Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1895 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

AWAKENS THE SYMPATHY OF LOVERS OF HUMANITY. He Chooses for His Subject “ Slaters of Charity,” and Discourses Eloquently Upon the Rights Vouchsafed to Women and the Way They Pursoe Them. Full of Good Works. ■■■■'■ In his sermon at Beatrice, Neb., last Sunday, Rev. Dr. Talmage, who is now on his summer western tour, chose a subject that must awaken the sympathies of all lovers of humanity—viz., “Sisters of Charity.” The text selected was Acts -ix*, • -3b,- “This worntrtr' WAS "ToTT'bT'good' works and alinsdeeds which she did.” Starting now where I left off last Sabbath in reciting woman’s opportunities, I have to say that woman has the special and superlative right of blessing and comforting the sick. What laud, what street, what house has. not felt the smitings of disease? Tens of thousands of sick beds! What shall we do with them? Shall man, with his rough hand and heavy foot and impatient bearing, minister? No. He cannot soothe the pain. Ho cannot quiet the nerves. He knows not where to set the.light. His hand is not steady enouglT to pour out the drops. He is not wakeful enough to be a watcher. The Lord God sent Miss Dix into the Virginia hospitals, and the Maid of Saragossa to appease the _ wounds of the battlefield, and has equip - ped wife, mother and daughter for this delicate but tremendous mission. You have known men who have despised woman, but the moment disease fell upon them they did not send for their friends at the bank, or their partner in business, or their worjdjy associates. Their first cry was, “Take me to my wife.” The dissipated young man at the college scoffs at the idea of being under home influences, but at the first blast of the typhoid fever on his cheek he says, “Where is mother?” Walter Scott wrote partly in satire and partly in compliment when he said:

“O woman, in our hour of ease, Uncertain, coy and hard to please, When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou.” : The Mothers in Sickness. I think the most pathetic passage in all the Bible is the description of the lad who went out to the harvest field of Sbunem and got sunstruek —throwing his bands on his temples and crying out, “Oh, my head, my head!” and they said, “Garry him to his mother.” And then the record is, “He sat on her knees till noon and then died.” It is an awful thing to be ill away from home in a strange hotel, once in awhile men coming to look at you, holding their hand over'their mouth for fear that they will catch the contagion. How roughly they turn you in bed! How loutlly they talk! How you long for the ministries' of tome! I knew one such who went away from one of the brightest of homes for several weeks’ business absence at the West. A telegram eame at midnight that he was on his death bed, far away from home. By express train the wife and daughters went westward, but they went too late. He feared not to die, but he was in an agony to live until his family got there. He tried to bribe the doctor to make him live a little while longer. He said, “I am willing to die, but not alone.” But the pulses fluttered, the eyes closed and the heart stopped. The express trains met in the midnight—wife and daughters going westward —lifeless remains of husband and father coming eastward. Oh, it was a sad, pitiful, overwhelming spectacle! When we are sick, we want to be sick at home. When the time comes for us to die, we want to die at home. The Tobin may be very bumble, and the faces that look into ours may be yery plain, but who cares for that? Loving bands to bathe the temples. Loving voices to speak good cheer. Loving lips to read the comforting promises of Jesus.

In our last dreadful war men cast the cannon, men fashioned the musketry, men cried to the hosts: “Forward! March!” men hurled their battalions on the sharp edges of the enemy, crying: “Charge! Charge!” but woman scraped the lint, woman administered the cordials, woman watched by the dying couch, woman wrote the last message to the home circle, woman wept at the solitary burial attended by herself and four men with a spade. We greeted the general home with brass bauds and triumphal arches and wild huzzas, but the story is too good to be written anywhere, save in the chronicles of heaveu. of Mrs. Brady, who came down among the sick in the swamps of the Chickahominy: of Annie Boss, in the cooper shop hospital: of Margaret Breckinridge, who came to men who had been for weeks with their wonnds undressed, some of them frozen to the ground, and when she turned them over rhose that had an arm left waved it and filled the air with their "Hurrah!” t f Mrs. Ilod>.e, whoiame from Chicago with hiaukets and with pillows until the men shouted: “Three cheers for the Christian commission! God bless the women at home!” then, sitting down to take the last message: “Tell my wife not to fret about nte. but to meet me in heaven. Tell her to train up the boys whom we have loved so well: tell her we shall meet again in the good land; tell her to bear my loss like the Christian wife of a Christian soldier;” and of Mrs. Sheltop, into whose face the convalescent soldier looked and said, “Your grapes and cologne cured me.” Men did their work with shot and shell and carbine and howitzer; women did their work with socks and slipi>ers and bandages and warm drinks and Scripture texts and gentle strokings of the hot temples and stories of that land where they never have any pain. Men knelt down over the wounded and said, “On which side did you fight?” Women knelt down over the wonnded and said: “Where are you hurt? What nice thing can I make for you to eat? What makes you cry?” To-night while we men are sound asleep in our beds there will be a light in yonder loft, there will be groaning in that dark alley, there will be cries of distress In that cellar. Ylen will sleep, and women will watch. Women in Charity. Again, woman has a superlative r.ght to take care of the poor. There are hundreds and thousands of them in all our cities. There is a kind of work that men cannot do for the poor. Here comes a group of little barefoot children to the door of the Dorcas society. They need to be clothed and provided for. Which of these directors of banks would know bowmany yards it would take to make that little girl a dress? Which of these masculine hands could fit a hat to that little girl’s head? Which of the wise men would know Jtovr to tie on the new pair of shoes?

