The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-09-25
VOICES d THE STREETS.
HUMAN TIDES THAT Ese AND FLOW.
DR.. Talmage's Sermon-WOrk sung TO the
Drumming of Mills and the Fling OF
Steam Whistles-A Great Field
Open For Charity.

The Rev, T. Dewitt Talmage. d. D.,
preached " the tabernacle last Sunday to
a vast congregation on ''The City Streets"
His text was: Wisdom crieth without;
che uttereth her voice in the streets. u
Proverbs, l. %. lie said:
We are all ready to listen to the voices
OF nature, the voices of the mountain, the
voices of the sea, the voices OF the storm,
the voices of the star. As in some OF the
cathedrals in Europe there is an organ at
either end of the building, and the one in
strument responds musically to the other,
so in the great cathedral OF nature day re-
spends TO day, and night to night, and
flower 10 flower, and star to star, in the
greet harmonies of the universe, The
ls6ing time is an evangelist in blossoms
aching of Gods love; and the winter
6prOPhet-white Notwithstanding
a against our sins. We are all ready to
lin to the voices of nature; but how
few OF Us learn anything from the voices
OF the noisy and dusty street. You 60 to
your merchandise, and your mechanism,
and to your work and you come back again
and often with an indifferent heart you
pass TIN ough 1the streets. Are there no
things for us TO learn from these pave
ments over which we pass? Are there no
tufts OF truth growing up between these
cobblestones, Deaten with the feet of toll,
and pain, and .. aasure the slow tread of
old age and the quick step of childhood
Aye, there are great harvests to be reaped,
and now ] trust in the sickle because the
harvest is ripe. Wisdom crieth without;
she uttereth her voice in the streets.
In the first place the street impresses me
with the fact that this life is a scene of toll
and struggle. By 10 o'clock every day the
city is Earring with wheels. and shutting
with feet, and humming with voices, and
covered with the breath of smoke-stacks,
and a-rush with traffickers. Once IN
awhile you find a man going along with
folded arms and with leisurely step, as
though he had nothing TO do; but, Tor the
most part, as you find men going down
these streets on the way TO business there
is anxiety in their faces, as though they
had some errand which must be executed
at the first possible moment. You are
iostled by those who have bargains to
make and notes To sell. Up this ladder
with a bod of bricks, out of this bank
with a roll of bills, on this dray with
load OF goods, digging q cellar, or shin
Cling roof, or shoeing a horse, or build
ing a wall, or mending watch, or binding
a book. Industry, with her thousand
arms, and thousand eyes, and thousand
feet, goes on singing her song of work
work work while the mills drum it and
the steam whistles fife it. All this is not
because men love toll. Some one re-
marked: Every man is as lazy as he can
afford to he" But it Is because necessity,
with stern brow and with uphfted whip,
stands over them ready whenever they re-
lax their toll, to make their shoulders
sting with the lash. Can it be that, pass
ing up and down these streets on your
wav TO work and business, you do not
learn anything of the worlds toll and
anxiety and struggle? Oh! how many
dropping hearts, how many eyes on the
watch how many miles travelled, how
many burdens carried, how many losses
suffered, how many battles fought, how
many victories gained, how many defeats
suffered. how many exasperatiOns endured
what losses, what hunger, what wretch
edness, what pallor, what disease, what
agony, what despair Sometimes | have
stopped at the corner of the street as the
multitude went hither and won, and IL has
seemed to be great pantomine, and as |
looked upon it my heart broke. This
great tide of human life that goes down
the street is a rapid, tossed and turned
aside, and dashing ahead and driven back
beautiful in its confusion and confused in
Its beauty. In the carpeted aisles of the
forest, in the woods from which the eter-
nal shadow is never lifted, on the shore of
the sea over whose iron coast losses the
tangled foam, sprinkling the cracked cliffs
with a baptism OF whirlwind and tempest,
is the best place to study God; but in the
rushing, swarming, raving street is the
= best place to study man. Going down to
your place of business and coming home
again, ] charge you look about-see these
signs of poverty, of wretchedness, Of hun
ger, OF sin, of bereavement-and as you
go through the streets, and come back
through the streets, gather up in the arms
OF your prayer all the sorrow, all the
losses, all the suffering, all the bereave-
ments OF those whom YOU pass, and pre-
sent them in prayer before an all-sympa-
thetic God.
Again, the street impresses me with the
fact that all classes and conditions of So
ciety must conImingle. We sometimes
cultivate a wicked exclusiveness. Intel
lect despises ignorance. Refinement will
have nothing to do with boorishness.
Gloves hatethe sun-burned hand, and the
high forehead despses the flat mead, and
the trim hedgerOW will have nothing to do
with the wild copsewood, and Athens
hates Nazareth. This ought not to be so.
The astronomer must come down from his
starry revelry and help us in our naviga-
ton. The surgeon must come away from
his study Of the human organism and set
our broken bones. The chemist must
come away from his laboratory, where he
has been studying analysis and synthesis,
and help us to understand the nature of
the soils. bless God that all classes are
compelled to meet on the street. The gilt
ling coach wheel clashes against the
Eavengers cart. Fine robes run against
ytbs peddler's pack. Robust health meets
wan sickness. Honesty confronts fraud.
Every class of people meets every other
class. Independence and mOdesty, pride
and humanity, purity and beastliness,
frankness and hypocrisy, meeting on the
same block, in the same street, in the
came city. OH that is what Solomon
meant when he said: "The rich and the
poor meet together; the Lord is the maker
OF them ALL" like this democratic prin-
ciple of the gospel of Jesus Christ which
recognizes the fact that we stand before
God on one and the same platform. Do
not take on any airs; whatever position
YOU have gained in society, you are moth
ing but man, born OF the same parent,
regenerated by the same spirit, cleansed
BY the same blood, to lie down In the
same dust, 70 get up In the same resurrec-