Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1891 — LACKING IN ONE THING. [ARTICLE]

LACKING IN ONE THING.

IMMORTAL STRENGTH THE BELIEF IN RELIGION. Christ’s Love Essen tial-HU Hand Smooths •ho Wrinkles ot Care—Dr. Talmage's Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at New York and Brooklyn Sunday and Sun day night Text: Mark x., 21, ’One thing thon lackest” He said: I suppose that that text was no more appropriate to the young man of whom I have spoken than it is appropriate to a great multitude of people in this audience. There are many things in which you are not lacking. For instance, you are not lacking in a good home. It is, perhaps, %o more than an hour ago that you closed the door* returning to see whether it was well fastened, of one of the best homes in this city. Neither are you lacking in the refinements and courtesies of life. You understand the polite phraseology of invitation, regard and apology. You have on appropriate apparel, I shall wear no better dress at the wedding than when I come to the marriage of, the King’s Son. ' Neither are you lacking in worldly success. You have not made as much money as you would like to make, but you have an income. While others are false when they say they have no income or are making no money, you have never told that falsehood. You have had a livelihood. Neither are you lacking in pleasant friendship. You have real good friends. If the scarlet fever should come to your house to-night, you know very well who would come and sit up with the sick; or, if death should come, you know who would come in and take your hand tight in theirs with that peculiar grip which means, “I’ll stand by you,” and after the life has fled from the loved one, take you by the arm and lead you into the next room, and while you are gone to Greenwood they would stay in the house and put aside the garments and the playthings that might bring to your mind too sevoroly your great loss. . Friends? You -all have friends.~

Neither are you lacking in your admiration of the Christian religion. There is nothing that makes you so angry as to have a man malign Christ. You get red in the face, and you say: “Sir, I want you to understand that though l am not myself a Christian, I don’t like such tilings said as that in ’ my store,” and the man goes pff,_givIng you a parting salutation, but you hardly' answer him. You are provoked beyond all bounds. Many of you have been supporters of religion and have given more to the cause of Christ than some who profess His faith. There is nothing that would please you more than to see your son or daughter standing at the altar of Christ taking the vows of the Christian. It might be a little hard on you, and might make you nervous and agitated for a little ~Khiievtratytrawoiitdbß‘TiraTi“enotrgh to say: “My child, that is right. Go on. lam glad you haven’t been kept back by my example. I hope some day to join you.” You believe all the doctrines of religion. A man out yonder says: “lam a sinner.” You respond: ‘ -So am I.” Some one says: “I believe that Christ came to save the world.” You say: “So do I.” Looking at your character and your surroundings. I find 1,000 things about which to congratulate you; and yet 1 must tell you in the Ibve and fear of God, and with reference to my last account: “One thing thou lackest.” You need, my friends, in the first place, the element of happiness. Some day you feel wretched. You do not know what is the matter with you. You say; “I did not sleep last night; I think that must be the reason of my restlessness;” or, *‘l have eaten something that did not agree with me, and I think that must be the reason.” And you are unhappy, Omy friends, happiness does not depend upon physical condition. Some of the happiest people I have ever known have been those who have been wrapped in consumption, or stung with neuralgia, or burning with the slow fire of some fever. I shall never forgetone man in my first parish, who. in excruciation of body, cried out: “Mr. Talmage, 1 forget all my pain in the love and joy of Jesus Christ. I can’t think of my sufferings when I think of Christ.” Why, his face was illumined. There are young men in this house who would give testimony to show that there is no happiness outside of Christ, while there is great joy in his service. There are young men who have not been Christians more than six months who would stand up to-night, if I should ask them, and sav in those six months they have had more joy and satisfaction than in all the .years of their frivolity and dissipation. Go to the door of that gin shop to-night, and when the gang of young men come out ask them whether they are happy. They laugh along the street, and they jeer and they shout, but nobody has any idea that they are happy. I could call upon the aged men In this house to give testimony. There are aged men here who tried the world, nnd who tried religion, and they are willing to testify on our side. It was not long ago that an aged man arose in a praying circle and said: “Brethren. I lost my son just as he graduated from college, and it broue my heart; but I am glad now he is gone; he is at rest, escaped from all sorrow and trouble. ’ And then in 18.57 I lost all my property, and you see I am getting old, and it is rather hard upon me; but I am sure God will not let me suffer. He has not taken care of me for seventy-five years now to let me drop out of his bands.” I went into the room of an aged man, his eyesight

