Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1892 — HIS TOUR ENDS. [ARTICLE]

HIS TOUR ENDS.

Dr. Talmage’s Farewell Sermon In London. Th* Spider Furnishes a Christian Object Lsiwn-It is Made the Theme of an Interesting Sermon. The text selected this week is from Proverbs xxx, 28, “The spider taketh hold with her hands and is in kings* .palaces.” Permitted as I was a few days'ago to attend the meeting of the British .Scientific association at Edinburgh, I found that no paper read had excited more interest than that by Bev. Dr. McCook, of America, on the subject of spiders. It seems that my talented countryman, banished from his pulpit for a short, time' by ill health, had in the fields and forests given himself to the fitudy of insects. And surely if it is not beneath the dignity of God to make spiders it is not beneath the dignity of man to study them. I We are all watching for phenomena. A sky full of stars shining from January to January calls out not so many remarks as the blazing of one meteor. A whole flock of robins take not so much of our attention as one blundering bat darting into the window on a summer eve. Things of ordinary sound and sight and occurrence fail to reach us, and yet no grasshopper ever springs up in our path, no moth ever dashes into the evening candle, no mote ever floats 'in the sunbeam that pours through the crack in the window shutter, no barrracle on ship’s hull, no burr on a chestnut, no limpet clinging to a rock, no rind of an artichoke but would tgacb a if we were ■not so stupia. {-'o'l his Bible sets forth for our contemplation the lily, and the snowflake, and the locust, and the stork’s nest, and the hind’s (foot, and the aurora borealis, and the ant hills. i In my text inspiration opens before us the gates of a palace, and we are inducted amid the pomp of the throne and the courtier, and while we are looking around upon the magnificence inspiration points us to a spider plying its shuttle and weaving its net upon the wall. It does not call us to regard the grand surroundings of the palace, but to a solemn and earnest consideration of the fact that “ The spider taketh hold with her hand and is in kings’ palaces. ” It is not very certain what was the particular species of insect spoken of in the text, but I shall proceed to learn from it the exquisiteness of the divine mechanism. The king's chamberlain comes into the and looks around and sees the spider on the wall and says, “Away with that intruder, ” and the servant of Solomon's palace comqs with his broom and dashes down the insect, saying, “ What a loathsome thing it is 1 ” But under microscopic inspection I find it more wondrous of construction than the embroideries on the palace wall and the upholstery about the windows. All the machinery of the earth could not make anything so delicate and beautiful as the prehensile with which that spider clutches its prey, or as any of its eight eyes. 1 Oh. this wonder of divine power that can build a habitation for God in an apple blossom, and tune a bee’s voice until it is fit for the eternal orchestra, and can to a firefly, “Let there be light;” and from holding an ocean in the hollow of his hand goes forth to'find heights and depths- and length and breadth of omnipotency in a dewdrapzaiid dismounts from chariot of midnight hurricane so cross over on the suspension bridge of a spider’s web. You may take your telescope and sweep it across the heavens in order to behold the glory of God; but I shall take the leaf holding the spider, and the spider’s web, and J shall bring the microscope to my eye, and while I gaze and look and study and am confounded, I will kneel down in the grass and cry, “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty!" t God is not ashamed to do small things. He is not ashamed to be found chiseling a grain of sand, or helping a honeybee to construct its cell with mathematical accuracy, oy tingling a shell in the surf, or shap- j ing the bill of a chaffinch. What he does he does well. What you do, do | well, be it a great work or a small | work. If ten talents, employ all the ten. If five talents, employ all the five. If one talent, employ the one. If only the. thousandth part of a talent, employ that. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.” I tell you if you are ■not faithful to God in a small sphere you would be indolent and insignificant in large sphere. Again, my text teaches me that re--pulsiveneffs and loathsomeness will sometimes climb up into very elevated places. You would have tried to have killed the spider that Solomon saw. You would have said: “This is no place for it. If that spider is determined to weave a web, let it do sodown in the cellar of this palace or in some dark dungeon’.” Ah! the spider of the text could not be discouraged. It clambered on, and up. higher and higher and higher, until after awhile it reached the king's vision, and he said, “The spider taketh Irold with her hands and is in'the king’s palaces." And so it often is now that things that are loathsome and repulsive get up into very elevated places. The church of Christ, for instance, is a palace. The King of heaven and earth lives io it. It is a glorious palace—the church of God is, and yet tometimes unseemly and loathsome things creep into it—rancor.

