The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1888-08-03
TALMAGE IN THE WEST.
HE breaches TO A cHAUTAUouA
ASSEMBLY.

The Martyrs of Everyday Life-The swort
Has Not Slain So Many as the Needle
Tho Majority Of Martyrs Are Women
The Heroes Of Christian Charity.
LAKESIDE, O., July 29.-For many
years an assembly Of the Chautauqus
type has been held at this point The
leading professors, scholars and clergy
men of this an6 other lands have ad.
dressed the audiences. The Rev. T. Dc
Witt Talmage, D. D., of Brooklyn, il
now here. He lectured yesterday (Sat.
urday) and preached today to throngs in.
Vulnerable. The subject of his sermon
today was: "The Martyrs of Everyday
Life" He took for his text: "Thou,
therefore, endure hardness. III Tim. ii,
8. DR.. Talmage said:
Historians are not slow to acknowledge
the merits Of great military chieftains.
We have the full length portraits of the
Cromwells, the Washingtons, the Napo-
Icons and the Wellingtons 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 pre-
cious stones, but out of the bleached
skulls of the fallen. But I am now to
unroll before you a scroll of heroes that
the world has never acknowledged;
those who faced no guns, blew no bugle
blast, conquered no cities, chained no
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
listening universe. I mean the heroes of
common, everyday life.
In this roll, in the first place, find all
the heroes of the sick room. When Sa-
tan 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 all found out, that sick
ness is the greatest test Of ones charac-
ter. A man who can stand that can
stand anything To be shut in room
as fast as though it were bastile. 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 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 razor, or to
put the foot into wise, or throw the
whole body into blaze Of fever. Yet
there have been men and women, but
more women than men, who have cheer
fully endured this hardness. Through
years Of exhausting rheumatism and ex-
cruciating neuralgias they have gone,
and through bodily distresses that rasped
the nerves, and tore the muscles, and
paled the cheeks, and stopped the Shout
ders. 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 sad.
The children looked up into her face and
saw suffering transformed into a
smile. Those who suffered
on the battlefield 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 inconsistencies will
ing to suffer, confident in God, hopeful
IF heaven. Heroes of rheumatism.
Heroes of neuralgia. Heroes of spinal
Heroes Of sick headache.
Heroes of lifelong invalidism. Heroes
and heroines. They shall reign for ever
and ever.
Hark! I catch just one note of the
sternal anthem: "There shall be no more
pain." Bless God for that.
In this roll I also find the heroes of
oil, who do their work uncomplain-
ngly. 1t is comparatively easy to lead
\ regiment into battle when you know
that the whole nation will applaud the
victory; it is comparatively easy to doc
;or the sick when you know that your
skill will be appreciated by a large COM
oany of friends and relatives; it is COM
oaratively easy to address an audience
when in the cleaning eyes and the
1ushed cheeks you know that your senti-
nents 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
% have The whole garment thrown
back on you to be done over again; to
build wall and know there will be no
,ne to say you did it well, but only a
employer bowling across the
caffold; to work until your eyes are
linn and your back aches, and your heart
aints, and to know that if you stop be-
ore night your children will starve. All!
he sword has not slain SO many as the
leedle The great battlefields of our last
var were not Gettysburg and Shiloh and
south Mountain. The great battleields
# the last war were in the arsenals, and
n the shops and in the attics, where
women made army jackets for sixpence.
They toiled on until they died. They
lad no funeral eulogium, but, in the
lame of my God, this day enroll their
names among those of whom the world
vas not worthy. Heroes of the needle.
Heroes of the sewing machine. Heroes