Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-18
REAPING AND SOWING
DR.. Talmage on the Nobility and Use
fulness of Agriculture.
STRAIGHT AND CROOKED BURROWS
Types Of the Courses Pursued in the
Spiritual Life.
GATHERING sHEAvES FOR TIE LORD

LEBANON, PA, August 1.-THE Ameri
can Farmers EncampmentatM at Mount Gretna,
near this city, to-day listened attentlvelv to
remarkable discourse by the great Brook
lyn preacher, Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage,
who arrived here yesterday from the Chau-
tauuua, at Piedmont, Ga, where be spoke
Wednesday last The subjectwas one pc
culiarly suited to the vast audience, being
on;''Farming Gospel Type, L Kings xix:
19.-"Elisha the son OF Shaphat, who was
ploughing with II oxen before him, and he
with the twelfth.
Representatives of the great farmers asso-
Citations from all parts of the country are at
the encampment preparations for which
have been going on for months in advance.
The surrounding denseIy-populated coun-
ties of Pennsylvania are also fully repre-
sented. To-day's services were held in the
open air. AN immense choir, from the
churches of Lebanon, led the music. Rev.
DR.. Talmage spoke as follows:
Farmers of America! Accept my salu-
tation. Our text puts us down into the
plow's furrow, where many of us have been
before Ny boyhood passed on a farm, and
nv father farmer, your style Of Lille is IA
miliar to me. One of my earliest recollec-
tions is that of my father coming in from
the not harvest field exhausted, the perspira-
tion streaming from his forehead and chin,
and fainting on the doorsill, and my mother
resuscitating him, until, seeing the alarm of
the household, he said. "Don't be fright
ened. got little tired, and the sun was
hot but am all right now" And 1 re-
member mother, seated at the table, often
saying, ''Well, 1 am too tired to eatp' The
fact is, that do not think the old folks got
thoroughly rested until they Law down in
the graveyard back of Somerville, to take
the last sleep.
THE INDEPENDENT FARMER.
Office seekers 90 through the land and they
stand on political platforms, and they tell
the farmers the story about the independent
Life of a farmer, giving hartery where they
ought to give sympathy. Independent of
what? No class of people in this country
have it harder than farmers. Independent
Of what? OF the curculio that stiugs the
peach trees? OF the rust in the wheat? of the
long rain with the rye down? Independent
of the graSshopper? of the locust? of the
army worm? of the potato bug? Independ-
ent Of the drought that burns up the harvest?
Independent of the COW with the hollow
horn? or the sheep with the foot rot? or the
pet horse with nail in his hoof? Inde-
pendent of the cold that freezes out the
winter grain? Independent of the snowbank
out of which he must shovel himself? 1nde-
pendent of the cold weather when he stands
threshing his numbed fingers around his
body to keep them from being frosted? In
dependent of the frozen ears and the frozen
feet? Independent of what?
Fancy farmers who have made their for
tunes in the city and go out in the country
TO build houses with all the modern i'm
provements, and make farming q luxury,
may not need any solace; but the yeomanry
who get their living out of the soil, and who
that way have to clothe their families and
educate their children, and pay their taxes
and meet the interest on mortgaged farms
such men find a terrific struggle. And nv
hope is that this great National Farmers
Encampment may do something toward lit
ing the burdens of the agriculturist. Yes,
we were nearly all of us born in the coun-
try.
Noah was the first farmer We say moth
ing about Cain, the tiller OF the soil. Adam
was gardener on a large scale, but to
Noah was given all the acres of the earth.
Elisha was an agriculturist, not culturing
ten-acre lot, for in nv text you find him
plowing with II yoke of oxen before him,
and he with the twelfth. In Bible times the
land was SO plenty and the inhabitants so
few, that Noah was right when he gave to
every inhabitant a certain portion of land;
that land, If cultured, ever after to be his own
poss esSion.
oLD-TIME AGRICULTURE.
They were not small crops raised in those
times. for though the arts were rude, the
pillow turned up very rich soil, and barley,
and cotton, and fax, and all kinds of grain
came up at the call of the harvesters. Pliny
tells of one stalk of grain that had on it be-
tween 500 and 400 ears. The rivers and the
brooks, through artificial channels, were
brought down to the roots of the corn, and
to this habit of turning river wherever it
was wanted, Solomon refers when he says:
"The Kings heart is in the hand of the
Lord, and He turDeth it as the rivers OF
water are turned, whithersoever He-wiIl."
The wild beasts were caught, andNhen a
hook was put in their nose, and then they
were led over the field, and to that God re-
fers when He says to wicked Sennacherib:
81 will put hook in thy nose and will
bring thee back by the wav which thou
camest" And God has a hook in everv
mans nose, whether it be Nebuchadnezzar
or Ahab or Herod. He may think himself
very independent, but sometime in his life
or in the hour of his death. he will find that
the Lord Almighty has a hook in his nose
This was the rule in regard to the culture
of the ground: ''Thou shalt not plow with
folly of ever putting intelligent and useful
and pliable men in association with the
stubborn and the uumsnageable. The vast
majority of troubles in the churches and in
reformatory institutions comes from the dis
regard OF this command of the Lord:
''Thou shalt not pillow with an OK and en- ass
together"
There were large amounts of property in
vested in cattle. The Moabites paid 100, 900
sheep as an annual tax. Job had 1000
sheep, 3, 900 camels, 500 yoke of oxen. The
time of vintage was ushered in with mirth
and music The clusters of the vine were
put into the wine press, and then five men
would get into the press and trample out the
Juice from the grape until their garments
were saturated with the wine and had be-
come the emblems OF slaughter. Christ
Himself, wounded until covered with the
blood of crucifxion, made use of this allu-
sion when the question was asked: Where
fore art thou red in thine apparel and thy
garments like one who treadeth the wine
vat?" He responded: 'T have trodden the
wine press alone.'
AN HONORABLE CALLING.
In all ages there has been great honor paid
to agriculture. Seven-eighths of the people
in every country are disciples of the pillow.
A government is strong in proportion as 1t
is supported by an athletic and industrious
yeomanry. So long ago as before the fall of
Carthage, Strabo wrote % books on agricul-
ture; Hesiod wrote poem on the same sub
ject-"The Weeks and DAYS" Cato was
prouder OF his work on husbandry than of
all his military conquests. But must not
be tempted into discussion of agricultural
conquests. Standing amid the harvests and
de or6 I'D, - Al