Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1896 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

SALVATION THE THEME OF THE PREACHER S DISCOURSE. Only One Beinir that Ever Lived Wei Willing to Give Up Heaven for Per* dition, Says the Preacher, and That Waa the Divine Peasant. A Passion for Souls, Clear out of the ordinary style of sermonising is this remarkable discourse of Dr. Talniagc. His text is Homans ix. 8, “I could wish that myself were accused from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” A tough passage, indeed, for those who take Paul literally. When some of the old theologians declared that they were willing to be damned for the glory of God, fhey said what no one believed. Paul did not in the text mean he was willing to die forever to have his relatives. He used hyperbole, and when he declared, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,” he meant in the most vehement of all possible ways to declare his anxiety for the salvation of his relatives and friends. It was a (Mission for souls. Not more than one Christian out of thousands of Christians feels it. All absorbing desire for the betterment of the physical and mental condition Is very common. It would take more of a mathematician than I ever cau be to calculate how many are, up to an anxiety that sometimes will not let them sleep nights, planning for the efliciency of hospitals where the sick and wounded of body are treated, and for eye and ear infirmaries, and for dispensaries and retreats where the poorest may have most skillful surgery and helpful treatment. Oh, it Is beautiful and glorious this widespread and ever intensifying movement to alleviate and cure physical misfortunes. May God encourage aud help the thousands of splendid men inul women engaged in that work! But nil that is outside of my subject to-day. In behalf of the Immortality of a man, the inner eye, the inner ear, the inner capacity for gladness or distress, how few feel anything like the overwhelming concentration expressed in my text Rarer than four-leaved clovers, rarer than century plants, rarer than prima donnas, have been those of whom it may be said, ’‘They had a passion for souls.” You could count on the fingers and thumb of your left hand nil the names of those you can recall who in the last — the eighteenth—century were so characterised. Redemption of Mankind, All the names of those you could recall in our time ns having this passion for souls j’ou can on the fingers nnd thumbs of your. right and left hands. There are many more such consecrated souls, but they are scattered so widely you do uot know them. Thoroughly Christian people by the hundreds of millions there are to-day, but how few people do you know who are utterly obliviouH to everything in this wor<J except the redemption of souls'/ Paul had it when he wrote my text, and the time will come when the majority of Christians will have It, if this world is ever to bo lifted out of the slough in which it has been sinking and floundering for nearly nineteen centuries, nnd the betterment had better begin with myself nnd yourself. When n committee of the Society of Friends called upon a member to reprimand him for breaking some small rule of the society, the member replied: “I had a dream, in which all the friends had .assembled to plan some way to have our meeting house cleaned, for it was very filthy. Many propositions were made, but no conclusion was reached until one of the members rose up and said, ‘Friends, I tliiak if each one would take a broom nnd sweep immediately around his own seat, the meeting house would be clean.’ ” So let the work; of spiritual improvement begin nround our own soul. Some one whispers up from the right hand side of the pulpit anil says, “Will you please name some of the persons in our times who hnvo this passion for souls?” Oh, no! That would be invidious nnd imprudent, and the mere mentioning of tile names of such persons might cause in them spiritual pride, nnd then the Lord would have no more use for them.

