' R —————
R. TALMAGE'S SERMON:
The Natlon’s Protector.
2d the Lord epened tne e i
and he saw; and t)(alxoltyJ‘?S)tgt Rols
*Eitha i i 14705 of‘nre vound
8 1t cost Englang ;
| two xmllxongdolla.rsl.n 3“;;?“&,“‘{““
ly a troublesome Gt o eéatp
g 3, S 0 the king of Syria sends out
bole army to capture one ministgr
religion—perhaps 50,000 men—to
°- Elisha. During the night the
Ay Of Assyrians came around the
age of Dothan, where the prophet
B slaying. At early daybreak the
n-servant of Elisha rushed in and
: *“What sha'l we do? there is a
Ole army come to destroy you! We
st die! ‘we must diel” But Elisha
lot scared a bit, for he looked up
# Baw the mountalns all around full
SUPERNATURAL FORCES,
1 he knew that if there were 50,000
Syrians against him there were 100,=
B angels for him; and in answer to
P prophet’s prayer in behalf of his
righted man-servant, the young man
W It too. Horses of fire harnessed
chariots of fire, and drivers of fire
lling reins of fire on bits of fire, and
prriors of fire with brandished
ords of fire, and the brilliance of
At mornng sunrise was eclipsed by
e galloping splendors of the celestial
valcade. ‘*And the Lord opened the
es of the young man; and he saw:
pd bebold the mountain was tull of
bries and chariots of fire round about
isha.” 1 have often spoken to you
the Assyrian perils which threaten
American institutions, I speak of
he upper forces of the text that are to
ght on our side. If all the low levels
e filled with armed threats, I have to
bl you that the mountains of our hope
nd courage and faith are full of the 1
orses and chariots of Divine rescue.
You will notice that the Divine
quipage is always represented as a
hariot of fire. Ezekiel and Isaiah and
ohn, when they come to describe the
Divine equipage, always represent it as
wheeled, a harnessed, an upholstered
onflagration. It is not a chariot like
ings and conquerors of earth mount,
ut an organized and compressed fire.
hat means purity, justice, chastise
nent, deliverance through burning es
apes. Chariot of rescue? yes, but
hariot of fire. All
DUR NATIONAL DISENTHRALMENTS
have been through scorching agonies
nd red disasters. Through tribulation
he individual rises, Through tribu
ation nations rise, Charlots of rescue,
but chariots of fire. But how do I
know thav this Divine equipage is on
he side of our institutions? I know it
by the history of the last one hundred
and €ight years, The American Revo
ution started from the pen of John
Hancock in Independence Hall in
1776. The colonies, without ships,
without ammunition, without guns,
without trained warriors, without
money, without prestige. On the other
side, the mightiest nation of the earth,
the largest armies, the grandest navies,
and the most distinguished command
ers, and resources inexhaustible, and
nearly all nations ready to back them
up in the fight., Nothing, as against
{mmensity.
The cause of the American colonies,
which started at zero, dropped still
Jower through the quarreling of the
generals, and through the jealousies at
small successes, and through the win
ters which surpassed all predecessors in
depth of snow and horrors of congeal
ment. Elisha surrounded by the whole
Assyrian army did not seem to be the
worse off than did
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES
encompassed and overshadowed by for
elgn assault. What decided the contest
m our favor? The upper forces, the
upper armies. The Green and White
mountains of New England, the High
lands along the Hudson, the moun
tains of Virginia, all the Appalachian
ranges were full of reinforcements
which the young man Washington saw
by faitb; and his men endured the
frozen feet, and the gangrened
wounds, and the exhausting hunger,
and the long march, because ‘‘the
Lord opened the eyes of the young
man; and he saw: and behold, the
mountains were full of horses and
chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
Waslington himself was a miracle.
