Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1888 — “MAKE A CHAIN." [ARTICLE]

“MAKE A CHAIN."

SURROUND THE CHILD WITH GOOD INFLUENCES. From tin Cradle to tlie Grave—The Result Will I Be a World Emancipated from Sill. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Text, Ezekiel vii 23, “Make a chain.” He said: *" "T 1 At school and in college in announcing the mechanical powers, we glorified the lever, the pullefy, the inclined plane, the screw, the axle and the wheel, but my text calls us to study the philosophy Of the chain. These links of metal, one with another, attracted the old Bible authors,and we hear the chain rattle and see its coil all the way through from Genesis to Revelation, flashing as an adornment, or restraining as in captivity or holding in conjunction as in case of machinery. What I wish to impress upon myself and upon you is the strefigth in right and wrong directions of consecutive forces, the superior power of a chain of influences above one influence, the great advantage of a congeries of links above one link, and in all family government and in all effort to rescue others and in all attempts to stop iniquity, take the suggestion of my text and make a chain! That which contains the greatest importance, that which incloses the most tremendous opportunities, that which of earthly things is most watched by pther worlds, that which has beating against two sides all the eternities, is the cradle. The grave is nothing in importance compared with it, for that is only a gully that we step across in a second, but the cradle has within it a new eternity, just born and never to cease. Now what shall be done with this new life recently launched? Teach him an evening prayer? That is important, but not enough. Hear him as soon as he can recite some Gospel hymn or catechism? That is important, . but not enough. Every Sabbath afternoon read him a Bible story? That is important, but not enough. Once in a while a lesson, once in a while a prayer, once in a while a restraining influence? All these are important, but not enough. Each one of these influences is only a link, and it will not hold him in the tremendous emergencies of life. Let it be constant instruction, constant applicatiop of good influences, a long line of consecutive impressions, reaching from his first year to his fifth, and from his fifth year to his tenth, and from his tenth year to his twentieth. “Make a chain.”

Spasmodic education, paroxysmal discipline, occasional fidelity, amount to nothing. You can as easilv hold a child to the right by isolated and intermittent faithfulness. The example must connect with the instruction. The conversation must combine with the actions. The week-day consistency must conjoin with the Sunday workship. Have family prayers by all means; but be petulant and inconsistent and unreasonable in your household and your family prayers will be a blasphemous farce. So great in our day are the temptations of young men to dissipation ana young women to social follies that it is most important that the first eighteen years of their life be charged with a religious power that will hold them when they get out of the harbor of home into the stormy ocean of active life. There is such a thing as impressing children so powerfully with good that sixty years will have no more power to efface it than sixty minutes. . But all people between thirty and forty years of age, yes, between forty and fifty—aye between fifty and sixty years, and all septuagenarians as well, need a surrounding conjunction of good influences. In Sing Sing, Auburn, Moyamensing and all the other great prisons are men and women who went wrong in mid-life and old age. We need around us a cordon of good influences. We forget to apply the well-known rule that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. If the chain be made up of a thousand links, and nine hundred and ninety-nine are strong, but one is weak, the chain will be in danger of breaking at that one weak link. We mav be strong in a thousand excellences and yet have one weakness that endangers us. That is the reason that we sometimes see men distinguished for a whole round of virtues collapse and go down. The weak link in the otherwise stout chain gave way under the pressure. * The first chain bridge was built in (Scotland. Walter Scott tells how the French imitated it in a bridge across the river Seine. But there was one weak point in that chain bridge. There was a middle bolt that was of poor material, but they did not know how much depended’upon that middle bolt of the chain bridge. On the opening day a procession started, led on by the builders of the bridge, and when the mighty weight of the procession was fairly on it the bridge broke and precipitated the multitudes. The bridge was all right except in that middle bolt. So the bridge of character may be made up of mighty links strong enough to hold a mountain, but if there be one weak spot that one point unlooked after may be the destruction of every thing. And what multitudes have gone down for all time and all eternity because in the chain bridge of their character there was lacking a strong middle bolt. He had but one fault and that was avarice: hence, his fatal debauch. She had but one fault, and that an inordinate fondness for dress, and hence Ijer own and her husband’s bankrupty. She had but one fault, and that a quick temper; hence, the disgraceful outburst. What we all want is to have put around us a strong chain of good influences. Christian association is a link. Good literature is a link. Church membership is a link. Habit of prayer is a link. Scripture research ia a link. Faith in God iB a link. But together all these influences make a chain! Most excellent is it for us to get into company better than ourselves. If we are given to telling vile stories, let us put ourselves among those who will not abide such utterances. If we are stingy let us put ourselves among the charitable. If we are morose us put ourselves among the good-natured. If we are givefi to tittle-tattle, let us put ourselves among those who speak no ill of tneir neighbors. If we are despondent let us put ourselves amon? those who make the best of things. If evil is contagious, lam glad to say that . good is also catching. People go up into the hill country for physical health; so, if you would be strong in your soul, get yourself up off the lowlands into the altitudes of high moral association. For many of the circumstances of our life we are not responsible. For our parentage

