News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-02-21
SUNDAYS SERMON.
ONE OF REV. DIR TALNdAGES
STERLING DISCOURSES
Subject: sour Own Generation"

That is a text which has for a long tim
been running through my mind, but not un
Il now has it been fully revealed to m,
Sermons have a time to be born as well as
time to die, a cradle as well as a grav,
vid. cowboy and stoneslinger AMI fl hte
and car ami dramatist and blank vers
writer and prophet, did his best for he peopl
OF his time and then went and laid down o
the southern hill of Jerusalem in that SCUM
s.un6er which nothing but an archangeli
blast can startle David, after he ha
served his own generation by the will of God
fell on sleep"
1t was his own generation that he ha
served; that is, the people living at the tim
he lived. And have you ever thought tina
our responsibilities are chiefly with tn
peope now walking abreast OF us! Their
are about four generations to a century now
but IN den time life was longer and Their
was, perhaps, only one generation to a Cen
fury. Taking these facts into the calculation
nuke rough guess and say that there hav
been at least one hundred and eighty
generations of the human family. Will
reference to them we have no responsibility
We cannot teach them, we cannot correc
their mistakes we cannot soothe their sor
rows, We cannot heal their wounds. Thel
sepulchers are deaf and dumb to anything
we might say to them. The last regiment o.
that great army has passed out Of sight.
might halloo as loud as we could, not one Of
Them would avert his head to see what We
wanted.
/ admit that 1 am in sympathy with the
child whose father had suddenly died and
who in her little evening prayer wanted tc
cont, niue 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: 30, mother, 1 can
not leave him all out. Let me say,
Thank Gcd that 1 had good father once,
and so | can keep him in my pray.
eiS.'" But the one hundred and eighty gen
= a
down. Gone forever. Then there are gener-
ations to come after our ear hiy existence
has ceased, perhaps hundred and eighty
generations more, perhaps thousand gener-
at ons more. We shall not soc them, we sha /
not hear any of their voices, we will take no
part in III ir conversations. their elections,
their revolutions, their catastrophes. their
trlumphs. We will In no wise affect the one
hundred AMI eighty generations gone, or the
ole 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 BIT our bust
ness 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. 1t is forced march at twenty
Tour miles day, each hour beng a mile.
Going with III 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
general on now on the stage will soon be of
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 of
us as it was said of David, after he had
served his own generation by the will of God,
he fell on sleep"
Well, now. let US look around earnestly,
prayerfully and in a common sense way AMI
see what we can do for our own generation.
First OF al 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 much as a lamp
needs oil. as much as locomotive
needs fuel. To meet this want God
has girslled the earth with appls orchards
orange groves, wheat fields and oceans full
OF fish and prairies full. of cattle. And not
withstanding this, | will undertake to say
that the vast majority of the human family
are suffering either for lack of food or the
right kind of fool Our civilization is all
askew on this sub ect AMI God only can set
it right.
Many CT the greatest estates Of to day have
been built out of the blood and bones of I'M
requited toll. In oiden times for the build
Ing. of forts and towers, the inhabitants
skulls, and Bagdai 90. 900 human skulls, and
that number of people were slain so as to
furnish the skulls. But these two contribu-
tons added together made only l6O, 900
skulls, while into the tower of the worlds
wealth and pomp aad magnificence have
been wrought che skeletons of uncounted
NUMBERS of the half fed populations of the
els th, mill ons 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
-tweeB-seup- -alfaond-Tfues ana feet thew
were in heaven. The lack of the right kind
of food is the cause of much of the drunk
enness. After drinking what many of our
grocers call coffee, sseetene1 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 thu
laborIng classes feel SO miserable they are
tempted to put into their nasty pines
what thu to5acconist ca Is tobacco. or
60 into the drinking saloons for what tine
rum sellers call beer Good coffes would do
much in driving out hal rum. Adalteration
OF food has got to be an evil against which
all the health officers and all the doctors and
all the ministers and all the reformers and
all the CHRISTIANS neet to set them
selves in battle array. How can we serve
our generation with enough to eat By sit
ting down in embroidered slippers and !oung-
ing back In an armchair, our mouth uck-
and through clouds of luxuriant smoke read
ing about political economy and the phi os-
ophy OF strikesi MOI MOI By finding out
who in Brooklyn has been living on grist!e
and sending them tenderloin beefsteak.
Seek ont some fam ly who through sickness
or conjunction of misfortune have
them what Christ dill for the
hungry mul5itui of Asia Minor, multiply
ing the loaves and the fishes Let us quit
the surfeiting of ourselves until we cannot
choke down another crumb of cake and be-
gin the sup Y OF others necessities.
We often see on small scale recklessness
about the welfare of others which q great
warrior expressed on a large sca!e when his
officers were diSsu idins him from a certain
saying: 1T would cost two hum
dref thousand lives rep wing with diaboi-
ism that can never be forgotten: What are
two hun ired THOUSAND lives to meF'
So far from helping appsase the worlds
hunger, there are those whom Isaiah de-
scribes rs grin ling the faces OF ths poor You
have seen farmer or mechanic put a
scythe or an ak on grindstone while some
one was turning it rouni AMI round an
the man holding the ak bore on it harder
and harder while the water drrp2sd from
the grindsione. and the edge of the ak from
being round and dull, got keener ana Keener,
and the mech mic LITE the ak glisten ng and
sharp an with edge so keen he must eau
tiously run bis finger along lest while ex
aiming the implement he cut his hand
to the bone. SO / have seen men who were
put against the grindstone of hardship, and
while one turned the crank another would
pres the unfortunate harder down and
harder down uutil he was gr Juld away thin
ner ami thinner, his comforts thinner, his
prospects thinner and his face thinner.
And Isaiah shrieks out: What mean We
that We grim the faces Of the poorf' 1t IS
an awfu thing to be hungry. 1t is an easy
thing for Us to be in good humor with all the
world when we have no lack. But let hun
ger take fu1 possession of us and We would
all turn into Nbarbarians and eannibals and
fends.
l am gla.l to know that the time is coming,
God hasten it, when every family in the
round world will sit down at a full ia bic. and
L will be only question between lamb
AMI vension, OF between partridge and
quail on toast, AMI out of spoons m tde
put of Nevada silver or California gold the
pastries will drop on tongues thrilling with
becau-e they have full enou n.
have no idea God is going to let the human
racs stay in its present predicament
II the worl1 winds up as it now
IS it will be an awful failure OF
world. The barren places will be
irrigated The ponologists. helped of God.
will urge on the fruits The botaDists. in
lpired of the Lord. will help on the gardens.
Inc raisers of STOCK will send enough ami
mails mt for human food to the markets, and
me last eartnquake tnac rendS the Worli
viii upset banqueting table at which are
'eated the entire human race. Meanwhile.
suppose that some of the energy we are ex-
pending in useless and unavaIling talk about
.he bread question should be expanded in
nerciful alleviations. =. ,zs -
] have read that the battle field on which
more troops met than on any other in the
worlds history was the battle field of Leip-
nc, 100000 men under Napoleon, 10000
men under Schwarzeber0 No no The
sre1test and most terrific battle is now be-
ng fought all the world over. IL is the
truggle for food. The ground tone of the
lne-r passage in one of the great musical