Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1896 — HOW TO TAKE A CITY. [ARTICLE]

HOW TO TAKE A CITY.

ABIMELECH A RASCAL. BUT KNEW HOW TO FIGHT. * Rev. I>r. Talmage Shows How God SoiqeUnin Drives, a Straight Nail with a Poor Hammer—The Besieged City of Shechem. The I/epson. In hiS sermon for Sunday Rev. Dr. mag's TOotr ffah'lSts sOBJeH "THg Power of Example." .The text selected was Judges ix., 48: “And Abimelech took an ax in Iris hand and cut down a brfugh from the ■trees add took it and laid it On his shoulder and said unto the people that were with him, What ye have seen uie douiake haste and do as I have-done. And all the people likewise cut down every inau his bough.” Abimelech is n name malodorous in Bible htfctory and yet full of profitable suggestion. Buoys are black aud uncomely, hut they tell where, the rocks are. The 'snake’s raftleds hideous, but it gives timely warning. Prom the piazza of my summer 1 home, uight by night, I saw a lighthouse fifteen miles away, not placed there for adornment, but to tell mariuovs to stand off from that dangerous point. <So uIL tbe iroiibpuhd coast of . moral danger is marked with'Haul and Herod and Rehoboaiu ami Jezebel and Abimelech. These bad people are mentioned in the Bible not only as warnings, but because there were sometime* flashes of good conduct in tjieir lives worthy of imitation, God sometimes drives a very straight nail with a very ‘t>oor hammer. Taking n City. The city of' Shechem had to be taken and Abimelech and his men were to do it. I see the dust rolling up. froin their excited march. 1 hear the shouting of the captains and the yell of the besiegers. - The swords clack sharply on The parrying shields, and the vociferation of two armies in death grapple is horrible to hear. The battle goes on all day, and as. the Sub is settjng Abimelech anil life army cry, “Surrender}” to the beaten foe, and, unable linger to resist, the city of Shechem falls, and til ere nre'pfiols of blobd’and dissevered limbs, and glazed eyes, looking up beggingly fo ( r : mercy that war never shows, and dying soldiers, with their head on the lsp of mothei; orwitVor sister, who have, come out for the last ofik-es.of kindness and a flection, and 4 groan rolls across the city, stopping not, because there,is no spot for it to rest, so full is the pjUi.ce of other groans. .A city, wounded! A city dying! A city dead! ' Whli for Shechem, nil ye who know the horrors o-f a sacked to\yn. As I look over the city I can find only one building standing, nnd that is Che temple of flic god BM-iilt. Some soldiers outside of the city in a tower, finding that they can no longer defend Slieehem.,now begin to look but lor. their own personal safety, and they fly to this toaiplfe. of Berith. They go ivitMu the door, shut it, nnd they say, “Novvwc are safeY Abhnelech Ihis taken the whole city, bubhecanliol take this temple of Berith. Here we shall be. tinder the protection of the gods.” O Berith, .the god,' do your best now for these refugees! If you have eyes, pity them: if you have hands, help them; if you have thunderbolts, strike for them. But liow shall Abimelech and his army take this temple of Berith and the men who are there fortified? 'Will they do it with sword? Nay! Will they do it tvith spear? Nay! With battering ram, rolled up by hundred armed strength, crashing against the walla? Nay! Abimelech. marches his men to'a wood in Zalmou. With Iris- a* he hews off a limb of a tree nnd puts that limb upon his own shoulder, and; then lie-says to his men, "You do the: same'.”

