Milford chronicle., 1889-09-20
THE STREETS OF THE CITY.
SERMON PREACHED SUNDAY, SEPT.
IS, BY REV. 7. DE WITT TALMAeE.

His Text, 'wisdom Crieth without; She
Utiercth Her Voice in the streets'-A
Discourse That Was Listened to by a
Vast Crowd Of People.
BROOKLYN, Sept. i5-The Rev. 7. De Witt
Talmage, D. D., preached at the Tabernacle
/ today to a vast congregation on "The City
Streets" His text was: Wisdom crieth
I without; she uttereth her voice in the
streets" Prov. /, 20. He 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 cathe
drals in Europe there is an organ at either
end Of the building, and the one instrument
( responds musically to the other, so in the
great cathedral Of nature day responds &c
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-denounc
1 ing 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
PAST Are there no tufts Of truth growing
up between these cobblestones, beaten with
the feet of toll, and pain, and pleasure, the
Of al md hn efor ~
childhood Aye, there are great harvests to
be reaped; and now thrust in the sickle be-
cause the harvest is ripe. "Wisdom crieth
without; she utteretbher voice in the streets. -
LIFE IS FULL OF LABOR
IN the first place, the street impresses me
with the fact that this life is a scene of toll
and struggle By 10 o'clock every day the
city is jarring with wheels, and shutting
with feet, and humming with voices, and
covered with the breath of smOkestacks and
a-rush with traffickers. Once in a while you
find a man going along with folded arms and
with leisurely step, as though he had nothing
to do; but for the most part, rs you find men
going down these streets on the way to bust
ness, there is anxiety in their faces, as though
they had some errand which must be exc
cuted at the first possible moment. You are
jostled by those who have bargains to make
and notes to sell. Up this ladder with bod
of bricks, out of this bank with roll of bills
on this dray with load of goods, digging a
cellar, or shingling a roof, or shooting 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 it and the steam
whistles fife it. All this is not because
men love toll Some one remarked: Every
man is as lazy as he can afford to
be-" But it is because necessity, with
stern brow and with uplifted 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
eyes 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 wretchedness, what pallor, what
disease, what agony, what despair! Some
times have stopped at the corner of the
Street as the multitudes went hither and yon,
and it has seemed to be great pantomime,
and as l looked upon it my heart broke.
This great tide of human life that goes down
the street is a rapid, tossed and turned aside,
and dashing ahead, and driven back-beauti-
full in its confusion, and confused in its beau
ty. In the carpeted 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 losses the tangled
foam, sprinkling the cracked cliffs with
a baptism of whirlwind and tempest,
is the best place to study God; but
in the rushing, swarming, raving street is the
best place to study man. Going down to
your place of business and coming home
again, 1 charge you look about-see these
signs of poverty, of wretchedness, OF hunger,
of sin, of bereavement-anda as you 20 through
the streets, and come back through the streets,
gather up in the arms of your prayer all the
sorrow, all the losses, all the suffering all the
bereavements Of those whom you pass, and
present them in prayer before an all sympa-
thetic God. Then in the great day of eter-
nifty 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 /
was hungry, and sick, and wandering, and
lost, and heart broken. That is the man, that
is the woman and the blessing will come
down upon you as Christ shall say: Il was
hungry and We fed me, was naked and We
clothed me, was sick and in prison and We
visited me; inasmuch as We did it to these
poor waits of the street, We did it to me-"
THE STREETS ARE FREE TO ALL.
Again, the street impresses me with the
fact that all classes and conditions of society
must commingle. We sometimes culture
wicked exclusiveness. Intellect despises ig-
norance. Refinement will have nothing to
do with boorishness. Gloves hate the sun
burned hand, and the high forehead despises
the fat head; and the trim hedgerow viii
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 revelry and help Us in our
navigation. The surgeon must come away
from his study Of the human organism and
set our broken bones. The chemist must
come away from his laboratory, where he
has been studying analysis and synthesis and
help us to understand the nature of the soils.
bless God that all classes of people are com.
PEELED to meet ON the street. The glitter
ing coach wheel clashes against the scav
the peddler's pack Robust health meets
wan sickness Honesty confronts fraud
Every class of people meets every other
class. Independence and modesty pride and
humility, purity and beastliness, franllness
and hypocrisy, meeting on the same block, in
the same street, in the same city. Oil that
is what solomon meant when he said: 1.-THE
rich and the poor meet together; TIE Lord is
the maker Of them all" like this demo
cratic principle Of the Gospel of jesus Christ,
which recognizes the fact that we stand be
fore God on one and the same platform, Do
not take on any airs; whatever position you
have gained in society you-aTe nothing but
a man, born Of the same parent, fegenerated
by the same Spirit, cleansed in the Nsame
blood, to lie down in the same dust, to get up
in the same resurrection. It is high time that
we all acknowledged not only the Father. !
hood of God. but the brotherhood Of man.