Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1898 — TALMAGES SERMON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TALMAGES SERMON

DIJ. TALMAGE m this discourse calls the roll of faithful men and noble women In all departments who «re unrecognized and unrewarded and sounds encouragement for those who -do work in spheres inconspicuous; text, Romans xvi., 14, 13; “Salute Asyncritus, Phiegon, Hernias, Patrobas, Hermes, Pbilologus and Julia.” Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes, Adam 'Clark, Thojpas Scott and all the commentators pass by tlic-se verses without any especial remark. The other twenty people mentioned in the chapter were distinguished for something and were therefore discussed by the illustrious expositors, but nothing is said about Asyncritus, Phiegon, Hernias, Patrobas, Hermes, Phiiologus and Julia. Where were they born? No one knows. When did they -die? There is no record of their decease. For what were they distinguished? Absolutely nothing, or the trait of character would have been brought out by the apostle. If they had been very intrepid, or opulent or hirsute or musical ■of cadence or crass of style or in any wise anomalous that feature would have been caught by the apostolic camera. But they were good people, because Paul sends tg them his high Christian regards. They were ordinary people moving in ordinary sphere, attending to ordinary duty and meeting ordinary responsibilities. What the world wants is a religion for •ordinary people. If there be in the United States 70,000,000 people, there are certainly not more than 1,000,000 extrn.ordinary, and-then there are (19,000,000 •ordinary, and we do well to turn our backs for a little while upon the distinguished and conspicuous people of the Bible and •consider in our text the seven ordinary. We spend too much of our time in twisting garlands for remarkables and building thrones for magnates, and sculpturing warriorsTSsynl apotheosizing philanthropists. The rank-ajid file of the Lord’s sol■diery need especial help. The Mediocre Many. The vast majority of people will never lead an army, will never write a state •constitution, will never electrify a senate, will never make an important invention, will never introduce a new philosophy, will never decide the fate of a nation. You <lo not expect to; you do not want to. You will not be a Mows to lead a nation •out of bondage. You will ngt be a Joshua To prolong the daylight until you can shut five kings in a cavern. _ You will not be a St. John to unroll an Apocalypse, You will not be a Paul to preside over an apostolic college. You will not be a Mary to mother a Christ. You will more probably be Asyncritus or Phiegon or Hermns or Patrobas or Hermes or Phiiologus or Julia.

- Many of you are women at the head of households. Every morning you plan for the day. The culinary department of the household is in your dominion. You de•cide all questions of diet. All the sanitary regulations of your house are under your- supervision. To regulate the food, and the apparel and the habits and decide the thousand questions of home life is a tax upon brain and nerve and general ’health absolutely appalling, if there be no divine alleviation. It does not help you much to be told that Elizabeth Fry did wonderful things amid the criminals at Newgate. It does not help you much to be told that Mrs. -Judson was very brave among the Bornesian cannibals. It does not help you very much to be told that Florence Nightingale was very kind to the wounded in the Crimea. It would be better for me to tell you that the divine friend of Mary and Martha is your friend and that he *ees all the annoyances and disappointments and abrasions and exasperations of an ordinary housekeeper from morn till night, and from the first day »t the year until the last day of the year and at your call he is ready with help and re-enforce-xnent. They who provide the food of the world decide the health of the world. You hnve only to go on some errand amid the taverns and the hotels of the United States and Great Britain to appreciate the fact a vast multitude of the human race are slaughtered by incompetent cookery. Though a young womnn may have taken lessons in music and may have tnkeu lessons in painting and lessons in astronomy, she is not well educated unless she has taken lessons in dough! They who de--clde the apparel of the world and the food <of the world decide the endurance of the world. Martyrs of the Kitchen and Nursery. An unthinking man may consider it a •natter of little importance —the cares of the household and the economics of domestic life—but I tell you the earth is *trewn with the martyrs of kitchen and nursery. The health shattered womanhood of America cries out for a God who •can help ordinary women iu the ordinary -duties of housekeeping. The wearing, grinding, unappreciated work goes on, but the same Christ who stood on the bank of Galilee iu the early morning and kindled the fire and had the fish already cleaned an l broiling when the sportsmen stepped ashore, chilled and hungry, will help every woman to prepare breakfasj, whether by her own hand or the hand of her hired help. The God who made indestructible eulogy of Hannah, w ho made n coat for Samuel, her son, and carried it to the temple every year, will help every woman in preparing the family wardrobe. The God who opens the Bible with the story of Ajsaham’s entertainment by the three Inngels on the pluins of Mnrnfe will help 4»vory woman to provide hospitality, however rare and etnburrnssing. It is high time that some of tie ottention wc hnve hoen giving to the remarkable women of the Bible—remarkable for their virtue, or their want of it, or remarkable for their .deeds— Deborah aud Jezebel and Hero-

dias and Atlialia and Dorcas and the .Marys, excellent nnd abandoned—it Is high time some of the attention we have been giving conspicuous women of the Bible be given to Julia, an ordinary woman, amid ordinary circumstances, attending to ordinary duties aud meeting ordinary responsibilities. Then there are all the ordinary business men. They need divine and Christian help. When we begin to talk about business life, we shoot right off and talk about men who did business on a large and who sold millions of dollars of goods a year, and the vast majority of business men do not sell a million dollars of goods, nor half a million, nor quarter of a million, nor the eighth part of a million. Put all the business men of our cities, towns, villages and neighborhoods side by side, and you will find that they sell Jess than SIOO,OOO worth of goods. All these men in ordinary business life want divine help. You see how the wrinkles are print-ing-on the countenance the story or worriinent aud care.

