers in embryo. Vile songs their lullaby. Every face a picture of ruin. Want in the background and sin staring from the front. No Sabbath wave rolling over that doorsill. Vestibule of the pit. Shadow of in- fernal walls. Furnace for forging everlasting chains. Faggots for an unending funeral pile. Awful word! It is spelled with curses, it weeps with ruin, it chokes with woe, it sweats with the death-agony of despair. The word " home " in the one case means everything bright ; in the other case, everything terrific. I shall speak to you of home as a test of character, home as a refuge, home as a political safeguard, home as a school, and home as a type of heaven. And in the first place I remark that home is a powerful test of character. The disposition in public may be in gay costume, while in private it is in dis- habille. As play-actors may appear in one garb on the stage and may appear in another garb behind the scenes, so private character may be very different from public character. Private character is often public character turned wrong side out. A man may 126 VOL. xi. Harbor of Home receive you into his parlor as though he were a dis- tillation of smiles, and yet his heart may be a swamp of nettles. There are business men who all day long are mild and courteous and genial and good-natured in commercial life, keeping back their irritability and their petulance and their discontent; but at nightfall the dam breaks, and scolding pours forth in floods and freshets. The reason men do not display their bad temper in public is because they do not want to be knocked down. There are men who hide their petulance and their irritability just for the same reason that they do not let their notes go to protest ; it does not pay. Or for the same reason that they do not want a man in their stock company to sell his stock at less than the right price, lest it depreciate the value. As at sunset 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 t Nero with respect to their slippers and their gown. Audubon, the great ornithologist, with gun and pencil, went through the forests of America to bring down and so sketch the beautiful birds, and after years of toil and exposure completed his manuscript and put it in a trunk in Philadelphia for a few days of recreation and rest, and came back and found that the rats had utterly destroyed the manuscript; but without any discomposure and without any fret or bad temper, he again picked up his gun and pencil and visited again all the great forests of America and reproduced his immortal work. And yet there are people with a ten-thousandth part of that loss who are utterly irreconcilable, 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 public and who is irritable in private is making a VOL. xi. 127 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage fraudulent over-issue of stock, and he is as bad as a bank that might have four or five hundred thousand dollars 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 affability merely springs from a fear of the world or from the slimy, putrid pool of our own selfishness. I tell you the home is a mighty test of character. What you are at home you are everywhere, whether you demonstrate it or not. Again, I remark that home is a refuge. Life is the United States army on the national road to the front, a long march with ever and anon a skirmish and a battle. At eventide we pitch our tent and stack our arms ; we hang up the war cap and lay our head on the knapsack ; we sleep until the morning bugle calls us to marching and action. How pleasant it is to re- hearse the victories and the surprises and the attacks of the day seated by the still camp-fire of the home circle! Yea, life is a stormy sea. With shivered masts and torn sails and hulk aleak, we put into the harbor of home. Blessed harbor ! there we go for re- pairs in the dry dock of quiet life. The candle in the window is to the toiling man the lighthouse 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 undignified. There is the place where we may express affection without be- ing thought silly. There is the place where we may forget our annoyances and exasperations and trou- bles. Forlorn earth-pilgrim! no home? Then die. 128 VOL. xi. Harbor of Home That is better. The grave is brighter and grander and more glorious than this world, with no tent from marchings, with no harbor from the storm, with no place to rest from this scene of greed and gouge and loss and gain. God pity the man or woman who has no home ! Further, I remark, that home is a political safe- guard. The safety of the State must be built on the safety of the home. The Christian hearthstone is the only corner-stone for a republic. The virtues cul- tured 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 political principle to make the State adhere. " No home " means the Goths and Vandals, means the nomads of Asia, means the Numidians of Africa, changing from place to place according as the pas- ture happens to change. Confounded be all those Babels of iniquity which would overtower and destroy the home ! The same storm that upsets the ship in which the family sails will sink the frigate of the Constitution. Jails and penitentiaries and armies and navies are not our best defense. The door of the home is the best fortress. Household utensils are the best artillery, and the chimneys of our dwelling- houses are the grandest monuments of safety and triumph. No home ! no republic. Further, I remark, that home is a school. Old ground must be turned up with subsoil plow, and it must be harrowed and reharrowed, 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 a smile of approbation all the good cheer of your life will come up again in the VOL. xi. 129 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage geniality of your children. And every ebullition of anger and every uncontrollable display of wrath will be fuel to their disposition twenty or thirty or forty years from now fuel for a bad fire a quarter of a century from this. Make your home the brightest place on earth, if you would charm your children to the high path of virtue and rectitude and religion! 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 little feet to keep step to a Dead March. Get you no hint of cheerfulness from grasshopper's leap and lamb's frisk and quail's whistle, and garrulous stream- let, 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 stream went raving mad, frothing at the mouth with mad foam, and there were nothing but simoons blowing among the hills, and there were neither lark's carol nor humming- bird's trill nor waterfall's dash, but only 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 home makes bad boys and bad girls, in preparation for bad men and bad women. Above all, take into your homes Christian prin- ciple. Can it be that in any of our comfortable homes the voice of prayer is never lifted! What! No sup- plication at night for protection ? What ! No thanks- giving in the morning for care? How wjll you an- 130 VOL. xi. Harbor of Home swer God in the day of judgment with reference to your children ? 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 ship- wreck of their immortal souls, on their deathbed and in the day of judgment they will curse you ! 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 crumbled to dust. But shall I ever forget that earthly home? Yes, when the flower forgets the sun 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 its urn into forgetfulness. Then, 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 interlocked arms like intertwining branches of trees making a perpetual arbor of love and peace and kindness then I will forget thee then, and only then. You know, that a hundred times you have been kept out of sin by the memory 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, At our best estate we are only pilgrims and strangers here. " Heaven is our home." Death will never VOL. xi. 131 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage knock at the door of that mansion, and in all that country there is not a single grave. How glad parents are in holiday time to gather their children home again! But I have noticed that almost always there is a son or a daughter absent absent from home, perhaps absent from the country, perhaps 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 immortality. Once they saw only " through a glass, darkly; " now it is " face to face," corruption, incorruption ; mortality, immortality. Where are now all their sins and sorrows and troubles? Over- whelmed in the Red Sea of death while they passed through dryshod. Gates of pearl, capstones of ame- thyst, 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 dirge of spheres. Home ! Let everlasting ages roll in irresistible sweep. Home ! No sorrow, no crying. No tears. No death. But home, sweet home; home, beautiful home, everlast- ing home, home with each other, home with angels, home with God. 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 more than tropical fruitfulness 132 VOL. xi. Harbor of Home filled the gardens. It was not Italy, although more than Italian softness filled the air. And I wandered around looking for thorns and nettles, but I found that none of them grew there, and I saw the sun rise, and I watched to see it set, but it sank not. And I saw the people in holiday attire, and I said : " When will they put off this and put on workmen's garb and again delve in the mine or swelter at the forge ? " but they never put off the holiday attire. And I wan- dered in the suburbs of the city to find the place where the dead sleep, and I looked all along the line of the beautiful hills, the place where the dead might most blissfully sleep; and I saw towers and castles, but not a mausoleum or a monument or a white slab could I see. And I went into the chapel of the great town and I said : " Where do the poor worship and where are the hard benches on which they sit? " And the answer was made me : " We have no poor in this country." And then I wandered out to find the hovels of the destitute, and I found mansions of amber and ivory and gold, but not a tear could I see, not a sigh could I hear, and I was bewildered and I sat down under the branches of a great tree and I said, " Where am I ? 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; yet they were so gloriously arrayed that I bowed as stranger to stranger. But when again they clapped their hands and shouted, "Welcome, welcome!" the mystery all vanished, and I found that time had gone and eternity had come, and we were all together again in our new home in heaven. And I looked around and I said: VOL. xi. 133 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage " Are we all here ? " and the voices of many genera- tions responded, " All here ! " And while tears 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 ! " 134 VOL. xi. TREATMENT OF PARENTS Prov., 10: i: "A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother." TREATMENT OF PARENTS Prov., 10: i: "A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother." All parents want their children to turn out well. However poorly father and mother may have done themselves, they want their sons and daughters to do splendidly. Up to forty years of age parents may have ambitions for themselves, after that their chief ambition is for their children. Some of the old-time names indicate this. The name of Abner means " his father's lamp." The name Abigail means " her father's joy." And what a parental delight was Solo- mon to David and Samuel to Hannah and Joseph to Jacob! And the best earthly staff that a father has to lean on is a good son, and the strongest arm a mother has to help her down the steps of years is that of a grateful child. But it is not a rare thing to find people unfilial, and often the parents are themselves to blame. Aged persons sometimes become querulous and snappy, and the children have their hands full with the old folks. Before entering my profession I was for three months what is called a colporteur. One day in the country districts I stopped at the house of a good, intelligent, genial farmer. The hospitality of such a country house is especially pleasing to me, for I was born in the country. This farmer and his wife were hard-working people, but tried to make their home agreeable and at- tractive. The farmer's father, about sixty-five years of age, and his grandfather, about ninety, were yet alive and with him. Indeed, there were four genera- tions in the house, for the farmer had some little chil- VOL. xi. 137 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage dren playing about the room. We gathered at the dining-table. After the blessing was asked, the farmer put some of the meat upon his plate and courteously passed it to me, when his father of sixty-five years of age cried out to his son, who was at least thirty years of age : " Why do you not pass the meat as you al- ways do, and let us take it off the plate ourselves? You are trying to show off because we have company." Meanwhile his grandfather of ninety sat with his hat on at the table, his face unclean and his apparel untidy. Still the farmer kept his patience and equipoise, and I never think of him without admiration. He must have had more grace than I ever had. Because people are old they have no right to be either ungentlemanly or uncouth. There are old people so disagreeable that they have nearly broken up some homes. The young married man with whom the aged one lives stands it because he has been used to it all his life, but the young wife, coming in from another household, can hardly endure it, and some- times almost cries her eyes out. And when little chil- dren gather in the house, they are afraid of the vener- able patriarch, who has forgotten that he ever was a child himself, and cannot understand why children should ever want to play " hide and seek " or roll hoop or fly kite, and he becomes impatient at the sound from the nursery, and shouts with an expendi- ture of voice that keeps him coughing fifteen minutes afterwards, " Boys! stop that racket! " as though any boy that ever amounted to anything in the world did not begin life by making a racket ! Indeed, there are children who owe nothing to their parents, for those parents have been profligates. My lamented friend, good and Christian and lovely Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States, in early life changed his name. Henry Wilson was 138 VOL. xi. Treatment of Parents not his original name. He dropped his father's name because that father was a drunkard and a disgrace, and the son did not feel called upon to carry such a stigma all his life. While children must always be dutiful, I sympathize with all young people who have disagreeable or unprincipled old folks around the house. Some of us, drawing out our memories, know that it is possible, after sixty or seventy or eighty or ninety years of age, for the old to be kind and genial ; and the grandest adornment of a home is an aged father and an aged mother, if the process of years has mellowed them. Besides that, if your old parents are hard to get along with now, you must remember there was a time when they had hard work to get along with you. When you were about five or seven or ten or twelve years of age what a time they had with you ! If they had kept a written account of your early pranks and misdoings, it would make a whole volume. That time when you gave your little sister a clip; that time when you explored the depth of a jar of sweet things for which you had no permission ; that havoc you one day made with your jack-knife; that plucking from the orchard of unripe fruit; that day when, instead of being at school, as your parents supposed, you went a-fish- ing; and many a time did you imperil your young life in places where you had no business to climb or swim or venture. To get you through your first fifteen years with your life and your good morals was a fearful draft upon parental fidelity and endurance. Indeed, it may be that much of this present physical and mental weakness in your parents may have been a result of your early waywardness. You made such large and sudden drafts upon the bank of their patience that you broke the bank. They were injured in being thrown while trying to break the colt. It is a matter of only common honesty that you pay back to them some of VOL. xi. 139 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage the long-suffering which they paid to you. A father said to his son, " Surely no father ever had as bad a boy as I have." " Yes," said the son, " my grand- father had." It is about the same from generation to generation, and parents need to be patient with chil- dren, and children dutiful to their parents. Taking it for granted that those who hear me to-day have had a good parentage, I want to urge upon all the young the fact that the happiness and longevity of parents much depend upon the right behavior of their chil- dren, and I can do this no more effectually than by demonstrating the truth of my text, " A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother." Perhaps some young man astray may be brought back by a thought of how they feel about him at home. A French soldier lay wounded and dying in the hospital at Geneva, Switzerland. His father, at home, seventy years of age, heard of his son's suf- fering, and started, and took the long journey, and found the hospital; and as he entered the son cried: " O father, I am so glad you have come to see me die." " No," said the father; " you are not going to die; your mother is waiting for you, and I am going to take you home; I have brought you money and everything you need." " No," said the soldier, " they give me here everything that is nice to eat, but I have no appetite, and I must die." Then the father took from his knapsack a loaf of rye-bread, such as the plain people of his country ate, and said, " Here is a loaf of bread your mother made, and I am sure you can eat this; she sent it to you." Then the soldier brightened up, and took the bread and ate it, and said " It is so good, the bread from home, the bread that my mother made! " No wonder that in a few days he had recovered. O young man, wounded in the bat- tle of life, and discouraged, given up by yourself, and 140 VOL. xi. Treatment of Parents given up by others, the old folks at the country fire- side have not given you up. I bring you bread from home. It may be plain bread, but it is that bread of which if a man eat he never again shall hunger. Bread from home! Carrying out the idea of my text, I remark that a reckless or dissipated son makes a heavy-hearted pa- rent because it hurts the family pride. It is not the given name, or the name which you received at the christening, that is injured by your prodigality. You cannot hurt your name of John or George or Henry or Mary or Frances or Rachel, because there have been thousands of people, good and bad, having those names, and you cannot improve or depreciate the re- spectability of those given names. But it is your last name, your family name, that is at your mercy. All who bear that name are bound, before God and man, not to damage its happy significance. You are charged, by all the generations of the past and all the generations to come, to do your share for the protec- tion and the honor and the integrity of that name. You have no right, my young friend, by a bad life to blot the old family Bible containing the story of the marriage and births and deaths of the years gone by, or to cast a blot upon the family Bibles whose records are yet to be opened. There are in our American city- directories names that always suggest commercial dis- honesty or libertinism or cruelty or meanness, just because one man or woman bearing that name cursed it forever by miscreancy. Look out how you stab the family name! It is especially dear to your mother. She was not born under that name. She was born under another name, but the years passed on and she came to young womanhood, and she saw some one with whom she could trust her happiness, her life, and her immortal destiny; and she took his name, took it VOL. xi. 141 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage while the orange blossoms were rilling the air with fragrance, took it with joined hands, took it while the heavens witnessed. She chose it out of all the family names since the world stood, for better or worse, through sickness and through health, by cradles and by graves. Yea, she put off her old family name to take the family name you now wear, and she has done her part to make it an honorable name. How heavy a trouble you put upon her when, by misdeeds, you wrench that name from its high significance! To haul it down from your mother's forehead and trample it in the dust would be criminal. Your father's name may not be a distinguished name, but I hope it stands for something good. It may not be famous like that of Homer, the father of epic poetry, or Izaak Walton, the father of angling, or ^Eschylus, the father of trag- edy, or Ethelwold, the father of monks, or Herodotus, the father of history, or Thomas Aquinas, the father of moral philosophy, or Abraham, the father of the faithful, but your father has a name in a small circle as precious to him as theirs in a larger circle. Look out how you tarnish it ! Further, the recklessness and dissipation of a young man are a cause of parental distress at a time when the parent is least able to bear it. The vicissi- tudes of life have left their impression upon those parents. The eye is not as c-lear as once, nor the hear- ing as acute, nor the nerves as steady, nor the step as strong, and with the tide of incoming years comes the weight of unfilial behavior. You take your parents at a great disadvantage, for they cannot stand as much as they once could. They have not the elasticity of feeling with which once they could throw off trouble. That shoulder, now somewhat bent, cannot bear as heavy a burden as once it could. At the time when the machinery is getting worn out you put upon it the 142 VOL. xi. Treatment of Parents most terrific strain. At sixty and seventy years the vitality is not "so strong as at thirty or forty. Surely they are descending the down grade of life swiftly enough without any need of your increasing the mo- mentum. They will be gone soon enough without your pushing them away. Call in all the doctors who ever lived since Hippocrates raised medicine from a superstition to a science, and they could not cure the heartbreak of a mother over her ruined boy. There may be, as some suppose, enough herbs on earth, if discovered, to cure all the ailments of the body; but nothing save a leaf from the tree of heavenly Paradise can cure a wound made by a foolish son who is the