Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1893 — ABOUT BENJAMIN. [ARTICLE]

ABOUT BENJAMIN.

A Typical and Successful Hunter. 'A Seasonable Sermon By the Gr»at Brook.r. Hlvlba . rtf U Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject—“A Hunting Scene.” Text —Genesis xlix, 27. “In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.” . . ' On a certain day in all England you can hear the crack of the sportsman’s gun, because grouse hunting has begun, and every man that can afford the time and ammunition and can draw a bead starts for the fields. Xenophon grew eloquent in regard to the art of hunting. In the far East people, elephant mounted,chase the tiger. The American Indian darts his arrow at the buffalo until the frightened herd tumble over the rocks. European nobles are often found in the fox chase and at the stag hunt. Francis I was called the father of hunting. Moses declared of Nimrod, “He was a mighty hunter [ before the Lord.” Therefore, in all ! ages of the world the imagery of my ■ text ought to be suggestive,whether I it means a wolf aft*r a fox or a man • after a lion. Old Jacob, dying, is telling the fortunes of his children. He prophecies the devouring propensities of Benjamin and his descendants. With tris dim old eyes he looks off and sees the hunters going out to the fields, ranging them all day, and at nightfall coming home, the game slung over the shoulder, and reaching the door of the tent the hunters begin to distribute the game, and one takes a coney, another a rabbit, and another a roe. “In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. ” Or it may be a reference to the habits of wild beasts that slay their prey and then drag it back to the cave or lair and divide it amons the young. I take my text, in the first place, as descriptive of those people who in the morning of their life give themselves up to hunting the world, but afterward, by the grace of God, in the evening of their life divide among ; them spoils of Christian character. I There are aged Christian men and ( worppn in this house, who, if they ! gave testimony would tell you that in the morning of their life they were after the world as intense as abound 1 after a hare, or as a falcon swoops up >n the gazelle. They wanted the I world’s plaudits and the world's gains. They felt that if they could get this world thev would have everythirig. Some of them started out ■ for the pleasures of the world. They thought that the man who laughed loudest was the happiest. They tried repartee and conundrum and burlesque and madrigal.

| After awhile misfortune struck them hard on the back. They found there was something they could not laugh at. Under their late hours i their health gave way or there was a 1 death in the house. Of every green i thing their soul was exfoliated, j They found out that life was more ■ than a joke. From the heart of God ' ' there blazed into their soul an ear- ; nestness they had never felt before, i They awoke to their sinfulness and their immorality; and here they sit at sixty or seventy years of age as appreciative of all innocent mirth as they ever were, bul they are bent on i a style of satisfaction which in early I life they never hunted —the evening I of their days brighter than the morning. In the morning they devoured the prey, but at night they divided the spoils. Then there are others who started , out for financial success. They see how limber the rim of a man’s hat is i when he bows down before some one I transpicuous. They felt they would like to see how the world looked from the window of a four-thousand-dol-lar turnout. They thought they would like to see the morning sunlight tangled in the headgear of a dashing span. They wanted the bridges in the park to resound under the rataplan of their swift hoofs. They wanted a gilded baldric, and so they started on the dollar hunt. I They chased it up one street and ; chased it down another. Thev followed it when it burrowed in the cellar. They treed it in the roof. In the morning of their life, oh, how they devoured the prey! But there came a better time to their soul. They found out that an immortal nature cannot live on bank stock. They took up a Northern Pacific bond, and there was a hole in it through which they could look into the uncertainty of ail earthly treasures. They saw some Ralston, living at the rate of $25,000 a month, leaping from a San Francisco wharf because he could not continne to live at the same ratio. They saw the wizen and paralytic bankers who had changed their souls into molten gold stamped with the image of the earthy, earthy. They saw some great souls by avarice turned into homunculi, and they said to themselves, “I will seek after higher treasure.” My friends, this world is a poor thing to hunt. It is healthful to go out in the woods and hunt. It rekindles the luster of the eye. It strikes the brown of the autumnal leaf into the cheek. It gives to the rheumatic limbs the strength to leap like a roe. Christopher North’s pet gun, the muckle-mou’d Meg, going off in the summer in the forests had its echo in the winter time in the eloquence thi.t rang through the university halls of Edinburgh. It is healthy to go hunting in the fields, but I tell you that it is belittling and bedwarfing and Lelaming for a

