Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-16
TWO CITIES STREETS.
Those of the Modern Metropolis, and
of the New Jerusalem.
DE-. TALMAGE DEPICTS THEM BOTH.
Great, Needless ThrOngs Rushing and
Looking Forward Only.
LESSONS ALL MAY LEARN IN WALKING

lbfhOlAL 1hLhOhAA DloBATCH.l
BROOKLYN, September 15-The Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage, D. D., preached at the
Tabernacle to-day to vast congregation on
1.-The City Streets" His text was: "Wis-
dom crieth without; she uttereth her voice
in the streets" Prov. j., 90. Ee said:
We are all ready to listen to the voices of
nature-the voices of the mountain, the
voices of the sea, the voices of the storm,
the voices of the star. As in some of the
cathedrals in Europe there is. an organ at
either end of the building, and the one in
strument responds musically to the other,
so in the great cathedral of nature day
responds TO day, and night to night and
flower to flower and star to star, in the great
harmonies of the universe. The spring
time is an evangelist in blossoms, preaching
of Gods love; and the winter is prophet
white bearded-denouncing woe against
our sins. We are all ready to listen to the
voices of nature; but how few of us
learn anything from the voices of the noisy
and dusty. street. You go to your mer-
chandise, and your mechanism, and to your
work, and you come back again-and often
with an indifferent heart you pass through
the streets.
Are there no things for us to learn from
these pavements over which we pass? Are
there no tufts of truth growing up between
these cobblestones, beaten with the feet of
toll, and pain, and pleasure, the slow tread
of old age, and the quick step of childhood?
Aye, there are great harvests to be reaped;
and now thrust in tine sickle because the
harvest is ripe. Wisdom crieth without;
she uttereth her voice in the Streets
In the first place the street impresses me
with tn fact that this life is a scene of toll
and struggle. By 10 o'clock every day the
city is jarring with wheels, and shuff1ing
with feet, and humming with voices and
covered with the breath of smokestacks, and
a-rush with traffickers.
NEARLY ALL SING SONGS OF WORK.
Once in while you find a man going
along with folded arms and with leisurely
step, as though he had nothing to do; but
Tor the most part, as you find men going
down these streets, on the way to business,
there is anxiety in their faces, as though they |
had some errand which must be executed at |
the first possible moment. You are jostled |
by those who have bargains to make and |
notes to sell. Up this ladder with hod of |
bricks, out of this bank with a roll Of bills, /
cellar, or shingling a roof, or shoeing a |
horse, or building a wall, or mending a
watch, or binding book. Industry, with |
her thousand arms and thousand eyes and |
thousand feet goes on singing her song OF
work work work while the mills drum
ii, and the steam whistles fife It.
All this is not because men love toll.
Some one remarked: Every man is as law
as he can afford to be- But it is because
;+b hro, o,,J
whip, stands over them ready whenever
they relax their toll to make their shoulders
sting with the lash.
Can it be that, passing up and down these
streets on your way to work and business,
you do not learn anything OF the worlds |
toll, and anxiety, and struggle? Oh! how
many dropping hearts, how many ewes on |
the watch, how many miles travelled, how |
many burdens carried, how many losses |
suffered, how many battles fought, how
many victories gained, how many defeats
suffered, how many exasperations endured
what losses, what hunger, what wretched-
ness, what pallor, what disease, what agony,
what despair!
Sometimes have stopped at the corner
of the street as the multitude went hither
and you, and it has seemed to be great
pantomime, and as 1 looked upon it my
heart broke. This great tide of human life
NAAtAh SOCs NOhH tlG SlI6Sl ~ Idplu, tossed
and turned aside, and dashing ahead and
driven back-beautiful in its confusion and
confused in its beauty.
TWO CONTRASTING STUDIES.
In the earpeted aisles of the forest, in the
woods from which the eternal shadow is
never lifted, on the shore of the sea over
whose iron coast tosses the tangled foam,
sprinkiing the cracked cliffs with baptism
of whirlwind and tempest, is the best place
to study God; but in the rushing, swarm
ing, raving street is the best place to study
man.
Going down to your place of business and
coming home again, l charge you look
about-see these signs of poverty, of wretch
edness, OF hunger, of sin; o! bereavement
and as you go through the streets, and come
back through the streets, gather up in the
arms of your prayer all the sorrow, ali the
losses, ali the suffering. all the bereavements
OF those whom you pass; and present them
In prayer before an all sympathetic God
Then in the great day of eternity there
Will be thousands Of persons with whom
you in this world never exchanged one
word who will rise up and call you blessed;
and there will be thousand fingers pointed
at you in heaven, saying:
That is the man, that is the woman, who
helped me when 1 was hungry, and sick.
and wandering, and lost, and heartbroken.
That is the man, that is the woman" and
the blessing viii come down upon YOU as
Christ shall say: 81 was hungry and We
fed me, was naked and ye clothed me. 1
was sick and in prison and We visited me;
lnasmuch as We did it to these poor waits of
the streets, We did it to me-"
Again, the street impresses me with the /
fact that all classes and conditions of socie-
ty must commingle. We sometimes culture
a wicked exclusiveness. Intellect despises
ignorance. Refinement will have nothing |
to DO with boorishness. Gloves hate the
sun-burned hand, and the high forehead
despises the fiat head; and the trim hedge
row will have nothing to do with the wild
copsewood, and Athens hates Nazareth.
This ought not to be so. The astronomer
must come down from his starry revelrv and
help us in our navigation. The surgeon
must come away from his study of the hu-
man organism and set our broken bones.
REAL COMMUNITY OF INTEREST.
The chemist must come away from his :
laboratory, where be has been studying an
alysls and synthesis, and hel p us to under |
stand the nature of the Soils 1 bless God
that all classes of people are compelled to {
meet on the street. The glittering coach
wheel clashes against the scavenger's cart,
Fine robes run against the peddler's pack. /
Robust health meets wan sickness. Honesty ]
confronts fraud. Every class of people {
meets every other class Independence and |
Inodesty, pride and humility, purity and q
beastliness, irankness and hypocrisy. meet j
ing on the same block, in the same street. in 7
the same city. Oh! that is what Solomon |
meant when he said: "The rich and the 1
noor meet topefhpr fhe T. ord is tho Molor