Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1887 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

Hunting Man Illustration of theTruth# of the Qopel. • Tarr:—He was a mighty Hunter before the Lord—[Genesis, x, 9.] He said: In our day. hunting is a sport; but in the lands and the times invested with wild beasts, it was a matter of life and death with the people. It was very different from going out on a sunshiny afternoon with a patent breech-loader, to shoot reedbirds on the flats, when Pollux and Achilles and Diomedps went out to clear the land of lions and tigers and bears. My text sets forth Nimrod as a hero, when it presents him with broad shoulders, and shaggy apparel and sun browned face, and arm bunched with muscle—“a mighty hunter before the Lord.’’ I think he used the bow and the arrow with great success practicing archery. 1 have thought if it is such a grand thing and such a brave thing to clear wild beasts out of a country, if it is Dot a better and a braver thing to hunt down and destroy those great evils of society that are stalking the land with • fieroeeye and bloody paw, and sharp tusk and quick spring. 1 have wondered if there is not such a thing as gospel hunting, by those who hale been flying from the truth may be captured tor God and heaven. Again, if you want to be skillful in spiritful hunting you must hunt in unfrequented and secluded places. Why does the hunter go three or four days in the Pennsylvania forests or over Itaquette Lake into the wilds of the Adirondacks* It is the only way to do. The deer are shy, and one “bang" of the gun clears the forset. From the California stage you see as you go over the plains, here and there a coyote trottjng along, almost within range of the gun within range of it. No one cares for that; it is worthless. The good game is hidden and secluded. Every hunter knows that. So, many of the souls that will be of most worth for Christ, and of most value to the Church, art* secluded. They do not come in your way.—You will have to go where they are. Yon der they are down in that cellar, yonder they are up in that garret. Far away from the door of any church the gospel arrow has not been pointed at them. The tract distributor and the city missienary sometimes just catch a glimpse of them as a hunter through the trees gets a momentary sight ova” partridge or a roebuck. The trouble is we are waiting for the game to come to us. We are not good hunters. We are standing in Schermerhorn street, expecting that the timid antelope will come up. and eat out of our hand. We are expecting that the pratrie fowl will light on otr church steeple! It is not their habit. If the Church should wait IOjVJO.OOO of years for the world to come in and be saved, jt will wait in vain. The world will not; come. What the Church wants now is to lift their feet from damask ottomans and put them in the stirrups. We want a pulpit on wheels. The Church wants not so much cushions as it wants saddle-bags and arrows. We havegbt to put aside the gown and the kid' gloves and put on the hunting shirt. | We have been fishing so long in the brooks that run under the shadow of the Church that the fish know us, and they avoid the hook and escape as soon as we come to the bank, while yonder is Upper Saranac and Big Tupper’s Lake, where the first swing of the gospel net would break it for the multitude of fishes. There is outside work to be done. What is that I see in the backwoods? It is a tent. The hunters have made a clearing and cam|>ed out. What do they care if they have wet feet, or have nothing but a pine branch for a pillow, or for the northeast storm? If a moose in the darkness steps into the lake to drink they hear it right away. If .a loon cry in the midnight they hear it. So in the service of God we have exposed work. We have got to camp out and rough it. We are putting all our care on the 70.Q90 people of Brooklyn, who, they say, come to church. What are we doing for the 700,000 that do not come? Have they no souls? Are they sinless that they need no pardon? Are there no dead in their houses that they need no comfort? Are they cut off from God, to go into eternity—no wing to bear them, no light to cheer them, no welcome to greet them? I hear to-day surging up from the lower depth's of Brooklyn a groan that comes through our Christian assemblages and throdgh our Christian churches; and it blots out all this scene from my eyes to-day. as by the mists of a great Niagara, for the dash and the plunge of these great torrents of lifedropping down into the fathomless and thundering abvss of suffering and woe. 1 sometimes think that just as God blotted out the Church of Thyatira and Corinth and Laodicea. because of their sloth and stolidity, he will blot out American and English —-Christianity, and raise on the ruins a eta! wart, wide-awake, missionary Church, that can take the full meaning of that command. t ===?'■'' ■ - '«* Go into ail the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. L remark, further, if you want to succeed in gospel hunting you must have courage. If the hunter stand with trembling hand or shoulder that flinches with fear, instead of his taking the catamount, the catamount ■takes him." What would becomeof the Greenlander if, when out hunting for the bear, he should stand shivering ■with terror on an iceberg? What “rwnnid have become of DuChaiilu and Livingston in the African thicket with a faint heart and a weak knee? When a panther comes within twenty paces • Jj, ’ . •

