Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1891 — THE BURDEN BEARER. [ARTICLE]

THE BURDEN BEARER.

I-V . *■ *'s ~- • -- ■ _ 1 _ Christ Will Carry the Burdens of All. Religion of Uif Day too High for Practical People—God’s Sympathy With All Who Toil—Dr. Talmage’* Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday Text, Psalm Iv., 22. He said: David was here taking his own medicine. If anybody had on him heavy weights, David had them, and yet out of his own experience he advises you and me as to the best way of getting rid of burdens. This is a world- of burden-bearing. Coming into the house of prayer there may be no sign of sadness or sorrow, but where is the man who has not. a conflict? Where is the soul that has not a struggle? And there is not a day of all the year when my text is -not gloriously appropriate, and there is never an audience on the planet where the text does not fit the occasion: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.” 1. There are a great many men who have business burdens. When we see a man harried and perplexed and annoyed in business life we are apt to say: “He ought not to have attempted to carry so much.” Ah, that man may net be to blame at all. When a man plants a business he does not know what will be its outgrowths, what will be its roots, what will be its branches,. There is ma,ny a man with keen foresight and large business faculty who has been flung intQ the dust by unforeseen circumstances springing upon him from ambush. When to buy, when to sell, when to trust, and to what amount of credit, what will be the effect of this new invention of machinery, what will be the effect of that loss of crop, and a thousand other questions perplex business men until the hair is silvered and deep wrinkles are -plowed into the cheek; and the stocks go up by the mountains and go down by the valleys, and they are at their wits’ ends, and staggerdike drunken

men. There never has been a time when there have been such rivalries in business as now. It is hardware against hardware, books against books, chandlery against chandlery, imported article against imported article. A thousand stores in combat with another thousand stores. Never such advantage of light, never such variety of assortment, never so much splendor of show windows, never so much adroitness of salesmen, never so much acuteness of advertising, and amid all these severities of rivalry in b isiness how many men break dTown! Oh, the burden on the shoulder! Oh, the burden on the heart! You. hear that it is avarice which drives these men of business through the street, and that . is the commonly accepted idea. Ido not believe a word of it. The vast multitude of these business men are toiling on for others, to educate their children, to put the wing of protection over their housholds, to have something left so when they pass out of this life their wives and children will not have to goto poor houses—-that is the way I translate this energy in the street and store — the vast majority of that energy. Grip, Gouge, & Co., do not do all the business. Some of us remember when the Central America was comming heme from California it was wrecked. President Authur’s father-in-law was the heroic captain of that ship and went down with most of the passengers. Some of them got off into life-boats, but there was a ybung man returning from California who had a bag of gold in his hand, and as the last boat shoved off from the ship that was to go down, the man shouted to a comrade in the boat: “Here, John, catch this gold: there are $3,000; take it home to my old mother ; it will make her comfortable in her last days.” Grip. Gouge & Co. do not do all the business of the

world. Ah! my friend, do yoi say that God does not care any thing about your worldly business? I tell you God knows more about it than you do. He knows all your perplexities; He knows that mortgage is about to foreclose; He knows what note you cannot pay; He knows what unsalable* goods you have on your shelves; He know#-’all your trials, from the day yon took hold of the first yard stick down to the sale of the last yard of mfcbon. and the God who helped David to be Kbrg, and who helped Daniel to be Prime Minister, and who helped Havelock to be soldier, will help you to discharge all your duties. He is going to help you through. When loss comes and you find your property going, just take this book and put it down by your ledger, and read of the eternal possessions that will come to you through our Lord Jesus Christ. And when your business partner betrays you, and your friends turn against you, just take the insulting letter, put it down on the table, put the Bible by the insulting letter, and then read of the friendship of Him who “sticketh closer than a brother.” 2. There are a great many who have a weight of persecution and abuse upon them. Sometimes society gets a grudge against a man. All his motives are misinterpreted and his good deeds are deprecated. With more virtue than some of the honored and applauded, he runs only against railery and sharp oriticism. When a man begins to go down he has not only the force of natural gravitation, but a hundred hands to aelp him in the precipitation. Men are persecuted for their virtues and their successes. Germanicus said he had just as many bitter antagonists as be had adornments. The charac- • 1 X .« t v- eS-HUT c •

