Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-07-20
SOUR EXPERIENCES.
Rev. DR.. Talmase's Sermon in Chicago
in Some Lives the Saccharine
Seems to Predominant.
A Gravel in Almost Every ShOe-The
Omnipotent Sympathy Of
Jesus Christ.

The lev. Il. DE w ltt damage, ID. d..
of Brooklyn, preached at Chicago to
an enormous auditory. His subject was
Sour Experiences, and his text:
vinegar. John, xix, 80. The sermon
was as follows:
The brigands of Jerusalem had done
their work. 1t was almost shutdown,
and Jesus was dying. Persons in cru
citixion often fingered on from day to
day-crying, begging, cufsing; but
Christ had been exhausted by years of
maltreatment. Pillowless, poorly fed.
flogged-as bent over and tied to low
post, His bare back was inAamed with
the scourges intensified with pieces of
lead and bone-and now for whole hours
the weight of His body hung On delicate
tendons, and, according to custom. a
violent stroke under the aImpits had
been given by the executionhr. Dizzy,
swooning, nauseated, feveris(-a world
of agony is compressed in these two
words; II thirst" o skiesNpf Judea,
let drop of rain strike on His burning
tongue. O world, with rolling rivers,
and sparkling lakes, and spraying
fountains, give Jesus something to
or Heaven. or hell. let it now be demon
strated in behalf Of this royal sufferer
The wealthy women of Jerusalem used
to have fund Of money with which
they provided wine for those people
who died in crucifiNion-a powerful
opiate to deaden the pain; but Christ
would not take it. He wanted to die
sober and so He refused the wine. But
afterward they go to cup of vinegar
and soak a sponge in it:
and put it on a stick of
hyssop, and then press it against the
hot lips of Christ. You say the wine
was an anmesthetic and intended to re-
lieve or deaden the pain. But the vim
egar was an insult. am disposed to
adopt the theory of the English com
mentators, who believed that instead of
its being an opiate to soothe. it was vim
egar to insult; Malaga and Burgundy
for grand dukes and duchesses. and
costly wines from royal watts for bloated
imperials; but singing acids for dying
Christ. He took the vinegar.
In some lives the saccharine seems to
predominant. Life is sunshine on a
bank of flowers. A thousand hands to
clap approval. In December or in Jan
uary, looking across their table, they see
cund. Skies flamboyant. Days resil-
not so many sugars as acids. The an
noyances, and the vexations, and the
disappointments of life overpower the
successes. There is a gravel in almost
every shoe. An Arabian legend says
that there was a worm in Solomon's
staff, gnawing its strength away, and
there is weak spot in every earthly
support that man leans on. King
George of England forgot all the
grandeurs of his throne because one day,
in an interview. Beau Brummell called
him by his first name and addressed him
as a servant, crying: George, ring the
bell!" Miss Langdon, honored all the
world over for her poetic genius, is SO
worried over the evil reports set atioat
regarding her, that she is found dead,
with an empty bottle of prusic acid in
her hand. Goldsmith said that his life
was wretched being and that all that
want and contempt could bring to it had
been brought, and cries out: what.
then, is there formidable in jail?"
Correggios fine painting is hung up for
a tavern sign. Hoga1th cannot sell his
best pictures except through a rattle.
Andrew Delsart makes the great fresco
Florence, and gets for pay sack of
atoms in high places as we'll as low
places, showing that in great many
lives the sours are greater than the
sweets. When Jesus therefore had re-
ceived the vinegar"
1t is absurd to propose that man who
has always been we'll can sympathize
with those who are sick; or that one who
has always been honored can appre-
ciate the sorrow of those who are de-
spised; or that one who has been born to
great fortune can understand the dis
tress and the straits of those who are
destitute. The fact, that Christ him
self took the vinegar makes Him able to
sympathiZe to- day and forever with all
those whose cup is filled with sharp
acids of this life. He took the vinegar,
In the first place, there is the sourness
Of betrayal. The treachery of Judas
hurt Christi feelings more than all tine
friendship of His disciples did Him good,
You have had many friends; but there
was one friend upon whom you put es-
pecial stress. You Toasted him: You
loaned him money. You befriended him
in the dark passes of life. when he es-
pecially needed friend Afterward,
he turned upon you, and he took ad-
vantage of your former intimacies. He
wrote against you. He talked against
you. He microscopiZed your faults. He
flung contempt at you when you ought
to have received nothing but gratitude
At first. you would not sleep at nights.
Then you went about with sense of
having been stung. The difficulty will
never be healed, for though mutual
friends m"y arbitrate III the matter until
you shake hands, the old cordially will
never come back. Now l commend to all
such the sympathy of q betrayed Christ
Why. they sold Him for less than our $50!
They all forsook Him. and fed! They
cut Him to the quick. He drank that cup
of betrayal to tie dress. He took the
vinegar.
There is also sourness of pain.
There are some of you who have not
seen a we'll day for many Years. By
keeping out Of draughts, and by care
fully studying dietetics, you continue
to this time: but o. the headaches, and
the sideGches, and the backaches, and
the heartaches which have been your
accompaniment all the way through!
You have struggled under heavy mort
gage of physical disabilities; and Instead
of the placidity that once characterized
you, it is now only with great effort that
you keep away from irritability and
sharp retort. Difficulties of respiration,
of digestion, of locomotion, make up
the great obstacle in your life, and Won