Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1896 — DIVISION OF SPOILS. [ARTICLE]

DIVISION OF SPOILS.

REV. DR. TALMAGE PREACHES A JOYOUS SERMON. (The Earth Will Be Made to Bloeeom and the World Will Be Evangelized— Wealth Will Be Equalized and Poverty Be Unknown in God’s Kingdom. Our Washington Pulpit. This sermon of Dr. Talmage is radiant With coming rewards tor all well-doers." Many of the disheartened will rally after reading it. He chose for his subject “The Division of Spoils,” the text selected being Isaiah liii., 12 r “He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” In'the Coliseum aTTtotnO, where cutors ’ used to let out the half-starved lions to eat up. Christians, there is now planted the figure of a cross. And I rejoice to know that the upright piece of wood nailed to a transverse piece has become the symbol not more of suffering than of victory. It is of Christ, the conqueror, that my text speaks. As a kingly warrior, having subdued an empire, might divide the palaces and mansions and cities and valleys and mountains among iliis officers, so Christ is going to divide tip all the earth and all the heavens among his people, and you and I will have to take our share if we are strong in faith arid strong in our Christian loyalty, for my text declares if, “He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” The capture of this round planet for Christ is not so much of a job as you might imagine, when the church takes off its coat and rolls up its sleeves for the work, as it will. There are 1.600,000,000 Of people now in the worlcT, and 430,000,000 are Christians. Subtract 450,000,000 who arc Christians from the 1,600.000.000, and there are 1,150,000,000 left. Divide the 1-,150,000,001) who are not Christians by the 450,000,000 who are Christians, and you will find that we shall have to average less than three souls each, brought by us into the kingdom of God, to hrft'e the whole world redeemed. Certainly, with the church rising up to its full duty, no Christian will be willing to bring less than three souls into the kingdom of God', I hope and pray Almighty God that. I may bring more than thrqe. I know evangelists who hav" already brought 50,000 each for the kingdom of God.‘ There are 200,000 people wh< :e one and only absorbing business in the world is to save souls. When you fate these things into" consideration and that the Christians will have to average the bringing of only three souls each into the kingdom of our T/ord, all impossibil.ty vanishes from this omnipotent crusade. Why, I know a Sabbath school teacher who for many years has been engaged in training the young, and she has had five different classes, and they averaged seven to a class, “and they were all converted, and five times seven are thirty-five, as near as I can' calculate. So that she brought her three into tne kingdom of God and had thirty-two to spare. My grandmother prayed he,r children into the kingdom of' Christ, and .her grandchildren, and I hope all her great-grandchildren, for God remembers a prayer seventy-five years old as though it were only a minute old, and so she brought her three into the kingdom of God and had more than 100 to spare. Besides that, through the telephone and the telegraph, this whole world, within a few years, will be brought within compass of ten minutes. Besides that, omnipotence. omnipresence and omniscience are presiding in this matter of the world’s betterment, and that takes the question of the world’s salvation out of the impossibilities into the possibilities, and then out of the possibilities iqto the probabilities. and then out of the probabilities into the certainties. The building of the Union Pacific Railroad from ocean to ocean was a greater undertaking than the girding of the earth with the gospel, for one enterprise depended upon the human arm, wink- the other depends -upon - al mightiness.:-, ... ’ .

