Hope Republican, Volume 1, Number 42, Hope, Bartholomew County, 9 February 1893 — Page 3

SUNSHINE OF REUNION. Dr. Talmag® Continues His Sermons on the Lessons of Nature. There Is Sunshine In the Soul Whieh Can Be Found Only In the Religion of Christ— Wit, Humor and Knduriny: Vivacity. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn ’Tabernacle last Sunday. Subject: “The Sunshine ot Religi n.” Text— Proverbs «ili, 17. He said: You have all heard ol God’s only begotten Son. Have you heard of 'God’s daughter? She was born in heaven. She came down over the hills of our world. She had queenly step. On her brow was celestial radiance. Her voice was music. Her ■name is Religion. My text introduces her. “Her ways arc ways of pleasantness, and all her paths arc, peace.” But what is religion? The fact is that theological study has had a different effect upon me from the effect .sometimes produced. Every year I tear out another leaf from my theology until I have only three or four leaves left —in other words, a very brief and plain statement of Christian belief. ! An aged Christian minister said: “When I was a young man I know everything; when I got to be thirty‘five years of ago in my ministry I had only a hundred doctrines of religion; when I got to be forty years years of age I had only fifty doctrines ■of religion; when I got to be sixty years of age I had only ton doctrines of religion, and now I am dying at seventy-five years of age, and there is only one thing I know, and that is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And so I have noticed in the study of God’s word, ■ and in my contemplation of the character of God and of the eternal world, that it is necessary for me to drop this part of my belief and that part of my belief as being nonessential, while I cling to the one great doctrine that man is a sinner and Christ is his Almighty and Divine Saviour. Now I take these three or four leaves of my theology and I find that, in the first place and dominant above all others, is the sunshine of religion. When I go into a room I have a passion for throwing open all the shutters. That is what I want to do this morning. We are apt to throw so much of the sepulchral into our religion, and to close the shutters, and to pull down the blinds, that it is only through here and there a crevice that the light streams. The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is a religion of joy indescribable and unutterable. Wherever I can find a bell I mean to ring it. If there are any in this house this morning who are disposed to hold on to their melancholy and gloom, let them now depart this service before the fairest and the brightest and the most radiant being of all the universe comes in. God’s Son has left ■our world, but God’s daughter is here. Give her room! Hail! Princess •ot Heaven. Hail! daughter of the Lord God Almighty. Come in and •make this house thy throne room. In setting forth this idea the dominant theory of religion is one of sunshine, I hardly know where to begin for there are so many thoughts that rush upon my soul. A. mother saw her little child seated on the ■floor in the sunshine and with a spoon in her hand. She said, “My darling, what are you doing there?” “Oh,” replied the child, “I’m getting a spoonful of sunshine.” Would •God that to-day I might present you with a gleaming chalice of this glorious, everlasting gospel sunshine. First of all, I find a great deal of ■sunshine in Christian society. I do not know of anything more ■doleful than the companionship of the ■mere fun makers of the world —the ’Thomas Hoods, the Charles Lambs, ■the Charles Matthews of the world —the men whose entire business it -is to make sport. They make others Haugh, but if you will examine their autobiography, or biography, you •will find that down in their soul there was a terrific disquietude. Laughter is no sign of happiness. The maniac laughs. The hyena laughs. The loon among the ’Adir■ondacks laughs. The drunkard dashing his decanter against the wall laughs. There is a terrible reaction from all sinful amusement and sinful merriment. Such men are cross the next day. They snap at you on exchange, or tfltey pass you, not recognizing you. Long ago I quit mere worldly society for the reason it was so dull, so insane and so stupid. My nature is voracious of joy. I must aave it. ‘I always walk on the sunny side of the street, and for that reason I have ■ crossed over into Christian society. I like their mode of repartee better. : I like their style of amusement better. They live longer. Christian people, I sometimes notice, live on -«b°n by all natural law they ought

