The Brookhaven leader., 1889-03-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
"The Moonlight Ride" of Nehemiah
Discoursed Upon.
Affection for the Church Among True
Worshippers ONLY Second to that for
Home-The Satisfying Influ-
ence of Christian Labor.

Cohclulau. MS NeNJ was.
Then went up in the night by the brook and
viewed the wall and turned back and entered
by the gate OF the valley, and so returned
Nehemiah, Il, IS
A dead city is more suggestive than a
living one-past Rome than living Rome
ruins rather than newly-frescoed ca
thedral. But the best time to visit ruin
Is by moonlight. The Coliseum is far
more fascinating to the traveller after
shutdown than before. You may stand by
daylight amid the monastio ruins OF Mel
rose Abbey, and study shafted oriel and
rosetted stone and mullion, but they
throw their strongest witchery by moon
light. Some of you remember what the
enchanter Of Scotland said in the "Lay of
the Last MINSTREL"
wouldst thou view fair Melrose Alright
Go visit 1t by the pale moonlight.
Washington Irving describes the Anda-
lusian moonlight upon the Alhambra
ruins as amounting to enchantment. My
text presents you Jerusalem in ruins.
The tower down. The gates down. The
walls down. Every thing down. Nehe-
miah on horseback, by moonlight looking
upon the ruins. While he rides, there
are some friends on foot going with him,
for they do not want the many horses to
disturb the suspicious of the people.
These people do not know the secret of
Nehemiah's heart, but they are going as a
sort of body guard. l hear the click
ing hoofs of the horse on which
Nehemiah rides as he guides it this
way and that, into this gate and out
of that, winding through that gate
amid the debris of once great Je-
rusalem. Now the .horse comes to a
dead halt at the tumbled masonry where
he can not pass. Now he SHES off at the
charred timbers. Now he comes along
where the water under the moonlight
flashes from the mouth of the brazen
dragon after which the gate was named.
Heavy hearted Nehemiah! riding in and
out, now by his old home desolated, now
by the defaced temple. now amid the
scars of the city that had gone down
under battering ram and cOnflagratiOn.
The escorting party knows not what
Nehemiah means. Is he getting crazy?
Have his own personal sorrows, added to
the sorrows of the nation, unbalanced his
intellect?
Still the midnight exploration goes on.
Nehemiah on horseback rides through the
fish gate, by the tower of the furnaces,
by the Kings pool, by the dragon we'll. in
and out, in and out until the midnight
ride is completed, and Nehemiah dis
mounts from his horse, and to the amazed
and COMPOUNDED and incredulous body
guard declares the dead secret of his heart
when he says: "Come, now, let us build
Jerusalem" "What, Nehemiah, have you
any money!" ''No." Have you any
kingly authority" "No." Have you
any eloquence" ''No." Yet that mid
night, moonlight ride of Nehemiah re-
suited in the glorious rebuilding of the
City of Jerusalem. The people knew not
how the thing was TO be done, but
with great enthusiasm they cried out,
"Let US rise up now and build the city,"
Some people laughed and said it could not
be done. Some people were infuriate
and offered physical violence, saying the
thing should not be done. But the work
men went right on, standing on the wall,
trowel in one hand, sword in the other,
until the work was gloriously completed.
AT that very time, in Greece, Xenophon
was writing a history; and Plato was
making philosophy, and Demosthenes wa )
rafting his rhetorical thunder, but all of
them together did not do so much for the
world as this midnight, moonlight ride Of
praying, courageous, homesick, close
mouthed Nehemiah.
My subject first impresses me with the
idea what an intense thing Is church af-
stop Nehemiah. Why are you risking
your life here in the night? Your horse
will stumble over these ruins and fall on
you, Stop this useless exposure of your
life. No; Nehemiah will not stop He at
last tells US the whole story. He lets us
know he was an exile in far distant land,
ana he was servant, cup bearer in the
palace OF ArtaXerxes LOngimanus, and
one day, while he was handing the cup
OF wine to the King, the King said to
him: what is the matter with
you: You are not sick. 1 know you
must have some great trouble. What is
the matter with your" Then he told the
King how that beloved Jerusalem was
broken down; how that his fathers tomb
had been desecrated; how that the tenn
pie had been dishonored and defaced;
how that the walls were scattered and
broken. "Well," says King Artaxerxes,
"what do you want?" "Well," said the
cup bearer Nehemiah, u want to 90
homo. l want to fix up The grave of nv
father. l want to restore the beauty of
the temple. l want to rebuild the masonry
OF the city wall. Besides, | want pass
ports so that l shall not be hindered
III my journey. And besides that"
as you will find In the context
II want an order on the man who
keeps your forest for just so much timber
as l may need for the rebuilding of the
city," Glow long shall you be gomez"
said the King. The time of absence is ar
ranged. In hot haste this seeming ad-
venturer comes to Jerusalem, and in my
text we FIND him on horseback, in the
midnight riding around the ruins. 1t is
through the spectacles of this scene that
we discover the ardent attachment of
Nehemiah for sacred Jerusalem, which in
all ages has been the type of the Church
of God, our Jerusalem, which we love Just
as much as Nehemiah loved his Jerusa-
lem.
The fact is that you love the Church of
God so much that there is no spot on earth
so sacred, unless it is your own Preside.
The church has been to you so much COM
fort and illumination that there is nothing
that makes you SO irate as to have 1t talked
against. If there have been times when
you have been carried into captivity by
sickness, you lOnged for the church, our
holy Jerusalem, just as much as Nehe-
miah lOngel for his Jerusalem, and the
first day you came out you came to the
house of the Lord. When the temple
was in ruins, as ours was years ago, like
Nehemiah, you walked around and looked
at it, and i'll the moonlight you
stood listening if you could not hear
the voice OF the dead ,al, the
psalm OF the expired Sabbaths.
What Jerusalem was to Nehemiah
the Church of God is to you. Skeptics