Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1895 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

ASEKMCfkoFCHRISTIAN CHEERFULNESS. fiev, Dr. Talmaje on Daniel's Devotions Eefore the Window that Faced His Native Jernsalem—The Battle wlth_£lti and Heath—The Victory? ThOv^pcn. Windows. In his sermon Sunday Rev. Dr. Talinage chose a theme overflowing with Christian cheerfulness and encouragement. The subject is “Open Windows,” and the text selected was Daniel vi., 10, “His windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem.” 3=255 The scoundr, lh- princes of Persia. urged on by political jealousy against. DanieUihave succeeded in getting a law passed that whosoever prays to God shall be put under the paws and teeth of the lions, who are lashing themselves in rage and hunger up and down the stone cage, or putting their lower jaws on the ground, bellowing -till the earth trembles. But the. leonine threat did not hinder the devotions of Daniel,, the Coeur de Lion of the ages. His enemies might as well have a law that the sun should not draw water, or that the south wind should not sweep across a garden 'at magnolias, or that God should be abolished. They could not scare him with the redhot furnaces, and they cannot now scare hkn with the lions. As soon as Daniel hears of this enactment he leaves his office of secretary of state, with its upholstery of crimson and gold, and comes down the white marble steps and goes to his own house. He opens his window and puts the shutters back and pulls the curtain aside so that he can look toward the sacred city of Jerusalem, and then /rays. Daniel on His Knees. I suppose the people in the street gathered under and before his window and said: “Just see that man defying the law. He ought to be arrested.” And the constabulary of the city rush to the police headquarters and report that Daniel is on his knees at the wide open window. “You are my prisoner,” says the officer of the law, dropping a heavy hand bn the shoulder of the kneeling Daniel. As the contile door of the naywa-te-fhrust in their prisoner they see the glaring eyes of the monsters. But Daniel becomes the first lion turner, and they lick his hands and fawn at his feet, and that night he sleeps with the shaggy mane of a wild beast for his pillow, while the king that night, sleepless in the palaee, has on —him the naw and teeth of a lion he cannot tame —the lion of a remorseful conscience. What a picture it would be for some artist! Darius, in the early dusk of morning, not waiting for footmen or chariot, hastening to the den, all flushed and nervous and in dishabille and looking through the crevices of the cage to see what had become of his prime minister! “What, no sound?” he says. “Daniel is surely devoured, and the lions are sleeping after their horrid meal, the bones of the poor man scattered across the floor of the cavern.” With trembling voice Darius calls •out,. “Daniel!” No answer, for the phophet is yet ineprofdund slumber. But a lion, more easily awakened, advances, and with hot breath blown through the .-crevice T'ffrilv. >fi cause of this interruption,- and' then another wild beast lifts his mane from under Daniel’s head, and the prophet, waking up, comes forth to report himself'all unhurt and well. - But our text stands us at Daniel’s window, open toward Jerusalem. Why in that direction open? Jerusalem was his native land-and all the pomp of his Babylonish successes could not make him forget it. He came there from Jerusalem nf~ 18 years ot age and he never visited it, though ho lived to be 85 years. Yet, when lie wanted to arouse the deepest emotions and grandest aspirations of his heart, he had his window open toward his native Jerusalem, • There are many of you to-day who understand that without any exposition. This is getting to be a nation of foreigners. They have come into all occupations and professions. They sit in all churches. It may be twenty years since you got your naturalization papers and you may be thorougly Americanized, but you can’t forget the land of your birth and your warmest sympathies go out toward it. Your windows arc open toward Jerusalem. Your father and mother are buried there. It may have been a very humble home in which you were born, but your memory often plays around it and you hope some day to go and see it—the hill, the tree, the brook, the house, the place so sacred, the door from which you started off with parental blessing to ftiako you own way in the world, and God only knows how sometimes you have longed to see the familiar places of your childhood and how in awful crises of life you would like to have caught a glimpse of the old, wrinkled face that bent over you as you lay on the gentle lap twenty or forty or fifty years ago. You may have on tTiiS side of the sen risen in. fortune, and, like Daniel, have become great and may have come into prosperities which you never could have reached if you had staid there, and you may have many windows to your house—bay windows and skylight windows and windows of conservatory and windows on all sides—but you have at least one window open toward Jerusalem. By the Ojjen Window. When the foreign steamer comes to the wlmrf, you see the long line of sailors, with shouldered mailbag.