Newspapers / Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.) / Sept. 25, 1895, edition 1 / Page 2
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BEY. DL TALMAGK Ihe Eminent New York Divine's San day Sermon. Subject: "Five 'Pictures." 'Text! "Behold, I seo the heavens opened. Act3 vii., 56-60. Stephen had been preaching arousing ser mon, and the people could not stand it. They resolved to do as men sometimes would like to do in this day, if they dared, with fcome plain preacher of righteousness kill him. The only way to silence this man wa3 to knock the breath out of him. " So they rushed Stephen out of the gates of the city, and, with curses and whoop and bellow, they brought him to the cliff, as was the cus tom when they wanted to take away life by Stoning. Having brought him to the edge of the cliff, they pushed him off. After he had fallen they came and looked down, and seeing that he was not yet dead thev began to drop stones upon him. stone after stone. Amid this horrible rain of missiles Stephen clambers upon his knees and folds hishand3, While the Wood drips from his temples, and then, looking up, he makes two prayers one for himself and one for his murderers. 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." That was lor himself. "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." That was for his murderers. Then, from pain and loss of blood, 'he swooned away and fell asleep. I want to show you to-day five pictures: Stephen gazing into heaven, Stephen look ing at Christ, Stephen stoned, Stephen In his dying prayer, Stephen asleep. . First, look at Stephen gazing into heaven. Before you take a leap you want to know where you are going tolana". Before you climb a ladder you want to know to what V point the ladder reaches. And it was right that StepbeD. within a few moments of ''heaven, should bo gazing into it. We would all do well to be found in the same posture. There is enough in heaven to keep us gaz ing. A man of large wealth may have statu ary in the hall, and paintings in the sitting room, and works of art in all parts of the house, but he has the chief pictures in the art gallery, and there hour after hour you walk with catalogue and glass and ever Increasing admiration. Well, heaven is the gallery where God has gathered the chief treasures of His realm. The whole universe is His palace. In this lower room where we stop there ar many adornments, tessellated floor of amethyst, and on the winding cloud stairs are stretched out canvases on which commingle azure and purple and saftronand gold. But heaven is the gallery in which the chief glories are gathered. ..There are the brightest robes. There are. the richest crowns. There are the highest exhilarations. St. John says of it, "The kings of the earth j shall bring their honor and glory into it.' And I seo the procession forming, and in the line come all empire.0, and the stars spring up into an arch for the hosts to march under. They keep step to the sound of earthquake, and the pitch of avalanche from the moun tains, and the flag they bear is the flame of a consuming world, and all heaven turns out with harps and trumpets and myriad voiced . acclamation of angelic dominions to wel come them in. and so the kings of the earth bring their honor and glory into it. Do you wonder that good people often stand, like Stephen, looking into heaven? We have many friends there. There is not a man here so isolated in life but tnere is some one in heaven with whom he once shook hands. As a man gets older the number of his celestial acquaintances very rapidly multiplies. We have not had one glimpse of them since the night we kissed them goodby, and they went away, but still we stand gazing at heaven. As when some of our friends go across the sea, we stand on the dock, or on the steam tug. and watch them, and after awhile the hulk of the ves sel disappears, and then there is only a patch of sail on the sky, and soon that is gone, and they are all out of sight, and yet we stand looking in the same direction. So. when our friends go away from us into the future world we keep looking down through the - Narrows and gazing and s gazing as though we expected that they would come out and stand on some cloud and give us one glimpse of their blissful and transfigured faces. While you, long to join their companion ship, and the years . and the days go with such tedium that they break your heart, and the vipers of pain and sorrow and bereave ment keep gnawing at your vitals, you will stand, like Stephen, gazing into heaven. You wonder if they have changed since you saw them last. You wonder if they would recognize your face now, so changed has it been with trouble. You wonder if, amid the myriad delights they have, they care as much for you as they used to when they gave .you a helping hand and put their shoulders under your burdens. You won der if they look any older, and sometimes In the evening tide, when the house is all quiet, you wonder if you should call them by their first name if they would not an swer, and perhaps sometimes you do make the experiment, and when no one but God and yourself are there you distinctly call their names and listen and sit gazing into fleaven. Pass on now and see Stephen looking upon Christ. My text says he saw the -Son of Man at, the right hand of God. Just how Christ looked in this world, just how He looks La heaven; we cannot say. The paint ers of the different ages- have tried to Imagine the features of Christ and put them upon canvas, but we viil have to wait until with our own eyes -we see Him and with our own ears we can hear Him. And yet