T hey. obedient to their coin ma ml or. ... There is a (Struggle as to who shall have axhr. The whole wood is full of bending boughs, and the crackling, and t'he hneking, and’ the cutting, until.every one pf the host has a limb of a tree cut down, and not only that,. but has put it on his shoulder just as Abiineleeh showed him how. Are these moii nil armed with the thee . branch? Tlte.ipply comes, “Ail armed!” And they march on. Oh, what a strange army, wit* that strange equipment! They come up to the foot of the temple at Kerith, and Abimelech takes his limb of n tree and llimivs it down, and the first platoon of soldiers come up, and they throw down their branches, ami the second platoon, and the third, until all around about the temple of Berith there is a pile of .tree branches. The .Shechemites look’din from the ftindoiw of the'temple •spoil what seems -to them childish play oij the part of their enemies. But soon the Hints are struck, and the spark begihs to kindle the brush, and the flame comes up nil through tire pflo, and the red elements leap to the casement, and the woodwork begins to blaie, nnd one arm of flame is thrown up ofi the right side of the temple, and another arm of flame is thrown upr on the left side of the femple, until they clasp their lurid palms under the Wild night sky. and the ery of “Fire!” within and “Fire!” without announces the terror, and the strangulation, and the doom.of the khecheniitrs, and the complete overthrow of the tchiplo of the god B.eritli. Then there went up a shout, long and loud, from the stout lungs apd ipvaNhy chests of Abimelech and his men as they •tood amid the ashes and the dust prying, “Victory, victory!” The Tactics liscd. Now I lenrn first from-this subject, the folly of depending upon any one form of tactics in anything we have to do for this world or fur (Joik Look over the weaponry of olSeu times—jrtvelhis.'i&ttlPaix'es, lu(.bergeons—and show me g single wen jinn with which Abimelech and his men could have gained such complete fripnipb, It fa no easy thing to take a temple thus armed. 1 have, seen a house where, during Revolutionary times, a man ami his wife kept back a whole regiment hour after hour because they were inside the house nnd-’the assaulting soldiers wore outside the house. Yet here Abimelech and Ilia army come up, they surround this temple, nnd they capture it without the loss of a single man on the purt of Abimelech, although 1 suppose some of the pld Israclitish hetbps told Abimelech, “You are only going up there to be Cut to pieces.” * Yet you aro witling to testify to-day that by no'other mode—certninly not by ordinary modes—could thaftemple so easily, so thoroughly, have been taken. Fathers and mothers,ibrethrtn and alster* in Jesus Christ. what the church most whiffs to leatn this day is that any plan is right, is fawfoU is best. \vhicliltfeh>s fiq overthrow the temple of s!n nndenptn-e this world (or God. We ate very apt to ftfck to the kid vbodcsSof attack. We Just on' the old i tyle coa*. of mail. We come up with the

•harp, keen, glittering steel spear of argument, expecting in that way to take the castle, but they have 1,000 spears where we.have 10. Amfc-so the castle of ain stands. oh, my friends, we will never capture this world for Gad by any keen Bater of sarcasm, by any glittering lances of rhetoric, by any sapping and mining of profound disquisition, by any gunpowpery explosions of indignation, py sharpshootings of wit, by i howitzers 1 of mental strength made to swing shell five miles, by cavalry horses gorgeously caparisoned pawing the air. In vain all the attains on the part of these ecclesiastical foot soldiers, light hnrseqipp nipj My friends, I propose a different style of tactics. Let each one go Jo the forest of God’s promise and invitation nnd. hew down a branch aud put it on his shpui.der.and let us all-come around these obstinate iniquities, and then, with this pile kindled by the fires of a holy zeal and the flames of a Consecrated life, we will burn thorn out. What steel cannot do fire may. Aud I nunounce myself in favor of any

plan of religious attack that succeeds — auy plan of religious attack, however radical, however odd, i however unpopular, however hostile, to. all the conventionalities of church and state. If one style of prayer does not do the work, let ns try another style. If the church innate of today does not get the victory, then let us make the assault with a backwoods chorus!" ■ 1 t'~a~.prayer meettog-at half past 7 in the evening does not succeed, let ns* hay (rone as early in the morning as when the angel found wrestling-'.Taeeb'foo much for ham. If a sernion with the three authorized heads does not do the work, then let us have* a sermon with twenty heads, or no heads at alt. ' Gospel Truths. ..a. We want more heart in our song, more heart in our almsgiving, more heart in our prayers, more heart in our preaching. Oh, for less of Abirdelech’s sword and more of Abimelech’s conflagration! 1 had often heard. There is a fountain filled with blood sung artistically by four birds perched oh their Sunday roost in tie gallery until I thought of Jenny Lihd and, Nilsson, and Sontag, and all the other warblers, but there eame not one tear to my eye, nor one master emotion to my heart. But one night I (vent-down to, the African Methodist meeting house in Philadelphia, and at the close of the service a black woman in the middle of the audience began to sing that hymn, and all the audiin, and we Were floated some three pr four miles nearer heaven than 1 havriever been since. I saw witli my own eyes that “fountain filled with blood" — red, agonizing,' sacrificial, redemptive—and I heard the crimson plash of the wave as we all went down under it. - •* For sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains. Oh,'my friends, the gospel is not a logism; it is not casuistry; it is not polemics or the science of squabbles! It is blood rad fact; it Is warm hearted invitation; it is leaping, bounding, flying good news; it is efflorescent with all light; it is rubescent with all summery glow: it is • arborescent with all sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise on Mount Washington, and- from the Tiptop House, but there was no beauty in that compared with the dayspring from on high when Christ gives light to a soul, I have lieard I’nrepa sing, but there was no music in that compared with, the voice of Christ when lie said, “Thy sins are forgiven jhee; go in peace.” Good news! Let e*ery one cut down a branch of. t-Ws tree of life and wave it. I>et all the way from Mount Zahnon to Shechem be filled with the tossing joy. Good news! This bonfire of the gospel shall consume the last temple of sin aud will illumine the sky with apocalyptic joy, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinhers. Any new plan ■ that makes a man quit his sin and that prostrates a wrong! am as much in favor of as though all the doctors, and the bishops, and the archbishops, and the synods, nnd the academical gownsmen of Christianity sanctioned it, The temple lof Berith imis't coinc doWn, and I do not care liow it comes.

