Indiana State Sentinel, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 June 1892 — Page 11

THE INDIANA STATE SENTINEL, WEDNESDAY MORNING, JUNE 1, 1892-TWELVE PAGES.

II

ÄT THE TABERNACLE.

T3R. TALMAGE ILLUMINATES AN OBSCURE TEXT. " Slgiiltlaaaee of the Yrse. X Answered Yttr-9 In tha Secret rise or Thunder." la the Bible Thunder I the Type of Power and )Ijtry. BnooKLTX, May Pr. Talmajre pave a fre&h illustration this morning of the power he po.-5-e.s of extracting valuable lessons from a text which preachers have generally neglected as barren ground. J lis sermon was ba.-Hl on the textlNalm.s lxxxi, 7, "I answered thee in the secret place of thunder." It is past midnight, and twon'rlnrk in the morning, far enough from Minuet nml sun-ri-M; to make the darkness very thi"k, and the Egyptian army in pursuit of the escaping Israelites are on the bottom of the Ki sen, its waters having been set up on either side in masonry of sapphire, for God can make a wall as solid out of water as out of granite, and the trowels with which these two walls were built wert none the less powerful because invisible. Such walls bad never before len lifted. When I paw the waters of the Red sea rolling through the Suez canal they wer blue and beautiful and flowing like other waters, but tonight, as the Egyptians look op to them built into walls, now on one ride and new oa the otbrr, they inut have been frowning waters, for k was probable that the same power that lifted them up miht suddenly tlin them prostrate. A great lantern of cloud hun over this chasm between the two walls. The door of that lantern was op ned toward the Israelites ahead, giving them lilit, and the back of the lantern was tow.ri the Egyptians, and it growled ami rumbled and Jarred with thunder; not thunder like that which cheers the earth after a drought, promising the refreshing shower, but charged and turchar0'ed with threats cf doom. The Egyptian captains lost their presence of mind, and the horses reared and snorted and would not answer toth-. ir bits, and the chariot wheels got interlocked and torn off, and the charioteers were hurled headlong, and the Kfd pea fell on nil the host. The confuting and confounding thunder wits in answer to the prayer of the Israeli tea. With their backs cut by the lash and their fi-et bleed in? arid their bodies decrepit with the t-ulTering of whole generations, they Lad asked Almighty God to ensepulcher their Egyptian pursuers in one great ae.reophagus, and the splash and the roar of the Red sea r.s it dropped to its natural lied were only the shutting of the sarcophagus oa u dead hot. That is the meaniDg of the tut when God says, "I answered thee in the secret place of thunder." THE STMrOL OF roWEK. Now, thunder, all up and dow n the Bible, is (ho symbol of power. The Egyptian plague of hail was accompanied with this full diapason of the heavens. While Samuel and his men were making a burnt offering of a lamb, and the Philistines were about to attack them, it was by terrorizing thunder they were discoinlited. . Job, who was a combination of the Danteoue and the Miltonic, was solemnized on this rever Iteration of the heavens, and cried: "The thunder of hi power, who can understand?" and he challenges the universe by sayii:;r, "Cun'st thou thunder with a voice lil:e him?" and he throws Rosa L-onheur's "II.-.r.e Fair" into the shade by the Libia photograph of a warhorse, when he describes his neck as "clothed with thunder." Because of the power of James and John, they were called "the sons of thnr.de r." The law given on the basaltic? cra;;s of Mount Sin;d was eraXhasized with thi -loudy ebullition. Tha fkies all r.rc.ind about St. John at Fatnios were f.ill f th thunder of war and the thunder of Christly triumph and the thunder of resurrection and the thunder of eternity. But when my text s-ays, "I answered thee ra the secret place cf thunder," it suggests there is sirue mystery about the thunder. To the ancients the raue of this bombarding the earth with loud sound must have Leen more of a mystery than it is to us. The lightnings, w hich were to them wild mon.t-.rs ranging through the skies, in o;;r time have been dornest icaterL We harne electricity to vehicles and we case it in lamps, and every schoolboy knows something about the fact that it is the passage of electricity from cloud to cloud that Lütkes the heavenly racket which we call thunder. But after all that chemistry has taught the world, there are mysteries a'xmt this skyey resonance, and my text, true in the time of the Psalmist, Is true now and always will bo true, that there is same secret about the place of thunder. To one thing known about the thunder