Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-08-28
GREAT EXPLOITS FOR US
DIR. TALMAGE POINTS OUT
WHAT WE MAY DO.
A Deed Of Creator Worth than Leading an
Army to Victory in Battle Is tho Lead
ing of a Human Soul to God.

Cooh loF MS teAU, Danlel NJ, 90, "Ihc
people that do know their God shall be
strong and do exploits
Antiochus Epiphanes, the old sinner,
came down three times with his army to
desolate the Israelites, advancing one
time with 1os trained elephants, swing
ing their trunks this way and that, and
troops and they were driven back.
with 10000 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 consult with his friends
about it, and Popilius, one of the Roman
ambassadors, took staff and made a
circle on the ground around Antiochus
Epiphanes, and compelled him to de-
eide before he came out of that circle,
whereupon he lifted the siege. Some of
the Hebrews had submitted to the inva-
der, but some of them resisted valorOusly,
as did Eleazer when he had swine's flesh
forced into his mouth, spit it out, al
though 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 an he
roic 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 1 also
could do exploits" You are right, so
Tar as great wars are concerned. There
will probably be no opportunity to dis
tinguish yourself in battle. The most
of tho brigadier generals 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 authors
enough money to pay for the expenses
of securing the patent. So you will
probably never be Morse or an Edison
or Humphrey Davy or an Eli Whitney.
There is not much probability that you
will be the one out of the hundred who
achieves extraordinary success in com.
mercial or legal or medical or library
spheres. What then? Can you have no
opportunity to do exploits? I am going
to show that there are three opportuni-
ties open that are grand, thrilling, far
reaching. stupendous and overwhelming.
They are before you now. In one, if
not all three of them, you may do ex-
ploits. The three greatest things on
earth to do are 10 save man, or save q
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 miIlstones, sits on the edge of
some precipice, or in some other way
comes near demolition. 1t may be a
financial or a moral or domestic or
social or political eXigencY. You some
times see it in conrt-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 old offender, let
the ablest attorneys at the bar refuse to
say a word for him, because he cannot
afford a considerable fee; let the judge
give no opportunity for presenting the
mitigating circumstances, hurry up the
case, and hustle him up to Auburn or
Sing Sing. If he lives Seventh years,
for seventy years he will lie a criminal,
and each decade of his 'fe will be
blacker than its predecessor In the in
terregnums of prison life he can get no
work, and he is glad to break window
glass, or blow up a safe or play the
highwayman, SO as to get back 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 help
him? His father is dead. Why don't his
mother come and help him? She is
dead. Where are all the ameliorating
and salutary Influences of society? They
do not touch hir. Why did not some
one long ago in the case understand that
there was an opportunity for the exploit
which would be famous in Heaven a
quadrilliOn of years after the earth has
become scattered ashes in the last whirl-
wind?
Why did not the District Attorney take
that young man into his private Office and
say: ''My son, see that you are the
victim of circumstances TLis is your
first crime. You are sorry. Twill bring
the person you wronged into your pres
ence and you will apologize and make all
the reparation you can, and l will give
you another chance Or that young
man is presented in the courtroom and
he has no friends present, and the Judge
says, ''Who is your counsel?' And he
answers, 81 have none" And the Judge
says, "Who will take this young mans
case?'
And there is dead halt, and no one
offers, and after awhile the Judge turns
to some attorney who never had good
case in all his life, and never will, and
whose advocacy would be enough to Sc
cure the condemnation of innocence it,
self. And the professional incompetent
crawls up beside the prisoner, helpless
ness to rescue despair when there ought
to be struggle among all the best men
OF the profession as to who should have
the honor of trying to help that unfor-
tunatc. How much would such an at
torney have received as his fee for such
an advocacy? Nothing in dollars, but
much every way in a happy consciousness
that would make his own life brighter,
and his own dying pillow sweeter, and
his own Heaven happier-the conscious
ness that he had saved man!
| So there are commercial eXigencies. A
very late spring obliterates the demand
for spring ovcrcoats and spring hats
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