heaviness of his mother. Perhaps it is a good thing that cruel treatment by a child abbreviates a parent's life; for what is there desirable in a father's life or a mother's life if its peace be gone? Do you not think death is something benef- icent if it stops the mother's heart from aching and her eyes from weeping, and says : " You need not bear the excruciation any longer. Go and sleep. I will put the defense of a marble slab between you and that boy's outrages. Go now where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest? " At the departure of such mothers let the music be an anthem instead of a dirge. While you and I hear no sound, yet there are at this moment tens of thousands of parental hearts breaking. All care was taken with the boy's schooling, all good counsels given, and the equip- ment for a sober and earnest and useful life was pro- vided, but it has all gone, and the foolish son has be- come the heaviness of his mother. Much of the poignancy of the parental grief arises from the ingratitude of such behavior. What an un- dertaking it is to conduct a family through the ail- ments and exposures of early life! Talk about the VOL. xi. 143 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage skill demanded of a sea-captain commanding a ship across the ocean ! That requires less skill than to navi- gate a young soul in safety across the infantile and boyhood years. The sicknesses that assault, the temp- tations that entrap, the anxieties that are excited! Young man, you will never know what your mother has suffered for you. You will never know how your father has toiled for you. You have been in all their thoughts, in all their plans, in all their prayers, from the time your first breath was drawn to this moment's respiration. What they could do for your health, what they could do for your happiness, what they could do for your mind, what they could do for your soul, have been absorbing questions. To earn a livelihood for you has not always been an easy thing for your father. By what fatigues of body and what disturbances of mind and long years of struggle, in which sometimes the losses were greater than the gains, he got bread for you, paying for it in the sweat of his own brow and the red drops of his own heart's blood! He looks older 'than he ought to look at his years, for it has been work, work, work. Many a time he felt like giv- ing up the battle, but when he looked at your helpless- ness and the helplessness of the household, then he nerved himself up anew and said: " By the help of God I will not stop ; my children must have home and education and advantages and a comfortable starting in the world, and I must get a little something ahead, so that if I am taken away these helpless ones will not be turned out on the cold charities of the world." Yes, your father has been a good friend to you. He has never told any one, and he never will tell any one of the sacrifices he has made for you. And he is ready to keep right on until unto that hand that has been toiling for you all these years shall come the very 144 VOL. xi. Treatment of Parents numbness of death. You cannot afford to break his heart. But you are doing it. Yes, you are. ' You have driven the dagger clear in up to the hilt. And your mother I warrant she has never told you much about the nights when you were down with scarlet fever, or diphtheria, and she slept not a wink, or falling into drowsiness, your first cry awakened her, and brought the words, " What is it, my dear? " Oh, if the old rocking-chair could speak! Oh, if the cradle could only tell its story of years! And when you got better, and were fretful and hard to please, as is usual in convalescence, she kept her patience so well, and was as kind as you were unreasonable and cross. Oh, the midnights of motherly watching, how can you keep silence? Speak out and tell that wandering young man the story that he so much needs to hear. By the by, I wonder what has become of our old cradle in which all of us children were rocked ! I must ask my sister when I see her next time. We were a large family, and that old cradle was going a good many years. I remember just how it looked. It was old-fashioned and had no tapestry. Its two sides and canopy all of plain wood, but there was a great deal of sound sleeping in that cradle, and many aches and pains were soothed by it as it moved to and fro by day and night. Most vividly I remember that the rockers, which came out from under the cradle, were on the top and side very smooth, so smooth that they actually glistened. They must have been worn smooth by a foot that long ago ceased its journey. How tired the foot that pressed it must sometimes have become! But it did not stop for that. It went right on and rocked for Phoebe the first, and for DeWitt the last. And it was a cradle like that, or perhaps of modern make and richly upholstered, in which your mother rocked you. VOL. xi. 145 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage Can it be that for all that care and devotion you are paying her back with harsh words or neglects or a wicked life? Then I must tell you that you are the " foolish son which is the heaviness of his mother." Better go home and kiss her, and ask her forgiveness. Kiss her on the lips that have so often prayed for you. Kiss her on the forehead that so often ached for you. Kiss her on the eyes that have so often wept over you. Better go right away, for she will be dead before long. And how will you feel then after you realize it is your waywardness that killed her? Romulus made no law against parricide, or the slaying of a father, matricide, or the slaying of a mother, because he considered such crimes impossible, and for six hundred years there was not a crime of that sort in Rome. But then came Lucius Ostius, and slew his father, proving the crime possible. Now, do you not think that the child who by wrong behavior sends his father to a premature grave is a parricide, or who by misconduct hastens a mother into the tomb is a matricide? The heaviness of parents over a son's depravity is all the greater because it means spiritual disaster and overthrow. That is the worst thing about it. In the pension regulations a soldier receives for loss of both hands or feet seventy-two dollars a month. For loss of one hand and one foot thirty-six dollars. For loss of a hand or foot thirty dollars. For loss of both eyes seventy-two dollars. But who can calculate the value of a whole man ruined body, mind and soul? How can parents have any happiness about your future destiny, O young man gone astray? Can such opposite lives as you and they are living come out at the same place? Can holiness and dissipation enter the same gate? 146 VOL. xi. Treatment of Parents Where is the little prayer that was taught you at your mother's knee? Is the God they loved and wor- shiped your God? It is your soul about which they are most anxious, your soul that shall live after the earth itself shall be girdled with flames, and the flames, dying down, will leave the planet only a live coal, and the live coal shall have become ashes, and then the ashes shall be scattered by the whirlwinds of the Almighty. " But," says some young man, " my mother is gone; my behavior will not trouble her any more." Oh that these lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. What! Is she dead? How you startle me! Is she dead? Then, perhaps, you have her picture. Hang it up in your room in the place where you oftenest sit. Go and study her features, and while you are looking the past will come back, and you may hear her voice, which is now so still, speak again, saying: " From my heavenly home, my dear boy, I solicit your reforma- tion and salvation. Go to the Christ who pardoned me, and he will pardon you. My heaven will not be complete till I hear of your changing. But I will hear of it right away, for there is joy up here when one sinner repenteth ; and would that the next news of that kind that comes up here might come up regarding you, O my child of many tears and anxieties and prayers! Come, my boy, do you not hear your mother's voice? O my son, my son, would God that I could die for thee! O my son, my son! " Young man! what news for heaven would be your conversion. Swifter than telegraphic wire ever carried congratu- lations to a wedding or a coronation would fly heaven- VOL. xi. 147 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage ward the news of your deliverance; and whether the one most interested in your salvation were on river- bank or in the temple or on the battlements or in the great tower, the message would be instantly received, and before this service is closed angel would cry to angel: "Have you heard the news? Out yonder is a mother who has just heard of her wayward boy's redemption. Another prodigal has got home. The dead is alive again, and the lost is found. Halle- lujah! Amenl" 148 VOL. xi. ORPAH'S RETREAT Ruth, i: 14: " And they lifted up their voices and wept, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her." ORPHA'S RETREAT Ruth, 1 : 14: " And they lifted up their voices and wept, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her." Moab was a heathen land. Naomi is about to leave it and go into the land of Bethlehem. She has two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, who conclude to go with her. Naomi tells them they had better not leave their native land and undertake the hardship of the journey, but they will not be persuaded. They all three start out on their journey. After a while, Naomi, although she highly prized the company of her two daughters-in-law, attempted to again persuade them to go back because of the hardship and self-denial through which they would be obliged to go. Ruth responds in the words from which I once discoursed to you : " Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee, for where thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people shall be my people and thy God my God, where thou diest will I die and there will I be buried, the Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." Not so with her sister Orpah. Her determina- tion had already been shaken. The length and peril of the journey began to appall her, and she had wor- shiped the gods of Moab so long that it was hard to give them up. From that point Orpah turned back, the parting being described in the words of my text: " And they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her." Learn from this story of Orpah that some of those VOL. xi. 151 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage who did not leave the Moab of their iniquities are per- sons of fine susceptibility. It was compassion for Naomi in widowhood and sorrow that led Orpah to start with her toward Bethlehem. It was not because of any lack of affection for her that she turned back. We know this from the grief exhibited at parting. I do not know but that she had as much warmth and ardor of nature as Ruth, but she lacked the courage and persistence of her sister-in-law. That there are many with as fine susceptibility as Orpah who will not take up their cross and follow Christ, is a truth which needs but little demonstration. Many of those who have become the followers of Jesus have but little natu- ral impressibility. Grace often takes hold of the hard- est heart and the most unlovely character and trans- forms it. It is a hammer that breaks rocks. In this, Christ often shows his power. It wants but little generalship to conquer a flat country, but might of artillery and heroism to take a fort manned and ready for raking cannonade. The great Captain of our sal- vation has forced his way into many an armed castle. I doubt not that Christ could have found many a fish- erman naturally more noble-hearted than Simon Peter, but there was no one by whose conversion he could more gloriously have magnified his grace. The conver- sion of a score of Johns would not have illustrated the power of the Holy Ghost as much as the conversion of one Peter. It would have been easier to drive twenty lambs like John into the fold than to tame one lion like Peter. God has often made some of his most efficient servants out of men naturally unimpres- sionable. As men take stiff and unwieldy timbers, and under huge-handed machinery bend them into the hulk of great ships, thus God has often shaped and bent into his service the most unwieldy natures, while 152 VOL. xi. Orpah's Retreat those naturally impressionable are still in their un- changed state. Oh, how many, like Orpah, have warm affections and yet never become Christians! Like Orpah, they know ho.w to weep, but they do not know how to pray. Their fineness of feeling leads them into the friendships of the world, but not into communion with God. They can love everybody but him, who is alto- gether lovely. All other sorrow rends their heart, but they are untouched by the woes of a dying Christ. Good news fills them with excitement, but the glad tidings of great joy and salvation stir not their soul. Anxious to do what is right, yet they rob God. Grate- ful for the slightest favors, they make no return to him who wrung out the last drop of blood from his heart to deliver them from going down to the pit. They would weep at the door of a prison at the sight of a wicked captive in chains, but have no compassion for their own souls over which Satan, like a grim jailer, holds the lock and key. When repulsive, grasp- ing, unsympathetic natures resist the story of a Saviour's love, it does not excite our surprise ; but it is among the greatest of wonders that so many who exhibit Orpah's susceptibility also exhibit Orpah's obduracy. We are not surprised that there is barren- ness in a desert, but a strange thing is it that some- times the Rose of Sharon will not grow in a garden. On a summer morning we are not surprised to find a rock without any dew on it, but if, going among a flock of lilies, we saw in them no glittering drops, we would say, " What foul sprite has been robbing these vases? " We are not surprised that Herod did not become a Christian, but how strange that the young man Jesus loved for his sweetness of temper should not have loved -the Redeemer. Hard-hearted Felix VOL. xi. 153 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage trembled, proud Nebuchadnezzar repented, and cruel Manasseh turned unto the Lord; but many a nature, affectionate and gentle, has fought successfully against divine influences. Many a dove has refused to come in the window of the ark, although finding no rest for the sole of her foot. Again: The history of Orpah impresses upon me the truth that there are many who make a good start- ing, but after a while change their minds and turn back. When these three mourners start from their home in Moab there is as much probability that Orpah will reach Bethlehem as that her sister-in-law and her mother-in-law Naomi will arrive there. But while these continue in the journey they commenced, Orpah after a while gets discouraged and turns back. This is the history of many a soul. Perhaps it was during a revival of religion they resolved upon a Christian life, and made preparations to leave Moab. Before that they were indifferent to the sanctuary, and they looked upon churches as necessary evils. The min- ister almost always preached poor sermons, because they had not the heart to hear them. They thought the bread was not good because their appetite was poor. Religion did very well for invalids and the aged, but they had no desire for it. Suddenly a change came upon their soul. They found that something must be done. Every night there was a thorn in their pillow. There was gall in their wine. They found that their pleasures were only false lights of a swamp that rise out of decay and death. Losing their self- control they were startled by their own prayer, " God be merciful to me a sinner." They did not suspect it, but the Holy Ghost was in their soul. Without think- ing what they were doing, they brushed the dust off the family Bible. The ground did not feel as firm under them nor did the air seem as bright. They tried 154 VOL. xi. Orpah's Retreat to dam back the flood of their emotions, but the at- tempt failed, and they confessed their anguish of soul before they meant to. The secret was out! They wanted to know what they must do to be saved. With Ruth and Naomi, weeping Orpah started for the land of Bethlehem. They longed for the Sabbath to come. Straight as an arrow to the mark the sermon struck them. They thought the minister must have heard of their case and was preaching right at them. They thought the ser- mon was very short, nor did they once coil themselves up in their pew with their eyes shut and head averted with an air of unmoved dignity. They began to pray with an earnestness that astonished themselves and astonished others. Shoving the plane or writing up accounts or walking the street, when you might have thought their mind entirely upon the world, they were saying within themselves: " Oh, that I were a Chris- tian ! " Orpah is fully started on the road to Beth- lehem. Christian friends observing the religious anx- iety of the awakened soul say, " He must certainly be a Christian. There is another soldier in Christ's ranks, another sick one has been cured of the leprosy." The observers turn their attention another way; they say, " Orpah is safe enough ; she has gone to Bethlehem." Starting out for heaven is a very different thing from arriving there. Remember Lot's wife. She looked back with longing to the place from which she came, and was destroyed. Half way between Sodom and the city of Refuge that strange storm comes upon her, and its salt and brimstone gather on her garments until they are so stiffened she cannot proceed, nor can she lie down, because of this dreadful wrapping around her garments and limbs; and long after her life has gone she still stands there so covered up by the strange storm that she is called a pillar of salt, as some sailor VOL. xi. 155 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage on ship's deck in the wintry tempest stands covered with a mail of ice. Ten thousand times ten thousand men have been destroyed half-way between Sodom and the city of Refuge. Orpah might as well never have started as afterward to turn back. Yet multi- tudes have walked in her footsteps. Go among those the least interested in sacred things and you will find that they were once out of the land of Moab. Every one of them prayed right heartily and studied their Bibles and frequented the sanctuary, but Lot's wife looked back wistfully to Sodom, and Orpah retreated from the company of Ruth and Naomi. It is an im- pressive thought that after Orpah had gone so far as actually to look over into the land of Bethlehem she turned back and died in Moab. Again : Let our subject impress upon us the truth that those who have once felt it their duty to leave their natural state cannot give up their duty and go back to hardness of heart without a struggle. After Orpah had thoroughly made up her mind to go back to the place from which she started, she went through the sad scene of parting with Ruth and Naomi. My text says, " They lifted up their voice and wept." Ah, my hearers, it requires more decision and persever- ance to stay away from the kingdom of God than to enter it. Although she did not know it, Orpah passed through a greater struggle in turning back into the land of Moab than would have been necessary to take her clear through to Bethlehem. Suppose you that those persons who have remained in their evil ways have had no struggle? Why, they have been obliged to fight every inch of their way. The road to death is not such easy traveling as some ministers have been accustomed to describe it. From beginning to end it is fighting against the sharp sword of the Spirit. It is climbing over the cross. It is wading through the 156 VOL. xi. Orpah's Retreat deep blood of the Son of God. It is scaling mountains of privilege. It is wading through lakes of sorrow. It is breaking over communion tables and baptismal fonts and pulpits and Bibles. It is wedging one's self through between pious kindred who stand before and press us back and hold on to us by their prayers even after we have passed them in our headlong downward career. No man ought to think of undertaking to go back into Moab after having come within sight of Bethlehem unless we have a heart that cannot be made to quake, and a sure foot that will not slip among in- finite perils, and an arm that can drive back the Son of God, who stands in the center of the broad road spreading out his arms and shouting into the ear of the thoughtless pilgrim, " Stop! Stop! " We talk about taking up. the cross and following Jesus, but that cross is not half so heavy as the burden which the sinner carries. It is a very solemn thing to be a Christian, but it is a more solemn thing not to be a Christian. There are multitudes who, afraid of the self-denials of the Christian, rush into the harder self- denials of the unbelievers. Any yoke but Christ's, how- ever tight and galling! Orpah goes back to her idolatries, but she returns weeping; and all who follow her will find the same sorrows. Just in proportion as Gospel advantages have been numerous will be the disturbance of the heart that will not come to Christ. The Bible says, in regard to the place where Christ was buried, " In the midst of the garden there was a sepulchre ; " and in the midst of the most flowery enjoyments of the unpardoned there is a chilliness of death. Although they may pull out the arrows that strike their soul from the Almighty's quiver, there re- main a sting and a smarting. If men wrench them- selves away from Christ they will bear the mark of his hand by which he would have rescued them. The VOL. xi. 157 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage pleasures of the world may give temporary relief from the upbraidings of conscience, but are like stupefying drugs that dull the pain only temporarily. Ahab has a great kingdom, and you would think he ought to be happy with his courtiers and his chariots and palaces; yet he goes to bed sick, because Naboth will not sell him his vineyard. Haman is prime minister of the greatest nation in the world; yet one poor man, who will not bow the head, makes him utterly miserable. Herod monopolizes the most of the world's honor, and yet is thrown into a rage because they say a little child is born in Bethlehem who may after a while dis- pute his authority. Byron conquered the world with his pen, and yet said that he felt more unhappiness from the criticism of the most illiterate reader than he experienced pleasure from the praise of all the talented. My friends, there is no solid happiness in anything but religion. I care not how bright a home Orpah