The Russellville Democrat., 1889-02-21
TALMAGES SERMON.
"our Own Generation" and How
 We May Best Serve It.
Fae Work of David, the Poet, t,Prophet and
 King for His Generation. and the Practical Lessons to be Drawn Therefrom.

nacle Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for
 his subject: "Our Own Generation" pre-
 dicating his discourse on the following text:
 David, after he had served his own genera
 tion by the will of God, fell on sleep.
 That is a text which has for a long time
 been running through my mind, but not until now has it been fully revealed to
 me. Sermons have time to be born as
 well as a time to die, cradle as grave.
 David, cowboy and stone-slinger and l fighter, and czar and 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 l of Jerusalem in that sound slumber
 which nothing but an arehangelic blast
 can startle. "David after he had served
 his own generation by the will of God, | fell on sleep"
 l Well, now, let us look around earnest | ly, prayerfully and in a common sense
 way and see what we can do for our
 own generation. First of all let us see to | 1t that, as far as we can, they have enough l to eat. The human body is so constituted | that three times day the body needs food
 as much as lamp needs oil-as much as
 a locomotive needs fuel. To meet this
 
 | pie orchards. orange groves, wheat fields
 aud oceans full of fish, and prairies full of cattle. And, notwithstanding this, will
 undertake to say that the vast majority of
 the human family arc suffering either for | lack of food or the right kind of food. Our l civilization is all askew on this. subject l and God only can set it right.
 | Many of the greatest estates of to-day l have been built out of the blood and bones of unrequited toll. In olden times, for the building of forts and towns, the in- | habitants 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 magnifcence have been wrought the skeletons of uncounted num- bers 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 between 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 drunkenness After drink ! ing what many of our grocers call coffee, sweetened 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 to- bacconist calls tobacco, or go into the drinking saloons for what the rum sell CTS call beer. Good coffee would do much in driving out bad rum. Adul- iteration of food. has got to be an evi! against which all the health officers and all the doctors and all the ministers and all the reformers and all the Christians need to set themselves in battle array. How can we serve our gen. eration with enough to eat? By sitting down in embroidered slippers and loung- ing back in an arm chair, our mouth puckered up around a Havana of the best brand and through clouds of luxuri- ant smoke reading about political econo- my and the philosophy of strikes? No! No! By finding out who in Brooklyn has been living on gristle and sending them 0 tenderloin beefsteak. Seek out some family who through sickness or conjunc- tion of misfortune have not enough to eat and do for them what Christ did for the hungry mtltitudes of Asia Minor, multi plying the loaves and the fishes. Let us quit the surfeiting of ourselves until we can not choke down another crumb of cake and begin the supply of others ne- cessities.
 We often see on small scale reck- lessness about the welfare of others which a great warrior expressed on large scale, when his officers were dissuading him from a certain campaign, saying: "It would cost two hundred thousand lives" replying with diabolism that can never be forgotten: "What are two hun dred thousand lives to me"
 So far from helping appease the worlds hunger, there are those whom Isaiah de- scribes as grinding the faces of the poor. You have seen a farmer or mechanic put scythe or an axe on a grindstone, while some one was turning 1t round and round, and the man holding the axe bore on it harder and harder, while the water dropped from the grindstone, ,and the edge of the axe from being round and dull, got keener and keener, and the mechanic lifted the axe glistening and sharp, and with edge so keen he must cautiouly run his finger along lest while examining the in strument 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 press the unfortunate harder down and harder down entil he was ground away thinner and thinner, his comforts thinner, his pros- poets thinner and his face thinner. And Isaiah shrieks out: "Nhat mean ye that ye grind the faces of the poor" It is an awful thing to be hungry. It is an easy F,.,. I, "A al the world when we have no lack. But let hunger take full possession of us and wo would all turn into bafbarians and canni- bals and fends.
 am glad to know that inc time is com ing God hasten it--when every family in the round world will sit down at full table, and ii will be only a question be- tween lamb and yenison, or between partridge and quail on toast and out of spoons made of Nevada silver or Cali fornia gold the pastries will drop on tongues thrilling with thapkfulness be- cause they have full enough. l have no idea God is going to let the human race stay in it's present predicament If the world winds up as it now is it will be an awful failure of world. The barren places will be irrigated. The pomologists, helped of God, will urge on the fruits. The botanists, inspired of the Lord, will help on the gardens. The raisers of stock will send enough animals fit for human food to the markets, and the last earth quake that rends the world will upset Q banquoting table at which are seated the entire human race Meanwhile, suppose that some of the energy We are eNpending in useless and unayailing talk about the bread question should be expended in merciful alleyiations.
 I have read that the battle field on which more troops met than on any other in the worlds history was the battle field of Leipsic, one hundred and sixty thou- sand men under Napoleon, two hundred and fifty thousand men under Schwarze- berg. No, no. The greatest and most terrific battle Is now being fought all the