Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1894 — TALMAGE'S TALK. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE'S TALK.

“Let not mercy and truth forsake thee; bind them about^tEy - neck; write them upon the table of thy heart. So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.” “After the Ball” ha> been raging in an epidemic form at Mankato, Kan., and the city council has passed an ordinance declaring the song to be a public nuisance, and fixing the penalty at fifty cents fine for each offense. Any person whistling or singing the air between the hours of 6 o’clock in the morning and 10 o’clock at nightlsliable to arrest.

* Mr. S. A. Andree. Chief Engineer of the Swedish Patent Department, recently sailed from Stockholm across the Baltic in a balloon. He was in mid-air. for twelve hours and landed in Finland in a very demoralized condition. His story is almost incredible, but valuable from a scientific point of view because of various recorded observations. The Indiana Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at Indianapolis has been provided with glass doors and a custodian. Visitors are now admitted, a fee of 23 cents being charged. Those people pining for pedestrian exercise are permitted to ascend to the top of the shaft by the stairway —if they can. An elevator will be built, after which the admittance fee will be 25 cents. It is hoped to pay the salary of the custodian from this source.

The great Yerkes telescope which was exhibited at the World’s Fair in the Manufacturers’ Building, will be located permanently in a” observatory at Geneva, Wis. This observatory is to be an annex to the University of Chicago, and it§, location at Geneva was decided upon because of the smoke and haze in the atmosChicago. It was the original intention of Mr. Yerkes to have the instrument placed in an observatory tower on the campus of the university, west of Jackson Park.

; Amelia Foi.soj, who was the favorite wife of Brigham Young, still resides at Salt Like City. She is now over seventy years of age. Mrs. Folsom-Young is a second cousin of Mrs. Cleveland, and was the eorlylove of the great Prophet, but on account of parental opposition failed to marry him. After the death of Mr. Folsom, Young returned to New York State, near Palmyra, and Amelia went with him to Utah, where she was established as the favorite wife in “Amelia Palace.” Richard Croker, the Tammany chief sachem, of New York, smarting under the repeated assaultsand insinuations of the press, has given out an authorized interview in which he states that he has never received a dishonest dollar from a political or any other source, adding significantly that if those who mhke these charges will make them specific he will find means to compel them to prove their statements. He denies emphatically the charge that Tammany has assessed saloons, gambling houses and evil resorts for political purposes. Mr. Croker will remain at the head of the Tammany organization.

A nephew of Queen Liliuokalani, named Kameiua, is now being educated at Oberlin, O. He is a native of the Sandwich Islands. In a well written article to the Indianapolis Sentinel he gives a resume of the history of his native land and its people from the first discovery by white people up*to the present time. His conlusions are that his race has been sadly wronged in many ways, but he speaks in complimentary terms of the missionaries, who, he. says, have endeavored to undo as far as possible, the wrongs inflicted by others. Naturally, he regards the dethronement of his aunt as an outrage, and he holds ex-Minister Stevens, and through him the Government of the United States, responsible for the present situation. Fakes continue to flourish, but now and then a wbll-laid plan of this •haracter “gangs aft a-gley.” A deep and determined plot to impose upon the credulity of the American people has just been exposed by Maj. Powell, of the Geological survey at Washington, the case being a “petrified” woman, whose history was supposed to be shrouded in the gloom and dark oblivion of an unknown pabt, as Dr. Talmage would say. The matter-of-fact military man promptly decided that the mysterious • l She” was made of ordinary Portland cement, and the prospect-

!ve museum attraction suddenly ceased to cast any ‘ ‘glamour” around the environs, while a greater genius than Haggard’s would be required to draw an inspiration from the cold remains. C hildren . who bite their nails have long been reprimanded for the fault, but few people suppose that the habit has its origin in nervous disease. The recent investigations of a French physician have proved this to be the case, and the affliction has been given the pmnious name of “Onycophagie.” Children suffering from “Onycophagie” are in need of medical treatment for incipient nervous degeneration. Statistics carefully prepared by this medical expert have demonstrated to his satisfaction that nail biters are perceptibly inferior in mental power to other children, and are fit subjects for rigid dicipline as well as the most careful and intelligent regulation of diet and the most expert medical treatment.

Chicago jurymen seem to have a “snap” in the way of hotel accommodations. The Revere House has been dubbed the “Jury Box” and the landlord has instructions “to see that the jury is well taken care of.” The host has several juries “on his hands” at times, and it is needless to say that his instructions are carried out and Cook county foots the bill and recoups itself from litigants when possible. The famous Coughlin and Prendergast juries were each given four connecting parlors, furnished with handsome folding beds, organs, billiard tables, and all conveniences. The jurors naturally did not complain about their confinement. Jury service under such circumstances is not the unpleasant experience that often fells to the lot. of the “good men and true” who serve as targets for legal eloquence in the rural districts.

