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THE SUNNY SOUTH,
The Infinite.
The rose upon the bush seems fair,
It bends its head with stately smile,
But pluck iiot. for the thorn is there,
'I he thorn to sting, the thorn to tear;
The rose's beauty hides its guile.
The gentle zephvis kiss the wave,
And lull the dr amer into sleep;
He wakes to find a watery grave,
And struggles vainly, naught can save;
The soothing winds deceptions keep.
The sweetest music that is heard
Is not the sparkling and the bright;
It is the kind that leaves us stirred
By something sad that is inferred—
Strains lingering while they take their flight.
And thus oil earth ’twill ever be,
We are less safe when most secure;
We see not, when we think we see,
And pray, alas, so earnestly
For what would hurt forevermore.
But truer than the human-eye,
And higher than the human ways,
A mercy infinite is nigh
To guard us as we journey by,
And bless the duty of our days.
L. M. N.
Talma^e’s Sermon.
SEPTEMBER 6.
O ONE not born and brought
up in the country, could preach
a sermon like this of Dr. Tal-
mage It is a pastoral and full
of scenes from country life.
The text is Genesis xliii:
“And Judah spake unto him saying, The man
did solemnly protest unto us, saying, ,Ye
shall not see my face, except your brother be
with you.’ ”
Nothing to eat! Plenty of corn in Egypt,
but ghastly famine in Canaan. The cattle
moaning in the stall. Men, women, and
children awfully white with hunger. Not the
failing of one crop for one summer, but the
failing of all the crops for seven years. A
nation dying for lack of that which is so
common on your table and so little appreci
ated, the product of harvest field and gristmill
and oven, the price of sweat and anxiety and
struggle—bread! Jacob, the father, has the
last report from the flour bin, and he finds
that everything is out, and he says to his
sons, “Boys, hook up the wagons and* start
for Egypt and get us something to eat.”
The fact was, there was a great corn-crib in
Egypt. The people of Egypt have been
largely taxed in all ages; at the present time
they pay between seventy and eighty per cent,
of their products to the government. No
wonder, in that time they had a large corn-
crib, and it was full. To that crib they came
from the regions around about—those who
were famished—some paying for the corn in
money ; when the money was exhausted pay
ing for the corn in sheep and cattle and horses
and camels, and when they were exhausted,
then selling their own bodies and their fami
lies into slavery.
THE MISSION.
The morning for starting out on the crusade
for bread has arrived. Jacob gets his family
up very early. But before the elder sons start
they say something that makes him tremble
with emotion from head to foot and burst
into tears. The fact was that these elder
sons had once before been in Egypt to get
corn, and they had been treated somewhat
roughly, the lord of the corn-crib supplying
them with corn but saying at the close of
the interiew, “Now, you need not come back
here for any more corn unless you bring
something better than money—even your
younger brother Benjamin.” Ah! Benjamin
—that very name was suggestive of all ten
derness. The mother had died at the birth
of that son—a spirit coming and another
spirit going —and the very thought of part
ing with Bi.nj.imin must have been a heart
break. The keeper of this corn-crib, never
theless, says to these elder sons, “There is
no need of your coming up here any more foi
corn unless you can bring Benjamin, your
father's darling.” Now, Jicob and his family
very much needed bread, but what a struggle
it would be to give up this son ! The ori
entals are very demonstrative in their grief,
and I hear the outwailing of the father as
these elder sons keep reiterating in his ears
the announcement of the Egyptian lord, “Ye
shall not see my face unless your brother be
with you.” “Why did you tell him you had
a brother?” says the old man, complaining
and chiding them. “Why, father,” they
said, “he asked us all about our family, and
we had no idea that he would make any such
demand upon us as he has made.” “No use
of asking me,” said the father, “I can not, I
will not, give up Benjamin.”
The fact was that the old man had lost
children, and when there has been bereave
ment in a household and a child taken, it
makes the other children in the household
more precious. So the day for departure was
adjourned and adjourned and adjourned.
Still, the horrors of the famine increased and
louder moaned the cattle and wider open
cracked the earth and more pallid became
the cheeks, until Jacob, in despair, cried out
to his sons, “Take Benjamin and be off.”
The older sons tried to cheer up their father.
