Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1894 — WRESTLING JACOB. [ARTICLE]

WRESTLING JACOB.

His Supernatural Struggle Typi • cal of Life’s Conflict. An Eloquent Discourse—The Non-Essen-tials of Religion—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon.' At the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Sunday. Dr. Talmage preached on the spiritual conflicts of life, taking for his text. Genesis xxxii, 24-26: “And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day. And when he saw' that he prevailed not against him he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And 4 he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” He said: —You see in the first place that God allows good people sometimes to get into a terrible struggle. Jacob was a good man, but here is left alone in the midnight to wrestle with a tre - mendous influence by the brook Jabbok. For Joseph, Pit; for Daniel, a wild beast den; for David, dethronement and exile; for John the Baptist, a wilderness diet and the executioner’s ax; for Peter, a prison; for Paul, shipwreck; for John, desolate Patmos; for Vashti, most insulting cruelty; for Josephine, banishment; for Mrs. Sigourney, the agony of a drunkard's wife; for John Wesley, stones hurled by an infuriated mob; for Catherine, the Scotch girl, the drowning surges of the sea; for Mr. Burns, the buffeting of the Montreal populacur for John Brown, of Edinburgh, the pistol shot of Lord Claverhousc; for Hugh McKatl; the" scaffold; for Latiiner. the stake; for Christ, the cross. _ . . f will go further and say that every- Christian has his struggle. This man had his combat in Wall

street; this one on Broad street; this one on Fulton street; this one on Chestnut street; this one on. State street; this one on Lombard streeff; this one on the bourgc. With financial misfortune you have the midnight.jgrpsttei Redhot disasters-, have dropped into your store from loft to cellar. What you bought you could not sell. Whom you trusted fled. The help you expected would not come. Some giant panic, with long arms and grip like death, took hold of you in. an awful wrestle, from which you have not yet escaped, and it is uncertain whether it will throw you or you will throw it. From a wrestle with habit I have seen men fall back defeated. Calling for no help, but relying on their own resolutions, they have come into the struggle, and for a time it seemed , as if they were getting the upper hand of their habit, but that habit rallied again its infernal power and lifted a soul from its standing and with a force borrowed from the pit, hurled it into utter darkness. But thank God, I have often seen a better termination than that. I have seen men prepare themselves for such wrestling. They laid hold of God’s help as they went into combat. The giant habit, regaled by the cup of many temptations, came out strong and defiant. They clinched. There were the writhings and distortions of a fearful struggle. But the old giant began to waver, and at last, in the midnight alone,-with none but God to witness, by the —brook—Jabbo-ky-the giant fell, and the triumphant wrestfcrdjTOfcV-'ttTO' darkness with the ory, “Thanks be unto God, who givetli us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” There is a widow’s heart, that first was desolate by bereavement, and since by the anxieties and trials that came in the support of a family. It is a sad thing to see a man contending for a livelihood under disadvantages, but to see a delicate woman, with helpless little ones at her back, fighting the giants of poverty and sorrow, is more affecting. It was a humble home, and passersby knew not that within those four walls were displays of courage more admirable than that of Hannibal crossing the Alps, or the pass of Thermopylae, or Balaklava, where, “into the jaws of death rode the six hundred.”

Some one said to a very poor woman, “How is it that in such distress you keep cheerful?"' She said: “1 do it by what I call cross prayers. When I had my rent to pay, and nothing to pay it with, I used to sit down and cry. But now Ido not get discouraged. If Igo along the street 1 say, ‘The Lord help me.’ I then go on until I come to another crossing, and again I say, ’The Lord help me.’ And so I utter a prayer at every crossing, and since I have got into the habit pf saying these ‘cross prayers,’ I have been able to keep up my courage.” When David was fleeing through the wilderness, pursued by his own son, he was being prepared to become the sweet singer of Israel. The pit and the dungeon were the best schools at which Joseph ever graduated. The hurricane that upset the tent and killed Job’s children prepared the man of Uz to write the magnificent poem that has astounded the ages. There is no way to get the wheat out of the straw but to thrash it. There is no way to purify the gold but to burn it. Look at the people who have always had it their own way. They are proud, discontented, useless and unhappy. If you want to find cheerful folks go among those who have been purified bv the fire. It is prosperity that kills and trouble that saves. While the Israelites were on the mareh amid greht privations and hardships they behaVed well, After awhile they prayed for meat, and the sky dark-