The World Will Be Kvangelized. Do I really mean all the earth will surrender to Christ? Yes. How about the uninviting portions? Will'Greenland be~ evangelized ? The possibility tr that after a few more hundred brave lives are dashed out among the icebergs that great refrigerator, the polar region, will be given up to the wulrus and bear, and that the inhabitants will come down by invitation into tolerable .climates, or . those climates may soften, and as it has been positively demonstrated thut the aretie region- was one.' a blooming garden and a fruitful field those .regions may change climate and , again be ii blooming garden and a fruitful field. It is proved beyond controversy by German and American scientists that the arctic regions were the first portions of this world inhabitable. The world hot beyond human endurance, those regions were of course the first to be cool enough for human foot and human lung. It was positively proved that the arctic region was a tropical climate!. Prof. Heer of Zurich says the remains of flowers have been found in the arctic region, showing it was like Mexico for climate, ap’d it is found that the arctic was the mother re gion from which all the flowers descended. Prof. Wallace sayj the remains of all styles of animal life are found in the arctic regions, including those animals that can live only in warm climates. Now thnt arctic region, which has been demonstrated by flora and fauna and geological argument to have been as full of vegetation and life as onr Florida, may be turned back to its original bloom and glory, or it will be shut up as a museum of crystals for curiosity seekers once in awhile to visit. But arctic and antarctic, in some’ shape, will belong to the Redeemer’s realm. What about other unproductive or repulsive regions? All the deserts will be irrigated, the waters will be forced up to the great American desert between here and the Pacific by machinery now known or yet to be invented, and, as great Salt Lake City has no r in and could not raise an apple or a bushel of wheat in a hundred years without artificial help, but is now through such means one great garden, so all the unproductive parts of all the continents will be turned into harvest fields and orchard . A half dozen De Lesseps will furn.sh the world with all the canals needed and will change the course of rivers and open new lakes, and the great Sahara desert will be cut up into farms with an astounding yield of bushels to the acre. The marsh will be drained of its waters and cured of its malaria. I saw what was for many years called the Black swamp of Ohio, its chief crop chills ami fevers, but now, by the tiles put into the ground to carry off the surplus moisture. transformed into the richest and healthiest of regions. The God who wnstep nothing, l think, means thnt this world, from pole to pole, has come to perfect ion of foliage uud fruitage. For that reason ho keeps the earth running through space, though so many fires are blazing down in its timbers and so many meteoric terrors have threatened to dash it to pieces. As soon as the earth is completed ■Christ will divide it up amdiig the good. The reason he dods not divide it now is because it iB not done. A kind father will not divide tie apple among his children until the apple is ripe. In fulfillment of the New Testament promise, “The meek •hall inherit the earth," and the promise of the Old Testament, “He shall divide the •poll with the strong," the world will be

apportioned to those worthy to possess It. It is pot so, now. In this country, capable of holding, feeding, clothing and sheltering 1,200,000,09 J people and where we have only 60,006,000 inhabitants, we have 2,000,000 whc cannot get honest work, and with their fanSflies an aggregation of 5,(5X),000 that are on the verge of starvation. Something wrong, most certainly. In some way there will be a new apportionment. Many of the millionaire estates will crack to pieces 6n the* dissipations of grandchildren and then dissolve into the possession of the masses, who now have an insufficiency. - What, you say, will become of the expensive , and elaborate buildings now devoted to debasing amusements? They will become schoo' , art galleries, museums, gynmasinms and churches. The world is already getting disgusted with many of these and no woo* der. What- an importation of unclean theatrical stuff we have within the last few years had brought to our shores! And professors of religion patronizing such things! Having sold out to the devil, why don’t yon deliver the goods and go over to him publicly, body, mind and soul, and withdraw your name from Christian churches and say, “Know all the world *by these presents that I am a patron of uncleanness and a child of hell!” Sworn to be the Lord’s, you are perjurers,— If you thipk these offenses are to go on forever, you do not know who the Lord is. God will not wait for the day of judgment. All those palaces of sin will become palaces of righteousness. They will come into the possession of those strong for virtue and strong for God. “He shall, divide the spoil with th? strong.” The Eternal Troth. If my text be not a deception, but the eternal truth, then the time is coming when all the farms will be owned by Christian farmers, and all the commerce controlled by Christian merchants, and all the authority held by Christian officials, and all the - ships commanded' by Christian captains, and all the universities under the instruction of Christian professors; Christian kings, Christian presidents, Christian governors, Christian mayors, Christiun common council. Yet what n scouring out! What an upturning! What a demolition! What a resurrection must precede this new apportionment!

I do not underrate the enemy. Julius Caesar got his greatest victories by fully estimating the vastness of his foes and prepared his men for their greatest triumph by saying, ’’To-morrow King Juba will be here with 30,000 horses, 100,000 skirmishers and 300 elephants.” I do not underrate the v st forces of sin and death, but do you know who commands us? Jehovahjirch. And the reserve corps behind us nre all the armie-, of heaven and earth, with hurricane and thunderbolt. The good work of the world’s' redemption is going on every minute. Never so many splendid men and glorious women on the side of right ns to-day. Never so many good people as now. Diogenes has been spoken of as a wise man because he went with a lantern at noonday, saying he was looking for an honest man. If he had turned his lantern toward himself he might have discovered a crank. Honest men by the ten thousand! Through the international series of Sunday school lessons th: next generation all through Christendom are going to be wiser than any generation since the world stood. The kingdom is coming. God oan do it. No housewife with a chamois cloth ever polished a silver teaspoon with more ease than Christ will rub off from this world the tarnisli and brighten it up till it glows like heaven, and then the glorious apportionment! for my text is re-enforced by a score of other texts, when it says of Christ, “He shall divide the spoil with the strong.”

