Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1894 — THE ROYAL GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

THE ROYAL GARDEN.

The Church an Oasis in a Desert of Sin. Flowers as Types of Human Passions and Desires—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon. Dr. Talmage’s sermon for the press for last Sunday was from the subject, ‘’The Royal Gardens,” the text- being taken from Solomon’s Songyv. 1, “I am dome into my garden.” The world has had many beautiful gardens. Henry IV, at Montpellier, established gardens of bewitching beauty and luxuriance, gathering into them Alpine, Pyrenean and French plants. One of the sweetest Spots on earth was the garden of Shenstone, the poet.' His writings have made but little impression on the world, but his garden, ‘‘The Leasowes,” will be immortal. To the natural advantages of that place was brought the perfection of art. Arbor and terrace and slope and rustic temple and reservoir and urn and fountain here had their crowning. Oak and yew and hazel put forth their richest foliage. There was no life more diligent, no soul more ingenious than that of Shenstone, and all that diligence and gedius was brought to the adornment of that one treasured spot. He gave £3OO for it. He sold it for £17,000. And yet I am to tell you of a richer garden than any I have mentioned. It is the garden spoken of in my text, the garden of the church, which belongs to Christ, for my text says so. He bought it, he planted it. But I have to tell you that Christ’s life and Christ’s death were the outlay of this beautiful garden of the church of which my text speaks. Oh, how many sighs and tears and pangs and agonies! Tell me, ye women who saw Him hang! fell me, ye executioners who lifted Him and let Him down! Tell me, thou sun that didst hid.eyerocks that fell 1 “Christ-loved the church and ?ave Himself for it.” If, then, the garden of the church belongs to Christ, certainly He has a right to svalk in it. Come, then, O blessed lesus, this morning, walk up and iown these aisles and pluck what Fhou wilt of sweetness for Thyself.

That would be a strange garden in ivhich there jvere no flowers. If nowhere else, they will be along the oorders, or at the gateway. The lomeliest taste will dictate somefiling, if it be the old-fashioned hollylock or dahlia or daffodil or coreopsis. but if there be larger means fiien you will find the Mexican cac;us and dark veined arbutelion and □lazing azalea and clustering oleanler. Well, now, Christ comes to Jis garden, and He plants there Mine of the brightest spirits that iver flowered upon the world. Some if them are violets, unconspicuous, jut sweet in Heaven. You have to search for such spirits to find them. You do not see them vfery often perlaps, but you find where they have jeen by the brightening face of the nvalid, and the sprig of geranium an. the stand, and the window curtains keeping out the. glare of the sunlight. There are others planted in Christ’s garden who are always arlent, always radiant, always impresliye —more like the roses of deep hue fiiat we occasionally find called “glints of battle”—the Martin Luthers, st. Pauls, Chrysostoms, Wykliffs, Latimers and Samuel Rutherfords. What m other men is a spark, in fiiem is a conflagration. When they sweat, they sweat great drops of jlood. When they pray, their prayer takes fire. When they preach, it is a Pentecost. When the fight, it is a TherinopylM When they die. it is a martyrdom. In this garden of the church, which Christ has planted, I also find the snowdrops, beautiful but cold looking, seemingly another phase of the winter. I mean those Christians who are precise in their tastes, unimpassioned, pure as snowdrops and is cold. They never shed any tears; they never get excited; they never say anything rashly, they never do anything precipitately. Their pulses never flutter; their nerves never twitch; their indignation never boils aver. They live longer than most people, buttheir life is in a minor key. Snowdrops, always snowdrops. But I have not told you of the most beautiful flower in all this garden spoken of in the. text. If you see a “century plant,”your emotions are started. You say, “Why. this flower has been a hundred years gathering up for one bloom, and it will be a hundred years more before other petals will come out.” But I have to tell you of another plant that was gathering up from all eternity, and that 1,900 years ago put forth its bloom never to wither. It is the passion flower of the cross! Again, the church may be appropriately compared to a garden, because it is a place of select fruits. That would be a strange garden which had in it no berries, no plums, no peaches or apricots. The coarser fruits are planted in the orchard or they are set out on the sunny hillside, but the choicest fruits are kept in the garden. So in the world outside the church Christ has planted a great many beautiful things —patience, charity, generosity,integrity —but he intends the choicest fruits to be in the garden, and if they are not there then shame on the church. Religion is not a mere flowering sentimentally. It is a practical, life-giving, healthful fruit—not posies, but apples. I have not told, you of the better tree in this garden and of the better fruit. It was planted just outside Jerusalem a good while ago. When

that tree was planted it was so splf! and bruised arid barked men said nothing would ever grow upon it, but no sooner bad that tree been planted than it buddedand blossomed and fruited, and the soldiers’ spears were the only clubs that struck down that fruit, and it fell into the lap of the nations, and men began to pick it up and eat it, and they found in it an antidote to all thirst, to all poison, to all sin L to all death, the smallest cluster larger than the famous one of Eshcol, which two men carried On a staff between them. If the one apple in Eden killed the race, this one cluster of mercy shall restore it.