ened with a great flock of quails, and these quails fell m large multituccs all about them, and the Israelites ate and stuffed themselves until they died. Oh, my friends, it is not hardship or trial or starvation that in jures the soul, but abundant supply. .. not the vulture of trouble that eats up the Christian's life. It is the q uails. It is the quails. You will yet find out that your midnight wrestle bv the brook jabbock is with an angel of God come down.to bless and save you. Learn/ again, that while our wrestling with trouble may be triumphant we must expect that it will leave its mark upon us. Jacob prevailed, but the angel touched him, and his thigh bone sprang from its socket, and the good man went limping on his way. We must carry through this world the mark of th® combat. What ploughed those premature wrinkles in your face? What whitened your hair before it wastime for frost? What silenced forever so much of the hilarity of your household? Ah, it is because the angel of trouble, hath touched you that you go limping on jjour way. You need not be surprised that those who have passed through the fire do not feel as gay as once they did. Again we may take the idea of the text and announce the approach of the day-dawn. No one was ever more glad to see the morning than was Jacob after that night of gle. It is appreciate for philanthropists and Christians to cry out with this angel of the text, “The day breaketh.” The worlds prospects are brightening. The church of Christ is rising up inits strength o go forth ’ ’fair as the moon, clc ar as the sun and terrible as an army with banners. •’ Clap your hands, all ye people, the day breaketh. The bigotries of the earth are perishing. The time was when we were told that if we wanted to get to heaven we must be, immersed or sprinkled, or we must believe in the perseverence of the saints, or in falling away from grace, or a liturgy, or they must be Calvinists or Arminians in order te| reach heaven. We have all come to confess now that these, are non-essen-3 tials in religion. t (During my vacation, one summer, I was in a Presbyterian audience, and it was sacramental day, and with grateful heart I received the holy communion. On the next Sabbath I was in a Methodist church and sat at a love feast. On the following Sabbath I was in an Episcopalian church and "knelt at the altar and received the consecrated bread. I do not know which service I enjoyed the most. “I believe in the communion of saintsand in the life everlasting.” As I look upon this audience I see many who have passed through waves of trouble that came up higher than their girdle. In Go’d’s name I proclaim cessation of hostilities. You shall not go always saddened and broken-hearted.’ God will bring your dead to life, God will stanch the heart’s bleeding. I know He will. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities you. The pains of earth will end. The tomb will burst;. . The dead will rise. The—morning star trembles on a brightening sky. The gates of the east begin to swing open. The day breaketh. Luther and Melancthon were tallying together gloomily about the prospects of the church! TheytebultU

no hope of deliverance. After awhile Luther got up and said 'jot "STelancthon: “Come, Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth psalm of David: ‘God is our refuge and--strength, a very present help in trouble. There - fore will not we fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake -with the swelling thereof. Selah. ’ ” ———- Death to many—nay to all —is a struggle and a wrestle. We have many friends that it will be hard to leave. I care not. how bright of r future hope is. It is a bitter thing to look on this fair world and know that we shall never again see its blossoming spring, its falling fruits, its sparkling streams, and to say farewell to those with whom we played in childhood or counseled in manhood. In that night, like Jacob, we may have to wrestle, but God will not leave us unblessed. It shall not be told.in heaven that ady ing soul cried unto God for help, but was not delivered. The lattice may be turned to ke-p out the sun, or a book set to dim the light of the midnight taper, or the room may be filled with the cries of orphanagy and widowhood, or the church of Christ may mourn over our going, but if Jesus calls all is well. The strong wrestiing by the brook will cease, the hour of death’s night will pass along, 1 o’clock in the morning, 2 o’clock in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning—the day breaketh. So I would have it when I die. I am in no haste to bo gone. I have no grudge against this world. The only fault I have to find with the world is that it treats me too well. But when the time comes to go I trust to be readv, my worldly affairs ail settled. If I have wronged others I want to be sure of their forgiveness. In that last wrestlings my arm enfeebled with sickness and my head faint, I want Jesus beside me. If there be hands on this side of the flood stretched out to hold me back, I want the heavenly hands stretched out to draw me forward. Then, O Jesus, help me on and help me up. Unfearing, undoubting, may I step right out into the light and be able to look back to my kindred and friends who would detain me here, exclaiming, “Let me go; let me go: the day breaketh!”