nearly gone, his hearing nearly gone, and what do ypu suppose he was talking about? The goodness of God and the joy of religion. He said: “I would like to go over and join my wife on the other side of the flood, and am waiting until the Lord calls me. lain happy now. and shall be happy there.” What is it that gave that aged man so much satisfaction and peace? Physical exuberance? No; it is all gon. Sunshine? He canot see it. The voice of friends? He cannot hear them. It is the grace of God. That is brighter than sunshine, and that is sweeter than music. If a harpist takes a harp and finds that all the strings are broken ! but one string, he does not try to play ! on it. Yet here I will show you an j aged man, the strings of whose joy are i all broken save one,and yet he thrums i it with such satisfaction, such melody that the angels of God stop the swift stroke of their wings and hover about the place until the music ceases. Oh, religion’s ways are ways of pleasants ness and all her paths are peace. And if you have not the satisfaction that is to be found in Jesus Christ, I must tell you. with all the concentrated emphasis of my soul: One thing thou lackest I remark agaih that you lack the element of usefulness. Where is your business? You say it is No. 45 such a street, or No. 260 such a street, or No. 800 such a street. My friend, immortal. your business is wherever there is a tear to be wiped away or a soul to be saved. You may, before coming to Christ, do a great many noble things. You take a loaf of bread to that starving man in the alley; but Tie wants immort.nl bread. You take a pound of candles to that dark shanty. They want the light springs from the throne of God, and you can not take it because you have it not in your own heart. You know that the flight of an arrow depends very much upon the strength of the bow, and I have to tell you that the best bow that was ever made was made out of the cross of Christ; and when religion takes a soul and puts it on that, and pulls it back and lets it fly, every time it brings down a Saul or Goliath. There are people of high social position, and large means, and cultured minds, who, if they would come into the kingdom of God, would se the city on fire with religious awakening. Oh, hear you not the more than million voices of those in these two cities who are uncovered? Voices of those who in these two cities are dying in their sins? They want light. They want bread. They want Christ. They want heaven. Oh, that the Lord would make you a flaming evangel. As for myself, I have sworn before high heaven that I will preach this gospel as well as I can, in all its fullness until every fiber of my body, and every faculty of my mind, and every passion of my soul, is ex haused. But we all have a work to do. I can not do your work, nor can you do ray work, God points us out the place where we are to serve, and yet are there not people in this house who are 30, 40, 50 and 60 years of age. and yet have not done the great work for which they were created? With every worldly equipment: "One thing thou lackest.”

Again? you lack the element of personal safety. Where are those people that associated with you twenty years ago? Where are those people that, fifteen years ago, used to cross South Ferry, or Fulton Ferry, with you to New York? Walk down the street where you were in business fifteen years ago, and see how all the signs have changed. Where are the people gone? How many of them are landed in eternity I can not spy, but many, many. I went to the village of my boyhood. The houses were all changed. I passed one house in which once reside useful lite, and he is in glory now.—ln the next house a miser lived. He devoured widows’ houses, and spent his whole life in trying to make the world worse and worse. And he is gone—the good man and the miser both gone to the same place. Ah, did they go to the same place? It is an infinite absurdity to suppose them both in the same place. If the miser had a harp, what tune did he play on it? Oh, my friends, I commend to you this religion as the only personal safety. When you die, where are you going to? When we leave all these scenes, upon what scenes will we enter? When we were on shipboard, and we all felt that we must go to the bottom, was I right in saying to one next me: “I wonder if we will reach heaven if we do go down to-night?” Was I wise or unwise in asking that question? I tell you that man is a fool who never thinks of the great future. If you pay money you take a receipt. If you buy land you record the deed. Why? Because everything is so uncertain.you want it down in black and white, you say. For a house and lot twenty-five feet front by one hundred deep, all security; but for a soul, vast as eternity, nothing, nothing? If some man or woman, standing in some of these aisles should drbp down, where would you goto. Which is your destiny? Suppose a man is prepared for the future world, what difference does it make to him whether he goes to his home today or goes into glory? Only this dlfererence; If he dies he is better off. Where he had one joy on earth. He will have a million in heaven. When he has a small sphere here, he will have a grand sphere there. Perhaps it would cost you S6O, or SIOO, or $l5O to have your physical life insured, and yet free of charge 1 offer you insurance on your immortal life, payable, not at vour disease, but nojv and to-morrow, and every day and always. I apply my subject to several classes of people before me. First to that great multitude of young people in this house. Some of these young men are in boarding houses. They have but social advantages. They think that no one care' for thel’ - souls. Many of them are on small salaries,

and they are cramped, and bothered perpetually and sometimes their heart fails them. Young man. your bedroom door on the third floor, you will hear a knocking. It will be the hand of Jesus Christ, the young man’s friend saying: “O, young man. let me come in: I will he ; p the, I will comfort thee I will deliver th .” Take the Bible out of the trunk, if it has been hidden away. If you have no courage to lay it on the shelf the table, tike that Bible that’Was given to you by some loved one,-take it out of the trunk and ' lay it dowu on the bottom of the chair then kneel down beside it, and read ' and prey, and pray and read, untill * all your disturbance is gone, and you (feel th at peace which neither earth ; nor hell can rob you of. Thy father’s I God, thy mother’s God, waits for the, O young men! “Escape for thy life!” Escape now! ‘•One thing thou lackest!”

