Pike County Democrat, Volume 28, Number 1, Petersburg, Pike County, 14 May 1897 — Page 7

TALMAGE'S SERMON. Timiom Drawn From the Story of Elijah and the Ravens. Mv for Tim* la Xm4 Chmi From CM -TkrCrwtw of AI1 lottoite la mm »*ll>f Throajh CaSoarooa.

Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, who has returned to Washington from his western trip in behalf of the India famine sufferers, delivered the following appropriate sermon before his congregation, tanning it on the text: And the ravens brought him bread ami fiesh tn the morning, and bread and flesh In the events#.—L Kings. zvtL, l The ornithology of the Bible is a very Interesting study. The stork which knoweth her appointed time. The common sparrows teaching the lesson of God's providence. The ostriches of the desert, by careless incubation, illustrating the recklessness of parents who do not take enough pains with their children. The eagle symbolizing riches which take wings and fly away. The pelican emblemizing solitude. The bat, a flake of the darkness. The night hawk, the ossifrage, the euckoo, the lapwing, the osprey, by the command of God in Leviticus, flung out of the world’s bill of fare. I would like to have been with Audubon as he went through the woods, jwithgun and pencil, bringing down and sketching the fowls of heaven, his unfolded portfolio thrilling all Christendom What wonderful creatures of God the birds are! Some of them, this morning, like the songs of Heaven let loose, bursting through the gates of Heaven. Consider their feathers, whieh are clothing and conveyance at the saase time; the nine vertebrae of the neck: the three eyelids to each eye. the third eyelid an extra curtain for graduating the light of the snn. Some of these birds scavengers and some of them orchestra. Thank God forquail's whistle, and lark's carol, and the twitter of the wren, called by the ancients the king of birds, because when the fowls of Heaven went into a contest as to who should fly the highest, and the eagle swung nearest the sun, a wren on back of the eagle, after the eagle was exhausted, sprang up much higher, and so was called by the ancients the king of birds. Consider those of them that have golden crowns and crests, showing them to be feathered imperials. And listeu to the humming bird's sere nade in the ear of the honeysuckle. Look at the Wiled kingfisher, striking like a dart from sky to water. Listeu to the voice of the owl, giving the keynote to all croakers. And behold the condor among the AndesJbattliug with the reindeer. I do not Tinow whether an aquarium or aviary is the best altar from whieh to worship God. There is an incident in my text that baffles all the ornithological wonders of the world. The grain erop had been cut off. Famine was in the land. In a cave by the Brook Oherith sat a minister of God. Elijah, waiting for something to eat. Why did he not go to the neighbors? There were no neighbors: it was a wilderness. Why did he not pick some of the berries? There were none. If there hail been they would have been dried up. Seated one morning at the mouth of the cave, the prophet sees a flock of birds approaching. Oh, if they were only partridges, or if he only had an arrow with which to bring them clown! But as they come nearer he finds that they are not comestible, but unclean, and the eating of them would be spiritual death. The streugth of their beak, the length of their wings, the blackness of their color, their loud, harsh "cruek! crock!” prove them to be ravens. They whirr around about the prophet's head, and theu they com ‘ on fluttering wing and pause ou the level of his lips,and one of the ravens brings bread, and another raven brings meat, and after they have discharged their tiny cargo they wheel past, and others cotne, until after awhile the prophet has enough, and the black servants of the wilderness table are gone. For six months, and some say a wholeVcar, morning and evening, a breakfast and a supper bell souded as these ravens rang out on the air their“eruck» crockP Guess where they got the food from. The old rabbins say they got it from

