Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1890 — THE PLOW’S DISCIPLE. [ARTICLE]

THE PLOW’S DISCIPLE.

IN DEEPEST FURROW IS FOUND GREATEST REWARD; The Standard of God ‘Sat Up la Every Field, and the Crosa the Guide to the Harvest—Dr., Talmsge’s Sermon. Bev. Dr. Talntage preached at Lebanon, Pa., last Sunday. Subject, “harming a Gospel Type.” Text: I Kings, xix, 19, He said: Farmers of America, accept my salutation. Our text puts us down into the plow’s furrow, where many of us have, been before. My boyhood passed on a farm and my father a farmer, your style of life is familiar to me. One of my earliest recollections is that of my father coming in from the hot harvest field exhausted, the perspiration dropping from his forehead and chin, and fainting on the door sill, and my mother resuscitating him, until, seeing the alarm of the household, he said: “Don’t be frightened; I got a little tired, and the 6un was hot, but I am all right now. ” And I remember mother seated at the table, often saying: “Well, I am too tired to eat.” The fact is that 1 do not think the old folks got thoroughly rested until they laid down in the graveyard back of Somerville to take the last sleep. Officeseekers go through the land, and they stand on political platforms. and they tell the farmers the story about the independent life of a farmer, giving flattery where they ought to give sympathy. No class of people in this country has it harder than the farmers. Independent of what? Of the curculio that stings the peach trees? of the rust in the wheat? of the long rain with the rye down? Independent of the grass*, hopper? of the locust? of the armyworm? of the potato bug? Independent of the drought that burns up the harvest? Independent of the cow with the hollow-horn? or the sheep with the foot-rot? or the pet horse with a nail in his hoof? Independent of the cold that freezes out the winter grain? Independent of the snowbank out of which he must shovel himself? Independent of the cold weather when he stands thrashing his numbed fingers around his body to keep them from being frosted? Independent of the frozen ears and frozen feet? Independent of what? Fancy farmers who have made their fortunes in the city and go out into the country to build houses with all the modern improvements, and make farming a luxury, may not need any solace; but the yeomanry who get their living out of the soil, and who that way have to clothe their families and educate their children, and pay their taxes, and. meet the indebtedness on mortgaged farms—such men find a terrific struggle. And my hope is that this great national farmers’ encampment may do something toward lifting the burdens of the agriculturists. Yes. we nearly all of us born in the country. We dropped corn in the hill,, and went, on Saturday to the mill, tying the grist in the center of the sack, so that the contents on either 6ide the horse balanced each other; and drove the cattle afield, our bare feet wet with the dew, and rode the horses with the halter to the brook until we fell off, and hunted the mow for

nests until the feathered occupants went cackling away. So we all understand rustic allusions. The Bible is full of them. In Christ’s sermon on the Mount, you see the full-blown lilies and the glossy back of the crow’s wing as it flies over Mount Olivet. David and John, Paul and Isaiah find in country life a source of frequent illustration, while Christ takes the responsibility of calling God a farmer, declaring: “My Father is the Hqpbandman.” Noah was the first farmer. We say nothing about Cain, the tiller of the soil. Adam was a gardener on a large scale, but to Noah was given all the acres of the earth. Elisha was an agriculturist, not culturing a ten-acre lot, for in my text you find him plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. In Bible times land was so plenty and the inhabitants so few, that Noah was right when he gave to every inhabitant a certain portion of land; that land, if cultured, ever after to be his own possession. They were net small crops raised in those times, for though the arts were rude, the plow turned up very rich soil, and barley, and cotton, and flax,

and all kinds of grain came up at the call at the harvesters. Pliny tells of one stalk of grain that had on it between throe and four hundred ears. The rivers and the brooks, through artificial channels, were brought down to the roots of the corn, and to this habit of turning a river wherever it was wanted. Solomon refers when ho says; "The King's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and he turneth it as the rivers of water aro turned, whitli ersoever Ho will." The wild beasts were caught, ar. then a hook was put into their nose, and then they weie led over the field, and to "rat God refers when He says to wicked Sennacherib: "I will put a hook in thy noe<, and bring the back by the way which thou earnest" And G- d has a hook in every man's nose, whether It be Nebuchadnezzar or Ahab or Herod. He may think himself very independent but some time in his life, in the hour of bis death, he will find that thi Lord Almighty has a hook in his nose. Thife was the rule in regard to the culture of the ground: "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an <ass together, ” illustrating the folly of ever putting intelligent and useful and p.labia men in association with the stubborn and the tramahageble. The vast of trouble in the churohes iard in rsformatory institutions comes from tho disregard of this command of

