The Russellville Democrat., 1888-09-13
 TALMAGE'S SERMON.
An Interesting Sermon on An
 Everyday Subject.
sPiasters That win Not stick.- or World iy Philosophers Versus Christ's Dls- ciples as Ministers to Troub-
 led Spirits.


 The following sermon was delivered by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage at East Hamp- ton. N. r. where he is spending his sum mer vacation. His text was:
 Miserable comforters are ye aIl--Job, xvi, B.
 The man of Uz had great many trials y-the loss of his family, the loss of his property, the loss of his health; but the most exaspe-ating thing that came upon him was the tantalizing talk of those who | ought to have sympathized with him. Looking around upon them, and weigh ing what they had said, he utters the words of my text.
 Why did God let sin come into the world? It is question I often hear dis cussed, but never satisfactorily an- swered God made the world fair and beautiful at the start. If our first par ents had not sinned in Eden they might have gone out of that garden and found l fifty paradises all around the earth-Eu- rope, Asia, Africa, North and South America--so many flower gardens, or orchards of fruit redolent and luscious. ! I suppose that when God poured out the 1 Gihon and the Hiddekel, he poured out, at the same time, the Hud- son, and the Susquehanna; the whole earth was very far and beautiful i to look upon Why did if not stay SO? God had the power to keep back sin and woe. Why did He not keep th em backf Why not every cloud poseate, and every step a joy, and every sound music, and all the ages long jubilee of sinless men and sinless women? God can make a rose as easily as He can make thorn. | Why, then, the predominance of thorns? He can make good, fair, ripe fruit as we'll as gnarled and sour fruit. Why so much, then, that is gnarled and sourY He can make men robust in health. Why. then, are there so many invalids? Why not have for our whole race perpetual leisure, instead of this tug and toll and tussle for livelihoody
 will tell you why God let sin come into the world-when I get on the other side of the River of Death. That is the place where such questions will be answered and such mysteries solved. He who this side of that river attempts to answer this question, only illustrates his own igno- rance and incompetency. All know is one great act and that is that herd of woes have come in upon us, trampling down every thing fair and beautiful. A !. sword at the gate of Eden, and a sword at every gate More people under the ground than on it. The gravey ards in
 
 have made more scars than the six thousand summers can cover up. Trouble has taken the tender heart of this world in its two rough hands, and pinched it until the nations wall with | the agony. If all the mounds of grave- yards that have been lifted were put side by side, you might step on them, and nothing else, going all around the world, and around again, and around again. These are the facts. And now have to say that, in a world like this, the grand- est occupation is that of giving condo- lence. This holy science of imparting comfort to the troubled we ought all of us to study. There are many of you who could look around upon some of your very best friends who wish you well and are very intelligent and yet be able truthfully to say to them in your days of troubles: ss
 Miserable comforters are ye all.
 l remark, in the first place, that very voluble people are incompetent for the work of giving comfort. Bildad and Eliphaz had the gift of language, and with their words almost bothered Jobs life out. Alas for these voluble people that go among the houses of the affi cted and talk, and talk, and talk, and talkl l They rehearse their own sorrows and
 then they tell the poor sufferers that they | feel badly now, but they will feel worse after awhile. Silence Do you expect,
 with thin courtplaster of words, to heal wound deep as the soulf Step very gently around about broken heart. 1 Talk very softly around those whom God 1 has bereft. Then go your way. Deep | sympathy has not much to say. A firm grasp of the hand, compassionate look, just one word that means as much as a
 whole dictionary, and you have given, I perhaps, all the comfort that a soul 1 needs. A man has a terrible wound in I his arm. The surgeon comes and binds it up.
 "Now," he says, "carry that arm in
 sling, and be very careful of 1t. Let no 1 one touch it."
 But the neighbors have heard of the ac-
 cident, and they come in, and they say: 'I.et us see 1t" And the bandage is pulled of, and this one and that one must feel 1t, and see how much it is swollen; and there is irritation, and inflammation, and exas operation, where there ought to be healing and cooling. The surgeon comes in and says:
 "What does all this meani You have no business to touch these bandages. That wound will never heal unless you let it alone"
 So there are souls broken down in sor- row. What they most want is rest, or very careful and gentle treatment; bnt the neighbors have heard of the bereave- ment or,of the loss, and they come in to sympathize, and they say:
 'Show us now the wound. What were his last words? Rehearse now the whole scene. How did you feel when you fou nd you were an orphanp
 Tearing off the bandages here, and pull ing them of there, leaving ghastly wound that the balm of Gods grace had already begun to heal. Oh, let no loqua- cious people with ever-rattling tongues go into the homes of the distressed
 Again, remark that all those persons are incompetent to give any kind of com- fort who act erely AS worldly philoso- phers. They come in and say:
 "Why, tbis IS what you ought to have expected. The laws of nature must have
 their way; !" and then they get eloquent
 over something they have seen in the post mortem examination. Now, away with all human philosophy at such time! What difference does it make to that father and mother what disease their son died ofY He is de ad, and itmakes no diff ference whether the trouble was in the epigastric or hypogastrIc region. If the philosopher be of the stoical school he
 will come and say:
 "You ought to control your feelings.
 You must not cry so. You must culti- vate cooler temperament You must have self-reliance, self government self control;" an iceberg reproving hyacinth ior having drop of dew in its eye. A violinist has his instrument and he sweeps his fingers across the strings, now evoking strains of joy and now strains of sadness. He can not play all tn tunes on one string. The human soul Is an instrument of thousand strings,
 and all sorts of emotions were made to play on it--now an anthem, now dirge