The kitchen of King Ah a tv others say that the rare ns got their food from pi us Obadiah. who was in the habit of feeding the persecuted. Some aay that the ravens brought the food to their young in the trees, and that Elijah had only to climb up and get it. Some say that the whole story is improbable; for these were carnivorous birds, and the food they carried was the torn flesh of living beasts, aud therefore ceremonially unclean; or it was carrion, and .would not have been fit for the prophet. Some say they were not ravens at all, but that the word translated “ravens" in my text ought to have been translated “Arabs;** ao it would have read; “The Ar^bs brought bread and flesh in the morning. and bread and flesh in the evening." Anything'but admit the Bible to be true. llew away at this miracle uuiil all the miracle is gone. Go on with the depleting process, but know, my brother. that you are robbing only one man —and that is yourself—of one of the most comforting, beautiful, pathetic and triumphant lesions in all the ages, l ean tell you who these purveyors were—thay were ravens. I can tell you who freighted them with provisions—God. 1 can tell you who launched them—God. | can tell you who taught them which way to flv—God. 1 can tell you who told them at what care to swoop—God. 1 can tell you who introduced raven to prophet and prophet to raven—God. There is one passage ! will whisper in yoor ear, for 1 would not want to utter it aloud, lest |ome one should drop down under its jp&wer “If any man shall take away from the words of the prophecy of this book. God shall take away his part out of the book «< Ufa and out of th* holy «Uy**

... . - While, then, we watch the rawot feeding Elijah, let the swift dote of God’s spirit sweep down the sky with divine food, and on outspread wing pause at the lip of every soul hungering for comfort. On the banks of what rivers have been the great battles of the world? White yon are looking over the map of the world to answer that, 1 will tell

you tnat tne great conmet to-aay is on tile Potomac, on the Hudson, on the Mississippi, on the Thames, on the Savannah, on the Rhine, on the Kile, on the Ganges, on the Hoang-Ho. It is a battle that has been going on for «,000 years. The troops engaged in it are sixteen hundred million, and those who have fallen by the way are vaster in number than those who march. It is a battle for bread. Sentimentalists in a cushioned ehair. in their pictured study, with their slippered feet on a damask ottoman. and say that this world is a great scene of avarice and greed. It does not seem so to me. If it were not for the absolute necessities of the cases, ninetenths of the stores, factories, shops, banking houses of the land wonld be closed tomorrow. Who is that man delving in the Colorado hills? or toiling in a New England factory? ur going through a roll of bills in the bank? or measuring a fabric oa the counter? He is a champion sent forth in behalf of some home circle that has to be cared for, in behalf of some church of God that has to be supported, in behalf of some asylum of mercy flat has to be sustained. Who is that woman bending over the sewing machine or carrying the bundle, or sweeping the room, or mending the garment, or sweltering at the washtub? That is Deborah, one of the Lord's heroines, battling against Amalekitish want, which comes down [ with iron chariot to crush her and hers. The great question with the vast majority of people to-day is not “home rule.*’ but whether there shall be any home to rule: not one of tariff, but whether there shall be anything to tax. The great question with the vast majority of people is: "llow shall I support my family? How shall 1 meet uiv notes? How shall I pay my rent? How shall 1 give food, clothing and education to those who are del pendent upon me? Oh, if God would I help me to-day to assist you in the so- | lution of that problem the happiest man „ in this house would be your preacher! 1 have gone out on a cold morning with expert sportsmen to hunt ! for pigeons: I have gone out on the meadows to hunt for quail; 1 have goue out on the marsh to hunt for reed birds; but to-day 1 am out for ravens. Notice. iu the first place in the story of my text, that these wiug d caterers came to Elijah direct from “1 have commanded the ravens that they feet! thee," we find G od saying in an adjoining passage. They did not come out of some other cave. They did not just h appen to alight there. God freighted them. God launched them, and God told them by what cave to swoop. That is the same God that is going tosupply you. He is your Father. You would have to make an elaborate calculation before you could tell me how many pounds of food aud how many yards of clothing would be necessary for you and your family; but God knows without any calculation. You have a plate at llis table, and you are going to be waited on, unless you act like a naughty child, and kick, and scramble, and pound saucily the plate and try to upset things. God has a vast family, and everything is methodized, and you are going to be served if you will only wait your turn. God has already ordered all the suits of clothes you will ever need, down to the last suit in which you will be laid out- God has al- \ ready ordered all the food you will ever cat, down to the last cruinb that 1 will be put iu your mouth in the dying sacrament. It may not be just the kind of food or apparel we would pre- ! fer. The sensible parent depends on | his own judgment as to what ought to be the apparel and the food of the , minor in the family. The ehild would say: "Give me sugars and confections.” "Oh, no.” says the parent; "you must I have something plainer first,” The | child would say: "Oh, give me these great blotches of color in the garment,” j "No,” says .the parent; “that wouldn’t

