Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-03-23
THE MOTHER OF Us ALL.
DIR. TALMAGE RESUMES SER
VICES AT THE TABERNACLE.


BROOKLYN. March 22.-After an alb
sence of two weeks, during which time
he spoke in some thirteen cities of the
West, DR.. Talmage returned to his pulpit
in the Brooklyn Tabernacle to-day. Be-
fore the sermon he expounded some con-
sOlatory passages of Scripture. The
opening hymn was:
'Come, ye disconsolate. where'er We Ian
guish,
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel."
The subject of the sermon was ''the
mother of us all,'' and the text was from
Isaiah Xvi, SO: ''As one whom his
mother cOmfOrteth, so will comfort you ;"
DIR. Talmage said:
The Bible is warm letter of affection from
parent to child. and yet there are many
who see chiefly the severer passages. AS
there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle
dew IL one summer that will not cause as
much remark as one hail storm of half an
nOur, so there are those who are more struck
by those passages of the Bible that announce
the indignation of God than by those that an
nOunce mis- 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 home as one sher
ln's writ; and SO there are people who are
more attentive to those passages which an
nounce the wrath of God than TO those which
announce His mercy and His favor. God is a
lion, John says in the book of revelation. God
IS breaker, Micah announces in his pro
phecy. God is rock, God is a King.
But hear also that God is love. A
father and his child are walking out in the
fields on summers day, and there comes uD
thunder storm, and there is flash of light-
nIng that startles the child, and the father
says: My dear, that is Gods eve" There
comes a peal Of thunder, and the father says:
MY dear, that is Gods voice." But the clouds
faff rHR
floods the heavens and floods the landscape,
and the father fOrgets to say: "Ihat is Gods
smile." The text bends with great gentle
ness and love over all who are PROSTATE in sin
aud trouble. 1t lights up with compassion. 1t
melts with tenderness. it 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 first place that God has a
mothers simplicity of instruction. A father
does not know how to teach child the A, b.,
c. Men arc not skillful in the primary de-
partment, but mother has so much patience
that she Will tell child for the hu1dredth
time the difference between + and G and be-
tween l and j Sometimes it is by blocks,
sometimes by the Worsted work, sometimes
by the slate, sometimes 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 infantie minds.
| Though we are told thing a thousand times
and we do not understand it, our heavenly
Mother goes on, line upon line. precept upon
precept, here little and there little. God
has been teaching some of us 30 years and
some Of us go years one word of one syllable,
and we do not know it yet-f-a-i-t-h, Faith.
When 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 let
ters are black and we cannot spell them. II
God were merely a king, he would punish us;
if he We're simply a father, he would whip us;
but God is mother, and so we are borne with
and heped all the way through. A mother
teaches her child chiefly by pictures. If she
wants to set forth to her child the hideOusness
of QuarrelsOme spirit, instead of giving a
lecture upon that subject, she turns over a
leaf, and shows the child two boys in a
wrangle, and says: docs not that look hOr-
rible?" If she wants to teach her child the
aWfulness OF war, she turns over the picture
book and shows the war charger, the head
less trunks of butchered men, the wild,
agonizing, blOodshOt eye of battle, olling un-
der lids of flame, and she says: ''That
is war!" The child understands 1t.
In great many books the
best part are the pictures. The style may be
insipid, the type poor, but picture always
attracts a child's attention. Now God, our
Mother, teaches US almost everything by pic
lures. ls the divine goodness to be set forth?
autumnal picture. The barns are full, the
wheat stacks are rounded, the cattle are
chewing the cud lazily in the sun, the orch
ards are dropping the ripe pippins 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: Thou crOwnest the year
with thy goodness. and thy paths drop fatness."
Our family comes around the breakfast table.
