The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-05-15
YEARS THAT lave PASSED.
THEREv. DR.TALmiee LOOKING BACK.
He Recalls to His Congregation What May
Have Been the scenes of Their
Childhood-The First Cloud
Over the Home.

1almage made this announcement last
Sunday morning:
Some newspaper correspondents, refer
ring to a recent sermon in which / well
coined foreign naionalties to this coun-
try, have said thatI advocated, as desir-
able thing, the intermarriage OF the white
and black races. Inever said so, / never
thought so, and anyone who misinterprets
that sermon is either villain or fool,
perhaps both.
An outburst of applause followed this
announcement, and the preacher went
ahead with the service. He discoursed
from the text: ''Thou shalt remember all
the way which the Lord thy God led
thee" Deuteronomy viii, ?, saying these
among other things:
Young people spend too much time in
looking forward. Old people spend too
much time in looking backward. People
in midlife and standing at the apex look
both ways. But Renaissance is often
very useful. The most q you, my friends,
live in the future more than in the pres
ent. 1t Is the money yol expect to gain |;
it is the social position you expect to es-
tablish; it is the victory you expect to
not make you disseminated with your
present lot, or disqualifJ you for present
duty. 1t would be good thing for us to
walk back through our lifetime and see
the escapes we have had, and the divine
mercy exercised in our behalf and the tri-
umphs we have gained. Then we will be
more full of prayer, more full OF gratitude
and more full of courage, and to-day ] am
eroipcr 70 ~ fboca ROM uicconoaS ~ God
will help me. There is a chapel in Flor
ence with a frisco by Guido, the great
master, but for many years there was
stucco two inches thick over that fresco.
Then English and American artists went
there and they removed the covering and
retraced the fresco. I know your men,
cries have over them thousand oblitera-
tions, and / propose this morning to re-
move the covering and retrace the old pic
ture and bring out the scenes in their or
igina, vivldness, and / am going TO take
all the advantages of your past life and
bind them in one sheaf, and then / am 60
ing TO take all the adversities of your past
life and bind them in another sheaf. 1t is
precious harvest and l must be careful
how l swing the scythe. Among your adj
vantages was an early home with its sur
roundings. Bad men, for the most part,
dipped their heated passions from the
boiling spring OF an unhappy home. am
not surprised that ByrOn's heart was a
concentration of iniquity when / read that
his mother was abandoned and that she
made sport Of his physical infrmities and
called him a lame brat. That man who
has had an evil parentage has TO fight
every inch of his way if he maintain his in
tegrity and come to his home in heaven.
Your early home, 1t may have been in the
city, it may have been in the time when
Canal-st., New York, was far up town, and
the place where this church stands was a
country excursion. You will never forget
the place, i warrant you. The old house
may have been torn down or turned into
stOres-and YOU never can get over the
sacrilege, for there was more meaning in
that small house, that old house, than in
the grandest mansion or turreted cathe-
dral. There was the evening stand around
which the family sat, the mother sewing
by the plain lamp light. There were
brothers and sisters on the floor or under
the table, plotting mischief, at which the
father, with firm voice, commanded ST.
lence that lasted half a minute All, those
were grand old days. Ii YOU hurt your
foot your mother had to sooth and salve
and heal 1t. If YOU were wronged in the
street then your father came out to protect
YOU and take your part Your heart had
not yet been broken by bereavement, and
no lamb ever had a warmer sheep fold
than your home in which your childhood
nestled. Perhaps 1t was in the country
that you had your home. You stand to-
day under the old tree where YOU dubbed
down the fruit before it was ripe because
YOU could not wait any longer. You hear
now in Imagination the brook rumbling
along over the pebbles. You step into the
furrOw behind your father in his shirt
sleeves, shouting to the lazy oxen. You
90 TO the fields TO bring the COWS home
and YOU find them standing their heads
waggfng through the bars. Sometimes In
the dusty and busy street you wish YOU
were again on the cool grass of the old
homestead or standing on the rag-carpeted
hall of the old farm house through which
swept the breath Of new-mOWn hay or
poisoning buckwheat. Your father, sun
burned from the fields, who used to sit on
the sill of the door, and, with his hand,
wipe the sweat from his brow, may have
gone to his eternal rest; your mother,
who stood at the doorway, little bent
over. cap and spectacles on, her face
wrinkled with the vicissitudes of many
years. may have put down her gray head
upon the pillow in the valley; but forget
that home you never will Have you
thanked God for it? Have you ever raised
up these "reminiscences with a grateful
spirit? Thank God for Christian father.
Thank God for a Christian mother. Thank
God for an early Christian home. But /
must point you to another passage in your
LIES history. The time had come for you
TO set up your own household. You stood
at the altar, hands joined, and one with a
strong voice said, 81 will" and the other
with a softer and sweeter voice said, Il
will" Time passed on. You sat at oppo-
site ends of the table, laying out your
plans for life. The most Insignificant az
fair Of your life came up for adjustment,
for counsel and for advisement. You felt
so happy you thought nothing on earth
could ever make you happier. One day
there was a cloud over the home. That
cloud got darker and darker, but out of it
descended a shining messenger Of God to
incarnate an immortal spirit. Two little
feet started on an everlasting journey, and
you to lead them; jewel for an eternal
crown, and you to polish it. Everlasting
ages watching the launching of one newly
created immortal. You rejoiced and
trembled at the thought that such treas
ure was PIT in your possession. You re-
joiced and wept and sang, and again you
rejoiced and wept and sang, and prayed
God that you might lead that one into the
kingdom of heaven, and there was a ire