Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1893 — SUNSHINE OF RELIGION. [ARTICLE]

SUNSHINE OF RELIGION.

CUkada is angry because a colony ol Mormons has settled within its borders. New Yoke’s idea of the exposition is 4 tower, after the style of the Eiffel, 2,040 feet high. T y Sb. Hammond says that it will take • lundred years of experimenting to prove the value of the elixir of life. One of the richest men in Boston is Nathaniel Thayer, whose estate amounts to |15,000,000. He is a young man of fine ability and the best of habits. .. Joaquin Miller is described as "a slender, sparely built man well along in years, with long, yellowish white hair that lays on his shoulders in Sir Thomas Esmonds, who recently visited this country in behalf of the Irish Nationalist agitation, is about to be married to an Irish girl in Australia, where he now is. At Patti’s farewell appearance at Buenos Ayres the receipts were $23,00k It is hard to say farewell when farewell reappearances are attended with such large profits. Miss Ethel M. Mackenzie, daughter of Sir Morell Mackenzie, has taken up journalism as a profession or a pastime. She has begun by playing the role of correspondent to American newspapers. Pbof. J. P. ■ Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, now lecturing at Chautauqua, is a Home Ruler and one of the finest of Irish wits. He speaks with a delightful north of Ireland brogue. Mbs. Harriet Beecher Stowe amuses herself greatly with five pets, of Which she’ is particularly fond. These' are two pugs and three cats, Bosco, a big tortoise-shell tabby, being her special favorite. On the occasion’of the former visit of the Shah to England he tried earnestly to buy the Duchess of, Manchester and went so far as to offer au enormous price for that lady. Those facts were brought to light by his present visit, as the duchess positively refused to meet him. Miss Isabella Bird, the dauntless little English woman, who has traveled alone in so many out-of-the-way countries and written fascinating accounts of her adventures and observations, is married to a bishop. The King of Siam has awarded her the order of ‘Kapolani,” in recognition of her literary '■ work.' ' • Bernhard Gillam, the chief carica turist of Judge, is only 32 years old. He tried to make a living by painting pictures, but the public would not buy them. Then he smashed his pictures and turned wood engraver, until he discovered that he could draw a caricature that would make a man with the lock-jaw laugh. -

J. B. Watson, the Australian quartz reef king, died recently at Sydney at the age of 64. He was a native of Paisley, Scotland, and emigrated with his father's family to Sydney, and afterwards to California and Sandhurst, and finally to the Bendigo gold mine, where he made a fortune estimated, at £40,000,003, $200,000,030. '. Sergt. Reid, of the First Lanark Engineers, winner of the queen’s prize at Wimbledon, when he reached Glasgow was met by all the Glasgow regiments of volunteers, who turned out and lined the way from the station. Amid the cheers of thousands of people, he was carried shoulder high at the head of a procession to the orderly room of the engineers, where Sir Donald Matheson, the colonel of the regiment, welcomed him home, congratulated him on his victory, and thanked him for the honor he had done Glasgow and his corps. Damiel. Webster's coachman has become almost as prevalent as George Washington’s body-servant “Uncle Bill Webster,” who recently died at the Soldiers’ Home in Togus, Me., claimed to have been Webster's coachman from 1844 to 1846. He used to say that Daniel was a great fisherman, a persevering consumer of whisky and a most careless man about money. The great orator would often start for Washington without a cent in his pocket. “Unde BiH “fit" in the late war,' and eaid thnt he seised Sheridan’s horse when the famous cavalryman reached Cedar Creek after his ride from Winehester. 1 What is known as “getting on to your curves” is a bit of slang which is Dow very much in vogue in the circles of New York where slang is tolerated. • This means practically throughout the entire town. A year or two ago the phrase was common with base-ball cranks and players, but it had not mueh of a vogue elsewhere. Now, however, one hears it at every corner. It is expressive, but it requires a certain knowledge cl base ball to under- | •tend the fall si&uficance of the phrase, j