ter sometimes is so lustrous that the weak eyes of envy and jealousy can not bear to look at it. It was their integrity that put Joseph in the pit, and Daniel in the den, and Shadrach in the fire* and sent John the Evangelist to desolate Patmos, and Calvin to the castle of persecution, and John Huss to the stake, and Korah after Moses, and Saul after David, and Herod after Christ. Be sure if you have anything to do for church or state, and you attempt it with all your soul, the lightning will strike you. The world always has had a cross between two thieves for the one who comes to save it. High and holy enterprise has always been followed by abuse. The most sublime tragedy of self-sacrifice has come to burlesque. The graceful gait of virtue Is always followed by grimace and travesty. The sweetest strain of poetry ever written has come to ridiculous parody, and as long as there are virtue and righteousness In the world, there will be something for iniquity to grin at. All along the line of the ages, and in all lands, the cry has been: “Not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber.” And what makes the persecutions of life worse, is that they come from those you have helped, from those to whom you have loaned money or have started in business, or whom you have rescued in some great crisis. I think it has been the history of all our lives—the most acrimonious assault has come from those whom we have benefited, whom we have helped, and that makes it all the harder to bear. A man is in danger of becoming cynical. A clergyman of the Universglist Church went into a neighborhood for the establishment of a church of his denomination, and he was anxious to find some one of that denomination, and he was pointed to a certain house and went there. He said to the man of the house: “I understand you are a Universal!'st; I want you to help me in the enterprise.” “Well,” said the man, “I am a Universalist, but I have a peculiar kind of Universalism.” “What is that?” asked the minister. ‘ ‘Well. ” replied the other, ‘‘l have been out in tne world, and I have been cheated and slandered and outraged and abused until I believe in universal damnation!”

The great danger is that men will become cynical and given to believe, as David was tempted to say, that all men, are liars. Oh, my friends, do not let that be the effect upon your souls! If you can not endure a little persecution, how do you think our fathers endured great persecution? Motley, in his Dutch Republic, tells us of Egmont, the martyr, who condemned to be beheaded, unfastened his collar on the way to the scaffold, and when thev asked him why he did that he said: “So they will not be detained in their work; I want to be ready. ” Oh, how little we have to endure compared with those who have gone before us! Now, if you have come across illtreatment let me tell you you are in excellent company Christ and Luther and Galilio and Columbus and John Jay and Josiah Quincy and thousands of men and women, the best spirits of earth and heaven. Bud»e not an inch, though all hell wreak upon you its vengeance and you be made a target for devils to shoot at. Do you think Christ knows all about persecution? Was he not hissed at? Was he not struck on the cheek? Was he not pursued All the days of His life? Did they not expectorate upon Him? Or. to put it in Bible language; “Tney spit upon him.” And can not he understand what persecution is? “Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee.”

3. There are others who carry great burdens of physical ailments. When sudden sickness has come, and fierce choleras and malignat fevers take the castle of life by storm, we appeal to God; but in these chronic ailments which wear out the strength day after day, and week after week, and year after year, how little resorting to God for solace! Then people depend upon their tonics and their plasters and their cordials rather than upon heavenly stimulants. Oh, how few people there are completely well! Some of you by dint of perseverance and care, have kept living to this time, but how you have had to war against physical ailments! Antediluvians, without medical college and infirmary and apothecary shop, multiplied their years by hundreds; but he who has gone through the gauntlet of disease, in our time, and has come to seventy years of age, is a hero worthy a palm.

