Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1888 — NO EXCUSE FOR LAZINESS [ARTICLE]

NO EXCUSE FOR LAZINESS

It mi to be regretted that the *e*L of missionary effort has brought us into confl’ctvrith the Coreans, and put a check to the opening of that country in fraternal relations with the Western nations. The American Minister writes that Americans are engaged in different ways in Seoul, the capital of Corea, in diMeminating the doctrines of their religion—a fact much disliked by the Corean Government, and not warranted by the Existing treaty. The demand is made that the missionaries cease propagandisin in every form. ‘ The great value of Christianity to such people no one can question; still it is hardly presumable that the authorities will permit a revolution in religious views so long as Church and State are one—government and religion so closely associated. Our missionaries must bear in mind our own American prejudice against foreign faiths, and our unwholesome way of resenting | ropagan i6m. New England undertook to stamp out Quakers, and just now Boston has some curious religious qualms, and is exhibiting considerable resentment mingled with her piety.

EMPLOY YOUR TALENTS TO GOOD ADVANTAGE. Look After Vour Present and Future YVel- « fare— -One Simple Prayer May IJr.ng a Thuusaud Souls to God. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Text, Matthew xxv„ 15. He said: Learh first from this subject that becoming a Christian is merely going out to service. If you have any romantic idea about becoming a Christian, I want now to scatter that romance. If yoii enter into the Kingdom of God, it will be going into plain, practical, honest, continuous, persistent Christian work. 1 know there are a great many people who have fantastic and. romantic notions about this Christian life, but he who serves God with all the energies of body, mind and sonl is a worthy servant, and he » ho does not is an unworthy servant. When the war trumpet sounds all the Lord’s soldiers must march, however deep the snow may be, or however fearful the odds against them. Under our Government we may have Colon* Is, and Captains, and Generals in time of peace; but in the Church of God there is no peace until the last great> victory shall nave been achieved. But I have’ io tell you that it is a voluntary service. People are not brought into it as slaves were dragged from Africa. A young man goes to an artisan and says: “Sir, I want to learn your trade. Iby this indenture yield myself to your care and service for the next four, five or seven years. I want you to be my master, and I want to be your servant.” Just so, if we come into the kingdom of God at all, we must Come, Baying to Christ. “Be thou my master. I take Thy service for time and for eternity I choose it ” It is a voluntary service. There is no drudgery in it. In our worldly callings sometimes out nerves get worn out and our head aches, and our physical faculties break down; but in this service of the Lord Jesus, the harder a man works the better he likes it, and a man in this audience who has been for forty yeats —serving God enjoys the employment better than when he first enteredit. The grandest honor that can ever be bestowed upon you, is to have Christ sav to you t n the last day: “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Learn also from this parable that dif—ferent qualifications ate given to different people. The teacher lifts a blackboard aud he draws a diagram in order that by that diagram he may improve the mind of the pupil with -the truth that he has been uttering. And all the truths of this Bible are drawn out in the natural world ns in a great diagram. Here is an acre of ground that has ten talents. Under a little culture it Yields twenty bushels of wheat to the' acre. Here is anotht-r piece of ground that has only one talent. You may plow it, and harrow it, and culture it, year alter year, but it yields a mere pittance. So ’here is a man wnh ten talent* in the way of getting good ana doing good. He soon, under Christian culture, yields great harvests of faith good work. Here —is another man who seems to have onlv one talent, and you may DUt upon bini the greatest spiritual culture, but he yields but little of the fruits of righteousness. You are to understand that there are different qualifications for different individuals. There is a great deal of ruinous comparison when a rntdS saye: “Oh, if I only had that man’s faith, or that man’s monev. or that, man’s eloquence, how I would serve God.” Bet** ter take the faeu ty that God has given you and employ it in the right way. The rabbis used to say that pefpre the stone and" timber was brought to Jerusalem for the Temple every stone and piece of timber was marked, bo that before they started for J* rusalt-m the architects knew in what place that articular piece &f stone or timber should fit. And so,I have to tell vou we ’ are all marked for some one place in the great temple of the Lord, and do not let uscomplaiD, saying: “I would like to be the foundation 6tone or the cap stone. Let us go into" the very place where God intends us to be; and be satisfied with the position. Your talent may be in personal appearance; your talent may be in large woridly estates; , r your talent may be in high social position; your talent may be in swift pen or eloquent tongue; bdt whatever may be the tab ni, it has been given for only one purpose—practical use. You sometimes find a man in the community of whom you say: “He has no talent at all,” and yet-thai naan- may. have a hundred talents. His one hundred • talents may be shown in the item of endurance. Poverty comes and he endures it; persecution comes and he endures it; sickness comes and he endures it Before rpen and angels he is a specimen of. Christian patience and he is reallv illustrating the power oi Christ’s gospel, and is doing as much for the church, and more for the church, than many i more positively active, n you have |

