Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-08-18
A SERMON TO FARMERS.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches AT THE
ENCAMPMENT.

DR.. TALMAGE breaches AT THE
ENcAMPMENT.
He Draws "A Mastery Picture of the
Farmers of Christ's Time-He Likens
the Christian Religion to the Struggle
of the TiIIer of the Soil.
LEBANON, Pa, Aug. 17-The Amer
lean Farmers encampment at Mount
Gretna, near this city, today listened
attentively to remarkable discourse
by the great Brooklyn preacher, Rev.
T. De Witt Talmage, who arrived here
yesterday from Piedmont, Chautauqua,
Ga, where he spoke on Wednesday
last The subject was one peculiarly
suited to the vast audience, being on
Farming a Gospel Type" l Kings
xix, 80: Elisha, the son of Shaphat,
who was blowing with twelve yoke of
oxen before him, and he with the
twelfth.
Representatives of the great farmers
associations from all parts of the coun-
try are at the encampment, prepare
tons for which have been going on for
months in advance. The surrounding
densely populated counties of Pennsyl-
vania are also fully represented. To
days 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 Americal Accept my
salutation. Our text puts us down into
the plow's furrow, where many of us
have been before. My boyhood passed
on farm, and my father a farmer,
your style of life is familiar to me.
One of my earliest recollections is that
of my father coming in from the hot
harvest field exhausted, the perspira-
ton 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 frightened. [ got
little tired, and the sun was hot, but l
mother seated at the table often say
ing, ''Well, l am too tired to eat!"
The fact is that | do not think the old
folks got thoroughly rested until they
lay down in the graveyard back of
Sonerville to take the last sleep.
THE FARMERS TRIALS.
Office seekers go through the land
and they stand on political platforms,
and they tell the farmers the story
about the independent life of a farmer,
giving flattery 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 eurculio that stings
the peach trees? OF the rust in the
wheat? of the long rain with the rye
down? Independent of the grasshop-
per? of the locust? of the army worm?
Of the potato bug? Independent of
the drought that burns up the harvest?
Independent of the COW with the hOl-
low horn? or the sheep with the
nail in his hoof? Independent of
the cold that freezes out the
winter grain? Independent of the
snowbank out of which he must shovel
himself? Independent of the cold
weather when he stands threshing his
numbed fingers around his body to
keep them from being frosted? indie
pendent of the frozen ears and the
frozen feet? Independent of what?
Fancy farmers who have made their
fortunes in the city and go out in the
country to build houses with all the
modern improvements, and make farm
ing a luxury, may not need any soface
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 my hope is that this great Ma
tiOnal Farmers encampment may do
something toward lifting the bur
dens of the agriculturists. Yes,
we were nearly all of us born in
the country. We dropped corn in the
hill, and went on Saturday to the mill,
tying the grist in the center of the sack
so that the contents on either side the
horse balanced each other; and drove
the cattle afield, our bare feet wet with
the dew, and rode the horses with the
halter to the brook until we fell off,
and hunted the NOW for nests until the
feathered occupants went cackling
away. So we all understand rustic al
lusions. The Bible is full of them. In
Christ's Sermon on the Mount you see
the full blown lilies and the glossy
back of the crows wing as it flies over
Mount Olivet. David and John, Paul
and Isaiah find in country life a source
of frequent illustration, while Christ
takes the responsibility of calling God
a farmer declaring, My Fatheris the
husbandnan.
NOAH THE FIRST FARMER
Noah was the first farmer We say
nothing about Cain, the tiller of the
soil Adam was a gardener on q large
scale, but to Noah was given all the
acres of the earth. Elisha was an ag-
riculturist, not culturing a ten acre lot;
for in my text you find him blowing
with twelve yoke of oxen before him,
and he with the twelfth. In Bible times
the land was so plenty and the inhabi-
tants so few that Noah was right when
ne gave to every inhabitant certain
portion of land; that land, if cultured,
ever after to be his own possession.
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 flax and all
kinds of grain came up at the call of
the harvesters. Pliny tells of one stalk
of grain that had on it between three
and four hundred ears The rivers and