-, coming down the planks, carrying as many letters as you might suppose to be enough for a year’s correspondence, and this repeated agaiu and again during the week. Multitudes of them are letters from home and at all the postoffices of the land people will go to the window and anxiously ask for them, hundreds of thousands of persons finding that window’ of foreign mails the open window’ toward Jerusalem. Messages that say: “When are you coming home to see us? Brother has gone into the nrmy u Sister is dead. Father and mother are getting venr feeble. We are having a great struggle to get on here. Would yotf advise us to crime to you, or will you come to us? All join in loveUnd hope to meet you, if not in this w-orld, then in a better. Good-by.” Yes, yes. In all these cities and ainid the flowering western prairies and on the slopes of the Pncific and amid the Sierras and on the banks of the lagoon and on the ranches of Texas there is an uncounted multitude who, this hour, stand and sit andkneel with their windows open toward Jerusalem. Some of these people played on the heather of the Scottish hills. Some of them were driven out by Irish famine. Some of them, in early life, •drilled in the German army. Some of them were accustomed at Lyons or Marseilles or Paris to see on the street Victor .An

Hugo and Gambotta. Some chased the chamois among the Alpine precipices Some plucked the ripe clusters from Italian vineyard. Some lifted their faces under-thomidnight sun of Norway. It is no dishonor taour land that they remember the place of their nativity. Miscreants would they be if, while they have some of their windows open to take in the free air of America and the sunlight of an atmosphere which- -no kingly despot has ever breathedt fSey forgot sometimes to open the window toward Jerusalem. No dander that the son of the Swiss, when far away from home, hearing the national air of his country sung, the milady of homesickness coiiies on him so powerfully as to cause his death. You have the example of heroic Daniel of my text for keeping early memories fresh. Forget not the old folks at home. Write often, and. if you have surplus of means and .tfhily are poor, makepraetieal contribution and rejoice that America is bound to all the world by ties of sanguinity qs in no other nation. Who eau doubt but it is appointed for the evangelization of other lands? What a stirring, melting, gospelizing theory that all the doors of other nations are open toward us, while our windows are open toward them! * a Idolaters. Bnt Daniel, in the text, kept this porthole of tils domestic fortress unclosed because Jerusalem was the capital of sacred influences. There had smoked the sacrifice. There was the holy of holies. There was the ark of the covenant. There stood the temple. We are all tempted to keep our windows open on the opposite side, toward the world, that we may see and hear and appropriate its advantages. What docs the world say? What does the world think? What does the world do? Worshipers of the world instead Of worshipers of God. Windows open toward Babylon. Windows open toward Corinth. Windows open toward Athens. Windows open toward Sodom. Windows open toward the flats, instead of windows open toward the hills. Sad mistake, for this world as a god is like something I saw in the museum of Strasburg, Germany—the figure of a virgin in wood and iron. The victim in olden time was brought there, and this figure would open its arms to receive linn, arid, once enfolded, the figure closed with a hundred knives and lances upon him, and then let him crop ISO feet sheer down. So the world first embraces Ft TltraPS upriirTheiii w HIT many tortures, and then lots them drop" forever down. The highest honor the world could confer was to make a man Roman emperor, but out ol sixty-three emperors, it allowed only six to die peacefully in their beds. The dominion of this world over multitudes is illustrated by the names of eoiiisof many countries. They have their pieces of money which they call sovereigns and half sovereigns, crowns and half crowns, Napoleons and half Napoleons, Fredericks and double Fredericks and ducats and Isabellinos, all of which names mean not so much usefulness as dominion. The most of our windows open toward the exchange, toward