Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-18
THE MOONLIGHT RIDE
Of Nehemiah Chosen as the Topic of
Talmage's Sunday Sermon.
THE REBUILDING OF JERUSALEM
Is Considered as Typical of the Transform
alton of the Heart.
GREED is CURED By CHRISTIAN WORK

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPATcH.l
BROOKLYN, March I7.-At the Taber
nacle this morning the Rev. 7. Dewitt
Talmage, D. D., expounded the seventh
chapter of Ecclesiastes. He afterward CAV,
out the hymn beginning:
Gracel tits a charming sound,
Harmonious to the ear,
which was sung by the vast congregation
with magnificent effect. The subject of DR.
Talmsge's sermon was ''The Moonhgh
Ride" and the text, Nehemiah ii, Is
'Then went up in the night by the brook
and viewed the wall, and turned back, anc
entered by the gate of the valley, and 81
returned" He said:
A dead city is more suggestive than living
city-past Rome than present Rome-ruin:
rather than newly frescoed cathedral. But the
time to visit a ruin is by moonlight. The
Coliseum is far more fascinating to the trav'
eler after sundown than before. You may
stand by daylight amid the monastic ruins OF
Melrose Abbey, and study shafted oriel, and
rosetted stone and mullion, but they throw
their strongest witchery by moonlight. Some
of you remember what the enchanter OF Scot
land said in the LAY of the Last Minstrel:"
wouldst thou view fair Melrose Alright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight
A RUINED CITY.
Wash ington Irving describes the -Andalusian
moonlight upon the Alhambra ruins as
amounting to an enchantment- My text pre-
sents you Jerusalem in ruins The tower down.
The gates down. The walls down. Everything
down. Nehemiah on horseback, by moonlight
looking upon the ruins. While he rides, there
are some friends on foot going with him, for
they do not want the many horses to disturb
the suspicious of the people. These people do
not know the secret of Nehemiah's heart, but
they are going as a sort of body guard. 1
hear the clicking hoofs of the horse on
which Nehemiah rides, as he guides it this
way and that, into this gate and out of that
winding through that gate amid the debris of
once great Jerusalem.
Now the horse comes to a dead halt at the
tumbled masonry where he cannot pass. Now
he SHES of at the charred timbers Now he
comes along where the water under the moon
night flashes from the mouth of the brazen
dragon after which the gate was named. Heavy
hearted Nehemiah! Riding in and out, now
by his old home desolated, now by the defaced
temple, now amid the scars of the city that had
gone down under battering ram and conflagra-
tion. The escorting party knows not what
Nehemiah means. Is he getting crazy? Have
his own personal sorrows, added to the sorrows
of the nation, unbalanced his intellect? Still
the midnight exploration goes on.
Nehemiah on horsebaback rides through the
fish gate, by the tower of the furnaces, by the
Kings pool, by the dragon well, in and out, in
and out until the midnight ride is completed,
and Nehemiah dismounts from his horse. and
to the amazed aud confounded and incredu-
lous body guard, declares the dead secret of his
heart when he says, Come, now, let us build
Jerusalem What Nehemiah, have you any
l..
thority?" mo" Have you any eloquence?"
No" Yet that midnight, moonlight ride of
Nehemiah resulted in the
GLORIOUS REBUILDING
of the city of Jerusalem. The people knew
not how the thing was to be DONE but with
gr eat enthusiasm they cried out, "Let US rise
up now and build the city," Some people
laughed and said it could not be done. Some
people were infuriated and offered personal
violence, saying the thing should not be done,
But the workmen went right on, standing on
the wall, trowel in one hand, sword in, the
other, until the work was gloriously completed.
At that very time, in Greece, Xenophon was
writing history and Plato was making phil
osophy and Demosthenes was rattling his
rhetorical thunder, but all of them together
did not do SO much for the world as this mid
night moonlight ride of praying, courageous,
homesick, closemouthed Nehemiah.
My subject first impresses me with the idea
what an intense thing is church affection,
Seize the bride of that horse and stop Nehe-
miah. Why are you risking your life here in
the night? Your horse will stumble over these
ruins and fall on you. Stop this useless expo
sure of your life. No; Nehemiah will not stop.
He at last tells us the whole story. He lets us
know he was an exile in far distant land, and
he was servant, cup-bearer in the palace of
Artaxerxes Dongimanus, and one day, while he
was handing the cup of wine to the King, the
King said to him,
What is the matter with you? You are not
sick know you must have some great trou-
Bile. What is the matter with your" Then he
told the King how that beloved Jerusalem was
broken down; how that his fathers tomb had
been desecrated; how that the temple had been
dishonored and defaced; how that the walls
were scattered and broken. "Well, +" says King
said the cup-bearer Nehemiah, ~ want to 20
home. want to fix up the grave of my father.
want to restore the
BEAUTY OF THE TEMPLE.
'T want to rebuild the masonry of the city
wall Besides, want passports so that shall
not be hindered in my journey. And besides
that" as you will find in the context, II want
an order on the man who keeps your forest for
Just so much timber as 1 may need for the re.
building of the CITY," 'sHow long shall YOU be
gone?'' said the king. The time of absence is
arranged. In hot haste this seeming adven-
turer comes to Jerusalem, and in my textwe
riding
around the ruins. 1t is through the suectacles
of this scene that we discover the ardent at
tachment of Nehemiah for sacred Jerusalem,
which in all ages has been the type of the
church of God, our Jerusalem, which we love
Just as much as Nehemiah loved his Jeru-
salem.
The fact is that you love the church of God
so much that there is no spot on earth SO
sacred, unless - is your own fireside The
church has been to you SO much comfort and
that there is nothing that makes
you so irate as to have 1t talked against. If
there have been times when you have been car
ried into captivity by sickness, you longed for
the church, our holy Jerusalem, Just as much
as Nehemiah longed for his Jerusalem, and the
hrst day you came out you came to the house
OF the Lord. When the temple was in ruins as
ours was years ago. like Nehemiah, you walked
around and looked at it, and in the moonlight
you stood listening if you could not hear the
voice OF the dead organ, the psalm of the ex-
pired Sabbaths What Jerusalem was to Ne
heusiah. the church of God is to you.
SkepTirs and infidels may scoff at the church
as an obsolete affair, as relic of the dark ages
as a convention of goody goody people, but ali
the impression they have ever made on your
mind against the church of God is absolutely |
nothing. You would make more sacrifices for
it to-day than for any other institution and if
e were needful you would die in its defense.
You can take the words of the kingIy poet as
be said, 'sIf forget thee, o Jerusalem, let nv
my right hand forget her cunning" You un-
derstand in your own experience the pathos,
hne uOmoeiCAHess, lue courage, the
holy enthusiasm of Nehemiah in his
moonlight ride around the ruins of
ais beloved Jerusalem
} EXPLORATION NECESSARY.
Again, my text impresses me with the fact
hat before reconstruction there must be an
.xploration of ruins. Why was not Nehemiah
,sleep under the covers? Why was not his
1orse stabbed in the midnight? Let the police
IF the city arrest this midnight rider out on
,ome mischief. No, Nehemiah is going to re-
build the city, and he is making the prelimin.
ary exploration. In this gate, out that gate.
East. west, north. south. All through the
ruins The ruins must be explored before the |