The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-02-27
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINES SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Our Own Generation" C

. TEXT: "Dav,d, after he had serued his
o1cn generation By the ,Ciu Of God, fell on
sleep."-Acts xiii. S6
That is a text which has for a long time
been running through my mind, but not un-
til now has it been fully revealed to me.
Sermons have time to be born aS we'll as
time to die, a cradle as we'll as grave.
David. cowboy and stone-slinger and fighter
and car aud dramatist and blank verse
writer and prophet, did his best for the people
Of his time and then went and laid down on
the southern hill Of Jerusalem in that sound
slumber which nothing but an archangellc
served his own generation by the will OF God,
fell on sleep"
1t was his own generation that he had
served; that is, the people living at the time
he lived. And have you ever Thought that
our responsibilities are chiefly with the
people now walking abreast OF US! Ihere
are about four generations to century now,
but in O den time life was longer and there
was, perhaps, only one generation to CEN
tury Taking these facts into the calculation,
Imake rough guess and say that there have
been at least one hundred and eighty
generations of the human family. with
reference to them we have no responsibility.
We cannot teach them, We cannot correct
their mistakes, we cannot soothe their sor-
rows, we cannot heal their wounds. Their
sepulchers are deaf and dumb to anything
we might say to them. The last regiment or
that great army has passed out OF sight. We
might halloo rs loud as we could, not one OF
them would avert his head to see what we
wanted.
admit that I am in sympathy with the
child whose father had suddenly died and
who in her little evening prayer wanted 10
continue to pray for her father, although ne
had gone into heaven and no more needed
her prayers, and looking up INTO her
not leave him all out. Let me say,
Thank Gcd that had a good father once,
!, and so I can keep him in my pray
I ers.'r But the one hundred and eighty gen.
erations have passed off. Passed up Passed
down. Gone forever. Then there are gener.
ations to come after our earthly existence
has ceased, perhaps hundred and eighty
generations more, perhaps thousand gener.
ations more We shall not soc them, we shall
not hear any of their voices, we will take no
part in III ir conyocations, their elections
their revolutions, their catastrophes. their
triumphs. We will in no wise affect the one
hundred and eighty generations gone, or the
ore hundred and eighty generations TO come,
except as from the galleries OF heaven the
former generations look down and rejoice at
our victories or as we may by our behavior
start influences, good or bad, that shall roll
on through the advancing ages. But our DuSl-
ness is, like David, to serve our owngeneration,
the people now living, those whose lungs now
breathe and whose hearts now beat. And
mark you, it is not q silent procession, but
moving 1t is forced march" at twenty
four miles day, each hour being mile.
Going with that celebrity, it has got to be q
quick service on our part or no service at
all We not only cannot teach the
one hundred and eighty genera
tions past and will not see the
0aporofiOpc IN hnt this
generation now on the stage will soon be OH
and we ourselves will be of with them. The
fact is that you and will have to start very
soon for our work or it will be lronical and
sarcastic for any one after our exit to say OF
US, as it was said of David, after he had
served his own generation by the.wil OF God,
he fell on sleep"
Well, now, let us look around earnestly,
prayeriully and in a common sense way and
see what we can do for our own generation.
First of all let us see to it that, as far as we
-can they have enough to eat. The human
body is so constituted that three times day
the body needs food as much as lamp
needs fuel. To meet this want God
has girdled the earth with apple orchards,
orange groves, wheat fields and oceans full
of fish and prairies full, Of cattle And not
withstanding this, will undertake to say
that the vast majority of the human family
ARE suffering either for lack Of food or the
right kind Of food. Our civilization is all
askew on this subject and God only can set
it right.
Many Of the greatest estates Of to-day have
been built out of the blood and bones Of un-
requited toll. In olden times, for the build
ing Of forts and towers, the inhabitants
OF Ispahan had to contribute 10000 human
skulls, and Bagdaa 40. 900 human skulls, and
that number Of people were slain so as to
oh hac clynl1s Rpt theSa n0nfrhu-
tions added together made only 100000
skulls, while into the tower Of the worlds
wealth and pomp aad magnihcence have
been wrought che skeletons Of uncounted
numbers of the half fed populations Of the
earth, millions of skulls.
Don't sit down at your table with five or
six courses of abundant supply and think
nothing of that family In the next street who
would take any one of those five courses be-
tween soup and almond nuts and feel they
were in heaven. The lack Of the right kind
of food is tho cause Of much Of the drunk
enness. After drinking what many Of our
grocers call coffee, sweetened with what
many call sugar, and eating what many of
our butchers cell meat, and chewing what
many Of our bakers call bread, many of thu
laborlng classes feel so miserable they are
tempted to put into their nasty pipes
what the tobacconist calls tobacco, or
go into the drinking saloons for what the
rum sellers call beer. Good coffee would do
much in driving out hal rum. Adulteration
of food has got to be an evil against which
all the health officers and all the doctors and
all the min sters and all the reformers and
all the G Cristians mel to set them
selves in battle array. How can we serve
our generation with enough to eat By Sit
ting down in embroidered slippers and loung-
ing back in an armchair, our mouth puck
cred up around Havana of the best brand,
50 leo, a-l
ing about political economy and the phisos-
ophy OF strikes' No! No! By finding out
who in Brooklyn has been living on gristle
and sending them tenderlon beefsteak.
Seek out some family who through sickness
or conjunction Of misfortune have
not enough to eat and do for
them what Christ did for the
hungry multtudes Of Asia Minor, multiply
ing the loaves and the fishes. Let US quit
the surfeiting Of ourselves until we cannot
choke down another cruilb Of cake and be-
gin the supply of others necessities.
We often see on small scale recklessness
about the welfare Of others which q great
warrior expressed on a large scale. when his
officers were disSuadinS him from certain
campaign, saying: ut would cost two hun
dred thousand lives" replying with diabol-
Ism that can never be forgotten: What are
two hundred thousand lives 10 me:"
So far from helping appease the worlds
hunger, there are those whom Isaiah de-
scribes as grinding the faces of the poor. You
have seen a farmer or mechanic put
scythe or an Ak on a grindstone, while some
one was turning it round and round, and
the man holding the ak bore on it harder
and harder while the water dropped from
the grindstone, and the edge Of the ak from
being round and dull got keener and kesner,
and the mech mic lifte'l the az glisten:ng and
sharp and with edge so keen he must eau
tiously run his finger along lest while e1.