. I I * TDE WITT TALMA G E, J DR. TALMAGE'S CHURCH IN WASHINGTON MEMORIAL VOLUME LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. CONTAINING THE NOBLEST TRUTHS; THE MOST DELIGHTFUL NARRATIVES; POETIC . IMAGERIES; STRIKING SIMILES; FEARLESS DENUNCIATIONS OF WRONG AND INSPIRING APPEALS FOR THE RIGHT; GEMS OF PATHOS AND ELOQUENCE; GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF HISTORIC EVENTS THE WHOLE COMPRISING A MOST DELIGHTFUL COLLECTION OF BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS EMBRACING THE RICHEST AND MOST BRILLIANT UTTERANCES GIVEN TO THE WORLD DURING HIS PHENOMENAL CAREER BY REV, T. DE WITT TALMAGE WHOSE "TRUMPET BLASTS" HAVE SOUNDED ALL OVER THE GLOBE AND PROVEN HIM TO BE THE MOST DISTINGUISHED ORATOR OF MODERN TIMES WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY REV. RUSSELL PL CONWELL THE FAMOUS PREACHER AND LECTURER Superbly Embellished with a large number of Phototype and Wood Engravings TO THE VAST MULTITUDES WHO HAVE BEEN THRILLED BY THE BURNING ELOQUENCE OF REV. T. DE\VITT TALMAGE, D.D. WHO HAVE BEEN CHARMED AND INSTRUCTED BY HIS BRILLIANT THOUGHTS, HIS MAGNIFICENT FLIGHTS OF RHETORIC, HIS PITHY SAYINGS AND HIS UNTIRING ZEAL IN THE NOBLEST OF ALL CALLINGS, THIS VOLUME, WHICH CONTAINS THE BRIGHTEST GEMS AND GRANDEST PRODUCTIONS OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED i'ULPIT ORATOR OF THE CENTURY IS DEDICATED D. Z. HOWELL h THE OFy;CK Of THE .IBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON, D. G., U.S. A. -STACK ANNEX PREFACE. FOR the great majority of our readers the title page of this volume, bearing, as it does, the name of the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, is all the preface the book requires. There are men whose works need no trumpeting, and Dr. Talmage is one of them. His fame as an orator carries such weight with it, that the mere announce- ment of a new volume of his writings containing a full account or his life and death, is all that is needed to call up a myriad of de- lighted readers. Who and what Dr. Talmage was as a man, and what has been the story of his active and useful life, may be gathered from the account of his personal history which we append. What he was as an orator and author is too well known to the American public to need further tell- ing. We have, therefore, no occasion to speak further here of the man and his powers and performances, and may confine ourself to some remarks on the work which we hereby call to the attention of his large circle of admirers. In this collection of essays we have presented to us the whole man, from his first entrance upon the field of American oratory to the end of his remarkable career. These essays embrace every variety of subject and treatment, and are marvellous in their vigor and diversity ; dealing, as they do, with every phase of public evil, with all the aspects of the religious situation, with the charms of natural scenery, the attractions of Oriental travel, the demands and duties of home-life, the delights of the heavenly mansions, and a host of topics too numerous to name here. That these many topics are dealt with fluently, ably, and graphi. cally, does not need to be repeated. The mere name of Dr. Talmage is warrant enough for this. The war-cry of reform in the social, ii PREFACE. political and religious degeneracy of the present day was never more clearly and earnestly sounded than by this celebrated orator, and this magnificent collection of essays cannot fail to become a power for good in the land. All should read this noble work ; alike those who have the inte r - ests of moral progress at heart, those who enjoy earnest thought in its freshest and most vigorous expression, and those who have an appreciation of poetical diction and dramatic effect; all, in short, who love what is attractive in literature, noble in intellectual elevation exalted in moral principle, energetic in reform, and graphic in state- ment, should possess this book, the latest and richest expression of the ripe thought of one whose pen and voice have shed lustre on the Christian progress of modern times. THE PUBLISHERS TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Preface i Table of Contents , 3 List of Illustrations II Introduction by Rev. Russell H. Conwell, D. D 17 LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE, D.D. A Giant in the Religious World. Born a Country Boy of Humble Parent- age. Last of Twelve Children. Belonged to the Common People. Character of his Parents. Their Golden Wedding. Choosing a Pro- fession for Life. Turns from Law to the Ministry In the Theological School at New Brunswick. His First Pastorate. Called to Syracuse. Removes to Philadelphia and Becomes Famous. Pastor of a Weak Church in Brooklyn. His Great Success in the City of Churches. Congregation Outgrows its Edifice and a Tabernacle Holding Several Thousands Erected. The Second Tabernacle. This Building Burned Like the Preceding. The Distinguished Pastor Not Discouraged. Erection of a Third Tabernacle. This Splendid Edifice also Destroyed by Fire , 21 LIFE OF REV. DR. TALMAGE CONTINUED AFTER HIS DEATH BY REV. HENRY DAVENPORT NORTHROP. One of Four Brothers Who Entered the Christian Ministry. Chaplain of a Pennsylvania Regiment during the Civil War. Marvellous Power of Presenting the Truth. Character of His Sermons. Discourses Read by Millions of People. Wonderful Success as a Lecturer. Death and Obsequies at Washington. Estimate of His Character and Influence. GloAving Eulogies from the Pulpit and Press 41 THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. Is Life Worth Living? The Money-Getting Mania. Bright Examples. Do Your Best. "With the Skin of Their Teeth." 60 EVOLUTION. The Leaders in Evolution. What They Teach. How Worlds Were Made. Survival of the Fittest. No Natural Progress. Antiquity of the Doctrine. The Missing Link. A Radical Difference. The True Evolution 6 7 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. PAGE The Philosophy of the Chain. Precept and Example. One Weak Link. The Chain that Enslaves. The Great Emancipator 81 COMMON PEOPLE. Life- Work of the Common People. Business Men. The Curse of High Position. Stitch, Stitch, Stitch. Persecution 93 PICTURE-GALLERY OF THE STREET. Life Full of Labor. All Classes Commingle. Street Temptations. The Shams of Life. A Field for Charity 100 HEROES AND HEROINES. Sick-Room Heroes. Domestic Heroes. Philanthropic Heroes. No Rest Here. Heavenly Recognition . 106 THE SACRED BATTLE-FIELD. Wild Beasts in Palestine. Jacob's Well. A Moral Lesson. Old Battle- Fields. The True Cross 114 THE CURSE OF STRONG DRINK. The Cauldron of the Fiend. The Drunkard's Will. The National Menace. The Rum Fiend's Curse. Party Servility. Duty of the Church . . 121 THE BALLOT-BOX. The Sacred Chest of the Hebrews. The Ark of the American Covenant. Ignorance. Spurious Voting. Intimidation. Bribery. Saloon-Made Candidates. A Property Qualification. Woman Suffrage. Power of the Ballot. Our Great Republic 126 DRESS AND DISSIPATION. Victims of Fashion. The Dance. Dissipations of Social Life. The Modern Bethesda. Intoxicating Beverages 137 TABLE OF CONTENTS. v MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS. PAGE Our Childhood's Home. The Double Outlook. The Early Home. New Married Life. The Gracious Change. Shadows of Sorrow. Latest Trials. Consolation 146 SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. Conditions of Business Life. Grip, Gouge & Co. Straining at Gnats ; Swallowing Camels 160 THE CHRISTIAN FOR THE TIMES. Esther's Work. Aggressive Christians. No Time to Waste. The New and the Old. Gospel Siege Guns. The People's Pulpit 166 THE MISSION OF PICTURES. Influence of Immoral Pictures. The Lasting Lesson. A Great Artist. The Trials of Artists. Philanthropy of Art. Genius of Depravity. A Model Picture 176 LIGHT, THE WORLD'S EVANGEL. The Blessing of Light. " Clear as the Sun." " Fair as the Moon." The Bow of Promise. Velocity in Heaven 191 ATTACKS ON THE BIBLE. Is the Bible an Impure Book? A Cruel Book? Contradictory? Opposed to Science? Young Men Robbed. The Best Capital. A Turning- Point in Life 199 JOURNALISM AND EVANGELISM. The Church and the Newspaper. What Shall Be Done ? Utilize the Press. Sunday Papers Deprecated. A Treaty Proposed. A New Testa- ment Reporter 200, TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. PAGE Sky Pictures. Significance of the Clouds. Royal Equipage. God's Morning Chariot. God's Evening Chariot. The Black Chariot of Wrath. Power of Prayer. The Divine Driver. Three Grand Occasions 215 SIN'S ADVANCE GUARDS. Influence of Bad Literature. One Woman's Work. Pernicious Pictorials. Progress of Infidelity. Skepticism 228 A LIVE CHURCH. Poverty in the Pulpit. The Requisites of Church Vitality. Old Insurance. The Gospel Mirror. Fashion- Plates . 236 i THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. Arborescent Giants. God's Temple. Scriptural Similes. Everlasting Strength. Perfected through Suffering. The Present Moral Storm. The Botany of Palestine. " Woodman, Spare that Tree ! 240 NATIONAL EVILS. Unhappy Homes. Uniform Divorce Law. The Shame of Polygamy. The Reign of Libertinism. The Club House 253 GLORIOUS OLD AGE. Shall We Hide Our Wrinkles ? The Almond-Tree Bloom. The Old Folks. My Father. His Temperance Principles. Early Struggles. Closing Scene. My Mother 262 THE BURDEN OF DEBT. Don't Borrow. Extravagance. Grand Larceny. Bills Due 273 THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. The Fair in Tyre. Great Expositions. Their Religious Aspect. A Peace Congress. Horrors of War. The Bright Side 282 TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii CAPTIVES SET FREE. PAGE Raid of the Amalekites. The Hot Pursuit. The Joyful Return Our Lost Treasures. How to Recover Them. The Decisive Battle. Re- ward for the Weary 292 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. Turning Water into Wine. Lessons of the Miracle. Hide Your Sorrows. Luxuries of Life. Wedding of Christ and the Church 303 NATURE'S LESSONS. The New Paradise. Skeptics in Palestine. Personal Comfort. Infer- ences. Animal Delight. Migration of Birds. Autumn Leaves. . . . 310 OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. Educational Evils. The Cramming System. An Educated Idiot. Jeph- tha's Daughter. Wrong Systems of Discipline. Sacrificed to World- liness. Not Marriage, but Massacre 326 DESCENDANTS OF THE PILGRIMS. The Past Recalled. The Value of Ancestry. An Unfounded Charge. Characteristics of the Pilgrims 339 JOSHUA'S BATTLE-FIELDS. The Parting of the Jordan. Ark of the Covenant The Ram's Horn. The Victorious Shout. The City of Ai. Forward, March ! Kings to be Slain. The Last Battle 343 DAMASCUS-OLD AND NEW. A Storm in Palestine. In Sight of Damascus. Saul's Quick Halt. Fruitfulness of Damascus. The Rivers Abana and Pharpar. Moham- medan Worship. A Modern Massacre. The Old Damascus. Sight to the Blind . . '. 354 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. PAGE Nazareth. Boyhood of Jesus. Birthplace of Parables. City Indebted to Country. An Old-fashioned Carpenter Shop The Village of Cana. The Sea of Galilee 367 WHAT TEARS ARE FOR. Mission of Tears. A Mighty Magnetism. The Last Resort. Poetry Changed to Prose. The Great Sympathizer 379 FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. Bethlehem. The Childhood of Christ. Temptation and Triumph. Christ the Healer. The Betrayal. Trial and Sentence. The Crucifixion and Ascension. Christ's March through the Centuries 389 WE ARE WITNESSES. The Spirit of Doubt. Faith against Logic. The Force of Testimony . . 402 SACRED SONG. Great Organ-Builders. Birthplace of Music. Importance of Sacred Music. The Royal Old Hymns. A Singing Church. Obstacles to Congre- gational Singing. Delegated Duty. A Coming Revolution 409 THE RAIN'S STORY. Origin of the Rain. Climate Arraigned. Men Hard to Please. God's Supervision. The Mystery of Rain. The Source of Tears. The Father of Tears 420 / THE LESSON OF THE PYRAMID. A Morning in Egypt. Ascending the Pyramid. What the Pyramid Teaches. The Noblest Monument. History of the Pyramid. A Voice from the Ages 429 TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix THE VACANT CHAIR. PAGE Mementos of the Past. The Father's Chair. The Mother's Chair. Thily Work. The Church an Armory. Nature's Charity. Religion in Small Trials. Common Blessings 462 BORROWING TROUBLE. Keep in the Sunshine. Enjoy Present Blessings. Troubles Need Not Be Sought. Borrowed Care Unfits for Real 475 TRAPS FOR MEN. The Work of the Fowler. Temptations. Meanness. Liberal Men. The Dishonest Employer. Safe to Do Right 480 THE OBJECT OF LIFE. What Were We Made For ? Not Wholly Responsible. Causes of Failure. Man's Equipment for Work. Use Your Opportunities. Concentrate Your Forces. Modern Longevity. Heavenly Duration 480 A HALF-HOUR IN HEAVEN. The Busiest Place in the Universe. Heaven's Only Period of Rest. The Power of Silence. The Siege of Jerusalem. The Diocletian Persecu- tion. The Inmates of Heaven. Memorable Half-Hours. A View of Heaven. The Half-Hour Ended 55 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Rev. T. De Witt Talmage Frontispiece. For Thy Name's Sake Lead Me and Guide Me 20 Force and Spirit - 23 Lost in Thought 26 Earnest Appeal 31 Inside View of the Tabernacle 35 The Brooklyn Tabernacle 37 Reading the Scriptures 38 Expounding the Word 39 Is Life Worth Living ? 61 The Day-Star Dawns on the Easter Morn 62 The Sure and Steadfast Anchor 65 Thou Openest Thine Hand, and Satisfiest the Desire of Every Living Thing . 71 Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God . . . 72 Herod and the Wise Men 75 The Serpent Worshipped as an Idol Destroyed by Hezekiah 76 Jonah at Ninevah 79 I Will Instruct Thee and Teach Thee in the Way which Thou Shalt Go ; I Will Guide Thee with Mine Eye 80 Remember Now Thy Creator in the Days of Thy Youth 83 The Beggar Lazarus at the Rich Man's Gate 91 The Fruit-Seller Counting Her Money 92 The Harvest Time 97 Vanity 102 The Blind Man's Dutiful Child 109 xi xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Christ at Gadara 110 Him that Overcometh Ill Jesus and the Woman of Samaria 115 Harvest Scene in Ancient Palestine 116 A Saracen Charge 119 The Peaceable Fruits of the Spirit 129 Joy After a Night of Weeping 130 Votary of Fashion 139 The Prima Donna 144 Waiting for " Mother " 147 Home is a Shelter from the Wintry Blast 148 The Old Home * 149 Thou Wilt Keep Him in Perfect Peace 151 Suffer Them to Come Unto Me 152 TheSick-Room 157 Ahasuerus Orders the Execution of Haman 167 Nehemiah Preaching 168 Good Trees Bring Forth Good Fruit 173 Jacob's Vision of Angels 177 Mary Anointing the Feet of Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee . 178 The Sermon on the Mount 185 Fall of the House Built on Sand 187 The Glory of the New Jerusalem 188 In the Sun-Glow 192 Walk as Children of Light 194 The Stormy Petrel 197 Thou Shalt Guide Me with Thy Counsel and Afterward Receive Me to Glory 198 Christian Humanity 200 Let us Walk in the Light of the Lord 205 The Best Capital is Character 206 The Translation of Elijah 220 Storm in the Harvest Season 221 The Death of St. Stephen 223 Worship Him that Made Heaven and Earth and the Sea 224 The Glory of Sunrise 233 Perils of the Sea 235 The Lord is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want 239 Thanksgiving unto the Lord 241 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii PAGE Magnificent Temple of Solomon 242 The Raising of Lazarus 243 The Treasures of Winter 245 My Father, Thou Art the Guide of My Youth 259 Honest Toil 260 Sorrowful Old Age 264 Her Feeble Steps 265 Grandmother's Thoughts 266 A Daughter's Affection , 268 Modest Frugality 275 Condemning the Unmerciful Servant 279 Thorns in the Field of the Slothful 280 Columbus Addressing His Men During the Mutiny on Board His Ship . 285 The Fear of the Lord is a Fountain of Life 286 Peace and Joy 299 The Name of the Lord 300 The Bread that Cometh Down from Heaven 305 Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy 307 The Eagle's Shadow 311 Beautiful Garments , 317 Chloris, Grecian Goddess of Flowers 318 Joys of Animal Life 320 Nest Building by Birds 322 While the Earth Remaineth, Seed Time and Harvest Shall not Cease . . 325 Be Slow to Speak, Slow to Wrath 331 Thanksgiving 332 The Children 337 The First Wrong Act 338 Plymouth Rock 340 Joshua Capturing the City of Ai 347 The Inhabitants of Ai Witnessing the Defeat of Their Army 348 Damascus 357 Scene in Palestine 358 I Courtyard in Damascus 363 Lord, That I May Receive My Sight 366 Jesus Working at the Trade of Carpenter 369 Shew Me Thy Way, O Lord, Teach Me Thy Paths 370 Consider the Lilies of the Field How They Grow 372 No Night So Dark, No Day So Drear 377 x i v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Work Morn and Eve and Through the Sultry Noon 378 Flowers for the Sick 381 The Solitary Places Made Glad 385 The Joys that are Unseen 386 Two Pages of Ancient Scroll of Scripture 390 Jesus Blessing Little Children 391 The Garden of Gethsemane 395 The Angel at the Tomb 397 In His Days Shall the Righteous Flourish 398 If Sinners Entice Thee, Consent Thou Not 403 Be Not Rash with Thy Mouth 404 The Entrance of Thy Word Giveth Light 407 Christmas Carols 411 Hymn of Thanksgiving 417 A Song to Cheer 418 Fine Weather at Sea 422 Hold Up My Goings in Thy Paths, That My Footsteps Slip Not .... 425 My Little Children, Let Us Not Love in Word, Neither in Tongue, but in Deed and in Truth 431 Hall of Pillars Ruins of Karnak, Egypt 432 Ascending the Nile Near the Pyramids 435 He Casteth Forth His Ice-like Morsels. Who Can Stand Before His Gold? 437 Cleansed from Unrighteousness . .' 438 God's Acre 446 A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath . . . 453 The Morning Visitors 455 Joseph Making Himself Known to His Brethren . . . 456 In the Storm 461 The Worldling 463 The Path of Wisdom 467 The Lord is My Shepherd 473 -Let Us Love One Another : for Love is of God . 474 REV. RUSSELL H. CONWELL, D.ID. PASTOR OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH' PHILADELPHIA INTRODUCTION. INTRODUCE a trumpet-blast? I might as well stand before I cannon and try to touch it off easy. Trumpet-blasts introduce themselves. They are heard farther than their praises can ever go. Hence I shall not undertake the absurd thing of introducing Mr. Talmage's trumpet-blasts. I shall simply stand behind and yell after them. They are already heard around the globe, and echo far on the second circuit. They are known and read by all civilized men, and there is scarcely a cottage on the islands of the sea where their voices are not heard. We hear their sweet cadences reverberating all about us in pamphlets, books, newspapers, political speeches and sermons. Talmage has become classic. He speaks in his own eccentric grandeur and in his own dialect, but every one hears him in the tongue to which he was born. It was a noble thought to gather the most brilliant utterances of such a grand character into one volume, where the young and the old, the busy and the man-at-ease, might all find an anthem suited to their training and appreciation. These trumpet-blasts are as terrible as an army with banners to the guilty and the unrepentant, but soft as cooing doves to the repentant and the afflicted. It is marvellous to look through the writings of this great man, and see how accurately and gratefully his utterances adjust themselves to every calling, difficulty, doubt, sorrow, or joy of human life. As the horn of the Alpine hunter is said to quiver the leaves of the violets in th( valley, to move the trees on the mountain-side, to startle the cedar by the snow line, and sometimes to stir the avalanche itself into awful and destructive descent, so these trumpet-blasts of Dr. Talmage have been hea. 1 with thanksgiving by the heart-broken, with noble respect by 2 (17) 1 8 /A TR OD UCTION. strong men and noble worm n, and with fear and trembling by the devotees of vice and crime. His utterances are like the trumpet-peal which welcomed our car- avan from the desert as we approached the banks of the Tigris, and which I have no doubt has since welcomed the pilgrims from that sandy waste each season. Its notes were clear as those of a cathedral bell, and spread themselves over the barren land with strangely pro- longed echoes. It was the most welcome sound that we had ever heard. It was the announcement of the end of a long and dangerous journey. To a bride in that caravan it was a summons to a home where love ancl luxury awaited her. To the merchant it was a hopeful harbinger of profits in Bagdad. But to the criminals in shackles it was a terrible declaration of doom, and was resonant with the dismal sound of pre- paration for their execution. The same trumpet was heard by all, yet how different were the feelings aroused by its tones. So the readers of this book will find here soothing balms for broken spirits, fountains in which to cleanse the social lepers, nutritious food for the hungry, brilliant flashes of wit for mental recreation, and a clear presentation of the Way of Salvation. Each student finds what he needs, and each listener recognizes the trumpet-blast as containing a message for him. Here are the wise sayings which, among few others of this era, can never die. Talmage's great sermons will grow greater in the estima- tion of the good and cultured people as ib r , years multiply. It is true that no one book can contain so great a man, bu*: in such a volume as this can be gathered comprehensive and illustrative examples suitable to give the reader an excellent general idea of the man, his words, and his work. It is a good deed to utter such declarations, it is a good deed to publish them, and it is a good deed to read them. They sing to the mechanic like the encouraging notes of Tubal Cain. They threaten the entrenched enemies of society like the trumpets of Jericho. They stir the blood of the valiant patriot like the bugle-call to battle. They awaken the sleeping and unconscious like the trumpets of the Jews, which announced the morning's swift approach. They are like the pipes on the house-tops which announce a birth, and like the answering whistles of the life-saving steamer as it approaches the fog- enshrouded and sinking wreck. Go out, thou printed messenger of the sublime Gospel ! Go into the homes of the rich, and teach them generosity. Go into the cottages of the poor, and teach them economy INTRODUCTION. 19 Go into the palaces of the proud, and train them to be humble. Go into the den of the sinner, and tell him of Christ. Go to the kind reader at the bedside of the suffering, and give solace and healing. Go to the school, and teach the lips of young orators to be really eloquent. Go to the college, and tell men to be true to their own individuality Go to all classes of men, and tell them of the Shining Beyond to which life is but the threshold. And go to all who have not set themselves at work to make this life pure and the other life secure, and tell them, as this book so forcibly urges, that to be a simple pure Christian saved by Christ is better than to have otherwise all knowledge, all beauty, and all the golden eloquence of a Talmage or a Chrysostom. Such a message, this wisely prepared volume by one of the best and most eloquent of men must announce wherever it goes. I shout after these trumpet-blasts, with all my heart's best wishes : " God soeed thee ! God speed thee ! Heralds of light !" ^^B LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF REV, T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D. THERE is no Christian teacher now living whose every utter- ance commands snch attention, whose words inspire such fervor and produce such conviction, whose literary productions are so eagerly sought for and so generally read, whose writings command such prices and secure such easy and ready sale, whose entire public life has been such a phenomenal success, as the subject of this biographical sketch. Like Lincoln, Wilson, Grant, Simpson, Stanley, Luther, and even the Master himself, whom he has so faithfully served and loyally followed,T. De Witt Talmage was born entirely outside of the ruling caste of social life. U A country boy," of humble parentage, he began life at the bottom, though destined to climb to the top of the social scale. He was born at Bound Brook, New Jersey,on the seventh day of January, 1832. The last of twelve children, he had the benefit of his parents' experience in the training of the other eleven, a circum- stance doubtless not without its beneficial influence on his later life. The Talmage family belonged to "the common people." Our hero was not born in a palace, nor yet in a dugout. He was wellborn in the best sense of that term born of good stock. His parents David T. and Catherine, combined those sterling qualities which com- mand the admiration and approval of mankind good sense, wit, firmness, strength of character, sympathy, deep piety, and activity in Christian endeavor. Inheriting such qualities, it is in no sense a mar- vel that no orator of his time could draw so many to hear his words, or command such terms on the lecture platform, as Dr. Talmage. The 22 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. popular lecturers of the century have come and gone, risen and fallen ; they have had their periods of popular favor and their periods of neglect ; but of this man it must be recorded, that he has gone on from strength to strength and from conquest to conquest, ever gaining, never losing his hold upon the popular interest. His success as a genial companion, felicitous conversationalist and writer, eloquent lect- urer, earnest reformer, popular preacher and able expositor and soul- winner, has been most remarkable. Dr. Talmage says of his family : " There were no lords or baron- ets or princes in our ancestral line. None wore star, escutcheon or crest. Do our best, we cannot find anything about our forerunners except that they behaved well, came over from Wales or Holland a good while ago, and died when their time came." After all, what better start in life could a man desire ? His father and mother lived to a good old age. They celebrated their "golden wedding," and nine years later his mother "sped into the skies," as the hush of death came down upon their home one autumnal afternoon. Just three years from that day, October 27, 1871, David T. Talmage, who had attained the good old age of eighty-three: years, passed through the portals of death. Like most young men, the subject of our sketch had his juvenile notions of what he "would like to make of himself." It is not strange that of a youth possessed of such gifts a fervent imagination, passion- ate fondness for nature's charms, unusual powers of expression, a manner dramatic in the highest degree, a nature vivacious, electric and. spontaneous those who came in contact with him should prophesy great things concerning his career : " He will be journalist, poet, attor- ney, advocate, politician, or reformer." Having passed the usual course of study, he entered the University of the City of New York, from which he was graduated with distinction. He especially excelled in "belles-lettres. It is said that his graduation oration was received with o "immense applause," the whole audience rising to their feet under the spell of his oratory. Leaving college, his mind turned toward the legal profession, the study of which he pursued for a year after his graduation, when an in- describable unrest took control of his mind. His parents wished and God intended him to be an embassador of the cross. The godly ex- ample and devout worship of his pious parents prepared the. way. For, LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 23 though he was as full of the spirit of enjoyment as any boy living, so that one writer says of him, " New Jersey never contained a merrier or more mischievous lad, one more active in field or more roguish in school," yet there prevailed in that Puritan home a religious atmosphere well calculated to indelibly impress and pervade his mind and soul. Dr. Talmage says of those days: "I had many sound thrashings when I was a boy (not as many as I ( ought to have had, for I was the last child, and my parents let me off), but the most memorable scene in my child- hood was that of father and mother at morning and even- ing prayers. I cannot forget it, for I used often to be squirming around on the floor and looking at them while they were praying." Under the spell of this new impulse, young Tal- mage entered the New Brunswick Theological Sem- inary, connected with Rut- gers College, and began in earnest hi" preparation for the ministry. It should be recorded that he had pro- fessed conversion at the age of eighteen and united with the Dutch Reformed Church. Leaving the Seminary in 1856, he began his ministej rial career at Bellville, N. J., a small town on the picturesque Passaic. Here he spent three profitable years in preparation for wider fields. It was here that he got down from his stilts, let his crutches drop, threw away his manuscript, cast to the winds his fears, and launched out on the sea of extemporaneous preaching a style to which he ad- hered with success throughout his long career, and to which, indeed, FORCE AND SPIRIT. 24 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. he largely attributed his success. Of this period, he related the follow- ing interesting incident: " My first settlement as a pastor was in a village. My salary was eight hundred dollars and a parsonage. The amount seemed enormous to me. I said to myself, ' What ! all this for one year ? ' I was afraid of getting worldly under so much prosperity ! I resolved to invite all the congregation to my house in groups of twenty-five each. We began, and as they were the best congregation in all the world, and we felt that nothing was too good for them, we piled all the luxuries on the table. I never completed the under- taking. At the end of six months I was in financial despair. I found that we not only had not the surplus of luxuries, but that we had a struggle to get the necessities, and I learned what every young man learns, in time to save himself, or learns too late, that you must measure the size of a man's body before you begin to cut the cloth for his coat." From Bellville, he went to Syracuse, New York. In this larger field he proved himself equal to the demand His genius and power put new life into a weak congregation. He drew a large and cultured audience, in which professional talent predominated in influence. Here his fluent and eloquent style became more fully developed. The saline climate of Syracuse did not agree with his health, and in the year 1862 he accepted a call to Philadelphia, where he continued to improve in his own school of orator*)' for a period of seven years. Though some fastidious people severely criticised his method of speaking, pronouncing it "awkward, coarse and inelegant," Dr. Talmage was sure of his position, and persevered in his own vigorous and incisive style, much to the delight of the great majority of his hearers. While at the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876, the writer chanced to fall in with a member of his church, whose estimate of his former pastor was not at all flattering to him as a prophet. I spoke of the great stir that Dr. Talmage was making in Brooklyn. " Pshaw," exclaimed he, "Dr. Talmage's success won't last. As soon as the papers cease booming him, he and his ' Tabernacle Theatre ' will fall flat. He can't preach, there is neither logic in his argument, nor symmetry in his style. I listened to him seven years and am quite sure his career will be ephemeral." So thought many people who felt it incumbent upon them to give their homage to pulpit traditions. It was a wise maxim of the quaint Westerner, Davy Crockett, "Be sure you are right, and then go ahead," and events have proven jtei;i:iJJ,i'H.M:il.l-l'1-"l'< J ;-'^l!iJI LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. 25 that Taimage was right in the course he chose to pursue. He pos- sessed the "divine gift of genius," and a soul all aglow with the idea of preaching Christ as the single mission of his life. He felt that he had the gospel message, and the world must hear it. " The church was not to him in numbers a select few, in organization a monopoly. It was meant to be the conqueror and transformer of the world. For seven years he wrought with much success on this theory, all the time ealizing that his plans could come to fullness only under conditions that would enable him to build from the bottom up an organization which could get nearer to the masses and which would have no prece- dents to be afraid of as ghosts in its path." The congregation which he served was the largest in the city and his prospects were all that could be desired ; still he was not satisfied, and wished for a church having no fixed policy, and no controlling spirits who might antagonize and retard the development of his ideal. The way opened. A vacancy occurred. A small, struggling congrega- tion in the city of Brooklyn wanted a pastor. Its corporate name was the Central Presbyterian Church. Failure had followed success, largely through the close proximity of the church of the popular Dr. Cuyler, until the year 1868, when the Rev. Dr. Rockwell felt it his duty to resign. It was now a forlorn hope. The church remained without a minister for a year, and the membership dwindled down to nineteen persons. The prospect was dark enough. But these nineteen were true and tried. It was a case of life or death. Only an able man in the pulpit could save it. Who should be he ? Who could be induced to undertake such a task ? The suitable man would have every reason to stay away from such a sinking cause. These faithful few resolved to make an effort to secure a first-class minister and resuscitate their church. Among those who did much to arouse the courage of the faithful ones was Judge E. C. Converse, a gentleman of great earnestness and influence. He cast about him for a minister whose power as a preacher and whose tact as a worker would build up the church. Through acquaintances in Philadelphia, the attention of Judge Converse was drawn to the rising fame of the Rev. T. De Witt Taimage, then pastor of the First Reformed Church of that city. It seemed like a forlorn hope to suppose that a pulpit orator, whose reputation was already beginning to fill the land, would heed, much 26 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. less accept, a call from a poor and struggling- church. Be the result what it might, Judge Converse felt that the needs of the Central Presbyterian Church demanded the highest effort, and, besides, he felt that the rising preacher could win as noble a position and do as. glori- ous a work in Brooklyn as anywhere else. Emboldened by the ear- nestness of this gentleman, his associates commissioned him to be the bearer of a call to Dr. Talmage. It did not damp the ardor of his hopes to find, when he reached the home of Dr. Talmage, that four LOST IN THOUGHT. other oalls, backed by great influence and power, were already ahead of that which he bore. One was from a leading church in San Fran- cisco, another was from Boston, and another from Chicago. Dr. Tal- mage has told to a few friends what a struggle of contending influences was produced in his mind by the presentation of those five calls, and the beseeching cry not to leave them set up by the congregation in whose midst he was so happily situated, and by which he was so greatly beloved. After repeated prayer for three days, he decided in favor of Brooklyn. LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TA IMAGE, 27 The moment he had made and announced his decision, his mind grew at ease, and though many of his congregation came to him with tears in their eyes to induce him to change his determination, he never wavered, as he saw his way clear. His first sermon under his new pastorate was preached on March 7, 1869, from the text, "God is love." His fame as a preacher had preceded him to Brooklyn ; and from the very first every service he conducted was largely attended. Before the close of his first year the church saw that it would be necessary to construct a larger building to accommodate the crowds who flocked to hear him. The work of building a new edifice was begun in June of the following year, 1870, and completed in three months. This rapidity of construction was due to a remarkable pecu- liarity of design from an original plan made and elaborated by Dr. Talmage himself. The principal idea was that of a half-circle audi- torium, with the platform placed midway between the two ends of the arc connecting the extremes of the semicircle, the passage-ways or aisles radiating out from the platform, and the floor rising from the platform outwardly. The construction of the building was also unique. A rough wooden frame formed its exterior outline. This frame was enclosed by strips of corrugated sheet-iron, covering both the inside and the outside, and giving to the structure the appearance of half of an iron cylinder set on end. The organ a splendid one by Hook, of Boston, who built the Plymouth Church organ was placed at the back of the platform, and the organist's bank of keys and pedals was situated immediately in front of the platform. This new- style of church auditorium was not only original with Dr. Talmage, but it was revolutionary in character. It upset the whole previous theory of church architecture. The superior acoustic properties of buildings thus internally arranged, and the advantages they possess in the matter of obtaining a good view of the speaker, were soon rendered so apparent that the style has since become deservedly popular. Besides the innovation in the church structure itself, Dr. Talmag set aside the practice of choir-singing, then so much in vogue, am. insisted that all the church music in the Tabernacle should be exclu surely congregational. He also enunciated the idea of free pews, and carried it into practical effect. The old Tabernacle had no gallery, It had seats for two thous- and nine hundred persons, and by bringing in camp-stools, three 28 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. thousand four hundred persons could be seated in it During its con struction Dr. Talmage was allowed leave of absence to visit Europe. He was escorted down the bay on the day of his departure by a large number of his congregation, and among the last sounds borne to his ears, as the escort-boat turned to go back to Brooklyn, were cheers for the Tabernacle, which the congregation had promised to have -eady against his return. The congregation nobly redeemed their icdge; the Tabernacle was completed early in September, 1870, and dedicated on Sunday, the 26th of the same month. The dedication sermon was preached by Dr. Talmage himself, in the presence of about four thousand people. During the following year the Old Tabernacle was enlarged, so as to increase its seating capacity about five hundred. The entire cost of the church was now about eighty-five thousand dollars, which was paid or secured by reliable pledges. This was a serious tax on the resources of the membership, but all were happy in the achievement of so great an undertaking. Unfortunately, the fruit of their labor was not long to be enjoyed. On Saturday afternoon, just previous to the Christmr of 1872, the church session met at the residence of Major B. R. Convin Having settled up the finances of the year, they separated, congratu- lating themselves in having passed through a series of glorious suc- cesses. A disheartening reverse was at hand. On the next morning, Sunday, December 22, 1872, Dr. Talmage's congregation were startled at finding their house of worship enveloped in flames. With astonish- ment they gazed at the unlooked-for disaster. Their hearts sank within them. When the hour of morning worship arrived, the build- ing was falling in before their eyes. The fire had broken out about half-past nine, but so rapid was its progress that in half an hour the entire edifice was a ruin. The knowledge of the conflagration was oon in every home in the city, and the expressions of sympathy from other churches were quick and hearty, the homeless congregation being invited to worship in several of the largest and most desirable churches in Brooklyn, including the Plymouth Church. The invitation to use Mr. Beecher's church was accepted, and thither the sad con- gregation went in the evening. The occasion drew a vast audience, and Dr. Talmage preached. Before beginning his sermon, he alluded to the events of the day as follows : LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. 29 " In the village where I once lived, on a cold night, there was a of fire. House after house was consumed. But there was in the village a large, hospitable dwelling, and as soon as the people were burned out they came into this common center. The good man of the house stood at the door and said, ' Come in,' and the little children as they were brought to the door, some of them wrapped in blankets and shawls, were taken to bed, and the old people that came ii> from their consumed dwellings were seated around the fire. The good man of the house told them that all would be well. This is a very cold day to be burned out. But we come into this hospitable house to-night, and gather around this great warm fire of Christian kindness and love, and it is good to be here. The Lord built the Tabernacle, and the Lord let it burn down. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We don't feel like sitting down in discouragement, although the place was very dear. Our hearts there were filled with comfort, and to us many a time did Jesus appear his face radiant as the sun. To-day, when Christian sympathy came in from Plymouth Church, and from ten other churches of the city, all offering their houses of worship to us, I must say I was deeply moved. Tell me not that there is no kind- ness between churches, or that there is no such thing as Christian brotherhood ! Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love ! " Dr. Talmage was not discouraged. Undaunted, he went like the bee, right about the work of rebuilding. He inspired his devoted people with his own unyielding spirit. Out of the ashes of the old shell in due time came a new structure, larger, grander, and better than the former. While the smoke of the ruins was yet rising, measures . were taken for the erection of a new Tabernacle, and subscriptions were opened for the purpose. A general appeal was made to the whole country, and the task of erecting a mammoth structure was begun. John Welsh was the architect, and nobly did he perform his task. That he succeeded most admirably is the universal verdict of all who were acquainted with the late Tabernacle. The congregation secured the Academy of Music and made that their temporary home, and for fourteen months they worshiped there. We extract from Dr. Talmage's first sermon in the Academy : " We are in the Academy to-day, not because we have no other ph&> to go. Last Sabbath morning, at nine o'clock, we had but one 30 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. church ; now we have twenty-five at our disposal. Their pastors and their trustees say : ' You may take our main audience-rooms, you may take our lecture-rooms, you may take our church parlors, you may baptize in our baptisteries, and sit on our anxious seats.' Oh ! it there be any larger-hearted ministers or larger-hearted churches any where than in Brooklyn, tell me where there are, that I may go and see them before I die. The millennium has come. People keep wondering when it is coming. It has come. The lion and the lamb lie down together, and the tiger eats straw like an ox. I should like to have seen two of the old-time bigots with their swords fighting through that great fire on Schermerhorn street last Sabbath. I am sure the swords would have melted, and they who wielded them would have learned to war no more. I can never say a word against any other denomination of Christians. I thank God I never have been tempted to do so. I cannot be sectarian. I have been told I ought to be, and I have tried to be, but I have not enough material in me to make such a structure. Every time I get the thing most done, there comes a fire, or something else, and all is gone. The angels of God sing out on this Christmas air : ' Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will coward men.' I do not think the day is far distant when all the different branches of the Presbyterian Church will be one, and all the different branches of the Methodist Church will be one, and all the different branches of the Episcopal Church will be one. " The Brooklyn Tabernacle is gone ! The bell that hung in its tower last Sabbath morning rang its own funeral knell. On that day we gathered from our homes with our families to hear what Christ had of comfort and inspiration for his people. We expected to meet cheerful smiles and warm handshakings, and the triumphant song, and the large brotherhood that characterized that blessed place ; but coming to the doors, we found nothing but an excited populace and a blazing church. People who had given until they deeply felt it, saw all the results of their benevolence going down into ashes, and, on that cold morning, the tears froze on the cheeks of God's people as they saw they were being burned out. Brooklyn Tabernacle is gone ! " Good-bye, Old Tabernacle ! Your career was short but blessed; /our ashes are precious in our sight. In the last day may we be able to meet the songs there sung, and the prayers there offered, and sermons there preached. Good-bye, old place, where some of LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. 31 us first felt the Gospel peace, and others heard the last message ere they fled away into the skies ! Good-bye, Brooklyn Tabernacle of 1870. " But welcome our new church ! I see it as plainly as though it were already built ; its walls firmer ; its gates wider ; its songs more triumphant ; its ingatherings more glorious. Rise out of the ashes, and greet our waiting vision ! Burst on our souls, O day of our r.hurch's resurrection ! By your altars, may we be prepared for the EARNEST APPEAL. Wei- hour when the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. .ome, Brooklyn Tabernacle of 1873 !" Dr. Talmage was a good prophet. The corner-stone of the new church was laid on June 7, 1873, m t^ 6 presence of a vast throng of people. The erection of the building was pushed with great vigor and success. It was completed and dedicated on March 22, 1874, in the presence of the largest congregation that ever assembled in the city of Brooklyn, and was, at that time, the largest Protestant church in 32 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. America. It was in the form of a Greek cross fronting on Schermer horn street. The lower floor furnished sittings for thirty-one hundred persons, and the gallery for fifteen hundred more. The building, with the ground, cost one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. In this edifice, Dr. Talmage preached with great success until Sunday morning, October 13, 1889, a period of over fifteen years. Then, once again, the alarm of fire was raised. " Where is the fire ? *' " Dr. Talmage's Tabernacle is in flames ! " " Quick, quick to the rescue ! " It was too late ! The flames swept through the famous structure with a force and headway which not only bade defiance to the best efforts of the valiant firemen, but devoured everything in their path. When the dawn of day lit up the scene, only two tumbling and tottering walls, that might fall at any moment, and a great heap of charred and smoking ruins, remained of what had been the most famous church in America. For the second time in its history, the Brooklyn Tabernacle had been destroyed. Both buildings were burned down on Sunday morning, a striking coincidence. There were no services held by Dr. Talmage on the sad morning of October 13, 1889, but the Sunday- school was held as usual at 3 o'clock, in the Yonng Men's Christian Association Hall. Dr. Talmage was not present during this afternoon service, but was at his home, No. I Couth Oxford street, in earnest consultation with his church lieutenants with the purpose of evolving plans fojr immediate and future action. The following resolutions were adopted " We, the trustees of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, assembled Sab bath, October 13, 1889, at the house of our pastor, adopt the following "Resolved, That we bow in humble submission to the Providence which this morning removed our beloved church, and while we cannot fully understand the meaning of that Providence, we have faith that there is kindness as well as severity in the stroke. "Resolved, That if God and the people will help us, we proce* immediately to rebuild, and that we rear a structure large enough meet the demands of our congregation ; locality and style of buila.n^ to be indicated by the amount of contributions made. "Resolved^ That our hearty thanks be rendered to the owners o public buildings who have offered their auditoriums for the use of our congregation, and to all those wiio have given us their sympathy in the time of trial. LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. 33 " Resolved, That Alexander McLean, E. H. Branch, John Wood, and F. M. Lawrence be appointed a committee to secure a building for Sabbath morning and evening services, 10.30 A. M. and 7.30 P. M." Dr. Talmage next dictated to the reporters the following appeal: " To THE PEOPLE. " By a sudden calamity we are without a church. The building associated with so much that is dear to us is in ashes. In behalf of my stricken congregation I make appeal for help, as our church has never confined its work to this locality. Our church has never been sufficient either in size or appointments for the people who come. We want to build something worthy of our city and worthy the cause of God. We want one hundred thousand dollars, which added to the insurance, will build what is needed. I make appeal to all our friends throughout Christendom, to all denominations, to all creeds and those of no creed at all, to come to our assistance. " I ask all readers of my sermons the world over to contribute as far as their means will allow. What we shall do as a church depends upon the immediate response made to this call. I was on the eve of my departure for a brief visit to the Holy Land, that I might be better prepared for my work here, but that visit must be postponed. I cannot leave until something is done to decide our future. May the God who has our destiny as individuals and churches in his hand appear for our deliverance. "Response to this appeal to the people may be sent to me, 'Brooklyn, N. Y.,' and I will, with my own hands, acknowledge the receipt thereof. "T. DE WITT TALMAGE." " History has almost repeated itself," said the Reverend Doctor sadly, " for it was just seventeen years ago, and upon a Sabbath morning, that we had a similar visitation of fire. Myself and family, who had been alarmed, stood in the glass cupola surmounting the house, and saw our beloved Sabbath-home moulder away. We could distinguish every arch, beam and rafter, and see them crumble beneath the cruel flames. Shortly after, I visited the scene myself, and it made my heart sad. The subject of my sermon was to have been, 'Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith.' " 3 34 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. Many were the offers received from sister churches and theatre managers proffering the use of their auditoriums for services. As Dr. Talmage said himself: "The kindness shown us in our hour of need is most manifest Nearly every auditorium within a radius of three miles has been tendered us, but the committee has finally decided to take the Academy of Music, and we shall hold service there at the usual hours on Sunday next." Among the many offers was one from the Rev. Lyman Abbott, of Plymouth Church, a former classmate of Dr. Talmage. It was couched as follows : "PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, Oct. 13, 1889. "My dear Dr. Talmage: The Board of Deacons of Plymouth Church authorize me to tender to your people the use of our church edifice on Sunday evenings until your permanent arrangements for your future church have been made. It is quite at your service and theirs for as long as you may desire. I ant sure that I need not add that I cordially unite with them, and that 1 am sure that their action represents the sentiment and feeling that Plymouth Church bears to the Tabernacle in this calamity which has befalietf them, " Your old friend, " LYMAN ABBOTT." It is best to complete the story of the Tabernacle, before giving an account of other events in Dr. Talmage's public life. Energetic steps, as we have seen, were at once taken towards replacing the ruined church with a more magnificent structure, and as soon as sufficient funds could be raised and the necessary plans completed, the work of erection was earnestly begun. The new church was finished in the spring of 1891, and the dedication services took place on April 26th of that year. Its character and dimensions may be briefly described. The edifice was of the Norman style of architecture, and was built of dark red Connecticut granite, with facings of brown-stone from Lake Superior, forming a pleasant contrast in color. Over the two upper entrances one fronting on Clinton avenue, the other on Greene avenue there was a rounding projection, which formed the base of a square tower of massive proportions, with a slender round turret at each corner. INSIDE VIEW OF THE TABERNACLE. DR. TALMAGE'S RESIDENCE IN WASHINGTON /HE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE. 38 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. preached his first sermon in the new Tabernacle, to an overflowing host of people, who were drawn thither alike .by the noble church and its eloquent pastor. During the period of his Brooklyn pastorate Dr. Talmage has paid several visits to the Old World, of which some mention is here desirable. The first was made in 1879. On May 28th of that year he took passage on the Cunard steamer " Gallia," leaving land with an enthusiastic farewell ovation from his congregation. He reached England on Saturday, June 7th, after a quick and un- eventful voyage, and on the following day attended service at Westminster Abbey, where he had the valued privilege of hear- ing Canon Farrar and Dean Stanley. In the evening he visited Dr. Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle, and was warmly greeted after the sermon by that famous pastor. He afterwards visited many cities of Great Britain, and preached to crowded and enthusiastic audiences. His journey was a constant ovation. Mr. Spurgeon says of his sermons: "They lay hold of my inmost soul ; certainly the Lord is with this mighty man of valor." Dr. Talmage returned to America in October, and was warmly received at the Tabernacle, an immense audience greeting him, as he en- tered, with a storm of applause which showed clearly the high estimation in which his own people held him. In the summer of 1885 he again visited England, where he was received even more warmly than on his former visit. Among the sermons he preached was one delivered in the celebrated Wesleyan Chapel, of London, behind which is the grave of John Wesley, and in front of which is Bunhill burying-ground, where lie the bones of John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, Daniel Defoe, and Home READING THE SCRIPTURES. LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMA GE. . 39 Tooke. The church was crowded to suffocation, and a still larger congregation gathered in the street and in the graveyard in front, whom Dr. Talmage addressed after the completion of his church service. Later in the season, he preached in the United Presbyterian Synod Hall, Edinburgh, to an audience equally dense. A third notable visit to the Old World was made after the de- struction of the second Tabernacle. D. Talmage had for some time contem i plated writing a "Life of Christ." Many of the numerous works under this title had been written by persons who had no personal knowledge of Palestine. It was his opinion that to adapt one's self properly for such a task, he must visit the Holy Land himself. Accordingly, in October, 1889, he again crossed the ocean, and remained absent till the spring of 1890, during which time he traversed Palestine, closely observing the places made memorable in the his- tory of our Lord and Christ, and also visited Rome, Athens, Corinth, Alex- andria, and Cairo. For several months after his return he preached a series of sermons on the "Holy Land," using, in the absence of a church of his own, the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, in the morning, and the New York Acad- emy of Music in the evening. This latter immense building was filled to over- flowing by his audiences. Another excursion made by Dr. Tal I mage, of sufficient importance to put here upon record, was into the haunts of sin in New York city, those plague-spots of evil with which the great metropolis is abundantly infested. Of these homes of evil he made a midnight exploration, under the protection of the police, and accompanied by two members of his own church. The discourses which he delivered as a result of his pilgrimage into this pit of human EXPOUNDING THE WORD. 40 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. abomination produced intense interest and mnch feeling, both favorable and hostile. Few men ever had more enthusiastic friends than Dr. Talmage; and few men of worth have ever been more misrepresented. He was for years a target of criticism, ridicule and abuse by his enemies, yet he did not swerve an inch from what he believed the path of duty, nor did his influence for good decrease in consequence of these ill-natured and unfounded assaults. Personally Dr. Talmage was a man of commanding presence. To quote from one of his biographers, one saw in him a " tall, stal- wart man, slightly stooping ; broad-shouldered, long-armed, bony and spare of flesh ; a massive, superbly developed head, bald on the top ; an expansive brow ; rather small and deeply-set blue eyes, that now laughed like sunbeams and now blazed like forked lightnings; a large, mobile mouth ; a square, pugnacious jaw, trimmed with spare sandy side-whiskers ; the whole figure clad in plain black. He was not a handsome man, nor the miracle of ugliness the caracturists have tried to make him. He was a commanding and intellectual figure, compelling respect and inviting confidence and affection. Whether reading the Scripture lesson, offering prayer, or preaching, he stood alone on the open platform, not even a reading- desk before him. His sermons were carefully prepared beforehand, but delivered without a scrap of manuscript. The preacher's voice was powerful, far-reaching, never monotonous. It expressed every possible sentiment with faultless modulation. His gestures were vigorous, not profuse, dramatic and impressive. His speech was unconventional, informal, never undignified. The above eulogistic remarks call for no addition and no criti- cism. They paint the man as he really was. Whether in the cir- cle of his friends in the ease of his chair, or on the platform before his audience, Dr. Talmage always impressed one as an earnest, whole- souled, and vigorous personage, genial in companionship, thought- ful and impressive in address, and powerful in oratory, carrying Jiis hearers along by the magnetic qualities of his voice and the natural adaptation of his gestures, till one forgot that he was listening t ) an oration, and seemed to live in the flowing tide of the speaker's thought. Dr. Talmage had to be heard to be appreciated, and few have been heard by a greater number of entranced listeners. THE LIFE OE REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D. Continued and Completed After His Death -BY REV. HENRY DAVENPORT NORTHROP. One of Dr. Talmage's biographers furnishes the following account : " It was from Philadelphia that the fame of his preaching first began to go forth over the country, and the publication of his ser- mons was first undertaken while he was there. When he resigned in 1869 from the Second Reformed Church of Philadelphia, it was owing to his accepting one of several urgently offered pas- torates, those of the Calvary Church, of Chicago ; a church in San Francisco and the Central Church, of Brooklyn, which he later made celebrated as the Tabernacle. " Dr. Talinage was one of four brothers out of a New Jersey family of twelve who entered the Christian ministry. His father, David T. Talmage, of Bound Brook, where De Witt, the youngest child, was born, January 7, 1832, belonged to what his son described as ' the aristocracy of hard knuckles,' but the boys managed to obtain good educations, De Witt studying at the University of the City of New York. Here, although making no remarkable record in any branch of his curriculum save belles-lettres, with which to the end of his life he remained in the closest touch, he soon became famous among his fellows for his dramatic and oratorical powers. When he was graduated, in May, 1853, the exercises being held in Niblo's Garden, he fired a large audience to fervid applause by his essay on ' The Moral Effects of Sculpture and Architecture.' "Dr. Talmage's first inclination, aftergraduation was toward the study of law, to which he gave three years, finally abandoning it to enter the Reformed Dutch Theological Seminary of New Bruns- wick, N. J. Immediately after his ordination in 1856 he was called to a pastorate at Belleville, N. J., then in 1859 to Syracuse, N. Y. 41 42 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. The Second Reformed Dutch Church, of Philadelphia, was his third charge. He was called there in 1862, filling during the Civil War the post of chaplain of a Pennsylvania regiment and remained until 1869. " During this time his marvelous power of presenting religious truths in language lofty enough for the cultured and simple enough for the plainest people began to be fully recognized, and before he left the church was unable to hold one-fourth of the multitude who sought admission. He also commenced the series of platform lectures which became so prominent a feature of his public career. "Bvery financial inducement to remain was offered him when he determined to leave Philadelphia for the Central Church of Brooklyn. Thereby hangs a curious story, which Dr. Talmage himself was wont to tell, of his abandonment of the tobacco habit. A personal friend promised that if the doctor would stay in Philadelphia he would see that he had all the cigars, and of the finest quality pro- curable, that he could smoke. The doctor reasoned over the offer, and, although he did not accept it, found that the cigars were more than an ordinary inducement. ' So when I discovered that I had got to a point where tobacco was a material disideratum in my existence,' he said, 1 1 knew it was time to stop and I stopped.' "The Central Church of Brooklyn, when Dr. Talmage first came to it, consisted of nineteen members. The attendance averaged about thirty-five. The second Sunday after his arrival showed an increase. Congregations grew so fast that after fifteen months he persuaded the trustees to tear down the old church and build a new one, accommodating 3000 persons, to be called ' The Tabernacle.' Dr. Talmage offered to give up his salary of $7000 a year until the new plan proved a success. "In 1870, while this was in process of building, Dr. Talmage made a tour of Europe, principally of the British Isles. In 1 872 the Tabernacle was destroyed by fire. u Well ! " said Dr. Talmage, reassuringly, when apprised of the disaster, ' it never was large enough, anyhow ' and preached to mammoth audiences in the Academy of Music while a new church, the largest Protestant edifice in America, was being built, with seating capacity for 5000 persons and standing capacity for an additional thousand." LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 43 In 1889 this new church also caught fire and was destroyed and Dr. Talmage immediately issued an appeal to all the churches to subscribe $100,000 additional to the $129,500 for which the building was insured, for the creation of yet a third Tabernacle. This was completed in 1891, and until it was ready for occupancy Dr. Talmage divided his Sundays between the Academy of Music of Brooklyn and that of New York. The third Tabernacle was burned on Sunday, May 13, 1894, after Dr. Talmage had preached his farewell sermon. He had celebrated his silver jubilee in the church a few days before and was about to resign. After a trip to Honolulu, he did resign on November 9, 1894, and then preached at various places until he accepted a call to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, on Sep- tember 26, 1895. He went abroad in 1900 and travelled extensively in Europe. He utilized the public press, as a disseminating medium for his teachings, to a degree unattempted by any other preacher. His Sunday sermons were for over thirty years published in more than L wo thousand newspapers, which, counting five readers to an issue, aggregated an immense audience weekly. He also edited suc- cessively the "Christian at Work," "Advance," "Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine," and the "Christian Herald," retaining charge of the last named up until the time of his death. He was also constantly upon the lecture platform, and some idea of his drawing capacity as a speaker as well as of the financial independence his gifts brought him may be gained from 'the fact that he was once offered and refused $50,000 for a series of lectures whose dates, locality and subjects should be his own choice. In 1892 he accompanied the famine relief ship "Leo" into Russia, meeting the Czar and Czarina while there. Dr. Talmage died at his residence in Washington, April 12, 1902, at 9 P. M. It had been evident for several days that there was no hope of recovery and the attending physicians so informed the family. The patient gradually grew weaker, until life passed away so quietly that even the members of the family, all of whom were watching at the bedside, hardly knew that he had gone. The immediate cause of death was inflammation of the brain. Dr. Tal- 44 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. mage was in poor health when he started away from Washington for Mexico for a vacation and rest in February. He was then suffering from influenza and serious catarrhal conditions. After his return to Washington he' was quite ill. Until Thursday, April loth, however, fears of his death were not entertained. The last rational words uttered by Dr. Talmage were on the ] day preceding the marriage of his daughter, when he said: "Of course I know you, Maud." After that he became unconscious and had no lucid intervals. At Dr. Talmage' s bedside, besides his wife, were these members of his family : The Rev. Frank DeWitt Talmage, of Chicago ; Mrs. Warren G. Smith and Mrs. Daniel Man gam, of Brooklyn ; Mrs. Allen E. Donnau, of Richmond, and Mrs. Clarence Wycoff and Miss Talmage, of Washington. On Snnday, the day following Dr. Talmage' s death, a request was sent to his family from the Consistory of the First Reformed Dutch Church of Brooklyn, that the eminent preacher be buried from the "City of Churches," in the religious life of which he was for years so prominent a figure. W. A. Hall, superintendent of the Sunday School of the Dutch Reformed Church, which is at Seventh avenue and Carroll street, received an answer to this request in the following telegram : "Telegram received. Sympathy much appreciated. Have decided to have but one service at Washington. FRANK D. TALMAGE." After the evening services, Mr. Hall told the members of the Consistory of the decision' of the Talmage family and much disap- pointment was expressed. The general opinion prevailed that as Dr. Talmage had been so eminent a figure in Brooklyn church life the funeral services should be held from that city. \ Many other churches in Brooklyn took action and expressed sorrow over the death of Dr. Talmage. Among them was the Central Presbyterian Church, at Jefferson and Marcy avenues, the Rev. J. F. Carson, pastor. After the morning service Dr. Carson spoke on the long and successful ministry of Dr. Talmage in Brooklyn, and he was followed by several of the officers of the church. James J. Matchett, a trustee of the church, who had been for years a close personal friend of Dr. Talmage, told of his life there as a preacher. 7 in ri\AOL. lit l3RJ>.i?UIlG D 1\W UR CE.LE5TIAL KING : | 7\CL CL !^ BL m I - }? ft n5T D T C* . v^ui AY 5L 1 v,iD HAT JITTEffl ,5Tlll ' . JYFUL DWIGHT L. MOODY LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 45 A. W. Kendrick, for seventeen years a trustee of Dr. Talmage's Tabernacle, paid a glowing tribute, and then the following resolu- tions, offered by Mr. Matchett, were unanimously adopted by the church : " Resolved, That we, the members of the Central Presbyterian Church, express our profound sense of loss at the death of the Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage. We sorrow, but we do not mourn ; and we express a tribute to his memory, character and life work. A prince and a great man has fallen at his work. He was one of the strongest preachers in America, and while Brooklyn was for thirty- five years the scene of his ministrations, the world was his audience. His aim was to win men Godward. He stood four-square against all winds of adverse doctrine. " We extend to his family the assurance of our sincere sym- pathy and affectionate remembrance in this their time of sorrow." Many were the expressions of sorrow heard from Brooklyn churchmen over the loss of Dr. Talmage. Leonard Moody, who was for thirty-two years a member of the Talmage church, and who up to the time of his death was intimate with Dr. Talmage both socially and in a business way, was overcome at the news of his friend's death. When seen at his home he said : " No death has ever affected me as has that of Dr. Talmage. We have lost one of the greatest preachers that Brooklyn ever knew. Dr. Talmage was a man whose sermons reached a larger number of people than any other pulpiteer in the last half century. He reached more people than did Beecher. He was one of the most genial men in social life that I have ever known." W. A. Hall was a trustee of Dr. Talmage's Schermerhorn Street Tabernacle, before that building was destroyed by fire. "I had known Dr. Tslmage for thirty-five years," said he, " and I look back to my early life in his church with a great deal of pleasure. He was the only man in this country who never copied anybody else in his preaching. He was originality itself. The great church- going populace of this cosmopolitan city would flock to hear Beecher in the morning and Talmage in the evening. Mr. Talmage looked Apon the bright side of everything and never had the blues. I saw him downcast only when his son, DeWitt, a promising young law- yer, died. He drew the multitude to his church, and the sermons 46 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. that lie preached clung to those who heard him and made a deep impression." One of onr prominent journals paid the following appreciative tribute to Dr. Talmage's genius and achievements. " Death found him still a unique figure in pulpit and on platform, still an influence if not a force in the communion in whose long service all his gifts of picturesque expression had found their full opportunity. Successful beyond the average, one of the most popular preachers of his generation, Dr. Talmage's career, with its rewards, represented the effect of the winged word delivered in season. And with him all occasions were seasonable. Few men knew better than the dead divine how to voice in vivid rhetoric the vague yearnings of those to whom he ministered the gospel of hope. And it was his intense presentation of the accepted truth, his burning conviction as to the efficacy of what he preached, that gave the Brooklyn pastor first a congregation that defied the capacity of the church edifice and later an audience, through the public prints, in addition to his Sunday congregations, that carried his message into all parts of the land. There was no mistaking the vital interest in what he had to say, and Dr. Talmage never mistook the attitude of his followers nor failed to give them the spiritual unction that their situation and souls demanded. " Written to strike home, his sermons read well, the sentences moved in rapid phalanx to a splendid conclusion, and at the height of his powers as a public speaker they sounded better than they read. His eloquence swept his hearers and himself into those heavens of ecstacy in which he and they enjoyed for the moment on this mundane sphere the anticipatory joys of a glorified hereafter. That he thus sustained and soothed thousands, made life more hopeful and gave no quarter to unbelief was his mission, and how well he fulfilled it, according to his light, is known to all." The highest and most beautiful tributes that can be paid to man were spoken over the bier of the Rev. Dr. Talmage by some of America's most eloquent and noted ministers of God. Simplicity marked the entire service, which was held in the Church of the Cove- nant, Washington, D. C., at 5 o'clock on Tuesday, April i5th, 1902. The solemn magnificence of the simple floral tributes and eulogies only added to the deep reverence of the occasion. LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 47 The great church was crowded from wall to wall with people of all denominations and representing all walks in life. Rich sat be- side the poor and paid respect to the memory of the great divine, who had u dared to be singular that he might turn the attention of men to God." Even in the vestibules the crowds were gathered, striving to hear the splendid words of praise and eulogy that flowed from the lips of men who had been the colleagues, and, some of them, the almost lifelong friends of Dr. Talmage. In front of the house of worship, and almost blocking the side- walks, stood hundreds of persons who had not been able to crowd into the church, and who were waiting to fall into line to view the remains at the close of the service. A score or more of policemen were required to maintain a passageway through the crowd. The altar was banked high with magnificent tributes, the tokens of sym- pathy and respect from persons in all walks of life, who had united in that hour of bereavement to express their love and appreciation for the noble dead. Directly below and in front of the pulpit was placed the hand- some black cloth casket, of simple design, which contained all that was mortal of the magnificent pillar of the Christian Church. Com- pletely covering the top of the casket to a depth of about eight inches was a solid mass of violets. The funeral services were impressive in every detail, from the singing of the grand old hymns by the church choir to the magnifi- cent eulogies of the noted clergymen. Rev. Dr. Tennis S. Hamlin, pastor of the church, officiated. He was assisted by the Rev. Thomas Chalmers Hasten, pastor of the Eastern Presbyterian Church, of this city, an almost lifelong associate of Dr. Talmage ; Rev. J. S. T. Niccols, of St. Louis ; Rev. Dr. Howard Suydam, of Rhinebeck, N. Y. ; Rev. Dr. Van Dyke, of Princeton, N. J. ; Rev. James Demarest, of Brooklyn, N. Y., and the Rev. D. E. P. Terhune. Dr. Hamlin beautifully portrayed the life of Dr. Talmage, and the wonderful work he accomplished among men for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. He characterized him as one of the world's greatest factors for good, declaring that everywhere the English language was spoken his sermons were read with eagerness and delight. 48 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. Rev. Dr. Van Dyke then delivered a striking eulogy of the dead minister. He said : " The world-wide reputation of Dr. Tal- mage will no longer have its expression in present achievements, but his memory will still live. He has sometimes in his career been criticised because he was sensational. But he had to be sen- sational to hold the attention to the Word of God of thousands of people who would otherwise not have listened to it. His later life was merely the unfolding of the sterling qualities he had so often shown in his younger days. He was never spoiled by the great reputation he had won. He was a man thoroughly consecrated to his work. His one great aim was to serve the God whose Word he preached. His aim was to advance the kingdom of God. " A great man has fallen. We mourn for him. Who will take his place ? Yet death has gained a barren victory over this mag- nificent minister of God. We thought he had many years before him, but, alas, he was stricken before the slightest signs of decay were manifested in his wonderful powers. But he has gone to a nobler and greater life a life which he ever held up as a prize invaluable before the eyes of men. For him to die was Christ. A crown of great glory has been placed upon his brow." Dr. James Demarest, of Brooklyn, N. Y., a lifelong friend and schoolmate of Dr. Talmage, said : " Has his great heart really ceased to beat ? Has his expres- sive face really become immobile ? Have those strong fingers become lax and lifeless ? It seems impossible, yet it is true. When this enormous fact dawns on the mind, it causes a great surging of thought, which is followed by intense sorrow ; a sorrow deep and heartfelt for the great void which has been created. Think how wide is that void ! Think, that the wonderful sermons, which used to go into every home, to bring comfort and happiness and relief to the aching and sorrowing hearts, will never be known again ; but, remember, that although Dr. Talmage is gone, his influence remains, Still we have the memory of him, and the knowledge that he once lived, and these are thoughts which will never perish. " I knew Dr. Talmage intimately, and feel that I understood his character as perhaps few people did. From his earliest life I positively know that he worked with one aim, one controlling influ- ence before him. That influence was his sincerity in preaching the LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 49 Gospel as he believed God intended it should be preached. Any criticisms which may have been heaped upon him were unjust, because throughout his life he was sincere and honest in his convic- tions. He served God as he believed God intended he should serve." The most touching and powerful eulogy of the service was made by the Rev. Thomas Chalmers Easton. He told simply of the great man of God as he had seen and known him intimately during the better part of his life. He said: " Not until we compress the ocean into a dew drop will it be possible for us to condense all that is due this great dead minister into one brief hour's telling. While great men are with us to lead our armies, manage the affairs of State, and charm us with the magic power of their pens we are apt to lose sight of the men themselves. But when death comes what a revelation 1 Then we see them in their proper light and come to weigh their worth and our own need of them. "How solemn and great was the shock that thrilled through the whole of America and Europe last Saturday night when the telegraphic wires sounded out the astounding message : ' Talmage is dead.' " We only knew that he was sick a few weeks. We were wont to look upon him as a tall, giant oak, one of the most magnificent specimens of his kind. He was one of the most striking characters of the century. His inmost acts could be examined without causing the slightest blush. No name that appears on the page of history contains so much human sweetness as that of Dr. Talmage. In the hospital, in the humblest home, on the battlefield, my friend was known as one of the foremost comforters of men by his matchless genius and application of the power of God. Only once did I ever see him burst forth into a white heat of rage, and that was when he had been persecuted most unjustly, and dishonorably month after month and the work of his Master assailed. "He was great in his spirit of philanthropy. He gave largely, but he gave silently. He gave thousands and thousands, but no name was attached. He was sometimes criticised for not being more liberal. But his accusers were without a knowledge of his work. He performed his duty as God showed him the way, silently. It 50 LIFE OF THOMAS D*. WIT7 TALMAGE. took the man nearly seventy years to live, but only a few hours to die. "The three greatest preachers of the century were Beecher, Spurgeon, and Talrnage. But the prince of pulpit workers for the glory of God was Talinage. He excelled in the power to reach out and hold the great masses for Christ. Heaven has seen some jmighty days, but the day this great God-like giant went home to a well-earned rest was one of its greatest days. As I knelt by the bedside of my dying comrade, I seemed to hear the angels shouting : 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant; well done.' "When a foreign nation suffered for want of bread, his powerful appeals enabled a response to be given that saved millions on millions of human lives. India, part of England's empire, will never forget America's philanthropic Talmage. Russia acknowl- edged its everlasting debt to him also for aid in a crucial period, and in the palace of the Czar he was welcomed as a brother beloved. Greece, by its royal sovereign, paid homage to his greatness, and in the throne chamber of the Queen he received her expressed admira- tion of his genius, fervor, and power as the greatest living preacher of the age." Following Dr. Hasten was Dr. S. J. Nichols, of Brooklyn. Dr. Nichols knew Dr. Talmage nearly all his life, and from almost boy- hood had been his warm personal friend. His address was as follows : " Wherever English is spoken or read, there have gone Dr. Talmage's sermons. Messages of comfort, love, and relief have gone from him to tens of thousands of homes, and have become household words. And these homes I speak of are as great in variety as were the oratorical powers of the beloved minister. Every one read his sermons. In the railroad shops of Pennsylvania they were pored over during the noon hour. In the hovel of the i poor and in the mansion of the rich, Dr. Talmage's sermons were eagerly sought every week, and it is in these places, as well as here, in this beautiful church, that his death is keenly regretted, and that heartfelt sorrow is demonstrated. "Whatever criticism there was of Dr. Talmage, it must never be forgotten that he preached the gospel, not the philosophies, the ideas, the thoughts, or the whims of men. He spoke with conviction, and preached the gospel of love, hope, and kindness to lost men." LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT T ATM AGE. 51 At the conclusion of Dr. Nichols' address, the choir sang " It Is Well With My Soul." Dr. Hamlin offered a fervent prayer, after which the family and pallbearers passed out of the rear door of the building, the others present remaining seated. The organist closed the services by playing Chopin's " Funeral March." At the conclusion of the services, which lasted more than an hour, those present who desired to take the last look at the dead preacher were invited forward. Dr. Hamlin was surprised to learn that a great crowd still lingered without, expecting to enter the church and look again on the face of the great preacher at the con- clusion of the services. As soon as those who had been in the church viewed the body, the door was opened and others were per- mitted to enter. The body remained at the church until 10 o'clock, where it was viewed by thousands of people during the evening. At 10 o'clock it was taken to the Pennsylvania station, to be con- veyed to Brooklyn for interment in Greenwood Cemetery. Among those accompanying the body were Mrs. Talmage, Rev. Dr. Frank Talmage, son of the deceased ; Mr. and Mrs. Clarence F. Wykoff, Miss Collier, and close personal friends of Dr. Frank Talmage, from New York. The honorary pallbearers in Washington were Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, Senator Julius Caesar Burrows, Senator Shelby Moore Cullom, Gen. John W. Foster, Hon. Alden Smith, Hon. John Marshall Harlan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court ; Hon. David J. Brewer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court ; Mr. B. H. Warner, Dr. Louis Klopsch, the Rev. Dr. Bittinger, Dr. G. Lloyd Magruder, the Rev. Dr. Fiske, Mr. E. M. Branch, and Mr. F. M. Lawrence. Dr. Talmage was a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and the following members attended the services at the Church of the Covenant : Hon. Cornelius A. Pugsley, treasurer general, national society, Sons of American Revolution ; Maj. Gen. J. C. Breckinridge, ex-president general, national society, Sons of American Revolution ; Surgeon General George M. Stern- berg, U- S. A. ; Brig. Gen. Thomas M. Vincent, U. S. A. ; Admiral James A. Greer, U. S. N. ; Capt. T. F. Sewell, U. S. N. ; Noble D. Larner, Dr. Joseph Taber Johnson, William J. Rhees, Col. Felix A. Rowe, Harry C. McLean, Henry W. Samson. 52 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. One of our religious journals furnishes an estimate of Dr. Tal- mage and his great work as follows : "After preaching a number of years in Philadelphia Dr. Talmage accepted a call to the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. At that time the writer hereof lived in that city. The pulpit of this church had been for a long time filled by the Rev. Dr. Rockwell, a distinguished and able man, but it was located where the people were constantly moving. He told the writer that three different congregations had come and gone during his pastorate. The doctor was advanced in years, and the congregation very small when he resigned ; and when Dr. Talmage began Mr. Beecher was in the zenith of his fame. Not far away was a preacher who after- ward became quite famous, who also had his eccentricities, the Rev. Dr. Bartlett, late .of Washington city. And Dr. Cuyler had risen to the height of his so long maintained fame as a genuine evangel- ical clergyman and pastor of the new Lafayette Avenue Presbyte- rian Church. "Instantly the crowds began to gather. t Many at first went for the sport of it. When Dr. Talmage' s name was in every mouth a short time afterward, the writer went to hear him, and was impressed, and astonished. Dining on that Sunday at the residence of Mr. James H. Taft, with the late Dr. Robert M. Hatfield, Mr. Taft's brother-in-law, and with William H. Fenn, a distinguished Congregational minister of Portland, we gave a truthful account of the sermon. "The host and his guests were wholly unable to believe the representation. As it became a question of our maintaining a reputation for veracity, we invited them to accompany us in the evening, and if what occurred did not sustain our statement we would withdraw all claims upon them to believe us both sane and truthful. They consented. A literal description of what we heard, without extravagance in any degree, would be deemed incredible. It was upon Rizpah, and the title was, 'Death in the Harvest Field.' One passage was as follows: 'Death is always awful. The death of one son is a terrible thing. But there she was looking at her seven sons hanging between heaven and earth,' and then, marching about the platform counting, the orator exclaimed ; ' One, two, three, four, five, six, seven sons ! ' and made the scene so realistic REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE THE EXECUTION OF ATHALTAH. LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 53 that many acted as though they saw them there. Repeating as he went, ' And they fell all seven together, and were pnt to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rizpath, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night' That was only one of the peculiarities of the discourse. " How Dr. Talrnage crowded that large church, how a great tabernacle was built and that old church edifice could hardly hold the Sunday school, how this tabernacle, made of corrugated iron and rushed to completion, was opened only three months after it was begun, and how hundreds and even thousands of people were turned away every Sunday, is an old story. "While Dr. Talmage was preaching in the Schermerhorn Street Church he conducted a lay college. Neighboring ministers, among them the writer, delivered lectures in that institution and made the acquaintance of a number of his students, some of whom became almost as famous as himself among them Thomas Harrison, who for a quarter of a century was known as the ' Boy Preacher.' "Some remarkable circumstances attended the financial affairs of the three tabernacles. The contractor who was connected with the last one is said to have suffered greatly. A settlement was made, and all the stops of the organ were brought out to sustain the hallelujahs inspired by the graphic way in which Dr. Talmage declared the church free from debt. "As a religious journalist, connected with a publisher of intense energy and a genius for every form of profitable expedient, Dr. Talmage became still more widely known. His printed ser- mons also were in great demand. No person except Charles H. Spurgeon has ever lived whose sermons were more widely circulated. Hundreds of newspapers in this country regularly published his discourses. He received a certain royalty upon them. The sermon that he preached on any Sabbath was not the one prepared the pre- ceding week. He was obliged to complete the text of his discourses in advance that they might be stereotyped and sent out in time to appear as though they were preached less than twenty-four hours before. 