Premature Old Age. You cannot tell how old a business man is by looking at him. Gray hairs at 30, A man at 45 with the stoop of a nonogenarian. No time to attend to improved dentistry, the grinders cease because they are few. Actually dying of .old ago at 46 or 50, when they ought to be at the meridian. Many of these business men have bodies like a neglected clock to which you come, and when you wind it up it begins to buzz and roar, and then the hands start around very rapidly, and then the clock strikes 5 pr 10 or 40, and strikes without any sense, and then suddenly stops. So is the body of that worn out business man. It is a neglected clock, and though by some summer recreation it may be wound up, still the machinery is all out of gear. The hands turn around with a velocity that excites the astonishment of the world. Men cannot understand the wonderful activity, and there is a roar and a buzz and a rattle about these disordered lives and they strike 10 when they ought to strike 5, and they strike 12 when they ought to strike G, and they strike 40 when they ought to strike nothing, and suddenly they stop. Post mortem examination reveals the fact that all the springs and pivots and weights and balance wheels of health are completely deranged. The human clock is simply rup down. And at the time when, the steady hand ought to be pointing to the industrious hours on a clear and sunlit dial the whole machinery of body, mind and earthly capacity stops forever. Oak Hill and Greenwood have thousands of business men who died of old ago at 30, 35, 40, 45. \ Now, what is wanted is grace, divine grace, for ordinary business men, men who are harnessed from morn till night and all the days of their life —harnessed in business. Not grace to lose SIOO,OOO, but grace to lose $lO. .Not grace to supervise 250 employes in a factory, but grace to supervise the bookkeeper and two salesmen and the small boy that sweeps out the store. Grace to invest not the SBO,000 of net profit, but the $2,500 of clear gain. Grace not to endure the loss of a whole shipload of spices from the Indies, but grace to endure a loss of a paper of collars from the leakage of a displaced shingle on a poor roof. Grace not to endure the tardiness of the American Congress in passing a necessary law, but grace the tardiness of an errand boy stopping to play marbles when he ought to deliver i the goods. Such a grace as thousands of business men have to-day—keep-ing them tranquil, whether goods sell or do not sell, whether customers pay or do not pay, whethej tariff is up or tariff is down, whether the crops ure luxuriant or a dead failure—calm in all circumstances and amid all vicissitudes. That is the kind of grace we want.

Heroes at Home. Millions of men want it, and they may have it for the asking. Some hero or heroine comes to town, and as the procession passes through the street the business men come out, stand on tiptoe on their store step and look at some one who in arctic clime, or iu ocean storm, or in day of battle, or in hospital agonies did the brave thing, not realizing that they, the enthusiastic spectators, have gone through trials In business life that are just as great before God. There are men who have gone through freezing arctics and burning torrids and awful Marcngos of experiences without moving five miles from their doorstep. Now, what ordinary business men need is to realize that they have the friendship of that Christ who looked after the religious interests of Matthew, the custom house clerk, and helped Lydia of Thyatira to sell the dry goods, and who opened a bakery and fish market in the wilderness of Asia Minor to feed the 7,000 who had come out on a religious picnic, and who counts the hairs of your head with ns much particularity ns though they were the plumes of a coronation, and who took the trouble to stoop down with his finger writiug on the ground, although the first shuttle of feet obliterated the divine cnligraphy, and who knows just how many locusts there were in the Egyptian plague and knew just how ninny ravens were necessary to supply Elijah's pantry by the brook Cheritli, and who, ns floral commander, lends forth all the regiments of primroses, foxgloves, daffodils, hynciuths and lilies which pitch their tents of beauty and kindle their campfire* of color all around the hemisphere—that that Christ and that God knows the most minute nffnirs of your business life and, however inconsiderable, understanding all the affairs of that woman who keeps a thread and needle store ns well as all the affairs of a Rothschild and n Baring. Then there ate all the ordinary farmers. We talk about agricultural life, nnd wo immediately shoot off to talk about Cincinnati)*, the patrician, who went from the plow to a high position, nnd after he got through the dictatorship in twenty-one days went back again to the plow. What encouragement is that to ordinary farmers? The vast majority of them —none of them will is' patricians. IVrlinps none of them will he senators. If any of them have dictatorships, it will be over forty or fifty or 1(H) acres of the old homestead. What these men want is grace to keep their patience while plowing with balky oxen nnd to keep cheerful nmiil the that destroys the.corn crop and that can files them to restore the garden the day after the neighbor's cattle have broken in and trampled out the strawberry lied and gone through the Lima bean patch and eaten up the sweet corn