one talent, use' that; if vou have ten talents, use them, satisfied with the fact that we all have different qualifications, and that the Lord decides whether we shall have One or whether we shall have fed. : , .. I learn from this parable that the grace of God was intended to be accumulative. When God plants an acorn He means an oak, and when He plants a small amount of grace in the heart He intends it to be growth fill and enlarge until it overshadows the whole nature. There"are parents who, at the birth of each child, lay aside, a certain amount of money, investing it, expecting by accumulation and Y>y compound interest, that by the time the child shall come to mid life this small!amount of money will be a fortune, showing how a small amount of money will roll up into a vast accumulation. Well, God sets aside a certain amount of grace for each one of His spiritual children at his birth, and it is to go on and, as by compound interest accumulate until it shall become an eternal fortune. Can it be possible that you have been acquainted with the Lord Jesus for ten, twenty, thirty years and that you do not love Him more than you ever did before? Can it be possible that you have been cultured in the Lord’s vineyard and that Christ finds on you nothing but sour i grapes? You may depend upon it, if vou do not use the talent that God gave you it will dwindle. The rill that breaks from the hill aide will either widen into a river or dry up. The brightest day Started in the dim twilight. Thestrongest Christian man was once a weak Christian. Take the one talent and make it two; take live and make them ten; take ten and make them twenty. The Grace of God was made to be very accumulative. Again: I learn from the text that inferiority of gifts is no excuse for indolence. This man, with the smallest amount of money, came growling into the presence of the owner of the estate, as much as to say: “If you had given me $9,4011 would have brought SIB,B oas well as this other man. You gave me only SI,BBO. and I hardly thought it was worth while to use it at all. .So I hid it. in a napkin, and it produced no result. It’s because you didn’t give me enough.” But inferiority of faculties is no excuse for indolence. Let me say to the man who ha* the least qualifications, by the grace as God he may be made almost omnipotant. The merchant, whose car goes eomeout from every jsland of the sea, and who, by one stroke of the pen, can change the whole face of American commerce, has not so much power as you may have before God, in earnest, faithful and continuous.prayer. You say you have no faculty. Do you not understand that you might this afternoon go into your place of prayer, and kneel before God, and bring down upon your soul and the souls of others a bleßsing so vast that it would take eternal ages to compute it? “Oh.” you say, “I haven’t fieetness of speech. I can’t talk well. I can’t utter what I want to say.” My brother, can you not quote ODe passage of Scriptur ? Then, take that one passage of Scrioture; carry it with you everywhere; quote it under all proper circumstances. With that one passage of Scripture you may harvest a thousand souls’ for God. I am glad that the chief work of the Church in this day is being done by the men of one talent.. Once in a while, when a great foi tress is to be taken, God will bring out a great field-piece and rake all with the very hail of destruction But common mußkets do most of the hard fighting. It took only one Joshua, and the thousands of common troops under him, to drive down the walls of cities, and, under wrathful strokes, to make nations fly like sparks from the anvil. It only took one Luther for Germany, one Zwinglius for Switzerland, one John Knox for Scotland, one Calvin for France, and one John Wesley for England. Dorcas as certainly has a miss on to serve as Paul has a mission to preach. The two mites dropped by the Widow into the poor-box will be as much applauded as the endowment of a college, which gets a man’s name into the newspapers. The man who kindled the fire under the burnt offering in the ancient ternptrtad a duty asTtn-perattve as that of the high priest in magnificent robes, walking into the holy of holies under the cloud of Jehovah’s preserce. Yes, tee men with one talent are to save the world, or it will never be saved at all. The men with five or ten talents are tempted to toil chiefly for them selves, to build up their own great name (and work for their own aggrandizement and do nothing for the alleviation of the world’s woes. Ihe cedar of Lebanon standing on the mountain seems to hand down the storms out of the heavens to the. earth, bfit it bears no fruit, while some dwarf pear tree has more fruit on its branches than itcan carry. Better to have one talent, and put it to full use than five hundred wickedly neglected. Sometimes you can not get a settlement with a man, especially if he owes you. He postpones and procrastinates and says, “I’ll see you next week,” or “I’ll see you fiext month.” The tact is? be does not want to settle. Biit when the great day comes M which I am peaking, there will be-Ho escape. We will have to face ali the bills. I have some times been amazed to see how an accountant will run up or or down a long line oi figures. If I see ten or fifteen figures in a line, and I attempt to add them two or three times I make them different leach time. But I have admired the way an accountant will take a long line of figures, and without a single mi*take and with great celerity announced the aggregate. Now. in the. lai-t great fettleiuent there will be a correct account presented. God has kept a •long line of sms, a long of broken Sabbatns, a long line of profane words, a long line of discarded sacraments, a long line of misimproved privileges. They will be addeh up, and before angels and devils and men the aggrega e will be announced. Oh, that will be the great day of settlement- 1 have to ask the question: “Am I ready for it?” It is of more importance to me to answer that question in regard to myself than in regardio you,; and it is of more importance toyou to answer in regard to yourself than in regard to me. Every man for himself in that day. Every woman for herself in that day. “If thou be wise tbonshaltbe for thyself; if thou scornest thou alone shalt bear it.” We are apt to speak of the last day as an occasion of vociferation—great demonstration of power and pomp; but there will be on that uay, I think, a few moments of entire silence. 1 think a tremendous, an overwhelming silence. I think it will be each a silence as the earth never heard. It will be at the moment when all nations are listening for their doom.

