Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1888 — INFLUENCE. [ARTICLE]

INFLUENCE.

A RIGHT EXAMPLE MAY TURN MANY FROM THEIR SINS. And a Chrintlan Admonition Mnj Make a Con*. rt—Dr. Talmage Pr •«<?•»»» at Wlnfleld. Km. r ' , Rev. Dr. Talmage preached last Sunday at Winfield, Kansas, to an immense multitude al an outdoor meeting. The text was; “They that tupi many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.”—Daniel xii., 3. Subject: “The Constellations of the Redeemed.” Dr. Talmage said: Every man has a thousand roots and a thousand branches. His roots reach down through all the earth; his branches spread through all the heavens. He speaks with voice, with eve. with hand, with foot. His silence often is thunder, and his life is an anthem or a doxology. There is no such thing as a negative influence. We are all positive in the places we occupy, making the work! better or making it worse*, on the ' lord’s side or on the devil’s, making up reasons for our blessings or banishment; and we have already done a mighty work in peopling heaven or hell. I hear people tell of what they are going to do. A man who has burned down a city might as well talk of some evil that he expects to do, or a man who has saved aii empire might as well talk of some good that he expects to da By the force of your evil influence you have already consumed infinite values, or you have, by the power of a right influence, won whole kingdoms for God. It would be absurd for me to stand here, and by elaborate argument, prove that the world is off the track. You might as well stand at the foot of an embankment, amid the wreck of a capsized rail train, proving by elaborate argument that something is out Of order. Adam tumbled over the embankment sixty centuries ago, and the whole race in one Ipng train, has gone on tumbling in the same direction. Crash! crash! The only question now is, by what leverage can the crushed thing be lifted? By what hammer may the fragments be reconstructed ? I want to show you how we may turn many to righteousness, and what will be our future pay for so doing. • First: We may turn them by the thartn of a right example. A child coming from a filthy home..was taught at school to wash its face. It went home so much improved in appearance that its mother washed her face. And when the father of the household came home and saw the improvement in domestic ap]>earances, he washed his face. The neighbors, happening in,saw the change, ana tried the same experiment, until all the street was purified, and the next street copied its example; and the whole city felt the result of one school boy washing his face. That is a fable, by which we set forth that the best way to get the world washed of its sins and pollution is 10 have our own heart and life cleansed and purified. A man with grace in his heart, and Christian cheerfulness in his face, and holy consistency in his behavior, is a perpetual sermon; and the sermon differs in that it has but one head, and the longer it runs the better.

There are honest men who walk down AV all street making the .teeth of iniquity chatter. There are happy men who go into the sick room, ami, by a look, help the broken bom; to knit, and the excited nen es drop to calm beating. There are pure men whose presence* silences the tongue of uncleanness. The mightiest agent of good on earth is a consistent Christian. I like the Bible folded between lids of cloth, of calfskin, or morocco, but I like it better when in the shape of a man it goes out into the world —a Bible illustrated. Courage is better to read about; but rather would I see a man with all the world against him confident as though all the world wen* for him. Patience is beautiful to read about; but rather would I see a buffeted soul calmly waiting for the time of deliverance. Faith is beautiful to read about: but rather would I find a man in the midnight walking straight on as though he saw everything. Oh. how many souls have been’turned to God bv the charm of a bright example*