there are a hundred things not known. After all the scientilic batteries have been doing their work f or a thousand years to come and learned men have discoursed to the utmost about atmospheric electricity and magnetic tlectricty and galvanic electricity and thermotic electricity and frictional electricity and positive electricity and negative tlectrk ity, my text will bo as suggestive as it is. today, when it speaks of the secret ple.ee of thunder. NATURAL AND tl'i.'ilTUAL LAWS. Now right along by a natural law there Is always a fr.iritual law. As there is a eecret place of natural thunderthere is a secret place of moral thunder. In other words, the religious power tht you see abroad in the church and in the world has hiding place, and iu many cases it is never discovered at fill. I will use a similitude, lean give only the dim outline of a particular case, for mauy of the remarkable circumstances I have forgotten. Many years ago there was a large church. It was characterized by strange and unaccountable converiotis. There were no great reTivals, but individual cases of f-piritual arrest and transformation. A young man sntin one of the front pews. He was a graduate of Yale, brilliant as the north star and notoriously dissolute. Everybody knew him ar.d liked him for his geniality, but deplored his moral errantry. To please his parents he was every Sahfcath morning in church. One day there was a ringing of the doorbell of the pastor cf that church, and that young man, helmed with repntanw, implored prayer and advice and pawed into complete reformation of heart and life. All the wighborlkood was astonished and aked. Why was thi? His father and mother had said cothinj? to Lim about hi.s soul's welfare. On another aisle of the same church sat an old miser, lie p-ud Lis pew rent, but "waa hard on the poor and bad no interest In any philanthropy. Piles of money! And people said: "What a struggle he will lave when he quits this life, to part with lis bonds and mortgages." One day he wrote to LU micister: "Please to call immediately. I have a matter of great importance about which I want to see you." TrVhen the pastor came in the old man could not speak for emotion, but after a while be gathered self control enough to say: "I Lave lived for this world too long. I want to know if you think I can be saved, od, if so, I wish you would tell me bow." Upon his soul the light soon dawned, and the old nder, not only revolutionized in heart but in life, began to scatter benefactions, and toward all the great charities of the day he became a cheerfnl and bountiful almoner. "What was the cause of this change? everybody asked; and no one was capable of giving an intelligent answer. In another part of the church Bat Sabbath by Sabbath, a beautiful and talented woman, who waa great society leader. Ehe went to church because that was a respectable thing to do, and in the neighborhood where she lived it was hardly respectßb Worldly was the to tL

last degree, and all her family worldly. She had at her house the finest germans that were ever danced, and the costliest favors that were ever given, and though he attended church she never liked to hear any story of pathos, and as to religious emotion of any kind, she thought it positively vulgar. Wines, cards, theaters, rounds of costly gnyety were to her the highest satisfaction. One day a neighbor pent in a visiting card, and this lady came down the stairs in tears, and told the whole story of how she had not slept for Keveral nights, and she feared she was going to lose her soul, and she wondered if some one would not come around and pray with her. From that time her entire demeanor was changed, and though she was not called npon to sacrifice any of her amenities of life, she consecrated her Wauty. her social position, her family, her all to fJod andthe church and usefulness. Everybody said in regard to her, "Have you noticed the change, and what in the world caused it ?" and no one could make satisfactory explanation. In the course of two years, though there was no general awakening in that church, many such isolated cases of euch unexpected and unaccountahleconversions took place. The very people whom no one thought would le affected by fcuch considerations were converted. THE POWER OF FCATER. The pastor and the otflcers of the church were on the lookout for the solution Of this religious plunomenon. "Where is it." they said, "ar.d who is it ami what is it?" At last the discovery was made and all was explained. A poor old Christ ian woman standing in the vestibule ot the church one Sunday morning, tr ing to get her breath ag.iin before she went upstairs to the gallery, heard