has in Moab, when she turns away from duty she turns away from peace. Amid the bacchanalia of Belshaz- zar's feast and the glittering of chalices, there always will come out a hand- writing on the wall, the fearfully ominous " Tekel," weighed in the balances and found wanting. When you can reap harvests off bare rocks, and gather balm out of nightshade, and make sunlight sleep in the heart of sepulchers, and build a firm house on a rocking billow, then an unpardoned soul can find firm enjoyment amid its transgressions. Then can Orpah go back to Moab without weeping. Again: This subject teaches that a religious choice and the want of it frequently divide families. Ruth and Orpah and Naomi were tenderly attached. They were all widows, and their lives had been united by a baptism of tears. In the fire of trial their af- fections had been forged. Together they were so pleasantly united, you can hardly imagine them sepa- 158 VOL. xi. Orpah's Retreat rated. Yet a fatal line is drawn dividing them from each other, perhaps forever. Naomi cannot live in a heathen country. She must go into Bethlehem, that there among the pious she may worship the true God. Ruth makes a similar choice, but Orpah rebels. " And they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her." The history of this family of Elimelech is the history of many families of this day. How often it is that in a circle of relatives, while they look alike and walk alike and talk alike, there is a great difference. Out- wardly united in the affectional relations of this life, they are separated in the most important respects. Some now are the children of light, and others the children of darkness. These are alive in Christ, and those are dead in sin. Ruth in the land of Bethle- hem, Orpah in Moab. Of the same family are David and Solomon, worshipers of the Most High God, and Adonijah and Absalom, who live and die the enemies of all righteousness. Belonging to the same family were the holy and devout Eli and the reckless Phine- has and Hophni. Jonathan Edwards, the good, and Pierrepont Edwards, the bad, belonged to the same family. Aaron Burr, the dissolute, had a most excel- lent father. Dying, yet immortal hearer, by the solem- nity of the parental and filial and conjugal relation, by the sacredness of the family hearth, by the honor of the family name, by the memory of departed kindred, I point out this parting of Ruth and Orpah. Again: This subject suggests to me two of the prominent reasons why people refuse the kingdom of Christ. There may have been many other reasons why Orpah left her sister and mother-in-law, and went back home, but there were two reasons which I think were more prominent than the rest. She had been brought up in idolatries. She loved the heathen VOL. xi. 159 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage gods which her ancestors had worshiped, and, though these blocks of wood and stone could not hear, she thought they could hear, and, though they could not see, she thought they could see, and, though they could not feel, she thought they could feel. A new religion had been brought to her attention. She had married a godly man. She must often have heard her mother-in-law talk of the God of Israel. She was so much shaken in her original belief that she con- cluded to leave her idolatries, but, coming to the mar- gin of the land of Bethlehem, her determination failed her, and speedily she returned to her gods. This is the very reason why multitudes of persons never be- come Christians. They cannot bear to give up their gods. Business is the American Juggernaut that crushes more men than the car of the Hindoos. To it they say their morning and evening prayers. A little of Christ's religion may creep into the Sabbath, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the days devoted to this American idol. Every hour there is a sacrifice on the altar. Home duties, health of body, manly strength and im- mortal affections must all burn in this holocaust. Men act as though they could take their bonds and mortgages and saws and axes and trowels and day- books with them into heaven. There are many who have no unholy thirst for gold, yet who are devoting themselves to their worldly occupations with a ruin- ous intensity. Men of the stock exchange, men of the yardstick, men of the saw, men of the trowel, men of the day-book, what will become of you, if unfor- given, in the great day when there are no houses to build, and no goods to sell, and no bargains to make ? It is possible to devote one's self even to a lawful call- ing until it becomes sinful. There is no excuse on the earth or under the earth for the neglect of our 160 VOL. xi. Orpah's Retreat deathless spirit. Lydia was a seller of purple, yet she did not allow her occupation to keep her from becoming a Christian. Daniel was secretary of the State and attorney-general in the empire of Baby- lon, yet three times a day he found time to pray with his face toward Jerusalem. The man who has no time to attend to religion will have no time to enter heaven. But there are others who, while their worldly oc- cupation has no particular fascination over them, are entirely absorbed in the gains that come to that occu- pation. This is the worship of Mammon. The jingle of dollars and cents is the only litany they care for. Though in the last day the earth itself will not be worth a farthing, a heap of ashes scattered in the whirlwind, they are now giving their time and eter- nity for the acquisition of so much of it as you might at last hold in the hollow of one hand. The American Indian who gave enough land to make a State out of for a string of beads, made a princely bargain com- pared with the speculation of that man who gains the whole world and loses his own soul. How much comfort do the men take who died unforgiven ten years ago, leaving large fortunes to their heirs ? Do they ever come up to count the gold they hoarded or walk through the mansions they built? Though they could have bought an empire, they have not now as much money as you have this moment in your pocket. Solomon looked upon his palace and the grounds surrounding it, pools rimmed with gold, and circling roads along which, at times, rushed his fourteen hun- dred chariots, while under the outbranching syca- mores and cedars walked the apes and peacocks, which by the navy of Hiram had been brought from Tarshish, and from the window curtains with em- broidered gold and purple through which came out VOL. xi. 161 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage the thrill of harps and psalteries mingling with the song of the waters. When Solomon saw that all these luxuries of sight and sound had been purchased by his wealth, he broke forth in the exclamation, " Money answereth all things." But we cannot re- ceive it as literal. It cannot still the voice of con- science. It cannot drown the sorrows of the soul. It cannot put a bribe in the hand of death. It can- not unlock the gate of heaven. The tower of Siloam fell and killed eighteen of its admirers, but this idol to whose worship the exchanges and banks and cus- tom-houses of the world have been dedicated, will fall and crush to death its thousands. But I cannot enumerate the idolatries to which men give them- selves. They are kept by them from a religious life. " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," and the first thing that Christ does when he comes into the tem- ple of the soul is to drive out the exchangers. But it was not only the gods of Moab that made Orpah leave her sister and mother-in-law and turn back. She doubtless had a dread of the hardship to which they would be exposed on the journey to Beth- lehem, and Orpah was not alone in the fear. Doubt- less some of you have been appalled and driven back by the self-denials of the Christian life. The taunt of the world, the charge of hypocrisy which they would sometimes be obliged to confront, has kept many away from the land of Bethlehem. They spend their life in counting the cost and, because a Christian life demands so much courage and faith, they dare not begin to build. Perhaps they are courageous in every other respect. They are not timid in presence of any danger except that of trusting in the infinite mercy of Christ. The sheep are more afraid of the shepherd than of the wolves. They shrink away from the pres- 162 VOL. xi. Orpah's Retreat ence of Christ as though he were a tyrant rather than a friend who sticketh closer than a brother. They feel more safe in the ranks of the enemy, where they must suffer infinite defeat, than in the army of Christ, which shall be more than conquerors, through him that hath loved them. Men shiver and tremble be- fore religion as though they were commanded to throw their life away, as though it were a surrender of honor and manliness and reason and self-respect and all that is worth keeping. What has God ever done that his mercy should be doubted? Was there ever a sorrow of his frailest child that he did not pity? Was there ever a soul that he left unhelped in the darkness? Was there ever a martyr that he did not strengthen in the flames ? Was there ever a dying man to whose relief he did not come at the cry of " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Aye, my soul, what has God done that so basely thou hast doubted him? Did he make the whole earth a desert ? Are all the skies dark and storm-swept? Is life all sickness? Is the air all plague? Are there nothing but rods and scorpions and furnaces? God knew how many suspicions and unbeliefs men would entertain in regard to him and therefore, after making a multitude of plain and precious promises, he places his hand on his own heart and swears by his own existence : " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth." Why then fight against God? This day the battle rages. Thou art armed with thy sins, thy ingratitude, thy neglects, and Christ is armed against thee, but his weapons are tears, are dying agonies, are calls of mercy, and the battle-cry which he this day sends over thy soul as he rushes toward thee is " save thee from going down to the pit, for I VOL. xi. 163 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage have found a ransom." I would not envy thy victory, O hearer, if thou dost conquer, for what wilt thou do with the weapons thou hast snatched from the armed Redeemer, what with the tears, what with his dying agonies, what with his calls for mercy? Would God that Orpah would get tired of Moab! Would God that Orpah would keep on till she reaches Bethle- hem! 164 VOL. xi. THE BEAUTIFUL GLEANER Ruth, 2:3: " And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the fiejd belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech." THE BEAUTIFUL GLEANER Ruth, 2:3: " And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech." The time that Ruth and Naomi arrive at Bethle- hem is harvest time. It was the custom commanded by Moses when a sheaf fell from a load in the har- vest-field for the reapers to refuse to gather it up; that was to be left for the poor who might happen to come along that way. If there were handfuls of grain scattered across the field after the main harvest had been reaped, instead of raking it, as farmers do now, it was, by the custom of the land, left in its place, so that the poor, coming along that way, might glean it and get their bread. But, you say, " What is the use of all these harvest-fields to Ruth and Naomi ? Naomi is too old and feeble to go out and toil in the sun; and can you expect that Ruth, the young and the beautiful, should tan her cheeks and blister her hands in the harvest-field?" Boaz owns a large farm, and he goes out to see the reapers gather in the grain. Coming there, right behind the swarthy, sun-browned reapers, he beholds a beautiful woman gleaning a woman more fit to bend to a harp, or sit upon a throne, than to stoop among the sheaves. That was an eventful day! It was love at first sight. Boaz forms an attachment for the womanly gleaner an attachment full of undying interest to the Church of God in all ages ; while Ruth, with an ephah, or nearly a bushel of barley, goes home to Naomi to tell her the successes and adventures of VOL. xi. 167 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage the day. That Ruth, who left her native land of Moab in darkness, and traveled so far impelled by an un- dying affection for her mother-in-law, is in the har- vest-field of Boaz, is affianced to one of the best fam- ilies in Judah, and becomes in after time the ances- tress of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory ! Out of so dark a night did there ever dawn so bright a morn- ing? I learn, in the first place, from this subject how trouble develops character. It was bereavement, pov- erty and exile that developed, illustrated and an- nounced to all ages the sublimity of Ruth's character. That is a very unfortunate man who has no trouble. It was sorrow that made John Bunyan the better dreamer, and Dr. Young the better poet, and O'Con- nell the better orator, and Bishop Hall the better preacher, and Havelock the better soldier, and Kitto the better encyclopedist, and Ruth the better daugh- ter-in-law. I once asked an aged man in regard to his pastor, who was a brilliant man, " Why is it that your pastor, so very brilliant, seems to have so little heart and tenderness in his sermons ? " " Well," he replied, " the reason is, our pastor has never had any trouble. When misfortune comes upon him, his style will be different." After a while the Lord took a child out of that pastor's house ; and though the preacher was just as brilliant as he was before, oh, the warmth, the tenderness of his discourses! The fact is, that trouble is a great educator. You see sometimes a musician sit down at an instrument, and his execu- tion is cold and formal and unfeeling. The reason is that all his life he has been prospered. But let mis- fortune or bereavement come to that man, and he sits down at the instrument, and you discover the pathos in the first sweep of the keys. Misfortune and trials are great educators. A young doctor comes 168 VOL. xi. The Beautiful Gleaner into a sick room where there is a dying child. Per- haps he is very rough in his prescription, and very rough in his manner, and rough in the feeling of the pulse, and rough in his answer to the mother's anx- ious question; but years roll on, and there has been one dead in his own house; and now he conies into the sick room, and with tearful eye he looks at the dying child, and he says, " Oh, how this reminds me of my Henry ! " Trouble, the great educator. Sor- row I see its touch in the grandest painting ; I hear its tremor in the sweetest song; I feel its power in the mightiest argument. Grecian mythology said that the fountain of Hip- pocrene was struck out by the foot of the winged horse, Pegasus, and I have often noticed in life that the brightest and most beautiful fountains of Christian comfort and spiritual life have been struck out by the iron-shod hoof of disaster and calamity. I see Shad- rach's courage best by the flash of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. I see Paul's prowess best when I find him on the foundering ship under the glare of the light- ning in the breakers of Melita. God crowns his children amid the howling of wild beasts and the chopping of blood-splashed guillotine and the crack- ling fires of martyrdom. It took all the hostilities against the Scotch Covenanters and the fury of Lord Claverhouse to develop James Renwick and An- drew Melville and Hugh McKail, the glorious mar- tyrs of Scotch history. It took the stormy sea and the December blast and the desolate New England coast and the war-whoop of savages to show forth the prowess of the Pilgrim Fathers: When amid the storms they sang, And the stars heard, and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthems of the free. VOL. xi. 169 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage It took all our past national distresses, and it takes all our present national sorrows, to lift up our nation on that high career where it will march long after the foreign aristocracies that have mocked and the tyran- nies that have jeered shall be swept down under the Omnipotent wrath of God, who hates despotism, and who, by the strength of his own red right arm, will make all men free. And so it is individually and in the family and in the church and in the world, that through darkness and storm and trouble men, women, churches, nations, are developed. Again: I see in my text the beauty of unfaltering friendship. I suppose there were plenty of friends for Naomi while she was in prosperity ; but of all her acquaintances, how many were willing to trudge off with her toward Judah, when she had to make that lonely journey? One the heroine of my text. One absolutely one. I suppose when Naomi's husband was living, and they had plenty of money, and all things went well, they had a great many callers ; but I suppose that after her husband died, and her property went, and she got old and poor, she was not troubled very much with callers. All the birds that sang in the bower while the sun shone have gone to their nests, now the night has fallen. Oh, these beau- tiful sunflowers that spread out their color in the morning hour ; but they are always asleep when the sun is going down ! Job had plenty of friends when he was the richest man in Uz ; but when his property went and the trials came, then there were none so much pestered him as Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Life often seems to be a mere game, where the successful player pulls down all the other men into his own lap. Let suspicions arise about a man's character, and he becomes like a bank in a panic, and all the 170 VOL. xi. The Beautiful Gleaner imputations rush on him and break down in a day that character which in due time would have had strength to defend itself. There are reputations that have been half a century in building, which go down under some moral exposure, as a vast temple is con- sumed by the touch of a sulphurous match. A hog can uproot a century plant. In this world, so full of heartlessness and hypoc- risy, how thrilling it is to find some friend as faithful in days of adversity as in days of prosperity ! David had such a friend in Hushai. The Jews had such a friend in Mordecai, who never forgot their cause. Paul had such a friend in Onesiphorus, who visited him in jail. Christ had such in the Marys, who adhered to him on the cross. Naomi had such a one in Ruth, who cried out : " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to re- turn from following after thee ; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried ; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." Again : I learn from this subject that paths which open in hardship and darkness often come out in places of joy. When Ruth started from Moab toward Jerusalem, to go along with her mother-in-law, I sup- pose the people said, " What a foolish creature to go away from her father's house, to go off with a poor 'old woman toward the land of Judah! They won't live to get across the desert. They will be lost in the mountains, or the jackals of the wilderness will de- stroy them." It was a very dark morning when Ruth started off with Naomi; but behold her in my text in the harvest-field of Boaz, to be affianced to one of the lords of the land, and become one of the grand- mothers .of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. And so VOL. xi.' 171 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage it often is that a path which starts very darkly ends very brightly. When you started out for heaven, oh, how dark was the hour of conviction how Sinai thundered, and devils tormented, and the darkness thickened! All the sins of your life pounced upon you, and it was the darkest hour you ever saw when you first found out your sins. After a while you went into the harvest-field of God's mercy; you began to glean in the fields of divine promise, and you had more sheaves than you could carry, as the voice of God ad- dressed you, saying : " Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sins are cov- ered." A very dark starting in conviction, a very bright ending in the pardon and the hope and the triumph of the Gospel. So, very often in our worldly business or in our spiritual career, we start off on a very dark path. We must go. The flesh may shrink back, but there is a voice within or a voice from above, saying : " You must go," and we have to drink the gall, and we have to carry the cross, and we have to traverse the desert, and we are pounded and flailed of misrepresentation and abuse, and we have to urge our way through ten thousand obstacles that must be overcome by our own right arm. We have to ford the river, we have to climb the mountain, we have to storm the castle ; but blessed be God, the day of rest and reward will come. On the top of the captured battlements we will shout the victory ; if not in this world, then in that world where there is no gall to drink, no burdens to carry, no battles to fight. How do I know it? Know it! I know it because God says so. " They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes." 172 VOL. xi. The Beautiful Gleaner It was very hard for Noah to endure the scoffing of the people in his day, while he was trying to build the ark, and was every morning quizzed about his old boat that would never be of any practical use; but when the deluge came, and the mountains disappeared like the backs of sea-monsters, and the elements, lashed into fury, clapped their hands over a drowned world, then Noah in the ark rejoiced in his own safety and in the safety of his family, and looked out on the wreck of a ruined earth. Christ, hounded of persecutors, denied a pillow, worse maltreated than the thieves on either side of the cross, human hate smacking its lips in satisfaction after it had been draining his last drop of blood, the sheeted dead bursting from the sepulchers at his crucifixion. Tell me, O Gethsemane and Golgotha, were there ever darker times than those? Like the booming of the midnight sea against the rock, the surges of Christ's anguish beat against the gates of eternity, to be echoed back by all the thrones of heaven and all the dungeons of hell. But the day of reward comes for Christ ; all the pomp and dominion of this world are to be hung on his throne, crowned heads are to bow before him on whose head are many crowns, and all celestial worship is to come up at his feet, like the humming of the forest, like the rushing of the waters, like the thundering of the seas, while all heaven, rising on their thrones, beat time with their scepters. " Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! Hallelujah, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ!" That