‘What Joshua was in sacred history,
the first American president was in
secular history. A thousand other
men excelled him in different things,
but he excelled them all in roundness
and ;completeness of character. The
world never saw his like, and probably
will never see his like again, because
there probably never will be another
such exigency. He was let down a
Divine interposition. He was from
God direct,
I do not know how any man can
read the history of those times without
admitting the contsst was decided by
the upper forces. Then,
IIN 1861,
when our civil war opened, many at
the North and at the South pronounced
it national suicide. It was not courage
nst cowardice, it was net wealth
:g:'inst poverty, it was not large States
against small States. It was herolsm
nfuinst heroism, it was the resources
of many generations against the re.
sources of generations, it was the
prayer of the North against the prayer
of the South, it was one-half of the
pation In armed wrath, meeting the
other half of the nation In armed In
dignation. What could come but ex
termination? ,
At the opening of the war the com
mander-in-chief of the United States
forces was a man who had been great
in battle, but old age had come, with
infirmities, and he had a right to
mud'e. He could not mount a
horse and he rode on the battle-field in
a carriage. asking the driver not to jolt
it too muech. During the most of the
four years of the contest, on ‘the
Southern side was a man in mid-life,
who had in his veins the blood of many
generations of warriors, himself one of
the heroes of Cherubusco and Cerro
Gordo, Contreras aad Chapultepec.
As the years passed on and
THE SCROLL OF CARNAGE
unrolled, there came out from both
sides a heroism, and a strength, and a
' determination that the world had never
'seen marshaled. And what but
extermination could come when Phillp
Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson met,
and Nathaniel Lyon and Sidney John
ston rode in from North and South,
and Grant and Lee, the two thunder
bolts of battle, clashed? Yet, w 2 are
a nation, and yet we are at peace.
Earthly courage did not decide the
conflict. The upper forces of the text.
They tell us there was a battle fought
above the cloudson Lookout Mountain;
but there was something higher than
that.
Again, the horses and chariots of
God eame to the rescue of this nation
in 1876, at the close of a Presidential
election famous for ferocity.
A DARKER CLOUD YET
settled down upon this nation. The
result of the election was in dispute,
and revolution, not between two or
three sectigons, but revolution 1n every
town and village and city of the United
States seemed imminent. The pros
pect was that New York would throttle
New York, and New Orleans would
grip New Orleans, and Boston, Boston,
and Savannah, Savannah,and Washing
ton, Washington. Some said Mr. Tilden
was elected; others said Mr. Hayes was
elected;«and how near we came to uni
versal massacre some of us guessed,
but God only knew. I ascribe our
escape not to the honesty and
righteousnes of infuriated politicians,
but I ascribe it to the upper forces of
the text. Charlots of mercy rolled in,
and though the wheels were not heard,
and the flash was not seen, yet all
tbrough the mountains of the North
and the South and the East and the
West, though the hoofs did not clatter,
the cavalry of God galloped by. I tell
you God is the frlend of this nation.
In the awful excitement at the massa
cre of Lincoln, when there was a pros
pect that greater slaughter would open
upon this nation, God hushed the
tempest. In the awful excitement
at the time of Garfield’s assassi
nation, God put His foot on the
neck of the cyclone. To prove
GOD IS ON THE SIDE OF THIS NATION,
I argue from the lest eight or nine
great national harvests, and from the
national health of the last quarter of a
century, epidemics very exceptional,
and from the great revivals of religion,
and from the spreading of the Church
of God, and from the continent bloss
oming with asylums and reformatory
institutions, and from an Edenization
which promises that this whole land is
to be a paradise, where God shall walk
If in other sermons I showed you
what was the evil that threatened to
upset and demolish American institu
tions, I am encouraged more than I can
tell as I see the regimeuts wheeling
down the sky, and my jeremiads turn
into doxologies, and that which was
the Good Friday of the nation’s cruci
fixion becomes the Easter morn of its
resurrection. Of course, God works
through human instrumentallties, and
this
NATIONAL BETTERMENT
is to come ameng other things through
a scrutinized ballot box. By the law
of registration it is almost impossible
now to have illegal voting. There was
a time—you and I remember it very
well—when droves of vagabonds
wandered up and down on election
day, and from poll to poll, and voted
here, and voted there, and voted
everywhere, and there was no chal
lenge; or, if there were, 1t amounted to
nothing, because nothing could so sud
denly be proved upon the vagabonds.
