Sharp County record., 1891-09-10
GREAT DEEDS.
A Camp Meeting Sermon at Ocean
Grove, N. j., by DR.. Talmage.
The Mighty Works which Christians May
Find Constant Opportunity for Doing
NO Lack of Material to Work
Upon or With.

The following discourse was delivered
by Rev. Il. Dewitt Talmage in the pres
ence Of an immense congregation in the
auditorium at the Ocean Grove IN. J.)
camp-meeting. His text was:
The people that do know their God shall
be strong and do exploits.-Danlel H., 80.
Antiochus Epiphanes, the old sinner,
came down three times with his army
to desolate the Israelites, advancing
one time with one hundred and two
trained elephants, swinging their trunks
this way and that, and sixty-two thou
sand infantry and six thousand cavalry
troops, and they were driven back.
Then, the second time, he advanced
with seventy thousand armed men, and
had been again defeated But the third
time he laid successful siege until the
navy of Rome came in with the flash of
their long banks of oars and demanded
that the siege be lifted. And Antiochus
Epiphanes said he wanted time to con-
suit with his friends about it, and Po-
pilius, one of the Roman ambassadors,
took a staff and made circle on the
ground around Antiochus Apiphanes,
and compelled him to decide before he
came out of that circle, whereupon he
lifted the siege. Some of the Hebrews
had submitted to the invader, but some
of them resisted valorously, as did
Eleazer when he had swine's flesh
forced into his mouth, spit it out,
although he knew he must die for it,
and did die for it; and others, as my
text says, did exploits.
An exploit l would define to be a
heroic act, brave feat, great achieve
ment. Well" you say, 81 admire
such things, but there is no chance for
me; mine is sort of humdrum life If
l had an Antiochus Epiphanes to fight,
! also could do exploits" You are
right, so far as great wars are con-
cerned. There will probably be no op-
portunity to distinguish yourselfin bat
tle The most of the brigadier gener-
ais of this country would never have
been heard of had it not been for the
| war.
Neither will you probably become a
great inventor. Nineteen hundred and
ninety-nine out of every two thousand
inventions found in the patent office
at Washington never yielded their au-
thors enough money to pay for the eX-
penses of securing the patent. So you
will probably never be a Morse or an
Edison or a Humphrey Davy or an Eli
Whitney. There is not much probabil-
ity that you will be the one out of the
hundred who achieves extraordinary
success in commercial or legal or med
ical or literary spheres. What then?
Can you have no exploits? am going
to show you that there are three op-
portunities open that are grand, thrill
ing far-reacha2g, stupendous ard over:
whelming. They are before you now.
In one, if not all three of them, you
may do exploits. The three greatest
things on earth to do are to save a man,
OF save woman, or save child
During the course of his life almost
every man gets into an exigency, is
caught between two fires, is ground be-
tween two millstones, sits on the edge
of some precipice, or in some other way
comes near demolition, 1t may be
q financial or moral or domestic or
social or political exigency. You
sometimes see it in court rooms. A
young man has got into bad company
and he has offended the law, and he is
arraigned. All blushing and confused,
he is in the presence of judge and jury
and lawyers. He can be sent right on
in the wrong direction, He is feeling
disgraced, and he is almost desperate.
Let the district attorney overhaul him
as though he were an offender, let the
ablest attorneys at the bar refuse tc
say q word for him, because he can not
afford considerable fee; let the Judge
give no opportunity for representing
the mitigating circumstances, hurry w
the case, and hustle him up to Auburn
or Sing Sing. If he live seventy years,
for seventy years he will be u criminal
and each decade of his life will be
blacker than its predecessor. In the in.
terregnums of prison life he can get nc
work. and he is glad to break win.
dow-glass or blow up safe, or play
the highwayman, so as to get bacl,
within the walls where he can get
something to eat and hide himself from
the gaze Of the world
Why don't his father come and helr
himP His father is dead, Why don't his
mother come and help him? She is
dead. Where are all the ameiorating
and salutary influences of society
They do not touch him, Why did not
some one long ago In the case under.
stand that there was IN opportunity
for the exploit which would be famous
in Heaven quadrillion years after the
earth has become scattered ashes in the
last whirlwind? Why did not the dis.
trict attorney take that young man into
his private Office and say: "My son,
see that you are the victim Of circum.
stances This is your first crime, You
nro sorry, / will bring the person you
wronged into your presence, and you
will apologize and make all the rcpara'
tion you can, and | will give you an,
other chance" Or that young man Is
presented in the courtroom, and he has
no friends present, and the Judge says
"Who Is your counsclp" And he an.