1 11 » 1 1 ' In such largit quantities that they must be kept from the waiter lest they swell up and dia. Everyday Grace. Grace in catching weather that enables them, without imprecation, to spread out the hay the third time, although agr&in and again and again it has been almost ready for the mow. A grace to doctor the cow with a hollow horn, nnd the sheep with the foot rot, and the horse with the distemper and to compel the unwilling acres to yield a livelihood for the family and schooling for the children and little extras to help the older boy in business and something for the daughter’s wedding outfit and a little surplus for the time, when the ankles will get stiff with age and the breath will be a little short and the swinging of the cradle through the hot harvest field will bring on the old mq,n’s vertigo. Better close up about Cincirthatus. I know 500 farmers just as noble as he was. What they want is to know that they have the friendship of that Christ whd often drew his similes from the farmer’s life, as when he sail}, “A sower went forth to sow,” as when he built his best parable out of the scene of a farmer boy coming back from his wanderings, and the old farmhouse shook that night with rural jubilee, aud who compaved himself to a lamb in the pasture field and'who said that the eternal God is a farmer, declaring, “My Father is the husbandman.” Those stoue masons do not want to hear about Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul’s Cathedral. It would be better to tell them how to carry the hod of brick up the ladder without slipping, and how on a cold morning with the trowel to smooth off the mortar and keep cheerful, anil how to be thankful to God for the plain food taken from the pail by the roadside. Cnrpenters standing amid the adz, aud the bit, and the plane, and the broadax need to be told that Christ was a carpenter, with his own hand wielding saw and hammer. Oh, this is a tired world, and it is an overworked world, and It is an underfed world, and it is a wrung out world, and men and women need to know that there is rest and recuperation in God and ; , in. that religion which was not so much in tended for extraordinary people as for ordinary people, because there are more of them.

Come, now, let us have a religion for ordinary people in professions, in occupations, in agriculture, in the household, in merchandise, in everything. I salute across the centuries Asyncritus, Phiegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, Phiiologus and Julia. First of all, if you feel that you afe ordinary, thank God that yon are Hot extraordinary. I am tired and sick and bored almost to death with extraordinary people. They take all their time to tell us how very extraordinary they really are. You know as well as I do, my brother and sister, that the most of the useful work of the world is done by unpretentious people who toil right on—by people who do not get much approval and no one seems to say, “That is well done,” Phenomena are of but little use. Things that are exceptional cannot be depended on. Better trust the smallest planet that swings in its orbit than teu comets shooting this way and that, imperiling the longevity of worlds attending to their own business. For steady illumination better is a lamp than a rocket. Then, if you feel that yon are ordinary, remember that your position invites the less attack. Conspicuous people—how they have to take it! How they are misrepresented and abused and shot at! The higher the horns of a roebuck the easier to strike him down. I mention these things to prove it is extraordinary people who get abused, while the ordinary escape. From Humble Homes. Then remember if you have only what is called an ordinary home that the great deliverers of the world have all come from such a home. Aud there may be seated, reading at your evening stand, a child who shull be potent for thdJfces. Just unroll the scroll of men mighty in church and state, and you will find they nearly all came from log cabin or poor homes. Genius almost ulways runs out in the third or fourth generation. You cannot find in all history an instance where the fourth generation of extraordinary people amounts to anything. In this country we had two great men, father and son, both Presidents of the United States, # but from present prospects there never will be in that genealogical line another President for a thousand years. Columbus from a weaver’s hut, Demosthenes from a cutler’s cellar, Bloomfield and Missionary Carey from a shoemaker's bench, Arkwright from a barbershop and he whose name is high over all in earth and air nnd sky from a innnger. Let us all be content with such things ns we have. God is just as good in what he keeps away from us as in what he gives us. Even a knot may be useful if it is at the end of a thread. At an anniversary of a deaf and dumb asylum one of the children wrote upon the blackboard words as sublime as the “Iliad,” the “Odyssey” and the “Divina Commcdin” all compressed in one paragraph. The examiner, in the signs of the mute language, Hskcd her, “Who made the world?” The deaf and dumb girl wrote upon the blackboard, “In the beginning God crcuted the heaven and the earth.” The examiner asked her, “For what purpose did Christ come into the world?” The deaf and dumb girl wrote upon the blackboard, “This is u faithful saying, nnd worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” The exumiiier suid to her, “Why were you born deaf and dumb, while I bear and speak?” She wrote upon the blackboard, “Even so, Fnther, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.” Oh, that we might be baptized with a contented spirit. The spider draws poison out of a flower, the boo gets honey out of a thistle, but happiness is a heavenly elixir, nnd the contented spirit extracts it not from the rhododendron of the hills, but from the lily of the valley. Copyright. IM>H.