of you, and it has its eye on you, and it has squatted for the fearful spring: “Stead jz there." f Courage, O ye spiritual hrtnters! There are great monsters of iniquity prowling all around about the community. Shall we not, in the strength of God, go forth and combat them? IWe not only need more heart, but more backbone. What is the Church Jof God that it should not fear to look in the eye any transgression? There is the Bengal tiger of drunkenness that prowls around, and instead of ajt , tacking it, how many of us hide under the church pew or the communion table! There is so much invested in it we are afraid to assault it—millions of dollars in barrels, in vats, in spigots, in corkscrews, in gin palaces with marble floors and Italian top tables and chased ice-coolers; and in the strychnine, and the logwood, and the tartaric acid, arid the mix vomica, that go to make up our "pure" American drinks. > I looked with wondering eyes on the "Heidelberg tun.” It is the great liquor vat of Germany, which is said to hold 800 hogsheads of wine, and only three times in 100 years has it been tilled. But as I ' stood and looked at it I said to myself: "That is ' nothing—Boo hogsheads. . Why. our . American vat holds .4,500,000 barn Is of strong drinks, and we keep 300,000 men with nothing to do but to see that it is tilled.” Oh, to attack this great monster of intemperance, and the kindred monj sters of fraud and uncleanness, requires you to rally all your Christian courage. Through the press, through the pulpit, through the platform, you must assault it. Would to God that all our American Christians would band together, not for crack-brained fanaticism, but for holy Christian reform. _ I think it was in 1793 that there went out from Lucknow, India, under the sovereign, the greatest .hunting party that was ever projected. There were 10,000 armed men in that hunting party. There were camels and horses and elephants. On some, princes rode, and royal ladies, under exquisite housing, and -500- colies waited upon the train, and the deso- ! late places of India were invaded by this excursion, and the rhinoceros. and deer, ana elephant, fell under the stroke of the saber and bullet. After a while the party brought back trophies worth 50,000 rupees, having left , the wilderness of India ghastly with the slain bodies of wild beasts. Would to God that instead of here and there a straggler going out to light these great monsters of iniquity in our country, the million membership of our churches would band together and hew in twain These “great crimes that make the land frightful with their roar, "and ar? -fattening up the bodies and souls of immortal men. Who's ready for such a party as that? Who will be a mighty hunter for the Lord? I remark again: If you want to be successful in spiritual hunting, you need not only to bringdown the game, but bring it in. I think one of the most beautiful pictures of Thorwaldsen is his ‘‘Autumn". Lt represents a sportsman coming home and standing under a grapevine. He has a staff over his shoulder, and on the other end of that staff are hung a rabbit and brace of birds. Every hunter brings home the game. No one would think of bringing down a reindeer or whipping up a stream for trout and letting them lie in the woods. At eventide I the camp is adorned with the treasures , of the forest—beak and tin, and antler. If you go to hunt for immortal j souls, not only bring them down under i the arrow of the gospel, but bring them ■ into the Church of God, the grand home and encampment we have pitch- i ed this sideof the skies. Fetch them in, do not let them lie out in the open j field. They need our prayers, and sympathies, and help. That is the meaning of the Church of God -help. Oye hunters for the Lord! not only bring down the game, but bring it in. If Mithridates liked hunting so well that for seven years he never went indoors. what enthusiasm ought we to have who are hunting for immortal souls? If ppnitian practiced archery until he could stand a boy down in the Roman amphitheater, with a hand out, the fingers outstretched, and the King couli shoot an arrow between tne fingers- without wounding them, to what drill and what practice aught not we subject ourselves in order to become spiritual archers and “mighty hunters before the Lord!” But let me say you will never work any better than you pray. The old archers took the bow. put one end of it down beside the foot, elevated the other end. and it was the rule that the bow should be just tin* size of the archer; if it .was just his size then_he~ would go into the battie with confidence . Let me say that your power to project good in the world will Correspond exactly, to your own spiritual stature. Ln other words, the first thing in preparation for Christian work is personal consecrat ion. I am sure that there are Some here who at some time have been hit by the gospel arrow. You felt the wound of that conviction, and you plunged into the world deeper, just as the stag, when the hounds are after it. plunges into Seroon Lake, .expecting in that way to escape. .Jesus Christ is on your track to-day. impenitent man, not in wrath, but in mercv. ph. ye _chased and panting souls’ herejjis the stream of God’s mercy and salvation, 'where“you "nTay"C7otyour"thtrst.-rdop" that chase of sin to-day. By the red fount that leaped from the heart of my Lord. I bid vou stop. There is mercy for you—mercy that pardons; mercy that heals; everlasting inerffv. Is there in all this house any one who can refuse the offer that comes from the” heart of the dying-Sen of God?, There is a f o rest tn —Germany .a place they call the “Dear leap" because once a hunter was on the track of a deer; it came to one of these I- i :■ '

