Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1893 — SHELTERING WINGS. [ARTICLE]

SHELTERING WINGS.

The Hen as a Typ4 of Divine Compassion. -‘Even A# « Hen GatJic retli Her Chickens Under Her Wins:* and Y’o Would Not." Dr. Talmage preached at the Hropkhm Tabernacle last Sundays Certain picture makers having used i;is muse wiihout authority, be took .■ccasicn t> state his ignorance of “those -people or their business.” His - text was Matthew xxiii, 37: Jerusalem, how of-, ten would I have gatherd thy children together even as a hen gathererth his chickens under her wings, and .ye wouldnefe” Hesaid: Jerusalem was in sight, as Christ came to the crest of Mount Olivet, a_ height of 700 foot. The splendors of the religious capital of the whole earth irradiated the landscape. There is the temple--Yondei:_is.±he.l£ingls. palace. Spread out before his eyes •ire the pomp, the wealth, the wickedness and the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and he burst into tears at the thought of the obduracy of u place he wuiild gladly have saved, and a’pc.sL'oplilzos, saying,- “Jerusa l";r, Jerusalem, how often would I have- gathered-thy •eliildren-togblber, ;-.-c!n aK'jp-gatlieretii her chickens under her wing'.:, Lad ye. Would not!” T am in sympathy with the unpre4enTio:sp okl fashioned hen, because, like most of us, she has to scratch for a living. She knows at the Start the lesson which most people of good sense are slow to learn —that the gaining of a liyelihqpd implies work, and 1 ha* successes do not lie on the surface, but arc to be upturned by positive :.ID<l continuous effort. The reason that society, and the church, an d the world are so full of failures, so full of loafers, so full of dead deals, is because, people are not wise o take the lessson which an y hen would teach them —that if they wouid- find for 11 mm salves and for those dependent upon them anything worth having they must scratch for it. One day in the country we saw sudden consternation in the behavior of old Donijnick.. Why the hen should be so disturbed we could not understand. We looked about to see if a TTeighborTT dog vrormHnvading the farm. Wo lacked up to see if a slormclov.d were hovering. We could see nothip.g on the ground that could terrorize, z and we could see nothing in the air to ruffle the feathers of the but the loud, wild, affrighted cluck which brought all her brood at full run under her feathers made, us look again around us and above us, when we saw that high up and and far away there was a rapacious bird wheeling around and around, and down and down, and not seeing us as we, stood in the shadow it camo nearer and lower until we saw its beak wav-curved from base to tip. and it had two flames of hye for eyes, and it was a hawk. But all the chickens were under ,i>ld Dominick’s wing, and cither the bird of prey caught a glimpse of us, sr, nbt’ able to find (Im brood huddled under wing, darted back into the clouds. So Christ calls with great earnestness to all I lie young. Why, what is the niatiCKT"Tt is bright sunlight, nnd there can be no danger. Health is theirs. A good homo is theirs. Plenty of food is theirs. Prospect of long life is theirs. But Christ continues to call, gall with more emphasis, and urges haste and says’ “ndt"a“secOjld”oiTglrt' to be lost. Oh. do tell us what is the matter! Ah. now I see; there are hawks of temptation in the air; there are vultures vdieeling for their prey; there arc beaks of death ready to plunge; there arc claws of allurement ready to clutch. Now I see the peril. Now I understand the urgency. Now“ I see the onlj' safety. "Would that Christ might this day take our sons and daughters into His .shelter “as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing!” The fact is that, the most of them will never find the shelter unless while they are chickens. It is a simple matter of inexorable statistics that most of those who do not come to Christ in yoqth never come at. all.

And so the temptations of this life are various. Some make quick work of death, and others agonize the mind and body for many years, and some like th« living blood of great souls, and others prefer those already gangrened. But for every style of youth there is a swooping wing, and a sharp beak, and a cruel claw, and what the rising generation needs is a wing of protection. Fathers, mothers, older brothers and sisters, and Sabbath school teachers, be quick and earnest and prayerful and importunate, and get the chickens under wing. My hearers, if we secure, the present and everlasting welfare of our children, most everything else belonging to us are of but little importance? Alexander the Great allowed his soldiers to take their families with them to war. and he accounted for the bravery of his men by the fact that many of them were born in camp and were used to warlike scenes from the start. Would God that all the children of our day might be born into the army of bur Lord! No need of letting them go a long way on the wrong road before thev turn around and go op the right road: The only time to get chickens under wing is while thej r are chidkens. But we all need the protecting wing. If you had known when you entered ujwn manhood or womanhood what was ahead of you, would you have dared to undertake life?