Power Of Example. Still further, I learn from this subject the power of example. If Abimelecii had sat down on the grass and told his ibeni to go and get the boughs and go out to the battle, they would never have gone at all, or if they had, it Would have been without any spirit or effective result, but when Abimelech goes’witli his own ax and hejonsL down a branch, and with Abimelecp’s arm puts It on Abimelech’s shoulder, tlml marches on, then, my text says, all the people did the same. How natural that \yas! What made Garibaldi and Stonewall Jackson tlie most magnetic cotinman dors of this century? They always rode ahead, ..jOl). the overwhelming of example! Here is a father on the wrong road;- All his boys go on the wrong road. Here is a father who enlists for Christ. His children enlist. I saw in some of the picture galleries of Europe that before many of the great works of the masterb—thc old masters—there would ; be sometimes four or five artists taking copies of the pictures. These copies they were goiug to carry with them, perhaps to distant lands,'anti I liavtf thought that yonr life and character aro a masterpiece, and it is being cbpied, and long after you are gone it will bloom ot blast in jhe homes of those who knew you, and bfi a Oorgon or a Madonna. Look out what you say. Look what you do. Eternity will hear the echo. Tho best sermon ever preached is a hqly life. The best music ever Chanted is a consistent Walk. If yon, ' want others to serve Cod, sol ve him yourself. If ypu want others to shoulder their duty, shoulder yours. Where Abim*Se£li goes hi* troops go.; Oh, start put for heaven t today, nnd your family hill come after you, and your business aisun clafes will come nFfer you, and' yonr social friends will join ydh. With bhe hranch of the trep of life for a baton, marshal jnsLaa pijmy Phs you cau gather. Oh, the infinite, thb semidmnipotCnt power of a good qr bad example! Concerted Action. v I , Still further, I learn from this subject thu 'Advantage of concerted actiua. If Abimelech had merely gone out with a tree branch, the work would not have been accomplished, or if ten, twenty or thirty men hnd gone, but when all the axes are lifted, and all the sharp edges fall, and all these men carry each his tree 'branch down nnd throw it about the temple, the victory is gained—the temple falls. My friends, where there is one man in the church of God at this day. slioulclering hTs whole duty there are n great rhany who never lift on ax or swing a bough. .It seems to me as if there were ten {lrijae* in fivery hive to one busy bee, a* though there were twenty sailors sound asleep in the ship’s hammocks to fonr men ons the stormy deck, it seems as if there were

50,000 men belonging to the reserve corpa and only 1,000 active combatants. Ob, we all want edit boats to get over to th« golden sands, hut the moat of us are seated either in the prow or In the stern, wrapped in our striped shawl, holding a big, handled sunshade, while others are blis-_ tered in the heat and pull until the oarlocks groan and the blades bend till they snap! Oh, you religions sleepyheads, wake up! You have fain so long in one place that the ants and- caterpillars have begun to crawl over you! Whit do you know, my brother, -about a living gospel made to storm the world? Now, my idea of a Christian is a.man on fire with zeal for.GfoS, anTiryouTpMse'ortlinarily'Beafs' sixty times a minute when you think of other themes and talk about other themes, if your jmlse dOes nbCgb up 'to seveivfy-fiVe or eighty when you eome to talk about Christ and heaven, it is because you do not know the one and have a poor c-liance of getting the other. Which Side Are Ton On? Suppose in military circles on the morn-