the salon of fashion, toward the god of this world. In olden times the length of the English yard was fixed by the length of the arm of King Henry 1., and we are apt to measure things by a variable standard and by the human arm that in the great crises of life can give us no help. We need, like Daniel, to open our windows toward God and religion. ■ -Nccesaity-for Prayer.But, mark you. that good iion tamer is not standing at the window, but kneeling, while he looks out. Most photographs are taken of those in standing or sitting posture. I novy remember but one picture of a man kneeling, and that was David Livingstone, who iu the cause of God and civilization sacrificed himself, and in the heart of Africa his servant, Majwara, -found him in the tent by"the light of a candle, stuck on the top of a box. his head in his hands upon the pillows and dead on his knees, But here is a great lion tamer, living under the dash of the light, and his hair disheveled of the breeze, praying. The fact is that a man can see farther on his knees than standing on tiptoe. Jerusalem was about 550 statute miles from Babylon, and the vast Arabian desert shifted its sands between them. Yet through that open window Daniel saw Jerusalem, saw all between it, saw beyond, saw time, saw eternity, saw earth and saw licq,ven. Would you like to see the way through your sina-to pardon, through you troubles to comfort, through temptation to rescue, through dire sickness to immortal health, through night to day, through things terrestrial to things celestial, you will not see them till you take Darnel's posture. No cap of bone to the joints of the fingers, no cap of bone to the knees, made so because the God of the body was the God of the soul, and especial provision for those who want to pray, and physiological- structure joins with spiritual necessity in bidding us pray and pray and prny. Iu olden time the Earl of Westmoreland said he had no need to pray because he had enough t>ious tenants on his estate to pray for him, but ail the prayers of the church universal amount to nothing unless, like Daniel, we pray fo*- ourselves. O men and women, bounced on one side by Shadrach’s redhot furnace and the other side by devouring lions, learn the secret of courage and deliverance by looking at that Babylonish window open toward the southwest! “Oh,” you say, “that is the direction of the Arabian desert!" Yes, but on the other side of the desert is God, is Christ, is Jerusalem, is heaven. The brussels lace is superior to all other lace, so beautiful, so multiform, so expensive—MM) francs a pound. All the world seeks it. Do you know, how it is made? The spinniug is done in a dark room, the only light admitted through a small aperture and that light falling directly on the pattern. And the finest Specimens of Christan character I have ever seen or ever expect to see are those to be found in lives all of whose windows have been darkened by bereavement and misfortune save one, but under that one window of prayer the interlacing of divine workmanship went on until it was fit to deck a throne, a celestial embroidery which Angels admired and God approved. The Bridal Jerusalem. But it is another Jerusalem toward which we now need to open our windows. The exiled evangelist of Ephesus saw It one day as the surf of the Icarian Sea foamed and splashed over the bowlders at his feet, and his vision reminded me of a Wedding day when the brida by sister and maid was having garlands twisted for her hair and jewels strung for her -neck just before she pats her betrothed hand into the hand of her affianced. “I, John, saw the holy city. New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”, Toward that bridal Jerusalem are our windows opened? - 4 , _•

We would do well to think more of heaven. It is not a mere annex of earth. It is not a desolate outpost. As Jerusalem was the capital of Judea, and Babylon the capital of the Babylonian and London is the capital 'of Great Britain, and Washington is the capital of our own republic, the New Jerusalem is the capital of the universe. The King lives there, and the royal family of the redeemed have their palaces there, and there is a congress of many nations and the parliament of all the world. Yea, as . Daniel had kindred in Jerusalem of whom he often thought, though he left home when a very young man, perhaps father and mother and brothers and sisters still living, and was homesick to see "them, and they belonged to the high circles of royalty. Daniel himsriif having royal blood in his veins, so we have in the New Jerusalem mgreat many kindred, and we are sometimes homesick to see them, and they are alt princes and princesses, in them the blood imperial, and we do well to keep our windows open toward their eternal