the inquiry and told the secret. For years she had been ia the habit of concentrating all her prayers for particular persons in that church. She w ould see some man or some woman present and, though she might net know the person's came, she would pray for that person until he or she was converted to God. All her prayers were for that one person just that one. She waited and waited for communion days to see when the candidates for membership stood up whether her prayers had been effectual. It turned out that these marvelous inKtances of conversion were the result of that old woman's prayers as f-he sat in the gallery Sabbath by Sabbath, bent and w izened and poor and unnoticed. A little cloud of consecrated humanity hovering in the galleries. That was the secret place of the thunder. There is some hidden, unknown, mysterious source of almost all the moral and religious power demonstrated. Not one out of a million not one out of ten million prayers ever strikes a human ear. Ou public occasions a minister of religion voices the supplications of an assemblage, but the prayers of all the congregation are iu silence. There is not a second in a cent ury when prayers are not ascending, but myriads of them are not even as loud as a whisper, for God hears a thought as plainly as a vocalization. That silence of supplication hemispheric and perpetual is the secret place of thunder. In the winter of ls7. we were worshiping in the Brooklyn Academy of .Music in t he interregnum of churches. We had the usual great audiences, but I was oppressed beyond measure by the fact that conversions were cot more numerous. One Tuesday I invited to my houe live old, consecrated Christian men all of them gor.e now, except Father Pearson, and he, in blindness and old age, waiting for the Master's call to come up higher. These old men came, not knowing why I invited them. I took them to the top room of my h.ue. I said to them: "I have called you here for special prayer. I am in an agony fur a great turning to God of the people. We have vast multitudes i.l attendance and they ure attentive and respectful, but I cannot see that they aro saved. Let us kneel duwn and each one pray and not leave this room until we are all assured that the blessing will come and h;w come." It was a mo.-,t intense crying unto God. I said, "Brethren, let this meeting be a secret," and they said it would be. That Tuesday night special service ended. On the following Friday night occurred the usual prayer meeting. Xo one knew of what had occurred on Tuesday night, but the meeting was unusually thronged. Xlen accustomed to pray in public in great composure broke down under emotion. The people were in tears. There were sobs and silences and solemnities of such unusual power that the worshipers looked into each others faces as much as to say, "What does all this mean?" And when the following Sabbath came, although we were in a secular place, over four hundred arose for prayers and a religious awakening took place that made that winter memorable for time and for eternity. There maybe in this building many who were brought to God during that great ingathering, but few of them know that the upper room in my house on Quincy street, where those live old Christian men poured out their souls before God, was the secret place of thunder. bCILNCE CANNOT APrP.OACTJ IT. The day will come Hod Lasten it when people will find out the velocity.the majesty, the multipotence of prayer. We brag about our limited express trains, which put us down a thousand miles away in twenty-four hourshut here is something by which in a moment we may confront people live thousand miles away. We trag about our telephones, but here is something that beats the telephone in utterance and reply, for God says, "Before they call, I will hear." We brag about the phonograph, in which u mancan speak and his words and the tones of his voice can be. kept for aires, and by the turning of a crank the words may come forth upon the cars of another century, but pra'er allows us to speak words into the ears of everlasting remembrance, and on the other side of all the eternities they will be heard. Oh, ye who are wasting your breath, and wasting your brains, and wasting your nerves, and wasting your lungs, wishing for this good and that good for the church and the world, why do you not go into the Bt-cret place of thunder? "But," says some one, "that is a beautiful theory, yet it does not work in my case, for I am in a cloud of trouble, or a cloud cf iicki-ss, or a cloud of persecution, or a cloud of poverty, or a cloud of bereavement, or a cloud of perplexity." How glad I am that you told me that. That is exactly