Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1895 — TAKES A NEW CHARGE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TAKES A NEW CHARGE

TALMAGE MOVES FROM BROOKLYN TO WASHINGTON. Installed as Co-Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Where Presi- „ dent Cleveland Worships Gives Reasons for Accepting the Call. . ; SermonofLa st The installation of the Rpv. T. DeWitt Talmage as a eo-pastor with the Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland, of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington city, took place recently. The exercises were held in the evening. The moderator, the Rev. Mr. Allen, presided and put the constitutional questions. The-First Church is the “President's Church,” the worshiping place of the President being thus •familiarly huffWn.-T)r.Newman’s elrurch, during the Grant regime, became very famous as the General’s place of prayer. place, a few blocks from the Capitol. Years ago the fashionable set moved a way ©£f to w a I'd th e AV hi t e House and left the plain little brick church to the care of surrounding boarding-houses and _ encroaching shops. Its life was languishing wh en roves Oievela nd. m It«G', 70 scovered in the Rev. Byron Sunderland an old friend and took a pew in his church.

The calling of Dr. Talmagein September „._last was the result of an inspiration of ‘ Dr. Sunderland, who,’for a generation, has been pastor. — ' Dr. Talmage in giving -reasons for Tchanging thu scene of his lirtTOrs said : ‘‘l feel that this is a national opportunity. In Washington much of the intellect and thought of the country settles, not to speak of the vast incoming and outgoing throng. Yes, I had that in New York, but the work there was different, and I missed the warmth and support only to be found in parish work. The finger of Providence seemed to point to Washington, and Providence is always my guide. I had a number of other calls, or rather invitations. to consider. One of the greatest I had this summer was to go to London. Every inducement was offered me, but I felt that for 200 years we had been Americans, and I could not live away from this country. . Another opportunity was in connection with the Red Cross work. Twenty thousand dollars was raised and I was asked to take it to the suffering Armenians. I wished very much to undertake the task, and asked protection from the Turkish Government. It was very courteous to me, but, after asking what cities I should visit, they could only say: ‘Come to Constantinople and the money will be distributed from there for you.' That was hardly the —ldea, you know, but to-havg-started out without Government protection and all that money about me would have been [.-pimply an invitation to the brigands. If M had gone there it would not have interwith my pastoral work, as I would j* have taken but two or three months.” Dr. Talmage preached his second serISnon' in his new pulpit last Sunday. If possible the audience was even larger than the previous Sunday. The subject wns “The Disabled.” the text selected being I. Samuel, xxx, 24 r “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.” If'yoii have never seen an army change quarters, you have no idea of the amount of baggage—twenty loads, fifty loads, 100 loads of baggage. David and his army were about to start on a double quick" march for the recovery of their captured families from the Amalekites. So they left by the brook Besor their blankets, their knapsacks, their baggage and their carriages. Who shall bo detailed to watch this stuff? There are sick soldiers, and wounded soldiers, and aged soldiers who are not able to go on swift militaryex-" peditions, but who are able to do some work, and so they are detailed to watch the baggage. There is many a soldier who is not strong enough to march thirty miles in a day and then plunge into a ten hours’ tight who is able with drawn sword lifted against his shoulder to pace up and down as a sentinel to keep off an enemy who might put the torch to the baggage. There are 200 of those crippled and aged and wounded soldier detailed to watch the baggage. Some of them, I suppose, had bandages across the brow, and some of them had their arms in a sling, and some of them walked on crutches. They were not cowards shirking duty. They had fought in many a fierce battle for their country and their God. They are now part of the time in hospital and part of the time on garrison duty. They almost try because they cannot go with the other troops to the front. While these sentinels watch the baggage the Lord watehel the How Battles Have Been Lost. There is quite a different scene being enacted in the distance. The Amalekites, having ravaged and ransacked and robbed whole countries, are celebrating their success in a roaring carousal. Some of them are dancing on the lawn with wonderful gyration of heel and toe, and some of them are examining the spoils of victory—the finger rings and earrings, the necklaces, the wristlets, the headbands, diamond starred, and the coffers with coronets and carnelians and pearls and sapphires and emeralds and all the wealth of plate and jewels and decanters, and the silver, nnd the gold banked up on the earth' in, princely profusion, and the embroideries, and the robes, and the turbans, and the cloaks of an imperial wardrobe. The banquet has gone on until the banqueters aue maudlin and weak and stupid and indecent nnd loathsomely drunk. What a time it is now for David nnd his men to swoop on them! So the English lost the battle of Bannockburn, because the night before they were in wassail and bibulous celebration while the Scotch were in prayer. So the Syrians were overthrown in their carousal by the Israelites. So Chedorlaomcr and his army were overthrown in their carousal by Abraham and his men. So in our civil war more than once the battle was lost

