The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-23
BRILLIANT BITTERNESS.
TALMAGE breaches ON ATTILA.
KING OF THE HUNS.

Instead of Tears-The Lesson the
Story Teaches
BROOKLYN, April 22.-The Rev. T. De-
Witt Talmage, D. D., preached this morn
ing at the Tabernacle on the subject. THE
Star Wormwood, or Brilliant Bitterness"
The musical exercises were assisted by the
organ and cornet. Thousands of voices in
the main auditorium and in the adjoining
parlor and lecture room and corridor.
joined in singing:
We'll crowd thy gates with thankful songs,
High as the heavens our voices raise,
While earth with her ten thousand tongues
snail I'LL thy courts with sounding praise.
Prof Browne rendered sonata No. in D
minor, by Guillmant After DR.. Talmage
had expounded the sarcasm of Elijah at the
Offering of the Baalites he spoke as follows:
Revelations viii, 10 and Il: "There fell
great star from heaven, burning as it were
lamp, and it fell upon the third part of
the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
and the name of the star is called Worm
woodn
Patrick and Lowth, Thomas Scott, Mat
thew Henry, Albert Barnes and all the
other commentators agree in saying that
the star Wormwood of my text was Attila,
King of the Huns. He was so called be-
cause he was brilliant as a star, and, like
wormwood, he embiUtered everything he
touched We have studied the Star of
Bethlehem, and the morning Star of the
Revelations, and the Star of Peace, but my
subject this hour calls us to gaze at the star
Wormwood, and my theme might be called
Brilliant Bitterness.
A more extraordinary character history
does not furnish than this man referred to
in my text, Attila, the King of the Huns.
One day a wounded heifer came limping
along through the fields, and herdsman
followed its bloody track on the grass to see
where the heifer was wounded, and went on
back, further and further, until he came to
sword fast in the earth, the point down
ward as though it had dropped from the
heavens, and against the edges of this
sword the heifer had been cut. The herds
man pulled up that sword and presented it
to Attilla. Attila said that sword must
have dropped from the heavens from the
grasp of the god Mars, and it's being given
to him meant that Attila should conquer
and govern the whole earth Other mighty
men have been delighted at being
called liberators or the merciful or
the Good, but Attila called himself and de-
manded that others call him the Scourge
of God. At the head of seven hundred
thousand troops, mounted on Capoadocan
horses he swept everything from the Adri-
attic to the Black Sea. He put his iron heel
on Macedonia and Greece and Thrace. He
made Milan and PaYia and Padua and
Verona beg for mercy which he bestowed
not. The Byzantine castles, to meet his
ruinous levy, put up at auction massive
silver tables and vases of solid gold. A city
captured by him, the inhabitants were
brought out and put into three classes: The
first class, those who could bear arms, who
must Immediately enlist under Attila or be
butchered; the second class, the beautiful
women, who were mads captive to the
Huns; the third class, the aged men and
women, who were robbed of everything and
let go back to the city TO pay heavy tax.
1t was common saying that the grass
never grew again where the hoof of At
tila's horse had trod. His armies redeemed
the waters of the Seine and the Moselle and
the Rhine with carnage, and fought on the
Catalonian plains the fercest battle since
the world stood, three hundred thousand
dead left on the field. On and on until
all those who could not oppose him with
arms lay PROSTATE on their faces In prayer,
and, cloud of dust seen in the distance, a
bishop cried: ''It Is the aid of God;' and
all the people took up the cry: ut is the
aid of God" AS the cloud Of dust was
blown aside the banners of reinforcing
armies marched in to help against Attila,
the scourge of God. The most Ilnimport-
ant occurrences he used as a supernatural
resource, and after three months of failure
to capture the city of Aquileia and his
army had given up the seige, the fight of q
stork and her young from the tower of the
city was taken by him as a sign that he was
to capture the city, and his army inspired
with the same occurrence resumed the
seige and took the walls at a point from
which the stork had emerged. So brilliant
YVES the conqueror in attire that his enemies
could not look at hifn, but shaded their eyes
or turned their heads
Slain on the evening of his marriage by
his bride Ildico, who was hired for the
assassination, his followers bewailed him
not with tears, but with blood, cutting
themselves with knives and lances. He
was put into three coffins, the first of iron,
second of silver, and the third of gold He
was buried by night and into his grave
were poured the most valuable coin an
precious stones, amounting TO the wealth of
a Kingdom. The grave diggers and all
those who assisted at the burial were masa-
cred 50 that it would never be known where
so much wealth was entombed. The Roman
empire conquered the world but Attiia con-
quered the Roman empire. He was right
in calling himself a scourge, but instead of
being the scourge of God, he was the scourge
terness the commentators were right in
believing him 10 be the star WorInwooi of
the text. As the regions he devastated
were parts most opulent with fountains and
streams and rivers, you see how graphic
my texts: "There fell great star from
Heaven, burning rs it were a amp, and it
fell upon the third part Of the rivers, and
upon the fountains of waters, and the name
of the star is called Wormwood."
Have you ever thought how many ON
bittered lives there are all about rs, n1san-
thropic, morbid, acrid, saturnines The
European plant from which wori1wood is
extracted, Artemisia A sinthiJm, is
perennial plant and all the year round 1t is
ready TO exude It's OIL And in many hu-
man lives there is perennial dstillation of
acrid experiences. Yea, there are some
whose whole work is to shed a baleful infu-
ence on others There are AttiIas of the
home, or Attilas of the social circle, or At
tilas Of tho church, or Attias of the State,
and one-third of the waters of all the
world, If not two-thirds the waters, are
poisoned by the falling of the star Worm
wood. IL is not complimentary TO human
nature that most me ), 40 soon as they got
great power. become overbearing. Toe
more power men have the bstter, if their
power be used for good. The less power
men have the better, if they use it for evil.
Birds circle round and round and round
before they swoop upon that which they
are aiming for. And if my discourse so
far has been swinging round and round,
this moment il drops straight ON your
haart and ogks fhe nussStiOn. Is yOur life To