The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-10-05
THE CLOUDS HIS CHARIOT.
LAST SUNDAYS DIVINE SERVICES IN
THE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.
DR.. Talmage Says That Man Vas Made to
Look Upward-God Does Not Beiittle
Himself When He Takes Chariot as Q
Conference.-The Storm Cloud.

Ut. IaImage says Tnat Man Was nlado 20
Look Upward-God Does Not BeIittle
Himself When He Takes Chariot as Q
Conference.-The Storm Cloud.
BROOKLYN, Sept. The hymn sung at
the opening of the services in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle this morning was:
Welcome, sweet day Of rest,
That saw the Lord arise
After expounding appropriate passages Of
Scripture, the Rev T. De Witt Talmage, D.
D., took the text, Psalm civ, 8: "Who maketh
the clouds his chariot" Dr. Talmage said:
Biutes are constructed so as to look down.
Those earthly creatures that have wings
when they rise from the earth still look
down, ard the eagle searches for mice in tie
grass and the raven for carcasses In tho field
Man alone is made to look up. To induce
him to look up God makes the sky picture
gallery, a Dusseldorf, Lovre, Luxem-
bourg, a Vatican that eclipses all that Ger
man or French or Italian art ever accom-
plishcd But God has failed SO far to attract
the attention Of most of US by the scenery Of
tho sky. We go into raptures over flowers
in the soil, but have little or no appreciation
of the morning glories" that bloom on the
wall of the sky at sunrise or the dahlias in
tho clouds at sunset. We are In OBSTACLES
over gobelin tapestry or a bridal veil Of
rare fabric, or a snowbank Of exquisite
curve, but see not at all, or see without emo
ton, tho bridal wells of mist that cover the
face of the Catskills, or the swaying uphol-
stery around the couch Of the dying day, or
the snowbanks Of vapor piled up In the
heavens
My text bids us lift our chin three or four
inches and open the two telescopes which
under the forehead are put on swivel easily
turned upward, and see that the clouds are not
merely uninteresting signs of wet or dry
weather, but that they are embroidered cano-
pies Of shade, that they are the conservatories
of the sky, that they are thrones Of pomp,
that they are crystalline bars, that they are
paintings In water color, that they are the
angels Of the mist, that they are great cathe-
drals of light with broad aisles for angelic
feet to walk through and bow at affairs Of
amber and alabaster, that they are the moth
ers of the dew, that they are ladders for as
cending and descending glories, Cotopaxis Of
belching flame, Niagaras Of color, that they
are the masterpieces OF the Lord God Al
mighty. The clouds are favorite Bible
simile and the sacred writer's have
made much use of them After the
deluge God hung on cloud In concentric
bands the colors Of the spectrum, saying: 81
do set my bow in the clouds" As q noun
vapors, so, says God, ~ have blotted out as
thick cloud thy transgressions David
measures the divine goodness and found it so
high he apostrophized: "Thy faithfulness
reacheth unto the clouds" As sometimes
there are thousands Of feeces of vapors sour
rying across the heavens, so, says Isaiah, will
be the converts in the millennium 'as clouds
and as doves" As in the wet season no
sooner does the sky clear than there comes
another observation, so, says Solomon, one
ache or ailment of old folks has no more
than gone than another pain comes ''as
clouds return In the rain" A column of
illumined cloud led the Israelites across the
wilderness. In the book of Job Elihu,
watching the clouds, could not understand
why they did not fall or why they
did not oil roll together, the laws Of evapora-
ton and condensation then not being under
stood, and he cries out: "Dost thou know
the balancing of the cloudsT' When read
my text it suggests to me that the clouds are
the Creators equipage, and their whirling
masses are the wheels, and tho tongue of the
cloud is the pole Of the. celestial vehicle and
the winds are the harnessed steeds, and God
is the royal occupant and driver "who
maketh the clouds his chariot"
To understand the palmist's meaning in the
text you must know that the chariot Of old