tue place to which my text refers. It was from a cloud that God answered Israel, the cloud over the chasm cut th rouyjli the lat?d wa, tlift cloud tb&t was light to the Israelites and darkness to the Egyptians. It was from a cloud, a tremendous cloud, that Gi made reply. It was a cloud that was the secret place of thunder. So you ennnot get away from the consolation of my text by talking that way. Let all the people under a cloud bear it. "I answered thee in the secret place of thunder." This subject helps me to explain soma things you have not understood about men and women, and there are multitudes of them, and the multitude is multiplying by the minute. Many of them have not a superabundance of education. If yon had their brain in a postmortem examination, and you could weigh it, it would not weigh any heavier than the average. They have not anything especially impressive in personal appearance. They are not very fluent of tongue. They pretend to nothing unusual in mental faculty or social influence, but you feel their power; you are elevated In their presence; you are a better man or a better woman, having confronted them. You know that in intellectual endowment you are their superior, while in the natter of moral and religious influence they are vastly your superior. Why is this? To f.nd the revelation of this secret you must go back thirty or forty, or perhaps sixty years to the homestead where this man wn broujjtt np. It is a winter morning, and the tallow candid la lighted

and the fires are kindled, sometimes the shavings hardly enough to start the wood. The mother is preparing the breakfast, the blue edged dishes are on the tabic, and the lid of the kettle on the hearth begins to rattle with the steam, and the shadow of the industrious woman by the flickering flame on the hearth is moved up and down the wall. The father is at the barn feeding the stock the oats thrown into the horses' bin and the cattle craunching the corn. The children, earlier than they would like and after being called twice, are gathered at the table. The blessing of God is asked on the food, and the meal over the family Bible is put upon the white table cloth, and a chapter is read and a prayer made, which includes all the interests for this world and the next. The children pay not so much attention to the preyer, for it is nliout the same thing day after day. but it puts upon them nn impression that ten thousand years will only make more vivid and tremendous. As long as the old folks live their prayer ia for their children and their children's children. Day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out the sons and daughters of that, family are remembered in earnest prayer, and they know it, and they feel it, aui they cannot get away from it. Two funerals after awhile not more tb.n two years apart, for it is seldom that there is more than that lapse of time between father's going and mother's goingtwo funerals put out of sight the old folks. But where are the children? The daughters are in homes where they are incarnations of good sene, industry aod piety. The son?, perhaps one a farmer, another a merchaut, another a mechanic, another a physician, another a minister of the Gospel useful, consistent, admired. Lonored. What a power for good those seven sons and daughters! Where did they get the power? From the schools, and the seminaries, and the college? Oh.no, though these may have helped. From their superior mental endowment? No, I do not think they had unusual mental caliber. From accidental circumstances? No, they had nothing of what is called astounding good luck. INKLt'LXC'E OF EAHLT ASSOCIATIONS. I think we will take a train and rv! tc the depot nearest to the homestead from which those men and women started. The train halts. Let us stop a few minutes at the village graveyard and see the tombstones of the parents. Yes, the one was seventy-four years of age and the other seventy-two, and the epitaph says that "after a usvful life they died a Christian death." How appropriately the Scripture passage cut on the mother's tombstone, "She hath done what she could." And how beautiful the passage on the father's tombstone, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors and their works do follow them." On over the country road we ride the road a little rough, for the spring weather is not quite settled, and once down in a rut it is hard to get the wheels out again without breaking the shafts. But at last we come to the lane in front of the farmhouse. Let me get out of the wagon and open the gate while you drive through. Here is the , arbor uud-.