Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1885-12-26
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A NEW SCROLL OF MARTYRS.

mon in Detroit was listened to by large
congregation. The preacher chose for his
subject "a New Scroll of Martyrs He
said:
am now to unroll before you a new scroll
of heroes that the world has never acknowl-
edged-those who faced no guns, blew no
bugle-blast conquered no cities, chained no
captiveS to their chariot wheels, and yet in
the great day of eternity will stand higher
than those whose names startled the nations;
and seraph and rapt spirit and archangel will
tell their deeds to a listening universe.
mean the heroes of common, everyday life.
In this roll l find all the heroes of the sick
room. When Satan had failed to overcome
Job he said to God: PUT forth thu hand and
touch his bones and his flesh, and he will
curse thee to thy face" Satan had found out
what we have all found out-that sickness is
the great test OF ones character. a man who
can stand that can stand anything To be shut
IN room as fast as though it were Bastie.
10 be so nervous you cannot endure the tap
of a chllds foot. To have luxuriant fruit
which tempts the appetite OF the robust and
healthy excite our lOathing and disgust when
it first appears on the platter, TO have the
rapier of pain strike through the side or
across the temples like a razor, or to put the
loot into wise or throw the whole body into
a blaze of fever. Yet there have been men
and women, but more women than men, who
have cheerfully endured this hardness
Through years of cxhausting rheumatisms
and eXcruciating neuralgias they have gone
and through bodily distreSSeS that raSped the
nerves and tore the muscles and paled the
cheeks and stopped the shoulders BY the
dim light of the sick room taper they see on
the wall the picture of the land where the IN
habitants are never sick. Through the dead
silence of the night they hear the chorus of
the angels
The cancer ate away her life from week to
week and from day to day, and she became
weaker and weaker, and every goodnight"
was feebler than the good night before, vet
never sad. lhe child looked up into her face
and saw suffering transformed into Il heaven
ly smile. Those who suffered on the battle
field amid shot aud shell were not so much
heroes and heroines as those who in the
field hospital and in the asylum had fevers
which no ice could cool and no surgery could
cure No shout of comrade to cheer them,
but numbness and aching and homesickness:
yet willing to suffer, confident of God and
hopeful of Heaven. Heroes of rheumatism.
Heroes of neuralgia. H roes of spinal COM
plant Heroes of sick headache. Heroes of
lifelong invalidism. Heroes and heroines,
they shall reign forever and ever. Hark!
catch just one note of the eternal anthem:
There shall be no more pain" Bless God for
that!
In this roll also find the heroes of toll who
do their work uncomplainingly 1t is COM
paratively easy to lead a regiment into battle
plaud the victory; it is comparatively easy to
doctor the sick when you know that your
skill will be appreciated by the large com
pany of friends and relatives; it Is
comparatively easy to address an
audience when in the cleaning eyes
and hushed cheeks you know that your senti-
ments are adopted; but to do sewing where
you expect that the employer will come and
thrust his thumb through the work to show
how imperfect 1t is, or to have the whole
garment thrown back on you to be done over
again; to build wall and know there will
be no one to say you did it well, but only
swearing employer howiing across the scat
fold; to work until your eyes are dim and
your back aches and your heart faints, and
to know that if you stop before night your
children will starve-ah, the sword has not
slain so many as the needle! The great bat
tlefields of our last war We're not Gettysburg
and Shiloh and South Mountain. The great
battletields of the last war were in the arsen-
ais and i'll the shops and in the attics where
women made army jackets for a siXpence
They toi!ed on until they died. They had no
funeral eulogium, but in the name of nv God
this morning | enroll their names among
those of whom the world was not worthy
Heroes of the needle. Heroes of the sewing
machine. Heroes of the attic. Heroes of
the cellar. Heroes and hero;nes Bless
God for them! In this roll 1 also
find the heroes who have uncom-
plainingly endured domestic injustice. There
are men who for their toll and anxiety have
no sympathy in their own homes Exhaust
ing application to business gets them q liveli-
hood but an unlrugal wife Scatters it. He is
fretted at from the moment he enters the
door until he goes out of IL. The eXaspera-
tions of business life augmented by the ex-
ASPIRATIONS of domestic life Such men are
laughed at, but they have heart breaking
trouble and they would have long ago gone
INTO appalling designations, but for the grace
of God. Society to-day is strewn with the
wrecks of men who under the northeast storm
of domestic infelicity have been driven on
the rocks There are tens of thousands of
drunkards in this country to-day, made such
by their wives. That is not poetry that is
prose
But the wrong is generally in the opposite
direction. You would not have to go far to
find wife who is a Perpetual martyrlom
Something heavier than the stroke OF the
frSt unklnd words. staggerings home at mid
night and constant maltreatmcnt which have
left her only wreci of hat she on that
day when in the midst OF "a brilliant assem-
blage the vows We're taken and full organ
played the wed ling march and the carriage
s fSed people aTev What the was the 5arng
of Latimer and Ridley at the stake
compared with this! Those men soon be-
came unconscious in the fire, but here is a
fifty years martyrdom, fifty years putting
to death, yet uncompiainn5. No bitter
words When the rollicking companions, at
two O'Clock in the morning, pitch the nus
band dead drunk into the front entry No
bitter words when wiping from the swollen
brow the blool struck out in a midnight ca
rousal, bending over the battered and
bruised form of him who, when he took her
from her fathers home, promised love and
Kindness and protection, yet nothing but
sympathy and prayers and forgiveness be-
fore they are asked for. No bitter words
when the family Bible goes for rum and the
pawnbroker's shop gets the last decent dress.
Some day, desiring to evoke the story of her
ting along nova" and, rallying her tremb-
ling voice and quieting her quivering lip,
she says, pretty well, thank you, pretty
welln She never will tell you. In the de-
lrium of her last sickness she may tell all
the secrets of her lifetime, but she will not
tell that. Not until the books of eternity are
opened on the thrones of Judgment will ever
be known what she has suffered Oh ye who
are twisting garland for the victor, put it
neighbors will beg linen to make her a shroud
and she will be carried out i'll plain box,
with no silver plate to tell her years, for she
has livel thousand years of trial and an
guish. The gamblers, the swindlers, who de-
stroyed her husband will not come to the
funeral. One carriage will be enough
for that funeral, one carriage to
carry the orphans and the two
Christian women who presided over the
ob:equies; but there is a flash and the opening
of a celestial door, and shout, Lift up your
head, We everlasting gates, and let her come
in and Christ will step forth and say, Come
with me in heaven. What is the highest
throne in haayan2 The throne of the Lord