Dr. Talmage Continues His Sermons on the Lessons of Nature. There is Sniwhine In the Soul Which Can Be Wit, Humor and Enduring Vivacity. ■ Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Subject: “The Sunshine of Religion.’’ Text — Proverbs iii, 17. He said: You have all heard of God’s only begotten Son. Have you heard of God’s daughter? She was born in heaven. She came down over the hills of our world. She had queenly step. On her brow was celestial radiance. Her voice was music. Her name is Religion. . My text introduces her. “Tier ways are ways of pieasafitnessr and all her paths are peace." But what is religion? The fact is that theological study has had a different effect upon me from the effect sometimes produced. Every year I tear out another leaf from my theology until I have only three or four leaves left —in other words, a very brief and plain statement of Christian belief. ' ''. An aged Christian minister said: “When I was a young man I knew everything; when I got to be thirtyfive years of age in my ministry I had only a hundred doctrines of religion; when I got to be forty years years of age I had only fifty doctrines of religion;, when I got to be sixty years of age I had only ten doctrines of religion', and now I am dying at seventy-five years of age, and there is Only one thing I know, and that is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And so I have noticed in the study of God’s word, and in my contemplation of the character of God and of the eternal world, that it is necessary for me to drop this part of my belief and that part of my belief as being nonessential, while I cling to the one great doctrine that man is a sinner and Christ is his Almighty and Divine Saviour. Now I take these three or four leaves of my theology and I find that, in the first place and dominant above all others, is the sunshine of religion. When I go into a room I have a passion for throwing open all the shutters. That is what I want to do this morning. We are apt to throw so much of the sepulchral into our religion, and to close the shutters, and to pull down the blinds, that it is only through here and there a crevice that the light streams. The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is a religion; of joy indescribable and unutterable. Wherever I can find a bell I mean to ring it. . If there are any in this house this morning who are disposed to hold on to their melancholy and-gloom, let them now depart this service before the fairest and the brightest and the most radiant being of all the universe comes In. God’s Son has left our world, but God's daughter is here. Give her room! Hail! Princess of Heaven. Hail! daughter of the Lord God Almighty. Come in and make this house thy throne room. In setting forth this idea the dominant theory of religion is one of sunshinc r J hardly know where, to begin for there arc so many thoughts that rush upon my-soul. A mother saw her little child seated on the floor in the sunshine and with a spoon in her hand. She said, “My darling, what are you doing there?” “Oh,’ replied the child, "Im getting a spoonful of sunshine.” Would God that to-day I might present you with a gleaming chalice of this glorious, everlasting gospel sunshine. First of all, I find a great deal of sunshine in Christian society.

I do not know of anything more doleful than the companionship of the mere fun makers of the world—the Thomas Hoods, the Charles Lambs, the Charles Matthews of the world —the men whose entire business it is to make sport. They make others laugh, but if you will examine their autobiography, or biography, y<su will find that down in their soul there was a terrific disquietude. Laughter is no sign of happiness. The maniac laughs. The hyena laughs. The loon among the Adirondacks laughs. The drunkard dashing his decanter against the wall la’ughs. There is a terrible reaction from all sinful amusement and sinful merriment. Such men are cross the next day. They snap at you on exchange, or they pass you, not recognizing you. Izuig ago I quit mere worldly society for the reason it was so dull, so insane and so stupid. My nature is voracious of joy. I must have it. I always walk on the sunny side of the street, and for that reason I have crossed over into Christian society. I like their mode of repartee better. I like their style of amusement better. They live longer. Christian people, I sometimes notice, live on when by all natural law they ought to have died. I have known persons who have continued in their existence when the doctor said they ought to have been dead ten years. Every day of their existence was a defium-.' of the laws of anatomy and physiology, but they had this supernatural vivacity of the Gospel in their sou!, and that kept them alive. I khow there is a groat deal of talk about the self denials of the Christian. I have to tell you that where the Christian has one self denial the man of the world has a ’