Now, in every well-organized neigh
borhood, every voter is watched with
severest scrutiny. I must tell the
registrar my name, and how old‘
I am. and how long I have resided
in the State, and how long I have resi- |
ded in the ward or the township, and
if I misrepresent, fifty witnesses will
rise and shut me out from the ballot
box. Is not that a great advance?
And then notice the law that prohibits
a man voting it he has bet on the elec
tion. A step further needs to be
taken, and that man forbidden a vote
who has offered or taken a bribe,
whether it be in the shape of a free
drink, or cash paid down, the suspic
10us cases obliged to put thelr hand on
the Bible and swear their vote in If
they vote at all. So, through the sa
cred chest of our nation’s suflrage,
redemption will come.
| GOD WILL SAVE THIS NATION
‘through an aroused moral sentiment.
- There has never been so much discus
sion of morals and immorals. Men,
whether or not they acknowledge what is
right, have to think what is right. We
have men who have had thelr hands in
the public treasury the most of their
lifetime, stealing all they could lay
thelir hands on, discoursing eloquently
about dishonesty in public servants;
and men with two or three families of
their own, preaching eloguently about
the beauties of the seventh command
ment. The question of sobriety
and drunkenness 18 thrust in
the face of this nation as never before,
and takes a part in our political con
tests. The question of national sobri
ety is going to be respectfully and
deferentially heard at the bar of every
Legislature, and every House of Rep
resentatives, and every United States
Senate; and an omnipotent voice will
ring down the sky and across this land
and back again. saying to these rising
tides of drunkenness which threaten to
whelm home and church and nation:
“Thus far shalt thou come, but no fur
ther, and here shall thy proud waves
be stayed.’’
I have not in my mind a shadow of
'disheartenment as large as the shadow
of a housetly’s wing. My faith is in
the upper forces, the upper armies of
the text. God s not dead ! The chari
ots are not unwheeled. If you would
only pray more, and wash your eyes In
the cool, bright water fresh from the
well of Christian reform, it would be
said of you, as of this one of the text :
“The Lord opened the eyes of the
young man, and he saw ; and behold
the mountain was full of horses and
chariots of fire round about Elisha.”’
When the army of Antigonus went
into battle his soldiers were very much
discouraged, and they rushed up to the
General and said to him: **Doan’t you
see we have a few forces, and they have
80 many more?’’ and the soldiers were
affrighted at the smallness of their
number and the greatness of the enemy.
Antigonus, their commander, straight
ened himself up and said: “How many
do you reckon me to be?” And when
we see the vast armies arrayed agalnst
THE CAUSE OF SOBRIETY
it may sometimes be very discouraging,
but I ask you in making up your esti
mate of the forces of righteousness—l
ask you how many do you reckon the
Lord Almighty to be? He 1s our
commander. The Lord ef Hosts is His
name. I have the best authority for
saying that the chariots of God are
twenty thousand, and the mountains
are full of them. ‘
You will take without my saying it
that my only faith is in Christianityi
and in the upper forces suggested in
the text. Political parties come and‘
go, and they may be right, and they
may be wrong; but God lives, and I
think He has ordained this nation for
a career of prosperity that no dema
gogism will be able to halt. I expect
to live to see a political party which
will have a platform of two planks—
the Ten Commandments and the Ser
mon on the Mount. When that party
is formed it will sweep across this land
like a tornado, I was going to say, but
when I think it is not to be devasta
tion but resuscitaticn, I change the fig
ure and say, such a party as that will
sweep across this land like spice gales
from heaven.
Have you any doubt about the need
of the Christian religion to purify and
make
DECENT AMERICAN POLITICS?
At every yearly or quadreunial elec
tion we have in this country great
maufactories—manufacturies of lies;
and they are run day and night, and
they turn out half a dozen a day all
equipped and ready for full sailing.
Large lies and small lies. Lies private
and lies public and lies prurient. Lles
cut bias, and lies cut diagonal.
