Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1896 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

HE PREACHES UPON A RAPTUROUS OUTLOOK. He Save It Should Stir the World to Gladness—Arbitration la Better than Battle—Bays of Dawn in the Day of Progress. The Day Is at Hand. If the clarion note of this sermon delivered at the national capital could sound through Christendom, it would give everything good a new start. Dr. Talmage's text was Romans xiii., 12, “The day is at hand.” Back from the mountains, and the seaside, and the springs, and the farmhouse, your cheeks bronzed and your spirits lighted, 1 hail you home again with the words of Gehazi to the Shunamniite: "Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it, well with the child?” On some faces I see the mark of recent grief, but all along the track of tears I see the story of resurrection and reunion when all tears are done, the deep plowing of the keel, followed by the flash of the phosphorescence. Now that I have asked you in regard to your welfare, you naturally ask how i am. Very well, thank you. Whether it was the bracing air of the mountains, or a bath in the surf of Long Island beach, or whether it is the joy of standing in this great group of warm-hearted friends, or whether it is a new appreciation of the goodness of God, I cannot tell. 1 simply know I am happy. It was said that John Moffatt, the great Methodist preacher, occasionally got fast in his sermon; and to extricate himself would cry, “Halleluiah!” I am in no such predicament to-day, but I am full of the same rhapsodic ejaculation. Starting out this morning on a new ecclesiastical year, I want to give you the keynote of my next twelve months’ ministry. I want to set it to the tunes of “Antioch," "Ariel” and “Coronation.” I want to put a new trumpet stop into my sermons. We do wrong if we allow our personal sorrows to interfere with the glorious fact that the kingdom is coming. We are wicked if we. allow apprehension •f national disaster to put down our faith in God and in the mission of our American people. The God who hath been on the side of this nation since the Fourth of July, 1776, will see to it that this nation shall not commit suicide on Nov. 3, 1896. By the time the unparalleled harvests of this summer get down to the seaboard we shall be standing in a sunburst of national prosperity that will paralyze the pessimists who by their evil prophecies are blaspheming the God who hath blessed this nation as he hath blessed no other. Notes of Gladness. In all our Christian work you and I want more of the element of gladness. No man had a right to say that Christ never laughed. Do you suppose that he wap glum at the wedding in Cana of Galilee? Do you suppose that Christ was unresponsive when the children clambered over his knee and shoulder at his own invitation? Do you suppose that the evangelist meant nothing when he said of Christ, "He rejoiced in spirit?” Do you believe that the divine Christ, who pours all the waters over the rocks at Vernal Falls, Yosemite, does not believe in the sparkle and gallop and tumultuous joy and rushing raptures of human life? 1 believe not only that the morning laughs, and that the mountains laugh, and that the seas laugh, and that the cascades laugh, but that Christ laughed. Moreover, take a laugh and a tear into an alembic and assay them, and you will often find as much of the pure gold of religion in a laugh as in a tear. Deep spiritual joy always shows itself in facial illumination. John Wesley said he was sure of a good religious impression being produced because of what he calls the great gladness he saw among the people. Godless merriment is blasphemy anywhere, but expression of Christian joy is appropriate everywhere. Moreover, tho outlook of the world ought to stir us to gladness. Astronomers disturbed many people by telling them that there was danger of stellar collision. We were told by these astronomers that there are worlds coming very near together, and that we shall have plagues and wars and tumults and perhaps the world’s destruction. Do not be scared. If you have ever stood at a railroad center where ten or twenty or thirty rail tracks cross each other and seen that by the movement of the switch one or two inches the train shoots this way and that without colliding, then you may understand how fifty worlds may come within an inch of disaster and that inch be as good as a million miles. If a human switch tender can shoot the trains this way and that without harm, cannot the hand that for thousands of years has upheld the universe keep our little world out of harm’s way? Christian geologists tell us that this world was millions of years in building. Well, now, Ido not think God would take millions of years to build a house which was to last only 6,000 years. There is nothing in the world or outside the world, terrestrial or astronomical, to excite dismay. I wish that some stout gospel breeze miykt scatter all the malaria of human foreboding. The sun rose this morning at about 6 o’clock, and 1 think that is just about the hour in the world’s history. "The day is at hand.”

