Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1888 — THE MARTYRS OF LIFE. [ARTICLE]

THE MARTYRS OF LIFE.

OPPRESSOR S SCEPTERS WILL NOTALWAYSOVERAWE. Worrit of Comfort to THo*e Hero** nnri Haiolna* Wtto H»v< SulT. red a*ri Done Right. Rev. Dr„Talmage preached at lakeside, Ohio, Sunday. Subject: “The martyrs of every day life.” Text: ’‘Thou, therefore, endure hardness.” lit Timothy, ii., 3. He said:

Historians are not slow to acknowledge the merits of great military chieftains. We have the full-length portraits of the Cromwells, the Washingtons, the Napoleons and the Wellingtons of the world. Historv is not written in black ink, but with reel ink of human blood. The gods of human ambition do not drink from bowls made out of silver, or gold, or precious stones, but out of the bleached skulls of the fallen. But lam now to unroll before you a scroll of heroes that the world has never acknowledged—those who faced no guns blew no bugle blast, conquered no eities, chained no captives to their chariot-wheels, and yet, in the great day of eternity, will stand higher than those whose names startled the nations, and seraph, and rapt spirit, and archangel will tell their deeds to a listening universe. 1 mean the heroines of common, every-day life. In this roll, in the first place, I find all the heroes of the sick . room. When Satan had failed to overcome dob, lie said to God: “Put forth Thy hands and touch his bones and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face. Satan had found out what we have all found out, that sickness is the greatest test of one’s character. A man who can stand that can stand anything. To be shut in a room as fast as though, it were a bastile; to be so nervous you cannot endure the tap of a child's foot; to have luxuriant fruit, which tempts the appetite of the robust and healthy, excite our loathing and disgust when it first appears on the quitter, to have the rapier of pain strike through the side,or across the temples, like a razor, or tq put the foot into a vise, or throw the whole body into a blaze of fever. Yet there have been men and women, but more women than men, who have cheerfully endured this hardness. Through years of exhausting rheumatisms and excruciating neuralgias they have gone, and through bodily distresses that rasped the nerves, and' tore the muscles, and paled the cheeks and stooped the slipirklers. By the dim light of the sick room taper ' they sawon their wall the picture of that land where the inhabitants are never sick. Through the dead silence of the night they heard the chorus of the angels. The cancer ate away her life from week to week and day to' day, and she became weaker and weaker, and every “good-night” was feebler than the “good night” before —yet never sad. The children looked up into her face and saw suffering transformed intoaheavenly smile. Those who suffered on the battle-field, amid shot and shell, were not so much heroes and heroines asthose who in the field hospital and in the asylum bad fevers which no ice could cool and no surgery cure. No shout of a comrade to cheer them, but numbness and aching, and homesickness—yet willing to suffer, confident in God, hopeful of heaven. Heroes Of rheumatism. Heroes of neuralgia. Heroes of spinal complaint. Heroes of sick headache, j Heroes of lifelong invalidism. Heroes and heroines. They shall reign for ever and ever. In this roll J also find the heroes of toil, who do their work uncomplainingly. It is comparatively easy to lead a regiment into battle when you know that the whole nation will applaud “t he victory; it is comparatively easy to doctor the sick when you know that your skill w ill be appreciated by a large company of friends and relatives; it is comparatively easy to address an audience, when in'the gleaming eyes and flushed cheeks you know- your sentiments are adopted; but to do sewing where you expect that the employer will come and thrust his thumb through the work to show how imperfect it is, or to have the whole garment throw n back on you to be done over again; to build a wall and know there will be no one to say you did it well, but only a swearing employer howling ncross'the scaffold; to work until your eyes are dim and your back aches, and your heart faints and to know that if you stop before night your children, v ill starve. Ah! the sword has not slain so many as the needle. The great battle fields of our last war w:ere not Gettysburg and Shilrih and South Mountain. The great battle fields of the last w ar were in the arsenals and in the shops and in the attics, where women made army jackets for a Sixpence. They toiled on until thev died. They had no funeral eulqgium, but. in the 'name of my "God, this day I enroll their names among those of whom the world was not worthy. Heroes of the needle.. Heroes of trie sewing machine. Heroes of the attic. Heroes of the cellar. Heroes and heroines. Bless God for them.