Longlimbed lies, and lies with
double back action. Lies compli
mentary and lles defamatory. Lies
that some people believe, and lies
that all the people believe, and lies that
nobody believes, Lles with humps
like camels, and scales like crocodiles,
and necks as long as storks, and feet
as swift as an antelope’s, and stings
like adders. Lies raw and scalloped
and panned and stewed. Crawling hes
and jumping lies and soaring lies. Lies
with attachment screws and rufilers
and braiders and ready-wournd bobbins.
Lies by Christian people who never lie
except during elections, and lies by
people who always lie, but beat them
selves in a Presidential campaign.
I confess 1 am ashamed to have a
foreigner visit this country in such
times. I should think he would stand
dazed, his hand on his pocketbook,
and dare not go out nights. What
will the hundreds of thousands of for
eigners who come here to live think of
us? What a disgust they must have
for the land of their adoption! The
only good thing about it is, many of ‘
of them cannot understand the Eng
lish language. But I suppose the Ger
man and Italian and Swedish and
French papers translate 1t all,aud peddle
out the infernal stuff to their subscrib
ers.
Nothing but Christlanity will ever
stop such a flood of indecency. The:
Christian religion will speak after a
while. The billingsgate and low scan
dal through which we wade every year
or every four years, must be rebuked
by that religion which speaks from Its
two great mountains, from the one
mountain intoning the command,
““Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor,” and from the
other mount making plea for Kindness
and blessing rather than cursing, Yes,
we are going to have
A NATIONAL RELIGION,
There are two Kinds of national re
ligion. The one is supported by the
State, and is a matter of human poli
tics, and it bas great patronage, and
under 1t men will struggle for promi
nence without reference to qualifica
tions, and its archbishop lls supported
vy a salary of $75,000 a year, and
there are great cathedrals, with all the
machinery of music and canonicals,
and room for a thousand people, yet an
audience of fitty people, or twenty
people, or ten, or slwo.
we want no such religion as that, yo
such national religion; but we wqgt.
this kind of national religion—the
vast majority of the people converted
and evangelized, and then they will
‘manage the secular as well as the re
ligious.
Do you say that this is impracticable?
‘No. The time is coming just as cer
talnly as there is a God, aud that this
'is His book, and that has the
strength and the honesty tg fulll His
promises. One of the ancignt emperors
used to pride himself on{ performing
that which his counsell said was
Impossible, and I have fto tell you
to-day that man’s impossibles are
God’s easles. ‘“‘Hath He sald, and
shall He not do it? Hath He com
.manded, and will He not bring it to
/pass?’’ The Christian religion is com
ing to take possession of every ballot
box, of every school house, of every
home, of every valley, of every moun
taln, of every acre of our national
domain, This nation, notwithstanding
all the evil influences that are trying to
destroy it, is going to live. ;
Never since, according to John Mil
ton, when **Satan was hurled headlong
flaming from the ethereal skies in
hideous ruin and combustion down,”
have the powers of darkness been so
determined to win this continent as
now.
WHAT A JEWEL IT IS
—3a jewel carved 1n rellef, the cameo of
this planet! On one side of us the
Atlantic Ocean, dividing us from the
worn-out governments of Europe. On
the other side the Pacifle Ocean,
dividing us from the superstitions
of Asia. On “the north of wus
the Arctic Sea, which is the gymna
sium in which explorers and naviga
tors develop their courage. A
continent 10,500 miles long 17,000,000
square miles, and all of it but about
one-seventh capable of rich cultivation,
One hundred millions of population on
this continent of North and South
America—one hundred millions, and
room for many hundred millions more.