Again: We may turn manv to righteousness by prayer, tor no one can hide away from it. It puts its hand bn the shoulder of a man ten thousand miles off. It alights on a ship mid-Atlantic. The little cirild cannot understand the law of electricity, or how the telegraph operator, by touching the instrument here, may dart a message under the sea to another continent; nor can we, with our small intellect, understand how the touch of a Christian's praver shall instantly strike a soul on the other sideof the earth. You take a, ship and go to some other country, and get there at eleven o’clock in’ the morning. You telegraph to New York, and the message gets there at six o'clock in the same morning. In other words, it seems to arrive here five hours before it started. Like that is prayer. God says: “Before they call, I will hear.” To overtake a -loved one on the road, you mav spur up a lathered steed until he shall outrace the one that brought the news to Ghent; but a prayer shall catch it at one gallop. A boy running away from home mav take the midnight train from the country village, and reach the seaport in time to gain the ship that sails on the morrow; but a mother’s prayer will be on the deck to meet him, and in the hammock before he swings into it; and at the capstan before he winds the rope around it, and on the sea. against the sky, as the vessel ploughs on toward it. There is a mightiness in prayer. George Muller prayed a company of poor boys together, and then he prayed up an asvlum in which they might be sheltered. He turned his face toward Edinburgh and prayed, and there came £I.OOO. He turned his face toward London and prayed, and there £I.OOO. He turned his face toward Dublin and proved, and there came £I.OOO. The breath of Elijah’s prayer blew all the clouds off the sky. and it was drv weather. The breath of Elijah's prayet blew all the clouds tbgether, and it Was wet weather. Prayer, in Daniel's time, walked the cave as a lion-tamer. It reached up and took the by the golden bit and stopped it. We have all yet to try the full power of prayer. The time will come when the ■American Church will pray with its face toward the west, and all the prairies and —inland citics wilt surrender to'God;-amF will pray with face, toward the sea, and all the islands and ships will become Christian. Parents who have Wayward sons will get down on their knees and say “Lord, send mv boy home,” and the I boy in Canton shall get right up from!

the gaming-table and go down to the wharf to find out which ship starts first far America. ] Not one of us yet knows how to pray. All we have done as yet has only been pottering, and guessing, and experimenting. A lioy gets "hold of his father’s saw and hammer, and tries to make something* but it is a poor affair that he makes. The father comes and taxes the same saw and hammer, and builds the house or the ship. In tfie childhood of our Christian faith we make but poor work'with these weapons of prayer, but when we come to the stature of men in Christ Jesus, then, under these implements, the temple of God will rise, and the world’b redemption will be launched. God cares not for the length of our prayers,or the nunilwr of ourprayers, for the beauty of our prayers, or the place of our prayers: but it is the faith in them that tells. Believing prayer soars higher than the lark ever sang; plunges deeper than diving-bell ever sank; darts quicker than lightning ever flashed. Though, we have used only the back of this weapon instead - 4f the edge, what marvels have been wrought! If saved' we are all the captives of some earnest prayer. Would to God that in desire for the rescue of souls, we might in prayer lay hold of the resources of the Ixird Omnipotent. We may turn inanv to righteousnesss by Christian admonition. Do not wait until you .can make a formal speech. Address the one next to you. You will not go home alone to-day. Between this anil your place of stopping you may decide the eternal destiny ofan immortal spirit. Jnst one sentence may do the work. Just one question. Just one look. The formal talk that begins with a sigh and ends with a canting sniffle is not what is wanted, but the heart-throb of a man in dead earnest. There is not a soul on earth that you may not bring to God if you rightly go at it They said Gibralter colild not betaken. It is a rock sixteen hundred feet high and three miles long. But the English and Dutch did take it. Artillery, and sappers, and miners, and fleets pouring out volleys of death, and thousands of men reckless Of danger can do anything. The stoutest heart of sin, though it be rock and surrounded by an ocean of transgression, under Christian bombardment may be made to hoist the flag of redemption. But is all this admonition, and prayer, and Christian work for nothing? Sly text promises to all the faithful eternal luster.

