Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1889 — TALLAGE AT HOME. [ARTICLE]

TALLAGE AT HOME.

The Brooklyn Divine Holds Forth In the Tabernacle. He Discourses to an Overflowing Congregation on “The Sunrise.” Rev., T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., was welcomed home by an overflowing eonAt the opening of the service the hymn beginning, Welcome, sweet day of feat. That saw the Lord-arise, was sung with fine effect. Dr. Talmage's subject was: “The Sunrise,” and his text: “The day is at hand.” Romans xiii, 12. He said: Back from the mountains and the seaside, and the springs, and the farm-house, your cheek bronzed and your spirits lighted, I hail you home again with the words of Gehazi to the Shunammite: “Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband' is it well With the child*” On some aces I see the mark of rec ent grief, but all along the track of tears I see tfie story of resurrection and reunion when all tears are done; the deep plowing of the keel, followed by the flash of the phosphoresence. Now that I have asked you in regard to your welfare, you naturally ask how i am. Very well, thank you. Whether it was the bracing air of the Colorado mountains twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea. or the tonic atmosphere of the Pacific coast, or a bath in the surf of Long Island beach, or whether it is the joy of standing m this great group of warm hearted friends, or whether it is a new appreciation of the goodness of God, I cannot tell. I simply know lam grandly and gloriously and inexpressibly happy. It is said that John Moffatt, the great Methodist preacher, occasionally got fast in his sermon, and to extricate himself would cry “Hallelujah!” I am in no such predicament to-day, but I am full of the same rhapsodic ejaculation. Starting out this morning on a new ecclesiastical year, I want to give you the key note of my next twelve months’ ministry. I want, to set it to the tune of Antioch, Ariel and Coronation. Some time ago we had a new stop put in this organ—a new trumpet stop - and I want to put a new trumpet stop into my sermons. In all our Christian work you and I want more of the element of gladness. That man has no right to say that Christ never laughed. Do you suppose that he was glum at the wedding in Cana of Galilee? Do you suppose Christ was unresponsive when the children clambered over his knee and shoulder at his own invitation! Do you suppose that the evangelist meant nothing when he said of Christ: “He rejoiced in spirit!” Do you believe tiiat the divine Christ who pours all the water over the rocks at Vernal falls, Yosemite, does not believe in the sparkle and gallop and tumultuous joy and rushing raptures of human life? 1 believe not only that the morning laughs, and that the mountains laugh, and that the seas laugh, and that the cascades laugh, but that Christ laughed. Moreover, take a laugh and a tear into an alembic, and assay -them, and testthem, and analyze them, and you will often find as much of the pure gold of religion in a laugh as in a tear. Deep spiritual joy always shows itself in facial illumination. John Wesley said he was sure of a good religious impression being produced because of what he calls the great laughter ho saw among the people. Godless merriment is blasphemy anywhere, but expression of Christian joy is appropriate everywhere. Moreover, the outlook of the world ought to stir us to gladness. Astronomers recently disturbed many people by telling' them that there is danger of stellar collision. We have been told through the papers by these astronomers that there are worlds coming very near together, and that we shall have plagues and wars and tumults and perhaps the world’s destruction. Do not be scared. If you have ever stood at a railroad center, where ten or twenty or thirty rail tracks cross each other, and seen that by the movement of the switch one or two inches the train shoots this way and that, without colliding, then you may understand hour fifty worlds may come within an inch of disaster, and that inch be as good as a million mile*. If a human switchtender can shoot the trams this way and that without harm, cannot the Hand that for thousands of years has upheld tne universe keep our little world out of harm’s wav? Christian geologists tell us that this world was million of years in building. Well, now, I do not think God would lake millions of years to build a house which was to last only six thousand years. There is nothing in the world or outside the world, terrestial or astronomical, to excite dismay. I wish that some stout Gospel breeze might scatter all the malaria of human foreboding. The sun rose this morning at about half past 5, and I think that is just about the hour in the world’s history. “The day is at hand.” The first ray of dawn I see in the gradual substitution of diplomatic skill for human butchery. Within the last twenty-five years there have been international differencfls.wMch,would have, brought a shook of arms in any other day, but which were peacefully ad.usted, the pen taking tne Pliye nf thfl ftwnrd - ' That Alabama question in any other age of tho world would have caused war do- I tween the United States and England, i How was it settled ? By men of war off the Narrows, or off the Mersey ? By the Gulf j Stream of the ocean crossed by a gulf stream of human blood? By the pathway of nations incarnadined? No. A few wise men go into a quiet room at Geneva, talk the matter over, and telegraph to Washing- ' ton and to London : “All settled.” Peace. Peace. England pays to the United States the amount awarded—pays really more than she ought to have paid. But still, all that Alabama broil is settled—settled forever. Arbitration instead of bat:!e. So, the quarrel eight or nine years ago about tho Canadian fisheries in any other age -would have caused war between the United States and England. England said: “Pay me for the invasion of