The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-05-10
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.

Bright Future.
At the Brooklyn Tabernacle on the Sum
day before the centennial of the inaugu.
ration of George Washington as President
of the United States, DIR. Talmsge
preached sermon appropriate to the ap-
preaching anniversary. The text was
from Kings vi Il: ''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" DR. Talmage said:
As it cost England many regiments and
81. 900 year to keep safely trouble
some captive at st. Helena, so the King OF
Syria sends out a whole army to capture
one minister of religion-perhaps 5000
men to take Elisha. During the night the
army of Assyrians came around the vii
lage of Dothan, where the prophet was
staying At early daybreak the man serv-
ant of Elisha rushed in aud said: "What
shall we do. there is a whole army come
10 destroy YOU. We shall die, we shall
die" But Elisha was not scared a bit, for
he looked up and saw the mountains
all around full of supernatural
90. 600 Assyrians against him. there were
100, 900 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 brill
lance of that morning sunrise was
a,lir al he fla llnn of 10
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 perils 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, har-
messed, an upholstered confagration. 1t
is not a 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
enthraliment- have been through scorch-
ing agonies and red disasters. Through
tribulation the lndiv dual rises. ThrvLgh
tribulation nations rise. Chario:s Of res
cue, but chariots of fire.
But how do l know that this divine
equipage is on the side of our institutions
l 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 1516.
The colonies without ships, without am
munition, 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 navies and the most distinguished
commanders, and resources inexhaustible.
and nearly all nations ready to back them
up in the fight Nothing as against inn
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 TO 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 eyes 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 EFFICIENCY. He was let
down a divine interposition. 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 1851, 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
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 exterminatiopr
At the opening of the war the command
er-in-chief of the United States forces was
q man who had been great in battle, but
old age had come with many infirmities
and he had a right to quietude. He could
not mount horse and he rode on the bat
tie field in ascarriage, asking the driver
not jolt it to much During the most of
the four years of the contest, on the South.
ern side was q 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
came out from both sides a heroism and q
strength and a 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.
clashed. Yet we are Nation and vet we