crags; there was no escape for it from the pursuit of the hunter,’ and in utter despair it gathered itself up, and in the death agony attempted to jump across. Of course it fell, and was dashed to death on the rocks far beneath. Here is a path to heaven. It is plain; it is safe. Jesus marks it out for every man to whlk in. But here is a man who says: "I won’t walk in that path; I will go my own way." , He comes on up untij lie confronts the chasm that divides his soul from heaven. Now.his last hour has come, and he resolves that he will that chasm, from th" heights of earth to the heights of heaven. >tand back now and give him full swing, for no soil! ever did that zaccessfully. Lbthiiii try. Jump, jump! He misses the mark and goes down, depth below depth, "destroyed without remedy.” Men! angels! devils! what shall we call , that place of awful catastrophe? Let it be known forever as the "Sinner’s Death Lefip." It is said that when Charlemagne's host was overpowered by three armies of the Saracens in the Pass of Roncesvalles, his warrior, Roland, in terrible earnestness, seized a trumpet, and blew it with such terrific strength that the opposing army reeled back with terror; but the third blast of the trumpet it broke in two. 1 see your soul fiercely assailed by all the powers of earth and hell. I put the mightier trumpet of the Gospel to my lips, and I blow it three times. Blast the first—“ Whosoever will, let him come.” Blast the second—“ Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.” TTastThe fhrrd— accepted time: now is the day of salvation.” Does not the host of your sins fall back? But the trumpet does not, like that of Boland, break in two. As it was handed down to us from the lips of our fathers, we hand it down to the lips of our children, and tell them to sound it when we are dead, that all the generations of men may know that our God is a pardoning God. a sympathetic God, a loving God; and that more to- him than the anthems of heaven, more to him than the throne on which he sits, more to him than are the temples oLcelestial worship, is the joy of seeing the wanderer putting his hand on the door-latch of his father's house, Hear it, all ye nations! Bread for the worst hunger. Medicine for the worst sickness. Light for the thickest darkness. Harbor from the worst storm. - Dr. Prime, in his book of wonderful interest, entitled “.Around the World,” describes a tombin India of marvelous architecture. Twenty thousand men were twenty-two years in erecting that and the building around it. Standing at that tomb, if you speak or sing, after you have ceased you hear the echo coming fi’bm a height of 150 feet. It is not like other echoes. The sound is drawn out in sweet prolongation, as though the angels of God were chanting on the wing. How many souls here to-day, in the tomb of sin, will lift up the voice of penitence and prayer? If now they would cry unto God, the echo would drop from afar—not struck from the marble cupola of an earthly mausoleum, but sounding back from the warm heart of angels, flying with the news: for there is joy among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. The archers «of old times studied their art. They were very precise in the matte?. The old books gave special directions as to how the archer should go and as to what an archer ,shoidd do. He must stand erect and firm, his left toot a little m advance of his right foot. With his left hand he must take hold of the bow in the middle, and then with tlyj three fingers and the thumb of his right hand he should lay hold of the arrow and affix it to the string—so precise was the direction given. But how clumsy we are about religious work. How little skill and care we exercise! How often our arrows miss the mark! Oh, that we might learn the art of doing good and become “mighty hunters before the Lord!” In the first place, if you want to be effectual in doing, good, you must be very sure of your weapon. There tvas something very facinating about the archery of olden times. Perhaps you do not know what they could do with the bow. and arrow. Why the chief battles fought by the English Plantagenets were with the long bow. I'hey would take the arrow or polished wood, feather it with the plume of a bird, and then it would fly from the bowstring ot plaited silk. The broad fields of Agincourt, and Solway Moss, and Neville's Cross.‘heard the loud—thrum of the archer’s bow-string. Now. my Christian friends, we have Utjnightier weapon tlian that. It is. the arrow of the Gospel: it is a sharp arrow; is a straight arrow; it’ is feathered from the wing of the dove ;of God’s Spirit: it flies from a bow made out of the wood of the cross. As far as 1 can estimate or calculate, it has brought down 40,tW,00>) souls. Paul knew how to bring the notch of that arrow on to that bow string, and its whirr was heard through the Corinthian theatres, and through the court-room, until the knees of Felix knocked together. It was'that arrow that stuck in Luther’s heart when he eried out: Oh, ray sins! Oh. my sins?'-!—if itstrikea man an the head, it kills his skepticism; if it strike him in the heel, it will turn his step; if it strike him in the heart, he throws up -his4w»uLu-as„d.id-_one of old when wounded in the battle, crying: "Oh, Galilean. Thou hast conquered.” In the army of the Earl of Pembroke, there are old corslets which show that the arrow of the English used to go through the breastplate, Through the body of the warridG and out through the backplate. What a Aym bol nf that Gospe l which is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and body, audof th? joints and m.\--G W. -£?