the .Lord: “Thon shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.” There were large amounts of property invested in cattle. The Moabites paid 100, 000 sheep as an annual tax. Job had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 600 yoke of oxen. The time' of vintage was ushered in with mirth and music. The clusters of the wine were put into the wine-press, and then five men would get into the press and trample out the juice from the grape until their garments were saturated with the wine and had become the emblems of slaughter. Christ Himself, wounded until covered with the blood of crucifixion, made U9e of this allusion when the question was asked: “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like one who treadeth the wine-vat?” He responded: “I have trodden the wine-press alone.” In all ages there has been great honor paid to agriculture. Seveneights of the people in every country are disciples of the plow. A government is strong as it is supported by an athletic and industrious yeomanry. So long ago as before the fall of Carthage, Strabo wrote twenty-eight books on agriculture; Hesiod wrote a poem on the same subject—“ The Weeks and Days.” Cato was prouder of his work on husbandry than of his military conquests. But I must not be tempted into a discussion of agricultural cons quests. Standing amid the harvests and orchards and vineyards of the Bible, and standing amid the harvests and orchards and vineyards of our own country—l want to run put the analogy between the production of crops and the growth of grace in the soul—all these sacred writers making use of that analogy.

In the first place I remark, in grace as in the fields, there must be a plow. That which theologians call conviction is only the plowshare turning up the sins that have been rooted and matted in the soul. A farmer said to his indolent son: “There is a hundred dollars buried deep in that field.” The son went to work and plowed the field from fence to fence, and he plowed it very deep, and then complained that he had not found the money; but when the crop had been gathered, and sold for a hundred dollars more than any previous year, then the young man took tho hint as to what his father meant when he said there was a hundred dollars buried down in that field. Deep plowing for a crop. Deep plowing for a soul. He who makes light oi sin will never amount to anything in the Church or in the world. If a man speaks of sin as though it were an inaccuracy or a mistake, instead of the loathsome, übominable, consuming and damning thing that God hates, that man will never yield a harvest of usefulness.

My word is to all Sabbath school teachers, to all parents, to all Christian workers: Plow deep! And if in your own personal experience you are apt to take a lenient view of the sinful side of your nature, put down into your soul the ten commandments which reveal the holiness of God, and .that sharp and glittering coulter will turn up your soul to the deepest depths. If a man preaches to you that you are only a little out of order by reason of sin, and that you need only a little fixing up, he deceives you! You have suffered an appalling injury by reason of sin. There are quick poisons and slow poisons, but the druggist could give you one drop that would kill the body. And sin is like that drug; so virulent, so poisonous, so fatal that one drop is enough to kill the soul.

But what means all this crooked plowing, these crooked furrows, the repentance that amounts to nothing, the repentance that ends in nothing? Men groan over their sins, but get no better. They weep, but their tears are not counted. They get convicted, but not converted. What is the reason? I remember that on the farm we set a standard with a red flag at the other end of the field. We kept our eye on that. We aimed at that. We plowed up to that. Losing sight of that we made a crooked furrow. Keeping our eyes on that we made a straight furrow. Now, in this matter of conviction we must have some standard to guide us. It is a red standard that God has set at the other end of the fiold. It is the Cross. Keeping your eye on that you will make a straight furrow. Losing sight of it you will make a crooked furrow. Plow up to the Cross. Aim not at either end of the horizontal piece of the Cross, but at the upright piece, at the center of it, the heart of the Son of God who bore your sins and made satisfaction. Crying and weeping will not bring you through. “Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Savior to give repentance.” Oh, plow up to the Cross!

Again, I remark, in grace as in the field there must be a sowing. In the autumnal weather you find the farmer going across th~ fiold at a stride of about twenty.three inches, and at evat-y stride ho puts his hand into the sa *• c of grain and he sprinkles the se ! 1-corn over the field. It looks silly t •- man who does cot know what he . doing. He is doing a very important work. He is scattering the winter grain, and though the snow may come the next year, there will be a great crop. Now, that is what we are doing when we are preaching the Gospel —we are scattering the seed. It is the foolishness of preaching, but it is the winter grain: and though the snow of worldliness may come down upon it, it will yield after awhile glorious harvest. Let us be sure we sow the right kind of seed. Sow mullen stalk and mullen stock will come up. Sow Canada thistles and Canada thistles will come up. Sow wheat and wheat will come up. Let us distinguish h*. tween truth and error. Let us know the difference between wheat and hellebore, oats and henbane. Again, l remark, in grace as lo the farm there must be a harrowing. I refer now not to a harrow that goes