IL has been very cold night, but the children
are all bright because they slept under thick
coverllds ana they are now in the warm blast
OF the open register and their appetites make
luXuries out of the plainest fare, and we look
at the picture and say: 'Bless the Lord, Oh,
my soul!n
God wishes to set forth the fact that in the
Judgment the good will be divided from the
wicked. How is it done2 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
n-gilt; boat battered as though it had been
q playmate OF the storm. A full net, thump-
ing about with the fish, which have just dis
covered their captivity, the worthless moss
bunkers and the useful founders all in the
same net. The fisherman puts his hand down
amid the squirming fms, takes out the moss
bunkers and throws them into the water, and
gathers the good fish into the pail. So, says
Christ, it shall be at the end of the world. The
bad he will cast away and the good he will
keep. Another picture:
God-our Mother-Wanted to set forth the
duty of neighborly love, and it is done by a
picture. a heap of wounds on the road to
Jericho. A traveller has been fighting a rob-
Der. The robber stabbed him and Knocked
him down. Two ministers come along. They
look at the poor fellow, but do not help him
A traveller comes along-a Samaritan. He
says whoa" to the beast he is rid
ing and dismOunts. He examines the
wounds. He takes out some wine
and with it washes the wounds, and
then he takes some oil and puts that in, to
make the wounds stop smarting; and then he
tears off piece of his own garment for
bandage. Then he helps the wounded man
uDon the beast and walks by the side, holding
him on, until they come to a tavern. He says
n lqnnlf.Fn ia 70 -
mans board for two days; take care of him.
IL 1t cost anything more, charge it to me, and
will pay it," Picture: ''The Good Samarl-
tan; or, Who is Your NeIghbor?"
Does God, our Mother. wait to set forth
what foolish thing it is to go away from the
right, and how glad divine mercy is to take
back the wanderer? How is it done? By
picture. good father. Large farm with
fat sheep and oxen. Fine house with exduis-
ite wardrobe. Discontinued boy. Goes aWay.
sharpers fleece him, Feeds hogs. Gets home
sick. Starts back. Sees an old man running
1t is father The hand. torn of the husks,
gets a wiring. The foot infamed and bleeding
gets sandal. The bare shoulder, showing
through the tatters, gets a robe. The stomach,
gnaWlng itself with hunger, gets full platter
smoking with meat. The father cannot eat
for looking at the returned adVenturer Tears
running down the face until they e0me to a
smile-the night dew melting with the morn
ing. No work on the farm that day; for when
bad boy repents and comes back, promising
to do better, God knows that is enough for
one day. "And they began to be merry"
Picture-Prodigal son returned from the will
derness."
So God, our Mother, teaches US everything
by pictures. The sinner is a lost sheen Jesus
IS the bridegroom. The useless man barren
fig tree. The gospel is great supper. Satan
soYer of tares. Truth mustard seed
That which we could not have understood in
the abstract statement God, our Mother pre-
sents TO us in this Bihe album of pictures
God-engraved. 10 not the divine maternity
ever thus teaching us2
l remark again that God has mothers
favoritism. A father sometimes shows sort
OF favoritism. Here is boy-slrong, well. of
high forehead and quick intellect The father
says. II viii take that boy into my firm vet ~
or Il Will give him the very best possibIe edu-
caIlon. 1nere are instances where for the
culture OF the one boy, ali the Others have
been robbed. A sad favoritism; but that is
not tne mothers favorite. l will tell you her
favorlte. There is child who at two wears of
giIt age hau a Ial. lie has never got over it. The
scarlet fever mutfled his hearing. He is NOT
what he once was. That child has caused the
mother more anxious nights than all the other
children. The last thing she does when going
out OF the house is to give a charge
in regard to him. The frat thing
on coming IN is to ask in regard t0
him. Why, the children of the family ali
know that he Is the favOrIte. and say:
mother, you let him do Just as he pleases
and you give him a great many things which
you do not give US. He is your fayor1te . |
The mother smiles. ShekAows it is so. So he |
ouSniSS " So' t4' - eberc Is any one In the |
World Who needs sympathy more than
another, it is an invalid child. weary on the /
frat mile OF life's journey: carrying an aching
head, weak side, an irrltated lung. So the |
mother ought to make him favorite. God.
our Mother, has favorites. ''Wd dom the Lord |
loveth he chasteneth.n That is one whom ha
especially loves he chasteneth. God loYes us /
an az pus mere one weak and sick and sore /
LA wounded and suffering and faints That /
Is the one who lies nearest and more perpetu- |
ally on the great. loving heart Of God. Why, |
it mover coughs but our Mother, God. hears it.
a n in bod d