song of love, now low and far, Ere long shall swell from star to star; That light, the breaking day which tips The golden-spired Apocalypse. VOL. xi. 173 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage Again: I learn from my subject that events which seem to be most insignificant may be momentous. Can you imagine anything more unimportant than the coming of a poor woman from Moab to Judah? Can you imagine anything more trivial than the fact that this Ruth just happened to alight as they say just happened to alight on that field of Boaz? Yet all ages, all generations, have an interest in the fact that she was to become an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all nations and kingdoms must look at that one little incident with a thrill of unspeakable and eternal satisfaction. So it is in your history and in mine ; events that you thought of no importance at all have been of very great moment. That casual con- versation, that accidental meeting you did not think of it again for a long while ; but how it changed all the current of your life! It seemed to be of no importance that Jubal invented rude instruments of music, call- ing them harp and organ ; but they were the introduc- tion of all the world's minstrelsy; and as you hear the vibration of a stringed instrument, even after the fingers have been taken away from it, so all music now of lute and drum and cornet are only the long- continued strains of Jubal's harp and Jubal's organ. It seemed to be a matter of very little importance that Tubal Cain learned the uses of copper and iron; but that rude foundry of ancient days has its echo in the rattle of Birmingham machinery and the roar and bang of factories on the Merrimac. It seemed to be a matter of no importance that Luther found a Bible in a monastery ; but as he opened that Bible, and the brass-bound lids fell back, they jarred everything, from the Vatican to the furthest convent in Germany, and the rustling of the wormed leaves was the sound of the wings of the angel of the Reformation. So the insignificant events of this world seem, after all, 174 VOL. xi. The Beautiful Gleaner to be most momentous. The fact that you came up that street or this street seemed to be of no im- portance to you, and the fact that you went inside of some church may seem to be a matter of very great insignificance to you, but you may find it the turning point in your history. Again : I see in my subject an illustration of the beauty of female industry. Behold Ruth toiling in the harvest-field under the hot sun, or at noon tak- ing plain bread with the reapers, or eating the parched corn which Boaz handed to her. The customs of so- ciety, of course, have changed, and without the hard- ships and exposure to which Ruth was subjected, every intelligent woman will find something to do. I know there is a sickly sentimentality on this subject. In some families there are persons of no practical ser- vice to the household or community; and though there are so many woes all around about them in the world, they spend their time languishing over a new pattern, or bursting into tears at midnight over the story of some lover who shot himself! They would not deign to look at Ruth carrying back the barley on her way home to her mother-in-law, Naomi. All this fastidiousness may seem to do very well while they are under the shelter of their father's house ; but when the sharp winter of misfortune comes, what of these butterflies ? Persons under indulgent parentage may get upon themselves habits of indolence ; but when they come out into practical life, their soul will recoil with disgust and chagrin. They will feel in their hearts what the poet so severely satirized when he said: Folks are so awkward, things so impolite, They're elegantly pained from morn till night. Through that gate of indolence, how many men and women have marched, useless on earth, to a de- VOL. xi. 175 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage stroyed eternity! Spinola said to Sir Horace Vere: " Of what did your brother die ? " " Of having noth- ing to do," was the answer. " Ah ! " said Spinola, "that's enough to kill any general of us." Can it be possible in this world, where there is so much suffering to be alleviated, so much darkness to be en- lightened, and so many burdens to be carried that there is any person who cannot find anything to do ? Madame de Stae'l did a world of work in her time; and one day, while she was seated amid instruments of music, all of which she had mastered, and amid manu- script books, which she had written, some one said to her, " How do you find time to attend to all these things ? " " Oh," she replied, " these are not the things I am proud of. My chief boast is in the fact that I have seventeen trades, by any one of which I could make a livelihood if necessary." And if in secular spheres there is so much to be done, in spiritual work how vast the field! How many dying all around about us without one word of comfort! We want more Abigails, more Hannahs, more Rebeccas, more Marys, more Deborahs consecrated body, mind, soul to the Lord who bought them. Once more I learn from my subject the value of gleaning. Ruth going into that harvest-field might have said : " There is a straw, and there is a straw, but what is a straw? I can't get any barley for my- self or my mother-in-law out of these separate straws." Not so said beautiful Ruth. She gathered two straws, and she put them together, and more straws, until she got enough to make a sheaf. Put- ting that down, she went and gathered more straws, until she had another sheaf and another and another and another, and then she brought them all together, and she threshed them out, and she had an ephah of 176 VOL. xi. The Beautiful Gleaner barley, nigh a bushel. Oh, that we might all be gleaners ! Elihu Burritt learned many things while toiling in a blacksmith's shop. Abercrombie, the world-re- nowned philosopher, was a philosopher in Scotland, and he got his philosophy, or the chief part of it, while, as a physician, he was waiting for the door of the sick-room to open. Yet how many there are in this day who say they are so busy they have no time for mental or spiritual improvement ; the great duties of life cross the field like strong reapers, and carry off all the hours, and there is only here and there a frag- ment left, that is not worth gleaning. You could go into the busiest day and busiest week of your life and find golden opportunities, which gathered, might at last make a whole sheaf for the Lord's garner. It is the stray opportunities and the stray privileges which, taken up and bound together and beaten out, will at last fill you with rejoicing. There are a few moments left worth the gleaning. Now, Ruth, to the field! May each one have a measure full and running over ! Ho! you gleaners, to the field! And if there be in your household an aged one or a sick relative that is not strong enough to come forth and toil in this field, then let Ruth take home to feeble Naomi this sheaf of the gleanings : " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." May the Lord God of Ruth and Naomi be our portion for- ever! VOL. XI. 177 THE GRANDMOTHER II Tim., i: 5: "The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois." THE GRANDMOTHER II Tim., i: 5: "The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois." In this affectionate letter which Paul, the old min- ister, is writing to Timothy, the young minister, the family record is brought out. Paul practically says : " Timothy, what a good grandmother you had ! You ought to be better than most folks, you had not only a good mother, but a good grandmother. Two pre- ceding generations of piety ought to give you a mighty push in the right direction." The fact was that Timothy needed encouragement. He was in poor health, having a weak stomach, and was dyspep- tic, and Paul prescribed for him a tonic, " a little wine, for thy stomach's sake " not much wine, but a lit- tle wine, and only as a medicine. And if the wine then had been as much adulterated with logwood and strychnine as our modern wines, he would not have prescribed any. But Timothy, not strong physically, is encouraged spiritually by the recital of grandmotherly excellence, Paul hinting to him, as I now hint to you, that 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 upon children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The world is wofully in want of a table of statistics in regard to what is the protractedness and immensity of influence of one good woman in the church and world. We have accounts of how much evil has been wrought by Margaret, the mother of criminals, who VOL. xi. 181 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage lived nearly a hundred years ago, and of how many hundreds of criminals her descendants furnished for the penitentiary and the gallows, and how many hun- dreds of thousands of dollars they cost this country in their arraignment and prison support, as well as in the property they burglarized or destroyed. But will not some one with brain comprehensive enough and heart warm enough and pen keen enough come out and give us the facts in regard to some 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 descend- ants, and how many asylums and colleges and churches they built, and how many millions of dol- lars they contributed for humanitarian and Christian purposes ? The good women whose tombstones were planted in the eighteenth century are more alive for good in the nineteenth century than they were before, as the good women of this nineteenth century will be more alive for good in the twentieth century than now. Mark you, I have no idea that the grand- mothers were any better than their granddaughters. You cannot get very old people to talk much about how things were when they were boys and girls. They have a reticence and a non-committalism which makes me think they feel themselves to be the custodians of the reputation of their early comrades. While our dear old folks are rehearsing the follies of the present, if you put them on the witness-stand and cross-ex- amine them as to how things were seventy years ago, the silence becomes oppressive. A celebrated Frenchman by the name of Volney visited this country in 1796, and he says of woman's diet in those times : " If a premium was offered for a regimen most destructive to health, none could be devised more efficacious for these ends than that in 182 VOL. xi. The Grandmother use among these people." That eclipses our lobster salad at midnight. Everybody talks about the dis- sipations of modern society, and how womanly health goes down under it, but it was worse a hundred years ago, for the chaplain of a French regiment in our Revolutionary War wrote in 1782, in his book of American women, saying : " They are tall and well- proportioned, their features are generally regular, their complexions are generally fair and without color. At twenty years of age the women have no longer the freshness of youth. At thirty or forty they are decrepit." In 1812 a foreign consul wrote a book en- titled, " A Sketch of the United States at the Com- mencement of the Present Century," and he says of the women of those times, " At the age of thirty all their charms have disappeared." One glance at the portraits of the women a hundred years ago and their style of dress makes us wonder how they ever got their breath. All this makes me think that the ex- press rail-train is no more an improvement on the old canal-boat, or the telegraph no more an improve- ment on the old-time saddlebags, than the women of our day are an improvement on the women of the last century. But, notwithstanding that those times were so much worse than ours, there was a glorious race of godly women seventy and a hundred years ago, who held the world back from sin and lifted it toward virtue, and without their exalted and sanctified in- fluence the last good influence would have perished from the earth before this. Indeed, all over this land there are seated to-day not so much in churches, for many of them are too feeble to come a great many aged grandmothers. They sometimes feel that the world has gone past them, and they have an idea that they are of little account. Their head sometimes VOL. xi. 183 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage gets aching from the racket of the grandchildren downstairs or in the next room. They steady them- selves by the banisters as they go up and down. When they get a cold, it hangs on to them longer than it used to. They cannot bear to have the grand- children punished even when they deserve it, and have so relaxed their ideas of family discipline that they would spoil all the youngsters of the household by too great leniency. These old folks are the con- fidantes when great troubles come, and there is a calming and soothing power in the touch of an aged hand that is almost supernatural. They feel they are almost through with the journey of life, and read the old Book more than they used to, hardly know- ing which most they enjoy, the Old Testament or the New, and often stop and dwell tearfully over the family record half way between. We hail them to- day, whether in the house of God or at the home- stead. Blessed is that household that has in it a grandmother Lois. Where she is, angels are hover- ing round, and God is in the room. May her last days be like those lovely autumnal days that we call Indian Summer. I never knew the joy of having a grandmother; that is the disadvantage of being the youngest child of the family. The elder members only have that benediction. But though she went up out of this life before I began it, I have heard of her faith in God, that brought all her children into the kingdom and two of them into the ministry, and then brought all her grandchildren into the kingdom, myself the last and least worthy. Is it not time that you and I do two things, swing open a picture-gallery of the wrinkled faces and stooped shoulders of the past, and call down from their heavenly thrones the godly grandmothers, to give them our thanks, and then per- 184 VOL. xi. The Grandmother suade 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 unexplored sub- ject. You often hear about your influence 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 2000, upon the year 4000, if the world lasts so long? The world stood four thousand years before Christ came; it is not unreasonable 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 thirty thousand, 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 names filled a scroll of hundreds of thousands, will some angel from heaven to whom is given the capac- ity to calculate the number of the stars of heaven and the sands of the seashore, step down and tell us how many descendants you will have in the four thou- sandth year of the world's possible continuance ? Do not let the grandmothers any longer think that they are retired, and sit clear back out of sight from the world, feeling that they have no relation to it. The mothers of the last century are to-day in the senates, the parliaments, the palaces, the pulpits, the banking-houses, the professional chairs, the prisons, the almshouses, the company of midnight brigands, the cellars, the ditches of this country. You have been thinking about the importance of having VOL. xi. 185 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage the right influence upon one nursery. You have been thinking about the importance of getting those two little feet on the right path. You have been thinking of your child's destiny for the next eighty years, if it should pass on to be an octogenarian. That is well, but my subject sweeps a thousand years, a million years, a quadrillion of years. I cannot stop at one cradle; I am looking at the cradles that reach all round the world and across all time. I am not talk- ing of mother Eunice ; I am talking of grandmother Lois. The only way you can tell the force of a current is by sailing up-stream; or the force of an ocean wave, by running the ship against it. Running along with it we cannot appreciate the force. In estimating maternal influence we generally run along with it down the stream of time, and so we do not understand the full force. Let us come up to it from the eternity side, after it has been working on for centuries, and see all the good it has done and all the evil it has accom- plished multiplied in magnificent or appalling com- pound interest. The difference between that mother's influence on her children now, and the influence when it has been multiplied in hundreds of thousands of lives, is the difference between the Mississippi river, way up at the top of the continent, starting from the little Lake Itasca, seven miles long and one wide, and its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, where navies might ride. Between 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 Terri- tories 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 toward the one cradle, 186 VOL. xi. The Grandmother and we find ten thousand tributaries of influence pour- ing in and pouring down. But it is, after all, one great river of power rolling on and rolling forever. Who can fathom it? Who can bridge it? Who can stop it? Had not mothers better be intensifying their pray- ers? Had they not better be elevating by their exam- ple? Had they not better be rousing themselves with the consideration that by their faithfulness or neglect they are starting an influence which will be stupendous after the last mountain 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 feet square in size, which is thought, by the natives, to decide the world's continuance. An angel with robe spun from zephyrs is once a century to descend and sweep the hem of that robe across the granite, and when, by that attrition the column is worn away, they say time will end. But, by that process, that granite column would be worn out of existence before a mother's influence will begin to give way. If a mother tell a child that if 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 that 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 have expired. If a mother promise a child a reward for good behav- ior, and after the good behavior forgets to give the reward, the cheat may crop out in some faithlessness half a thousand years further on. If a mother cultivate a child's vanity, and eulogize his curls, and extol the night-black or sky-blue or nut-brown of the child's VOL. xi. 187 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage eyes, and call out in his presence the admiration of spectators, pride and arrogance may be prolonged after half a dozen family records have been obliterated. If a mother express doubt about some statement of the Holy Bible in a child's presence, long after the gates of this historical era have closed and the gates of another era have opened, the result may be seen in a champion blasphemer. But, on the other hand, if a mother walking with a child see a suffering one by the wayside and says: " My child, give that ten-cent piece to that lame boy," the result may be seen on the other side of the following century in some George Muller building a whole 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 industry and kind- ness and sympathy and self-sacrifice, long after the mother is gone, and the child has gone, and the letter- ing on both the tombstones 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, thundering White- fields, 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 generation, just as the Ten Commandments, speaking of the visitation of God on families, says nothing about the second generation, but entirely skips the second and speaks of the third and fourth genera- tions : " Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the third and fourth generations of them that hate me." Parental influence, right and wrong, may jump over a generation, but it will come down further on, as sure as you sit there and I stand here. Timothy's ministry 188 VOL. xi. The Grandmother was projected by his grandmother Lois. There are men and women here, the sons and daughters of the Christian church, who are such as a result of the con- secration of great-great-grandmothers. Why, who do you think the Lord is? You talk as though his mem- ory was weak. He can no easier remember a prayer five minutes than he can five centuries. This explains what we often see some man or woman distinguished for benevolence when the father and mother were distinguished for penuriousness; or you see some young man or woman with a bad father and a hard mother come out gloriously for Christ, and make the church sob and shout and sing under their exhortations. 