Newspapers / The Southern Home (Kernersville, … / July 1, 1887, edition 1 / Page 6
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S5S THE SOUTHERN HOME. ere UPRIGHT MAN. The man of life upright, Whose guiltless heart is free From all dishonest deeds, Or thought of vanity ; The man whose silent days In harmless joys are sient, Whom hopes cannot delude Nor sorrow discontent ; That man needs neither towers Nor armor for defense. Nor secret faults to fly From thunder's violence: He only can behold With unaffnghted eyes, The horrors of the deep And terrors of the skies. Thus scorning all the cares That fate or fortune brings, He makes the Heaven his book, His wisdom heavenly things; Good thoughts his only friends, His wealth a well-spent age. The earth his sober inn And quiet pilgrimage. Campion "HUNTING FOR SOULS." SERMON BY THE REV. WITT TALMAGE. T. DE- Bkooklyn, June 26. Many of the families belonging to the church of which the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage D. D., is pastor have gone to the country for the summer, but still the great throngs of people that for eighteen years have been seen in and around Brooklyn Tabernacle on Sabbath days are found there. It is estimated that about three hundred thousand strangers have visited this church during the p- sf year. The hymn sung this morr rg was : Salvation, O, the joyful sound ! 'Tis pleasure to our ear9 ; A sovereign balm for every wound, A cordial for our fears. Dr. Talmage's text was : "He was a mighty hunter before the Lord" Gene sis x, 9. He said: In our day hunting is- a spot but in the lands and the times. whh wild beasts it wa&f matter of life or death with thegae, It was very dif. terent njoing QUt on & sun8njny af. frniQP with a patent breech-loader, to ""shoot reed-birds on the flats, when Pol lux and Achilles and Diomedes went out to clear the land of lions and tigers and bears. My text sets forth Nimrod as a hero when it presents him with broad shoulders and shaggy apparel and sun browned face, and arm bunched with muscle "a mighty hunter before the Lord." I think he used the bow and the arrow with great success practicing archery. I have thought if it is such a grand thing and such a brave thing to clear wild beasts out of a country, if it is not a better and a braver thing to hunt down and destroy those great evils of society that are stalking the land with fierce eye and bloody paw, and sharp tusk and quick spring. I have wondered if there is not such a thing as Gospel hunting, by which those who have been flying from the truth may be captured for God and Heaven. The Lord Jesus in His ser mon used the art of angling for illustra tion when He said: "I will make you fishers of men." And so I think I have authority for using hunting as an illus tration of Gospel truth ; and I pray God that there may be many a man in this congregation who shall begin to study Gospel archery, of whom it may, after a while, be said :" "He was a mighty hunter before the Lord." How much awkward Christian work there is done in the world ! How many good people there are who drive souls away from Christ instead of bringing them to Him ! religious blunderers who upset more than they right. Their gun has a crooked barrel, and kicks as it goes off. They are like a clumsy comrade who goes along with skillful hunters ; at the very moment he ought to be most quiet he "is cracking an alder or falling over a log and frightening away the game. How few Christian people have ever learned the lesson of which I read at the beginning of the service, how that the Lord Jesus Christ at the well went from talking about a cup of water to the most practical religious truths, which won the woman's soul for God! Jesus in the wilderness was breaking bread to the people. I think it was good bread ; it was very light bread, and the yeast had done its work thoroughly. Christ, after He had broken the bread, said to the people: "Beware of the yeast, or of the leaven, of the Pharisees !" So natural a transition it was ; and how easily they all understood Him! But how" few Christian people understand how to fasten the truths of God and re ligion to the souls of men ! Truman Os borne, one of the evangelists w ho went through this country some years ago, had a wonderful art in the right direc tion. He came to my father's house one day, and while we were all seated in the room, he said: "Mr. Talmage, are all your children Christians ?" Father said : "Yes, all but DeWritt." Then Truman Osborne looked down into the fire-place. la nntaMj, that V .J - .1 . jv he looked me in the T ahmil,i--.'i been angered when he told me that st' but he looked into the fire-place, andT was so pathetically and beautifully done that I never found; any peace until I was sure I was inside the fold, where the other sheep are. The archers of old times studied thMr art. They were very precise in the matter. The old books gave sperM directions as to how the archer