The world seems to be a great hospital, and you run against rheumatisms and consumptions and scrofulas and neuralgias and scores of all diseases baptized by new nomenclature. Oh, now heavy a burden sickness is! It takes the color out of the sky and the sparkle out of the wave and the sweetness out of the fruit and the luster out of the night. When the limb 6 ache, when the respiration is painful, when the mouth i# hot, when the ear roars with unhealthy obstructions, how hard it is to be patient and cheerful and assiduous! “Cast thy burdens upon tbeL*rd.” Does your head acne? he w;ore the thorn. Do your feet hurt? His were crushed of the spikes. Is your side painful? He was struck by the spear. Do vou feel like giving way under the burden? His weakness gave way under a cross. While you are in every possible way to try to restore your physical vigor, you are to renSember ' that more soothing than any anodyne,more vitalizing than any stimulant, and more strengthening than any tonic is the prescription of the

text: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He snail .sustain thee.” We hear a great deal of talk now about faith cure, and some people say it cannot be aone and it is a failure. I do* not know but that the chief advance of the Church is to be in that direction. Marvelous things come to me day by day which make me think that if the age of mircles is past it is because the faith of miracles is past. A prominent merchant of New York said to a member of my family: “My mother wants her case mentioned to Mr. Talmage.” This was the case. He said: “My mother had a dreadful absoess from which she suffered untold agonies, and all surgery had been exhausted on her, and worse and worse she grew until we called in a few Christian friends and preceded to pray about it. We commended her case to God, and the abscess began immediately to be cured. She is entirely well how, and without knife and without surgery.” So that case has come to me, and there are a score of other oases coming to our ears from all parts of the earth. Oh, ye who are sick, go to Christ. Oh, ye who are worn out with agonies of body, “cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee!"

Another burden some have to carry is the burden of bereavement. Ah! these are the troubles that weqr us out. If we lose our property, by additional industry, perhaps, we may bring back the estranged fortune; if we lose our good name, perhaps by reformation of morals we may achieve again reputation for integrity; but who will bring back the dear departed? Alas! for these empty cradles and these trunks of childish toys that will never be used again. Alas! for the empty chair and the silence in the halls that will never echo again to those familiar footsteps. Alas! for the cry of widowhood ana orphanage. What bitter Marahs in the wilderness, what cities of the dead. What long black shadows from the wing of death, what eyes sunken with grief, what hands tremulous with bereave- 0 ment, what instruments of music shut now because there are no fingers to play on them! Is there no relief for such souls? Aye, let the soul ride into the harbor of my text. Now, the grave is brighter than the ancient tomb where the ‘lights were kept perpetually burning. The scarred feet of Him who was “the resurrection and the life” are on the broken grave hillock, while the voices of angels ring down the sky at the coronation of another soul come home to glory. Then there are many who carry the burden of sin. Ah, we all carry it until in the appointed way that burden is lifted. We need no Bible to prove that the whole race is ruined. What a spectacle it would be if we could tear off the mask of human defilement or beat a drum that would bring up the whole army of the world’s transgressions—the deception, the fraud and the rapine and the murder and the crime of all the centuries! Ay, if I could sound the trumpet of resurrection in the soul of the best men in this audience, and all the dead sins of the past should come up, we could not endure the sight. Sin, grim and has put its clutch upon the immortal souls and that clutch will never relax unless it be under the heel of Him who came to destroy the works of the devil. Oh, to have a mountain of sin on the soul! Is there no way to have the burden moved? Oh, yes, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” The sinless One came to take the consequences of our sin! And I know He is in earnest. How do I know it? By the streaming temples and the streaming hands as He says, “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden,and I will give you rest. ” Why will prodigals live on swines’ husks when the robe and the ring and the father’s welcome are ready? Why go wandering over the great Sahara Desert of your siu when you are invited to the gardens of God,the trees of life, and the fountains of living water? Why be houseless and homeless forever when you may become the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty?