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THE SUNNY SOUTH
14
Impatience.
How can I wait through all the weary years?
How can I see the light through blinding tears?
But slowly creeps each passing year away,
And 1 must still wait on, day after day—
For what? The mark is high I’ve proudly set,
But with the Father’s help, I’ll win it yet.
Sometimes, I question, will it not be best
To fold my hands, and from labor rest—
Give up the goal I've tried so hard to gain?
For it would scarcely recompense the pain
If 1 should win it, and the weary years,
So full of disappointments, hopes and fears.
May Phillips Tatro.
Talmage’s Sermon.
SEPTEMBER 20.
I F THE clarion note of this sermon, de
livered at the national capital, could
sound through Christendom, it would
give everything good a new start. Dr.
Talmage’s text was Romans xiii, 12,
“The day is at hand.”
Back from the mountains, and the seaside,
and the springs, and the farmhouse, your
cheeks bronzed and your spirits lighted, I
hail you home again with the words of
Gehazi to the Shunammite: “Is it well with
thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it
well with the child?” On some faces I see
the mark of recent grief, but all along the
track of tears I see the story of resurrection
and reunion, when all tears are done; the
deep plowing of the keel, followed by the
flash of the phosphorescence. Now that I
have asked you in regard to your welfare, you
naturally ask how I am. Very well, thank
vou. Whether it was the bracing air of the
mountains, or a bath in the surf of Long
Island beach, or whether it is the joy of
standing in this great group of warm-hearted
friends, or whether it is a new appreciation
of the goodness of God, I can not tell. I
simply know I am happy. It was said that
John Moffatt, the great Methodist preacher,
occasionally got fast in his sermon, and to
extricate himself would cry “Halleluiah!”
I am in no such predicament to-day, but I
am full of the same rhapsodi&ejaculation.
Starting out this morning on a new ecclesi
astical year, I want to give you the keynote
of my next twelve months’ ministry. I want
to set it to the tunes of “Antioch,” “Ariel,”
“Coronation.” I want to put a new trumpet
stop into my sermons. We do wrong if we
allow our personal sorrows to interfere with
the glorious fact that the kingdom is com
ing. We are wicked if we allow apprehen
sion of national disaster to put down our
faith in God and in the mission of our
American people. The God who hath been
on the side of this nation since the 4th of
July, 1776, will see to it this nation shall
not commit suicide on Nov. 3, 1896. By the
time tbe unparalleled harvests of this sum
mer get down to the seaboard we shall be
standing in a sunburst of national prosperity
that will paralyze the pessimists who, by
their evil prophecies are blaspheming the
God who hath blessed this nation as he hath
blessed no other.
NOTES OF GLADNESS-
In all our Chrisian work, you and I want
more of the element of gladness. No man
had a right to say that Christ never laughed.
Do you suppose that he was glum at the wed
ding in Cana of Galilee? Do you suppose
that Christ was unresponsive when the chil
dren clambered over his knee and shoulder
at his own invitation ? Do you suppose that
the evangelist meant nothing when he said of
Christ, “He rejoiced in spirit?” Do you
believe that the divine Christ who pours all
the waters over the rocks at Vernal falls,
Yosemite, does not believe in the sparkle and
gallop and tumulutous joy and rushing rap
tures of human life? I believe not only that
the morning laughs, and that the mountains
laugh, and that the seas laugh, and that the
cascades laugh, but that Christ laughed.
Moreover, take a laugh and a tear into an
alembic and assay them and test them and ana
lyze them and you will often find as much
of the pure gold of religion in a laugh as in
a tear. Deep spiritual joy always shows it-
se>f in facial illumination. John Wesley said
he was sure of a good religious impression
being produced because of what he calls the
great gladness he saw among the people.
Godless merriment is blasphemy anywhere,
but expression of Christian joy is appropriate
everywhere.
Moreover, the outlook of the world ought
to stir us to gladness. Astronomers disturbed
many people by telling them that there was
danger of stellar collision. We were told ty
these astronomers that there are worlds com-
.ing very near together, and that we shall
have plagues and wars and tumults and per
haps the world’s destruction. Do not be
scared. If you have ever stood at a railroad
center where ten or twenty or thirty rail-tracks
cross each other ana seen that by the move
ment of the switch one or two inches the
train, shoot this way and that without collid
ing, then you may understand how fifty
worlds may come within an inch of disaster
and that inch be as good as 1,000,000 miles.
If a human switch-tender can shoot the trains
this way and that without harm, can not the
hand that for thousands of years has upheld
the universe keep our little world out of
harm’s way? Christian geologists tell us that
this world was millions of years in building.
Well, now, I do not think God would take
millions of years to build a house which was
to last only 6,000 years. There is nothing
in the world or outside the world, terrestrial
or astronomical, to excite dismay. I wish
that some stout gospel breeze might scatter
all the malaria of human foreboding. The
sun rose this morning at about 6 o’clock, and
I think that is just about the hour in the
world’s history. “The day is at hand.” The
first ray of the dawn I see in the gradual
substitution of diplomatic skill for human
butchery. Within the last twenty-five years
there have been international differences
which would have brought a shock of arms
in any other day, but which were peacefully
adjusted, the pen taking the place of the
sword. Tne Venezuelan controversy in any
other age of the world would have brought
shock of arms, but now is being so quietly
adjusted that no one knows just how it is
being settled.
The Alabama question in any other age of
the world would have caused war between the
United States and England. How was it
settled? By men-of-war off the Narrows or
off the Mersey? By the gulf stream of the
ocean crossed by a gulf stream of human
blood? By the path of nations incarnadined?
No. A few wise men go into a quiet room at
Geneva, talk the matter over and telegraph to
Washington and to London, “All settled.”
Peace, peace! England pays to the United
States the amount awarded—pays really more
than she ought to have paid. But still, all
that Alabama broil is settled—settled forever.
Arbitration instead of battle.
So the quarrel about the Canadian fisheries
in any other age would have caused war be
tween tbe United States and England. Eng
land said, “Pay me for the invasion of my
Canadian fisheries.” The United States said,
“I will not pay anything.” Well, the two
nations say, “I guess we bad better leave the
whole matter to a commission.” The com
mission is appointed, and the commission ex
amines the affair, and the commission re
ports, and pay we ought, pay we must, pay
we do. Not a pound of powder burned, no
one hurt so much as by the scratch of a pin.
Arbitration instead of battle.
So the Samoan controversy in any other
age would have brought Germany and the
United States into bloody collision. But all
is settled. Arbitration instead of battle.
France will never again, I think, through
the peccadillo of an embassador, bring on a
battle with other nations. She sees that God,
in punishment at Sedan, blotted out the
French empire, and the only aspirant for
that throne who had any right of expectation
dies in a war that has not even the dignity of
being respectable. What is the leaf that
England would like to tear out of her his
tory? The Zulu war. Down with the sword
and up with the treaty !
We in this country might better have set
tled our sectional difficulties by arbitration
than by the trial of the sword. Philanthropy
said to the North, “Pay down a certain
amount of money for the purchase of the
slaves, and let all those born after a certain
time be born free.” Philanthropy at the
same time said to the South, “You sell the
slaves and get rid of this great national con
test and trouble.” The North replied, “I
won’t pay a cent.” The South replied, “I
won’t sell.” War, war! A million dead
men, and a national debt which might have
ground this nation to powder ! Why did we
not let William H. Sewerd of New York
and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia go
out and spend a few days under the trees on
the banks of the Potomac and talk the matter
over and settle it, as settle it they could
rather than the North pay in cost of war
$4,700,000,000, and the South pay $4,750,-
000,000, the destroying angel leaving the first
born dead in so many houses all the way
from the Ponobscot to the Alabama. Ye
aged men whose sons fell in the strife, do
you not think that would have been better?
Oh, yes, we ha w e come to believe, I think, in
this country that arbitration is better than
battle.
DISTANCE CONQUERED.
I find another ray of dawn in the compres
sion of the world’s distances. What a slow,
snail-like, almost impossible thing would
have been the world’s rectification with 1,-
400,000,000 of population and no facile
means of communication. But now, through
telegraphy for the eye and telephonic intima
cy for the ear and through steamboating and
railroading, the 25,000 miles of the world’s
circumference are shriveling up into insig
nificant brevity. Hong-kong is nearer to New
York than a few years ago, New Haven was.
Bombay, Moscow, Madras, Melbourne, with
in speaking distance. Purchase a telegraphic
chart and by the blue lines see the telegraphs
of the land and by the red lines the cables
under the ocean. ' You see what opportunity
this is going to give for the final movements
of Christianity. A fortress may be months
or years in building, but after it is con
structed it may do all its work in twenty
minutes. Christianity has been planting its
batteries for nineteen centuries and may go
on in the work throughout her centuries, but
when those batteries are thoroughly planted
those fortresses are fully built. They may
all do their work in twenty-four hours. The
world sometimes derides the church for
slowness of movement. Is science any
quicker? Did it not take science 5,652 years
to find out so simple a thing as the circu
lation of the human blood? With the
earth and the sky full of electricity,
science took 5,800 years before it even
guessed that there was any practical use
that might be made of this subtle and
micrhtv dement. When good men take pos-
these agencies of invention, I do not know
that the redemption of the world will be more
than the work of half a day. Do we not read
the Queen’s speech at the proroguing of par
liament the day before in London ? If that
be so, is it anything marvelous to believe
that in twenty-four hours a divine communi
cation can reach the whole earth? Suppose
Christ should descend on the nations—many
expect that Christ will come among the
nations personally. Suppose that to-morrow
morning the Son of God from a hovering
cloud should descend upon these cities.
Would not that fact be known all the world
over in twenty-four hours? Suppose he should
present his gospel in a few words, saying:
“I am the Son of God. I came to pardon all
your sins and to heal all your sorrow. To
prove that I am a supernatural being, I have
just descended from the clouds. Do you be
lieve me, and do you believe me now?”
Why, all the telegraph stations of the earth
would be crowded as rone of them were ever
crowded just after a shipwreck.
I tell you all these things to show you it
is not among the impossibilities or even the
improbabilities that Christ will conquer the
whole earth, and do it instanter, when the
time comes. There are foretokenings in the
air. Something great is going to happen. I
do not think that Jupiter is going to run us
down, or that the axle of the world is going
to break, but I mean something great for the
world’s, blessing and not for the world’s dam
age, is going to happen. I think the world
has had it hard enough. Enough the famines
and plagues. Enough the Asiatic choleras.
Enough the wars. Enough the shipwrecks.
Enough the conflagrations. I think our
world could stand right well a procession of
prosperities and triumphs. Better be on the
lookout. Better have your observatories open
toward the heavens and the lenses of your
most powerful telescopes well polished. Bet
ter have all your Leyden jars ready for some
new pulsation of might influence. Better
have new fonts of tpye in your printing offices
to set up some astounding good news. Better
have some new banner that has never been
carried ready for sudden processions. Better
have the bells in your church towers well
hung and rope within reach, that you may
ring out the marriage of the King’s Son.
Cleanse all your court-houses, for the Judge
of all the earth may appear. Let all your
legislative hails be gilded for the Great Law
giver may be about to come. Drive off the
thrones of despotism all the occupants, for
the King of Heaven and Earth may be about
to reign. The darkness of the night is
blooming and whitening into the lilies of
morning cloud and the lilies reddening into
the roses of stronger day—fit garlands,
whether white or red, for him on whose head
are many crowns. “The day is at hand”.
FROM DESERT TO GARDEN.
One more ray of the dawn I see in facts
chronological and mathematical. Come now,
do not let us do another stroke of work until
we have settled one matter. What is going
to be the final issue of this great contest be
tween sin and righeousness ? Which is going
to prove himself the stronger, God or Dia-
bolus? Is this world going to be all garden
or all desert? Now, let us have that matter
settled. If we believe Isaiah and Ezekiel and
Hosea and Micah and Malachi and John and
Peter and Paul and the Lord himself, we be
lieve that it is going to be all garden. But
let us have it settled. Let us know whether
we are working on toward a success or toward
a dead failure. If there is a child in your
house sick and you are sure he is going to
get well, you sympathize with present pains,
but all the foreboding is gone. If you are in
a cyclone off the Florida coast and the cap
tain assures you the vessel is stanch, and the
winds are changing for a better quarter, and
he is sure he will bring you safe into the
harbor, you patiently submit to present dis
tress with the thought of safe arrival. Now
I want to know whether we are coming on
toward dismay, darkness and defeat, or on
toward light and blessedness. You and I be
lieve the latter, and if so every year we spend
is one year subtracted from the world’s
woe, and every event that passes, whether
bright or dark, brings us one event nearer a
happy consummation, and by all that is in
exorable in chronology and mathematics I
commend you to good cheer and courage. If
there is anything in arithmetic, if you sub
tract two from five and leave three, then by
every rolling sun we are coming on toward
a magnificent terminus. Then every winter
passed is one severity less for our poor
world. Then every summer gone by brings
us nearer unfading arborescence. Put your
algebra down on the top of your Bible and
rejoice.
If it is nearer morning at 3 o’clock than it
is at 2, it is nearer morning at 4 o’clock
than it is at 3, then we are nearer the dawn
of the world’s deliverance. God’s clock seems
to go very slowly, but the pendulum swings,
and the hands move, and it will yet strike
noon. The sun and the moon stood still
once. They will never stand still again until
they stop forever. If you believe arithmetic as
well as your Bible, you must believe we are
nearer the dawn. “The day is at hand.”
PHYSICAL AND SCRIPTURAL.
There is a class of plienomnea which makes
me think that the spiritual and heavenly
world may, after awhile, make a demonstra
tion in this world which will bring all moral
and spiritual things to a‘climax. Now, I am
no spiritualist, but every intelligent man has
noticed that there are strange and mysterious
things which indicate to him that, perhap-,
the spiritual world is not so far off as some
times we conjecture, and that, after awhile,
from the spiritual and heavenly world there
may be a demonstration upon our world for
its betterment. We call it magnetism, or
we call it mesmerism, or we call it electricity
because we want some term to cover up our
ignorance. I do not know what it is. I never
heard an audible voice from the other world.
I am persuaded of this, however : That the
veil between this world and the next is get
ting thinner and thinner and that perhaps
after awhile, at the call of God —not at all
of the Davenport brothers or Andrew Jackson
Davis—some of the old Scriptural warriors,
some of the spirits of other days mighty for
God—a Joshua, or a Caleb, or a David, or a
Paul—may come down and help us in the
battle against unrighteousness. Oh, how I
would like to have them here—him of the
Red sea, him of the valley of Ajalon, him of
Mar’s hill ! English history says that Robert
Clayton of the English cavalry at the close of
the war bot^ht up all tbe ol>||^^tlry horses,
le«t ti-py. be turnedjBMWfcdrudgery
and hard work and bought
at Knavesmire heath and turnJu out these old
warhorses into the thickest and richest pasture
to spend the rest of their days as compensation
for what they had done in other days. One
day a thunderstorm came up, and these war-
horses mistook the thunder of the skies for
the thunder of battle, and they wheeled into
line, no riders on their backs—they wheeled
into line ready for the fray. And I doubt me
whether, when the last thunder of this bat
tle for God and truth goes booming through
the heavens, the old Scriptural warriors
can keep their places on their thrones.
Methinks they will spring into the fight and
exchange crown for helmet and palm branch
for weapon and come down out of the King’s
galleries into the arena, crying: “Make
room ! I must fight in this great Armaged
don !” The old warhorses mingling in the
fight.
A village improvement society at Wood-
stock, Vt., encourages the keeping of neatly
trimmed lawns by renting lawn mowers to
residents. It is a woman’s idea.
To hive a swarm of bees, it isn’t necessary
to have a full brass band. A gude wife on
Cape Elizabeth brought a swarm into a hive
the other day by beating a vigorous tattoo on a
tin dishpan with a pewter ladle. The musi
cal instincts of bees are Chinese.
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