The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-08-15
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Martyrs Of Every
Day Life" preached at
Lakeside, Ohlo.)

Historians are not slow to acknowledge the
merits of great military chieftains. We have
the full length portraits of the Cromwells, she
Washingtons, the Napoleons and the Well
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 unro!l
before you scroll Of heroes that the world
has never acknowledged; those who
faced no guns, blew no bugle-
blast, conquered no critics chained no
captives to their chariot wheels, and
higher than those whose names startled the
nations; and seraph, and rapt spirit, and
arohangel will tell their deeds to listening
universe. I mean the heroes Of common,
everyday life.
In this roll, in the first place, I find all the
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
shut in room as fast as though it were q
bastile; to be SO nervous you cannot endure
the tap of child's foot; to have luxuriant
AS1aSS
and healthy, excite our loathing and disgust
when it first appears on the platter; to
have the rapier of pain strike through the
side or across the temples, like a razor, or to
put the foot into vice, or throw the whole
body into a 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 eI-
oruciating 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 alto away
and she became weaker and weaker, and
every "good night" was feebler than
the "good night" before-yet never
sad The children looked up into
her face and saw suffering trans
formed into heavenly smile. Those who
suffered on the attle-6eld, amid shot and
shell, were not so much heroes and herolnes
as those who in the field hospital and in the
asylum had fevers which no ice could cool
to cheer them, but numbness, and aching,
and homesickness-y 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.
Harkl / catch just one note Of the eternal
anthem: ''There shall be no more pain"
Bless God for that
In this roll I elso find the heroes Of toll, who
do their work kuncomplaiRingly. Its compar.
atively easy TO lead q 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
swearing employer bowling across scaffold;
to work until your eyes are dim and your
back aches, and your heart faints, and tc
know that if you stop before night your
children will starve. Ah! the sword has
not slain so many as the needle. The great
battle-6elds of our last war were not
Gettysburg and Shiloh and South Noun
tain The great battle fields of the last war
were in the arsenals, and in the shops and in
the attics where women mlde army jackets
for sixpence They toiied on until they
died. They had no funeral eu.ogium, but, in
the name Of my Col, this day, enroll their
names among those Of whom the word was
not worthy. Heroes of the needle. Heroes
Of the sewing machine. Heroes Of the attic.
Heroes of the cellar. Heroes and heroines.
Bless God for them.
In this roll | also find the heroes who have
uncomplainngly endured domestic injus;
tices. There are men who for their toll and
anxiety have no sympathy in their homes.
Exhausting application to business gets them
q livelihood, but an unfrugal wife scatters
1t. He is fretted at from the moment he en-
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
Ego gone sns into apPsing dssPatens PPate1S
to-day is strewn with the wrecks of
men, who under the northeast storm Of
domestic infelicity have been driven on the
rocks. There are tens Of thousands Of drunk
csds In this country to-day, made such bJ
their wives That is not poetry. That is
pIOS0. Dut Uuo 10 III UuO w
posite direction. You would not have to go
Gar to find wife whose life is perpetual
martyrdom. Something heavier than a
stroke Of the fist; unkind words, staggering
home at midnight, and constant ma!treat-
ment which have left her only a wreck of
what she was on that day when in thu midst
of brilliant asSemblage the vows were taken,
and full organ playet the wedding march,
and the carriage rolled away with the
,La Et,nH kha
burning Of Latimer and Ridley at the stake
compared with this, Those men .Dth became
unconscious in the fire, but here is fifty
years martydom, a fifty years putting to
death, yet accomplishing. No bitter words
when the rollcking companions at o'clock
in the morning pitch the husband dead drunk
into the front entry. No bitter words when
wirirg from the swollen brow the blood
struck out in a midnight .carousal::
Bending over the battered and
bruised form of him. who, when he took
her from her fathers home, promised love,
and kindness, and protection, yet nothing
but sympathy, and prayers, and forgiveness
before they are asked for. No bitter wor Go
when the family Bible goes fo- rum, and the
pawnbroker's shop gets the last decent dress.
some day desiring to W SyGfe baw Ss story yo 0 ns
ting along now!' and rallying her trembling
voice, and quieting her quivering lip, she
says: Pretty well. thank you, pretty
we'll" She never will tell you. In the de-
lirium Of her last sickness she may
sell all the sec'ets Of her lifetime.
but she will not tell that Not
Gatil the books Of eternity are opened on the
thrones Of Judgment will ever be known
what she has suffered. Oh! ye who are
twisting a garland for the victor, put it on
that pale brow. When she is dead the
neighbors will beg linen to make her a
shroud, and she will be carried out in plain
box with no silver plate to tell her years, for
she has lived thousand years of trial and