They said: “We have strong arms and a
stout heart, and no harm will come to Benja
min. We’ll see that he gets back again.”
“Farewell!” said the young men to the
father, in a tone of assumed good cheer.
“F-a-r-e-w-e-1-1!” said the old man ; for that
word has more quavers in it, when pronounced
by the aged, than by the young.
ITS RESULT.
Well, the bread party, the bread embassy,
drives up in front of the corn-crib of Egypt.
Those corn-cribs are filled with wheat and
barley and corn in the husk, for modern
travelers in those lands, both in Canaan and
in Egypt, tell us there is corn there corre
sponding with our Indian maize. Huzza! the
journey is ended. The lord of the corncrib,
who is also the prime minister, comes down
to these newly arrived travelers, and says:
“Dine with me to-day. How is your father?
Is this Benjamin, the younger brother whose
presence I demanded?” The travelers are
introduced into the palace. They are worn
and bedusted of the way, and servants come
in with a basin of water in one hand and a
towel in the other, and kneel down before
these newly arrived travelers, washing off the
dust of the way. The butchers and poulterers
and caterers of the prime minister prepare
the repast. The guests are seated in small
groups, two or three at a table, the food on a
tray; all the luxuries from imperial gardens
and orchards and aquariums and aviaries are
brought there, and are filling chalice and
platter.
Now is the time for this prime minister, if
he has a grudge against Benjamin, to show
it. Will he kill him, now that he has him in
his hands? Oh, no! This lord of the corn-
crib is seated at his own table, and he looks
over to the tables of his guests, and he sends
a portion to each of them, but sends a larger
portion to Benjamin, or, as the Bible quaintly
puts it “Benjamin’s mess was five times as
much as any of theirs.” Be quick and send
word back with swiftest camel to Canaan to
old Jacob, that “Benjamin is well. All is
well. He is faring sumptuously. The
Egyptian lord did not mean murder and
death, but he meant deliverance and life,
when he announced to us on that day, ‘Ye
shall not see my face unless your brother be
with you.’ ”
Well, my friends, this world is famine-
struck of sin. It does not yield a single crop
of solid satisfaction. It is dying. It is
hunger-bitten. The fact that it does not,
can not, feed a man’s heart was w^ll illus
trated in the life of the English comedian.
All the world honored him—did everything
for him thit the world could do. He was ap
plauded in England and applauded in the
United States. He roused up nations into
laughter. He had no equal. And yet, al
though many people supposed him entirely
happy and that this world was completely
satisfying his soul, he sits down and writes;
“I never, in my life, put on a new hat that it
did not rain and ruin it. I never went out in
a shabby coat, because it was raining, and
thought all who had the choic< would keep
indoors, that the sun did not come out in its
strength and bring out with it all the butter
flies of fashion whom 1 knew and who knrw
me. 1 never consented to accept a part I
hated, out of kindness to another, that I did
not get hissed by the public and cut by the
Writer. I could not take a drive, for a few
minutes, with Terry, without being over
turned and having my elbow broken, though
my friend got off unharmed. I could not
make a covenant with Arnold, which I
thought was to make my fortune, without
makingh is instead; then in an incredibly
short space of time—I think thirteen months
—I earned for him 20,000 pounds, and for
myself, one pound. I am persuaded that if I
were to set up as a baker, every one in my
neighborhood would leave off eating bread.”
THE PESSIMIST.
