Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-05-09
GUARDED BY THE LORD.
An Appropriate Centennial Dis
course by DR.. Talmage.
Our Country Guarded BY the Divine Hosts
Struggles of the Thirteen Colonies
Other Ferris Safely Passed-A
Bright Future.

DAY DeIoTe Inc centennial OF the lnau gu
ration of George Washington as Presiden
OF the United States, DIR. Talmag
preached a sermon appropriate to the ap
preaching. anniversary. The text wa
from Kings vi II: "And the Lor
opened the eyes of the young man; an
he saw; and, behold, the mountain wa
full of horses and chariots of fire roun'
about Elisha" DR.. Talmage said:
As it cost England many regiments ant
81 00O year to keep safely trouble
soma captive at st. Helena, so the King o
Syria sends out a whole army TO captur
one minister of religion-perhaps 5000
men to take Elisha. During the night thu
army of AssYrians came around the vii
lage of Dothan. where the prophet wa
staying. At early day break the man serv
ant of Elisha rushed in and said: "Wha
shall we do? there is a whole army come
to destroy YOU. We shall die, we shall
die" But Elisha was not scared bit, fol
he looked up and saw the mountain:
all around full of supernatural
forces. and he knew that if there were
500 Assyrians against him. there were
100000 for him; and in answer to the
prophets prayer in behalf of his affrighted
man servant, the young man saw it too.
Horses of fire harnessed to chariots OF
fire. and drivers of fire pulling reins of fire
on bits of fire, and warriors of fire with
brandished swords of fire, and the bril-
lance of that morning sunrise was
eclipsed by the galloping splendors of the
celestial cavalcade. And the Lord
opened the eyes of the young man; and
he saw; and, behold, the mountain was
full of horses and chariots of fire round
about Elisha" 1 have often spoken to
you of the Assyrian periIs which threaten
our American institutions, but now, as we
are assembling to keep the centennial
celebration of the inau guration of Wash
ington, speak of the upper forces of the
text that are to fight on our side.
You will notice that the divine equipage
is always represented as a chariot of fire.
Ezekiel and Isaiah and John, when they
come to describe the divine equipage, al
ways represent it as a wheeled, a har-
messed, an upholstered conflagration. 1t
is not chariot like kings and conquerors
of earth mount but an organized and
compressed fire. That means purity, JUS
tice, chastisement, deliverance through
burning escapes. Chariot of rescue? Yes,
but chariot of fire. All our national dis
entertainments have been through scorch-
ing agOnies and red disasters. Through
tribuiation the individual rises. Thror I'll
tribulation nations rise. Chario:s OF ss-
cue, but chariots of fire.
But how do l know that this divine
Pquipage is on the side of our institutions?
know it by the history of the last one
hundred and eight years. The American
revolution started from the pen of John
Hancock in Independence Hall in 1776
The colonies without ships, without am
munitlon, without guns, without trained
warriors, without money, without prestige.
On the other side. the mightiest nation of
the earth, the largest armies and the
grandeSt nav:es and the most distinguished
commanders, and resources inexhaustible.
and nearly all nations ready to back them
up in the fight Nothing as against i'm
mensity.
The cause Of the American colonies,
which started at zero, dropped still lower
through the quarreling of the Generals
and through the jealousies at small sue
cess and through the winters which sur
passed all predecessors in depth of
snow and horrors of congealment. Elisha
surrounded by the whole Assyrian army
did not seem 10 be worse off than did the
thirteen colonies encompassed and over
Swallowed by foreign assault. What de- |
cided the contest in our favor? The upper |
forces, the upper armies. The Green and |
White mountains of New England, the |
highlands along the Hudson. the mount
aims OF Virginia, all the Appalachian
ranges were full of reinforcements which
the young man, Washington, saw by
faith; and his men endured the frozen
feet and the gangrened wounds and the
exhausting hunger and the long march
because ''the Lord opened the ewes of the
young man; and he saw; and, behold the
mountains were full of horses and chariots
of fire round about Elisha"
Washington himself was a miracle.
What Joshua was in sacred history the
first American President was in secular |
history. A thousand other men excelled |
him in different things, but he excelled |
them all in roundness and completeness |
of character. The world never saw his |
like and probably never will see his like |
again, because there probably never will |
be another such exigency. He was let |
down a divine interposition. He was
from God direct l do not know how any |
man can read the history of those times |
without admitting that the contest was |
decided by the upper forces.
Then in 1861. when our civil war was
opened, many at the North and at the |
South pronounced it national suicide. 1t |
was not courage against cowardice, it was |
not wealth against poverty, it was not /
large States against small States. 1t was
heroism against heroism, it was the re-
sources OF many generations against the |
resources of generations, it was the PRAYER
South, it was e-half of the Nation in
armed wrath meeting the other half of
the Nation in armed indignation. What
could come but determination.
At the opening of the war the command
erin chief of the United States forces was
a man who had been great in battle, but
old age had come with many infirmities
and he had right to quietude. He could
not mount horse and he rode on the bat
tie field in a carriage, asking the driver
not Jolt 1t to much. During the most of
the four years of the contest, on the South
ern side was man in mid life, who had
In his veins the blood of many generations
of warriors, himself one of the heroes of
Cherubusco and Cerro Gordo, Contreras
and Chapultepec. As the years passed on
and the scroll of carnage unrolled, there
oAio OOb cObu SUES q 0oTOlSm ana q
strength and determination that the
world had never seen marshaled. And
what but determination could come when
Philip Sheridan and Stonewall jackson
met, and Nathaniel Lyon and Sidney
Johnston rode in from North and South.
and Grant and Lee, the two thunderbolts,
Yet we are a Nation and yet we
are at peace. Earthly courage did not
uecide the conflict The upper forces of
the text They tell us there was a battle
fought above the clouds on Lookout mount
ain, but there was something higher than
- I