-r which those boys and girls many years ngo used to play. But it is quite out of order now, for the property is in other hands. Yonder is the orchard where they used to thrash the trees for apples, sometimes before they were quite ripe. There is the mow where they hunted for eggs before Easter. There is the doorsill upon which they used to sit. There is the room in which they had family prayers and where t! "j all knelt the father there, the mother there, arid the boys and girls there. We hpve got to the fountain of pious and gracioui influences at last. That is the place that decided those seven earthly and immortal destinies. Behold! Behold! That is the secret place of thunder. Boys are seldom more than their fathers will kt them be. Girls are seldom more than their mothers will 1st them be. But there come times when it seems that parents cannot control their children. There come times in a loy's life when he thinks he knows more than bis father does, and I remember now that I knew more at fifteen years of age than I ht.ve ever known since. There tome times in a girl's life when 6he thinks her mother is notional and does not understand what is proper and best, and the sweet child says, "Oh, pshaw!" and she longs for the time when she will not have to le dictated to, ami she goes out of the door or goes to bed with pouting lips, and these mothers remember for themselves that they knew more at fourteen years of age than they have ever known siure. But father and mother do not think you have lost your influence over your child. You have a resource of prayer that puts the sympathetic and omnipotent God into your parental undertaking. Do not waste your time in reading flimsy books about the best ways to bring up children. Go into the secret place of thunder. The reason that we ministers do not accomplish more is because others do not pray enough for us and we do not pray enough for ourselves. Every minister could tell you a thrilling story o' sermons sermons hasty and impromptu, because of funeral and ickleds anil annoyances in the parish; yet those sermons harvesting many souls for God. And then of f-ermons prepared wj t great care and research and toil uninterrupted; yet those sermons falling fiat or powerless. Or of the same sermon mightily blessed on one occasion and useless on another. How well I remember a sermon I preached at a great outdoor meeting in the tipper part of this state. For several davs in that place prayers had been offered for the success of the service, and I had myself been unusually prayerful, and we had a Pentecostal blessing while I was preaching it. That afternoon I took the train for a great outdoor meeting in Ohio. I sail to myself, "Thi3 sermon was blessed today and it is fresh in my mind, and I will preach it tomorrow in Ohio." And 1 did preach it, but not in as prayerful a spirit, and I think no one else had been praying about it, and it turned into the mast inanennd profitless discourse that I ever delivered. It was practically the same sermon, but on Wednesday it had on it a power that comes froru the secret place of thunder, and on Thursday it had on it no such jxwer at all. PUATER IN THE PIT.FIT. Oh. pray for us! Poor sermons In the pulpit are the curse of God on a prayerless parish. People say: "What is the matter with the ministers in our time? So many of them seem dissatisfied with the Bible and they are trying to help Moses and Paul and Christ out of inconsistencies and contradictions by fixing up the Bible," As well let the musicians go to work to fix up Haydn's "Creation," or Handel's "Israel in Egypt," or let the painters go to fixing up Raphael's "Transfiguration," or architects go to fixing up Christopher Wren's St. Paul's. But I will tell you what is the matter. There are too many unconverted ministers. Their hearts have never been changed by the grace cf God. A mere intellectual ministry is the deadest failure this hide of perdition. Alas for the Gospel of icicles! From apologetics and henneneutics and dogmatics good Lord deliver us! They are trying to get from transcendental theology, or from profound exegesis, or from the art of splitting hairs between north and northwest side, instead of getting their power from the secret place of thunder. We want the power a man gets when he is alone, the door locked; on his knees; at midnight; with such a burden of souls upon him that makes him cry out, first in lamentation and then in raptures. Let all the Sabbath Bchool teachers and Bible class instructors, and all reformers and all evangelists, and all ministers know that diplomas and dictionaries and encyclopedias and treatises and libraries aro not the source of moral and spiritual sxhievexect, but that the room of prayer.