there is a way of seeing Him and hearing Him now. I have to tell you that unless you see and hear Christ on earth you will never sea -and hear Him in heaven. Look! There, He is! Behold the Lamb of God! Can you not see Him? Then pray to God to take the scales off your eyes. Look that way try to lopk that way. His voice comes down to you this day comes down to the blindest, to the deafest soul saying, Look unto Me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else." Proclamation of universal emanci pation for all slaves. Tell me. ye who fcnow mo3t of the world's history, what other king ever asked the abandoned, and the forlorn, and the wretched, and the outcast to come and sit beside him? Oh, wonderful invita tion! You can take it to-day and stand at the, head oijhe jdaje?tjUlejinallthis city and'say, "Come; domes ror your ragsysarve for your sores, a throne for your eternal reigning.' A Christ that talks like that and acts like that and pardons like that do you wonder that Stephen stood looking at Him? I hope to spend eternity doing the same thing. I must see Him. I must look upon that face once clouded with my sin, but now radiant with my pardon. I want to touch that hand that knocked off my shackles. I want to hear the voice that pronounced my deliverance. Behold Him, little children, for if you live to threescore years and ten you will see none so fair. Behold Him, ye aged ones, for He only can shine through the oimness of your failing eyesight. - Behold Him, earth. Behold Him, heaven. What a moment when all the Nations of the saved shall gather around Christ! All faces that way'. All thrones that way, gazing on Jesus. His worth if all the Nations knew Sure the whole earth would love Him too, I pass on now and look at Stephen stoned. The world has always wanted to get rid ol Kood mep. Their very life s an assault upon wickedness. Out with Stephen through the gates of the city. Down with him over the precipices. Let eve.ry man i'omf un . and drop a stone upon his head. But these men did not so much kill Stephen as they killed themselves. Every stone re bounded upon them. While these murderers are transfixed by the scorn of all good men Stephen lives in ths admiration of air Chris tendom. Stephen stoned, but Stephen alive, bo all cood men must bo plted. "All who wiil live jrodly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution." It is no eulogy of a man to fay that everybody likes him. Show roe any one who is doin? all Ms duty t" strue or church, an i I will show you scores of men who utterly abhor him. If all men speak well o! you, it is because you are either a laggard or a dolt. If a steamer make? rapid progress through the, waves, tho water will boil and foam a'.l around it. Brave soldiers of Jesus Christ will heir the carbines c'ic'a. When. I see. h. man with voice an 1 money and iniiuenc-e a'.l on the right side, and some caricature him, and some sneer at him, - and some denounce him. and men who pretend to be actuated by right motives conspire to cripple him, to cast him out. to destroy him, I saj", 'Stephen stooeJ." When 1 see a man in some great moral oi religious reform battling against grogshops, exposing wickedness in high places, by active means trying to purify the church and better the world's estate, and I find that the newspapers anathematize Mm, and men, even good mer, oppose him and denounce him because, though he does good, he does not do it in their way, I say, "Stephen stond." But you notice, my friends, that while they assaulted Stephen they did. not succeed really in killing him. You may as sault a good roan, but you cannot kill him. On the day of his death Stephen spoke be fore a few people in the sanhedrin. This he addresses Chnsten apostle. stood on Mars handful of philosophers much about science as a modern schoolgirl. To-day he talks to all the millions of Christendom about the won ders of justification and the glories of the resurrection John Wesley was howled down by the mob to whom he preached, and they thr0w bricks at him, and they de nounced jhim, and they jostled him, and they spat upon him, and yet to-day, in all lands, he lis admitted to be the great father of Methodism. Booth's bullet vacated the Presidential chair, but from that spot of coagulated blood on the.floor in the box of Ford's Theatre there spranp, up the new life of a Nation. Stephen stoned, but Stephen alive. Pass on now and see Stephen in his dying prayer. His first thought was not how the stones hurt his Jhead. nor what would be come of his body. His first thought wa3 about his spirit. "Lord Jesu3 receive my spirit." The murderer standing on the trap door, the black cap being drawn over his head before the execution, may grimace about the future, but you and I have no shame in confessing some anxiety about where we "are going to com out. You are not all body. There is within you a soul. I see it gleam from your eyes to-day. and I see it irradiating your countenance. Some times I am abashed before an audience, not because I come under your physical eyesight, but . because I realize the truth that I stand before so many immortal spirits. The probability is that your body will at last find a sepulcher in some of the cemeteries that surround this city. There is no doubt that your obsequies will be decent and respectful, and you will be able to pillow your head under the maple, or the Norway spruce, or the cypress, or the blossoming fir, but this spirit about which Stephen prayed, what direction will that take? What guide will escort it? What gate will open to re ceive it? What cloud will be cleft for its pathway? After it has got beyond the light of our sun will there be torches lighted for it the rest of the way? Will the soul have to travel through long deserts before it reaches the good land? If we should lose our pathway will there be a castle at whose gate we may ask the way to the city? Ob, this mysterious spirit within us! It has two wings, "but it is in a cage now. tsaooatn morning iom. Paul, the hill addressing a who knew not so It i3 locked fast to keep" it, but et the door of this cage open the least, and that soul is, off. Eagle's wing could not catch it. The lightnings are not swift enough to come up with it. When the soul leaves the body at takes fifty worlds at a bound. And have I no anxiety about it? Have you no anxiety about it? -?- . " I do not care what you do with my body when my soul is gone, or whether you be lieve in cremation or inhumation. I shall sleep just as well in a wrapping of sackcloth as in satin lined with eagle's down. But my soul before I close this discourse I will find out where it will land. Thank God for the intimation of my text that when we die Jesus takes us. That answers all questions forme. What though there were massive bars between here and the City of Light, Jesu3 could remove them. What though there were great Saharas of darknessj Jesus could illume them. What though I get weary on tb.9 way, Christ could lift me on His omnipotent shoulder. What though there were chasms to cross, His hand could transport me. Then let Stephen's prayer be my dying litany. "Lord Jesus, recei ve my spirit." It may be in that hour we will be too feeble to say a long prayer. It may be in that Lour we will not be able to say the Lord's Prayer, for it has sevenjietitions. Perhaps we nay be too fee Die even to say tne mianx prayer our mothers taught us, which John Quincy Adams, sev enty years of age. said every night when he put hi head upon his pillow: Now I lay me down to sleep, 1 pray the Lord my soul to keep. We may be too feeble to employ either of these familiar forms, but this prayer of Stephen is so short, is so concise, is so earn est, is so comprehensive, we surely will be able to say that, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Oh, if that prayer is answered, how sweet it will be to die! This world is clever enough to us. Perhaps it has treated us a great deal better than we deserved to be treated, but if on the dying pillow there shall break the light of that better world we shall have no more regret than about leaving a small, dark, damp house for one large, beau tiful and capacious. That dying minister in Philadelphia, v ome years ago, beautifully depicted it when, in the last moment, he threw up his hands and cried out, "I move into the light!" ; Pass on nor, and I will show you one more picture, and that is Stephen asleep. With a pathos and simplicity pecular to the Scriptures the text says of Stephen, "He fell asleep.' "Oh," you say, "what a place that was to sleep! A hard rock under him, stone3 falling down upon him. the blood streaming, the mob howling. What a place it was to sleep!" And yet my text take3 that symbol of slumber to describe his departure,, so sweet was it, so contented was it, sc peaceful was it. Stephen had lived a very laborious life. His chief work had been to care for the poor. How many loaves of bread he had distributed, how many, bare feet he had sandaled, how many cots of sick ness and distress he had blessed with minis tries of kindness and love. I do not know. Yet from the way he lived, and the way he preached, and the way he died, I kDow he was a laborious Christian. But that is all over now. He has pressed the cup to the last fainting lip. He has taken the last in sult from his enemies. The last stone to whose crushing weight he"s susceptible ha been hurled. Stephen is dead! The dis ciples come. They take him up. They wash away the blood from the wounds. They straighten out the bruised limbs. They brush back the tangled hair from the browN and then they pass around to look upon the calm countenance of him who had lived for the poor and died for the truth. Stephen asleep! . I have seen the sea driven with the hurri cane until the tangled foam caught- in the rigging, and wave rising above wave seemed as if about to storm the heavens, and then I have seen the tempest drop, and the waves crouch, and everything become smooth and burnished as though a camping place for the glories of heaven. So I have seen a man whose life ha3 been tossed and driven com ing down at last to an infinite calm in which there was a hush of heaven's lullaby. Stephen asleep! I saw such a one. He fought all his day3 against poverty and against abuse. They traduced his name. They rattled at the doorknob while he was dying with duns for deots he could not pay. Yet the peace of God brooded over his pillow, and while the world faded heaven dawned, and the deep ening twilight of earth's night was only the opening twilight of heaven's morn. Hot a sigh. Not a tear. Not a struggle. Hush! Stephen asleep. I have not the faculty as many have to tell the weather. I can never tell by the setting sun whether there will be a drought or not. I cannot tell by the blowing of the wind whether it will be fair weather or foul on the morrow. But I can prophesy and I will prophesy what weather it will be when you, the Christian, come to die. You may have it very rough now. It may be this week one annoyance, the next another annoyance. It may be this year one bereavement, tha next another bereavement. But at the last Christ will come in, and darkness will go out. And though thare may be no hand to close your eyes, and no breast on which to rest