That was the lament of the world’s come
dian and joker. All unhappy. The world did
everything for Lord Byron that it could do,
and yet, in his last moment, he asks a friend
to come and sit down by him and read, as
most appropriate to his case, the story of
“The Bleeding Heart.” Torrigiano, the
sculptor, executed, after months of care and
carving, “Madonna and the Child.” The
royal family came in and admired it. Every
body that looked at it was in ecstasy, but one
day, after all that toil, and all that admira
tion, because he did not get as much compen
sation for his work as he had expected, he
took a mallet and dashed the exquisite sculpt
ure into atoms. The world is poor compen
sation, poor satisfaction poor solace. Famine,
famine in all the earth; not for seven years,
but for 6,000. But, blessed be God, there is
a great corn-crib. The Lord built it. It is
in another land. It is a large place. An
angel once measured it, and, as far as I can
calculate it in one phrase, that corn-crib is
1,500 miles long, and 1,500 miles broad,
and 1,500 high, and it is full. Food for all
nations “Oh!” say the people, “we will
start right away and get this supply for our
soul.” But stop a moment; for from the
keeper of that corn-crib there comes this
word, saying, “You shall not see my face
except your brother be with you.” In other
words, there is no such thing as getting from
heaven, pardon and comfort and eternal life,
unless we bring with us our divine brother,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Coming without him
we shall fall before we reach the corn-crib,
and our bodies shall be a portion for the
jackals of the wilderness, but coming with
the divine Jesus, all the granaries of heaven
will swing open before our souls and abun
dance shall be given us. We shall be invited
to sit in the palace of the King and at the
table, and while the Lord of heaven is appor
tioning from his own table to other tables, he
will not forget us, and then and there, it
will be found that our Benjamin’s mess is
larger than all the others, for so it ought to
be. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive blessings and riches and honor and
glory and power.”
I want to make three points. Every frank
and common-sense man will acknowledge
himself to be a sinner. What are you going
to do with your sins? Have them pardoned,
you say. How? Through the mercy of God.
What do you mean by the mercy of God?
Is it the letting down of a bar for the ad
mission of all without respect to character?
Be not deceived. 1 see a soul coming up to
the gate of mercy and knocking at the corn-
crib of heavenly supply, and a voice from
within says, “Are you alone?” The sinner
replies, “All alone.” The voice from with
in says, “You shall not see my pardoning
face unless your divine Brother, the Lord
Jesus, be with you.” Oh, that is the point
at which so many are discomfited! There,
is no mercy from God except through Jesus
Christ. Coming with him, we are accepted.
Coming without him we are rejected.
Peter put it right in his great sermon before
the high priests when he thundered forth :
“Neither is there salvation in any other.
There is no other name given under heaven
among men whereby we may be saved.” Oh,
anxious sinner; oh, dying sinner; oh, lost
sinner, all you have got to do is to have this
divine Benjamin along with you! Side by
side, coming to the gate all the storehouses
of heaven will swing open before your anx
ious soul.
Am I right in calling jesus Benjamin? Oh,
yes! Rachel lived only long enough to give
a name to that child, and, with a dying kiss,
she called him Benoni. Afterward Jacob
changed his name, and he called him Benja
min. The meaning of the name she gave
was “son of my pain.” The meaning of the
name the father gave was “son of my right
hand.” And was not Christ the Son of Pain?
All the sorrow of Rachel in that hour when
she gave her child over into the hands of
strangers was as nothing compared with the
struggle of God when he gave up his only
son. And was not Christ appropriately called
“Son of the right hand?” Did not Stephen
look into heaven and see him standing at the
right hand of God ? And does not Paul speak
of him as standing at the right hand of God
making intercession for us? Oh, Benjamin
—Jesus ! Son of pain ! Son of victory 1 The
deepest emotions of our souls ought to be
stirred at the sound of that nomenclature. In
your prayers plead his tears, his sufferings,
his sorrows, and his death. If you refuse to
do it, all the corn-cribs and the palaces of
heaven will be bolted and barred against your
soul, and a voice from the throne shall stun
you with the announcement, “You shall not
see my face except your brother be with
you. ”
PRESENT SYMPATHY.
My text also suggests the reason why so
many people do not get any real comfort.
You meet ten people. Nine of them are in
need of some kind of condolence. There is
something in their health, or in their state,
or in their domestic condition that demands
sympathy. And yet, most of the world’s
sympathy amounts to absolutely nothing.
People go to the wrong crib or they go in the
wrong way. When the plague was in Rome,
a great many years ago, there were eighty
men who chanted themselves to death with
the litanies of Gregory the Great—literally
chanted themselves to death—and yet it did
not stop the plague. And all the music of
this world can not halt the plague of the
human heart. I come to some one whose ail
ments are chronic, and I say, “In heaven you
will never be sick.” That does not give you
much comfort. What you want is a soothing
power for your present distress. Lost chil
dren, have you ? I come to you and tell you
that, in ten years, perhaps, you will meet
those loved ones before the throne of God.
But there is but little condolence in that.