oe suiuitue. Now, God is our Father aud we are minors, ami He is going to clothe us and feed us. although He may not alI wavs yield to our infantile wish lor the sweets and glitter. These ravens j of the text did not bring pomegranates ; from the glittering platter of King | Ahab. They brought bread and meat. | God had all the heavens and the earth ; before Him and under lltm. and yet He I . sends this plain foo.1. because it was ' | best for Elijah to have it. Oh, be strong, 1 ! my hearer, in the fact that the same God | is going to supply you! It is never j ‘•hard times" with Him. His ships never ] break on the rocks. His banks never j fait He has the supply for you, and | He has the means for seuding it. He ] has not only the cargo, but the ship. * t If it were necessary. He would swing 1 | out from the heavens a flock of ravens : i reaching from HU gate to yours, until ! * the food would be flung down the aky ; j from besk to beak and from talon to ; | talon. Notice again in this story of the text, j ■( that the ravens did uot allow Elijah to j j hoard up a surplus. They did not i bring enough on Monday to last all the week. They did not bring enough one morning to last until the next morning. They came twice a day, and brought just enough for one time. You know as well as 1 that the great fret of the world is that we want a surplus: we want the ravens to bring enough for 50 years. You have mure confidence in the Washington banks or the Bank of England than you have in the Boyal Bank of Heaven. Yoa say: ‘‘All that is very poetic, but you may have the black ravens: give me the gold eagles." We had better be content with just enough. If in the morning your family eat np aU the food there is in the hoose, do not sit down and cry and say: “1 don't know where the next meel is to cocne from.” About

ft or « or 7 o’clock in the morning just look op. and you will see two black spots on the sky, and you will hear tike flapping- of winp*. *aud instead of fidgar A. Poe’s insane raw n alighting on the chamber door, “only this and nothing more,” you will find Elijah's two ravens, or two ravens of the Lord, the one bringing bread and the other bringing meat—plumed butcher and

baker. God Is infinate in resource. When the city of Rochelle was besieged, and the inhabitants were dying of the famine, the tides washed up on the beach as never before, and as never since, enough shell-fish to feed the whole city. God is good. There is no mistake about that. History tells us that in 1555 in England there was a great drought. The (crops failed; but in Essex, on the rocks, in a place where they had neither sown nor cultured, a great crop oijpeas grew until they filled a hundred measures; and there were blossoming vines enough, promising as much more. But why go so far? I can give you a family incident. Some generations back there was a great drought in Connecticut, New England. The water disappeared from the hills, and the fanners living on the hills drove their cattle down toward the valleys, and had them supplied at the wells and fountains of the neighbors. But these after awhile began to full, and the neighbors said to Mr. Birdseye, of whom 1 shall speak: ‘'You must not send your flocks and herds down here any more; our wells are giving out.* Mr. Birdseye, the old Christian man. gathered his family at the altar, and with his family he gathered the slaves of the household—for bondage was then in vogue iu Connecticut—and on their knees before God they cried for water, and the family story is that there was weeping and great sobbing at that altar that the family might not perish for lack of water, and that the herds and floeks might not perish. The family rose from the altar. Mr. Birdseye, the old man. took his stall and walked out over the hills, and in a place where he had been scores ol times without noticing anything particular. he saw the ground was very dark, and he took his staff and turned up the ground, and water started; and he beekoued to his servants, and they came and brought pails and buckets until all the family and all the flocks and the herds were eared for: and then they matte troughs reaching from that place down to the house and barn, and the water flowed, and it is a living fountain to-day. Now, 1 egdl that old grandfather Elijah, and 1 call that brook that began to roll then, and is rolling still, the brook Cherith: and the lesson tc me and to all who hear it is, when you are in great stress of circumstances, pray and dig. dig and pray, and pray and dig. How does that passage go? "The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my lovingkindness shall not fail.’’ If your merchandise. if your mechanism, il your husbandry fail, look out for ravens. If you have in yout despondency put God on trial and condemned Him as guilty of cruelty, 1 move to-dav for a new trial. If the biography of your life is ever written, 1 will tell you what the first chapter, and the middle chapter, and the last chapter will be about, if it is written accurately. The first chapter about merey.the middle chapter about mercy, the last chapter about mercy. The mercy that hovered over your eradle. The mercy that will hover over yout grave. The mercy that will cover all between. Again, this story of the text impresses me that relief came to this prophet with the most unexpected and with seemingly impossible conveyance. It it had been a robin-redbreast, or a musical meadow lark, or a meek turtledove, or a sublime albatross that had brought the food to Elijah, it would not have been so surprising. But, no. It was a bird so fierce and inauspieaU that we have fashioned one of out most forceful and repulsive words oat of it—ravenous. That bird has a pas