Victory for Peace. The first ray of the dawn I see in the gradual substitution of diplomatic skill for human butchery. Within the last twenty-five years there have been international differences which would have brought a shock of arms in any other day, but which were peacefully adjusted, the pen taking the place of the sword. The Venezuelan controversy in any other age of the world would have brought shock of arms, but now is being so quietly adjusted that no one knows just how it is being settled. The Alabama question in any other age of the world would have caused war between the United States and England. How was it settled? By men-of-war off the Narrows or off the Mersey? By the gulf stream of the ocean crossed by a gulf stream of human blood? By the pathway of nations incarnadined? No. A few wise men go into a quiet 'room at Geneva, talk the matter over and telegraph to Washington and to London, “All settled.” Peace, peace! England pays to the United States the amount awarded—pays really more than she ought to have paid. But still, all that Alabama broil is settled—settled forever. Arbitration instead of battle. So the Samoan controversyin any other age would have brought Germany and the United States into bloody collision. But all is settled. Arbitration instead of battle. France will never again, I think, through the peccadillo of an embassador, bring on a battle with other nations. She sees that God, in punishment at Sedan, blotted out the French empire, and the only aspirant for that throne who had any right of expectation dies in a war that has not even the dignity of being respectable. What is the leaf that England Would like to tear out of her history? The Zulu war. Down with the sword and up with the treaty! We in this country might better have settled our sectional difficulties by arbitration than by the trial of the swohl. Philanthropy said to the north, “Pay down a certain amount of money for the purchase of the slaves, and let all those born after a certain time be born free.” Philanthropy at the aESfr time said to

th* South, "Yen sell the slaves and get rid of thia great national contest and trouble.” The North replied, “I won’t pay a cent.” The South replied. “I won’t aelL” War, war! A million dead men, and a national debt which might have ground this nation to powder! Why did we not let William H. Seward of New York and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia go out and spend a few days under the trees on the banks of the Potomac and talk the matter oyer anu settle it, as settle it they could, rather than the North pay in cost of war $4,700,060,000 and the South pay $4,750,000,000, the destroying angel leaving the firstborn dead in so many houses all the way from the Penobscot to the Alabama? Ye aged men whose sons fell in the strife, do you not think that would have been better? Oh, yes! We have come to believe, I think, in this country that arbitration is better than battle. Too Dear a Price. I may be mistaken, but I hope that the last war between Christian nations is ended. Barbarians may mix their war paint and Chinese and Japanese go into wholesale massacres and Afghan and Zulu hurl poisoned arrows, but I think Christian nations have gradually learned that war is disaster to victor as well as vanquished, and that almost anything bought by blood is bought at too dear a price. I wish to God this nation might be a model of willingness for arbitration. No need of killing another Indian. No need of sacrificing any more brave Gen. Custers. Stop exasperating the red man, and there will be no more arrows shot out from the arabushments. A general of the United States army in high repute throughout this land, and who perhaps had been in more Indian wars than any other officer, and who had been wounded again and again in behalf of our Government in battle against the Indians, told me that all the wars that had ever occurred between Indians and white men had been provoked by white men, and that there was no exception to the rule. While we are arbitrating with Christian nations let us toward barbarians carry ourselves in. a manner unprovocative of contest. Let me put myself in thair place: I inherit a largo estate, and the waters are rich with fish, and the woods are songful with birds, aud my cornfields are silken and golden. Here is my sister’s grave. Out yonder under the large tree my father died. An invader comes and proposes to drive me off and take possession of my property. He crowds me back, he crowds me on. and crowds me into a closer corner, until after awhile I say: "Stand back! Don’t crowd me any more, or I’ll strike. What right have you to come here and drive me off my premises? 