Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1893 — TALMAGE'S TRIUMPH. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE'S TRIUMPH.

The Brooklyn Divine Celebrates a Victory Over Debt. Likani the Occasion to the Rejoicings of Israel After the Passage of the Ked Sea. —— Sunday was a great day at the Brooklyn Taberriacle. The service was a celebration of the extinguishment of the floating debt. Dr. Talmage took as his text, Exodus xvii. 20. 21: “And Miriam, the prophetess. the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and 1 ■with dances. And Miriam answered 1 hem, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into ttic sea.” He said: ~ Sermonizers are naturally so busy in getting the Israelites safely throughthc parted Red sea and the Egyptians submerged in the returning waters that but little time is ordinarjly given to what the > Lord’s people did after they got well up, nigh and dry, on the beach. That was the beach of the Red sea, which is at its greatest width 200 miles and at its least width twelve miles. Why is the adjective “Red” used in describing the water? It is called the Red sea because the mountains on its western coast look as though sprinkled with brick dust, and the water is colored with red seaweed and has red zoophyte and red coral. . This sea was cut by the keels of Egyptian, Phoenician and Arabic shipping. It was no insignificant pond or puddle on the beach of which my text calls us to stand. I hear upon it the sound of a tambourine, Tor which the timbrel was only another name. An instrument of music made out of a circular hoop, with pieces of metal fixed in the sides of it, which made a jingling sound, and over which hoop a piece of parchment was distended, and this was beaten by the knuckles of the performer. The Israelites, standing on the ’"■each of the Red Sea, were making music on their deliverance from the pursuing Egyptians, and I hear the israelitish men with their deep bass -oices, and I hear the timbrel of Miriam as she leads the women in ‘.heir jubilee. Rather lively instrument, you say, for religious services —the timbrel or tambourine. But I think God sanctioned it. And I "ather think we will have to put a 'ittle more of the festive into our religious services and drive out the dolorous and funereal, and the day may come when the timbrel will resume its place in the sanctuary. Brooklyn Tabernacle to-day feels much as Moses and Miriam -did when they stood on the banks of the Red sea after their safe emergence from the waters. By the help of God and the generosity of our friends here and elsewhere, our $140,000 of floating church debt is forever gone, and this house, which, with the ground upon which it stands, represents $410,000, I this day consecrate to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. A stranger .night ask how could this church get into debt to an amount that would build several large churches. My answer is, waves of destruction, stout as any that ever rolled across the Red sea of my text. For me personally this is a time of gladness more than tongue or pen or'type can ever tell. For twentyfour years I had been building churches in Brooklyn and seeing them burn down, until I felt I could endure the strain no longer, and I had written my resignation as pastor and had appointed to read it two Sundays ago and close my work in Brooklyn forever. I felt that my chief work was yet to be done, but I could not do it with the Alps on one shoulder and the Himalayas on the other. But God has interfered, and the way is clear, and I am here and expect to be here until my work on earth is done. My thanks must be first to God end then to all who have contributed by large gift or small to this emancipation. Thanks to the men, women and children who have helped and sometimes helped with self-sac-rifices that I know must have won the applause of the heavens. If you could only read with me a few of the thousands of letters that have come to my desk in The Christian Herald office, you would know how deep their sympathy, how large their sacrifice has been. “I have sold my bicycle and send you the money,” is the language of one noble young man who wrote to The Christian Herald. : “This is my dead son’s gift to me and I have been led to send it to you," writes a mother in Rhode Island. But do you not now really think that- the Miriam of my text rejoiced too soon? Do you not think she ought to have waited till the Israelistish host got clear over to Caanan before she struck her knuckles against the timbrel or tambourine? Miriam! You do well to have the tambourine ready, but wait a little before you play it. You are not yet through the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. You will yet have to drink of the bitter water of Marah, and many of your army will eat so heartily of the fallen quails that they will die of colic, and you will, at the foot of Sinai, be scared with thunder, and there will be fiery serpents in the way and many battles to fight, and last of all muddy Jordan to cross. Miriam! I have no objections to the tambourine, but do not jingle its bells or thump its