“But,” you say, “this is pleasant to think of for others, but before that time I shall have passed up into another existence, and I shall get.no advantage from that utw apportionment." Ah, you have only driven me to the other more exciting and transporting consideration, and that i| that Christ is going to divide up heaven in the same way. There aro old estates in the celestial world .that have been in the possession of the inhabitants for thousands of years, and they shall remain as they are. There are old family mansions in heaven filled with whole generations of kindred, and they shall never be driven out. Many of the victors from earth have already got their palaces, and they are pointed out to those newly arrived. Soon after our getting there we will ask to be Bhown the apostolic residences and ask where doeslive and John, and shown the residences and shall say, “Where does Abraham live or Jacob?" and shown the martyr residences and say, “Where does John Huss live and Ridley?” h e will want to see the boulevards where the chariots of conquerors roll. I will want to see the garden where the princes walk. We will want to see Music row, where Handel and Haydn and Mozart and Charles Wesley and Thomas Hastings and Bradbury have their homes, out of their windows, ever and anon, rolling some snatch of an earthly oratorio or hymn transported with the composer. We will want to see Revival terrace, where Whitefield and Nettlcton and Payson and Rowland Hiii and Charles FiaKcy rad other giants of soul reaping are resting from their almost supernatural labors, their doors thronged with converts just arrived, coming to report themselves. Distribution of Spoils. But brilliant as the sunset and like the leaves for number are the celestial homes yet to be awarded- when Christ to you and millions of others shall divide the spoil. What do you want there? You shall have it. An orchard? There it is—twelve manner of fruits, and fruit every month. Do you want river scenery? Take your choice on the banks of the river, in longer, wider, deeper roll than Danube or Amazon or Mississippi, if mingled in one, and emptying into the sea of mingled with fire. Do yon want your kindred back again? Go out and meet your father and mother, without the staff or the stoop, and your children in a dance pf immortal glee. Do you want a throne? Select it from the 1,000,000 burnished elevations. Do yoa Want a crown? Pick it out of that mountain of diamonded coronets. Do you want your old church friends of earth around you? Begin to hum an old revival tune, and they will flock from an quarters to revel with you in sacred reminiscence. All the earth for those who are here pn earth at the time of continental and planetary distribution, s and all the heavens for those who are there. That heavenly distribution of spoils will be a surprise to many. Here enters heaven the soul of a man who took up a great deal of room in the'ebureb on earth, but sacrificed little, and among his good works selfishness was evident. He just cnowds through the shining gate, but it’s n very tight squeeze, so that the doorkeeper has to pull hard to get him in, and this man expects half of heaven for his • shore of- trophies, atm he would like U monopoly of all its splendor, and to purchase lota in the suburbs, so that he could get advantage of the growth of the city. Well, little by little he gets grace of heart, just enough to get him through, and to him is given a second-hand crown, which one of the saints wore at the start, but exchanged for a brighter one as he went on from glory to glory. And he is put in an old house once occupied by au angel who was hit Med out of heaven at the time of satnn’s rebellion. Right after him comes a soul that makes a great: stir among the celestials