Again, Christian workers shall be like the stars, in the fact that they have a light independent of each other. Look up at the night and see each world shows its distinct glory. It is not like the conflagration, in which you can not tell where one flame stops and another begins. Neptune, Herschell and Mercury are as distinct as if each one of them were the only star, so our individualism will not be lost in heaven. A great multitude—yet each one as observable, as distinctly recognized, as greatly celebrated, as if in all the space, from gate to gate and from hill to hill, 'he were the only inhabitant; no mixing —no mob—no indiscriminate rush; each Christian w orker standing out illustrious —all the story of earthly achievement adhering to each other; his self-denials, and pains, and service and victories published. Before men went out to the last war the orators told them that they would all be remembered by their country, and their names be commemorated in poetry and ip song; but go to the gravevgrd in Richmond and you will find there six thousand graves, over each one of which is the inscription. "Unknown.” The world does not remember its heroes; bur there will be no unrecognized Christian w orker in heaven. Each one know n by all; grandly known; knowrt by acclamation; all the past story of work for God gleaming in check, anil brow, and foot, and palm. They shall shine with distinct light as the stars, for ever and ever.

Again: Christian workers shall shine like the stars in clusters. In looking up you find the worlds in family circles. Brothers and sisters—they take hold of each other’s hands and dance in groups. Orion in a group, the Pleiades in a. group. The solar system is only a company of children, with bright faces, gathered around one great fireplace. Theweridsdo not"straggle off; they go in squadrons ahd fleets, .sailing through immensity. So Christian workers in'heaven will dwell in neighborhoods and clusters. I am sure that some people I will like in heaven a great deal better than others. Yonder is a constellation .of stately Christians. They lived on earth by rigid rule. They never laughed. They walked every hour anxious lest they should lose their dignity. But they foved God; and yonder they shine in brilliant constellation. Yet 1 shall not long to get into that particular group. Yonder is a constellation of small-hearted Christians —asteroids' in the eternal astronomy. While some souls . go.. up from Christian battle and blaze like Mars: tnese asteroids dart a feeble ray like Vesta. Yonder is a constellation of martyrs, of apostles, of patriarchs. Our souls, as they go up to heaven, will seek out the most congenial society. Yonder is a constellation almost mervy with the play of light. On earth they were full of sympathies and songs, and tears, and' raptures, and congratulations. When they prayed their words took fire; when they sangtune could not hold them; whenthev Wept over a world’s woes, they sobbed as "if heart-broken; when thev worked for Christ they flamed with enthusiasm. Yonder they are—circle of light! constellation of joy’! galaxy of fire! Oh! that youand I, by that grace’ which can transfer m the worst into the best, might at last sail in the wake of that fleet, and wheel in that glorious gruop, as the stars forever and ever! •

Again; Christian workers will shine like the stars in swiftness of motion. The worlds do not stop to sliine. The re are no fixed stars save as to relative position. - The star most thoroughly-fixed-flies thousands of miles a minute’. The astronomer, using his telescope for an Alpine stock, leaps from- world-crag to world-crag, and finds no star standing still. The chamois hunt er has to* tty to catch hfe-prey, but not so swift is his game as that wbicli the scientist tries to shoot through the tower of the observatory.: Like petrels mid-Atlantic. that seem to come from no Shore, and be bound to no landing-place—flying,, flying—so these great flocks of worlds rest not as they go—wing and wing—age after age—for etgFgffiTgVei*. The eagfe hastens to its prey.but we shall in speed beat the eagles. You have noticed the velocity of the swift horse, under whose , feet the miles slip like a smooth ribbon, I and as he passes the four hoofs strike ! the earth in such quick beat your pulses

take the same vibration. But all these things are not swift in comparison with the motion of which I speak. The moon moves fifty-four thousand • miles in a day*. Yonder Neptune flashes on eleven thousand miles in an hour. Yonder Mercury goes one hundred and nine thousand miles in an hour. So like the stars the Christian worker shall shine in swiftness of motion. You hear now of father or mother or child sick one thousand miles away, and it takes you two days to get to them. You hear of some ease of suffering that demands, your immediate* attention, but it takes you an hour to get there. Oh! the joy when you shall, in fulfillment of the text, take starry speed and be equal to one hundred thousand miles an hour. Having on eartli got used to Christian work, you will not quit when death strikes you. You will only trike on more velocity. There is a dying child in London, and its spirit must be taken up to God: you are there in an instant to do it. There is a young man in NewYork to be arrested from going into the gate of sin: you are there in an instant to arrest him. Whether with spring of foot, or stroke-of wing, or bv the force of some new law that shall hurl you to the Hirot where you would go, I know not: but my text suggests velocity. All space opens before you, with nothing to hinder you in mission of light, and love and joy, you shall shine in swiftness of motion as the stars forever and ever.

