The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-04-18
TALMAGFs SERMON.
sour Own Generation" and How
We May Best Serve It.
The Work of David, the Poet, Prophet and
King for His Generation. and the
Practical Lessons to be
Drawn Therefrom.

ulcdtlnS LIS DISCOURSE Oh tHo AohO"AoS
text:
David, after he had served his own genera
ton by the will Of God, fell on sleep.
That is text which has for a long time
been running through my mind, but not
until now has it been fully revealed to
me. Sermons have time to be born as
well as a time to die, cradle as grave.
David, cowboy and stone-slinger and
lighter, and car and dramatist and
blank verse writer and prophet, did his
best for the people of his time, and then
went and laid down on the southern hill
Of Jerusalem in that sound slumber
which nothing but an archangelic blast
can startle. "David, after he had served
his own generation by the will of God,
fell on Sleep"
Many of the greatest estates of to-day
have been built out of the blood and bones
of unrequited toll. In olden times, for
the building of forts and towns, the in
habitants of Ispahan had to contribute
seventy thousand human skulls, and
Bagdad ninety thousand human skulls,
and that number of people we're slain so
as to furnish the skulls. But these two
contributions added together made only
one hundred and sixty thousand skulls,
while into the tower of the worlds wealth
and pomp and magnifcence have been
wrought the skeletons of uncounted num-
bers of the half-fed populations of the
earth, millions of skulls.
Don't sit down at your table with five or
six courses Of abundant supply and think
nothing Of that family in the next street
who would take any one of those five
courses between soup and almond nuts
and feel they were in Heaven. The lack
Of the right kind of food is the cause of
much of the drunkenness. After drink
ing what many of our grocers call coffee,
sweetened with what many call sugar,
and eating what many of our butchers call
meat, and chewing what many of our
bakers call bread, many of the labOring
classes feel SO miserable they are tempted
to put into their nasty pipes what the to-
bacconist calls tobacco, or go into the
drinking saloons for what the rum sell
ers call beer. Good coffee would do
much in driving out bad rum. Adult
teration of food has got to be an evil
against which all the health officers
and all the doctors and all the
ministers and all the reformers and all
the Christians need to set themselves in
battle array. How can we serve our gen.
Grafton with enough to eat? By sitting
down in embroidered slippers and loung-
ing back in an arm chair, our mouth
puckered up around Havana of the
best brand and through clouds of luxuri-
ant smoke reading about political econo-
my and the philosophy of strikes? Mol
No! By finding out who in Brooklyn has
been living on gristle and sending them a
foadaTiniD haaFC{a1ly ont
family who through sickness or conjunc-
ton Of misfortune have not enough to eat
and do for them what Christ did for the
hungry multitudes of Asia Minor, multi
plying the loaves and the fishes. Let us
quit the surfeiting of ourselves until we
can not choke down another crumb of
cake and begin the supply of others ne
cessities.
We often see on q small scale a reck-
lessness about the welfare of others which
q great warrior expressed on large
scale, when his officers were dissuading
him from a certain campaign, saying:
1T would cost two hundred thousand
lives" replying with diabolism that can
never be forgotten: 'What are two hum
dred thousand lives to me?"
So far from helping appease the worlds
hunger, there are those whom Isaiah de-
scribes as grinding the faces of the poor.
You have seen a farmer or q mechanic
put scythe or an axe on grindstone,
while some one was turning it round and
round, and the man holding the axe bore
on it harder and harder, while the water
dropped from the grindstone, and the edge
of the axe, from being round and dull, got
keener and keener, and the mechanic lifted
the axe glistening and sharp, and with
edge so keen he must cautiouly run his
finger along lest while examining the in
strunlent he cut his hand to the bone. So
have seen men who were put against the
grindstone of hardship, and while one
turned the crank another would press the
unfortunate harder down and harder down
until he was ground away thinner and
thinner, his comforts thinner, his pros
poets thinner and his face thinner. And
Isaiah shrieks out: ''What mean We that
ye grind the faces of the poor?o 1t is an
awful thing to be hungry. 1t is an easy
thing for us to be in good humor with ali
the world when we have no lack. But let
hunger take full possession of us and we
would all turn into barbarians and canni-
balls and fiends.
am glad to know that the time is COM
ing-God hasten it-when every family in
the round world will sit down at a full
table, and it will be only question be-
tween lamb and venison, or between
partridge and quail on toast, and out of
spoons made of Nevada silver or Cali
fornia gold the pastries will drop on
tongues thrilling with thankfulness be-
cause they have full enough. have no
idea God is going to let the human race
stay IN its present predieament. If the
world winds up as it now is it will be an
awful failure of a world. The barren
places win be irrigated. The pornologists,
helped of God, will urge on the fruits.
The botanists, inspired of the Lord, will
help on the gardens. The raisers of stock
viii send enough animals fit for human
1000 to the markets, and the last earth
quake that rends the world will upset a
banqueting table at which are seated the
entire human race. Meanwhile. suppose
that some of the energy we are expanding
IN useless and unavailing talk about the
bread question should be expended in
merciful alterations.
have read that the battle field ON
which more troops met than on any other
in the worlds history was the battle field
Of Leipsic, one hundred and sixty thou
sand men under Napoleon, two hundred
and fifty thousand men under Schwarze-
berg. No. no The GREATEST and ~oos4