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 explain it to you if you will fetch me the old family Bible containing the full record. Let some septuagenarian look with me upon the pages of births and marriages, and tell me who that woman was with the old-fashioned name of Jemima or Betsy or Mehitabel. Ah, there .she is, the old grandmother or great-grandmother, who had enough religion to saturate a century. There she is, the dear old soul, grandmother Lois. In; beautiful Greenwood there is the resting-place of George W. Bethune, once a minister of Brooklyn Heights, his name never spoken among intelligent Americans with- out suggesting two things eloquence and evangel- ism. In the same tomb sleeps his grandmother, Isa- bella Graham, who was the chief inspiration of his ministry. You are not surprised at the poetry and pathos and pulpit power of the grandson when you read of the faith and devotion of his wonderful ances- tress. When you read this grandmother's letter, in which she poured out her widowed soul in longings VOL. xi. 189 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage for a son's salvation, you will not wonder that succeed- ing generations have been blessed: NEW YORK, May 20, 1791. This day my only son left me in bitter wringings of heart; he is again launched on the ocean, God's ocean. The Lord saved him from shipwreck, brought him to my home and allowed me once more to indulge my affections over him. He has been with me but a short time, and ill have I im- proved it; he is gone from my sight, and my heart bursts with tumultuous grief. Lord, have mercy on the widow's son, " the only son of his mother." I ask nothing in all this world for him; I repeat my peti- tion save his soul alive, give him salvation from sin. It is not the danger of the seas that distresses me; it is not the hardships he must undergo; it is not the dread of never see- ing him more in this world; it is because I cannot discern the fulfillment of the promise in him, I cannot discern the new birth nor its fruit, but every symptom of captivity to Satan, the world and self-will. This, this is what distresses me; and in connection with this, his being shut out from ordinances at a distance from Christians; shut up with those who forget God, profane his name and break his Sabbaths; men who often live and die like beasts, yet are accountable creatures, who must answer for every moment of time and every word, thought and action. O, Lord, many wonders hast thou shown me; thy ways of dealing with me and mine have not been common ones; add this wonder to the rest. Call, convert, regenerate and establish a sailor in the faith. Lord, all things are possible with thee; glorify thy Son and extend his kingdom by sea and land; take the prey from the strong. I roll him over upon thee. Many friends try to comfort me; miserable comforters are they all. Thou art the God of consolation; only confirm to me thy precious word, on which thou causedst me to hope in the day when thou saidst to me, " Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive." Only let this life be a spiritual life, and I put a blank in thy hand as to all temporal things. I wait for thy salvation. Amen. With such a grandmother would you not Have a right to expect a George W. Bethune? and all the 190 VOL. xi. The Grandmother thousands converted through his ministry may date the saving power back to Isabella Graham. God fill the earth and heavens with such grand- mothers; we must some day go up and thank these dear old souls. Surely, God will let us go up and tell them of the results of their influence. Among our first questions in heaven will be, " Where is grand- mother? " 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 dim of eye through the blinding of earthly tears, and now her eye as clear as heaven, so full of aches and pains once, and now so agile with celestial health, the wrinkles blooming into carnation roses, and her step like the roe on the mountains. Yes, I must see her, my grandmother on my father's side, Mary McCoy, de- scendant of the Scotch. When I first spoke to an audience in Glasgow, Scotland, and felt somewhat dif- fident, being a stranger, I began by telling them that my grandmother was a Scotchwoman, and then went up a shout of welcome which made me feel as easy as I do here. I must see her. You must see these women of the early nineteenth century and of the eighteenth century, the answer of whose prayers is in your welfare to-day. God bless all the aged women up and down the land and in all lands! What a happy thing, Pompo- nius Atticus, to say, when making the funeral address of his mother: " Though I have resided with her sixty-seven years, I was never once reconciled to her, because there never happened the least discord be- tween us, and consequently, there was no need of reconciliation." Make it as easy for the old folks as you can. When they are sick, get for them the best doctors. Give them your arm when the streets are slippery. Stay with them all the time you can. Go VOL. xi. 191 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage home and see the old folks. Find the place for them in the hymn-book. Never be ashamed if they prefer styles of apparel a little antiquated. Never say any- thing that implies that they are in the way. Make the road for the last mile as smooth as you can. How you will miss her when she is gone. I would give the house from over my head to see my mother. I have so many things I would like to tell her, things that have happened in all these years since she went 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, do not forget your mother Eunice, and do not forget your grand- mother Lois. And hand down to others this patri- mony of blessing. Pass along the coronets. Make religion an heirloom from generation to generation. Mothers of America, consecrate yourselves to God, and you will help consecrate all the ages follow- ing! Do not dwell so much on your hardships that you miss your chance of wielding an influence that shall look down upon you from the towers of an end- less future. This 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 hand of Christ, the shining gates will soon swing open. Do you not see the sickly pallor on the sky? That is the pallor on the cold cheek of the dying night. Do ycu not see the brightening of the clouds? That is the flush on the warm forehead of the morning. Cheer up, you are coming within sight of the Celestial City. Cairo, capital of Egypt, was called " City of Vic- tory." Athens, capital of Greece, was called " City of the Violet Crown"; Baalbeck was called " City of the Sun " ; London was called " The City of Masts." Lucia's imaginary metropolis beyond the Zodiac was 192 VOL. xi. The Grandmother called " The City of Lanterns." But the city to which you journey hath all these in one, the victory, the crowns, the masts of those that have been harbored after the storm. Aye, all but the lanterns and the sun, because they have no need of any other light, since the Lamb is the light thereof. VCL. xt. 193 THE OLD FOLKS' VISIT Gen., 45: 28: " I will go and see him before I die." THE OLD FOLKS' VISIT Gen., 45: 28: "I will go and see him before I die." Jacob had long since passed the hundred year mile- stone. In those times people were distinguished for longevity. In the centuries after persons lived to great age. Galen, the most celebrated physician of his time, took so little of his own medicine that he lived to one hundred and forty years. A man of undoubted veracity on the witness-stand in England swore that he remembered an event one hundred and fifty years before. Lord Bacon speaks of a countess who had cut three sets of teeth, and died at one hundred and forty years. Joseph Crele, of Pennsylvania, lived one hun- dred and forty years. In 1857 a book was printed con- taining the names of thirty-seven persons who lived one hundred and forty years, and the names of eleven persons who lived one hundred and fifty years. Among the grand old people of whom we have record was Jacob, the shepherd of the text. But he had a bad lot of boys. They were jealous and am- bitious and every way unprincipled. Joseph, however, seemed to be an exception; but he had been gone many years, and the probability was that he was dead. As sometimes now in a house you will find kept at the table a vacant chair, a plate, a knife, a fork, for some deceased member of the family, so Jacob kept in his heart a place for his beloved Joseph. There sits the old man, the flock of one hundred and forty years in their flight having alighted long enough to leave the marks of their claw on forehead and cheek and temple. His long beard snows down over his chest. His eyes VOL. xi. 197 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage are somewhat dim, and he can see further when they are closed than when they are open, for he can see clear back into the time when beautiful Rachel, his wife, was living, and his children shook the Oriental abode with their merriment. The centenarian is sitting dreaming over the past when he hears a wagon rumbling to the front door. He gets up and goes to the door to see who has ar- rived, and his long absent sons from Egypt come in and announce to him that Joseph instead of being dead is living in an Egyptian palace, with all the in- vestiture of prime minister, next to the king in the mightiest empire of all the world! The news was too sudden and too glad for the old man, and his cheeks whiten, and he has a dazed look, and his staff falls out of his hand, and he would have dropped had not the sons caught him and led him to a lounge and put cold water on his face, and fanned him a little. In that half delirium the old man mumbles some- thing about his son, Joseph. He says: "You don't mean Joseph, do you? my dear son who has been dead so long. You don't mean Joseph, do you? " But after they had fully resuscitated him, and the news was confirmed, the tears begin the winding way down the cross roads of the wrinkles, and the sunken lips of the old man quiver, and he brings his bent fingers together as he says : " Joseph is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die." It did not take the old man a great while to get ready, I warrant you. He put on the best clothes that the shepherd's wardrobe could afford. He got into the wagon, and though the aged are cautious and like to ride slow, the wagon did not get along fast enough for this old man; and when the wagon with the old man met Joseph's chariot coming down to meet him, and Joseph got out of the chariot and got 198 VOL. xi. The Old Folks' Visit into the wagon and threw his arms around his father's neck, it was an antithesis of royalty and rusticity, of simplicity and pomp, of filial affection and paternal love, which leaves us so much in doubt about whether we had better laugh or cry, that we do both. So Jacob kept the resolution of the text: " I will go and see him before I die." And if our friends, the report- ers, would like to have an appropriate title for this sermon, they might call it " The Old Folks' Visit." What a strong and unfailing thing is parental at- tachment ! Was it not almost time for Jacob to forget Joseph? The hot suns of many summers had blazed on the heath; the river Nile had overflowed and receded, overflowed and receded again and again; the seed had been sown and the harvests reaped; stars rose and set; years of plenty and years of famine had passed on; but the love of Jacob for Joseph in my text is overwhelmingly dra- matic. Oh, that is a cord that is not snapped, though pulled on by many decades! Though when the little child expired the parents may not have been more than twenty-five years of age, and now they are seventy-five, yet the vision of the cradle, and the childr ish face, and the first utterances of the infantile lips are fresh to-day, in spite of the passage of a half century. Joseph was as fresh in Jacob's memory as ever, though at seventeen years of age the boy had disappeared from the old homestead. I found in our family record the story of an infant that had died fifty years before, and I said to my parents : " What is this record, and what does it mean? " Their chief answer was a long, deep sigh. It was yet to them a very tender sorrow. What does that all mean? Why, it means our chil- dren departed are ours yet, and that cord of attach- ment reaching across the years will hold us until it brings us together in the palace, as Jacob and Joseph VOL. xi. 199 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage were brought together. That is one thing that makes old people die happy. They realize it is reunion with those from whom they have long been separated. I am often asked as pastor and every pastor is asked the question " Will my children be children in heaven and forever children?" Well, there was no doubt a great change in Joseph from the time Jacob lost him, and the time when Jacob found him be- tween the boy seventeen years of age and the man in mid-life, his forehead developed with a great business estate ; but Jacob was glad to get back Joseph anyhow, and it did not make much difference to the old man whether the boy looked older or looked younger. And it will be enough joy for that parent if he can get back that son, that daughter, at the gate of heaven, whether the departed loved one shall come a cherub or in full-grown angelhood. There must be a change wrought by that celestial climate and by those su- pernal years, but it will only be from loveliness to more loveliness, and from health to more radiant health. O parent, as you think of the darling panting and white in membranous croup, I want you to know it will be gloriously bettered in that land where there has never been a death and where all the inhabitants will live on in the great future as long as God! Joseph was Jo- seph notwithstanding the palace, and your child will be your child notwithstanding all the raining splen- dors of everlasting noon. What a thrilling visit was that of the old shepherd to the prime minister, Joseph! I see the old country- man seated in the palace looking around at the mir- rors and the fountains and the carved pillars, and oh! how he wishes that Rachel, his wife, was alive and she could have come there with him to see their son in his great house. " Oh," says the old man within himself, " I do wish Rachel could be here to see all this! " I 200 VOL. XI. The Old Folks' Visit visited at the farmhouse of the father of Millard Fill- more when the son was President of the United States, and the octogenarian farmer entertained me until eleven o'clock at night telling me what great things he saw in his son's house at Washington, and how grandly Millard treated him in the White House. The old man's face was illumined with the story until al- most midnight. He had just been visiting his son at the Capital. And I suppose it was something of the same joy that thrilled the heart of the old shepherd as he stood in the palace of the prime minister. It is a great day with you when your old parents come to visit you. Your little children stand around with great, wide-open eyes, wondering how anybody could be so old. The parents cannot stay many days, for they are a little restless, and especially at nightfall, because they sleep better in their own bed; but while they tarry you somehow feel there is a benediction in every room in the house. They are a little feeble, and you make it as easy as you can for them, and you realize they will probably not visit you very often perhaps never again. You go to their room after they have retired at night to see if the lights are properly put out, for the old people understand candle and lamp better than the modern apparatus for illumina- tion. In the morning, with real interest in their health, you ask them how they rested last night. Joseph in the historical scene of the text did not think any more of his father than you do of your parents. The proba- bility is, before they leave your house they half spoil your children with kindnesses. Grandfather and grandmother are more lenient and indulgent to your children than they ever were with you. And what wonders of revelation in the bombasine pocket of the one and the sleeve of the other! Blessed is that home where Christian parents come VOL. XI. 2OI Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage to visit! Whatever may have been the style of the architecture when they came, it is a palace before they leave. If they visit you fifty times, the two most mem- orable visits will be the first and the last. Those two pictures will hang in the hall of your memory while memory lasts, and you will remember just how they looked, and where they sat, and what they said, and at what figure of the carpet, and at what doorsill they parted from you, giving you the final good-by. Do not be embarrassed if your father come to town and he have the manners of the shepherd, and if your mother come to town and there be in her hat no sign of costly millinery. The wife of Emperor Theodosius said a wise thing when she said: " Husband, remem- ber what you lately were, and remember what you are, and be thankful." By this time you all notice what kindly provision Joseph made for his father, Jacob. Joseph did not say: " I can't have the old man around this place. How clumsy he would look climbing up these marble stairs and walking over those mosaics! Then, he would be putting his hands upon some of these fres- coes. People would wonder where that old greenhorn came from. He would shock all the Egyptian court with his manners at table. Besides that, he might get sick on my hands, and he might be querulous, and he might talk to me as though I were only a boy, when I am the second man in all the realm. Of course, he must not suffer, and if there is famine in his country and I hear there is I will send him some provisions; but I can't take a man from Padan-aram and introduce him into this polite Egyptian court. What a nuisance it is have poor relations! " Joseph did not say that, but he rushed out to meet his father with perfect aban- don of affection and brought him up to the palace, and introduced him to the Emperor, and provided for all 202 VOL. XI. The Old Folks' Visit the rest of the father's days, and nothing was too good for the old man while living; and when he was dead, Joseph, with military escort, took his father's remains to the family cemetery at Machpelah and put them down beside Leah, his wife. Would God all children were as kind to their parents ! If the father have large property, and he be wise enough to keep it in his own name, he will be respected by the heirs ; but how often it is when the son finds his father in famine, as Joseph found Jacob in famine, the young people make it very hard for the old man. They are so surprised he eats with a knife instead of a fork. They are chagrined at his antediluvian habits. They are provoked because he cannot hear as well as he used to, and when he asks it over again, and the son has to repeat it, he bawls in the old man's ear: " I hope you hear that! " How long he must wear the old coat or the old hat before they get him a new one! How chagrined they are at his independence of the English grammar! How long he hangs on! Seventy years and not gone yet! Seventy-five years and not gone yet! Eighty years and not gone yet! Will he ever go? They think it of no use to have a doctor in his last sickness, and go up to the drugstore and get a dose of something that makes him worse, and economize on a coffin, and beat the undertaker down to the last point, giving a note for the reduced amount, which they never pay! I have officiated at obsequies of aged people where the family have been so inordinately resigned to Providence that I felt like taking my text from Proverbs : " The eye that mocketh at its father, and refuseth to obey its mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." In other words, such an ingrate ought to have a flock of crows for pall-bearers ! I congratulate you if you have the honor of providing VOL. xi. 203 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage for aged parents. The blessing of the Lord God of Joseph and Jacob will be on you. I rejoice to remember that though my father lived in a plain house the most of his days, he died in a mansion provided by the filial piety of a son who had achieved a fortune. There the octogenarian sat, and the servants waited on him, and there were plenty of horses and plenty of carriages to convey him, and a bower in which to sit on long summer afternoons, dreaming over the past, and there was not a room in the house where he was not welcome, and there were musical instruments of all sorts to regale him; and when life had passed, the neighbors came out and ex- pressed all honor possible, and carried him to the vil- lage Machpelah and put him down beside the Rachel with whom he had lived more than half a century. Share your successes with the old people. The prob- ability is, that the principles they inculcated achieved your fortune. Give them a Christian percentage of kindly consideration. Let Joseph divide with Jacob the pasture fields of Goshen, and the glories of the Egyptian court. And here I would like to sing the praises of the sisterhood who remained unmarried that they might administer to aged parents. The brutal world calls these self-sacrificing ones by ungallant names, and says they are peculiar or angular; but if you had had as many annoyances as they have had, Xanthippe would have been an angel compared with you. It is easier to take care of five rollicking, romping children than one childish old man. Among the best women of these cities are those who allowed the bloom of life to pass away while they were caring for their parents. While other maidens were sound asleep, they were bathing the old man's feet, or tucking up the covers around the invalid mother. While other maidens were in the 204 VOL. xi. The Old Folks' Visit cotillon, they were dancing attendance upon rheuma- tism and spreading plasters for the lame back of the septenarian, and heating catnip tea for insomnia. In almost every circle of our kindred there has been some queen of self-sacrifice to whom jeweled hand was offered in marriage, but who stayed on the old place because of the sense of filial obligation, until the health was gone and the attractiveness of personal presence had vanished. Brutal society may call such an one by a nickname; God calls her daughter, and Heaven calls her saint, and I call her domestic martyr. A half-dozen ordinary women have not as much nobility as could be found in the smallest joint of the little fin- ger of her left hand. Although the world has stood six thousand years, this is the first apotheosis of maidenhood, although in the long line of those who have declined marriage that they might be qualified for some special mission are the names of Anna Ross and Margaret Breckinridge and Mary Shelton and Anna Etheridge and Georgiana Willetts the angels of the battle-fields of Fair Oaks and Lookout Moun-' tain and Chancellorsville and Cooper Shop Hospital; and though single life has been honored by the fact that the three grandest men of the Bible John and Paul and Christ were celibates. Let the ungrateful world sneer at the maiden aunt, but God has a throne burnished for her arrival, and on one side of that throne in Heaven there is a vase containing two jewels, the one brighter than the Kohinoor of London Tower, and the other larger than any diamond ever found in the districts of Golconda the one jewel by the lapidary of the palace cut with the words: "Inasmuch as ye did it to father;" the other jewel by the lapidary of the palace cut with the words: " Inasmuch as ye did it to mother." " Over the hills to the poorhouse " is the exquisite ballad of VOL. xi. 205 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage Will Carleton, who found an old woman who had been turned off by her prosperous sons; but I thank God I may find in my text " Over the hills to the palace." As if to disgust us with unfilial conduct, the Bible presents us the story of Micah, who stole the eleven hundred shekels from his mother, and the story of Absalom, who tried to dethrone his father. But all history is beautiful with stories of filial fidelity. Epaminondas, the warrior, found his chief delight in reciting to his parents his victories. There goes JSneas from burning Troy, on his shoulders Anchises, his father. The Athenians punished with death any unfilial conduct. There goes beautiful Ruth escorting venerable Naomi across the desert amid the howling of the wolves and the barking of the jackals. John Lawrence, burned at the stake in Colchester, was cheered in the flames by his children, who said: "O God, strengthen thy servant and keep thy promise ! " And Christ in the hour of excruciation provided for his old mother. Jacob kept his resolution, " I will go and see him before I die," and a little while after we find them walking the tessellated floor of the palace, Jacob and Joseph, the prime minister proud of the shepherd. I may say in regard to the most of you that your parents have probably visited you for the last time, or will soon pay you such a visit, and I have wondered if they will ever visit you in the King's palace. " Oh," you say, " I am in the pit of sin ! " Joseph was in the pit. " Oh," you say, " I am in the prison of mine iniquity!" Joseph was once in prison. "Oh," you say, " I didn't have a fair chance; I was denied mater- nal kindness ! " Joseph was denied maternal attend- ance. " Oh," you say, " I am far away from the land of my nativity ! " Joseph was far from home. " Oh," you say, "I have been betrayed and exasperated!" 