Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-01-19
A WONDERFUL WORD.
REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE breaches
AN ABLE SERMON ON "COME."

This Word May BE Used for Good or for
EviI-It Is Found Many Times in the
Scriptures-It Beckons, Other Words
Drive.
BROOKLYN, Jan. 1S.-Dr. Talmage
preached the following sermon this
morning to an overlooking congregation
in the Academy of Music, this city. At
night, when The Christian Herald ser
vice was held in the New York Acade-
my of Music, fully six thousand persons
were massed in the large building. A
marked solemnity pervaded the assem-
bly,, and at its close many persons in
various parts of the house rose at the
invitation Of the preacher to ask for
prayers for their salvation. DIR. Tai
mage chose the following texts for his
sermon Come" Gen. vi, 49, Come"
(Rev. xxi, 10.
Imperial, tender and all persuasive is
this word Come" Six hundred and
seventy-eight times is it found / n the
Scriptures. 1t stands at the front gate
of the Bible as in my first text, invit-
ing antediluvians into Noah's ark, and
it stands at the other gate of the Bible
as in my second text, inviting the post
diluvians into the ark of a SaviOur's
mercy. Come" is only a word of four
letters, but it is the queen of words,
and nearly the entire nation of En-
glish vocabulary bows to its scepter.
1t is an ocean into which empties ten
thousand rivers of meaning. Other
words drive, but this beckons.
All moods of feeling hath that word
Come" Sometimes it weeps and
sometimes it laughs. Sometimes it
prays, sometimes it tempts and some
times it destroys. 1t sounds from the
door of church and from the seraglios
of sin, from the gates of heaven and
the gates of hell. 1t is continent and
accrescent of all power. 1t is the heiress
of most of the past and the almoner of
most of the future. Gomez" You
may pronounce it so that all the heavens
will be heard in its cadences, or pro-
ounce it so that all the woes of time
and eternity shall r~everberate in its one
syllable. 1t is on the lip of saint and
profligate. 1t is the mightiest of all
soIicitants either for good or bad.
POWER OF CHRISTIANITY IS
IN THA WORD.
Today I weigh anchor, and haul in
the planks and set sail en- that great
word, although | am sure l will not be
- I10 - ,ooah A., for@I0n cJOuo III
let down the fathoming line into this
sea and try to measure its depths, and,
though | tie together all the cables and
cordage l have on board, [ will not be
able to touch bottom. All the power
of the Christian religion is in that word
Come" The dictatorial and com
mandatory in religion is of no avail.
The imperative mood is not the appro-
pirate mood when we would have peo-
pie savingly impressed. They may be
coaxed, but they cannot be driven.
Our hearts are like our homes; at a
friendly knock the door will be opened,
but an attempt to force open our door
would land the assailant in prison. Our
theological seminaries, which keep
young men three years in their curric-
ulum before launching them into the
ministry, will do we'll if in so short a
time they can teach the candidates for
the holy office how to say with right
emphasis and information and power
that one word Gomez" That man
who has such efficiency in Christian
work, and that woman who has such
power to persuade people to quit the
wrong and begin the right, went
through a series of losses, bereave-
ments, prosecutions, and the trials of
twenty or thirty years before they
could make it a triumph of grace every
time they uttered the word Come"
MANY SLAIN BY THAT WORD COME.
You must remember hat in many
cases our come" has a mightier
come" to conquer before it has any
effect at all. Just give me the accu-
rate census, the statistics, of how
many are down in fraud, in drunken
ness, in gambling, in impurity or in
vice of any sort, and [ will give you
the accurate census or statistics of how
many have been slain by the word
come" Come and click wine glass
es with me at this ivory bar" Come
and see what we can win at this gam
ing table" Come, enter with me this
doubtful speculation" Come with
and read those infdeI tracts on
Christianity" Come with me to a
place of bad amusement" Come
with me in a gay bout through under
ground New York" If in this city
there are twenty thousand who are
down in moral character, then twenty
thousand fell under the power of the
word come"
l was reading of a wife whose hus-
band had been overthrow by strong
drink, and she went to the saloon
where he was ruined and she said.
"Give me back my husband" And
the bartender, pointing to a maudlin
and battered man browsing in the
corner of the bar room said, '"There he
is. Jim, wake up; here's YOU wife
come for you" And the woman said:
DO you call that my husband? What
have you been doing with him? Is
that the manly brow? Is that the
clear Gy0E Is U0aU the NOBLE heart that
l married? What vile drug have you
given him that has turned him into a
Iiend? Take your tiger claws off of
him. Uncoil those serpent folds of
EVIL habit that are crushing him. Give
me back my husband, the with
whom I stood at the altar ten years
ago. Give him back to meI' Victim
was he, as millions of others have been,
of the word Gomez
COME WITH US
Now we want all the world over to
harness this word for good as others
have harnessed it for evil, and it will
draw the five continents and the seas
between them; yea, it will draw the
whole earth back to the God from
which it has wandered. 1t is that WOO
ing and persuasive word that will lead
men to give up their sins. Was skep-
ticism ever brought into love of the
truth by an ebullition of hot words
against infidelity? Was ever the bias
phemer stopped in his oaths by denun-
citation of blasphemy2 Was ever a
drunkard weaned from his cups by the