where no one but Uod is present and no one but God bears, is the secret place of thunder. Secret? Ah, yes! So secret that comparatively few ever find it. At Boscobel, England, we visited a house where, a king was once hid. No one, unless it were pointed out to him, could find the door in the floor through which the king entered his hiding place. When there hidden the armed pursuers looked in vain for him, and afterward through an underground passage, far out in the fields, he came out in the open air. So this imperial power of spiritual influence has a hiding place, a secret place wbtib few know, and it comes forth sometimes 5n strange and mysterious ways, and far off fr:'n: the place where it was hidden you can find it only by diligent searching. But you may find it. and some of you will find it, and I wish you might all find it, the secret place of thunder. GOING TO Et HOPE. At nine o'clock Wednesday morning, Juno 15 next, on the steamer City of New York, I expect to sail for Liverpool, to be gone unt il September. It is in acceptance cf many invitations that I am going on a preaching tour. I expect to devote my time to preaching the f!ospcl in England, Scotland. Ireland an 1 Sweden. I want to fee how many ku1s I can gather for the kingdom of n,od. Those countries have for many yes-- belonged to my parish, and I po to ?n-ak to them and shake hands with thc.u. I want to viit more thoroughly than before those regions from which my ancestors came, Wales and Scotland. But who is sufficient for the work I undertake? I call upon you who have long lircn my coadjutor- to go into the secret place of the Almighty, and every day from now until my work is done on the other side of the sea to have me in your prayers. In proportion to the intensity and continuance and faith of the prayers, yours and mine, will be the results. If you remember a.e in tle devotional circle, that will be well; but what I most want is your importuning, your wrestling supplication in the secret place of thunder. God and you alone may make me the humble instrumentality in the redemption of thousands of souls. I shall preach in churches, ja chapels and in the fields. I will make it a campaign for God and eternity, and I Lope to get during this absence a baptism of power that will make me cf more service to you when I return than lever yet have been. For, brethren and sisters iu Christ, our opportunity for usefulness will soon be gone, and we frhall have ourfacs uplifted to the throne of judgment, before which we must give account. That day there will bo no secret place of thunder, for nil the thunders will lie out. There will be the thunder of the tumbling rocks. There will be the thunder of the bursting waves. There will be tha thunder of the descending chariots. There will be the thunder of the parting heavens. Boom! Boom! But all that din and uproar and crash will find us unaffrighted, and will leave us undismayed, if we have made Christ our confidence, and as after an August shower, when the whole heavens have been an unlimbcred battery cannonading the earth, the fields are more green, and the sunrise is more radiant, and the waters are the more opaline, so the thunders of the last day will make the trees of life appear more emerald, and the carbuncle of the wall more crimson, and the sapphire sens the more fchinimering, and the sunrise of eternal gladness the more empurpled. The thunders of dissolving nature will be followed by a celestial psalmody, the sound of which St. John on Fatmos described, when he said, "I heard a voice like the voice of mighty thundering!" Amen.

Why Women Take Off Their Dats In Court. A young lawyer of Boston was asked the other day why in the English courts a vornan must remove her hat. He could not answer the question. But an old lawyer, to whom the matter was referred, recalled the opinion cf Sir Edward Coke oa the matter. It was at a murder trial, where the prisoner was a woman and appeared before the court with her head covered. Sir Edward Coke ordered the prisoner to remove her hat, and said, "A woman may be covered in church, but not when arraigned in a court of justice." The accused tartly replied, "It seems singular that I may wear my hat in the presence of God, but not in the presence of man." "It isn't strange at all," replied the judge, "for the reason that man, with his weak intellect, cannot discover the secrets which are known to God; and therefore, in investigating truth where human lifo is in peril and one is charged with taking life, the court should see all obstacles removed. Besides, the countenance is often the index to the mind, and accordingly it is fitting that the hat should be removed, and therewith the shadow which it casts upon your face." The hat of the prisoner was taken off, but she was allowed for modesty's sake (?) to cover her hair with a kerchief. Boston Herald. Things That Fatigue the Eyes. Speaking of the fatigue of protracted and shifting calls upon the attention through the