to have died. I have known persons who have continued in their existence when the doctor said they ought to have been dead ten years. Every day of their existence was a defiance of the laws of anatomy and physiology, but they had this supernatural vivacity of the Gospel in their soul, and that kept them alive. I know there is a great deal of talk about the self denials of the Christian. I have to toll you that where the Christian has one self denial the man of the world has a thousand self denials. The Christian is not commanded to surrender anything that is worth keeping. But what does a man deny himself who denies himself the religion of Christ. He denies himself pardon for sin; ho denies himself the joy of the Holy Ghost; he denies himself peace of conscience; he denies himself a comfortable death pillow; ho denies aimsolf the glories of heaven. Do not talk to me about the self denials of the Christian life! Whore there is one in the Christian life ther» are a thousand in the life of the world. Again, I find a groat deal of religious sunshine in Christian and divine explanation. To a great many people life is an inexplicable tangle. Things turn out differently from what was supposed. There is a useless woman in perfect health. There is an industrious and consecrated woman a complete invalid. Explain that. There is a had man with $30,000 of income. There is a good man with $800 of income. Why is that? There is a foe of society who lives on doing all the damage he can, to seventy-five years of age, and here is a Christian father, faithful in every department of life, at thirtyfive years of age taken away by death, his family left helpless. Explain that. Oh, there is no sentence that oftencr drops from your lips than this: “I cannot understand it.” Well, now, religion comes in just at that point with its illumination and explanation. There is a business man who has lost his entire fortune. The week before he lost Ills fortune there were twenty carriages that stopped at the door of the mansion; the week after he lost his fortune all the carriages you could count on one finger. The week before financial trouble began people all took off their hats to him as ho. passed down the street, fhc week his financial prospects were under discussion the people just touched their hats without anywise bending the rim. The week that he was pronounced insolvent people just jolted their heads as they passed, not tipping their hats and the week the sheriff sold him out all his friends were looking in the store windows as they went down past him. Now while the world goes away from a man when be is in financial distress the religion of Christ comes to him and says; “You are sick, and your sickness is to be moral purification. You are bereaved. God wanted in some way to send your family to heaven, and he must begin somewhere, and so he took the one that was most beautiful and was most ready to go.” I do not say that religion explains everything in this life, but I do say it lavs down certain principles which are grandly consolatory. The providences of life sometimes seem to be a senseless rigmarole, a mysterious cipher, but God has a key to that cipher, and the Christian a key to that cipher, and though he may hardly be able to spell out the meaning lie gets enough of the meaning to understand that it is for the host. Now is there not sunshine in that? Is there not pleasure in that? Far beyond laughter, it is nearer the fountain of tears than boisterous demonstration. Have you never cried for joy? There arc tears which are eternal rapture in distillation. There are hundreds of people in this house who are walking day by day in the sublime satisfaction that all is for the best, all things working together for good for their soul. How a man can get along through this life without the explanation is a mystery to me. What! is that child gone forever? Are you never to get it back? Is your property gone forever? Is your soul to bo bruised and to be tried forever? Have you no explanation, no Christian explanation, • and yet not a maniac? But when you have the religion of Jesus in your soul it explains everything so far as it is best for you to understand. You look off in life,and your soul is full of thanksgiving to God that you are so much better off than you might be. Oh, the sunshine, the sunshine of Christian explanation! Here is some one bending over the grave of the dead. What is going to be the consolation? The flowers you strew upon the tombs? Oh, no. The services read at the grave? Oh, no. The chief consolation on that grave is what falls from the throne of God. Sunshine — glorious sunshifte. Resurrection sunshine. Oh, my friends, your departed loved ones are only away for their health in a better climate, and when you meet them they will be so changed you will hardly know them;

