The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-02-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON,
Tbs Weekly DISCOURSE Of Che Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
subject, "Our Own Genera
tiOn."


Text; "Ddpld, after he had serped hts
otpn GENERATION BY the piH Of God, fell on
slsspn-Acts xiii, Sd
That is a text which has for long time
teen running through my mind, but not UNI
Gl now has it been fully revealed to me.
Sermons have time TO DO born as we'll as
time to die, cradle as we'll as grave
David cowboy and stones singer and lighter
and car AMI 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 Jerus lem in that sound
slumber which nothing but an archangelle
blast can startle David, after he had
served his own generation by the will OF God,
fell on Sleep
II was his own generation that he had
served; that is the people living az the time
he lived. And have you ever thought that
our responsibilities are chiefly WIN the
people now walking abreast OF ust Ihere
are about four generations to century now,
but in den time life was longer and there
was, perhaps, only one generation to cen
fury. Taking these facts into the calculation,
make a 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 OF
that great army has passed out OF sight. " Q
might halloo as loud as we could, not one of
them would avert his head to SEQ what we
it that l am in sympathy with the
rose father had suddenly died and
lA little evening prayer wanted to
, to pray for her father, although he
10 into heaven and ne more needed
AYERS and lOOklng nm into her
face saids 70, mother, ! can
nvv cave him ali out Let me say,
thank Gcd that | had good father once,
and so l can keep him in my pray.
ers" But the one hundred and eighty gen.
creations have passed Oft. Passed up. Passed
down. Gone forever. Then there are gener.
ations to come after our arlhly existence
has ceased, perhaps e hundred and eighty
generations more, perhaps thousand gener-
at ons more. " e shall not SOC them, we shall
not hear any of their voices, we will take no
part i'll III ir con rocations, 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 tine
former generations look down and rejoice at
our victories, or as we may by oar behavior
start influences, good or bad, that shall roll
on through the advancing ages But our bust
ness Is, like David, TO serve our own generation,
the people now living, those who's lungs now
breathe and whose hearts now beat. And
mark you, it is not a silent procession, but
moving. 1t is forced march at twenty
Tour miles a day, each hour being mile.
Going with tn t celebrity, it has got to be a
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
one hundred generations to come, but this
ont no = q ria will ba ptt
and we ourselves will be off with them The
fact is that you and | will have to start very
soon for our work or it will be ironical and
sarcastic for any one after our exit to say o:
us, as it was said of David, after he hac
serye9 bis 80 ;eneraticn By The will of God
he fell on sleep"
Well, now, let us look around earnestly
prayerfuly and in common sense way anC
see what we can do for oBr own generation
First of all let us see TO it that, as far as w
can, they have enough to eat The humal
body is so constituted that three times da,
the body needs food as much as a lam
needs oil, as much as a Locomotive
needs fuel. To meet this want Go
has girdled the earth with apple orchards
orange groves wheat fields and oceans fu
of fish and prairies full. of cattle And not
withstanding this, | will undertake to sa,
that the vast ma ority of the human famil
are suffering either for lack of food Or tn
right kind of fool. Our civilization is al
aslew on this subject and God only can SO
it right.
Many Of The greatest estates of to day nav
been built out of the Blood ana t0nes of III
requited toll. In olden times, for the builC
ing Of forts and teWerS, the inhabitan
of lspahan had to Contribute 1000 huma
skulls, and Bagdai 80, 600 human skulls an
that number of people were slain SO as I
furnish tf,e skulls. But these two contribl
lions added together made only l60,0C
,,,Li 10 i,,t, tln TO. IF ha xrvoy
Wealth and pomp and magniicence ha,
been wrought the skeletons of uncounte
numbers of the half fed populations of I'll
earth, mill ons OF skulls.
Don't sit down at your table with five
six courses of abundant supply and thi
nothing of that family In the next street WI
would take any one of those five courses b
tween soup and almond nuts and feel The
were in heaven. The lack of The right XII
of food is the cause of much of tne drum
enness. After drinking what many of OF
grocers call coffee, syeetenel with VIII,
many call sugar, and eating what many
our Iutchers call meat, AMI chewing VIII
many of our bakers call bread. many of Il
laborng classes feel SO miserable they a
tempted to put into their nasty pip
what the tohacconist Gals tobacco,
60 into the drinking saloons for what t
rum sellers call beer. Good coffee would
much in driving out hal rum. AduteraUi,
all the health officers and all the doctors ar
all the min sters and all the reformers al
all the Christians need to set thsr
selves II battle array How can we SER
our Generation with enough to eat :! By S
ting down in embroidered slippers and loun
ing back in an arm chair, our mouth nc
cred up around a Havana of the best bran
and through clouds of luxuritnt smoke req
ing about political economy and the phi
ophy OF strikes' No! No! By finding o
who in Brooklyn has been living on girls
and sending them a ten1erloin beefstet
Seek out some family who through sckn
or conjunction of misfortune ha
not enough to eat and do
them what Christ did for
hungry multitudes of Asia Minor, multip
ing the loaves and the fishes. Let US q
the surfeiting of ourselves until we cam
choke down another crumb of cake and
gin the supp V of others necessities.
We often see on a small scale recllessn
about the welfare of others which or
warrior expressed on large scale, when
officers were dissuadng him from certs
campaign, saying: at would cost two h
dred thousand lives,n rep ying with diah
ism that can never be forgotten: what
two hundred thousand lives to meg
So far from helping appease the worl
hunger there are those whom Isaiah
scrbes as grin1ing the faces OF the poor Y
have seen a farmer or mechanic put
6Cytlle OF an ak Oh IL Whlle 81
one was turning it round and round {
the man holding the ak bore on it har
and harder while the water dropped fir
the griudstone, and the edge Of the ak r.
being round and dull, got keener and keen
and the mechanic lifted the ak gistening q
sharp and with edge so keen he must c.
tiously run his finger along lest while
aiming the implement he cut his hi
to the bone So | have seen men who W
put against the grindstone of hardship,
while one turned the crank another wo
press the unfortunate harder down |
harder down until he was ground away IL
ner and thinner, his comforts thinner,
prospects thinner and his face thin
And Isaiah shrieks out: What mean
that We grind the faces Of the poor| Ii
an awful thing to be hungry 1t is an e
thing for us to be in good humor with all
world when we have no lack. But let h
ger take full possession of us and we VIC
all turn into barbarians and cannibals
fiends.
1 am glad to know that the time is com
God hasten it, when every family IN
round word will sit down at full table,
it will be only a question between Ia
and vension, or between partridge
quail on toast and out of spoons m
out of Nevada silver or California gold
t..;1 4 hril I1pr u