In this roll I also find the heroes who have uncomplainingly endured domestic injustices. There are men who for their to 1 and anxiety have no sympathy in their homes. Exhausting application to their business gets them a livelihood, but an unfrugal wife scatters it. He is fretted at the moment he enters the door until lie comes out of it. The exasperations of business life augmented by the exasperations of domestic, life. Such men are laughed at, but they have a heart-breaking trouble, and they would have long ago gone into appalling dissipations but for the grace of God. Society to-day is strewn with the wrecks of men, who. under the northeast storm of domestic infelicity, have been driven on the rocks. There are tens of thousands of drunkards in this country to-day, made such bv their wives. ' That is not poetry. That is prose. But the wrong is generally in tne opposite direction. You would not have to go far to find a wife whose life is a perpetual martyrdom. Something heavier than the stroke of the first, unkind words, staggerings home at midnight, and constant maltreatment, which have left her only a wrectrof u hat she wag~on lEaf~~daywlien in the midst of a brilliant assemblage the vows were taken, and full orcarriage rolled away with the- benediction of the people. * What was the burning of Latimer and Ridgley at the stake compared with this? Those men soon became unconscious in the fire, but here is a fifty years’ martyrdom, a fifty years’ putting to death, yet uncomplaining. So bitter words when the rollicking companions at two o’clock in the mom-

ing pitch the husband dead drunk into the front entry. No bitter words when wiping from the swollen brow the blood struck out in a midnight caroitfcal. Bending over the battered and bruised form of him, who, when he took her from her father’s home, promised love, and kindness, and protection, yet nothing but sympathy, and pravers, and forgiveness before they are asked for. No bitter words when the family Bible goes for rum, and the pawnbroker’s shop gets the last decent dress. Some day. desiring to evoke the story of her sorrows, you sav: “Well, how are you getting along now?” and rallying her trembling voice, anti quieting her quivering lip, she says: “Pretty well, I thank you, pretty well.” She never will tell you. In the delirium of, her last sickness she may tell all the secrets of her lifetime, but she will not tell that. Not until the books of eternity are opened on the thrones of judgment will ever be known what she has suffered. ‘ Oh! ye who are twisting a garland for the victor, put it on that pale brow. When she is dead the neighbors will beg linen to make her a shroud, and she will be carried out in a plain box with no silver plate to tell her years, for she has lived a thousand years of trial and anguish. The gamblers and swindlers who destroyed her husband will not come to the funeral. One carriage will be enough for that funeral one carriage to carry the orphans and the two Christian women who presided over the obsequies. But there is a flash, and the opening of a celestial door, and a shout: “Lift up vour head, ye everlasting gate, and let her come in!” And Christ will step forth and say: “Come in; ye that suffered with Me on earth, be glorified with Me in heaven.” I find also in this roll the heroes of Chistian charity. We all admire the George Peabodys and the James Lenoxes of the earth, who give tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to good objects. But lam speaking this morning of those who, out of their pinched poverty, help others—of such men as those Christian missionaries at the West, who are living on $250 a year that they may proclaim Christ to the people, one of them, writing to the secretary in New York, saying: “I- thank you for that $25. Until yesterday we have had no meat in our house for three months. We have suffered terribly. My children" have no shoes this winter.” And of those people who have only a half loaf of bread, but give a pieqe* of it to others who are hungrier; and of those who have only a scuttle of coal, but help others to fuel; and of those who have only a dollar in their pocket, and give twenty-five cents to sombody else; and of that father who wears a shabby coat, and of that mother i who wears a faded dress, that their children may be well appareled. You call them paupers, or ragamuffins, or emigrants. I call them heroes and. heroines. You and I may not know where they live, or what their name is. God knows, and they have more angels hovering over them than you and I have, and they will have a higher seat in heaven. They may have only a cup of cold water to give a poor traveler, or may have only picked a splinter from under the nail of a child’s finger, or have put only two mites into the treasury, but -the Lord knows, them, considering what they had, they did more than we have ever done, and their faded dress will become a white robe, and the small room will be an eternal mansion, and the old hat will be a coronet of victory, and all the applause of earth and all the shouting of heaven will be drowned out when God rises up to give His reward to those humble workers in His kingdom. Who are those who were bravest and deserved the greatest monument-r-Lord Claverliouse and his burly soldiers, or John Brown, the Edinburgh carrier, and his wife? Mr. Atkins, the persecuted minister of Jesus Christ in Scotland, was secreted bv John Brown and his wife and Claverhorise rode up one (fay with his armed men and shouted in front of the house. John Brown’s little girl came out. He said, to her, “Well, miss, is Mr. Atkins here?” She made no answer, for she could not betray the minister of the Gospel. “Ha!” Claverhouse said, “then you artfh chip off the old block, are you? I have something bony pocket for. you. It is a nosegaySome people call it a thumb-screw, but I call it a nosegay.” And he got off his horse and he put it cn the little girl’s hand and began t© turn it until the bones cracked, and she cried. He saidj “Don’t dry, don’t cry; this isn’t a thumbscrew; this is a nosegay.” And they heard the child’s cry. and the father and mother came out, and Claverliouse said: “Ha! it seems that you three have laid vour holy heads together determined to die - like all the rest of your hypocritical, canting, .sniveling screw; rather than give rip good Mr. Atkins, pious Mr. Atkins, you would die. I have a telescope with me that will improve your vision,” and he pulled out a pistol. “Now,” he said, you old pragmatical, lest vou should catch cold in this cold morning of Scotland, and for the honor and safety of the King, to say nothing of the glory o.f.God and the good of our souls, I will proceed simply amt in the most expeditions style possible to blow your brains out.” John Brown fell upon his knees and began to pray. “Ah!” said Claverliouse, “look out it you are going to pray; steer clear of the King, the council and Richard Cameron.” “0! Lord” said John Brown, “since it seems to be Thy will that I should leave this world for a world where I can love Thee and serve Thee more, I put this poor widow woman and these helpless, fatherless children into Thy hands. We* have been together in peace a good while, but now we must took forth to a better meeting in heaven, and as for these poor creatures blindfolded and infatuated, that stand before me, convert them before it is too late, and may sat in judgment in this lonely place on this blessed morning, upon me, a poor, defenseless fellow-creature, may they in the last judgment find that mercy which they have refused to me, Thy most unworthy. hut most faithful servant. Amen.” y-; -' ; —r . - He rose tip and said, “Isabel, the hour -has came of which I spoke, to~you 05~ the morning when d proposed hand and heart to you. and are you willirijr now, for ihe love of Godfto let me <he?"t?he put her arms around ’Hrifa. and sawt- = wrhe Lord "gave, arid -the Lord~Eath taken away. -Blessed be the name of the Lord!’ “Stop that sniveling,” said Claverhouse. “I have had enough of it. Soldiers, do your work. Take aim! Fire!” And the head of John Brown was scattered on the ground. While the wife was gathering up in her apron, the