was sometimes sculptured brilliancy made
out of ivory, sometimes of solid silver, and
rollen OH two wheels which were fastened to
the a&lo by stout pins, and the awful defeat
of Ocnonlaus by Pelops was caused by the
fact that traitorous charioteer had inserted
Inch pin of wax instead of Inch pin Of
iron. All of the six hundred chariots Of
Pharaoh lost their Inch pins in tho Red sea,
for tho Bible says: "The Lord took OFF their
wheels" Look at the long flash of Solomon's
fourteen hundred chariots, and the thirty
thousand chariots of the Philistines. If you
have over visited the buildings where king
or queen keeps the coaches of state, as have,
you know that kings and queens have great
varieties of turnout. The keeper tells you:
"This is the state carriage and used only on
great occasions" "This is the coronation
carriage and in it the king rode on the
day he took the throne" SIN this the
queen went to open parliament" "This
is the coach in which the car and
the sultan rode on the occasion
of their visit" All costly and tesselated
and enriched and emblazoned are they, and
when the driver takes the reins Of the ten
white horses in his hands, and amid mounted
troops and bands in full force sounding the
national air, the splendor starts and rolls on
under arches entwined with banners, and
amid the huzza of hundreds of thousands of
spectators the scene Is memorable. But my
text puts all such occasions into insignif1-
canoe, as it represents the King Of the Uni
verse coming to the door Of his palace and
tho gilded vapors Of the heavens rolling up
to his feet, and he, stepping in and taking the
reins Of the galloping winds In his hand,
starts in triumphal ride under the arches Of
sapphire and over the atmospheric highways
of opal and chrysolIte, the clouds his chariot.
Ny hearers, do not think that God belittles
himself when he takes such conveyance. Do
you know that the clouds are among the
most wondrous and majestic things In the
whole universea Do you know that they are
flying lakes and rivers and oceans7 God
waved his hand over them and said, "Come
up higherl" and they obeyed the mandate
That cloud, instead Of being, as 1t seems, a
small gathering of vapors few yards wide
and high, is really seven or eight miles
across, and is a mountain, from its
base to its top 1900 feet, 1900
feet, 10000 feet, and cut through with
ravines 5000 feet deep. No, David did
not make fragile or unworthy representa-
ton of God in the text when he spoke Of the
clouds as his chariot. But as ] suggested In
the case of an earthly king, he has his morn
ing cloud chariot and his evening cloud
chariot-the cloud chariot In which he rudA
down to Sinai to open the law, and the cloud
chariot in which he rode down to Tabor to
honor the Gospel, and the cloud chariot In
which he will come to Judgment.
When he rides out In his morning chariot
at this season, about 6 o'clock, he puts golden
coronets on the dome Of cities, and silvers
the rivers, and out Of the dew makes a dia-
mond ring for the finger of every grass
blade, and bids good cheer to invalids who In
the night said: would God 1t were morn
ing" From this morning cloud chariot he
distributes ight-light fer the earth and
light for the heavens, light for the land
and light for the sea, great bars of 1t,
great wreathes of it, q world full Of
It Hail him IN worship as every morning
he drives out in his chariot of morn
ing cloud, and cry with David:
my voice shalt thou hear in the morning;
In the morning will I direct my prayer unto
thee and look up" rejoice in these Scrip
ture CALCULATIONS: "Joy cometh In the morn
ing" "My soul waiteth for thee more than
they that watch for the morning. "If I take
the wing of the morning" "The eyelids Of
the morning" "The morning cometh," "Who
is she that looketh forth as the morningp
"His going forth is prepared as the morn
ing" GAS the morning spread on the noun
tains, "That thou shouldst visit him every
morning" What mighty thing the King
throws from his chariot when he throws US
the morningi
Yea; he has his evening cloud chariot II
Is made out of the saffron and the gold and
the purple and the orange and the vermilion