should go, and as to what an archer should fn. He must stand erect and firm, his left foot a little in advance of his right foot. With his left hand he must take hold f the bow in the middle, and then i the three fingers and the thumb of i i right hand he should lay hold of tuj arrow and affix it to the string so pre cise was the direction given. But how clumsy we are about religious work ! How little skill and care we exercise ! How often our arrows miss the mark ! Oh, that we might learn the art of dor g good and become "mighty hunters be fore the Lord." Tn the first rlacf if von want, to lin L , j - -v -' effectual in doing good you must be very sure of your weapon. There was some thing very fascinating about the archery of olden times. Perhaos you do not know what they could do with the bow and arrow. Why, the chief battles fought by the English "Plantagenets were with the long bow. They would take the arrow of polished wood and feather it with the plume of a bird, and then it would fly from the bow-string of plaited silk. The broad fields of Agincourt, and Solway Moss and Neville's Cross heard the loud thrum of the archer's bow string. Now, my Christian frienqp, we have a mightier weapon than that. It Is the arrow of the Gospel; it is a sharp arrow; it is a straight arrow; it is feathered from the wing of the dove of God's Spirit; it flies from a bow; made out of the wood of the cross- as far as I can estimate or -esiculate, it has brought downpour hundred million souls. PauL'Ww how to briner the that arrow on to that bow string, and its whir was heard through the Corinthian theatres and through the court-room, until the knees of Felix knocked together. It was that arrow that stuck in Luther's heart when he cried out : "Oh, my sins ! Oh, my sins !" If it strike a man in the head it kills his skepticism; if it strike him in the heel it will turn his step ; if it strike him in the heart he throws up his hands, as did one of old when wounded in the battle, crying: "Oh, Galilean, Thou has con quered." In the armory of the Earl of Pembroke there are old corslets, which show that the arrow of the English used to go through the breast-plate, through the body of the warr'or, and out through the back-plate. What a symbol of that Gos pel which is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and bodv, and of the joints and marrow! Would to God we had more faith in that Gospel ! The humblest man in this house, if he had enough faith in him, could bring a hundred souls to Jesus perhaps five hundred. Just in propor tion as this age seems to believe less and less in it, I believe more in it. W'hat are men about that they will not accept their own deliverance? There is nothing proposed by men that can do anything like this Gospel. The religion of Ralph Waldo Emerson is the philosophy ov icides; the religion of Theodore Parker was a sirocco of the desert, covering up the soul with dry sand ; the religion of Renan is the romance of believing nothing; the religion of Thomas Carlyle is only a condensed Lon don fog; the religion of the Hux leys and the Spencers is merely a pedestal on which human philosophy sits shivering in the night of the soul, looking up to the stars, offering no help to the nations that crouch and groan at the base. Tell me where there is one man who has rejected that Gospel for another, who -is thoroughly satisfied, and helped, and contented in his skeptic ism, and I will take the cars to-morrow and rideoOO miles to see him. The full power of the Gospei has not yet been touched. As a sportsman throws up his hand and catches the ball flying through the air, just so easily will this Gospel after a while catch this round world fly ing from its orbit and bring it back to the heart of Christ. Give it full swing and it will pardon every sin, heal every wound, cure every trouble, emancipate every slave, and ran som every nation. Ye Christian men and women who go out this afternoon to do Christian work, as you go into the Sunday schools, and the lay preaching stations, and the penitentiaries, and the asylums, I want you to feel that you bear in your hand a weapon, compared with which the lightning has no speed, and avalanches have no heft, and the thun derbolts of Heaven have no power; it is the arrow of the omnipotent Gospel. Take careful aim. Pull the arrow clear back until the head strike the bow auu ucSn 10 ten a story oi a storm that J ue8 the hunter so three or came on the mountains, and all the shee V'j Pennsylvania forests or were in the fold : but there was one 1? a l tte lakn into the wilds of i nen let it fly. And may the slain of the Lord be many. Again : If you want to be 6killful in spiritual hunting you must hunt in un frequented and secluded places. Why four days in over Ra the Adi- Itondacks? It is the only way to do. The deer are shy, and one "bang" of the gun clears the forest. From the Califor nia stage you see, as you go over the plains, here