your dying head, and no candle to lift the night, the odors of God's hanging garden will re gale your soul, and at your bedside will halt the chariots of the king. No more rents to pay, no.more agony because flour has gone up, no more struggle with "the world, the flesh and the devil," but peace long, deep, everlasting peace. Stephen asleepl - Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, From which none ever wake to weep; A calm and undisturbed repose, Uninjured by the last of foes. ' Asleep in Jesus, far from thee Thy kindred and thy graves may be, " Sut there is still a blessed 6leep," , From which n0ae ever waka to weep. You have seen enough for one day. Kc one can successfully examine more than five pictures in a day. j Therefore we ston, hav ing seen this cluster of divine Raphaels Stephen gazing into heaven, Stephen looking at Christ, Stephen stoned r Stephen in his dying prayer, Stephen asleep. TEMPERANCE- CARDINAL MAXXiyo'S TE3TPEBAXCE rOE3L I promise thee, sweet Lord, that I Will never cloud the light , Which shines for me within my soul And makes my reason bright; For never will Idose the power To serve Thee by my will, Which Thou hast set within my heart Thy presents to fulfill. !'' Ob, let me drink a3 Adam drank, Before from Thee he fell; ' Oh, let me drink as Thou, dear Lord, When faint byiSychar's well. That from my childhood, pure from sin Of drink and drunken strife, By the clear fountain I may rest, Of Everlasting Life. PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. All evidence relative to the effects of alco holic beverages and the non-value of alcohol in the practice of medicine is both interest ing and important, j The most valuable, per haps, is that furnished by the hospital re ports. Take, for example, that of the phy sicians who nad jcharge of the cholera patients at Hamburg. They made special efforts to learn -the previous habits of the victims of the epidemic in the matter of food and drink. The physicians found the mor tality especially heavy among inebriates. One of the daily reports said: -The deaths of eighty-nine heavy drinkers, twelve of them women, have been reported, and among the fresh dases a corresponing in crease in the number of intemperate persons has been noticed." ! When cholera broke out in Hamburg the newspapers printed in numerable warnings against the excessive use of beer during the plague, but the warn ings passed unheeded in the lower districts where the epidemic Wa3 worst. While the consumption of all liquors, except wine, practically ceased in the middle-class popu lation, beer was taken in exceptional quanti ties by the poor. j . In the harbor diistricts the drunkenness, among the unemployed exceeded anything before seen there. Families spent their last coppers for liquor to still the pangs of hun ger and their apprehension, scores paying for their ignorance, folly or addiction to their beer-drinking habits with their lives. An investigation at! one of the great public hospitals in Paris recently showed that of eighty-three patients who suffered from epi lepsy, sixty were children of drunken par ents. A more pleasing hospital report is that just isr-isd by the National Temperance Hospital of the United State3, located in Chicago. It shows! that the non-alcoholic treatment of disease is meeting with in creased success. While, during the pre vious ve.ar. the. -nnrf alit-y hari been fnnr ner cent., a lower percentage than that ot many other hospitals, it j has, during the past twelve months, been reduced to two and a quarter per cent. There were, doubtless, many contributing causes for this extremely low death rate, but it is none the less a most satisfactory one. j EIGHT TEAKS WITHOUT A SAXOOX It is stated that i Cambridge. Mass., has. been eight years without a saloon. Its popu lation is over S0,000J The secret bars have L-eeu rooiea our. ana it nas long been diffl culi to procure intoxicating liquor in the city. Meanwhile, the valuation of the city increased from $59,703,000 to $76,282,000, and the same rate! of taxation produce $130,000 more than formerly. The 122 sa loons have been turned into stores or dwell ings. Our Church Helper. TEMPEEAX CE fEWS AXD SQ79 Every drunkard was first a moderate drinker. . TJhe path1 of misery leads from the door of the' saloon. j Plenty of beer in tne summer means little fire in winter. The prosperity of the liquor traffic means degradation to homes. Saloon keepers are recruiting officers for the army of drunkards. The saloon is the foullest blot on the fair pages of America's history. The saloons virtually say: "You furnish the boys. We do the rest." Four-fifths of the deaths of men La Belgium are attributed to alcoholism. When drinking lead3 a man to commit crime it is a serious question whether drink ing itself be not a crime. Judge Carpenter, Hartford, Conn. ( "Never, under nny circumstances, take opium or any other -toxic drug unless pre scribed by an intelligent physician," says William Bosser Cobbe. Emergency hospitals in New York add their testimony as to the benefits of Sunday closing; Sunday instead of being the busiest day is now the quietest. The Government of Canada has prohibited the sale of intoxicants among the Indians of Hudson Bay territory, and punishes severely any violation of this law. The Canadian Pacific Railroad for years past has refused to sell its lands immediate ly joining its stations xeept upon condi- liquors thereon. r
Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.)
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Sept. 25, 1895, edition 1
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