Man sometimes gives Sis charity In a rough way, and it falls like the fruit of a tree in the east, which fruit, comes down so heavily that it breaks the skull of the man who is trying to gather it. But woman glides so softly into the house of destitution, and finds onfall the sorrows of the place, and putsso quietly the donation on the table, that all the family come out on the front steps as she departs, expecting that from under her shawl she will thrust out two wings and go right up toward heaven, from whence she seems to bare come down. O Christian yong woman, if you would make yourself happy and win the blessing of Christ, go out among the destitute. A loaf of bread or a bundle of socks may make a homely load to carry, but the angels of God will come out to watch, and tfie Lord Almighty will give his messenger hosts a charge, saying: “Look after that woman. Canopy her ~wl tli“ y our wfngif ancT sheTfer her from all harm,” and while you are seated in the house of destitution and suffering the little ones a round the fooler will whisper: “Who is she? Ain't she beautiful?” and if you listen right sharply you will hear dripping down the leaky roof and rolling over the rotten stairs the angel chnnt that shook Bethlehem, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will to men.” Can you tell me why a Christian •woman,-going down among the haunts of iniquity on a Christian errand, never meets with any indignity? I Stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the daughter of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, in the most abandoned part of the city of Edinburgh, and I said to her as I looked around upon the fearful surroundings of that place, “Do you come here nights to hold service?” “Oh, yes,” she said. “Can it“ be possible that you never met with an insult while performing this Christian errand?” “Never,” she said. “Never.” That young woman who has her father by her side walking down the street, an armed policeman at each corner of the street, is not so well defended as that Christian who goes forth on gospel work into the haunts of iniquity, carrying the Bibles of bread. God, with the right arm of his wrath omnipotent, would tear to pieces any one who should offer indignity. He would smite him with lightnings, and drown him with floods, and swallow him with earthquakes, and damn him with eternal indignations. Some one said: “I dislike very much to see that Christian woman teaching these bad boys in the mission school. lam afraid to have her instruct them.” “So,” said another man, “I am afraid, too.” Said the first, “I am afraid they will use vile language before they leave the place.” “Ah,” said the" other man, “I am not afraid of that. What I am afraid of is that if any of those boys should use a bad word in that presence the other boys would tear him to pieces and kill him on the spot.” That woman is the best sheltered who is sheltered by omnipotence, and it is always safe to go where God tells you to go. It seems as if the Lord had ordained woman for an especial work in the solicitation of charities. Backed up by barrels in which there is no flour, and by stoves in which there is no fire, and wardrobes in which there are no clothes, a woman is irresistible. Passing on her errand, God says to her, “You go into that bank or store or shop and get the money.” She goes in and gets it. The tnnn is hard fisted, but she gets it. She could not help but get it. It is decreed from eternity she should get it. No need of your turning your back and pretending you don’t hear. You do hear. There is no need of your saying you are begged to death. There is no need of your wasting your time, and you might as well submit first as last. You had better right away take down your check book, mark the number of the check, fill up the blank,, sign your name and hand it to her. There is no need of wasting time. Those poor children on the back street have been hungry long enough. That sick man must have some farina. That consumptive must have something to ease his cough. I meet this delegate of a relief society coming out of the store of such a hard fisted man, and I say, “Did you get the money?” “Of course,” she says, “I got the money; that’s what I went for. The Lord told me to go in and get it, and he never sends me on a fool’s errand.”