sion for pick mg' out tne eyes oi men and of animals. It loves to maul the sick and the dying. It swallows with vulturous guzzle everything it can put its beak on; and yet all the food Elijah gets’for six mouths or a year is from ravens. So your supply is going tc come from an unexpected source. You think some great-hearted, generous man will come along and give you his name on the back of youi note, or he will go security for you in some great enterprise. No, he will not. God will open the heart of some Shyloek toward you. Your relief will come from the most unexpected quarter. The providence which seemed ominous will be to you more than that which seemed auspicious. It will not be a chaffinch with breast and wing dashed with white and brown and chestnut; it will be a black raven. Mrs. Jane Pithey, of Chicago, a wellknown Chicago woman, was left by het husband a widow with one-half dollai and a cottage. She was palsied, and had a mother 90 years of age to support. The widowed soul every day asked God for all that wasueeded in the household, and the servant even was astonished at the precision with which God answered the prayers of that woman item by item, item by item. One day. rising from the family altar, the servant said: "You have not asked fot coal and the coal is out.” Then they stood and prayed for the coaL One hour after that the servant threw open the door and said: ”Tht coal has come.9 A generous man, whose name 1 could give yon, had sent —as never before and never since—a supply of coal. You can not understand It, 1 do. 'Ravens! Ravens! My friend, you have a right to argue from p'-ccedent that God is going tc take care of yon. Has ile not done it two or three times every day? That is most marvelous. 1 look back and wonder that God has given me food three times a day regular all my lifetime, never missing but once, and then 1 was lent In the mountains; but that very morning and that verr night 1 met the raven*

Ihak J. Cheney makes oath that he is the senior partner of the firm of F. J. Cheney It Co., doing business in the city of Toledo, County and State aforesaid, and that said firm will pay the sum of One Hundred Dollars for each and every case of catarrh that cannot be cured by the use of Hall's Catarrh Cure. FRANK J, CHENEY, f Sworn to before me and subscribed in nay presence, this Cch day of December, A. D. feSS. A. W. GLEASON, [Seal] Notary Public. Hall’s Catarrh Cure is taken internally and acts directly on the Mood and mucous surfaces of the system. Send for testimonials, free. F. J. CHENEY * CO., Toled^OL Sold by druggists, 75c. Hall's Family Pills are the best.

