The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-03-04
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 Home Pleasures.
We give below the fourth of Rev. 7. De-
Witt Talmage's series Of discourses on
eThe Marriage Ring" delivered recently
In the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The text
was:
Can two walk together, except they be
agreed--Amos Ill.,, 8.
He said: No, Amos, they can not. They
will be tripping each other up, or pushing
each other down. Married life under such
circumstances win be the sounding of per-
petua1 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, world within world,
is spelled by four letters-home! II things
go right there, they go right everywhere;n
things go wrong there, they go wrong
everywhere. The door-sill of the dwell
ing house is the foundation of Church and
State. A man never gets higher than his
own garnet or lower than his own cellar.
In other words, domestic life overarches
and undergirds all other life. The highest
house of Congress is the domestic circle;
the rocking chair in the nursery is higher
-. Woe ell, %,v,
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 out 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
matter of infinite and eternal moment
when 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 las the placidity,
another has the enthusiasm; that which is
lacking in one is made up by another, or
m ade up by all. Buffaloes in herds, grouse
in broods, quails in fiocks, 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. l
have no more right to blame a man for
being different from me than driving
wheel has right to blame the iron shaft
that holds it to the center. John Wesley
balances Calvin's institutes. A cold think
er gives TO Scotland the strong bones of
theology; DR.. Guthrie clothes them with a
throbbing heart and warm flesh. The diff
ficulty is that we are not satisfied with just
the work that God has given US TODD. The
water-wheel wants to come inside the mill
and grind the grist and 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, ali
different in temperament and tastes. 1t is
fortunate that it should be so. If the hus-
band be all impulse the wife must be al
prudence. If one sister be sanguine il
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
win be no audience for Jesus if there b
no Mary. The home organization is mos
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 ge1
their names have since shot forth tusk and
sting, and growled panther at panther
and midair, iron beaks plunge till wild
clotted wing and eyeless sockets the twair
come whirling down from under the sun
In blood and fire. Eden has gone, bu,
there Is just one little fragment left. II
hoated down on the river Hiddekel out OF
Paradise. It is the marriage institution
1t does not, as at the beginning, take
AWAY from man rib. Now it is an addi.
tion 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 great Salt Lake City
While the pulpits have been comparative.
" silent, novels-their cheapness only
equaled by their nastiness-are trying te
educate, have taken upon themselves te
educate, this Nation in regard to holy
marriage, which makes or breaks for tim.
and for eternity. Oh, this is not 4
mere question of residence or wardrobe
Il is question charged with gigantic JOY
or sorrow, with Heaven or hell. Alas TO,
this new dispensation of Georg,
Sands! Alas for the minglins
Of the nightshade with the mar
rage garlandsi Alas for the venom
Of adders spit into the tankards! Alas fo
the white frosts Of eternal death that kill
the orange blossoms The gospel of Jesu
Christ is to assert what is right and to as
sert what IL wrong. Attempt has beef
made to take the marriage institution
which was intended for the happiness AMI
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