New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1889-07-24
OUT IN THE WOODS.
DR.. Talnage DWells on the Festal
Time When People Go from Cities
Into Woods and Cut Branches
for Booths.

Time When People Go from Cities
Into Woods and Cut Branches
for Booths.
The HAMProNs, July 14th.-The subject
of the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage's sermon to-
day was ''The Bower of Tree Branches =
His text was Nehemiah viii, 15-"Go forth
into the mount and fetch olive branches, and
palm branches, and pine branches, and
myrtle branches and branches of Thick trees
to make booths" Following is the sermon:
1t seems as if Mount Olvet were unmoored.
The people have gone into the mountain and
have cut off tree branches and put them on
their shoulders, and they come forth now in
to the streets of Jerusalem, and on the house
tops, and they twist these tree branches into
arbors or booths Then the people come
forth from their comfortable homes and
dwell for seven days in these booths or ar
bors. Why do they do that? Well. it is
great festal time. 1t is the feast of the tab
ernacle; and these people are going to cele-
brate the desert travel of their fathers and
their deliverance from their troubles, the ex
perience of their athers when, travelling in
the desert, they lived in booths on their way
to the land of Canaan. And SO these booths
also become highly suggestive-I will not
say they are necessarily typical, but highly
suggestive-of our march toward heaven
and of the fact that we are only living tenn
porarily here, as it were, in booths or arbors
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And what was said to the Jews literally
may today be said fguratively to all this
audience. Go forth into the mountain and
fetch olive branches, and myrtle branches,
and palm branches, and branches Of thick
trees to make booths. Yes we are only herein
a temporary residence. We are marching on.
The merchant princes who used to live in
Bowling Green, New York, have passed away
and their residences are now the fields of
cheap merchants. Where are the men who
fifty years ago owned New York? Passed
on.
There is no use in our driving our stakes
too deep into the earth; we are on the march.
The generations that have gone SO far on
that we can not even hear the sound of their
footsteps They have gone over the hills
and we are to follow them. But, blessed be
God, we are not in this world left out of
doors and unsheltered. There are gospel
arbors in which our souls are to be COM
forted Go forth unto the mountain and
fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and
myrtle branches, and palm branches and
branches of thick trees, and build booths.
Well, now we are today to construct Cos
pei arbor, or gospel booth; and how shall
we construct it? Well, we must get all the
tree branches and build According to my
text we must go up into the mount and
bring olive branches. What does that mean?
The olive tree grows in warm climates, and
it reaches the height of twenty to twenty
two feet, straight stem, and then an off
shoot from that stem. And then people
come. and they strip off these branches
sometimes; and when in time of war the gen
eral of one army takes one of these olive
branches and goes out to the general of an.
other army, what does that mean? Why, it
means, unsaddle the war charges. 1t means
hang up the war knapsacks. 1t is but a
beautiful way OF saying: Peace!
Now, if we are to-day going to succeed in
building this gospel harbor we must go into
the mount of Gods blessing and fetch the
olive branches, andwhatevcr else wemust have
we must have at least two olive branches
have peace with God and peace with man.
When say peace with God do not mean to
represent God as a bloody chieitain, havinga
grudge against us, but do not mean to af-
firm there is no more antagonism between
hound and hare between hawk and q
pullet. between elephant and swine than
there is in hostility between holiness and sin.
And if God is all holiness and we are all sin
there must be REIMBURSEMENT, there must be
a reconstruction there must be a treaty,
there must be a stretching forth of olive
branches.
There is a great lawsuit going on, now
and it is a lawsuit which man is bringing
against his maker. That lawsuit is now on
the calendar. 1t is the human versus the
divine; it is iniquity versus the immaculate;
it is weakness versus omnlpotence. Man. be-
gan it: God did not begin the lawsuit. We
began it; we assaulted our maker, and the
sooner we end this part of the struggle in
which the finite attempts to overthrow the
infinite and omnipotent-the sooner I'VE
end it the better.
Oh, it doesn't make much difference what
the worlds think of you-what this king,
that queen, that senator thinks of you.
But come into the warm, intimate, glowing
and everlasting relationship with the God of
the round universe: that is the Joy
that makes a hallejujah seem stu
pid. All, why do we want to have peace
through our Lord Jesus Christ? Why, five
had gone on in ten thousand years of war
against God we could not have captured so
much as a sword or a calvary stirrup, or
| twisted off one of the wheels of the chariot
OF his omnipotence But the moment we
bring this olive branch God and all heaven
come on our side. Peace through our Lord
Jesus Christ: and no other kind of peace is
worth anything
But then we must have that other olive
branch, peace with man. Now tits very easy
to get up a quarrel. There are gunpowdery
Christians all around us, and one match of
provocation will set them off. 1t is easy
enough to get up a quarrel. But, my
brother don't you think you had better
have your horns sawed off? Had you not
better submit to a little humiliation? Oh,
you say, until that man takes the first step
| will never be at peace with him; nothing
will be done until he is ready to take the
first step. You are a pretty Christian!
When would this world be saved if Christ had
not taken the first step? We were in the
wrong Christ vas in the right-all right and
forever right. And yet he took the first
step. And instead OF going and getting a
knotty seourge with which to whip your
antagonist, your enemy, you had better get
on the radiant mount where Christ suffered
for his enemies, and just take All olive branch,
not stripping off the soft, cool, fragrant
leaves, but leaving them all on, and then try
on them that gospel switch. It won't hurt
them, and it will save you. Peace with God;
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