Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-10-27
TALMAGE'SP PURE POLITICS
THE UPPER FORCESv AT WORK
IN THE PRESENT CAMPAIGN.

Vote no More"
BROOKLYN, n. Y, Oct. 26.-Dr. Tai
mage continued his series of sermons ON
public affairs to-day in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle, choosing for his subject ''The
Upper Forces" The opening hymn was
%The morning light is breaking,
The darkness disappears,
The sons of men are waking
To penltential tears"
Before the sermon DR.. Talmage read
and expounded passages of scripture ap-
propriate to the subject to be presented.
The text was: ii. Kings, vi, II: ''And
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" Following is the
sermon in full:
AS 1t cost England several regiments and
$2O0O,e01 year to keep one troublesome cap
tive at st. Helena, SO the King of Samaria
sent great army to capture one minister Of
religIon-perhaps 50,0CO men to take Elisha.
During the night the troops drove IN and sur
rounded the village of DOthan, where the
prophet was staying. At daybreak the man
servant of Elisha ruShes in crying: What
shall we do, an army is after you and we must
dle? But Elisha was not scared, for he
looked up to the mountains and saw that su-
pernatural forces had gathered for his de-
tense, ana If there Were $4,000 Assyrians
against him, there were perhaps 100000 angels
for him. In answer TO his prayer in behalf Of
the frightened man servant the young man
saw them tOo-horSes of fire harnesseu TO
chariOts of fire, and drivers of fire pulling
reins of fire on bits of fire, and warriors OF
1re with drawn sword of fire, the brilliance of
that morning sunrise eclpsed by the gallop
ing splendOrs of the celestial cavalcades.
"And the Lord opened the eyes of the Young
man and he saw, and behold the mountain
was 1ull of horses and chariots of fire
round about Elisha.'
For two Sabbaths / have spoken to you of
the Assyrian perils that have marched upon
us to capture this nation the bribery, the
low morals, the drunkenness, the political
abandonment. To-day i shall consider the
upper forces, that are sent of God to fight on
our side. If the low levels be filed with
armed threats, the mountains OF our faith and
hope and expectation are full of the horses
and chariots of divine rescue. The troops
that ride down from above are mlghtier than
the troops that ride up from beneath. Notice
that the chariots of divine rescue are not
made of brass or gold or ivory, but of fire.
Isaiah and Ezekiel and John. sketching the
divine equipage, always gave lG as wheeled
and harnessed and upholstered confagration,
Not chariots like that which other kings or
conquerors mount, but organized and com
pressed fire. That means purity and justice
and chast:semcnt and deliverance through
burning escapes. All of our national olsen
thralments have been through scourging
agonies and red disasters. Verify, charIOts of
rescue, but chariots of fire. Through tribula
tion the individual rises; through trlbulatlon
nations rise.
But how do know that the upper forces of
the text are on the side Of the American ma
tion? BY the history of II years. American
revolutions starting from the point OF John
Hancock's pen in Independence Hall, Phila-
delphia, 1776. Colonies without ammunition,
without guns, without ships, without trained
warriors, without one famous General at the
start, without prestige, without foreign
friends. side the mlQntlPSt H.
tiOn of the earth with the greatest armies and
the graudest navies and the most famous COM
manders and ammunition ineXhaustlble and
nearly all the world TO back them in the fight.
