The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-01-22
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The First Of q Series OF Discourseo
On the Marriage Ring"
The Choice Of . Milestone Men Whe
Have No Right to Harfy-Moral aad
Spiritual beauty More Desirable
the Nero Physical.

| OnoaCe VI du3DonQ ana Wllo," we glv(
below. The following was the text:
L. there never q woman among the daugh
ters OF thy brethren, or among all my PEG
pie. that thou goest to take wife OF the un
circumcised Observation-Disclosures, XIV,
| Samson, the giant, is here asking con
sent of his father and mother to marriag,
with one whom they thought unfit for him
He waS wise in asking their counsel, but no
wise in rejectingit. Captivated with her
| looks, the big son wanted to marry daugh.
ter of one Of the hostile families, a deceitful,
! hypocritical, whining and saturnine crea-
ture. who afterward made for him worlG
of trouble till she quit him forever. In my
text his parents forbade the banns,
practically saying: When there are
SO many honest and beautiful maidens
| of your own country, are yoa Sc
hard put to for a lifetime partner that
you propose conjugality with this for
eign firtf Is there such dearth of lii.
lies in or Israelitish gardens that you
MUST wear on your heart a Philistine
thistle? Doyou take crab-apple because
there are no pome granates? rs there
never a woman among the daughters of
thy brethren, or among all my people,
that thou goest to tale q wife of the UNI
circumcised Philistinesv"
Excuseless was he for such choice in q
land and amid race celebrated for female
loneliness and moral worth, land and a
race of which self-denying Abigail, and
heroic Deborah, and dazzling Vashti, and
pious Esther, and glorious Ruth, and Mary
who Rugged to her heart the blessed Lord,
were only magnificent specimens. The
midnight folded in their hair, the lakes of
liquid beauty in their eyes, the graceful
ness Of spring morning in their posture
and gait, were only typical Of the greater
brilliancy and glory of their soul. Like.
wise excuseless is a man in our time who
makes lifelong alliance with any one who,
because of her disposition, or heredity, or
habits, or intellectual vanity, or moral
classification, may be said to be one Of the
Philistines.
The world never owned such opulence Of
wOmanly character or such splendor Of
womanly manners or multitudinous in.
stances of wifely, motherly, daughterly,
sisterly devotion as it owns to-day.
have not words to express my admiration
for good womanhood. Woman Is not only
mans equal, but in affectional and re.
ligious nature, which is the best part of us,
she is seventy five per cent. his superior.
Yea, during the last twenty years, through
the increased opportunity opened for female
education, the women OF the country are
better educated than the majority Of the
men; and IL they continue to advance in
mentality at the present ratio, before long
the majority of men will find diffiulty in
finding in the opposite sex enough ignor-
ance to make appropriate consort. II l
am under delusion as to the abundance
OF good womanhood abroad, consequent
upon my surroundings since the hour en-.
tered this work until now, hope the delu-
sion will last until I embark from this
planet. So you will understand, IL say
in this course of sermon something that
seems severe, I am neither cynical nor dis
gruntled.
There are thousands of American pull.
pits, among them this pulpit, guilty in the
fact that on some Of the subjects on which
men and women need practical advice
they have been silent, or teaching them
only In forceless circumlocution. About
the choice Of q lifetime companion, q
question in which so much Of time and all
Of eternity are involved, what universal
silence In the Church, SO that there ara not
ten people in this house who have ever
heard discourse of this theme; and the
first one 1 have ever heard is the one am
preaching. We leave to the fippant novel
or the spectacular play, or the jingle Of q
doggerel rhyme, that which ought to bur-
den the most tremendous sermon minis
ter ever breaches, from the day when he
takes ordination to the day when in judg-
ment he meets his God. And SO, in this
course Of sermons, am going to hitch up
my best team to the whifietree, and put
the coulter of the pillow clear up to the
beam, and go straight on from fence to
fence, however many nests of moles and
serpents may be ripped up by the furrow,
and however many alarmed people may
cry "Whoaw
That marriage is the destination of the
before 60 further. There are multitudes
who never will marry, and still greater
multitudes who are not at to marry. In
Great Britain to-day there are 94S, 900 more
women than men, and that, 1 understand,
is about the ratio in America. By mathe-
NAUTICAL and memorable law, you see, mil
lions Of women will never marry. The
supply for matrim0ny greater than the de.
mand, the first lesson of which is that ev.
cry woman ought to prepare to take care
Of herself il need be. Then there are thou
sands of men who have no right to marry,
because they have become SO corrupt Of
character that their offer of marriage is an
insult to any good woman. Society will
have to be toned up and corrected on this
subject, so that it shall realize that if .
woman who has sacrificed her honor is I'M
fitted for marriage, SO Is any man who has
ever sacrificed his purity. What right
have you, oh masculine beast, whose. life
has been loose, to take under your care the
spotlessness Of . virgin reared in the sane
tity Of q respectable home! VIII buzEard
dare to court dove?
But the majority Of you will marry and
have q right to marry, and, as your re-
ligious teacher, I wish to say to these men,
in the choice Of wife, first OF all seek Di.
vine direction. Adult thirty five years ago
when Martin Farquhar Upper, the
English poet, urged men to
prayer before they decided upon
association, people
laughed. And some of them have lived to
laugh on the other side Of their mouth.
The need of Divine direction argue from
the fact that so many men. and some of
them strong and wise, have wrecked their
lives at this juncture. Witness Samson
and this woman OF Tmnath. Witness
Socrates, pecked Of the historical Kan
tippe. Witness Job, whose wife had moth
ing to prescribe for his carbuncles but allo-
pathic doses of profanity. Witness
Ananias, a liar, who might perhaps have
been cured by truthful spouse, yet mar