Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1896 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

THE PREACHER POINTS A MORAL IN THE'CYCLONE. God Sends the Cutting Blast to Teach an Important! Leeson —If There Were No Adversity, We Would Not Kaotr the Joy of God's Protection. Blasted by Winds. In his discourse last Sunday Bek Dr. j Talmage pointed opt the consolation." which the religion of Christ extends to all who are in trouble and specialty to such as are in deep misfortune or suffering from bereavement. He chose as his text Exodus x., 13; “And the Lord brought an east wind upon the laud all that day and all that night.” The reference here is not to a cyclone, but to the long continued blowing of the wind from an unhealthful quarter. The north wind is bracing, the south wind is relaxing,, but the east wind is irritating and full of threat.- Eighteen times 1 dobs the Bible speak? against the east wind. Moses describes the thin ears blasted by the east wind. The psalmist describes the breaking of the ships of Tarshish by the east wind. The locusts that plagued Egypt were borne in on the east wind. The gourd that sheltered Jonah was shattered by the east wind, and -in all the (i.OOO summers, autumns, winters, springs, of the world’s existence the worst wind that ever blew is the east wind. Now, if God would only give us a climate of perpetual rior’wester, how genial and kind and placid and industrious Christians we would all be! But it takes almighty grace to be what we ought to be under the east wind. Under the chilling and wet wing of the east wind the most of the world’s villainies, frauds, outrages, suicides and murders have been hatched out. I think if you should keep a meteorological history of the dgys of the year and put right beside it the criminal record of the country you would find that those were the best days for public morals which were under the north or west wind, and that those were the worst days for public morals which were under the east wind. The points of the compass have more to the world's morals and the church's piety than yo.u have yet suspected. Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander, eminent for learning and for consecration, when asked by one of his students at Princeton whether he always had full assurance of faith, replied, “Yes, except when the wind blows from the east.” Dr. Francia, dictator of Paraguay, when the wind was 'from the east, made oppressive enactments for the people, but when the weather changed repented him .of the cruelties, repealed the enactments aud was in good humor with all the world. Winds to Guard Against. Before I overtake the main thought of my subject I want to tell Christian people they ought to be observant of climatical changes. Be on your guard when the wind blows from the east. There are certain styles of temptations that you cannot endure under certain styles of weather. When the wind blows from the east, if yon are of a nervous temperament, go not among exasperating people, try not to settle bad debts, do not try to settle old i > disputes, do not talk with a bigot on religion, do not go among those people who delight in saying irritating things, do not try to collect funds for a charitable institution, do not try to answer an insulting letter. If these things must be done, do them when the wind, is from the north, or the south, or the west, but not when the wind is from the east. You say that men and women ought not to be so sensitive and nervous. I admit it, but lam not talking about what the world ought to be; I am talking about what the world is. White there are persons whose disposition does not seem to be affected by changes in the atmosphere, nine out of ten are mightily played upon by such influences. O Christian man, under such circumstances do not write hard things against yourself, do not get worried about your fluctuating experience. You are to remember that the barometer in your soul if only answering the barbmeter of the weather. Instead of sitting down and being discouraged and saying, “I am not a Christian because I don’t feel exhilarant,” get up and look out of the window and see the weather vane pointing in the wrong quarter, and then say: “Get thee behind me, satan, thou prince of the power of the air; get out of my house; get out of my heart, thou-, demon of darkness horsed on the east wind. Away!” However good and great you may be in the Christian life, your soul wi|l never be independent of physical condition. I feel I am uttering a most practical, useful truth here, one that may give relief to a-great many Christians who are worried aud despondent at limes. Cause of Spiritual Depression. Dr. Rush, a monarch in Aiedicine, after curing hundreds of eases of mental depression, himsplt fell sick and lost his religious hope, and he would not believe his pastor when the pastor told him that his spiritual depression was only a consequence of physical