Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-03-28
A GRAND EXAMPLE.
DR.. Talmage OH the Foundations
Of True Christianity.
Eehemish's Wonderful Midnight Visit to
Jerusalem in Ruins and the Lesson 1t
Teaches-Goa Always the Best
Friend.

In q recent sermon at the Brooklyn
Tabernacle Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage's sub
ject was THE Moonlight Ride" and tn
text Nehemiah il Is: Then l went VI
the night by the brook and viewed tn
wall, and turned back, and entered by tn
gate Of the valley, and so returned" 81
said:
A dead city is more suggestive than
living city-past Rome than present Rom
ruins rather than newly frescoet
cathedral. But the best time to visit I
ruin is by moonlight. The colosseum i
far more fascinating to the traveller afte
shutdown than before. You may stand BY
daylight amid the monastic ruins of Mel
rose Abbey and study shafted oriel anC
rosetted stone and mullion. but they throw
their strongest witchery by moonlight
Some of you remember what the enchantel
of Scotland said in the Lay Of the Las
Minstrel:0 -- ~
''Wouldst thou view fair Melrose sright
Go visit 1t by the pale moonlight"
Washington Irving describes the An
daiusian moonlight upon the Alhambra
ruins as amounting to an enchantment
Ny text presents you Jerusalem in ruins.
The tower down. The gates down. The
walls down. Every thing down. Nehe-
miah 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 dis
turb the suspicious of the people. These
people do not know the secret Of Nehe-
miah's heart, but they are going as sort
of body guard. hear the clicking hoofs
of the horse on which Nehemiah rides, as
l. hot int &c
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 masonry where he can
not pass. Now he SHES off at the charred
timbers. Now he comes along where the
water under the moonlight 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 I'M
der battering ram and confagration. The
escorting party knows not what Nehemiah
means. Is he getting crazy? Have his
own personal sorrows added to the sor-
rows of the nation, unbalanced his INTEL
iect? Still the midnight exploration goes
ON. Nehemiah on horse back rides through
the fish gate, by the tower of the furnaces,
by the Kings pool. by the dragon well, in
and out, until the midnight ride is COM
% eted, and Nehemiah dismounts from his
horse, and 60 the amazed and COMPOUNDED
and increduIous body guard, declare, the
dead secret of his heart when he says:
<'Come, now, let us build Jerusalem.
what, Nehemiah, have you any money"
mo" "Have you any kingly authority"
mo" "Have you any eloquence?" mo"
Yet that midnight, moonlight ride of Ne
hemiah resulted in the glorious rebuilding
of the city of Jerusalem. The people
knew not how the thing was to be done,
but with great 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 infuriate and
offered physical 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 writ
ing a history, and Plato was making
philosophy, and Demosthenes was rat
ting his rhetorical thunder, but all of
them together did not do so much for the
world as this midnight, moonlight ride of
prying courageous, homesick, close
Nehemiah.
My subject first impresses me with the
idea what an intense thing is church af-
lection. Seize the bride of that horse and
stop Nehemiah. Why you are risking
your life here in night2 Your horse will
stumble over these ruins and fall on you.
-
No; Nehemiah will not stop. He at last
tells US the whole story. He lets US know
he was an exile in r-distant land, and
he was a servant, a cup-bearer in the pal
ace of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and one
day while he was handing the cup of wine
to the King, the King said to him, what
is the matter with your You are not sick
[ know you must have had some great
trouble. What is the matter with your"
Then he told the King how that beloved
Jerusalem was knocked down, how that
his fathers tomb had been desecrated;
how that the temple had been dishonored
and defaced; how that the walls was scat
tered and broken. ''Well," says King
"what do you WANT"
"Well," said the cup-bearer Nehemiah,
az want to 60 home. want to fix up the
grave of my father. Iwaut to restore the
beauty Of the temple. want to rebuild
the masonry of the city wall. Besides,
want passports so that shall not be him
dered in my journey. And besides that"
as you will find In the context, 'Iwant an
order on the man who keeps your forest
for just SO much timber as may need for
the rebuilding of the city,"
''How long shall you be gomez" said the
King. The time of absence is arranged.
In hot haste this seeming adventurer
comes to Jerusalem, and in my text we
find him on horseback, in the midnight,
riding around the ruins. 1t is through the
spectacles of this scene that we discover
the ardent attachment 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
loved his Jerusalem. The fact
is that you love the Church of God so
much that there is no spot on earth so
sacred, unless it is your own fireside. The
Church has been 10 you so much comfort
and illumination that nothing makes YOU
so irate as to have it talked against If
there have been times when you have been
carried into captivity by sickness, you
ionged for the Church, our holy Jerusa-
lem, just as much as Nehemiah longed for
his Jerusalem. and the first 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 az it and in the moon
light you stood listening if you could not
hear the voice of the dead organ, the
psalm of the expired Sabbaths. What
Jerusalem was to Nehemiah the Church
OF God is to you. Skeptics and infidels
may scott at the Church as an obsolete af-
fair, as relic of the dark ages, as a con-
vention of goody goody people, but all
the impression they have ever made on
your mind against the Church of God is