because one of the generals was drank. Now is the time for David and his men to rfwoop upon these carousing Amalekites. Some of the Amalekites are hacked to pieces on the spot, some of them are just able to go staggering and hiccoughing oft the field, some of them crawl on camels and speed off in the distance. David and his men gather together the wardrobes, the jewels, and put them upon the back of camels and into wagons, and they gather together the sheep and cattle that had been stolen and start back toward the garrison. Yonder they come! Yonder they come! The limping men of the garrison come out-and greet them with wild’huzza. The Bible says David saluted them —that is, he asked them how they all were. “How is your broken arm?” “How is your fractured jaw?” —“Has the stiffened limb been unlimbered ?” “Haveyouhad another chill?” “Are you getting better?” He saluted them. t - Garrison Duty. But now came a very difficult thing, the distribution of the spoils of victory. Drive up those laden camels now. Who shalt liaVe the spoils.?: Well, souie sei fi sh soul suggests thgtJhese treasurhs~'ought all to belong to those who had been out in active service. “We did all the fighting while these men st aid at home in the garrison, and we ought to have all the treasures.” But David looked into the worn faces of these veterans who had staid in the garrison and he looked round and- saw how cleanly everything had been kept, and he saw that the baggage was all safe, and he knew that these wounded and crippled men would gladly enough have been at the front if they had been able, and the little general looks tip from under his helmet and-saysr “No, no, let ns have fair play,” and he rushes up to one of these men and he says, “Hold your hands together,” and the hands are held together, an he fills them with silver. And he rushes up to another man who was sitting away back and had no idea of getting any of the spoils and throws a' Babylonish garment over him and fills his hand with gold. And he rushes up to another man who had lost all his property in serving God and his eouiitfy years before, and he drives up some of fh<s cattle and some of the sheep that they had brought back from the Amalekites and he gives two or three of the cattle and three of four of the sheep to this poor man, so he shall always be fed and clothed. He seqs a man so emaciated and worn out and sick he needs stimulants and he gives him a little of the wine that he brought' front the A malekites. Yonder is a mail who Jias jo appetite for the rough rations of the army, and he gives him a rare morsel front the Amalekitish banquet, and the 2t)o crippled and maimed and aged soldiers who tarried on garrison duty get just as much of the spoils of battle as any of the 200 men that went to the front. “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.” The impression is abroad that the Christian rewards are for those who do conspicuous service in distinguished places—great patriots, great preachers, great philanthropists. But my text sets forth the idea that there is just as much reward for a man that stays at home and minds his own business and who, crippled and unable to go forth and lead in great movements and in the high places of the earth, does his whole duty just where he is. Garrison duty is as important and as remunerative as service at the front, “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.” Rewards are not to be given according to the amount of noise you make in the world, nor even according to the amount of good you do, but according to whether you work to your full capacity, according to whether or not you do your full duty in the sphere where God has placed you. * Each as to His Part. Suppose you give to two of your children errands and they are to go off to make purchases, and to one you give $1 and to the other you give S2O. Do you reward the boy that you gave S2O to for purchasing more with that amount of

money than the other boy purchased with $1? Of course not. If God give''wealth or social position or eloquence or twenty times the faculty to a man that he gives to the ordinary man, is he going to give to the favored man a reward because he has more power nnd more influence? >Oh, no. Iji other words, if you and I were to do our udrole duty and you have twenty times more talent than I have, you will get no more divine reward than 1 will. Is God going to reward you because he gave you more? That would not be fair; that would not be right. These 200 men of the text who fainted by the brook Besor did their whole duty; they watched the baggage, they took care of the stuff, and they got as much of the spoils of victory as the men who went to the front. “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shnll his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.” There is high encouragement in this for all who have greatitesponsibility and little credit for what they do. Y’ou know the names of the great commercial houses of these cities. Do you know the names of the confidential clerks—the men who have the key to the safe, the men who know the combination lock? A distinguished merchant goes forth at the summer watering place nnd he flushes past and you say. “Who is that?” “Oh,” replies some one, “don’t you know? That is the great imported, that is the great banker, that is the great manufacturer.” The copftdential clerk has his week off. Nobody notices whether he comes or goes. Nobody knows him, und after awhile bis week is done, and he sits down again .at his desk. But God will reward his fidelity just ns much us he recognizes the work of the merchant philanthropist whose investments this unknown clerk so carefully guardedf 8 ** Hudson River Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, Erie Railroad, New York and New Haven Railroad —business men know the names of the presidents of these roads and of the prominent directors, but they do not know the names of the engineers, the names of the switchmen, the names of the flagmen,