depression. Andrew Fuller, Thomas Scott, William Cowper, Thomas Boston, Doivid Brainerd, Philipp Melanchthon were mighty men for God, but all of them illustrations of the fact that a man’s soul is not Independent of his physical health. An eminent physician gave as his opinion that no-man ever died a greatly triumphant death whose disease was below the diaphragm. Stackhouse, the learned Christian commentator, says he does not think Saul was insane when David played the harp before him, but it was a hypochondria coming from inflammation of the liver. Oh, how many good people have been mistaken in ’regard to their religious hope, not taking these things into consideration! The dean of Carlisle, one of the best men that ever lived nnd one of the most useful, sat down and wrote: “Though I have endeavored to discharge my duty as well as L could, yet sadness and melancholy of heart stick close by and increase upon me. I tell nobody, but I am very much sunk indeed, and I wish I could have the relief of weeping as I used to. My days are exceedingly dark and distressing. In a word, Almighty God seems to hide his face and I intrust the secret hardly to any earthly being. I know not what will become of me. There is doubtless a good deal of bodily affliction mingled with this, but it is not all so. I bless God, however, that I never lose sight of the cross, and, though I should die without seeing any personal Interest in the Redeemer’s merits, I hope that I shall be found at his, feet. I will thank you for a word at our leisure. My door is bolted at the time I am writing this, for I am full of tears.” What was the matter with the dean of Carlisle? Had he got to be a worse man? No. The physician said that the state of his pulse would not warrant his living a minute. Oh, if the east wind affects the spleen and affects the lungs and affects the liver, it will affect your Immortal soul. Appealing to God for help, brace yourself against these withering blasts and destroying influences, lest that which the psalmist said broke the ships of Tarshish shipwreck you. Trials Cannot Be Evaded. But notice in my text that the Lord controls the east wind, “The Lord brought the east wind.” He brings it for especial purpose; it must sometimes blow from that quarter. The wind is just as important m the north wind, or the south

wind, or the west wind, but not so pleasant. Trial must come. The text does ; not say you will escape the cutting blast. Whoever did escape it? Especially who that accomplished anything for chuiteh or state ever escaped it? ■ I was in the pulpit bP John Wesley in London, a pulpit where he Stood one*day and said, “I have been charged with all the crimps in the catalogue except one—that of drunkenness,” and a woman arose in the audiefte arid said, “John, you were drunk last night.” So John Wt’sley passed under the flail. 1 saw in a foreign journal a report of rine of George Whjtetiekl’s sermons—a sermon preached 120 or l§o years ago, It seemed that the reporter stood to trike the sermon, and his chief idea was to caricature it, and these are some of the" reportqriai" interlinings of the sermon of George Whitefield. After calling him by. a nickname indicative of a physical defect in the eye it ’ goes on to say: “Here the preacher clasps his "chin on the pulpit cushion. Here he elevates his voice. Here he lowers his voice; holds his arms extended; bawls aloud; stands trembling; makes a. frightful face; fv.rns rip the whites of his eyes; clasps jliis hands behind him; clasps his arms ground him and hugs himself; roars aloud, halloos, jumps, cries, changes from crying, halloos and jumps again.” Well, my Mother, if that good man wont through all that process, in your occupation, in your profession, in your store, in your “shop, at the bar, in the sick room, in the editorial chair, somewhere. yog will have to go through a similar process. You cannot escape it. Kents wrote his famous poem, and the hard criticism of the poem killed him—liferally killed him. Tasso wrote his poem entitled “Jerusalem Delivered," and it had such a cold reception.it turned him into a raving maniac. Stillingfleet was slain by his literary enemies. The frown of Henry VIII. slew Cardinal Wolsey. The Dilke of Wellington refused to have the fence around his house, which had been destroyed by ag excited mob, rebuilt, because he wanted the fence to remain as it was, a reminder of the mutability and uncertainty of the popular favor. God’s Purpose;’ And you will have trial of some sort. You have had it already. Why need I prophesy? I might better mention a historical fact in your history. You are a merchant. What a time you had with that old business partner! How hard It was to get rid of him! Before you bought him out, or he ruined, both of you, what magnitude of annoyance! Then after you had paid him down a'certain sum of money to have him go out and to promise he would not open a store of the same kind of business in your