Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-01-15
TlALMAGE's SERMON.
o,oe,nu Sermon Of 1896 In the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.
pov,ew of the Journey of Life, With Ito
obstacles and vicissitudes-SuG-
sestions ofNew Things for
the New Year.

pov. T, De Witt Talmage, in preaching
the last sermon of the old year at the
Rrooklyn Tabernacle, chose an appropriate
name, taking for his text:
Knowing the time that now IT is high time
40 awake out OF sleep.-lRomans, KILL IL. -
While this morning with glad anthem
ua celebrated the Christmas hour, has it
oocurred to you that this is the last Sab.
49, night of grand, and beautiful, and
orentful, and joyous, and solemn 1885? Th
OCCASION is nightly suggestive.
storting out on a long journey OF horse
.aor- YOU ride along without stopping for
"anva mile, until after a while you come
40 ton of a high hill. You rein in the
0.aad The horse smokes by reason of the
ssnath of the way. You take your feet out
: tbe stirrups. YOU turn around in the
oaddle. You look of upon the ravines
.srooph which you have passed, and the
,;,,s over which you have come, and make
~ estimate of how many miles you have
.n,reled. Then turning around, again in
.,e saddle, and putting your feet in the
.t;rr,,ns. YOU look ahead and wonder how
ssr Il will be before you come to the
Loo of destination. And 20 to-day we
-.o,a nm on Iuc +oIDDLvkS luOuklU VI DIlVks
,oro No horseman ever spurred on a
steed faster than we have gone up the
steons of life and down the dangerous
activities; but having come here to-day,
us stop and look back upon the way
+hrouph which. we have come-the dark
ness and the sunshihe,c the accidents and
tho successes-and then lookforward and
wonder how longor. how short will yet be
.+he way. And sitting and standing here,
tho hour seems to me- as to you, it must
Tho. momentous. I put my finger on the
mise of this moment and I feel that it
beats high end eternal destinies. You and
Z have started on in a life which will con-
4inue to live after the sun has gone out
co,d in death and this wrecked and foun-
dered world shall have strewn its timbers
ON the coast of an eternal desolation. OF!
IL is a mean question for me to ask my
self and you to-day: "Where I'M 1? What
am r. Whence came /? And whittier am
I bound:n The simple fact is that
each one of US has q soul to save.
Now, when any man in olden
times had saved the life of a
Romanc citizen from drowning, for instance,
that man who rescued the unfortunate
was honored. He was allowed sometimes
to sit in the Senate; he wal allowed to ride
in great PROFESSIONS, and when lhe entered
room the other people would rise up to
greet him and do him honor. 1 would to
God that tonight we might aspire for the
higher honor of saving a soul-an immor-
tai soul.
There are three or four reasons that I
can think of why we should obey the in
junction of my text and wake up. The
first arousing consideration that occurs to
my mind is the fact that there are so many
obstacles in the way of our salvation. Now,
there is no need of our hiding this fact. We
sometimes hear people talking to the un-
converted and saying: sit is just as easy
for you to become a Christian as it is to
turn over your hand." 1t is not. There
are tremendous obstacles in the way of
your becoming a Christian, and every
man that has tried in thorough earnest
ness to become n child of God has found
that there are Obstacles. That is not a
wise general who deprecates the force of
on enemy-who says to his men: "My
troops, you will have an easy time of it.
Ihose castles ca1 be captured without any
very serious COMMANDMENT. There are
only d low enemies in that opposing host
II will oAy be q few moments assault and
we will gain the victory" No. A wise
general says: "Those are strong
b~athements; those men who are
coming out to assault US are armed,
and they are brave men. If you ever cap
ture those fortresses, and if you ever over
come that host, it will be by a mighty rally
ing Of all your energies" And l nave to tell
you now, that if you are ever going to get
70 Heaven, it will be by going out in q con
test as ono against a hundred, as enc
against u thousand, as one against a hun.
dred thousand, aye, it is an infinite impos-
Slpl'ity that you ever succeed by any
strength or resolution Of your own, and il
tnefe We're not some supernatural aid to be
onered and some divine promise to take
hold of, we would be lost, and we would aI
be lost.
IN the first place, there are the obstacles
In the worldliness that surrounds YOU. ]
need not tell you, men of Brooklyn and
new York, that there is a tide of worldli
ness setting away from God and from
heaVen. You have felt it. You have
"aoed down in it until the food came tt
your knee, until it came to your girdle
un'il 1t has come to your hip. You rise il
tne morning. You find it is a few moment:
la'ef Thar youthought it was. You are il
great haste. You hurry through the morn
'hs meal. You race down the street. Yo,
quo Your office. You open the letters anc
Souahswer them. You examine the money
market. Yourun hither and thither. You
Ine is a toll and a turmoil. The long day
sa'ethe fifteen or twenty minutes in which
YOU lunch, is given up to the influence o
t thls world, and it is very rare, indeed
sua' from eight O'Clock in the morn
Ing until four or five O'Clock in the after
no0n that you lave a single thought abou
.ue great future. Some thought may
snne you are standing at the counter or i,
.ue clearinghouse, some stray thought o
.ne future world may come through you
suilu' but it darts out again, just like
s"ailo" that in summertime wheels int,
- open window, makes a circuit of a few
m'hutes and then goes out. Oh! this It'd
VI "orldliness! You have felt it. 1t set
u"ay from God and away from Heaven
You know it.
inen there are obstacles in tn, way o
fCnr Eaftj,-A