The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-27
SAVING FORCES IN POLITICS.
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage's Morning Ser
mon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle.
A Consideration of the Present Vituperative
Campaign-POinting Out the Elements
that Will Save the Nation.
ipeoial to the Indianapolis Journal.

this morning was devoted TO puDlc aHalrS. lie
chose for his subject 1.-THE Upper Forces" The
opening hymn was:
1.-THE morning light is breaking,
The darkness disappears,
The of men waking
To penitental tears.
Before the sermon Dr. Talmage read and ex-
pounded passages of Scripture appropriate to the
subject to be presented. The text was II Kings,
vi, IT. ''And the Lord opened the eyes of the
young man and he saw, and behold, the noun
tain was full of horses and chariots of fire round
about Elisha Following is the sermon in full;
AS it cost England several regiments and 49,,
900, 900 year to keep one troublesome captive at
st. Helena, the King of Samaria sent a great
army to capture one minister of religion, per-
haps 80 900 men, to take Elisha. During the night
troops drove to and surrounded the village of |
Dothan, where the Prophet was staying. At
daybreak the man servant Of Elisha ruSheS in,
crying: 'What shall we do, army is after
YOU and we must diel" But Elisha was not
scared, for he looked up to the mountains and
saw that supernatural forces had gathered for
his defense, and if there were 5O,OOO 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 harnessed to chariots of
fire. and drivers of fire pulling reins of fire on
bits of fire. and warriors of fire drawing swords
of fire-the brilance of that morning sunrise
eclipsed by the galoping splendors of the celes-
of the young man and he saw, and behold, the
mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire
round about Elisha"
For two Sabbaths 1 have spoken to you of the
Assyran perils that have marched upon us to cap
ture this Nation-the bribery, the low morals,
| the drunkenness the political abandonment.
| To-day l shall consider the upper forces
that are sent of God to fight on our side. If the
| low levels be filled with armed threats, the
mountains of our faith and hope. and expecta-
ton full of the horses and chariots of divine
| rescue. The troops that ride down from above
| are mghter 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 it as wheeled,
and harnessed, and upholstered conhagration.
| Not chariots like that which other kings or
| querers mount, but organized and compressed
| fire. That means purity, and justice, and chas-
| tisement and deiverance through burning es
| capes. All of our national observation-disclosures have
been through scourging agones and red disasters.
| Verify, chariots of rescue, but chariotS of fire.
Through tribulation the individual rises; through
| tribulation nations rise.
But how do know the upper forces of the
| text are on the side of the American Nation? By
| the history of 10S years. American revolution
| starting from the point of John Hancocks pen,
III independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1116. Col
| onies without ammunition, without guns, with
| out ships without trained warriors, without one
| famous general at the start, without prestige,
without foreign friends. On the other side, the
mightiest nation of the earth, with the greatest
| armies, and the grandest navles, and the most
! famous commanders, and ammunition inexhaust
ible and nearly all of the world to back them in
in the fight. What nothingness against what
immensely! 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 predecessors in depths
| of snow and horror of congealment Elisha
surrounded by armed Assyrians no worse off
| than thirteen colonies encompassed and over
Swallowed by foreign invasion. What, then,
must have settled the contestin our favorl The
| upper forces seen in the text The White and
| Green mountains of New England, the High
| lands along the Hudson, the mountains of Vir
ginia and the Appalachian ranges were filled
| with flaming achievements, which the young
| man Washington saw by faith, and without
complaint his men endured the frozen feet and
| the bleeding wounds, and the exhausting
hunger and the long march, because 1.-The Lord
opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw,
| and behold the mountain was full of horses nd
| 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 cowardice, wealth
| against poverty, great States against small
| States, but nheroism against herosm, great re-
sources against great resources, the aff1uence of
| generations on the side against the affiuence
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 against the other half in armed indigna-
ton What could there be but exterminationl
| The commander-in- chief of the army of the
| United States, at that time, was a dear old man
with govt, and vertigo and asthma incompetent
| to mount horse, and who rode upon the battle
| field in easy carriage the driver directed to
| go slowly lest the occupant be jolted. On the
other side, a general in mid-life the blood of
whole line of warriors in his veins,
himself the hero of Cherubusco, Cerro
Gordo, Contreras, and Chapultepec. But as
the red scroll of carnage unrolIed on
h0th SidpS there forth to
front each other valor and determination
and 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 Ma
thaniel Lyon and Sidney Johnston swept in, from
North and South and Grant and Lee, the two
thunderbolts 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 forces of the contest. The battle of
Lookout mountain was said to have been fought
among the clouds; 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 national election
famous for it's devilish ferocity, came the dark
est hour in American history; for the result of
the election was in dispute and revolution, not
in sections, but in every town and city and
neighborhood of America, was imminent and the
peril was that New York would clutch New
York, and Washington, Washington; 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 guessed, but God only knows.
That this was avoided ascribe not to the hon
esty or righteousness Of redhot, Infatuated poll
ticians but to the upper forces of the text There
were chariots of mercy the 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 hoofs did not clatter, the cavalry of
heaven galloped by.
That God is on the side of this Nation I argue
from the FIVE last harvests, and from the health
of the last quarter of century-epidemics ex-
ceptional-and from great religious revivals, and
from enlarged churches and from a continent
blossoming with reformatory institutions, and
from the Edenization which promises to turn