Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1894 — TALMAGE’S TOUR. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S TOUR.

First Sermon of the Great eraryThe Brooklyn Divine Stops at Little Rock amiPrcachos to a Great Audience. Dr. Talmage. y en route to California on his round the world journey, stopped at Little Rock. Ark., over Sunday, and preached to a large audience. Subject —“Recovered Families/' The text chosen was I Sam~uel- xxx, ,'4, ISj/^-UThen- -David an d: the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep. * * * David recovered aH.” He said: There is intense excitement in the village of Ziklag. David and his men are bidding good-by to their families and are off for the wars. In that little village of Ziklag the defense-

less ones will be safe until the warriors. flushed with victory, come home- But will the defenseless ones be safe? The softarms of the children are around the necks of the bronzed warriors until they shake themselves free and start, and handkerchiefs and flags are waved and kisses thrown until the armed men vanish beyond the hills. David and his men soon get through with their campaign and start homeward. Now they come up to the last hill that overlooks Ziklag, and they expect in a moment to see the dwelling places of their loved ones. They look, and as they look their cheek turns pale, and their lip quivers, and their hand involuntarily comes down on the hilt of the sword. “Where is Ziklag? Where are our homes?” they cry. Alas, the curling smoke above the ruin tells the tragedy? • The Amalekites have come down and consumed the village and carried the mothers and the wives and the children of David and his men into captivity. The swarthy warriors stand fora few moments transfixed with horror. Then their eyes glance to each other, and they burst into uncontrollable weeping, for when a strong warrior weeps the grief is appalling. It seems as if the emotion might tear him to pieces. They “wept until they had no more power to weep.” But soon their sorrow turns into rage, and David, swinging his sword high in the air, cries, “Pursue, for thou shalt overtake them and without fail recover all.”

Very soon David and his enraged company come upon the Amalekitish host. Yonder they see their own wives and children and mothers and under Amalekitish guard. Here are the officers of the Amalekitish army holding a banquet. The cups are lull; the music is roused; the dance begins.* The Amalekitish host cheer and cheer and chCpr over their victory. But without note of bugle or warning of trumpet David ami his 100 men burst upon the scene. David and his men look up. and one ■.dance at their loved ones in captiv-, ity and under Amalekitish guard throws them into a very fury of determination. for you know how men will fight when they fight for their wives and children. Ah, there are lightnings in their eye, and every finger is a spear, and their voice is .ike the shout of the whirlwind!

Now they are coming home, David Ind his men and their families—a iong procession. Men, women and children, loaded with jewels and robes and with all kinds of trophies that the Amelekites had gathered up in years of conquest-- everything now in the hands of David and his men. When they come by the brook Besor, where staid the men sick and incompetent to travel, the jewels and the robes and all kinds of treasures are divided among the sick as well as among the well. Surely the lame and exhausted ought to have some of the treasures. Here is a robe for a pale-faced warrior. Here is a pillow for this dying man. Here is a handful of gold for the wasted trumpeter. Some mean fellows objected to the sick ones having any of the spoils. The objectors said,‘‘These men did not fight.” David, with a magnanimous heart, replies, “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.” This subject is practically sugestive to ibe. Thank God, in these times a iuan can go off on a journey and'be gone weeks and months and come back and see his house untouched of incendiary and have his family on the step to greet him if by telegraph he has foretold the moment of his coming. But there arc Amelekitish disasters, there are Amelekitish diseases that sometimes come upon one’s home, making as devastating work as the day when Ziklag took fire. There arc families you represent broken up. No battering rain smote in the door, no iconoclast crumbled the statues, no flame leaped amid the curtains, but so far as ail'the joy and merriment that once belonged to that house the home has departed. Armed disease came down upon the quietness of the scene—scarlet fevers or pleurisies or consumption or undefined disorders came and seized upon some members of that family and carried them way. Ziklag in ashes! Why these long shadows of bereavement across this audience? Why is it that in almost every assemblage black is the predominant color of the apparel? Is it because you do not like saffron or brown or gray or violet? “Oh, no!’ you say, “The world is not so bright to us as it once was.” and there is a story of silent voices and still feet and of loved ones‘gone, and when

you look over the hijls expecting only beauty and loveliness you find only devastation and woes Ziklag in ashes! - _ ;■ I preach this sermon to-day because I want.Xo .rally you as David rallied his men, for the recovery of the loved and lost. I want not only toxvin 'hcaven. birtr l want .all this congregation to go along with me. I remark, in the first place, if you want to join your loved ones in glory, you must travel the same way they went. No sooner had the half dead Egyptian been resuscitated than he pointed the way the captors and the captives had gone, and David and "hts’''Tncri'foliowed'afterr-"*’Su , ''Trar Christian friends have gone into Rnother country, and if we want to reach their companionship we must take the same road. They repented; we must repent. They prayed: we must pray. They trusted in Christ; we must trust in Christ. They lived a religious life; we must live a religious life, They were in some things like ourse.l ves. I know, now that they are gone, there is a halo around their names, but they had their faults. They said and did things they ought never to have said or done. They were sometimes rebellious. sometimes cast down. So

