The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-04-24
TO SAVE THE PERISHING.
SOLEMN THOUGHTS ON THE WORK.
Dr. Talmage Looking Forward to the SAL
walton of Men of Every Race-The Al
naanac Second Only to the Bible
The Clocks Power.

At the Brooklyn tabernacle, last Sun
day, after expounding passages descriptive
of the world as it shall be when gospel
lied, DR.. Talmage gave out the hymn:
People and realms Of every tongue
Dwell His love with sweetest song.
Text, Revelations, xix, 4; Amen; Al
leluia."
The nineteenth century is departing.
After Il has taken a few more steps, II
each year be a step, it will be gone into
the eternities. In short time we shall
be in the last decade of this century,
which fact makes the solemnest book out
side the bible the almanac, and the most
suggestive and the most tremendous piece
of machinery in all the earth the clock
The last decade of this century upon
which we shall soon enter viii be the
grandest, mightiest and most decisive de-
cade in all the chronologies. / am glad 1t
Is not to come Immediately, for we need
by new baptism OF the holy ghost to
prepare for it. That last ten years
all live to see them Does anyone
say that this division of time is arbitrary?
Oh, no; in other ages the divisions of time
may have been arbitrary, but our years
date from Christ. Does any one
say that the grouping of ten
together is an arrangement arbitrary
Oh, no; next to the figure seven, ten is
with God favorite number. Abraham
dwelt ten years IN Canaan. Ten righteous
men would have saved SOdom. In the
I
their pillars ten, and their sockets ten.
In the ancient temple were ten LAYERS and
ten candlestick and ten tables and a mol
ten sea of ten cubits. And the command
ments written on Mount Sinai were ten,
and ten men should lay hold of him that
was Jew, and the reward of the greatly
faithful is that they shall reign over ten
cities, and in the effort to take the census
of the New Jerusalem the number ten
swings around the thousands, crying ten
thousand times ten thousand" So come
to look toward the closing ten years OF the
nineteenth century with an intensity of
interest l can hardly describe.
l have also noticed that the favorite time
in many of the centuries for great events
was the closing fragment of the century.
Is America to be discovered, it must be in
the last decade of the fifteenth century,
namely, 1892. Was free constitutional
government to be well established In
America. the last years OF the eighteenth
century must achieve 1T. Were three
cities to be submerged by one pitch OF
scoria, Herculaneum and Strabie and
Pompeii in the latter part of the first cen
fury must 60 under. The fourth century
closed with the most agitating ecclesias-
teal war of history-Urhan VI against
Clement VII. Alfred the Great closes the
Il L Il
eleventh century with their resounding
deeds. The sixteenth century closed with
the establishment of religious independ-
ence in the United Netherlands. Ave,
almost every century has had its perora-
ton OF Overtowering achievements. As
the closing years of the centuries seem
favOrite time for great scenes of emancipa-
ton or disaster, and as the number ten
seems a favorite number in the scriptures,
written by divine direction, and as we are
soon TO enter upon the last ten wears of
the nineteenth century, what does the
world propose? What does the church
OF Christ proprose? What do reform
ers propose? | know not but now, in
the presence of this consecrated assembly,
/ propose that We make ready, get all our
batteries planted and our plans we'll laid
in what remains in this decade, and then
in the last decade OF the nineteenth CEN
fury march up and take this round world
for God.
When I say we I mean the 100000 900
Christians now alive. But as many of
them will not have enough heart for the
work, let US copy Gideon as he had g, 900
men in his army to fight the Midianites,
but many OF them were not made of the
right stuff, and he promulgated a military
order saying: "Whosoever is fearful and
afraid let him return and depart early
from Gilead," and 22OOO were afraid of
getting hurt and went home. and only
10000 were left and God told them that
even this reduced number was too large
a number, for they might think they had
triumphed independent of divine help,
and so the number must be still further
reduced, and only those should be kept
IN the ranks who in passing the river
should be so in haste for victory over
their enemies that. though very thirsty
they would, without stopping a second,
Just scoop up the water in the palm OF
their right hand. and scoop up the water
In the palm of their left hand, and only
800 men did that, and those 800 men, with
the battle-shout "The sword of the Lord
and of Gideon" scattered the Midianites
like leaves in an equinox; so out of tine
5O0,00OOO0 nominal Christians of to-day
let all unbelievers and towards go home
and get out of the way. And suppose we
have only 4O0,OO0,000 left-suppose only
20O,OO0,00O left-suppose only 100000, 900
left-yea, suppose we only have 50,00O,00O
left, with them we will undertake the
divine crusade. and each one just SCOOP
ing up a painful of the river of Gods
mercy in one hand and a painful Of
the river of Gods strength in the other.
let US, with the cry, "The sword of the
Lord and OF Gideon" the sword Of the
Lord and of John Knox, the sword of the
Lord and of Matthew Simpson, the sword
OF the Lord and of Bishop McIlvaine, the
sword of the Lord and OF Adoniram JUDI
son, the sword of the Lord and of Martin
Luther, 90 into rhe last decade of the
nineteenth century.
is il audacious for me to propose it E?
Oh, no; a captive servant in the kitchen
of Naaman told the cOmmander-in-chief
where he could get rid OF the blotches of
his awful leprosy, and his complexion
became fair as a babes. And didn't
Christ, in order to take the opthalmia out
of the eyes Of the blind man, use mix
ture of spittle and dust2 And who showed
Butcher a short cut for his army so that,
instead of taking the regular road, by
which he would have come up late, he
came up in time to save Waterloo and
Europe? Was it not an unknown lad
who perhaps could not write his own