1 got this farm irora my father, and he got it from his father. What right have you to come here and molest me?” You blandly say: “Oh, I know more than you do. I belong to a higher civilization I cut my hair shorter than you do. I could put this ground to a great deal better use than you do.” And you keep crowding me back and crowding me on into a closer corner and closer corner, until one day I look around upon my suffering family, and, fired by their hardships, I hew you in twain. Forthwith all the world conies to your funeral to pronounce eulogium, comes to my execution to anathematize me. Yon are the hero. 1 am the culprit. Behold the United States Government and the North American Indian! The red man has stood more wrongs than I would, or you. We would have struck sooner, deeper. That which is right in defense of a Washington home is right in defense of a home on top of the Sierra Nevada. Before this dwindling race dies completely out I wish that this generation might by common justice atone for the inhumanity of its predecessors. In the day of God’s judgment 1 would rather be a blood smeared Modoc than a swindling United States officer on an Indian reservation. One was a barbarian and a savage, and never pretended to be anything but a barbarian and a savage. The other pretended to be representative of a Christian nation. Notwithstanding all this the general disgust with war and the substitution of diplomatic skill for the glittering edge of keen steel is a,sign unmistakable that “the day is at hand.” The World’s Nearness. I find another ray of dawn in the compression of the world’s distances. What a slow, snail-like, almost impossible thing would have been the world’s rectification with 1,400,000,600 of population and no facile means of communication, but now, through telegraphy for the eye and telephonic intimacy for the ear and through steamboating and railroading the 25,000 miles of the world's circumference are shriveling up into insignificant brevity. Hong Kong is nearer to New York than a few years ago New Haven was; Bombay, Moscow, Madras, Melbourne within speaking distance. Purchase a telegraphic chart, and by the blue lines see the telegraphs of the land and by the red lines the cables under the ocean. You see what opportunity this is going to give for the final movements of Christianity. A fortress months or years in building, but after it is constructed it may do all its work in twenty minutes. Christianity has been planting its batteries for nineteen centuries and may go on in the work through other centuries, but when those batteries are thoroughly planted, those fortresses are fully built, they may all do their work in twenty-four hours. The world sometimes derides the church for slowness of movement. Is science any quicker? Did it not take science 5,652 years to find out so simple a thing as the circulation of the human blood? With the earth and the sky full of electricity, science took 5,800 years before it even guessed that there was any practical use that might be made of this subtle and mighty element. When good men take possession of all these scientific forces and all these agencies of invention, I do not know that the redemption of the world will be more than the work of half a day. Do we not read the queen’s speech at the proroguing of parliament the day before in Loudon? If that be so, is it anything marvelous to believe that in twen-ty-four hours a divine communication can reach the whole earth? Suppose Christ should descend o.n the nations—many expect that Christ will come among the nations personally, suppose that to-morrow morning the Son of God from a hovering cloud should descend upon these cities. Would not that fact be known all the world over in twenty-four hours? Suppose he should present his gospel in a few words, saying: "1 am the Son of God. 1 camo to pardon all your sink and to heal all your jorrow. To prove that 1 am a supernatural being 1 have just descended from the clouds. Do you believe me, and do you believe me now?” Why, all the telegraph stations of the earth would be crowded as none of them were ever crowded just after a shipwreck. 1 tell yon all these things to show you it is not among the impossibilities or even the improbabilities that Christ will conquer the whole earth, and do it instanter when the time comes. There are fore-tokenings in the air. Something great is going to happen.' 1 do not think that Jupiter is going to run us down or that the axle of the world is going to break, but 1 mean something great for the world’s blessing and not for the world’s damage is going to happen. 1 think the world has had it hard enough. Enough the famines and plagues. Enough the Asiatic choleras. Enough the wars. Enough the shipwrecks. Enough the conflagrations. 1 think our world could stand right well a procession of prosperities and triumphs. Better be on the lookout. Better have your observatories open toward the heavens and the lenses