they will be so very much changed, and after awhile, when you are assured that they are your friends, your departed friends, you will say: •‘Why, whore is that cough? Where is that paralysis? Where is that pneumonia? Where is that consumption?” And he will say: “Oh, I am entirely well; there is no sick ones in this country. I have been ranging these hills, and hence this elasticity. I have been here now twenty years, and not one sick one have I seen —we are all well in this climate.” And then I stand at the gate of the celestial city to see the processions come out, and I see a long procession of little children with their arms full of flowers, and then I see a procession of kings and priests moving in celestial pageantry ■ —a long procession, but no black tasselod vehicle, no mourning group—and I say: “How strange it is! Where is your Oi’eenwood? Where is your Laurel hill? Where is your Westminster Abby? And they shall cry, “There are no graves here.” And then listen to the tolling of the old belfries of heaven, the old belfries of eternity. I listen to hear them toll for the dead. But they toll not for the dead. They only strike up a silver chime, tower to tower, east gate to west gate, as they ring out, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from my eyes.” Oh, unglove your hand and give it to me in congratulation on that scene. I feel as if I would shout. I will shout hallelujah! Dear Lord, forgive mo that I over complained about anything. If all this is before us, who cares for anything but God and heaven and eternal brotherhood? Take the crape off the doorbell. Your loved ones are only away for their health in a land ambrosial. Come, Lowell Mason: come Isaac Watts, and give us your best hymn about joy celestial. What is the use of postponing our heaven any longer? Let it begin now, and whosoever has a harp, let her thrum it; and whosoever hath a trumpet let him blow it; and whosoever hath an organ, let him give us a full diapason. They crowd down the air, spirits blessed, moving in cavalcades of triumph. Their chariot wheels whirl in the Sabbaah sunlight. They come! Halt, armies of God! Halt! until we are ready to ' join the battalion of pleasures that never die. Revised Story of Kden. Gen. Horace Porter. “Woman’s first home was in the Garden of Eden. There man first married woman. Strange that the incident should have suggested to Milton the ‘Paradise Lost.' Man was placed in a profound sleep. A rib was taken from his side, from it woman was created d she became his wife. Evil minted persons constantly tell us that this man’s first sleep was his last repose, but if woman be given at times to the contrariety of thought and perversity of mind which sometimes passeth all understanding, it must be suggested in her favor that that she was created out of the part of man. The Rabbis have a different theory regarding creation. They go back to the time when wo were all monkeys. They insist that man was originally created with a kind of Darwinian tail, and then in the process of evolution this caudal appendage was removed and created into woman. This might better account for those caudal lectures which woman is in the habit of giving, and some color is given to this theory from the fact that husbands, even down to the present day, seem to inherit a general disposition to leave their wives behind. The first woman finding no other man in the garden except her own husband, took to flirting with the devil. The race might have been saved much tribulation if Eden had been located in some calm place like Ireland. There would at least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. Now woman in her first efforts after knowlege showed her true female inquisitiveness in her cross examination with theS8rpent,and,in commemoration of that incident, the serpent seems to have been doubled up into a kind of knot and used in nearly all languages as a sign of in terrogation. Then came the exodus from the garden. Our first parents had to change their whole manner of living. We are painfully reminded of it to this day every time a tailor’s or dressmaker’s bill is handed in. Adam and Eve were no doubt the originators of the Fenian organization, the first people that ever resorted to the wearing of the green. But then their domestic troubles began. The woman’s favorite son was killed with a plub, and married women oven to this day have an instinctive horror of clubs. The first woman learned that it was Cain that raised the club. Women have since learned it is the club that raises Cain. ” —lift* 1 *?: .1

OUR PLEASURE CLUB. Dukane —Speaking of storms, I once saw hailstones as large as— Gaswell (interrupting with a sneer) '—Chestnuts? Dukane—Oh, bigger than that! As large as horse chestnuts—Pittsburg Chronicle. Miss Fit —And so you were in the Crimean war, Major? Were you with the Light Brigade in their heroic charge? Major Ananias Bluff—I—eh—came very near being in that historic charge, Miss Fit. Never was so disappointed in my life. They would taka but 600 and I was No 601.