the names of the brakemen. These mert have awful responsibilities, and sometimes, through the recklessness of an engineer or the unfaithfulness' of a switchman, it has brought to mind the faithfulness of nearly all the rest of them. Some men do not have recognition of their services. They have small wages and much complaint. I very often ride upon locomotives and I very often ask the question, as we shoot around some curve or under some ledge, of rocks, “How much wages do you get?” And lam alwayssurprised to find how little for such vast responsibility. Do..you suppose God is not going to recognize that fidelity? Thomas Scott, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, going up at death to receive from God his destiny, was no better know.n in that hour than was known last night the brakeman who, on the Erie Railroad, was jammed to death amid the car couplings/ “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be.t hat tarrieth by the stuff.” ■- -—Unpretending Service—=■ . A Chri&tittn women was seen going along the edge of wood every eventide, and the neighbors in the country did not understand how a mother with so -many cares and anxieties should waste so much time as to be idly sauntering out evening -by evening. itjwas.found out afterward that she went-there to pray for' her household, and while there one evening she wrote that beautiful hymn, famous in all ages for cheering Christian hearts: I love to steal tfWhile'away 7777 From every cumberitig-care- —- And spend the hours of settingilay In humble, grateful prayer.

Shall there be no reward for such unpretending everlasting service? Clear back in the country there is a boy who want's to go to college and get an education.' They call him a bookworm. Wherever they find him—-in the. barn or in the house—he is reading.a book. “What a pity it is,” they say, “that Ed eannot get a n education.” His father, work as hard as he will, can no “more than'support'fhe family bylhe product of the farm. Orfe night Ed has retired to his room and there is a family conference about him. The sisters say;VFather, I wish you would send Ed to college. If you will, we will work harder than we ever did, and we will make our old dresses do,” The mother says: “Yes, I Will get along without any hired help, although I am not as strong as I used to be. I think l ean get along without any hired help.” The father says, “Well, I thi n k by li uski n g corn nights I ca n ge t along withotttg-anv assistance.” Sugar is banished..fromthe tnbTe, bntter is bnnished from the plate. That family is put down on rigid—yea, suffering—economy that the boy may go to college. Time passes on. Commencement day. has come. Think not that 1 mention an imaginary case. God knows it happened. Commencement day has come, and the professors walk in on the stage in their long gowns. The interest of the occasion is passing on, and after awhile it comes to a climax of interest as the valedictorian is to be introduced. Ed has studied “so' hdfd fthd worked so-well that he has had the honor conferred upon him. There are rounds of applause, sometimes breaking into vociferation. It is a greatday for Ed. But away back in the galleries are his sisters in their plain hats and their faded shawls, and the old fashioned father and mother—dear me, she has not had a new hat for six years, he has not had a new hat for six years —and they get up and look over on-the platform and they laugh and they cyy, and they sit down, and they look pale and then they are very much flushed, Ed gets the garlands, and the Old-fashioned group in the gallery have their full share of the triumph. They have made that scene possible, and in the day when God shall more fully reward self-sacrifices made for others* he will give grand and glorious recognition. “As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.”

Veterans in Work. There is high encouragement in this subject, also, for those who once wrought mightily for Christ and the church, but "through sickness or collapse of fortune or advanced years cannot now go to the front. -These 200 men of the text were veterans. Let that man bare his arm and sliow how the muscles were torn. Let him pull aside the turban and see the mark of a battle ax. Pull aside the coat and see whore the spear thrust him. Would it have been fair for those ifiyn, crippled, weak and old, by the brook Besor, to have no share in the spoils of triumph? Fret not, ye aged ones. Just tarry by tke?stuff and wait for your share of the spoils. Yonder they are coming. 1 hear the bleating of the fat lambs and I see the jewels glint in the sun. It makes me laugh to think how you will be surprised when they throw a chain of gold over your neck and tell you to go in and dine with the king. I see you backing out because you are unworthy. The shining ones come up on the one side, and the shining ones come up on the other side, and they push you on and they push you up -and they say, “Here is an old soldier )af Jesus Christ,” and the shining ones will rush out toward you and say, “Yes, that man saved my soul,” or they will rush out and say, “Oh, yes, she was with me in the last sickness.” And then the cry will go round the circle, “Come in, come in, come up, come up. We saw you away down there, old and sick and decrepit and discouraged because you could not go to the front, but ‘As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’ ” Cheer up, men and women of unappreciated services. You will get your rewanh- if not here, hereafter. Oh, that will be a mighty day when the Son of David shall distribute ( the garlands, the crowns, the scepters, the chariots, the thrones. And then it shall be found out that all who on earth served God in inconspicuous spheres receive just as much reward as those who filled the earth with uproar of achievement. Then they shall understand the height, the depth, the length, the breadth, the pillared and domed magnificence of my text, “As liis part is that geeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.”

REV. DR. TALMAGE.

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.