Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1896 — TALMAGE’S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

THE PREACHER DISCUSSES THE STAR OF WORMWOOD. Another Unique Text Taken to Enforce a Needed Lesson—Conduct, Influence and Opportunity—The Free Nation of the Earth and Its Salvation. ***Destiny of Nations. It was appropriate that this sermon on the destiny of nations should be preached in what has long been called the Presidents’ church, because Presidents Jackson and Pierce and' Polk and Cleveland have attended it. Dr. Talmage chose for his text Revelation viii., 10, 11, “There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third parttbf'the rivers and upon the fountaihs of waters, and the name of the star is called Wormwood.” Many commentators, like Patrick and Lowth, Thomas Scott, Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes, agree in saying that the star Wormwood, mentioned in Revelation, was Attila, “king of the Huns.,, He was so called because he was brilliant as a star, and, like wormwood, he imbittered everything he touched. We have studied the star of Bethlehem, and the morning star of the Revelation, and the star of peace, but my present subject calls us to gaze at the star of ,Wormwood, and my theme might be called “Brilliant Bitterness.” The King of the Huns. A more extraordinary character history does not furnish than this man thus referred to —Attila, the king of the Huns. One day a wounded heifer came limping along through the fields, and a herdsman followed its bloody track on the grass to see where the heifer was wounded and went on back farther and farther until he came to a sword fast in the earth, the point though it had dropped from the heavens, and against the edges of tfiis sword the heifer had been cut. The herdsman pulled up that sword and presented it to Attila. Attila said that sword must have dropped front the heavens from the grasp of the god Mars, and-its being given to him meant that Attila should conquer and govern the whole earth. Other mighty men ha,ye been delighted at being called liberators, or the merciful, or the good, but Attila,called himself and demanded that others call him the Scourge of God. At the head of 700,000 troops mounted on Cappadocian horses, he swept everything from the Adriatic to the Black, sea. He put his iron heel on Macedonia and Greece and Thrace. He made Milan and Pavia and Padua and Verona beg for mercy, which he' bestowed not. The Byzantine-castles,— to~ meet his ruinous levy, put up at auction massive silver tables and vases of solid gold. A city captured by him, the inhabitants were brought out and-put into three classes—the first class, those who could' bear arms, who must immediately enlist under Attila or be butchered; the second class, the beautiful women, who "were made captives to the Huns; the third class, the aged men and women, who were robbed of everything and let go back to the city to pay .heavy tax. __ ___ . ___ __ It was a cbmmon saying that the grass never grew again where the hoof of Attila’s horse had trod. His armies reddened the waters of the Seine and the Moselle and the Rhine with carnage and fought on the Catalonian plains the fiercest battle since the world stood—Boo,ooo dead left on the field! On and on until all these •who could not oppose him with arms lay prostrate on their faces in prayer, and, a cloud of dust seen in the distance, a bishop cried, “It is the aid of God!” and all the people took up the cry. “It is the aid of God!” As the cloud of dust was blown aside the banners of reinforcing armies marched in to help against Attila, the Sconrge of God. The most unimportant occurrences be used as a supernatural resource, and after three months of failure to capture the city of Aquileia and his army had given up the siege, the flight of a stork and her young from the tower of the city was taken by him as a sign that he was to capture the city, and his army, inspired by the same occurrence, resumed the siege and took the walls at a point from which the stork had emerged. So brilliant wag the conqueror in attire that his eneriiies could not look at Kim, but shaded their eyes or turned their heads.

A Peculiar Star* Slain on the evening of his marriage by his bride, Ildico, who was hired for the assassination, his followers bewaiied him not with tears, but with blood, cutting themselves with knives and lances. He was put into three coffins—the first of iron, the second of silver and the third of gold. He was buried by night, and into his grave were poured the most valuable coin and precious stones, amounting to the wealth of a kingdom. The gravediggers and all those who assisted, at the burial were massacred, so that it would never be known where so much wealth was entombed. The Roman empire conquered the world, but Attila conquered the Roman empire. He was right in calling himself a scourge, but instead of being the Scourge of God he was the scourge of hell. Because of his brilliance and bitterness the commentators were right in believing him to be the star Wormwood. As the regions he devastated were parts most opulent with fountains and streams and rivers, you pee how graphic is this reference in Revelation, “There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters, and the name of the star is called Wormwood." JHave you ever thought how many imbittered lives there are all about us—mis-

anthropic, morbid, acrid, saturnine? The European plhnt from which wormwood is extracted, Artemwa absinthium, is a perennial plant, and all the year round it is ready to exude its oil. And in many human lives there is a perennial distillation of acrid experiences. Yea, there are some whose whole work is to shed a baleful influence on others. There are Attilas of the home, dr Attilas of the social circle, or Attilas of the church, or Attilas of the state, and one-third of the waters of ail the world, it not two-thirds the waters, are poisoned by the falling of the star "Wormwood. It is not complimentary to human nature that most men, as soon as they get great power, become overbearing. The more power men have the better, if their power be used for good. The less power men have the better, if they use it for evil. Birds circle round and round and round before they swoop down upon that which they are aiming for. And if my discourse so far has been swinging round and round, this moment it drops straight on your heart and asks the question, Is your life a benediction to others or an imbitterment, a blessing or a curse, a balsam or wormwood? Some of you, I know, are morning stars, and you are making the dawning of life of your children bright with gracious influences, and you are beaming upon all the opening enterprises of philanthropic and Christian endeavor, and you are heralds of that day of fospelization which will yet flood all the mountains and valleys of our ■in cursed earth. Hall, morning star! Keep on with Encouragement and Christian hope! Some of you are evening stars, and you are cheering the last day’s of old people, and though a ctond sometimes come* over