eyes reminds me of what an eminent London physician once said to me on the subject. I mentioned the "lioyal Academy headache," that splitting pain which 6o often comes on with delicate ladies after spending a few hours in a largo gallery of pictures. He said that he was convinced that the same nerve exhaustion in a less acute but ierhaps more lasting form is produced by walking in the streets of London and noticing the innumerable objects in one shop window after another and the staring advertisements on walls and hoardings. This eminent specialist would, if hecould, abolish street hoarding and other startling advertisements altogether, being convinced that they greatly increase the nervous strain of town life, and he advises people with highly organized nerves purposely tc avoid looking to the right or left in walking far in town. Since that, I have often tried the experiment of distracting my attention from such matters by force of wilt when I felt weary, and have found the plan successful, provided I could possibly accomplish the mental feat. ilrs. Feavrick Miller ia London Illustrated News. Animal After Death. The most superb of fur rugs are made from the tkin of the lion. When the lion is 5 years old its mane has attained its full growth, and Leis then ready to be sacrificed at the altar of civilization. Next in beauty comes the tiger. The graceful, catlike neck and sleek, glossy skin make a truly effective rug indeed many prefer it to the lion skin. The bears, and especially the grizzlies, are very popular. The white polar bear is arranged in a very realistic manner, with bis great mouth open and formidable claws projecting grimly from the soft fur. All these animals are displayed with one-quarter, one-half and full heads that is, raised and stuffed in these shapes. The last style is the handsomest of course, and the most desirable rugs aro the animal shapes with the head arranged as in life. Pittsburg Dispatch. A New Publication. They were talking of poetry, aad as be beld her well manicured baud, and looked into "jer soulful eyes, she asked him if he remembered the came of a certain poet. "lie writes the most uncommon poetry about common things," she said. "I cancot think of his name, but you know he is the poet who write so mach in the vernacular." "Yes, dear," he said as he lifted her delicious finger tips to his lips, "but you know I never read that magazine. " Datroit Free Pres.

TIIE FIERY FURNACE. LESSON X, SECOND QUARTER, INTERNATIONAL SERIES, JUNE 5.

Text of the Lon. Dan. HI. 13-25 Memoir Vera. IO-IH Golden Text. Is. xliil. 8 Commentary by the Rv. D. 31. Stearn. 13. "Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rae and fury commands! to bring Shndrach, Mesbach and Abednego." This Gentile king, to whom God gave the kingdoms of this world, and to whom also He gave the wonderful vision of chapter ii, has in the pride of his heart set up an image which he commands all people to worship. Ten times in this chapter it is spoken of as the golden inmxe or the image which he had Ret up. It is suggestive of another image to l set up in the lsst days by an enemy of God. which men must either worship or die (Rev. xiii. 15). Daniel's friends refused to worship th- ima which Nebuchadnezrar h;id set np, and then lore they are summoned to apjH-ar before the king. 11. "Do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up"'' This is the question asked of these young men by the man to whom it had been made known that "The God of Heaven had given him his kingdom, power, strength and glory" (cuapt er ii, 37). Yet his heart is so proud that he refuses to acknowledge the God of Heaven, but will if possible compel the servant s of the true God to bow down to his fulse k1s. 15. "If ye worship not. ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace, and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" "Man that is in honor an 1 und .-rstandeth not is like the beasts that perish" (Ps. xlix, 20). See this man whom God has honored, but who understands not, roaring like the lion from the pit against the servants of the Most High Gl, not knowing that they are under the care of a greater Lion, even the Lion of the trlle of Judah (Ilev. v, 5). Hi "We are not careful to answer thc in this matUr." Or, as in the It. V., "We have no need to answer," etc. The same word is translated "have need" in Ezra vi, 9, Hnd these Hre the only two pjaccs in Scripture where the word is used. Young, in his concordance gives "think necessary" as the meaning of the word. The path of duty was so clear to these men that there was no need to wait for further light, no need of delay or argument. They knew God and would worship Him only. 17. "If it be so, our God whom wo serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand. O king." We may not know if He will deliver us from this or that special trial, but we do know that He will be with us in the trial and that neither man nor devil can hanu us. "When thou walkest