and there, a coyote trotting along, almost within range of the gun sometimes quite within range of it. No one cares for that; it is worthless. The good game is hidden and secluded. Every hunter knows that. So, many of the souls that will be of most worth for Christ, and of most value to the church, are secluded. They do not come in your way. You will have to go where they are. Yonder they are down in that cellar, yonder they are up in that garret. Far away from the door of any church, the Gospel arrow has not been pointed at them. The tract distributor and the city missionary sometimes just catch a glimpse of them, as a hunter through the trees gets a momentary sight of a partridge or roe buck. The trouble is we are waiting for the game to come to us. We are not good hunters. We are standing in Schermerhorn street, ex pecting that the timid antelope will come up and eat out of our hand. We are expecting that the prairie-fowl will light on our church steeple It is not their habit. If the church should wait ten millions of years for the world to come in and be saved, it will wait in vain. The world will not come. What the church wants now is to lift their feet from damask ottomans and put them in the stirrups. We want a pulpit on wheels. The church wants not so much cushions as it wants saddlebags and arrows. We have got to put aside the gown and the kid gloves, andjU. en the hunting shirt. We hayjfr teen fishing so long in the brook's that run under the shadow of the church that the fish know us. and thev avoid the hook. and escape as soon as we come to the bank, while yonder Is Upper Saranac and Big Tupper's lake, where the first swing of the Gospel net would break it for the multitude of the fishes. There is outside work to be done. What is that I see in the backwoods ? It is a tent. The hunters have made a clearing and camped out. What do they care if they have wet feet', or if they nave nothing but a pine branch for a pillow, or for the northeast storm? If a moose in the darkness steps into the lake to drink, they hear it right away. If a loon cry in the midnight, they hear it. So in the service of God we have exposed work. We have got to camp out and rough it. We are putting all our care on the seventy thousand people of Brook lyn, who, they say, come to church. What are we doing for the seven hun dred thousand that do not come ? Have they no souls? Are they sinless that they need no pardon ? Are there no dead in their houses that they need no comfort ? Are they cut off from God, to go into eternity no wing to bear them, no light to cheer them, no welcome to greet them ? I hear to-day surging up from the lower depths of Brooklyn a groan that comes through our Christian assemblages and through our Christian churches ; and it blots out all this scene from my eyes to-day, as by the mists of a great Niagara, for the dasli and the plunge of these great torrents of life drop ping down into the fathomless and thundering abyss of suffering and woe. I sometimes think that just as God blot ted out the Church of Thyatira and Corinth and Laodicea, because of their sloth and stolidity. He will blot out American and English Christianity, and raise on the ruins a stalwart, wide-awake missionary church that can take the full meaning of that command: "Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." I remark, further, if you want to suc ceed in Gospel hunting you must have courage. If the hunter stand with trembling hand or shoulder that flinches with fear, instead of his taking the catamount, the catamount takes him. What would become of the Greenlander if, when out hunting for the bear, he should stand shivering with terror on an iceberg? What would have become of Du Chaillu and Livingstone in the African thicket with a faint heart and a weak knee? When a. panther comes within twenty paces of vou, and it has its eye on you, and it has squatted for the fearful spring, "Steady there !" Courage, O ye spiritual hunters ! There are great monsters of iniquity prowling all around about the community. Shall we not in the strength of God go forth and combat them? We not only need more heart, but more backbone. "What is the Church of God that it should fear to look in the. eye any transgression ? There is the Bengal tiger of drunkenness that prowls around, and instead of at tacking it. how many of us hide under the church pew or the communion table ! There is so much invested in it we are afraid to assault it; mil lions of dollars in barrels, in vats, in spigots, in corkscrews, in gin palaces with marble floors and Italian-top tables, and chased ice coolers, and in the strychnine, and the logwood, and the tartaric acid, and the nux vomica that go to make up our "pure" American drinks. I looked with -wondering eyes on the "Heidelberg tun." It is the great liquor vat of Germany, which is said to hold 800 hogsheads of wine, and only three times in 100 years has it been filled. But, as