you through the querulousness or unrba*. sonableness of ypur old father and mother it is only for a moment, and the star soon comes put clear ijgaih and is seen from ail the iyilconies of the neighborhood. The old people will forgive your occasional shortcomings, for they themselves .several times lost their patience when you were young and slapped you.when you did not deserve it. ♦fail, evening star! Hang on the darkening sky your diamond coronet! , Wormwood. But are any of you the star Of Wormi wood? Do you scold and growl from the thrones paternal or maternal? Are your children everlastingly pecked at? Are you always frying “Hush!” to the merry voices and swiss feet, and their laughter, which occasionally trickles through at wrong times and is suppressed by them until they can hold it no longer, and all the barriers burst into unlimited guffaw aqd cachinnation, as in. high weather the water has trickled through a slight opening in the milldam, but afterward makes wider and wider breach until it carries all before it with irresistible freshet? Do not be too much offended ,at the noise your children now make. It will be still enough when ope of them is dead. Then you would give your right hand to hear one shout from their silent voices or one step from the still foot. You will not any of you have to wait very long before your house is stiller than you want it. Alas, that there are so manjf homes not known to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, where children are put ou the limits, and whacked and cuffed and ear pulled and senselessly called to order and answered sharp and suppressed, until it is a wonder that under such processes they do not all turn out Modocs and Nana Sahibs! What is your influence upon the neighborhood, the town or the city Of your residence? I will suppose that you are a star of wit. What kind of rays do you shoot forth? Do you us« that splendid faculty to irrmliate the world or to rankle it? I bless ml the apostolic college of humorists. The man thatmakeame laugh is tay-ben-efactor. Ido not thank anybody to make me cry. I can do that without any assistance. We all cry enough and have enough to cry about. God bless all skillful punsters, all rcpnrteeists, all propounders of ingenious conundrums, all those who mirthfully surprise us with unusual juxtaposition of words. They stir into the acid beverage of life the saccharine. They make the cup of earthly existence, which is sometimes stale, effervesce and bubble. They placate animosities. They foster longevity. They slay follies and absurdities which all the sermons of all the pulpits cannot reach. But what use are you making of your wit? Is it besmirched with profanity and uncleanuess? Do you employ it in amusement at physical defects for which the victims are not responsible? Are your powers of mimicry used to put religion in contempt? Is it a bunch of nettlesome invective? Is it a bolt of unjust scum? Is it fun at others’ misfortune? Is it glee at their disappointment and defeat? Is it bitterness put drop by drop into a cup? Is it like the squeezing of Artemisia absinthium into a draft already distastefully pungent? Then you are the star of Wormwood. Yo.urs. is the sumos a rattlesnake trying how well it can sting. It is •hs fan of a hawk try!ng how quiekly titcan strike out the eye of a dove. Worldly Prosperity. But I will change this and suppose you are a star of worldly prosperity. Then you have large opportunity. You can encourage that artist by buying his picture. You can improve the fields, the stables, tae highway, by introducing higher style of fowl and horse and cow and sheep. You can bless the world with pomological achievement in the orchards. You can advance arboriculture and arrest this deathful iconoclasm of the American forests. You can put a piece of sculpture into the niche Of that public academy. You can endow a college. You can stocking 1,000 bare feet from the winter frost. You can build a church. You can put a missionary of Christ op that foreign shore. You eftn help ransom a world. A rich man with his heart right—can you tell me how much good a James Lenox or a George Peabody or a Peter Cooper or a William E. Dodge did while living or is doing now that he is dead? There is not a city,” town or neighborhood that has not glorious specimens of consecrated wealth. But suppose you grind the face of the poor. Suppose when a man’s wages are due you make him wait for them because he cannot help himself. Suppose that, because his family is sick and he has had extra expenses, he should politely ask you to raise his wages for this year, and you roughly tell h*m if he wants a better place to go and get it. Suppose by your manner you act as though he were nothing and you were everything. Suppose you are selfish and overbearing and arrogant. Your first name ought to be Attila and your last name Attila, because you are the star of Wormwood, and you have imbittered one-third if not three-thirds of the waters that roll past your employes and operatives and dependents and associates, and the long line of carriages which the undertaker orders for your funeral, in order to make the occasion respectable, will be filled with twice as many dry, tearless eyes as there are persons occupying them. There is an erroneous idea abroad that there are only a few geniuses. There are millions of them. That is, men and women who have especial adaptation and quickness for some one thing. It may be great, it may be small. The circle may be like the circumference of the earth or no larger than a thimble. There are thousands of geniuses, and in some one thing you are a star. What kind of a star are you? You will be in this world but a few minutes. As compared with eternity the stay of the longest life on earth is, not more than a minute. What are we doing with that minute? Are we imbittering the domestic or social or political fountains, or are we like Moses, who, when the Israelites in the wilderness complained that the waters of Lake Marah were bitter and they could not drink them, cut off the branch of a certain tree and threw that branch into the water, and It became sweet and slaked the thirst of the suffering host? Are we with a branch of the tree of life sweetening all the brackish fountains that we can touch? Three Wishes. What is true of iddividuals is true of nations. God sets them up to revolve as stars, but they may fall wormwood. Tyre, the atmosphere of the desert, fragrant with spices, coming in caravans to her fairs; all seas cleft into foam by the keels of her laden,merchantmen, her markets rich with horses and camels from Togannah, her bazaars filled with upholstery from Dedan, with emerald and'coral and agate from Syria, with wines from Helbon, with embroidered work from Ashur and Chilmnd—where now the gleam of her towers, where the roar of her chariots, where the masts of her ships? Let the fishermen who dry their nets where once she challenged the admiration of all nations; let the.barbarians who set their rude tents where once her palaces glittered—answer the question. She was a star, but by her own sin turned to wormwood and has fallen. , Fall of Babylon. Babylon, with her 250 towers and her brazen gates and her embattled walls, the splendor of the earth gathered within her palaces, her hanging gardens built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his bride, AmyI tis, who had been brought np in* a mounI talnous country and could not endun the

