Milford chronicle., 1889-02-15
OUR OWN GENERATION.
SERMON PREACHED BY REV. T..
De WITT TALMAeE FEB. 10.

SEhMON PhEACHED bf hEV. u
DE WITT TALMAeE FEB. 10.
Text. Acts xiii, Sc: "David. After He
Had served His Own Generation. Fell
Asleep"
BROOKLYN, Feb 1O.-Before an audience
gathered from all parts of the earth the Rev.
T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., expounded pas
sages Of Scripture descriptive Of stirring
scenes in David's life. Led by organ and
cornet the multitudes Joined in singing:
Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's sermon was
"Om Own Generation, and his text, Acts
xiii, So: David, after he had served his own
generation, fell asleep"
That is text which has for a long time
been running through my mind, but not un-
til now has it been fully revealed to me. Ser
mons have a time to be born as well as a
time to die, a cradle as well as a grave Da-
vid, cowboy and stone singer and fighter
and car and dlamatist and blank verse
writer and prophet, did his best for the peo-
pie Of his time, and then went and laid down
on the southern hill of Jerusalem in that
sound slumber which nothing but an arch
angelic blast can startle, David, after
he had served his own generation, fell
asleep
It was his own generation that he had
served; that is, the people living at the time
he lived. And have you ever thought that
our responsibilities are chiefly with the peo-
pie now walking abreast Of us' There are
about four generations to a century now, but
in olden time life was longer and there was
perhaps only one generation to a century.
Taking these facts into 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 sorrows, we cannot heal
their wounds Their sepulchers are deaf and
dumb to anything we might say to them.
passed out of sight We might halloo as loud
as we could, not one of them would avert his
head to see what we wanted.
SHE COULD NOT LEAVE HIM OUT.
1 admit that am in sympathy with the
child whose father had suddenly died, and
who in her little evening prayer wanted to
continue to pray for her father, although he
had gone into heaven and no more needed
her prayers, and looking up intO her mothers
face, said: so, mother, cannot leave him
all out. Let me say, Thank God that had
a good father once, so can keep him in my
prayers" But the one hundred and eighty
generations have passed of. Passed up.
Passed down. Gone forever. Then there are
generations to come after our earthly exist
ence has ceased, perhaps a hundred and
eighty generations more, perhaps thousand
generations more. We shall not see them,
we snail not hear any of their voices, we will
take no part in their convUcati0fs, their cleo
tions, their revolutions, their catastropnes,
their triumphs. We will in no wise affect
the one hundred and eighty generations gone,
or the one hundred and eighty generations to
come, except as from the galleries Of heaven
the former generations look down and rejoice
at our victories, or as we may by our
behavior start influences, good or bad,
that shall roll on through the advancing ages.
But our business is, like David, TO serve our
own generation, the people now living, those
whose lungs now breathe and whose hearts
now beat. And mark you, it is not a silent
procession, but moving It is forced march
at twenty-four miles day, each hour being
a mile. Going with that celerity, 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 eight generations paG and wii
not see the one hundred generations to come,
but this generation now on the stage will soon
be off and we ourselves will be Off with
them. The fact is that you and will have
to start very soon for our work OF it will be
ronical and sarcastic for any one after our
exit to say Of US, as it was said Of David
in our text, ''after he had served his own
generation, he fell asleep"
Well, now, let us look around earnestly,
prayerfully and in a common sense way and
see what we can do for our own generation.
First of all let US see to it that, as far as we
can, they have enough to eat. The human
body is so constituted that three times a day
the body needs food as much as lamp needs
oil, as much as a locomotive needs fuel. To
meet this want God has girdled the earth
with apple orchards, orange groves, wheat
fields and oceans full Of fish and prairies full
of cattle And notwithstanding this, 1 Will
undertake to say that the vast majority of
the human family are suffering either for
lack of food or the right kind Of food. Our
civilization is all askew on this subject and
God only can set it right.
REMEMBER THE PooR.
Many of the greatest estates Of today have
been built out Of the blood and bones Of un-
requited toll. In olden times, for the build
ing Of forts and towers, the inhabitants Of
Ispahan had to contribute seventy thousand
human skulls and Bagdad ninety thousand
human skulls, and that number of people
were slain so as to furnish the skulls. But
these two contributions added together made
only one hundred and sixty thousand skulls,
while into the tower of the worlds wealth
and pomp and magnilcence have been
wrought the skeletons Of uncounted numbers
of the half fed populations of the earth,
millions of skulls.
Don't sit down at your table with five or
six courses of abundant supply and think
nothing of that family in the next street who
would take any one Of those five courses be-
tween soup and almond nuts and feel they
were in heaven. The lack of the right kind
of food is the cause of much of the drunken
ness. After drinking what many of our grocers
call coffee, swe,tened with what many call
sugar, and eating what many Of our butchers
call meat, and chewing what many Of our
bakers call bread, many Of the laboring
classes feel so miserable they are tempted to
put into their nasty pipes what the tobacco
mist calls tobacco, or 60 into the drinking
saloons for what the rum sellers call beer.
Good rnfrna rrnl1ld do much in driving out