MADDIE PLAYS FOR LEONARD.

Landlady—I don’t know how it is, but I cannot keep the milk from getting sour, although I keep, it in the refrigerator. Boarder—Why don't you try the oil stove that’s in my room?—Detroit Free Press. — Karl —Oh, auntie, please buy me a piece of raspberry cake. Aunt—No, my dear Karl; I need my money for something that is better. Karl — But can you get anything better?

johnny had ms ears boxed.—Chicago Mail.

“I know why bees never sit down,” said Walter. “Why is it, my dear,” asked his mother. “ ’Cause they has pins in their coat tails and they’s afraid to”—Harper’s Young People. Justice—Officer, what is the prisoner charged with? Officer Lafferty —Well, Your Honor, I’m not much of a judge, but it smells a good deal like whisky. Mr. Grigson —I wonder what old General Bulledoge can see in that odiously made up Blanche Dupuis? Miss Golightly—O, the old war horse likes the smell of powder, I guess. “When did this incompatibility begin?” asked an Indiana Judge of a litigant in a divorce suit. “Wo were married on Friday and trouble began on Saturday,” was Vie reply. Mrs. Buylots—John, I brought home for you the bill of fare we had for our club dinner. I thought— John —Confound the luck, Maria, that’s just like you; can’t go anywhere or do anyshing without bringing home a big bill.

When hoops come in and hoops spread out, And with his girl his walk begins, Ho Is not drunk because he leans, But walks this way to save his shins.

Agent—It is no use trying any longer, for not a soul can understand this language. Benson—I’ll send for my wife. Agent—What makes you suppose she would know what they are talking about? Benson —Well, she can always understand the cable car conductors when they call the streets. Mankind, says an observing phi-

losopher, is divided into two greaf classes, those who want to get in(4 the papers and those who are only anxious to bo kept out. —Texas Sift* ings. —

mgs. — In for It:

“Hey, Jimmy, wot’s de matter wid yer? Yer a losing de chance ol yer life-time! Here’s de teacher wot kep’ us both in yesterday gone clean through the ice! Ain't dis a puddin’? --Life. The Hysterical Hen, Texts Sittings. City Man—What the blazes is thfl matter with that hen? Farmer —Nothin’. She has just laid an egg. City Man —Great Scott! one would suppose she had laid the foundation of a brick block.”

History Repeats Itself. j

Mary, who owned the little lamh, Is married now, you know; Her hrst-born son is ten years old, > And ho to school does go. He oft excites the teacher’s ire j By fracturing the rule, Then, as of old. the children laugh To see the lam at school.

Chicago’s Needs. Now York Weekly. Mrs. Gotham —Now they say Chicago is to have the moat wonderful telescope ever made. What you suppose, that is for? Mr. Gotham—I presume they want to find out if the top stories of their houses arc inhabited?

His Fearful Risk, Puck. :

Sho—Don’t you think I am an an* gel to brush your silk hat so nicely for you? | He —But think how much I must love you to let you do it.

Damboo Poisoning. Chicago Mall. , The bamboo, the reeds of which arc useful in so many ways, is used by the Japanese as a means with which they wreak bitter vengeanca on offenders and enemies, for it contains a poison of a terribly destructive nature, which causes a slow and painful death and is all the more pernicious as it can be administered in a manner that defies detection. The powerful poison is found close to the knots of the bamboo reed in the form of small black fibrous threads, which can bo easily removed with a knife, a piece of glass or any other cutting instrument. Mixed with water or food they are absorbed without being noticed, and they settle at once in the throat or other air passages, which they commence to obstruct, producing a wretched cough and inflammation which ends in tuberculosis and other mortal diseases of the lungs an( j throat, with ultimate death. °Proofs of this were obtained in experimenting with a dog. The symptoms were as follows: Loss of appetite, increasing thirst, cough and expectoration, loss of flesh, protruding eyes manifest anxiety and oppression with death following in a short time.

a QUAINT LITTLE JUO.