my Canadian fisheries.” The United States said: “1 will not pay anything.” Well, the two nations say: “I guess we had better leave the: wliolo matter to a commission ” The commission is appointed, and the commission examines the affair, and the commission reports, and pay we ought, pay we must, pay we do. Not a pound of powder burned, not a cartridge bitten off, no one hurt so much as by the scratch of a pin. Arbitration instead of battle. So the Samoan controversy in any other age would have brought Germany and tho United States into bloody collision. But all is settled. Arbitration instead of battle. France will never again.. I think, through peceadilio of ambassador, bring on a battle with other nations. She sees that God in punishment of Sedan, blotted out the French empire, and the only aspirant for that throne who had any right of expectation dies in a war that has not even the dignity of being respectable. What is that, blush on tho cheek of England today' What is the leaf that England would like to tear out of her history ? The Zulu war. Down with the sword and up with the treaty. We in this country might better have settied our sectional difficulties by arbitration than by the thrust of the sword. Philanthropy said to the north: “PAy downa certain amount of money for the purchase of the slaves, and let all those born after a certain time be boro free.’? Philanthropy : at the same time said to the south: “You ' sell tho slaves, and get rid of this great national contest aDd trouble.” The north replied: “I won’t pay a cent.” The south replied: “I won’t sell.” War! War! A : million dead men, and a national debt which ' might havo ground this nation to powder. 1 Why did we not Ist Willi am H. Seward, or New York, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, go out and spend a few davs •under the tree on the banks of the Potomac and talk the matter ever, and settle it, 8s I settle it they could, rather than tho north , pay in cost of war, four billion seven hunI dred million dollars, and the south pay four billion seven hundred and fifty million dollars, the destroying angel leaving the

firstborn dead in so many bouses all ihe way from the Penobscot to the Alabama. Ye aged men, whose sons fell in the strife, do you not think that would have been better? Oh yes! we have come to believe, I think, in this country, that arbitration is better than battle. I may be mistaken, but I hope that the last war between Christian nations is ended. Barbarians may mix their war paint, and Afghan and Zulu hurl poisoned arrows, but I think Christian nations have gradually learned that war is disaster to victor as well as vanquished, and that almost anything bought by blood is bought at too dear a price. I wish to God mikht be a model of willingness for arbitration. No need of killing another-Indian. No need of sacrificing any more brave Gen. Custers. Stop exasperating the red man, and there will be no more arrows shot out from the reservation. A general of the United States army, in high repute throughout this land, and who, perhapsfhas been in more Indian . wars than any .other officer, -and who has been wounded again and again in behalf of our government in battle against the Indians, told me that all the wars that had ever occurred between Indians and white men had been provoked hy white men, and that there was no exception to the rule. While we are arbitrating with Christian nations, let us toward barbarians carry ourselves in a manner unprovocative of contest.

I inherit a large estate, and the waters are rich with fish, find the woods are songful with birds, and my cornfields are silken and golden. Here is my' sister s grave. Ont.yonder, under the large tree, my father died. An invader comes, and proposes to drive me off and take possession of my property. He crowds me back, he crowds mo on, and crowds me into a eloser corner, until after a while I say: “Stand, back, don’t crowd me any more, or I’ll strike. What right have you to come here and drive me off of my premises! I got this farm from my father, and he got it from his father. \v hat right have you to come here and molest me!” You blandly say: “Oh, I know more than you do. I belong to a higher civilization. I cut my hair shorter than you do. I could put this ground to a great deal better use than you do ” And you keep crowding me back and crowding me on into a closer corner and closer corner, until one day I look around upon my suffering family, and fired by their hardships I hew you in twain. Forthwith all the worid comes to your funeral to pronounce eulogium, comes to toy execution to anathematize me. You are the hero, lam the culprit Behold the United States government and the North American Indian. The red man has stood more wrongs than 1 would, or you. We would have struck sooner, deeper. That which is right in defense of a Brooklyn home or a New York home is right in defense of a home on top of the Rocky mountains. Before this dwindling red race dies completely out, I wish that this generation might by common justice utone for the inhumanity of its predecessors. In the day of God s judgement, 1 would rather there be a blood smeared Modoc than a swindling United States officer on an Indian reservation ! One man was a barbarian and a savage, and never pretended to be anything but a barbarian and a savage. The other man pretended to be a representative of a Christian nation. Notwithstanding all this, the general disgust was ami the substitution of diplomatic skill for the glittering edge- of keen steel is a sign unmistakable that “the day is at hand.” I find another ray of the dawn in the compression of the world’s distances^w hat a slow, snail like, almost impossible thing would have been the world’s rectification with fourteen hundred millions of population and no facile means of communication; but now, through telegraphy for the eye and telephonic intimacy for the ear, and through steamboating and