of your M>st powerful telescope* weft polished. Better have all your Leyden jars ready for some new pulsation of mighty influence. Better have new fonts of type in your printing offices to set up some astounding good news. Better have some new banner that has never been carried ready for sudden processions. Better have the bells in your church towers well hung and rope within reach, that yon may ring, out the marriage of the King's Son. Cleanse all your court houses, for the Judge of all the earth may appear. Let all your legislative halls be gilded, for the Great Lawgiver may be about to come. Drive off the drones of despotism all the occupants, for the King of heaven and earth may be about to reign. The darkness of the night is blooming and whitening into the lilies of morning etoud and the lilies reddening into the roses of stronger day—fit garlands, whether white or red, for him on whose head are many crowns. "The day is at hand.” Rays of Dawn* One more ray of the dawn I see in facts chronological and mathematical. Come now, do not let us do another stroke of work until we have settled one matter. What is going to bo the final issue of thia great contest between sin and righteousness? Which is going to prove himself the stronger. God or Diabolus? Is this world going to be all garden or all desert? Now, let us have that matter settled. If we believe Isaiah and Hosea and Micah and Malachi and John and Peter and Paul and the Lord himself, we believe that it is going to be all garden. But let us have it settled. Let us know whether we are working on toward a success or toward a dead failure. If there is a child in your house sick and you are sure he is going to get well, you sympathize with present pains, but all the foreboding is gone. If you are in a cyclone off the Florida coast and the captain assures you the vessel is stanch, and the winds are changing for a better quarter, and he is sure he will bring you safe into the harbor, you patiently submit to present distress with the thought of safe arrival. Now I want to know whether we are coming on toward dismay, darkness and defeat or on toward light and blessedness. You and I believe the latter, and if so every year we spend is one year subtracted from the world's woe, and every event that passes, whether bright or dark, brings us one event nearer a happy consummation, and by all that is inexorable in chronology and mathematics I commend you to good cheer and courage, if there is anything in arithmetic, if you subtract two from five and leave three, then by every rolling sun we are coming on toward a magnificent terminus. Then every winter parsed is one severity less for our poor world. Then every summer gone by brings us nearer unfading arhoreseenee. Put your algebra down on the top of your Bible and rejoice. If it is nearer morning nt 3 o'clock than it is at 2, if it is nearer morning at 4 o’clock than it is nt 3, then wo are nearer the dawn of the world’s deliverance. God's clock seems to go very slowly,. but tho pendulum swings, and the hands move, and it will yet strike noon. Tho sun and the moon stood still once. They will never stand still again until they stop forever. If you believe arithmetic ns wall as your Bible, you must believe wo are nearer the dawn, “The day is at hand.” In the Sunlight. Beloved people, I preach this sermon because I want you to toil with the sunlight in your faces. I want you old men to understand before you die that all tho work you did for God while yet your ear was alert and your foot fleet is going to be counted up in the final victories. I want all these younger people to understand that when they toil for God they always win the day; that all prayers are answered and all Christian work is in some way effectual, and that the tide is setting in the right direction, and that all heaven is on our side—saintly, cherubic.' archangelie, omnipotent, chariot and throne, doxology and procession, principalities and dominion, he who hath the moon under his feet, and all the armies of heaven on white horses. Brother, brother, all I am afraid of is not that Christ will lose the battle, but that you and 1 will not get into it quick enough to do something worthy of our blood bought immortality. Oh, Christ,) how shall I meet thee, thou of the scarred brow, and the scarred back, and tho scarred hand, and the scarred foot, and the scarred breast, if I have no scars or wounds gotten in thy service? It shall not be so. 1 step out to-day in front of the battle. Come on, ye foes of God, I dare you to combat. Come on, with pens dipped in malignancy. Come on, with tongues forked and viperine. Come on, with types soaked in the scum of th® eternal pit. I defy you! Come on; 1 bare my brow; I uncover my heart. Strike! I cannot see my Lord until I have been hurt for Christ. If we do not suffer with, him on earth, we cannot be glorified with him in heaven. Take good heart. On, on, on! See, the skies have brightened! See, the hour is about to come! Pick out all the cheeriest of the anthems. Let the orchestra string their best instruments. *‘The night is far spent; the day is at hand.”