The Brookhaven leader., 1886-02-18
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Fourth Discourse of the Series on
the Marriage Ring"
The Mutual Duties OF Husband and wife
with Suggestions on the Preservation
OF Domestic Harmony and Gull
ture OF Homo Pleasures.

We give below the fourth OF Rev. T. De-
Witt Talmage's series of discourses on
"The Marriage Rims" delivered recently
On the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The text
was:
Can two walk together, except they be
agreed-Amos Ill.,, s.
He said: No, Amos, they can not. They
will be tripping each other up, or pushing
each other down. Married life under such
circumstances will be the sounding of per
petual warhoop. In this course of SER
mons on "The Marriage Ring" will to-
day speak of the mutual duties of husband
and wife, preparatory to discourses on
their individual duties.
A church within a church. a republic
within republic. a world within world,
Is spelled by four letters-home! If things
go right there, they 60 right everywhere; If
things go wrong there, they go wrong
everywhere. The door-sill of the dwell
house is the foundation of Church and
State. man never gets higher than his
own garnet or lower than his own cellar.
In other words, domestic life overarches
and undergirds ali other life. The highest
the rocking-chair in the nursery is higher
than the throne. George Washington
commanded the forces of the United
States, but Martha Washing
ton commanded George. Chrysostom's
mother made his pen for him. If a man
should start ont and run seventy years in a
straight line, he could not get out from
under the shadow of his own mantlepiece.
therefore talk to you this morning about
a matter of infinite and eternal moment
when l speak of your home.
As individuals we are fragments. God
makes the race in part, and then he grad
.ually puts us together. What lack you
make up; what you lack I make up: our
deficits and surplusses of character being
the cog wheels in the great social mechan-
ism. One person has the patience, another
has the courage, another has the placiditv,
another has the enthusiasm: that which is
hacking in one is made up by another, or
m ade up by ALL Buffaloes in herds. grouse
In broods. quals in flocks. the human race
In circles. God has most beautifully ar
ranged this. It is in this way that he
balances society; this conservative and
that radical keeping things even. Every
ship must have its mast. cutwater, taffrail,
ballast. Thank God, then, for Princeton
and Andover, for the opposites. |
have no more right to blame a man for
being different from me than driving
wheel has a right to blame the iron shaft
that holds it to tue center. John Wesley
balances Calvin's institutes. A cold think
er gives to Scotland the strong bones Of
~,
throbbing heart and warm flesh. The diff
6ealty is that we are not satisfied with just
the work that God has given US to do The
water wheel wants to come inside the mill
and grind the grist ana the hopper wants
to go out and dabble in the water. Our
usefulness and the welfare of society de-
pend upon our staying in Just the place
that God has put US or intended we should
occupy.
For more compactness, and that we may
be more useful, we are gathered in still
smaller circles in the home group. And
there you have the same varieties again;
brothers, sisters, husband and wife, all
different in temperament and tastes. 1t is
fortunate that it should be so. If the hus-
band be all impulse the wife must be all
Iher temperament the other must b,
emphatic. Mary and Martha are ne
cessities. There will be no dinner fol-
Christ if there be no Martha: there
will be no audience for Jesus if there be
no Mary. The home organization is most
beautifully constructed. Eden is gone
the bowers are all broken down: the ami
mails that Adam stroked with his hand
that morning when they came up to get
their names have since shot forth tusk and
sting, and growled panther at panth err
and midair, iron baaks plunge till with
clotted wing and eyeless sockets the twain
come whirling down from under the sun
in blood and fire. Eden has gone, but
there is just one little fragment left. 1t
f1oated down on the river Hiddekel out of
Paradise. 1t is the marriage institution
1t does not, as at the beginning, take
away from man a rib. Now it is an addi-
ton of ribs.
This institution of marriage has been de-
famed in our day, and influences are
abroad trying to turn this earth into a
Turkish harem or a great Salt Lake City.
While the pulpits have been comparative
iy silent, novels-their cheapness only
equaled by their nastness-are trying to
educate, have taken upon themselves to
educate, this Nation in regard to holy
marriage, which makes or breaks for time
and for eternity. Oh, this is not a
mere question T. residence or wardrobe
1t is question cngrged with gigantic joy
or sorrow, with Heaven or hell. Alas for
this new dispensation of George
1t H.
of the nightshade with the mar
riage garlands. Alas for the venom
of adders spit into the tankards! Alas for
the white frosts of eternal death that kill
the orange blossoms! Ths gospel of Jesus
Christ is TO assert what is right and to es
sert what is wrong. Attempt has been
made to take the marriage institution
which was intended for the happiness atd
elevation of the race, and make it a mere
commercial enterprise; an exchange of
houses and lands and equipage; a business
partnership of two stuffed up with tie
stories of romance and knight errantry
and unfaithfulness and feminine anget-
hood. The two after awhile have reused
up to find that instead of the parable
they dreamed of, they have got NOTHING
. pu1 IAN AhouISuS mehaSe nle'
with tigers and wild cats. Eighty thou.
sand divorces in Paris in one year preced-
ed the worst revolution that France ever
saw. 1t was only the first course in that
banquet Of hell; and l tell you what you
know as well as l do, that wrong notions
on the subject of Christian marriage are
the cause at this day of more moral out
rage before God and man than any other
cause.
There are some things that want to