through the tire, thou shall not bo burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Isa. xliii, 2). Perhaps this very promise was whispered to these men by the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus teaches us that we are not to fear persecution or imprisonment or even death, but that our great aim must be faithfulness to bim (Math. x. 2S; Bev. ii, 10). We may say with the utmost assurance, "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom" (II Tirn. iv, IS). lix "But if not, le it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou ha-st set up." Job aid, "Though He slay me, y. t will I trust ia Him," or "Wait for Him" (R. V., Jo! xiii, 15), for he knew that even though his mortal Ixxly might be destroyed, yet in his resurrection body he would see God (Job xix, 2?-27). The apostles, sustained by the same blessed assurance, feared r.ot the face of man nor the threats of the rulers, but would testify of Jesus and the resurrection, ready to ditj for him if need be (Acts iv, 10,20; v, LL). These friends of Daniel wore tempted to worship a golden image, but people are now tempted in this land to worship golden cables and silver dollars and whatever will bringe powvr or popularity, and how many professed servunts of God aro without scruple bowing down to these, God only knows. Where are the Shadraek who say without hesitation to the world, the flesh and tha devil, "We will not s?rve thee." Let us remember that "To whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, hisservauts we are whom we obey" (Rom. vi, 16). 13-23. This is the account of the carrying out of the sentence of death ag:unst the faithful three. The furnace is heated seven times hotter than usual; the men are bound in their clothes and cast into the furnace; the fury of the beast is satisfied; the devil has done his worst to the servants of God, and a God of lxve, and infinite wisdom, and all power has suffered it so to be. This is that which perplexed David and Asaph and Jeremiah, and Li a stumbling block to multitudes to this day. We need, to learn that "Evil doers shall be cut off, but they that wait upoa the Lord shall inherit the earth." The wicked shall be brought into desolation as in a moment and utterly consumed with terrors; they shall be pulled out like sheep for the slaughter (Ps. xxxvii, 9; lxxiii, l'J; Jer. xii, 1-3). When God permits the devil to touch His dear people it is only that He may be glorified and greater blessing brought in due time to these tried ones. He desires us even here in this life to be conformed toth3 image of His Son, and by all events of our daily life to be fitted to reigu with Him over this earth in due time. Thus God maketh even the wrath of man to praise Him (Ps. lxxvi, 10). 24. "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king." His astonishment could hardly havo been greater had he found himself in tha torment where the rich man found himself immediately after death (Luke xvi, 23). He can hardly believe his eyes, for he had vainly supposed that no gal could deliver out of his Lands (verse 15). When men rage against God, lie that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh (Ps. ii, 4; xxxvii, lil. The counsel of the ungodly shall come to nought, but the counsel of the Lord shall fctand and He v ill do all His pleasure (Ux viii, 9, 10; xiv, 24). 25. "He answered and said, Lo, I see four tuen loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." Upon their bodies the fira had no power, nor was a hair of their heads simml, because tbey trusted in God (verses ü7, CS). The only effect of the tire upon them was to burn their bonds and set them free to walk with the Son of God. This is the effect that all trials should have upon us; they should tree us from the bondage and entanglements of earth's allurements and make U3 more free to walk with Jesus. As these men camo out of the furnace ou the other side of death and judgment, the sentence having been fully executed upon them, so every believer in Jesus may be said to have suffered the extreme penalty of the law in the person of Christ, Lis substitute, and to be now on the other side of death and Judgment as far as the penalty of the law s concerned, bee John v, 24; Rom, vi, 6-11; 11 Cor. v. 15. MATERNITY. Mother of Ood, what is thy thought tcmlfrbt. As his dear, patient faoe looks down to thee, Hoist with the dew of UPfraeesed agony? Ilast thou the prophet's ecstasy of steht. To scan afsr the world's noontiJe of light? Art thou rejoicing ia the joy to be? Perchance, but oh that trembling minor key. The mother's heart Etill clamoring for it right- . s Give me my child, if a d the world mont die." And through the ahadows of the scene of death Streams morning sunshine from the former years; Upon tby breast the smiling babe doth lie. And all the happy days in Nazareth, Break od thee through the blinding mist of tears. -J. K. Caxball ia Ycula's Companion.

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