and the angels fusil to. the scene, each bridging fb ner a dazzling coronet. Who is she? Over what realm on earth was she queen ? In . what great Dusseldorf festival was she the cantratrice? Neither. She was an invalid who never left her room for twenty years, but. she was strong in prayer and she prayed down revival after revival and pentecost after pentecost upon>tbe churches and with her pale hands she knit many a mitten or tippet for tfee poor, and with her contrivances she added joy to many a holiday festival, and now, with those thin hands so strong for kindness and with those white, lips so strong for supplication she has won coronation and inthronement and jubilee. And Christ said tw the angels who have brought each a crown fqr the'glorified individual: “No, opt these; they are not good enough. But iflthe jeweled vase at the right hand side of my throne there is one that 1 have been preparing for her many a year and for her every pang I have set an amethyst and for her every good deed I ha we set a pearl. Fetch it now and fulfill the promise I gave her long ago in the sick 500 m, ‘Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown.’ ” Bnt notice that there is only one Being in the universe who can and will distribute the trophies of earth and heaven. It is the Divine Warrior, the Commander-in-Chlef of the Centuries, the Champion of Ages, the Universal Gonqueror, the Son of God, Jest You will take the spoils from his hand, or never take them at all. Have his friendship and you may defy all time and all eternity, but without it you are a pauper, though you had a Universe at. your command. * We are told in Revelation that Jacob’s twelve sons were so honored as to have theVtwelve , gates of heaven named after t^pm —over one gate of heaven Naphtha, over-another gate of heaven Issachar. over Dan, over another Gad, over another Zebulon, over another Judah, and £O,OO. But Christ’s name is written over ftltjtlHj and on every pa ner of the gates, and have his help, his pardon, his intercession, hi* atonement, I must or be a forlorn"'wretch forever. My Lord and my God, make me and all who hear me this day and all to whom these words shall come, thy repentant, believing, sworn, consecrated and ransomed followers forever. A Day of Triumph. What a day it will be! This entire assemblage would rise to its feet if you could realize it, the day in which Christ shall, in fulfillment of my text, divide the spoil. It was a great day when Queen Victoria, in the mid't of the Crimean war, distributed medals to the soldiers who had come home sick and wounded. At the Horse Guards, in presence of the royal family, the injured men were carried in or came on crutches—Col. Trowbridge, who lost both feet at Inkermann, 1 and Capt. Sayer, who had the ankle joint of his right leg shot off at Alma, and Capt, Curre, his disabled limb supported by a soldier, and others maimed and disfigured and exhausted—and with her own hand the queen gave each the Crimean medal. And what triumphant days for those soldiers when, further on, they received the French niedal with the imperial eagle, and the Turkish medal with its representation of four flags—France, Turkey, England and Sardinia —and beneath it a map of the Crimea spread over a gun wheel. And what rewards are suggested to all readers of history by mere mention of the ' Waterloo medal, and the Cape taedal, and the Gold Cross medal, and the medals struck for bravery in our American wars. But how insignificant all these compared with the day when the gotbd soldiers of Jesus Christ shall come jn out of the battles of this world, and, in the presence of ail the piled up galleries of the redeemed and the unfallen, Jesuß, our King, shall divide the spoil! The more wounds the* greater the inheritance. The longer the forced march the brighter the trophy. The more terrible the exhaustion the more glorious the transport. Not' the gift of a brilliant ribbon or a medal of brass or silver or gold, but a kingdom in which we are to reign forever and ever. Mansions on the eternal hills. Dominions of unfading power. . Empires of unending love. Continents of everlasting light. Atlantic and Pacific oceans of billowy j%\

It was a great day when Aureliap, the Roman emperor, came back from bis victories. In the front of the procession were wild beasts from all lands, 1,600 gladiators, richly clad; wagon loads of crowns and trophies presented by conquered cities, among the captives Syrians, Egyptians, Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Franks and Zenobia, the beautiful captive queen, on foot in chains i of gold that a slave had to help her carry, and jewels under the weight of which she almost faintod. and then came The chariot of Aurelian drawn by four elephants in gorgeous caparison anu followed by the Roman Senate and the Roman army, apd from dawn till durk the procession was passing. Rome in all her history never saw anything more magnificent. But how much greater the day when our Conqueror, Jesus, shall ride under the triumphal arches of heaven, his captives, not on foot, but in chariots, all the kingdoms of earth and heaven in procession, the armies celestial on white horses. Rumbling artillery of thunderbolts never again to be unlind*-*'?.* in line, centuries in line, saintly, cherubic, seraphic, archangollc splendors in line, uud Christ seated on one great rolling hosanna, made out of ail halleluiahs of all worlds, shall cry halt to the procession. And not forgetting even the humblest in all thejteach of his omnipresence he shall rise, ana'.then and there, his work done and his glory consummat-'d, proceed, amid an ecstasy such as neither mortal nor immortal pver Imagined, to divide the spoil.