ing of battle the roll is called, and out of h thousand men only a hundred men in the regiment answered. What excitement there would toe in the camp! What would the colonel bay? -What high talking there would he among the captains, and majors ahd the adjutants! Suppose word came to headquarters that these excused themselves on the ground that they, had overslept themselves, or the morning was damp and they were afraid of getting their feet wet, or that they were busy cooking rations. My friends, tills is the morning of the day of God Almighty’s battle! Do you not see the troops? Hear y© not all the trumpets of heaven and all* the drums of hell? Which side are you on? If you.are on the right side, to what cavalry troop, to what artillery service, to what garrison duty do you belong? In other words, in what Sabbath school do you teach? In what prayer meeting do you exhort? To what penitentiary declare eternal liberty ? To what almshouse do you announce the riches of heaven? What broken bone of sorrow have you ever set? Are you doing nothing? Is it possible that a man or woman sworn to be a follower of Jesus Christ is doing* nothing? Then hide the horrible secret from the angels. If you are doing nothing, do not let find it chit,' lest they charge your religion with being a false face. Do not let your cowardice and treason be heard among the martyrs about the throne, lest they forget the sanctity oi the place and denounce your betrayal of that cause for which they agonized and 4ed. May the eternal God rouse us all to actioh!. As.for myself, I Teel I would boashamed to die now and enter heaven until I have accomplished something more decisive for the Lord that bought me. Oh, brethren; how swiftly the time gees by!: It seems, to me as if the years had gained some new power of locomotion-—a kind of speed electric. One Safe Refuge. Still further, 1 learn from this subject the danger of false refuges. As soon as: these Shechemites got into the’tcmple they thought they were safe. They said: “Berith will take cure of us. Abimelech. may batter down everything else. Hi cannot batter down this temple where we are now hid.” But very soon they heard the timbers crackling, and they were smothered with smoke, and they miserably died. I stippose every person in this audience this moment is sterling into sonie kinxl of refuge. Here you step in the tower of good works. You say, “1 shall be safe in this refuge.” The battlements are adorned, the steps are. varnished, on the wall are pictures of all the suffering you have alleviated;-and all the schools you have established, and all the fine things you have ever done. Up in that tower you feel you are safe. But hear you not the tramp of your unpardoned sins all around the tower? They each have a match. Yon are kindling the combustible material. You feel the heat and the Oh, may you leap iu time, the gospel declaring, “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified!” “Well,”! you say, “I have been driven «<it tof that tower. Where shall I go?” -Step into this tower of indifference. You say, “If this tower is attacked, it will be a great while before it is taken.” You feel at ease. But there is an Abimelech with ruthless assault coming on. Death and his forces are gathering around, and they demand that you surrender everything, aud they clamor for your overthrow, and they throw their skeleton arms iu the window, and with their iron fists they beat against the door, an<j while you are trying to keep them out you see the torches Of judgment kindling, and every forest Is a torch, and every mountain a torch, and every sea a torch, and while the Alps and Pyrenees and Himalayas turn into a "five coail, blown redder and redder toy the whirlwind breath of a God omnipotent, what will become of your refuge of lies? “But,” says some one, “you are engaged in a. very mean business, driving us froth tower to tower.” Oh, no! 1 want to toll you of a Gibraltar that never has been and never will be taken, of a wall that no satanic assault can scale, of a bulwark that the judgment earthquakes cannot budge. The Bible refers to it when it says, “Iu God is thy refuge; and underneath thee are the everlasting arms.”' Dh, fling yourself into it! Tread dpvvn unceremoniously everyfhing that intercepts you. Wedge your way there. There are enough hounds of death nnd peril after you. to make you hurry. Many ,a man hns'porished jusf outside tlie tqwen, with his foot on the step, with his hand oh the latfcli. Oh; get inside! Not nrfe surplus second liuve you Id spare. Quick, quick, quick! ■ f .

The Die is Casr, has'a romantic history, ft was written hy ’COi. Paul Pestel, of thb Russian army, who, with others, conspired against'the Russian Government iu 1829. The plot was discovered, he was arrested, imprison-' ed, tiled, and on Jttjy 11, 1826, was hanged. During the Interval between' his trial and execution, he composed thei, words nnd music of this epng nnd with 1 a hit of Iron scratched them on the wall of liis cell, where the song was found some years after his death. • V V * " T'" 11 U" m The league of Argos, ffirmed B. O. J2l, was a combination of'Argos, Corinth, Elea, Mautlneq and Chalcidicc' against Athens, l't was designed to curb the power of tho Athenians, but its purpose was frustrated shortly after by the unexpected Incident of Athens Joining tire league! \ About the most dangerous deception la self-deception.