One day is a year with them, and ten years
is a small eternity. What you want is sym
pathy now—present help. I come to those of
you who have lost dear friends and say:
“Try to forget them. Do not keep the de
parted always in your mind.” How can you
forget them when every figure in the carpet,
and every book and every picture and every
room, calls out their name. Suppose I come
to yon and say, by way of condolence, “God
is wise.” “Oh,” you say, “that gives me
no help!” Suppose I come to you and say,
“God, from all eternity, has arranged this
trouble.” “Ah,” you say, ‘that does me no
good!” Then I say, “With the swift feet
of prayer, go direct to the corn-crib for a
heavenly supply. ” You go. You say, “Lord,
help me; Lord, comfort me.” But no help
yet. No comfort yet. It is all dark.
What is the matter ? I have found. You
ought to go to God and say; “Here, O Lord,
are the wounds of my soul, and I bring with
me the wounded Jesus. Let his wounds pay
for my wounds, his bereavements for my be
reavements, his loneliness, for my loneliness,
his heartbreak for my heartbreak. O God,
for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ—the
God, the man, the Benjamin, the Brother—
deliver my agonized soul ! O Jesus of the
weary foot, ease my fatigue 1 O Jesus of the
aching head, heal my aching head. O Jesus
of the Bethany sister, roll away the tone from
the door of our grave !” That is the kind of
prayer that brings help, and yet, how many
of you are getting no help at all, for the
reason that there is in your soul, perhaps, a
secret trouble. You may never have men
tioned it to a single human ear, or you may
have mentioned it to some one who is now
gone away, and that great sorrow is still in
your soul. After Washinton Irving was
dead, they found a little box that contained a
braid of hair and a miniature and the name of
Matilda Hoffman and a memorandum of her
death and a remark something like this:
“The world after that was a blank to me. I
went into the country, but found no peace in
solitude. I tried to get into society, but I
found no peace in society. There has been a
horror hanging over me by night and by day,
and I am afraid to be alone.”
How many unuttered troubles among you !
No human ear has ever heard that sorrow.
Oh, troubled soul, I w*ant to tell you that
there is one salve that can cure the wounds
of the heart, and that is the salve made out
of the tears of a sympathetic Jesus ! And yet
some of you will not take this solace, and
you try chloral and you try morphine and
you try strong drink and you try change of
scene, and you try new business associations,
and anything and everything rather than to
take the divine companionship and sympathy
suggested by the words of my text when it
says, “You shall not see my face again un
less your brother be with you.” Oh, that
this audience to-day might understand some
thing of the height and depth and length and
breadth and immensity and infinity of G.cit^s
eternal consolations !
AN ELEMENT OF FAILURE.
I go farther and find in my subject a hint
as to why so many people fail of heaven. We
are told that heaven has twelve gates, and
some people infer from that fact that all the
people will go in without reference to their
past life. But what is the use of having a
gate that is not sometimes to be shut? The
swinging of a gate implies that our entrance
into heaven is conditional. It is not a mone
tary condition. If we come to the door of an
exquisite concert, we are not surprised that
we must pay a fee, for we know that fine
earthly music is expensive. But all the ora
torios of heaven cost nothing. Heaven pays
nothing for its music. It is all free. There
is nothing to be paid at that door for en
trance, but the condition of getting into
heaven is our bringing our divine Benjamin
along with us. Do you notice how often
dying people call upon Jesus? It is the us
ual prayer offered—the prayer offered more
than all the other prayers put together—
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”
One of our congregation, when asked in the
closing moments of his life, “Do you know
us?” said; “Oh, yes, I know you. God
bless you. Good-bye ! Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit.” And he was gone. Oh, yes, in the
closing moments of our life we must have
a Christ to call upon. If Jacob’s sons had
gone up toward Egypt and had gone with the
very finest equipage and had not taken Benja
min along with them, and to the question
they should have been obliged to answer;
“Sir, we didn’t bring him as father could
not let him go; we didn’t want to be bothered
with him,” a voice from within would have
said: “Go away from us. You shall not
have any of this supply. You shall not see
my face because your brother is not with
you.” And if we come up toward the door
of heaven at last, though we come from all
luxuriance and brilliancy of surroundings,
and knock for admittance and it is found that
Christ is not with us, the police of heaven
will beat us back from the breadhouse, say
ing: “Depart! I never knew you.”
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