The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-29

Dr.. Talmage Talks of the Many Tenn
pOral Blessings of Christ's Birth.
The Nation Suffering from an Overdose of
POlitics-SOme Assertions Concerning the
4 Negro Which Will Be Questioned.


preached this morning in the Brooklyn Taber-
nacle on the subject, Christmas Day in Amer
ica.r During service the celebrated Mrs. Flor
ence Rice-Knox rendered three selections. The
regular artists of the church gave especial music
DR.. Talmage read passages of Scripture showing
what yet would be the improved condition of the
world. The opening hymn was:
clark the sound of jubilee
Loud as mighty thunders roar
Or the violence of the sea
When it breaks upon the shore!
The text was from Isaiah xxxv, 6: 'Then
shall the lame man leap as hart and the tongue
of the dumb sing, for in the wilderness shall
waters break out and streams in the desert
Following is the sermon:
For fourteen Christmas times 1 have spoken
TO you of the spiritual results of Chrsts birth
To-day speak of the temporal Fertility TO
the fields, health to the body manumission to
serfs, homes for the shelteress, good govern
ment for the barbarc, blessings for this life as
we'll as blessings for the next The cradle OF
Christ was as wonderful as his cross I.uuirtaA
the first, 1 am not so sur..rreod at the second.
The door sy w.1ic11 he entered was as tremen-
ueus as the door by which he went out
Through that one stable gate of Bethlehem came
in for us more temporal advantages than the
world has yet celebrated in song, or sermon, or
picture, or cathedral arch "Then shall the
lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the
dumb sing, for in the wilderness shall waters
break out and streams IN the desert" Banished
crutch, and accentuation of speechless tongue,
and irrigated Saharas.
Amid thousand mercies we give each other the
holiday congratulations; by long established
custom we exhort each other to healthful merri-
ment, by gifts, by household games, by Christ
mas trees that blossom and fruit in the same
hour. by long lines of candles lit, by surprises,
by childreu's procession, by sound of instru-
ments more blatant than musical we wake up
the nights and prolong the days
A merry Christmas to the Nation! No land
has so many happy homes as America, such
varieties of food on the table, such appropriate
family wardrobes, or such healthful domestic
architecture. At the same time we recognize
that these holidays find a vast multitude of PEG
pie without work, and without food, and without
apparel, and without shelter. Something must
be awfully wrong as you will see when put
two facts parallel More wheat in Dakota, and
Minnesota, and Michigan than they know what
to do with. More cotton at the South than they
know what to do with. In other words, surplus
of bread and surplus of clothing has been pro
vided by Divine goodness, and yet multitudes of
people half starved and half clothed. and to
hundreds of these it is a shive1ing and hungry
Christmas. L think all the matter with
the Nation is an overdose of politics.
The trouble is that so many public men
spend their time in keeping the equilibrium
of public affairs disturbed that business staggers
and stops, The eloquent campaigners make us
believe that everything depends upon the domi-
nance of their party. when to the greatmasses of
the people it makes not two cents difference for
the next four years who is President. But this
superabundance of harvests in wheat and corn,
and cotton, and rice, must eventually be felt in
Lister supply of all national wants. The
present national depression is not like that which
comes from drought, or deluge, or plague. 1t is
more like that of a man who has plenty of money
in a safe, or like that of housewife who has
plenty of food in pantry but they have lost the
keys and they arc trying to find them, and,
though 1t will be an impatient and irritating
search, it will be successful.
But there are two things for the comfortable
classes to do-one, to help those who are helpless,
and the other to talk cheerfully. This expert
ment has been made by medical scientists: A
dozen men agree to meet man at different
points of his journey and tell him how very sick
he looks. By the time he has been accosted with
the fourth melancholy salutaton he is ready to
drop under the impression that his doom has
come, and the twelfth man meets him just in
time to help carry him home a stretcher
Now, the Nation is only one man
do to PROSTATE the business of this country is to
talk gloomily and to keep on talking in the same
tone. Let all the merchants sigh, and all the
editors prognostcate hard winter, and all the
ministers groan. In the great chorus of com
planners those who play the loudest trombones
are those who have the fullest cellars and those
who have the most complete wardrobe. They
are mad because they have to fall back on the
surplus of other years, or cannot make as large
investments as they expected Artists tell us
that it is impossible to sing we'll a full
stomach, but there are thousands of men to-day
demonstrating that it is possible to groan well
on a full stomach. II Christian people would
for few weeks exchange the lamentations of
jeremiah for the exultant songs of David it
would be well for the country. T wish "a con
spiracy might be formed-and | would like to
belong to it-a conspiracy of all the business
men, and editors. and ministers of religion by
which they would have faith in God, and talk
cheerfully, and the revival of prosperity would
DO Immediate and glorious. Stop Naomi, and
give US Coronation "Aferry Christmas
WHAT OF TIE coLoRED MANI
am glad that these holidays find us nearing
righteous solution of question that has been
dominant in politics, and philanthropy, and
religion for the last sixty years What of the
colored MANI That was the question which
dug the grave trenches for million
soldiers and has kept our national finances
ajangle ever since That question [ gave most