206 VOL. xi. The Old Folks' Visit Did not Joseph's brethren sell him to a passing Ish- maelitish caravan? Yet God brought him to that emblazoned residence; and if you will trust his grace in Jesus Christ you, too, will be empalaced. Oh, what a day that will be when the old folks come from an adjoining mansion in heaven, and find you amid the alabaster pillars of the throne-room and living with the King! They are coming up the steps now, and the epauletted guard of the palace rushes in and says : " Your father's coming, your mother's com- ing! " And when under the arches of precious stones and on the pavement of porphyry you greet each other, the scene will eclipse the meeting on the Goshen high- way, when Joseph and Jacob fell on each other's neck and wept a good while. But oh, how changed the old folks will be! Their cheek smoothed into the flesh of a little child. Their stooped posture lifted into immortal symmetry. Their foot now so feeble, then with the sprightliness of a bounding roe as they shall say to you : " A spirit passed this way from earth and told us that you were wayward and dissipated after we left the world; but you have repented, our prayer has been answered, and you are here ; and as we used to visit you on earth before we died, now we visit you in your new home after our ascension." And father will say, " Mother, don't you see Joseph is yet alive? " and mother will say, " Yes, father, Joseph is yet alive." And then they will talk over their earthly anxieties in regard to you, and the midnight supplications in your behalf, and they will recite to each other the old Scripture pas- sage with which they used to cheer their staggering faith: " I will be a God to thee and thy seed after thee." Oh, the palace, the palace, the palace! That is what Richard Baxter called " The Saint's Ever- lasting Rest." That is what John Bunyan called the VOL. xi. 207 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage " Celestial City." That is Young's " Night Thoughts " turned into morning exultations. That is Gray's " Elegy in a Churchyard " turned to resurrection spectacle. That is the " Cotter's Saturday Night " exchanged for the cotter's Sabbath morning. That is the shepherd of Salisbury Plains amid the flocks on the hills of heaven. That is the famine-struck Padan- aram turned into the rich pasture fields of Goshen. That is Jacob visiting Joseph at the emerald castle. 208 VOL. xi. MARTYRS OF THE NEEDLE Matt., 19: 24: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." MARTYRS OF THE NEEDLE Matt., 19: 24: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." Whether this "eye of the needle" be the small gate at the side of the big gate at the entrance of the wall of the ancient city, as is generally interpreted, or the eye of a needle such as is now handled in sewing a garment, I do not say. In either case it would be a tight thing for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But there are whole caravans of fatigues and hardships going through the eye of the sewing- woman's needle. Very long ago the needle was busy. It was con- sidered honorable for women to ply it in olden time. Alexander the Great stood in his palace showing gar- ments made by his own mother. The finest tapestries at Bayeux were made by the Queen of William the Conqueror. Augustus, the Emperor, would not wear any garments except those that were fashioned by some member of his royal family. So let the needle- woman be respected! The greatest blessing that could have happened to our first parents was being turned out of Eden after they had done wrong. Adam and Eve, in their perfect state, might have got along without work, or only such slight employment as a perfect garden, with no weeds in it, demanded. But, as soon as they had sinned, the best thing for them was to be turned out where they would have to work. We know what a debilitating thing it is for a man to have nothing to do. Good old Ashbel Green, at fourscore years, VOL. XI. 21 1 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmagc when asked why he kept on working, said : "I do so to keep out of mischief." We see that a man who has a large amount of money to start with has no chance. Of the thousand prosperous and honorable men that you know, nine hundred and ninety-nine had to work vigorously at the beginning. But I am now to tell you that industry is just as important for a woman's safety and happiness. The most unhappy women in our communities to-day are those who have no engagements to call them up in the morning ; who, once having risen and breakfasted, lounge through the dull forenoon in slippers down at the heel, and with disheveled hair, reading the latest novel ; and who, having dragged through a wretched forenoon and taken their afternoon sleep; and having spent an hour and a half at their toilet, pick up their card-case and go out to make calls ; and who pass their evenings waiting for somebody to come in and break up the monotony. Arabella Stuart never was im- prisoned in so dark a dungeon as that. There is no happiness for an idle woman. It may be with hand, it may be with brain, it may be with foot ; but work she must, or be wretched forever. The little girls of our families must be started with that idea. The curse of our American society is that our young women are taught that the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, fiftieth, thousandth thing in their life is to get somebody to take care of them. Instead of that the first lesson should be, how under God, they may take care of themselves. The simple fact is that a majority of them do have to take care of themselves, and that, too, after having, through the false notions of their parents, wasted the years in which they ought to have learned how successfully to maintain themselves. We now and here declare the inhumanity, cru- 212 VOL. XI, Martyrs of the Needle elty and outrage of that father and mother who pass their daughters into womanhood, having given them no facility for earning their livelihood. Madame de Stael said: "It is not these writings that I am proud of, but the fact that I have facility in ten occupations, in any one of which I could make a livelihood." You say you have a fortune to leave them. O man and woman ! have you not learned that, like vul- tures, like hawks, like eagles, riches have wings and fly away? Though you should be successful in leav- ing a competency behind you, the trickery of execu- tors may swamp it in a night ; or some elders or dea- cons of our churches may get up a fraudulent com- pany, and induce your orphans to put their money into it, and if it be lost, prove to them that it was eternally decreed that that was the way they were to lose it, and that it went in the most orthodox and heavenly style. Oh, the damnable schemes that professing Christians will engage in until God puts his fingers on the col- lar of the hypocrite's robe and rips it clear down to the bottom ! You have no right, because you are well off, to conclude that your children are going to be as well off. A man died, leaving a large fortune. His son fell dead in a Philadelphia grog-shop. His old comrades came in and said, as they bent over his corpse, "What is the matter with you, Boggsey?" The surgeon standing over him said: "Hush up! he is dead !" "Ah, he is dead !" they said. "Come, boys, let us go and take a drink in memory of poor Bogg- sey!" Have you nothing better than money to leave your children? If you have not, and send your daughters into the world with empty brain and unskilled hand, you are guilty of assassination, homicide, regicide, infanticide. There are women toiling in our cities for three and four dollars per week who were the daugh- VOL. xi. 213 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage ters of merchant princes. These suffering ones now would be glad to have the crumbs that once fell from their father's table. That worn-out, broken shoe that she wears is the lineal descendant of the twelve- dollar gaiters in which her mother walked; and that torn and faded calico had ancestry of magnificent bro- cade, that swept Broadway clean without any expense to the street commissioners. Though you live in an elegant residence, and fare sumptuously every day, let your daughters feel it is a disgrace to them not to know how to work. I denounce the idea, prevalent in society, that though our young women may em- broider slippers and crochet and make mats for lamps to stand on, without disgrace, the idea of doing anything for a livelihood is dishonorable. It is a shame for a young woman, belonging to a large family, to be inefficient when the father toils his life away for her support. It is a shame for a daughter to be idle while her mother toils at the washtub. It is as honorable to sweep house, make beds, or trim hats, as it is to twist a watch-chain. As far as I can understand, the line of respectabil- ity, as it is drawn by society, lies between that which is useful and that which is useless. If women do that which is of no value, their work is honorable. If they do practical work, it is dishonorable. That our young women may escape the censure of doing dis- honorable work, I shall particularize. You may knit a tidy for the back of an arm chair, but by no means make the money wherewith to buy the chair. You may, with delicate brush, beautify a mantel ornament, but die rather than earn enough to buy a marble mantel. You may learn artistic music until you can squall Italian, but never sing "Ortonville" or "Old Hundred." Do nothing practical, if you would, in the eyes of some realms of society, preserve your re- 214 VOL. XI, Martyrs of the Needle spectability. I scout these finical notions. I tell you no woman, any more than a man, has a right to occupy a place in this world unless she pays a rent for it. In the course of a lifetime you consume whole harvests and droves of cattle, and every day you live breathe forty hogsheads of good pure air. You must, by some kind of usefulness, pay for all this. Our race was the last thing created the birds and the fishes on the fourth day, the cattle and lizards on the fifth day, and man on the sixth day. If geologists are right, the earth was a million of years in the possession of the insects, beasts and birds, before our race came upon it. In one sense, we were intruders. The cattle, the liz- ards and the hawks had pre-emption right. The ques- tion is not what we are to do with the lizards and sum- mer insects, but what the lizards and summer insects are to do with us. If we want a place in this world we must earn it. The partridge makes its own nest before it occupies it. The lark, by its morning song, earns its breakfast before it eats it ; the Bible gives an intimation that the first duty of an idler is to starve, when it says if he "will not work, neither shall he eat." Idleness ruins the health ; and very soon Nature says : "This man has refused to pay his rent ; out with him !" Society is to be reconstructed on the subject of woman's toil. A vast majority of those who would have woman industrious shut her up to a few kinds of work. My judgment in this matter is, that a woman has a right to do anything she can do well. There should be no department of merchandise, mechanism, art, or science barred against her. If Miss Hosmer has genius for sculpture, give her a chisel. If Rosa Bonheur has a fondness for delineating animals, let her make "The Horse Fair." If Miss Mitchell will VOL. xi. 215 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage study astronomy, let her mount the starry ladder. If Lydia will be a merchant, let her sell purple. If Lu- cretia Mott will preach the Gospel, let her thrill with her womanly eloquence the audience in the Quaker meeting-house. It is said, if woman be given such opportunities, she will occupy places that might be taken by men. I say, if she have more skill and capacity for any po- sition than a man has, let her have it! She has as much right to her bread, to her apparel, and to her home, as men have. But it is said that her nature is so delicate that she is unfitted for exhausting toil. I ask in the name of all past history, what toil on earth is more severe, exhausting, and tremendous than that toil of the needle, to which, for ages, she has been subjected? The battering-ram, the sword, the carbine, the battle- ax have made no such havoc as the needle. I would that these living sepulchers in which women have for ages been buried might be opened, and that some resurrection trumpet might bring up these living corpses to the fresh air and sunlight. Go with me, and I will show you a woman who, by hardest toil, supports her children, her drunken husband, her old father and mother, pays her house- rent, always has wholesome food on the table, and, when she can get some neighbor on the Sabbath to come in and take care of her family, appears in church, with hat and cloak that are far from indicating the toil to which she is subjected. Such a woman as that has body and soul enough to fit her for any position. She could stand beside the majority of your salesmen and dispose of more goods. She could go into your wheel- wright shops and beat one-half your workmen at mak- ing carriages. We talk about woman as though we had resigned to her all the light work, and ourselves 216 VOL. xi. Martyrs of the Needle had shouldered the heavier. But the day of judg- ment, which will reveal the sufferings of the stake and inquisition, will marshal before the throne of God and the hierarchs of heaven the martyrs of wash-tub and needle. Now, I say, if there be any preference in oc- cupation, let woman have it. God knows her trials are the severer. By her acuter sensitiveness to mis- fortune, by her hour of anguish, I demand that no one hedge up her pathway to a livelihood. Oh, the meanness, the despicability of men who begrudge a woman the right to work anywhere, in any honorable calling ! I go still further, and say that women should have equal compensation with men. By what principle of justice is it that women in many of our cities get only two-thirds as much pay as men, and in many cases only half? Here is the gigantic injustice that for work equally well, if not better done, woman receives far less compensation than man. Start with the Na- tional Government : for a long while women clerks in Washington got nine hundred dollars for doing that for which men received eighteen hundred. To thou- sands of young women in our cities to-day there is only this alternative: starvation or dishonor. Many of the largest mercantile establishments of our cities are accessory to these abominations; and from their large establishments there are scores of souls being pitched off into death; and their employers know it! Is there a God? Will there be a judgment? I tell you, if God rises up to redress woman's wrongs, many of our large establishments will be swallowed up quicker than a South American earthquake ever took down a city. God will catch these oppressors between the two millstones of his wrath, and grind them to powder ! I hear from all this land the wail of woman- hood. Man has nothing to answer to that wail but VOL. xi. 217 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage flatteries. He says she is an angel. She is not. She knows she is not. She is a human being, who gets hungry when she has no food, and cold when she has nor fire. Give her no more flatteries ; give her justice ! There are about fifty thousand sewing-girls in New York and Brooklyn. Across the darkness of the night I hear their death-groan. It is not such a cry as comes from those who are suddenly hurled out of life, but a slow, grinding, horrible wasting away. Gather them before you and look into their faces, pinched, ghastly, hunger-struck ! Look at their fingers, needle-pricked and blood-tipped! See that premature stoop in the shoulders ! Hear that dry, hacking, merciless cough ! At a large meeting of these women, held in a hall in Philadelphia, grand speeches were delivered, but a needlewoman took the stand, threw aside her faded shawl, and with her shriveled arm, hurled a very thunderbolt of eloquence, speaking out the horrors of her own experience. Stand at the corner of a street in New York in the very early morning, as the women go to their work. Many of them had no breakfast except the crumbs that were left over from the night before, or a crust they chew on their way through the street. Here they come ! the working girls of the city ! These engaged in bead-work, these in flower-making, in millinery, enameling, cigar-making, book-binding, labeling, feather-picking, print-coloring, paper-box making; but, most overworked of all, the least com- pensated, the sewing-women. Why do they not take the city cars on their way up? They cannot afford the five cents! If, concluding to deny herself some- thing 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 horrible martyrdom, a hotter fire, a more agonizing death ! 2*8 VOL. xi. Martyrs of the Needle One Sabbath night, in the vestibule of my church, after service, a woman fell in convulsions. The doctor said she needed medicine not so much as something to eat. As she began to revive, in her delirium, she said, gaspingly: "Eight cents ! Eight cents! Eight cents ! I wish I could get it done ! I am so tired ! I wish I could get some sleep, but I must get it donef Eight cents! Eight cents!" We found afterwards that she was making garments at eight cents apiece, and that she could make but three of them in a day. Hear itl Three times eight are twenty-four! Hear it, men and women who have comfortable homes ! Some of the worst villains of the city are the em- ployers of these women. They beat them down to the last penny, and try to cheat them out of that. The woman must deposit a dollar or two before she gets the garments to work on. When the work is done it is sharply inspected, the most insignificant flaw picked out, and the wages refused, and sometimes the dollar deposited not given back. The Women's Protective Union reports a case where one of these poor souls, finding a place where she could get more wages, re- solved to change employers, and went to get her pay for work done. The employer says : "I hear you are going to leave me?" "Yes," she said, "and I have come to get what you owe me." He made no answer. She said: "Are you not going to pay me?" "Yes," he said, "I will pay you ;" and he kicked her down the stairs. How are these evils to be eradicated ? What have you to answer, you who sell coats, and have shoes made, and contract for the Southern and Western markets ? What help is there, what panacea, what re- demption? Some say: "Give women the ballot." What effect such ballot might have on other questions I am not here to discuss; but what would be the ef- VOL. xi. 219 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage feet of female suffrage upon woman's wages? I do not believe that woman will ever get justice by woman's ballot. Indeed, women oppress women as much as men do. Do not women, as much as men, beat down to the lowest figure the woman who sews for them ? Are not women as sharp as men on wash- erwomen, and milliners, and mantua-makers ? If a woman asks a dollar for her work, does not her fe- male employer ask her if she will not take ninety cents ? You say "only ten cents difference ;" but that is sometimes the difference between heaven and hell. Women often have less commiseration for women than men. If a woman steps aside from the path of virtue, man may forgive woman never! Woman will never get justice done her from woman's ballot. Never did she get it from man's ballot. How, then? God will rise up for her. God has more resources than we know of. The flaming sword that hung at Eden's gate when woman was driven out will cleave with its terrible edge her oppressors. But there is something for our women to do. Let our young people prepare to excel in spheres of work, and they will be able, after a while, to get larger wages. If it be shown that a woman can, in a store, sell more goods in a year than a man, she will soon be able not only to ask but to demand more wages, and to demand them successfully. Unskilled and in- competent labor must take what is given ; skilled and competent labor will eventually make its own stand- ard. Admitting that the law of supply and demand regulates these things, I contend that the demand for skilled labor is very great, and the supply very small. Start with the idea that work is honorable, and that you can do some one thing better than any one else. Resolve that, God helping, you will take care of yourself. If you are, after a while, called into an- 220 VOL. XI. Martyrs of the Needle other relation you will all the better be qualified for it by your spirit of self-reliance; or if you are called to stay as you are, you can be happy and self-supporting. Poets are fond of talking about man as an oak, and woman the vine that climbs it; but I have seen many a tree fall that not only went down itself, but took all the vines with it. I can tell you of something stronger than an oak for an ivy to climb on, and that is the throne of the great Jehovah. Single or affianced, that woman is strong who leans on God and does her best. The needle may break ; the factory-band may slip ; the wages may fail; but over every good woman's head there are spread the two great, gentle, stupendous wings of the Almighty. Many of you will go single-handed through life, and you will have to choose between two characters. Young woman, I am sure you will turn your back upon the useless, giggling, painted nonentity which society ignominiously acknowledges to be a woman, and ask God to make you an humble, active, earnest Christian. What will become of this godless disciple of fashion? What an insult to her sex! Her man- ners are an outrage upon decency. She is more thoughtful of the attitude she strikes upon the carpet than how she will look in the Judgment; more wor- ried about her freckles than her sins ; more interested in her bonnet-strings than in her redemption. Her apparel is the poorest part of a Christian woman, how- ever magnificently dressed, and no one has so much right to dress well as a Christian. Not so with the godless disciple of fashion. Take her robes, and you take everything. Death will come down on her some day, and rub the bistre off her eyelids, and the rouge off her cheeks, and with two rough, bony hands, scat- ter spangles and glass beads and rings and ribbons VOL. XI. 221 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage and lace and brooches and buckles and sashes and frisettes and golden clasps. The dying actress whose life had been vicious said : "The scene closes. Draw the curtain." Generally the tragedy comes first, the farce afterward ; but in her life it was first the farce of a useless life, and then the tragedy of a wretched eternity. Compare the life and death of such an one with that of some Christian aunt that was once a blessing to your household. I do not know that she was ever offered a hand in marriage. She lived single, that untrammelled she might be everybody's blessing. Whenever the sick were to be visited, or the poor to be provided with bread, she went with a blessing. She could pray, or sing "Rock of Ages," for any sick pauper who asked her. As she got older, there were days when she was a little sharp, but for the most part Auntie was a sunbeam just the one for Christmas eve. She knew better than any one else how to fix things. Her every prayer, as God heard it, was full of everybody who had trouble. The brightest things in all the house dropped from her fin- gers. She had peculiar notions, but the grandest no- tion she ever had was to make you happy. She dressed well Auntie always dressed well ; but her highest adornment was that of a meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. When old Auntie died, you all gathered lovingly about her ; and as you carried her out to rest, the Sunday school class almost covered the coffin with japonicas ; and the poor people stood at the end of the alley, with their aprons to their eyes, sobbing bitterly ; and the man of the world said, with Solomon: "Her price was above rubies ;" and Jesus, as unto the maiden in Judea, com- manded : "I say unto thee, arise !" 