Again, the church in my text is appropriately called a garden because it is thoroughly irrigated. No garden could prosper long without plenty of water. I have seen a garden in the midst of a desert, yet blooming and luxuriant. All around was dearth and barrenness,but there were pipes, aqueducts reaching from this garden up to the mountains,and through those aqueducts the water came streaming down and tossing up into beautiful mountains until every root and leaf and flower was saturated. That is like the church. The church is a garden in the midst of a great desert of sin and suffering. It is well irrigated, for “our eyes are upon the hills, from whence cometh our help.” From the mountains of God’s strength there flow down the rivers of gladness. There is a river the stream whereof shall made glad the city of our God. Preaching the gospel is one of these aqueducts'. The Bible is another. Baptism and the Lord’s supper are aqueducts. Water to slake the thifst, water to restore the faint, water to wash the unclean, water tossed high up in the light of the sun of righteousness, showing us the rainbow around the throne. Oh, was there ever a garden so thoroughly irrigated? Hark, I hear the latch at the gar--den gate and I look to see who is coming. I hear the voice of Christ, “I am come into my garden.” Isay: “Come in, O Jesus; we have been waiting for thee. Walk all through these paths. Look at the powers; look at the fruit. Pluck that which thou wilt for thyself.” Jesus comes into the garden and up to that old man and touches him and says: “Almost home, father. Not many more aches for thee. I will never leave thee. I will never forsake thee. Take courage a little longer and I will soothe thy tottering steps, and I will soothe thy troubles and give thee rest. Courage, old man.” Then Christ goes up another garden path* and he comes to a soul in trouble and says: “Peace; all is well! I have seen thy tears; I have heard thy prayer. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. He will preserve thy soul. Courage.! O troubled spirit!” Then I sec Jesus going up another garden path, and I seegreatexcitement amongthe leaves, and I hasten up that garden path to sec wha t Jesus is doing there* and. 10, he is breaking off flowers, sharp and clean from the stem, and! Isay. “Stop, Jesus; don’t kill those turns to mq and says: “I have come into my garden to gather lilies, and I mean to take these up to a higher terrace and for the garden around my palace and there I will plant them in better* soil and in better air. They shall put forth brighter leaves and sweeter redolence, and no frost shall touch them forever.” Andi looked up into his face and said: “Well, it is his garden, and he has a right to do what he wiTl~wTtli~Tt7 ThWwiil be done”-—the hardest prayer a man ever made.

He sat down amid those bowers and said.. “I have lost my road to happiness. lam angry and envious and frantic and despise everything around me, just as it becomes a madman to do.” Oh, ye weary souls, come into Christ’s garden to-day and pluck a little-heartsease! Christ is the only rest and the only pardon for a perturbed spirit. Do you not think your chance has almost come? You men and women who have been waiting year after year for some good opportunityin which to accept Christ, but have postponed it five, ten, twenty, thirty years, do you not feel as if now your hour of deliverance and pardon and salvation had come? Oh, man, what grtidge hast thou against thy poor soul that thou wilt not let it be saved? I feel as if salvation must come now to some of your hearts. Some years ago a vessel struck on the rocks. They had only one life boat. In that lifeboat tfie passengers and crew were getting ashore. The vessel had foundered, and was sinking deeper and deeper, and that one boat could not take the passengers very swiftly. A little girl stood on the deck waiting for her turn to get into the boat. The boat came and went —came and went, but her turn did not seem to come. After awhile she could wait no longer, anc she leaped on the taffrail and then sprang into the sea, crying to tin boatman: “Save me next! Save me next!” Oh, how many have gone ashore into God’s mercy, and yet yov are clinging to the wreck of sin Others have accepted the pardon oi Christ, but you are in peril. Whj not this morning make a rush foi your immortal rescue, crying until Jesus shall hear you and heaven anc earth ring with the cry: “Save mt next! Save me next! R< «ret. Browning, Klng& Co.’s Monthly. Jarvis (in surprise)—Why, Jen kins, is that you? I heard vou wen killed! Jenkins, (sadly)—No; it was nn brother. Jarvis (thoughtlessly)—Too bad—too bad!