Some one whispers up from tho left hand side of the pulpit, “Will you not, then, mention among the people of the past some who had this passion for souls?" Oh, yes! Samuel Rutherford, the Scotchman of 300 years ago—his imprisonment at Aberdeen for his religious real, nnd the public burning of his hook, “Lex Rex,” in Edinburgh, and his unjust arraignment for high treason and other persecutions, purifying and sanctifying him so that his works, entitled “Trial and Triumph of Faith” and “Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself," and, above all, his 215 unparalleled letters showed that he had the [Mission for souls; Richard Baxter, whose “Paraphrase of the New Testament" caused him to he dragged before Lord Jeffreys, who bowled at him as “a rascal” and “sniveling Presbyterian” aud Imprisoned him for two years—Baxter, writing IGB religious books, his “Call to the Unconverted” bringing uncounted thousands into the pardon of the gospel, and his “Saints’ Everlasting Rest” opening heaven to a host Innumerable; Richard Cecil; Thomas a Kempis, writing his “Imitation of Christ” for all ages; Harlan Page, Robert MeCheyne, Nettleton, Finney nnd more whom I might mention, the characteristic of whose lives was an overtowering passion for souls. A. B. Earl, the Bnptist evangelist, had it I. S. Inskip, the Methodist evangelist, had it. Jacob Knapp had it. Dr. Bachus, president of Hamilton College, had it. And when told he had only hnlf an hour to live said: “Is that so? Then take me out of my bed aud place me upon my knees and let me spend that time in calling on God for the salvation of the world.” And so he died upon his knees. Then there have been others whose names huve been known iu their own famUy or neighborhood, and here and there you think of one. What unction they had in prayer! What power they had in exhortation! If they walked Into a home, every member of it felt a holy thrill, and if they walked into a prayer meeting the dullness and stolidity Instantly vanished. One of them would wake up a whole church. One of them would sometimes electrify a whole city. The Divine Peasant. But the most wonderful one of that characterization the world ever saw or heard or felt was a peasant in the far East, wearing a plain blouse like an inverted wheat sack, with three openings—one for the neck and the other two for the arms. His father a wheelwright and house builder and given to various carpentry. His mother at first under suspicion because of the circumstances of his nativity, and he chased by a Herodic mania out of his native land to live awhile under the shadows of the sphinx and pyramid of Gizeh, afterward confounding the EL. D.’s of Jerusalem, then stopping the paroxysm of tempest and of madman. His path strewn with slain dropsies nnd catalepsies and ophthalmias, transfigured on one mountain, preaching on another mountain, dying on another mountain and ascending from another mountain —the greatest, the loveliest, the mightiest, the kindest, the most self-sac-rificing, most beautiful being whose feet ever touched the earth. Tell us, ye deserts who heard our Savior’s prayer;

tefl no, ye seas that drenched him with your snrf; tell us, ye multitudes who heard him preach on deck, on beach, on hillside; tell us, Golgotha, who heard the stroke of the hammer on the spikelieads and the dying groan in that midnight that dropped on midnoon, did any one like Jesus have this passion for souls? But breaking right iu upon me is the question. How can we get something of this Pauline and Cbristly longing for saved immortalities? I answer, by better appreciating the prolongation of the soul's existence compared with everything physical and material. How I hope that surgeon will successfully remeve the cataract from that man's eye! It is such a sad thing to be blind. Let us pray while the doctor is busy with the delicate operation. But for how long a time will he be able to give him patient eyesight? Well, if the patient be 40 years of age, he will add to his happiness perhaps 50 years of eyesight, and that will bring the‘man to 1)0 years, and it is not probable that he will live so long. But what is good eyesight for 50 years more as compared with clear vision for a soul a billion of centuries? 1 ■ hope the effort to drive back the typhoid fever from yonder home will be successful. God help the doctors! We will wait in great anxiety until the fires of that fever ure extinguished, aud when the man rises from his pillow aud walks out, with what heartiness we will welcome him into the fresh air and the church and business circles! He is 30 years of age, and if he shall live GO years more that will make him 90. But what are GO years more of earthly vigor compared with the soul’s health for a quadrillion milleniums— 7a mtllcnium, aa you know, a thousand years? This world, since fitted up for man’s residence, has existed about six thousand years. How much longer will it exist? We will suppose it shall last ns much longer, which Is very doubtful. That will make its -extetence twelve thousand years. But what are or will be twelve thousand years compared with the eternity preceding those years and the eternity following them—time, as compared to eternity, like the .drop of the night dew shaken from the top of ft grass blade by the cow’s hoof on its way afield this moriung, ns compared with Mediterranean and Arabian and Atlantic aud Pacific watery dominions? Paul at Corlntli. A stranger desired to purchase a fnrm, but the owner would not sell It —would only lot it. The stranger Hired it by lease for only one crop, but he sowed acorns, and to mature that crop 300 years were necessary. That was a practiced deception, but I deceive you not when I tell yqu that the crop of the soul takes hold of unending ages. I see the author of my text seated in the hoysq of Gains, who entertained