and evil speaking and slander and abuse, crawling up on the walls of the church, spinning a web fram arch to arch, and from the top of one communion tankard to the top of another communion tankard. Glori* ous palace in which there ought only to be light and love and pardon and Home ought to be a castle' It ought to be the residence of everything royal. Kindness, love, peace, patience and forbearance ought to be the princess residing there; and yet sometimes dissipation crawls up into that home and the jealous eye comes up, and the scene of peace and plenty becomes the scene of domestic jargon and dissonance. You say, “What is the matter with the home?” I will tell you what is the matter with it. A spider in the palace. Again, my text teaches me that perseverance will mount into the ■king's palace. It must have seemed a long distance for that spider to climb in Solomon’s splendid residence but it started at the very foot of the wall and went up on the pannels of Lebanon cedar, higher and higher until it stood higher than the highest throne in all the nations—the throne of Solomon. And so God has decreed it that many of those wbo are-down in the dust of sin and dishonor shall gradually attain to the King’s palace. We see it in worldly things. Who is that banker in Philadelphia? Why, he used to be the boy' that held the horses of Stephen Girard while the millionaire went to collect his dividends. Arkwright toils on up from a barber’s shop until he gets into the palace of invention. Sextus V toils on up from the office of a swineherd until begets into the palace of Rome. Fletcher toils on up from the most insignificant family position until he gets into the palace of Christian eloquence. Hogarth, engraving pewter pots for a living, toils up until he reaches'the palace of world renowned art. And God hath decided that though you may be weak of arm and slow of tongue, and be struck through with a great many mental and moral deficits, by His almighty grace you shall yet arrive in the King’s palace —not such a one as is spoken of m the text, not one of marble, not., one adorned with pillars of alabaster and thrones of ivory and flagons of burnished gold, but a palace in which God is the King and the angels of heaven are the cupbearers. A palace means splendor of apartments. There will be no common Ware on that table. There will be no unskilled musicians at that entertainment. There will be no scanty supply of fruit or beverage. There have been banquets spread which cost a million dollars each, but who can tell the untold wealth of that banquet? I do not know whether John’s description of it is literal or figurative. A great many wise people tell me it is figurative; but prove it Ido not know but that it may be literal. I do not know but that there may be real fruits plucked from the tree of life. I do not know but that Christ referred to the real juice of the grape when he said that we should drink new winejn our Father’s kingdom, but not the intoxicating stuff of this world's brewing. Ido not say it is so, but I have os much right for thinking it is so as you have for I thinking the other way. At any rate it will be a glorious banquet. Hark! the chariots rumbling in the distance. I reallj’ believe the guests are coming now. The gates swing open, the guests dismount, the palace is filling, and all the chalices, flashing with pearl and amethyst and carbuncle, are lifted to the lips of the myriad banqueters, while standing in robes of snowy white they drink to the honor of the glorious King. __ “Oh, ” you say, “ that is too grand a place for you and for me. ” No, it is not. If a spider, according to the text, could crawl up on the walls of Solomon's palace, shall not our poor souls, through the blood of Christ, mount up from the depths of their sin and shame and finally reach the palace of the eternal King ? “Where sin abounded, grace shall much more abound, that whereas sin reigned unto death, even so may grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. " Oneflash of that coming glory obliterates ' the sepulcher. Years ago, with lanterns and ; torches and a guide, we went down in the Mammoth cave of Kentucky You may walk fourteen miles and see no sunlight. It is a stupendous place. Some places the roof of the cave a hundred feet high. The grottoes filled with weird echoes; cascades falling from invisible height to invisible depth. Stalagmites rising up from the floor of ths cave; stalactites descending from the roof of the cave, joining each other and making pillars of tl}o Almighty’s sculpturing. There are rosettes of amethyst in halls of gypsum. As the guide carries l]is lantern ahead of you the shadows have an appearance supernatural and spectral. The darkness is fearful. The guide after awhile takes you into what is called the “star chamber,” and then he says to you, “Sit here;” and then he takes the lantern and goes down under the rocks, and it gets darker and darker until the night is so thick that the hand an inch from the eye is unobservable. And Chen, by kindling one of the lanterns and placing it in a cleft of the rock, there is a reflection cast on the dome of the cave, and there arc stars coming out in constellations—a brilliant night heavens—-and you involuntary exclaim, “Beautiful!beautiful. Then he takes the lantern down in other depths of {he cavern and wan-

ders on and wanders off until hi comes up from behind the rocks gradually, and it seems like the dawn of the morning and it gets brighter and brighter. The guide is a skilled ventriloquist, anti he imitates the voices of the morning, and soon the gloom is all gone, and you stand congratutating yourself over the won: derful spectacle. Well, there are a great many people who look down into the grave as a great cavern. They think it is a thousand miles subterraneous, and all the echoes seem to be the voices of despair, and the cascades seem to be the falling tears that always fall, and the gloom of earth seems coming up in stalagmite, and the gloom of the* eternal world seems descending in the stalactite, making pillars of indescribable horror. The grave is no such place as that to me, thank God! Our divine Guide takes us dpwn into the great cavern, and we have the lamp to our feet, and the light to our feet, and the light to our path, and all the echoes in the rifts of the rock are anthems, and all the falling waters are fountains of salvation, and after awhile we look up, and behold! the cavern of the tomb has become a king's star chamber. And while we are' looking" at the pomp of it an everlasting morning begins to rise, and all the tears of the earth crystalize into stalagmite, rising up in a pillar on the one side and all the glories of heaven seem to be decending in a stalactite, making a pillar on the other side, and you push again the gate that swings between the two pillars, and as that gate flashes open you find it is one of the twelve gates which are twelve pearls. Blessed be God that through this Gospel the mammoth cave of the sepulcher has become the illumined star chamber of the King! Ob, the palaces! the eternal palaces! the King’s palaces!