railroading, the twenty-five thousand miles of the world’s circumference are shriveling up into insignificant. brevity. Hong Kong is nearer to Nexv York than a few -years ago New Haven was; Bombay, Moscow, Madras, Melbourne within speaking distance. Purchase a telegraphic chart, and by the bluq lines see the telegraphs of the land, and by the red lines the cables under the ocean! You see what opportunity this is going to give for the final “movements of Christianity. A fortress may be months or years in building, but after it is constructed it may do all its work -in twenty - minutes, Christianity lias been planting its batteries for nineteen centuries and may po on in the work through other centuries: but when those batteries are thorough y planted, those fortresses are fully Duiit, they may atl do their work in twenty-four hours. The world sometimes derides the church for slowness of movement. Is science any quicker! Did it not take science five thousand six hundred and fifty two years to find out so simple a thing as the circulation of the human blood! With the earth and the sky full of electricity. science look five thousand eight hun--dred years before it even guessed t hat there was any practical use that might be made of this subtle and mighty element. When good men take possession of all these scientific forces, and all these agencies of invention, 1 do not know that the redemption of the world will be more than the work of half a day. Do we not-read ihe queen’s speech at the proroguing of parliament the day before in London! If that be so. is it anything marvelous to believe that In . Twenty,-J Qur-hAurs.,a»«iy.in*-eu»amnisatk>a can reach the whole e irth? Suppose Chrißt should descend on the nations—many expect that Christ will uome among the nations personally- suppose ihut to-morrow morning the Son of God from a hovering cloud should descend upon these cities. Would not that fact be known all the world over in t.wanly-four hours! Suppose he should preseut bis Gospel in a lew words saying: “1 am the Son of Gcd; I came to pardon all your sins and to heal all your sorrow; to C rove that lam a supernatural being I ave just descended from the clouds; do you believe me. and do you believe me now!” \\ by, a 1 the telegraph stations of the ear.h would be crowded as none of them were ever crowded just.after a shipwreck. I tell you all these things to show you it is not among the impossibilities or even the improbabilities that Christ will conquer the whole earth, and do it instanter when the time comes. There are fore tokening* in the air. Something great is going to happen. Ido not think that Jupiter is going to run us down or that the axle ; of the world is going to break: hut 1 mean something great for the world’s blessing and not for the worlds damage is going to happen, I think the world has had it hard enough. Enough, the London plagues. Enough, tho Asiatic cholera. Enough, the wars. Enough, the shipwrecks. Enough, the conflagrations, I think our world could stand right well a S-ocession of prosperities and triumphs. etter be on the lookout. Better have your observatories open toward the heavens, and the lenses of your most- powerful telescopes well polishort. Better have all your Leyden jars ready for some new pulsation of mighty influence. Better havo new fonts of type in your printing offices to sot up some astounding good news. Better nave some new banner that lias never been carried, ready for sudden processions. Better have the bells in your church towers well hung, and rupe within reach, that you may ring out the marriage of the King’s Son. Cleanse all your court houses, for tho Judge of all the earth may appear. Lot all your legislative halls be gilded, for tho great Lawgiver may be about to come. Drive off the thrones of depotism all tho occupants, for the King of heaven and earth may be about foreign The darkness of the night is blooming and whitening into the lilies of morning cloud, and the lilies reddeninfr into the roses of stronger day—lit garlands, whether white or for him on whoso head are many crowns. “The day »at hand !«- One more ray of the dawn I see in facts chronological Knd mathematical. Come now, do not let us do another stroke of work until we havo settled oue matter. 3Vhat is going to bo the final issue at this, great contest hetween stn and righteousness! Which is going to prove himself the stronger. God or Diabolus! Is this world going to be all garden .or all desert! Now let us have that matter settled. If we believe Isaiah and Ezekiel un i Hosea, and Mirah and Malachi, and John and Potetr, and Paul and Christ, we believe that it is going to be ail garden. But let us have it settled. Let us know whether we are

working on totrard. a dead failure. If there is a child in your house sick, and you are sure he is going to get well, you sympathize with present pains, but all the foreDodimr is gone. If you are in a cyclone off the Florida coast, and the captain assures you the vessel is staunch and the winds are changing for a better quarter, and he is sure he will bring you safe into the harbor, you patiently submit to present distress with the thought of safe arrival. Now I want to know whethei®we are coming on toward dismay, darkness and defeat, or on toward light and blessedness. You and I believe the latter, and if so. every year we spend is one year subtracted from the world’s woe, and every event that passes, whether bright or dark, brings us one event nearer a happy consummation, and by all that is inexorable in chronology and mathematics I commend you to good cheer and courage. If there is anything in arithmetic, If you subtract two from five and leave three, then by every roiling sun we ace coming 08-teward a magnificent terminus. Then every winter passed is one severity less for our poor world. Then every summer passed by brings us nearer unfading arboresoenee. Put- your algebra down on the top of your bible and rejoice.