54 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. " Talmage' s memory was prodigious ; his imagination marvel- ous ; his power of language such as to justify without any qualifi- cation the allegation that he was a genius. He composed his dis- courses a^ he walked his room, declaiming- them to his stenographer, sometimes with almost the vehemence of public speech. One of his stenographers informed us that when he assisted him, Dr. Tal- mage's habit while dictating, if he thought of anything in any par- ticular book, was to drag the book suddenly from the shelf, dictate i from it what he wished, in his own language to embody the fact or historical statement, and immediately to tear out of the book the page, his object being to make it certain that if he ever had that thought again and went to the book to get it he would discover that a leaf was torn out, and therefore would not repeat himself. "To prepare these sermons and then return to the sermon which was sent out ard deliver it so as to agree with the report was an extraordinary feat. He would, however, sometimes depart from what he had prepared. Dr. S. L. Baldwin and Dr. Talmage werr born near each other and were friends from boyhood. Once when Dr. Baldwin returned to this country from China he went in to hear his old friend. His text was, * Hath the rain a father ? ' Catching a glimpse of Dr. Baldwin in the congregation, without any connectiot tion whatever with theirest of the sermon Dr. Talmage exclaimed, ( Ha the rain a father ? I had a boyhood friend who gave himself to the missionary cause ; he went across the stormy sea, a voyage of one hundred days or more, to China, about the time I entered the min- istry, and GOD protected him, and He has brought him back, and he is in this congregation.' And then raising his head toward heaven and stretching out his hand, he exclaimed in his deepest and heaviest tones, ' Has the rain a father ? ' " Whoever intimates that Dr. Talmage was not a man of ^ordinary ability, is, in our judgment, incompetent of deciding such a question. Had he become a jury lawyer he would have made a transcendent success. He was witty, humorous, and could be path- etic. It was stated some years ago by a newspaper critic that Tal- mage had ( every qualification but pathos.' He had never heard him. His friends induced him to go, and he wept like a child at one of the simple, homely stories which Dr. Talmage told of home life, and the tribute he paid to the value of the mother to family life. LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. " The reports of his sermons were better than the delivery of them. Some of them were almost perfect pieces of composition, and might have been introduced into Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress' without deteriorating the style of that extraordinary book. Some of his occasional addresses are worthy of preservation. Ministers sometimes plagiarized Dr. Talmage's sermons, but no one, so far as we know, ever accused him of doing anything of that kind, except when he had repeated one of his own. One memorial sermon which he preached in Washington was preached the same day by a Presby- terian minister in Reading, Pa. The reports of them appeared the same day. Dr. Talmage had preached it before, and thought he had a right to repeat it. Later he made a public statement that ' being unwell he preached an old sermon, and within a few days there came to him letters from various quarters a dozen in all accusing him of having cribbed the discourse, on the ground that the writers had heard it delivered in their own towns within a few months past by their own pastors.' " Dr. Talmage's peculiar career as a lecturer in England elicited much discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. The crowds that tried to hear him when he first began had never been equaled. Even the Prince of Wales in his tour through the country hardly attracted more people. Congregations would assemble an hour or two before the time. " A good speecimen of his graphic style of composition is this : " ' If Infidelity and atheism succeed they will dynamite the world. Let them have their way, and the world will be a house with just three rooms one a madhouse, another a lazaretto, and the other a pandemonium. In the theater the tragedy comes first, the farce afterward ; but in this infidel drama of death the farce comes first and the tragedy afterward ; in the former the atheists laugh and mock, but in the latter God will laugh and mock.' " Those who declare that he had deliberately adopted his theatrical style of delivery late in life did him injustice. K was in his nature. Years afterward, when he was publicly charged with having adopted a melodramatic style in later years, we inquired of Dr. Howard Crosby, who was one of his professors, whether the charge was well founded. In his emphatic way he said : ' No ; Talmage came into my room one day and in a melodramatic way 56 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. took leave of me. Said I, " Are you going to leave the University ?" " No, but after profound reflection I have come to the couclusion that the study of Greek has no place amid the abounding activities of the nineteenth century." " Once we asked Dr. Talmage what his theory was for the oratorical treatment of a congregation. Said he : ' When a politician wants to make votes he tries to fuse the whole body into one mass and make them vote and cheer for Lincoln or Grant. I try to fuse my congregation into one mass and make them hurrah and vote for Jesus Christ.' To the question, ' Is there not a difference ? Every- thing is concentrated on a vote. The politicians do not care how those people act, talk or feel if they will only vote right on Election Day.' Said Dr. Talmage, ' There is a difference, but it is a great thing to start them ; many will stick." It is universally admitted that the death of Dr. Talmage closed one of the most resplendent careers in the American ministry. His mission was that of a preacher. As a master of assemblies few men in the last century surpassed him. . His congregations were only limited by the capacity of the auditorium, and his pen reached across the earth. The permanency of his work is something that no one can estimate. It would be unjust to measure him by the ordinary standards of life. His influence upon and through others transcends limit. Oratory is the power to attract and hold the attention. Judged by that standard Dr. Talmage ranks with Whitefield. Those who heard him in the height of his power heard a man unique in the history of pulpit eloquence. It must always remain to his credit that in an age of skepticism he never swerved from the old faith. His gospel was that of the New Testament plain, positive and delivered with an unction peculiarly his own. From the very beginning of his career to its end Dr. Talmage had detractors ; but, whatever could be said against him, the fact remained that he uniformly and under the most diverse conditions attracted and held immense audiences. He was a man whom people liked to hear and read. There was a magnetism about his public discourse, a hearty good cheer and unconventionality of phrase and manner that attracted and interested. We, at least, are not disposed to minimize these qualities. We wish that many LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 57 more preachers, who are far his superior in learning, had a good deal more of his magnetism fire, and enthusiasm, and power to draw people of all classes to the sanctuary. In theology Dr. Talmage was as conservative as he was icono- clastic in his methods of preaching. He never varied a hair's breadth from the orthodox theology of the first third of the nine- teenth century. He was alert for all manner of novelties except novelties in doctrine. There is little evidence that he attempted to understand the modern religious attitude, and his tirades against evolution were caricatures, as he meant to bring that theory into contempt and ridicule. Dr. Talmage was known all over Christendom by his preaching as well as by his pen. He was a factor in the editorial realm as well as in periodical literature. He published a number of popular books, such as " Everyday Religion," "Old Wells Dug Out," "Crumbs Swept Up," "The Marriage Ring," and "The Pathway of Life." His sermons were published at one time in 2000 newspapers in all parts of the United States and had a wide circulation in Europe and other portions of the world. He had thousands of readers far and near. He made his influence tell upon the platform on both sides of the Atlantic and gained as much renown and success in this line of activity as in the pulpit. He was a man of tremendous energy and of unusual versatility of talent. He is not to be measured by ordinary standards. He was sub- jected to much criticism, but he preached notwithstanding his eccen- tricity a pure and pungent Gospel, driving truth home with marked and impressive effect. He was bold and aggressive, and was able to reach and influence myriads in ways and by methods that in other hands would have been a total failure. He knew his age and could, in his original and peculiar style, touch the heart, quicken the con- science and direct the life. We consider him one of those excep- tional men whom God raises up to do a special work in an unusual manner and whom he employs to arouse and mould a class of people whom more ordinary men could not reach, at least, to so marked and effective a degree. Through all his brilliant career he kept his one great object before him, and never lost sight of the high and holy purpose that influenced him in entering the ministry and carrying on its work. 58 LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. A religions journal thus speaks of the celebrated preacher: " For many years he was a very prominent figure in Brooklyn as well as on the lecture platforms and at assemblies in other parts of the country. Dr. Talmage's most noticeable gift was his pictorial power. His sermons were singularly graphic in illustration ; and their pictorial vividness secured for him wide hearing wherever he choose to speak. He was earnest in his faith and in his desire to bring men into the Christian life. He had unusual power of des-6 scription, with a free control over both the humorous and the pathetic elements of oratory. He could make people laugh and cry. "Such was his power of vivid description, his bold and forcible utterances, the beauty and simplicity of his language, and such was the adaptation of his thought to the average mind that for years his sermons were almost the only ones printed and read in this country. To multitudes they were a welcome weekly visitor. They refuted the common impression that religion is dull. They arrested and held the attention. They appealed to the best and noblest part of human nature and aroused the dormant emotions which had only to be awakened to become the earnest promptings of a devout religious life. They comforted stricken hearts, held forth great joys and triumphs of faith and hope, and opened the very heaven of heavens to the reader's enraptured vision." Glowing tributes to the worth and splendid ability of Dr. Talmage were paid him by many of his brethren of all denomina- tions. Rev. Thomas B. Gregory, said : " Dr. Talmage was probably the best known clergyman on earth. His name was as familiar as a household word in hundreds of thousands of homes in America, England and her colonies, and his words, spoken and printed, reached millions every week. In addition to his labors as preacher and popular lecturer Dr. Talmage was a most voluminous writer. A constant writer for the newspapers, a steady contributor to the magazines, he still found time to make many books. " He published during his busy Brooklyn pastorate as many as fourteen volumes, besides several volumes of collected sermons and a number of lectures and addresses. Talmage was looked upon by many as having been too sensational in his methods, but no one ever doubted his power with men, his ability to draw mighty audiences wherever and whenever he was announced to preach or LIFE OF THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE. 59 lecture. His was a name to conjure with, and in the day of his power he was easily the king of the American platform. Those who derided his methods went still to hear him, and hearing they had to confess his marvelous gift of speech and his wonderful personal magnetism. " During the last ten years of his life Dr. Talmage made several extensive trips abroad, preaching in all the larger cities of England and the continent to mighty congregations. His fame had gone ^ before him, and the great cathedral churches of the old world were not large enough to hold the thousands who wanted to hear the famous divine from America. Perhaps the highest honor that the great preacher received while abroad was the invitation to visit and dine with the Czar of Russia, which invitation came to him direct from the mighty Czar himself. Talmage accepted the invitation, held his own in the august presence of royalty, and got out without sacrificing one jot or tittle of his good, old-fashioned, democratic principle. " Talmage is dead ! The great magician of the American pulpit. The king of the American platform, the man who thrilled of millions human souls with his eloquence, is gone ! How long will it be before there is another like him !" The Rev. John F. Loba, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Evanston said : " For more than twenty-one years, since I have known Talmage through the press, he has been a remarkable figure in the American pulpit. His sermons have been read by hundreds of thousands of people all over the land, and have even reacted the most remote and obscure districts. Dr. Talmage was the first man to realize the value of the press in extending the word of God. Through the piilpit and press he preached to more people than any man of modern times. He was a remarkable man. The Rev. William Macafee, pastor of the First Methodist, Church of Evanston, said : " Dr. Talmage was a great preacher, a magnetic orator, and a fluent writer, he accomplished great good for the cause of Christ." THE PROBLEM OF LIFE BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE IS life worth living 9 How are we to decide this matter righteously and intelligently? You will find the same man oscillating in his opinion from dejection to exuberance, and if he be very mercurial in his temperament his conclusion will depend very much upon which way the wind blows. If the wind blow from the northwest, and you ask him, he will say, "Yes;" and if it blow from the northeast, and you ask him, he will say, " No." How are we then to get the question righteously answered? Suppose we call all nations together in a great convention on the Eastern or the Western hemi- sphere, and let all those who are in the affirmative, say, "Aye," and all those who are in the negative, say, "No." While there would be hundreds of thousands who would answer in the affirmative, there would be more millions who would answer in the negative, and be- cause of the greater number who suffer from sorrow and misfortune and trouble, the " Noes " would have it. If you ask me, " Is life worth living?" I answer, it all depends upon the kind of life you live, THE MONEY-GETTING MANIA. In the first place, I remark that a life of mere money-getting' is always a failure, because you will never get as much as you want. The poorest people in this country are the millionaires, and next to them those who have half a million. There is not a scissors-grinder on the streets of New York or Brooklyn who is so anxious to make money as these men who have piled up fortunes year after year in storehouses, in government securities, in tenement houses, in whole city blocks. You ought to see them jump when they hear the fire-bell ring. You ought to see them in their excitement when the Marine Bank explodes. You ought to see their agitation when there is proposed a reformation in 60 S C EC to o ft < tt HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS- 'Si w Q O THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 61 the tariff. Their nerves tremble like harp-strings, but with no music in the vibration. They read the reports from Wall Street in the morning with a concern that threatens paralysis or apoplexy, or, more probably, they have a telegraph or telephone in their own house, so that they may catch every breath of change in the money-market. The disease of accumulation has eaten into them eaten into their heart, into their lungs, into their spleen, into their liver, into their bones. That is not a life worth living. There are too many earthquakes in it, too many agonies in it, too many perditions in it. These men build their castles, and they open their picture-galleries, and they sum- mon prima donnas, and they offer every inducement for happiness to come and live with them, but happiness will not come. They send footmaned and postillioned equipages to bring her ; she will not ride to their door. They send princely escorts ; she will not take their arm. They make their gateways triumphal arches ; she will not ride under them. They set a golden throne before a golden plate ; she turns away from the banquet. They call to her from upholstered balconies ; she will not listen. Mark you, this is the failure of those who have made large accumulations of wealth. And then you must take into consideration the fact that the vast majority of those who make the dominant idea of life money-getting, fall far short of affluence. It is estimated that only about two out of a hundred business men have anything worthy the name of success. A man who spends his life with the one dominant idea of financial ac- cumulation, spends a life not worth living. A life of sin, a life of pride, a life of indulgence, a life of worldli- ness, a life devoted to the world, the flesh, and the devil, is a failure a dead failure, an infinite failure. I care not how many presents you send to that cradle, or how many garlands you send to that grave, you need to put right under the name on the tombstone this inscription : "Better for that man if he had never been born." BRIGHT EXAMPLES. But let me show you a life that is worth living. A young man says, "I am here. I am not responsible for my ancestry; others de- cided that. I am not responsible for my temperament ; God gave me that. But here I am, in the afternoon of the nineteenth century, at twenty years of age. I am here, and I must take an account of stock. 6 2 THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. Here I have a body which is a divinely constructed engine. I must put it to the very best uses, and I must allow nothing to damage this rarest of machinery. Two feet, and they mean locomotion. Two eyes, and they mean capacity to pick out my own way. Two ears, and they are telephones of communication with all the outside world ; and they mean capacity to catch the sweetest music, and the voice of friendship the very best music. A tongue, with almost infinite powers of articulation. And hands with which to welcome, or resist, or lift, or smite, or wave, or bless hands to help myself and help others. Here is a world which, after six thousand years of battling with tempest and accident, is still grander than any architect, human or angelic, could have drafted. I have two lamps to light me a golden lamp and a silver lamp a golden lamp set on the sapphire mantel of the day, a silver lamp set on the jet mantel of the night. Yea, I have that at twenty years of age which defies all inventory of valuables a soul, with capacity to choose or reject, to rejoice or suffer, to love or to hate. I have eighty years for a lifetime, sixty years yet to live. I may not live an hour, but then I must lay out my plans intelligently and for a long life. I must remember that these eighty years are only a brief preface to the five hundred thousand millions of quintillions of years which will be my future period of existence. Now, I understand my opportunities and my responsibilities." I would not find it hard to persuade you that the poor lad, Peter Cooper making glue for a living, and then amassing a great fortune until he could build a philanthropy which has had its echo in ten thousand philanthropies all over the country lived a life that was really worth living. Neither would I find it hard to persuade you that the life of Susannah Wesley was worth living. She sent out one son to organ- ize Methodism, and the other son to ring his anthems through the ages. I would not find it hard work to persuade you that the life of Frances Leere was worth living, as she established in England a school for the scientific nursing of the sick, and then when the war broke out be- tween France and Germany, went to the front, and with her own hands scraped the mud off the bodies of the soldiers dying in the trenches, and with her weak arm standing one night in the hospital pushed back a German soldier to his couch, as, all frenzied with his wounds, he rushed toward the door, and said, "Let me go, let me go to my liebe mutter." Major-generals stood back to let this angel of mercy pass. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 63 Neither would I have hard work to persuade you that Grace Darling, the heroine of the life-boat, lived a life worth living. Yet you say, " While I know that all these lived lives worth living, I don't think my life amounts to much." Ah ! my friends, whether you live a life conspicuous or inconspicuous, it is worth living, if you live aright. And I want my next sentence to go down into the depths of all your souls. You are to be rewarded, not according to the greatness of your work, but according to the holy industries with which you employed the talents y oil really possessed. The majority of the crowns of heaven will not be given to people with ten talents, for most of them were tempted only to serve themselves. The vast majority of the crowns of heaven will be given to people who had one talent, but gave it all to God. And remember that our life here is introductory to another. It is the vestibule to a palace ; but who despises the door of a Made^ leine because there are grander glories within ? Your life, if rightly lived, is the first bar of an eternal oratorio, and who despises the first note of Haydn's symphonies ? And the life you live now is all the more worth living because it opens into a life that shall never end, and the last letter of the word "time" is the first letter of the word "eternity." DO YOUR BEST. But to live well we must live worthily make our lives worth living. The secret of success, both in temporal and spiritual things, is to do your best. A parishioner asked a clergyman why the congre- gation had filled up, and why the church was now so prosperous above what it had ever been before. " Well," said the clergyman, "I will tell you the secret. I met a tragedian some time ago, and I said to him, ' How is it you get along so well in your profession ? ' The tragedian replied, ' The secret is, I always do my best ; when stormy days come, and the theater is not more than a half or a fourth occu- pied, I always do my best, and that has been the secret of my getting on.' ' And the clergyman, reciting it, said, "I have remembered that, and ever since then I have always done my best." In whatever occupation or profession God has put you, do your best. Whether the world appreciates it or not, do your best always do your best. Domitian, the Roman Emperor, for one hour every day caught flies and killed them with his penknife ; and there are people 64 THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. with imperial opportunities who set themselves to some equally insig- nificant business. Oh, for something grand to do ! Concentrate all your energies of body, mind, and soul upon some one great work, and nothing in earth or hell can stand before you. There is no such thing as good luck. I have learned also, in coming up this steep hill of life, that all events are connected. I look back and see events which I thought were isolated and alone, but which I now find were joined to everything that went before, and everything that came after. The chain of life is made up of a great many links large links, small links, silver links, iron links, beautiful links, ugly links, mirthful links, solemn links but they are all parts of one great chain of destiny. Each minute is made up of sixty links, and each day is made up of twenty-four links, and each year is made of three hundred and sixty-five links ; but they are all parts of one endless chain which plays and works through the hand of an all-governing God. "But," says some one, "don't you know there may be trials, hardships, sicknesses, and severe duties ahead?" Oh, yes ! But if I am on a railroad journey of a thousand miles, and I have gone five hundred of the miles, and during those five hundred miles I have found the bridges safe, and the track solid, and the conductors competent, and the engineer wide awake, does not that give me confidence for the other five hundred miles ? God has seen me through up to this time, and I am going to trust Him for the rest of the journey. I believe I have a through ticket, and although sometimes the track may turn this way or the other way, and sometimes we may be plunged through tunnels, and sometimes we may have a hot-box that detains the train, and sometimes we may switch off upon a side-track to let somebody else pass, and sometimes we may see a red flag warning us to slow up, I believe we are going through to the right place. I have not a fear or an anxiety, that I can mention. I do not know one. I put all my case in God's hands, and free my soul from anxiety about the future. I do not feel foolhardy. I only trust. I trust, I trust, I trust ! From this hill-top of life I catch a glimpse of those hill-tops where all sorrow and sighing shall be done away. Oh, that God would make that world to us a reality ! Faith in that world helped old Dr. Tyng, when he stood by the casket of his dead son, whose arm had been torn THE SURE AND STEADFAST ANCHOR 66 THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. off in the threshing-machine. With trusting composure, he preached the funeral sermon of his own beloved son. Faith in that world helped Martin Luther, without one tear, to put away in death his favorite child. Faith in that world helped the dying woman to see on the sky the letter " W." When they asked her what she supposed the letter "W" in the sky meant, "Why," she said, "don't you know? W stands for welcome." O Heaven, swing open thy gates ! O Heaven, roll upon us some of thy anthems! O Heaven, flash upon us the vision of thy lustre ! "WITH THE SKIN OF THEIR TEETH." The ship "Emma," bound from Gottenburg to Harwich, was sailing on, when the man on the lookout saw something that he pro- nounced a vessel bottom up. There was something on it that looked like a sea-gull, but was afterward found to be a waving handkerchief. In the small boat the crew pushed out to the wreck, and found that it was a capsized vessel, and that three men had been digging their way out through the bottom of the ship. When the vessel capsized they had no means of escape. The captain took his penknife and dug away through the planks until his knife broke. Then an old nail was found, with which they attempted to scrape their way up out of the darkness, each one working until his hand was well-nigh paralyzed, and he sank back faint and sick. After long and tedious work, the light broke through the bottom of the ship. A handkerchief was hoisted. Help came. They were taken on board the vessel and saved. Did ever men come so near a watery grave without dropping into it? How narrowly they escaped escaped only "with the skin of their teeth!' There are men who have been capsized of evil passions, and cap- sized in mid-ocean, and they are a thousand miles away from any shore ! jf help. They have for years been trying to dig their way out. They have been digging away, and digging away, but they can never be de- livered unless they will hoist some signal of distress. However weak and feeble it may be, Christ will see it, and bear down upon the help- less craft, and take them on board ; and it will be known on earth and in heaven how narrowly they escaped "escaped as with the skin of their teeth" EVOLUTION BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE THERE is no contest between genuine science and revelation The same God who by the hand of the prophet wrote on parchment, by the hand of the storm has written on the rock. The best telescopes and microscopes and electric batteries and philo- sophical apparatus belong to Christian universities. Who gave us magnetic telegraphy ? Professor Morse, a Christian. Who swung the lightnings under the sea, cabling the continents together ? Cyrus W. Field, the Christian. Who discovered the anaesthetical properties of chloroform, doing more for the relief of human pain than any man that ever lived, driving back nine-tenths of the horrors of surgery? James Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, as eminent for piety as for science ; on week-days in the university lecturing on profoundest scientific subjects, and on Sabbaths preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the masses of Edinburgh. I saw the universities of that city draped in mourning for his death, and I heard his eulogy pronounced by the destitute popu- lations of the Cowgate. Science and revelation are the bass and the soprano of the same tune. The whole world will yet acknowledge the complete harmony. But between science falsely so called and revela- tion, there is an uncompromising war, and one or the other must go under. And when I say scientists, of course, I do not mean literary men or theologians who in essay or in sermon, and without giving their life to scientific investigation, look at the subject on this side or that, By scientists I mean those who have a specialty in that direction, and who, through zoological garden and aquarium, and astronomical obser- vatory, give their life to the study of the physical earth, its plants and its animals, and the regions beyond so far as optical instruments have explored them. 68 EVOLUTION. I put upon the witness stand, living and dead, the leading evolu tionists Ernst Haeckel, Huxley, Darwin, Spencer. On the witness stand, ye men of science, living and dead, answer these questions : Do you believe the Holy Scriptures ? No. And so say they all. Do you believe the Bible story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden ? No. And so say they all. Do you believe the miracles of the Old and New Testament ? No. And so say they all. Do you believe that Jesus Christ died to save the nations ? No. And so say they all. Do you believe in the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost? No. And so say they all. Do you believe that human supplication directed heavenward ever makes any difference ? No. And so say they all. WHAT THEY TEACH. Darwin says that the human hand is only a fish's fin developed. He says that the human ear could once have been moved by force of will just as a horse lifts its ear at a frightful object. He says that the human race were originally web-footed. From primal germ to tadpole, from tadpole to fish, from fish to reptile, from reptile to wolf, from wolf to chimpanzee, and from chimpanzee to man. Now, if anybody says that the Bible account of the starting of the human race and the evo- lutionist account of the starting of the human race are the same accounts, he makes an appalling misrepresentation. Prefer, if you will, Darwin's " Origin of Species " to the book of Genesis, but know that you are an infidel. As for myself, since Her- bert Spencer was not present at the creation and the Lord Almighty was present, I prefer to take the divine account as to what really occurred on that occasion. To show that this evolution is only an attempt to eject God, and to postpone Him and to put Him clear out of reach, I ask a question or tiuo. The baboon made the man, and the wolf made the baboon, and the reptile made the quadruped, and the fish made the reptile, and the tadpole made the fish, and the primal germ made the tadpole. Who made the primal germ ? Most of the evolutionists say, "We don't know." Others say, "It made itself." Others say, " It was spontaneously generated." There is not one of them who will fairly and openly and frankly and emphatically say, " God made it." Agassiz says that he found, in a reef of Florida, the remains of insects thirty thousand years old, and that they were just like the insects EVOLUTION. 69 now. There has been no change. All the facts of ornithology and zoology and ichthyology and conchology, are but an echo of Genesis first and twenty-first: "Every winged fowl after his kind." Every creature after its kind. While common observation and science cor- roborate the Bible I will not stultify myself by surrendering to the elaborated guesses of evolutionists. HOW WORLDS WERE MADE. To show that evolution is infidel I place also the Bible account of how worlds were made opposite the evolutionists' account of how worlds were made. Bible account : God made two great lightsthe one to rule the day, the other to rule the night ; he made the stars also, Evolutionist account : Away back in the ages, there was a fire- rnisl, or star-dust, and this fire-mist cooled off into granite, and then this granite, by earthquake and by storm and by light, was shaped into mountains and valleys and seas, and so what was originally fire-mist became what we call the earth. Who made the fire-mist ? Who set the fire-mist to world-making ? Who cooled off the fire-mist into granite ? You have pushed God some sixty or seventy million miles from the earth, but he is too near yet for the health of evolution. For a great while the evolutionists boasted that they had found the very stuff out of which this world and all worlds were made. They lifted the telescope and they saw it, the very material out of which worlds made themselves nebulae of simple gas. They laughed in triumph because they had found the factory where the worlds were manufactured, and there was no God anywhere around the factory ! But in an unlucky hour for infidel evolutionists the spec- troscopes of Fraunhofer and Kirchoff were invented, by which they saw into the nebula, and found that it was not a simple gas, but was a compound, and hence had to be supplied from some other source. That implied a God, and away went their theory, shattered into ever- lasting demolition ! SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. " There is one tenet of evolution which it is demanded that we shall adopt that which Darwin calls " Natural Selection," and which Wal- lace calls the " Survival of the Fittest." By this they mean that the human race and the brute creation are all the time improving, because th five feet six inches. It started with men living two hundred, four hun- dred, eight hundred, nine hundred years, and now thirty years is the average of human life. Mighty progress we have made, haven't we? I went into the cathedral at York, England, and the best artists in England had just been painting a window in that cathedral, and right beside it was a window painted four hundred years ago, and there is not a man on earth but would say that the modern painting of the window by the best artists of England is not worthy of being compared with the painting of four hundred years ago. ANTIQUITY OF THE DOCTRINE. The dogma of evolution is an old heathen corpse set up in a morgue. Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer are trying to galvanize it. They drag this putrefaction of three thousand years old around the earth, boasting that it is their discovery ; and so wonderful is the in- fatuation, that at the Delmonico dinner given in honor of Herbert Spencer there were those who ascribed to him this hypothesis of evolution. There the banqueters sat around the table in honor of Herbert Spencer, chewing beef and turkey and roast pig, in which, according to their doctrine of evolution, they were eating their own relations ' There is only one thing worse than English snobbery, and that is American snobbery. I like democracy, and I like aristocracy ; but there is one kind of ocracy in this country that excites my contempt, and thatris what Charles Kingsley, after he had witnessed it himself, called snobocracy. Now I say it is a gigantic dishonesty when they ascribe this ancient heathen doctrine of evolution to any modern gen- tleman. I am not a pessimist, but an optimist. I do not believe everything is going to destruction ; I believe everything is going on to redemption. But it will not be through the infidel doctrine of evolu- tion, but through our glorious Christianity, which has effected all the good that has ever been wrought, and which is yet to reconstruct all the nations. THE MISSING LINK. It seems to me, that evolutionists are trying to impress the great masses of the people with the idea that there is an ancestral line leading 74 EVOLUTION. from the primal germ on up through the serpent, and through the quadruped, and through the gorilla to man. They admit that there is "a missing link," as they call it, but there is not a missing link ii is a whole chain gone. Between the physical construction of the high- est animal and the physical construction of the lowest man, there is a chasm as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. Evolutionists tell us that somewhere in Central Africa, or in Borneo, there is a creature half-way between the brute and the man, and that that creature is the highest step in the animal ascent, and the lowest step in the human creation. But what are the facts ? The brain of the largest gorilla that was ever found measures thirty cubic inches, while the brain of the most ignorant man that was ever found measures fifty-five. It needs a bridge of twenty-five arches to span that gulf. Between the gorilla and the man, there is also a difference of blood globule, a difference of nerve, a difference of muscle, a difference of done, a difference of sinew. A RADICAL DIFFERENCE. Beside this, it is very evident from another fact that we are an en- tirely different creation, and that there is no kinship. The animal in a few hours or months comes to full strength and can take care of itself. The human race for the first one, two, three, five, ten years, is in com- plete helplessness. The chick just come out of its shell begins to pick up its own food. The dog, the wolf, the lion, soon earn their own livelihood and act for their own defense. The human race does not come to development until it reaches twenty or thirty years of age, and by that time the animals that were born the same year the man was born the vast majority of them have died of old age. This shows that there is no kinship, no similarity. If we had been born of the beast, we would have had the beast's strength at the start, or it would have had our weakness. We are not only different, but opposite. I pity the person who in every nerve, and muscle, and bone, and mental faculty and spiritual experience does not realize that he is higher ip origin, and has had a grander ancestry, than the beasts which perish. However degraded men and women may be, even though they may have foundered on the rocks of crime and sin, and though we shudder o when we pass them, nevertheless, there is something within us that tells Us they belong to the great brotherhood and sisterhood of our race, and our sympathies are aroused in regard to them. But gazing upon HEROD AND THE WISE MEN 75 THE vSERPENT WORSHIPPED AS AN IDOL DESTROYED BY HEZEKIAH 76 EVOLUTION. 77 the swiftest gazelle, or upon the tropical bird of most flamboyant wing, or upon the curve of the grandest courser's neck, we feel that there is no consanguinity. The grandest, the highest, the noblest of them is ten thousand fathoms below what we are conscious of being. It is not that we are stronger than they, for the lion with one stroke of his paw could put us into the dust. It is not that we have better eyesight, for the eagle can descry a mole a mile away. It is not that we are fleeter of foot, for a roebuck in a flash is out of sight,* just seeming to touch the earth as he goes. Many of the animal creation surpass us in fleetness of foot, and in keenness of nostril, and in strength of limb ; but notwithstanding all that, there is something within us that tells us we are of celestial pedigree. Not of the mollusk, not of the rhizopod, not of the primal germ, but of the living and omnipotent God. Lineage of the skies ! Genealogy of Heaven ! I tell you plainly, that if your father was a muskrat, and your mother an opossum, and your great aunt a kangaroo, and the toads and the snapping turtles were your illustrious predecessors, my father is as God ! I know it. I feel it. It thrills through me with an emphasis and an ecstasy which all your arguments drawn from anthropology and biology and zoology and paleontology and all the other ologies, can never shake. " But," says some one, "if we cannot have God make a man, let us have Him make a horse." "Oh, no! " says Huxley, in his great lectures in New York several years ago. No, he does not want any God around the premises. God did not make the horse. The horse came of the plio-hippus, and the plio-hippus came from the proto-hippus, and the proto-hippus came from the mio-hippus, and the mio-hippus came from the meso-hippus, and the meso-hippus came from the oro- hippus, and so away back we trace all the living creatures in a line, until we get to the moneron. We admit no evidence of divine inter- meddling with the creation until we get to the moneron, and that, Huxley says, is of so low a form of life that the probability is it just made itself, or was the result of spontaneous generation. What a narrow escape from the necessity of having a God ! But evolution is not only infidel and atheistic and absurd ; it is brutalizing in its tendencies. If there is anything in the world that will make a man bestial in his habits, it is the idea that he was descended from the beast. Why, according to the idea of these evolutionists, we 7 S EVOLUTION. are only a superior kind of cattle, a sort of Alderney among other herds. To be sure, we browse on better pasture, and we have better stalls and accommodations, but then we are only Southdowns among the great flocks of sheep. Born of a beast, to die like a beast; for the evolutionists have no idea of a future world. They say that the mind is only a superior part of the body. They say that our thoughts are only molecular vibrations. They say that when the body dies, the whole natuce dies. Annihilation is the heaven of the evolutionists. From such a damnable doctrine who would not turn away? THE TRUE EVOLUTION. I do not care so much about protoplasm as I do about eternasm. The "was" is overwhelmed with the "to be." And here comes in the evolution I believe in : not natural evolution, but gracious and divine and heavenly evolution evolution out of sin into holiness, out of grief into gladness, out of mortality into immortality, out of earth into Heaven ! Evolution comes from evolvere, to unroll ! Unrolling of attributes, unrolling of rewards, unrolling of experience, unrolling of angelic companionship, unrolling of divine glory, unrolling of providential ob- scurities, unrolling of doxologies, unrolling of rainbow to canopy the" throne, unrolling of a new Heaven and a new earth in which shall dwell righteousness. Oh, the thought overwhelms me ! I have not the physical endurance to consider it. Monarchs on earth of all the lower orders of creation, and then lifted to be hierarchs in Heaven ! Masterpiece of God's wisdom and goodness, our humanity ; masterpiece of divine grace, our enthrone- ment. I put one foot on Darwin's "Origin of the Species," and I put the other foot on Spencer's "Biology," and then holding in one hand the book of Moses, I see our Genesis, and holding in the other hand the book of Revelation, I see our celestial arrival. For all wars, I prescribe the Bethlehem chant of the angels. For all sepulchers, I prescribe the archangel's trumpet. For all earthly griefs, I prescribe the hand that wipes away all tears from all eyes. Not an evolution from beast to man, but an evolution from contestant to conqueror, an-1 from the struggle with wild beasts in the arena of the amphitheatre to a soft, high, blissful seat in the King's galleries. JONAH AT NINEVEH CHAIN OF INFLUENCES BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE AT school and in college, in studying- the mechanical powers, we glorified the lever, the pulley, the inclined plane, the screw, the axle and the wheel, but you are now invited to study the philos- ophy of the chain. These links of metal, one with another, attracted the old Bible authors, and we hear the chain rattle and see its coil al the way through from Genesis to Revelation, flashing as an ornament, or restraining in captivity, or holding in conjunction as in the case of machinery. To do him honor, Pharaoh hung a chain about the neck of Joseph, and Belshazzar one about the neck of Daniel. The high- priest had on his breastplate two chains of gold. On the camels' necks, as the Ishmaelites drove up to Gideon, jingled chains of gold. The Bible refers to the Church as having such glittering orna- ments, saying, "Thy neck is comely with chains of gold." On the other hand, a chain means captivity. David exults that power had been given him over his enemies, "to bind their kings with chains." The old missionary apostle cries out: " For the hope of Israel, I am bound with this chain." In the prison where Peter is incarcerated, you hear one day a great crash at the falling off of his chains. St. John saw an angel come down from Heaven to manacle the powers of darkness, and having "a great chain in his hand"; the four angels are repre- sented as "reserved in everlasting chains"; while, to fetter the iniquity of his time, Ezekiel thunders out, " Make a chain'' What I wish to impress upon myself and upon you, is the strength, in right and in wrong directions, of constructive forces ; the superior power of a chain of influences above one influence ; the great advan- tage of a congeries of links above one link. In all family government, and in all efforts to rescue others, and in all attempts to stop iniquity, *ake the suggestion and " make a chain." 6 8* 82 THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. That which contains the greatest possibilities, that which encloses the most tremendous opportunities, that which has beating against its two sides all the eternities, is the cradle. The grave is nothing in im- portance compared with it, for that is only a gully which we step across in a second, but the cradle has within it a new eternity, just born and never to cease. When, three or four years ago, the Ohio River overflowed its banks and the wild freshets swept down with them harvests and cities, one day there was found floating on the waters a baby in a cradle, all unhurt, wrapped up snug and warm, and its blue eyes looking into the blue of the open heavens. It was mentioned as something extraordi- nary. But every cradle, with its young passenger, floats on the swift currents of the centuries, deep calling to deep, Ohios and St. Lawrences and Mississippis of influence bearing it onward. Now, what shall be done with this new being recently launched? Teach him an evening prayer ? That is important, but not enough. Every Sabbath afternoon read him a Bible story? That is important, but not enough. Hear him, as soon as he can recite, some Gospel hymn or catechism ? That is important, but not enough. Once in a while a lesson, once in a while a prayer, once in a while a restraining influence ? All these are important, but not enough. Each one of these is only a link, and will not hold him in the tremendous emergencies of life. Let it be constant instruction, constant prayer, constant application of good influ- ences, along the line of consecutive impressions, reaching from his first year to his fifth, and from his fifth to his tenth, and from his tenth to his twentieth, PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE. " Make a chain." Spasmodic education, paroxysmal discipline, occasional fidelity, amount to nothing. You can as easily hold an | anchor by one link as hold a child to the right by isolated and inter- mittent faithfulness. The example must connect with the instruction. The conversation must combine with the actions. The week-day con- sistency must conjoin with the Sunday worship. Have family prayers by all means ; but be petulant and inconsistent and unreasonable in your household, and your prayers will be a blasphemous farce. So great, in our times, are the temptations of young men to dissipation, and of young .women to social follies, that it is most important that 84 THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. their first eighteen years of life shall be charged with a religious power that will hold them when they get out of the harbor of home into the stormy ocean of active life. There is such a thing as impressing a child so powerfully with good, that sixty years will have no more power to efface it than sixty minutes. What a rough time that young man has in doing wrong, carefully nurtured as he was ! His father and mother have been dead for years, or are over in Scotland or in England or in Ireland ; but they have stood in the door-way of every dram-shop that he entered, and under the chandelier of every house of dissipation, saying, " My son, this is no place for you! Have you forgotten the old folks? Don't you recognize these wrinkles, and this stoop of the shoulder, and this trem- ulous hand? Go home, my boy, go home. By the God to whom we consecrated you, by the cradle in which we rocked you, by the grass- grown graves in the old country church-yard, by the Heaven where we hope yet to meet you, go home !" And some Sunday you will be sur- prised to find that young man suddenly asking the prayers of the church. Some Sunday you will see him at the sacrament drinking perhaps out of the same kind of chalice that the old folks drank out of years ago, when they commemorated the sufferings of the Lord. You, my lad, do not have such fun in sin as you seem to have. I know what spoils your fun. You cannot shake off the influence of those prayers long ago offered, or of those kind admonitions. You cannot make those loving souls go away, and you feel like saying, " Father, what are you doing here ? Mother, why do you bother me with suggestions of those olden times ?" But they will not go away. They will push you back from your evil paths, though they have to come from their shining homes in Heaven, and stand in the very gates of Hell with their backs scorched by the fiery blast. With their hand on your shoulder, and their breath on your brow, and their eyes looking straight into yours, they will say, "We have come to take you home, O son of many anxieties." At last that young man turns, through the consecutive influences of a pious parentage, who, out of prayers and fidelities innumerable, made a chain. This is the chain that pulls so mightily on five hundred of you this morning. You may be too proud to shed a tear, and you may, to convince others of your imperturbability, smile to your friend beside you ; but there is not so much power in an Alpine avalanche, after it has slipped HAGAR PRESENTED TO ABRAHAM THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. 85 for a thousand feet, and having struck a lower cliff, is taking its second bound for fifteen hundred feet more, as there is power in the chain that pulls you this moment towards God and Christ and Heaven. Oh, the almighty pull of the long chain of early gracious influences ' ONE WEAK LINK. But all people between thirty and forty years of age ; yes, between forty and fifty ; aye, between fifty and sixty, and all septuagenarians, need a surrounding conjunction of good influences. In Sing Sing, Auburn, Moyamensing, and all the other great prisons, are men and women who went wrong in mid-life and old age. We need around us a cordon of good influences. We forget to apply the well-known rule that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. If the chain be made o of a thousand links, and nine hundred and ninety-nine are strong, but one is weak, the chain will be in danger of breaking at that one weak link. We may be strong in a thousand excellencies, and yet have one weakness that endangers us. This is the reason that we see O men around us, distinguished for a whole round of virtues, collapse and go down. The weak link, in the otherwise stout chain, gave way under the pressure. The first chain-bridge was built in Scotland. Walter Scott tells how the French imitated it in the bridge they built across the Seine. But there was one weak point in that chain-bridge. There was a mid- dle bolt that was of poor material, and they did not know how much depended upon that middle bolt of the chain-bridge. On the opening day a procession started, led on by the builder of the bridge. When the mighty weight of the procession was fairly on it, the bridge broke and precipitated the multitude. The bridge was all right except that middle bolt. So the bridge of character may be built up of mighty links strong enough to hold a mountain ; but if there be one weak spot, that one point, overlooked, may afterwards cause the destruction of the whole being. And what multitudes have gone down for all time and eter- nity, because in the chain-bridge of their character there was lacking a strong middle bolt ! He had but one fault, and that was avarice, hence forgery. He had but one fault, and that was a burning desire for intoxicants, and hence his fatal debauch. She had but one fault, and that was an inordinate fondness for dress, and hence her own and her S6 THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. husband's bankruptcy. She had but one fault, and that was her quick temper, and hence the disgraceful outburst. What we all want is to have put around us a strong chain of good influences. Christian asso- ciation is a link. Church membership is a link. Scripture research is a link. Faith in God is a link. Put together all these influences. " Make a chain." Most excellent is it for us to get into company better than our ' selves. If we are given to telling vile stories, let us put ourselves among those that will not abide such utterances. If we are stingy, let us put ourseives among the charitable. If we are morose, let us put ourselves among the good-natured. If we are given to tittle-tattle, let us put ourselves among those who speak no ill of their neighbors. If we are despondent, let us put ourselves among those who make the best of things. If evil is contagious, I am glad to say that good is also catching. People go up into the hill country for physical health. So, if you would be strong in your soul, get off the lowlands into the alti- tudes of higher moral associations. For many of the circumstances of life we are not responsible. For our parentage we are not responsible ; for the place of our nativity, not responsible ; for our features, our stature, our color, not respon- sible ; for the family relations in which we were born, for our natural tastes, for our mental characters, not responsible. But we are respon- sible for the associations that we choose, and the moral influences under which we put ourselves. Character seeks an equilibrium. A. B. is a good man. Y. Z. is a bad man. Let them now voluntarily seek each other's society. A. B. will lose part of his goodness, and Y. Z. part of his badness, and they will gradually approach each other in character, and in the end stand on the same level. One of the old painters refused to look at poor pictures, because he said that it damaged his style. A musician cannot afford to dwell among discords ; nor can a writer afford to peruse books of an inferior style , nor an architect to walk out among disproportioned structures. And no man or woman was ever so good as to be able to afford evil associations from choice. Therefore, I have said, make it a rule of your life to go among those better than yourselves. You cannot find them ? What a pink of perfection you must be. When was your lofty character completed? What a misfortune for the saintly and the angelic of Heaven that they are not enjoying the improving influences THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. 87 of your society-' Ah, if you cannot find those better than yourself, it is because you are ignorant of yourself. Woe unto you, Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites ! THE CHAIN THAT ENSLAVES. But, as I remarked in the opening, a chain not only means an adornment and royalty of nature, but it also means captivity. I sup- pose that there are those who in that sense are deliberately and per- sistently making a chain. Now here is a young man of good physical health, good manners, and good education. How shall he put together enough links to make a chain for the down-hill road ? I will give him some directions. First, let him smoke. If he cannot stand cigarettes, let him try cigars. I think that cigarettes will help him on this road a little more rapidly, because the doctors say that there is more poison in them than in cigars. And I have a little more confidence in this because about fifty of the first young men of Brooklyn, during the last year, were, according to the doctors' reports, killed by cigarettes. Let him drink light wines first, or ale, or lager, and gradually he will be able to take something stronger ; and as all styles of strong drink are more and more adulterated, his progress will be facilitated. With the old time drinks, a man seldom got delirium tremens before thirty or forty years of age ; now he can get the madness by the time that he is eighteen. Let him play cards, and always put up money to add inter- est to the game. If father and mother will play with him, that will help by way of countenancing the habit. And it will be such a pleas- ant thing to think over in the Day of Judgment, when the parents give an account for the elevated manner in which they have reared their children. Every Sunday afternoon take a carriage ride, and stop at the hotels or at the side of the road for refreshment. Do not let the old fogy prejudice against Sabbath-breaking dominate you. Have a mem- bership in some club, where libertines go and tell about some of their victorious sins, and laugh as loud as any of them in derision at those who belong to the same sex as your mother and sister. Pitch your Bible overboard as old-fashioned, fit only for women and children. Read all the magazine articles that put Christianity at a disadvantage. And go to hear all the lecturers who malign Christ, and say that instead of being the mighty One he pretended to be, he was an impostor and the implanter of a great delusion. Go, at first out of curiosity, to see 88 THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. all the houses of dissipation, and then go because you have fe.t the thrill of their fascination. Getting along splendidly, now ! Let me see what further I can suggest in that direction. Become more defiant of all decency, more loud-mouthed in your atheism, more thoroughly alco holized ; and instead of the small stakes that will do well enough for games of chance in a lady's parlor, put up something worthy. Put up more put up all you have. Well done ! You have succeeded. You have made a chain. The tobacco-habit one link, the rum-habit one link, infidelity another link, the impure club another link, Sabbath- desecration another link, uncleanness another link ; and altogether you have made a chain. There is a chain on your hand, a chain on your foot, a chain on your tongue, and a chain on your soul. Some day you will wake up and you will say, "I'm tired of this, and I am going to get loose from this shackle." You pound away with the hammer of good resolution, but you cannot break the links. Your friends join you in a conspiracy of help, but they fall exhausted in the unavailing attempt. Now you begin again, with the writhing of a Laocoon, and the muscles are distended, and the great beads of perspiration dot your forehead, and your eyes stand out from their sockets, and with all the concentrated efforts of body, mind and soul you attempt to get loose, but you have only made the chain sink deeper. All the devils that en- camp in the wine-flask, and the rum-jug, and the decanter (each one has a devil of its own), come out and sit around you and chatter. In the midnight you spring from your couch and cry, "I am fast. O God, let me loose ! O, ye Powers of Darkness, let me loose ! Father, mother, brothers and sisters, help me to get loose !" And you turn your prayer into blasphemy and your blasphemy into prayer, and to all the din and the uproar there is played an accompaniment not an ac- companiment by key or pedal, but an accompaniment of a rattle, and that rattle is the rattle of a chain. For five years, for ten years, for 1 twenty years, you have been making a chain. THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR. But here I step higher, and I tell you that there is a power that can break any chain chain of body, chain of mind, chain of soul. The fetters that the hammer of the Gospel has broken, if piled together, would make a mountain. The captives whom Christ has set free, if stood together, would make an army. Quicker than a ship chandler's THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. 8g furnace ever melted a cable, quicker than any key ever unlocked a handcuff, quicker than the bayonets of the French revolutionists opened the Bastile, you may be liberated and made a free son or a free daugh- ter of God. Make up your mind, and make it up quick ! When the King of Sparta had crossed the Hellespont and was about to march through Thrace, he sent word to the people of the different regions, asking whether he should march through their country as a friend or as an enemy. " By all means as a friend," answered most of them. But the King of Macedon replied, "I will take time to consider it." "Then," said the King of Sparta, "let him consider it ; but meantime we march, we march." So Christ, our King, gives us our choice be- tween his friendship and his frown, and many of us have long been considering what we had better do. But meantime, He marches on, and our opportunities are marching by. And we shall be the loving subjects of his reign, or the victims of our own obduracy. So I urge upon you precipitancy, rather than slow deliberation, and I write all over your soul the words of Christ, that I saw inscribed on the monu- ment of Princess Elizabeth, on the Isle of Wight the words to which her index finger pointed, in the open Bible, when she was found dead in her bed, after a lifetime of trouble " COME UNTO ME, ALL YE WHO ARE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST." Is there a drunkard here ? You may, by the Saviour's grace, have that fire of thirst utterly extinguished. Is there a defrauder here ? You may be made a saint Is there a libertine here ? You may be made as pure as the light. When a minister in an out-door meeting in Scotland was eulogizing goodness, there were hanging around on the edge of the audience some of the most depraved men and women. The minister said nothing about mercy to prodigals. One depraved woman cried out, "Your rope is not long enough for the like of us." Blessed be God, our Gospel can fathom the deepest depths, and reach the furthest wan- derings, and here is a rope that is long enough to rescue the very worst "whosoever will." But why take extreme cases, when we all have been, or are now, the captives of sin and death ? We may, through the Great Emancipator, take a throne after dropping our shackles. You have looked on your hand and arm only as being useful, and a curious piece of anatomy ; but there is something about your hand and arm that makes me think that they are only an undeveloped wing. 9 THE CHAIN OF INFLUENCES. If you would like to know what possibilities are suggested by that, ask the eagle that has looked close into the eye of the noon-day sun ; or ask the albatross that has struck its claws into the black locks of the tempest ; or ask the condor that is this morning ascending up to the highest peak of Chimborazo. Your right hand and arm and you, left hand and arm are two undeveloped wings better get ready for the empyrean. " Rise my soul an 1 stretch thy wing, Thy better portion trace." There have been chains famous in history, such as fastened the prisoner of Chillon to the pillar, into the staple of which I have thrust my hand, on the isolated rock of Lake Geneva ; such as the chain which the Russian exile clanks, on his way to the mines of Siberia ; such as the chain which the captive Queen Zenobia wore, when brought into the presence of Aurelian. Aye, there have been races in chains, and nations in chains, and a world in chains. But thank God, the last one will be broken, and under the liberating power of the Omnipotent Gospel the chains shall fall from the last neck, and the last arm, and the last foot. But the shattered fetters shall all be gathered up again from the dungeons and the workhouses and the mines and the rivers and the fields, and they shall be welded again, and again strung, link to link, and polished and transformed, until this world, which has wan- dered off and been a recreant world, shall, by that chain, be lifted and hung to the throne of God no longer bound by the iron chain of op- pression, but by the golden chain of redeeming love. There let this old ransomed world swing forever. Roll on, ye years ! Roll on, ye days ! Roll on, ye hours, and hasten the glorious consummation ! THE BEGGAR LAZARUS AT THK RICH MAN'S GATE 91 ABIGAIL OFFERING PRESENTS ^O DAVID. COMMON PEOPLE BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE THE vast majority of people will never lead an army, will nevei write a State constitution, will never electrify a Senate, will never make an important invention, will never introduce a new philosophy, will never decide the fate of a nation. You do not expect to ; you do not want to. You will not be a Moses to lead a nation out of bondage. You will not be a Joshua to prolong the daylight until you can shut five kings in a cavern. You will not be a John to unroll an Apocalypse. You will not be a Paul to preside over an apostolic college. You will not be a Mary to mother a Christ. You will more probably be Asyncritus, or Phlegon, or Hermas, or Patrobas, or Hermes, or Philologus, or Julia. Many of you are women at the head of households. Every morning you plan for the day. The culinary department of the house- hold is in your dominion. You decide all questions of diet. All the sanitary regulations of your house are under your supervision. To regulate the food, and the apparel, and the habits, and to decide the thousand questions of home life, are a tax upon brain and nerve and general health absolutely appalling, if there be no divine alleviation. It does not help you much to be told that Elizabeth Fry did won- derful things amid the criminals at Newgate. It does not help you much to be told that Mrs. Judson was very brave among the Bornesian can- nibals. It does not help you much to be told that Florence Night- ingale was very kind to the wounded in the Crimea. It would be better to tell you that the divine friend of Mary and Martha is your friend, and that He sees all the annoyances and disappointments, and the ab- rasions and exasperations of an ordinary housekeeper from morn till night, and from the first day of the year to the. last day of the year, and that at your call He is ready with help and reinforcement. 93 44 COMMON PEOPLE. They who provide the food of the world decide the health of the world. One of the greatest battles of this century was lost because the commander that morning had a fit of indigestion. You have only to go on some errand amid the taverns and the hotels of the United States and Great Britain to appreciate the fact, that a vast multitude of the human race are slaughtered by incompetent cookery. Though a young woman may have taken lessons in music, and lessons in paint- ing, and lessons in astronomy, she is not well educated unless she has taken lessons in dough ! They who decide the apparel cf the world, and the food of the world, decide the endurance of the world. BUSINESS MEN. When we begin to talk about business life, we shoot right off and talk about men who did business on a large scale, and who sold millions of dollars of goods a year ; but the vast majority of business men do not sell a million dollars of goods, nor half a million, nor the quarter of a million, nor the eighth part of a million. Put all the business men of our cities, towns, villages, and neighborhoods side by side, and you will find that their average sale is less than fifty thousand dollars worth of goods. All these men in ordinary business life want divine help. You see how wrinkles are printing on their countenances the story of worriment and care. You cannot tell how old a business man is by looking at him. Gray hairs at thirty ! A man at forty-five with the stoop of a nonagenarian ! No time to attend to improved dentistry the grinders cease because they are few. Actually dying of old age at forty or fifty, when they ought to be at life's meridian. Many of these business men have bodies like a neglected clock, to which you come and wind it up, and it begins to buzz and roar, and then the hands start around very rapidly, and then the clock strikes five, or ten, or forty, and strikes without any sense, and then suddenly stops. So is the body of that worn-out business man. It is a neglected clock, and though by some summer recreation it may be wound up, still the machinery is all out of gear. Post-mortem examination reveals the fact that all the springs, and pivots, and weights, and balance-wheels of health are completely de- ranged. The human clock is simply run down. And at the time when the steady hand ought to be pointing to the industrious hours on a clear and sunlit dial, the whole machinery of body, mind, and earthly COMMON PL OPLE. 95 capacity stops forever. Greenwood has thousands of New York and Brooklyn business men who died of old age at thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five. Come, now, let us have a religion for ordinary people in profes- sions, in occupations, in agriculture, in the household, in merchandise, in everything. I salute across the centuries Asyncritus, Phlegon, Her- nias, Patrobas, Hermes, Philologus, and Julia. First of all, if you feel that you are ordinary, thank God that you are not extraordinary. I am tired and sick and bored almost to death with extraordinary people. They take all their time to tell us how very extraordinary they really are. You know as well as I do, my brother and sister, that the most of the useful work of the world is done by unpretentious people who toil right on by people who do not get much approval, and no one seems to say, "That is well done." Phenomena are of but little use. Things that are exceptional cannot be depended on. Better trust the smallest planet that swings in its orbit than ten comets shooting this way and that, imperilling the longevity of worlds that are attending to their own business. For steady illumi- nation a lamp is better than a rocket. Then, if you feel that you are ordinary, remember that your posi- tion invites the less attack. Conspicuous people how they have to take it ! How they are misrepresented, and abused, and shot at ! The higher the horns of a roebuck the easier to track him down. What a delicious thing it must be to be a candidate for President of the United States ! It must be so soothing to the nerves ! It must pour into the soul of a candidate such a sense of serenity when he reads the blessed newspapers ! THE CURSE OF HIGH POSITION. I came into the possession of the abusive cartoons in the time of Napoleon I., printed while he was yet alive. The retreat of the army from Moscow that army buried in the snows of Russia, one of the most awful tragedies of the centuries is represented under the figure of a monster called General Frost, who is shaving the French Emperor with a razor of icicle. As Satyr and Beelzebub he is represented, page after page, page after page. England cursing him, Spain cursing him, Germany cursing him, Russia cursing him, Europe cursing him, North. and South America cursing him. The most remarkable man of his g6 COMMON PEOPLE. day, and the most abused. All those men in history who now have a halo around their name, once wore a crown of thorns. At an anniversary of a deaf and dumb asylum, one of the children wrote upon the blackboard words as sublime as the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Divina Comedia, all compressed into one paragraph. The examiner, in the signs of the mute language, asked her, "Who made the world?" The deaf and dumb girl wrote upon the blackboard, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The examiner asked her, "For what purpose did Christ come into the world?" The deaf and dumb girl wrote upon the blackboard, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The examiner said to her, "Why were you born deaf and dumb, while I hear and speak?" She wrote upon the blackboard, " Even so, Father ; for so it seemeth good in Thy sight." Oh, that we might be baptized with a contented spirit ! The spider draws poison out of a flower, the bee gets honey out of a thistle ; but happiness is a heavenly elixir, and the contented spirit extracts it, not from the rhododendron of the hills, but from the lily of the valley. STITCH, STITCH, STITCH. History has told the story of the crown. The epic poet has sung of the sword. The pastoral poet, with his verses full of the redolence of clover-tops and rustling with the silk of the corn, has sung the praises of the plough. I sing the praises of the needle. From the fig-leaf of robes prepared in the Garden of Eden to the last stitch taken, the needle has wrought wonders of generosity, kindness, and benefaction. It adorned the girdle of the High Priest ; it cushioned the chariot of King Solomon ; it provided the robes of Queen Elizabeth, and in high places and in low places, by the fire of the pioneer's back log, and under the flash of the chandelier everywhere it has clothed nakedness, it has preached the Gospel, it has overcome hosts of penury and want with the war-cry of " Stitch ! stitch ! stitch !" Dorcas was a representative of all those women who make gar- ments for the destitute, who knit socks for the barefooted, who prepare bandages for the lacerated, who fix up boxes of clothing for Western missionaries, who go into the asylums of the suffering and destitute, bearing that Gospel which is sieht for the blind, and hearing for the THE HARVEST TIME. n 8 COMMON PEOPLE. deaf, and which makes the lame man leap like a hart, and brings the dead to life, immortal health bounding in their pulses. What a contrast between the practical benevolence of this woman and a oreat deal of the charity of this day ! This woman did not spend her time idly planning how the poor of Joppa were to be relieved ; she took her needle and relieved them. She was not like those persons who sympathize with imaginary sorrows, and go out in the street and laugh at the boy who has upset his basket of cold victuals ; or like that charity which makes a rousing speech on the benevolent platform, and goes out to kick the beggar from the step, crying, " Hush your miser- able howling!" The sufferers of the world want not so much theory as practice ; not so much tears as dollars ; not so much kind wishes as loaves of bread; not so much smiles as shoes; not so much "God bless yous" as jackets and frocks. I suppose you have read of the fact that when Josephine was car- ried out to her grave there were a great many men and women of pomp, and pride, and position, that went out after her ; but I am most affected by the story of history, that on that day there were ten! thousand of the poor of France who followed her coffin, weeping and wailing until the air rang again, because when they lost Josephine they lost their last earthly friend. Oh, who would not rather have such obsequies than all the tears that were ever poured in the lachrymals that have been exhumed from ancient cities ? There may be no mass for the dead ; there may be no costly sar- cophagus ; there may be no elaborate mausoleum ; but in the damp cellars of the city, and through the lonely huts of the mountain glen, there will be mourning, mourning, mourning, because Dorcas is dead. " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ; they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." Oh, yes, God has a sympathy with anybody that is in any kind of toil! He knows how heavy is the hod of bricks that the workman carries up the ladder of the wall ; He hears the pickaxe of the miner down in the coal-shaft ; He 'knows how strongly the tempest strikes the sailor at the masthead ; He sees the factory girl among the spindles, and knows how her arms ache ; He sees the sewing woman in the fourth story, and knows how few pence she gets for making a garment ; and louder than all the din and roar of the city comes the voice of a sympathetic God. COMMON PEOPLE. 99 A clergyman of the Unlversalist Church went into a neighborhood for the establishment of a church of his denomination, and he was anxious to find some one of that denomination, and he was pointed to a certain house, and went there. He said to the man of the house, " I understand you are a Universalist ; I want you to help me in the enterprise." "Well," said the man, "I am a Universalist, but I have a peculiar kind of Universalism." " What is that?" asked the minister. " Well," replied the other, "I have been out in the world, and I have been cheated, and slandered, and outraged, and abused, until I believe in universal damnation / " The great danger is that men will become cynical, and given to believe, as David was tempted to say, that "all men are liars." Now, if you have come across ill-treatment, let me tell you that you are in excellent company Christ, and Luther, and Galileo, and Columbus, and John Jay, and Josiah Quincy, and thousands of men and women, the best spirits of earth and heaven. Budge not one inch, though all hell wreak upon you its vengeance, and you be made a target for devils to shoot at. Do you not think that Christ knows all about persecution ? Was He not hissed at? Was He not struck on the cheek? Was He not pursued all the days of his life ? Did they not expectorate upon Him? Or, to put it in Bible language, "They spit upon Him." And cannot He understand what persecution is? " Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee." " Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us ; Rest from all petty vexations that meet us ; Rest from sin promptings that ever entreat us ; Rest from world sirens that lure us to ill. Work and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; Work thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ; Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow, Work with a stout heart and resolute will !" PICTURE GALLERY OB THE STREET BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE WE are all ready to listen to the voices of nature ; but how few of us learn anything from the voices of the noisy and dusty street? You go to your merchandise, and your mechanism, and your work, and you come back again and often with an in- different heart you pass through the streets. Are there no things for us to learn from these pavements over which we pass ? Are there no tufts of truth growing up between these cobblestones, beaten with the feet of toil, and pain, and pleasure, the slow tread of old age, and the quick step of childhood ? Aye, there are great harvests to be reaped ; and now I thrust in the sickle because the harvest is ripe "Wisdom crieth without ; she uttereth her voice in the streets." LIFE FULL OF LABOR. In the first place, the street impresses me with the fact that this life is a scene of toil and struggle. By ten o'clock every day the city is jarring with wheels, and shuffling with feet, and humming with voices, and covered with the breath of smokestacks, and a-rush with traffickers. Once in a while you find a man going along with folded arms and with leisurely step, as though he had nothing to do ; but for the most part, as you find men going down these streets on the way to business, there is anxiety in their faces, as though they had some errand which must be executed at the first possible moment. You are jostled by those who have bargains to make and notes to sell. Up this ladder with a hod of bricks, out of this bank with a roll of bills, on this dray with a load of goods, digging a cellar, or shingling a roof, or shoeing a horse ; or building a wall, or mending a watch, or binding a book. Industry, with her thousand arms, and thousand eyes, and thousand feet, goes 100 PICTURE-GALLERY OF THE STREET. 101 on singing her song of "work ! work ! work! " while the mills drum it and the steam whistles fife it. All this is not because men love toil. Some one remarked, "Every man is as lazy as he can afford to be." It is because necessity, with stern brow and with uplifted whip, stands over them ready, whenever they relax their toil, to make their shoulders sting with the lash. Can it be that, passing up and down these streets on your way to work and business, you do not learn anything of the world's toil, and anxiety, and struggle ? Oh, how many drooping hearts, how many eyes on the watch, how many miles traveled, how many burdens carried, how many losses incurred, how many battles fought, how many victories gained, how many defeats suffered, how many exasperations endured, what losses, what wretchedness, what pallor, what disease, what agony, what despair ! Sometimes I have stopped at the corner of the street as the multitudes went hither and yon, and it has seemed to be a great pantomime. As I looked upon it my heart broke. This great tide of human life that goes down the street is a rapid, tossed and turned aside, and dashing ahead, and driven back beautiful in its confusion, and confused in its beauty. In the carpeted aisles of the forest, in the woods from which the eternal shadow is never lifted, on the shore of the sea over whose iron coast tosses the tangled foam, sprinkling the cracked cliffs with a baptism of whirlwind and tempest, is the best place to study God ; but in the rushing, swarming, raving street is the best place to study man. Going down to your place of business and coming home again, I charge you to look about, to see these signs of poverty, of wretchedness, of hunger, of sin, of bereavement and as you go through the streets, and come back through the streets, to gather up in the arms of your prayer all the sorrow, all the losses, all the suffering, all the bereavements of those whom you pass, and present them in prayer before an all-sympathetic God. Then in the great day of eternity there will be thousands of persons, with whom you in this world never exchanged one word, who will rise up and call you blessed ; and there will be a thousand fingers pointed at you in heaven, saying : "That is the man, that is the woman, who helped me when I was hungry, and sick, and wandering, and lost, and heart-broken. That is the man, that is the woman;" and the blessing will come down upon you as Christ shall say : " I was hungry and ye fed me, I was naked and ye clothed me, I was sick and in prison VANITY. 102 PICTURE-GALLERY OF THE STREET. 103 and ye visited me ; inasmuch as ye did it to these poor waifs of the street, ye did it to me." ALL CLASSES COMMINGLE. Again, the street impresses me with the fact that all classes and conditions of society must commingle. We sometimes cultivate a wicked exclusiveness. Intellect despises ignorance. Refinement will have nothing to do with boorishness. Gloves hate the sunburned hand, and the high forehead despises the flat head. The trim hedge- row will have nothing to do with the wild copsewood, and Athens hates Nazareth. This ought not to be. The astronomer must come down from his starry revery, and help us in our navigation. The surgeon must come away from his study of the human organism, and set our broken bones. The chemist must come away from his laboratory,' where he has been studying analysis and synthesis, and help us to un- derstand the nature of the soils. I bless God that all classes of people are compelled to meet on the street. The glittering coach-wheel clashes against the scavenger's cart. Fine robes run against the peddler's pack. Robust health meets wan sickness. Honesty confronts fraud. Every class of people meets every other class. Independence and modesty, pride and humility, purit^ and beastliness, frankness and hypocrisy, meet in the same city, in the same street, on the same block. That is what Solomon meant when he said : " The rich and the poor meet together ; the Lord is the maker of them all." I like this demo- cratic principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which recognizes the fact that we stand before God on one and the same platform. Do not take on any airs ; whatever position you have gained in society, you are nothing but a man, born of the same parent, regenerated by the same Spirit, cleansed in the same blood, to lie down in the same dust, to get up in the same resurrection. It is high time that we all acknowl- edged not only the Fatherhood of God, but the brotherhood of man. STREET TEMPTATIONS. Again, the street impresses me with the fact that it is a very hard thing for a man to keep his heart right and to get to heaven. Infinite temptations spring upon us from these places of public concourse. Amid so much affluence, how much temptation to covetousness and to discontent with our humble lot. Amid so many opportunities for over- reaching, what temptation to extortion. Amid so much display, what 104 PICTURE-GALLERY OF THE STREET. temptation to vanity. Amid so many saloons of strong drink, what allurement to dissipation. In the maelstrom of the street, how many make quick and eternal shipwreck. If a man-of-war comes back from a battle and is towed into the navy yard, we go down to look at the splintered spars and count the bullet holes, and look with patriotic ad- miration on the flag that floated in victory from the mast-head. But that man is more of a curiosity who has gone through thirty years of the sharp-shooting of business life, and yet sails on, victor over the temptations of the street. Oh, how many have gone down under the pressure, leaving not so much as a patch of canvas to tell where they perished ! They never had any peace. Their dishonesties kept tolling in their ears. If I had an axe, and could split open the beams of that fine house, perhaps I would find in the very heart of it a skeleton. In its very best wine there is a smack of the poor man's sweat. Oh ! is it strange that \vhen a man has devoured widows' houses he is dis- turbed with indigestion ? All the forces of nature are against him. The floods are ready to drown him, and the earthquake to swallow him, and the fires to consume him, and the lightnings to smite him. But the children of God are on every street, and in the day when the crowns of heaven are distributed, sorrys of the brightest of them will be given to those men who were faithful to God and faithful to the souls of others amid the marts of business, proving themselves the heroes of the street Mighty were their temptations, mighty was their deliverance, and mighty shall be their triumph. THE SHAMS OF LIFE. Again, the street impresses me with the fact that life is full of pre- tension and sham. What subterfuge, what double dealing, what two- facedness ! Do all people who wish you good morning really hope for you a happy day ? Do all the people who shake hands love each other ? Are all those anxious about your health who inquire concerning it? Do all want to see you who ask you to call ? Does all the world know half as much as it pretends to know ? Is there not many a wretched stock of goods with a brilliant show-window? Passing up and down these streets to your business and your work, are you not impressed with the fact that much of society is hollow, and that there are subter- fuges and pretensions ? Oh ! how many there are who swagger and strut, and how few people who are natural and walk. While fops PICTURE-GALLERY OF THE STREET. 105 simper, and fools chuckle, and simpletons giggle, how few people are natural and laugh. The courtesan and the libertine go down the street in beautiful apparel, while within the heart there are volcanoes of pas- sion consuming their lives away. I say these things not to create in you incredulity or misanthropy, nor do I forget that there are thousands of people a great deal better than they seem ; but I do not think any man is prepared for the conflicts of this life until he knows this particular peril. Ehud comes pretending to pay his tax to King Eglon, and while he stands in front of the king, stabs him through with a dagger until the haft goes in after the blade. Judas Iscariot kissed Christ. A FIELD FOR CHARITY. Again, the street impresses me with the fact that it is a great field for Christian charity. There are hunger and suffering, and want and wretchedness, in the country ; but these evils chiefly congregate in our great cities. On every street crime prowls, and drunkenness staggers, and shame winks, and pauperism thrusts out its hand asking for alms. Here want is most squalid and hunger is most lean. A Christian man, going along a street in New York, saw a poor lad, and he stopped and said, " My boy, do you know how to read and write ?" The boy made no answer. The man asked the question twice and thrice : " Can you read and write?" and then the boy answered, with a tear plashing on the back of his hand, in a tone of defiance : " No, sir ; I can't read nor write, neither. God, sir, don't want me to read and write. Didn't He take away my father so long ago I never remember to have seen him ? and haven't I had to go a^ng the streets to get something to fetch home to eat for the folks ? and didn't I, as soon as I could carry a basket, have to go out and pick up cinders, and never have no school- ing, sir? God don't want me to read, sir; I can't read, nor write neither." Oh, these poor wanderers ! They have no chance. Born in degradation, as they get up from their hands and knees to walk, they take their first step on the road to despair. Let us go forth in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue them. If you are not willing to go forth yourself, then give of your means ; and if you are too lazy to go, and if you are too stingy to help, then get out of the way, and hide yourself in the dens and caves of the earth, lest, when Christ's chariot comes along, the horses' hoofs trample you in the mire. Beware lest the thousands of the destitute of your city, in the last great day, rise up and curse your stupidity and your neglect. HEROES AND HEROINES BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE HISTORIANS are not slow to acknowledge the merits of great military chieftains. We have the full-length portraits of the Baldwins, the Cromwells, and the Marshal Neys of the world. History is not written in black ink, but with the red ink of human blood. The gods of human ambition did not drink from bowls made out of silver, or gold, or precious stones, but out of the bleached skulls of the fallen. But I wish to unroll before you a scroll of heroes whom the world has never acknowledged ; who faced no guns, blew no bugle-blast, conquered no cities, chained no captives to their chariot- wheels, and yet, in the great day of eternity, will stand higher than those whose names startled the nations, while seraph and rapt spirit and archangel will tell their deeds to a listening universe. I mean the heroes of common, every-day life. SICK-ROOM HEROES. In this roll may be placed all the heroes of the sick-room. When Satan had failed to overcome Job, he said to God, " Put forth thy hand and touch his bone and flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face." Satan had found out what we have all found out, that sickness is the greatest test of character. A man who can stand that can stand any- thing : to be shut in a room as fast as though it were a Bastile ; to be So nervous that you cannot endure the tap of a child's foot; to have luxuriant fruit, which tempts the appetite of the robust and healthy, excite your loathing and disgust when it appears on the platter ; to have the rapier of pain strike through the side or across the temples like a razor ; or to put the foot into a vise ; or to throw the whole body into the blaze of a fever. Yet there have been men and women, but more women than men, who have cheerfully endured this hardness, 1 06 HEROES AND HEROINES. -07 Through years of exhausting rheumatisms and excruciating neuralgias they have gone ; and through bodily distresses that rasped the nerves, and tore the muscles, and paled the cheeks, and stooped the shoulders. By the dim light of the sick-room taper they saw on their wall the picture of that land where the people are never sick. Through the dead silence of the night they heard the chorus of the angels. Those who suffered on the battle-field, amid shot and shell, were not so much heroes and heroines as those who in the field-hospital and in the asylum had fevers which no ice could cool and no surgeon could cure. No shout of comrade to cheer them, but numbness and aching and homesickness yet willing to suffer, confident in God, hopeful of heaven. Heroes of rheumatism, heroes of neuralgia, heroes of spinal complaint, heroes of sick headache, heroes of life-long invalidism, heroes and heroines, they shall reign forever and forever. Hark ! I catch just one note of the eternal anthem, "There shall be no more pain," Bless God for that ! DOMESTIC HEROES. In this roll I find the heroes who have- uncomplainingly endured omestic injustice. There are men who for their toil and anxiety have o sympathy in their homes. Exhausting application to business gets them a livelihood, but an unfrugal wife scatters it. The husband is fretted at from the moment he enters the door until he goes out of it the exasperations of business life augmented by the exasperations of domestic life. Such men are laughed at, but they have a heart-break- ing trouble, and they would have long ago gone into appalling dissipa- tion but for the grace of God. Society to-day is strewn with the wrecks of men who under the northeast storm of domestic infelicity have been driven on the rocks. There are tens of thousands of drunkards in this country to-day who were made such by their wives. That is not poetry ; that is prose. But the wrong is generally in the opposite direction. You would not have to go far to find a wife whose life is a perpetual martyrdom- suffering from something heavier than a stroke of the fist unkind words, staggerings home at midnight, and constant maltreatment, which have left her only a wreck of what she was on that day when, in the midst of a brilliant assemblage, the vows were taken, and the full organ T 08 HER OES AND HER OTNES. played the wedding march, and the carriage rolled away with the ben- ediction of the people. What was the burning of Latimer and Ridley at the stake com- pared with this ? Those men soon became unconscious in the fire, but here is a fifty years' martyrdom, a fifty years' putting to death, yet borne uncomplainingly. No bitter words when rollicking companions at two o'clock in the morning pitch the husband, dead drunk, on the stoop ; no bitter words when wiping from the swollen brow the blood struck out in a midnight carousal, or bending over the battered and bruised form of him who, when he took her from her father's home, promised love and kindness and protection ; nothing but sympathy, and prayers, and forgiveness before it is asked. No bitter words when the family Bible goes for rum, and the pawnbroker's shop gets the last decent dress. PHILANTHROPIC HEROES. I find also in this roll the heroes of Christian charity. We all admire the George Peabodys and the James Lenoxes of the earth, who give tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to good objects. When Moses H. Grinnell was buried, the most significant thing about the ceremonies was that there was no sermon and no oration ; a plain hymn, a prayer, and a benediction. "Well," I said, "that is very beautiful." All Christendom pronounces the eulogium of Moses H. Grinnell. and the icebergs that stand as monuments to Franklin and his men, will stand as the monument of this great mer- chant, and the sunlight that plays upon the glittering cliff will write his epitaph. You have all seen or heard of the ruin of Melrose Abbey. I sup- pose in some respects it is the most exquisite ruin on earth. And yet, looking at it, I was not so impressed you may set it down to bad taste but I was not so deeply stirred as I was at a tombstone at the foot of that abbey the tombstone planted by Walter Scott over the grave of an old man who had served him for a good many years in his house the inscription most significant, for I defy any man to stand there and read without tears coming into his eyes the epitaph, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Oh, when our work is over, will it be found that because of anything we have done for God, or the Church, or suffering humanity, such an inscription is appropriate for us ? God grant it ! THE BLIND MAN'S DUTIFUL CHILD 109 tHRIST AT GADARA 110 HEROES AND HEROINES. in Do not envy any man his money, or his applause, or his social position. Do not envy any woman her wardrobe, or her exquisite ap- pearance. Be the hero or the heroine. If there be no flour in the house, and you do not know where your children are to get bread, listen, and you will hear something tapping against the window-pane. Go to the window, and you will find it is the beak of a raven ; and open the win- dow, and there 'will fly in the messenger that fed Elijah. HIM THAT OVERCOMETH." Do you think that the God who grows the cotton of the South will let you freeze for lack of clothes ? Do you think that the God who allowed the disciples on Sunday morning to go into the grain-field, and then take the grain and eat, will let you starve ? Did you evei hear the experience of that old man : "I have been young, and now am old ; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed beg- ging bread " ? Get up out of your discouragement, O troubled soul, O sewing woman, O man kicked and cuffed by unjust employers, O ye r r 2 HER OES AND HER OINES. who are hard bestead in the battle of life and know not which way to turn, O you bereft one, O you sick one with complaints you have told to no one ! Come and get the comfort of this subject. Listen to our great Captain's cheer : " To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the fruit of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God." NO REST HERE. The great of earth have their woes as well as the small. Triumph is the near neighbor of disgrace ; victory may be the herald of defeat. The very world that now applauds will soon hiss. That world said of the great Webster " What a statesman ! What wonderful ex- position of the Constitution ! A man fit for any place or position !" That same world said afterwards : " Down with him ! He is an office- seeker ! He is a sot ! He is a libertine ! Away with him !" While Charles Mathews was performing in London before im mense audiences, one day a worn-out and gloomy man came into a doctor's shop, saying, "Doctor, what can you do for me?" The doctor examined his case and said, " My advice is that you go and see Charles Mathews." "Alas! alas!" said the man, "I myself am Charles Mathews." Jeffrey thought that if he could only be judge, that would be the making of him ; he got to be judge, and cursed the day in which he was born. Alexander wanted to submerge the world with his great- ness ; he submerged it, and then drank himself to death because he could not stand the trouble. Burns thought he would give every thing if he could win the favor of courts and princes ; he won it, and, amid the shouts of a great entertainment, when poets, and orators, and duchesses were adoring his genius, he wished that he could creep back into the obscurity in which he dwelt on the day when he wrote of the " Daisy, wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower." Napoleon wanted to make all Europe tremble at his power ; he made it tremble, then died, his entire military achievements dwindling down to a pair of military boots which he insisted on having on his feet when dying. At Versailles I saw a picture of Napoleon in his triumph. I went into another room and saw a bust of Napoleon as he appeared at St. Helena ; but oh, what grief and anguish in the face of the latter ! The first was Napoleon in triumph, the last was Napoleon with his HEROES AND HEROINES. 