All flora and all fauna, all metals and
all precious woods, and all grains and
all fruits. The Appalachian range the
backbone, and the rivers the ganglia
carrying life all through and out to the
extremities, Isthmus of Darien, the
narrow waist of a giant continent, all
to be under one government. and
ALL FREE, AND ALL CHRISTIAN,
and the scene of C(hrist’s personal
reign on earth If, according to the ex
pectation of many good people, He
shall at last set up His throne in this
world, Who shall have this hemis
phere, Christ or-Satan? Who shall have
the shore of her inland seas, the silver
of her Nevadas, the gold of her Colora
dos, the telescopes of her observatories,
the brain of her universities, the wheat
of her prairies, the rice ot her savan
nas, the two great ocean beaches—the
one reaching from Baffin’s Bay to
Terra del Fuego and the other
from Behring Straits to Cape Horn
—and all the moral and temporal and
spiritual and everlasting interests of a
population vasti beyond all human
computation? Who shall have the
hemisphere? You and I will decide
that, or help to decide It, by conscien
tious vote, by earnest prayer, by main
tenance of Christian institutions, by
support of great philanthropies, by
putting body, mind, and soul on the
right side of all moral, religious, and
national movements.
Ah! it will not be long before it will
not make any difference to you or to
e what becomes of this continent, so
far as earthly comfort is concerned.
All we will want of 1t will be seven
feet by three, and that will take In the
largest, and there will be room and to
spare, That is all of this country we
will need very soou—the youngest of
us. But we bave an anxiety about
the welfare and the happiness of the
generations that are coming on, and it
will be a grand thing if, when the
archangel’s trumpet sounds, we find
that our sepulchre, like the one Joseph
of Arimathea provided for Christ, 1s in
the mdst of a garden.
THE NAME IN THE ROCK.
One of the seven wonders of the
world was the white marble watch
tower of Pharos of Egypt. Sostratus,
the architect and sculptor, after build
ing that watch-tower, cut his name on
it. Then he covered it with plaster
ing, and to please the King, he put the
monarch’s name on the outside of the
plastering; and the storms beat and the
seas dashed in their fury, aund they
washed off the plastering,and they
washed it out, ana they washed it
down, but the name of Sostratus was
deep cut in the Imperishable rock.
S 0 across the face of this
nation there have been a great
many names written, across our finan
ces, across our religions, names worthy
of remembrance names written on the
architecture of our churches and our
schools and our asylums and our homes
of mercy ; but God is the architect of
this continent, and He wa?he sculptor
of all its grandeurs ; and long after—
through the wash of the ages and the
tempests of centuries—all other names
shall be obliterated, the divine signa
ture and divine name will be brighter
and brighter as the mlllenniums go by,
and the world shall :ee that the God
who made this continent has redeemed
it by his grace from all its sorrows and
from all its crimes.
HAVE YOU FAITH
1n such a thing as that? After all the
chariots have been unwheeled, and
after the war chargers have been crip
pled, the chariots which Elisha saw on
the morning of his peril will roll on in
triumph, followed by all the armies of
heaven on white horses. God could
do it withont us, but He will not. The
weakest of us, the smallest brained of
us, shall have a part in the triumph.
We may not have our name, like the
name of Sostratus, cut in imperishable
rock and conspicuous for centu
ries, but we shall be remembered, in a
better place than that, even in the
heart of Him who came to redeem us
and redeem the world, and our names
will be seen close to the signature of
His wound, for, as to-day, He throws
out His arms to us, He says: ‘‘Behold,
I have graven thee on the palms of
My hand.”” By the mightiest of ali
agencles. the potency of prayer, 1 beg
you seek our national welfare,
A MARINE POST OF FICE,
Some time ago there were 4,600,000
letters in the dead letter post office at
Washington—letters that lost their
way—Dbut not one prayer ever directed
to the heart of God miscarried. The
way is all clear for the ascent of your
supplications heavenward in behalf of
this nation. Before the postal com
munication was 8o easy, and long ago,;
on a rock ope hundred feet high, on!
the coast of England, there was a
barrel fastened to a post, and In great
letters on the side of the rock, so it
could be seen far out at sea, were the!
words “Post Office;”” and when ships
caime by a boat put out to take and
fetch letters. And so sacred were those
deposits of affection in that barrel that
no lock was ever pat upon that barrel,
although 1t oontained messages for
America, and Europe, and Asia, and
Africa, and all the Islands of the sea.
