The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-08-16
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Disoourses Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject: "Thc Martyrs of
Every Day Life" tPreached
at Lakeside, OhiO.)

1Exr: 1nou. therefore, endure hardness.
III. Timothy, H., 8.
Historians are not slow to acknowledge the
merits Of great military chieftains We have
the full-length portraits of the Cromwells, the
Washingtons. the Napoleons and the Well
ingtons OF the world. History is not written
: In black ink, but with red ink of human
blood. The gods OF human ambition do not
drink from bowls made out OF silver, or gold,
or precious stones, but out of the bleached
skulls of the fallen. But am now to unroll
before you a scroll of heroes that the world
has never acknowledged; those who
laced faced no guns, blew no bugle.
captives to their chariot wheels, and
yet, in the great day of eternity, will stand
higher than those whose names startled the
nations; and seraph, and rapt spirit, and
archangel will tell their deeds to a listening
universe. l mean the heroes of common,
everyday life.
heroes of tho sick room. When Satan had
failed to overcome Job, he said to
God: Put forth thy hand and touch
his bones and his flesh, and he will
curse thee to thy face" Satan had found out
what we have found out, that sickness is the
greatest test of ones character. A man who
can stand that can stand anything. To be
ohuo III u ROOM US ldSU as UnouSn IL were
bastlle; to be so nervous you cannot endure
the tap of child's foot: to have luxuriant
fruit, which tempts the appetite of the robust
and healthy, excite our ioathing and disgust
when it first appears on the platter; to
have the rapier of pain strike through the
side, or across the temples, like razor, or to
put the foot into vice, or throw the whole
body into blaze of fever. Yet there
have been men and women, but more
women than men, who have cheerful
ly endured this hardness. Through
years OF exhausting rheumatisms and ex-
cruclating neuralgias they have gone, and
through bodily distresses that raSpei the
nerves, and tore the muscles, and paled the
cheeks, and stopped the shoulders. By the
dim light of the sick-room taper they saw on
their wall the picture of that land where the
inhabitants are never sick. Through the
dead silence of. the night they heard the
chorus of the angels The cancer ate away
her life from week to week and day to day,
and she became weaker and weaker, and
every good night" was feebler than
the good night before,,-yet never
her face and saw suffering trans
formed into heavenly smile. Those who
suffered on the battle field, amid shot and
Shell, were not SO much heroes and heroines
as those who in the field hospital and in the
asylum had fevers which no ice could cool
and no surgery cure. No shout of comrade
to cheer them, but numbness, and aching,
and homesickness- yet willing to suffer,
confident in God, hopeful Of heaven.
Heroes Of rheumatism. Heroes Of
neuralgia. Heroes of spinal complaint
Heroes of sick headache. Heroes Of
lifelong invalidism Heroes and heroines.
They shall reign forever and ever.
Hark! catch just one note of the eternal
anthem: 'There shall be no more pain"
Bl IS God for that
In this roll also find the heroes of toll, who
do their work kuncomplaiaingly. 1t is compar-
atively easy to lead a regiment into battle
when you know that the whole nation will
applaud the victory; it is comparatively easy
to doctor the sick when you know that your
skill will be appreciated by large company
of friends and relatives; it is comparatively
easy to address an audience when, in the
cleaning eyes and the flushed cheeks, you
know that your sentiments are adopted;
but to do sewing where you expect
that the employer will come and
thrust his thumb through the work to show
how imperfect it is, or to have the whole gar
ment thrown back on you to be done over
again: to build wall and know there will be
no one to say you did it well, but only a
swearing employer bowling across scatfold
to work until Your eyes are dim and your
back aches, and your heart faints, and to
know that II you stop before night your
children will starve. All! the sword has
not slain so many as the needle The great
battle.feIds OF our last war were not
Gettysburg and Shiloh and South Noun
tain. The great bate fields of thu last war
were In the arsenals, and in the shops and in
the atJics, where women made army jackets
for sixpence. They toiied on until they
died. They had no funeral euogium, but, in
the name of my Col, this day, enroll their
names among those of whom the word was
not worthy HaroaS of tho NADIA Harnaa
OF the sewing machine Heroes of the attic.
Heroes of the cellar Heroes and heroines.
Bless God for them.
| In this roll a!so find the heroes who have
uncomplainingly endured domestic inius-
tlces. There are men who for their toll and
anxiety have no sympathy in their homes.
Exhausting application to business gets them
livelihood, but an unfrugal wife scatters
it. He is fretted at from the moment he ell
ters the door until he comes out of it. The
exasperations of business life augmented by
the exasperations of domestic life. Such
men are laughed at, but they have heart
breaking trouble, and they would have long
sgo gse gone, e., into ITO appslling disspatiions
to-day is strewn with the wrecks Of
men, who under the northeast storm of
domestic nfelicity have been driven on the
ror'-s There ara IONS oe thousands of drunk
ards in THIS country today, made such BY
their wives. That is not poetry. That i
prose But the wrong is generally in the op
FAR to find wife whose life is perpetua
martyrdom. Something heavier than
| stroke of the fist; unkind words, staggerin!
nome at midnight, and constant matreat
ment which have left her only wreck O
what she was on that day when in tn. mids
and full organ playei the wedding march
and the carriage rolled away with tn
benedi tion Of the people. What was tn
burning Of Latimer and Ridley at the stalk
compared with this7 Those men soon becam
UNCONSCIOUS in the fire, but here is a fift
years martydom, fifty years putting t
death, yet unconplaining. No bitter word
when the rollicking companions at o'cloc
in the morning pitch the husband dead drum
into the front entry. No bitter words whe
wiping from the swollen brow the bloc
struck out in midnight carousa
Bending. over the battered an
bruised form of him. who, when he too
her from her fathers home, promised love
and kindness, and protection, yet nothin
before they are asked for. No bitter word
when the family Bible goes for rum, and tn
pawnbrokers shop gets the last decent dres:
Some day, desiring to evoke the story of he
sorrows, you say: "Well, how are you gel
ting along nowf' and rallying her trembling
voice, ana q1leting ner qutVerlng Up, sn
says: Pretty we'll l thank you, prett
we'll" She never viii tell you. In the de
lirium of her last sickness she ma
tell oil the secrets of har lifetime
but she will not tell that. M
until the books Of eternity are opened on Il
thrones Of judgment will ever be know
what she has suffered. Obi ye who a
twisting garland for the victor, put it {
that pale brow. When she is dead ii
neighbors will beg linen to make her
shroud, and she will be carried out in a p!a
box with no silver plate to tell her years, fl
she has lived thousand years of trial III
anguish. The gamblers and swindlers wi
. destroyed her husband will not come to Il
! funeral One carriage will be enoug
for tnat funeral-one carriage to carry Il
: orphans and the two Christian women wi
! presided over the obsequies. But there is
} 1ash and the opening OF celestial door, ar
n shont: Lift up your head, ye everlastir
: gate, and let her come ini'' And Christ w
IIep forth and say: "Come inl ye sutfers
with me on earth, be gloriie1 with me
: heaven.n " hat is the highest throne
heaveni You say: "The throne of the Lo
: God Almighty and the LamD" No dou
about 1T. What IS tue next hIg hest throne
, heaveni While lspeak 1t seems to me tlat
will be the throne OF the drunkards wife,
she with cheerful patience endured all b
earthly torture. Heroes and heroines.
, / find also in this roll the heroes of Christi,
charity. We all admire the George Pc
L. L. 81 tE...A A.-4