113 heart broken. How they laughed and cried when silver-tongued Sheri- dan, in the mid-day of prosperity, harangued the people of Britain, and how they howled at and execrated him when, outside of the room where his corpse lay, his creditors tried to get his miserable bones and sell them ! No rest for the flowers ; they fade. No rest for the stars ; they die. No rest for man ; he must work, toil, suffer, and slave. HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. Only in heaven shall the true hero gain full recognition for his deeds. There Christian workers shall be like the stars in the fact that they have a light independent of each other. Look up at night, and see how each world shows its distinct glory. It is not like the conflagration, in which you cannot tell where one flame stops and another begins. Neptune, Herschel, and Mercury are as distinct as if each one of them were the only star ; so our individualism will not be lost in heaven. A great multitude yet each one as observable, as distinctly recognized, as greatly celebrated, as if in all the space, from gate to gate, and from hill to hill, he were the only inhabitant no mixing up, no mob, no indiscriminate rush; each Christian worker standing out illustrious ; all the story of earthly achievement adhering to each one ; his self-denials, and pains, and services, and victories published. Before men went out to the last war, the orators told them that they would all be remembered by their country, and their names be commemorated in poetry and in song ; but go to the graveyard in Richmond, and you will find there six thousand graves, over each one of which is the inscription, " Unknown" The world does not remember its heroes ; but there will be no unrecognized Christian worker in heaven. Each one known by all ; grandly known ; known by acclama- tion ; all the past story of work for God gleaming in cheek, and brow, and foot, and palm. They shall shine with distinct light, as the stars, forever and ever. THE SACRED BATTLE-FIELD BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE NIGHT after night we have slept in tents in Palestine. There are large villages of Bedouins without a house, and for three thousand years the people of those places have lived in black tents, made out of dyed skins ; and when the wind and storms wore out and tore loose those coverings, others of the same kind took their places. In our tent in Palestine to-night I hear something I never heard before and hope never to hear again. It is the voice of a hyena amid the rocks near by. When you may have seen this monster putting his mouth between the iron bars of a menagerie, he is a captive and he gives a humiliated and suppressed cry. But yonder in the mid- night on a throne of rocks he has nothing to fear, and he utters him- self in a loud, resounding, terrific, almost supernatural sound, splitting up the darkness into a deeper midnight. It begins with a howl and ends with a sound something like a horse's whinny. In the hyena's voice are defiance and strength and blood-thirstiness and crunch of broken bones and death. I am glad to say that for the most part Palestine is clear of beasts of prey. The leopards, which Jeremiah says cannot change their spots, have all disappeared, and the lions, that once were common all through this land and used by all the prophets for illustrations of cruelty and wrath, have retreated before the discharges of gunpowder, of which they have an indescribable fear. But for the most part Palestine is what it originally was. JACOB'S WELL. Here we found ourselves at Jacob's well, the most famous well in history, most distinguished for two things because it belonged to the o'xa patriarch after whom it was named, and for the wonderful things JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA 115 THE WISE AND FOOLISH VIRGINS EXPULSION OF ADAM AND EVE FROM EDEN. THE SACRED BATTLE-FIELD. \i\ which Christ said, seated on this well curb, to the Samaritan woman We dismounted from our horses in a drizzling rain, and our dragoman, climbing up to the well over the slippery stones, stumbled and fright ened us all by nearly falling into it I measured the well at the top and found it six feet from edge to edge. Some grass and weeds and thorny growths overhung it. In one place the roof was broken through. Large stones embanked the wall on all sides. Our dragoman took pebbles and dropped them in, and, from the time it took after they left his hand to the instant they clicked on the bottom, you could hear it was deep, though not as deep as it once was, for every day travelers are applying the same test ; and though in the time of Maundrell, the traveler, the well was 165 feet deep, now it is only 75. But why did Jacob make a reservoir there when there was plenty of water all around ; an abundance of springs and fountains, and seemingly no need of that reservoir ? Why did Jacob go to the vast expense of boring and digging a well perhaps 200 feet deep as first completed, when, by going a little way off, he could have had water from other fountains at little or no expense ? Ah, Jacob was wise. He wanted his own well. Quarrels and wars might arise with other tribes and the supply of water might be cut off; so the shovels and pick- axes and boring instruments were ordered, and the well of nearly four thousand years ago was sunk through the solid rock. A MORAL LESSON. When Jacob thus wisely insisted on having his own well he taught us not to be unnecessarily dependent on others. Have independence of business character; independence of moral character ; independence of religious character. Have your own well of grace, your own well of courage, your own well of divine supply. If you are an invalid, you have a right to be dependent on others. But if God has given you good health, common-sense, and two eyes, and two ears, and two hands, and two feet, He has equipped you for independence of all the universe except Himself. But we must, this afternoon, our last day before reaching Naza- reth, pitch our tent on the most famous battle-field of all time the plain of Esdraelon. What must have been the feelings of the Prince of Peace as he crossed it on the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth ! Not a flower blooms there but has in its veins the inherited blood of flowers 1 1 8 THE SA CRED BA TTL E A ELD that drank the blood of fallen armies. Hardly a foot of the ground that has not at some time been gullied with war chariots or trampled with the hoofs of cavalry. It is a plain reaching from the Mediter- ranean to the Jordan. Upon it look down the mountains of Tabor and "Gilboa and Carmel. Through it rages at certain seasons the river Kishon which swept down the armies of Sisera, the battle occurring in November, when there is almost always a shower of meteors, so that "the stars in their courses" were said to have fought against Sisera. Through this plain drove Jehu, and the iron chariots of the Canaanites, scythed at the hubs of the wheels, hewing down, in their awful swathes of death, thousands in a minute. The Syrian armies, the Turkish armies, the Egyptian armies, again and again trampled it. There have careered across it David and Joshua and Godfrey and Richard Cceur de Lion and Baldwin and Saladin. It is famous not only for its past, but because the Bible says the great decisive battle of the world will be fought there the battle of Armageddon. OLD BATTLE-FIELDS. To me the plain was the more absorbing because of the desper ate battles fought here and in regions round in which the Holy Cross, the very two pieces of wood on which Jesus was supposed to have been crucified, was carried as a standard at the head of the Christian host ; and that night, on closing my eyes in my tent on the plain of Esdraelon for there are some things we can see better with eyes shut than open the scenes of that ancient war came before me. The twelfth century was closing and Saladin at the head of eighty thousand mounted troops was crying, " Ho for Jerusalem ! Ho for all Pales- tine !" and before them everything went down, but not without unpar- alleled resistance. In one place one hundred and thirty Christians were surrounded by many thousands of furious Mohammedans. For one whole day the one hundred and thirty held out against these thou sands. Tennyson's "six hundred," when "some one had blundered," were eclipsed by these one hundred and thirty fighting for the Holy Cross. They took hold of the lances which had pierced them with death wounds, and pulling them out of their own breasts and sides hurled them back again at the enemy. On went the fight until all but one Christian had fallen, and he, mounted on the last horse, wielded THE SACRED BATTLE-FIELD. 119 his battle-axe right and left till his horse fell under the plunge of the javelins, and the rider, making the sign of the cross toward the sky, gave up his life on the point of a score of spears. But soon after, the last battle came. History portrays it, poetry chants it, painting colors it, and all ages admire that last struggle to keep in possession the wooden cross on which Jesus was said to have expired. It was a battle in which mingled the fury of devils and the grandeur of angels. Thousands of dead Christians on this side- thousands of dead Mohammedans on the other side. The battle was A SARACEN CHARGE. hottest close around the wooden cross upheld by the Bishop of Ptolemais, himself wounded and dying. And when the Bishop of Ptolemais dropped dead, the Bishop of Lydda seized the cross and again lifted it, carrying it onward into a wilder and fiercer fight, where sword clashed against javelin, battle-axe upon helmet, and piercing spear against splintering shield. Horses and men tumbled into hetero- geneous death. Now the wooden cross, on which the armies of Christians had kept their eye, began to waver, began to descend. It 120 THE SACRED BATTLE-FIELD. fell ! and the wailing of the Christian host at its disappearance drowned the huzzah of the victorious Moslems. THE TRUE CROSS. But that standard of the cross only seemed to fall. It rides the sky to day in triumph. Five hundred million souls, the mightiest army of the ages, are following it, and where that goes they will go, across the earth and up the mighty steeps of the heavens. In the twelfth century it seemed to go down, but in the nineteenth century it is the mightiest symbol of glory and triumph, and means more than any other standard, whether inscribed with eagle, or lion, or bear, or star, or crescent. That which Saladin trampled on the plain of Esdraelon, I lift to-day for your marshalling. The cross ! The cross ! The foot of it planted in the earth it saves, the top of it pointing to the heavens to which it will take you, and the outspread beam of it like outstretched arms of invitation to all nations. Kneel at its foot ! Lift your eye to its victim ! Swear eternal allegiance to its power ! And as that mighty symbol of pain and triumph is kept before us, we will realize how in- significant are the little crosses we are called to bear, and will more cheerfully carry them. CURSE OF STRONG DRINK BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE WHILE we must confess that some of the ancient arts have been lost, yet the Christian era is superior to all others in the bad eminence of whiskey and rum and gin. The modern drunk is a hundred-fold worse than the ancient drunk. Noah in his intoxica- tion became imbecile, but the victims of modern alcoholism have to struggle with whole menageries of wild beasts and jungles of hissing serpents and perditions of blaspheming demons. An arch-fiend arrived in our world, and built here an invisible cauldron of temptation. He built that cauldron strong and stout for all ages and all nations. First he squeezed into it the juices of the forbidden fruit of Paradise. Then he gathered for it a distillation from the harvest fields and the orchards of the hemispheres. Then he poured into this cauldron capsicum, and copperas, and logwood, and deadly nightshade, and assault and bat- tery, and vitriol, and opium, and rum, and murder, and sulphuric acid, and theft, and potash, and cochineal, and red carrots, and poverty, and death, and hops. But it was a dry compound and must be moistened and liquefied, so the arch-fiend poured into the cauldron the tears of centuries of orphanage and widowhood, and the blood of twenty thou- sand assassinations. Then he took a shovel that he had brought up from the furnaces of his dominion below, and he thrust that shovel into the great cauldron and began to stir, and the cauldron began to heave, and rock, and boil, and sputter, and hiss, and smoke, while the nations gathered around it with cups and tankards and demijohns and kegs. There was enough for all, and the arch-fiend cried, with satanic exultation : "Aha! champion fiend am I! Who has done more than I have for the filling of coffins and graveyards and prisons and insane asylums, and the populating of the lost world ? And when this cauldron is emptied I'll fill it again, and stir it again, and it will smoke ao-ain. and rzz THE CURSE OF STRONG DRINK. that smoke shall join another smoke the smoke of a torment that ascendeth forever and ever. I drove fifty ships on the rocks of Newfoundland, and on the Skerries and the Goodwins. I defeated the Northern army at Fredericksburg. I have ruined more senators than will gather next winter in the national councils. I have ruined more lords than will be gathered in the House of Peers. The cup out of which I ordinarily drink is a bleached human skull, and the upholstery of my palace is of the rich crimson hue of human gore, and the mosaic of my floors is made up of the bones of children dashed to death by drunken parents, and my favorite music sweeter than Te Deum or triumphal march is the cry of daughters turned out at midnight on the street because father has come home drunk from the carousal, and the seven-hundred-voiced shriek of the steamer that sank because the captain was not himself when he put the ship on the wrong course. Champion fiend am I ! I have kindled more fires, I have wrung out more agonies, I have stretched out more midnight shadows, I have opened more Golgothas, I have rolled more Juggernauts, I have damned more souls, than any other emissary of diabolism. Champion fiend ami!" THE DRUNKARD'S WILL. I call your attention to the fact that there are thousands of people born with a thirst for strong drink a fact too often ignored. Along some ancestral lines there runs a river of temptation. There are chil- dren whose swaddling clothes are torn off the shroud of death. Many a father has made a will of this sort : "In the name of God, amen. I bequeath to my children my houses and lands and estates ; share and share shall they alike. Hereto I affix my hand and seal in the presence of witnesses." And yet, perhaps that very man has made another will which the people have never read, and which has not been proved in the courts. That will, put in writing, would read something like this : rt In the name of disease and appetite and death, amen. I bequeath to my children my evil habits. My tankards shall be theirs, my wine-cup shall be theirs, my destroyed reputation shall be theirs. Share and share alike I bequeath them my infamy. Hereto I affix my hand and seal in the presence of all the applauding harpies of hell." THE NATIONAL MENACE. Is the evil of drink a State evil, or is it a National evil ? Does it belong to the North, or to the South ? Does it belong to the East, or THE CURSE OF STRONG DRINK. i3 to the West ? Ah ! there is not an American river into which its tears have not fallen, and into which its suicides have not plunged. What ruined that Southern plantation of which every field was once a fortune, and the proprietor and his family the most affluent supporters of sum- mer watering-places ? What threw that New England farm into decay, and turned the roseate cheeks that bloomed at the foot of the Green Mountains into the pallor of despair ? What has smitten every street of every village, town and city of this continent with a moral pestilence ? Strong drink. To prove that this is a national evil, I call up three States in oppo- site directions Maine, Iowa and Georgia. Let them testify in regard to this. The State of Maine says, "It is so great an evil up here that we have anathematized it as a State. The State of Iowa says, "It is so great an evil out here that we have prohibited it by constitutional amendment." The State of Georgia says, "It is so great an evil down here that ninety counties of this State have made the sale of intoxi- cating drink a criminality." So the word comes up from all sources, and it is going to be a Waterloo, and I want all to know on what side \ am going to be when that Waterloo is fully come, and I want all to be on the right side. Either drunkenness will be destroyed in this country, or the American Government wii( be destroyed. There can be no compromise. Drunkenness and free institutions are coming into a death grapple. THE RUM FIEND'S CURSE. O Death ! how lovely thou art to her, the drunkard's wife, and how soft and warm thy skeleton hand ! The sepulcher at midnight in winter is a king's drawing-room compared with that woman s home. It is not so much the blow on the head that hurts as the blow on the heart ! The rum fiend came to the door of that beautiful home, and opened it, and stood there, crying with blasting breath : "I curse this dwelling with an unrelenting curse ! I curse this father into a maniac ! I curse this mother into a pauper ! I curse these sons into vagabonds ! I curse these daughters into profligacy ! Cursed be bread-tray and cradle ! Cursed be couch and chair and family Bible, with record of marriages and births and deaths ! Curse upon curse !" Oh, how many wives are there waiting to see if something cannot be done to shake these frosts of the second death off the orange blos- soms ! Yea, God is waiting, the God who works through human it 4 THE CURSE OF STRONG DRINK. Instrumentalities, waiting to see whether this nation is going to over- throw this evil ; and if it refuse to do so, God will wipe out this nation as he did Phoenicia, as he did Rome, as he did Thebes, as he did Baby- lon. Aye, he is waiting to see what the church of God will do. If the church does not do its work, then he will wipe it out as he did the church of Ephesus, the church of Thyatira, the church of Sardis. The Protestant and Roman Catholic churches to-day stand side by side with an impotent look, gazing on an evil which costs this country more than a billion dollars a year, to take care of the 800,000 paupers, and the 315,000 criminals, and the 30,000 idiots, and to bury the 75,000 drunkards, which form the abundant harvest of rum. PARTY SERVILITY. Put on your spectacles and take a candle and examine the plat- forms of the two leading political parties of this country, and see what they are doing for the arrest of this evil, and for the overthrow of this abomination. Resolutions oh yes, resolutions about Mormonism ! It is safe to attack that organized nastiness 2,000 miles away. But not one resolution against drunkenness, which threatens to turn this entire nation into one bestial Salt Lake City. Resolutions against political corruption, but not one word about drunkenness, which would rot this nation from scalp to heel. Resolutions about protection against compe- tition with foreign industries, but not one word about protection of family and church and nation against the scalding, blasting, all-con- suming, damning tariff of strong drink, which is put upon every finan- cial, individual, spiritual, moral and national interest of our land. The Democratic party was in power for the most of the time for forty years what did that national party do for the extirpation of this evil? Nothing, absolutely nothing, appallingly nothing. The Republican party has been in power for about a quarter of a century what has it done as a national party to extirpate this evil ? Nothing, absolutely nothing, appallingly nothing. We must look in another direction, for here there is no promise of redress. DUTY OF THE CHURCH. The Church of God is the grandest and most glorious institution on earth. What has it in solid phalanx accomplished for the over- throw of drunkenness ? Have its forces ever been marshalled ? No, Dot in this direction, not for this work. Yet if the 17,000,000 professors JESUS AND THE SIS'l^KS OF BETHANY. K > >-> fc W K H O Q b) W I GATEWAY AND MOSQUE AT JERUSALEM. THE CUXSE OF STXOMG URINK. 125 of religion should take sides on this subject, it would not be very long before the destiny of this nation would be decided, and rum cease to reign in our councils and in our homes. The Church holds the balance of power in America ; and if Chris- dan people the men and the women whc profess to love the Lord Jesus Christ, and to love purity, and to be the sworn enemies of all unclean- ness and debauchery and sin if all such would march side by side and shoulder to shoulder, this evil would soon be overthrown. Think ol 300,000 churches and Sunday-schools in Christendom, marching shoul- der to shoulder ! How very short a time it would take them to put down this evil, if all the churches of God trans-Atlantic and cis- Atlantic were armed for this grand work ! Young men of America, pass over into the army of teetotalism. Shall whiskey, good to preserve corpses, turn you into corpses ? Yet tens of thousands of young men have been dragged out of respecta- bility, and out of purity, and out of good character, and into darkness, by this infernal stuff called strong drink ! Do not touch it then ; do not taste it ; for its touch is ruin, its taste is death. THE BALLOT-BOX BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE LOOK at it the sacred chest of the ancients about five feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high, within and without of gold, and on the top of it representations of two angels facing each other with outspread wings. The book of the law and many precious things were in that box. The fate of the nation was in it. Carried at the head of the host, in the presence of that box the waters of the Jordan parted. A costly, precious, divinely charged, momentous box was that. Unholy hands must be kept off from it. It was generally called the ark of the covenant, but you will understand that it was a box, the most precious box of the ages. Where is it now ? Gone forever. No crypt of ancient church, no museum of the world, has a fragment of it. But is not this nation God's chosen people? Have we not been brought through the Red Sea ? Have we not been led with the pillar of fire by night ? Have we no ark of the covenant ? Yes. The ballot- box is our sacred chest. THE ARK OF THE AMERICAN COVENANT. The law is in this box. The will of God and the will of man are In it. The fate of the nation is in it. Carried before our host, the waters of national trouble part. Its fate is the fate of the American Government. On election day, ten million men may uncover their heads in its presence. Mighty ark of the American covenant, thou ballot-box of a free people ! It is a very old box. In Athens, and long before the art of printing was known, the people dropped pebbles into it, expressive of their will. After that, beans were dropped into it white beans for the affirmative, black beans for the negative ; but, as through that process (JUO) THE BALLOT-BOX. 127 it was easy to see which way a man voted, the election sometimes took place by night. If a man was to be voted out of citizenship, or, as you would say, ostracized, his name was put upon a shell and the shell was dropped into the box. In Parliament, O'Connell and Grote and Macaulay and Cobden and Gladstone fought for the full introduction of the ballot-box, and in 1872 it became one of the fastnesses of the English nation. The ballot-box is one of the corner-stones of our American institutions. It is older than the Constitution. Tell me what will become of it, and I will tell you what will become of the American Government. What a change of feeling in regard to it has arisen since Sidney Smith shot his keenest shafts of ridicule at it, and William Cobbett felt called upon to answer thirty-eight objections to its existence ! Without the ballot-box there can be no free institutions, and there can be no permanent peace. Give the people every year, or every four years, an opportunity of expressing their political preferences, and for the most part you avoid insurrection and revolution. If they cannot have the vote they will have the sword. When John Milton was visiting in Italy, he noticed that the gar- deners and farmers were cultivating the side of Mount Vesuvius while the volcano was in eruption, and he asked them if they found it safe to do so. "Oh, yes," they said, " the danger and the alarm are before the eruption takes place ; then there is earthquake and terror all through the country ; but after the lava begins to pour forth, all the people feel relieved." It is the suppression of the popular will that makes moral earthquake, political earthquake. Give the people full expression through the ballot-box and there is national relief, national satisfaction. The ballot-box has many mighty foes. As a Christian patriot, 1 will now enumerate some of those terrible enemies. IGNORANCE. In the first place, ignorance. Other things being equal, in pro- portion as a man is intelligent, is he qualified for the right of suffrage. You have for ten, twenty, thirty years been studying American institu- tions through all the channels of information. You have become ac- quainted with the needs of our country. You know all that has been said on both sides of the tariff question, the Chinese question, the educational question, the sectional question, and you have made up your mind. iz8 THE BALLOT-BOX. On election day I see you coming down off your front steps. I say, " Good-morning, neighbor ; hope you are all well to-day. Which way are you bound?" You say, " I am going to vote." You take your position in the line of electors, you wait your turn, you come up, the judge of election announces your name, your ballot is deposited, you pass out. Well done ! But right behind you comes a man who cannot spell "president," or "controller," or "attorney." He cannot write his own name, or if he does write it if he can write at all he makes a small "i" for the pronoun of the first person, which, while very descriptive of his limited capacity, is very hard on good orthography. He cannot tell you on which side of the Alleghany Mountains Ohio is situated. There are educated canary birds and educated horses which have more intelli- gence than he. He puts in his vote for the opposite candidate, and he cancels your vote. His ignorance weighs as much as your intelligence. That is not right ; everybody says that is not right. How shall we correct this evil? By laws of compulsory education well executed. Until a man can read the Declaration of American In- dependence, and the Constitution of the United States, and the first chapter of Genesis, and write a petition for citizenship with his own hand, and calculate how much is the interest of the United States debt, and tell the difference between a republic, a limited monarchy, and a despotism, he is not fit to vote at any polls between Key West and Alaska. Time was when there may have been an excuse for ignorance, but there is none in this day, when the common school makes knowl- edge as free as the fresh air of Heaven. In 1872, in England, there were two million seven hundred thou- sand children who ought to have been in school, but there were in school only one million three hundred and thirty-three thousand six hundred about fifty per cent. And of all those who were in school, not more than five per cent, got anything worthy of the name of education. Much of this foreign ignorance is added to our American ignorance, and every year tens of thousands cast their votes who have no more qualification to do so than they would have qualification to lecture on astronomy. Now, I go for a law which, after it has given a sufficient number of years of warning, shall make ignorance a crime. I go for a law which would place a board of examination side by side with the officers THE PEACEABLE FRUIT ^F THE SPIRIT 129 130 JOY AFTER A NIGHT OF WEEPING THE BALLOT-BOX. 131 of registration, to decide whether a man has enough intelligence to be- come one of the monarchs who shall decide the destiny of this Republic. SPURIOUS VOTING. Another powerful enemy of the ballot-box is spurious voting. What a grand thing is the law of registration ! Without it election day would be a farce ; but how sad is the condition of things when in nearly every State each party charges upon the other the outrage of the ballot-box. The law needs a keener twist for the neck of the repeaters. They need something more than a slight fine and a short imprisonment. They are attempting the assassination of this Republic. In olden times, when men with unholy hands touched the ark of the covenant, they dropped dead. Witness Uzza. And when men through spurious voting lay unholy hands on the sacred chest the ark of the American covenant they deserve extermination ! INTIMIDATION. Another powerful foe of the ballot-box is intimidation. - There are corporations which compel their employees to vote as they, the head, wish them. In a delicate and skillful way they simply intimate to their men that if they do not vote as the employers vote, they will be frozen out of the establishment. There are thousands of such places. You can go to villages where there are factories, where, if you find out the political sentiment of the men who own the factories, you can tell how the election will go. Now, that is damnable ! . When an employee does his work well, and gives you full equiva- lent in toil for what you pay him in wages, you have no right to expect any more of him. He sells you his work. He does not sell you his political or his religious principles. Yet you are too wise to say, "You did not vote as I wanted you to vote, now I discharge you." You call him in some day and find fault with his work, and you tell him that you have an uncle, or an aunt, a cousin, or a niece, or a nephew who will need to have his situation ! But he knows why you discharge him, and God knows. You are not fit for American citizenship. There must be on the ark of the covenant the sacred chest no ' shadow of corporate or capitalistic intimidation. I am not surprised at the vehemence of Lord Chief Justice Holt, of England, when he says: I 3 7 THE BALLOT-BOX. " Let the people vote fairly. Interference with a man's vote is in be- half of this or the other party. If such cases come before me to be tried, I shall charge the jury to make the offender pay well for it." BRIBERY. Another powerful foe of the ballot-box is bribery. I do not know which party raises the most money for this shameful purpose, but I can safely say that bribery is the disgrace of American institutions. It is often the case that men are nominated for office with reference to the amount of money of their own which they can put into the contest, or the amount of money which they can command from their friends. Senators and Congressmen and Governors buy their way into office! I tell you no news in this respect. Your own patriotic hearts have been pained with it. It is often the case that the bribe comes in the form of official position. "Wheel your eloquence to my side, and when I get to be President I will make you Secretary of State, or you shall be Postmas- ter-General or Minister to England. Wheel your eloquence to my side, and when I get to be Governor you shall be Surveyor-General. Wheel your eloquence to my side, and when I -get to be Mayor you shall be on the Water Board." The simple fact is, that by the time many of those who are running for office get to the chair, they are from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot mortgaged with pledges, and the people who go to Albany or to Washington to seek offices are applying for positions that were gone three months before the election. There are two long lines of worm-fence one line of worm-fence reaching to Albany, the other line of worm-fence reaching to Washing- ton and at the time of the nominations there are great multitudes of citizens astride these fences, equally poised, ready to get down on that side on which they can get the most emolument. Bribery for those who receive it, and bribery on the part of those who give it, kicks both ways ; and it is a disgrace to the ballot-box, and a scourge to the sacred chest the ark of the American covenant. In the name of God I denounce it. SALOON-MADE CANDIDATES. Another powerful foe of the ballot-box is the rowdy and drunken caucus. The ballot-box is robbed of its power of choice when in a THE BALLOT-BOX. 133 back room of some groggery the nominees are made, and the men who come up to the ballot-box on election day have a choice between two evils. Now, you respectable men of both parties, I charge you that, having saturated your handkerchiefs with cologne or some other disin- fectant, you go down and take possession of the caucus. You begin your work on election day, and you begin it two weeks or two months too late. In some of the cities of the United States, when the elector comes to the polls he finds that the nominees are such a scaly, greasy, stenchful crew that there is no choice. What if he vote for some out- sider ? He merely throws his vote away. Now, honorable men, go and take possession of the caucus, though when you return home you have to hang your hat and your coat on the line in the back yard. It is high time that these things were changed. American politics have got very low, and in some States they are controlled by men who are not more in need of good morals than of a bath-tub ! Snatch the ballot-box from such desperadoes. Where is the David with the courage to bring back the ark of the covenant from Kirjath-jearim ? You all see that there is need of reformation of the ballot-box, when in our day it could send a Tweed to the New York Legislature, and a John Morrissey the prince of gamblers to the American Congress. The ballot-box needs to be washed ! A PROPERTY QUALIFICATION. Some propose, by way of improvement, that we have in this country a property qualification. They say that if men have a certain amount of real estate they are more likely to have a financial interest in good government ; and they say that as soon as a man gets property he becomes cautious and conservative. I have to reply that a property qualification would shut out from the ballot-box much of the best brain of this country. Literary men are almost always poor. The pen is a good kind of implement for mending the world, but a poor implement for gaining a livelihood. I could call the roll of hundreds of literary men who never owned a foot of ground, and never will own a foot of ground until they get under it professors of colleges, editors of news- papers, ministers of religion, book-makers depending on a scant and uncertain royalty paid by the publishers. A property qualification will shut out these men, and a great multitude who, though they never owned a house on earth, will have a mansion in heaven. i 3 4 THE BALLOT-BOX. On the other hand, you will notice that there are those who by ac- cident of fortune have got vast estates, while they are in profound stupidity. An English millionaire told me on the steamer going over to Europe, that he was going to see "the dikes of Scotland"; and a lady of much pretension, who had just returned from Europe, upon being asked last summer on the cars by a member of my family if she had seen Mont Blanc, said, "Well, really, I don't know; is that in Europe?" There is no more complete ignorance than you will some- times find dismounting from a four-thousand-dollar equipage at the door of a Madison Avenue mansion. The property qualification would be a gigantic injustice. There are only two ways in which you will ever mend these mat- ters one by more thorough legal defense of the ballot-box, and the other by more thorough education and moralization of the people. WOMAN SUFFRAGE. We may be obliged to call upon woman to help us in the reformation of the ballot-box. Wherever she goes there is adornment and beauti- fication. I suppose you have noticed the difference between the clean- liness of the gentlemen's cabin on the ferry-boat, and of the ladies' cabin. I suppose you have noticed the difference between the cleanliness of the gentlemen's smoking-car on the rail-train, and of the other cars in which women are passengers. Give woman the right of suffrage, and our polls on election day, instead of being cheerless and repulsive, will be places of beauty. By what justice have the majority of the grown people in this country been disfranchised ? Simply because they are women. Give woman the ballot, and that will quickly decide the Mormon and tem- perance questions. A woman owning property must pay taxes. Ought she not then to have a right to say something in regard to the expen- diture of those moneys? Many of us have been opposed to female suffrage, on the ground that we do not want woman's delicate nature to confront the insults and the blasphemies and the disorder of election day ; but when she has the ballot there will be no insults, no disorder, no blasphemies on election day. It is not so much what the ballot would do for woman, as what woman would do for the ballot. I cannot understand how there should be such an aversion to woman's political preference among THE BALLOT-BOX. 135 Americans and among Englishmen in this day, when we have a great- souled American woman reigning in the White House and a Queen Victoria in Windsor Castle. The ancient ark of the covenant was carried into captivity, away off to Kirjath-jearim ; but one day that sacred chest was put upon a cart, and oxen were fastened to the cart, and the chest was brought back to Jerusalem with shouting and thanksgiving. So the ballot-box has been carried into captivity by demagogism and mobocracy ; but I should not wonder if, by prayer to God with thanksgiving, that sacred ark of the covenant would be brought back and put into the temple of Christian patriotism. Take the first step in this direction when you cast your next ballot. It may be the last vote you will ever deposit for the highest office in this country. I know that we sometimes find cen- tenarians pleasantly boasting that they have voted for nearly all the Presidents ; but the majority of men never vote for more than three or four. Do you think your vote of no importance ? POWER OF THE BALLOT. A poor soldier went into the store of a hair-dresser in London, arid asked for money to get back to the army. He had already stayed be- yond his furlough, and he must have quick transit. The hair-dresser felt sorry for him and gave him the money. "Now," said the poor soldier, "I have got nothing to give you in return for your kindness except this little slip of paper, which has on it a recipe for making blacking." The soldier gave it, not supposing it to be of great value. The man received it, not supposing it to be of any great value. But it has yielded the man who took it two million five hundred thousand dollars, and was the foundation of one of the greatest manufacturing establishments of England. So that little slip of printed paper that you drop into the ballot- box may seem to be insignificant, and yet it may have a moral and a national value beyond all estimation. The white flakes of the ballot will fall in all the villages between ' the Highlands of Navesink and the Golden Gate of the Pacific, so silently that the keenest ear will not detect one out of the millions snowing on until noon, snowing on until night. The octogenarian will come up to the polls with trembling hand, and scanning the billot with spectacled eyes, will give it to the judge of election. The young man *3 6 2 'HE BALLOT-BOX. who has been patiently waiting the time when he would have a right to vote will come up, and proudly and blushingly hand in his suffrage and pass on. The capitalist with diamonded finger and the workman with hard fist will come up, and the vote of the one will be as good as the vote of the other. Snowing, snowing, snowing, until at sundown all these flakes will be united and compacted into an avalanche ready to slide down in expression of the nation's will. Stand out of the way ! in the awful sweep of the white avalanche, may there go down section- alism and political fraud ten thousand feet under, forever under ! OUR GREAT REPUBLIC. I have called your attention to the two angels on the top of the sacred chest, facing each other with outspread wings. So on the ark of the American covenant let the two angels the angel of the North and the angel of the South, long looking different ways now stand face to face with outspread wings of blessing ! We* cannot live under any other form of government than that under which we are living. The stars of our flag are not the stars of thickening night, but stars sparkling amid the red bars of morning cloud. Let the despotisms of Asia keep their feet off the Pacific coast ! Let the tyrannies of Europe keep their feet off the Atlantic coast ! We shall have in this country only one government, and on this conti- nent only one government. At the south, Mexico will follow Texas into the Union, and Christianity and civilization will stand in the halls of the Montezumas, and if not in our day, then in the day of our chil- dren, Yucatan and Central America will wheel into the line of dominion. On the north, Canada will be ours not by conquest for English and American swords may never clash blades but we will simply woo our fair neighbor of the north, and she will be ours. England will say to Canada, "You are old enough now for the marriage-day. Giant of the West, go take your bride ! " Then from Baffin's Bay to the Caribbean there shall be one Republic, under one banner, and with one destiny a free, undisputed, christianized, American continent 1 DRESS AND DISSIPATION BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE WHEN I come to count the victims of fashion, I find as many masculine as feminine. Men make an easy tirade against woman, as though she were the chief worshiper at this idol' atrous shrine, yet they are as much the idolaters of fashion as women, though they throw themselves on a different part of the altar. With men the fashion goes to cigars, and club-rooms, and yachting parties, and wine-suppers. In the United States, the men chew up and smoke one hundred millions of dollars' worth of tobacco every year. That is their fashion. But men do not abstain from millinery and elaboration of skirt through any superiority of humility. It is only because such appendages would be a blockade to business. What would sashes and trails three and a half yards long do in a Wall street stock market ? And yet men are the disciples of fashion just as much as women. Some of them wear boots so tight that they can hardly walk in paths of right- eousness. And there are men who buy expensive suits of clothes and never pay for them, and who go through the streets in great stripes of color like animated checker-boards, and suggest to one that, after all, some Tweed in prison dress may have got out of the penitentiary. There are multitudes of men who, not satisfied with the bodies the Lord gave them, are padded, so that their shoulders shall be square, carrying around a small cotton plantation ! I understand that a great many of them now paint their eyebrows and their lips ; and I have heard from good authority that there are multitudes of men in Brooklyn and New York things have got to such an awful pass multitudes of men wearing corsets ! I want to show you that I am impartial in this discussion, and that h-nn sexes, in the language of the Surrogate's office, shall " share and '37 13* DRESS AND DISSIPATION. share alike." What are some of the destroying- and deathful influences of inordinate fashion ? The first baleful influence is in fraud, illimitable and ghastly. Do you know that Arnold of the Revolution proposed to sell his country in order to get money to supply his wife's wardrobe ? I declare before God that the effort to keep up expensive wardrobes in this country is sending many business men to temporal and eternal perdition. What was it that sent Oilman to the penitentiary,and Philadelphia Morton to the watering of stocks, and the life-insurance presidents to perjured state- ments about their assets, and that has completely upset our American finances ? What was it that overthrew Belknap, the United States Secretary at Washington, the crash of whose fall shook the continent ? But why should I go to these infamous defaultings to show what men will do in order to keep up great home-style and expensive ward- robes, when you and I know scores of men who are put to their wit's end and are lashed from January to December in the attempt to keep up great home-style ? The temptation comes in this way : A certain man thinks more of his home folks than he does of all the world outside, and if they spend the evening in describing to him the superior wardrobe of the family across the street, that they cannot bear the sight of, the man is thrown on his gallantry and his pride of family ; and, without trans- lating his feelings into plain language, he goes into extortion and issuing false stock, and skillful penmanship in writing somebody else's name at the foot of a promissory note ; and they all go down to- gether the husband to the prison, the wife to the sewing-machine, the children to be taken care of by those who were called poor relations. Oh, for some new Shakespeare to arise and write the tragedy of clothes ! Act the first A plain but beautiful home. Enter, the newly-mar- ried pair. Enter, simplicity of manner and behavior. Enter, as much happiness as is ever found in one home. Act the second Discontent with the humdrum of life. Enter, envy Enter, jealousy. Enter, desire of display. 'Act the third Enlargement of expenses. Enter, all the queen! dressmakers. Enter, the French milliners. Act the fourth The tip-top of society. Enter, princes and princesses of New York life. Enter, magnificent plate and equipage. Enter, everything splendid. VOTARY OF FASHION. 139 '4o DXESS AND DISSIPATION. Act the fifth and last Winding up of the scene. Enter, the assignee. Enter, the sheriff. Enter, the creditors. Enter, humilia- tion. Enter, the wrath of God. Enter, the contempt of society. Enter, death. Now let the silk curtain drop on the stage. The farce is ended, and the lights are out. The greatest obstacle to charity in the Christian Church to-day is the fact that men expend so much money on their stomachs, and women expend so much money on their backs, that they have got nothing left for the cause of God and the world's betterment. In- ordinate fashion causes distraction in worship. You know very well that there are a good many people who come to church just as they go to the races, to see who will come out ahead. What a flutter it makes in church when some woman with an extraor- dinary display of fashion comes in ! " What a love of a bonnet !" says some one. "What a perfect fright !" say five hundred ; for the most merciless critics in the world are fashion-critics. Men and women, with souls to be saved, passing the hour in wondering where that man got his flamboyant cravat or what store that woman patronizes ! In many of our churches the preliminary exercises are taken up with the discussion of wardrobes. It is pitiable. Is it not wonderful that the Lord does not strike the meeting-house with lightning ? What distraction of public worship ! Dying men and women, whose bodies are soon to be turned into dust, yet before three worlds strutting like peacocks, the awful question of the soul's destiny submerged by the question of Creedmoor polonaise and navy blue velvet with long fan train skirt, long enough to drag up the church aisle the husband's store, office, shop, factory, fortune, and the admiration of half the people in the building ! THE DANCE. After the temptation of dress comes that of the dance. Dancing is the graceful motion of the body adjusted by art to the sound and measures of musical instrument or of the human voice. All nations 'nave danced. The ancients thought that Castor and Pollux taught the art to the Lacedaemonians. But, whoever started it, all climes have adopted it. In ancient times they had the festal dance, the mili- tary dance, the mediatorial dance, the bacchanalian dance. Queens and lords swayed to and fro in the gardens, and rough backwoodsmen with this exercise awakened the echo of the forest. There is some- DRESS AND DISSIPATION. 141 thing in the sound of lively music that evokes the movement of the hands and feet, whether cultured or uncultured. Passing down the street, we unconsciously keep step to the sound of the brass band. The Christian in church beats time with his foot, while his soul rises upon some great harmony. While this is so in civilized lands, the red men of the forest have their scalp-dances, their green-corn dances, their war-dances. In ancient times the exercise was so utterly and completely de- praved that the Church anathematized it. The old Christian fathers expressed themselves most vehemently against it. St. Chrysostom says, "The feet were not given for dancing, but to walk modestly, not to leap impudently like camels." One of the dogmas of the ancient Church reads, "A dance is the devil's possession, and he that entereth into a dance entereth into his possession. As many paces as a man makes in dancing, so many paces does he make to hell." Elsewhere the old dogmas declared this: "The woman that singeth in the dance is the princess of the devil, and those that answer are her clerks, and the beholders are his friends, and the music is his bellows, and the fiddlers are the ministers of the devil. For, as when hogs are strayed, if the hogsherd call one, all assemble together, so when the devil calleth one woman to sing in the dance, or to play on some musical instrument, presently all the dancers gather together." This indiscriminate and universal denunciation of the exercise came from the fact that it was utterly and completely depraved. As to the physical ruin wrought by the dissipations of social life, there can be no doubt. What may we expect of people who work all day and dance all night ? After a while they will be thrown on society as nervous, exhausted imbeciles. These people who indulge in late suppers and midnight revels, and then go home in the cold unwrapped in limbs, will after a while be found to have been written down in God's eternal records as suicides, as much suicides as if they had taken their life with a pistol, or a knife, or strychnine. How many people in America have stepped from the ball-room into the grave-yard. Consumptions and swift neuralgias are close on their track. Amid many of the glittering scenes of social life in America, diseases stand right and left, and balance and chain. The breath of the sepulcher floats up through the perfume, and the froth of Death's lip bubbles up in the champagne. I am told that in some 142 DRESS AND DISSIPATION. parts of this country, in some of the cities, there are parents who have actually given up housekeeping and gone to boarding, that they may give their time illimitably to social dissipations. I have known such cases. I have known family after family blasted in that way father and mother turning their backs upon all quiet culture and all the amenities of home, leading forth their entire family in the wrong di- rection. Annihilated, worse than annihilated for there are some things worse than annihilation. I give you the history of more than one family in America, when I say that they went on in the dissipations of social life until the father dropped into a lower style of dissipation ; and after a while the son was tossed out into society as a nonenity ; and after a while the daughter eloped with a French dancing-master ; and after a while the mother, getting on further and further in years, sought to hide her wrinkles, but failed in the attempt, trying all the arts of the belle an old flirt ; a poor, miserable butterfly without wings. Let me tell you that the dissipations of American life of social life in America are despoiling the usefulness of a vast multitude of people. What do those people care about the fact that there are whole nations in sorrow and suffering and agony, when they have for con- sideration the more important question of the size of a glove, or the tie of a cravat ? Which one of them ever bound up wounds in the hospital ? Which one of them ever went out to care for the poor ? Which of them do you find in the haunts of sin, distributing tracts ? They live on themselves, and it is very poor pasture. Oh ! what a belittling process to the human mind this everlasting question about dress, this discussion of fashionable infinitesimals, this group looking askance at the glass, wondering, with an infinity of earnestness, how that last geranium leaf will look, this shriveling of a man's moral dignity until it is not observable to the naked eye, this Spanish inquisition of a tight shoe, this binding up of a priceless soul in a ruffle, this pitching of the moral nature over the rocks, when God intended it for great and everlasting uplifting ! The dissipations of social life in America to-day are destroying thousands and tens of thousands of people, and it is time for pulpit and press to lift their voices against them. THE MODERN BETHESDA. We may add the story of another highway of dissipation, that of the watering-place. DRESS AND DISSIPA TfON. 143 The modern Bethesda was intended to recuperate the physical health ; and yet how many come from the watering-places, with their health absolutely destroyed ! Think of New York and Brooklyn sim pletons boasting of having imbibed twenty glasses of Congress water before breakfast ; of families, accustomed to go to bed at ten o'clock at night, gossiping until one or two o'clock in the morning ; of dys- peptics, usually very cautious about their health, mingling ice-creams and lemons and lobster salads and cocoanuts, until the gastric juices lift up all their voices in lamentation and protest ; of delicate women and brainless young men dancing themselves into vertigo and cata- lepsy ; of thousands of men and women coming back from our watering-places in the autumn, with the foundations laid for ailments that will last them all their life long ! You know as well as I do that this is the simple truth. In the summer you say to your good health, " Good-bye ; I am going to have a gay time now for a little while ; I will be very glad to see you again in the autumn." Then in the autumn, when you are hard at work in your office, or store, or shop, or counting-room, Good Health will come in and say, "Good-bye; I am going." You say, "Where are you going?" "Oh," says Good Health, " I am going to take a vaca- tion." It is a poor rule that will not work both ways, and your good health will leave you choleric and splenetic and exhausted. You co- quetted with your good health in the summer time, and your good health is coquetting with you in the winter time. A fragment of Paul's charge to the jailer would be an appropriate inscription for the hotel register in every watering-place, " Do thyself no harm." Another temptation, hovering all around our watering-places, is that of intoxicating beverages. I am told that it is becoming more and more fashionable for women to drink. I care not how well a woman may dress, if she has taken enough of wine to flush her cheek and put a glassiness on her eye, she is drunk. She may be handed into a twenty-five hundred dollar carriage, and have diamonds enough to confound the Tiffanys she is drunk. She may be a graduate of, Packer Institute, and the daughter of some man in danger of being nominated for the presidency she is drunk. You may have a larger vocabulary than I have, and you may say in regard to her that she is "convivial," or she is "merry," or she is "festive," or she is THE PE.IMA DONNA- 144 DRESS AND DISSIPATION. 145 "exhilarated"; but you cannot, with all your garlands of verbiage, cover up the plain fact that it is an old-fashioned case of "drunk." Now the watering-places are full of temptations- to men and women to tipple. At the close of the ten-pin or billiard game, they tipple. At the close of the cotillion, they tipple. Seated on the piazza to cool themselves off, they tipple. The tinged glasses come around with bright straws, and tney tipple. First, they take "light wines," as they call them ; but "light wines" are heavy enough to debase the appetite. There' is' not a very long road between champagne at five dollars a bottle and whiskey at ten cents a glass. Satan has three or four grades down which he takes men to destruction. One man he takes up, and through one spree pitches 1 him into eternal darkness. That is a rare case. Very seldom, indeed, can you find a man who will be such a fool as that. Satan will take another man to a steep grade, at an angle about like that of the Pennsylvania coal-shoot or the Mount Washington rail-track, and shove him off. But that is very rare. When a man goes down to destruction, Satan brings him to a plain. It is almost a level. The depression is so slight that you can hardly see it. The man does not actually know that he is on the down grade, and it tips only a little toward darkness just a little. And the first mile it is claret, and the second mile it is sherry, and the third mile it is a punch, and the fourth mile it is ale, and the fifth mile it is porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, and then it gets steeper, and steeper, and steeper, and the man gets frightened, and says, " Oh, let me off". . " No," says the conductor, "this is an express train, arid it don't stop until it gets to the. Grand Central . Depot of Smashuptbn !" Ah, "Look not thou upon the wine when.it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, .when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." My friends, whether you tarry at home which will be quite as safe, and perhaps quite as comfortable or go into the country, arm yourself against temptation. The grace of God is the only safe shelter, whether in town or country. 10 MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE A FEW days ago, with my sister and brother, I visited the place of my boyhood. It was one of the most emotional and absorbing days of my life. There stood the old house, and as I went through the rooms, I said, "I could find my way here with my eyes shut, although I have not been here in forty years." There v/as the sitting-room where a large family group had every evening gathered, the most of them now in a better world. There was the old barn where we hunted for Easter eggs, and the place where the horses stood. There is where the orchard was, only three or four trees now left of all the grove that once bore apples and such apples, too! There is the brook down which we rode to the watering of the horse* bareback, and with a rope halter. We also visited the cemetery where many of our kindred are waiting for the resurrection, the old people side by side, after a journey together of sixty years, only about three years between the time of their going. There also sleep the dear old neighbors who used to tie their horses under the shed of the country meeting-house and sit at the end of the pew, singing " Duke Street," and "Balerma," and " Antioch." I feel that my journey and visit last week did me good, and it would do you all good, if not in person then in thought, to revisit the scenes of boyhood or girlhood. " Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee." THE DOUBLE OUTLOOK. Youth is apt to spend all its time in looking forward. Old age is apt to spend all its time in looking backward. People in mid-life and on the apex look both ways. Yet it would be well for us, I think, to spend more time in reminiscence. By the constitution of our natures we spend most of the time looking forward, and the vast majority of people live not so much in the present as in the future. You mean to make a reputation, you mean to establish yourself, and the advantages (146) v FOR "BOTHER."' ^ HE old man sits in his easy chair \6V Slumbering the moments away, Dreaming a dream that is all his own On this gladsome Christmas day. His children have gathered from far and near, His children's children beside, And merry voices are echoing through The " Homestead's" halls so wide. But far away in the years long flown, Grandfather lives again ; And his heart forgets that it ever knew A shadow of grief or pain. For he sees his wife as he saw her then, A matron, comely and fair, With her children gathered around his board, And never a vacant chair. Oh ! happy dream of the " Auld lang syne," Of the years long slipped away ; And the old man's lips have gathered a smile, And his heart grows young and gay. But a kiss falls gently upon his brow From his daughter's lips so true : " Dinner is ready, father, dear ; We are only waiting for you." The old man wakes at his daughter's call And looks at the table near : "There's one of us missing, my child," he says ; "Call mother she is not here ! " There are tears in the eyes of the children then, As they gaze on the empty chair ; For many a lonely year has passed Since " Mother " sat with them there. But the old man pleads still wistfully, " We must wait for mother, you know ! " So they let him rest in his old armchair Till at last the sun sinks low. Then, leaving a smile for his children here, He turns from the earth away, And has gone to " Mother " beyond the skies, With the close of the Christmas day. HOME IS A SHELTER FROM THE WINTRY BLAST" 148 tt o o w w CHRIST i-JUiACHlMG FROM A BOAT. O HH Q O X Pu. tt a tt MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS. 149 that you expect to achieve absorb a great deal of your time. I see no harm in this, if it does not make you discontented with the present or disqualify you for existing duties. But it is a useful thing sometimes to look back, and to see the dangers we have escaped, and to see the sorrows we have suffered, and the trials and wanderings of our earthly pilgrimage, and to sum up our enjoyments. There is a chapel in Florence with a fresco by Guido. It was covered up with two inches of stucco until our American and European artists went there, and after long toil removed the covering and retraced THE OLD HOME. the fresco. And I am aware that the memory of the past, with many of my readers, is all covered up with ten thousand obliterations. I propose to take away the covering, that the old picture may shine out again. I want to bind in one sheaf all your past advantages, and I want to bind in another sheaf all your past adversities. It is a precious harvest, and I must be cautious how I swing the scythe. THE EARLY HOME. Among the greatest advantages of your past life was an early home and its surroundings, The bad men of the day, for the mosl 150 MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS. part, dip their heated passions out of the boiling spring of an unhappy home. We are not surprised to find that Byron's heart was a concentra- tion of sin, when we hear that his mother was abandoned, and that she made sport of his infirmity, and often called him " the lame brat." He who has vicious parents has to fight every inch of his way, if he would maintain his integrity and at last reach the home of the good in heaven. Perhaps your early home was in the city. It may have been in the days when Canal street, New York, was far up-town. That old house in the city may have been demolished or changed into stores, and it seemed like sacrilege to you, for there was more meaning in that plain, small house, than there is in a granite mansion or a turreted cathedral. Looking back this morning, you see it as though it were yesterday the sitting-room, where the loved ones sat by the plain lamplight, the mother at the evening stand, the brothers and sisters plotting mischief on the floor or under the table, your father with a firm voice commanding a silence that lasted half a minute ! Oh, those were good days ! If you had your foot hurt, -your mother always had a soothing salve to heal it. If you were wronged in the street, your father was always ready to protect you. The year was one round of frolic and mirth. Your greatest trouble was like an April shower, more sunshine than shower. The heart had not been ransacked by troubles, nor had sickness broken it, and no lamb had a warmer sheepfold than the home in which your childhood nestled. Perhaps you were brought up in the country. You stand now, in memory, under the old tree. You clubbed it for fruit that was not quite ripe because you couldn't wait any longer. You hear the brook rumbling along over the pebbles. You step again into the furrow where your father in his shirt sleeves shouted to the lazy oxen. You frighten the swallows from the rafters of the barn, and take just one egg, and silence your conscience by saying they won't miss it. You take a drink again out of the very bucket that the old well fetched up.* You go for the cows at night, and find them wagging their heads - through the bars. Ofttimes in the dusty and busy streets you wish you were home again on that cool grass, or in the rag-carpeted hall of the farmhouse, through which there was the breath of new-mown hay or the blossom of buckwheat. You may have in your windows now beautiful plants and flowers brought from across the seas, but not one of them stirs in your soul so HEN HEGIVETH QUIETNESS, \tfHO THEN* AW TRpl/BLE? THOU WILT KEEP HIM IN PERFECT PEACE" 151 THE CHILDREN. Bring them into the sunshine, Out of the gloomy night ; Out of the perilous places Bring them into the light. Show them the pathway of duty, That upward their feet may tread ; That "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," May still, as of old, be said. "SUFFER THEM TO COME UNTO ME." MEM OR Y OF O THER DA VS. ' * 5 3 much charm and memory as the old ivy arid the yellow sunflower that stood sentinel along the garden wall, and the forget-me-nots playing hide-and-seek 'mid the long grass. The father, who used to come in sunburnt from the fields and sit down on the door-sill and wipe the sweat from his brow, may have gone to his everlasting rest. The mother, who used to sit at the door a little bent over, cap and spec tacles on, her face mellowing with the vicissitudes of many years, may have put down her gray head on the pillow in the valley ; but forget that home you never will. Have you thanked God for it? Have you rehearsed all these blessed reminiscences? Oh, thank God for a Christian father ; thank God for a Christian mother ; thank God for ar early Christian altar at which you were taught to kneel ; thank God for an early Christian home. NEW MARRIED LIFE. I bring to mind another passage in the history of your life. The day came when you set up your own household. The days passed along in quiet blessedness. You twain sat at the table morning and night and talked over your plans for the future. The most insignificant affair in your life became the subject of mutual consultation and ad- visement. You were so happy that you felt you never could be any happier. One day a dark cloud hovered over your dwelling and:it got darker and darker, but out of that cloud the shining messenger of God descended to incarnate a beautiful spirit. Two little feet started on an eventful journey, and you were to lead them a gem to flash in heaven's coronet, and you to polish it eternal ages of light and dark- ness watching the starting out of a newly created creature. You rejoiced and you trembled at the responsibility that in your possession a priceless treasure was placed. You prayed and rejoiced, and wept and wondered, and prayed and rejoiced, and wept and won- dered ; you were earnest in supplication that you might lead it through life into the kingdom of God. There was a tremor in your earnestness. There was a double interest about that home. There was an additional reason why you should stay there and be faithful, and when in a few months your house was filled with the music of the child's laughter, you were struck through with the fact that you had a stupendous mission. Have you kept that vow? Have you neglected any of those duties ? Is your home as much to you as it used to be ? Have 154 MEMOR Y OF O THER DA YS. anticipations been gratified ? God help you in your solemn reminiscence, and let his mercy fall upon your soul if your kindness has been ill re- quited. God have mercy on the parent on the wrinkles of whose face is written the story of a child's sin ! God have mercy on the mother who, in addition to her other pangs, has the pangs of a child's iniquity. Oh, there are many, many sad sounds in this sad world, but the saddes) sound that is ever heard is the breaking of a mother's heart. THE GRACIOUS CHANGE. I find another point in your life-history. You found one day that you were in the wrong road ; you couldn't sleep at night ; there was just one word that seemed to sob through your banking-house, or through your office, or through your shop, or your bed-room, and that word was, " Eternity." You said, "A am not ready for it. O God, have mercy." The Lord heard. Peace came to your heart. In the breath of the hill and the waterfall's dash you heard the voice of God's love; the clouds and the trees hailed you with gladness ; you came into the house of God. You remember how your hand trembled as you took up the cup of the Communion. You remember the old minister who consecrated it, and you remember the church officials who carried it through the aisle ; you remember the old people who at the close of the service took your hand in theirs in congratulating sympathy, as much as to say : "Welcome home, you lost prodigal ;" and though those hands are all withered away, that Communion Sabbath is resurrected in your memory ; it is resurrected with all its prayers, and songs, and tears, and sermons, and transfiguration. Have you kept those vows ? SHADOWS OF SORROW. But some of you have not always had a smooth life. Some of you are now in the shadow. Others had their troubles years ago, and you are a mere wreck of what you once were. I must gather up the sor- rows of your past life ; but how shall I do it ? You say that is impos- sible, as you have had so many troubles and adversities. Then I will just take two, the first trouble and the last trouble. As when you are walking along the street, and there has been music in the distance, you unconsciously find yourself keeping step to the music, so when you started life your very life was a musical timebeat, The air was MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS. 155 full of joy and hilarity ; with the bright clear oar you made the boat skip ; you went on, and life grew brighter until after a while suddenly a voice from heaven said, "Halt!" and quick as the sunshine you halted; you grew pale ; you confronted your first sorrow. You had no idea that the flush on your child's cheek was an unhealthy flush. You said, " It can't be anything serious." Death in slippered feet walked roundabout the cradle. You did not hear the tread ; but after a while the truth flashed on you. You walked the floor. Oh, if you could, with your strong, stout hand, have wrenched that child from the destroyer ! You went to your room and said, " God, save my child ! God, save my child !" The world seemed going out in darkness. You said, "I can't bear it ; I can't bear it." You felt as if you could not put the long lashes over the bright eyes, never to see them again sparkle. Oh, if you could have taken that little one in your arms and with it leaped the grave, how gladly you would have done it ! Oh, if you could have let your property go, your houses go, your land and your store-house go, how gladly you would have allowed them to depart if you could only have kept that one treasure ! But one day there arose from the heavens a chill blast that swept over the bed-room, and instantly all the light went out. There was darkness thick, murky, impenetrable, shuddering darkness. But God didn't leave you there. Mercy spoke. As you took up the cup and were about to put it to your lips, God said, " Let it pass," and forthwith, as by the hand of angels, another cup was put into your hands ; it was the cup of God's consolation. As you have sometimes lifted the head of a wounded soldier, and poured wine into his lips, so God put his left arm under your head, and with his right hand He poured into your lips the wine of his comfort and his consolation ; and you looked at the empty cradle and looked at your broken heart, and you looked at the Lord's chastisement, and you said, "Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight." \ Ah, it was your first trouble. How did you get over it ? God comforted you. You have been a better man ever since. You have been a better woman ever since. In the jar of the closing gate of the sepulcher you heard the clanging of the opening gate of heaven, and you felt an irresistible drawing heavenward. You have been purer of mind ever since that night when the little one for the last time put its . r 5 6 MEMORY OP OTHER DAYS. arms around your neck, and said : " Good-night, papa ; good-night, mamma. Meet me in heaven." LATEST TRIALS. But I must come down to your latest sorrow. What was it? Perhaps it was your own sickness. The child's tread on the stair, or the /tick of the watch on the stand disturbed you. Through the long weary days you counted the figures in the carpet or the flowers in the wall- paper. Oh, the weariness, the exhaustion ! Oh, the burning pangs ! Would God it were morning, would God it were night, was your fre- quent cry. But you are better, or perhaps even well. Have you thanked God for his restoring mercy ? Perhaps your last sorrow was a financial embarrassment. I con- gratulate some of you on your lucrative profession or occupation, on ornate apparel, on a commodious residence everything you put your hands to seems to turn to gold. But there are others of you who are like the ship on which Paul sailed, where two seas met, and you are broken by the violence of the waves. By an unadvised indorsement, or by a conjunction of unforeseen events, or by fire, or storm, or a senseless panic, you have beerr flung headlong, and where you once dispensed great charities, now you have hard work to make the two ends meet. Have you forgotten to thank God for your days of pros- perity, and that through your trials some of you have made investments which will continue after the last bank of this world has exploded, and the silver and gold are molten in the fires of a burning world ? Have you, amid all your losses and discouragements, forgotten that there was bread on your table this morning, and that there shall be a shelter for your head from the storm, and that there is air for your lungs, and blood for your heart, and light for your eye, and a glad and glorious and triumphant religion for your soul? Perhaps your last trouble was a bereavement. That heart which in childhood was your refuge the parental heart and which has been a source of the quickest sympathy ever since, has suddenly become silent forever ; and now sometimes, whenever in sudden annoyance and without deliberation you say, "I will go and tell mother," the thought flashes on you: "/ have no mother!" Or the father, with voice less tender, but as stanch and earnest and loving as ever, watch- ful of all your ways, exultant over your success without saying much, FINDING OF THE LOST SHEEP. THE GUARDIAN OF CHILDHOOD. GATEWAY TO THE GREAT MOSQUE IN DAMASCUS. MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS.- '57 although the old people do talk it over by themselves, his trembling hand on that staff which you now keep as a family relic, his memory embalmed in grateful hearts, is taken away forever. Or your com- panion in life, the sharer of your joys and sorrows, was taken, leaving the heart a dreary ruin, where the chill winds blow over a wide wilderness of desolation, the sands of the desert driving across the place which once bloomed like the garden of God. And Abraham mourns for THE SICK-ROOM. Sarah at the cave of Machpelah. Going along your path in life, sud- denly, right before you, was an open grave. People looked down and they saw it was only a few feet deep and a few feet wide, but to you it was a cavern down which went all your hopes and all your expectations. CONSOLATION. But cheer up in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Comforter. He is not going to forsake you. Did the Lord take that child out of your arms? Why, He is going to shelter it better than you could. He 158 MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS. is going to array it in a white robe, and with palm-branch it will be all ready to greet you at your coming home. Blessed the broken heart that Jesus heals. Blessed the importunate cry that Jesus compassion- ates. Blessed the weeping eye from which the soft hand of Jesus wipes away the tear. I was sailing down the St. John river, Canada, which is the Rhine and the Hudson commingled in one scene of beauty and grandeur, and while I was on the deck of the steamer, a gentleman pointed out to me the places of interest. He said: "All this is interval land, and it is the richest land in all the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia." "What," said I, "do you mean by interval land?" "Well," he said, "this land is submerged for a part of the year; spring freshets come down, and all these plains are overflowed with the water, and the water leaves a rich deposit, and when the waters are gone the har- vest springs up, and there is the grandest harvest that was ever reaped." And I instantly thought : " It is not the heights of the church and it is not the heights of this world that are the scene of the greatest prosperity, but the soul over which the floods of sorrow have gone, the soul over which the freshets of tribulation have torn their way, that yields the greatest fruits of righteousness, and the largest harvest for time, and the richest harvest for eternity." Bless God that your soul is interval land. There will yet be one more point of tremendous reminiscence, and that is the last hour of life, when we have to look over all our past existence. What a moment that will be ! I place Napoleon's dying reminiscence on St. Helena beside Mrs. Judson's dying reminiscence in the harbor of St. Helena, the same island, twenty years after. Napoleon's dying reminiscence was one of delirium: "Head of the army." Mrs. Judson's dying reminiscence, as she came home from her missionary toil and her life of self-sacrifice for God, dying in the cabin of the ship in the harbor of St. Helena, was: "I always did love the Lord Jesus Christ." And then, the historian says, she fell into a sound sleep for an hour, and woke amid the songs of angels. I place the dying reminiscence of Augustus Caesar against the dying reminiscence of the Apostle Paul. The dying reminiscence of Augustus Csesar was, addressing his attendants : " Have I played my part well on the stage of life?" and they answered him in the MEMORY OF OTHER DAYS. 1 59 affirmative, and he said : "Why, then, don't you applaud me?" The dying reminiscence of Paul the Apostle was : " I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me in that day, and not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing." Augustus Caesar died amid pomp and great surroundings. Paul uttered his dying reminiscence looking up through the wall of a dungeon. God grant that our last hour may be the closing of a useful life, and the opening of a glorious eternity ! SCHOOL OF BUSINESS BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE WE are under the impression that the moil and tug of business life are a prison into which a man is thrust, or that they are an unequal strife where, unarmed, a man goes forth to contend. Yet business life was intended of God for grand and glorious educa- tion and discipline, and it is my earnest wish to rub some of the wrin- kles of care out of your brow, and unstrap some of the burdens from your back. Dr. Duff visited South Wales, and there saw a man who had in- herited a great fortune. The man said to him : "I had to be very busy for many years of my life getting my livelihood. After a while this for- tune came to me, and there has been no necessity that I should toil since. There came a time when I said to myself, ' Shall I now retire from business, or shall I go on and serve the Lord in my worldly occupation?" He continued : "I resolved on the latter, and I have been more industrious in commercial circles than I ever was before, but since that hour I have never kept a farthing for myself. I have thought it would be a great shame if I couldn't toil as hard for the Lord as I had toiled for myself, and all the profits of my factories and my com- mercial establishments, to the last farthing, have gone for the building of Christian institutions and supporting the Church of God." Oh, if the same energy put forth for the world could be put forth for God ! Oh, if a thousand men in these great cities who have achieved a fortune could see it to be their duty now to do all business for Christ and the alleviation of the world's suffering ! Business life is a school of patience. In your everyday life how many things there are to annoy and to disquiet ! Bargains will rub. Commercial men will sometimes fail to meet their engagement* SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. 161 Cash-book and money-drawer will sometimes quarrel. Goods ordered for a special emergency will come too late, or be damaged in the transportation. Business life is a school of useful knowledge. Merchants do not read many books, and do not study lexicons. They do not dive into the profounds of learning, and yet nearly all through their occupations they come to understand questions of finance, and politics, and geog- raphy, and jurisprudence, and ethics. Business is a severe schoolmis- tress. If pupils will not learn, she strikes them over the head and heart with severe losses. You put $5,000 into an enterprise. It is all gone. You say, " That is a dead loss." Oh, no. You are paying the school- ing. That was only tuition, very large tuition I told you it was a severe schoolmistress but it was worth it. You learned things under that process you would not have learned in any other way. Traders in grain come to know something about foreign harvests; traders in fruit come to know something about the prospects of tropical productions ; manufacturers of American goods come to understand the tariff on imported articles ; publishers of books must come to understand the new law of copyright ; owners of ships must come to know winds and shoals and navigation ; and every bale of cotton, and every raisin-cask, and every tea-box, and every cluster of bananas is so much literature for a business man. Now, my brother, what are you going to do with this intelligence ? Do you suppose God put you in this school of information merely that you might be a sharper in a trade, that you might be more successful as a worldling ? Oh, no ; it was that you might take that useful infor- mation and use it for Jesus Christ. Can it be that you have been deal- ing with foreign lands and never had the missionary spirit, wishing for the salvation of foreign peoples ? Can it be that you have become ac- quainted with all the outrages inflicted in business life, and that you have never tried to bring to bear that Gospel which is to extirpate all evils and correct all wrongs, and illuminate all darkness and lift up all wretchedness, and save men for this world and the world to come ? Can it be, that understanding all the intricacies of business, you know nothing about those things which will last after all bills of exchange and consignments and invoices and rent-rolls shall have crumpled up and been consumed in the fires of the last great day ? Can it be that a man will be wise for time, and a fool for eternity ? 11 162 SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. There are men who have fought the battle and gained the victory. People come out of such a man's store, and they say : " Well, if there ever was a Christian trader, that is one." Integrity kept the books and waited on the customers. Licrht from the eternal world flashed o through the show-windows. Love to God and love to man presided in that storehouse. Some day people going through the street notice that the shutters of the window are not down. The bar of the store- door has not been removed. People say : "What is the matter?" You go up a little closer, and you see written on the card of that window, " Closed on account of the death of one of the firm." That day all through the circles of business there is talk about how good a man has gone. Boards of trade pass resolutions of sympathy, and churches of Christ pray, " Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth." He has made his last bargain, he has suffered his last loss, he has ached with th~ last fatigue. His children w'll get the result of his industry, or, if through misfortune there be no dollars left, they will have an estate of prayer and Christian example, which will be everlasting. Heavenly rewards for earthly discipline. There " the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." GRIP, GOUGE & CO. You hear that it is avarice which drives men of business through the street, and that is the commonly accepted idea. I do not believe a word of it. The vast multitude of these business men are toiling on for others. To educate their children, to put the wing of protection over their households, to have something left so that when they pass out of this life their wives and children will not have to go to the poor-house, that is the way I translate this energy in the street and store the vast majority of this energy. Grip, Gouge & Co. do not do all the business. Some of us re- member that when the Central America was coming home from Cali- fornia it was wrecked. President Arthur's father-in-law was the heroic captain of that ship, and went down with most of the passengers. Some of them got off into the life-boats. There was a young man returning from California who had a bag of gold in his hand ; and as the last boat shoved off from the ship that was to go down, that young man shouted to a comrade in the boat : " Here, John, catch this gold; there are three thousand dollars ; take it home to my old mother ; it will SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. 163 make her comfortable in her last days." Grip, Gouge & Co. do not do all the business of the world. Ah ! my friend, do you say that God does not care anything about your worldly business ? I tell you God knows more about it than you do. He knows your perplexities ; He knows what mortgagee is about to foreclose ; He knows what note you cannot pay ; He knows what unsalable goods you have on your shelves $ He knows all your trials, from the day you took hold of your first yard-stick down to the sale of that last yard of ribbon ; and the God who helped David to be king, and who helped Daniel to be prime-minister, and who helped Havelock to be a soldier, will help you to discharge all your duties. He is going to see you through. A young accountant in New York City got his accounts entangled. He knew he was honest, and yet he could not make his accounts come out right. He toiled at them day and night, until he was nearly fren- zied. It seemed by those books that something had been misappro- priated, and yet he knew before God that he was honest. The last day came. He knew that if he could not that day make his accounts come out right, he would fall into disgrace and go into banishment from the business establishment. He went over there very early, before there was anybody in the place, and he knelt down at the desk and said : " O Lord, Thou knowest I have tried to be honest, but I cannot make these things come out right ! Help me to-day help me this morning!" The young man arose, and hardly knowing why he did so, opened a book that lay on the desk, and there was a leaf containing a line of fig- ures which explained everything. In other words, he cast his burden upon the Lord, and the Lord sustained him. STRAINING OUT GNATS SWALLOWING CAMELS. A man after long observation has formed the suspicion that in a cup of water he is about to drink there is a grub or the grandparent of a gnat. He goes and gets a sieve or strainer. He takes the water and pours it through the sieve in the broad light. He says : "I would rather do anything almost than drink this water until this larva be ex- tirpated." This water is brought under inquisition. The experiment is successful. The water rushes through the sieve and leaves against the side of the sieve the grub or gnat. Then the man carefully removes the insect and drinks the water in placidity. But going out one day, 104 SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. and hungry, he devours a "ship of the desert," the camel, which the Jews were forbidden to eat. The gastronomer has no compunctions of conscience. He suffers from no indigestion. He puts his lower jaw under the camel's forefoot, and his upper jaw over the hump of the camel's back, and gives one swallow, and the dromedary disappears forever. He strained out a gnat he swallowed a camel ! Many are abhorrent of small sins, while they are reckless in regard to magnificent thefts. You will find many a merchant who, while he is so careful that he would not take a yard of cloth or a spool of cotton from the counter without paying for it, and who, if a bank cashier should make a mistake and send in a roll of bills five dollars too much, would dispatch a messenger in hot haste to return the surplus, yet who will go into a stock company, in which after a while he gets control of the stock, and then waters the stock and makes one hundred thousand dollars appear like two hundred thousand dollars. He only stole one hundred thousand dollars by the operation. Many of the men of fort- une made their wealth in that way. One of those men, engaged in such unrighteous acts, on the even- ing of the very day when he waters the stock, will find a wharf-rr ' stealing a Brooklyn Eagle from his basement doorway, and will go our and catch the urchin by the collar, and twist the collar so tightly that the poor fellow cannot say it was thirst for knowledge that led him to the dis- honest act ; then grip the collar tighter and tighter, saying : "I have been looking for you a long while ; you stole my paper four or five times, haven't you, you miserable wretch ? " Then the old stock-gambler, with a voice they can hear three blocks, will cry out : "Police, police ! " That same man, the evening of the day in which he watered the stock, will kneel with his family in prayers and thank God for the prosperity of the day, then kiss his children good-night with an air which seems to say, " I hope you will all grow up to be as good as your father ! " Prisons for sins insectile in size, but palaces for crimes drome- darian ! No mercy for sins animalcule in proportion, but great leniency for mastodon iniquity ! A poor boy slily takes from the basket of a market woman a choke pear saving some one else from the cholera and you smother him in the horrible atmosphere of Raymond Street Jail or New York Tombs, while his cousin, who has been skillful enough to steal fifty thousand dollars from the city, is made a candidate for the New York Legislature ! SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. 165 Society has to be entirely reconstructed on this subject. We are to find that a sin is inexcusable in proportion as it is great. I know that in our time the tendency is to charge religious frauds upon good men. They say " Oh, what a class of frauds you have in the Church of God in this day !" When an elder of a church, or a deacon, or a minister of the Gospel, or a superintendent of a Sabbath-school, turns out a defaulter, what display heads there are in many of the news- papers ! Great-primer type five-line pica: "Another Saint Ab sconded," " Clerical Scoundrelism," " Religion at a Discount," "Shame on the Churches," while there are a thousand scoundrels outside the church to where there is one inside the church, and the misbehavior of those who never see the inside of a church is so great that it is enough to tempt a man to become a Christian to get out of their company. But in all circles, religious and irreligious, the tendency is to excuse sin in proportion as it is mammoth. Even John Milton, in his " Paradise Lost," while he condemns Satan, gives such a grand description of him that you have hard work to suppress your admiration. Oh, this strain- ing out of small sins like gnats, and this gulping down great iniquities like camels 1 THE CHRISTIAN FOR THE TIMES BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE ESTHER the beautifulwzs the wife of Ahasuerus the abominable. The time had come for her to present a petition to her infamous hus- band in behalf of the Jewish nation, to which she had once be- longed. She was afraid to undertake the work, lest she should lose her own life ; but her uncle, Mordecai, who had brought her up, encouraged her with the suggestion that probably she had been raised up of God for that peculiar mission. "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this ? " Esther had her God-appointed work ; you and I have ours. It is mine to tell you what style of men and women you ought to be in order that you may meet the demand of the age in which God has cast your lot. When two armies have rushed into battle, the officers of either army do not want a philosophical discussion about the chemical properties of human blood, or the nature of gunpowder ; they want some one to man the batteries and swab out the guns. And now, when all the forces of light and darkness, of heaven and hell, have plunged into the fight, it is no time to give ourselves to the definitions and formulas and technicalities and conventionalities of religion. What we want is practical, earnest, concentrated, enthusiastic, and trium phant help. AGGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS. In the first place, in order to meet the special demand of this age, you need to be unmistakably aggressive Christians. Of half-and-half Christians we do not want any more. The Church of Jesus Christ would be better without ten thousand of them. They are the chief obstacles to the Church 's advancement. I am speaking of another kind *>>f Christian. All the appliances for your becoming an earnest Christian (166) AHASUERUS ORDERS THE EXECUTION OF HAMAN. rf. vii. 167 NEHEMIAH PREACHING 168 THE CHRISTIAN FOR THE TIMES. 