Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1892 — BRANCHES OF PALM. [ARTICLE]

BRANCHES OF PALM.

Yalm Trees are Garden and Store House and Wardrobe. o gamething Must Suffer for Every Worthy Triumph—Dr. Talmage’s Sunday Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Text: John xii, 13: ‘‘They took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him.” He said: How was that possible? How could palm branches be east in the way of Christ as He approached Jerusalem? There are scarcely any Slim trees in Central Palestine. ven the one that was carefully guarded for many years at Jericho has gone. I went over the road by which Christ approached Jerusalem, and there are plenty of olivetrees., and fig trees, but no palm trees that I could see. You must remember that the climate has changed; ~~ The palm Jree likes water, but by the cutting down of the forests, which are leafy prayers for rain, the land has become unfriendly to the palm tree. Jericho once stood in seven miles of palm grove,. was crowned with calms. The Dead Sea has on its banks the trunks of palm trees that floated down from some old-time palm grove and are preserved from decay by the salt which ; they received from the Dead ‘‘Sea. Let woodmen spare the trees of America, if they would not ruinously change the climate and bring to the soil barrenness instead of Thanks to God and the Legislatures for Arbor day, which plants trees, trying to atone for the ruthlessness Which has destroyed them.' Yes, my text is in harmony with the condition ofd;hat country on the morning of Palm Sunday. ~ About 3,000,000 people have come to Jerusalem to attend the religious festivities. Great news! Jesus will enter Jerusalem ■ to-day. The sky is red with the j morning, and the people are flocking ! to the foot of Olivet, and up and over the southern shoulder of the mountain, and the procession coming out from the city meets the procession escorting Christ, as he comes toward the city. There is a turn in the road, where Jerusalem suddenly bursts upon the vision. We had ridden that day all the way from Jericho, and had visited the ruins of the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and were somewhat weary »f sight-seeing, when there suddenly arose before our vision Jerusalem, the religious Capital of all Christiap ages. That was the point of obserA ration where my text comes in. Alexander rode Bucephalus. Duke Elie rode, his famous Marchegay. Bit Henry Lawrence rode the high mettled Conrad. Wellington rode his proud Copenhagen, but the conqueror of earth and heaven rides a eolt, one that had been tied at the road-side. It was broken, and I have no doubt fractious at the vociferation of the populace. An extemporized saddle made out of the gar-, ments of the people was put on the beast. While some people gripped the bridle of the colt, bthers reverently waited upon Christ at the mounting. The two processions of people now became one —those who came out of the city and those who came over the hill. The Orientals are more demonstrative than we of the Western world, their voices louder, their gesticulations more violent, and the symbols by which they express their emotions more significant. The people who left Phocea in the far East, wishing to make impressive that they would never return, took a red hot ball of iron and threw it into the sea, and said they would never return to Phocea until that ball rose and floated on the surface. Be not surprised, therefore, at the demonstration in the text. As the colt with it’s rider descends the slope of Olivet, the palm trees lining the road are called upon to render their contribution to the scene of welcome and rejoicing. The,, branches of these trees are high up, and some must needs climb the trees and tear off the leaves and throw them down, and others make of these leaves an emerald pavement for the colt to tread on. Oh, the glorious palm! Amarasigna, the Hindoo scholar,calls it “the king among the grasses.” Linnaeus calls it “theprinceof vegetation.” Among all the trees that ever cast a shadow or yielded fruit or lifted their arms toward heaven, it has no equal for multitudinous uses. Dp you want flowers? One palm tree will put forth a hanging garden of them, one cluster counted by a scientist containing 207,000 blooms. Do you want food? It is the chief diet of whole nations. One palm in Chili will*yield ninety gallons of honey. In Polynesia it is the chief food of the inhabitants. In India thqre are multitudes of people dependent upon jt for sustenance. Do you want cable to hold ships or cords to hold wild beast? It is wound into ropes unbreakable. Do you want articles of house furniture? It is twisted into mats and woven into baskets and shaped into drinking cups and swung into hammocks. Do you want medicine? Its nut is the chief preventative of disease and the chief cure for vast populations. Do you want houses? Its wood fur-* ntshes the wall for the homes, and its leaves thatch them. Do you need a supply for the pantry? It yields sugar and stareffand oil and sago and milk and salt and wax and vinegar and candles. Oh, the palm! It has a variety of endowments, such as no other growth that ever rooted the earth or kissed the heavens. To the willow God says: "Stand by the water courses