How much you - would have Keen through! With most life has been I 1 disappointJnent. They tell me. so. They have not atta ned that whiet they expected to attain. They have not had the physical and mental vigor they expected. s or they hllVf met w-1 th rebuffs which thg.y did ftbt anticipate. You are not at oi fifty or sixty or seventy or eignty years of age. what you thought you would be. “ I do not know any onq except myself to whom life bus been, a happy surprise. I never expected anything, and so when anything came in the shape of human favor oi com forcible position or widening field of work it was to me a surprise. • The wings of my text suggests warmth, and that is what most folks wan t. The fact is th at this is a cold • worldp whether you tike it literally or figuratively. We have a big fire*, place called the sun, and it has g very hot fire, and the stokers keen the coals well stirred up, but muclj of the year we cannot get near enough to this fireplace to get warmed. The "vorltFs extremities are cold all the time. Forget not that, it is colder at the south pole than at the north polo, and that thd Arctic is not so destructive as the Antarctic. Once In awhile, the Arctic will let explorers come back, but the Antarctic hardly ever. When at the south pole a ship sals in, the door of ice is almost sure to be closed its return. So life to many millions of people at the north is a prolonged shiver. But when I say that this is a cold world I chiefly mean figuratively. As far as myself is. concerned, 1 have no word of complaint, but I look off day by day and see communities freezing out men and women of whom the world is not worthy. Now it takes after one and now after another. It becomes popular .to depreciate and defame and execrate and lie about some people. But notice that someone must, take the storm for the chickens. Ah, the hen takes the storm. I have watched her under the pelting rain. I have seen her in the pinching frosts almost frozen to death or almost strangled in the waters, and what a fight she makes for the young under her wing if a dog, or a hawk, or aman come too near! And so the brooding Christ takes the'; storm for iis. What flood of anguish and tears that did not dash upon his holy soul! What beak of torture did not pierce his vitals! What barking Cerberus of hell was not let out upon him from the kennels! Yes, the hen took the storm for the chickens and Christ takes the storm for us. And does it not make you think of him who endureth all for us? So the wings under which we come for spiritual safety are bloodspattered wings, are night-shattered wings, are tempest-torn wings. But now, the summer day is almost past, and the shadows of the house and barn and- wagon shed have lengthened. The farmer, with scythe and hoe on shoulder, is returning from the fields. The oxen are unyoked. The horses are crunching the oats at the full bin. The air is bewitched of honeysuckle and wild, brier. The milkman, pail in hand, is approaching the barn yard. The fowls, keeping early hours, are collecting their young. -“Cluck!’’ - ( -tUluek'F ! -‘- i Gl U ck!” and soon all the eyes of that feathered nursery are closed. ; The hawks of temptation that hovered in the sky will have gone to the woods and folded their wings. Sweet, silence will come down. The air will be redolent with the breath of whole arbors of of promises sweeter than jassminc or evening primrose. The air may be a lit.tie chill, but Christ, will call us, and we will know the voice and heed the call, and we*will come under the wings for the night, the strong wings, the soft wings, the warm wings, and without fear, and in full sense of safety, and then we will rest from sundown to sunrise, “as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.” Dfar me! How many souls the Lord hath thus brooded!

My text has the strongest application for people who were born in the country, wherever you may now live, and that is the majority of you. You cannot hear my text without having all the rustic scenes of the old farmhouse come back to you. Good old days they wore. You knew nothing much of the world, for you had not. seen the world. • -.1. - ~ By law of association you cannot recall the brooding hen and her chickens without seeing also the barn, and the haymow, and the wagon shed, and the house, and the room where you played, and the fireside with the big backlog before which you sat, and the neighbors, and the burial, and the wedding, and the deep snowbanks, and hear the village bell that called you to worship, and seeing the horses which, after pulling you to church, stood around the old clapboarded meeting house, and those who sat at either end of the church pew, and indeed all the scenes of your first.fourteen years, and you think of what you 'were, then and of what you are now, When, a good man asked a young woman who had abandoned her home and who was deploring her wretchedness, why she did not return, the reply was, “I dare not go home. My father is so provoked he would not receive me home.” ‘‘Then," saidthf Christian man, “I will test this,” and so ho wrote to the father, and the reply catae back in a letter marked outside “Immediate,” and inside , it is written, “Let her come at once; all is forgiven." So God’s invitation for you is marked “immediate” on the outside; and on thefm side it is written, “He will abundantly pardon.”