169 are at your hand, and there is a straight path for you into the broad daylight of God's forgiveness. You remember what exciternent there was in this country some years ago when the Prince of Wales came here how the people rushed out by hundreds of thousands to see him. Why ? Because they ex- pected that some day he would sit upon the throne of England. But what was all that honor compared with the honor to which God calls you to be sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty yea, to be queens and kings unto God? "They shall reign with Him for ever and for ever." But you need to be aggressive Christians, and not like persons who spend their lives in hugging their Christian graces, and wondering why they do not make any progress. How much robustness of health would a man have if he hid himself in a dark closet ? A great deal of the piety of the day is too exclusive. It hides itself. It needs more fresh air, more out-door exercise. There are many Christians who are giving their entire life to self-examination. They are feeling their pulses to see what is the condition of their spiritual health. Yet how long would a man have robust physical health if he kept all the days, and weeks, and months, and years of his life feeling his pulse, instead of going out into earnest, active, every-day work ? I have been among the wonderful and bewitching cactus growths of North Carolina, where I never was more bewildered with the beauty of flowers. Yet, when I would take up one of these cactuses and pull the leaves apart, the beauty was all gone. You could hardly tell that it had been a flower. And there are a great many Christian people in this day just pulling apart their own Christian experiences to see what there is in them, and there is nothing left of them. This style of self- examination is a damage instead of an advantage to their Christian character. I remember, when I was a boy, I used to have a small piece in the garden that I called my own, and I planted corn there, and every few days I would pull it up to see how fast it was growing. Now, there are a great many Christian people in this day whose self-examination merely amounts to the pulling up of that which they only yesterday or the clay before planted. If you want to have a stalwart Christian character, plant it right out of doors in the great field of Christian use- fulness, and though storms may come upon it, and the hot sun of trial 170 THE CHRISTIAN FOR THE TIMES. may try to consume it, it will thrive until it becomes a great tree, in which the fowls of heaven may have a habitation. I have no patience with these flower-pot Christians. They keep themselves under shelter, and all their Christian experience in a small and exclusive circle, when they ought to plant it in the great garden of the Lord, so that the whole atmosphere would be aromatic with their Christian piety. The century-plant is wonderfully suggestive and wonderfully beautiful ; but I never look at it without thinking of its parsimony. It lets whole- generations go by before it puts forth one blossom ; so I have really more heartfelt admiration when I see the dewy tears in the blue eyes of the violets, for they come every spring. Time is going by so rapidly that we cannot afford to be idle. A recent statistician says that human life now has an average of thirty-two years. From these thirty-two years you must subtract all the time you take for sleep and the taking of food and recreation ; that will leave you about sixteen years. From these sixteen years you must subtract all the time that you are necessarily engaged in the earning of a livelihood ; that will leave you about eight years. From these eight years you must take all the days and weeks and months that are passed in sickness leaving you about one year in which to work for God. O my soul, wake up ! How darest thou sleep in harvest-time, and with so few hours in which to reap ? So I state it as a simple fact that all the time that the vast majority of you will have for the exclusive service of God will be less than one year. " But," says some man, "I liberally support the Gospel, and the Gospel is preached ; all the spiritual advantages are spread before men, and if they want to be saved, let them come and be saved ; I have discharged all my responsibility." Ah ! is that the Master's spirit? Is there not an old Book somewhere that commands us to "go out into the highways and hedges and compel the people to come in " ? What would have become of you and me if Christ had not come down off the hills of heaven, and if he had not come through the door of the Bethlehem caravansary, and if he had not with the crushed hand of the Crucifixion knocked at the iron gate of the sepulcher of our spiritual death, crying, " Lazarus, come forth ! " O my Christian friends, this is no time for inertia, when all the forces of darkness seem to be in full blast, when steam printing-presses are publishing infidel tracts, when express railroad trains are carrying THE CHRISTIAN FOR THE TIMES. 17* messengers of sin, when fast clippers are laden with opium and rum, when the night air of our cities is polluted with the laughter that breaks up from the ten thousand saloons of dissipation and abandonment. The fires of the second death already are kindled in the cheeks of some who only a little while ago were incorrupt. Oh, never since the curse fell upon the earth has there been a time when it was such an unwise, such a cruel, such an awful thing for the Church to sleep ! The great audiences are not gathered in the Christian temples ; the great audiences are gathered in temples of sin tears of unutterable woe, their baptism ; the blood of crushed hearts, the awful wine of their sacrament ; blasphemies, their litany ; and the groans of the lost world, the organ-dirge of their worship. THE NEW AND THE OLD. Again, if you want to be qualified to meet the duties which this age demands of you, you must on the one hand avoid reckless iconoclasm, and on the other hand, not stick too much to things because they are old. The air is full of new plans, new projects, new theories of government, new theologies ; and I am amazed to see how many Christians want only novelty in order to recommend a thing to their confidence, and so they vacillate, and swing to and fro, and are useless and unhappy. New plans secular, ethical, philosophical, religious, cisatlantic, transatlantic, long enough to make a line reaching from the German universities to the great Salt Lake City ! Ah, my brother, do not take hold of a thing merely because it is new. Try it by the realities of a judgment-day. But, on the other hand, do not adhere to anything merely because it is old. There is not a single enterprise of the Church or the world but has sometimes been scoffed at. There was a time when men de- rided even Bible societies ; and when a few young men met near a hay- stack in Massachusetts and organized the first missionary society ever organized in this country, there went laughter and ridicule all around the Christian Church. They said the undertaking was preposterous. So also the ministry of Jesus Christ was assailed. People cried out, "Who ever heard of such theories of ethics and government? Who ever noticed such a style of preaching as Jesus has?" Ezekiel had talked of mysterious wings and wheels. Here came a man from Antioch and Capernaum, andGennessaret, and he drew his illustrations 172 THE CHRISTIAN FOR THE TIMES. from the lakes, from the sand, from the raven, from the lilies, from the corn-stacks. How the Pharisees scoffed ! How Herod derided i And this Jesus they plucked by the beard, and. they spat in his face, and they called him "this fellow." All the great enterprises in and out of the Church have at times been scoffed at, and there have been a great multitude who have thought that the chariot of God's truth would fall to pieces if it once got out of the old rut. And so there are those who have no patience with anything like improvement in church architecture, or with anything like good, hearty, earnest church singing, and they deride every form of religious discus- sion which goes down walking with every-day men rather than that which makes an excursion on rhetorical stilts. Oh, that the Church of God would wake up to an adaptability of work ! We must admit the simple fact that the churches of Jesus Christ in this day do not reach the great masses of mankind. GOSPEL SIEGE-GUNS. There are fifty thousand people in Edinburgh who never hear the Gospel. There are two hundred thousand people in Glasgow who never hear the Gospel. There are one million people in London who never hear the Gospel. There are many hundreds of thousands of souls in American cities who come not under the immediate ministration of Christ's truth, and the Church of God of this day, instead of being a place full of living epistles, and known of all men, is more like a " dead letter " post-office ! " But," say the people, " the world is going to be converted ; you must be patient ; the kingdoms of this world are to become the king- doms of Christ." Never, .unless the Church of Jesus Christ puts on more speed and energy. Instead of the Church converting the world, the world is converting the Church. Here is a great fortress. How shall it be taken? An army comes and sits around about it, cuts off the supplies, and says, " Now we will just wait until, from exhaustion and starvation, they will have to give up." Weeks and months, and perhaps a year, pass along, and finally the fortress surrenders through that starvation and exhaustion. But, my friends, the fortresses of sin are never to be taken in that way. If they are taken for God, it will be by storm. You will have to bring up the great siege-guns of the Gospel to the very wall, and ood tree ereiri is my ori u that f shade, that they are the conservatories of the sky, that they are hrones of pomp, that they are crystalline bars, that they are paintings n water-color, that they are the angels of the mist, that they are great athedrals of light, with broad aisles for angelic feet to walk through .nd to bow at altars of amber and alabaster, that they are the mothers f the dew, that they are ladders of ascending and descending glories-- 9i 6 THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. Cotopaxis of belching flame, Niagaras of color that they are the masterpieces of the Lord God Almighty. The clouds are a favorite Bible simile, and the sacred writers have made much use of them. After the deluge, God hung on the clouds in concentric bands the colors of the spectrum, saying, "I do set my bow in the clouds." As a mountain is sometimes entirely hidden by vapors, so, says God, ' I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions." David measured the Divine goodness and found it so high that he thus apostrophized it : "Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." As sometimes there are thou- sands of fleeces of vapor scurrying across the sky, so, says Isaiah, will be the converts in the millennium, "as clouds and as doves." As in th-: wet season no sooner does the sky clear than there comes another ob- scuration, so, says Solomon, one ache or ailment of old folks has no sooner gone than another comes, "as clouds return after the rain." A column of illuminated clouds led the Israelites through the wilder- ness. In the book of Job, Elihu, watching the clouds, could not understand why they did not all fall or why they did not all roll together, the laws of evaporation and condensation not being then understood, and he cried out, " Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds ?" The clouds are God's equipage, and their whirling masses are the wheels, and the tongue of the cloud is the pole of the celestial vehicle, and the winds are the harnessed steeds, and God is the royal occupant and driver, " who maketh the clouds his chariot." ROYAL EQUIPAGE. The chariot of old was sometimes a sculptured brilliancy made of ivory, sometimes of solid silver, and rolled on two wheels which were fastened to the axle by stout pins, and the awful defeat of CEnomaus by Pelops was caused by the fact that a traitorous charioteer had in- serted a linchpin of wax instead of the linchpin of iron. All the six hundred chariots of Pharaoh lost their linchpins in the Red Sea, for the Bible says, "The Lord took off their wheels." Look at the long flash of Solomon's fourteen hundred chariots of the Philistines ! If you have ever visited the buildings where kings or queens keep their coaches of state, as I have, you know that kings and queens have a great variety of turnouts. The keeper will tell you : " This is the State carriage and is used only on State occasions." " This is the coronation carriage and in it the king rode on the day he took the THE CL O UDS HIS CHARIO T. 217 throne." " In this the queen went to open Parliament." "This is the carriage in which the czar and sultan rode on the occasion of their visit." All costly and tessellated and rich and emblazoned they are, and when the driver takes the reins of the ten white horses in his hands, and, amid mounted troops and bands in full force sounding the national air, the splendor starts and rolls on under arches entwined with ban- ners, and amid the huzzas of hundreds of thousands of people, the scene is memorable. But the inspired Psalmist puts all such occasions into insignificance, as he represents the King of the universe coming to the door of his palace, while the gilded vapors of the heavens roll up to his feet, and He, stepping in and taking the reins of the gallop- ing winds in his hand, starts in triumphal ride over the arches of sapphire, and over the atmospheric highways of opal and chrysolite, "the clouds his chariot." Do not think that God belittles Himself when He takes such a conveyance. Do you know that the clouds are among the most won- drous and majestic things in the whole universe ? Do you know that they are flying lakes and rivers and oceans ? God waved his hand over them and said, " Come up higher," and they obeyed the mandate. Yonder cloud, instead of being, as it seems, a small gathering a few yards wide and high, is really seven or eight miles across, and is a mountain from its base to its top fifteen thousand feet, eighteen thou- sand feet, twenty thousand feet, and cut through with ravines five thousand feet deep. No, David did not make an unworthy representa- tion of God when he spoke of the clouds as his chariot. But, as I suggested in the case of an earthly king, He has his morning cloud- chariot, and his evening cloud-chariot the cloud-chariot in which He rode to Sinai to open the law, and the cloud-chariot in which He rode down to Tabor to honor the gospel, and the cloud-chariot in which He will come to the judgment. GOD'S MORNING CHARIOT. When He rides in his morning chariot at this season, about six o clock, He puts golden coronets on the domes of cities, and out of the dew makes a diamond ring for the finger of every grass blade, and bids good cheer to invalids who in the night have said, "Would God it were morning !" From this morning chariot He distributes light light for the earth and light for the heavens, light for the earth and light for the sea, at 8 THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. great bars of it, great wreaths of it, great columns of it, a world full of it. Hail him in worship every morning. He drives out his chariot of morn- ing-cloud and cries with David : " My voice shalt thou hear in the morn- ing: in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and look up." I rejoice in these Scripture ejaculations : "Joy cometh in the morning." "My soul waiteth for Thee more than they that watch in the morning." "If I take the wing of the. morning." "The eyelids of the morning." " The morning cometh." " Who is she that looketh forth in the morn- ing?" " His going forth is prepared as the morning." " As the morn- ing spread on the mountains." "That thou wouldst visit him every morning." What a mighty thing the King throws from his chariot when He throws us morning ! GOD'S EVENING CHARIOT. He has also his evening cloud-chariot. It is made out of the saf- fron and the gold and the purple and the vermilion and the upshot flame of the sunset. That is the place where the splendors of the day have marched, hciving ended the procession, thrown down the torches, and set the heavens on fire. That is the only hour of the day when the atmosphere is clear enough to let us see the walls of the heavenly city, with its twelve manner of precious stones, from the foundation of jas- per to the middle strata of sardius and on up to the coping of amethyst. At that hour, without any of Elisha's supernatural vision, we see horses of fire and chariots of fire and banners of fire and ships of fire and cities of fire and seas of fire, and it seems as if the last conflagration had begun and there was a world on fire! When God makes these clouds his chariots, let us all kneel. Another day past. What have we done with it? Another day is done and this is its catafalque. Now is the time for what David called the "evening sacrifice," or Daniel called the " evening oblation." Oh, what a chariot made out of evening-cloud ! Have you hung over the taffrail on the ocean ship and seen this cloudy vehicle roll over the pavements of a calm summer sea, the wheels dripping with magnificence ? Have you from the top of Ben Lomond or the Cordilleras or the Berkshire Hills seen the day pillowed for the night, and yet had no aspiration of praise or homage ? Oh, what a rich God we have that He can put on one evening sky pictures that excel Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" and Ghirlandaio s " Adora- tion of the Magi " and whole galleries of Madonnas, and for only THE CL O UDS HIS CHARIO T. 219 an hour and then put away, and the next evening put on the same sky something that excels all that the Raphaels and the Titians and the Rembrandts and the Corregios and the Leonardo de Vincis ever ex- ecuted, and then draw a curtain of mist over them never again to be exhibited. How rich God must be to have a new chariot of clouds every morning ! THE BLACK CHARIOT OF WRATH. But the Bible tells us that our King has also a black chariot. " Clouds and darkness," we are told, "are all around about him." That chariot is cloven out of night and that night is trouble. When He rides in that black chariot pestilence and earthquake and hurricane and fam- ine and woe attend Him. Then let the earth tremble. Then let nations pray. Again and again has He ridden forth in that black chariot of clouds, across England, France, Italy, Russia, America, and over all nations. That which men took to be the cannonading at Sebastopol, at Sedan, at Gettysburg, at Tel-el- Kebir, at Bunker Hill, was only the rumbling of the wheels of the black chariot of the Almighty. Aye, it was the chariot of storm-cloud armed with thunderbolts, and neither man nor angels nor devils nor earth nor hell nor heaven could resist it. On these boulevards of blue this chariot never turns out for any- thing. Aye, ao one else drives there. Under one wheel of that chariot Babylon was crushed and Baalbec fell dead and the Roman Empire was prostrated and Atlantis a whole continent that once connected Europe with America sank so far out of sight that the longest anchor chain of ocean steamer cannot touch the top of its highest mountains. The throne of the Caesars was less than a pebble under the right wheel of this chariot, and the Austrian despotism less than a snowflake under the left wheel. And over destroyed worlds on worlds that chariot has rolled without a jar or jolt. This black chariot of war-cloud rolled up to the northwest of Europe in 1812, and four hundred thousand men marched to take Moscow, but that chariot of clouds rolled back, and only twenty-five thousand out of the four hundred thousand troops lived to return. No great snow-storm like that ever before or ever since has visited Russia. Aye, the chariot of the Lord is irresistible. POWER OF PRAYER. There is only one thing that can halt or turn one of God's chariots, and that is prayer. Again and again has it stopped it, wheeled it **> THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. around, and the chariot of black clouds under that sanctified human breath has blossomed into such brightness and color that men and angels had to veil their faces from its brightness. Mark you, the ancient THE TRANSLATION OF ELIJAH chariot which David uses as a symbol had only two wheels, that they might turn quickly, two wheels taking less than half the time to turn that four wheels would have taken. And our Lord's chariot 222 THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. has only two wheels ; and that m^ans instant reversal, and instant de- liverance, and instant help. While the combined forces in battle array could not stop his black chariot a second or diverge it an inch, the driver of this chariot says : "Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee." " While they are yet speaking I will hear." Two- wheeled chariot one wheel justice, the other wheel mercy. Aye, they are swift wheels. A cloud, whether it belongs to the cirrhus, the clouds which float the highest, or belongs to the stratus, the central region, or to the cumulus, the lowest ranges, seems to move slowly along the sky, if it moves at all. But many clouds go at a speed that would make a limited lightning-express train seem lethargic, so swift is the chariot of our God ; yea, swifter than the storm, swifter than the light. Yet a child ten years old has been known to reach up, and with the hand of prayer take the courser of that chariot by the bit, slow it up, or stop it, or turn it aside, or turn it back. The boy Samuel stopped it. Elijah stopped it. Hezekiah stopped it. Daniel stopped it. Joshua stopped it. Esther stopped it. Ruth stopped it. Hannah stopped it. Mary stopped it. My father stopped it. My mother stopped it. My sister stopped it. We have in our Sabbath-school children who have again and again stopped it. THE DIVINE DRIVER. Notice that those old-time chariots had what we would call a high dash-board in the front, but were open behind. And the king would stand at the dash-board and drive with his own hands. And I am glad that He, whose chariot the clouds are, drives Himself. He does not let the natural law drive, for natural law is deaf. He does not let fate drive, for fate is merciless. But our Father King drives Himself, and He puts his loving hand on the reins of the flying coursers, and He has a loving ear open to the cry of all who want to catch his attention. Oh, I am so glad that my Father drives, and never drives too fast, and never drives too slow, and never drives off the precipice that He controls, by a bit that never breaks, the wildest and most raging cir- cumstances. I heard of a ship captain who put out in his vessel with a large number of passengers, from Buffalo on Lake Erie, very early in the season while there was much ice. When they were well out the captain saw with horror that the ice was closing in on them from all sides, and he saw no way out from destruction and death. He called THE DEATH OF ST. STEPHEN 223 224 THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. 225 into the cabin the passengers and all the crew that could be spared from their posts, and told them the ship must be lost unless God inter- posed, and though he was not a Christian man, he said, " Let us pray "; and they all knelt, asking God to come to their deliverance. They went back to the deck and the man at the wheel shouted, " All is right, captain, it's blowing nor' by nor'-west now." While the prayer was going on in the cabin the wind had changed and blown the ice OL t of the way. The mate asked, "Shall I put on more sail, cap'n ? " ''No," responded the captain, "don't touch her. Some one else is managing this ship." O men and women, shut in on all sides with icy troubles and misfortunes, in earnest prayer put all your affairs in the hands of God. You will come out all right. Some one else is managing the ship. It did not merely happen that when Leyden was besieged, and the Duke of Alva felt sure of his triumph, suddenly the wind turned, and the swollen waters compelled him to stop the siege, and the city was saved. God that night drove along the coast of the Netherlands in a black chariot of storm-cloud. It did not merely happen that Luther rose from the place where he was sitting just in time to keep from being crushed by a stone which that instant fell on the very spot. Had he stopped, where would have been the Reformation ? It did not merely happen that Columbus was saved from drowning by an oar that was floating on the water. Otherwise, who would have unveiled America ? It did not merely happen that when George Washington was in Brook- lyn, a great cloud settled down over all the place where the city now stands, over all the western end of Long Island, and under that fog he and his army escaped from the clutches of Generals Howe and Clinton. In a chariot of mist and cloud the God of American Independence rode along there. On that pillow of consolation I put down my head to sleep at night. On that solid foundation I build when I see this nation in political paroxysm every four years, not because they care two center whether it is high tariff or low tariff or no tariff at all, but only whether the Democrats or the Republicans shall have the salaried offices. Yea, when European nations are holding their breath, wondering whether Russia or Germany will launch a war that will incarnadine a continent, 1 fall back on the faith that my Father holds the reins of human affairs. Yes, I cast this as an anchor, and plant this as a column of strength, and lift this as a telescope, and build this as a fortress, and propose 15 tz6 THE CLOUDS HIS C!!A!:!dT. without any perturbation to launch upon an unknown future, trium phant in the fact that my Father drives. Yes, He drives very near. I know that many of the clouds you see in summer are far off, the base of some of them five miles above the earth. High on the highest peaks of the Andes, travelers have seen clouds far higher than where they were standing. Gay Lussac, after he had risen in a balloon twenty- three thousand feet, saw clouds still above him. THREE GRAND OCCASIONS. But there are clouds which touch the earth and discharge their rain, and though the clouds out of which God's chariot is made may sometimes be far away, often they are close by they touch our shoulders, and they touch our homes, and they touch us all over. I have heard of two different rides the Lord took in two different chariots of clouds, and another that He will take. One day, in a chariot of clouds that was a mingling of fog and smoke and fire, God drove down to the top of a terrible crag fifteen hundred feet high, now called Jebel- Musa, then called Mount Sinai, and He stepped out of his chariot among the shelvings of the rocks. The mountains shook as with ague, and there were ten volleys of thunder, each of the ten emphasizing a tremendous "Thou shalt," or "Thou shalt not." Then the Lord re- sumed his chariot of cloud and drove up the hills of Heaven. They were dark, portentous clouds that made the chariot at the giving of the law. But one day He took another ride, and this time down to Mount Tabor. The clouds out of which his chariot was made were bright clouds, roseate clouds, illumined clouds, and music rained from them, and the music was a mingling of carol and chant and triumphal march : "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." It is in the mirror of revelation, and with the eye of faith, that we see the third great ride of the Almighty. On either side of the central I chariot apostles and martyrs who in the same or approximate cen- turies suffered for Him Paul, Stephen, and Ignatius and Polycarp and Justin Martyr, and multitudes who went up in the chariot of fire- are now coming in a chariot of cloud, while in the rear of the central chariot may be seen the multitudes of later days and of our own time who have tried to serve the Lord ourselves, I hope, among them. " Behold the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints." Yes, al- though we are unworthy of such companionship, we want to come with THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT. 427 Him on that day to see the last of this old world which was our resi- dence. Coming through the skies, myriads of chariots rolling on, rolling down. By that time how changed this world will be ! Its des- erts all flowers, its rocks all mossed and lichened, its poor-houses all palaces, its sorrows all joys, its sins all virtues, and in the same pasture- field lion and calf, and on the same perch hawk and dove. Now all the chariots of clouds strike the earth, filling all the valleys, covering all the mountain sides, halting over all the cemeteries and graveyards, and over the waters deep where the dead sleep in coral sarcophagi. A loud blast of the resurrection trumpet is given, and the bodies of the dead rise and join the spirits from which they have long been separated. Then Christ, our King, rising in the center chariot of cloud, with his scarred hands waves the signal, and the chariots wheel and come into line for the glorious ascent. Drive on ! Drive up ! Chariots of clouds ahead of the King, chariots of clouds on either side of the King, chari- ots of clouds following the King. Upward past starry hosts and through immensities, and across infinitudes, higher, higher, higher, unto the gates, the shining gates ! Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates, for Him who maketh the clouds his chariot, and who through conde scending and uplifting grace invites us to mount and ride with Him! SIN'S ADVANCE GUARDS. THER.E is no more absorbing question to-day for every man and every patriot than this : " Is there anything we can do to stem the awful torrent of pernicious literature ? Are we to make our minds the receptacle for all that bad people choose to write ? Are we to stoop down, and drink out of the trough which wickedness has filled ? Are we to mire in iniquity, or to chase will-o'-the-wisps across swamps of death, when God invites us into the blooming gardens of his love ? Is there anything you can do ? Is there anything that / can do to help stem this mighty torrent of pernicious literature ? Yes. The first thing for us all to do is to keep ourselves and our lam ilies aloof from iniquitous books and newspapers. Standing, as we do, chin deep in fictitious literature, the question is every day asked, " Is it right to read novels ?" Well, I have to say that there are good novels, honest novels, Christian novels, useful novels, novels that make the heart purer and the life better. The world can never pay its debt of obligation to Hawthorne, and Mackenzie, and scores of others who in times past have written healthful novels. The follies of the world were never better excoriated than in the books of Miss Edgeworth. The memories of the past were never better embalmed than in the writings of Walter Scott. No healthier books have been written than those by Fenimore Cooper, his novels full of the breath of the sea weed and the air of the American forests. Kingsley did a grand work in his books by smiting morbidity, and giving us the poetry of strong muscles and good health and fresh air. Thackeray accomplished a good work when he caricatured pretenders to gentility and high blood. The writings of Charles Dickens are an everlasting protest against in- justice, and a plea for the poor. (228) SIN' S AD VANCE G UARDS. 229 I take all the histories, false and true ; all the romances, beautiful and hideous ; all the epilogues, commentaries, catalogues ; family, city, state, and national libraries ; and I heave them into one great pyramid. I bring to bear upon these some grand and glorious and infallible Christian principles, so that if you ask me to-day, " Is there anything we can do to stem this tide ?" I answer, " Yes, very much, every way." First, let us stand aloof from all books that give false pictures of human life. Life is neither a tragedy nor a farce. Men are not all either knaves or heroes. Women are neither angels nor furies. If we should judge, however, from much of the literature of this day, we would come to the idea that life is a fitful, fantastic, and extravagant thing, instead of a practical and useful thing. After people have been reading late at night romances which glorify iniquity and present knavery in most attractive form, how poorly prepared are they for the work of life. That man who is an indiscriminate novel-reader is unfit for the duties of the store, the shop, the factory. He will be looking for his heroine in the tin-shop, in the grocery-store, in the banking- house, and will not find her. ONE WOMAN'S WORK. Years aox> there came forth a French authoress under the assumed o name of George Sand. She smoked cigars and wore masculine ap- parel. She wrote with a style ardent, eloquent, graphic in its pictures, horrible in its suggestions, damnable in its results, and sending forth into the libraries and the homes of the world an influence which has not yet relaxed ; and I want to tell you that most of the infamous stories we have got from Paris in the last five or ten years are copies of that woman's iniquity. These books are sold by Christian booksellers. Under the nostrils of your cities there is to-day a fetid, reeking, un- washed literature, enough to poison all the fountains of virtue, and smite your sons and daughters as with the wings of a destroying angel, and it is high time that the ministers of religion and all reformers should band together and marshal an army of righteousness armed to the teeth to fight back this moral calamity. What do you make of the fact that more than fifty per cent, of the criminals in the jails and penitentiaries of this country are under twenty-one years of age ; many of them under eighteen, many under sixteen, many under fifteen ? You go along the corridors of the zjo SWS ADVANCE GUARDS. prisons, and you will find that nine out of ten came there from reading bad books or newspapers. The men will tell you so ; the women will tell you so. Is not that a fact worthy the consideration of those whose families are dear to them ? PERNICIOUS PICTORIALS. I must, in this connection, call to your mind the iniquitous pic- torials of our time. For good pictures I have great admiration. But. you know our cities are to-day cursed with evil pictorials. These death-warrants are on every street. A young man purchases perhaps one copy, and he purchases with it his eternal discomfiture. That one bad picture poisons one soul, that soul poisons fifty souls, the fifty despoil a hundred, the hundred a thousand, the thousand a million, and the million other millions, until it will take the measuring line of eternity to tell the height, and the depth, and the ghastliness of the great undoing. A young man buys one copy, and he unrolls it amid roaring companions ; but long after that paper is gone the evil will be seen in the blasted imaginations of those who looked at it. Every night the Queen of Death holds a banquet, and these evil pictorials are the printed invitations to the guests. Alas ! that the fair brow of American art should be blotched with that plague-spot. O young man, buy none of that moral strychnine ; do not pick up a nest of coiled adders for your pocket. Your heart will be more pure than your eye. A man is never better than the picture he loves to look at. Show me what style of pictures a man buys, and I will tell you his character. Out of a thousand times I will not make one failure in judgment. When Satan fails to get a man to read a bad book, he sometimes captures him by getting him to look at a bad picture. When Satan goes a-fishing, he does not care whether it is a long line or a short line, if he only hauls in his victim. Remember that one column of good reading may save a soul that one column of bad reading may destroy a soul. Examine your libraries! After you have got through your libraries, examine the stand where the pictorials and newspapers are ; and if you find any- thing there that cannot stand the test of the judgment-day, do not give it to others that would despoil them ; do not sell it that would be receiving the price of blood ; but kindle a fire on your kitchen- hearth or in your back-yard, and put the poison in, and keep stirring ADVANCE GUARDS. 251 the blaze until everything has gone to ashes, from preface to ap- pendix. Crowd your minds with good books, and there will be no room for the bad. When Thomas Chalmers was riding beside a stage-driver, and the horses were going beautifully, the stage-driver drew his long lash and struck the ear of the leader. It seemed to Thomas Chalmers a great cruelty, and he said, "Why did you strike that horse ; he is going splendidly? "Ah!" said the stage-driver, "do you see that frightful object along the road ? I never in the world would have got that horse along there if I hadn't given him something else to think of!" Thomas Chalmers went home and wrote his immortal sermon, " The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." While you have looked after yourselves, and looked after your families, I want you to join this great army enlisted against pernicious literature. We are going to triumph. I feel to the tips of my fingers and in the depths of my soul the assurance that righteousness is going to triumph over all iniquity. " If God be with us, who can be against us?" PROGRESS OF INFIDELITY. Bad books are not only enlisted in the service of crime, but they also aid the progress of infidelity and modern materialism. It is to this subject that we must now turn our attention. If an object be lifted to a certain point and not fastened there, and the lifting power be withdrawn, how long will it be before that object will fall down to the point from which it started ? It will assuredly fall, and will go still further than the point from which it started. Christianity has lifted women up from the very depths of degradation almost to the skies. If that lifting power be withdrawn, she will fall clear back to the depth from which she was resurrected ; but not lower, for there is no lower depth. . If infidelity triumph, and Christianity be overthrown, it means the demoralization of society. The one idea in the Bible that atheists and infidels most hate, is the idea of retribution. Take away the idea of retribution and punishment from society, and it will begin very soon to disintegrate ; and take away from the minds of men the fear of hell, and there are a great many of them who would very soon turn this world into a hell, 232 SWS ADVANCE GUARDS. The mightiest restraints to-day against theft, against immorality, against libertinism, against crime of all sorts, are the retributions of eternity. Men know that they can escape the law, but down in the offender's soul there is the realization of the fact that he cannot escape God. He stands at the end of the road of profligacy, and He will not set free the guilty. Take all idea of retribution and punishment out if the hearts and minds of men, and it will not be long before Brooklyn and New York and Boston and Charleston and Chicago become Sodoms. The only restraints against the evil passions of the world to-day are Bible restraints. Suppose now these generals of Atheism and Infidelity should win the victory, and suppose they should marshal a great army made up of the majority of the world. They are in companies, in regiments, in brigades a well-appointed army. Forward, march ! ye host of infidels and atheists, banners flying before, banners flying behind, banners in- scribed with the words, " No God ! No Christ ! No punishment ! No restraints ! Down with the Bible ! Do as you please !" Forward, march ! ye great army of infidels and atheists. First of all they will attack the churches. Away with those houses of worship ! They have been standing there too long deluding the people with consolation in their bereavements and sorrows. All those churches ought to be extirpated ; they have done so much to relieve the lost and bring home the wandering, and they have so long held up the idea of eternal rest after the paroxysm of this life is over. Turn the St. Peters and St. Pauls and the temples and tabernacles into club- houses. Away with those churches ! A thousand voices come up to me saying, " Do you really think Infidelity will succeed? Has Christianity received its death-blow? Will the Bible become obsolete? " Yes, when the smoke of the city chimney arrests and destroys the noonday sun. Josephus says that about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the sun was turned into darkness ; but in truth only the clouds rolled between the sun and the earth. The sun went right on. It is the same sun, the same luminary as when at the beginning it shot out like an electric spark from God's finger, and to-day it is warming the nations, and gilding the sea, and filling the earth with light. The same old sun, not at all worn out, though its light steps one hundred and ninety thousand miles a second, though its pulsations are four hundred and fifty trillion undulations in ADVANCE GUARDS. 233 a second ; the same sun, with its beautiful white light made up of the violet and the indigo and the blue and the green and the red and the yellow and the orange the seven beautiful colors now just as when the solar spectrum first divided them. SKEPTICISM. To our consideration of modern infidelity we may add some thoughts about its advance courier, skepticism. Forward, ye troops "THE GLORY OF SUNRISE." of God, to this third line of the enemy's intrenchments, the intellectual difficulties about religion. Some of you find a hundred perplexities about the parables ; a hundred questions about the ninth chapter of Romans ; passage set against passage in seeming contradiction. You pile up a battlement of Colenso on the Pentateuch, and Tom Paine' s "Age of Reason," and Renan's "Life of Christ" ; and some parts of the wall are so high that it would be folly to attempt to take them. But there is a hole in the wall of fortification, and through that hole in *34 SIN'S ADVANCE GUARDS. the wall I put my right hand, and take your own, and say, " My brother, do you want to be saved ? " And you say, " Yes." " Well, Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost. Wilt thou let him in the bruised One of the Cross ? He will take away all thy sins and all thy sorrows. In one half hour, he will give thee more peace than thou hast had in all the twenty years of thy questioning and doubting ! Let the great guns of Colenso and Renan blaze away. Christ comes not to the gate of your head, but to the door of your heart, and, tapping gently against it, he says, ' Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whosoever will open to me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me.' ' Skepticism seems to do quite well in prosperity, but it fails in adversity. A celebrated infidel, on shipboard, in the sunshine, cari- catured the Christian religion, and scoffed at its professors. But the sea arose, and the waves dashed across the hurricane-deck, and the man cried out, " O my God, what shall I do ? what shall I do? " A father went down to see his dying son in a southern hospital during the war. Finding that the boy was dying, he went to the chaplain and said, "I wish you would go and see my boy, and get him prepared for the future." "Why;" said the chaplain, "I thought you did not be- lieve in religion!" "Well," said he, "I don't, but his mother does; and I would a great deal rather the boy should follow his mother. Go and get him prepared." Skepticism does tolerably well to live by, but it is a poor thing to die by. It may do for the peaceful land, but it will never do for an ocean storm, PERILS OF THE SEA. 23fr A LIVE CHURCH. Alive church will look after all its financial interests, and be as pronipv in the meeting of those obligations as ajny bank in all the cities. There is no more ghastly suffering in the United States to-day than is to be found in some of the parsonages of this country. I denounce the niggardliness of many of the churches of Jesus Christ, which keeps some men, who are very apostles for piety and consecration, in circumstances where they are always apologetic, and have not that courage which they would have, could they stand in the presence of people whom they knew to be faithful in the discharge of their financial duties to the Christian Church. Alas ! for those men of whom the world is not worthy. Do you know the simple fact that in the United States to-day the salary of ministers averages less than six hundred dollars ? When you consider that some of the salaries are very large, you, as business men, will immediately see to what great straits many of God's noblest servants are this day reduced. THE REQUISITES OF CHURCH VITALITY. A live church will be punctual in its attendance. If in such a church the services begin at half-past ten o'clock in the morning, the people will not come at a quarter of eleven. If in such a church the services begin at half-past seven o'clock in the evening, the people will not come at a quarter of eight. In many churches there is great tar- diness. The fact is, some people are always late. They were born too late, and I suppose they will die too late. It is poor inspiration to a Christian minister when, in preliminary exercises, half the people seated in their pews are looking around to see the other half come in, accompanied with the i ustling of dresses through the aisle and the slamming of doors at the entrance. There ought to be no preliminary 236 A LTVE CHURCH. 237 exercises. There is a grand delusion in the churches of Jesus Christ on this subject The very first word of the invocation is as important as anything that may come after. The Scripture lesson is the voice of God to man, while a sermon may be only the voice of man to man. Happy is that church where all the worshipers are present at the be- ginning of the services. I know there is a difference in time-pieces, but a live church goes by railroad time. I go further, and tell you that in every live church all the people take part in the exercises. A stranger can tell, by the way the first hymn starts, whether it is a live church. It is a sad thing when the music comes down in a cold drizzle from the organ loft, and freezes on the heads of the silent people beneath. It is an awful thing for a hymn to start and then find itself lonely and unbefriended, wandering around about, and after a while lost amid the arches. That is not melody to the Lord. In heaven they all sing, although some sing not half as well as others. A live church will have commodious and appropriate architecture. A log church may do in a place where people live in log cabins ; but in cities where people have commodious and beautiful apartments, a church that is not commodious and beautiful is a moral nuisance ; it is an insult to God and an insult to man. A live church must be a soul-saving church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached in it. A church may be built around one man who shall read an essay, the church may be built around one man who shall preach something else than the Gospel, and there may be a large congregation ; but after a while the man dies, and the church dies. That church has a very poor foundation that is built on two human shoulders. I could tell you of a church in the city of Boston that was more largely attended some thirty years ago than any other church in that city. Where is it to-day? Utterly gone out of existence. A man stood there who preached everything but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He died, and the church died. We want a church- built on the Rock of Ages. OLD INSURANCE. The trouble is, that a great many are depending upon old insur- ances against the damage of sin, and old insurances against the dam- age of the great future old insurances that have run out. Suppose that you had allowed the fire insurance on your home to expire yesterday, *3* A LIVE CHURCH. and to-day your home should be consumed ; would you have the impertinence to go to-morrow morning with the papers to the insurance company and demand the amount of the policy? No. If you did, they would say, " You have no business here ; you have no right to ask that ; you let the insurance expire on Saturday this is Monday." follower of the Lord Jesus, do not depend upon old insurances, ten, or twenty, or forty years old, as I know some of you are depending f upon them ! You want the policy paid up by the blood and the tears j'of the Son of God. You will notice, in regard to the old laver looking-glass, that the priests there washed their hands and their feet. The water came down through the spouts from the basin, and they carefully and completely washed their hands and their feet, an action typical of the fact that this Gospel is to reach to the very extremities of our moral nature. Here is a man who says, "I will fence off part of my heart, and it shall be a garden full of flowers and fruits of Christian character, and all the rest shall be the devil's commons." You cannot do it. It is all garden or none. You tell me about a man, that he is a good Christian ex- cept in politics. I deny your statement. If his religion will not take him in purity through the autumnal election, that religion is worth nothing in May, June or July. You say, "That man is a very good man, he is a Christian, he is useful, but he overreaches in a bargain." 1 deny your statement If it is an all-pervading religion, and if it touches a man at all at one point of his nature, it will pervade his en- tire nature. Just as soon as we come in and look at this mirror of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we see ourselves just as we are. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." That is one showing. " All we, like sheep, have gone astray." That is another showing. " From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no health in us." That is another showing. Some people call these defects imperfections, or eccentricities, or erratic behavior, or wild oats, or high living ; but the Bible calls them filth, transgression, the abominable thino- that God o o hates. Paul got one glance at that mirror that polished mirror and he cried out, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me? " David caught one glimpse of that mirror, and he cried out, " Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ! " Martin Luther got ore glimpse A LIVE CHURCH. 23$ of that mirror, and he cried out to Staupitz, " Oh, my sins, my sins, my sins ! " FASHION-PLATES. There is another mirror in which it is at times wholesome to look that of fashion and folly. Show me the fashion-plates of any age between this and the time of Louis the Sixteenth of France, and of Henry the Eighth of England, and I will tell you the type of morals or immorals of that age or that year. There is no exception to the fact that modest apparel indicates a righteous people, and that immodest apparel indicates a contaminated and depraved society. You wonder that the city of Tyre was destroyed with such a terrible destruction. Have you ever seen the fashion-plate of Tyre? I will show it to you : " Moreover, the Lord saith, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet, in that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, . . . the rings and nose-jewels, the change- able suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins." (Isaiah 3 : 16 22.) That is the fashion-plate of ancient Tyre. Do you wonder that God in his indignation blotted out that city ? THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. IN our journey we change stirrup for wheel. It is four o'clock in the morning at Damascus, Syria, and we are among the lanterns of the hostelry waiting for the stage to start. A Mohammedan in high life is putting his three wives on board within an apartment by themselves, and our party occupy the main apartment of one of the most uncom- fortable vehicles in which mortals were ever jammed and half-strangu- lated. But we must not let the discomforts annul or disparage the opportunities. We are rolling on, and out, and up the mountains of Lebanon, their forehead under a crown of snow, which coronet the fingers of the hottest summer cannot cast down. We are ascending heights around which is garlanded much of the finest poesy of the Scriptures, and are rising toward the mightiest do- minion that botany ever recognized, reigned over by the most imperial tree that ever swayed a leafy scepter the Lebanon cedar a tree eulo- gized as having grown from a nut put into the ground by God himself, for no human hand had anything to do with its planting : " The trees of Lebanon which He hath planted." ARBORESCENT GIANTS. The average height of this mountain is seven thousand feet, but .in one place it lifts its head to an altitude of ten thousand. No highei than six thousand feet can vegetation exist, but below that line, at the right season, are vineyards, and orchards, and olive groves, and flowers that dash the mountain side with a very carnage of color, and fill the air with aromatics that the inspired prophet Hosea, and Solomon, the great and wise king, celebrated as " the smell of Lebanon." At a height of six thousand feet is a grove of cedars, the only descendants of those forests from which Solomon cut timber for the temple, and 240 16 THANKSGIVING UNTO THE LORD 7- - 242 hewing THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. where at one time there were one hundred thousand out the beams from which great cities were constructed. But this nation of trees has by human iconoclasm been massacred until only a small group is left. This race of giants is nearly extinct ; but I have no doubt that some of these were here when Hiram, king of Tyre, ordered the assassination of those cedars of Lebanon which the Lord planted. From the multitude of uses to which it may be put and I THE RAISING OF LAZARUS the employment of it in the Scriptures, the cedar is the divine favorite. When the storms of winter terrify the earth, and hurl the rocks in avalanche down this mountain side, this tree grapples the hurricane of snow in triumph, and leaves the spent fury at its feet. From sixty to eighty feet in height is it, the horizontal branches of great sweep, with their burden of leaves needle-shaped, the top of the tree pyramidal, a throne of foliage on which might, and splendor, and glory sit. But so 44 THE CEDARS ~OF LEBANON. continuously has the extermination of trees gone on, that for the most part the mountains of Lebanon are bare of foliage ; while, I am sorry to say, the earth in all lands is being likewise denuded. The axe is slaying the forests all round the earth. To stop the slaughter God opened the coal-mines of England, and Scotland, and America, and the world, practically saying by that : "Here is fuel ; as far as possible, let my trees alone." And by opening for the human race the great quarries of granite, and showing the human family how to make brick, God is practically saying : " Here is building material ; let my trees alone." We had better stop the axes among the Adiron- aacks. We had better stop the axes in all our forests, as it would have been better for Syria if the axes had long ago been stopped among the mountains of Lebanon. GOD'S TEMPLES. Plant the trees in your parks, that the weary may rest under them. Plant them along your streets, that up through the branches passers-by may see the God who first made the trees, and then made man to look at them. Plant them along the brooks, that under them children may play. Plant them in your gardens, that, as in Eden, the Lord may walk there in the cool of the day. Plant them in cemeteries, their shade like a mourner's veil, and their leaves sounding like the rustle of the wings of the departed. Let Arbor day, or the day for the planting of trees, recognized by the legislatures of many of the States, be observed by all our people, and the next one hundred years do as much in planting these leafy glories of God as the last one hundred years have accomplished in their destruction. When, not long before his death. I saw on the banks of the Hudson, in his glazed cap, riding on horseback, George P. Morris, the great song writer of America, I found him grandly emotional, and I could understand how he wrote, " Woodman, spare that tree !" the verses of which many of us have felt like quoting in belligerent spirit, when, under the stroke of some one without sense or reason we saw a beautiful tree prostrated. SCRIPTURAL SIMILES. As we ride along on these mountains of Lebanon, we bethink how its cedars spread their branches and breathe their aroma and cast their . THE TREAvSURES OF WINTER 245 246 THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. shadows all through the Bible. Solomon discoursed about them in his botanical works when he spoke of trees, " from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." The Psalmist says, "The righteous shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon," and in one of his magnificent doxologies calls on the cedars to praise the Lord. Solomon says, the countenance of Christ is excellent as the j cedars, and Isaiah declares, "The day of the Lord ^hall be upon all the cedars of Lebanon." And Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos and Zephaniah and Zechariah weave its foliage into their sublimest utterances. As we ride over Lebanon to-day, there is a howling wind sweep- ing past, and a dash of rain, all the better enabling us to appreciate that description of a tempest which, no doubt, was suggested by what David had seen with his own eyes among these heights, for as a soldier he carried his wars clear up to Damascus, and such a poet as he, I warrant, spent many a day on Lebanon. And perhaps while he was seated on fhis very rock against which our carriage jolts, he wrote that wonderful description of a thunder-storm : "The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire." As the lion is the monarch of the fields, and behemoth the monarch of the waters, the cedar is the monarch of the trees. And I think one reason why it is so glorified all up and down the Bible is be- cause we need more of its characteristics in our religious life. We have too much of the willow, and are easily bent this way or that ; too much of the aspen, and we tremble under every zephyr of assault ; too much of the bramble tree, and our sharp points sting and wound ; but not enough of the cedar, wide-branched and heaven-aspiring and tem- pest-grappling. But the reason these cedars stand so well is that they are deep- rooted. They run their anchors down into the caverns of the mountain and fasten to the very foundations of the earth, and twist around and clinch themselves on the other side of the deepest layer of rock they can reach. And that is the difference between Christians who stand and Christians who fall. It is the difference between a superficial THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 247 character and one that has clutched its roots deep down around and under the Rock of Ages. EVERLASTING STRENGTH. One of the Lebanon cedars, still standing, was examined by a scientist, and from its concentric circles it was found to be thirty-five hundred years old ; and there is such a thing as everlasting strength, and such a stanchness of Christian character that all time and all eter- nity instead of being its demolition shall be its opportunity. Not such are those vacillating Christians who are so pious on Sunday that they have no religion left for the week-day. As the anaconda gorges itself with food and then seems for a long time to lie thoroughly insensible, so there are men who will on Sunday get such a religious surfeit that the rest of the week they seem thoroughly dead to all religious emotion. The reason that God planted these cedars was to suggest that we ought, in our religious character, to be deep like the cedar, high like the cedar, broad-branched as the cedar. A traveler measured the spread of the boughs of one of these trees, and found it to be one hundred and eleven feet from branch tip to branch tip, and I have seen cedars of Christian character that, through their prayers and charities, put out one branch to the uttermost parts of America and another branch to the uttermost parts of Asia, and these wide-branched Christians will keep on multiplying until all the earth is overshadowed with mercy. But mark you, these cedars of Lebanon could not grow if planted in mild climates, and in soft air, and in carefully-watered gardens. They must have the gymnasium of the midnight hurricane to develop their arms. They must play the athlete with a thousand winters before their feet are rightly planted, and their foreheads rightly lifted, and their arms rightly muscled. And if there be any other way for devel- oping strong Christian character except by storms of trouble, I never heard of it. Call the roll of martyrs, call the roll of the prophets, call the roll of the apostles, and see which of them had an easy time of it. Which of these cedars grew in the warm valley? Not one of them. Honey- suckles thrive best on the south side of the house, but cedars in a Syrian whirlwind. PERFECTED THROUGH SUFFERING. What has been the history of most of the great cedars in mer- chandise, in art, in law, in medicine, in statesmanship, in Christian 248 THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. usefulness? "John, get up and milk the cows ; it's late ; it's half-past five in the morning. Split an armful of wood on your way out, so that we can build the fires for breakfast. Put your bare feet on the cold oilcloth and break the ice in your pitcher before you can wash Yes, it has been snowing and drifting again last night, and we will have to break the roads." The boy's educational advantages a long oak plank without any back to it in a country school-house, and stove throw- ing out more smoke than heat pressing on from one hardship to another. After a while, a position on salary or wages large enough tc keep life, but keep it at its lowest ebb ; starting in occupation or busi- ness with prosperous men trying to fight you back at every step. But after a good while you get fairly on your feet, your opportunities widen, and then by some sudden turn you are triumphant. You are master of the situation and defiant of all earth and hell. A Lebanon cedar ! John MHton, on his way up to the throne of the world's sacred poesy, must sell his copyright of "Paradise Lost" for seventy-two dollars in three payments. William Shakespeare, on his way up to be acknowledged the greatest dramatist of all ages, must hold horses at the door of the London theater for a sixpence ; and Homer must struggle through total blindness to immortality ; and John Bunyan must cheer himself on the way up by making a flute out of his prison stool ; and Canova, the sculptor, must toil on through orphanage, modeling a lion in butter before he could cut his 'statues in marble. The great Stephenson must watch cows in the field for a few pennies, and then become a stoker, and afterw r ard mend clocks, before he puts the locomotive on its track and calls forth plaudits from parliaments and medals from kings. Abel Stevens is picked up a neglected child of the street, and rises through his consecrated genius to be one of the most illustrious clergymen and historians of the century. And Bishop 'Janes, of the same church, in boyhood worked his passage from Ireland to America and up to usefulness, where, in the bishopric, he was second to no one who ever adorned it. The Bible speaks of the snows of Lebanon, and at this season of the year the snows there must be tremendous. The cedars catch that skyful of crystals on their brow and on their long arms. Piled up in great heaps are those snows, enough to crush other trees to the ground, splitting the branches from the trunk and leaving them rent and torn, THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 249 never to rise. But what do the cedars care for these snows on Lebanon? They look up to the winter skies and say: "Snow on! Empty the white heavens upon us, and when this storm is passed let other processions of tempest try to bury us in their fury. We have for five hundred winters been accustomed to this, and for the next five hundred winters we will cheerfully take all you have to send, for that is the way we develop our strength, and that is the way we serve God and teach all ages how to endure and conquer." So I say : Good cheer to all people who are snowed under ! Put your faith in God and you will come out gloriously. Others may be stunted growths, or weak junipers on the lower levels of spirituality, but you are going to be Lebanon cedars. At last it will be said of such as you : "These are they who came out of great tribulation and had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." But, while crossing over these mountains of Lebanon, I bethink myself of what an exciting scene it must be when one of these cedars does fall. It does not go down like other trees, with a slight crackle that hardly makes the woodsman look up, or a hawk flutter from a neighboring bough. When a cedar falls it is the great event in the calendar of the mountains. The axe-men fly. The wild beasts slink to their dens. The partridges swoop to the valley for escape. The neighboring trees go down under the awful weight of the descending monarch. The rocks are moved out of their places, and the earth trembles as from miles around all ravines send back their sympathetic echoes. Crash ! crash ! crash ! So when the great cedars of worldly or Christian influence fall, it is something terrific. Within the past few years how many mighty and overtopping men have gone down ! THE PRESENT MORAL STORM. There seems now to be an epidemic of moral disaster. The moral world, the religious world, the political world, the commercial world, are quaking with the fall of Lebanon cedars. It is awful. We are compelled to cry out with Zechariah, the prophet: "Howl, fir-trees, for the cedar is fallen !" Some of the smaller trees are glad of it. When some great dealer in stocks goes down, the small dealers clap their hands and say, " Good for him !" When a great political leader goes down, the small politicians clap their hands and say, "'Just as I expected!" When a great minister of religion falls, many little 25 o THE CEDARS OP LEBANON. ministers laugh up their sleeves and think themselves somehow ad- vantaged. Ah, beloved readers, no one makes anything out of moral shipwreck. Not a willow by the rivers of Damascus, not a sycamore on the plains of Jericho, not an olive tree in all Palestine, is helped by the fall of a Lebanon cedar. Better weep and pray and tremble and listen to Paul's advice to the Galatians when he says, " Considering thyself lest thou also be tempted." No man is safe until he is dead unless he be divinely protected. A greater thinker than Lord Francis Bacon the world never saw, and he changed the world's mode of thinking for all time by his " Novum Organum," a miracle of literature. Yet with thirty-eight thousand dollars salary and estates worth millions, and from the highest judicial bench of the world, he went down under the power of bribery, confessed his crime and was sentenced to the Tower and the scorn of centuries. Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen ! Warren Hastings, rising until he became governor-general of India and the envy of the chief public men of his day, plunged into cruelties against the barbaric people he had been sent to rule, until his name was chiefly associated with the criminal trial in Westminster Hall where came upon him the anathemas of Sheridan, Fox, Edmund 3urke, the English nation, and all time. Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen ! As eminent instances of moral disaster are found in our own land and our own time, instances that I do not recite lest I should wound the feelings of those now alive to mourn the shipwreck. Let your indignation against the fallen turn to pity. A judge in one of our American courts gives this experience. In a '.espectable but poor family a daughter was getting a musical education. She needed one more course of lessons to complete that education. The father's means were exhausted, and so great was his anxiety to help his daughter that he feloniously took some money from his employer, and, going home to his daughter, said, "There is the money to com- plete your musical education." The wife and mother suspected some- thing wrong, and obtained from her husband the whole story, and that night went around with her husband to the merchant's house and sur- rendered the whole amount of the money and asked forgiveness. Forgiveness was denied and the man was arrested. The judge, know- ing all the circumstances, and that the money had all been returned, suggested to the merchant that he had better let the matter drop for THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. * the sake of the wife and the daughter. No ! He would not let it drop and he did all he could to make the case conspicuous and blasting. The judge says that afterward that same inexorable merchant was be- fore him for breaking the law of the land. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall. Not congratulation but tears, when a cedar is fallen. Yet there is one cedar of Lebanon that always has and always will overtop all others. It is the Christ whom Ezekiel describes as a goodly cedar, and says, " Under it shall come all fowl of every wing." Make your nest in that Great Cedar ! Then let the storms beat and the earth rock, and time end, and eternity begin, all shall be well. THE BOTANY OF PALESTINE. In my journey up and down Palestine and Syria, nothing impressed me with greater force than the trees the terebinths, the sycamores, the tamarisks, the oleanders, the mulberries, the olives, the myrtles, the cedars all of them explanatory of so much of the Scriptures. And the time is coming when, through an improved arboriculture, the round world shall be circumferenced, engirdled, embosomed, emparadised in shade-trees and fruit-trees and flower-trees. Isaiah declares in one place, "The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it," and in another place, "All the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of thf thorn shall come up the fir-tree ; instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree." Oh, grandest arborescence of all time ! Begin ! Begin ! I am so glad that the holy land of Heaven, like the holy land of Palestine and Syria, is a great place for trees an orchard of them, a grove of them, a forest of them ! St. John saw them along the streets and on both sides of the river, and every month they yielded a great crop of fruit. You know what an imposing appearance trees give to a city on earth, but how it exalts my idea of heaven when St. John de- scribes the city on high as having its streets and its rivers lined with them. On, the trees ! the trees ! The jasper walls, the fountains, the temples were not enough. There would have been something wanting yet So, to complete all that pomp and splendor, I behold the up branching trees of life " Woodman, spare that tree ! Touch not a single bough ! In youth it sheltered me, And I'll protect it now. THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 'Twas my forefather's hand That placed it near his cot; There, woodman, let it stand, Thy axe shall harm it not * When but an idle boy I sought its grateful shade ; In all their gushing joy Here, too, my sisters play'd. My mother kiss'd me here, My father press'd my hand- Forgive this foolish tear, But let that old oak stand ! * My heartstrings round thee cling Close as thy bark, old friend. Here shall the wild bird sing, And still thy branches bend. Old tree ! the storm still brave 1 And, woodman, leave the spot. ^Taile I've a hand to save, '"by axe shall harm it not" NATIONAL EVILS. THAT there are hundreds and thousands of infelicitous homes in America, no one will doubt. If there were only one skeleton in the closet, that might be locked up and abandoned ; but in many a home there is a skeleton in the hallway and a skeleton in each of the apartments. "Unhappily married " are two words descriptive of many a home- stead. It needs no orthodox minister to prove to a badly-mated pair ; at there is a hell ; they are in it now. Some say that for the alleviation of all these domestic disorders of which we hear, easy divorce is a good prescription. God some- times authorizes divorce as certainly as he authorizes marriage. I have just as much regard for one lawfully divorced as I have for one lawfully married. But all of us know that wholesale divorce is one of our national scourges ; nor am I surprised that it is so when I think of the in- fluences which have been abroad militating against the marriage relation. Frequency of divorce always goes along with dissoluteness of society. Rome, for five hundred years, had not one case of divorce. These were her days of glory and virtue. Then the reign of vice began, and divorce became epidemic. If you want to know how rap- idly the Empire went down, ask Gibbon. Do you know how the Reign of Terror was introduced in France? By 20,000 cases of di- vorce in one year in Paris. What we want in this country, and in all lands, is that divorce be made more, and more, and more difficult. , Then people, before they enter the marriage relation, will be persuaded 1 that there will probably be no escape from it, except through the door of the sepulcher. Then they will pause on the verge of that relation, until they are fully satisfied that it is best, and that it is right, and that it is happiest. Then we shall have no more marriage in fun. Then 253 < NATIONAL EVILS. men and women will not enter the relation with the idea that it is only a trial trip, and if they do not like it they can get out at the first-land- ing. Then this whole question will be taken out of the frivolous into the tremendous, and there will be no more joking about the blossoms in a bride's hair than about the cypress on a coffin. UNIFORM DIVORCE LAW. What we want is that the Congress of the United States shall move for changing the national Constitution, so that a law can be passed which will be uniform all over the country, until what is right in one State will be right in all the States, and what is wrong in one State will be wrong in all the States. Rigorous divorce law will hinder women from the fatal mistake of marrying men to reform them. If a young man at twenty five or thirty years of age has the habit of strong drink fixed on him, he is as cer- tainly bound for a drunkard's grave as that the train starting out from the Grand Central Depot at 8 o'clock to-morrow morning is bound for Albany. The train may not reach Albany, for it may be thrown from the track. The young man may not reach a drunkard's grave, fji something may throw him off" the iron track of evil habit. But th- probability is that the train that starts to-morrow morning at 8 o'clcx for Albany will get there ; and the probability is that the young man who has the habit of strong drink fixed on him before he reaches twenty-five or thirty years of age, will arrive at a drunkard's grave. She knows he drinks, although he tries to hide it by chewing cloves. Everybody knows he drinks. Parents warn, neighbors and friends warn. She will marry him she will reform him. If she is unsuccessful in the experiment, why then the divorce law will emancipate her, because habitual drunkenness is a cause for divorce in Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, Connecticut, and nearly all the States. So the poor thing goes to the altar of sacrifice. If you will show me the poverty-struck streets in any city, I will show you the homes of the women who married men to reform them. In one case out of ten thousand it may be a successful experiment. I never saw the success ful experiment. Having read much about love in a cottage, people brought up in ease will go and starve in a hovel. Runaway matches and elopements, 999 out of 1000 of which mean death and hell, are multiplying on all hands. You see them in every clay's newspapers. Our ministers in NATIONAL EVILS. 255 this region have .no defense, such as they have in other cities where the bans must be previously published and an officer of the law must give a certificate that all is right ; so clergymen are left defenseless, and unite those who ought never to be united. Perhaps they are too young, or perhaps they are standing already in some domestic compact. By the wreck of ten thousand homes, by the holocaust of ten housand sacrificed men and women, by the hearthstone of the family, ahich is the corner-stone of the state, and in the name of that God who hath set up the family institution and who hath made the breaking of the marital oath the most appalling of all perjuries, I implore the Congress of the United States to make some righteous, uniform law for all the States, and from ocean to ocean, on this subject of marriage and divorce. Let us have a divine rage against anything that wars on the marriage state. Blessed institution ! Instead of two arms to fight the battle of life, four. Instead of two eyes to scrutinize the path of life, four. Instead of two shoulders to lift the burden of life, four. Twice the energy, twice the courage, twice the holy ambition, twice the probability of worldly success, twice the prospects of heaven. THE SHAME OF POLYGAMY. And while on this subject, let us turn to one of its most frightful outgrowths, the shameful monstrosity of Mormon polygamy. Are we so cowardly and selfish in this generation that we are going to bequeath to the following generations this great evil ? Shall we let it go on until our children come to the front and we are safely entrenched under the mound of our own sepulchers, leaving them through all their active life to wonder why we postponed this evil for them to extirpate, when we might have destroyed it with a hundred- fold less exposure ? What a legacy for this generation to leave to the following generation ! A vast acreage of sweltering putrefaction, of lowest beastliness, of suffocating stench, all the time becoming more and more mal-odorous and rotten and damnable ! We want some great political party, in some strong and unmis- takable plank, to declare that it will extirpate heroically and immedi- ately this great harem of the American continent. We want some 1 resident of the United States to come in on such an anti-Mormonistic platform, and in his opening message to Congress to ask for an appropriation for a military expedition, and then to put some Phil Sheridan in his lightning stirrups, heading his horse westward, and in , S 6 NATIONAL EVILS. one year Mormon sm will be extirpated and national decency vindicated Compelling Mormonistic chiefs to take the oath of allegiance will not do it, for they have declared in open assembly that perjury in their cause is commendable. Religious tracts on purity amount to nothing. They will not read them. Anything shorter than bayonets and anything softer than bullets will never do that work. Every day you open a paper you read of some bigamist in the State of New York being arrested and punished. What you prohibit on a small scale for a state you allow on a large scale for a nation. Bigamy must be put down polygamy must go free ! What has been the effect of such a policy ? It has demoralized this whole nation. That carbuncle on the back of the nation has infected all the nerves, and muscles, and arteries, and veins, and limbs of the body politic. I account in that way for many of the loose ideas abroad on the subject of the marriage relation. Divorce by the wholesale ! Concubinage in high circles ! Libertinism, if gloved and patent-leathered, admitted into high life ! The malaria of Salt Lake City has smitten the nation with a moral typhoid. Its bad influence has well-nigh spiked that gun of Sinai which needs to thunder over the New England hills, over the o savannahs of the South, and over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas clear to the Pacific coast, " Thou shalt not commit adultery !" Yet I want the people of America to know that for more than twenty years we have had a positive law prohibiting polygamy in the Territories. People are crying out for some new law, as though we had not an old law already with which that infamy could be swept into the perdition from which it smoked up. Polygamy in Utah has warred against the marriage relation throughout the land. It is impossible to have such an awful sewer of iniquity sending up its miasma, which is wafted by the winds north, south, east, and west, without the whole land being affected by it. THE REIGN OF LIBERTINISM. Another evil threatening the destruction of our American institu- tions is the low state of public morals. What killed Babylon ? What killed Phcenicia ? What killed Rome ? Their own depravity ; and the fraud and the drunkenness and the lechery which have destroyed other nations will destroy ours, unless a merciful God prevent. I have to tell you what you know already, that American politics have sunken to such a low depth that there is nothing beneath. What NATIONAL EVILS. 57 we see in some directions we see in nearly all directions. The pecula- tion and the knave-ry hurled to the surface by the explosion of banks and business firms are only specimens of great Cotopaxis and Strom- bolis of wickedness that boil and roar and surge beneath, but have not yet regurgitated to the surface. When the heaven-descended Demo- cratic party enacted the Tweed rascality, it seemed to eclipse every- thing ; but after awhile the heaven-descended Republican party out- witted Pandemonium with the Star Route infamy ! My friends, we have in this country people who say that the marriage institution amounts to nothing. They scoff at it. We have people walking in polite parlors in our day who are not good enough to be scavengers in Sodom ! I went over to San Francisco a few years ago that beautiful city, that Queen of the Pacific. May the blessing of God come down upon her great churches, and her noble men and women ! When I got into the city, the mayor and the president of the Board of Health called on me and insisted that I should go and see the Chinese quarters no doubt, so that on my return to the Atlantic coast I might tell what dreadful people the Chinese are. But on the last night of my stay in San Francisco, before thousands of people in their great opera house, I said, " Would you like me to tell you just what I think, plainly and honestly?" They said, "Yes, yes, yes!" I said, " Do you think you can stand it all?" They said, " Yes, yes, yes !" "Then," I said, " my opinion is that the curse of San Francisco is not your Chinese quarters, but your millionaire libertines !" And two of them sat right before me Felix and Drusilla. So it is in all the cities. I never swear ; but when I see a man go unwhipt of justice, laughing over his shame, and calling his damnable deeds gallantry and peccadillo, I am tempted to hurl at him red-hot anathema, and to conclude that if, according to some people's theology, there is no hell, there ought to be ! There is enough out-and-out licentiousness in American cities to-day to bring down upon them the wrath of that God who, on the 24th of August, 79, buried Hercu- laneum and Pompeii so deep in ashes that the eighteen subsequent centuries have not been able to complete the exhumation. THE CLUB-HOUSE. Not least among the evils that threaten our nation is the club- house. Let us enter one of these advance posts of the army of Satan. 17 58 NATIONAL EVILS. You open the door, and the fumes of strong drink and tobacco are something almost intolerable. You do not have to ask what those young men are doing, for you can see, by the flushed cheek and intent look and almost angry way of tossing the dice and dropping the chips, that they are gambling. That is an only son seated there at another table. He has had all art, all culture, all refinement, showered upon him by his parents. This is the way he is paying them for their kindness. That is a young mar- ried man. A few months ago, he made promises of fidelity and kind- ness, every one of which he has broken. Around a table in the club- house there is a group telling vile stories. It is getting late now, and three-fourths of the members of the club are intoxicated. It is between twelve and one o'clock, and after a while it will be time to shut up. The conversation has got to be groveling, base, filthy, outrageous. It is time to shut up. The young men saunter forth those who can walk and balance themselves against the lamp-post or the fence. A young man not able to get out has a couch extemporized for him in the club-house, or is led to his father's house by two comrades not quite so overcome by strong drink. The door-bell is rung, the door opens, and these two imbecile escorts usher into the front hall the ghastliest thing ever ushered into a father's house a drunken son ! There are dissi- pating club-houses which would do well if they could make a contract with Inferno to furnish ten thousand men a year, and do that for twenty years, on the condition that no more would be asked of them. They would save hundreds of homesteads, and bodies, minds, and souls innumerable. The ten thousand they furnish a year, by contract, would be small when compared with the vaster multitudes they furnish with- out contract. Yet let it not be understood that I condemn all club- houses. I make a vast difference between the club-houses. I have during my life belonged to four clubs a base-ball club, a theological iclub, and two literary clubs. They were to me physical recuperation, mental food, moral health. The influence which some of the club-houses are exerting is the more to be deplored because it takes down the very best men. The admission fee sifts out the penurious, and leaves only the best fellows. They are frank, they are generous, they are whole-souled, they are talented. Oh, I begrudge the devil such a prize ! After a while the frank look will go out of the face, and the features will be haggard, 259 260 NATIONAL EVILS. 261 and when talking- to you, instead of looking- you in the eye, they wfll look down, and every morning the mother will kindly ask, " My son, what kept you out so late last night ?" and he will make no answer, or he will say, " That's my business." Then some time he will come to the store or the bank cross and befogged, and he will neglect some duty, and after a while he will lose his place, and then, with nothing- to do, he will come down at ten o'clock in the morning to curse the ser- vant because the breakfast is cold. The lad who was a clerk in the cellar has got to be chief clerk in the great commercial establishment ; the young man who ran errands for the bank has got to be cashier; thousands of the young men who were at the foot of the ladder have got to the top of the ladder ; but here goes the victim of the dissipat- ing club-house, with staggering step and bloodshot eye and mud-spat- tered hat set sidewise on a shock of greasy hair, his cravat dashed with cigar ashes. Look at him ! Pure-hearted young man, look at him ! The club-house did that ! The revolving Drummond light in front of a hotel, the signal light in front of a locomotive, may flash this way, and flash that, upon the mountains, upon the ravines, upon the city ; but I take the lamp of God's eternal truth, and I flash it upon all the club-houses of these cities, so that no young man shall be deceived. Oh, leave the dissi- pating influences of the club-room, if the influences of your club-room are dissipating ! Paid your money, have you ? Better sacrifice that than your soul. Good fellows, are they ? Under that process they will not remain such. Tufts of osier and birch grow on the hot lips of volcanic Sneehaettan ; but a pure heart and an honest life thrive in a dissipating club-house never ! The way to conquer a wild beast is to keep your eye on him, but the way for you to conquer your temptations, my friend, is to turn your back on them and fly for your Kfe. Oh, my heart aches ! I see men struggling against evil habits, and they want help. I have knelt beside such a man, and I have heard him cry for help ; and then we have risen, and he has put one hand on my right shoulder, and the other hand on my left shoulder, and looked into my face with an infinity of earnest- ness which the judgment day will have no power to make me forget. as he has cried out with his lips scorched in ruin, " God help me !** For such there is no help except in the Lord God Almighty. GLORIOUS OLD AGE. BLESSED is old age, if you let it come naturally. You cannot hide it. You may try to cover the wrinkles, but you cannot cover the wrinkles. If the time has come, for you to be old, be not ashamed to be old. The grandest things in all the universe are old old mountains, old rivers, old seas, old stars, and an old eternity. Then do not be ashamed to be old, unless you are older than the moun- tains, and older than the stars. How men and women will lie ! They say that they are forty, but they are sixty. They say that they are twenty, but they are thirty. They say that they are sixty, but they are eighty. How some people will lie ! Glorious old age, if it be found in the way of righteousness ! How beautiful was the old age of Jacob, leaning on the top of his staff; of John Quincy Adams, falling with the harness on ; of Washington Irving, sitting, pen in hand, amid the scenes himself had made classical ; of John Angell James, to the last proclaiming the Gospel to the masses of Birmingham ; of Theodore Frelinghuysen, down to feebleness and ema- ciation devoting his illustrious faculties to the kingdom of God ! At eventime it was light ! THE ALMOND-TREE BLOOM. Solomon gives us a full-length portrait of an aged man. By strik- ing figures of speech, he sets forth his trembling and decrepitude, and then comes to describe the whiteness of his locks by the blossoming of the almond-tree. It is the master-touch of the picture, for I see in that one sentence not only the appearance of the hair, but an announcement of the beauty of old age. The white locks of a bad man are but the gathered frosts of the second death, but "a hoary head is a crown of GLORIOUS OLD AGE. **>$ glory" if it be found in the way of righteousness. There may be no color in the cheek, no lustre in the eye, no spring in the step, no firm- ness in the voice, and yet around the head of every old man whose life has been upright and Christian there hovers a glory brighter than ever bloomed in the white tops of the almond-tree. If the voice quiver, it is because God is changing it into a tone fit for the celestial choral. If the back stoop, it is only because the body is just about to lie down in peaceful sleep. If the hand tremble, it is because God is unloosing it from worldly disappointments to clasp it on ringing harp and waving palm. If the hair has turned, it is only the gray light of heaven's dawn streaming through the scant locks. If the brow, once adorned by a lux- uriance of auburn or raven, is smitten with baldness, it is only because God is preparing a place to set the everlasting crown. THE OLD FOLKS. Blessed is the home where Christian parents come to visit. What- ever may have been the style of the architecture when they come, it is a palace before they leave. If they visit you fifty times, the two most memorable visits will be the first and the last. Those two pict- ures 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 doorsill they parted with you, giving you the final good-bye. Do not be embarrassed if your father come to town and 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 Em- peror Theodosius said a wise thing when she said, " Husband, remem- ber what you lately were, and remember what you are, and be thankful." ' "What a nuisance it is to have poor relations !" Joseph did not say that, but he rushed out to meet his father with perfect abandon of affection and brought him up to the palace, and introduced him to the monarch, and provided for all the rest of his 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 Rachel, Joseph's mother. 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 264 GLORIOUS OLD AGE. happens, when the son finds his father in famine, as Joseph found Jacob in famine, that the young people make it very hard for the old man. They are so surprised that he eats with a knife instead of a fork ! They are chagrined at his antediluvian habits. They are provoked because be 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 SORROWFUL OLD AGE. 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 so they go up to the drug-store and get a dose of something that makes him worse ; and they economize on a coffin, and beat the undertaker down to the last point, giving a note for the reduced amount, which they never pay ! FRCX'D younc* mother, in tKe glow Of life's glad morning, lonp was her happy ta.sk to guide His childish steps when, side by side, Along A sunlit" path they walked. His .small hand .clasped in, hers, and talked With Joyous tones, and lauoKter 'iht, /Nmid a world of beauty plow, bent beneath the \Aeight of One leans upon his arm, and hear*. The deep, stern voice his comrades know, Opcaking in accents soft and low, while, with erect and manly air, A noble son,v/ith loving care Me guides her feeble steps, whose day Of life is fading fast away ' \Vith grateful heart he dwells upon The gracious time, forever gone, The hours she watched and tended him ' And now her eyes are 6rowin6 dim, And strength -is failing, he will guide Her feeble steps with -tender pride Counting her love of higher worth Thdn dny prize he on earth GRANDMOTHER'S THOUGHTS 266 GLORIOUS OLD AGE, 267 I have officiated at obsequies of aged people where the family have been so inordinately resigned to the Providence that I felt like taking my text from Proverbs : "The eye that mocketh at its father, and re- fuseth 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 for aged parents. The blessing of the Lord God of Joseph and Jacob will be on you. 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 !ns chief delight in reciting to his parents the story of his victories, There goes /Eneas from burning Troy, and on his shoulders Anchises, his father. 