street, did he not open the very same kind of business as near toyotr as possible and take all your customers as far as he could take them? And then, knowing all your frailties and weaknesses, after being: in your business firm for .so many years, is he not now spending his time in making a commentary on what you furnished as a text? You are a physician, and in your sickness, or in your absence, you get a neighbornig dbetor to take your place in the sick room, and he ingratiates himself into tfie favor of that family, so that you forever lose their patronage. Or you take a patient through the serious stages jot a fever, and someday the impatient father or husband of the sick one rushes out and gets another medical practitioner, who comes in just im-time to, get the credit of the cure, Or you are a lawyer, and you come in contact with a trickster in your profession, and in your absence, and contrary to agreement, he moves a non-suit or the dismissal of the case, or the judge on the bench, remembering an old political grudge, rules against you every time he gets a chance and says with a snarl, “If you don’t like my decision, take an exception.” Or you ate a farmer, and the curculio stings the fruit, or the weevil gets into the wheat, or the drought stunts the corn, or the long continued rains give you no opportunity for gathering the harvest. Your best cow gets the hollow horn, your best horse gets foundered. A French proverb said that trouble comes in on horseback and goes away on foot. So trouble dashed in on you suddenly, but, oh, how long it was in getting away! Came on horseback, goes away on foot. Rapid in homing, slow in going. That is the history of nearly all your troubles. Again and again and again you have experienced the power of the east wind. It may be blowing from that direction now. My friends. God intended these troubles and trials for some particular purpose. They do not eome at random. Here is the promise, “He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.” In the Tower of London the swords and the guns of other ages are burnished and arranged into huge passion flowers and sunflowers and bridal cakes, and you wonder how anything so hard as steel could be put into such floral shapes. I have to tell you that the hardest, sharpest, most cutting, most piercing sorrows of this lifemay be made to bloom and blossom and put on bridal festivity. The Bible says they shall be mitigated, they shall be assuaged, they shall be graduated. God is not going to allow you to be overthrown. A Christian woman, very much despondent, was holding her child in her arms, and the pastor, trying to console the woman in her spiritual depression, said, “There, you will let yofir child drop.” “Oh, no,” she said, “I couldn’t let the child drop.” He said, “You will let the child drop.” “Why,” she said, “if I should drop the child here, it would dash his life out!” “Weil, now," said the Christian minister, “don’t you think God is as good as you are? Won’t God, your Father, take as good care of you, his child, as you take enre of your child? God won’t let you drop.” Why Bitter Winds Blow. I suppose God lets the east wind blow just hard enough to drive us into the harbor of God’s protection. We all feel we can manage our pwn affairs. We have helm and compass and chart and quadrant. Give us plenty of sea room, and we sail on and sail on, but after awhile there comes a Caribbean whirlwind up the coast, and we are helpless in the gale, and we cry out for harbor. All our calculations upset, we say with the poet: Change and decay on all around I see. tOh, thou who changest not, abide with me! The south wind of mild Providence makes us throw off the cloak of Christian character and we catch cold, but the sharp east wind of trouble makes us wrap around us the warm promises. The best thing that ever happens to us is trouble. That is a hard thing perhaps to say, but I repeat it, for God announces It again and again, the best thing that happens to us is trouble. When the French army went down into Egypt under Napoleon, an engineer, in digging for a fortress, came across a tablet which has been called the Rosetta stone. There were inscriptions in three or four languages on that Rosetta atone. Scholars studying out the alphabet of hieroglyphics from -that stone were enabled to rend ancient inscriptions on monuments and on tombstones. Well, many of the handwritings of God .in our life are indecipherable, hieroglyphics. We cannot understand theta until we take up the - Rosetta stone of divine inspiration, and the explanation all comes out, and the mysteries all vanish, and what was before beyond our understanding now is plain in its meaning as we read, “All 'j things work together for good to those j who love God." So we decipher the hiero- ! glyphlcs. Oft, my friends, have you ever I calculated what trouble did for David? I It made him the sacred minstrel for all ' ages. What did trouble do for Joseph?