him at Corinth, not far from the overhanging fortress of Acro-Corinthus, and meditating on the longevity of the soul nnd getting more and more agitated about its value and the awful risk some of his kindred were running concerning it, and he writes this letter containing the text, which Chrysostom admired so much he had it rend to him twice a week, and among other things he says those daring and startling words of my text, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the floah.” Another way to get something of the Pauline longing for redeemed Immortalities is by examjnlng the vust machinery arranged to save this inner and spiritual nature. That machinery started to revolve oti the edge of tbe garden of Eden, just after the cyclone of sin prostrated its sycamores and tamarisks and willows and will not cease to revolve until the lust soul of earth shall get rid of Its lust sin nnd enter the heavenly Eden. On that stupendous machinery for soul saving the patriarch put has hand, nnd prophet his hand, nnd evangelist his hand, and apostle his hand, aud Christ his hand, and almost every hand that touched it became a crushed hand. It was the meet expensive machinery ever constructed. It cost more to start it nnd has cost and will cost more to keep It running than all the wheels that ever made revolution on this planet. That machinery turned not by ordinary motive (tower, but by force of tears and blood. To connect its bunds of Influence made out of human and Christly nerves with ull parts of the earth millions of good men nnd women ure now at work nnd trill be at work until every wilderness shall become a gurdon, nnd every tear of grief shall be a tear of joy, nnd the sword of divine victory shall give the wound to tho old dragon thut shall send him howling to the pit, the iron gate clanging against him, never again to open. All that and infinitely more to save the soul! Why, It must be a tremendous soul—tremendous for good or tremendous for evil, tremendous for happiness or tremendous for woe. Put on the left side of tho largest sheet of paper that ever came from paper mill njpMtle unit, the figuro I, and how many ciphers would you have to add to the right of that figure to express the soul’s value, each cipher adding tenfold? Working into that scheme of the soul’s redemption, how many angels of God, descending and ascending! How many storms swooping on Lake Galilee! How many eartliqunkes opening dungeons nnd striking catalclysms through mountains, from top to base! What noonday sun was put on retreat! What omnipotence lifted and what Godhead was pue to torture! All that for the soul. No wonder thut Paul, though possessing great equipoise of temperament when be thought what his friends and kindred were risking concerning their souls, flung aside all ordinary modes of speech, argument and apt simile, and bold metaphor, and learned allusion, ns unfit to express how he felt, and seizing upon the appalling hyperbolism of my text cries out, “I could wish myself accursed” —that is, struck of the thunderbolts of tbe omnipotent God, sunk to unfathomed depths, chained into servitude to Abaddon and thrust Into furnaces whose fires shall never burn out—if only those whom I love might now and forever be saved. Mind you, Paul does not say, “I do wish.” lie says, “I could wish.” Even in the agony he felt for others he did not lose his balance. “I could wish myself accursed.” I could, but Ido not." Only one being that ever lived was literally willing to give up heaven for perdition, and that was the divine peasant whom I mentioned a few moments ago. He was not only willing to exchange dominions of bliss for dominions of wretchedness, but he did so, for, that he forsook heaven, witness the stooping star and all those who saw his miracles of mercy, and that he actually entered tha gates of the world of perpetual conflagration the Bible distinctly declares. He did not say. with Paul, “I could,” but he said, “I will, I do," and for the souls of men he “descended into helL” Piety on Ice. In this last half of the last decade of the nineteenth century the temperature in the churches is very low, and most of the piety would spoil if it were not kept on ice. And, taking things as they are ordinary Christians will never reach the point where the outcry of Paul in the text will not seem like extravaganza. The proprieties in most of the churches are so fixed that all a Christian is expected to do on Sunday is to get up a little later in the morning thnn usual, put on that which is next to his best attire —not the very best, for that has to be reserved for the levee —enter the church with stately step, bow his head, or at any rate shut his eyes in prayer time, or close them enough to look sleepy, turn toward the pulpit with holy dullness while (he

preacher speaks, put a 5 cent piece—«r It the time# be hart a 1 cent piece—on tb* collection platter, kind of shoving it down under the other coin eo that it might be, for oil that the usher knows, a $5 gold piece, and then, after the benediction, go quietly home to the biggest repast of all the week. That is all tho majority of Christians are doing for the rectification of this planet, and they will do that until, at the close of life, the pastor opens a black book at the head of their casket and reads: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. They rest from their labors and their works do follow them.” The sense of the ludicrous is so thoroughly developed in me that when T hear these Scripture words read at the obsequies of one of the religious do-noth-ings in the churches It is too much for my gravity. "Their works do follow them.” What works? And in what direction do they follow them—up or down? And do they follow on foot or on the wing? And how long will they follow before they catch up? More appropriate funeral text for all