The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-23
sOD, THE MOTHER OF US ALL.
Armon Delivered Yesterday by DR.. Tall
, mage in Brooklyn Tabernacle.
The Tenderness and Patience Of the Deity in
Teaching, Comforting and Soothing the
Erring Children Of Earth.
Special to tho indianapolis Journal.

two weeks, during which he spoke in some thir-
teen cities of the West, Dr. Talmage returned to
his pulpit in the Brooklyn Tabernacle to-day
Before the sermon he expounded some consola-
tory passa ges of Scripture. The opening hymn
was:
Come We disconsoate where'er We languish,
Come 10 the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
The subject of the sermon was ''The Mother
of Us ALL and the text was from Isaiah Xvi, 13:
'.As one whom his mother comforteth SO will
comfort you" Dr. Talmage said:
The Bible Is a warm letter of affection from
parent TO child, and yet there are many who
see chiefly the severer passages; as there may
be ffty sixty nights of gentle dew in one
summer that will not cause as much remark as
one hai-storm of half an hour, so there are those
who are more struck by those passages of the
Bible that announce the indignation of God
than by those that announce his affection.
There may come to a household twenty or fifty
letters of affection during the year, and they
will not make as much excitement in
that house as one sherifs writ; and
there are people who are more attentive to those
passages which announce the wrath OF God than
to those which announce his mercy and his ia
vor. God is Lion, John says in the book Of
Revelation. God is a Breaker, Micah announces
in his prophecy. God is Rock-God is King
But hear, also, that God is Love- A father and
his child are walking out in the fields a sum-
Dners DAY and there comes up thunder storm,
and there is fash of lightning that startles the
child. and the father says; my dear, that is
Gods eye There comes peal of thunder and
the father says: MY DEAR that is Gods voice"
But the clouds go of the sky and the storm is
gone, and light floods the heavens and floods the
landscape. and the father forgets to say: THAT
il Gods SMILE" The text bends with great
gentleness and love over all who are PROSTATE in
sin and trouble. It lights up with compassion.
1t melts with tenderness 1t breathes upon us
the hush Of an eternal lullaby, for it announces
that God is our mother. "As one whom His
Mother comforteth so will comfort you"
/ remark, in the frs. place, that God has a
mothers simplicity of instruction A father
does not know how to teach child the A B c.
Men are not skiliful in tho primary department,
but mother has so much patience that she will
tell a child for the hundredth time the differ
ence between F and G and between and j.
Sometimes 1t is by blocks sometimes by the
worsted work, sometimes by the slate, some
times by the book She thus teaches the child
and has no awkwardness of condescension in so
doing. SO God, our mother, stoops down to our
infantsle minds. Though we are told a thing a
thousand times and we do not understand it, our
Heavenly mother goes of, line upon lie, pre-
eept upon precept here little and there lit
tie. God has been teaching some of us thirty
years and some of us sixty years, ore word of
a,,A l,,, 4,
faith. Whom we come to that word we stumble,
we halt we lose our place, we pronounce it
wrong Still Gods patience is not exhausted.
God. our mother, puts US in the school of
prosperity, and the letters are in sun
shine, and we cannot spell them. God
puts us in the school of adversely, and the letters
are black, and we cannot spell them. If God were
merely king he would punish u.s. if he were
simply father he would whip u.s. but God is
nother, and 40 we are borne with and helped all
lhe way through.
TEACHING BY PICTURES
A mother teaches her child chiefly by pictures.
R she wants to set forth to her child the hideous
Aess of auarrelsome spirit. instead of giving a
lecture upon that subject, she turns over a leaf,
snd shows the child two boys in a wrangle, and
saye: docs not that look horrible!' If she
wants to teach her child the awfulness of war,
she turns over the picture book and shows the
war charger the headless trunks of butchered
Enen, the wild, agonia;ng bloodshot eye of bat
Die rolling under lids of flame, and she says:
SThat is war!" The child understands it In a
great many books the best part are the pictures
The style may be insipid, the type poor,
but picture always attracts child's attention.
Now. God, our mother, teaches US almost every
thing by pictures. Is the divine goodness to be
set fortas How does God, our mother, teach uss
By an autumnai picture. The barns are full.
The wheat-stacks are rounded. The cattle are
chewing the cud lazily in the sun. The orchards
are dropping the ripe pppins into the lap of the
farmer. The natural world, that has been busy
all summer, seems now to be resting in great
abundance. We look at the picture and say:
'eThou crowness the year with thy goodness and
thy paths drop fatness." Our family comes
around the breakfast-table It has been very
cold night, but the children are all bright. be-
cause they slept under thick coverlets, and they
are now in the warm blast Of the open register,
md their appetites make luxuries out Of the
liAinest fare. and we look at the picture and say
SBless tho Lord 0 ms soul!"
God wishes to set forth the fact that in the
Judgment the good viii be divided from the
wicked. How Ia it donel By picture; by a
parable--a fishing scene. A group of hardy men,
long bearded. geared for standing to the waist in
water. sleeves rolled up. Long oar sun gilt; boat
battered as though it had been playmate of the
storm. A full net humping about with tho
fish, which have just discovered their captivity;
the worthless moss -bunkers and tho useful
founders all In the same net The fisherman
lputsh hand down amid the squirming fins,
takes out the moss bnnkers and throws them
into the water, aud gathers the good fish into the
pail So, says Christ 1t shall be at the end Of
the world. The bad he will cast away and the
good he will keep. Another pictures