residenee. ... _ • '■ ■ . L~... ■ It is a joy for us to believe that while we are interested in them they are interested in us. Much thought of heaven makes one heavenly. The airs that blow through that open window are charged with life and sweep up to us aromas from gardens that never wither, finder skies that never cloud, in a springtide that never terminates. Compared with it all other heavens are dead failures. Homer’s heaven was an elysinm which he describes as a plain at the end of th* earth or beneath, with no snow nor rainfall, and the sun never goes down, and Rhadamanthus, the justest of men, rules. Hesiod’s heaven is jtvhat he calls the islands of the blessed, in the midst of the ocean, three times a year blooming with most exquisite flowers, and the air is tinted with purple, while games and music and horse races occupy the time. The Scandinavian’s heaven was the hall of Walhalla, where the god Odin gave unending wine suppers to earthly heroes and heroines. The Mohammedan’s heaven passes its disciples in over the bridge AlSirat, which is finer than r hair and sharper than a sword, and they are let loose into a riot of everlasting sensuality. :z=rz Keep the Window Open. The American aborigines look forward to a heaven of illimitable hunting ground, than plentiful, and the hounds never off the scout, and the guns never missing fire. But the geographer has followed the earth round and round no Homer’s elysium. Voyagers have traversed the deep in all directions and found no Hesiod’s Islands" of the blessed. The Mohammedan’s celestial debauchery and the Indian’s eternal hunting ground for vast multitudes haveno charm. But here rolls in the Bible heaven. No more sea—that is, no wide separation. No more night—that is, no insomnia. No more tears —that is, no heartbreak. No more pain—that is, dismissal of lancet and bitter draft and miasma arid banishment of neurSigias and catalepsies and consumptions. All colors in the wall except gloomy black; all the music in the major key, because celebrative and jubilant. River crystalline, gate crystalline and skies crystalline, because everything is clear and without doubt. White robes, and that means sinlessness. Vials full of odors, and that means pure regalement of the senses. Rainbow, and that means the storm is over. Marriage - thatmeans gladdest festivity.;; Twelve manner of fruits, and that means' luscious anil unending "variety? Harp, trumpet, grand march, anthem, amen and halleluiah in the same orchestra. Choral meeting solo and overture meeting antiphon, and strophe joining dithyramb, as they roll into the ocean of And you and I may have all that and have it forever through Christ if we will let him, with the blood of one wounded hand, rub out our sin and with the other wounded hand swing open the shining portals. Day and night keep your window open toward that Jerusalem. Sing about it. Pray about it. Think about it. Talk about it. Dream about it. Do not be inconsolable about your friends who have gone into it. Do not worry if something in your heart indicates that you are not far off from its ecstasies. Do not think that when a Christion dies he stops, for he ’goes on. An ingenious man has taken the heavenly furloughs as mentioned in Revelation and has calculated that there will be in heaven 100 rooms 1G feet square for each ascending soul, though this world should lose 100,000,000 yearly. But all the rooms of heaven will be ours, for they are family rooms, and ns no room in your house is too good for your children so all the rooms of all the palaces of the heavenly Jerusalem will be free to God’s children, and even the throneroom will not be denied, and you may run up the steps of the throne and put, your hand on the side of the throne and sit down beside tlie King according to the promise, “To Him that overcometli will I grant to sit withime in my throne.” But you earinot go in except as conquerors. Many years ago the Turks and Christians were in battle, and the Christians were defeated, and with their commander Stephen fled toward a fortress where the mother of this commander was staying. When she saw-her son and his army in disgraceful retreat, she had the gates of the fortress rolled shut, and then from the top of the battlement, cried out to her son, “You cannot enter here except as conqueror!” Then Stephen rallied his forces and resumed the battle and gained the day, 20,000 driving back 200,000. For those who are defeated in battle with sin and death and hell, nothing but shame and contempt, bnt for those who gain the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ the gates of the New Jerusalem will hoist, and there shall be-an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord, toward which you do well to keop your windows open.