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 ! MY FATHER. Through how many thrilling scenes he had passed ! He stood, at Morristown, in the choir that chanted when George Washington was buried ; talked with young men whose grandfathers he had held on his knee ; watched the progress of John Adams's administration ; denounced at the time Aaron Burr's infamy ; heard the guns that cele- brated the New Orleans victory; voted against Jackson, but lived long enough to wish we had one just like him ; remembered when the first steamer struck the North River with its wheel-buckets ; flushed with excitement in the time of National Banks and Sub-Treasury; was startled at the birth of telegraphy ; saw the United States grow from a speck on the world's map till all nations dipped their flag at our passing merchantmen, and our "national airs" were heard on the steeps of the Himalayas ; was born while the Revolutionary cannon were " My days pass pleasantly away My nights are blessed with sweetest sleep; I feel no symptoms of decay, [ have no cause to mourn or weep; 26? My foes are impotent and shy, My friends are neither false nor cold ; And yet, of late, I often sigh: ' I'm growing old.' * GLORIOUS OLD AGE. 269 coming home from Yorktown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the great Rebellion ; lived to speak the names of eighty children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Nearly all his contemporaries were gone. Aged Wilberforce said that sailors drink to "friends astern" until half way over the sea, and then drink to "friends ahead." With him it had for a long time been "friends ahead." So also with my father. Long and varied pil- grimage ! Nothing but sovereign grace could have kept him true, earnest, useful and Christian through so many exciting scenes. HIS TEMPERANCE PRINCIPLES. If there was a bright side to anything, my father always saw it. His name was a synonym for exhilaration of spirit. Some might ascribe this cheerfulness to natural disposition. No doubt there is such a thing as sunshine of temperament. But constitutional struct- ure certainly had much to do with it. He had, by a life of sobriety, preserved his freshness and vigor. You know that good habits are better than speaking-tubes to the ear ; better than a staff to the hand ; better than lozenges to the throat ; better than warm baths to the feet; better than bitters for the stomach. His lips had not been polluted nor his brain befogged by the fumes of the noxious weed that has sapped the life of whole generations, sending even ministers of the gospel to untimely graves, over which the tombstone declared, "Sacrificed by overwork in the Lord's vineyard," when, if the marble had not lied, it would have said, "Killed by villainous tobacco!" He abhorred anything that could intoxicate, being among the first in this country to join the crusade against alcoholic beverage. When urged, during a severe sickness, to take some stimulus, he said, "No; if I am to die, let me die sober ! " The swill of the brewery had never been poured around the roots of this thrifty almond. To the last week of his life his ear could catch a child's whisper, and at four score years his eyes refused spectacles, although he would sometimes have to hold the book off on the other side of the light, as octogena- rians are wont to do. No trembling of the hands, no rheum in the eyes, no knocking together of the knees, no hobbling on crutches with what polite society terms rheumatism in the feet, but what every- body knows is nothing but gout. Death came, not to fell the gnarled trunk of a tree worm-eaten and lightning-blasted, but to hew down a ajo GL OR TO US OLD AGE. Lebanon cedar, which made the mountains tremble and the heavens ring/ EARLY STRUGGLES. My father started in life belonging to the aristocracy of hard knuckles and homespun, but had this high honor that no one could despise ; he was the son of a father who loved God and kept his commandments. What is the house of Hapsburg, or Stuart, com- I )ared with the honor of being a son of the Lord God Almighty ? Two I eyes, two hands, and two feet were the capital my father started with. For fifteen years an invalid, he had a fearful struggle to support his large family. - Nothing but faith in God upheld him. His recital of help afforded and deliverances wrought was more like a romance than a reality. He walked through many a desert, but every morning had its manni, and every night its pillar of fire, and every hard rock a rod that could shatter it into crystal fountains at his feet. More than once he came to his last dollar, but right behind that last dollar he found Him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and out of the palm of whose hand all the fowls of heaven peck their food, and who hath given to each one of his disciples a warrantee deed for the whole universe in the words, "ALL ARE YOURS." He worked unweariedly from the sunrise of youth to the sunset of old age, and then, in the sweet nightfall of death, lighted by the starry promises, went home, taking his sheaves with him. Mounting from earthly to heavenly service, I doubt not there were a great multi- tude that thronged heaven's gate to hail him into the skies those whose sorrows he had appeased, whose burdens he had lifted, whose guilty souls he had pointed to a pardoning God, whose dying moments he had cheered, whose ascending spirits he had helped up on the wings of sacred music. I should like to have heard that long, loud, trium- phant shout of heaven's welcome. I think that the harps throbbed with another thrill, and the hills quaked with a mightier hallelujah. I Hail, ransomed soul! Thy race run thy toil ended. Hail to the coronation ! CLOSING SCENE. On the morning of the 27th of October just three years from the day when the soul of his companion sped into the heavens it was evident that the last moment had come. Softly the news came to all GLORIOUS OLD AGE. 271 the sleepers in the house, and the quick glance of lights from room to room signaled the coming of the death-angel. We took out our watches, and said, "Four o'clock and fifteen minutes!" The pulse fluttered as a tree-branch lifts and falls at the motion of a bird's wing about to cleave its way into the heavens. No quick start of pain ; no glassy stare ; but eyelid lightly closed, and calm lip, and white blos- soms of the almond-tree. From the stand we turned over the old timepiece that he had carried so long, and which he thought always went right, and announced, " Jiist four d clock and twenty minutes /" The tides of the cold river rising. Felt of the wrist, but no pulse ; of the temples, but no stir ; of the heart, but no action. We listened, but heard nothing. Still ! still ! The gates of the earthly prison-house silently open wider and wider. Clear the way for the conquering spirit! "Four o clock and thirty minutes!" Without a groan or a sigh, he had passed upward into the light. "And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people." " Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on his breast I lean my head, And breathe my life out sweetly there." MY MOTHER. A deep shadow fell across the old homestead. The "golden wedding" had been celebrated nine years before. My mother looked up, pushed back her spectacles, and said, "Just think of it, father, we have been together fifty-nine years ! " The twain stood together like two trees of the forest with interlocked branches. Their affections had taken deep root together in many a kindred grave. Side by side in life's great battle they had fought the good fight and won the day. But death comes to unjoint this alliance. God will not any longer let her suffer mortal ailments. The reward of righteousness is ready, and it must be paid. But what tearing apart ! What rending up ! What will the aged man do without this other to lean on ? Who can so well understand how to sympathize and counsel ? What voice so cheering as hers to conduct him down the steep of old age? "Oh," she said, in her last moments, " father, if you and I could only go together, how pleasant it would be ! " But the hush of death came down one au- tumnal afternoon, and for the first time in all my life, on my arrival t?a GLORIOUS OLD AGE. home, I received no maternal greeting, no answer of the lips, no pres- sure of the hand. God had taken her ! " An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." Spanish Proverb. " The mother's heart is the child's school room." Henry Ward Beecher. " The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon. " Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall ; a mother's secret hope outlives them a!'." Oliver W. Holmes. There are words that speak of a quenchless love Which burns in the hearts we cherish, And accents that tell of a friendship proved, That will never blight or perish. There are soft words murmured by dear, dear lips, Far richer than any other ; But the sweetest word that the ear hath heard Is the blessed name of Mother." Anonymous. THE BURDEN OF DEBT. THERE is one word that has dragged down more people into bankruptcy, and state-prison, and perdition, than any other word in the commercial world, and that is the word "borrow" This word is responsible for nearly all the defalcations, and embezzle- nents, and financial consternations of every land and age. When an executor takes money out of a large estate to speculate with it, he does not purloin it, he only "borrows." When a banker makes an overdraft that he may go into speculation, he does not commit a theft ; he only "borrows." When the head of a large financial institution, through flaming advertisements in some religious paper, or gilt-edged certificate, gets country people to put their money into some enter- ise for carrying on an undeveloped nothing, it is not fraud ; he only borrows." When a young man having easy access to a money drawer, or a confidential clerk having easy access to the books, takes a certain amount of money, and with it makes a Wall Street excursion, ho is going to put it back, he is going to put it all back, he is going to put it back pretty soon ; he only "borrows." What is needed is some one with giant limb to stand by the curbstone at the foot of Trinity Church, at the head of Wall Street, and when that word "borrow" comes bounding along, kick it clear to Wall Street Ferry, and if it strike the deck of the ferry-boat and bound clear over to Brooklyn Heights and Brooklyn Hill, all the better for the City of Churches. Why, when you are going to do wrong, need you pronounce so long - word as the word "borrow" a word of six letters when you can get .norter word, a word more accurate, a word more descriptive of the reality, a word of five letters the word " steal"? EXTRAVAGANCE. There have been no more absorbing questions in America than *hese: What caused " Black Wednesday "? What caused " Black 18 273 274 THE BURDEN OF DEBT. Friday"? What has caused all the black days of financial disaster with which Wall Street has been connected for the last forty years ? Some say it is the credit-system. Something back of that. Some say it is the spirit of gambling ever and anon becoming epi- demic. Something back of that. Some say it is the sudden shrink- age in the value of securities, which even the most honest and intelligent men could not have foreseen. Something back of that. I will give you the primal cause of all these disturbances. It is the extravagance of modern society which impels a man to spend more money than he can honestly make. He goes into Wall Street in order to get the means for inordinate display. Sometimes the man is to blame, and sometimes his wife, and oftener both. An income of five thousand dollars, often thousand dollars, of twenty thousand dollars, is not enough for a man to keep up the style of living he proposes, and therefore he steers his bark toward the maelstrom. Other men have suddenly snatched up fifty or a hundred thousand dollars why not he ? The present income of the man not being large enough, he must move earth and hell to catch up with his neighbors. Others have a country seat so must he. Others have an extravagant caterer so must he. Others have a palatial residence so must he. Extravagance is the cause of all the defalcations of the last forty years ; and if you will go through the history of all the great panics and the great financial disturbances, no sooner have you found the story of trouble than right back of it you find the story of how many horses the man had, how many carriages the man had, how many resi- dences in the country the man had, how many banquets the man gave; always, and not one exception, either directly or indirectly, extravagance was the cause. Now for the elegances and the refinements and the decorations of life I cast my vote. While I am considering this subject a basket of flowers is handed in flowers paradisaical in their beauty. White calla with a green background of begonia. A cluster of heliotropes nest- ling in geraniums. Sepal and perianth bearing on them the marks of God's finger. When I see that basket of flowers they persuade me that God loves beauty and adornment and decoration. God might have made the earth so as to supply the gross demands of sense, but have left it without adornment or attraction. Instead of the variegated colors of the seasons, the earth might have worn an unchanging dull THE BURDEN OF DEBT. 275 brown. The tree might have put forth its fruit without the prophecy of leaf or blossom. Niagara might have come down in gradual de- scent without thunder-winged spray. Yet not thus has God worked. We owe to his foreseeing wisdom the beauty and grandeur which it is our privilege and duty to admire and enjoy. Extravagance accounts for the disturbance of national finances. Aggregations are made up of units, and when one-half of the people of this country owe the other half, how can we expect financial pros- perity ? Every four years we get a great spasm of virtue, and when a President is to be elected we say, "Now, down with the old ad- ministration, and let us have another Secretary of the Treasury, and let us have a new deal of things, and then we will get over all our MODEST FRUGALITY. perturbation. " I do not care who is President or who is Secretary of the Treasury, or how much breadstuffs go out of the country, or how much gold is imported, for until we learn to pay our debts, and it be- Icomes a general theory in this country that men must buy no more than they can pay for, there will be no permanent prosperity. Look at the pernicious extravagance. Take the one fact that New York every year pays two million dollars for theatrical amusements. While once in a while a Henry Irving or an Edwin Booth or a Joseph Jefferson thrills a great audience with tragedy, you know as well as I do that the vast majority of the theatres of New York are as debased as debased they can be, as unclean as unclean they can be, and as damnable as 276 THE BURDEN OF DEBT. damnable they can be ! Of these two million dollars much the greater part has been swallowed up in a pernicious extravagance. GRAND LARCENY. Extravagance accounts for much of the pauperism which afflicts communities. Who are these people whom you have to help ? Many of them are the children of parents who had plenty, lived in luxury, had more than they needed, spent all they had spent more, too then died, and left their families in poverty. Some of those who call on you now for aid had an ancestry that supped on Burgundy and wood- cock. I could name a score of men who have every luxury. They smoke the best cigars, and they drink the finest wines, and they have the grandest surroundings, and when they die their families will go on the cold charity of the world. Now, the death of such a man is a grand larceny. He swindles the world as he goes into his coffin, and he deserves to have his bones sold to the medical museum for anatomical specimens, the proceeds to furnish bread for his children. I know it cuts close. Some of you make a great swash in life, and after a while you will die, and ministers will be sent for to come and stand by your coffin and lie about your excellencies; but they will not come. If you send forme, this will be my text : "He thatprovideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, is worse than an infidel." And yet we find Christian men, men of large means, who sometimes talk eloquently about the Christian Church and about civilization, expending everything on themselves and nothing on the cause of God, and they crack the back of their Palais Royal glove in trying to hide the one cent they put in the Lord's treasury. What an apportionment ! Twenty thousand dollars for ourselves, and one cent for God. Ah, my friends, this extravagance accounts for a great deal of what the cause of God suffers. And the desecration goes on, even to the funeral day. You know very well that there are men who die solvent, but the expenses are so great before they get under ground that they are insolvent. There are families that go into penury in wicked response to the de- mands of this day. They put into casket and tombstone that which they ought to put into bread. They wanted bread you give them a tombstone ! THE BURDEN OF DEBT. 77 my friends, let us take our stand against the extravagances of society. Do not pay for things which are frivolous, when you may lack the necessities of life. Do not pay one month's wages for one trinket. Keep your credit good by seldom asking for it. Pay ! Do not starve a whole year to afford one Belshazzar's carnival. Do not buy a coat of many colors, and then in six months be out at the elbows. Flourish not like some people I have known, who took apart- ments at a fashionable hotel, and had elegant drawing-rooms attached, and then vanished in the night, not even leaving their compliments for the landlord. I tell you, my friends, in the day of God's judgment, we will not only have to give an account for the way we made our money, but for the way we spent it. BILLS DUE. 1 will put on your table some bills of indebtedness. If they are wrong, don't pay them. If they are right, say so. The first bill of indebtedness that I put upon your table is the bill for rent. This world is the house that God built for us to live in. He lets it to us already furnished. What a carpet ! the grass interwoven with figure of flowers. What a ceiling ! the frescoed sky. What tapestried pillars ! the rocks. What a front door ! the flaming sunrise through which the day comes in. What a back door ! the sunset through which the day goes out. What a chandelier and candelabra ! the sun and stars. What a flour-bin ! the wheat-fields. What chimneys ! Stromboli and Cotopaxi. Ah ! the Alhambra and Windsor Castle are but Queenstown shanties compared with this great house that God has put up for us to live in, and of which the rent is due ! Are we ready to pay it? The next bill for indebtedness that I find upon the table is the bill for taxes. You have paid the city taxes, the state taxes, the United States taxes ; but have you paid God for letting you live in this beautiful city and in this glorious country? Think of the contrast between your own condition and that of those who heard the howling Communists rushing through the Champs Elysees of Paris, their shoes soaked with the blood of women and children ! What is this Brooklyn that we live in ? New York in its better mood, and surrounded with its family. What is this great nation ? The most divinely blessed that ever existed. Washington and Jefferson never dreamed of such a a;8 THE BURDEN OF DEBT. land as this has got to be. The Jews were God's ancient people; ; Americans are God's modern people. And we have the advantage over them. They wandered forty years through the desert ; we have gone for nigh a hundred years through a garden. God struck one rock for them, and the water came down to slake their thirst ; all the rocks of this land are struck to supply our thirst. One flock of quails came down to the Israelites, and they ate, and died ; this land is full of quails, and grosbeaks, and robins, and prairie-fowl, and the nation eats and lives. Manna came down in the dew for the Israelites r but if it was not picked right up, it became wormy ; God drops the manna down on all the wheat-fields from Pennsylvania to California, and we gather it into the granaries. You may not like the President of the United States ; you may not like the governor ; you may not like the mayor ; but, come now, men of all parties, be frank, and acknowledge that it is a glorious country to live in. You have paid the amount of earthly taxes you owe the city tax, the state tax, the United States tax, but " how much owest thou unto my Lord? ' There is one more bill of indebtedness laid upon the table, and that is the bill for your redemption. I have been told that the bells in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, never toll save when the king or some member of the royal family dies. The thunders in the dome of heaven never tolled so dolefully as when they rang out to the world the news, " King Jesus is dead ! " When a king dies, the whole land is put in black : they shroud the pillars ; they put the people in procession ; they march to a doleful drum-beat. What shall we do now that our King is dead? Put blackness on the gates of the morning. Let the cathedral organs wail ; let the winds sob ; let all the generations of men fall into line, and beat a funeral-march of woe ! woe ! woe ! as we go to the grave of our dead King. In Philadelphia they have a habit, after the coffin is deposited in the grave, of the friends going formally up and standing at the brink of the grave and looking in. So I take you all to-night to look into the grave of our dead King. The lines of care are gone out of his face. The wounds have stopped bleeding. Just lift up that lacerated hand. Lift it up, and then lay it down softly over that awful gash in the left side. He is dead ! He is dead ! Eight hundred years after Edward I. was buried, they brought up his body, and they found that he still lay with a crown on his head. CONDEMNING THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT 279 THORNS IN THE FIELD OF THE SLOTHFUL 280 THE BURDEN OF DEBT. 281 More than eighteen hundred years have passed, and I look into the grave of my dead King, and I see not only a crown, but "on his head are many crowns." And, what is more, he is rising. Yea, he has risen ! Time was when this could not be said ; time was when Christ's record was one of agony, his approaching fate a terrible death. In that day there was none to help. The wave of anguish came up to his feet, came up to his knee, floated to his waist, rose to his chin, swept to his temples, yet none to help ! Angels by thousands in the skies, ready, had God's word been spoken, to plunge into the affray and strike back the hosts of darkness, yet none to help ! none to help ! That day of agony has passed, and the day of victory has come. Weep not for our King, for He is risen. Ye who came to the grave weeping, go away rejoicing. Let your dirges now change to anthems. He lives ! Take off the blackness from the gates of the morning. He lives ! Let earth and heaven keep' jubilee. He lives ! "I know that my Redeemer lives ! THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAlK. FAIRS may be for the sale of goods, or for the exhibition of goods on a small scale or a large scale, for county or city, for one na tion or for all nations. Tyre was once the mispress of the sea and the queen of international commerce. All nations cast their crowns at her feet. Referring to the richest countries of the world, the sacred Book says of Tyre, "They traded in thy fairs." Look in upon a world's fair at Tyre. Ezekiel leads us through one department, and it is a horse-fair. Under-fed and over-driven for ages, the horses of to-day give you no idea of the splendid animals which, rearing and plunging and snorting and neighing, were brought down over the plank of the ships and led into the world's fair at Tyre, until Ezekiel, who was a minister of religion and not supposed to know much about horses, cried out in admiration, "They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses." Here in another department of that world's fair at Tyre, led on by Ezekiel the prophet, we find everything all ablaze with precious stones. Like petrified snow are the corals ; like fragments of fallen sky are the sapphires ; and here is agate ablush with all colors. What is that aroma we inhale ? It is from chests of cedar which we open, and find them filled with all styles of fabric. But the aromatics increase as we pass down this lane of en- chantment, and here are cassia and frankincense and balm. Led on by Ezekiel the prophet, we come to an agricultural fair with a display of wheat from Minnith and Pannag, rich as that of our modern Dakota or Michigan. And here is a mineralogical fair, with specimens of iron 'and silver and tin and lead and gold. But halt, for here is purple, Tyrian purple, of all tints and shades, deep almost unto the black and bright almost unto the blue ; waiting for kings and queens to order it (282) THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. 283 made into robes for coronation day ; purple not like that which is now made from the Orchilla weed, but the extinct purple, the lost purple, which the ancients knew how to make out of the gasteropod mollusks of the Mediterranean. Oh, look at those casks of wine from Helbon ! See those snow-banks of wool from the back of sheep that once pas- tured in Gilead ! Oh, the bewildering riches and variety of that world's fair at Tyre ! GREAT EXPOSITIONS. The world has copied these Bible-mentioned fairs in all succeeding ages, and it has had its Louis the Sixth's fair at Dagobert, and Henry the First's fair on St. Bartholomew's day, and Hungarian fairs at Pesth, and Easter fairs at Leipsic, and the Scotch fairs at Perth, (bright was the day when I was at one of them,) and afterward came the London world's fair, and the New York world's fair, and the Vienna world's fair, and the Parisian world's fair, and the Centennial world's fair, and it has been decided that, in commemoration of the discovery of America in 1492, there shall be held in this country in 1893 allowing one year of grace to cover municipal strife and official mismanagement a world's fair that shall eclipse all preceding national expositions. God speed the movement ! Surely the event commemorated is worthy of all the architecture and music and pyrotechnics and eloquent and stupendous planning and monetary expenditure and congressional appropriations which the most sanguine Christian patriot has ever dreamed of. Was any voyage that the world ever heard of crowned with such an arrival as that of Columbus and his men ? After they had been encouraged for the last few days by flight of land-birds and floating branches of red berries, and while Columbus was down in the cabin studying the sea-chart, Martin Pinzon, standing on deck and looking to the southwest, cried, "Land! Land! Land!" And "Gloria in Excelsis " was sung in raining tears on all the three ships of the ex- pedition. Most appropriate and patriotic and Christian will be a com- memorative world's fair. I want to say some things from the point of Christian patriotism which ought to be said, and the earlier the better, that we may get thousands of people talking in the right direction, and that will make healthful public opinion. I beg you to consider prayerfully what I feel 2 g 4 THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. called upon of God as an American citizen and as a preacher of right- eousness to utter. THEIR RELIGIOUS ASPECT. My first suggestion concerning the coming exposition is, let not the materialistic and monetary idea overpower the moral and religious. During that exposition for the first time in all their lives, there will be thousands of people from other lands who will see a country without a state religion. Let us, by an increased harmony among all denomina- tions of religion, impress other nationalities, as they come here that year, with the superior advantage of having all denominations equal in the sight of government. All the rulers and chief men of Europe be- long to the state religion, whatever it may be. Although our last two Presidents have been Presbyterians, the previous one was an Episcopa- lian ; and the two preceding, Methodists ; and going further back in that line of presidents, we find Martin Van Buren a Dutch Reformed ; and John Quincy Adams a Unitarian ; and a man's religion in this country is neither a hindrance nor an advantage in the matter of political elevation. All Europe needs that. All the world needs that. A man's religion is something between himself and his God, and it must not, directly or indirectly, be interfered with. Furthermore, during that exposition, Christian civilization will con- front barbarism. We shall, as a nation, have a greater opportunity to make an evangelizing impression upon foreign nationalities than would otherwise be afforded us in a quarter of a century. Let the churches of the city where the exposition is held be open every day, and prayers be offered and sermons preached and doxologies sung. In the interim, let us get a baptism of the Holy Ghost, so that the six months of that world's fair shall be fifty Pentecosts in one, and instead of three thous- and converted, as in the former Pentecost, hundreds of thousands will be converted. You must remember that the Pentecost mentioned in the Bible occurred when there was no printing-press, no books, no Christian pamphlets, no religious newspapers, and yet the influence was tremendous. How many nationalities were touched ? The ac count says: " Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites," that is, people from the eastern countries; " Phrygia and Pamphylia," that is, the western countries ; " Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Cretes and Arabians," that is, the southern countries ; but they were all moved by tfie mighty spectacle. Instead of the sixteen or eighteen tribes of COLUMBUS ADDRESSING HIS MEN DURING THE MUTINY ON BOARD HIS SHIP zoo 286 THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. 287 people reported at that Pentecost, all the chief nations of Europe and Asia, North and South America, will be represented at our world's fair in 1893, and a Pentecost here and then would mean the salvation of the round world. But, you say, we may have at that fair the people of all lands and all the machinery for gospelization, the religious printing-presses and the churches, but all that would not make a Pentecost ; we must have God. Well, you can have Him. Has He not been graciously waiting? Nothing stands in the way but our own unbelief, and indolence, and sin. May God break down the barriers ! The grandest opportunity for the evangelization of all nations since Jesus Christ died on the cross will be the world's exposition of 1893. God may take us out of the harvest-field before that, but let it be known throughout Christendom that that year between May and November will be the mountain of Christian advantage, the Alpine and Himalayan heights of opportunity overtopping all others for salvation. Instead of the slow process of having to send the Gospel to other lands by our own American mis- sionaries, who have difficult toil in acquiring the foreign language and then must contend with foreign prejudices, what a grand thing it will be to have able and influential foreigners converted during their visit in America, and then have them return to their native lands with the glorious tidings ! Oh, for an overwhelming work of grace for the year 1893! A PEACE-CONGRESS. Another opportunity, if our public men see it and it is the duty of pulpit and printing-press to help them to see it will be the calling at that time and place of a legal peace-congress for all nations. The convention of representatives from the governments of North and South America, recently held at Washington, is only a type of what we may have on a vast and a world-wide scale at the international expo- sition of 1893. By one stroke the gorgon of war might be siain and \ buried so deep that neither trumpet of human dispute or of archangel's i blowing could resurrect it. When the last Napoleon called such a con- gress of nations many did not respond, and those that did respond gathered, wondering what trap that wily destroyer of the French Re- public and the builder of a French monarchy might spring on them. But what if the most popular government on earth I mean the United States government should practically say to all nations : On the THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. American continent, in 1893, we w ^ hold a world's fair, and all nations will send to it specimens of their products, their manufactures, and their arts, and we invite all the Governments of Europe, Asia and Africa, to send representatives to a peace-convention that shall be held at the same time and place, and that shall establish an international arbitration commission, to whom shall be referred all controversies be- tween nation and nation, their decision to be final, so that all nations may be relieved from the expense of standing armies and naval equip- ment, war having been made an everlasting impossibility. All the nations of the earth worth consideration would come to it ; mighty men of England, and Germany, and France, and Russia, and all the other great nationalities ; Bismarck, who worships the Lord of Hosts, and Gladstone, who worships the God of Peace, and Boulanger, who worships himself. The fact is, that the nations are sick of drinking out of chalices made of human skulls and filled with blood. The United States Government is the only government in the whole world that could successfully call such a congress. Suppose France should call it, Germany would not come ; or Germany should call it, France would not come ; or Russia should call it, Turkey would not come ; or England should call it, nations long jealous of her overshadowing power in Europe would not come. America, in favor with all nation- alities, standing out independent and alone, is the spot, and 1893 w ^ be the time. May this proposition please the President of the United States, may it please the Secretary of State, may it please the Cabinet, may \t please the Senate and House of Representatives, may it please the printing-presses, and the churches, and the people, who lift up and put down our American rulers. To them all I make this timely, and solemn, and Christian appeal. Do you not think people die fast enough with- out this wholesale butchery of war ? Do you not think that we can trust to pneumonias, and consumptions, and apoplexies, and palsies, and yellow fevers, and Asiatic choleras, the work of killing them fast enough? Do you not think that the greedy, wide-open jaws of the grave ought to be satisfied if filled by natural causes with hundreds of thousands of corpses a year ? Do you not think we can do something better with men than to dash their lives out against casements, or blow them into fragments by torpedoes, or send them out into the world, where they need all their faculties, footless, armless, eyeless ? Do you THE COLUMBIAN WORLDS FAIR. 289 not think that women might be appointed to an easier place than the edge of a grave-trench to wring their pale hands, and weep out their eyesight in widowhood and childlessness ? The last glory has gone out of war. HORRORS OF WAR. There was a time when war demanded that quality which we all admire namely, courage for a man had to stand at the hilt of his sword when the point pierced the foe, and while he was slaying another the other might slay him ; or it was bayonet charge. But now it is cool and deliberate murder, and clear out at sea a bombshell can be hurled miles away into a city ; or while thousands of private soldiers, who have no interest in the contest, for they were conscripted, are losing their lives, their General may sit smoking one of the best Havana cigars after a dinner of quail on toast. It may be well enough for graduating students of colleges on commencement day to orate about the poetry of war ; but do not talk about the poetry of war to the men of the Federal or Confederate armies who were at the front, or to some of us who, as members of the Christian commission, saw the ghastly hospitals at Antietam and Hagerstown. Ah ! you may worship the Lord of Hosts, I worship the "God of Peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep." War is an accursed monster and it was born in the lowest cavern of perdition, and I pray that it may speedily descend to the place from which it arose, its last sword and shield and musket rattling on the bottom of the red hot marl of hell. Let there be called a peace-con- vention for 1893, with delegates sent by all the decent Governments of Christendom, and while they are in session, if you should some night go out and look into the sky above the exposition buildings, you may find that the old gallery of crystal, that was taken down after the Beth- lehem anthem of eighteen centuries ago was sung out, is rebuilt again in the clouds, and the same angelic singers are returned with the sam< librettos of light to chant " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men." FOREIGN VICES. Again, I suggest in regard to the World's Fair that, while appro- priate places are prepared for all foreign exhibits, we make no room for the importation of foreign vices. America has enough of its own, 19 290 THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. and we need no installments of that kind. A world's fair will bring all kinds of people, good and bad. The good we must prepare to wel- come, the bad we must prepare to shun. The attempt will again be made in 1893, as m I 8y6, to break up our American Sabbaths. That attempt was made at the Philadelphia Centennial, but was defeated, i he American Sabbath is the best kept Sabbath on earth. We do not want it broken down, and substituted in the place thereof the Brussels Sabbath, the Vienna Sabbath, the St. Petersburg Sabbath, or any of the foreign Sabbaths, which are no Sabbaths at all. I think the Lord is more than generous in asking only fifty-two days out of the three hun- dred and sixty-five for his service. You let the Sabbath go and with it will go your Bible, and after that your liberties, and your children or your grandchildren will be here in America under a despotism as bad as in those lands where they turn the Lord's day into wassail and frolic. Among those who come there will be, as at other expositions, lordly people who will bring their vices with them. Among the dukes and duchesses and princes and princesses of other lands are some of the best men and women of all the earth. Remember Earl of Kintore, Lord Cairns, and Lord Shaftesbury. But there is a snobbery and flun- kyism in American society that runs after a grandee, a duke, a lord, or a prince, though he may be a walking lazaretto and his breath a plague. It makes the fortune of some of our queens of society to dance one cotillon with one of these princely lepers. Some people cannot get their hat off quick enough when they see such a foreign lord approaching, and they do not care for the mire into which they drop their knees as they bow to worship. Let no splendor of pedigree or any pomp and paraphernalia of circumstance make him attractive. There is only one set of Ten Commandments that I ever heard of, and no class of men or women in all the world are excused from obedience to those laws written by finger of lightning on the granite surface of Mount Sinai. Surely we have enough American vices without making any drafts upon European vice for 1893. THE BRIGHT SIDE. I rejoice to believe that the advantages will overtop everything in that world's fair. What an introduction to each other of communities, of states, of republics, of empires, of zones, of hemispheres ! What doors of information will be swung wide open for the boys and girls THE COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. 291 now on the threshold ! What national and international education ! What crowning of industry with sheaves of grain, and what imperial robing of her with embroidered fabrics ! What scientific apparatus ! What telescopes for the infinitude above and microscopes for the infin- itude beneath, and instruments to put nature to the torture until she tells her last secret ! What a display of the munificence of the God who has grown enough wheat to make a loaf of good bread large enough for the human race, and enough cotton to stocking every foot, and enough timber to shelter every head, making it manifest that it is not God's fault, but either man's oppression or indolence or dissipation if there be any without supply. What churches! What public libraries ! What asylums of mercy ! What academies of music ! What mighty men in law and medicine and art and scholarship ! What schools and colleges and universities ! What women radiant and gra- cious, and an improvement on all the generations of women since Eve ! What philanthropists who do not feel satisfied with their own charities until they get into the hundreds of thousands and the millions ! What "God's acres" for the dead, gardens of beauty and palaces of marble for those who sleep the last sleep ! Under the arches of the chief building of that exposition let capi- tal and labor, too long estranged, at last be married, each taking the hand of each in pledge of eternal fidelity, while representations of all nations stand round rejoicing at the nuptials, and saying: "What God hath joined together let not man put asunder." Then shall the thren- ody of the needle-woman no longer be heard : " Work, work, work ! Till the brain begins to swim; Work, work, work ! Till the eyes are heavy and dim. Seam and gusset and band, Band and gusset and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream." O Christian America ! Make ready for the grandest exposition ever seen under the sun ! Have Bibles enough bound. Have churches enough established. Have scientific halls enough endowed. Have printing-presses .enough set up. Have revivals of religion enough in full blast. I believe you will. " Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! " CAPTIVES SET FREE. f 1 ^HERE is intense excitement in the village of Ziklag. David and his men are bidding good-bye to their families, and are off for the wars. In that little village of Ziklag the defenseless ones will be safe until the warriors, flushed with victory, come home. But will the defenseless ones be safe ? The soft arms of children are around the necks of the bronzed warriors until they shake themselves free and start, and handkerchiefs and flags are waved and kisses thrown until the armed men vanish be- yond the hills. David and his men soon get through with their cam- paign and start homeward. Every night on their way home, no sooner does the soldier put his head on the knapsack than in his dream he hears the welcome of the wife and the shout of the child. Oh, what long stories they will have to tell their families, of how they dodged the battle-axe, and then will roll up their sleeve and show the half- healed wound ! With glad, quick step they march on, David and his men, for they are marching home. Now they come up to the last hill which overlooks Ziklag, and they expect in a moment to see the dwelling-places of their loved ones. They look, and as they look their cheeks turn pale, and their lips quiver, and their hand involuntarily comes down on the hilt of the sword. "Where is Ziklag? Where are our homes? " Alas ! the curling smoke above the ruin tells the tragedy. The Amalekites have come down and consumed the village, and carried the mothers and the wives and the children of David and his men into captivity. THE HOT PURSUIT. The swarthy warriors stand for a few moments transfixed with horror. Then their eyes glance at each other, and they burst into 292 CAPTIVES SET FREE. 20 3 uncontrollable weeping for when a strong warrior weeps, the grief is appalling. It seems as if the emotion might tear him to pieces. They " wept until they had no more power to weep." But soon their sorrow turns into rage, and David, swinging his sword high in the air, cries, " Pursue, for thou shalt overtake them, and without fail recover all" Now the ma r ch becomes a "double- quick." Two luindred of David's men stop by the brook Besor, faint with fatigue and grief. They cannot go a step farther. They are left there. But the other four hundred men under David, with a sort of panther step, march on in sorrow and in rage. They find by the side of the road a half dead Egyptian, and they resuscitate him, and compel him to tell the whole story. He says, " Yonder they went, the cap- tors and the captives," pointing in the direction. Forward, ye four hundred brave men of fire ! Very soon David and his enraged company come upon the Amalekitish host. Yonder they see their owrt wives and children and mothers, and under Amalekitish guard. Here are the officers of the Amalekitish army holding a banquet. The cups are full, the music is roused, the dance begins. The Amalekitish host cheer and cheer and cheer over their victory. But, without note of bugle or warning of trumpet, David and his four hundred men burst upon the scene, sud- denly as Robert Bruce hurled his Scotchmen upon the revelers at Ban- nockburn. David and his men look up, and one glance at their loved ones in captivity and under Amalekitish guard, throws them into a very fury of determination ; for you know how men will fight when they fight for their wives and children. Ah, there are lightnings in their eye, and every finger is a spear, and their voice is like the shout of the whirlwind. Amidst the upset tankards and the costly viands crushed under foot, the wounded Amalekites lie (their blood mingling with their wine), shrieking for mercy. No sooner do David and his men win the victory than they throw their swords down into the dust what do they want with swords now? and the broken families come together amidst a great shout of joy that makes the parting scene in Ziklag seem very insipid in the comparison. The rough old warrior has to use some per- suasion before he can get his child to come to him now after so long an absence ; but soon the little finger traces the familiar wrinkles across the scarred face. And then the empty tankards are set up, and they are filled with the best wine from the hills, and David and his men, the *94 CAPTIVES SET FREE. husbands, the wives, the brothers, the sisters, drink to the overthrow of the Amalekites and to the rebuilding of Ziklag. " So, O Lord, let thine enemies perish ! " THE JOYFUL RETURN. Now they are coming home David and his men and their families -a long procession. Men, women and children, loaded with jewels and robes, and with all kinds of trophies that the Amalekites had gathered up in years of conquest everything now in the hands of David and his men. When they come to the brook Besor, the place where staid the men sick and incompetent to travel, the jewels and the robes and all kinds of treasures are divided among the sick as well aook Besor. They could not take another step farther. Their feet were sore ; their heads ached ; their entire nature was exhausted. Be- s : des that, they were broken-hearted because their homes were gone. Ziklag in ashes ! And yet David, when he comes up to them, divides the spoils among them. He says they shall have some of the jewels, some of the robes, some of the treasures. I see hundreds around me who have fainted by the brook Besor the brook of tears. You feel as if you could not take another step farther, as though you could never look up again. But I am going to imitate David, and divide among you some glorious trophies. Here is a robe : " All things work together for good, to them that love God." Wrap yourself in that glorious promise. Here is for your neck a string of pearls, made out of crys- tallized tears : " Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Here is a coronet: " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." O ye fainting ones by the brook 302 CAP TIVES SE T FRE E. Besor, dip your blistered feet in the running stream of God's mercy. Bathe your brow at the wells of salvation. Soothe your wounds with the balsam that exudes from the trees of life. God will not utterly cast you off, O broken-hearted man, O broken-hearted woman, fainting by the brook Besor. A shepherd finds that his musical pipe is bruised. He says: "I can't get any more music out of this instrument, so I will just break it and throw it away. Then I will get another reed, and I will play music on that." But God says He will not cast you off because all the music has gone out of your soul. "The bruised reed He will not break." As far as I can tell the diagnosis of your disease, you want Divine nursing, and it is promised you : " As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." God will see you all the way through, O troubled soul, and when you come down to the Jordan of death, you will find it to be as thin a brook as Besor ; for Dr. Robinson says that, in April, Besor dries up, and there is no brook at all. And in your last moment you will be as placid as the Kentucky minister who went up to God, saying, in the dying hour: "Write to my sister Kate, and tell her not to be worried and frightened about the story of the horrors around the death-bed. Tell her there is not a word of truth in it, for I am there now, and Jesus is with me, and I find it a very happy way ; not because I am a good man, for I am not ; I am nothing but a poor, miserable sinner ; but I have an Almighty Saviour, and both of his arms are around me." THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. WE are to-day at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus and 'M<* mother have been invited. It is evident that there are more people there than were expected. Either some people have come who were not invited, or more invitations have been sent out than it was supposed would be accepted. Of course there is not enough supply of wine. You know that there is nothing more embar- rassing to a housekeeper than a scant supply. Jesus sees the embar- rassment, and He comes up immediately to relieve it. He sees standing six water-pots. He orders the servants to fill them with water, then waves his hand over the water, and immediately it is wine real wine. Taste of it, and see for yourselves ; no logwood in it, no strychnine in it, but first-rate wine wine so good that the ruler of the feast tastes it and says : "Why, this is really better than anything we have had! Thou hast kept the good wine until now." Beautiful miracle ! A prize was offered to the person who should write the best essay about the miracle in Cana. Long manuscripts were presented in the competition, but a true poet won the prize by just this one line descriptive of the miracle : " The conscious water saw its God, and blushed. ' LESSONS OF THE MIRACLE. We learn from this miracle, in the first place, that Christ has sym- pathy with housekeepers. You might have thought that Jesus would have said : " I cannot be bothered with this household deficiency of wine. It is not for me, Lord of heaven and of earth, to become caterer to this feast. I have vaster things than this to attend to." Not so said Jesus. The wine gave out, and Jesus, by miraculous power, came to the rescue. Does there ever come a scant supply in your household ? 303 304 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. Have you to make a very close calculation ? Is it hard work for you to carry on things decently and respectably? If so, don't sit down and cry. Don't go out and fret ; but go to Him who stood in the house in Cana of Galilee. Pray in the parlor ! Pray in the kitchen ! Let there be no room in all your house unconsecrated by the voice of prayer. I learn also from this miracle that Christ does things in abundance. I think a small supply of wine would have made up for the deficiency. I think certainly they must have had enough for half of the guests. One gallon of wine will do ; certainly five gallons will be enough ; cer- tainly ten. But Jesus goes on, and He gives them thirty gallons, and torty gallons, and fifty gallons, and seventy gallons, and one hundred gallons, and one hundred and thirty gallons of the very best wine. It is just like Him to do everything on the largest and most gen- erous scale. Does Christ, our Creator, go forth to make leaves ? He makes them by the whole forest full ; notched like the fern, or silvered like the aspen, or broad like the palm ; thickets in the tropics, Oregon forests. Does He go forth to make flowers ? He makes plenty of them ; they flame from the hedge, they hang from the top of the grape- vine in blossoms, they roll in the blue wave of the violets, they toss their white surf into the spiraea enough to have for every child's hand a flower, enough to make for every brow a chaplet, enough to cover up with beauty the ghastliness of all the graves. Does He go forth to create water? He pours it out, not by the cupful, but by a river full, a lake full, an ocean full, pouring it out until all the earth has enough to drink, and enough with which to wash. Does Jesus, our Lord, provide redemption? It is not a little sal- vation for this one, a little for that, and a little for the other, but enough for all " Whosoever will, let him come." Each man can have an ocean full for himself. Promises for the young, promises for the old, promises for the lowly, promises for the blind, for the halt, for the out- cast, for the abandoned. Pardon for all, comfort for all, mercy for all, heaven for all ; not merely a cupful of Gospel supply, but one hundred and thirty gallons. Aye, the tears of godly repentance are all gathered up into God's bottle, and some day, standing before the throne, we will lift our cup of delight and ask that it be filled with the wine of heaven ; and Jesus, from that bottle of tears, will begin to pour in the cup, and we will cry, " Stop, Jesus, we do not want to drink our own THE BREAD THAT COMETH DOWN FROM HEAVEN 20 305 3o6 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. tears ! " and Jesus will say, ' ' Know ye not that the tears of earth are the wine of heaven ? " Sorrow may endure, but joy cometh in the morning. HIDE YOUR SORROWS. I remark further : Jesus does not shadow the joys of others with his own griefs. He might have sat down in that wedding and said: "I have so much trouble, so much poverty, so much persecution, and the cross is corning ; I shall not rejoice, and the gloom of my face and of my sorrows shall be cast over all this group." So said not Jesus. He said to Himself: "Here are two persons starting out in married life. Let it be a joyful occasion. I will hide my own griefs. I will kindle their joy." There are many not so wise as that. I know a household where there are many little children, yet where for two years the musical instrument has been kept shut because there has been trouble in the house. Alas for the folly! Parents saying : "We will have no Christmas tree this coming holiday because there has been trouble in the house. Hush that laughing upstairs! How can there be any joy when there has been so much trouble ?'' And so they make everything consistently doleful, and send their sons and daughters to ruin with the gloom they throw around them. Oh, my dear friends, do you not know that those children will have trouble enough of their own after a while ? Be glad they cannot ap- preciate all yours. Keep back the cup of bitterness from youi daughter's lips. When your head is down in the grass of the tomb v poverty may come to her, betrayal to her, bereavement to her. Keep back the sorrows as long as you can. Do you not know that that son may, after a while, have his heart broken ? Stand between him and all harm. You may not fight his battles long ; fight them while you may. Throw not the chill of your own despondency over his soul ; rather be like Jesus, who came to the wedding hiding his own grief and kindling the joys of others. So I have seen the sun, on a dark day, struggling amidst clouds, black, ragged and portentous, but after a while, with golden pry, it heaved back the blackness ; and the sun laughed to the lake, and the lake laughed to the sun, and from horizon to horizon, under the saffron sky, the water was all turned into wine. LUXURIES OF LIFE. I learn from this miracle that Christ is not impatient with the luxuries of life. It was not necessary that they should have that wine. 307 3o8 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. Hundreds of people have been married without any wine. We do not read that any of the other provisions fell short. When Christ made the wine it was not a necessity, but a positive luxury. I do not believe that He wants us to eat hard bread and sleep on hard mattresses, un- less we like them the best. I think, if circumstances will allow, we have a right to the luxuries of dress, the luxuries of diet, and the luxuries of residence. There is no more religion in an old coat than in a new one. We can serve God drawn by golden-plated harness as certainly as when we go a-foot. Jesus Christ will dwell with us under a fine ceiling as well as under a thatched roof; and when you can get wine made out of water, drink as much of it as you can. What is the difference between a Chinese mud hovel and an American home? What is the difference between the rough bear- skins of the Russian boor and the outfit of an American gentleman ? No difference, except that which the Gospel of Christ, directly or indi- rectly, has caused. When Christ shall have vanquished all the world, I suppose every house will be a mansion, and every garment a robe, and every horse an arch-necked courser, and every carriage a glittering vehicle, and every man a king, and every woman a queen, and the whole earth a paradise ; the glories of the natural world harmonizing with the glories of the material world, until the very bells of the horses shall jingle the praises of the Lord. I remark again that Christ comes to us in the hour of our extremity. He knew the wine was giving out before there was any embarrassment or mortification. Why did He not perform the miracle sooner? Why wait until it was all gone, and no help could come from any source, and then come in and perform the miracle ? This is Christ's way ; and when He did come in, at the hour of extremity, He made first-rate wine, so that they cried out, "Thou hast kept the good wine until now." Jesus in the hour of extremity ! He seems to prefer that hour. In a Christian home in Poland great poverty had come, and on the next day the man would be obliged to move out of the house with his whole family. That night he knelt with his family and prayed to God. While they were kneeling in prayer there was a tap on the window- pane. They opened the window, and there was a raven that the family had fed and trained, and it had in its bill a ring all set with precious stones, which was found out to be a ring belonging to the royal family. It was taken up to the king's residence, and for the honesty of the 'THE MARRIA GE AT CANA. 39 man in bringing it back he had a house given to him, and a garden, and a farm. Who was it that sent the raven to tap on the window? The same God that sent the raven to feed Elijah by the brook Cherith. Christ in the hour of extremity ! WEDDING OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. Jesus has invited us to a grand wedding to be celebrated when he comes. You know the Bible says that the Church is the Lamb's wife, and the Lord will after a while come to fetch her home. There will be gleaming of torches in the sky, and the trumpets of God will ravish the air with their music, and Jesus will stretch out his hand, and the Church, robed in white, will put aside her veil, and look up into the face of her Lord the King, and the bridegroom will say to the bride : "Thou hast been faithful through all these years ! The mansion is ready ! Come home ! Thou art fair, my love !" Then He will put upon her brow the crown of dominion, and the table will be spread, and it will reach across the skies, and the mighty ones of heaven will come in, garlanded with beauty and striking their cymbals ; and the bridegroom and bride will stand at the head of the table, and the banqueters, looking up, will wonder and admire, and say : " That is Jesus the bridegroom ; but the scar on his brow is covered with the coronet, and the stab in his side is covered with a robe ! And that is the bride ! The weariness of her earthly woe is lost in the flush of her wedding triumph !" NATURE'S LESSONS. WHEN Eve touched the forbidden tree it seemed as if the sin- ful contact had smitten not only that tree, but as if the air had caught the pollution from the leaves, and as if the sap had carried the virus down into the very soil until the entire earth reeked with the leprosy. Under that sinful touch nature withered. The inanimate creation, as if aware of the damage done it, sent up the thorn and brier and nettle to wound and fiercely oppose the human race. Now as the physical earth felt the effects of the first transgression, so it shall also feel the effect of the Saviour's mission. As from that one tree in Paradise a blight went forth through the entire earth, so from one tree on Calvary another force shall speed out to interpene- trate and check, subdue and override the evil. In the end it shall be found that the tree of Calvary has more potency than the tree of Para- dise. As the nations are evangelized, I think a corresponding change will be effected in the natural world. I verily believe that the trees, and the birds, and the rivers, and the skies will have their millennium. If man's sin affected the ground, and the vegetation, and the atmos- phere, shall Christ's work be less powerful or less extensive ? Oh, what harvests shall be reaped when neither drouth, nor ex- cessive rain, nor mildew, nor infesting insects shall arrest their growth, and the utmost capacity of the fields for production shall be tested by an intelligent and athletic yeomanry. Thrift and competency char- acterizing the world's inhabitants, their dwelling-places shall be graceful and healthy and adorned. Tree and arbor and grove round about will look as if Adam and Eve had got back to Paradise. Great cities, now neglected and unwashed, shall be orderly, adorned with architectural symmetry, and connected with far distant seaports by present modes of transportation carried to their greatest perfection, (310) -*' y ' THE tawny eagle seats his callow brood High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood: On Snowdon's rocks, or Orkney's wide domain, Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main, The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms, Amidst the gathering clouds and sullen storms ; Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight, And holds his sounding pinions poised for flight- With cruel eye premeditates the war, And marks his destined victim from afar ; Descending in a whirlwind to the ground, His pinions like the rush of waters sound : The fairest of the fold he bears away, And to his nest compels the struggling prey ; He scorns the game by meaner hunters tore, And dips his talons in no vulgar gore. ANNA L. BARBAULD. 311 3 ia NATURE'S LESSONS. or by new inventions yet to spring up out of the water or drop from the air at the beck of a Morse or a Robert Fulton belonging to future generations. NATURE'S TESTIMONY. The first contribution that nature gives to the Church is her testi- mony in behalf of the truth of Christianity. This is an age of profound research. Nature cannot evade man's inquiries as formerly. In the chemist's laboratory she is put to the torture and compelled to yield up her mysteries. Hidden laws have come out of their hiding-place. The earth and the heavens, since they have been ransacked by geologist and botanist and astronomer, appear so different from what they once were that they may be called "the new heavens and the new earth." This research and discovery will have a powerful effect upon the religious world. They must either advance or arrest Christianity, make men better or make them worse, be the Church's honor or the Church's overthrow. Christians, aware of this in the early ages of discovery, were nervous and fearful as to the progress of science. They feared that some natural law, before unknown, would suddenly spring into harsh collision with Christianity. Gunpowder and the gleam of swords would not so much have been feared by religionists as electric batteries, voltaic piles, and astronomical apparatus. It was feared that Moses and the prophets would be run over by skeptical chemists and philosophers. Some of the followers of Aristotle, after the invention of the telescope, refused to look through that instrument, lest what they saw should overthrow the teachings of that great philosopher. But the Christian religion has no such apprehension now. Bring on your telescopes and microscopes and spectroscopes and the more the better. The God of nature is the God of the Bible, and in all the universe and in all the eternities He has never once con- tradicted Himself. Christian merchants endow universities, and in them Christian professors instruct the children of Christian communi- ties. The warmest and most enthusiastic friends of Christ are the bravest and most enthusiastic friends of science. The Church re- joices as much over every discovery as the world rejoices. Good men have found that there is no war between science and religion. That which at first seemed to be the weapon of the infidel has turned out to be the weapon of the Christian, NA TURKS LESSONS. 3 T ., Men who have gone to Palestine infidels have come back Christians. They who were blind and deaf to the truth at home have seemed to see Christ again preaching upon Olivet, and have beheld in vivid im- agination the Son of God again walking the hills about Jerusalem. Caviglia once rejected the truth, but afterward said : " I came to Egypt, and the Scriptures and the pyramids converted me." When I was in Beyrout, Syria, our beloved American missionary, Rev. Dr. Jessup, told me of his friend who met a skeptic at Joppa, the seaport of Jerusalem, and the unbeliever said to his friend : "I am going into the Holy Land to show up the folly of the Christian religion. I am going to visit all the so-called ' sacred places ' and write them up, and show the world that the New Testament is an imposition upon the world's credulity." Months after, Dr. Jessup's friend met the skeptic at Bey- rout, after he had completed his journey through the Holy Land. "Well, how is it?" said the aforesaid gentleman to the skeptic. The answer was : " I have seen it all, and I tell you the Bible is true ! Yes ; it is all true !" The man who went to destroy came back to defend. And from what I myself saw during my recent absence, I conclude that any one who can go through the Holy Land and remain an unbe- liever is either a bad man or an imbecile. God employed men to write the Bible, but He took many of the same truths which they recorded and with his own almighty hand He gouged them into the rocks and drove them down into dismal depths, and, as documents are put into the corner-stone of a temple, so in the very foundation of the earth He folded up and placed the records of heavenly truth. The earth's corner-stone was laid, like that of other sacred edifices, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Author of revelation, standing among the great strata, looked upon Moses and said : "Let us record for future ages the world's history ; you write it there on papyrus ; I will write it here on the bowlders." At Hawarden, England, Mr. Gladstone, while showing me his trees during a prolonged walk through his magnificent park, pointed out a sycamore, and with a wave of his hand said, "In your visit to the Holy Land did you see any sycamore more impressive than that ?" I confessed that I had not. Its branches were not more remarkable than its roots. It was to such a tree as this that Jesus pointed when he wished to illustrate the power of faith. "Ye might say unto this sycamore tree, ' Be thou plucked up by the root and be thou cast into 3 1 4 NA TURK S LESSONS. the sea,' and it would obey you." One reason why Christ has fascinated the world as no other teacher, is because instead of using severe argu- ment he was always telling how something in the spiritual world was like unto something in the natural world. Oh, these wonderful "likes" of our Lord ! Like a grain of mustard seed. Like a treasure hid in a field. Like a merchant seeking goodly pearls. Like unto a net that was cast into the sea. Like unto a householder. THE GREAT TEACHERS. When Christ would teach the precision with which he looks after you, he says he counts the hairs of your head. Well, that is a long and tedious count if the head have the average endowment. It has been found that if the hairs of the head be black there are about one hundred and twenty thousand, or if they be flaxen there are about one hundred and forty thousand. But God knows the exact number: " The hairs of your head are all numbered." Would Christ impress us with the divine watchfulness and care, he speaks of the sparrows, that were a nuisance in those times. They were caught by the thou- sands in the net. They were thin and scrawny and had comparatively no meat on their bones. They seemed almost valueless, whether living or dead. Now, argues Christ, if my Father takes care of them, will He not take care of you ? Christ would have the Christian, de- spondent over his slowness of religious development, go to his corn- field for a lesson. He watches first the green shoot pressing up through the clods, gradually strengthening into a stalk, and last of all the husk swelling out with the pressure of the corn : " First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Would Christ set forth the character of those who make great profession of piety, but have no fruit, he compares them to barren fig- trees, which have very large and showy leaves, and nothing but leaves. Would Job illustrate deceitful friendships, he speaks of brooks in those climes, that wind about in different directions, and dry up when you want to drink out of them : " My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away." David, when he would impress us with the despondency into which he had sunk, com- pares it to a quagmire of those regions, through which he had doubtless sometimes tried to walk, but sunk in up to his neck ; and he cries, "I sink in deep mire where there is no standing." Would Habakkukset NA TURK S LESSONS. 3 1 5 forth the capacity whicli God gives the good man to walk safely amid the wildest perils, he points to the wild animal called the hind walking over slippery rocks, and leaping from wild crag to wild crag, by the peculiar make of its hoofs able calmly to sustain itself in the most dan- gerous places : "The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hind's feet." Job makes all natural objects pay tribute to the royalty of his book. As you go through some chapters of Job, you feel as if it were a bright spring morning, and, as you see the glittering drops from the grass under your feet, you say with that patriarch, " Who hath begot- ten the drops of the dew ? " And now, as you read on, you seem in the silent midnight to behold the waving of a great light upon your path, and you look up to find it the aurora borealis, which Job described so long ago as "the bright light in the clouds and the splendor that cometh out of the north." As you read on, there is darkness hurtling in the heavens, and the showers break loose till the birds fly for a hiding-place and the mountain torrents in red fury foam over the rocky shelving, and with the same poet you exclaim, "Who can number the clouds in wisdom, or who can stay the bottles of heaven ?" As you read on, you feel yourself coming into frosty climes, and, in fancy wading through the snow, you say with that same inspired writer, "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?" And while the sharp sleet drives in your face, and the hail stings your cheek, you quote him again : " Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail?" In the Psalmist's writings I hear the voices of the sea: "Deep calleth unto deep"; and the roar of forests: "The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh"; and the loud peal of the black tempest: "The God of glory thundereth "; and the rustle of the long silk on the well-filled husks: "The valleys are covered with corn"; and the cry of wild beasts: "The young lions roar after their prey"; the hum of palm trees and cedars: "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon"; the sough of wings and the swirl of fins: " Dominion over the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea." When in the autumn of the year nature preaches thousands of funeral sermons from the text, " We all do fade as a leaf," and scatters her elegies in our path, we cannot help but think of sickness and the tomb. Even winter, "being dead, yet speaketh." The world will not 3i6 NATURE'S LESSONS. be argued into the right. It will be tenderly illustrated into the right. Tell tnem what religion is like. When the mother tried to tell her dying child what heaven was, she compared it to light. " But that hurts my eyes," said the dying girl. Then the mother compared heaven to music. " But any sound hurts me, I am so weak," said the dying child. Then she was told that heaven was like a mother's arms. "Oh, take me there !" she said. "If it is like mother's arms, take me there !" The appropriate simile had been found at last. PERSONAL COMFORT. Another contribution which the natural world is making to the kingdom of Christ is the defense and aid which the elements are com- pelled to give to the Christian personally. There is no law in nature but is sworn for the Christian's defense. In Job this thought is pre- sented as a bargain made between the inanimate creation and the righteous man: "Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field." What a grand thought that the lightnings, and the tempests, and the hail, and the frosts, which are the enemies of unrighteousness, are all marshaled as the Christian's bodyguard. They fight for him. They strike with an arm of fire or clutch with fingers of ice. Everlasting peace is declared between the fiercest elements of nature and the good man. They may in their fury seem to be indiscriminate, smiting down the righteous with the wicked, yet they cannot damage the Christian's soul, although they may shrivel his body. The wintry blast that howls about your dwelling you may call your brother, and the south wind coming up on a June day by way of a flower garden you may call your sister. Though so mighty in circumference and diameter, the sun and the moon have a special charge concerning you : " The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." Elements and forces hidden in the earth are now harnessed and at work in producing for you food and clothing. Some grain-field that you never saw, presented you this day with your morning meal. The great earth and the heavens are the busy loom at work for you ; and shooting light, and silvery stream, and sharp lightning are only woven threads in the great loc-m, with God's foot on the shuttle. The same spirit that converted your soul, has also converted the elements from enmity towards you into inviola ble friendship ; and furthest star and deepest cavern regions of BEAUTIFUL, GARMENTS 317 CHLORIS, GRECIAN GODDESS OF FLOWERS 318 NATURE'S LESSONS. 319 everlasting cold as well as climes of eternal summer all have a mission of good, direct or indirect, for your spirit. If you have a microscope, put under it one drop of water, and see the insects floating about ; and when you see that God makes them, and cares for them, and feeds them, come to the conclusion that He will take care of you and feed you, that all creation is working for your service, and all things, the smallest and greatest, are symbols of God's wisdom and God's mercy. INFERENCES. Now I infer from this that the study of natural objects will increase our religious knowledge. If David and Job and John and Paul could not afford to let go without observation one passing cloud, or rift of snow, or spring blossom, we cannot afford to let them go without study. Men and women of God most eminent in all ages for faith and zeal in- dulged in such observations Payson and Baxter and Doddridge and Hannah More. That man is not worthy the name of Christian who saunters listlessly among these magnificent disclosures of divine power around, beneath, and above us, stupid and uninstructed. I learn also from this subject what an honorable position the Christian occupies, when nothing is so great and glorious in nature but it is made to edify, defend, and instruct him. Hold up your heads sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, that I may see how you bear your honors. Though now you may think yourself unbefriended, this spring's soft wind, and next summer's harvest of barley, and next autumn's glowing fruits, and next winter's storms all seasons, all ele- ments, zephyr and euroclydon, rose's breath and thundercloud, gleam- ing light and thick darkness are sworn to defend you, and cohorts of angels would fly to deliver you from peril, and the great God would unsheathe his sword and arm the universe in your cause rather than that harm should touch you with one of its lightest fingers. " As the mountains are around about Jerusalem, so the Lord is around about his people from this time forth for evermore." Oh, for more sympathy with the natural world ! Then we should always have a Bible open before us, and we could take a lesson from the most fleeting circumstances. Once, when a storm came down upon England, Charles Wesley sat in a room watching it through an open window, until, frightened by the lightning and the thunder, 3*> NA TURE' S LESSONS. a little bird flew in and nestled in the bosom of the sacred poet As he gently stroked it and felt the wild beating of its heart, he turned to his desk and wrote that hymn which will be sung while the world lasts : " Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly." ANIMAL DELIGHT. Out of joint as nature may seem to us, yet one of its most striking" revelations is the almost universal happiness of the animal creation. JOYS OF ANIMAL LIFE. On a summer day, when the air and the grass are most populous with life, you will not hear a sound of distress unless, perchance, a heartless school-boy has robbed a bird's nest, or a hunter has broken a bird's wing, or a pasture has been robbed of a lamb, and there goes up a bleating from the flocks. The whole earth is filled with animal delight joy feathered, and scaled, and horned, and hoofed. The bee hums it ; the frog croaks it ; NATURES LESSONS. 321 the squirrel chatters it ; the quail whistles it ; the lark carols it ; the whale spouts it. The snail, the rhinoceros, the grizzly bear, the toad, *he wasp, the spider, the shell-fish, have their homely delights joy as great to them as our joy is to us. Goat climbing the rocks ; anaconda crawling through the jungle ; buffalo plunging across the prairie ; crocodile basking in tropical sun ; seal puffing on the ice ; ostrich striding across the desert, are so many bundles of joy ; they do not go moping or melancholy ; they are not only half supplied ; God says they are filled with good. The worm squirming through the sod upturned by the plowshare, and the ants racing up and down the hillock, are happy by day and happy by night. Take up a drop of water under the microscope, and you will find that within it there are millions of creatures that swim in a hallelujah of gladness. The sounds in nature that are repulsive to our ears are often only utterances of joy the growl, the croak, the bark, the howl. The good God made these creatures, thinks of them ever, and will not let a plowshare turn up a mole's nest, or fisherman's hook transfix a worm, until, by eternal decree, its time has come. MIGRATION OF BIRDS. A few days ago I entered Central Park, and the twitter and the chirp, and the carol and the call of the birds were bewildering. Where were they going ? I knew without asking. Going to the south, going to groves of magnolias, going to orange plantations, going among the bananas. Have you ever watched the birds at the time of their migration ? There is a flock, and here a flock, fifty different flocks making excur- sions for a few miles out, and then coming back so strengthening their wings for a longer flight, and then coming back for seeming con- sultation. The fact is, they want to know just the time to start south. They must not go too soon, for that would leave our forests silent be- fore their time. They must not start too late, lest the poor things may be overcome on the way. So a squadron of birds sails out in one direction, and comes back and reports the condition of the corn-fields, and another squadron of birds sails out in another direction, and comes back to report the condition of the ponds and rivers, if there be any film of ice on the waters ; and then another squadron of birds sails out to meet a squadron from 21 3a NATURE'S LESSORS. farther north, so as to find what weather we may expect from the Arctics, and one afternoon they all come together, until the woods for miles around are filled with the feathered tribe, and the next morning they start not in flocks, a flock here and a flock there, as before but in one great company, darkening the air as they sweep over in silence for the most part, for they have a long voyage of air before them, and ( NEST BUILDING BY BIRDS know not what heat, or cold, or lightning, or tempest may cross their path. On and on across the Hudson, across the Chesapeake, across the Savannah, across the lagoons, seeking the rice fields of the Caro- linas, the orange groves of Florida, the luxuriant islands of the West Indies, the tropical lowlands of far-off Mexico. "The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of her going." NATURE'S LESSONS. 323 We ought all to be aglee at the thought of migration suggested by the birds. We are going to a more genial clime when we get through with this. Going, not among icicles, but among flowers. But let us not be too anxious to escape the rigorous winter. The eternal spring will come soon enough, and the wintry experience will better fit us for its enjoyment. We owe much to winter. That is the best season for sociality, best for study, best for church work. On winter nights the stars are brighter. There are longer evenings to read. It is winter that devel- ops nations. Perpetual summer enervates and bedwarfs. No great things have been done by nations which had no experience of frost and cold. Health comes down horsed on the north wind. Most of us feel stronger in January than in August. At the season when we are at our best let us be most busy for God and the welfare each of each. While the ponds freeze over, and the lakes freeze over, and the rivers freeze over, let none of us have frozen nerves, or frozen affections, or a frozen soul. Warmer be our hopes, warmer our activities, until we shall exchange the fitful climate of earth for the eternal June of heaven. The trees of life are never frost-bitten ; the crystal river from under the throne will never freeze; and the sea that John saw was not a cold expanse, but warm as well as glittering "a sea of glass, mingled with fire." i AUTUMN LEAVES. For several autumns I made a lecturing expedition to the Far West, and one autumn, about this time, saw that which I shall never forget. I have seen the autumnal sketches of Cropsey's and other skillful pencils, but that week I saw a pageant two thousand miles long. Let artists stand back when God stretches his canvas ! A grander spectacle was never kindled before mortal eyes. Along by the rivers, and up and down the sides of the great hills, and by the banks of the lakes, there was an indescribable mingling of gold, and orange, and crimson, and saffron, now sobering into drab and maroon, now flaming up into solferino and scarlet. Here and there the trees looked as if just their tips had blossomed into fire. In the morning light the forests seemed as if they had been transfigured, and in the evening hour they looked as if the sunset had burst and dropped upon the leaves. In more sequestered spots, where the frosts had been hindered in their work, we saw the first kindling of the flames of color in a lowly sprig ; 3 24 NA TURKS LESSONS. then they rushed up from branch to branch, until the glory of the Lord submerged the forest. Here you would find a tree just making up its mind to change, and there one looked as if, wounded at every pore, it stood bathed in carnage. Along the banks of Lake Huron there were hills over which there seemed pouring cataracts of fire, tossed up and down and every whither by the rocks. Through some of the ravines we saw occasionally a foaming stream, as though it were rushing to put out the conflagration. If at one end of the woods a commanding tree would set up its crimson banner, the whole forest prepared to fol- low. If God's urn of colors were not infinite, one swamp that I saw along the Maumee would have exhausted it forever. It seemed as if the sea of divine glory had dashed its surf to the tip-top of the Alleghanies, and then had come dripping down to lowest leaf and deepest cavern. The changing foliage on the Rhine is not to be compared with that of the Hudson, nor that of the Alps with that of the Alleghanies. The fountain of American color is deeper than the transatlantic foun- tains. The frost has a more skillful pencil here than in other atmos- pheres. Many nervous people at this season get depressed. James Martineau sighs about the autumn, and says : " It cries out in the night wind and shrill hail. It steals the summer bloom from the infant cheek. It makes old age shiver at the heart. It goes to the church- yard and chooses many a grave. It flies to the bell, and enjoins it when to toll." All this I pronounce poetic slander. Autumn does not slay one- half as many as summer, but still to many this season is productive of melancholy. They are reminded of nothing but decay and death and graveyards, when the chief lesson ought to be one of coronation. The only real triumph that the forest has is in the autumn. The sober green takes on carnivals of color, and the fashions of the hill become more gay. Here and there, during the Presidential conflict, we had banners stretched across the street, but for the following month, from Mount Washington to the Sierra Nevadas, there were banners lifted banners of the King banners of autumnal joy, ban- ners of fire. Instead of leading us down into the dust and darkness, o they ought to lead us on and up toward the country where our best possessions lie. 325 OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. WHEN children spend six or seven hours in school, and then must spend two or three hours in preparation for school the next day, will you tell me how much time rhey will have for sunshine and fresh air, and the obtaining of that exuberant vitality which is necessary for the duties of the coming life ? No one can feel more thankful than I do for the advancement of common-school education. The printing of books appropriate for schools, the multiplication of philosophical apparatus, the establishment of normal schools, which provide for our children teachers of large cali- bre, are themes on which every philanthropist ought to be congratu- lated. But this herding of great multitudes of children in ill-ventilated school-rooms, and poorly-equipped halls of instruction, is making many of the places of knowledge in this country huge holocausts. Politics in many of the cities gets into educational affairs, and while the two political parties are scrabbling for the honors, Jephthah's daugh- ter perishes. This is so much the case that there are many schools in the country to-day which are preparing tens of thousands of invalid men and women for the future ; so that, in many places, by the time the child's education is finished the child is finished ! In many places, in many cities of the country, there are for everything else large and cheerful appropriations ; but as soon as the appropriation is to be made for the educational or moral interests of the city, we are struck through with an economy that is well-nigh the death of us. THE CRAMMING SYSTEM. In connection with this, I mention what I might call the cramming system of the common schools and many of the academies : children of delicate brain compelled to tasks that might appal a mature intellect ; 326 (967? DL'IY TO OUR UllLUJtEAI. J2? children going down to school with a strap of books half as high as themselves ! The fact is, that in some of the cities parents do not allow their children to graduate, for the simple reason, they say, " We cannot afford to allow our children's health to be destroyed in order that they may gather the honors of an institution." Tens of thousands of chil- dren educated into imbecility ! Connected with many such literary es- tablishments there ought to be asylums for the wrecked. It is push, and crowd, and cram, and stuff, and jam, until the child's f . intellect is bewildered, and the memory is ruined, and the health is * gone. There are children turned out from the schools who once were full of romping and laughter, and had cheeks crimson with health, who are now pale-faced, irritated, asthmatic, old before their time. One of the saddest sights on earth is an old-mannish boy, or an old-womanish girl. Think of it ! Girls ten years of age studying algebra ! Boys twelve years of age racking their brains over trigonometry ! Children unac- quainted with their mother-tongue crying over their Latin, French, and German lessons ! All the vivacity of their nature beaten out of them by the heavy beetle of a Greek lexicon ! And you doctor them for this, and you give them a little medicine for that, and you wonder what is the matter of them. I will tell you what is the matter of them. They are "finishing their education "/ AN EDUCATED IDIOT. In my parish in Philadelphia a little child was so pushed at school that she was thrown into a fever, and in her dying delirium, all night long, she was trying to recite the multiplication-table. In my boyhood I remember that in our class at school there was one lad who knew more than all of us put together. If we were fast in our arithmetic, he extricated us. When we stood up for the spelling-class, he was almost always at the head of the class. Visitors came to his father's house, and he was always brought in as a prodigy. At eighteen years of age he was an idiot / He lived ten years an idiot, and died an idiot, not knowing his right hand from his left, or day from night. The parents and the teachers made him an idiot. You may flatter your pride by forcing your child to know more than any other children, but you are making a sacrifice of that child, if by the additions to its intelligence you are making a subtraction from 3 28 OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. its future. The child will go away from such maltreatment with no ex< uberance to fight the battle of life. Such children may get along very well while you take care of them, but when you are old or dead, alas ! for them, if, through the long system of education which you adopted, they have no swarthiness or force of character to take care of them selves. Be careful how you make the child's head ache or its heart flutter. I hear a great deal about black men's rights, and Chinamen's rights, and Indians' rights, and woman's rights. Would God that some- body would rise to plead for children s rights ! The Carthaginians used to sacrifice their children by putting them into the arms of an idol which thrust forth its hand. The child was put into the arms of the idol, and no sooner touched the arms than it dropped into the fire. But it was the art of the mothers to keep the children smiling and laughing until the moment they died. There may be a fascination and a hilarity about the styles of education of which I am speaking ; but it also is only laughter at the moment of sacrifice. Would God there were only one Jephthah's daughter ! JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER. Shall I tell the story of Jephthah's daughter ? Before going out to the war Jephthah made a very solemn vow, that, if the Lord would give him the victory, then, on his return home, whatsoever first came out of his doorway he would offer in sacrifice as a burnt-offering. The battle opened. It was no skirmishing on the edges of danger, no un limbering of batteries two miles away, but the hurling of men on the point of swords and spears, until the ground could no more drink the blood, and the horses reared to leap over the pile of bodies of the slain. In those old times, opposing forces would fight until their swords were broken, and then each one would throttle his man until they both fell, teeth to teeth, grip to grip, death-stare to death-stare, until the plain was one tumbled mass of corpses from which the last trace of manhood had been dashed out. Jephthah wins the day. Twenty cities lie captured at his feet. Sound the victory all through the mountains of Gilead. Let the trum- peters call up the survivors. Homeward to your wives and children. Homeward with your glittering treasures. Homeward to have the ap- plause of an admiring nation. Build triumphal arches. Swing out flags all over Mizpeh. Open all your doors to receive the captured OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. 329 treasures. Through every hall spread the banquet. Pile up the viands. Fill high the tankards. The nation is redeemed, the invaders are routed, and the national honor is vindicated. Huzza for Jephthah, the conqueror ! Jephthah, seated on a prancing steed, advances amid the acclaiming multitudes, but his eye is not on the excited populace. Remembering that he had made a solemn vow that, returning from victorious battle, whatsoever first came out of the doorway of his home should be sacrificed as a burnt-offering, he has his anxious look upon the door. I wonder what spotless lamb, what brace of doves, will be thrown upon the fires of the burnt- offering ! The paleness of death blanches his cheek. Despair seizes his heart. His daughter his only child rushes out of the doorway to throw herself in her father's arms and shower upon him more kisses than there are wounds on his breast or dents on his shield. All the tri- umphal splendor vanishes. Holding back this child from his heaving breast, and pushing the locks back from the fair brow, and looking into the eyes of inextinguishable affection, with choked utterance he says : " Would God I lay stark on the bloody plain ! My daughter, my only child, joy of my home, life of my life, thou art the sacrifice !" The whole matter was explained to her. This was no whining, hollow-hearted girl into whose eyes the father looked. All the glory of sword and shield vanished in the presence of the valor of that girl. There may have been a tremor of the lip, as a rose-leaf trembles in the sough of the south wind ; there may have been the starting of a tear like a rain-drop shook from the anther of a water-lily ; but with a self-sacrifice that man may not reach, and only woman's heart can com- pass, she surrenders herself to fire and to death ! She cries out, "My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do unto me what- soever hath proceeded from thy mouth." She bows to the knife, and the blood, which so often at the father's voice had rushed to the crimson cheek, smokes in the fires of the burnt- offering. No one can tell us her name. There is no need that we know her name. The garlands that Mizpeh twisted for Jephthah the warrior have gone into the dust ; but all ages are twisting this girl's chaplet. It is well that her name came not to us, for no one can wear it. They may take the name of Deborah, or Abigail, or Miriam, but no one in all the ages shall have the title of this daughter of sacrifice. 33 OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. Of course this offering was not pleasing to the Lord ; but before you hurl your denunciations at Jephthah's cruelty, remember that in olden times, when vows were made, men thought they must execute them, perform them, whether they were wicked or good. There were two wrong things about Jephthah's vow : First, he ought never to have made it Next, having made it, it were better broken than kept. But do not take on pretentious airs and say, " I could not have done as Jephthah did." If to-day you were standing on the banks of the Ganges, and you had been born in India, you might have been throw- ing your children to the crocodiles. And in this very free and enlightened land of America many of you are pursuing the course of the superstitious chieftain of old. The sac- rifice of Jephthah's daughter was a type of the physical, mental, and spiritual sacrifice of ten thousand children in this day. There are par- ents all unwittingly bringing to bear upon their children a class of in- fluences which will as certainly ruin them as knife and torch destroyed Jephthah's daughter. And yet the whole nation, without emotion and without shame, looks upon the stupendous sacrifice. WRONG SYSTEMS OF DISCIPLINE. Too great rigor, or too great leniency ! There are children in families who rule the household. They come to the authority. The high chair in which the infant sits is the throne, and the rattle is the scepter, and the other children make up the parliament where father and mother have no vote. Such children come up to be miscreants ! There is no chance in this world for a child that has never learned to mind. Such people become the botheration of the Church of God and the pest of the world. Children that do not learn to obey human authority are unwilling to learn to obey divine authority. Children will not respect parents whose authority they do not respect. Who are these young men that swagger through the street, with their thumbs in their vests, talking about their father as "the old man," "the govern- or," "the squire," "the old chap," or their mother as "the old woman"? They are those who in youth, in childhood, never learned to respect authority. Eli, having heard that his sons had died in their wickedness, fell over backward, and broke his neck and died. Well he might , What is life to a father whose sons are debauched ? The dust of the valley 331 THANKSGIVING OUR DUTY TO OUR CHJLDREN. 