The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-10-04
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
rhe Weekly Diccourses of The Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject: "The Chain of EnAu-
ences.S


At school and in college in announcing the
mechanical powers, we glorited the lever,
the pulley, the inclined plane, the screw, the
axle and the wheel, but my text calls us to
study the philosophy of the chain. These
links OF metal, one with another, attracted
the old Bible authors, and we hear the chain
rattle and see its coil all the way through
from Genesis to Revelation, flashing as an
ornament, or restraining as in captivity, or
holding as in conjunction as in case OF ma
chinery. To do him honor Pharaoh hung q
chain OF gold about the neck of Joseph, and
Belshazzar one about the neck of Daniel.
The high priest had on his breast-plate two
chains of gold. On the cames' necks, as the
lshmaeltes drove up to Gideon, jingled
chains of gold.
The Bible refers to the Church as having
such glittering adornments, saying: THY
neck is coinely with chains of gold,n On the
other hand, chan means captivity. David
the psalmist exults that power had been
given over his enemies, Ito bind their kings
with chains.h The old missionary apostle
cries out: "tor the hope of Israel i am bound
with this chain" In the prison where Peter
is incarcerated, you hear one day great
crash at the falling off of his CHAINS. ST.
John saw an angel come down from Heaven
to manacie the powers of darkness, and hav-
ing "a great chain in his hani," and the
fallen angels are represented as reserve in
everlasting chains" while in my text, for the
arrest and limitation of the iniquity of
his time, Ezekiel thunders out: make a
chain.n
What wish to impress upon myself and
upon you is the strength in right and wrong
directions of consecutive forces, the superior
power of chain of influences above one in
huence, the great advantage of a congeries
OF links shove one link, and in all family
government and in all effort to rescue others
and in all attempts to stop iniquity, take the
suggestion OF my text and make chainl
That which contain the greatest import.
ance, that which incloses the most tremen.
dous opportunities, that which of earthly
things Is most wretched by other worlds,
that which has beating against its two sides
all the eternities, is the cradle. The grave
is nothing in Importance compared with it,
for that is only gully that we step across
in second, but the cradle has within it a
new eternity, just born and never to caass
When three or four years ago the Ohio River
overflowed its banks and the wild freshets
swept down with them harvests and cities,
one day was found floating on the bottom of
the waters cradle with child in it all un-
hurt, wrapped up snug and warm, and its
blue eyes looking into the blue of the open
heavens 1t was mentioned as something ex-
traordinary. But every cradle is, with
swift currents of the centuries daan
calling to deep, Ohios and st. Lawrences
and Mississippis Of influence, bearing it on.
ward. Now, what shall be done with this
new life recently launched? Teach him an,
evening prayer! That is important but not
enough. Hear him as soon as he can recite
some gospel hymn or catechisms That is
important, but not enough. Every Sabbath
afternoon read him Bible storyi That is
Important, but not enough. Once in a while
lesson, once in while a prayer once in a
while restraining influence? All these are
N 1Nrt hut not ,oI, IT, -
these influences is only link, and it will not
hold him in the tremendous emergencies of
life. Let it be constant instruction, constant
prayor, constant application of COOL iniu-
ences. a long line OF consecutive impressions.
reaching from his first year to his fifth, and
from his fifth year to his tenth, ana from
his tenth to his twentieth. "Make a chainp
Spfsmodis education, paroxysmal dis
cipllne occasional fidelity amount 10 nothing.
You can as easily hold an anchor by one
link as hold child to the right by isolated
and intermittent faithfulness. The example
must connect with the instruction The
conversation must combins with the actions.
The week day consistency must conioin with
the Sunday worship. Have family PRAYERS
by all means; but be patulant and in
consistent and unreasonable in your house,
hold and your family prayers Swill be a
blaSphemous farce So great in our times
are the temptations OF young men to dis
slpstiol, SOuil5 "oIuou 10 social 10 lies.
that it is most important that the first
eighteen years of their life be charged with a
religious p Nwer that will ho,d them when
they get out of the harbor of home into the
stormy ocean of active lie. There is
such thing as impressing children
so powerfully. with good, that sixty
years will have no more power
to efface it than sixty minutes. What a
rough time that young man has in doing
wrong, carefully nurtured as he wasl His
father and mother have been dead for years.
or over in scotland, or England, or Ireland;
but they have stood in tn, doorway OF
every dram shop that he entered, and under
the chandelier Of every house of dissipation.
saying: my son, this is no place for YOU
Have you forgotten the old folks! Don't
you recognize these wrinkles, and this stoop
in the shoulder and this tremulous bandl
Go home. my boy go homel BY the God to
VIII IN we consecrated you. by the cradle in
whcn we rocked you. by the grass grown
graves in the old country churchyard. by
the heaven where we hope yet to meet YOU.
60 homel Go home, my boy, go homsm And
some Sunday you will he surprised to find
that young man suddenly asking for the
prayers of the church, Some Sunday you
will see him at the sacrament and nerhans
drinking from tine same kind OF chalice that
the old folks drank out of years ago when
they commemorated the suffering3 of the
Lord. Yes, my lad, you do not have such
fun in sin as YOU seem to have know what
! spoils your fun. You cannot shake off the
influence of those prayers long ago offered,
or OF those kind admopitions. You cannot
make them go away, and you feel like say
ing: Father, what are you doing here!
Mother. why do you bother me with sugge,-
tons of those oden times!' But they will
not go a."ay. They Will push you back from
your evil paths, though they have to come
from their sh niIs homes in heaven and
atn n,,A La l.ulf
backs scorched by the fiery blast and with
their ha II on your shoulder, and their
breath Oh your brow, AMI their eyes
looking straight into yours, they will say:
I'VE have come to take you home, o, son Of
many anxietes!" At last that young man
turns through the consecutive influence of
pious parentage, who ont of prayers and
fidelites innumerabe. made a chain That
is the chain that pulls nightly this morning
on five hundred of you. You may be too
proud to shed tear, and YOU may, to con-
vince others of your imperturbabil ty, smile
to your friend beside you, but there is not SO
much power in an Alpine avalanche after il
has slipped for thousand feet and having
struck lower cliff is taking its second
bound for fifteen hundred feet more OF
plunge, as there is pow er in the chain that
pulls out this moment toward God and
Christ and Heaven! OH the almighty pull
OF tie long chain of early gracious in.
fuencesi
But all people between thirty and forty
Years of age yes. between forty and fftv-
aye, between fifty and sixty years, ana ali
septuagenarians as well, need a surrounding
conjunction of good influences. In Sing Sing,
Auburn, Moyamensiny, and all the other
great prisons, are men and women who went
wrong in m;d-life and old age. We need
around us a Gordon of good influences. We
forget to apply the well-known rule that
chain is no stronger than its weakest link
II the chain be made up of thousand iinSs
and nine hundred and ninety nine are strong,
but one is weak, the chain will be in danger
of breaking at that one weak link. We may
be strong in a thou and excelences and vet
have one weakness which en- hangers us. That
is the reason that we sometimes see men DIS
tinguishei for whole round OF virtues col
lapse and go down. The weak link in the
otherwise stout chain gave way under the
pressure. Ese
The first chain bridge was built in Scot
land Waiter Scott tells how the French
i'm tated it in bridge across the river Seine.
Bnt there was one weak point in that chain
brilga. There was mid lie bolt that WIS OF
po1r material, but they did not know how
much depended on that middle bolt OF the
chain bridge. On the opening day pro
cession started. led on nv the builder of the
bridge; and when the mighty weight OF the