I learn also from tms parable of the | text that our degrees of happiness in I heaven will be graduated according to our degrees of usefulness on earth. Several of the commentator* agree in making this parable, the fame one as in Luke, where one man was made ruler over five cities and another made ruler over two cities. Would it be fair and right that the professed Christian man who has lived very near the line between the world and the Church; the man who has often compromised his Christian character; the man who has never spoken out for God; the man who has never been known as a Christian only on communion days; the man whose great struggle has been to see how much of the world he could get and yet win heaven—is it right to suppose that that man will have as grand and glorious a seat in heaven as the mail who gave all his energies of body,mind and soul to the service of God? The dying thief entered heaven,but not with the same startling acclaim as that which greeted Paul, who had gofie under scorchings and across dungeons and through maltreatments into the kingdom of glory. One star differs from another star in glory, and they who toil mighty for Chrißt on eartn snail have a far greater reward than those who have rendered only half a service. Some of yoq are hastening on toward the reward of the righteous. I want to 1 H cbeer you so at the thought that there will be some kind of reward waiting for you. There are Christian people in this house who are very near heaven. 1 This week some of you may cast out into the light of the unsettingsun. I saw a blind man going along the road with his staff! and he kept pounding the earth and then stamping with his foot. I said to I him: “What do you do that for?” “Oh,” he sai *, I can tell by the sound of the ground when lam near a dwelling.” And some of you can tell by the sound of your earthly pathway that you are coming near to your Father’s house. I congratulate you. Ob, weathet-beaten voyagers. The storms are driving you into the harbor. Just as when you were looking for a friend you came up to the gate of this house, and you were talking with the servant, when your friend hoisted the window and shouted: “i ome in! come in!” Just so, when you come to the gate of the future world, and you are talking with death, the black porter at the gate, methinks Christ wifi hoist the window and say: “Come in! come-in! I will make thee ruler over ten cities.” In anticipation of that land I do not wonder that Augustus Toplady, the author of “Rock of Ages,” declared in his last monent; “I have nothing more to pray for; God has given me every thing. Surely no man can live .on earth after the glories I ha\-e witnessed.” Oh, mv brothers and sisters, how sweet it will, be, after the long wilderness march, to eet home. That was a bright moment for the tired dove in the time of the deluge when it found its way safely into the window of the ark.