tightened' parchment Tintil, you arc all through. Ah, my friends, Miriam was rteht. If we never shouted victory till we got clear through the struggles -o! thislife wewould never shout at all. Copy the habit of Miriam and Moses. The moment you get a victory celebrate it. ” Notice that Miriam’s song in my text had for its burden the overthrown cavalry. It was not so much the infantry or the men on foot over whose defeat she rejoiced with ringing timbrel, but over the men on horseback —the mounted troops! "The horse and his rider hath he thrown intx> the sea.” There is. something terrible in a cavalry charge. You see it is not like a soldier afoot, thrusting a bayonet or striking with a sword, using nothing but the strength of his own muscle and sinew, for the cavalryman adds to the strength of his own arm the awful plunge of a steed at full gallop.— Tremendous arm of war is the cavalry! The annoyances and vexations on foot we can conquer, but alas for the mounted disasters, the bereavements, the bankruptcies, the persecutions, the appalling sicknesses that charge upon us, as it were, with uplifted battleax or consuming thunderbolt of power. There are those among my hearers or readers who have had a whole regiment of mounted dis asters charging upon them. But fear not. The smallest horsefly on the neck of Pharaoh’s war charger, passing between the crystal palisades of the upheaved Red Sea, was not more easily drowned by the falling waters than the 50,000 helmeted and p lumed-riders on the backs of the 50,000 neighing and caparisoned war chargers. I expect to have a good laugh with you in heaven, for the Bible says in Luke, sixth chapter, twenty-first verse, “Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.” We shall not spend all eternity psalpi singing, but sometimes in review of the past, as Christ says, we shall laugh. There is nothing wrong in laughter. It all depends on what you laugh at, and when you laugh, and how you laugh. Nothing it seems will more thoroughly kindle our heavenly hilarities after we have got inside the pearly gate than to see how in this world we got scared at things which ought not to have frightened us at all. How dften we work ourselves up into a great stew about nothing! But let me criticise Miriam a little for the instrument of music she employed in the divine service on the sandy beach. Why not take some other instrument? The harp was a sacred instrument. Why did she not take that? The cymbal was a sacred instrument. Why did she not take that? The trumpet was a sacred instrument. Why did she, not take that? Amid that great host there must have been musical instruments more used in religious service. No. She took that which she liked the best and on which she could best express her gratulation over a nation’s rescue, first through the retreat of the waves of the Red sea, and then through the clapping of the hands of their destruction. So I withdraw my criticism of Miriam. Let everyone take her or his best mode of divine worship and celebration. My idea of heaven is that it is a place where we can do as we please and have everything we want. Of course we will do nothing wrong and want nothing harmful. What a celebration it will be —our resurrected bodies standing on the beach, whose pebbles are amethyst and emerald and agate and diamonds? What a shaking of hands! What a talking over old times! What a jubilee! What an opportunity to visit! I am looking forward to eternal socialities. To be with God and never sin against him. To be with Christ and forever feel his love. To wal£ together in robes of white with those with whom on earth we walked together in black raiment of mourning. To gather up the members ofour scattered families and embrace them with nd embarrassment, though all heaven be looking on. My friends, we shall come at last upon those of our loved ones who long ago halted in the journey of life. They will be as fair and beautiful —yea, fairer and more beautiful than when we parted from them. It may be old age looking uponflHiildhood or youth. Oh, my Lord, how we have missed them! Separated for ten years or twenty years or fifty years, but together at the last, together at the last! Just think of it! Will it not be glorious? Miriam’s song again appropriate, for death, riding on the pale horse, 1 with his four hoofs on all our hearts, shall have been forever discomforted. I see them now—the glorified—assembled for a celebration mightier and more jubilant than that on the banks of the Red sea, and from al] lands and ages, on beach of light above beach of light, gallery above gallery, and thrones above thrones, in circling sweep of ten thousand miles of surrounding and upheaved splendor, while standing before them on “sea of glass mingled with fire,” Michael the archangel ? with swinging scepter, beats time for the multitudinous chorus, crying: “Sing! Sing! Sing ye to the Lord, for he triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. ” __ Mrs. Gladstones friends give an interesting illustration of her faith in her husband. Three months before the general election che said: “When we go to Downing street we shall want a new cook.” Forthwith she set about finding a suitable person, and as soon us she discovered her engaged her in advance.