222 VOL. XI. THE SHEIK'S DAUGHTER Exodus, 3: i: "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian." THE SHEIK'S DAUGHTER Exodus, 3: i: "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian." In the southeastern part of Arabia a man is sitting by a well. It is an arid country, and water is scarce, so that a well is of great value, and flocks and herds are driven vast distances to have their thirst slaked. Jethro, a Midianite sheik and priest, was so fortunate as to have seven daughters; and they are practical girls, and yonder they come driving the sheep and cattle and camels of their father to the watering. They lower the buckets and then pull them up, the water plashing on the stones and chilling their feet, and the troughs are filled. Who is that man out there sitting unconcerned and looking on? Why does he not come and help the women in this hard work of drawing water ? But no sooner have the dry lips and panting nostrils of the flocks begun to cool a little in the brimming trough of the well, than some rough Bedouin shepherds break in upon the scene, and with clubs and shouts drive back the animals that were drinking, and affright these girls until they fly in re- treat, and the flocks of these ill-mannered shepherds are driven to the troughs, taking the places of the other flocks. Now that man sitting by the well be- gins to color up, and his eye flashes with indignation, and all the gallantry of his nature is aroused. It is Moses, who naturally had a quick temper anyhow, as he demonstrated on one occasion when he saw an Egyptian oppressing an Israelite and gave the Egyptian a sudden clip and buried him in the sand, VOL. xi. 225 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmaee and as he showed afterward when he broke all the Ten Commandments at once by shattering the two granite slabs on which the law was written. But the injustice of this treatment of the seven girls sets him on fire with wrath, and he takes this shepherd by the throat, and pushes back another shepherd till he falls over the trough, and aims a stunning blow between the eyes of another, as he cries, " Begone, you vil- lains ! " and he hoots and roars at the sheep and cat- tle and camels of these invaders and drives them back ; and having cleared the place of the desperadoes, he told the seven girls of this Midianite sheik to gather their flocks together and bring them again to the watering. You ought to see a fight between the shepherds at a well in the Orient as I saw it in December, 1889. There were here a group of rough men who had driven the cattle many miles, and here another group who had driven their cattle as many miles. Who should have precedence ? Such clashing of buckets ! Such hooking of horns ! Such kicking of hoofs ! Such vehemence in a language I fortunately could not understand! Now the sheep with a peculiar mark across their woolly backs were at the trough, and now the sheep of another mark. It was one of the most exciting scenes I ever witnessed. An old book describes one of these contentions at an Eastern well when it says : "One day the poor men, the widows and the orphans met together and were driving their camels and their flocks to drink, and were all stand- ing by the water-side. Daji came up and stopped them all, and took possession of the water for his master's cattle. Just then an old woman belonging to the tribe of Abs came up and accosted him in a suppliant manner, saying, ' Be so good, Master Daji, as to let my cattle drink. They are all the property 226 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter I possess and I live by their milk. Pity my flock, have compassion on me. Grant my request and let them drink.' Then came another old woman and addressed him : ' O, Master Daji, I am a poor, weak old woman, as you see. Time has dealt hardly with me. It has aimed its arrows at me, and its daily and nightly calamities have destroyed all my men. I have lost my children and my husband, and since then I have been in great distress. These goats or cattle are all that I possess. Let them drink, for I live on the milk that they produce. Pity my forlorn state. I have no one to tend them. Therefore, grant my supplication and of thy kindness let them drink.' But in this case the brutal slave, so far from granting this humble request, smote the woman to the ground." A like scrimmage has taken place at the well in the triangle of Arabia between the Bedouin shepherds and Moses championing the cause of the seven daugh- ters who had driven their father's flocks to the water- ing. One of these girls, Zipporah, her name meaning " little bird," was fascinated by this heroic behavior of Moses; for, however timid woman herself may be, she always admires courage in a man. Zipporah became the bride of Moses, one of the mightiest men of all the centuries. Zipporah little thought that that morning as she helped drive her father's flocks to the well, she was splendidly deciding her own destiny. Had she stayed in the tent or house while the other six daughters of the sheik tended to their herds, her life would probably have been a tame and uneventful life in the solitudes. But her industry, her fidelity to her father's interest, her spirit of help- fulness brought her into league with one of the grand- est characters of all history. They met at that fa- mous well, and while she admired the courage of Moses, he admired the filial behavior of Zipporah. VOL. xr. 227 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage The fact that it took the seven daughters to drive the flocks to the well implies that they were immense flocks, and that her father was a man of wealth. What was the use of Zipporah's bemeaning herself with work when she might have reclined on the hill- side near her father's tent, and plucked buttercups, and dreamed out romances, and sighed idly to the winds, and wept over imaginary songs to the brooks. No; she knew that work was honorable, and that every girl ought to have something to do, and so she starts with the bleating and lowing and bellowing and neighing droves to the well for the watering. Around every home there are flocks and droves of cares and anxieties, and every daughter of the family, though there be seven, ought to be doing her part to take care of the flocks. In many households, not only is Zipporah, but all her sisters, without prac- tical and useful employments. Many of them are waiting for fortunate and prosperous matrimonial al- liance, but some lounger like themselves will come along, and after counting the large number of father Jethro's sheep and camels will make proposal that will be accepted; and neither of them having done anything more practical than to chew chocolate cara- mels, the two nothings will start on the road of life together, every step more and more a failure. That daughter of the Midianitish sheik will never find her Moses. Girls of America! imitate Zipporah. Do something practical. Do something helpful. Do something well. Many have fathers with great flocks of absorbing duties, and such a father needs help in home or office or field. Go out and help him with the flocks. The reason that so many men now con- demn themselves to unaffianced and solitary life is because they cannot support the modern young woman, who rises at half-past ten in the morning and 228 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter retires at midnight, one of the trashiest of novels in her hands most of the time between the late rising and the late retiring a thousand of them not worth one Zipporah. There is a question that every father and mother ought to ask the daughter at breakfast or tea table, and that all the daughters of the wealthy sheik ought to ask each other: " What would you do if the family fortune should fail, if sickness should prostrate the breadwinner, if the flocks of Jethro should be de- stroyed by a sudden incursion of wolves and bears and hyenas from the mountain? What would you do for a living? Could you support yourself? Can you take care of an invalid mother or brother or sister as well as yourself ? " Yea, bring it down to what any day might come to a prosperous family. " Can you cook a dinner if the servants should make a strike for higher wages and leave that morning? " Every minute of every hour of every day of every year there are fami- lies flung from prosperity into hardship, and alas! if in such exigency the seven daughters of Jethro can do nothing but sit around and cry and wait for some one to come and hunt them up a situation for which they have no qualification. Get at something useful; get at it right away ! My friend and Washingtonian townsman, W. W. Corcoran, did a magnificent thing when he built and endowed the " Louise Home " for the support of the unfortunate aristocracy of the South the people who once had everything but have come to nothing. We want another W. W. Corcoran to build a " Louise Home " for the unfortunate aristocracy of the North. But institutions like that in every city of the land could not take care of one-half of the unfortunate aris- tocracy of the North and South, whose large fortunes have failed, and who, through lack of acquaintance VOL. xi. 229 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage with any style of work, cannot now earn their own bread. There needs to be peaceful, yet radical revo- lution among most of the prosperous homes of America, by which the elegant do-nothings may be transformed into practical do-somethings. Let use- less women go to work and gather the flocks. Come, Zipporah, let me introduce you to Moses ! But you do not mean that this man affianced to this country girl was the great Moses of history, do you? You do not mean that he was the man who afterward wrought such wonders? Surely, you do not mean the man whose staff dropped, wriggled into a serpent, and then, clutched, stiffened again into a staff? You do not mean the challenger of Egyptian thrones and palaces? You do not mean him who struck the rock so hard it wept in a stream for thirsty hosts? Surely, you do not mean the man who stood alone with God on the quaking Sinaitic ranges; not him to whom the Red Sea was surrendered? Yes, the same Moses who afterward rescued a nation, defend- ing the seven daughters of the Midianitish sheik. Why, do you not know that this is the way men and women get prepared for special work. The wilder- ness of Arabia was the law school, the theological seminary, the university of rock and sand, from which he graduated for a mission that will balk seas, and drown armies, and lift the lantern of illumined cloud by night, and start the workmen with bleeding backs among Egyptian brick-kilns toward the pasture lands that flow with milk and the trees of Canaan dripping with honey. Gracious God, teach all the people this lesson. You must go into humiliation and retirement and hidden closets of prayer if you are to be fitted for special usefulness. How did John the Baptist get prepared to become a forerunner of Christ? Show me his wardrobe. It will be hung with silken socks 230 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter and embroidered robes and attire of Tyrian purple? Show me his dining table. On it the tankards ablush with the richest wines of the vineyards of Engedi, and rarest birds that were ever caught in net, and sweetest venison that ever dropped antlers before the hunter ? No ; we are distinctly told " the same John had his raiment of camels' hair " not the fine hair of the camel which we call camlet, but the long, coarse hair such as beggars in the East wear and his only meat was of insects, the green locust, about two inches long, roasted, a disgusting food. These in- sects were caught and the wings and legs torn off, and they were stuck on wooden spits and turned before the fire. The Bedouins pack them in salt and carry them in sacks. What a menu for John the Baptist! Through what deprivation he came to what exaltation ! And you will have to go down before you go up. From the pit into which his brothers threw him, and the prison in which his enemies incarcerated him, Joseph rose to be Egyptian prime minister. Elijah, who was to be the greatest of all the ancient prophets, Elijah, who made King Ahab's knees knock together with the prophecy that the dogs would be his only undertakers; Elijah, whose one prayer brought more than three years of drought, and whose other prayer brought drenching showers; the man who wrapped up his cape of sheepskin into a roll and with it cut a path through raging Jordan for just two to pass over; the man who with wheel of fire rode over death and escaped into the skies without mortuary disintegra- tion ; the man who, hundreds of years after, was called out of the eternities to stand beside Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor when it was ablaze with the splendors of transfiguration this man could look back to the time when voracious and filthy ravens were his only caterers. VOL. xi. 231 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmagc You see John Knox preaching the coronation ser- mon* of James VI, and arraigning Queen Mary and Lord Darnley in a public discourse at Edinburgh, and telling the French ambassador to go home and call his king a murderer; John Knox making all Christen- dom feel his moral power, and at his burial the Earl of Morton saying, " Here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man." Where did John Knox get much of his schooling for such resounding and everlasting achievement? He got it while in chains pulling at the boat's oar in French captivity. Michael Faraday, one of the greatest masters in the scientific world, did not begin by lecturing in the university. He began by washing bottles in the laboratory of Humphrey Davy. So the privations and hardships of your life may on a smaller scale be the preface and introduction to usefulness and victory. See also in this call of Moses that God has a great memory. Four hundred years before he had promised the deliverance of the oppressed Israelites of Egypt, The clock of time has struck the hour, and now Moses is called to the work of rescue. Four hundred years is a very long time, but you see God can remember a promise four hundred years as well as you can re- member four hundred minutes. Four hundred years includes all your ancestry that you know anything about and all the promises made to them, and we may expect fulfillment in our heart and life of all the bless- ings predicted to our Christian ancestry centuries ago. You have a dim remembrance, if any remembrance at all, of your great-grandfather, but God sees those who were on their knees in 1598 as well as those on their knees in 1898, and the blessings he promised the former and their descendants have arrived, or will ar- rive. While piety is not hereditary, it is a grand thing to have had a pious ancestry. So God in this chapter 232 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter calls up the pedigree of the people whom Moses was to deliver, and Moses is ordered to say to them, " The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you." If that thought be divinely accurate, let me ask, What are we doing by prayer and by a holy life for the redemption of the next four hundred years? Our work is not only with the people of the latter part of the nineteenth century, but with those in the closing of the twentieth century and the closing of the twenty- first century and the closing of the twenty-second cen- tury and the closing of the twenty-third century. For four hundred years, if the world continues to swing until that time, or if it drops, then notwithstanding the influence will go on in other latitudes and longitudes of God's universe. No one realizes how great he is for good or for evil. There are branchings out and rebounds and re- verberations and elaborations of influence that can- not be estimated. The fifty or one hundred years of our earthly stay are only a small part of our sphere. The flap of the wing of the destroying angel that smote the Egyptian oppressors, the wash of the Red Sea over the heads of the drowned Egyptians, were all fulfillments of promises four centuries old. And things occur in your life and in mine that we cannot account for. They may be the echoes of what was promised in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Oh, the prolongation of the divine memory! Notice, also, that Moses was eighty years of age when he got this call to become the Israelitish deliv- erer. Forty years he had lived in palaces as a prince; another forty years he had lived in the wilderness of Arabia, I should not wonder if he had said : " Take a younger man for this work. Eighty winters have exposed my health ; eighty summers have poured their VOL. xi. 233 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage heats upon my head. There are the forty years that I spent among the enervating luxuries of a palace, and then followed the forty years of wilderness hard- ship. I am too old. Let me off. Better call a man in the forties or fifties, and not one who has entered upon the eighties." Nevertheless, he undertook the work, and if we want to know whether he succeeded, ask the abandoned brick-kilns of Egyptian task-mas- ters, and the splintered chariot wheels strewn on the beach of the Red Sea, and the timbrels which Miriam clapped for the Israelites passed over and the Egypt- ians gone under. Do not retire too early. Like Moses, you may have your chief work to do after eighty. It may not be in the high places of the field ; it may not be where a strong arm and an athletic foot and a clear vision are required, but there is something for you yet to do. Perhaps it may be to round off the work you have already done; to demonstrate the patience you have been recommending all your lifetime; perhaps to stand a lighthouse at the mouth of the bay to light others into harbor; perhaps to show how glorious a sunset may come after a stormy day. If aged men do not feel strong enough for anything else, let them sit around in our churches and pray, and perhaps in that way they may accomplish more good than they ever did in the meridian of their life. It makes us feel strong to see aged men and women all up and down the pews, their faces showing they have been on moun- tains of transfiguration. We want in all our churches more men like Moses, men who have been through the deeps and climbed up the shelled beach on the other side. We want aged Jacobs, who have seen lad- ders which let down heaven into their dreams. We want aged Peters, who have been at Pentecosts, and aged Pauls, who have made Felix tremble. There are here and there those who feel like the woman of 234 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter ninety years who said to Fontenelle, who was eighty- five years of age, " Death appears to have forgotten us." " Hush," said Fontenelle, the wit, putting his finger to his lip. No, my friend you have not been forgotten. You will be called at the right time. Meantime, be holily occupied. Let the aged remem- ber that by increased longevity of the race men are not as old at sixty as they used to be at fifty, not as old at seventy as they used to be at sixty, not as old at eighty as they used to be at seventy. Sanitary pre- caution better understood; medical science further ad- vanced ; laws of health more thoroughly adopted ; den- tistry continuing for longer time successful mastica- tion; homes and churches and court-rooms and places of business better ventilated all these have prolonged life, and men and women in the close of this century ought not to retire until at least fifteen years later than in the opening of the century. Do not put the harness off until you have fought a few more battles. Think of Moses starting out for his chief work an octogenarian ; forty years of wilderness life after forty years of palace life, yet just beginning. There died, at Hawarden, England, one of the most wonderful men that ever lived since the ages of time began their roll. He was the chief citizen of the whole world. Three times had he practically been king of Great Britain. Again and again coming from the House of Commons, which he had thrilled and overawed in his eloquence, on Saturday, on Sunday morning reading prayers for the people with illumined countenance and brimming eyes and resounding voice, saying, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord." The world has no other such man to lose as Gladstone; the Church had no other such cham- pion to