If it is nearer morning at 3 o’clock than it is at 2, if it is nearer morning at 4 o’clock than it is at 3, then we are nearer the dawn of the world’s deliverance. God’s clock seems to go very slowly, but the pendulum swings and the hands move, and it will yet strike noon. The sun and the moon stood still once; they will never stand still again until they stop forever. If you believe arithmetic as well as your Bible, you must believe we are nearer the dawn. “The day is at hand.” There is a class of phenomena which makes me think that the spiritual and the heavenly world may, alter a whiie, make, a demonstration in this world which will bring all- moral and -spiritual things to a climax. Now, I am nn spiritualist; butevery intelligent man has noticed that there are strange and mysterious things which indicate to him that perhaps the spiritual world is not so far off as sometimes we conjecture, and that after a while, from the spiritual and heavenly world there may be a demonstration upon our world for its betterment. Wo call it magnetism, or we call it mesmerism, or wo call it electricity, because we want some term to cover up our ignorance. I do not know what that is. I never heard an audible voice from the other world. lam persuaded of this, however: that the veil between this and the next is getting thinner and miner, and that perhaps after a while, at the call of God—not at the call of tho Davenport brothers, or Andrew Jackson Davis—some of the old scriptual warriors, some of the spirits of other days mighty for God—a Joshua, or a Caleb, or a David, or a Paul—may come down and help us in this battle against uprighteousness. Oh, how I would tike to have tnem here—him of the Red Sea, him of the valley of Ajalon, him of' Mars HHI. History says that Robert Clayton, of the English cavalry, at the close of a war bought up all the old cavalry horses Jest they be turned out to drudgery and hard work, and. bought a piece of ground at Naversmire heath and turned these old war horses into the thickest and richest pasture to spend the rest of their days for what they had done in other days. One day a thunder storm came up, and these war horses mistook the thunder of the skies for the thunder of battle, and they wheeled into line —no riders on their backs—they wheeled into tine ready for the fray. And I doubt me whether, when the last thunder of this battle for God and truth goes booming through the heavens, the old scriptural warriors can keep their places on their thrones. Methinks they will spring into the fight and exchange crown for helmet, and palm branches for weapon, and come down out of the king’s galleries into the arena, crying: “Make room! I must fight in this great Armageddon.” My beloved people. I preach,this sermon because I want you to toil vvitti the sunlight in your faces. 1 want you old men to understand before you die that all the work you did rior God while yet your ear was alert and your loot fleet is going to be counted uu in the final victories. I want all theso younger people to understand that when they toil for God they always win the day; that all prayers are answered and all Christian work is in some way effectual, and that a.l heaven is on our side-saintly, cherubic, 1 seraphic, aFchanglic, omnipotent, chariot and throne, doxology and procession, principalities and dominion, he who hath the moon undef his feet, and ali the armies of heaven on white horses. Brother! brother! ali I am afraid of is, not tfiat Christ will lose the battle, but that you and I will not get into it quick enough to do something worthy of our blood bought immortality. U)b, Christ! how shall I meet thee, thou of the scarred brow and the scarred back and the scarred hand and the scarred foot and the scarred breast, if I have no scars or wounds gotten in thy service! It shall not be so. I-step out to day in front of the battle. Como on, you foes of God, I dare you to the combat. Come on, with pens dipped in malignancy. Come on, with tongues forked and viperine and adderous. Come on, with types soaked iri the scum of the eternal pit I defy you 1 Come on! I bare m,v brow, I uncover my heart.' Strike! I cannot see my Lord until 1 have been hurt for Christ. If we do not suffer with him on earth we cannot glorify with him im-irea\*eir. Tffke gOoa h;e'art. ''Gn f On! On! See! the skies have brightened I See! the hour is about to come! Pick out ail the cheeriest of the - affthetrrs.' 'Lbf the orchestra string their best instruments. “The night is far spent the day is at hand.”