and weep.” To the cedar he says: “Gather the hurricanes into your bosom.” To the fig tree he says: “Bear fruit and put it within the reach of all the people.” But to the palm tree he says: "Be garden and storehouse and wardrobe and ropewalk and chandlery and bread and banquet and manufactory, and, then, be type of what I meant when I inspired David, my servant, to say: ‘The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. ’ ” Oh, Lord God, give us more palm trees —men. and women made for nothing but to be useful; dispositions all abloom; branches of influence laden with fruit, people good for everything, as the palm tree. If kind words are wanted, they are ready to utter them. If helpful deeds are needed, they are ready to perform them. If plans of usefulness are to be laid out. they are ready to project them. If enterprises are to be forwarded, they are ready to lift them. -People who say, “Yes! yes!” when they are asked for assistance by word or deed, instead of “No! no!” Most of the mysteries that bother others do not bother me, because I adjourn them,' but the mystery that really bothers ,me is why God made so many people who amount to nothing so far as the world's betterment is concerned. They stand in the way. They object. They discuss hindrances. They suggest possibilities of failure. . Over the road of life, instead of pulling in the traces, they are laying back in the breechings. They are the everlasting No. a They are bramble trees; they are willows, always mourning, or wild cherry trees, yielding only the bitter, or crab apple trees, producing only the sour, while God would have us flourish.like the palm tree. Plant-) ed in the Bible that tree always means usefulness- But how little any or all of us accomplish in that direction! We take twenty or thirty' years to get fully ready for Christian work, and in the after part of life we take ten or twenty years for the gradual closing of active work, and ’ that leaves only so little time between opening and closing work that all we accomplish is so little an angel of God needs to exert himself to see it at all, Nearly everything I see around, beneath and above in the natural world suggests some useful service. Notice that it was a beautiful and lawful robbery of the palm tree that helped make up Christ’s triumph on the road to Jerusalem that Palm Sunday. The long, broad, green leaves that were strewn under the feet of the colt and in the way of Christ were torn**off from the trees. What a pity, some one might say, that those stately and graceful trees should be despoiled. The sap oozed out at the places where the branches broke The glory of the palm tree was appropriately sacrificed for the Savior’s triumphal procession- So it always was, so it always will be in this world—no worthy triumph of any sort without the tearing down of something else. Brooklyn bridge, the glory of our’ continent, must have two architects prostrated, the one slain by his toils and the other a life-time invalid. The greatest pictures of the world had, in their richest coloring, the blood of the artists who made them. The mightiest oratories that ever rolled through the churches had, in their pathos, the sighs and groans of tjie composers Avho wore their lives out in writing the harmony. American independence was triumphant, but it moved on over the lifeless forms of tens of thousands of men who fell at Bunker Hill and Yorktown and the battles between, which were the ’ hemorrhages of the Nation. The Kingdom of God advances in all the earth, but it must be over the lives of missionaries who die of malaria ip the jungles, or Christian workers who preach and pray and toil and die in the service The Savior triumphs in all directions,but beauty and strength must be torn down from the palm trees of Christian heroism and consecration and thrown in his pathway. To what better use could those palm trees on the southern shoulder of Mount Olivet and clear down into the Valley of Gethsemane puttheir branches than to surrender them for the making of Christ’s journey toward Jerusalem the more memorable and the more triumphant? And to what better use could we put our lives than into the sacrifice of Christ and His cause and the happiness of our fellow creatures. Shall we not be willing to be torn down that righteousness shall have triumphant wav? Christ was torn down for us. dan we not afford to be torn down for Him? If Christ could suffer so much for us can we not suffer a little for Christ? If he can afford on Palm Sunday to travel to Jerusalem to carry a cross, can we not afford a few leaves from our branches to make emerald His way? , How much are we willing to sacrifice forothers? Christ is again on the march, not from Bethpage to Jerusalem, but for the conquest of the world. He will surely take it, but who wilP furnish the palm branches for the triumphant way? Self-sacrifice is the word. There is more money paid to destroy the world),,.than to savejpt. There are more buildings put up to yuin the race than churches to evangelize it. There is more depraved literature to blast men than good literature to elevate them. Oh, for a power to descend upon us all like that which overwhelmed Charles G. Finney with mercy, when, kneeling in his law Office, apd before he entered upon his apdstolic career of evangelization, he said: “The Holy Ghost descended on me in manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul, I could feel the impression like a wave

of electric going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves of liquid love. It seemed like the breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me like immense wings. L wept aloud with joy and iQve. These waves eame over me and over me one after another, and until, I recollect, I cried out: ‘I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.’ I said: ‘Lord, I cannot bear any more.A-ndwhen a gentleman came into the Office and said: “Mr. Finney, you are in pain,” he replied: “No. but so happy that I can not live.” —r—— - ..

.My hearers, the time will come when upon the whole church of God will descend such an avalanche of blessing, and then the world to God will be a matter of a few years, perhaps a few days, or a few hours. Ride on, O Christ! for the evangelization of all nations. Thou Christ who didst ride on the unbroken colt down the sides of Olivet, on the white horse of eternal victory ride through all nations, and may we. by our players and our self-sacrifices, and our contributions and our consecration, throw palm branches in the way. I clap -my hands at the coming victory. I feel this morning as did the Israelites when on their their march to Canaan, they came not under the shadow of one palm tree, but of seventy palm trees, standing in an Oasis among a dozen gushing fountains, or, as the Book puts it; “Twelve wells of water and three score and ten palm trees. ” Surely there are more than seventy such great and glorious souls present today Indeed, it is a mighty grove of palm trees, and I feel something of the raptures which shall feel when our last battle fought and our last burden carried and our last tear wept, We shall become one of the multitudes St. John describes - , “clothed in white robes and palms in our hands.” Hail thou bright, thou swift-advancing, thou everlasting Palm Sunday of the skies! Victors over sin and sorrow and death and woe, from the hills and valleys of the heavenly Palestine, they have plucked the long, broad, green leaves, and all the ransomed some in gates of pearl, and some on battlements of amethyst, and some on streets of gold, and some on seas of sapphire, they shall stand in numbers like the morn, waving their palms!