fragments of her husband’s head—* gathering them up for burial—Claverhouse looked into her face and said: “Now, my good woman, how do you feel about your bonnie man?” “Oh! ! *"«he said, “I always thought weel of him; he has been very good to me. I had no reason for not thinking ■weel' of him, and I think better of him now.” 0, what a grand thing it will be in the last dav to see God pick out his heroes and heroines. Wtm are those paupers of eternity trudging off from the gates of heaven? 'Who are they? The. Lord Claverhouses and the Herods and those who had scepters, and crowns, and thrones, but they lived for their own aggrandizement, and they broke the heart of nations. Heroes of earth, but paupers'of eternity. I beat the drums 1 ot their eternal despair. Woe! woe! woe! But there is great excitement in heav•n.. Why those long processions? Why the booming of that great' bqll in the tower? It is coronation day in heaven. Who are those rising on the thrones with crowns of eternal royalty? They must have been great people on the earth, world-renowned people. No. They taught in a ragged school. Taught in a* ragged school! Is that all? That is all. Who are those souls waving scepters of eternal dominion? Why, they are little children who waited on invalid mothers. That all? That is all. She was called “Little Marv” on earth. She is an empress now. Who are that great multitude on the throne of heaven? AVho are they? Why, they fed the hungry, they clothed the naked, they hea ed the sick, they comforted the heart broken. They never found ally rest until they had put their head down on the pillow of the sepulcher. God watched them. God laughed defiance at the enemies who put their heels hard down on these, His dear children; and one day the Lord struck His hand so hard on His thigh that the omnipotent sword rattled in the buckler, as He said: “I am their God, and no weapon formed against them shall prosper.” What harm can the world do you when the Lord Almighty, with unsheathed sword,fights for you?

I preach this sermon for comfort. Go home to the place just where God has put you, to play the hero or the heroine. Do not envy any man his money Or his applause, or his social position. Do not envy any woman her wardrobe or her exquisite appearance. Be the hero or the heroine. If there he' no flour in the house and you do not know where your children are to get bread,listen, and you will hear sometning tapping against the window pane. Go to the window and you w-ill find it is the beak of a raven; and open the window and there will fly in the messenger that fed Elijah. Do you think that the God who grows the cotton of the South will let you freeze for lack of clothes? Do you think that the God who allowed the disciples on Sunday morning to go into the grainfield, and then take the grain and rub it in their hands and eat—do you think God w-ill let you starve? Did you ever hear the experience of that old man: “1 have been young, and now I am old, yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread.” Get up out of your discouragement, Oh! troubled soul, Oh! sewing woman, Oh! man kicked and cufled by unjust employers, Oh! ye w-ho are hard besetfin the battle of life and know not which way to turn. Oh! you bereft one, Oh! yon sick one, with complaints you have told to no one, come and get the comfort of this subject. Listen to our great Captain’s cheer. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the fruit of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”