Many a storm-tossed sailor, homesick,
got messages of kindness by that rock,
and many a homestead heard good
news from a bey long gone. Would
that all the heights of our national
prosperity were in interchange of sym
pathies—prayers going up meeting
blessings eoming down; postal celes
tial, not by a storm-struck rock on a
wintry coast, but by the Rock ofi
Ages. i
g i cir
The Pecuniary Independence of
‘"Wives,
There is little or no recognition of|
the fact that the wife earns in her lirlo
vinee just as certainly as the man in his;,
that her service is quite as rigidly ex
acted in the nature of the case, and|
just as faithfully rendered as his; that
while his labor is of the muscles and'
brain, hers involves and taxes every
faculty of her being; that while his
labor 1s limited to certain hours, after
which he may rest, hers is unceasing,
and her rest is snatched from her press
ing care; and that the three fold unc
tion of housekeeper, mother and dis
penser is of a surety an equivalent for the
primal necessities—food, clothing and
shelter. :
An ordinary servant receives better
wages. A cook is entitled to her board
and a certain sum besides; a waitress
likewise, a seamstress likewise, a child’si
nurse likewise, their board guaranteed
and their recompense stipulated. But
the wife, who combines all these and
more, who serves in any and every
capacity which need calls up, who may’
even assist her husband in his employ
ment, in addition to her own, who may
even be an active but silent partner in'
his business, has bestowed upon her as
a gift, a charity, a donation, the scanty
primitive support that her body de
mands. She owns nothing—all 1s his;
she controls nothing, for the reins of
power are held by another, and she is
driven with the rest of the chattels; she
can change nothing, for a word of pro
+ost endangers the threadbare support,
that she endures.
The wife’s comfort depends in these'
days upon three things—her husband’s
prosperity, his loving attentions, and
her own compliance with existing co?l
-ditions. Her inalienable right is not
suspected, her equality is not conceded,
her responsibility not respected.
No human being is endowed with the
power, right or privilege to protéct
another. Pro,tection is inherent, and
evez;f' individual removed from child
hood and imbecility is sheathed in a
natural defense—self protection. The
only protection which man pretends to
vouchsafe to woman is a defense against
the consequences of his own aggression,
tyranny and abuse, for women have no
other enemy in the world.
In the household she has no safety—
no redress—she is bound over to keep
the peace, and can do no more despised
thing than to make complaint when
tried beyond endurance. She is a beg
gar of afl beggars, a slave of all slaves,
owning neither her home, her property,
her time, her children, nor herself. §t
does not matter that the slave is some--
times a favorite, and therefore indulg
ed; the condition of servitude is the
same, and this is the lot of married
women in America. When wrong is
committed, both parties suffer equally.
The wusurpation which depresses and
degrades women, lowers and perverts
man. Woman is disowned as equal,
companion and friend; man suffers the
loss of his equal, companion and friend.
The wife has no helpmate, neither
has the husband. The alienation is
equal, the disastrous results equal in
both cases. Marriages should be en
tire, not partial. Reproduection is not
limited to child-bearing, but the loving
conjunction of all the attributes and in
spirations of the two natures will re
produce new virtues, new graces, new
spiritual forces without limit or exhaus
tion. These twain were created in the
image of the Father and he gave them
dominion over the earth. They are not
merely mortal, they are spiritual be
ings, and not merely endowed with
reason, but respective to devine intelli
gence; the power of regeneration is
born with them; they must clasp hands
and achieve it. MARriE A. BRowN.
1t is only wasted activity to ply the
hammer after the nall is driven,
Drinking-water.—Professor Angell,
of Michigan University, furnishes the
following as a test of the purity of
drinking water: ‘‘Dissolve about half a
teaspoonful of the purest white sugar in
a pint bottle completely full of the
water to be tested, and tightly stopped;
expose it to daylight and a temperature
up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. After a
day or two examine, holding the bottle
against something black. for whitish
floating specks, which will betray the
presence of organic matter in couvsider
able proportion.”
A door that opens automatically on
putting a coin in the slit has recently
been brought out. The door is made
double, each half being L shaped and
hinged at the angle. They are clesed
and held fast by a lock which unlocks
when the coin actuates it and the door
opens. It closes again after the person
enters,