Milford chronicle., 1888-09-28
TABERNACLE SERVICES.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S DISCOURSE
LAST SUNDAY MORNING.

Talmage, D. D., preached in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle this morning on the subject, ''Su-
perfiuities a Hinderance.n Several ocean
steamers arrive in port Sunday mornings,
and many Of the passengers, Drowned by the
sea, come directly from the wharf to the
Brooklyn tabernacle. The great congrega-
tion, led by Professor Ais cornet and accom-
/ panied by the organ, at which Professor
Browne presides, Joined in the opening hymn:
We are thy people, we thy care,
! Our souls and all our mortal frame.
What lasting honors shall we rear
Almighty Maker 10 thy namei
Dr. Talmage's text was, Chronicles Xxx, O.,
/ z: "a man Of great stature, whose fingers
and toes were four and twenty, six ON each
hand and six on each foot; and he also was
the son of the giant. But when he deaed
/ Israel, Jonathan, the son Of Shimea, David's
brother, slew him."
Malformation photographed, and for what
reasonl Did not this passage slip in by mis-
take into the sacred Scriptures, as sometimes
a paragraph utterly obnoxious to the editor
gets into his newspaper during his absence1
/ Is not this scriptural erratai No. nos there
/ is nothing haphazard about the Bible. This
passage of Scripture was as certainly in
tended to be put in the Bible as the passage,
! 4
and the earth,n or, "God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son"
And 1 select it for my text today because
/ it is charged with practical and tremendous
meaning. By the people of God the Philis-
tines had been conquered, with the exception
/ Of a few giants. The race of giants is
mostly extinct, am glad to say. There is
no use for giants now except to enlarge the
income of museums. But there were many OF
them In olden times. Goliath was, according
to the Bible, eleven feet four and a half inches
high. Or, if you do not believe the Bible,
the famous Pliny, a secular writer, declares
that at Crete, by an earthquake monument
was broken open, discovering the remains OF
q giant forty-six cubits long, or sixty-nine
feet high. So, whether you prefer sacred or
profane history, you must come to the conclu-
sion that there were in those olden times
cases of human altitude mOnstrous and ap-
palling. David had smashed the skull of one
of these giants, but there were other giants
that the Davidean wars had not yet subdued,
and one of them stands in my text. He was
not only of Alpine stature, but had a surplus
of digits To the ordinary fingers was an
nexed an additional finger, and the foot
had also a superfuous addendum. He had
twenty-four examinations to hands and feet
where others have twenty. It was not the
only instance of the kind. Tavernier, the
learned writer, says the emperor Of Java had
a son endowed with the same number Of ex-
tremities Volcatius, the poet, had six fingers
on each hand. Maupetius, in his celebrated
letters, speaks of two families near Berlin
similarly equipped of hand and foot. All OF
which can believe, for I have seen two
cases Of tho samo physical superabundance.
But this giant of the text is in battle, and as
David, the dwarf warrior, had dispatched
one giant, the brother of David slays this
monster of my text, and there he lies after
the battle in Gath, a dead giant His stature
did not save him, and his superhuous Rppen-
dices Of hand and foot did not save him. The
probability was that in the battle his sixth
finger on his hand made him clumsy in the
use of his weapon and his sixth toe crippled
his gait. Behold the prostrate and NAL
formated giant of the text: "a man great Of
stature, whose fingers and toes were four and
twenty, six Oh each hand and six on each
foot and he also was the son Of the giant
But when he defed Israel, Jonathan, the son
Of Shimea, David's brother, slew him.
Behold how superhuities are hinderance
rather than helpl In all the battle at Gath
that day there was not a man with ordinary
hand and ordinary foot and ordinary stature
that was not better off than this physical
curiosity Of my text. As physical size is apt
to run in families the probability is that this
brother of David who did the work was Of
an abbreviated stature. A dwarf on the
right side is stronger than a giant on the
wrong side, and all the body, and mind, and
estate, and opportunity that you cannot use
aop God and the betterment of the world is q
sixth finger and sixth toe. and terrific
hinderance. The most of the good done Ia
the world and the most of those who win the
battles for the right are ordinary people
Count the fingers Of their right hand and
they have just hve-no more and no
less. One DR.. Duff among missionaries, but
three thousand missionaries that would tell
you they have only common endowments
One Florence nightingale TO nurse the sick
In conspicuous places, but ten thousand
| women who are just as good nurses though
never heard of. The Swamp Angel was a
big gun that during the war made big
| noise, but muskets Of ordinary caliber and
shells of ordinary heft did the execution.
| President Tyler and his cabinet go down the
Potomac one day to experiment with the
Peacenlaker, a great iron gun that was to at
| right with its thunder foreign navles The
gunner touches it of and It explodes and
leaves cabinet ministers dead on the deck,
while at that time all up and down our coasts
were cannon of ordinary bore able to be the
defense Of the nation, and ready at the first
touch to waken to duty The curse of the
world is big guns After the politicians who
have made all the noise go home hoarse from
angry discussion on the evening Of the first
Monday in November, the next day the peo-
! pie with the silent ballots will settle every
thing, and settle 1t right, million Of the
| whiteslips Of paper they drop making about
as much noise as the fall Of an apple blossom.
Clear back In the coVi1try today there are
| mothers In plain apron, and shoes fashioned
on rough last by the shoemaker at the end OF
the lane, rocking babies that are to be the
| Martin Luthers and the Faradays and the Ed
isons and the Bismarcks and the Gladstones
and the Washingtons and the George White
fields Of the year 1888, and who will make
the Twentieth century so bright that this
much lauded Nineteenth in comparison viii
Seem part of the dark ages. The longer I
/ live the more like common folks. They do
the worlds work, bearing the worlds bur
dsns, weeping the worlds Sympathies, carry
/ ing the worlds consolation. Among lawyers
! We zee rise up Rufus Choato or a William
Writ or 3 Samuel L. Southland, but society
would go TO pieces tomorrow II there were
Aoo bnOusAn4 OL couInou lawyers 70 Sc
that man aud women get their rights. A
/ Valentine Mott or a Willard Parker rises
up eminent IN the medical profession,
but what an unlimited sweep would
pnsumoniR, and diphthsria. and scarlet fever
have IN the world Il It were not for 10000
common doctors The old physician IN his
GIG, rolling up the lana Of the farm house or
riding on horseback, his medicines In tho
saddle bags, arriving on the ninth Jay Of the
fever, and coming in to take hold OF the
pulse Of the patient, while tho family, pale
with anxisty, are looking on and waiting for
bis decision In regard 70 the patient, and
hearing him say, "Thsnk God, have mas
tered the case; he is getting well, excites in
/ me an admiration quite equal TO the mention
Of the names Of the great metropolitan doc
tors, PAncoast or Gross or Joseph @. Hutch