I suppose that when we have gone some things in us that are now only tolerable may be almost resplendent. But as they were like us in (deficiencies we ought to be like them in taking a supernal Christ to make up for the deficits. Had it not been-fgr 2 Jesus-they-would-haveallperislied,-but Christ confronted them and said, “I am the way,” and they took it 4

I remark, again, if we want to win the society of our heaven, we will not only have to travel a path of faith and a path of tribulation, but we will also have to positively battle for their companionsnip. David and his men never wanted sharp swords and invulner-able-shields and tETck breastplafes' so much as they wanted them on the day when they came down upon the Amalekites. if they had lost that battle, they never would have got their families back. I suppose that one glance of their loved ones in captivity hurled them into the battle with tenfold courage and energy. They said: “We must win it. Everything depends upon it. Let each one take a man on point of s pear or sword. We must win it.” And I have to tell you that between us and coming into the companionship-of our loved ones who have departed there is an Austerlitz, there is a Gettysburg, there is a Waterloo. War with the world, war with the flesh, war with the devil. We have either to conquer our troubles, or oui 1 troubles will conquer us. David wi 11 eit her si ay the Am al ek i tos, or the Amalekite will slay David. And yet is not the fort to be taken worth all the pain, all the peril, all the besiegement? If this morning while I speak you could hear the cannonade of a foreign enemy whiph was to despoil your city, and if they really should succeed in carrying your families away from you, how long would we take before we resolved, to go after them? Every weapon, whether fresh from the armory or old and rusty in the garret, would be brought out, and we would urge on, and coming in front of the foe wo would look at them and then look, at our families, and the cry would be, “Victory or death!’, and when the ammunition was gone we would take the captors on the point of the bayonet or under the breech of the gun. If you would make such a struggle for the getting back of your earthly friends, will you not make as much struggle for the gaining of the eternal companionship of your heavenly friends? Oh, yes, we must join them. You say that all this implies that our departed Christian friends are alive. Why, had you any idea that they were dead? They have only moved. If you should go on the 2d day of May to'a house where one of your friends lived and find him gone, you would not think that he was dead . You would inquire next door where he had moved to. Our departed Christian friends have only taken another house. The secret is that they are richer now than they once were and can afford a better residence. They once drank out of! earthenware, they now drink from I the King’s chalice. “Joseph is yet alive,” and Jacob will go up and see him. Living, are they? Why, if a man can live in this damp, dark dungeon of earthly captivity, can he not live where he breathes the bracing atmosphere of the mounttin; of heaven? Ob, yes, they are living. But I must not forget these two hundred men who fainted by the brook Besor. They could not take another step farther. Their feet were sore; their head ached; their entire nature was exhausted. Besides that, they were broken-hearted because their homes were gone. Ziklag in ashes! And yet David, when he comes up to them, divides the spoils among them. He says they shall have some of the treasures. I look over this audience this morning, and I find at least two hundred who have fainted by the brook Besor —the brook of tears. You feel as if you could not take another step farther, as though you could never look up again. But I am going to imitate David and divide among you some glorious trophies. Here is a robe. “All things work together for good to those who love God.” Wrap yourself in that glorious promise, ilere is for your neck a string of pearls, made out of crystalized tears, “Weeping may endure fora night, but joy cometh in the morning." Hebe is a coronet. “Be thou faithful

unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Oh, ye fainting ones by the brook of Besor, dip your blistered feet in the running stream of God’s mercy. Bathe your brow at the well of salvation. Soothe your wounds with the balsam that exudesfremtreesof life. God will -not utterly cast-^ou-ofL-O-broken-hearted woman, fainting by the brook Bezor. A shepherd finds that his musical pipe is bruised. He says: “I can’t get any more music out of this in - strument, so I will just break it, and I will throw this reed away. Then I will get another reed, and I will play music on that.” But God says He will not cast you off because all the hnisic your soul. “The bruised reed He will not break.” As far as 1 can tell the diagnosis of your disease, you want divine nursing, and it is promised you, “As one whom his mother comforteth. so will I comfort you.” God wllEsecryAu~atl“tlre"'W3y J tinwugh““G troubled soul, and when you come down to the Jordan of death you will find it to be as thin a brook as Besor. May God Almighty, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, bring us into the companionship of our loved ones who have aiready entered the heavenly land and into the presence of Christ, whom, not having seen, we love, and so David shall recover all, “and as his part is that goeth down to the battle,so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff,”