over the field in order to prepare thi groupd for the seed, but a harrow which goes over after the seed is sown, lest the birds pick up the seeds, sinking it down into the earth so that in can take root. There are new kinds of harroy, but ther* harrow as I remember it was made of bars of wood nailed across each other, and the under side of each bar was furnished with sharp teeth, and when the horses were hitched to it, it went tearing and leaping across the field, driving the seed down into the earth until it sprung up in the harvest. Bereavement, sorrow, persecution, are the Lord’s harrows to sink the Gospel truth into your heart. There were truths that you heard thirty years ago, that have not affected you until recently. Some great trouble came over you, and the truth was harrowed in and it has come up. What did God mean in this country in 1857? For a century there was the Gospel preached, but a great deal of it produced no result. Then God harnessed a wild panic to a harrow of Commercial disaster, and that harrow went down Wall street and up State street until the whole land was torn to pieces, as it had never been before. Wbat followed the harrow? A great awakening, in which there were 600,000 souls brought into the Kingdom of our Lord’. No harrow, no crop. Again, I remark, in grace as in the farm there must be a reaping. Many Christians speak of religion as though it were a matter of economics or insurance. They expect to reap in the next world. Oh, no! Now is the time to reap. Gather up the joy of the Christian religion this morning, this afternoon, this night. If you have not as much grace as you would like to have, thank Ged for what you have, and pray for more. You are not worse enslaved than Joseph, no worse troubled than was David, no worse scourged than was Paul. Yet, amid tho rattling of fetters, and amid the gloom of dungeons, and amid the horror of shipwreck, they trinmphed in the grace of God. The weakest man here has 500 acres of . spiritual joy, ail ripe. Why do you not go and reap it? You have been groaning over your infirmities for thirty years. Now give one round shout over your emancipation. You say you have it so hard; you might have it worse. You wonder why this great cold trouble keeps revolving through your soul, turning and turning, with a black hand on the crank. An, that trouble is the grindstone on which you are to sharpen your sickle. To the fields! Wake up! Take off your green spectacles, your blue spectacles, your black spectacles. Pull up the corners of your mouth as far as you pull them down. To the fields! Reap! reap!

Again, I remark, in grace as in farming there is a time for threshing, I tell you bluntly that is death. Just as a farmer beats the wheat out of the straw, so death beats the soul out of the body. Every sickness is the stroke of the flail, and the sick-bed is the threshing-floor. What say you, is death to a good man only taking the wheat out of the straw? That is all. An aged man has fallen asleep. Only yesterday you saw him in the sunny porch playing with his grandchildren. Calmly he received the message to leave this world. He baae a pleasant good-by to his old friends. The telegraph carries the tidings, and on swift rail-trains the kindred comos, wanting once more to look on the face of dear old grandfather. Brush back the gray hairs from his brow; it will never ache again. Put him away in the slumber of the tomb. He will not be afraid that night. Grandfather was never afraid of anything. He will rise in the morning of the resurrection. Grandfather was always the first to rise. His voice has already mingled with the doxology of heaven. Grandfather always did sing in church. Anything ghastly in that? The threshing of the wheat out of the straw. That is all. I must now speak of the garnering. Where is the garner? Need I tell youP Oh, ne. So many have gone out from your own circles—yea. from your own family, that you have had your eyes on that garner for many a year. What a hard time some of them had. They took the ‘ ‘cup pf trembling” and they put it to their hot lips and they cried: • ‘lf it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” With tongues of burning agony they cried: “O Lord, deliver my soul!” But they got over it. They all got over it. Garnered! Their tears wiped away; their battles all ended 1 their burdens 'lifted.' Garnered! The Lord of the harvest will not allow those sheaves to perish in equinox. Garnered! Some of us remember, on the farm, that the sheaves were put on the top of the rack, which Burmounted the wagon, and these sheaves were pilod higher, and after a while the horses started for the barn, and these sheaves swayed to and fro in the wind, and the old wagon creaked and the horses made a struggle and pulled so hard the harness came up in loops of leather on their backs, and when the front wheel struck the elevated floor of the barn it seemed as if the load would go no farther, until the workmen gave a great shout, and then with, one tremendous strain the horses pulled in the load; then they were unharnessed, and forkful after forkful of grain fell into the mow. Oh, my friends, our getting into heaven may be a pull, a very hard pull, but these sheaves are bound to go in. The Lord of the harvest has promised it. God shall send the harvest rolling into the eternal triumph, while all up »nd down the sky the cry is heard: “Harvest home! harvest homo!” Rev. Marcus L. Taft expects to sail for China on September 4. He will be accompanied by Dr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Jones and Rev. and Mrs. Isaac T. Headland, who are to be identified with the Peking University.