333 is pleasant to his taste, and the driving rains that drip through the roof of the sepulcher are sweeter than the wines of Helbon. There must be harmony between the father's government and the mother's government. The father will be tempted to too great rigor. The mother will be tempted to too great leniency. Her tenderness will overcome her. Her voice is a little softer, her hand seems better fitted to pull out a thorn and soothe a pang. Children wanting anything from the mother, cry for it. They hope to dissolve her will with tears. But the mother must not interfere, must not coax off, must not beg for the child when the hour comes for the assertion of parental supremacy and the subjugation of a child's temper. There comes in the history of every child an hour when it is tested whether the parents shall rule or the child shall rule. That is the cru- cial hour. If the child triumphs in that hour, then he will some day make you crouch, It is a horrible scene ; I have witnessed it ; a mother come to old age, shivering with terror in the presence of a son who cursed her gray hairs, and mocked her wrinkled face, and begrudged her the crust she munched with her toothless gums ! " How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, To have a thankless child." But, on the other hand, too great rigor must be avoided. It is a sad thing when domestic government becomes cold military despotism. Trappers on the prairie fight fire with fire, but you cannot successfully fight your child's bad temper with your own bad temper. We must not be too minute in our inspection. We cannot expect our children to be perfect. We must not see everything. Since we have two or three faults of our own, we ought not to be too rough when we discover that our children have as many. If tradition be true, when we were children we were not all little Samuels, and our parents were not fearful lest they could not raise us because of our premature goodness. You cannot scold or pound your children into nobility of character. The bloom of a child's heart can never be seen under a cold drizzle. Above all, avoid fretting and scolding in the household. Better than ten years of fretting at your children is one good, round, old-fashioned application of the slipper ! That minister of the Gospel who is said to have whipped his child to death because he would not say his prayers, will never come to canonization. The arithmetics cannot calculate how many thousands of children have been ruined forever either through 334 OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. too great rigor or too great leniency. The heavens and the earth are filled with the groans of the sacrificed. In this important matter, seek divine direction, O father, O mother ! Some one asked the mother of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield if she was not proud to have three such eminent sons, and all of them so good. " No," she said, "it is nothing to be proud of, but something for which to be very grateful." SACRIFICED TO WORLDLINESS. Some one asked a mother, whose children had turned out very well, what was the secret by which she prepared them for usefulness and for the Christian life, and she said, "This was the secret : When, in the morning, I washed my children, I prayed that they might be washed in the fountain of a Saviour's mercy. When I put on their gar- ments, I prayed that they might be arrayed in the robe of a Saviour': righteousness. When I gave them food, I prayed that they might be fed with manna from heaven. When I started them on the road to school, I prayed that their path might be as the shining light, brighter and brighter to the perfect day. When I put them to sleep, I prayed that they might be enfolded in the Saviour's arms." " Oh," you say, " that was very old-fashioned." It was quite old-fashioned. But do you suppose that a child under such nurture as that ever turned out bad ? In our day most boys start out with no idea higher than the all-en- compassing dollar. They start in an age which boasts that it can scratch the Lord's Prayer on a ten-cent piece, and the Ten Command- ments on a ten-cent piece. Children are taught to reduce morals and religion, time and eternity, to vulgar fractions ! It seems to be their chief attainment that ten cents make a dime, and ten dimes make a dol- lar. How to get money is only equaled by the other art, how to keep it. Tell me, ye who know, what chance there is for those who start out in life with such perverted sentiments. The money market re- sounds again and again with the downfall of such people. If I had a drop of blood on the tip of a pen, I would tell you by what awful trag- edy many of the youth of this country are ruined. Further on, thousands and tens of thousands of the daughters of America are sacrificed to worldliness. They are taught to be in sym- pathy with all the artificialities of society. They are inducted into all OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. 335 the hollowness of what is called fashionable life. They are taught to believe that history is dry, but that fifty-cent stories of adventurous love are delicious. With capacity that might have rivaled a Florence Night- ingale in heavenly ministries, or made the father's house glad with filial and sisterly demeanor, their life is a waste, their beauty a curse, their eternity a demolition. In the siege of Charleston, during the late war, a lieutenant of the army stood on the floor beside the daughter of the ex-Governor of the State of South Carolina. They were taking the vows of marriage. A bombshell struck the roof, dropped into the group, and nine were wounded and slain ; among those wounded to death was the bride. While the bridegroom knelt on the carpet, trying to stanch the wounds, the bride demanded that the ceremony should be completed, that she might take the vows before her departure ; and when the minister said, "Wilt thou be faithful unto death?" with her dying lips she said, "I will," and in two hours she had departed. That \v:is the slaughter and the sacrifice of the body ; but at thousands of marriage- altars there are daughters slain for time and slain for eternity. It is not a marriage it is a massacre ! Affianced to some one who is only waiting until his father dies, so that he can get the property ; then a little while they swing around in the brilliant circles of fashionable society ; then the property is gone, and having no power to earn a livelihood, the twain sink into some corner of society, the husband an idler and a sot, the wife a drudge, a slave, and a sacrifice. You may spare your denunciations from Jeph- thah's head, and expend them upon this wholesale modern sacrifice. I lift up my voice 'against the sacrifice of children. I look out ol my window on a Sabbath, and I see a group of children, unwashed, uncombed, unchristianized. Who cares for them ? Who prays for them ? Who utters to them one kind word ? When the city missionary, passing along the Park in New York, saw a ragged lad and heard him swearing, he said to him : " My son, stop swearing ! You ought to go to the house of God to-day. You ought to be good ; you ought to be a Christian." The lad looked in his face and said : "Ah, it is easy for you to talk, well clothed as you are, and well fed ; but we chaps hain't got no chance." Who goes forth to snatch them up from crime and death and woe ? Who to-day will go forth and bring them into schools and churches ? 336 OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN. During the early French Revolution, there was at Bourges a com- pany of boys who used to train every day as young soldiers. They had on their flag this inscription : "Tremble, tyrants, tremble ; we are growing up." Mightily suggestive! This generation is passing off, and a mightier generation is coming on. Will they be the foes of tyranny, the foes of sin, and the foes of death, or will they be the foes of God ? They are coming up ! I congratulate all parents who are doing their best to keep their children away from the altar of sacrifice. Your prayers are going to be answered. Your children may wander away from God, but they will come back again. A voice comes from the throne to-day, encour- aging you: "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee." And though when you lay down your head in death there may be some wanderer of the family far away from God, and you may be twenty years in heaven before salvation shall come to his heart, he will be brought into the kingdom, and before the throne of God you will rejoice that you were faithful. ^v RING them into the sunshine, ) Out of the gloomy night ; Out of the perilous places Bring them into the light. Bring for the love of the Mastef (He who himself did give), Teach 'diem how His compassion Encompasseth all that live. W^ifK ihow them the pathway of duty, That upward their feet may tread; fhat "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," May still, as of old, be said. HARRIET B. BIRP ~i THE FIRST WRONG ACT 338 DESCENDANTS OF THE PILGRIMS. [At * New England dinner, to which many noted men had been invited to celebrate the landing of our Pilgrim fathers, Doctor Talmage made the following felicitous remarks :] WHAT an honored month is December, the month of the two greatest landings the world ever saw or ever will see the land- ing of Christ in the Old World and the landing of political redemption in the New World ! Until time shall be no more, let the two landings be celebrated by banquet and song. What a transforma- tion of scene it would be if by a rap on the table all these beaming guests of to-night should vanish, and the mighty New Englanders of the past should take their place. I risk it and give two raps, and no )ner have we vanished than the departed mighty ones of New Eng d come in and take their places at this New England dinner. The nrst who enter are Miles Standish, and the Robinsons, the Bradford:, the Brewsters, and their fellow-passengers a little decrepit from hardship and exposure, leaning on staves made out of pieces of the " Mayflower" that brought them across the sea and they take their places at these tables. Following these come John Otis, John Adams, and Increase Mather the giant of the New England pulpits and the men oi Faneuil Hall who started echoes that will reverberate till the last chain is snapped and the last tyranny fallen and Daniel Webster, and William Lloyd Garrison whom all earth and hell could not intimidate. They take their places at the tables, and after Increase Mather has offered prayer, one of them rises and proposes the toast of the even- ing, "Our descendants: may they prove true to the principles for which we sailed the stormy waters of the Atlantic or the rougher seas of political agitation. Our blessings on their cradles and their graves, 339 340 DESCENDANTS OF THE PILGRIMS. upon their s'choolhouses and their churches, upon their agriculture and their literature, upon their politics and their religion, for this century and for all centuries." At these sentiments all the old New Englanders rise and click glasses with a huzza that shall ring round the world for a thousand years. I rap the table twice and they are gone, and we are PLYMOUTH ROCK. back again to answer the lips of these old wrinkled faces, pledging ourselves anew to our country and our God. THE VALUE OF ANCESTRY. Men of New England, I am not surprised at what you are and at what you have achieved, descended from such an ancestry. Of course, every one comes to be judged by what he himself is worth. I always DESCENDANTS OF THE PILGRIMS. 34 1 feel sorry for a man that has so little character himself that he has to go back and marshal a lot of ancestral ghosts to make up the deficiency. It is no great credit to a fool that he has a wise grandfather. But it is nevertheless true that the way the cradle rocks, your destiny will rock. The Pilgrim fathers were a chosen people to do a peculiar work. This father blood, as I analyze it, is a mixture of courage, old-fashioned honesty, ardent domesticity, respect for the Holy Sabbath, freedom of religious thought, and faith in the eternal God. These are the charac- teristics of the New Englanders whom I have happened to meet, and if anybody has had a different experience, he has happened to fall among an exceptionally bad lot. Notwithstanding their severe winters, they lived long. Walk through your ceriTeteries and see how many died septuagenarians, octogenarians and nonagenarians, so that the inscription that the Irishman saw would not be inappro- priate. Passing up the Baltimore and Ohio railroad an Irishman saw a milestone with the inscription, " 108 miles to Baltimore." And he said to his comrade, "Pat, tread easy around this place, for there is a very old man buried here ; his name was Miles, and he was from Baltimore ! " AN UNFOUNDED CHARGE. New Englanders, I know, have been charged with " close-fisted- ness," but I do not think that it is anymore true of them than of people all over the world. It was up in New York State that a man asked his neighbor to take a drink. The neighbor replied : " No, I never drink, but I will take a cigar and three cents." It was over there in Tennessee that a child had such wrong notions of money, that, when on a Sunday-school anniversary day each boy was to present his con- tribution and quote a passage of Scripture, a boy handed in his contribution and quoted : "A fool and his money are soon parted." The most 'A the stories of the New England " close-fistedness " are told by those who tried a sharp game on a Yankee and were worsted, and the retort is natural. I think the most cases where men have been flung by Yankees have been where the Yankee would not be imposed upon any longer. Economy, of course, prudence and forecast, of course, but no "close-fistedness." When I have been raising money for some charitable object, the critic of the New Eno-lander has 342 DESCENDANTS OF THE PILGRIMS. given five dol'ars, the New Englander has given five hundred dollars. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PILGRIMS. Freedom of religious thought I rightly announced as among the characteristics of the Pilgrim fathers. Flying hither for the purpose of worshiping God in their own way, they opened the door for such liberty in this respect as is enjoyed in no other country. Gentlemen, as descendants of the men who embarked off Delft Haven for this promised land of America, and stepped on shore in the face of a December hurricane all of these men foreigners from a foreign land I ask you not to echo the stupid and asinine cry of "America for Americans." O course we want none of the thieves and scoundrels and anarchists of other lands, for we have enough of our own. But I say, America for all men who will come and be genuine Americans^ swearing loyalty to our Government, and working for the public good ! Drive out from our American merchandise and American law and American theology and American art the foreigners, and you would set this country back a half century. And among the children of these Englishmen coming to America there will yet be a William E. Glad- stone, and among the Scotch there will be John Knoxes, and among the Irishmen, Daniel O'Connells, and among the Italians, Garibaldis. But I would stand at the gates of Castle Garden, and meet all those who came and present them with copies of the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Ten Command- ments, and the Sermon on the Mount, and then tell them to go wherever they will, and do the best they can for their families. As the governments at the South are gradually melting into our own, soon at the North all troubles between Canada and the United States will be amicably settled, and the United States will offer heart and hand in marriage to beautiful Canada. And Canada will blush, and thinking of the allegiance across the way, will say, "Ask mother ! " And now, men of Brooklyn, whether descendants of the Puritans, or the Hollanders, or the Huguenots, we are assembled at this annual table for commemoration and jubilee, and surely gastronomies were never put to grander use. At this table we have both literature and victuals, and we shall go away from this room thinking better of our ancestors, and better of each other, and with a firmer resolve to do our very best for our beloved country. JOSHUA'S BATTLE-FIELDS. WE are encamped to-night in Palestine by the waters of Merom. After a long march we have found our tents pitched, our fires kindled, and though far away from civilization, have a variety of food that would not compromise a first-class American hotel, for the most of our caravan starts an hour and a half earlier in the morning. We detain only two mules, carrying so much of our bag- gage as we might accidentally need, and a tent for the noon-day luncheon. The malarias around this Lake Merom are so poisonous that at any other season of the year encampment here is perilous, but on this winter night the air is tonic and healthful. In this neighborhood o o Joshua fought his last great battle. The nations had banded them- selves together to crush him, but along the banks of these waters Joshua left their carcasses. This great leader crossed and recrossed Palestine, and next to Jesus is the most stirring and mighty character whose foot ever touched the Holy Land. Joshua was a magnificent fighter, but he always fought on the right side, and he never fought unless God told him to fight. He got his military equipment from God, who gave him the promise at the start, " There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." God fulfilled this promise, although Joshua's first battle was with the spring freshet, and the next with a stone wall, and the next leading on a regiment of whipped cowards, and the next battle against darkness, wheeling the sun and the moon into his battalion, and the last. against the king of terrors, Death five great victories. For the most part, when the general of an army starts out in a conflict, he would like to have a small battle in order that he may get his courage up and rally his troops and get them drilled for greater conflicts ; but this first undertaking of Joshua was greater than the 343 344 JOSHUA'S BATTLE-FIELDS. leveling oi Fort Pulaski, or the thundering down of Gibraltar, or the overthrow of the Bastile. It was the crossing of the Jordan at the time of the spring freshet. The snows of Mount Lebanon had just been melting, and they poured down into the valley, and the whole valley was a raging torrent. So the Canaanites stand on one bank, and they look across and see Joshua and the Israelites, and they laugh and say, "Aha ! aha ! they cannot disturb us in time until the freshets fall it is impossible for them to reach us." But after a while they look across the water and see a movement in the army of Joshua. They say: "What's the matter now? Why, there must be a panic among these troops, and they are going to fly, or perhaps they are going to try to march across the river Jordan. Joshua is a lunatic." But Joshua, the chieftain, looks at his army and cries, " Forward, march !" and they start for the bank of the Jordan. ARK OF THE COVENANT. One mile ahead go two priests, carrying a glittering box four feet long and two feet wide. It is the ark of the covenant. And they come down, and no sooner do they touch the rim of the water with their feet than by an almighty fiat Jordan parts. The army of Joshua marches right on without getting their feet wet, over the bottom of the river, a path of chalk and broken shells and pebbles, until they get to the other bank. Then they lay hold of the oleanders and tamarisks and willows and pull themselves up a bank thirty or forty feet high, and having gained the other bank they clap their shields and their cymbals, and sing the praises of the God of Joshua. But no sooner have they reached the bank than the waters begin to dash and roar, and with a terrific rush they break loose from their strange anchorage. As the hand of the Lord God is taken away from the uplifted waters uplifted perhaps half a mile those waters rush down, and some of the unbelieving Israelites say : " Alas, alas, what a misfortune ! Why could not those waters have staid parted ? Because, perhaps, we may want to go back. O Lord, we are engaged in a risky business. How if we want to go back ? Would it not have been a more com- plete miracle if the Lord had parted the waters to let us come through, and kept them parted to let us go back if we are defeated ?" But God makes no provision for a Christian's retreat. He clears the path all the way to Canaan. To go back is to die. The same gatekeepers JOSHUA ' S BA TTLE-FIELDS. 345 that swung back the amethystine and crystalline gate of the Jordan to let Israel pass through, now swing shut this amethystine and crystal- line gate. THE RAM'S HORN. But this is no place for the host to stop. Joshua gives the com- mand, " Forward, march !" In the distance there is a long grove of f trees, and at the end of the grove is a city. It is a city of arbors, a city with walls seeming to reach to the heaven, to buttress the very sky. It is the great metropolis that commands the mountain pass. It is Jericho. That city was afterward captured by Pompey, and it was after- ward captured by Herod the Great, and it was afterward captured by the Mohammedans ; but this campaign the Lord plans. There shall be no swords, no shields, no battering rams. There shall be only one weapon of war, and that a ram's horn. The horn of the slain rain was sometimes taken and holes were punctured in it, and then the musician would put the instrument to his lips, and he would run his fingers over this rude musical instrument and make a great deal of sweet harmony for the people. That was the only kind of weapon now needed. Seven priests were to take these rude rustic musical instruments, and they were to go around the city every day for six days once a day for six days and then on the seventh day they were to go around blowing these rude musical instru- ments seven times, and then at the close of the seventh blowing of the rams' horns on the seventh day the peroration of the whole scene was to be a shout at which those great walls should tumble from capstone to base. The seventh day comes, the climacteric day. Joshua is up early in the morning and examines the troops, walks all around, and looks at the city wall. The priests start to make the circuit of the city. They go all around once, all around twice, three times, four times, five times, six times, seven times, and a failure. THE VICTORIOUS SHOUT. There is only one more thing to do, and that is to utter a great shout. I see the Israelitish army straightening themselves up, filling their lungs for a vociferation such as was never heard before and never heai'd after. Joshua feels that the hour has come, and he cries out to his host, " Shout, for the Lord hath given you the city !" All the people ,'* . JOSHUA'S BATTLE-FIELDS. begin to cry, "Down, Jericho, down, Jericho!" and the long line of solid masonry begins to quiver and to move and to rock. Stand from under ! She falls ! Crash go the walls, the temples, the towers, the palaces ! The air is blackened with the dust. The huzza of the victorious Israelites and the groan of the conquered Canaanites commingle, and Joshua, standing there in the debris of the wall, hears a voice saying, " There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." Only one house was spared. Who lives there ? Some great king ? No. Some woman distinguished for her great kindly deeds? No. She had been conspicuous for her crimes. It is the house of Rahab. Why was her house spared ? Because she had been a great sinner ? No, but because she repented, demonstrating to all the ages that there is mercy for the chief of sinners. The red cord of divine injunction reached from her window to the ground, so when the people saw that red cord they knew it to be the divine indication that they should not disturb the premises. This makes us think of the divine cord of a Saviour's deliverance, the red cord of a Saviour's kindness, the red cord of a Saviour's mercy, the red cord of our rescue. Mercy for the chief of sinners ! Put your trust in that God and no damage shall be- fall you. When our world shall be more terribly surrounded than was Jericho, even by the trumpets of the judgment-day, and the hills and the mountains and the metal bones and the ribs of nature shall break, they who have had Rahab' s faith shall have Rahab's deliverance. " When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, And heaven's last thunder shakes the earth below ; Thou undismayed shall o'er the ruins smile, And light thy torch at nature's funeral pile." THE CITY OF AI. But Joshua's troops may not halt here. The command is. "For- ward, march!" There is the city of Ai ; it must be taken. How shall it be taken ? A scouting party comes back and says, "Joshua, we can do that without you ; it is going to be a very easy job ; you just stay here while we go and capture it." They march with a small regiment in front of that city. The men of Ai look at them and give one yell, and the Israelites run like reindeer. The Northern troops at Bull Run did not make such rapid time as these Israelites with the Canaanites after them. They never cut such a sorry figure as when they were on JOSHUA CAPTURING THR CITY OF AT THE INHABITANTS OF AI WITNESSING THE DEFEAT OF THEIR ARMY 348 JOSHUAS BATTLE-FIELDS. 340 the retreat. Let us learn from this the folly of going out in the battles of God with only half a force. Instead of taking the men of Ai, the men of Ai will take us ! Look at the church of God on the retreat. The Bornesian canni- bals ate up Munson, the missionary. "Fall back!" said a great many Christian people " fall back, O church of God ! Borneo will never be taken. Don't you see the Bornesian cannibals have eaten up Munson, the missionary?" Tyndall delivers his lecture at the Uni versity of Glasgow, and a great many good people say: "Fall back, church of God ! Don't you see that Christian philosophy is going to be overcome by worldly philosophy ? Fall back !" Geology plunges its crowbar into the mountains, and there are a great many people who say : " Scientific investigation is going to overthrow the Mosaic account of the creation. Fall back !" Friends of the church have never had any right to fall back. Joshua falls on his face in chagrin. It is the only time you ever see the back of his head. He falls on his face and begins to whine, and he says : "O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to de- stroy us? Would to God we had been content and dwelt on the other side of Jordan ! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round and cut off our name from the earth." I am very glad Joshua said that. Before it seemed as if he were a supernatural being, and therefore could not be an example to us ; but 1 find he is a man, he is only a man. Just as sometimes you find a man under severe opposition, or in a bad state of physical health, or worn out with overwork, lying down and sighing about everything being defeated. I am encouraged when I hear this cry of Joshua as he lies in the dust God comes and rouses him. How does he rouse him ? By com- plimentary apostrophe ? No. He says: "Get thee up. Wherefore liest thou upon thy face ?" Joshua rises, and I warrant you with a mortified look. But his old courage comes back. The fact was, that was not his battle. If he had been in it he would have gone on to vic- tory. He gathers his troops around him and says : " Now, let us go up and capture the city of Ai ; let us go up right away." They march on. He puts the majority of the troops behind a ledge of rocks in the night, and then sends comparatively small 35<> JOSHUA'S BATTLE-FIELDS. regiments up in front of the city. The men of Ai come out with a shout. The small regiments of Israelites in stratagem fall back and fall back, and when all the men of Ai have left the city and are in pursuit of these scattered or seemingly scattered regiments, Joshua stands on a rock. I see his locks flying in the wind as he points his spear toward the doomed city, and that is the signal. The men rush out from be- hind the rocks and take the city, and it is put to the torch, and then these Israelites in the city march down and the flying regiments of Is- raelites return, and between these two waves of Israelitish prowess the men of Ai are destroyed, and the Israelites gain the victory ; and while they see the curling smoke of that destroyed city on the sky, and hear the huzza of the Israelites and the groan of the Canaanites, Joshua hears something louder than it all, ringing and echoing through his soul, " There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." FORWARD, MARCH ! But this is no place for the host of Joshua to stop. " Forward, march !" cries Joshua to the troops. There is the city of Gibeon. It has put itself under the protection of Joshua. They send word, " There are five kings after us ; they are going to destroy us ; send troops quick ; send us help right away." Joshua has a three days' march at more than double quick. On the morning of the third day he is before the enemy. There are two long lines of battle. The battle opens with great slaughter, but the Canaanites soon discover something. They say: "That is Joshua; that is the man who conquered the spring freshet, and knocked down the stone wall, and destroyed the city of Ai. There is no use fighting." And they sound a retreat, and as they begin to retreat Joshua and his hosts spring upon them like panthers, pursuing them over the rocks, and as these Canaanites with sprained ankles and gashed foreheads retreat, the catapults of the sky pour a vol- ley of hailstones into the valley, and all the artillery of the heavens with bullets of iron pound the Canaanites against the ledges of Beth- heron. "Oh!" says Joshua, " this is surely a victory. But do you not see that the sun is going down ? Those Amorites are going to get away after all, and then they will come up some other time and annoy us, and perhaps destroy us. See, the sun is going down ! Oh, for a longer day than has ever been seen in this climate !" Joshua is in /OSV/#-7*S BATTLEFIELDS. 351 prayer. Look out when a good man makes the Lord his ally. Joshua raises his face, radiant with prayer, and looks at the descending sun over Gibeon, and at the faint crescent of the moon, for you know the queen of the night sometimes will linger around the palaces of the day. Point- ing one hand at the descending sun and uhe other hand at the faint crescent of the moon, in the name of that God who shaped and who moves the worlds, he cries, " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon." They halt. Whether it was by refraction of the sun's rays or by the stopping of the whole planetary system I do not know and do not care. I leave it to the Christian scientists and the infidel scientists to settle that question, while I tell you I have seen the same thing. " What !" say you, "not the sun standing still?" Yes. The same miracle is per- formed nowadays. The wicked do not live out half their day, and the sun sets at noon. But let a man start out in battle for God and the truth and against sin, and the day of his usefulness is prolonged and prolonged and prolonged. JOHN SUMMERFIELD. John Summerfield was a consumptive Methodist. He looked fear' fully white, I am told, as he stood in old Sands Street church, in Brook- lyn, preaching Christ, and when he stood on the anniversary platform in New York pleading for the Bible until unusual and unknown glories rolled forth from that book. When he was dying his pillow was brushed with the wings of the angel from the skies, the messenger that God sent down. Did John Summerfield's sunset? Did John Sum- merfield's day end? Oh, no. He lives on in his burning utterances in behalf of the Christian church. Robert McCheyne was a consumptive Presbyterian. It was said that when he preached he coughed so that it seemed as if he would never preach again. His name is now fragrant in all Christendom, that name mightier to-day than was ever his living presence. He lived to preach the Gospel in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Dundee, but he went away very early. He preached himself into the grave. Has Robert McCheyne's sun set? Is Robert McCheyne's day ended ? Oh, no. His dying delirium was filled with prayer, and when he lifted his hand to pronounce the benediction upon his family and the benediction upon his country, he seemed to say: "I cannot die now. I want to live on S!>* JOSHUA'S BATTLE-FIELDS. and on. I want to start an influence for the church that will never cease. I am only thirty years of age. Sun of my Chistian ministry, stand still over Scotland." And it stood still. KINGS TO BE SLAIN. But Joshua was not quite through. There was time for five fu- nerals before the sun of that prolonged day set. Who will preach their funeral sermon ? Massillon preached the funeral sermon over Louis XVI. Who will preach the funeral sermon of those five dead kings king of Jerusalem, king of Hebron, king of Jarmuth, king of Lachish, king of Eglon ? Let it be by Joshua. What is his text ? What shall be the epitaph put on the door of the tomb ? "There shall not am man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." But before you fasten up the door I want five moro kings be- headed and thrust in : King Alcohol, King Fraud, King Lust, King Superstition, King Infidelity. Let them be beheaded and hurl them in ! Then fasten up the door forever. What shall the inscription and what shall the epitaph be ? All Christian philanthropists of all ages are going to come and look at it. What shall the inscription be ? "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." THE LAST BATTLE. But it is time for Joshua to go home. He is 1 10 years old. Wash ington went down the Potomac, and at Mount Vernon closed his days. Wellington died peacefully at Apsley House. Now, where shall Joshua rest ? Why, he is to have his greatest battle still. After 1 10 years he has to meet a king, who has more subjects than all the present popu- lation of the earth, his throne a pyramid of skulls, his parterre the grave- yards and the cemeteries of the world, his chariot the world's hearse the king of terrors. But if this is Joshua's greatest battle, it is going to be Joshua's greatest victory. He gathers his friends around him and gives his valedictory and it is full of reminiscence. Young men tell what they are going to do ; old men tell what they have done. And as you have heard a grandfather or great-grand- father, seated by the evening fire, tell of Monmouth or Yorktown, and then lift the crutch or staff, as though it were a musket, to fight, and show how the old battles were won ; so Joshua gathers his friends around his dying couch, and tells them the story of what JOSHUA ' S BA TTLE-FIELDS. 353 he has been through, and as he lies there, his white locks snow- ing down on his wrinkled forehead, I wonder if God has kept his promise all. the way through. As he lies there he tells the story one, two, or three times you have heard old people tell a story two or three times over and he answers, "I go the way of all the earth, and not one word of the promise has failed, not one word thereof has failed ; all has come to pass, not one word thereof has failed." And then he turns to his family, as a dying parent will, and says : " Choose now whom you will serve, the God of Israel or the God of the Amorites. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." A dying parent cannot be reckless or thoughtless in regard to his children. Consent to part with them forever at the door of the tomb we cannot. By the cradle in which their infancy was rocked, by the bosom on which they first lay, by the blood of the covenant, by the God of Joshua, it shall not be. We will not part, we cannot part. Jehovah Jireh, we take thee at thy promise, "I will be a God to thee and thy seed after thee." Dead, the old chieftain must be laid out. Handle him very gently ; that sacred body is over a hundred and ten years of age. Lay him out ; stretch out those feet that crossed diy-shod the parted Jordan. Close those lips which helped blow the blast at which the walls of Jericho fell. Fold the arm that lifted the spear toward the doomed city of Ai. Fold it right over the heart that exulted when the five kings fell. But where shall we get the burnished granite for the headstone and the footstone? i bethink myself now. I imagine that for the head it shall be the sun that stood still upon Gibeon, and for the foot the moon that stood still in the valley of Ajalon. DAMASCUS-OLD AND NEW BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE IN Palestine we spent last night in a mud hovel of one story, but with camels and sheep in the basement. Yet never did the most brilliant hotel on any continent seem so attractive to me as that structure. If we had been obliged to stay in a tent, as we expected to do that night, we must have perished. A violent storm had opened upon us its volleys of hail and snow and rain and wind as if to let us know what the Bible means when prophet and evangelist and Christ himself spoke of the fury of the elements. The atmospheric wrath broke upon us about one o'clock in the afternoon, and we were until night exposed to it. With hands and feet benumbed, and our bodies chilled to the bone, we made our slow way onward. While high up on the rocks, and when the gale was blowing the hardest, a signal of distress lalted the party, for down in the ravines one of the horses had fallen, and his rider must not be left alone amid that wildness of scenery and horror of storm. As the night approached the tempest thickened and black- ened and strengthened. Some of our attendants, going ahead, had gained permission for us to halt for the night in the mud hovel already mentioned. Our first duty on arrival was to resuscitate the exhausted of our party. My room was without a window, and an iron stove without any top occupied the center of the room, the smoke selecting my eyes in the absence of a chimney. Through an opening in the floor Arab faces were several times thrust up to see how I was progressing. But the tempest ceased during the night, and before it was fully day we were feeling for the stirrups of our saddled horses, this being the day whose long march was to bring us to that city whose name cannot be pronounced in the hearing of the intelligent or the Christian without making the blood tingle and the nerves thrill, and putting the best (354) DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. <*e emotions of the soul into agitation Damascus ! During the day we passed Caesarea Philippi, the northern terminus of Christ's journeyings. North of that he never went. We lunched at noon, seated on the fallen columns of one of Herod's palaces. IN SIGHT OF DAMASCUS. At four o'clock in the afternoon, coming to a hilltop, we saw on the broad plain a city, which the most famous camel driver of all time, afterward called Mohammed, the prophet and the founder of the most stupendous system of error that has ever cursed the earth, refused to enter because he said God would allow man to enter but one paradise, and he would not enter this earthly paradise lest he should be denied en- trance to the heavenly. But no city that I ever saw so plays hide-ana seek with the traveler. The air is so clear that the distant objects seem close by. You come on the top of a hill and Damascus seems only a little way oft, But down you go into a valley, and you see nothing for the next hair" hour but barrenness and rocks regurgitated by vol- canoes of other .ages. Up another hill and down again. Up again and down again. But after your patience is almost exhausted you reach the last hilltop, and the city of Damascus, the oldest city under the whole heavens, and built by Noah's grandson, grows upon your vision. Every mile of the journey now becomes more solemn and suggestive and tremendous. This is the very road for it has been the only road for thousands of years from Jerusalem to Damascus, along which a cavalcade ot mounted officers went, about one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four years ago, in the midst of whom a fierce little man, who made up by magnitude of hatred for Christianity for his diminutive stature, was th^ leading spirit, and, though suffering from chronic inflammation of the eyes, from those eyes flashed more indignation against Christ's fol- lowers than from those of any other of the horsed procession. This little man, before his name was changed to Paul, was called Saul. So many of the mightiest natures of all ages are condensed into smallness of stature. SAUL'S QUICK HALT. Well, that galloping group of horsemen on the road to Damascus was halted quicker than bombshell or cavalry charge ever halted a regi. ment. The Syrian noonday, because of the clarity of the atmosphere. 35 6 DAMASCUS- OLD AND NEW. is the brightest of all noondays, and the noonday sun in Syria is positively terrific for brilliance. But suddenly, on that noon, there flashed from the heavens a light which made that Syrian sun seen tame as a star in comparison. It was the face of the slain and ascended Christ looking from the heavens, and under the dash of that overpow- ering light all the horses dropped with their riders. Human face and horse's mane together in the dust ! And then two claps of thunder fol lowed, uttering two words, the second word like the first : " Saul ! Saul ! ' For three days that fallen equestrian was totally blind, for exces- sive light will sometimes extinguish the eyesight. And what cornea and crystalline lens could endure a brightness greater than the noon- day Syrian sun? I had read it a hundred times, but it never so im- pressed me before, and probably will never so impress me again, as when I took my Bible from the saddle-bags and read aloud to our comrades in travel: "As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him : ' Saul ! Saul ! why persecutes! thou me ? ' And he said, 'Who art thou, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.' ' FRUITFULNESS OF DAMASCUS. But we cannot stop longer on this road, for we shall see this un- horsed equestrian later in Damascus, toward which his horse's head is turned and at which we must ourselves arrive before night. The evening is near at hand, and as we leave snowy Hermon behind us, and approach the shadow of the cupolas of two hundred mosques, we cut through a circumference of many miles of garden which embower the city. So luxuriant are these gardens, so opulent in colors, so lus- cious of fruits, so glittering with fountains, so rich with bowers and kiosks, that the Mohammedan's heaven was fashioned after what are to be seen here of bloom and fruitage. Here in Damascus, at the right season, are cherries and mulberries and apricots and alrncnds and pistachios and pomegranates and pears and apples and plums and citrons and all the richness of the round world's pomology. No wonder that Julian called this city "the eye of the east," and that the poets of Syria have styled it "the luster on the neck of doves," and historians have said, "It is the golden clasp which couples the two sides of the world together." DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. 359 Many travelers express disappointment with Damascus, but the trouble is that they have carried in their minds from boyhood the book which dazzles so many young people "The Arabian Nights" and they come into Damascus looking for Aladdin's lamp and Aladdin's ring and the genii which appeared by rubbing them. But, as I have never read "The Arabian Nights," such stuff not being allowed around our house in my boyhood, and nothing lighter in the way of reading than Baxter's "Saints' Everlasting Rest" and D'Aubigny's "History of the Reformation," Damascus appeared to me as sacred and secular histories have presented it, and so the city was not a disappointment, but with few exceptions a surprise. THE RIVERS ABANA AND PHARPAR. Under my window to-night, in the hotel at Damascus, I hear the perpetual ripple and rush of the river Abana. Ah, the secret is out ! Now I know why all this flora and fruit appears, and why everything is so green, and the plain one great emerald. The river Abana ! And not far off the river Pharpar, which our horses waded through to-day ! Thank the rivers, or rather the God who made the rivers ! Deserts to the north, deserts to the south, deserts to the east, deserts to the west, but here a paradise. And as the rivers Gihon and Pison and Hiddekel and Euphrates made the other paradise, Abana and Pharpar make this Damascus a paradise. That is what made General Naaman of this city of Damascus so angry when he was told for the cure of his leprosy to go and wash in the river Jordan. The river Jordan is, during much of the year, a muddy stream, and it is never so clear as this river Abana that I hear rumbling under my window to-night, nor as the river Pharpar that we crossed to-day. They are as clear as though they had been sieved through some special sieve of the mountains. General Naaman had great and patriotic pride in these two rivers of his own country, and when Elisha the prophet told him that if he wanted to get rid of his leprosy he must go and wash in the Jordan, he felt as we who live on the magnificent Hudson would feel if told that we must go and wash in the muddy Thames ; or as if those who live on the transparent Rhine were told that they must go and wash in the muddy Tiber. So General Naaman cried out with a voice as loud as ever he had used in com- manding his troops, uttering those memorable words which every cfr. DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. minister of the gospel sooner or later takes for his text: "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than the waters of Israel ? May I not wash in them and be clean ? " MOHAMMEDAN WORSHIP. w We are awakened in the morning in Damascus by the song of those who have different styles of food to sell. It is not a street cry as in London or New York, but a weird and long drawn out solo, compared with which a buzz saw is musical. It makes you inopportunely waken and will not let you sleep again. But to those who understand the exact meaning of the song, it becomes quite tolerable, for they sing: "God is the nourisher, buy my bread ;" "God is the nourisher, buy my milk;" "God is the nourisher, buy my fruit." As you look out of the window you see the Mohammedans, who are in large majority in the city, at prayer. And if it were put to vote who should be king of all the earth, fifteen thousand in that city would say Christ, but one hundred and thirty thousand would say Mohammed. Looking from the window, you see on the housetops and on the streets Mohammedans at worship. The muezzin, or the officers of religion, who announce the time of worship, appear high up on the different minarets or tall towers, and walk around the minaret, inclosed by a railing, and cry in a sad and mumbling way : "God is great. I bear witness that there is no God but God. I bear witness that Mo- hammed is the apostle of God. Come to prayers ! Come to salva- tion ! God is great. There is no other but God. Prayers are bettei than sleep." Five times a day must the Mohammedan engage in worship. There are two or three commendable things about Mohammedan- ism. One is that its disciples wash before every act of prayer, and that is five times a day, and there is a gospel of cleanliness. Another commendable thing is, they don't care who is looking, and nothing can stop them in their prayer. Another thing is, that by the order of Mohammed, and an order obeyed for thirteen hundred years, no Mohammedan touches strong drink. But the polygamy, the many wifehood of Mohammedanism, has made that religion the unutterable and everlasting curse of woman, and when woman sinks, the race sinks. The proposition recently made in high ecclesiastical places for the reformation of Mohammedanism, instead of its obliteration, is like DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. 361 an attempt to improve a plague or educate a leprosy. There is only one thing that will ever reform Mohammedanism, and that is its ex- tirpation from the face of the earth by the power of the gospel of the Son of God, which makes not only man but woman free for this life and free for the life to come. A MODERN MASSACRE. The spirit of the horrible religion which pervades the city of Damascus, along whose streets we walk and out of whose bazars we make purchases, and in whose mosques we study the wood carvings and bedizenments, was demonstrated as late as 1860, when in this city it put to death six thousand Christians in forty-eight hours, and put to the torch three thousand Christian homes, and those streets we walk to-day were red with carnage, and the shrieks and groans of the dying and dishonored men and women made this place a hell on earth. This went on until a Mohammedan better than his religion, Abd-el- Kader by name a great soldier, who in one war had with twenty-five hundred troops beaten sixty thousand of the enemy protested against this massacre, and gathered the Christians of Damascus into castles and private houses, and filled his own home with the affrighted sufferers. After a while the mob came to his door and demanded the "Christian dogs" whom he was sheltering. And Abd-el-Kader mounted ahorse and drew his sword, and with a few of his old soldiers around him charged on the mob and cried: "Wretches! Is this the way you honor the prophet? May his curses be upon you ! Shame on you ! Shame ! You will yet live to repent. You think you may do as you . please with the Christians, but the day of retribution will come. The Franks will yet turn your mosques into churches. Not a Christian will I give up. They are my brothers. Stand back or I will give my men the order to fire." Then by the might of one great soul under God the wave of assassination rolled back. Huzza for Abd-el- Kader ! Although now we Americans and foreigners pass through the streets of Damascus unhindered, there is in many parts of the city the subdued hissing of a hatred for Christianity that if it dared would put to death every man, woman, and child in Damascus who does not declare allegiance to Mohammed. But I am glad to say that a wide, hard, splendid turnpike road has within a few years been constructed from Beyrout, on the shore of the ** DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. Mediterranean, to this city of Damascus, and, if ever again that whole- sale assassination were attempted, French troops and English troops would, with jingling bits and lightning hoofs, dash up the hills and down on this Damascus plain, and leave the Mohammedan murderers dead on the floor of their mosques and seraglios. It is too late in the history of the world for governments to allow such things as the mod- ern massacre at Damascus. For such murderous attacks on Christian disciples the gospel is not so appropriate as bullets or sabers sharp and heavy enough to cut through with one stroke from crown of head to saddle. THE OLD DAMASCUS. But I must say that this city of Damascus, as I see it now, is not so absorbing as the Damascus of olden times. I turn my back upon the bazars ; with rugs from Bagdad, fascinating the merchants, and the Indian textile fabric of incomparable make, and the manufactured sad- dles and bridles gay enough for princes of the orient to ride and pull ; and on baths where ablution becomes inspiration ; and on the homes of those bargain makers of to-day, marbled and divanned and fountained and upholstered and mosaiced and arabesqued and colonnaded until nothing can be added ; and on the splendid remains of the great mosque of John, originally built with gates so heavy that it required five men to turn them, and columns of porphyry and kneeling places framed in diamond, and seventy-four stained glass windows, and six hundred lamps of pure gold a single prayer offered in this mosque said to be worth thirty thousand prayers offered in any other place ! I turn my back on all these, and see Damascus as it was when this narrow street, which the Bible calls Straight, was a great wide street, a New York Broadway or a Parisian Champs Elysees, a great thor- oughfare crossing the city from gate to gate, along which tramped and rolled the pomp of all nations. There goes Abraham, the father of all the faithful. He has in this city been purchasing a celebrated slave. There goes Ben Hadad of Bible times, leading thirty-two conquered monarchs. There goes David, king, warrior and sacred poet. There \ goes Tamerlane, the conqueror. There goes Haroun al Raschid, once the commander of an army of ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs. There comes a warrior on his way to the barracks, carrying that kind of sword which the world has forgotten how to make a Damascus G> blade, with the interlacings of color changing at every new turn of the DAMASCUS-- OLD AND NEW. 5*3 light, many colors coming and going and interjoining, the blade so keen it could cut in twain an object without making the lower part of the object tremble, with an elasticity that could not be broken, though you brought the point of the sword clear back to the hilt, and having a COURT-YARD IN DAMASCUS. watered appearance which made the blade seem as though just dipped In a clear fountain a triumph of cutlery which a thousand modern foundrymen and chemists have attempted in vain to imitate. On the 364 DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. side of this street are seen damasks, named after this city figures of animals and fruits and landscapes here being first wrought into silk- damasks, and specimens of damaskeening, by which in this city steel and iron were first grooved, and then the grooves filled with wire of gold. But stand back or be run over, for here are at the gates of the city laden caravans from Aleppo in one direction, and from Jerusalem in another direction, and caravans of all nations, paying toll to this supremacy. Great is Damascus ! SIGHT TO THE BLIND. But what most stirs my soul is neither chariot, nor caravan, nor bazar, nor palace, but a blind man passing along the street, small of stature and insignificant in personal appearance. Oh, yes, we have seen him before. He was one of that cavalcade coming from Jerusa- lem to Damascus to kill Christians, and we saw him and his' horse tumble up there on the road some distance out of the city, and he got up blind. Yes, it is Saul of Tarsus now going along this street called Straight. He is led by his friends, for he cannot see his hand before his face, unto the house of Judas not Judas the bad but Judas- the good. In another part of the city one Ananias not Ananias the liar, but Ananias the Christian is told by the Lord to go to this house of Judas on Straight street and put his hands on the blind eyes of Saul that his sight might return. " Oh," said Ananias, " I dare not go ; that Saul is a terrible fellow. He kills Christians, and he will kill me." " Go," said the Lord, and Ananias went. There sat in blindness that tremendous persecutor. His was a great nature crushed. He started for the city of Damascus for the one purpose of assassinating Christ's followers, but since that fall from his horse he had entirely changed. Ananias stepped up to the sightless man, put his right thumb on one eye and the left thumb on the other eye, and in an outburst of sympathy and love and faith, said : " Brother Saul ! Brother Saul ! the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou earnest, has sent me that thou mayst receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost." Instantly something like scales fell from the blind man's eyes, and he arose from that seat the mightiest evangel of all the ages, a Sir William Hamilton for metaphysical analysis, a John Milton for sublimity of thought, a Whitefield for popular eloquence, a John Howard for DAMASCUS OLD AND NEW. 35 widespread philanthropy, but more than all of them put together, in- spired, thunderbolted, multipotent, apostolic. Did Judas, the kind host of this blind man, or Ananias, the visitor, see scales drop from the sightless eyes? I think not. But Paul knew they had fallen, and that is all that happens to any of us when we are converted. The blinding scales drop from our eyes and we see things differently. Sometimes the scales do not all fall at once. When I was a boy at Mount Pleasant, one Sunday afternoon reading Doddrige's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," that afternoon some of the scales fell from my eyes and I saw a little. After I had been in l:he ministry about a year, one Sunday afternoon in the village parson- age, reading the Bible story of the Syro Phenician's faith, other scales fell from my eyes and I saw better. Still later, while preparing for an evening service, I picked up a book that I did not remember to have seen before, and after I had read a page about reconsecration to God, I think the remaining scales fell from my eyes, and I saw as Paul saw ifter Ananias had touched his eyes. LORD. THAT I MAY RECEIVE MY SIGHT AA1ONG THE HOLY HILLS BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGL WHAT a splendid sleep I had last night in a Catholic convent- my first sleep within doors since leaving Jerusalem and all of us as kindly treated as though we had been the pope and Lis college of cardinals passing that way. Last evening the genial sisterhood of the convent ordered a hundred bright-eyed Arab children to be brought out to sing for me, and it was glorious ! This morning 1 come out on the steps of the convent and look upon the most beau- tiful village of all Palestine, its houses of white limestone. Guess its name. Nazareth, historical Nazareth ; one of the trinity of places that all Christian travelers must see, or feel that they have not seen Pales- tine; namely, Bethlehem Jerusalem Nazareth. Babyhood, boyhood, manhood of Him for whom I believe there are fifty million people who would now, if it were required, march out and die, whether under axe, or down in the floods, or straight through the fire. NAZARETH. A grand old village is Nazareth, even putting aside its sacred as- sociations. First of all, it is clean ; and that can be said of few of the oriental villages. Its neighboring town of Nablous is the filthiest town I ever saw, although its chief industry is the manufacture of soap. They export all of i . Besides that, Nazareth has been the scene of battles passing it from Israelite to Mohammedan, and from Mohammedan to Christian, the most wonderful of the battles being that in which twenty- five thousand Turks were beaten by twenty-one hundred French, Na- polson Bonaparte commanding that greatest of French commanders walking these very streets through which Jesus walked for nearly thirty years. Morally, these two were as widely separated as the antipodes, the snows of Russia and the plagues of Egypt appropriately following 36? j68 AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. the one, the doxologies of earth and the hallelujahs of heaven appro- priately following the other. And then this town is so beautifully situated in a great green bowl, the sides of the bowl being the surrounding fifteen hills. The God of nature, who is the God of the Bible, evidently scooped out this valley for privacy and separation from all the world during three most important decades, the thirty years of Christ's boyhood and youth ; for of the thirty-three years of Christ's stay on earth he spent thirty of them in this town getting ready a startling rebuke to those who have no pa- tience with the long years of preparation necessary when they enter on any special mission for the church or the world. BOYHOOD OF JESUS. All Christ's boyhood was spent in this village and its surroundings. There is the very well, called "The Fountain of the Virgin," to which, by his mother's side, he trotted along, holding her hand. No doubt about it ; it is the only well in the village, and it has been the only well for three thousand years. This morning we visit it, and the mothers have their children with them now as then. The work of drawing water in all ages in those countries has been women's work. Scores of them are waiting for their turn at it, three great and everlasting springs rolling out into that well their barrels, their hogsheads of water, in floods gloriously abundant. The well is surrounded by olive groves and wide spaces, in which people talk, and children, wearing charms on their heads as protection against the "evil eye," are playing, and women, with their strings of coin on either side of their face, and in skirts of blue, and scarlet, and white, and green, move on with water- jars on their heads. While one day he stood on a high point where now stands the tomb of Neby Ismail, he had seen winging past him so near as almost to flurry his hair the partridge, and the hoopoe, and the thrush, and the osprey, and the crane, and the raven ; and no wonder that afterward, in his manhood sermon, he said, " Behold the fowls of the air." In Nazareth, and on the road to it, there are a great many camels. I see them now in memory, making their slow way up the zigzag road from the plain of Esdraelon to Nazareth. Familiar was Christ with their appearance, also with that small insect, the gnat, which he had seen his mother strain out from a cup of water or pail of milk ; and no wonder JESUS WORKING AT THE TRADE OF CARPENTER 369 370 AMONG TFTE HOLY HILLS. 371 he brings afterward the large quadruped and the small insect into his sermon, and, while seeing the Pharisees careful about small sins and reckless about large ones, cries out: "Woe unto you, blind guides, which strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." BIRTH-PLACE OF PARABLES. He had in boyhood seen the shepherds get their flocks mixed up, and to one not familiar with the habits of shepherds and their flocks, Hopelessly mixed up. And a sheep-stealer appears on the scene, and dishonestly demands some of those sheep, when he owns not one ol them. "Well," say the two honest shepherds, "we will soon settle this matter," and one shepherd goes out in one direction, and the other shepherd goes out in the other direction, and the sheep-stealer in another direction, and each one calls, and the flocks of each of the hon- est shepherds rush to their owner, while the sheep-stealer calls and calls again, but gets not one of the flock. No wonder that Christ, years after, preaching on a great occasion, and illustrating his own shepherd qualities, says : " When he putteth forth his own sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice, and the stranger they will not follow, for they know not the voice of the stranger." The sides of these hills are terraced for grapes. The boy Christ had often stood with great round eyes watching the trimming of the grape-vines. Clip ! goes the knife and off falls a branch. The child Christ says to the farmer, "What do you do that for?" "Oh," says the farmer, "that is a derd branch, and it is doing nothing, and is only in the way, so I cut it off." Then the farmer, with his sharp knife, prunes from a living branch this and that tendril, and the other ten- dril. " But," says the child Christ, " these twigs that you cutoff now are not dead. What do you do that for?" " Oh," says the farmer, " we prune off these that the main branch may have more of the sap, and so be more fruitful." No wonder that in after years Christ said in his sermon : " I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman ; every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Capital ! No one who had not been a country boy would have said that. CITY INDEBTED TO COUNTRY. This country boy of Nazareth came forth to atone lor the sins of the world, and to correct the follies of the world, and to stamp out the AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. 373 cruelties of the world, and to illumine the darkness of the world, and to transfigure the hemispheres. So it has been the mission of the coun- try boys in all ages to transform, and inspire, and rescue. They come into our merchandise, and our court-rooms, and our healing art, and our studios, and our theology. They lived in Nazareth before they en- tered Jerusalem. And but for that annual influx, our cities would have enervated, and sickened, and slain the race. Late hours, and hurtful apparel, and overtaxed digestive organs, and crowding environments of city life would have halted the world, but the valleys and mountains, of Nazareth have given fresh supply of health and moral invigoration to Jerusalem, and the country saves the town. From the hills of New Hampshire, and the hills of Virginia, and the hills of Georgia, came into our national eloquence the Websters, and the Clays, and the Henry W. Gradys. From the plain homes of Massachusetts and Maryland came into our national charities the George Peabodys and the William Corcorans. From the cabins of the lonely country regions came into our national destinies the Andrew Jacksons and the Abraham Lincolns. From plowboy's furrow, and vil- lage counter, and blacksmith's forge, came most of our city giants. Nearly all the Messiahs in all departments dwelt in Nazareth before they came to Jerusalem. I send this day thanks from these cities, mostly made prosperous by country boys, to the farm-houses, and the prairies, and the mountain cabins, and the obscure homesteads of north, and south, and east, and west, to the fathers and mothers in plain homespun, if they be still alive, or the hillocks under which they sleep the long sleep. Thanks from Jerusalem to Nazareth. A gentleman long ago entered a school in Germany, and bowed very low before the boys, and the teacher said, " Why do you do that ?" " Oh," said the visitor, "I do not know what mighty man may yet be developed among them." At that instant the eyes of one of the boys flashed fire. Who was it ? Martin Luther. A lad on his way to school passed a doorstep on which sat a lame and invalid child. The passing boy said to him, " Why don't you go to school ?" "Oh, I am lame and I can't walk to school !" " Get on my back," said the well boy, "and T will carry you to school." And so he did, that day and for many days, until the invalid was fairly started on the road to an education. Who was the well boy that did that kindness? I don't know. Who was the invalid he carried ? It was Robert Hall, the rapt pulpit orator J74 AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. of all Christendom. Better give to the boys who come up from Naza- reth to Jerusalem a crown instead of a cross. AN OLD-TIME CARPENTER-SKOP. On this December morning in Palestine, on our way out from Nazareth, \ve saw just such a carpenter-shop as Jesus worked in, sup- porting his widowed mother, after he was old enough to do so. I looked in, and there were hammer, and saw, and plane, and auger, and vise, and measuring rule, and chisel, and drill, and adze, and wrench, and bit, and all the tools of carpentry. Think of it ! He who smoothed the surface of the earth shoving the plane. He who cleft the mountains by earthquake pounding a chisel. He who opened the mammoth caves of the earth turning an auger. He who wields the thunderbolt striking with a hammer. He who scooped out the bed of the ocean hollowing a ladle. He who flashes the morning on the earth, and makes the mid- night heavens quiver with aurora, constructing a window. I cannot understand it, but I believe it. A skeptic said to an old clergyman, "I will not believe anything I cannot explain." "Indeed !" said the clergyman. "You will not be- lieve anything you cannot explain ? Please to explain to me why some cows have horns and others have no horns." " No," said the skeptic ; " I did not mean exactly that I mean that I will not believe anything I have not seen." " Indeed !" said the clergyman. " You will not be- lieve anything you have not seen ? Have you a backbone?" " Yes " said the skeptic. " How do you know ?" said the clergyman. " Have you ever seen it?'" This mystery of Godhead and humanity inter- joined I cannot understand, and I cannot explain, but I believe it. I am glad there are so many things w FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. science. As late as the eighteenth century it had its votaries. At the court of Catharine de Medici it was honored. Kepler, one of the wisest philosophers that the world ever saw, declared it to be a true science. As late as the reign of Charles II., Lilly, an astrologer, was called before the House of Commons in England to give his opinion as to future events. For ages the bright appearance of Mars meant war ; of Jupiter, meant power ; of the Pleiades, meant storms at sea. And as history moves in circles, I do not know but that after a while it may TWO PAGES OF AN ANCIENT SCROLL OF SCRIPTURES be found that as the moon lifts the tides of the sea and the sun affects the growth or blasting of crops, other worlds besides those two worlds may have something to do with the destiny of individuals and nations in this world. THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST. I do not wonder that the commotions in the heavens excited the wise men on the night our Chieftain was born. As He came from FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. 391 another world, and after thirty-three years was again to exchange worlds, it does not seem strange to me that astronomy should have felt the effect of his coming. And instead of being unbelieving about the one star that stooped, I wonder that all the worlds in the heavens did not that Christmas night make some special demonstration. Why should they leave to one world or meteor the bearing of the news of the humanization of Christ ? Where was Mars that night that it did not indicate the mighty wars that were to come between righteousness JESUS BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN and iniquity? Where was Jupiter that night that it did not celebrate Omnipotence incarnated ? Where were the Pleiades that night that they did not announce the storms of persecution that would assail our Chieftain ? In watching this march of Christ through the centuries, we must not walk before Him or beside Him, for that would not be reverential or worshipful. So we walk behind Him. We follow Him while not yet in his teens, up a Jerusalem terrace, to a building six hundred feet long and six hundred feet wide, and under the hovering splendor of 392 FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. gateways, and by a pillar crowned with capital chiseled into the shape of flowers and leaves, and along by walls of beveled masonry and near a marble screen, until a group of white-haired philosophers and theologians gather around Him, and then the boy bewilders and con- founds and overwhelms these scholarly septuagenarians with questions they cannot answer, and under his quick whys and wherefores and hows and whens they pull their white beards with embarrassment, and rub their wrinkled foreheads in confusion, and putting their staff hard down on the marble floor as they arise to go, they must feel like chiding the boldness that allows twelve years of age to ask seventy- five years of age such puzzlers. TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. Out of this building we follow Him into the Quarantania, the moun- tain of temptation, its side to this day black with robbers' dens. Look ! Up the side of this mountain come all the forces of perdition to effect our Chieftain's capture. But although weakened by forty days and forty nights of abstinence, He hurls all Pandemonium down the rocks, suggestive of how He can hurl into helplessness all our tempta- tions. And now we climb right after Him up the tough sides of the "Mount of Beatitudes," and on the highest pulpit of rocks the Valley of Hatin before Him, the Lake of Galilee to the right of Him, the Mediterranean sea to the left of Him He preaches a sermon thai, yet will transform the world with its applied sentiment. Now we follow our Chieftain on Lake Galilee. We must keep to the beach, for our feet are not shod with the supernatural, and we remember what poor work Peter made of it when he tried to walk the water. Christ, our leader, is on the top of the tossing waves, and it is about half-past three in the morning, and it is the darkest time just before daybreak. But by the flashes of lightning we see Him putting his feet on the crest of the wave, stepping from crest to crest, walking the white surf, solid as though it were frozen snow. The sailors think o a ghost is striding the tempest, but He cheers them into placidity, show- ing himself to be a great Christ for sailors. And He walks the Atlantic and Pacific and Mediterranean and Adriatic now, and if exhausted and affrighted voyagers will listen for his voice at half-past three o'clock in FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. 393 the morning on any sea, indeed at any hour, they will hear his voice of compassion and encouragement. t> CHRIST THE HEALER. We continue to follow our Chieftain, and here is a blind man by the wayside. It is not from cataract of the eye or from ophthalmia, the eye-extinguisher of the east, but he was born blind. " Be opened ! " He cries, and first there is a smarting of the eyelids, and then a twilight, and then a midnoon, and then a shout. " I see ! I see ! " Tell it to all the blind, and they at least can appreciate it. And here is the widow's dead son, and here is the expired damsel, and here is Lazarus ! " Live ! " our Chieftain cries, and they live. Tell it through all the bereft households ; tell it among the graves. And here around Him gather the deaf, and the dumb, and the sick, and at his word they turn on their couches and blush from awful pallor of helpless illness to rubicund health, and the swollen foot of the dropsical sufferer becomes fleet as a roe on the mountains. The music of the grove and household wakens the deaf ear, and lunatic and maniac return into bright intelligence, and the leper's breath be- comes as sweet as the breath of a child, and the flesh as roseate. Tell it to all the sick, through all the homes, through all the hospitals. Tell it at twelve o'clock at night ; tell it at two o'clock in the morning ; tell it at half-past three, and in the last watch of the night, that Jesus walks the tempest. Still we follow our Chieftain until the government that gave Him. no protection insists that He pay tax, and too poor to raise the requi- site two dollars and seventy-five cents, He orders Peter to catch a fish that has in its mouth a Roman stater, which is a brigJ~ ' coin (and you know that fish naturally bite at anything bright), but it was a miracle that Peter should have caught it at the first haul. THE BETRAYAL. Now we follow our Chieftain until for the paltry sum of fifteen dollars Judas sells Him to his pursuers. Tell it to all the betrayed ! If for ten thousand dollars, or for five hundred dollars, or for one hundred dollars, your interests were sold out, consider for how much cheaper a sum the Lord of earth and heaven was surrendered to hu- miliation and death. But here, while following him on a spring nignt, 594 FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. between eleven and twelve o'clock, we see the flash of torches and lanterns, and we hear the cry of a mob of nihilists. They are break- ing in on the quietude of Gethsemane with clubs like a mob with sticks chasing a mad dog. It is a herd of Jerusalem "roughs," led on by Judas, to arrest Christ and punish him for being the loveliest and best being that ever lived. But rioters are liable to assail the wrong man. How were they to be sure which one was Jesus ? "I will kiss him," says Judas, "and by that signal you will know on whom to lay your hands of arrest." So the kiss which throughout the human race and for all time God in- tended as the most sacred demonstration of affection for Paul writes to the Romans and the Corinthians and the Thessalonians concerning the "holy kiss," and Peter celebrates the kiss of charity, and with that conjunction of lips Laban met Jacob, and Joseph met his brethren, and Aaron met Moses, and Samuel met Saul, and Jonathan met David, and Orpah departed from Naomi, and Paul separated from his friends at Ephesus, and the father in the parable greeted the returning prodigal, and when the millennium shall come we are told righteous- ness and peace will kiss each other, and all the world is invited to greet Christ as inspiration cries out, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish from the way" that most sacred demonstration of re- union and affection was desecrated as the filthy lips of Judas touched the pure cheek of Christ, and the horrid smack of that kiss has its echo in the treachery and debasement and hypocrisy of all ages. TRIAL AND SENTENCE. As, in December, 1889, I walked on the way from Bethany, and at the foot of Mount Olivet, a half mile from the wall of Jerusalem, through the Garden of Gethsemane, and under the eight venerable olive trees now standing, their pomological ancestors having been wit- nesses of the occurrences spoken of, the scene of horror and of crime came back to me until I shuddered with the historical reminiscence. In further following our great Chieftain's march through the cen- turies, I find myself in a crowd in front of Herod's palace in Jerusa- lem, and on a movable platform placed upon a tessellated pavement Pontius Pilate sits. And as once a year a condemned criminal is par- doned, Pilate lets the people choose whether it shall be an assassin or our Chieftain, and they all cry out for the liberation of the assassin, thus fROM CRADLE TO CROWN. 395 declaring that they prefer a murderer to the salvation of the world. Pilate took a basin of water in front of these people and tried to wash THE GARDEN OF GKTHSEMANE. off the blood of this murder from his hands, but he could not. They are still lifted, and I see them looming up through all the ages, eight f,ngers and two thumbs standing out red with the carnage. 396 FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. Still following our Chieftain, I ascend the hill which General Gordon, the great English explorer and arbiter, first made a clay model of. It is hard climbing for our Chieftain, for He has not only two heavy timbers to carry on his back, the upright and horizontal pieces of the cross, but He is suffering from exhaustion caused by lack of food, mountain chills, desert heats, whippings with elmwood rods, and years of maltreatment. It took our party, in 1889, only fifteen minutes to climb to the top of the hill and reach that limestone rock in yonder wall, which I rolled down from the apex of Mount Calvary. But I think our Chieftain must have taken a long time for the ascent, for He had all earth and all heaven and all hell on his back as He climbed from base to summit, and there endured what William Cowper and John Milton and Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts and James Montgomery and all the other sacred poets have attempted to put in verse ; and Angelo and Raphael and Titian and Leonardo da Vinci and all the great Italian and German and Spanish and French artists have attempted to paint ; and Bossuei and Massillon and George Whitefield and Thomas Chalmers have attempted to preach. THE CRUCIFIXION AND ASCENSION. Something of its overwhelming awfulness you may estimate from the fact that the sun which shines in the heavens could not endure it ; the sun which unflinchingly looked upon the deluge that drowned the world, which, without blinking, looked upon the ruins of earthquakes which swallowed Lisbon and Caraccas, and has looked unblanched on the battle-fields of Arbela, Blenheim, Megiddo and Esdraelon, and all the scenes of carnage that have ever scalded and drenched the earth with human gore that sun could not look upon the scene. The sun dropped over its face a veil of cloud. It withdrew. It hid itself. It said to the midnight, " I resign to thee this spectacle upon which I have no strength to gaze ; thou art blind, O midnight ! and for that reason I commit to thee this tragedy ! " Then the night hawk and the bat flew by, and the jackal howled in the ravines. Now we follow our Chieftain as they carry his limp and lacerated form amid the flowers and trees of a garden, the gladioluses, the oleanders, the lilies, the geraniums, the mandrakes, down five or six steps to an aisle of granite where he sleeps. But only a little while He 397 FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. 399 sleeps there, for there is an earthquake in all that region, leaving the rocks to this day in their aslant and ruptured state declarative of the fact that something extraordinary there happened. And we see our Chieftain arouse from his brief slumber and wrestle down the ruffian Death who would keep him imprisoned in that cavern, and put both heels on the monster, and coming forth with a cry that will not cease to 4 be echoed until on the great resurrection day the door of the lost sepulcher shall be unhinged and flung clanging into the debris of demolished cemeteries. Now we follow our Chieftain to the shoulder of Mount Olivet, and without wings He rises, the disciples clutching for his robes too late to reach them, and across the great gulfs of space with one bound He gains that world which for thirty-three years had been denied his companion- ship, and' all heaven lifts a shout of welcome as He enters, and of corona- tion as up to the mediatorial throne He mounts. It was the greatest day heaven had ever seen. They had him back again from tears, from wounds, from ills, from a world that never appreciated him to a world in which He was the chief delight. In all the libretto of celestial music it was hard to find an anthem enough conjubilant to celebrate the joy saintly, seraphic, archangelic, deific. CHRIST'S MARCH THROUGH THE CENTURIES, But still we follow our Chieftain in his march through the centuries, for invisibly He still walks the earth, and by the eye of faith we still follow Him. You can tell where He walks by the churches and hospitals and reformatory institutions and houses of mercy that spring 1 up along the way. I hear his tread in the sick-room and in the abodes of be- reavement. He marches on and the nations are gathering around Him. The islands of the sea are hearing his voice. The continents are feeling his power. America will be his. Europe will be his. Asia will be his. Africa will be his. Australia will be his. New Zealand will be his. All the earth will be his ! Do you realize that until now it was impossible for the world to be converted ? Not until very recently has the world been found. The Bible talks about the "ends of the earth" and the " uttermost parts of the world " as being saved, but not until now have the "ends of the earth" been discovered, and not until now have the " uttermost parts of the world " been revealed 406 FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. The navigator did his work, the explorer did his work, the scientist did his work, and now for the first time since the world has been created has the world been known, measured off, and geographized, the lost, hidden and unknown tract has been mapped out, and now the work of evangelization will be begun with an earnestness and velocity as yet unimagined. The steamships are ready, the lightning express trains are ready, the printing-presses are ready, the telegraph and telephone are ready, millions of Christians are ready and now see Christ marching on through the centuries. Marching on ! Marching on ! One by one, governments will fall into line, and constitutions and literatures will adore his name. More honored and worshiped is He in this year of 1892 than at anytime since the year one, and the day hastens when all nations will join one procession "following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." Marching on, marching on ! This dear old world whose back has been scourged, whose eyes hav* been blinded, whose heart has been wrung, will yet rival heaven This planet's torn robe of pain and crime and dementia will come off, and the white and spotless and glittering robe of holiness and happi- ness will come on. * The last wound will have stung for the last time, the last grief will have wiped its last tear, the last criminal will have repented of his last crime, and our world that has been a straggler among the worlds, a lost star, a wayward planet, a rebellious globe, a miscreant satellite, will hear the voice that uttered childish plaint in Bethlehem and agonized prayer in Gethsemane and dying groan on Golgotha, and as this voice cries " Come," our world will return from its wanderings never again to stray. Marching on, marching on ! Then this world's joy will be so great that other worlds besides heaven may be glad to rejoice with us. By the aid of powerful tele- scopes, year by year becoming more powerful, mountains in other stars have been discovered, and chasms and volcanoes and canals and the style of atmosphere, and this will go on, and mightier and mightier telescopes will be invented until I should not wonder if we will be able to exchange signals with other planets. And as I have no doubt other worlds are inhabited, for God would not have built such magnificent world houses to have them stand without tenants or occupants, in the final joy of earth's redemption, all astronomy, I think, will take part, we signaling other worlds, and they in turn signaling their stellar neighbors. Oh, what a day in heaven FROM CRADLE TO CROWN. 401 that will be when the march of Christ is finished ! I know that on the cross Christ said, "It is finished," but He meant his sacrificial work was finished. All earth and all heaven knows that evangelization is not finished. It may be after our world, which is thought to contain about fif- teen hundred million people, shall have on its decks twice its present population, namely, three thousand million souls and all redeemed, and it will be after this world shall be so damaged by conflagration that no human foot can tread its surface and no human being can breathe its air; but most certainly the day will come when heaven will be finished and the last of the twelve gates of the eternal city shall have clanged shut, never to open except for the admission of some celestial embassage returning from some other world, and Christ may strike his scarred but healed hand in emphasis on the arm of the amethystine throne, and say in substance: "All my ransomed ones are gathered. The work is done. I have finished my march through the centuries." When in 1813, after the battle of Leipsic, which decided the fate of the nineteenth century, in some respects the most tremendous battle ever fought, the bridge down, the river incarnadined, the street choked with the wounded, the fields for miles around strewn with a dead soldiery from whom all traces of humanity had been dashed out, there met in the public square of that city of Leipsic the allied con- querors and kings who had gained the victory the king of Prussia, the emperor of Russia, the crown prince of Sweden followed by the chiefs of their armies. With drawn swords these monarchs saluted each other and cheered for the continental victory they had together gained. History lias made the scene memorable. Greater and more thrilling will be the spectacle when the world is all conquered for the truth, and in front of the palace of heaven the kings and conquerors of all the allied powers of Christian usefulness shall salute each other and recount the struggles by which they gained the triumph, and then hand over their swords to Him who is the Chief of the conquerors, crying: "Thine, O Christ, is the king- dom ; take the crown of victory, the crown of dominion, the crown of grace, the crown of glory." WE ARE WITNESSES BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE | N che days of George Stephenson, the perfector of the locomotive I engine, the scientists proved conclusively that a railroad train could never be driven by steam power successfully without peril ; but the rushing express trains from Liverpool to Edinburgh, and from Edin- burgh to London, have made all the nation witnesses of the splendid achievement. Machinists and navigators proved conclusively that a steamer could never cross the Atlantic ; but no sooner had they successfully proved the impossibility of such an undertaking than the work was done, and the passengers on the Cunard, and the Inman, and the National, and the White Star lines are witnesses. There went up a guffaw of wise laughter at Professor Morse's proposition to make the lightning of heaven his errand-boy, and it was proved conclusively that the thing could never be done ; but now all the news of the wide world put in your hands every morning and night has made all nations witnesses. So, in the time of Christ, it was proved conclusively that it was impossible for Him to rise from the dead. It was shown logically that when a man was dead he was dead, and, the heart and the liver and the lungs having ceased to perform their offices, the limbs would be rigid beyond all power of friction or arousal. They showed it to be an absolute absurdity that the dead Christ should ever get up alive ; but no sooner had they proved this than the dead Christ arose, and the disciples beheld Him, heard His voice, and talked with Him, and they took the witness stand to prove that to be true which the wiseacres of the day had proved to be impossible j the record of the experiment and of the testimony is in the words: "Him hath God raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses." (402) 403 SI 404 WE ARE WITNESSES. 45 Now let me play the skeptic for a moment. "There is no God," says the skeptic, "for I have never seen Him with my physical eye- sight. Your Bible is a pack of contradictions. There never was a miracle. Lazarus was not raised from the dead, and the water was never turned into wine. Your religion is an imposition on the cred- ulity of the ages." I see an aged man moving as though he would like to respond. Here are hundreds of people with faces a little flushed at these announcements, and all through this throng there is a sup- pressed feeling which would like to speak in behalf of the truth of our glorious Christianity, crying out, "We are witnesses !" The fact is that if this world is ever brought to God it will not be through argument, but through testimony. You might cover the whole earth with apologies for Christianity and learned treatises in defence of religion you would not convert a soul. Lectures on the harmony between science and religion are beautiful mental discipline, but have never saved a soul and never will save a soul. Put a man of the world and a man of the church against each other, and the man of the world will, in all probability get the triumph. There are a thousand things in our religion that seem illogical to the world, and always will seem illogical. Our weapon in this conflict is faith, not logic ; faith not metaphysics ; faith, not profundity ; faith, not scholastic exploration. But then, in order to have faith we must have testimony, and if five hundred men, or one thousand men, or five hundred thousand men, or five million men get up and tell me that they have felt the religion of Jesus Christ a joy, a comfort, a help, an inspiration, I am bound, as a fair minded man, to accept their testimony. I want to put before you three propositions the truth of which I think my readers will attest with overwhelming unanimity. The first proposition is : We are witnesses that the religion of Christ is able to convert a soul. The Gospel may have had a hard time to conquer us, we may have fought it back, but we were vanquished. You say conversion is only an imaginary thing. We know better. "We are witnesses." There never was so great a change in our heart and life on any other subject as on this. FAITH AGAINST LOGIC. People laughed at the missionaries in Madagascar because they preached ten years without one convert ; but there are many thousands 406 WE ARE WITNESSES. of converts in Madagascar to-day. People laughed at Dr. Judson, the Baptist missionary, because he kept on preaching in Burmah five years without a single convert ; but there are many thousands of Baptists in Burmah to-day. People laughed at Dr. Morrison in China for preach- ing there seven years without a single conversion ; but there are many thousands of Christians in China to-day. People laughed at the mission- aries for preaching at Tahiti for fifteen years without a single conver- sion ; yet in all those lands there are multitudes of Christians to-day. THE FORCE OF TESTIMONY. If ten men should come to you when you are sick with appalling sickness and say they had the same sickness and took a certain medi- cine and it cured them, you would probably take it. Now, suppose ten other men should come up and say: "We don't believe that there is anything in that medicine." "Well," I say, "have you tried it?" " No, I never tried it, but I don't believe there is anything in it." Of course you discredit their testimony. The skeptic may come and say: "There is no power in your religion." " Have you ever tried it?" "No, no." "Then avaunt!" Let me take the testimony of the millions of souls that have been converted to God and comforted in trial and solaced in the last hour. We will take their testimony as they cry, " We are witnesses!" Professor Henry, of Washington, discovered a new star, and the tidings sped by submarine telegraph, and all the observatories of Europe were watching for that new star. Oh, hearer, looking out through the darkness of thy soul, canst thou see a bright light beaming on thee ? " Where ?" you say. " Where ? How can I find it ?" Look along by the line of the Cross of the Son of God. Do you not see it trembling with all tenderness and beaming with all hope. It is the Star of Bethlehem. Oh, my readers, get your eye on it. It is easier for you now to be- come Christians than it is to stay away from Christ and heaven. When Mme. Sontag began her music il career she was hissed off the stage at. Vienna by the friends of her rival, Amelia Steininger, who had already begun to decline through her dissipation. Years passed on, and one day Mme. Sontag, in her glory, was riding through the streets of Ber- lin, when she saw a little child leading a blind woman, and she said : " Come here, my little child, come here. Who is that you are leading by the hand?" And the little child replied: "That's my mother, WE ARE WITNESSES. 407 that's Amelia Steininger. She used to be a great singer, but she lost her voice, and she cried so much about it that she lost her eyesight. 