we are not responsible. For the place oi our nativity, not responsible; for our features, our stature, our Color, not responsible: for the. family relation in which we were born, for our natural tastes, for our mental character, not responsible. But we are responsible for the associates that we choose and the moral influences under which we put oureelves. Character seeks an equilibrium. A B is a good man; YZis a bad man. Let them now voluntarily choose each other’s society. A B will lose a part of his goodness and Y Z a part of his badfiess, and they will gradually approach each other in character, and will finally stand on the same level. One of the old painters refused to look at poor pictures, because, he said, it damaged his style. A musician can not afford to dwell among 'discords, nor can a writer afford to peruse books of an inferior style, nor an architect walk out among disproportipned structures. And no man or woman was ever so good as to be able to afford to choose evil associations. Therefore, I said, have it a rule of your life to go among those better than yourselves. Can not find them? Then what a pink of perfection you must be! When was your character completed? What a misfortune for the saintly and angelic of heaven that they are not enjoying the improving influence of your society! Ah, if you can not find those better than yourself, it is because you are ignorant of yourself. Woe unto you, Scripes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

But, as I remarked in the opening, in sacred and in all styles of literature a chain means not only adornment and royalty of nature, but sometimes captivity. And I suppose there are those in that sense deliberately and persistently making a chain. Now, here is a young man of good physical healthy good manners and good educatioh. How shall he put together enough links to make a chain for the down-hill road? I will give him some directions. First, let him smoke. If he can not stand cigars let him try cigarettes. I think cigarettes will help him on this road a little more rapidly because the doctors say there is more poison in them, and so he will be helped along faster, and I have the more confidence in proposing this because about fifty of the first young men of Brooklyn during the last year were, according to the doctors’ reports, killed by cigarettes. Let him drink light wines first, or ale or lager, and gradually he will be able to take something stronger, and as all styles of strong drink are more and more adulterated, his progress will be facilitated. With the old-time drinks a man seldom got delirium tremens before thirty or forty years of age; now he can get the madness by the time he is eighteen. Let him play cards, enough money put tup always to add interest to the game. If the father and mother will play with him that will help by way of countenancing the habit. And it will be such a pleasant thing to think over in the day of judgment when the parents give account for the elevated manner in which they have reared their children. Every pleasant Sunday afternoon lake a carriage ride, and stop at the hotels on either side ihe road for Sabbath refreshments. Do not let the oldfogy prejudices against Sabbath breaking dominate you. Have a membership in some club where libertines go and tell about their victorious sins; and laugh as loud as any of them in derision of those who belong to the same sex as your sister and mother. Pitch your Bible overboard as old-fashioned, and fit only for women and children. Read all the magazine articles that put Christianity at a disadvantage, and go to hear all the lectures that malign Christ, who, they say, instead of being the Mighty One he pretended to be, was an impostor and the implanter of a great delusion. Go at first out of curiosity, to see all the houses of dissipation, and then go because you have felt the thfallof their fascination. Getting along splendidly now! Let mb see what further can I suggest in that direction. Become more defiant of all decency, more loud-mouthed in your atheism, more thoroughly alcoholized, and instead of the small stakes that will do well enough for games of chance in a lady’s parlor, put up something worthy, put up more, put up all you have. * Well done! You have succeeded. You have made a chain —the tobacco habit one link, the rum habit one link, the impure club another link, infidelity another link, Sabbath desecration another link, uncleanliness another link, and altogether they make a chain. And so there is a chain on your hand, and "a chain on your foot, and a chain on your tongue, and a chain on your eye, and a chain on your brain, and a chain on your property, and a chain on ydur soul. Some day you wake up and say: “I am tired of this and lam going to get loose from this shackle.” You pound away with the hammer of good resolution, but cannot break the thrall. Your friends join you in a conspiracy of help, but fall exhausted in the unavailing attempt. Now you begin, and with the writhing of a Laocoon, to break away, and the muscles are distended, and the great beads of perspiration dot your forehead, and the eyes stand out fromthe sockets, and with all the concentrated energies of body mind and soul you attempt to get loose, but have only made the chain sink deeper. All the devils that encamp in the wme-fiash and the rum-jug and the decanter—for each one has a devil of its own—come out and sit around you and chatter. In some midnght you Bpring from your couch and cry: “I am fast! 0, God, let me loose! O, ye powers of darkness, let me loose! Father and mother and brothers and sisters, help me to get loose!” And you turn your prayer to blasphemy, and then your blasphemy into prayer, and to. all the din and uproar there is played accompaniment by key and pedal, but the accompaniment is rattle, and the rattle is that of a chain. For five years, for ten years, for twenty years, you have been making a chain. • But here I take a step higher and tell you there is a power that can break any chain, chain of body, chain of mind, chain of soul. The fetters that hammer of the Gospel have broken off, if piled together, would make a mountain. The captives whom Christ has set free, if stood Bide bv side, would make an anny. Quicker than a ship chandler’s furnace ever melted a cable, quicker than a key ever unlocked a hand-cuff, quicker than the bayonets of revolution pried open .thesßastile, you may be liberated and made a free son or a free daughter of God. You have only to choose between serfdom and emancipation, between a chain and a coronet, between Satan and God. Make up your mind and make it up quick.