Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-29
A NATIONAL SERMON.
DR.. Talmage DiscourSes on the Future
of the American Nation.
GUARDED BY CHARIOTS OF FIRE.
National SObriety and a National Re-
ligiOn Near at Hand.
GEN. WASHINGTON A SECULAR JOSHUA

rsPEoIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPArcH.l
BROOKLYN, April 2S.-At the Tabernacle
to-day, the Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage, D. D.,
preached sermon appropriate to the COM
ing Centennial. The vast congregation sang
the hymn beginning:
Before Jehovah's awful throne,
Ye nations bow with sacred Joy.
DR.. Talmage's text was II Kings vi. IL:
"And the Lord opened the eyes ofthe young
man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain
was full of horses and ehariots of fire round
about Elisha" He said:
As it cost England many regiments and S.
OOaOOOa year TO keep safely a troublesome
captive at st. Helena, the king of Syria
sends out whole army to capture one minister
OF religion-perhaps $1,000 men to take Elisha.
During the night the army of Assyrians came
around the village of Dothan. where the
prophet was staying. At early daybreak the
man servant of Elisha rushed in and said:
What shall we do? there is whole army come
70 destroy you. We must die. we must die"
But Elisha was not scared bit, for he looked
up and saw the mountains all around full of
supernatural forces, and he knew that if there
were $1,000 Assyrians against him there were
10000 angels for him; and in answer to the
prophets prayer IN behalf of the affrighted
man servant, the young man saw it too. Horses
of fire harnessed to chariots of fire, and drivers
Of hre pulling reins OF fire on bits of fire; and
and the brllliance 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 Tire round
about Elisha" 1 have often spoken to you of
the Assyrian perils which threaten our Amerl-
can institutions. but now as we are assembling
TO keep Centennial celebration of the inaugura-
tion of Washington, speak of the upper forces
of the text that are TO fight on our side. If all
the low levels are filled with armed threats. 1
have TO tell you that the mountains of our hope
and courage and faith are full of the horses
and chariots of Divine rescue.
You will notice that the Divine equipage is
always represented as chariot of fire. Eze-
kiel and Isaiah and John when they come to
describe the Divine equipage, always repre-
sent it as wheeled. harnessed, an uphol-
stored conhagratioE- 1t is not a chariot like
king and conquerors of earth mount, but an
organized and compressed fire. That means
purity, justice, chastisement deliverance
through burning escapes. Chariot of rescue?
yes. but chariot of fire. All our national disen-
thrallments have been through scorching
agonies and red disasters. Through tribulation
the individual rises. Through tribulation ma
tions rise. Chariots of rescue, but chariots of
fire.
But how do know that this divine equipage
is on the side of our institutions? / know it by
the history of the last los years. The American
Revolution started from the pen of John Han
cock in Independence Hall in l776. The colo
mes WITHOUT snlps, WITHOUT ammU milton. with
out guns, without trained warriors, without
money, without prestige. On the other side,
the mightiest nation OF the earth, the largest
armies and the grandest navies. and the most
distinguished commanders, and resources in
exhaustble, and nearly all nations ready to
back them up in the fight. Nothing as against
immensity.
WASHINGTON A JOSHUA.
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 successes. and through the
winters which surpassed all predecessors in
depth of snow and horrors of congealment.
Elisha, surrounded by the whole Assyrian
army, did not seem to be worse off than did the
Is colonies encompassed and oyershadowed by
foreign assault. What decided the contest in
upper ARMIES The Snd white
Highlands along, the Hudson, the
mountains 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 gan
grened wounds, and the exhausting hunger,
and the long march because ''the Lord opened
the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and,
behold, the mountains were full of horses and
chariots Of fire round about Elisha" Wash
ington himself was a miracle. What Joshua
was in sacred history the first American Presi-
dent was in secular history. A thousand other
men excelled him in different things, but he
ness 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 as divine in
terDosition. He was from God direct
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 opened,
many at the North and at the South pro-
nounced it national suicide. 1t was not courage
against cowardice, it was not wealth against
nOVorty If larpa STATES AGAINST SIM
States. 1t was
HERoISM AGAINST HERoISM,
1t was the resources of many generations
against the resources of generations it was the
prayer of the North against the prayer of the
South, it was one-half of the nation in armed
wrath meeting the other half of the nation in
armed indignation. What could come but ex-
termination?
At the opening of the war the commander
in chief of the United States forces was man
who had been great in battle, but old age had
come with many infrmities, and he had right
TO quietude. He could not mount horse and
he rode on the battle field in carriage asking
the driver not to jolt it too much During the
most of the four years OF the contest on the
Southern side was man in midlife, who had
in his veins the blood of many generations of
warriors, himself one of the heroes of
Cherubusco and Cerro Gordo Contre-
rss and Chapultepec. As the years
passed on and the scroll of carnage
unrolled, there came out from both sides
that the world had never seen marshaled. And
what but determination could come when
Philip Sheridan and StonewalI Jackson met
and Nathaniel Lyon and Sydney Johnston rode
in from North and South, and Grant and Lee
the two thunderbolts of battle, clashed? Yet
we are a nation, and yet we are at peace
Earthly courage did not decide the conflict
The upper forces of the text They tell us
there was a battle fought above the clouds on
Lookout Mountain; but there was something
higher than that.
Again, the horses and chariots of God came
to the rescue of this nation in 1876 at the close
of Presidential election famous for devilish
ferocity. darker cloud yet settled down
upon this nation. The result of the election
was in dispute, and revolution, not between
two or three sections, but revolution in every
town and village and city of the United States
seemed imminent.
THE PROSPECT WAS
that New York would throttle New York and
New Orleans would grip New Orleans and
Boston, Boston and Savannah, Savannah. and
Washington, Washington. Some said Mr.. Til
den was elected; others said Mr.. HAYES was
elected: and how near we came to universal
massacre-some of us guessed but God only
knew. ascribe our escape not to the honesty
and righteousness of infuriated politicians, but
ascTibe it to the upper forces of the text.
Chariots of mercy rolled in, and though the
wheels were not heard and the fash was not
seen. yet all through the mountains of the
North and the South and the East and the
West, though the hoofs did not clatter the
cavalry of God galloped by. tell you GOO is