1 "Give my love to her," said Mme. Sontag, "and tell her an old ac- quaintance will call on her this afternoon." " WHEREAS I WAS BLIND, NOW I SEE The next week in Berlin a vast assemblage gathered at a benefit for that poor blind woman, and it was said that Sontag sang that night as she had never sung before. And she took a skilled oculist, who in vain tried to restore eyesight to the poor blind woman. Until the day - 408 WE ARE WITNESSES. of Amelia Steininger's death Madam Sontag took care of her and her daughter after her. That was what the queen of song did for her enemy. But oh, hear a more thrilling story still. Blind, immortal poor and lost ; thou who, when the world and Christ were rivals for thy heart didst hiss thy Lord away Christ comes now to give thee sight, to give thee a home, to give thee heaven. With more than a Sontag's generosity, He comes now to meet your need. With more than a Sontag's music, He comes to plead for thy deliverance. SACRED SONG BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE LAMECH had two boys, the one a herdsman and the other a musi- cian. Jubal, the younger son, was the first organ builder. He started the first sound that rolled from the wondrous instrument which has had so much to do with the worship of the ages. But what improvement has been made under the hands of organ builders such as Bernhard, Sebastian Bach and George Hogarth and Joseph Booth and Thomas Robjohn, clear on down to George and Edward Jardine of our own day ! I do not wonder that when the first organ, that we read of as given in 757 by an emperor of the East to a king of France, sounded forth its full grandeur, a woman fell into a delirium from which her reason was never restored. The majesty of a great organ skillfully played is almost too much for human endurance, but how much the instrument has done in the re-enforcement of divine service it will take all time and all eternity to celebrate. There has been much discussion as to where music was born. I think at the beginning, when the morning stars sang together, and all the suns of God shouted for joy, that the earth heard the echo. The cloud on which the angels stood to celebrate the creation was the birth- place of song. Inanimate nature is full of God's stringed and wind in- struments. Silence itself perfect silence is only a musical rest in God's great anthem of worship. Wind among the leaves, insects humming in the summer air, the rush of billow upon beach, the ocean far out sounding its everlasting psalm, the bobolink on the edge of the forest, the quail whistling up from the grass, are music. On Blackwell's island I heard coming from a window of the lunatic asylum a very sweet song. It was sung by one who had lost her reason ; and I have come to believe that even the deranged and dis- 409 4IO SACRED SONG. ordered elements of nature would make music to our ear, if we only- had acuteness enough to listen. I suppose that even the sounds in nature that are discordant and repulsive make harmony in God's ear. One may come so near to an orchestra that the sounds are painful in- stead of pleasurable, and I think we stand so near devastating storm and frightful whirlwind that we cannot hear that which makes to God's ear and the ear of the spirits above us a music as complete as it is tre- mendous. Not only is inanimate nature full of music, but God has wonderfully organized the human voice, so that in the plainest throat and lungs there are fourteen direct muscles which can make over sixteen thou- sand different sounds, and there are thirty indirect muscles which can- make, it has been estimated, more than one hundred and seventy-three millions of sounds ! Now, I say, when God has so constructed the human voice, and when he has filled the whole earth with harmony, and when he recognized it in the ancient temple, I have a right to come to the conclusion that God loves music. IMPORTANCE OF SACRED MUSIC. We draw the first argument for the importance of sacred music from the fact that God has commanded it. Through Paul he tells us to ad- monish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and through David he cries out, "Sing ye to God, all ye kingdoms of the earth." And there are hundreds of other passages we might name proving that it is as much a man's duty to sing as it is his duty to pray. Indeed, I think there are more commands in the Bible to sing, than there are to pray. God not only asks for the human voice but for instruments of music. He asks for the cymbal, and the harp, and the trumpet, as well as the organ. And I suppose that, in the last days of the church, the harp, the lute, the trumpet and all the instruments of music, whether they have been in the service of righteousness or sin will be brought by their masters and laid down at the feet of Christ, and then sounded in the church's triumph, on her way from suffering into glory. "Praise ye the Lord!" Praise him with your voices. Praise him with stringed instruments and with organs. We may draw another argument for the importance of this exercise CHRISTMAS CAROLS 411 4 i2 SACKED SONG. from its impressiveness. We know something of what secular music has achieved. We know it has made its impression on governments, upon laws, upon literature, upon whole generations. One inspiriting national air is worth thirty thousand men as a standing army. There comes a time in the battle when one bugle is worth a thousand mus- kets. No nation or church can afford to severely economize in music. Many of us are illustrations of what sacred song can do. There was a Scotch soldier dying in New Orleans, and a Scotch minister came in to give him the consolations of the Gospel. The man turned over on his pillow and said. "Don't talk to me about religion." Then the Scotch minister began to sing a familiar hymn of Scotland that was composed by David Dickenson, beginning with the words : Oh, mother, dear Jerusalem, When shall I come to thee ? He sang it to the tune of "Dundee," and everybody in Scotland knows that : and as he began to sing the dying soldier turned over on his pillow, and said to the minister, "Where did you learn that?" "Why," replied the minister, "my mother taught me that." "So did mine," said the dying Scotch soldier; and the very foundation of his heart was upturned, and then and there he yielded himself to Christ. Oh, it has an irresistible power. Luther's sermons have been forgot- ten, but his "Judgment Hymn " sings on through the ages, and will keep on singing until the blast of the archangel's trumpet shall bring about that very day which the hymn celebrates. THE ROYAL OLD HYMNS. In addition to the inspiring music of our own day we have a glorious inheritance of church psalmody which has come down fragrant with the devotions of other generations tunes no more worn out than they were when our great-grandfathers climbed up on them from the church pew to glory ? Dear old souls, how they used to sing ! When they were cheerful, our grandfathers and grandmothers used to sing "Col- chester." When they were very meditative, then the board meeting house rang with " South Street " and "St. Edmond's." Were they struck through with great tenderness they sang "Woodstock." Were they wrapped in visions of the glory of the church, they sang "Zion." Were they overborne with the love and glory of Christ, they sang "Ariel." And in those days there were certain tunes married to cer- SACRED SONG. 4*3 tain hymns, and they have lived in peace a great while, these two old people, and we have no right to divorce them. "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." But how hard hearted we must be if all the sacred music of the past, and all the sacred music of the pres- ent does not start us heavenward. I have also noticed the power of sacred song to soothe perturbation. You may come in church with a great many worriments and anxieties, yet, perhaps, in the singing of the first hymn, you lose all those worri- ments and anxieties. We read in the Bible of Saul and how he was sad and angry, and how the boy David came in and played the evil spirit out of him. A Spanish king was melancholy. The windows were all closed. He sat in the darkness. Nothing could bring him forth until Faraneli came and discoursed music three or four days to him. On the fourth day he looked up and wept and rejoiced, and the windows were thrown open, and that which all the splendors of the court could not do the power of song accomplished. If we have anxi- eties and worriments we should try this heavenly charm upon them. We must not sit down on the bank of the hymn, but plunge in, that the devil of care may be brought out of us. Music also arouses to action. A singing church is always a triumph- ant church ! If a congregation is silent during the exercise, or par- tially silent, it is the silence of death. If, when the hymn is given out, we hear the faint hum of here and there a father and mother in Israel, while the vast majority are silent, that minister of Christ who is pre- siding needs to have a very strong constitution if he does not get the chills. He needs not only the grace of God, but nerves like whale- bone. It is amazing how some people, who have voice enough to discharge all their duties in the world, when they come into the house of God, have no voice to discharge this duty. I really believe that, if the church of Christ could rise up and sing as it ought to sing, that where we have a hundred souls brought into the kingdom of Christ, there would be a thousand. I am far from believing that music ought always to be positively religious. Refined art has opened places where music has been 1 secularized, and lawfully so. The drawing room, the musical club, the orchestra, the concert, by the gratification of pure taste and the pro- duction of harmless amusement, and the improvement of talent, have become great forces in the advancement of our civilization. Music 4 i4 SACRED SONG. has as much right to laugh in Surrey gardens as it has to pray in St. Paul's. In the kingdom of nature we have the glad fifing of the wind as well as the long meter psalm of the thunder ; but while all this is so, every observer has noticed that this art, which God intended for the improve- ment of the ear, and the voice, and the head, and the heart, has often been impressed into the service of false religions. False religions have depended more upon the hymning of their congregations than upon the pulpit proclamation of their dogmas. Tartini, the musical composer, dreamed one night that Satan snatched from his hands an instrument and played upon it something very sweet a dream that has often been fulfilled in our days, the voice and the instruments that ought to have been devoted to Christ, being captured from the church and applied to purposes of superstition. OBSTACLES TO CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. An obstacle to church singing has been an inordinate fear of criti- cism. The vast majority of people singing in church never want any* body else to hear them sing. Everybody is waiting for somebody else to do his duty. If we all sang, then the inaccuracies that are evident when only a few sing would not be heard at all ; they would be drowned out. God only asks you to do as well as you can, and then if you get the wrong pitch, or keep wrong time, he will forgive any deficiency of the ear and imperfection of the voice. Angels will not laugh if you should lose your place in the musical scale, or come in at the close a bar behind. Another obstacle that has been in the way of the advancement of this holy art has been the fact that there has been so much angry discussion on the subject of music. There are those who would have this exer- cise conducted by musical instruments. In the same church there are those who do not like musical instruments, and so it is organ or no organ, and there is a fight. In another church it is a question whether music shall be conducted by a precentor or a drilled choir. Some want a drilled choir and some want a precentor, and there is a fight. Then there are those who would like in the church to have the organ played in a dull, lifeless, droning way, while there are others who would have it wreathed into fantastics, branching out in jets and spangles of sound, rolling and tossing in marvelous convolutions, as when, in pyro- SACKED SONG. 415 technic display, after you think a piece is exhausted, it breaks out in wheels, rockets, blue lights and serpentine demonstrations. Some would have the organ played in almost inaudible sweetness, and others would have it full of staccato passages that make the audi- ence jump, with great eyes and hair on end, as though by a vision of the Witch of Endor. And he who tries to please all will fail in everything. Nevertheless, we must admit the fact that this contest which is going on, not in hundreds, but in thousands of the churches of the United States to-day, is a mighty hindrance to the advancement of this art In this way scores of churches are entirely crippled as to all influence, and the music is a damage rather than a praise. Another obstacle in the advancement of this art has been the erro- neous notion that this part of the service could be conducted by dele- gation. Churches have said : "Oh, what an easy time we shall have. This minister will do the preaching, the choir will do the singing and we will have nothing to do." There are a great multitude of churches all through this land, where the people are not expected to sing, and the whole work is done by delegation of four or six to ten persons and the audience are silent. In such a church in Syracuse an old elder persisted in singing, and so the choir appointed a committee to go and ask the squire if he would not stop. You know that in a great multitude of churches the choir are expected to do all the singing, and the great mass of the people are expected to be silent, and if you utter your voice you are interfer- ing. There they stand, the four, with opera glass dangling at their side, singing, "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me," with the same spirit that the night before, on the stage, they took their part in the " Grand Duchess " or " Don Giovanni." DELEGATION DUTY. We have no right to delegate to others the discharge of this duty vvhich God demands of us. Suppose that four wood thrushes should propose to do all the singing some bright day when the woods are ringing with bird voices. It is decided that four wood thrushes shall do all the singing of the forest. Let all the other voices keep silent. How beautifully the four warble ! It is really fine music. But how tong will you keep the forest still ! Why, Christ would come into that forest and look up as he looked through the olives, and he would wave 416 SACRED SONG. his hand and say, "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord," and, keeping time with the stroke of innumerable wings, there would be five thousand bird voices leaping into the harmony. Suppose this delegation of musical performers were tried in heaven ; suppose that four choice spirits should try to do the sing- ing of the upper temple. Hush, now, thrones and dominions and principalities. David! be still, though you were "the sweet singer of Israel." Paul ! keep quiet, though you have come to that crown of rejoicing. Richard Baxter ! keep still, though this is the " Saint's Everlasting Rest." Four spirits now do all the singing. But how long would heaven be quiet? How long? "Hallelujah! 1 ' would cry some glorified Methodist from under the altar. "Praise the Lord ! " would sing the martyrs from among the thrones. "Thinks be unto God who giveth us the victory ! " a great multitude of redeemed spirits would cry. Myriads of voices coming into the harmony, and the one hundred and forty and four thousand breaking forth into one acclamation. Stop that loud singing ! Stop ! Oh, no they cannot hear me. You might as well try to drown the thunder of the sky, or beat back the roar of the sea, for every soul in heaven has resolved to do its own singing. Alas ! that we should have tried on earth that which they cannot do in heaven, and instead of joining all our voices in the praise of the most high God, delegating perhaps to unconsecrated men and women this most solemn and most delightful service. After a shower there are scores of streams that come down the mountain side with voices rippling and silvery, pouring into one river and then rolling in united strength to the sea. So I would have all church congregations send forth the voice of prayer and praise, pouring it into the great tide of public worship that rolls on and on to empty into the great, wide heart of God. A COMING REVOLUTION. There will be a great revolution on this subject in all our churches. God will come down by his spirit and rouse up the old hymns and funes that have not been more than half awake since the time of our grandfathers. The silent pews in the church will break forth into music, and when the conductor takes his place on the Sabbath day there will be a great host of voices rushing into the harmony. If we Hymn of Thanksgiving. /^)OR the blessings of the field, S^ For the stores the gardens yield, For the vine's exalted juice, For the generous olive's use ; Flocks that whiten all the plain, Yellow sheaves of ripened grain, Clouds that drop their fattening dews, Suns that temperate warmth diffuse; All that Spring, with bounteous hand, Scatters o'er the smiling land ; All that liberal Autumn pours From her rich o'erflowing stores; These to Thee, my God, we owe Source whence all our blessings flow! And for these my soul shall raise Grateful vows and solemn praise. Yet should rising whirlwinds tear From its stem the ripening ear, Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot Drop her green untimely fruit Should the vine put forth no more, Nor the olive yield her store, Though the sickening flocks should fall, And the herds desert the stall Should thine altered hand restrain The early and the latter rain, Blast each opening bud of joy, And the rising year destroy Yet to Thee my soul should raise Grateful vows and solemn praise, And, when every blessing's flown, Love Thee for Thyself alone. ANNA LCETITIA 27 A SONG TO CHEER 418 SACKED SONG. 4*9 have no taste for this service on earth, what will we do in heaven, where they all sing, and sing forever ? I shall never forget hearing a Frenchman sing the "Marseillaise" on the Champs Elysees, Paris, just before the battle of Sedan in 1870. I never saw such enthusiasm before or since. As he sang that national air, Oh ! how the Frenchmen shouted ! Have you ever in an English assemblage heard the baad play " God Save the Queen ?" If you have, you know something about the enthusiasm of a national air. Now, these songs we sing Sabbath by Sabbath are the national airs of Jesus Christ and of the kingdom of heaven, and if we do not learn to sing them here, how do we expect to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb ? I should not be surprised at all if som^: of the best anthems of heaven were made up of some of the best songs on earth. May God increase our reverence for Christian psalmody, and keep us from disgracing it by our indifference and frivolity. When Cromwell's army went into battle, he stood at the head of them one day, and gave out the long meter doxology to the tune of the "Old Hundred," and that great host, company by company, regiment by regiment, battalion by battalion, joined in the doxology: Praise God from whomall blessings flow, Praise him, all creatures he - -; below ; Praise him above, ye hea v-uly host, Praise Father, Son anr 1 ff y Ghost And while they sang they marched, and while they marched they fought, and while they fought they got the victory. Oh, men and women of Jesus Christ, let us go into all our conflicts singing the praises of God, and then instead of falling back, as we often do, from defeat to defeat, we will be marching on from victory to victory. THE RAIN'S STORY BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE THE Book of Job has been the subject of unbounded theological wrangle. Men have made it the ring in which to display their ecclesiastical pugilism. Some say that the Book of Job is a true history ; others, that it is an allegory ; others, that it is an epic poem , others, that it is a dram:.. Some say that Job lived eighteen hundred years before Christ, others say that he never lived at all. Some say that the author of this book was Job ; others, David ; others, Solo- mon. The discussion has landed some in blank infidelity. Now, I have no trouble with the Books of Job or Revelation the two most mysterious books in the Bible because of a rule I adopted some years ago. I wade down into a Scripture passage as long as I can touch bottom, and when I cannot, the.n I wade out. I used to wade in until it ,vas over my head and then I got drowned. I study a passage of Scripture so long as it is a comfort and help to my soul, but when it becomes a perplexity and a spiritual upturning I quit. In other words, we ought to wade in up to our heart, but never wade in until it is over our head. No man should ever expect to swim across this great ocean of divine truth. I go down into that ocean as I go down into the Atlantic Ocean at East Hampton, Long Island, just far enough to bathe ; then I come out. I never had any idea that with my weak hand and foot I could strike my way clear over to Liverpool. ORIGIN OF THE RAIN. I suppose you understand your farr'lv genealogy. You know something about your parents, your grandparents, your great-grand- parents. Perhaps you know where th<^ where born, or where they 420 THE RAIN'S STORY. 421 died. Have you ever studied the parentage of the shower? "Hath not the rain a father? " This question is not asked by a poetaster or a scientist, but by the head of the universe. To humble and to save Job God asks him fourteen questions. About the world's architec- ture, about the refraction of the sun's rays, about the titles, about the snow crystal, about the lightnings, and then He arraigns him with the interrogation of the text "Hath the rain a father?" Safely housed during the storm, you hear the rain beating against the window pane, and you find it searching all the crevices of the window sill. It first comes down in solitary drops, pattering the dust, and then it deluges the fields and angers the mountain torrents, and makes the traveler implore shelter. You know that the rain is not an accident of the world's economy. You know it was born of the cloud. You know it was rocked in the cradle of the wind. You know it was sung to sleep by the storm. You know that it is a flying evangel from heaven to earth. You know it is the gospel of the weather. You know that God is its father. If this be true, then how wicked is our murmuring about climatic changes! The first eleven Sabbaths after I entered the ministry it stormed. Through the week it was clear weather, but on the Sabbaths the old country meeting house looked like Noah's ark before it landed. A few drenched people sat before a drenched pastor; but most of the farmers stayed at home and thanked God that what was bad for the church was good for the crops. I committed a good deal of sin in those days in denouncing the weather. Ministers of the Gospel sometimes fret about stormy Sabbaths or hot Sabbaths, or inclement Sabbaths. They forget the fact that the same God who ordained the Sabbath and sent forth his ministers to announce salvation also ordained the weather. "Hath the rain a father?" Merchants, also, with their stores filled with new goods, and their clerks hanging idly around the counters, commit the same transgres- sion. There have been seasons when the whole spring and fall trade has been ruined by protracted wet weather. The merchants then examined the "weather probabilities" with more interest than they read their Bibles. They watched for a patch of blue sky. They went complaining home again. In all that season of wet feet and dripping garments and impassable streets they never once asked the question, " Hath the rain a father? " 422 THE RAIN'S STORY. So agriculturists commit this sin. There is nothing more annoying than to have planted corn rot in the ground because of too much moisture, or hay all ready for the mow dashed of a shower, or wheat almost ready for the sickle spoiled with the rust. How hard it is to bear these agricultural disappointments ! God has infinite resources, but I do not think He has capacity to make weather to please all the farmers. Sometimes it is too hot, or it is too cold; it is too wet, or it FINE WEATHER AT SEA. is too dry; it is too early, or it is too late. They forget that the God who promised seed time and harvest, summer and winter, cold and heat, also ordained all climatic changes. There is one question that ought to be written on every barn, on every fence, on every haystack, on every farm-house, "Hath the rain a father?" MEN HARD TO PLEASE. If you only knew what a vast enterprise it is to provide appropriate THE RAIN'S STORY. 423 weather for this world, we would not be so critical of the Lord. Isaac Watts at ten years of age complained that he did not like the hymns that were sung in the English chapel. "Well," said his father, "Isaac, instead of your complaining about the hymns, go and make hymns that are better." And he did go and make hymns that were better. Now I say to you, if you do not like the weather, get up a weather company, and have a president, and a secretary, and a treasurer, and a board of directors, and ten million dollars of stock, and then provide weather that will suit us all. There is a man who has a weak head, and he cannot stand the glare of the sun. You must have a cloud always hovering over him. I like the sunshine ; I cannot live without plenty of sunlight ; so you must always have enough light for me. Two ships meet in mid- Atlantic. The one is going to Southampton, the other is coming to New York. Provide weather that, while it is abaft for one ship, is not a head wind for the other. There is a farm that is dried up for the lack of rain, and there is a pleasure party going out for a field excursion. Provide weather that will suit the dry farm and the pleasure excur- sion. No, sirs, I will not take one dollar of stock in your weather company. There is only one Being in the universe who knows enough to provide the right kind of weather for this world. " Hath the rain a father?" GOD'S SUPERVISION. My subject suggests God's minute supervisal. You see the divine Sonship in every drop of rain. The jewels of the shower are not flung away by a spendthrift who knows not how many he throws or where they fall. They are all shining princes of heaven. They all have eternal lineage. They are all the children of a king. " Hath the rain a father ? Well, then, I say if God takes note of every minute raindrop, he will take notice of the most insignificant affair of my life. It is the astronomical view of things that bothers me. We look up into the night heavens, and we say, "Worlds ! worlds !" \ and how insignificant we feel ! We stand at the foot of Mount Wash- ington or Mont Blanc, and we feel that we are only insects, and then we say to ourselves, "Though the world is so large, the sun is one million four hundred thousand times larger." "Oh!" we say, " it is no use ; if God wheels that great machinery through immens- 424 THE RAIN'S STORY. ity, He will not take the trouble to look down at me." Infidel con- clusion. Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter are no more rounded and weighed and swung by the hand of God than are the globules on a lilac bush the m6rning after a shower. God is no more in magnitude than life is in minutiae. If He has scales to weigh the mountains, He has balances delicate enough to weigh the infinitesimal. You can no more see him through the teles- cope than you can see him through the microscope ; no more when you look up than when you look down. Are not the hairs of your head all numbered? And if Himalaya has a God. "Hath not the rain a father?" I take this doctrine of a particular Providence, and I thrust it into the very midst of your every-day life. If God fathers a raindrop, is there anything so insignificant in your affairs that God will not father that? When Druyse, the gunsmith, invented the needle gun, which decided the battle of Sadowa, was it a mere accident ? When a farmer's boy showed Blucher a short cut by which he could bring his army up soon enough to decide Waterloo for England, was it a mere accident? When Lord Byron took a piece of money and tossed it up to decide whether or not he should be affianced to Miss Millbank, was it a mere accident which side of the money was up and which was down ? When the Christian army was besiged at Baziers, and a drunken drummer came in at midnight and rang the alarm bell, not knowing what he was doing, but waking up the host in time to fight their enemies that mo- ment arriving, was it accident ? When in one of the Irish wars a starving mother, flying with her starving child, sank down and fainted on the rocks in the night and her hand fell on a warm bottle of milk, did that just happen so? God is either in the affairs of men or our religion is worth nothing at all, and you had better take ! :t away from us, and instead of this Bible, which teaches the doctrine, give us a secular book, and let us, like the the famous Mr. Fox, in his last hour, cry out : " Read me the eighth book of Virgil !" Oh ! my friends, let us rouse up to an appreciation of the fact that all the affairs of our life are under a king's command and under a father's watch. Alexander's war horse, Bucephalus, would allow any- body to mount him when he was unharnessed, but as soon as they put on that war horse the saddle and trappings of the conqueror he would 425 426 THE RAINES STORY. allow no one but Alexander to touch him. And if a soulless horse could have so much pride in his owner, shall not we immortals exult in the fact that we are owned by a king .' THE MYSTERY OF RAIN. Again my subject teaches me that God's dealings with us are inex- plicable. That was the original force of my text. The rain was a great mystery to the ancients. They could not understand how the water should get into the cloud, and getting there, how it should be sus- pended, or falling, why it should come down in drops. Modern science comes along and says there are two portions of air of different temper- ature, and they are charged with moisture, and the one portion of air decreases in temperature so the water can no longer be held in vapor, and it falls. And they tell us that some of the clouds that look to be only as large as a man's hand, and to be almost quiet in the heavens, are great mountains of mist four thousand feet from base to top, and that they rush miles a minute. But after all the brilliant experiments of Dr. James Hutton, and Saussure, and other scientists, there is an infinite mystery about the rain. There is an ocean of the unfathomable in every raindrop, and God says to-day as He said in the time of Job, "If you cannot under- stand one drop of rain do not be surprised if My dealings with you are inexplicable." Why does that aged man, decrepit, beggared, vicious, sick of the world, and the world sick of him, live on, while here is a man in mid-life, consecrated to God, hard working, useful in every re- spect, who dies ? Why does that old gossip, gadding along the street about everybody's business but her own, have such good health, while the Christian mother, with a flock of little ones about her whom she is preparing for usefulness and for heaven the mother you think could not not be spared an hour from that household why does she lie down and die of a cancer ? Why does that man, selfish to the core, go on adding fortune to fortune, consuming everything on himself, continue to prosper, while that man, who has been giving ten per cent, of all his income to God and the church, goes into bankruptcy ? Before we make stark fools of ourselves, let us stop pressing that everlasting "why." Let us wor- ship where we cannot understand. Let a man take that one question, "Why?" and follow it far enough, and push it, and he will land in fHE RATWS STORY. 4*7 wretchedess and perdition. We want in our theology fewer interro- gation marks and more exclamation points. Heaven is the place for explanation. Earth is the place for trust. If you cannot understand so minute a thing as a raindrop, how can you expect to understand God's dealings ? THE SOURCE OF TEARS. Again, as 1 believe, the rain of tears is of divine origin. Great clouds of trouble sometimes hover over us. They are black, and they are gorged, and they are thunderous. They are more portentous than any that Salvator or Claude ever painted clouds of poverty, or persecution, or breavement. They hover over us, and they get darker and blacker, and after awhile a tear starts, and we think by an extra pressure of the eyelid to stopit. Others follow, and after awhile there is a shower of tearful emotion. Yea, there is a rain of tears. "Hath that rain a father?" " Oh," you say, " a tear is nothing but a drop of limpid fluid secreted by the lachrymal gland is only a sign of weak eyes." Great mistake. It is one of the Lord's richest benedictions to the world. There are people in Blackwell's Island insane asylum, and at Utica, and at all the asylums of this land, who were demented by the fact that they could not cry at the right time. Said a maniac in one of our public institu- tions, under a gospel sermon that started the tears : " Do you see that tear? That is the first 1 have wept for twelve years. I think it will help my brain." There are a great many in the grave who couid not stand any longer under the glacier of trouble. If that glacier had only melted into weeping they could have endured it. There have been times in your life when you would have given the world, if you had possessed it, for one tear. You could shriek, you ccvuld blaspheme, but you could not cry. Have you never seen a man holding the hand of a dead wife, who had been all the world to him ? The temples livid with ex- citement, the eye dry and frantic, no moisture on the upper or lower lid. You saw there were bolts of anger in the cloud, but no rain. To your Christian comfort, he said, " Don't talk to me about God ; there is no God, or if there is I hate Him ; don't talk to me about God ; would He have left me and these motherless children ?" But a few hours or days after, coming across some lead pencil that she owned in life, or some letters which she wrote when he was away 428 THE RAIN'S STORY. from hiome, with an outcry that appals, there bursts the fountain of tears, and as the sunlight of God's consolation strikes that fountain of tears, you find out that it is a tender-hearted, merciful, pitiful and all compassionate God who was the Father of that rain. THE FATHER OF TEARS. In a religious assemblage a man arose and said: '"I have been a very wicked man ; I broke my mother's heart. I became an infidel, but I have seen my evil way, and I have surrendered my heart to God, but it a grief that I never can get over that my parents should never have heard of my salvation; I don't know whether they are living or dead." While he was yet standing in the audience a voice from the gallery said, "Oh, my son, my son !" He looked up and he recognized her. It was his old mother. She had been praying for him a great many years, and when at the foot of the cross the prodigal son and the praying mother embraced each other, there was a rain, a tremendous rain, of tears, and God was the Father of those tears. The king of Carthage was dethroned. His people rebelled against him. He was driven into banishment. His wife and children were outrageously abused. Years went by, and the king of Carthage made many friends. He gathered up a great army. He marched again to- ward Carthage. Reaching the gates of Carthage the best men of the place came out barefooted and bareheaded and with ropes around their necks, crying for mercy. They said, "We abused you and we abused your family, but we cry for mercy." The king of Carthage looked down upon the people from his chariot and said : "I came to bless, I didn't come to destroy. You drove me out, but this day I pro- nounce pardon for all the people. Open the gates and let the army come in." The king marched in and took the throne, and the people all shouted, " Long live the king !" My friends, you have driven the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the church, away from your heart ; you have been maltreating Him all these years ; but He comes back to-day. He stands in front of the gates of your soul. If you will only pray for His pardon He will meet you with His gracious spirit and He will say: "Thy sins and thine in- iquities I will remember no more. Open wide the gate, I will take the throne. My peace I give unto you." And then, all through this audi- ence, from the young and from the old, there will be a rain of tears, and God will be the father of that rain ! LESSON OF THE PYRAMID BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE WE had, on a morning of December, 1889, landed in Africa. Amic the howling boatmen at Alexandria, we had come ashore and taken the rail train to Cairo, Egypt, along the banks of the most thoroughly harnessed river of all the world the river Nile. We had at eventide entered the city of Cairo, the city where Christ dwelt while staying in Egypt during the Herodic persecution. It was our first night in Egypt. No destroying angel swept through the land, as once ; but all the stars were out, and the sky was filled with angels of beauty and angels of light, and the air was as balmy as an American June. The next morning we were early awake and at the window, looking upon the palm trees in the full glory of leafage, and upon gar- dens of fruits and flowers at the very season when our homes far away are canopied by bleak skies and the last leaf of the forest has gone down in the equinoctials. But how can I describe our thrill of expectation, for to-day we are to see what all the world has seen or wants to see the pyramids ! We are mounted for an hour and a half's ride. We pass on amid bazaars stuffed with rugs and carpets, and curious fabrics of all sorts from Smyrna, from Algiers, from Persia, from Turkey, and through streets where we meet people of all colors and all garbs, carts loaded with garden productions, priests in gowns, women in black veils, Bedouins in long and seemingly superfluous apparel, Janissaries in jackets of embroidered gold out and on toward the great pyramid ; for, though there are sixty-nine pyramids still standing, the pyramid at Gizeh is the monarch of them all. We meet camels grunting under their loads, and see buffaloes on either side browsing in pasture fields. 429 430 THE LESSON OS 'JHE PY The road we travel passes for part of the way under clumps of acacia and by long rows of sycamore and tamarisk ; but, after awhile it becomes a path of rock and sand, and we find we have reached the margin of the desert, the great Sahara desert, and we cry out to the dragoman as we see a huge pile of rock looming in sight, " Dragoman, what is that?" His answer is, "The pyramid." And then it seems as if we were living a century every minute. Our thoughts and emotions are too rapid and intense for utterance, and we ride on in silence until we come to the foot of the pyramid, per- haps the oldest structure in all the earth four thousand years old at least. Here it is. We stand under the shadow of a structure that shuts out all the earth and all the sky, and we look up and strain our vision to appreciate the distant top, and are overwhelmed while we cry, " The pyramid ! the pyramid !" Each person in our party had two or three guides or he-lpers. One of them unrolled his turban and tied it around my waist and held the other end of the turban as a matter of safety. Many of the blocks of stone are four or five feet high, and beyond an ordinary human stride unless assisted. But with two Arabs to pull and two Arabs to push, I found myself rapidly ascending from height to height, and on to altitudes terrific, and at last at the tiptop we found ourselves on a level space of about thirty feet square. Through clearest atmosphere we looked off upon the desert, and off upon the winding Nile, and off upon the Sphinx, with its features of everlasting stone, and yonder upon the minarets of Cairo glittering in the sun, and yonder upon Memphis in ruins, and off upon the wreck of empires and the battlefields of ages, a radius of view enough to fill the mind and shock the nerves and over- whelm one's entire being. After we had looked around for awhile, and a kodak had pictured the grcup, we descended. The descent was more trying than the ascent, for in climbing you need not see the depths beneath ; but in coming down it was impossible not to see the abysses below. But with two Arabs ahead to help us down, and two Arabs to hold us back, we were low- ered, hand below hand, until the ground was invitingly near, and amid the jargon of the Arabs we were safely landed. Then came one of the most \vonderful feats of daring and agility. One of the Arabs solici- ted a dollar, saying he would run up and down the pyramid in seven minutes. We would rather have given him a dollar not to go, but this f/bliitk children, kf' us nef Is ir) \ferd .neitfier buf indeed, in fruJt). [Jshn-i-18- L_ 431 HALL OF PILLARS RUINS OF KARNAK, EGYPT 432 THE LESSON OF THE PYRAMID. 433 ascent and descent in seven minutes he was determined on, and so by the watch in seven minutes he went to the top and was back again at the base^ It was a blood-curdling spectacle. WHAT THE PYRAMID TEACHES. Well of wnat is this Cyclopean masonry a sign and a witness? Among other things of the prolongation of human work compared with the brevity of human life. In all of its four thousand years this pyramid has only lost eighteen feet in width ; each side of its square at the base is changed only from seven hundred and sixty-four feet to seven hund- red and forty-six feet, and the most of that eighteen feet was taken off by architects to furnish stone for building in the city of Cairo. The men who constructed the pyramid worked at it only a few years, and then put down the trowel, and the compass, and the square, and lowered the derrick which had lifted the ponderous weights ; but forty centuries has their work stood, and it will be good for forty centuries more. All Egypt has been shaken by terrible earthquakes, and cities have been prostrated or swallowed, but that pyramid has defied all volcanic paroxysms. It has looked upon some of the greatest battles ever fought since the world stood. Where are the men who con- structed it. Their bodies gne to dust, and even the dust scattered. Even the sarcophagus in which the king's mummy may have slept is empty. So men die, but their work lives on. We are all building pyramids, not to last four thousand years, but forty thousand, forty million, forty trillion, forty quadrillion, forty quintillion. For a while we wield the trowel or pound with the hammer, or measure with the yardstick, or write with the pen, or experiment with the scientific battery, or plan with the brain, and for a while the foot walks and the eye sees, and the ear hears, and the tongue speaks. All the good words or bad words we speak are spread out into one layer for a pyramid. All the kind deeds or malevolent deeds we do are spread out into another layer. All the Christian or un-Christian example we set is spread out in another layer. All the indirect influences of our lives are spread out in another layer. Then the time soon comes when we put dowL the implements of toil and pass away, but the pyramid stands. The pyramid is a sign and a witness that big tombstones are not the best way of keeping one's self affectionately remembered. This pyr- gft 434 THE LESSON OF THE PYRAMID. amid and the sixty-nine other pyramids still standing were built for sepulchres all this great pile of granite and limestone by which we stand to-day, to cover the memory of a dead king. It was the great Westminster Abbey of the ancients. Some say that Cheops was the king who built this pyramid ; but this is uncertain. Who was Cheops anyhow ? All that the world knows about him could be told in a few sentences. The only thing certain is that he was bad, and that he shut up the temples of worship, and that he was hated so that th* Egyptians were glad when he was dead. This pyramid of rock seven hundred and forty feet each side of the square base, and four hundred and fifty feet high, wins for him no respect. If a bone of his arm or foot had been found in the sarcoph- agus beneath the pyramid, it would have excited no more veneration than the skeleton of a camel bleaching on the Libyan desert ; yea, less veneration ; for, when I saw a carcass of a camel by the roadside on the way to Memphis, I said to myself, " Poor thing ! I wonder of what it died !" We say nothing against the marble and bronze of the Necrop- olis. Let all that sculpture and florescence and arborescence can do for the places of the dead be done, if means will allow it. But if, after one is dead, there is nothing left to remind the world of him but some pieces of stone, there is but little left. While there seems to be no practical use for post mortem considera- tion later than the time of one's great-grandchildren, yet no one wants to be forgotten as soon as the obsequies are over. This pyramid, which Isaiah says is a sign and a witness, demonstrates that neither limestone nor red granite are competent to keep one affectionately remembered ; neither can bronze, neither can Parian marble, neither can Aberdeen granite do the work. But there is something out of which to build an everlasting monument, and that will keep one freshly remembered four thousand years yea, forever and ever. It does not stand in marble yards. It is not to be purchased at mourning stores. Yet it is to be found in every neighborhood, plenty of it, inexhaustible quantities of it. It is the greatest stuff in the universe to build monu- ments out of. I refer to the memories of those to whom we can do a kindness, the memories of those whose struggles we may alleviate, the memories of those whose souls we may save. I said that the dominant color of the pyramid was gray, but in cer- tain lights it seems to shake off the gray of centuries and become a 435 43 6 THE LESSON OF THE PYRAMID. blond, and the silver turns to the golden. It covers thirteen acres of ground. What an antiquity ! It was at least two thousand years old when the baby Christ was carried within sight of it by His fugitive par- ents, Joseph and Mary. The storms of forty centuries have drenched it, bombarded it, shadowed it, flashed upon it, but there it stands, ready to take another forty centuries of atmospheric attack if the world should continue to exist. The oldest buildings of the earth are juniors to this great senior of the centuries. Herodotus says that for ten years preparations were being made for the building of this pyramid. It has eighty-two million one hundred and eleven thousand cubic feet of masonry. One hundred thousand workman at one time toiled in its erection. To bring the stone from the quarries a causeway sixty feet wide was built. The top stones were lifted by machinery such as the world knows nothing of to-day. It is seven hundred and forty-six feet each side of the square base. The structure is four hundred and fifty feet high ; higher than the cathedrals of Cologne, Strasburg, Rouen, St. Peter's, and St. Paul's. No surprise to me that it was put at the head of the seven wonders of the world. It has a subterraneous room of fed granite called the "king's chamber," and another room called the "queen's chamber," and the probability is that there are other rooms yet unexplored. The evident design of the architect was to make these rooms as in- accessible as possible. After all the work of exploration and all the digging and blasting, if you would enter these subterraneous rooms, you must go through a passage only three feet eleven inches high and less than four feet wide. A sarcophagus of red granite stands down under the mountain of masonry. The sarcophagus could not have been carried in after the pyramid was built. It must have been put there before the structure was reared. Probably in that sarcophagus once lay a wooden coffin containing a dead king, but time has de- stroyed the coffin and destroyed the last vestige of human remains. For three thousand years this sepulchral room was unopened, and would have been until to-day probably unopened had not a supersti- tious impression got abroad that the heart of the pyramid was filled with silver and gold and diamonds, and under Al Mamoun an excavating party went to work, and having bored and blasted through a hundred feet of rock, they found no opening ahead, and were about to give up the attempt when the workmen heard a stone roll down into a seem- BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF EGYPT 437 CLEANSED FROM UNRIGHTEOUSNESS 438 THE LESSON OF THE PYRAMID. 43C ingly hollow place, and encouraged by that they resumed their work and came into the underground rooms. The disappointment of the workmen in finding the sarcophagus empty of all silver and gold and precious stones was so great that they would have assassinated Al Mamoun, who employed them, had he not hid in another part of the pyramid as much silver and gold as would pay them for their work at ordinary rates of wages and induced them there to dig till they to their surprise came upon adequate compensation. I wonder not that this mountain of limestone and red granite has been the fascination of scholars, of scientists, of intelligent Christians in all ages. Sir John Herschel, the astronomer, said he thought it had as- tronomical significance. The wise men who accompanied Napoleon's army into Egypt went into profound study of the pyramid. In 1865 Professor Smyth and his wife lived in the empty tombs near by the pyramid that they might be as continuously as possible close to the pyr- amid which they were investigating. The pyramid, built more than four thousand years ago, being a complete geometrical figure, wise men have concluded it must have been divinely constructed. Men came through thousands of years to fine architecture, to music, to painting, but this was perfect at the world's start, and God must have directed it. A VOICE FROM THE AGES. As, in Egypt that December afternoon, 1889, exhausted in body, mind and soul, we mounted to return to Cairo, we took our last look of the pyramid at Gizeh. And you know there is something in the air toward evening that seems productive of solemn and tender emo- tion, and that great pyramid seemed to be humanized, and with lips of stone it seemed to speak and cry out : " Hear me, man, mortal and immortal! My voice is the voice of Cod. He designed me. Isaiah said I would be a sign and a witness, i saw Moses when he was a lad. I witnessed the long procession of the, Israelites as they started to cross the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's host. in pursuit of them. The falcons and the eagles of many centuries have brushed my brow. I stood here when Cleopatra's barge landed with her sorceries, and Hypatia for her virtues was slain in yonder streets. Alexander the Great, Seostris and Ptolemy admired my pro- portions. Herodotus and Pliny sounded my praise. I am old, I am very old. For thousands of years I have watched the coming and 440 THE LESSON OF THE PYRAMID. going of generations. They tarry only a little while, but they make everlasting impression. I bear on my side the mark of the trowel and chisel of those who more than four thousand years ago expired. Beware what you do, O man ! for what thou dost will last long after thou art dead ! If thou wouldst be affectionately remembered after thou art gone, trust not to any earthly commemoration. I have not one word to say about any astronomer who studied the heavens from my heights, or any king who was sepulchred in my bosom. I am slowly passing away. I am a dying pyramid. I shall yet lie down in .the dust of the plain, and the sands of the desert shall cover me, or when the earth goes I will go. But you are immortal. The feet with which you climbed my sides to- day will turn to dust, but you have a soul that will outlast me and all my brotherhood of pyramids. Live for eternity ! Live for God ! With the shadows of the evening now falling from my side, I pronounce up- on you a benediction. Take it with you across the Mediterranean. Take it with you across the Atlantic. God only is great ! Let all the earth keep silence before Him. Amen !" And then the lips of granite hushed, and the great giant of masonry wrapped himself again in the silence of ages, and as I rode away in the gathering twilight, the verse ran through my mind : Wondrous Egypt ! I^and of ancient pomp and pride, Where Beauty walks by hoary Ruin's side, Where plenty reigns and still the seasons smile, And rolls rich gift of God exhaustless Nile. THE VACANT CHAIR BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAUE IN almost every house the articles of furniture take a living person* ality. That picture a stranger would not see anything remark- able either in its design or execution, but it is more to you than all the pictures of the Louvre and the Luxembourg. You remember who bought it, and who admired it. And that hymn book you remember who sang out of it. And that cradle you remember who rocked it. And that Bible you remember who read out of it. And that bed you remember who slept in it. And that room you remember who died in it. But there is nothing in all your house so eloquent and so mighty voiced as the vacant chair. Millions have gazed and wept at John Quincy Adams' vacant chair in the House of Representatives, and at Wilson's vacant chair in the vice-presidency, and at Henry Clay's vacant chair in the American senate, and at Prince Albert's vacant chair in Windsor Castle, and at Thiers' vacant chair in the councils of the French nation. But all these chairs are unimport- ant to you as compared with the vacant chairs in your own household. Have these chairs any lesson for us to learn ? Are we any better men and women than when they first addressed us ? THE FATHER'S CHAIR. First I point out to you the father's vacant chair. Old men always like to sit in the same place and in the same chair. They somehow feel more at home, and some times when you are in their place and they come into the room you jump up suddenly and say, "Here, father, here's your chair." The probability is it is an armchair, for he is not so strong as he once was, and he needs a little upholding. Perhaps a cane chair and old-fashioned apparel, for though you may 441 442 THE VACANT CHAIR. have suggested some improvement, father does not want any of your nonsense. Grandfather never had much admiration for new fangled notions. I sat at the table of one of my parishioners in a former congrega- tion; an aged man was at the table, and the son was presiding. The father somewhat abruptly addressed the son and said, "My son, don't try now to show off because the minister is here ! " Your father never liked any new customs or manners, he preferred the old way of doing things, and he never looked so happy as when with his eyes closed, he sat in the armchair in the corner. From the wrinkled brow to the tip of the slippers, what placidity ! The wave of the past years of his life broke at the foot of that chair. Perhaps sometimes he was a little impatient, and sometimes told the same story twice, but over that old chair how many blessed memories hover ! I hope you did not crowd that old chair, and that it did not get very much in the way. Sometimes the old man's chair gets very much in the way, especially if he has been so unwise as to make over all his property to his children, with the understanding that they are to take care of him. I have seen in such cases children crowd the old man's chair to the door, and then crowd it clear into the street, and then crowd it into the poor house, and keep on crowding it until the old man fell out of it into his grave. But your father's chair was a sacred place. The children used to climb up on the rungs of it for a good-night kiss, and the longer he stayed the better you liked it. But that chair has been vacant now for some time. The furniture dealer would not give you fifty cents for it, but it is a throne of influence in your domestic circle. I saw in the French palace, and in the throne room, the chair that Napoleon used to occupy. It was a beautiful chair, but the most significant part of it was the letter "N" embroidered into the back of the chair in purple and gold. And your father's old chair sits in the throne room of your heart, and your affections have embroidered into the back of that old chair in purple and gold the letter " F." Have all the prayers of that old chair been answered ? Have all the counsels of that old chair been practiced ? Speak out, old armchair ! History tells us of an old man whose three sons were victors in the Olympic games, and when they came back these three sons, with their garlands, put them on the father's brow, and the old man was so THE VACANT CHAIR. 443 rejoiced at the victories of his three children that he fell dead in their arms. And are you, oh man, going to bring a wreath of joy and Christian usefulness and put it on your father's brow, or on the vacant chair, or on the memory of the one departed ? THE MOTHER'S CHAIR. I go a little further on in your house and I find the mother's chair. It is very apt to be a rocking chair. She had so many cares and troubles to soothe that it must have rockers. I remember it well; it was an old chair, and the rockers were almost worn out, for I was the youngest, and the chair had rocked the whole family. It made a creaking noise as it moved; but there was music in the sound. It was just high enough to allow us children to put our heads into her lap. That was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. Ah ! what a chair that was. It was different from the father's chair; it was entirely different. You ask me how ? I cannot tell; but we all felt that it was different. Perhaps there was about this chair more gentleness, more tenderness, more grief when we had done wrong. When we were wayward father scolded, but mother cried. It was a very wakeful chair. In the sick days of children other chairs could not keep awake; that chair always kept awake kept easily awake. The chair knew all the old lullabies and all those wordless songs which mothers sing to their sick children songs in which all pity and com- passion and sympathetic influence are combined. That old chair has stopped rocking for a good many years. It may be set up in the loft or the garret, but it holds a queenly power yet. When at midnight you went into that grog shop to get the intoxicating draught, did you not hear a voice that said, " My son, why go in there ?" And louder than the boisterous encore of the place of sinful amusement, a voice saying, "My son, what do you do here?" And when you went into the house of abandonment, a voice saying, " What would your mother do if she knew you were here?" And you were provoked with yourself, and you charged yourself with superstition and fanaticism, and your head got hot with your own thoughts, and you went home and you went to bed, and no sooner had you touched the bed than a voice said: "What! a prayerless pillow? Man ! what is the matter?" This. You are too near your mother's rocking chair. " Oh, phsaw !" you say. "There's nothing in that. I'm five hundred 444 THE VACAN7 CHAIR. miles off from where I was born. I'm three hundred miles off from the church whose bell was the first music I ever heard." I cannot help that. You are too near your mother's rocking chair. "Oh," you say, "there can't be anything in that. That chair has been vacant a great while." I cannot help that. It is all the mightier for that. It is omnipotent, that vacant mother's chair. It whispers, it speaks, it weeps, it carols, it mourns, it prays, it warns, it thunders. A young man went off and broke his mother's heart, and while he was away from home his mother died, and the telegraph brought the son. He came into the room where she lay and looked upon her face, and he cried out: "Oh, mother, mother, what your life could not do your death shall effect! This moment I give my heart to God." And he kept his promise. Another victory for the vacant chair. THE INVALID'S CHAIR. I go on a little further, and I come to the invalid's chair. What ! How long have you been sick ? " Oh, I have been sick ten, twenty, thirty years." Is it possible ? What a story of endurance. There are in many of the families of my congregation these invalid's chairs. The occupants of them think they are doing no good in the world, but that invalid's chair is the mighty pulpit from which all these years they have been preaching trust in God. The first time I preached at Lakeside, Ohio, amid the throngs present, there was nothing that so much impressed me as the spectacle of just one face the face of an invalid who was wheeled in on her chair. I said to her afterward : " Madam, how long have you been prostrated ?" for she was lying flat in the chair. "Oh! she replied, <( I have been this way fifteen years." I said, "Do you suffer very much?" "Oh, yes," she said, " I suffer very much; I suffer all the time ; part of the time I was blind. I always suffer." "Well," I said, "can you keep your courage up?" " Oh, yes," she said, " I am happy, very happy indeed." Her face showed it. She looked the happiest of any one on the ground. Oh, what a means of grace to the world, the invalid chairs. On that field of human suffering the grace of God gets its victory. Edward Payson, the invalid, and Richard Baxter, the invalid, and Robert Hall, the invalid, and the ten thousand of whom the world has never heard, but of whom all heaven is cognizant. The most con- spicuous thing on earth for God's eye and the eye of angels to rest THE VACANT CHAIR. 445 ort, is not a throne of earthly power, but it is the invalid's chair. Oh, these men and women who are always suffering, but never com- plaining these victims of spinal disease, and neuralgic torture, and rheumatic excruciation will answer to the roll call of the martyrs, and rise to the martyr's throne, and will wave the martyr's palm. But when one of these invalid chairs becomes vacant how suggestive it is ? No more bolstering up of the weary head. No more chang- ing from side to side to get an easy position. No more use of the bandage and the cataplasm and the prescription. That invalid chair may be folded up or taken apart, or set away, but it will never lose its queenly power, it will always preach of trust in God and cheerful submission. Suffering all ended now. The joy of heaven has taken its place. THE CHILD'S CHAIR. I pass on and find one more vacant chair. It is a high-chair. It is the child's chair. If that chair be occupied I think it is the most potent chair in all the household. All the chairs wait on it ; all the chairs are turned toward it. That is a strange house that can be dull with a child it it. How that child breaks up the hard worldliness of the place and keeps you young to sixty, seventy and eighty years of age. If you have no child of your own, adopt one ; it will open heaven to your soul. It will pay its way. Its crowing in the morning will give the day a cheerful starting, and its glee at night will give the day a cheerful close. You do not like children ? Then you had better stay out of heaven, for there are so many of them there they would fairly make you crazy. Only about five hundred millions of them. The old crusty Pharisees told the mothers to keep the children away from Christ. "You bother Him," they said: "you trouble the Master." Trouble Him ! He has filled heaven with that kind of trouble. A pioneer in California says that for the first year or two after his residence in Sierra Nevada county there was not a single child in all the reach of a hundred miles. But the Fourth of July came, and the miners were gathered together and they were celebrating the Fourth with oration and poem and a boisterous brass band. While the band was playing an infant's voice was heard crying, and all the miners were startled, and the swarthy men began to think of their 446 THE VACANT CHAIR. homes on the eastern coast, and of their wives and children far away, and their hearts were thrilled with home-sickness as they hea/d the babe cry. But the music went on, and the child cried louder and louder, and the brass band played louder and louder, trying to drown out the infantile interruption, when a swarthy miner, the tears rolling down his face, got up and shook his fist and said, "Stop that noisy band, and give the baby a chance." Oh, there was pathos as well as good cheer in it. There is nothing to arouse and melt and subdue the soul like a child's voice. But when it goes away from you the high-chair becomes a higher chair and there is desolation all about you. In three-fourths of the homes of my congregation there is a vacant high-chair. Somehow you never get over it, There is no one to put to bed at night; no one to ask strange questions about God and heaven. Oh, what is the use of that high-chair? It is to call you higher. What a drawing upward it is to have children in heaven ! And then it is such a preventive against sin. If a father is going away GOD s ACRE. into sin he leaves his living children with their mother; but if a father is going away into sin what is he going to do with his dead children floating about him and hovering over his every wayward step. Oh, speak out, vacant high chair, and say: " Father, come back from sin; mother, come back from worldliness. I am watching you. I am wait- ing for you. THE VACANT CHAIR. 447 NO VACANT CHAIRS IN HEAVEN. 1 thank God there will be no vacant chairs in heaven. There we 5hall meet again and talk over our earthly heart-breaks. How much you have been through since you saw them last ! On the shining shore you will talk it all over. The heart-aches. The loneliness. The sleepless nights. The weeping until you had no more power to weep, because the heart was withered and dried up. Story of empty cradle and a little shoe only half worn out never to be worn again, just the shape of the foot that once pressed it. And dreams when you thought the departed had come back again, and the room seemed bright with their faces, and you started up to greet them, and in the effort the dream broke and you found yourself standing in the midnight alone. Talking it all over, and then, hand in hand, walking up and down in the light. No sorrow, no tears, no death. Oh, heaven ! beautiful heaven ! Heaven where our friends are. Heaven where we expect to be. In the east they take a cage of birds and bring it to the tomb of the dead, and then they open the door of the cage, and the birds flying out, sing. And I would to-day bring a cage of Christian con- solations to the grave of your loved ones, and I would open the door and let them fill all the air with the music of their voices. Oh, how they bound in these spirits before the throne ! Some shout with gladness. Some break forth into uncontrollable weeping for joy. Some stand speechless in their shock of delight. They sing. They quiver with excessive gladness. They gaze on the temples, on the palaces, on the waters, on each other. They weave their joy into garlands, they spring it into triumphal arches, they strike it on timbrels, and then all the loved ones gather in a great circle around the throne of God fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, lovers and friends, hand to hand around the throne of God the circle ever widening hand to hand, joy to joy, jubilee to jubilee, victory to victory, "until the day break and the shadows flee away. Turn thou my beloved, and be like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel." - THE PILLAR OF THE THRONE. The day will arrive when all the great Christian expeditions shall come back in the presence of many worlds. Not only the leaders but 443 THE VACANT CHAIR, the led, not only the commanders but the commanded, not only the celebrated but the obscure, shall get celestial and divine recognition. As Christ, amid the eclat of heaven, introduces his friends, He will say : " This is the woman that gave a cup of cool water to the thirsty traveller ; this is the child that read the Scriptures to her blind mother ; this is the nurse that rocked the sick child's cradle ; this is the female clerk of the store who patiently endured the insolence of cus- tomers ; this is the mother who brought up her children for God ; this is the man who forsook not his religion amid the ridicule of the hat- o factory ; this is the fireman who fell dead in trying to get a child out of the third story of a burning building ; this is the sailor of the Frank- lin search party who, kneeling in the Artie storm, prayed that his sin might be made whiter than snow." And then Christ, waving his hand over "a great multitude that no man can number," will say, "They were cold, they were sick, they were poor, they were despised, they were wronged, they came out of great tribulation, and had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." That day will be the ratification of everything, and those who expected to take back seats in heaven will be called to take front seats, and those who would have been satisfied to occupy a footstool will be awarded a throne, and those who had no ambition except to get inside the shining gates will be made rulers over many cities. THE POWER OF KINDNESS BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE THE Island of Malta, the Melita of Scripture, which has always been an important commercial center, belonging at different times to Phoenicia, to Greece, to Rome, to Arabia, to Spain, to France, now belongs to England. The area of the island is about 100 square miles. It is in the Mediterranean sea, and of such clarity of atmosphere that Mount Etna, one hundred and thirty miles away can be distinctly seen. The island is gloriously memorable because the Knights of Malta for a long while ruled there, but is most famou' because of the apostolic shipwreck. The bestormed vessel on which Paul sailed had " laid to " on the starboard tack, and the wind was blowing east-northeast and tne vessel drifting probably a mile and a half an hour, ere she struck at what is now called St. Paul's bay. Practical sailors have taken up the Bible account and decided beyond controversy the place of the shipwreck. But the island which has so rough a coast is for the most part a garden. Richest fruits and a profusion of honey charac- terized it in Paul's time as well as now. The finest oranges, figs and olives grow there. When Paul and his comrades crawled up on the beach, saturated with the salt water, hungry from long abstinence from food, and chilled to the bone, the islanders, though called barbarians because they could not speak Greek, opened their doors to the ship- wrecked unfortunates. Everything had gone to the bottom of the deep, and the barefooted, bareheaded apostle and ship's crew were in a condition to appreciate hospitality. I found about twenty-five such men a few seasons ago in the life station near Easthampton, Long Island. They had got ashore in the night from the sea, and not a hat nor shoe had they left. 449 45 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. They found out, as Paul and his fellow voyagers found out, that the sea is the roughest of all robbers. The shipwrecked crew found themselves thus ashore on Malta, and around a hot fire drying themselves, and with the best provision the islanders could offer them. And they went into government quarters for three days to recuperate, Publius, the ruler, inviting them, although he had severe sickness in the house at that time. For three months they staid on the island, watching for a ship and putting the hospitality of the islanders to a severe test. But these "barbarians" endured the test satisfactorily, and it is recorded for all the ages of time and eternity to read and hear in regard to the inhabitants of Malta, " The barbarous people showed us no little kindness." KINDNESS DEFINED. Kindness ! What a great word that is. It would take a reed as long as that which the apocalyptic angel used to measure heaven to tell the length, the breadth, the height of that munificent word. It is a favorite Bible word, and it is early launched in the book of Genesis, caught up in the book of Joshua, embraced in the book of Ruth, sworn by in the book of Samuel, crowned in the book of Psalms, and enthroned in many places in the New Testament. Kindness ! A word no more gentle than mighty. I expect it will wrestle me down before I get through with it. It is strong enough to throw an archangel. But it will be well for us to stand around it and warm ourselves by its glow as Paul and his fellow voyagers stood around the fire on the Island of Malta, where the Maltese made themselves immortal by the way they treated these victims of the sea. Kindness ! All definitions of that multipotent word break down half w?.y. You say it is clemency, benignity, generosity; it is made up of good wishes, it is an expression of beneficence, it is a contribution to the happiness of others. Some one else says: "Why, I can give you a definition of kindness. It is sunshine of the soul; it is affection perennial, it is a crowning grace, it is the combination of all graces; it is compassion; it is the perfection of gentlemanliness and womanli- ness." Are you all through? You have made a dead failure in your definition. It cannot be defined. But we all know what it is, and we have all felt its power. Some of you may have felt it as Paul felt it, on some coast of rock as the sjiip went to pieces, but more of us have THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 45 again and again in in some awful stress of life had either from earth or heaven hands stretched out, which "showed us no little kindness." THE QUALITY OF KINDNESS. There is kindness of disposition, kindness of word, kindness of act, and there is Jesus Christ, the impersonation of all of them. Kindness ! You cannot affect it, you cannot play it as a part, you cannot enact it, you cannot dramatize it. By the grace of God, you must have it inside you, an everlasting summer, or rather a combination of June and October, the geniality of one and the tonic of the other. It cannot dwell with arrogance or spite or revenge or malevolence. At its first appearance in the soul all these Amalekites and Gergishites and Hittites and Jebusites must quit, and quit forever. Kindness wishes everybody well every man well, every woman well, every child well, every bird well, every horse well, every dog well, every cat well. Give this spirit full swing and you would have no more need of societies for prevention of cruelty to animals, no more need of protective sewing woman's associations, and it would dull every sword until it would not cut skin deep, and unwheel every battery until it could not roll, and make gunpowder of no more use in the world except for rock blasting or pyrotechnic celebration. Kindness is a spirit divinely implanted, and in answer to prayer, and then to be sedulously cultivated until it fills all the nature with a perfume richer and more pungent than mignonette. If you put a tuft of that aromatic beauty behind the clock on the mantel, or in some corner where nobody can see it, you find people walking about your room looking this way and that, and you ask them, "What are you looking for? " and they answer, "Where is that flower?" So if one has in his soul this infinite sweetness of disposition, its perfume will whelm every thing. THE NOBLEST REVENGE. I do not want to leave this world until I have taken vengeance upon every man thAt ever did me a wrong, by doing him a kindness. In most of such cases I have already succeeded, but there are a few malignants whom I am yet pursuing, and I shall not be content until I have in some wise helped them or benefited them or blessed them. Let us pray for this spirit of kindness. It will settle a thousand 45 2 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. questions. It will change the phase of everything. It will mellow through and through our entire nature. It will transform a lifetime. It is not a feeling gotten up for occasions, but perennial. That is the reason I like petunias better than morning-glories. They look very much alike, and if I should put in your hand a petunia and a morning-glory you could hardly tell which is the petunia and which the morning-glory; but the morning-glory blooms only a few hours and then shuts up for the day, while the petunia, is in as wide- spread aglow at twelve o'clock at noon and six o'clock in the evening as at sunrise. And this grace of kindnesss is not spasmodic, is not intermittent, is not for a little while, but it irradiates the whole nature all through and clear on till the sunset of our earthly existence. KINDNESS THROUGH CULTURE. Kindness ! I am resolved to get it. Are you resolved to get it ? It does not come by haphazard, but through culture under divine help. Thistles grow without culture. Rocky mountain sage grass grows without culture. Mullen stalks grow without culture. But that great red rose in the conservatory, with leaves packed on leaves, deep dyed as though it had been obliged to fight for its beauty and it were still reeking with the carnage of the battle that rose needed to be cultured and through long years its floral ancestors were cultured. O God, implant kindness in all our souls, and then give us grace to watch it, to enrich it, to develop it ! The king of Prussia had presented to him by the empress of Russia the root of a rare flower, and it was put in the royal gardens on an island where the head gardener, Herr Fintelmann, was told to watch it, and one day it put forth its glory. Three days of every week the people were admitted to these gardens, and a young man, probably not realizing what a wrong thing he was doing, plucked this flower and put it in his buttonhole. The gardener arrested him as he was cross- ing at the ferry, and asked the king to throw open no more his gardens to the public. The king replied: " Shall I deny to the thou- sands of good people of my country the privilege of seeing this garden because one visitor has done wrong ? No, let them come and see the beautiful grounds." And when the gardener wished to give the king the name of the offender who had taken the royal flower, he said : " No, my memory is tafe tuPNC * A wax; 453 454 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. very tenacious, and I do not want to have in my mind the name of the offender, lest it should hinder me granting him a favor some other time." Now, I want you to know that kindness is a royal flower, and, blessed be God, the King of mercy and grace, it is ordained that, through a divine gift and not by purloining, we may pluck this royal flower, which we wear not on the outside of our nature, but wear it in our soul and wear it forever, its radiance and aroma not more wonder-, ful for time than wonderful for eternity. KINDNESS IN SPEECH. When you meet any one, do you say a pleasant thing or an unpleas- ant ? Do you tell him of agreeable things you have heard about him, or the disagreeable ? When he leaves you does he feel better or does he feel worse ? Oh, the -power of the tongue for the production of happiness or misery ! One would think from the way the tongue is caged in we might take the hint that it has a dangerous power. First it is chained to the back part of the mouth by strong muscle. Then it is surrounded by the teeth of the lower jaw, so many ivory bars ; and then by the teeth of the upper jaw, more ivory bars. Then outside of all are the two lips, with the power o*" compression and arrest. Yet notwithstanding these four imprisonments, or limitations, how many take no hint in regard to the dangerous power of the tongue, and the results are laceration, scarification and damnation. There are those who, if they know a good thing about you and a bad thing, will mention the bad thing and act as though they had never heard the good thing. Now, there are two sides to almost every one's character, and we have the choice of overhauling the virtue or the vice. We can greet Paul and the ship's crew as they come up the beach of Malta with the words : " What a sorry looking set you are ! How little of navigation you must know to run on these rocks ! Didn't you know better than to put out on the Mediterranean this wintry month ! It was not much of a ship anyhow, or it would not have gone to pieces so soon as this. Well, what do you want ? We have hard enough work to make a living for ourselves without having thrust on us two hundred and seventy six ragamuffins." Not so said the Maltese. I think they said: " Come in ! Sit down by the fire and warm yourselves ! Glad that you all got off with your lives. Make yourselves at home, You are_welcome to all we have JOSEPH MAKING HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN. Gen. xiv: 4 453 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 457 until some ship comes in sight and you resume your voyage. Here, let me put a bandage on your forehead, for that is an ugly gash you got from the floating timbers, and here is a man with a broken arm. We will have a doctor come to attend to this fracture." And though for three months the kindness went on, \ve have but little more than this brief record, "The barbarous people showed us no little kindness." OPTIMIST AND PESSIMIST. Oh, say the cordial thing ! Say the useful thing ! Say the hospitable thing ! Say the helpful thing ! Say the Christian thing ! Say the kind thing! I admit this 's easier for some temperaments than for others. Some are born pessimists, and some are born optimists, and that demonstrates itself ?,K through everything. It is a cloudy morning. You meet a pessimist and you say, "What weather to-day?'' He an- swers, "It's going to storm," and umbrella under arm and a water- proof overcoat show that he is honest in that utterance. On the same block, a minute after, you meet an optimist, and you say: " What weather to-day?" "Good weather; this is only a fog and will soon scatter." The absence of umbrella and absence of waterproof over- coat show it is an honest utterance. On your way at noon to luncheon you meet an optimistic merchant, and you say, " What do you think of the commercial prospects? " and he says: " Glorious. Great crops must bring great business. We are going to have such an autumn and winter of prosperity as we hava never seen." On your way back to your store you meet a pessimistic merchant. " What do you think of the commercial prospects?" you ask. And he answers: " Well, I don't know. So much grain will surfeit the country. Farmers have more bushels but less prices, and grain gamblers will get their fist in. There is the high tariff bill; and the hay crop is short in some places; and in the southern part of Wis- consin they had a hailstorm, and our business is as dull as it evei tt was. You will find the same difference in judgment of character. A man of good reputation is assailed and charged with some evil deed. At the first story the pessimist will believe in guilt. "The papers said so, and that's enough. Down with him ! " The optimist will say: "I don't believe a word of it. I don't think that a man that has been as useful and seemingly honest for twenty years could have got off the track like 26 458 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. that. There are two sides to this story, and I will wait to hear the other side before I condemn him." My reader, if you are by nature a pessimist, make a special effort by the grace of God to extirpate the dolorous and the hypercritical from your disposition. Believe nothing against anybody until the wrong is established by at least two witnesses of integrity. And if guilt be proved, find out the extenuating circumstances if there are any. By pen, by voice, in public and in private, say all the good about people you can think of, and if there be nothing good, then tighten the chain of muscle on the back end of your tongue and keep the ivory bars of teeth on the lower jaw and the ivory bars of the upper jaw locked, and the gate of your lips tightly closed and your tongue shut up. What glorious places our cities w r ouM be to live in, if charity domi- nated ! What if all the young and old gossipers were dead. The Lord hasten their funerals ! What if tittle tattle and whispering were out of fashion ! What if, in ciphering out the value of other people's character in our moral arithmetic, we stuck to addition instead of subtraction ! Kindness ! Let us, morning, noon and night, pray for it until we get it. When you can speak a good word for some one, speak it. If you can conscientiously give a letter of commendation, give it. Watch for opportunities for doing good fifty years after you are dead. KINDNESS OF ACTION. Furthermore, there is kindness of action. That is what Joseph showed to his outrageous brothers. That is what David showed to Mephibosheth for his father Jonathan's sake. That is what Onesipho- rus showed to Paul in the Roman penitentiary. That is what William Cowper recognized when he said he would not trust a man who would with his foot needlessly crush a worm. That is what our assassinated President Lincoln demonstrated when his private secretary found him in the Capitol grounds trying to get a bird back to the nest from which it had fallen, and which quality he ex- hibited years before, when, with some lawyers on the way to court, having passed on the road a swine fast in the mire, he said to the gentlemen, "I must go back and help that hog out of the mire." And he did go back, and put on solid ground that most uninteresting quadruped. That was the spirit that was manifested by my departed friend, Alex- THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 459 ander H. Stephens, of Georgia, (and lovlier man never exchanged earth for heaven). A senator's wife, who told my wife of the circum- stance, said to him, " Mr. Stephens, come and see my dead canary bird." He answered, " No, I could not look at the poor thing without crying." That is the spirit that Grant showed when at the surrender at Appo- mattox he said to General Lee: "As many of your soldiers are farm- ers, and will need the horses and mules to raise the crops to keep their families from suffering next winter, let each Confederate who can claim a horse or mule take it along with him." WHAT KINDNESS MIGHT ACCOMPLISH. Suppose all this assemblage, and all to whom these words shall come by printer's type, should resolve to make kindness an over- arching, undergirding, and all pervading principle of their life, and then carry out the resolution, why, in six months the whole earth would feel it. People would say: " What is the matter? It seems to me that the world is getting to be a better place to live in. Life after all is worth living. Why, there is Shylock, my neighbor, has withdrawn his law-suit of foreclosure against that man, and because he has had so much sickness in his family, he is to have the house for one year rent free. There is an old lawyer in that young lawyer's office, and do you know what he has gone in there for? Why, he is helping fix up a case which is too big for the young man to handle, and the white-haired attorney is hunting up previous decisions and making out a brief for the boy. " Down at the bank I heard yesterday that a bill was due, and the young merchant could not meet it, and an old merchant went in and got for him three months' extension, which for the young merchant is the difference between bankruptcy and success in business. And in our street is an artist who had a fine picture of the ' Rapids of Niagara,' and he could not sell it, and his family were suffering, and were themselves in the rapids, but a lady heard of this and said: 'I do not need the picture, but for the encouragement of art and to help you out of your distress, I will take it,' and on her drawing-room wall are the 'Rapids of Niagara.' " Do you know that a strange thing has taken place. All the old ministers are helping the young ministers, and all the old doctors arc 460 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. helping the young doctors, and the farmers are assisting each other in gathering the harvest, and for that farmer who is sick the neighbors have made a " bee " as they call it, and they have all turned in to help him get his crops into the garner ? " And they tell me that the older and more skillful reporters who \ have permanent positions on papers are helping the young fellows who are just beginning to try and don't know exactly how to doit. And after a few erasures and interpolations on the reporter's pad they say: ' Now here is a readable account of that tragedy. Hand it in and I am sure the managing editor will take it.' And I heard this morning of a poor old man whose three children were in hot debate as to who should take care of him in his declining days. The oldest son declared it was his right because he was the oldest, and the youngest son said it was his right because he was the youngest, and Mary said it was her right because she better understood father's vertigo and rheumatism and poor spells, and knew better how to nurse him, and the only way the difficulty could be settled was by the old man's promise that he would divide the year into three parts, and spend a third of his time with each one of them. "And neighboring stores in the same line of goods on the same block are acting kindly to each other, and when one is a little short of a certain kind of goods, his neighbor says, 'I will help you until you can replenish your shelves.' It seems to me that the words of Isaiah are being fulfilled, where he says, ' The carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smooths with the hammer, him that smote the anvil, saying it is ready for the soldering.' What is the matter ? It seems to me our old world is picking up. Why, the millennium must be coming in. Kindness has gotten the victory." WHAT THE WINDS SAID. Why should we not indeed inaugurate a new dispensation of genial- ity ? If we cannot yet have a millennium on a large scale, let us have it on a small scale, and under our own vestments. You cannot fret the world up, although you may fret the world down. You cannot scold it into excellence or reformation or godliness. The east wind and the west wind were one day talking with each other, and the east wind said to the west wind: " Don't you wish you had my power ? Why, when I start they hail me by storm signals all THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 461 along the coast. 1 can twist off a ship's mast as easily as a cow's hoof cracks an alder. With one sweep of my wing I have strewn the coast from Newfoundland to Key West with parted ship-timber. I can lift and have lifted the Atlantic ocean. I am the terror of all invalidism, and to fight me back forests must be cut down for fires, and the mines of continents are called on to feed the furnaces. Under my breath the nations crouch into sepulchres. Don't you wish you had my power?" said the east wind. IN THE STORM. The west wind made no answer, but started on its mission, coming somewhere out of the rosy bowers of the sky, and all the rivers and lakes and seas smiled at its coming. The gardens bloomed, and the orchards ripened, and the wheat fields turned their silver into gold, and health clapped its hands, and joy shouted from the hilltops, and the nations lifted their foreheads into the light, and the earth had a doxology for the sky, and the sky an anthem for the earth, and the warmth, and the sparkle, and the gladness, and the foliage, and the flowers, and the fruits, and the beauty, and the life were the only an- swer the west wind made to the insolence of the east wind's interroga tion. EVERYDAY RELIGION BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE WHEN the apostle sets forth the idea that so common an action &f the taking of food and drink is to be conducted to the glory ol God, he proclaims the importance of religion in the ordinary affairs of our life. In all ages of the world there has been a tendency to set apart certain days, places and occasions for worship, and to think those were the chief realms in which religion was to act. Now, holy days and holy places have their importance. They give oppor- tunity for especial performance of Christian duty, and for regaling of the religious appetite ; but they cannot take the place of continuous exercise of faith and prayer. In other words, a man cannot be so much of a Christian on Sunday that he can afford to be a worldling all the rest of the week. If a steamer puts out for Southampton, and goes one day in that direction and the other six days in other directions, how long will it be before the steamer will get to Southampton ? It will never get there. And though a man may seem to be voyaging heavenward during the holy Sabbath day, if, during the following six days of the week, he is going toward the world, and toward the flesh, and toward the devil, he will never ride up to the peaceful harbor of heaven. You cannot eat so much at the Sabbath banquet that you can afford religious abstinence the other six days. Heroism and princely behavior on great occasions are no apology for lack of right demeanor in circumstances insignificant and inconspicuous. The genuine Christ- ian life is not spasmodic ; does not go by fits and starts. It toils on through heat and cold, up steep mountains and along dangerous declivities, its eye on the everlasting hills crowned with the castle* f the blessed. 462 EVERYDAY RELIGION. 4<>3 We want to bring the religion of Christ into our conversation. When a dam breaks and two or three villages are overwhelmed, or an earthquake in South America swallows a whole city, then people THE WORLDLING. begin to talk about the uncertainty of life, and they imagine they are engaged in positively religious conversation. No. You may talk about these things and have no grace of God at all in your heart. We ought 4&4 VER YD A Y every day to be talking- religion. If there is anything glad about it, any thing beautiful about it, anything important about it, we ought to be continuously discussing it. I have noticed that men, just in proportion as their Christian ex- perience is shallow, talk about funerals and graveyards and tombstones and deathbeds. The real, genuine Christian man talks chiefly about this life and the great eternity beyond, and not so much about the insignificant pass between these two residences. And yet how few circles there are where the religion of Jesus Christ is welcome. Go into a circle, even of Christian people, where they are full of joy and hilarity, and talk of Christ and heaven, and everything is immediately silenced. As on a summer day, when the forests are full of life, chatter, chirrup and carol a mighty chorus of bird harmony, every tree branch an orchestra if a hawk appear in the sky every voice stops, and the forests are still; just so I have seen a lively religious circle silenced on the appearance of anything like religious conversation. No one has anything to say, save perhaps some old patriarch in the corner of the room, who really thinks that something ought to be said under the circumstances ; so he puts one foot over the other, and heaves a long sigh and says, " Oh, yes ; that's so, that's so ! " My friends, the religion of Jesus Christ is something to talk about with a glad heart. It is brighter than the waters ; it is more cheerful than the sunshine. Do not go around groaning about your religion when you ought to be singing it or talking it in cheerful tones of voice. How often it is that we find men whose lives are utterly inconsistent, who attempt to talk religion, and always make a failure of it ! My friends, we must live religion or we cannot talk it. If a man is cranky and cross and uncongenial and hard in his dealings, and then begins to talk about Christ and heaven, everybody is repelled by it. Yet I have heard such men say in whining tones, " We are miserable sinners," "The Lord bless you," "The Lord have mercy on you," thei/ conversation interlarded with such expressions, which mean nothing but canting, and canting is the worst form of hypocrisy. If we have really felt the religion of Christ in our hearts let us talk it, and talk it with an illuminated countenance, remembering that when two Christian people talk, God gives especial attention and writes down what they say. " Then they that feared the Lord spake often EVERYDAY RELIGION. 