The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-09-18
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR.. Talmage's Discourse on Yes
terday.
''The Chain of fnfuences"-Link After
Link Formed for Good or BAD in
Rearing Children.

and more than four thousand copmuniosoi
members were joined by thousands from all
parts of this country and from other lands in
the sacred commentator. The Rev t. Dewitt
Talmage, d. d., preached from Ezekiel vii
%: "Make q chain" He said:
At school and in college in announcing the
mechanical powers, we glorifed the lever. thu
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, enc with another, attracted tho Bible
authors, and we hear the chain rattle and see
its coil all the way through from Genesis to
Revelation, flashing as an adorninent, or re-
Htraining as i'll captivity, or holding in con-
Junction as in case of machinery. To do him
honor, Pharaoh hung chain oflgold about.the
neck of Daniel. The high priest had on his
breast-plate two chains of gold. On the
camels' necks as the Ishnaelites drove up to
Gideon, jingled chains of gold.
The Bible refers to the church as having
such glittering adornments, saying: "Thy
neck is comely with chains of gold" On the
other hand, chain means captivity. David
the psalmist, exults that power had been given
over his enemies, ITO bind their kings with
chains" The old missionary apostle cries out
"For the hope of Israel, am bound with this
chain" In the prison where Peter is incarce-
rated, you hear one day a. great
his chains. St. John saw an angel
come down from heaven to manacle the power
of darkness, and having "a great chain in his
hand" and the fallen angels are represented
as reserved in everlasting chains" while in
my text for the arrest and limitation of the
iniquity of his time, Ezekiel thunders out !:
snake a chainlo
What j 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 infu-
ence, the great advantage of a congeries of
links above one link, and in all family govern
ment and in all effort to rescue others, and in
ell attempt to stop iniquity take the sugges-
ton of my text and make chain
That which contains the greatest inpor-
tance, that which 'encloses the most tremen-
dors opportunities, that which of earthly
things is most watched 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 o second
but the cradle has within it new eternity,
just born and never to cease. When, three or
four years ago, the Ohio river overfiowed its
banks and the wild freshets swept down with
them harvests and cities. one day was found
floating On the bosom of the waters cradle
with o child in it, all unhurt, wrapped up
snug and warm, and Its blue eyes looking into
the blue Of the open heavens. 1t was men
toned as something extraordinary. But every
cradle is, with its young passenger, floating on
the swift currents of the centuries, deep call
ing to deep, Ohios and st. Lawrences and
Mississippis OF influence bearing it onward
Now what shall be done with this new life
recently launched2 Teach him an even
enough. Hear him as soon as he
can recite some gospel hymn or catechsm
That is important. but not enough. Every
Sabbath afternoon read him Bible story.
That is important, but not enough. Once in a
while a lesson, once in while a prayer, once
In while restraining influence. All these
are important, but not enough. Each one of
these influences is only link, and it will not
hold him in the tremendous emergencies of
life. Let it be constant instruction. constant
prayer, constant application of good influences,
a long link of consecutive impressions reach
ing from his first year to his fifth and from his
fifth year to his tenth, and from his tenth year
to his twentieth make a chain''
Spasmodic education, paroXysinal discipline
occasional fidelity amount to nothing. You
can as easily hold an anchor by one link as
hold a child to the right by isolated and in
termitten faithfulness. The example must
connect with the instruction. The converse
ton must combine with the actions. The
weekday consistency mustsconjoin with the
Sunday worship. Have family prayers by all
means: but be petulant and inconsistent, and
unreasonable in your household and your
family prayers will be blasphemous farce.
young men to dissipation, and young women
to social follies, that it is most important that
the first eighteen years of their life should be
charged with religious power that will hold
them when they get out of the harbor of
home into the stormy ocean of active life.
There is such thing as impressing children SO
powerfully with good, that sixty years will
have no more power to effect it than sixty
minutes. What a rough time that young man
has in doing wrong, carefully nurtured as he
ne faf M MIL ,nrh oI
for years, or over in Scotland or England, or
Ireland; but they have stood in the doorway of
every dram shop that he entered, and under
the chandelier of every house of dissipation,
saying: "My SOD, this is no place for you.
Have you forgotten the old folks? DON'T you
recognize these wrinkles, and this stoop in the
shoulder aad this tremulous hand? Go home,
my boy, go home! BY the God to whom We
consecratcd you, by the cradle in which we
rocked you, by the grass-grown graves the
old country c6urch-yard, by the heaven where
we hope yet to meet you, go home! Go home,
my boy, go home!'' And some Sunday you
viii be surprised to find that young man sud-
denly asking for the prayers of the church.
ment, and perhaps drinking from the same
kind of chalice that the old folks drank out of
years ago, when they commemorated the suf-
ferings of the Lord. Yes, my lad, you do
not have such fun in sin as you seem to
fun. You cannot shake off the intu-
ences of those prayers long ago offered, or Of
those kind admonitions. You cannot make
them 60 away. and you feel like saying:
"Father, what are you doing here? Mother,
why do you bother me with suggestions of
those olden times 2" But they viii not go
away. They will push you back from your
evil paths, though they have to come down
from their shining homes in heaven and stand
In the very gates of he'll, and their backs
scorched of the fiery blast, and with their hand
on your shoulder, and their breath on your
brow and their eyes looking straight into
yours, they will say: eve have come to take
you home o. son of many anXieties!" AT last
that young man turns through the consecutive
influences of pious parentage, who out OF
prayers and facilities innumerabe, made q
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 convince others of your imperturbability
smile to your friend beside you, but there is
not so much power in anAlpine Avalanche after
1t 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 power in the chain that pulls you this mo-
ment toward God and Christ and Heaven. Oh!
the almighty pull OF tho long chain of early
gracious influences,
Bat all people between thirty and forty years
of age, yes, between forty and tifty-aye, be-