Police Superintendent Byrnes, of New York, has recently added the j sixth gold stripe to his coat sleeve, which indicates that he has been in continuous and active service on the New York police force for thirty yours. The Superintendent is also the proud and happy possessor of five valuable medals voted to him at different periods of his career by the police board. Thomas Byrnes was born in Ireland in 1842. Dec. 10, 1863, he became a policeman in New York. Oct. 22, 1868, he was made a roundsman for meritorious services. He continued to rise to the various ranks of sergeant, captain, inspector, chief of detective bureau, the latter position being reached April 23, 1880, in which capacity he served until April 12, 1892, when, Superintendent Murray retiring, he was placed at the head of the department by the unanimous vote of the commissioners.

A Fafewell Sermon to the Dying Year. The Brooklyn Divine Drawl Consolation From an Early Demise. Dr. Talmage,preached at Brooklyn, last Sunday, Subject: “Shortened Lives of, A cheerful Good-by to 1893." The text selected was Isaiah Ivii, 1, “The righteous are taken away from the evil to come.” If I were agnostic I would say a man is blessed in proportion to the number of years he can stay on “terra firma.” became after that he falls off the docks, and if h«j is ever picked out of the depths it is onlj’ to be set up in some toergve of the universe to see if any body will claim him. If 1 thought God mademan only to last forty or fifty or one hundred years, and then he was to go into annihilation. I would say his chief business ought to be to "keep alive and even in good weather to be ven' cautious, and to carry an umbrbl’a and take overshoes and life preservers at d bronze armor and weapons of defense lest he fall off into nothingness a.id obliteration. But my friends you're r.ot agnostics. You believe in immortality and the eternal residence of the righteous in heaven, and, therefore. I first remark that an abbreviated ‘earthly existence is to be desired, and is a blessing because it makes one's life work very compact. Again, there is- a blessing in an abbreviated earthly existence in the fact that moral disaster might come upon the r»n if lie tarried longer. A man who had been prominent in churches, and who had been admired for his generosity and/Ti in tin ess everywhere, for forgery was sent to State prison for fifteen years Twenty years before there was no more probability of that man committing a commercial dishonesty ihan thatyou will commit a commercial dishonesty. The number of men iv'ru fall into ruin between fifty and se - en ty years of age isZ.sH.ipiy appalling. If they laid u.cd thirty years before it would have been better for them and bettor for their' families. The shorter the voyage the less chance for a cyclone. The great pressure of temptation comes sometimes in tins direction. At about forty-five years of age a man’s nervous system changes and some one tells him he must ’ake stimulants to keep himself up. until the stimulants keen him down, ora man has been going along for thirty or forty years in unsuccessful business, and here is an. opening where by one dishonorable action he can Jft himself and his family fsom all financial embarrassment. fie attempts to leap the chasm and he 'alls into it. Again, there is a blessing in an abbreviated earthly existence in the fact that one is sooner taken off the defensive. As soon as one is old enough to take care of .himself-be is

put on his guard. Bolts on the Jour | to keep out the robbrs. Fircpiuof safes to keep off the, flames. Life in su ran ce and fire in sura nee agn in s t accident. Receipts lest you have to pay a debt twice. Lifeboat against shipwreck. Westinghouse air brake against railroad collision. There aroj many to overreach you and take all i you have. Defense against cold, de-I sense against heat, defense against I sickness, defense against the world’s j abuse, defense all the way down to the grave, and even the tombstone sometimes is not a sufficient barricade. Again, there is a blessing in an abbreviated earthly existence in the fact that one escapes so many bereavements. The longer we live the more attachments and the more kindred, the more chords to be wounded I or rasped or sundered. If a man i live on to seventy or eighty years of j age, how many graves are cleft at his feet! In that long reach of time father and mother go. brothers and sisters go, grandchildren go, personal friends outside the family circle whom they had loved with a love like that of David and Jonathan. Sol reason with myself, and so you will find it helpful to reason with yourselves. David lost his son. Though David was king, he lay on the earth mourning and inconsolable for sometime. At this distance of time, which do you really think was the one to be congratulated—the short-lived child or the longlived father? Had David died as early as that child died he would, in the first place, havg escaped that particular bereavement: then he would have escaped the worse bereavement of Absalom, his recreant son, and the pursnit of the Philistines, and the fatigue of his military camphigns, and the jealousy of Saul, and the perfidy of Ahithophel, and the curse of’Shimei, and the destruction of his family at Ziklag, and, above all, he would have escaped the two great sins of uncleanness and murder. David lived to be of vast benefit to the church and the world, but so far as his own happiness was concerned does it not seem to you that it would have been better for him to have gone early? Again, my friends, there isa blessing in an abbreviated earthly existence in the fact that it puts one sooner in the center of things. All «astronomers, infidel as well as Chris tian, agree in believipg that the universe swings around some great center. Anyone .who has studied the earth and studied the heavens knows that God’s favorite figure in geometry is a circle. When God put forth His hand to create the universe, fie did not strike that hand at right angles, but He waved it in a circle and kept on waving it in a cin le until systems and constellations and