But I apply this subject to the aged —not many here—not many in any assemblage. People do not live to get old. That is the general rule. Here and there an aged man in the house. I tell you the truth. You have lived long enough to know that it cannot satisfy an immortal nature. I must talk to you more reverentially than I do to these other people, while at the same time I speak with great plainness. O father of the weary step, O mother, bent down by the ailments of life, has thy God ever forsaken thee? Through all these years who has been your best friend? Seventy years of mercies! Seventy years of food and clothing! O, how many bright mornings! How many glorious evening hours you have seen! O father, mother, God has been very good to you. Do you feel it? Some of you have children and grandchildren; the former cheered your young life, the latter twine your gray locks in their tiny fingers. Has all the goodness that God has been making pass before you produced no change in yo ir feelings, and must it be said of you. notwithslanding all this: “One thing thou lackest ”

Hear a plain talk about the heavenly. Do you know it will be wor e for prosperous man, if you reject Christ, and reject him finally, that it will be worse for you than those who had it hard in this world, because the contrast will make the discomfiture so ■mueh more tippgfttng,-Au IheMieart rounds for the water brook, as the roe speeds down the hillside, speed ’hou to Christ. Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountains lest thou be consumed! I must make my application to another class of persons—the poor. When you cannot pay your rent when it is due, have you nobody but the landlord to talk to? When the flour is gone out of the barrel and you have not ten cents with which to go to the bakery. and your children are tugging at your dress for something to eat. have you nothing but Ihe world’s charities to appeal to? When winter comes, and there are no coals, and the ash-barrels have no more cinders,who takes car , of you? Have you nobody but the overseer of the poor? But I preach to you a poor man’s Christ. If you do not have in the winter blankets efipugh to cover you in the night, I want to tell you of Him who had not where to lay His head. If you lie on the bare floor, I want to tell you of Him who had for a pillow a hard cross, and whose foot-path was i,he streaming blood of His own heart. Oh, you poor man! Oh, you poor woman! Jesus understands your casc_altogether. Talk it right out to Him tonight. Get down on your floor and say ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Thou wast poor and lam poor. Help me. Thou art ■<ch now, and bring me up to Thy riches.” Will He? You might ,p,s well think thatlk"mother " would take the child that feeds on her breast and dash its life out as to think that God would put aside roughly those who have fled to Him for pity and compassion. Yea, the prophet says: “A woman may forget her suck’ng child, that she should not havecompassion on the son of her womb, but I will not forget thee.” So you and I meet on the sea of life. We come and we go. Some of us have never met before. Some of us will never meet again. But I hail you across the sea. and, with reference to the last great day and with reference to the two great worlds. I cry across the water: “Whitherbound? Whither bound?” I know what service that craft was made for, bit has thou thrown overboard the compass? Is here no helm to guide it? Is the ship at the mercy of the tempest? Is there no gun of distress booming through the storm? With priceless treasures—with treasures aboard worth more than all the Indies—wilt thou never come up out of the trough of that sea? Oh Lord God, lay hold of that man! Son of God, if Thou wert ever needed any where. Thou were needed here. There are so many sins to be portioned. There are so many wounds to be healed. There are so many souls to be saved. Help, Jesus! Help,Holy Ghost! Help, ministering angels from the throne! Help, all sweet memories of the past! Help, all prayers for our future deliverance! Oh. that now, for this the accepted time and the day of salvation you would hear the voice of mercy and live. Taste and see that the Lord is gracious.

In this closing moment of the service when every thing in the house is so favorable, when everything is so still, when God Is so loving, and heaven is so. near,drop your sins and take Jesus. Do not cheat yourself out of heaven Do not do that God forbid that at the last, when it is too late to correct the mistake, a voice should rise from the pillow, or drop from the throne, uttering just four wo?da—four sad, annihilating words: “Ono thing thou lacke&t.’ There were committed in the United Stales last year 4,290 murders and there were 102 legal executions.