I stood and looked at it. I said to my self : "That is nothing 800 hogsheads. Why, our American vat holds 4,500,000 barrels of strong drinks, and we keep 300.J 000 men with nothing to do but to see that it is filled." Oh, to attack this great mon ster of intemperance and the kindred mon sters of fraud and uncleanness, requires you to rally all your Christian courage. Through the press, through the pulpit, through the platform, you must assault it. Would to God that all our American Christians would band together, not for crack-brained fanaticism, but for holy Christian reform. I think it was in 1793 that there went out from Lucknow, India, under the sovereign, the greatest hunting-party that was ever projected. There were 10,000 armed men in that hunting-party. There were camels and horses and elephants. On some princes rode, and royal ladies, under exquisite housings, and 500 coolies waited upon the train, and the desolate places of India were invaded by this ex cursion, and the rhinoceros, and deer, and elephant, fell under the stroke of the sabre and bullet. After a while the party brought back trophies with fifty thou sand rupees, having left the wilderness of India ghastly with the slain bodies of wild beasts. W ould to God that instead of here and there a straggler going out to fight these great monsters of iniquity in our country, the million membership of our churches would band together and hew in twain these great crimes that make the land frightful with their roar, and are fattening upon the bodies and souls of immortal men. WTho is ready for such a party as that ? Who will be a mighty hunter for the Lord ? I remark again : If you want to be successful in spirtual hunting, you need not only to bring down the game, but bring it in. I think one of the most beautiful pictures of Thorwaldsen is his "Autumn." It represents a sportsman coming home and standing under a grapevine. He has a staff over his shoulder, and on the other end of that staff are hung a rabbit and a brace of birds. Every hunter brings home the game. No one would think of bringing down a reindeer or whipping up a stream for trout, and letting them lie in the woods. At eventide the camp is adorned with the treasures of the forest beak, and fin, and antler. If you go out to hunt for immortal souls, not only bring them down under the arrow of the Gospel, but bring them into the Church of G( d, the grand home and encampment we have pitched this side the skies. Fetch them in ; do not let them lie out in the open field. They need our prayers, and sympathies, and help. That is the meaning of the church of God help. O ye hunters tor the Lord! not only bring down the game, but bring it in. If Mithridates liked hunting so well that for seven years he never went in I doors, what enthusiasm ought we to ! have who are hunting for immortal souls ! I If Domitian practiced archery until he i could stand a boy down in the Roman I amphitheatre, with a hand out, the ; fingers outstretched, and then the King j could shoot an arrow between the fingers ' without wounding them, to what drill ; and what practice ought not we to sub ject ourselves in order to become ' spiritual archers and "mighty hunters 1 before the Lord !" But let me say, you j will never work any better than you pray. The old archers took the bow, put one end of it down beside the foot, elevated the other end, and it was the rule that the bow should be just the size of the archer; if it were just his size, then he would go into the battle with confidence. Let me say that your ; power to project good in the world will correspond exactly to your own spiritual stature. In other words, the first thing in preparation for Christian work is personal consecration. Oh ! for a closer walk with God, , 4. calm and heavenly frame; ' A light to shine upon the road, ! That leads me to the Lamb. I I am sure that there are some here who at some time have been hit by the Gospel arrow. You felt the wound of that conviction and you plunged into the world deeper; just as the stag, when the hounds are after it, plunges into Scroon lake, expecting in that way to escape. Jesus Christ is on your track to-day, impenitent man ! not in wrath, but in mercy. Oh, ye chased and pant ing souls! here is the stream of God's mercy and salvation, where you may cool your thirst. Stop that chase of sin . to-day. By the red fountain that leaped i from the heart of my Lord, I bid you stop. There is mercy for you mercy ' that pardons; mercy that heals; ever- ' lasting mercy. Is there in all this house any one who can refuse the offer that j comes from the heart of the dying Son ! of God? i There is a forest in Germany, a place they call the "deer leap" two crags ' about eighteen yards apart, between a i 1 I r m I'D C 1 O. iS
The Southern Home (Kernersville, N.C.)
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July 1, 1887, edition 1
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