The Old-Fashioned War.—“What was yer daddy lickin' you forr' asked the halfgrown boy. The other half-groan boy answered: O, be was list pronn' to me that tht whale really did swaller Joner.”—Indianapolis Journal. TSKSESSEE CEXTESXUL. Tfce UwMt Rates Ever Nate «• am EifMlttaa tm Tkl» Cnmntry. The Exposition in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the admission of Tennessee into the Union is not a local affair by any means. It far surpasses in extent of buddings, beauty of grounds, interesting exhibits and number of both foreign and home attractions any exhibition ever held in this country, with the possible exception of the Columbian of 1888. Located as it is on the main line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad it is iu the direct line of travel between the North and the South, and can be visited en route with loss of but little time. The extremely low rates that have been established make it cheaper to go a little out of your way, even, to take in this great show, while its own attractions will well repay a special visit. Write Mr. C. P. Atmore. Gen’l Pass. Agent, Louisville, Ky.. for matter concerning it. Boys who are always waiting for the highest wages are generally out of a job.—Washington Democrat. The pain of sciatica is cruel. The cure by St. Jacobs Oil is sure. It penetrates. Anything first-class is hard to equal.— Washington Democrat. Xo-To-Bme far Fifty Cents. Over 4O0,OOOeured Why not letXo-To-Bac regulate or remove your desire tor tobacco? Saves money, inahes health and manhood. Cure guaranteed. 50c and $1.00, all druggists. A real trifling man is always weighing himself.—Washington Democrat. Atter physicians had riven me up, I was saved by Piso's Cure —Ralph Erieg, Williamsport, Pa., Nov. 22, 1803. People kick when a show is too long and also when it is too short.—Washington Democrat. Years of rheumatism have ended with cure by St. Jacobs Oil. Cures promptly. A pair of scissors is always lost.— Atchison Globe. When bilious or costive eat a Cascaret, candy cathartic, cure guaranteed. 10c. 25c. A good laugh is like sunshine to the soul. —N. Y. Weekly _

THE MARKETS, NRW York. May 10. CATTLE-Nat Ire Stews..* 4 25 COTTON-Middling. 7S* FLOUR—Winter Wheat. 3 25 WHEAT—No. 2 Red.. CORN—No. 2. OATS—Nu 2... PORK—New Mess... 8 75 ST. LOUIS COTTON—Middling. 7? BEEVES— Steers.. S 25 Cows and Heitors .. 2 75 CALVES—each... 4 00 HOGS—Fair to Select.......... 355 SHEEP—Fair to Choice....... 3 25 FLOU R—Patents — ... 4 55 Fancy to Extra do... 3 75 WHEAT—No. 2 Red Winter... CORN- No. 2 Mixed...... OATS—No. 2... RYE-No. 2. TOBACCO—Lugs. 3 00 Leal Burley....... 450 HAY—Clear Timothy. 0 00 BUTTER—Choice Hairy.. » EGGS—Fresh... PORK—Standard tnew)... BACON—Clear Rib.... LARD—Prime Steam... CHICAGO CATTLE—Xatlre Steera.. 3 73 HOGS—Fair to Choice.. 3 50 SHEEP—Fair to Choice.. 3 25 FLOUR—Winter Patents. 4 40 Soring Patents. 3 W WHEAT—No. 2 Spring.. Np. 2 Red. CORN-No. 3... 34 OATS—No. 2.. . i • PORK-Mess tnevr) . ... *00 KANSAS CITY. CATTLE—Shipping Steers.... 3 25 HOGS—AUGrudes. 3 40 VVHEAT-No- 2 Red. .... OATS —No. 2 White. CORN-No. 2. 21 NEW ORLEANS FLOUR-High Grade.. 4 45 CORN-No. 2. DAI’S—Western .... 85 HAY —Choice . 14 VW PORK—New Mess... .... BACON—Sides .. COTTON-Middling.. 4» LOUISVILLE. WHEAT-Na 2 Red. M © CORN—No. 2 Mixed. 2#S# OATS—No. 2 Mixed. 21 46 PORK—New Mess. 9 25 © BACON—Clear Rib.. Mi# COTTON—Middling.

ITfeptpmmfafl of deaths from Heart Failure Of

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at the for what it has

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TE T

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