man to bunt this world. The hammer comes down on the guncap, and the barrel explodes and kills you instead of that which you are pursuing. Young man, did you ever take the census of ail the old people? How many old people are there in your house? One, two.or none? How many in a vast assemblage like this? Only here and there a gray head, like the patches of snow here and there in the field on a late April day. The fact is that tbe*tides of the years are so strong that men go down under them before they get to be sixty, before they get to be fifty, befogfr they get to be forty, before they get to be thirty; and if you, my young brother, resolve now that you will spend the morning of your days in devouring the prey the probability is that you will never divide the spoils in the evening hour. He who postpones until-old age the religion of Jesus Christ postpones it forever. While this is an encouragement to old people who are still unpardoned, it is no encouragement to the young who are putting off the day of grace. This doctrine that the old may be repentant is to be talked cautiously. It is medicine that kills or cures. The same medicine giver, to different patients, in one ease its&ves life and in the other it destroys it. This possibility of repentance at the close of life may cure the old man while it kills the young. Be cautious in takng it. Conversion is instantaneous. .A man passes into the kingdom of God quicker than down the sky runs zigzag lightning. A irian may be anxious about his soul for a great many years; that does not make him a Christian. A man may pray a great while; that does not make him a Christian. A man may resolve on the reformation of his character and have that resolution going on a great while; that does not make him a -Christian. But the very instant when he fiings his soul on the mercy of Jesus Christ that instant is lustration, emancipation, resurrection. Up to that point he is going in the wrong direction; after that point ho is going in the right direction. Before that moment ho Is a child of sin; after that moment ho is a child of God. Before that moment devouring the prey; after that moment dividing the spoils. Five minutes is as good as five years.

My hearer, you know very well that the best things you have done you have done in a flash. You made up your mind in an instant to buy. or to sell, or to invest, or to stop, or to start. If you had missed that one chance, you would have m.ssed it forever. Now, just as precipitate and quick and spontaneous will be the ransom of your soul. Some morning -y-oa were mailing a calculation. You get on the track of some financial or social game. With, your pen or pencil you were pursuing it. That very morning you were devouring the prey. but that verv night you were in a different mood. You found that all leaven w.ns offered yon. You wondered Low you could get it for yourself and for your family. Yon wondered what resources it would give you now and hereafter. You are dividing peace and . comfort and satisfaction and Christian reward in your soul. You are dividing the spoils. One Sabbath uighi at the dose of tho serv : c- I said to some persons. “When did youHrrst become serious about vour soul?” And they told me, “To-night.” And 1 said tooth ers, “When did you give your heart to God?” And thevsa ; d, “To ni_dit.” And I said to still others, “When did you resolve to serve the Lord all the days of y nr life?” And they said “To-night.” I saw by thegayety of their apparel that wh.-n the grace of God struck them they were devouring the prey, but I also saw in the flood of joyful teais, and in the kindling raptures on their brow, and in their exhilaraut and transporting utterances, tnat they were dividing the s noils. If y m have been in this building when the lights are struck at night, you know that with one touch of electricity thev are all blared. Oh. I would to God that the darkness of your souls might be broken up. and that one quick, overwhelming, instantaneous flash of illumination you might be brought into the light and the liberty of the sons of God! What fs religion? It is dividing the spoil. It is taking a defenseless soul and panoplying it for eternal conquest. It is the distribution of prizes by the king's hand, every medal stamped with a coronation. It is an exhilaration, expansion. It is imparadisation. It is enthronement. Religion makes a man master of earth, of death and hell. It goes forth to gather the medals of victory won by Prince Emanuel, and the diadems of heaven, and the glory of realms terrestial and celestial, and then, after ranging all worlds for everything that is resplendent, it divides the spoils. What was it that James Turner, the famous English evangelist, was doing when in his dying moments he said: “Christ is all! Christ is all!” Why, he was entering into light. He was rounding the Cape of Good Hope. He was dividing the spoil§. What was the aged Christian Quakeress doing when at eighty years of age she arose in the meeting one day and said: “The time of my departure is come. My grave, clothes arc falling off?” She was dividing the spoil Though you came in children of the world, you may go away heirs of heaven, Though this very autumnal morning you were devouring the prey, now, all worlds witnessing, ycu may divide the spoil.