mourn over. I shall never cease to thank God VOL. xi. 235 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage that on Mr. Gladstone's invitation I visited him at Hawarden, and heard from his own lips his belief in the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the grandeurs of the world to come. At his table and in the walk through his grounds I was impressed as I was never before, and probably will never be again, with the majesty of a nature all consecrated to God and the world's better- ment. In the presence of such a man, what have those to say who profess to think that our religion is a pusillanimous and weak and cowardly and unrea- sonable affair? Matchless William E. Gladstone! Still further, watch this spectacle of genuine cour- age. No wonder when Moses scattered the rude shep- herds, he won Zipporah's heart. What mattered it to Moses whether the cattle of the seven daughters of Jethro were driven from the troughs by the rude herdsmen? Sense of justice fired his courage; and the world wants more of the spirit that will dare al- most anything to see others righted. All the time at wells of comfort, at wells of joy, at wells of religion, and at wells of literature there are outrages practised, the wrong herds getting the first water. Those who have the previous right come in last, if they come in at all. Thank God, we have here and there a strong man to set things right! I am so glad that when God has an especial work to do, he has some one ready to accomplish it. Is there a Bible to translate, there is a Wickliffe to translate it ; if there is a literature to be energized, there is a Shakespeare to energize it; if there is an error to smite, there is a Luther to smite it; if there is to be a nation freed, there is a Moses to free it. But courage is needed in religion, in litera- ture, in statesmanship, in all spheres; heroics to de- fend Jethro's seven daughters and their flocks and put to flight the insolent invaders. And those who do 236 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter the brave work will win somewhere high reward. The loudest cheer of heaven is to be given " to him that overcometh." Still further, see in this call of Moses that if God has any especial work for you to do he will find you. There were Egypt and Arabia and Palestine with their crowded population, but the man the Lord wanted was at the southern point of the triangle of Arabia, and he picks him right out, the shepherd who kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest and sheik. So God will not find it hard to take you out from the sixteen hundred million of the human race if he wants you for anything especial. There was only just one man qualified. Other men had courage like Moses; other men had some of the talents of Moses; other men had romance in their history, as had Moses ; other men were impetuous, like Moses; but no other man had these different qualities in the exact proportion as had Moses; and God, who makes no mistake, found the right man for the right place. Do not fear you will be overlooked, or that when you are wanted God cannot find you. He knows your name, your feat- ures, your temperament, and your characteristics, and in what land or city or ward or neighborhood or house you live. He will not have to send out scouts or explorers to find your residence or place of stop- ping, and when he wants you he will make it as plain that he means you as he made it plain that he needed Moses. He called his name twice, as afterward when he called the great apostle of the Gentiles he called twice, saying " Saul, Saul," and when he called the troubled housekeeper he called her twice, saying " Martha, Martha," and when he called the prophet to his mission he called him twice, saying, " Samuel, Samuel," and now he wants a deliverer he calls twice, saying " Moses, Moses." Yes, if God has anything VOL. xi. *yj Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage for us to do he will call us twice by name. At the first announcement of our name we may think it pos- sible that we misunderstood the sound, but after he calls us twice by name we know he means us as cer- tainly as when he twice spoke the names of Saul or Martha or Samuel or Moses. You see, religion is a tremendous personality. We all have the general call to salvation. We hear it in songs, in sermons, in prayers; we hear it year after year. But after a while, through our own sudden and alarming illness, or the death of a playmate or a schoolmate or a college-mate, or the decease of a business partner, or the demise of a next-door neigh- bor, we get the especial call to repentance and a new life and eternal happiness, and we know that God means us. Oh, have you noticed this way in which God calls us twice? Two failures of investments; two sicknesses; two persecutions; two bereavements; two disappointments; two disasters. Moses! Moses! Still further notice that the call of Moses was writ- ten in letters of fire. On the Sinaitic peninsula there is a thorn bush called the acacia, dry and brittle, and it easily goes down at the touch of the flame. It crackles and turns to ashes very quickly. Moses see- ing one of these bushes on fire, goes to look at it. At first, no doubt, it seemed to be a botanical curiosity, burning, yet crumpling no leaf, parting no stem, scat- tering no ashes. It was a supernatural fire that did no damage to the vegetation. That burning bush was the call. Your call will probably come in letters of fire. Ministers get their call to preach in letters on paper or parchment or typewritten, but it does not amount to much, unless they have already had a call in letters of fire. You will not amount to much in usefulness until somewhere near you find a burning bush. It may be found burning in the hectic flush of 238 VOL. xi. The Sheik's Daughter your child's cheek; it may be found burning in busi- ness misfortune; it may be found burning in the fire of the world's scorn or hate or misrepresentation. But hearken to the crackle of the burning bush! What a fascinating and inspiring character, this Moses! How tame all other stories compared with the biography of Moses ! From the lattice of her bath- ing-house on the Nile, Thermutis, daughter of Pha- raoh, sees him in the floating cradle of papyrus leaves made water-tight by bitumen ; his infantile cry is heard among the marble palaces and princesses hush him with their lullabies; workmen by the roadside drop their work to look on him when as a boy he passed, so beautiful was he; two bowls put before his infant eyes for choice to demonstrate his wisdom, the one bowl containing rubies and the other coals of fire. Sufficiently wise was he to take the gems, but, divinely directed, he took the coals and put them to his mouth, and his tongue was burnt, and he was left a stam- merer all his days, so that he declared, in Exod. 4:10, " I am slow of speech and of slow tongue; " on and on until he set firm foot among the crumbling basalt, and his ear was not deafened by the thunderous " Thou shalt not " of Mount Sinai, the man who went to the relief of the Israelites who were scourged be- cause with chopped straw they were required to make firm bricks, the story of their oppression found chis- eled on the tomb of Roschere at Thebes; and when the armies were impeded by venomous serpents, sent crates of ibises, the snake-destroying birds, to clear the way so that his host could march straight ahead, thus surprising the enemy, who thought they must take another route to avoid the reptiles ; the whole sky an aviary, to drop quails for him and the hosts following: the only man in all ages whom Christ likens to himself; the man of whom it is written, " Je- VOL. xi. 239 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage hovah spoke unto Moses face to face as a man speak- eth to his friend ; " the man who had the most won- drous funeral of all time, the Lord coming down out of heaven to bury him. No human lips to read the service. No choir to chant a psalm. No organ to roll a requiem. No angel alighting upon the scene; but God laying him out for the last sleep; God up- turning the earth to receive the saint ; God smoothing or banking the dust above the sacred form ; God, with farewell and benediction, closing the sublime obse- quies of lawgiver, poet and warrior. "And no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day." 240 VOL. xi. SPIDERS IN PALACES Prov., 30: 28: "The spider taketh hojd with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." SPIDERS IN PALACES Prov., 30: 28: " The spider taketh hojd with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." Privileged a few years ago to attend the meeting of the British Scientific Association at Edinburgh, I found that no paper read excited more attention than that read by Rev. Dr. Cook, of America, on the sub- ject of " Spiders." It seems that my talented country- man, banished from his pulpit for a short time by ill- health, had in the fields and forests given himself up to the study of insects. And surely, if it is not beneath the dignity of God to make spiders, it is not beneath the dignity of man to study them. We are all watching for phenomena. A sky full of stars, shining from year to year, calls out not so many remarks as the blazing of one meteor. A whole flock of robins take not so much of our attention as one blundering bat darting into the window on a summer eve. Things of ordinary sound and sight and occur- rence fail to reach us, yet no grasshopper ever springs up in our path, no moth ever dashes into the evening candle, no mote ever floats in the sunbeam that pours through the crack of the window-shutter, no barnacle on ship's hull, no burr on chestnut, no limpet clinging to a rock, no rind of an artichoke but would teach us a lesson if we were not so stupid. God, in his Bible sets forth for our consideration the lily and the snowflake and the locust and the stork's nest and the hind's foot and the aurora bore- alis and the ant-hills. One of the sacred writers, sit- ting amid the mountains, sees a hind skipping over VOL. xi. 243 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage the rocks. The hind has such a peculiarly shaped foot that it can go over the steepest places without falling, and as the prophet looks upon that marking of the hind's foot upon the rocks, and thinks of the divine care over him, he says : " Thou makest my feet like hinds' feet that I may walk on high places." And an- other sacred writer sees the ostrich leave its egg in the sand of the desert, and, without any care of incuba- tion, walk off; and the Scripture says that is like some parents leaving their children without any wing of protection or care. In my text, inspiration opens be- fore us the gate of a palace, and we are inducted amid the pomp of the throne and the courtier, and while we are looking around upon the magnificence, inspiration points us to a spider plying its shuttle and weaving its net on the wall. It does not call us to regard the grand surroundings of the palace, but to a solemn and earnest consideration of the fact that " the spider tak- eth hold with her hands and is in kings' palaces." It is not very certain what was the particular species of insect spoken of in the text, but I shall proceed to learn from it: First, the exquisiteness of the divine mechanism. The king's chamberlain comes into the palace and looks around, and sees the spider on the wall, and says, " Away with that intruder," and the servant of Solomon's palace comes with his broom and dashes down the insect, saying, " What a loathsome thing it is." But under microscopic inspection I find it more wondrous of construction than the embroideries on the palace wall, and the upholstery about the windows. All the machinery of the earth could not make any- thing so delicate and beautiful as the prehensile foot with which that spider clutches its prey, or as any of its eight eyes. We do not have to go so far up to see the power of God in the tapestry hanging around the 244 VOL. xi. Spiders in Palaces windows of heaven, or in the horses and chariots of fire with which the dying day departs, or to look at the mountain swinging out its sword-arm from under the mantle of darkness until it can strike with its scimiter of the lightning. I love better to study God in the shape of a fly's wing, in the formation of a fish's scale, in the snowy whiteness of a pond-lily. I love to track his footsteps in the mountain moss, and to hear his voice in the hum of the rye-fields, and dis- cover the rustle of his robe of light in the south wind. Oh ! this wonder of divine power that can build a habi- tation for God in an apple blossom, and tune a bee's voice until it is fit for the eternal orchestra, and can say to a firefly, " Let there be light," and from holding an ocean in the hollow of his hand, goes forth to find heighths and depths and lengths and breadths of om- nipotency in a dewdrop, and dismounts from a chariot of midnight hurricane to cross over on the suspension bridge of a spider's web. You may take your tele- scope and sway it across the heavens in order to be- hold the glory of God ; but I will take the leaf holding the spider and the spider's web, and I will bring the microscope to my eye, and while I gaze and look and study, and am confounded, I will kneel down in the grass and cry : " Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty." Second: Again, my text teaches me that insignifi- cance is no excuse for inaction. This spider that Solomon saw on the wall might have said, " I can't weave a web worthy of this great palace ; what can I do amid all this gold and embroidery? I am not able to make anything fit for so grand a place, and so I will not work my spinning-jenny." Not so said the spider. " The spider taketh hold with her hands." Oh! what a lesson that is for you and me! You say if you had some great sermon to preach, if you only had a great VOL. xi. 245 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage audience to talk to, if you had a great army to mar- shal, if you only had a constitution to write, if there were some great thing in the world for you to do, then you would show us. Yes, you would show us! What if the Levite in the ancient temple had refused to snuff the candle because he could not be a high priest? What if the humming-bird should refuse to sing its song into the ear of the honeysuckle, because it cannot, like the eagle, dash its wing into the sun? What if the raindrop should refuse to descend because it is not a Niagara? What if the spider of the text should refuse to move its shuttle because it cannot weave a Solomon's robe? Away with such folly! If you are lazy with the one talent you would be lazy with the ten talents. If Milo cannot lift the calf he never will have strength to lift the ox. In the Lord's army there is order for promotion; but you cannot be a general until you have been a captain, a lieuten- ant, and a colonel. It is step by step, it is inch by inch, it is stroke by stroke that our Christian character is builded. Therefore be content to do what God com- mands you to do. God is not ashamed to do small things. He is not ashamed to be found chiseling a grain of sand, or helping a honey-bee to construct its cell with mathematical accuracy, or tingeing a shell in the surf, or shaping the bill of a chaffinch. What God does, he does well. What you do, do well, be it a great work or a small work. If ten talents, employ all the ten. If five talents, employ all the five. If one talent, employ the one. If only the thousandth part of a talent, employ that. " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life." I tell you if you are not faithful to God in a small sphere, you would be indolent and insignificant in a large sphere. Third: Again, my text teaches me that repulsive- 246 VOL. xi. Spiders in Palaces ness and loathsomeness will sometimes climb up into very elevated places. You would have tried to kill the spider that Solomon saw. You would have said, " This is no place for it. If that spider is determined to weave a web, let it do so down in the cellar of this palace, or in some dark dungeon." Ah! the spider of the text could not be discouraged. It clambered on and climbed up, higher and higher and higher, until, after a while it reached the king's vision, and he said, " The spider taketh hold with her hands and is in king's palaces." And so it often is now that things that are loathsome and repulsive get up into very ele- vated places. The church of Christ is a palace. The King of heaven on earth lives in it. According to the Bible, her beams are of cedar, and her rafters of fir, and her windows of agate, and the fountains of salvation dash a rain of light. It is a glorious palace; and yet sometimes unseemly and loathsome things creep up into it evil-speaking and rancor and slan- der and backbiting and abuse, crawling up on the walls of the church, spinning a web from arch to arch, and from the top of one communion tankard to the top of another communion tankard. Glorious pal- ace, in which there ought only to be light and love and pardon and grace yet a spider in the palace! Home ought to be a castle. It ought to be the residence of everything loyal. Kindness, love, peace, patience, and forbearance ought to be the princes re- siding there, and yet sometimes dissipation crawls up into that home, and the jealous eye comes up, and the scene of peace and plenty becomes the scene of domestic jargon and dissonance. You say, " What is the matter with the home?" I will tell you what is the matter with it. A spider in the palace. A well-developed Christian character is a grand thing to look at. You see some men with great iu- VOL. xi. 247 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage tellectual and spiritual proportions. You say, " How useful that man must be ! " But you find amid all his splendor of faculties there is some prejudice, some whim, some evil habit, that a great many people do not notice, but that you have happened to notice, and it is gradually spoiling that man's character; it is gradually going to injure his entire influence. Others may not see it, but you are anxious in regard to his welfare, and you deplore it. A dead fly in the oint- ment. A spider in the palace. Fourth: Again, my text teaches me that perse- verance will mount into the king's palace. It must have seemed a long distance for that spider to climb in Solomon's splendid residence, but it started at the very foot of the wall and went up over the panels of Lebanon cedar, higher and higher, until it stood higher than the highest throne in all the nations the throne of Solomon. And so God has decreed it, that many of those who are down in the dust of sin and dishonor shall gradually attain to the king's palace. We see it in worldly things. Who is that banker in Philadelphia? Why, he used to be the boy who held the horses of Stephen Girard while the millionaire went in to collect his dividends. Arkwright toils on up from a barber's shop until he gets into the palace of invention. Fletcher toils on up from the most in- significant family position until he gets into the palace of Christian eloquence. Hogarth, engraving pewter mugs for a living, toils on up until he reaches the pal- ace of world-renowned art. And God hath decided that though you may be weak of arm and slow of tongue and be struck through with a great many mental and moral deficits, by his Almighty grace you shall yet arrive in the King's palace not such a one as is spoken of in the text, not one of marble, not one adorned with pillars of alabaster and thrones of ivory 248 VOL. xi. Spiders in Palaces and flagons of burnished gold but a palace in which God is the King and the angels of heaven are the cup- bearers. The spider crawling up the wall of Solomon's pal- ace was not worth looking after or considering as compared with the fact that we, who are the worms of the dust, may at last ascend into the palace of the King immortal. By the grace of God we may all reach it. Oh ! heaven is not a dull place. It is not a worn- out mansion with faded curtains and outlandish chairs and cracked ware. No ; it is as fresh and fair and beautiful as though it were completed but yes- terday. The kings of the earth shall bring their honor and glory into it. A palace means splendor of apartments. Now, I do not know where heaven is, and I do not know how it looks, but if our bodies are to be resurrected at the last day, I think heaven must have a material splendor as well as a spiritual grandeur. What grandeur of apartments, when that divine hand which turns the sea into blue and the foliage into green, and sets the sunset on fire, shall gather all the beautiful colors of earth around his throne, and when that arm which lifted the pillars of Alpine rock and bent the arch of the sky shall raise before our soul the eternal architecture, and that hand which hung with loops of fire the cur- tains of morning shall prepare the upholstery of our kingly residence! A palace also means splendor of associations. The poor man, the outcast, cannot get into the Tuileries, or Windsor Castle. The sentinel stands there and cries " Halt! " as he tries to enter. But in that pal- ace we may all become residents, and we shall all be princes and kings. We may have been beggars, we may have been outcasts, we may have been wandering as we all have been, but there we shall take our regal VOL. xi. 249 Sermons by T. DeWitt Talmage power. What companionship in heaven! To walk side by side with John and James and Peter and Paul and Moses and Joshua and Caleb and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Micah and Zechariah and Wilberforce and Oliver Cromwell and Philip Doddridge and Edward Payson and John Milton and Elizabeth Fry and Hannah More and Charlotte Elizabeth, and all the other kings and queens of heaven. O my soul, what a companionship ! A palace means splendor of banquet. There will be no common ware on that table. There will be no unskilled musicians at that entertainment. There will be no scanty supply of fruit or beverage. There have been banquets spread that cost a million of dol- lars each; but who can tell the untold wealth of that banquet? I do not know whether John's description of it is literal or figurative; I cannot prove it. I do not know but that it may be literal. I do not know but that there may be real fruits plucked from the tree of life. I do not know but that Christ referred to the real juice of the grape when he said that we should drink new wine in our Father's kingdom. I do not say it is so; but I have as much right for thinking it is so as you have for thinking the other way. At any rate, it will be a glorious banquet. Hark! the chariots rumbling in the distance. I really believe the guests are coming now. The gate's swing op