flat country round Babylon—these hanging gardens built, terrace above terrace, till,"-pt the beightof 400 feet there were, woods waving and fountains playing, the verdure, the foliage, the glory looking as if a mountain were on the wing. On the tiptop a king walking with his queen, among, statues 'snowy white, looking up at birds brought from distant lands, and drinking out of tankards of solid gold or looking off over rivers and lakes upon nations subdued and tributary; crying, “Is not this- great Babylon which I have built?” * What battering ram smote the wallj?What plowshare upturned the gardens? What army shattered the brazen gates? What long, fierce him of storm put out this light ■ which illumined the world? What crash of discord drove down the music that poured from palace window and garden grove and called the banqueters to their revel and the dancers to their feet? I walk upon the scene of desolation to find an answer and pick up pieces of bitumen and brjck and broken pottery, the remains of Babylon, and as in the silence of the night I hear the surging of that billow of desolation which rolls over the scene, I I;ear the wild waves saying: “Babylon was proud. Babylon was impure. Babylon w-as a star, but by sin she turned to wormwood and has fallen.” From the persecutions of the pilgrim fathers and the Huguenots in other lands God set upon these shores a nation. The council fires of the aborigines went out in the greater light of a free government. The sound of the warwhoop was exchanged for the thousand wheels of enterprise and progress. The mild winters, the fruitful summers, the healthful skies charmed from other lands a race of hardy men who loved God and wanted to be free. Before the woodman’s ax forests fell and rose again into ships’ masts and churches’ pillars. Cities on the banks of lakes begin to rival cities by the sea. Th'e land quakes with the rush of the rail car and the waters are churned white with the steamer’s wheel. Fabulous bushels of western wheat meet on the way fabulous tons qf eastern coal. Furs from the north pass on the fivers fruits from the south. And trading in the same market is Maine lumberman and South Carolina rice merchant and Ohio farmer and Alaska fur dealer. And churches and schools and asylums scatter light, and love, and mercy, and salvation upon 60,000,000 of people.

A Rock of Safety. I pray that our nation may not copy the crimes of the nations that have perished, and our cup of blessing turn to wormwood, and like them we go down. I am by nature and by grace an optimist, and I expect that this country will continue to advance until Christ shall come again. But be not deceived! Our only safety is in righteousness toward God and justice toward man. If we forget the gdodness of the Lord to this land, and break his Sabbath', and improve not by the dire disasters that have again and again come to us as a nation, and we learn saving lesson neither from civil war nor raging epidem~tc~nor drought nor mildew nor scourge ~of~ locust and grasshopper nor cyclone nor earthquake; if the political corruption which has poisoned the, fountains of public virtue and peslimed the high places of authority, making free government at, times-a hissing and a byword in all the earth; if the drunkenness'and licentious-.jiess.that-stagger „and bla sphemein. the streets of our great cities as though they were reaching after the fame of a Corinth and a Sodom-are not repented of, we will yet see the smoke of our nation’s ruin, the pillars of our nationafand State eapitols will fall more; disastrously than when Samsoiutfulled down Dagon, and future hiatpuans will record upon the page bedewed with generous tears the story that the free nation of the west arose in splendor which made the world stare. It had magnificent possibilities. It forgot God. It hated justice. It hugged its>crime. It halted on its high march. It reeled under the blow of calamity. It fell. And as it was going down all the despotisms of earth from the top of bloody thrones began to shout, “Aha, so would we have it,” while struggling and oppressed people looked out from dungeon bars with tears and groans and cries of untold agony, the scorn of those and the woe of these uniting in the exclamation: “Look yonder! There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters, and the name of the star is called Wormwood.”