Again: .Christian workers, like the stars, shall shine in magnitude. The most illiterate man know-s that these things in the sky, looking flike gilt buttons, are great masses of matter. To weigh them, one would think that it w r uld require scales with a pillar hundreds of thousands of miles high, and chains hundreds of thousands of miles long, and at the bottom of the chains basins on either side hundreds of thousands of miles wide, and that then Omnipotence alone could put the mountains into the scales and the hills into the balance. But puny man has been equal to the undertaking, and has set little balance on his geometry, and weighed world against world. Yea, he has pulled out his measuring line, and announced that Herschell is thirty-six thousand miles in diameter, Saturn seventy-nine thousand miles in diameter, andAjrrpiter eightynine thousand miles diameter, and that the smallest pearl on the beach of heaven js immense beyond all imagination. So all they who have toiled for Christ on earth shall rise up to a magnitude of privilege, and a magnitude of strength, and a magnitude of holiness, and a magnitude of joy; and the weakest saint in glory become greater than all that we can now imagine of an archangel. Brethren, it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Wisdom that shall know every thing; wealth that shall possess every thing; strength that shall circumscribe every thing! We shall not be like a taper set in a sick man’s window-, or a bundle of sticks kindled on the beach to warm a shivering crew; but you must take the diameter and the circumference of the w-orld if you would get any idea of the greatness of our estate when we shall shine as the stars forever and ever, Lastly —and coming to this point my mind almost breaks down under the con-- 1 .temptation— like the stars, all Christian workers shall shine in duration. The same stars that look down upon us looked down.,upon the Chaldean, shepherds. The meteor that I saw flashing across the sky the other night, I wonder if it was not the same one that pointed down to where Jesus lay in the manger, and if, having pointed out His birthplace, it has ever since been wandering through the heavens watching to see Itowthe world would treat Him. When Adam awoke in the garden in the cool of the day he saw coming out through the dusk of the evening the same worlds—that greeted us on our way to church tonight. The star at which the ihariner looks to-night was the light by which the ships of Tarshish were guided across the Mediterranean, and the Venetian flotilla found its way into Lepanto. Their armor is as bright to-night as when, in ancient battle, the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. To the ancients the stars were svmbols of eternity. **-v • > * • 1, ’ “— 1 . .

But here the figure of my! textbreaks down—not in defeat, but in the majestiesof the judgment. The star shall not sliine- forever. The Bible says they shall fall like autumnal leaves. It is almost impossible fora manto take in a courser going a mile in three minutes; but God shall take in the worlds, flying a hundred •thousand miles an hou”, by one pull of Iris little finger. As. when the factory band slips at nightfall from the main wheel, all the smaller wheels slacken their speed, and with slower ami slower motion they turn until they come to a nth stop, so this-gri*at machinery of the uniwrse, wheel within wheel, making revolutfon'of appalling speed, shall by the touch of God’s hand slip the band •f present law and slacken and stop. That is what will be the matter with the mountains. The chariots in which they ride shall halt so suddenly that the rings shall be thrown out. Star after star shall be carried out to burial amid funeral torches and burning worlds. Constellations shall throw ashes on their heads, and all up and down the highway of space there shall be mourning, mourning, mourning, because the worlds are dead. But the Christian workers shall never quit their shall reign forever and ever. If,by some invasion from hell, the attempt were made to cai ry them off into captivity from heaven, the souls they have saved w;ould rally for their defense, and all the angels of God would strike with their scepters, and the redeemed, on white horses of victory, would ride down the foe, and all the steep of the sky would resound with the crash of the overwhelmed cohorts tumbled headlong out of heaven.