Women In Emergencies. Again, I have to tell you that it is woman’s specific right to comfort under the stress of dire disaster. She is called the weaker vessel, but all profane as well as sacred history attests that when the crisis comes she is better prepared Ahan man to meet the emergency. How often you have seen a woman who seemed to be a disciple of frivolity and indolence, who, under one stroke of calmity, changed to a heroine! Oh, what a great mistake those business men make who never tell their business troubles to their wives! There comes some great loss to the store, or some of their companions in business play them a sad trick, and they carry the burden all alone. He is asked in the household again and again, “What is the matter?” but he believes it a sort of Christian duty to keep all that trouble within his own soul. Oh, sir, your first duty was to tell your wife all about it. She perhaps might not have disentangled your finances or extended your credit, but she would have helped you to bear misfortune. You have no right to carry on one shoulder that which is intended for two. There are business men who know what I mean. There comes a crisis in your affairs. You-, struggle bravely and long, but after awhiiei there comes a day when you say, “Here I shall have to stop,” and you call in your partners, and you call in the most prominent men in your employ, and you say, “We have to stop.” You leave the store suddenly. You can scarcely make up your mind to pass through the street and over on bridge or on the ferryboat. You feel everybody will be looking at you and blaming you and denouncing you. You hasten home. You tell your wife all about the gffair. What does she say ? Does she play the butterfly? Does she talk about the silks, and the ribbons, and the fashions? No. She comes up to the emergency. She quails not under the stroke. She helps you to begin to”p!un right away. She offers to go out of the comfortable house into n smaller one and wear the old cloak another winter. She is one who understands your affairs without blaming you. You look upon what yon thought was| a thin, weak Woman’s arm holding you up, but while you look at that arm there comes into the feeble muscles of It the strength of the eternal God. No chiding. No fretting. No telling you about the beautiful house of her father, from wnich you brought her, ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Y'ou say: “Well, this is the happiest day of my life. lam glad I have got from under my burden. My wife don’t care—l don’t care.” At the moment you were utterly exhausted God sent a Deborah to meet the host pf the Amalekites and scatter them like chaff ©Ter the plain.

Her Responsive Heart. There are sometimes women who sit reading sentimental novels and who wish that they bad some grand field in which to display their Christian powers, Ob, what grand and glorious things they coaid do if they only had an opportunity! My sister, yon need not wait for any inch time. A crisis will come in yonr affairs. There will be a Thermopylae in your own household, where God will tell you to stand. There are hundreds of households whereTts much courage is demanded of woman as was exhibited by Grace Darting or,Marie AntoinetJe or Joan of Arc. yVoman is further endowed to bring us into the kingdom of heaven, It is easier for a woman to be a Christian than for a man. Why ? Yon say she is weaker. No. Her heart is more responsive to the pleadings of di vine love. The ffcct tbaf she can more easily become a Christian I prove by the statement that three-fourths of the members of the churches In all Christendom are women. So God appoints them to be the chief agencies for bringing this world back to God. The greatest sermons are not preached with an audience of two or three and in private home life. A patient, loving, Christian demeanor in the presence of transgression, in the presence of hardness, In fFe presence of obduracy and crime, is an argument from the force of which no man can escape. Lastly, one of the specific rights of woman is, through the grace of Christ, finally to reach heaven. Oh, what a multitude of women in heaven! Mary, Christ’s mother, in heaven; Elizabeth Fry in heaven, Charlotte Elizabeth in heaven, the mother of Augustine in he%ven, the Countess of Huntingdon—who sold her splendid jewels to build chapels—in heaven; while n great many others who have never been heard of on earth or known but little have gone to the rest and pence of heaven. What a rest! What a change it was from the small room, with no fire and one window, the glass broken out, and the aching side and wornout eyes, to the “house of many mansions!” No more stitching until 12 o’clock at night, no more thrusting of the thumb by the employer through the work to show that it was not done quite right. Plenty of bread at last. Heaven for aching heads. Heaven for broken hearts. Heaven for anguish bitten frames. No more sitting up until midnight for the coming of staggering steps. No more rough blows, across the temples. No more Sharp, keen, bitter curses. “ Some of you will have no rest in this world. It will be toil and struggle and suffering all the way up. You will have to stand at your door fighting back the wolf with your own hand, red with carnage. But God has a crown for you. I want you to realize that he is now making it, and whenever you weep a tear he sets another gem in that crown, whenever you hare a pafig of body or soul be puts another gem in that crown, until after awhile in all the tiara there will be no room for another splendor, and God will say to his angel, “The crown is done; let hemp that she may wear it.” And as the Lord of righteousness puts the crown upon your brow angel will cry to angel, “Who is she?” and Christ will say: “I will tell you who she is. She is the one that came up out of great tribulation and had her robe washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.” And then God will spread a banquet, and he will invite all the principalities of heaven to sit at the feast, and the tables will blush with the best clusters from the vineyards of God, and crimson with the twelve manner of fruits from the tree of life, and waters from the fountain of the rock will flash from the golden tankards, and the old harpers of heaven will sit there, making music with their harps, and Christ will point you out, amid the celebrities of heaven, saying: “She suffered with me on earth; now we are going to be glorified together.” And the banqueters, no longer able to bold their peace, will break forth with congratulation: “Han!—Hail!” And there will be handwritings on the wall, not such as struck the Persian noblunen with horror, but with fire-tipped fingers, writing in blazing capitals of light and love and victory, “God has wiped away all tears from all faces.”