Made him the keeper of the corn cribs of Egypt. What did it-do for Paul? Made him the great apostle to the gentiles. What did it do for Samuel Rutherford? Made his invalidism more illustrious tha& robust health. What did it do for Rich-* ard Baxter? ./Save him capacity to write of thd*“Saint’s Everlasting *Rest.” What did it do for John Bunyan? Showed him the shining gates of the city. What has it done for you? Since the loss of that 'child your spirit has been purer., Since the loss of that property you have found out that earthly investments are insecure, Singe you lost your health you feel as never before a rapt anticipation of eternal release. Trouble has humbled you, has enlarged you, has multiplied your resources, has equipped you, l has loosened your -grgsp from this worls and tightened your grip on the next. Oh, bless God for the east wind! It has driven you into the harbor of God’s sympathy. Thia World Insufficient. Nothing like trouble to show us that this world is an insufficient portion. Hogarth was about done with life, and he wanted to paint the end of all things. He put on canvas a shattered bottle, a cracked bell, an unstrung harp, a signboard of a tavern called “The World’s End” falling down, a shipwreck, the horses of Phoebus lying dead in the clouds, the moon in her last quarter and the world on fire. “One thing more,” said Hogarth, “and my picture is done.” Then hq added the broken palette of a painter. Then he died. But trouble, with hand mightier and more skillful than Hogarth’s, pictures the falling, failing, moldering, dying world. And we want something .permanent to lay hold of, and we grasp with both hands after God and say, ‘The Lord is my light; the Lord is my love; the Lord is my fortress; the Lord is my sacrifice; the Lord, thALord is my God.” Bless God for your trials. Oh, my Christian friend, keep your spirits up by the power of Christ’s gospel! Do not surrender: Do you not know that when you give up others wjll give up? You have courage, and others will have courage. The Romans went into the battle, and by some accident there was an inclination of the standard. The standard upright meant forward march; the inclination of the standard meant surrender. Through the negligence ofThe than who , carried the standard and the inclination of it .the army surrendered. Oh, let us keep the standard up, whether it be blown down by the east wind, or the north wind, or the south wind. No inclination to surrender. Forward into the conflict! Music of the Skies. There is near Bombay a tree that they call the “sorrowing tree,” the peculiarity of which is it never puts forth any bloom in the daytime, but; in the night puts out all its bloom and all its redolence. And I have to tell you that, though Christian character puts forth its sweetest blossoms in ’the darkness of sickness, the darkness of financial distress, the darkness of bereavement, the darkness of death, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Across the harsh discords of this world rolls the music of the skies—music that breaks from the lips, music that breaks from the harps and rustles from the palms, music like falling water over rocks, music like wandering winds among leaves, music like caroling birds'among forests, music like ocean billows storming the Atlantic beach, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light them nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” I see a great Christian fleet approaching that harbor. Some Of the ships come in with sails rent and bulwarks knocked away, but still afloat. Nearer and nearer the shining shore. Nearer and nearer eternal anchorage. Haul away, my lads, haul away! Some of the ships had mighty tonnage, and others were shallops, easily listed of the wind and wave. Some were men-of-war and armed of the thunders of Christian battle, and others were unpretending tugs taking others through the Narrows, and some were coasters that never ventured out into the deep seas of Christian experience, but they are all coming’ nearer the wharf —brigantine, galleon, line of battle ship, longboat, pinnace, war frigate—and as they come into the harbor I find that they are driven by the long, loud, terrific blast of the east wind. It is through much tribulation that you are to enter into the kingdom of God. You have blessed God for the north wind, and blessed him for the south wind, and blessed him for the west wind. Can you not, in the light of this subject, bless him for the east wind? Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee. E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me, Still all my song shall be, Nearer to thee.