galaxies and all worlds took that motion. Our planet swingingarouud the sun, other planets swinging around Other suns, but somewhere a great hub around which the wheel of the universe turns. Now, that center is heaven. That is the capital of the universe. That is the great metropolis of immensity. We stick to the world as though we preferred, cold drizzle to warm habitation, discord to cantata, sackcloth to royal purple—as though we preferred a piano with four or five keys out of tune to an instrument fully attuned —as though earth and ; heaven had exchanged apparel and ■ earth had taken on bridal array and. heaven had gone into deep mourning. all its waters stagnant, all its harps broken, all chalices cracked at the dry' wells, all the laws sloping to the river plowed with graves, with dead angels under the furrow. Oh, I want to break up my own infatuation and I want to break up your infatuation for this world. I tell you, if we are ready and if pur work is done, the sooner we go the better, and if there are blessings in longevity I want you to know right well there are also blessings in an abbreviated earthly existence. If the spirit of this sermon is true, ' how consoled you ought tc feel about ; members of your family that went ! earlyl “Taken from the evil to • come,” this book says. What a fort- ! unate escape they bad! How glad we ought to feel that they will never have to go through the struggles which we have had to go through! They had just time enough to get out of the cradle and run up the springtime hills of this world and see how it looked, and then they started for a better stopping place--They were like ships that pub into St. Helena, staying there a sufficient time to allow passengers to go up and see the barracks of Napoleon's captivity and then hoist sail for the port of their own native land. They only took this world “in transitu.” It is hard for us, but it is blessed for them. And if the spirit of this sermon is t rue, then we ought not to go around sighing and groaning because another year has gone, but we ought to go down on one knee by the milestone and seethe lettersand thank God that we are 365 miles nearer home. We ought not to go around with morbid feelings about our health or about anticipated demise. We ought to be living not according to that old maxim which I used to hear in my boyhood, that you must live as though everyday were the last. You must, live as though you were to live forever, for you will. Do not be nervous lest you have to move out of a shanty into an Alhambra. One Christmas morning one of my neighbors, an old sea captain, died. After life had departed his face was illuminated as though he was just going into harbor. The fact was he had already got through the “narrows.” In the adjoining room were the, Christmas presents waiting for his distribution. Long

ago, one night wnen he bad narrowly escaped with his ship from being run down by a great ocean steamer, he had made his peace with God, and a kinder neighbor or a better man you would not find this side of. heaven. Without a moment’s 1 warning the pilot of the heavenly harbor had met him just off the light- * ship. - ■ The captain often talked tome of the goodness of God, and especially of a time when he was about to go into New York harbor with his ship from Liverpool, and he was suddenly i impressed that he ought to put back to sea. Under the protest of the crew and under their very threat he put back to sea, fearing at the same time he was losing his mind, for it did seem so unreasonable that when i they could get into harbor that night i they should put back to sea. But i they put back to sea, and the captain sajd to his mate, “Youtcall me at 10 o’clock at night?” At 12 o’clock at night the captain was aroused and said: “What does this mean? I thought I told you to call me at 10 o’clock, and here it is 12.” “Why,” said the mate, “I did call you at 10 o’clock, and you got up, looked around and told me to keep right on the same course for two hours, sand then to call you at 12 o’clock.” Said the captain: “Is it possible? I have no rememberance of that.” At 12 o’clock the capain went on deck, and through the rift of the cloud the moonlight fell upon the sea and showed him a shipwreck with 100 struggling passengers. He helped them off. Had he been any earlier or later at that point of the sea he would have been of no service to these drowning people. On board the captain’s vessel they began to together as to what they should pay for the rescue and what they should pay for the provisions. “Ah,” says the captain, “my lads, you can’t pay me anything. All I have on board is yours. I feel too greatly honored of God in having saved you to take any pay.” Just like him. He never got* any pay except that of his own applauding conscience. Oh, that the old sea captain’s God might be my God and yours! Amid the stormy seas of this life may we have always some one as tenderly to take care of us as the captain who took care of the drowning crew and passengers. And may we come into the harbor with as little physical pain and with as bright a hope as he had. and if it should happen to be a Christmas morning, when the presents are being distributed and we are celebrating the birth of him who came to save our shipwrecked world, all the better, for what grander, brighter Christmas present could we have than heaven?