What nOthingness against what lmmensity
American prospects down to zero at the start
must sink still lower by the quarrels of our
generals and by the jealousy of little successes
and by winters that surpassed all their prede-
cessors in depths of snow and horror of CONCEAL
ment. Elisha surrounded by armed Assyri-
ans no worse off than thirteen colonies en-
compassed and overshadowed by foreign in
vasion. What, then, must have settled the
contest in our favor? The upper forces seen
in the text. The White and Green Mountains
f. New England, the highlands along the
Hudson, the mountains of Virginia. and the
Appalachian rans es were filled with flaming
reinforcements, which the young man Wash
ington saw by faith, and without complaint
his men endured the frozen feet and the bleed
ing 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 mountain was full OF horses and chariOts
of fire round about Elisha"
The opening war of 1861 was thought by
many at the North and South to be national
suicide. 1t was not bravery against coward
ice, wealth against poverty, great States
against small States, but herOism against
herOism, great resources against great re-
sources, the afiuence OF generations on the
one side against the affluence of generations
on the other side, the prayers OF the church
North against the prayers of the church
South, One-half the nation in armed wrath
fhn fnaTsh half lod 1GI
What could there be but determinations The
Comm ander-in Chief of the army of the
United States at that time was a dear old
man with gOut aud vertigo and asthma, IN
competent to mount a horse, and who rode
upon the battlefield in an easy carriage-the
driver directed to go slowly lest the
occupant be jolted. On the other side
whole line of warriors in his veins,
himself the hero of CherubuscO, Cerro
Gordo, COntreras and Chapultepec. But as
the red scroll of carnage unrOlled on both
sides there came forth to confront each other
a Valor and a determination and a strength
such as the world never saw. And what but
determination could result from the contest
when Philip Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson
rode in from opposite sides, and Nathaniel
Lyon and Sidney Johnston swept in from North
and South, and Grant and Lee, the two thun
derbOlts OF war, clashed each other? But we
are in peace and prosperity to-day. 1t was
not earthly courage that settled the combat,
but the upper 70 ces of the contest. The battle
OF LOOKOUT mountain was Bftlu 10 nave D0Gn
fought among the ouds, but higher than that
were the horses and charIots OF fire, come
from God to save the American nation.
In 1876, at the close of a national election,
famous for its devilsh ferOcity came the dark
est hour in American history, for the result of
the election was in dispute, and revolutions
not in sections, but in every town and city
and neighborhood of America was immi-
nent and the peril was that New York would
clutch New York, and Washington, Washing
ton, and New Orleans, New Orleans. Some
said Mr.. Tilden was elected, some said Mr..
Hayes was elected. And how near we came
to universal massacre some of us have guess
ed, but God only knows. That this was
avoid d ascrlbe not to the honesty or right
eOusness of red-hot infuriated politicians,
but to the upper forces of the text. here
were chariOts of mercy, tie wheels of which
were not heard, and the flash of which was
not seen, but the mountains OF the North and
South and East and West were full of them,
and though the hOots did not clatter, the cav
airy Of heaven galloped by.
That God is on the side of this nation 1
argue from the five last harVests and from the
health Of the last quarter of a century, epi-
denies exceptional, and from great religious
revivals and from enlarged churches and
from a continent blOssoming with reforma-
tory institutions and from the Edenization
which promises to turn this land into para
disc where GOO shall walk in the cool of the
day. And though have in two previous ser
mons set forth the awful threats of evil that
would capslze and demOllsh American ln5ti-
tutions, / see so many regiments of help
wheeling down the sky that my j-remiads
turn INTO doxologies and the Good Friday Of
the nations crucifiXiOn becomes the Easter
morning of its resurrection.
OF course God works generally through hu-
man instrumentallties, and this national bet
terment will come, among other things,
through a scrutinized ballot-box. The law of
registration mas made illegal voting almost
impossible in this country. Formerly droves
of men would wander round from election
poll to election poll, voting here and voting
there, and no one challenging or the chal lenge
amounting to nothing, because on such sud-
den notice nothing could be proven against
the scOundrels. Now every voter in well or
ganized neighborhoods is bounded on the
north and south and east and west by the
verest scrutiny. The rolls of registration
have been already made up for nearly week,
although the ordeal is yet nine days OF, :
must tell my name to the Register, how OLD /
am, how long have resided IN the state ana
how long in the ward, and If 1 mlsrepresent,
by 80 witnesses shall be shut out from the
ballot box If man have bet on the cleo
tions he by law is also smut out. One step
further needs to be taken and no one be al
lowed q vote who has offered a bribe or ac-
cepted bribe for voting, whether the bribe
be a free drink or payment of cash, the sus-
picious Cases compelled to put hand on Bible
and swear to their honesty, and so the sacred
chest OF the natlon Suffrage VIII De sui lur-
ther redeemed.
God will also help US by an aroused moral
sentiment. Morals and immorals have never
been SO canvassed as now in any Presidential
campaign. Men who all their lives have been
stealing from the public crib are denouneing
dishonesty on the part of public officials, and
people with two or three families of their own
are preaching elegant sermons on the seventh
commandment. Yea, the great subjects Of
temperance and drunkenness are forced upon
the public mind, and for the first time the
temperance question is felt in political con-
test, and prohibition. which was joke when
four years ago Neal Dow ran for the Presi-
dency, is no longer joke, but a tremendous
question which fiushes the cheek of the ma
ton, and agitates the land from Lake Erie to