thousand self denials. The Christian ' is not commanded to surrender anything that is worth keeping; But wha¥ does a man deny himselfwho denies himself the religion of Christ. He denies himself pardon for sin; he denies himself the joy of the’Holy Ghost; he denies himself peace of conscience; he denies himself a comfortable death pillow; he denies himself the glories of heaven. Do net talk to me about the self denials of the Christian life! Where there is one in the Christian life there are a thousand in the life of the world. Again, I find a great deal of religious sunshine in Christian and divine explanation. To a great many people life is an inexplicable tangle. Things turn out differently from what was supposed. There is a useless woman in perfect health. There is an industrious and consecrated woman a complete invalid. Explain that. There is a bad man with $30,000 of income. There is a good man with SBOO of income. Why is that? There is a foe of society who lives on doing all the damage he can, to of and - here is a Christian father, faithful in every department of life, at thirtyfive years of age taken away by death, his family left helpless. Explain that. Oh, there is no sentence that oftener drops from your lips than this: “I cannot understand it.” Well, now, religion comes in just at that point with its illumination and explanation. There is a business man who has lost his entire fortune. The week before he lost his fortune there were twenty carriages that stopped at the door of the mansion; the week after he lost his fortune all the carriages you could count on one finger. The week before financial trouble began people all took off their hats to him as he passed down the street. The week his financial prospects were under discussion the people just touched their hats without anywise bending the rim. The week that he was pronounced insolvent people just jolted their heads as they passed, not tipping their hats and the week the sheriff sold him out all his friends were looking in the store windows as they went down past him. Now while the world goes away from a man when he is in financial distress the religion of Christ comes to him and says: “You are sick, and your sickness is to be moral purification. You are bereaved. G.od wanted in some way to send your family to heaven, and he must begin somewhere, and so he took the one that was most beautiful and was most ready to go. ” Ido not' say that religion explains everything in this life, but I do say if lavs’ down certain principles which are grandly consolatory. The providences of life sometimes seem to be a senseless rigmarole, a mysterious cipher, but God hasakey to that cipher, and the Christian a key to that cipher, and though he may hardly be able to spell out the meaning he gets enough of the meaning to understand that it is for the best. Now is there not sunshine in that? Is there not pleasure in that? Far beyond laughter, it is nearer the fountain of tears than boisterous demonstration. Have you neVer cried for joy? There are.tears which are eternal rapture in distillation. There arc hundreds of people in this bouse who are walking" day by day in the sublime satisfaction that all is for the best, all things working together for good for their soul: How a man can get along through this life without the explanation is a jnystery to me. What! is that child gone forever? Are you never to get it back? Is your property gone forever? Is your soul to be bruised and to be t ried forever? Have you no explanation, no Christian explanation, and yet not a maniac? But when you have the religion of Jesus in your soul it explains everything so far as it is best for you to understand. You look off in life,and your soul is full of thanksgiving to God that you are so much better off than you might be. Oh, the sunshine, the sunshine of Christian explanation! Here is some one bending over the grave of the dead. What is going to be the. consolation? The flowers you strew upon the tombs?- Oh, no. The services read at the grave? Oh, no. The chief consolation on that grave is what falls from the throne of God. Sunshine glorious sunshine. Resurrection sunshine. Oh, my friends, your departed loved ones are only away for their health in a better climate, and when you meet them they will be so changed you will hardly know them; they will be so very much changed, and after awhile, when you are assured that they are your friends, your departed friends, you will say: “Why, where is that cough? Where is that paralysis? Where is that pneumonia? Where is that consumption?” And he will say: “Oh, I am entirely well; there is no sick ones in this country. I have been: ranging these hills, and hence this elasticity. I have been here now twenty years, and not one sick one have I seen —we are all well in this climate.’’ ! Oh, unglove your hand and give it to me in congratulation on that scene. I feel as if I would shout. I will shout hallelujah! Dear Lord, furgive me that I ever complaiaed about anything. If all this is before us, who cares for anything but God and heaven and eternal brotherhood? Take the crape off the doorbell. Your loved ones are only away for their health in a land ambrosial. Come, Lowell Mason; come Isaac Watts, and give us your best hymn about joy celestial. * •