465 one to another : and the Lord harkened and heard it,and a book of remembrance was written." We must bring the religion of Christ into our employments. " Oh," you say, "that is very well if a man handles large sums of money, or if he have an extensive traffic ; but in my thread and needle store, in my trimming establishment, in the humble work in life that I am called to, the sphere is too small for the action of such grand heavenly prin- ciples." Who told you so ? Do you know that God watches the faded leaf on the brook's surface as certainly as he does the path of a blazing sun ? And the moss that creeps up the side of the rock makes as much impression upon God's mind as the waving tops of Oregon pine and Lebanon cedar ; and the alder, cracking under the cow's hoof, sounds as loud in God's ear as the snap of a world's conflagration. When you have anything to do in life, however humble it may seem to be, God is always there to help you do it. If your work is that of a fisherman, then God will help you, as he helped Simon when he dragged Gennesaret. If your work is drawing water, then he will help you, as when he talked at the well curb to the Samaritan woman. If you are engaged in the custom house he will lea.d you, as he led Matthew sit- ting at the receipt of customs. A religion that is not good in one place is not worth anything in another place. The man who has only a day's wages in his pocket, as certainly needs the guidance of religion as he who rattles the keys of a bank and could abscond with a hundred thousand hard dollars. There are those prominent in the churches who seem to be, on pub- lic occasions, very devout, who do not put the principles of Christ's religion into practice. They are the most inexorable of creditors. They are the most grasping of dealers. They are known as sharpers on the street. They fleece every sheep they can catch. A country merchant comes in to buy spring or fall goods, and he gets into the store of one of these professed Christian men who have really no grace in their hearts, and he is completely swindled. He is so overcome that he cannot get out of town during the week. He stays in town over Sunday, goes into some church to get Christian consolation, when what is his amazement to find that the very man who hands him the poor box in the church is the one who re- lieved him of his money ! But never mind ; the deacon has his black coat on now. He looks solemn, and goes home talking about " the 30 4^6 E VER YD A Y REL 1C ION. blessed sermon." If the wheat in the churches should be put into a hopper, the first turn of the crank would make the chaff fly. Some of these men are great sticklers for Gospel preaching. They say: "You stand there in bands and surplice and gown, and preach preach like an angel, and we will stand out here and attend to business. Don't mix things. Don't get business and religion in the same bucket You attend to your matters and we will attend to ours." They do not know that God sees every cheat they have practiced in the last six years, that he can look through the iron wall of their fire proof safe, that he has counted every dishonest dollar they have in their pocket, and that a day of judgment will come. These inconsistent Christian men will sit on the Sabbath night in the house of God, singing at the close of the service, " Rock of Ages, cleft for me," and then, when the benediction is pronounced, shut the pew door and say, as they go out, "Goodby, religion. I'll be back next Sunday." I think that the church of God and the Sabbath are only an armory where we are to get weapons. When war comes, if a man wants to fight for his country he does not go to Troy or Springfield to do battling, but he goes there for swords and muskets. I look upon the church of Christ and the Sabbath day as only the place and time where and when we are to get armed for Christian conflict ; but the battlefield is on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. "St. Martin's" and " Lenox" and "Old Hundred" do not amount to anything unless they sing all the week. A sermon is useless unless we can take it with us behind the plow and the counter. The Sabbath day is worthless if it last only twenty-four hours. There are many Christians who say: "We are willing to serve God, but we do not want to do it in these spheres about which we are talking, and it seems so insipid and monotonous. If we had some great occasion, if we had lived in the time of Luther, if we had been Paul's traveling companion, if we could serve God on a great scale, we would do it ; but we can't in this everyday life." I admit that a great deal of the romance and knight-errantry of life have disappeared before the advance of this practical age. The ancient temples of Rome have been changed into storehouses and smithies. The residences of poets and princes have been turned into brokers' shops. The classic mansion of Ashland has been cut up into walking sticks. The groves where the poets said the gods dwelt |i)|L:.i .... THE PATH OF WISDOM 467 468 VER YD A Y RELIGION. have been carted out for fire wood. The muses that we used to read about have disappeared before the emigrant's axe and the trapper's gun, and that man who is waiting for a life bewitched of wonders will never find it. There is, however, a field for endurance and great achievement, but it is in everyday life. There are Alps to scale, there are Hellesponts to swim, there are fires to brave ; but they are all around us now. This is the hardest kind of martyrdom to bear. It took grace to lead Latimer and Ridley through the fire triumph- antly when their armed enemies and their friends were looking on ; but it requires more grace now to bring men through persecution, when nobody is looking on. I could show you in this city a woman who has had rheumatism for twenty years, who has endured more suffering and exhausted more grace than would have made twenty martyrs pass triumphantly through the fire. If you are not faithful in an insignificant position in life you would not be faithful in a grand mission. If you cannot stand the bite of a midge, how could you endure the breath of a basilisk*? Do not think that any work God gives you to do in the world is on too small a scale for you to do. The whole universe is not ashamed to take care of one little flower. I say: "What are you doing down here in the grass, you poor little flower? Are you not afraid nights? You will be neglected, you will die of thirst, you will not be fed. Poor little flower ! " " No, " says a star, "I'll watch over it to-night." "No, " says a cloud, "I'll give it drink." "No, " says the sun, "I'll warm it in my bosom.'' Then I seethe pulleys going and the clouds are drawing water, and I say, "What are you doing there, O clouds?" And they reply " We are giving drink to that flower" Then the wind rises, and comes bending down the wheat and sounding its psalm through the forest, and I cry, "Whither away on such swift wing, Owind?" And it replies, "We are going to cool the cheek of that flower." And then I bow down and say, "Will God take care of the grass of the field ? " and a flower at my foot re- sponds, " Yes; he clothes the lilies of the field, and never yet has forgotten me, a poor flower." Oh, when I see the great heavens bending themselves to what seems insignificant ministration, when I find out that God does not forget any blossom of the spring or any snowflake of the winter, I come to the conclusion that we can afford to attend to the minute things in life, and that what we do we ought E VER YD A Y RELIGION. 4^5 to do well, since there is as much perfection in the construction of a spider's eye as in the conformation of flaming galaxies. Plato had a fable which I have now nearly forgotten, but it ran something like this: He said spirits of the other world came back to this world to find a body and find a sphere of work. One spirit came and took the body of a king, and did his work. Another spirit came and took the body of a poet, and did his work. After awhile Ulysses came, and he said, "Why, all the fine bodies are taken, and all the grand work is taken. There is nothing left for me." And some one replied, "Ah ! the best one has been left for you." Ulysses said, " What's that ?" And the reply was, "The body of a common man doing a common work, and for a common reward." A good fable for the world, and just as good a fable for a church. Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do it to the glory of God. Again, we need to bring the religion of Christ into our commonest trials. For severe losses, for bereavement, for trouble that shocks like an earthquake and that blasts like a storm, we prescribe religious consolation; but, business man, for the small annoyances of last week how much of the grace of God did you apply? "Oh," you say, " these trials are too small for such application." My brother, they are shaping your character, they are souring your temper, they are wearing out your patience, and they are making you less and less of a man. I go into a sculptor's studio and see him shaping a statue. He has a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other, and he gives a very gentle stroke click, click,click ! I say, "Why don't you strike harder? " " Oh ! ' ; he replies, "that would shatter the statue. I can't do it that way. I must do it this way." So he works on, and after awhile the features come out and everybody that enters the studio is charmed and fascinated. Well, God has your soul under process of development, and it is the little annoyances and vexations of life that are chiseling out your immortal nature. It is click, click, click ! I wonder why some great providence does not come and with one stroke prepare you for heaven. Ah, no. God says that is not the way. And so he keeps on by strokes of little annoyances, little sorrows, little vexations, until at last you shall be a glad spectacle for angels and for men. You know that a large fortune may be spent in small change, and a vast amount of moral character may go away in small 470 VER YD A Y RELIGION. depletion. It is the little troubles of life that are having more effect upon you than great ones. A swarm of locusts will kill a grain field sooner than the incursion of three or four cattle. You say, "Since 1 lost my child, since I lost my property, I have been a different man." But you do not recognize the architecture of little annoyances that are hewing, digging, cutting, shaping, splitting and interjoining your moral qualities. Rats may sink a ship. One lucifer match may send destruction through a block of storehouses. Catherine de Medicis got her death from smelling a poisonous rose. Columbus, by stopping and asking for a piece of bread and a drink of water at a Franciscan convent, was led to the discovery of the new world. And there is an intimate connection between trifles and immensities, between nothings and everythings. Now, be careful to let none of those annoyances go through your soul unarraigned. Compel them to administer to your spiritual wealth. The scratch of a six-penny nail sometimes produces lockjaw, and the clip of a most infinitesimal annoyance may damage you for- ever. Do not let any annoyance or perplexity come across your soul without its making you better. Our national government does not think it belittling to put a tax on pins, and a tax on buckles, and a tax on shoes. The individual taxes do not amount to much, but in the aggregate they reach millions and millions of dollars. And I would have you, O Christian man, put a high tariff on every annoyance and vexation that comes through your soul. This might not amount to much in single cases, but in the aggregate it would be a great revenue of spiritual strength 'and satis- faction. A bee can suck honey even out of a nettle, and if you have the grace of God in your heart you can get sweetness out of that which would otherwise irritate and annoy. A returned missionary told me that a company of adventurers row- ing up the Ganges were stung to death by flies that infest that region at certain seasons. The only way to get prepared for the great troubles of life is to conquer these small troubles. . What would you say of a soldier who refused to load his gun or to go into a conflict because it was only a skirmish, saying " I am not going to expend my ammunition on a skirmish; wait until there comes a general engagement, and then you will see how courageous I am, and what battling I will do?" The general would say to such a man, "If you EVERYDAY RELIGION. 471 are not faithful in a skirmish, you would be nothing in a general engagement." Again we must bring the religion of Christ into our commonest blessings. When the autumn conies, and the harvests are in, and the governors make proclamations, we assemble in churches, and we are very thankful. But every day ought to be a thanksgiving day. We do not recognize the common mercies of life. We have to see a blind man led by his dog before we begin to think ourselves of what a grand thing it is to have eyesight. We have to see some one afflicted with St. Vitus' dance before we are ready to thank God for the control of our physical energies. We have to see some wounded man hobbling on his crutch, or with his empty coat sleeve pinned up, before we learn to think what a grand thing God did for us when he gave us healthy use of our limbs. We are so stupid that nothing but the misfortunes of others can rouse us up to our blessings. As the ox grazes in the pasture up to its eyes in the clover, yet never thinking who makes the clover, and as the bird picks up the worm from the furrow, not knowing that it is God who makes everything, from the animalcula in the sod to the seraph on the throne ; so we go on eating, drinking and enjoying, but never or seldom thanking, or, if thanking at all, with only half a heart. I compared our indifference to that of the brute ; but perhaps I wronged the brute. I do not know but that, among its other instincts, it may have an instinct by which it recognizes the divine hand that feeds it. I do not know but that God is, through it, holding communi- cation with what we call "irrational creation." The cow that stands under the willow by the water-course chewing its cud looks very thankful, and who can tell how much a bird means by its song ? The aroma of the flowers smells like incense, and the mist arising from the river looks like the smoke of a morning sacrifice. Oh, that we were as responsive ! Yet who thanks God for the water that gushes up in the well, and that foams in the cascades, and that laughs over the rocks, and that ' patters in the showers, and that claps its hands in the sea ? Who thanks God for the air, the fountain of life, the bridge of sunbeams, the path of sound, the great fan on a hot summer's day ? Who thanks God for this wonderful physical organism, this sweep of the 47 2 E VER YD A Y RELIGION. vision, this chime of harmony struck into the ear, this soft tread tf*. a myriad delights over the nervous tissues, this rolling of the crimson tide through artery and vein, this drumming of the heart on our march to immortality? We take all these things as a matter oi course. But suppose God withdrew these common blessings ! This body would then become an inquisition of torture, the cloud would refuse i rain, every green thing would crumple up, and the earth would crack open under your feet. The air would cease its healthy circulation, pestilence would swoop, and every house would become a place of skulls. Streams would first swim with vermin and then dry up, and thirst and hunger and anguish and despair would lift their scepters. I was preaching one Thanksgiving Day and announced my text, "Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever." I do not know whether there was any blessing on the sermon or not, but the text went straight to a young man's heart. He said to himself, as I read the text: " ' Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good ' Why, I have never rendered him any thanks. Oh, what an ingrate I have been ! " Can it be, my brother, that you have been fed by the good hand of God all these days, that you have had clothing and shelter and all beneficent surroundings, and yet have never offered your heart to God ? Oh, let a sense of the divine goodness shown you in the everyday blessings melt your heart; and if you have never before uttered one earnest note of thanksgiving, let this be the day which shall hear your song. Take this practical religion I have recommended into your everyday life. Make every day a Sabbath, and every meal a sacra- ment, and every room you enter a holy of holies. We all have work to do; let us be willing to do it. We all have sorrows to bear; let us cheerfully bear them. We all have battles to fight; let us courageously fight them. If you want to die right you must live right. Negligence and indolence will win the hiss of everlasting scorn, 'vnile faithfulness will gather its garlands and wave its scepter and sit upon its throne long after this earth has put on ashes and eternal ages have begun their march. Our every step in life will then be a triumphal march, and the humblest footstool on which we are called to sit will be a conqueror's throne. P sfyall t\pt Want. to lie doWu in greeu txve beside the still Waters. 474 BORROWING TROUBLE BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE THE life of every man, woman and child is as closely under the divine care as though such person were the only man, woman or child. There are no accidents. As there is a law of storms in the natural world, so there is a law of trouble, a law of disaster, a law of misfortune ; but the majority of the troubles of life are imaginary, and the most of those anticipated never come. At any rate, there is nc cause of complaint against God. See how much He hath done to make thee happy ; His sunshine filling the earth with glory, making rainbow for the storm and halo for the mountain, greenness for the moss, saffron for the cloud and crystal for the billow, and procession of bannered flame through the opening gates of the morning, chaffinches to sing. rivers to glitter, seas to chant, and springs to blossom, and overpower- ing all other sounds with its song, and overarching all other splendor with its triumph, covering up all other beauty with its garlands and out- flashing all other thrones with its dominion deliverence for a lost world through the Great Redeemer. KEEP IN THE SUNSHINE. I discourse of the sin of borrowing trouble. First, such a habit of mind and heart is wrong, because it puts one into a desp9ndency that ill fits him for duty. I planted two rose bushes in my garden. The one thrived beautifully, the other perished. I found the dead one on the shady side of the house. Our dispositions, like our plants, need sunshine. Expectancy of repulse is the cause of many secular and religious failures. Fear of bankruptcy has uptorn many a fine business and sent the man dodging among the note shavers. Fear of slander and abuse has often invited all the long beaked vultures of scorn and 476 BORROWING TROUBLE. backbiting. Many of the misfortunes of life, like hyenas, flee if you courageously meet them. You will have nothing but misfortune in the future if you sedulously watch for it. How shall a man catch the right kind of fish if he ar- ranges his line and hook and bait to catch lizards and water serpents ? Hunt for bats and hawks, and bats and hawks you will find. Hunt for robin redbreasts and you will find robin redbreasts. One night an eagle and an owl got into a fierce battle ; the eagle, unused to the night, was no match for an owl, which is most at home in the darkness, and the king of the air fell helpless ; but the morning rose, and with it rose the eagle ; and the owls and the night hawks and the bats came a second time to the combat ; now, the eagle in the sunlight, with a stroke of his talons and a great cry, cleared the air, and his enemies, with torn feathers and splashed with blood, tumbled into the thickets. Ye are the children of light. In the night of despondency you will have no chance against your enemies that flock up from beneath, but trusting in God and standing in the sunshine of promise, you shall "renew your youth like the eagle." ENJOY PRESENT BLESSINGS. Again, the habit of borrowing trouble is wrong because it has a ten- dency to make us overlook present blessings. To slake man's thirst, the rock is cleft, and cool waters leap into his brimming cup. To feed his hunger, the fields bow down with bending wheat, and the cattle come down with full udders from the clover pastures to give him milk, and the orchards yellow and ripen, casting their juicy fruits into his lap. Alas ! that amid such exuberance of blessing man should growl as though he were a soldier on half rations, or a sailor on short allow- ance ; that a man should stand neck deep in harvests looking forward to famine ; that one should feel the strong pulses of health marching with regular tread through all the avenues of life and yet tremble at I the expected assault of sickness ; that a man should sit in his pleasant home, fearful that ruthless want will some day rattle the broken win- dow-sash with tempest, and sweep the coals from the hearth, and pour hunger into the bread tray ; that a man fed by Him who owns all the harvests should expect to starve ; that one whom God loves and sur- rounds with benediction, and attends with angelic escort, and hovers over with more than motherly fondness, should be looking for a heri- tage of tears ! BORROWING TROUBLE. 477 It is high time you began to thank God for your present blessings. Thank Him for your .children, happy, buoyant and bounding. Praise Him for your home with its fountain of song and laughter. Adore Him for morning light and evening shadow. Praise Him for fresh, cool water bubbling from the rock, leaping in the cascade, soaring in the mist, falling in the shower, dashing against the rock and clapping its hands in the tempest. Love Him for the grass that cushions the earth and the clouds that curtain the sky, and the foliage that waves in the forest. Many Christians think it a bad sign to be jubilant, and their work of self-examination is a hewing down of their brighter experiences. Like a boy with a newjackknife, hacking everything he comes across, so their self-examination is a religious cutting to pieces of the green- est things they can lay their hands on. They imagine they are doing God's service when they are going about borrowing trouble, and borrowing it at thirty per cent., which is always a sure precursor of bankruptcy. TROUBLES NEED NOT BE SOUGHT. Again, the habit of borrowing trouble is wrong, because the pres- ent is sufficiently taxed with trial. God sees that we all need a cer- tain amount of trouble, and so He apportions it for all the days and years of our life. Alas for the policy of gathering it all up for one day or year ! Cruel thing to put upon the back of one camel all the cargo intended for the entire caravan. I never look at my mem- orandum book to see what engagements and duties are far ahead. Let every week bear its own burdens. The shadows of to-day are thick enough ; why implore the presence of other shadows ? The cup is already distasteful ; why halloo to dis- asters far distant to come and wring out more gall into bitterness ? Are we such champions that, having won the belt in former encoun- ters, we can go forth to challenge all the future ? Here are business men just able to manage affairs as they now are. They can pay their rent and meet their notes and manage affairs as they now are ; but what if there should come a panic ? Go to-mor- row and write on your daybook, on your ledger, on your money safe, " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Do not worry about notes that are far from due. Do not pile up on your counting-house desk the financial anxieties of the next twenty years. The God who has SORROWING TROUBLE. taken care of your worldly occupation, guarding your store from the torch of the incendiary and the key of the burglar, will be as faithful in 1892 as in 1882. God's hand is mightier than the machinations of stock gamblers, or the plots of political demagogues, or the red right arm of revolution, and the darkness will fly and the storm fall dead at His feet. So there are persons in feeble health, and they are worried about the future. They make out very well now, but they are bothering themselves about the future pleurisies and rheumatisms and neural- gias and fevers. Their eyesight is feeble, and they are worried lest they entirely lose it. Their hearing is indistinct, and they are alarmed lest they become entirely deaf. They felt chilly to-day, and are ex- pecting an attack of typhoid. They have been troubled for weeks with some perplexing malady, and dread becoming life-long invalids. Take care of your health now, and trust God for the future. Be not guilty of the blasphemy of asking Him to take care of you while you sleep with your window tight down, or eat chicken salad at ii o'clock at night, or sit down on a cake of ice to cool off. Be pru- dent and then be confident. Some of the sickest people have been the most useful. It was so with Payson, who died deaths daily, and Robert Hall, who used to stop in the midst of his sermon and lie down on the pulpit sofa to rest, and then go on again. Theodore Freling- huysen had a great horror of dying, till the time came, and then went peacefully. Take care of the present and let the future look out for it- self. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." BORROWED CARE UNFITS FOR REAL. Again, the habit of borrowing misfortune is wrong because it unfits us for it when it actually does come. We cannot always have smooth sailing. Life's path will sometimes tumble among declivities and mount a steep and be thorn pierced. Judas will kiss our cheek and then sell us for thirty pieces of silver. Human scorn will try to crucify us between two thieves. We will hear the iron gate of the sepulchre creak and grind as it shuts in our kindred. But we cannot get ready for these things by forebodings. They who fight imaginary woes will come, out of breath, into conflict with the armed disasters of the future. Their ammunition will have been wasted long before they come under the guns of real misfortune. Boys in attempting to jump a wall some- BORROWING TROUBLE. 470 times go so far back in order to get impetus that when they come up they are exhausted ; and these long races in order to get spring enough to vault trouble bring us up at last to the dreadful reality with our strength gone. God has promised to take care of us. The Bible blooms with assur- ances. Your hunger will be fed ; your sickness will be alleviated ; your sorrow will be healed. God will sandal your feet and smooth your path, and along by frowning crag and opening grave sound the voices of victory and good cheer. The summer clouds that seem thun- der charged really carry in their bosom harvests of wheat, and shocks of corn, and vineyards purpling for the wine-press. Our great Joshua will command, and above your soul the sun of prosperity will stand still. Bleak and wave-struck Patmos shall have apocalyptic vision, and you shall hear the cry of the elders, and the sweep of wings, and trum- pets of salvation, and the voice of Hallelujah unto God forever. Your way may wind along dangerous bridle-paths and amid wolf's howl and the scream of the vulture ; but the way still winds upward till angels guard it, and trees of life over-arch it, and thrones line it, and crystalline fountains leap on it, and the pathway ends at gates that are pearl, and streets that are gold, and temples that are always open, and hills that quake with perpetual song, and a city mingling forever Sabbath and jubilee and triumph and coronation. TRAPS FOR MEN BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE Early in the morning I went out with a fowler to catch wild pigeons. We hastened through the mountain gorge and into the forest. We spread out the net, and covered up the edges of it as well as we could. We arranged the call bird, its feet fast and its wings flapping, in invi- tation to all fowls of heaven to settle down there. We retired into a booth of branches and leaves and waited. After awhile, looking out of the door of the booth, we saw a flock of birds in the sky. They came nearer and nearer, and after awhile were about to swoop into the net, when suddenly they darted away. Again we waited. After awhile we saw another flock of birds. They came nearer and nearer until just at the moment when they were about to swoop they darted away. The fowler was very much disappointed as well as myself. We said to each other, "What is the matter? " and "Why were not these birds caught ? " We went out and examined the net, and by a flutter of a branch of a tree part of the net had been conspicuously exposed, and the birds coming very near had seen their peril and darted away. When I saw that, I said to the old fowler, "That reminds me of a passage of Scripture, Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.' " The call bird of sin tempts men on from point to point and from branch to branch until they are about to drop into the net. If a man finds out in time that it is the temptation of the devil, or that evil men are attempting to capture his soul for time and for eternity, the man steps back. He says, "I am not to be caught in that way; I see what you are about; surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." 480 TRAPS FOR MEN. 481 TEMPTATIONS. There are two classes of temptations, the superficial and the sub- terraneous, those above the ground, those under ground. If a man could see sin as it is he would no more embrace it than he would cm brace a leper. Sin is a daughter of hell, yet she is garlanded and robed and trinketed. Her voice is a warble. Her cheek is the setting sun. Her forehead is an aurora. She says to men: "Come, walk this path with me; it is thymed and primrosed, and the air is bewitched with the odors of the hanging gardens of heaven; the rivers are rivers of wine ; and all you have to do is to drink them up in chalices that sparkle with diamond and amethyst and chrysoprase. See ! It is all bloom and roseate cloud and heaven. " If for one moment the choiring of all these concerted voices of sin could be hushed we should see the orchestra of the pit with hot breath blowing through fiery flute, and the skeleton arms on drums of thunder and darkness beating the chorus, "The end thereof is death." I want to point out the insidious temptations that are assailing more especially our young men. The only kind of nature compara- tively free from temptation, so far as I can judge, is the cold, hard, stingy, mean temperment. What would Satan do with such a man if he got him ? Satan is not anxious to get a man who after awhile may dispute with him the realm of everlasting meanness. It is the gener- ous young man, the warm-hearted young man, the social young man that is in especial peril. A pirate goes out on the sea, and one bright morning he puts the ^lass to his eye and looks off, and sees an empty vessel floating from port to port. He says, " Never mind; that's no prize for us." But the same morning he puts the glass to his eye, and he sees a vessel coming from Australia laden with gold, or a vessel from the Indies laden with spices. He says, " That's our prize; bear down on it ! M Across that unfortunate ship the grappling hooks are thrown. The crew are blindfolded and are compelled to walk the plank. It is not the empty vessel, but the laden merchantman that is the temptation to the pirate. MEANNESS. But a young man, who is empty of head, empty of life you want no Young Men's Christian Association to keep him safe. He is safe. 31 482 TRAPS FOR MEN. He will not gamble unless it is with somebody else's stakes. He will not break the Sabbath unless somebody else pays the horse hire. He will not drink unless some one else treats him. He will hang around the bar hour after hour waiting for some generous young man to come in. The generous young man comes in and accosts him and says : "Well, will you have a drink with me to-day? The man, as though it were a sudden thing for him, says, "Well well, if you insist on it, I will." Too mean to go to perdition unless somebody else pays his expense ? For such yonng men we will not fight. We would no more contend for them than Tartary and Ethiopia would fight as to who should have the great Sahara desert, but for those young men who are buoyant and enthusiastic, those who are determined to do something for time and for eternity for them we will fight, and we now declare everlasting war against all the influences that assail them and we ask all good men and philanthropists to wheel into line, and all the armies of heaven to bear down upon the foe, and we pray Almighty God that with the thunder bolts of his wrath he will strike down and consume all these influences that are attempting to destroy the young men for whom Christ died. LIBERAL MEN. The first class of temptations that assaults a young man is led on by the skeptic. He will not admit that he is an infidel or an atheist Oh, no ! He is a " free thinker." He is one of your " liberal" men. He is free and easy in religion. Oh, how liberal he is ! He is so "liberal" that he will give away his Bible. He is so "liberal" that he will give away the throne of eternal justice. He is so "liberal" that he would be willing to give God out of the universe. He is so "liberal " that he would give up his own soul and the souls of all his friends. Now, what more could you ask in the way of liberality ? The victim of this skeptic has probably just come from the country. Through the intervention of friends he has been placed in a shop. On Saturday the skeptic says to him, " Well, what are you going to do to-morrow ?" He says, "I am going to church." "Is it possible?" says the skeptic. "Well, I used to do those things. I was brought up, 1 suppose, as you were, in a religious family, and I believed all those things, but I got over it. The fact is, since I came TRAPS FOR MEN. 483 to town 1 have read a great deal, and I have found that there are a great many things in the Bible that are rediculous. Now, for instance, all that about the serpent being cursed to crawl in the garden of Eden because it had tempted our first parent ; why, you see how absurd it is ; you can tell from the very organization of the serpent that it had to crawl ; it crawled before it was cursed just as well as it did after- wards ; you can tell from its organization that it crawled. Then all that story about the whale swallowing Jonah, or Jonah swallowing the whale, which was it ? It don't make any difference, the thing is absurd ; it is rediculous to suppose that a man could have gone down through the jaws of a sea monster and yet kept his life : why, his respiration would have been hindered ; he would have been digested : the gastric juice would have dissolved the fibrine and coagulated albumen, and Jonah would have been changed from prophet into chyle. Then all that story about the miraculous conception why, it is perfectly disgraceful ! Oh, sir, I believe in the light of nature. This is the Nineteenth century. Progress, sir, progress. I don't blame you, but after you have been in town as long as I have you will think just as I do." Thousands of young men are going down under that process day by day, and there is only here and there a young man who can endure this artillery of scorn. They are giving up their bibles. The light of nature ! They have the light of nature in China; they have it in Hin- dostan; they have it in Ceylon. Flowers there, stars there, waters there, winds there; but no civilization, no homes, no happiness. Lan- cets to cut, and juggernauts to fall under, and hooks to swing to; but no happiness. I tell you my young brother, we have to take a relig- ion of some kind. We have to choose between four or five. Shall it be the Koran of the Mohammedan, or the Shaster of the Hindoo, or the Zendavesta of the Persian, or the Confucius writings of the Chinese, or the Holy Scriptures? Take what you will; God helping me, I will take the Bible. Light for all darkness; rock for all foundation; balm for all wounds. A glory that lifts its pillars of fire over the wilderness march. Do not give up your bibles. If these people scoff at you as though religion and the Bible were fit only for weak-minded people, you just tell them you are not ashamed to be in the company of Burice 484 TRAPS FOR MEN. the statesman, and Raphael the painter, and Thorwaldsen the sculp- tor, and Mozart the musician, and Blackstone the lawyer, and Bacon the philosopher, and Harvey the physician, and John Milton the poet. Young man, hold on to your Bible; it is the best book you ever owned. It will tell you how to dress, how to bargain, how to walk, how to act, how to live, how to die. Glorious Bible ! Whether on parchment or paper, in octavo or duodecimo, on the center table of the drawing room or in the counting room of the banker. Glorious Bible ! Light to our feet and lamp to our path. Hold on to it ! THE DISHONEST EMPLOYER. The second class of insidious temptations that comes upon our young men is led on by the dishonest employer. Every commercial establishment is a school. In nine cases out of ten the principles of the employer become the principles of the employee. I ask the older merchants to bear me out in these statements. If, when you were just starting in life, in commercial life, you were told that honesty was not marketable, that though you might sell all the goods in the shop you must not sell your conscience, that while you were to exercise all industry and tact you were not to sell your conscience if you were taught that gains gotten by sin were com- bustible, and at the moment of ignition would be blown on by the breath of God until all the splendid estate would vanish into white ashes scattered in the whirlwind then that instruction has been to you a precaution and a help ever since. There are hundreds of commercial establishments in our great cities which are educating a class of young men who will be the honor of the land, and there are other establishments which are educating young men to be nothing but sharpers. What chance is there for a young man who was taught in an establishment that it is right to lie, if it is smart, and that a French label is all that is necessary to make a thing French, and that you ought always to be honest when it pays, and that it is wrong to steal unless you do it well ? Suppose, now, a young man just starting in life enters a place of that kind where there are ten young men, all drilled in the infamous practices of the establishment. He is ready to be taught. The young man has no theory or commercial ethics. Where is he to get his theory ? He will get the theory from his employers. TRAPS FOR MEN. 485 One day he pushes his wit a little beyond what the establishment demands of him, and he fleeces a customer until the clerk is on the verge of being seized by the law. What is done in the establishment? He is not arraigned. The head of the establishment says' to him, "Now be careful, be careful, young man; you might be caught; but really that was spendidly done; you will get along in the world, I war- rant you." Then that young man goes up until he becomes head clerk. He has found there is a premium on iniquity. One morning the employer comes to his establishment. He goes into his counting room and throws up his hands and shouts, "Why the safe has been robbed ! " What is the matter? Nothing, nothing; only the clerk who has been practicing a good while on customers is prac- ticing a little on the employer. No new principle introduced into that establishment. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. You must never steal unless you can do it well. He did it well. I am not talking an abstraction; I am talking a terrible and a crushing fact. Now here is a young man. Look at him to-day. Look at him five years from now, after he has been under trial in such an establish- ment. Here he stands in the shop to-day, his cheeks ruddy with the breath of the hills. He unrolls the goods on the counter in gentle- manly style. He commends them to the purchaser. He points out all the good points in the fabric. He effects the sale. The goods are wrapped up and he dismisses the customer with a cheerful " good morning," and the country merchant departs so impressed with the straightforwardness of that young man that he will come again and again, every spring and autumn, unless interfered with. The young man has been now in that establishment five years. He unrolls the goods on the counter. He says to the customer, " Now those are the best goods we have in our establishment," they have better on the next shelf. He says, " We are selling those goods at less than cost " they are making twenty per cent. He says, " There is nothing like them in all the city" there are fifty shops that want to sell the same thing. He says, " Now, that is a durable article, it will wash," yes, it will wash out. The sale is made, the goods are wrapped up, the country mer- chant goes off feeling that he has an equivalent for his money, and the sharp clerk goes into the private room of the counting house, and he. says, "Well, I got rid of those goods at last; "I really thought we 486 TKAPS FOR MEN. never would sell them; I told him we were selling them at less than cost, and he thought he was getting a good bargain; got rid of them at last." And the head of the firm says, "That's well done; splend- idly done ! " Meanwhile God had recorded eight lies four lies against the young man, and four lies against his employer, for I undertake to say that the employer is responsible for all the iniquities of his clerks, and all the inquities of those who are clerks of these clerks, down to the tenth generation, if those employers inculcated iniquitous and dam- ning principles. Thousands of young men are under this pressure. I say, come out of it. "Oh!" you say, "I can't; I have my widowed mother to support, and if a man loses a situation now he can't get another one." I say, come out of it. Go home to your mother and say to her, "Mother, I can't stay in that shop and be upright; what shall I do? " and if she is worthy of you she will say, " Come out of it, my son we will just throw ourselves on him who hath promised to be the God of the widow and the fatherless; he will take care of us." And I tell you no young man ever permanently suffered by such a course of conduct. In Philadelphia in a drug shop a young man said to his employer, " I want to please you really, and I am willing to sell medicines on Sunday; but I can't sell this patent shoe blacking on Sunday." "Well," said the head man, "you will have to do it or else you will have to go away." The young man said: " I can't do it. I am will- ing to sell medicines, but not shoe blacking." "Well, then, go ! Go now." The young man went away. The Lord looked after him. The hundreds of thousands of dollars he won in this world were the smallest part of his fortune. God honored him. By the course he took he saved his soul as well as his fortunes in the future. A man said to his employer: "I can't wash the wagon on Sunday morning; I am willing to wash it on Saturday afternoon; but, sir, you will please excuse me, I can't wash the wagon on Sunday morning." His employer said: " You must wash it; my carriage comes in every Saturday night, and you have got to wash it on Sunday morning." "I can't do it," the man said. They parted. The Lord looked after him, grandly looked after him. He is worth to-day a hundred fold more than his employer ever was or ever will be, and he saved his soul. TRAPS FOR MEN. 487 SAFE TO DO RIGHT. Young men, it is safe to do right. There are young men to-day who, under this storm of temptation, are striking deeper and deeper their roots and spreading out broader their branches. They are Daniels in Babylon, they are Josephs in the Egyptian court, they are Pauls amid the wild beasts of Ephesus. There is a mistake we make about young men. We put them in two classes the one class is moral, the other is dissolute. The moral are safe. The dissolute cannot be reclaimed. I deny both proposi- tions. The moral are not safe unless they have laid hold of God, and the dissolute may be reclaimed. There are "self-righteous men in this country who feel no need of God, and will not seek after him, and they will go out in the world and they will be tempted, and they will be flung down by misfortune, and they will go down, down, down, until some night you will see them going home hooting, raving, shouting blasphemy going home to their mother, going home to their sister, going home to the young companion to whom only a little while ago, in the presence of a brilliant assemblage, flashing lights and orange blossoms, and censers swinging in the air, they promised fidelity and purity and kindness perpetual. As that man reaches the door she will open it, not with an outcry, but she will stagger back from the door as he comes in, and in her look there will be the prophecy of woes that are coming, want that will shiver in need of fire, hunger that will cry in vain for bread, cruelties that will not leave the heart when they have crushed it, but pinch it again, and stab it again, until some night she will open the door of the place where her companion was ruined, and she will fling out her arm from under her ragged shawl and say, with almost omnipotent eloquence ; " Give me back my husband ! Give me back my protector ! Give me back my all! Him of the kind heart and gentle words and the manly brow give him back to me !" And then the wretches, obese and filthy, will push back their matted locks, and they will say : " Put her out ! Put her out !" Oh, self-righteous man, without God you are in peril ! Seek after him to-day. Amid the ten thousand temptations of life there is no safety for a man without God. Is there a voice within you saying, "What did you do that for? Why did you go there ? What did you mean by that ? Is there a memory in your soul that makes you tremble ? God only knows all 4 88 TRAPS FOR MEN. our hearts. Yea, if you have gone so far as to commit iniquities, and have gone through the whole catalogue, I invite you back. The Lord waits for you. "Rejoice! oh, 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." Come home, young man, to your father's God. Come home, young man, to your mother's God. Oh, I wish that all the batteries of the Gospel could be unlimbered against all those influences which are taking down so many of our young men. I would like to blow a trumpet of warning and recruit until an army of reform would march out on a crusade against the evils of society. But let none of us be disheartened. Oh, Christian workers, my heart is high with hope. The dark horizon is blooming into the morning of which prophets spoke, and of which poets have dreamed, and of which painters have sketched. The world's bridal hour advances. The mountains will kiss the morning radiant and effulgent, and all the waves of the sea will become the crystal keys of a great organ, on which the fingers of everlasting joy shall play the grand march of a world redeemed. Instead of the thorn there shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar there shall come up the myrtle tree, and the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the wood shall clap their hands ! THE OBJECT OF LIFE BY REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE BY the time a chifd reaches ten years of age the parents begin to discover that child's destiny ; but by the time he or she reaches fifteen years of age the question is on the chile's own lips: " What am I to be ? What was I made for ? " It is a sensible and righteous question, and the youth ought to keep on asking it until it is so fully answered that the young man or the young woman can say with the fullest conviction, "To this end was I born." There is too much divine skill shown in the physical, mental and moral constitution of the ordinary human being to suppose that he was constructed without any divine purpose. If you take me out on some vast plain and show me a pillared temple surmounted by a dome like St. Peter's, and having a floor of precious stones, and arches that must have taxed the brain of the greatest draughtsman to design, and walls scrolled and niched and paneled and wainscoted and painted, and I should ask you what this building was put up for, and you answered, "For nothing at all," how could I believe you? And it is impossible for me to believe that any ordinary human being, who has in his muscular, nervous and cerebral organization more wonders than Christopher Wren lifted in St. Paul's or Phidias ever chiseled on the Acropolis, and built in such a way that it shall last long after St. Paul's cathedral is as much a ruin as the Parthenon that such a being was constructed lor no purpose and to execute no mission and without any divine intention toward some end. NOT WHOLLY RESPONSIBLE. I discharge you from all responsibility for most of your environ- ments. You are not responsible for your parentage or grandparent- age. You are not responsible for any of the cranks that have lived in your ancestral line, and who, a hundred years before you were born, may have lived a style of life that more or less affects you. 489 Af)Q THE OBJECT OF LIFE. You are not responsible for the fact that your temperament is sanguine or melancholic or bilious or lymphatic or nervous. Neither are you responsible for the place of your nativity, whether among the granite hills of New England, or the cotton plantations of Louisiana, or on the banks of the Clyde, or the Dneiper, or the Shannon, or the Seine. Neither are you responsible for the religion taught in your father's house, or the irreligion. Do not bother yourself about what you cannot help, or about circumstances that you did not decree. Take things as they are and decide the question so that you snail be able safely to say, " To this end was I born." How will you decide it ? By direct application to the only Being in the universe who is competent to tell you the Lord Almighty. He is the only being who can see what has been happening for the last five hundred years in your ancestral line, and for thousands of years clear back to Adam, and there is not one person in all that ancestral line of six thousand years but has somehow affected your character, and even old Adam himself will sometimes turn up in your disposition. The only Being who can take all things that pertain to you into consideration is God, and He is the only one you can ask. Life is so short we have no time to experiment with occupations and professions. CAUSE OF FAILURE. The reason we have so many dead failures is that parents decide for children what they shall do, or children themselves, wrought on by some whim or fancy, decide for themselves without any imploration of divine guidance. So it is that we have now in pulpits, men making sermons who ought to be in blacksmith shops making plowshares, and we have in the law those who instead of ruining the cases of their clients ought to be pounding shoe lasts, and we have doctors who are the worst hindrances to their patients' convalescence, and artists trying to paint landscapes who ought to be whitewashing board fences, while there are others making bricks who ought to be remodeling constitutions, or shoving planes who ought to be transforming literatures. Ask God about what worldly business you shall undertake, until you are so positive that you can in earnestness smite your hand on your plow handle, or your carpenter's bench, or your Blackstone's "Commentaries," or your medical dictionary, or your THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 49 ! Dr. Dick's "Didactic Theology," saying, "For this end I was born." NATURAL TENDENCIES. There are children who early develop natural affinities for certain styles of work. When the father of the astronomer Forbes was going to London he asked his children what present he should bring each one of them. The boy who was to be an astronomer cried out, " Bring me a telescope !" And there are children whom you find all, by themselves drawing on their slates or on paper, ships or houses or birds, and you know they are to be draughtsmen or artists of some kind. And you find others ciphering out difficult problems with rare interest and success, and you know they are to be mathematicians. And others making wheels and strange contrivances, and you know they are going to be machinists. And others are found experimenting with hoe and plow and sickle, and you know they will be farmers. And others are always swapping jackknives or balls or bats and making something by the bargain, and they are going to be merchants. When the Abbe de Ranee had so advanced in studying Greek that he could translate Anacreon at twelve years of age, there was no doubt left that he was intended for a scholar. But in almost every lad there comes a time when he does not know what he was made for, and his parents do not know, and it is a crisis that God only can decide. There are those born for some especial work, and their fitness does not develop until quite late. When Philip Doddridge, whose sermons and books have harvested uncounted souls for glory, began to study for the ministry, Dr. Calamy, one of the wisest and best men, advised him to turn his thoughts to some other work. Isaac Barrow, the eminent clergyman and Christian scientist his books standard now though he has been dead over two hundred years was the disheartenment of his father, who used to say that if it pleased God to take any of his children away he hoped it would be his son Isaac. So some of those who have been charac- terized for their stupidity in boyhood or girlhood have turned out the mightiest benefactors of the human race. These things being so, am I not right in saying that in many cases God only knows what is the most appropriate thing for you to do, and he is the one to ask. Let all parents, and all schools, and all univer- sities, and all colleges recognize this, and then a large number of 49 2 THE OBJECT OF LIFE. those who spend their best years in stumbling about among businesses and occupations, now trying this and now trying that, and failing in all, would be able to go ahead with a definite, decided and tremend- ous purpose, saying, "To this end was I born." This thought now mounts into the momentous. Let me say that you are made for usefulness and heaven. I judge this from the way you are built. You go into a shop where there is only one wheel turning, and that by a workman's foot on a treadle, and you say to yourself, "Here is something good being done, yet on a small scale;" but if you go into a factory covering many acres, and you find thousands of bands pulling on thousands of wheels, and shuttles flying, and the whole scene bewildering with activities, driven by water or steam or electric power, you conclude that the factory was put up to do great work and on a vast scale. I look at you, and if I should find that you had only one faculty of body, only one muscle, only one nerve, if you could see but could not hear, or could hear and not see, if you had the use of only one foot or one hand, and, as to you higher nature, if you had only one mental faculty, and you had memory but no judgment, or judgment but no will, and if you had a soul with only one capacity, I would say not much is expected of you. But stand up, O man, and let me look you squarely in the face. Eyes capable of seeing everything. Ears capable of hearing every thing. Hands capable of grasping everything. Mind with more wheels than any factory ever turned, more power than any Corliss engine ever displayed. A soul that will outlive all the universe except heaven, and would outlive all heaven if the life of other immortals were a moment short of the eternal. Now, what has the world a right to expect of you ? What has God a right to demand of you ? God is the greatest of economists in the universe, and he makes nothing uselessly, and for what purpose did he build your body, mind and soul as they are built ? There are only two beings in the universe who can answer that question. The angels do not know. The schools do not know. Your kindred cannot certainly know. God knows and you ought to know. A factory running at an expense of five hundred thousand dollars a year and turning out goods worth seventy cents a year would not be such an incongruity as you, O man, with such semi-infinite THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 493 equipment doing nothing or next to nothing in the way of usefulness. Do not wait for extraordinary qualifications. Philip of Macedon, gained his greatest victories seated on a mule, and if you wait for some caparisoned Bucephalus to ride into the conflict, you will never get into the world-wide fight at all. Samson slew the Lord's enemies with the jawbone of the stupidist beast created. Shamgar slew six hundred of the Lord's enemies with an ox-goad. Under God, spittle cured the blind man's eyes in the New Testament story. Take all the faculty you have and say: " O Lord ! Here is what I have, show me the field and back me up by omnipotent power. Anywhere, anyhow, any time for God." Two men riding on horseback stopped at a trough to water the horses. While the horses were drinking, one of the men said to the other a few words about the value of the soul; and then they rode away and in opposite directions. But the words uttered were the salvation of the one to whom they were uttered, and he became the Rev. Mr. Champion, one of the most distinguished missionaries in heathen lands. For years he wondered who had done for him this Christian kindness, and did not discover until, in a bundle of books sent him to Africa, he found the biography of Brainerd Taylor, and a picture of him. The missionary recognized the face in this book as that of the man who, at the watering trough for horses, had said the thing that saved his soul. What opportunities you have had in the past ! What opportunities you have now ! What opportunities you will have in the days to come ! Do not be satisfied with general directions. Get specific directions. Do not shoot at random. Take aim and fire. Concentrate. Napo- leon's success in battle came from his theory of breaking through the enemy's ranks at one point, not trying to meet the whole line of the enemy's force by a similar force. One reason why he lost Waterloo was because he did not work his usual theory, but spread his force out over a wide range. Oh, Christian man, oh, Christian woman, break through somewhere. Not a general engagement for God, but a particular engagement, and made in answer to prayer. If there are sixteen hundred million people in the world, then there are sixteen hundred million different missions to fulfill, different styles of work to do, different orbits in which to revolve, and if you do not get the divine direction there are at least fifteen hundred and 494 THE OBJECT OF LIFE. ninety-nine million possibilities that you will make a mistake. We are all rejoiced at the increase in human longevity. People live, as near as I can observe, about ten years longer than they used to. The modern doctors do not bleed their patients on all occasions as did the former doctors. In those times, if a man had fever they bled him, if he had consumption they bled him, if he had rheumatism they bled him, and if they could not make out exactly what was the matter they bled him. Olden time phlebotomy was death's coadjutor. All this has changed. From the way I see people skipping about at eighty years of age, I conclude that life insurance companies will have to change their table of risks and charge a man no more premium at seventy than they used to do when he was sixty, and no more premium at fifty than when he was forty. By the advancement of medical science, and the wider acquaintance with the laws of health, and the fact that people know better how to take care of themselves, human life is prolonged. HEAVENLY DURATION. The world does very well for a little while eighty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty years and I think that human longevity may yet be improved up to that prolongation; for now there is so little room between our cradle and our grave we cannot accomplish much. But who would want to dwell in this world for all eternity ? Some think this earth will be turned into a heaven. Perhaps it may, but it would have to undergo radical repairs, and go through eliminations and evolutions and revolutions and transformations infinite to make it desirable for eternal residence. All the east winds would have to become west winds, and all the winters changed to springtides, and the volcanoes extinguished, and the oceans chained to their beds, and the epidemics forbidden entrance, and the world so fixed up that I think it would take more to repair this old world than to make an entirely new one. But I must say I do not care where heaven is if we can only get there, whether a gardenized America or an emparadised Europe, or a world central to the whole universe. If each one of us could say that, we would go with faces shining and hopes exhilarant amid earth's worst misfortunes and trials. Only a little while and then the rapture. Only a little while and then the reunion. Only a little while and then the transfiguration. THE OBJECT OF LIFE 49 - In the Seventeenth century all Europe was threatened with a wave of Asiatic barbarism, and Vienna was especially besieged. The king and his court had fled, and nothing could save the city from being overwhelmed unless the king of Poland, John Sobieski, to whom they had sent for help, should with his army come down for the relief, and from every roof and tower the inhabitants of Vienna watched and waited and hoped until, on the morning of September 1 1, the rising sun threw an unusual and unparalleled brilliancy. It was the reflection on the swords and shields and helmets of John Sobieski and his army coming down over the hills to the rescue, and that day not only Vienna, but Europe, was saved. And you see not, O ye souls besieged with sin and sorrow, that light breaks in, the swords, and the shields, and the helmets of divine rescue bathed in the rising sun of heavenly deliverance ? Let everything else go rather than let heaven go. What a strange thing it must be to feel one's self born to an earthly crown; but you have been born for a throne on which you may reign after the last monarch of all the earth shall have gone to dust. A HALF HOUR IN HEAVEN BY REV. T DEWITT TALMAGE The busiest place in the universe is heaven. It is the center from which all good influences start ; it is the goal at which all good results arrive. The Bible represents it as active with wheels and wings and orchestras and processions mounted or charioted. But it also speaks of a time when the wheels ceased to roll, and the trumpets to sound, and the voices to chant. The riders on the white horses reined in *heir chargers. The doxologies were hushed and the processions halted. The hand of arrest was put upon all the splendors. " Stop, heaven ! " cried an omnipotent voice, and it stopped. For thirty minutes everything celestial stood still. "There was silence in heaven for half an hour. From all we can learn this is the only time heaven ever stopped. It does not stop as other cities, for the night, for there is no night there. It does not stop for a plague, for the inhabitant never says, "I am sick." It does not stop for bankruptcies, for its inhabitants never fail. It does not stop for impassible streets, for there are no falling snows nor sweeping freshets. What, then stopped it for thirty min- utes ? Grotius and Professor Stuart think that it was at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Mr. Lord thinks that it was in the year 311, between the close of the Diocletian persecution and the beginning of the wars by which Constantine gained the throne. But these were simply guesses. I do not know nor care when it was, but of the fact that such an interregnum of sound took place I am certain. And, first of all, we may learn that God and all heaven honored silence. The longest and widest dominion that ever existed is that over which stillness was queen. For an eternity there was not a sound, World making was a later-day occupation. For unimaginable ages the universe was mute, God was the onlv being, and as there was DO one 496 A HALF HOUR IN HEAVEN. 497 to speak to there was no utterance. But that silence has been all broken up into worlds, and there has arisen a noisy universe. Worlds in upheavel, worlds in congelation, worlds in conflagration, worlds in revolution. If geologists are right (and I believe they are) there has not been a moment of silence since this world began its travels, and the crashings, and the splittings, and the uproar, and the hubbub are ever in progress. But when among the supernals a voice cried, " Hush ! " and for half an hour heaven was still, silence was honored. The full power of silence many of us have yet to learn. We are told that when Christ was arraigned " He answered not a word." That silence was louder than any thunder that ever shook the world. Ofttimes, when we are assailed and misrepresented, the mightiest thing to say is to say nothing, and the mightiest thing to do is to do nothing. Those people who are always rushing into print to get themselves set right accomplish nothing but their own chagrin. Be silent ! Do right and leave the results with God. Among the grandest lessons the world has ever learned are the lessons of patience taught by those who endured uncomplainingly personal or domestic, or social or political injustice. Stronger than any bitter or sarcastic or revenge- ful answer was the patient silence. The famous Dr. Morrison, of Chelsea, accomplished as much by his silent patience as by his pen and tongue. He had asthma that for twenty-five years brought him out of his couch at two o'clock each morning. His four sons and daughters were dead. The remaining child had been made insane by sunstroke. The afflicted man said, "At this moment there is not an inch of my body that is not filled with agony." Yet he was cheerful, triumphant, silent. Those who were in his presence said they felt as though they were in the gates of heaven. Oh, the power of patient silence ! Eschylus, the 'immortal poet, was condemned to death for writing something that offended the people. All the pleas in his behalf were of no avail until his brother uncovered the arm of the prisoner and showed that his hand had been shot off at Salamis. That silent plea liberated him. The loudest thing on earth is silence if it be of the right kind and at the right time. There was a quaint old hymn, spelled in the old style, and once sung in the churches : 49 8 A HAFL HOUR IN HE A YEN. The race is not forever got By him who fastest runs. Nor the battle by those peopell That shoot with the longest guns. The tossing Sea of Galilee seemed most to offend Christ by the amount of noise it made, for he said, " Be still ! " Heaven has been crowning kings and queens unto God for many centuries, yet heaven never stopped a moment for any such occurrence, but it stopped thirty minutes for the coronation of Silence. Heaven must be an eventful and attractive place, from the fact that it could afford only thirty minutes of recess. There have been events on earth and in heaven that seemed to demand a whole day or a whole week or a whole year for celestial consideration. If Grotius was right, and silence occurred at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, that scene was so awful and so prolonged that the inhabitants of heaven could not have done justice to it in many weeks. After fearful besiegement of the two fortresses of Jerusalem had been going on for a long while, a Roman soldier mounted on the shoulders of another soldier hurled into the window of the temple a fire-brand and the temple was all aflame and, after covering many sacrifices to the holiness of God, the building itself became a sacrifice to the rage of man. The hunger of the people in that city during the siege was so great that, as some outlaws were passing a doorway and inhaling the odors of food, they burst open the door, threatening the mother of the household with death unless she gave them some food, and she took them aside and showed them that irwas her own child that she was cooking for the ghastly repast. Six hundred priests were destroyed on Mount Zion because the temple being gone there was nothing for them to do. Six thousand people in one cloister were consumed. There were one million one hundred dead, according to Josephus. Grotius thinks that this was the cause of silence in heaven for half an hour. If Mr. Lord was right and this silence was during the Diocletian persecutions, by wh:ch eight hundred and forty-four thousand Christians suffered death from sword and fire and banishment and exposure, why did not heaven listen throughout at least one of those awful years? No ! Thirty minutes ! The fact is that the celestial programme is so crowded with spectacle that it can afford only one recess in all eternity, A HALF HOUR IN HE A VEN. 499 and that for a short space. While there are great choruses in which all heaven can join, each soul there has a story of divine mercy peculiar to itself, and it must be a solo. How can heaven get through with all its recitatives, with all its cantos, with all its grand marches, with all its victories ? Eternity is too short to utter all the praise. How busy we will be kept in having pointed out to us the heroes and heroines that the world never fully appreciated the yellow fever and cholera doctors who died, not flying from their posts ; the female nurses who faced pestilence in the lazarettos ; the railroad engineers who stayed at their places in order to save the train, though they themselves perished ! Hubert Goffin, the master miner, who, landing from the bucket at the bottom of the mine just as he heard the waters rush in, and when one jerk at the rope would have lifted him into safety, put a blind miner who wanted to go to his sick child, in the bucket, and jerked the rope for him to be pulled up, crying, "Tell them the water has burst in and we are probably lost ; but we will seek refuge at the other end of the right gallery," and then gave the command to the other miners till they digged themselves so near out that the people from the outside could come to their rescue. This man will be one of the heroes of heaven. The multitudes of men and women who got no crown on earth, we will want to see when they get their crowns in heaven. I tell you heaven will have no more half hours to spare. Besides that, heaven is full of children. They are in the vast majority. No child on earth that amounts to anything can be kept quiet half an hour, and how are you going to keep five hundred million of them quiet half an hour? You know heaven is much more of a place than it was when that recess of thirty minutes occurred. Its population has quadrupled, sextupled, centupled. Heaven has more on hand, more of rapture, more of knowledge, more of intercommuni- cation, more of worship. There is not so much difference between Brooklyn seventy-five years ago, when there were a few houses down on the East river and the village reached up only to Sands street, as compared with what that great city is now yea, not so much difference between New York when Canal street was far uptown and now, when Canal street is far down town than there is a difference between what heaven was when this silence took place and what heaven is now. The most thrilling 5 o A HALF HOUR IN HEAVEN. place we have ever been in is stupid compared with that, and if we now have no time to spare we will then have no eternity to spare. Silence in heaven only half an hour ! That half hour is more widely known than any other period in the calendar of heaven. None of the whole hours of heaven are measured off, none of the years, none of the centuries. Of the millions of ages past and the millions of ages to come, not one is especially measured off in the Bible. The half hour of my text is made immortal. The only part of eternity that was ever measured by earthly timepiece was measured by the minute hand of my text. Oh, the half hours ! They decide everything. I am not asking what you will do with the years or months or days of your life, but what of the half hours ? Tell me the history of your half hours and I will tell you the story of your whole life on earth and the story of your whole life in eternity. The right or wrong things you can think in thirty minutes, the right or wrong things you can say in thirty minutes, the right or wrong things you can do in thirty minutes are glorious or baleful, inspiring or desperate. Look out for the fragments of time. They are pieces of eternity. It was the half hours between shoeing horses that made Elihu Burritt the learned blacksmith ; the half hours between professional calls as a physician that made Abercrombie the Christian philosopher ; the half hours between his duties as a school- master that made Salmon P. Chase chief justice ; the half hours between .shoe lasts that made Henry Wilson vice-president of the United States ; the half hours between canal boats that made James A. Gar, field president. The half hour a day for good or bad books, the half hour a day for prayer or indolence, the half hour a day for helping others or blasting others, the half hour before you go to business, and the half hour after you return from business ; these make the difference between the scholar and the ignoramus, between the Christian and the infidel, between the saint and the demon, between triumph and catastrophe, between heaven and hell. The most tremendous things of your life and mine were certain half hours. The half hour when in the parsonage of a country minister I v'esolved to become a Christian then and there ; the half hour when I decided to become a preacher of the Gospel ; the half hour when I realized that my son was dead, the half hour when I stood on the top A HALF HOUR IN HEA VEN. 501 of my house in Oxford street and saw our church burn ; the half hour in which I entered Jerusalem ; the half hour in which I ascended Mount Calvary ; the half hour in which I stood on Mars Hill ; the half hour in which the dedicatory prayer of this temple was made, and about ten or fifteen other half hours are the chief times of my life. You may forget the name of the exact years or most of the important events of your existence, but those half hours will to you be immortal. I do not query what you will do with the twentieth century, or with the present year, but what will you do with the next half hour ? Upon that hinges your destiny. During that period some of you will receive the Gospel and make complete surrender, and others of you will make final and fatal rejection of the full and free, and urgent and impassioned offer of life eternal. Oh, that the next half hour might be the most glorious thirty minutes of your earthly existence. Far back in history a great geographer stood with a sailor looking at a globe that represented our planet, and he pointed to a place on the globe where he thought there was an undiscovered continent. The undiscovered continent was America. The geographer who pointed where he thought there was a new world was Martin Behain, and the sailor to whom he showed it was Columbus. This last was not satisfied till he had picked that gem out of the sea and set it in the crown of the world's geography. Louis XIV, while walking in the garden at Versailles, met Man- sard, the great architect, and the architect took off his hat before the king. " Put on your hat," said the king, " for the evening is damp and cold." And Mansard, the architect, the rest of the evening kept on his hat. The dukes and marquises standing with bare heads before the king expressed their surprise at Mansard, but the king said, " I can make a duke or a marquis, but God only can make a Mansard." And I say to you, my hearers, God only by his convicting and converting grace can make a Christian, but he is ready this very half hour to accomplish it. Is there no way for us to clearly comprehend heaven ? The word "eternity " that we handle so much is an immeasurable word. Know- ing that we could not understand that word, the Bible uses it only once. We say, "Forever and ever." But how long is " Forever and ever ? I am glad that we have put under our eye heaven for thirty minutes. As when you would see a great picture, you put a sheet of 502 A HALF HOUR IN HE A VEN. paper into a scroll and look through it, or ioin your forefinger to your thumb look through the circle between, and the picture becomes more intense, so this masterpiece of heaven by St. John is more impressive when you take only thirty minutes of it at a time. Now we have something that we can come nearer to grasping and it is a quiet heaven. When we discuss about the multitudes of heaven, it must be almost a nervous shock to those who have all their lives been crowded by many people and who want a quiet heaven. For the last thirty-five years I have been much of the time in crowds and under public scrutiny and amid excitements, and I sometimes thought for a few weeks after I reach heaven, I would like to go down in some quiet part of the realm, with a few friends, and for a little while try com- parative solitude. You will find the inhabitants all at home. Enter the King's palace and take only a glimpse, for we have only thirty minutes for all heaven. " Is that Jesus ? " Yes." Just under the hair along his forehead is the mark of a wound made by a bunch of twisted brambles, and his foot on the throne has on the round of his instep another mark of a wound made by a spike, and a scar on the palm of the right hand and a scar on the palm of the left hand. But, what a countenance ! What a smile ! What a granduer ! What a loveliness ! What an over- whelming look of kindness and grace ! Why, he looks as if he had redeemed a world ! But come on, for our time is short. Do you see that row of palaces ? That is the Apostolic row. Do you see that long reach of architectural glories ? That is Martyr row. Do you see that immense structure ? That is the biggest house in heaven ; that is "the House of Many Mansions." Do you see that wall? Shade your eyes against its burning splendor, for that is the wall of heaven ; jasper at the bottom and amethyst at the top. See this river rolling through the heart of the great metropolis ? That is the river concerning which those who once lived on the banks of the Hudson, or the Alabama, or the Rhine, or the Shannan, say, "We never saw the like of this for clarity and sheen." That is the chief river of heaven so bright, so wide, so deep. But you ask, "Where are the asylums for the old?" I answer, "The inhabitants are all young?" "Where are the hospitals for the lame !" "They are all agile." "Where are the infirmaries for the blind and deaf?" "They all see and hear." Where are the almshouses for the poor? " A HALF HOUR IN HE A VEN. 503 " They are all multimillionaires." " Where are the inebriate asylums ? " "Why, there are no saloons." Where are the grave-yards ?" Why, they never die." Pass down those boulevards of gold and amber and sapphire and see those interminable streets built by the Architect of the universe into homes, over the threshold of which sorrow never steps, and out of whose windows faces, once pale with earthly sickness, now look rubicund with immortal health. " Oh, let me go in and see them ! " you say. No, you cannot go in. There are those there who would never consent to let you come up. You say, " Let me stay here in this place where they never sin, where they never suffer, where they never part." No, no ! Our time is short, our thirty minutes are almost gone. Come on ! We must get back to earth before this half hour of heavenly silence breaks up, for in your mortal state you cannot endure the pomp and splendor and resonance when this half hour of silence is ended. The day will come when you can see heaven in full blast, but not now. I am now only showing you heaven at the dullest half hour of all the eternities. Come on! There is something in the celestial appearance which makes me think that the half hour of silence will soon be over. Yonder are the white horses being hitched to chariots, and yonder are seraphs fingering harps as if about to strike them into harmony, and yonder are conquerors taking down from the blue halls of heaven the trumpets of victory. Remember, we .are mortal yet, and cannot endure the full roll of heavenly harmonies, and cannot endure even the silent heaven for more than half an hour. Hark ! the clock in the tower of heaven begins to strike and the half hour is ended. Descend ! Come back ! Come down ! till your work is done. Shoulder a little longer your burdens. Fight a little longer your battles. Weep a little longer your griefs. And then take heaven not in its dullest half hour, but in its mightiest pomp, and instead of taking it for thirty minutes, take it world with- out end. But how will you spend the first half hour of your heavenly citizenship after you have gone in to stay ? After your prostration before the throne in worship of him who made it possible for you to get there at all. I think the rest of your first half hour in heaven will be passed in receiving your reward if you have been faithful. I have 504 A HALF HOUR /A" a strangely beautiful book containing the pictures of the medals by the English government in honor of great battles ; these medals pinned over the heart of the returned heroes of the army on great occasions, the royal family present the Crimean medal, the Victoria Cross, the Waterloo medal. In your first half hour in heaven in some way you will be honored for the earthly struggles in which you won the day. Stand up before all the royal house of heaven and receive the insignia while you are announced as victor over the droughts and freshets of the farm field, victor over the temptations of the stock exchange, victor over profes- sional allurements, victor over domestic infelicities, victor over mechanic's shop, victor over the storehouse, victor over home worri- ments, victor over physical distresses, victor over the hereditary depressions, victor over sin and death and hell. Take the badge that celebrates those victories through our Lord Jesus Christ. Take it in the presence of all the galleries saintly, angelic and divine i Thy saints in all this glorious war Shall conquer though they die ; They see the triumph from afar And seAze it with their eye. THE HEAVENLY HARVESTS BY REV. T DEWITT TALMAGE THERE was nothing to eat. Plenty of corn in Egypt, but ghastly famine in Canaan. The cattle moaning in the stall. Men, women and children awfully white with hunger. Not the failing of one crop for one summer, but the failing of all the crops for seven years. A nation dying for lack of that which is so common on your table, and so little appreciated ; the product of harvest-field and grist- mill and oven ; the price of sweat and anxiety and struggle bread ! Jacob the father has the last report from the flour bin, and he finds that everything is out, and he says to his sons, " Boys, hook up the wagons and start for Egypt and get something to eat." The fact is, there was a great corncrib in Egypt. The people of Egypt have been largely taxed in all ages, at the present time paying between seventy and eighty per cent, of their products to the govern- ment. No wonder in that time they had a large corncrib and it was full. To that crib they came from the regions round about those who were famished some paying for corn in money ; when the money was exhausted, paying for the corn in sheep and cattle, and horses and camels ; and when they were exhausted, then selling their own bodies and their families into slavery. BENJAMIN DEMANDED. The morning for starting out on the crusade for bread has arrived. Jacob gets his family up very early. But before the elder sons start they say something that makes him tremble with emotion from head to foot and burst into tears. The fact was that these elder sons had once before been in Egypt to get corn, and they had been treated somewhat roughly, the lord of the corncrib supplying them with corn, but saying at the close of the interview, " Now, you need not come back here for 55 506 THE HEAVENLY HARVESTS. any more corn unless you bring something better than money even your younger brother Benjamin." Ah ! Benjamin that very name was suggestive of all tenderness. The mother had died at the birth of that son a spirit coming and another spirit going and the very thought of parting with Benjamin must have been a heart break. The keeper of this corncrib, never- theless, says to these older sons, "There is no need of your coming here any more for corn unless you bring Benjamin, your father's darling." Now, Jacob and his family very much needed bread ; but what a struggle it would be to give up this son ! The Orientals are very demonstrative in their grief, and I hear the outwailing of the father as these older sons keep reiterating in his ears the announcement of the Egyptian lord, "Ye shall not see my face unless your brother be with you." " Why did you tell them you had a brother?" said the old man, complaining and chiding them. "Why, father," they said, "he asked us all about our family, and we had no idea he would make any such demand upon us as he has made." "No use of asking me," said the father, "I cannot, I will not give up Benjamin." The fact was that the old man had lost children ; and when there has been bereavement in a household, and a child taken, it makes the other children in the household more precious. So the day for depart- ure was adjourned and adjourned arid adjourned. Still the horrors of the famine increased, and louder moaned the cattle, and wider open cracked the earth, and more pallid became the cheeks, until Jacob, in despair, cried out to his sons, "Take Benjamin and be off." The older sons tried to cheer up their father. They said : " We have strong arms and a stout heart, and no harm will come to Benjamin. We'll see that he gets back again." "Farewell !" said the young men to the father, in a tone of assumed good cheer. " F-a-r-e-w-e-1-l !" said the old man ; for that word has more quavers in it when pronounced by the aged than by the young. BEFORE THE PRIME MINISTER. Well, the bread party the bread embassy drives up in front of the corncrib of Egypt. These corncribs are filled with wheat and barley, and other grain. Huzza ! the journey is ended. The lord of the corncrib, who is also the prime minister, comes down to these THE HEAVENLY HARVESTS. 507 arrived travelers and says, " Dine with me to-day. How is your father ? Is this Benjamin, the younger brother, whose presence I demanded?" The travelers are introduced into the palace. They are worn and bedusted ; and servants come in with a basin of water in one hand and a towel in the other, and kneel down before these newly arrived travelers, washing off the dust of the way. The butchers and poulterers and caterers of the prime minister prepare the repast. The guests are seated in small groups, two or three at a table, the food on a tray ; all the luxuries from imperial gardens and orchards and aquariums and aviaries are brought there and are filling chalice and platter. Now is the time for this prime minister, if he has a grudge against Benjamin, to show it. Will he kill him, now that he has him in his hands ? Oh, no. This lord of the corncrib is seated at his own table, and he looks over to the table of his guests, and he sends a portion to each of them, but sends a larger portion to Benjamin, or, as the Bible quaintly puts it, "Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of theirs." Be quick and send word back with the swiftest camel to Canaan to old Jacob that " Benjamin is well ; all is well ; he is faring sumptuously ; the Egyptian lord did not mean murder and death, but he meant deliverance and life when he announced to us on that day, ' Ye shall not see my face unless your brother be with you.' ' THE STORY APPLIED. Well, how shall I apply this story from the far past ? This world is famine struck of sin. It does not yield a single crop of solid satis- faction. It is dying. It is hunger bitten. The fact that it does not, cannot, feed a man's heart was well illustrated in the life of a well- known English comedian, whom all the world honored and did every- thing for that the world could do. He was applauded in England and applauded in the United States. He roused up nations into laughter. He had no equal. And yet, although many people supposed him entirely happy, and that this world was completely satiating his soul, he sat down and wrote : " I never in my life put on a new hat that it did not rain and ruin it. I never went out in a shabby coat because it was raining, and I thought that all who had the choice would keep in- doors, that the sun did not burst forth in its strength and bring out with it all the butterflies of fashion whom I knew and who knew me, 508 THE HEAVENLY HARVESTS. I never consented to accept a part I hated, out of kindness to another, that I did not get hissed by the public and cut by the writer. I could not take a drive for a few minutes with Terry without being overturned and having my elbow-bone broken, though my friend got off unharmed. I could not make a covenant with Arnold, which I thought was to make my fortune without making his instead, than in an incredible space of time I think thirteen months I earned for him twenty thousand pounds and for myself one. I am persuaded that if I were to set up as a beggar, every one in my neighborhood would leave off eating bread." That was the lament of the world's comedian and joker. All unhappy. The world did everything for Lord Byron that it could do, and yet in his last moment he asks a friend to come and sit down by him and read, as most appropriate to his case, the story of "The Bleeding Heart." Torrigiano, the sculptor, executed, after months of care and carving, " Madonna and the Child." The royal family came in and admired it. Everybody that looked at it was in ecstasy, but one day, after all that toil, and all that admiration, because he did not get as much compensation for his work as he had expected, he took a mallet and dashed the exquisite sculpture into atoms. The world is poor compensation, poor satisfaction, poor solace. Famine, famine, in all the earth ; not for seven years, but for six thousand. THE CORNCRIB OF HEAVEN. But, blessed be God, there is a great corncrib. The Lord built it. It is in another land. It is a large place. An angel once measured it, and as far as I can calculate it in our phrase, that corncrib is fifteen hundred miles long and fifteen hundred broad and fifteen hundred high; and it is full. Food for all nations. "Oh!" say the people, "we will start right away and get this supply for our soul." But stop a moment ; for from the keeper of that corncrib there comes this word, saying, "You shall not see my face except your brother be with you." In other words, there is no such thing as getting from heaven pardon and comfort and eternal life, unless we bring with us our divine brother, the Lord Jesus Christ. Coming without him we shall fall be- fore we reach the corncrib, and our bodies shall be a portion for the jackals of the wilderness, but coming with the Divine Jesus, all the granaries of heaven will swing open before our soul, and abundance THE HEAVENLY HARVESTS. 509 shall be given us. We shall be invited to sit in the palace of the king and at the table, and while the Lord of heaven is apportioning from his own table to other tables he will not forget us, and then and there it will be found that our Benjamin's mess is larger than all the others, for so it ought to be. ''Worthy is the lamb that was slain, to receive blessing and riches and honor and glory and power." TRUE SOURCE OF COMFORT. What is the reason so many people do not get any real comfort out of life ? You meet ten people, and nine of them are in need of some kind of condolence. There is something in their health, or in their state, or in their domestic condition, that demands sympathy. And yet the most of the world's sympathy amounts to absolutely nothing. People go to the wrong crib, or they go in the wrong way. When the plague was in Rome a great many years ago, there were eighty men who chanted themselves to death with the litanies of Gregory the Great literally chanted themselves to death, and yet they did not stop the plague. And all the music of the world cannot halt the plague of the human heart. I come to some one whose ailments are chronic, and I say, "In heaven you will never be sick." That does not give you much comfort. What you want is a soothing power for your present distress. Lost children, have you ? I come to tell you that in ten years perhaps you will meet these loved ones before the throne of God. But there is but little condolence in that. One day is a year without them, and ten years is a small eternity. What you want is a sympathy now present help. I come to those of you who have lost dear friends, and say : "Try to forget them. Do not keep the departed always in your mind." How can you forget them when every figure in the carpet, and every book, and every picture, and every room calls out their name ? How many unuttered troubles ! No human ear has ever heard the sorrow. O troubled soul, I want to tell you that there is one salve that can cure the wounds of the heart, and that is the salve made out of the tears of a sympathetic Jesus. And yet some of you will not take this solace ; and you try chloral and you try morphine .nd you try strong drink and you try change of scene and you try new business associations and everything and anything rather than take divine com- panionship and sympathy. Oh, that you might understand something 5 io THE HE A VENL Y HAR VESTS. of the height and depth and length and breadth and immensity and infinity of God's eternal consolations. We are told that heaven has twelve gates, and some people infer from that fact that all the people will go in without reference to their past life. But what is the use of having a gate that is not sometimes to be shut? The swinging of a gate implies that our entrance into heaven is conditional. It is not a monetary condition. If we come to the door of an exquisite concert we are not surprised that we must pay a fee, for we know that fine earthly music is expensive ; but all the oratories of heaven cost nothing. Heaven pays nothing for its music. It is all free. There is nothing to be paid at that door for entrance, but the condition of getting into heaven is our bringing our divine Benjamin along with us. Do you notice how often dying people call upon Jesus ? It is the usual prayer offered the prayer offered more than all the other prayers put together "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." SEEKING FOOD ETERNAL. If Jacob's sons had gone toward Egypt, and had gone with the yery finest equipage, and had not taken Benjamin along with them, and to the question they should have been obliged to answer, "Sir, we didn't bring him, as father could not let him go ; we didn't want to be bothered with him," a voice from within would have said: "Go away from us. You shall not have any of this supply. You shall not see my face because your brother is not with you." And if we come up toward the door of heaven at last, though we come from all luxuriance and brilliancy of surroundings, and knock for admittance, and it is (bund that Christ is not with us, the police of heaven will beat us back from the breadhouse, saying, " Depart, I never knew you." If Jacob's sons, coming toward Egypt, had lost everything on the *vay ; if they had expended their last shekel ; if they had come up atterly exhausted to the corncribs of Egypt, and it had been found that Benjamin was with them, all the storehouses would have swung open before them. And so, though by fatal casualty we may be ushered into the eternal world ; though we may be weak and exhausted by protracted sickness if, in that last moment, we can only just stagger, and faint and fall into the gate of heaven it seems that all the corn- cribs of heaven will open for our need and all the palaces will open for THE HEAVENLY HARVESTS. 511 our reception ; and the Lord of that place, seated at his table, and all the angels of God seated at their table, and the martyrs seated at their table, and all our glorified kindred seated at our table, the king shall pass a portion from his table to ours, and then, while we think of the fact that it was Jesus who started us on the road, and Jesus who kept us on the way, and Jesus who at last gained admittance for our soul, we shall be glad if he has seen of the travail ot his soul and been sat- isfied, and not be at all jealous if it be found that our divine Benjamin's mess is five times larger than all the rest. Hail ! anointed of the Lord. Thou art worthy. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. A 000164307 1 (W