such religious dead beats would bo the words Id Matthew xxv., 8: “Our lamps are gone out.” One would think that such Christians wonld show at least under whose banner they are enlisted. In one of the Napoleonic wars a woman— Jeannette by name—took her position with the troops and shouldered a broomstick. The colonel said, “Jeannette, why do yon take such a useless weapon into the ranks?" "Well,” she said, “I can show, at least, which side I am on." Concernlag Missionaries. Now, the object of this sermon is to stir at least one-fourth of you to an ambition for that which my text presents in biasring vocabulary—namely, a passion for souls.; To prove that It is possible tq have much' of that spirit, I bring the consecration of’ 2,000 foreign missionaries. It Is usually estimated that there'are at least 3,000> missionaries. I make a liberal allowanceand adtaiit there may be ten bad mission* nrles out of the 3,000, bnt I do nut believe, there iff one. AU English and American merchants lento Bombay, Calcutta, Amoy and Peking ns soon ns they make' thblr fortunes. Why? Because no ropenn or American In his senses would slay in that climate after monetary inducements have ceased. Now, the missionaries there are put down on tho barest: necessities, and most of them do not lay up Jpl in twenty years. Why, then, do] they stay In those lands of intolerable! heat nnd cobras and raging fevers, the thermometer sometimes playing at 13ft anil 140 degrees of oppressiveness, 12,000 miles from home, beeause of the unhealthy climate and the prevailing Immoralities of ttiose regions compelled to seud the(r children tQ England or.jSkofc' land or America, probably never u>»qV' them agaju? O blossed Christ! Cfia It ho any thing but a passion for souls? It Is onsy to understand all this frequentdepreciation of foreign missionaries when you know that they are ail opposed to the opium traffic, and thut interferes withcommerce, and then the missionaries are moral, and that is an offense to many of. the merchants—not nil of them, but many : of them—who, absent from all homo straint, are so immoral that we can make only faint allusion to the monstrosity of their abominations.

River of Life. Who Is that young woman on the worst street in Washington, New York or Lon- 1 don, Bible in hand nnd a little package in which nro small viuls of modiclnea, amt another buudlo in which are biscuits? How dare she risk herself among those “roughs," nnd where Is she going? Sh«j Is oue of tho queens of henveu hunting up tho sick nnd hungry, nnd before night she will have road Christ's not your heart be troubled" In eight or ten places, and counted out from those vials tho right number of drops to ease pain, and given food to a family that would otherwise have had nothing to eat to-day, and taken tho measure of n dead child that she may prepare for It a shroud—her every act of kindness for tho body accompanied with a benediction for tho soul. Work for Salvation. But, after nil,'the best way to cultivate, that divine passion for souls is to work lor their salvation. Under God save one, nnd you will want right away to save two. Save two, and you will want to save ten. Save ten, and you will want to save twenty. Save twenty, nnd yon will want to save a hundred. Save a hundred, and you will want to Have everybody. And what is the use of talking about it when the place to begin Is here aud the time now? ,'b, “Who Is on tho Lord's side?" "Quit yourselves llko men.” In solemn column march for God and .happiness and heaven. So glad am I that Ido not have to “wish myself accursed" and throw away my heaven that you may win your heaven, but that we may have a whole convention of heavens—heaven added to heaven, heaven built on heaven. And while I dwell upon the theme I begin to experience in my own poor self that which I take to be something like a passion for souls. And now unto God, the only wise, the only good, tbe only great be glory forever! Amen! Fbort Sermons, Eternal Lisp.—To know the only fn» God Is life, but this does not alone constitute life. With tho knowledge of God there must be also knowledge of the reviled victim of Calvary’s cross. For those who repudiate the deity of Jeans Christ, no eternal life; for tho*e who willfully remain In Ignorance of Jesus Christ, no heaven; for those who deliberately reject the salvation which is provided In his name, no life.—The Rev. H. 11. Barbour, Baptist, Columbus, Ohio. Christian Hei-olsm.—lt is not by never falling that we rise, but by rising higher every time we fall, making ©nr failures the stepping-stones to higher effort. There are duties all along the Christian’s course to be performed which require heroic effort. Going round the base will never take men up to those mountain heights which open up a magnificent outlook upon nature and its beauties.—Rev. J. c. Bowers, Lutheran, Washington, D. C. Impulse.—The unstudied action should be the best action; the unpremeditated word the best word. Unconscious goodness Is the best goodness. The soundest heart that ever beat in a human body is the heart of which the possessor is unconscious, and the sweetest grace that ever breathed forth from the lips of the Nazarene was the grace of bis words that told the simple but mighty passion of his inherent life.—The Rev. E. L. Rexford, Universallst, Columbus, O. Great Opportunities.—Back of the money question, back of the tariff question, back of all the great questions that agitate society to-day are other questions far more reaching and far more important Never until men are unselfish and gentle, never until men are what they ought to be, will society have upon its stante books laws that are just and conditions that will guarantee their enforcement; never until men are what they ought to be will wealth be properly distributed.—The Rev. J. H. O. Smiths Independent, Chicago. , , x