The Penn's Grove record., 1891-09-04
REV. DR.. TALMAGR
The Brooklyn Divine's Sunday
Sermon.
Subject: "7hinJs Which Men ana
Women May Do"

TEXT: The people that do knoU their
God shah be strong and do erptoits ."-Danr
lei XII, 81,
Antiochus Epiphanes, the old sinner, came
down three times with his army to desolate
! ne fsraelites. advancing n time with q
hundred aud two trained elephants, swinging
their trunks this wav and that, and sixty
two thousand infantry n sig thousand
troops, and they were
driven back. Then. the second time. he
men, and had been again defeated. But the
third time he laid successful siege until the
navy OF Rome came In with the fash 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, n Popilius, one
of the Roman ambassadors, took a staff
and made a circle on the ground around
Antiochus Epiphanes, n compelled him to
decide before he came out of that circle;
whereupon be lifted the siege. Some of the
Hebrews had submitted to the invader, but
some OF them resisted, valorously, "a did
Eleazer when he had swine's flesh forced into
his mouth, spit it out, although he knew he
must die for Il, and did die for it; and others,
as my text says, did exploits.
An exploit I would define to be an heroic
act, a brave feat, a great achievement.
well" you say, II admire such things, but
there is no chance for me; mine isa sort of
humdrum life. II I had an Antiochus
E~piphanes to fight, ! also could do exploits"
concerned. There will probably be no OPP
portunity to distinguish yourself in battles.
The most Of the 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
never yielded their authors enough money
to pay for the expenses Of securing the
patent. So you will probably never be q
Morse or an Edison or a 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 commercial or legal or medical
or literary spheres. What thenf Can you
a no opportunity to do exploitsf / am
going to show that there are three oppor-
tunities open that are grand, thrilling, far
reaching, stupendous and overwhelming.
They are before you now. In one, IL not all
three Of them, you may do exploits. The
three greatest things On earth to do are to
savea man. or save q woman, or save q
child.
During the course of his life almost
every man gets into an ~exigency, is caught
between two fires, is ground between two
millstones, sits ON the edge Of SOM preci-
pice, or in some other way comes near dem
clifton. 1t may be a financial or a moral
or a domestic or q social or q political ext
gency. You sometimes see 1t in COURT
rooms. A young man has got into bad
company and he has offended the law, and
be is arraigned. Ali blushing and confused
he II in the presence of judge and jury and
lawyers. He can Be- sent right on in the
wrong direction. He Is feeling disgraced and
be 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 q
word for him, because he cannot afford a
considerable fec; let the judge give no op-
portunity for presenting the mitigating
circumstances, hurry up the case md hustle
him up to Auburn or Sing Sing. II he live
seventy years. for seventy years be W. will he BE-
will be blacker than its predecessor. In the
interregnums of prison life he can get no
work, and he is glad to break a window glass
or blow up q safe or play the h~ighwayman
20 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 n help himf
His father Il dead. Why don't his mother
come and help himf She is dead. Where
are all the smeliorating and salutary in
Huences Of society! They do not touch
him. Why did not some one long ago In
the case understand that there was an op-
portunity for the exploit which would be
famous in heaven q quadriion OF years
after the earth has become scattered ashes
in the last whirlwindf Why did not the
district attorney take that young man into
his private office and say: my son, I see
that you are the victim Of circumstances
This Is your first crime. You are sorry. l
will bring the person you wronged into
your presence and you will apologize n
make all the PREPARATION you can, and l VIII
nan is presented in the courtroom, and he
has no friends present, and the Judge says
who il your counselr' And he answers,
81 nave none.n And the judge says "Who
will take this young mans aser'
And there ia a dead halt, and no one offers,
and after awhile the judge turns to some at
life and never will. and whose advocacy
would be enough to secur the condemns
ton Of innocence itself. And the profess
sional incompetent crawls up beside the
prisoner, helplessness to rescue despair,
where there ought to be q struggle among
all the best men of the profession as to who
should have the honor OF trying to help that
unfortunate. How much would such an at
torney nave 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
hsaven happier--the consciousness that he
had sayeda man!
So there are commercial exigencies. A
very late spring obliterates the demand for
spring ~overcoats and spring hats and spring
apparel OF all sorts. Hundreds of thousands
OF people say, ut seems we are going to
have no spring, and we shall go straight
out Of winter into warm weather and we
can get along without the usual spring at
tire" Or there is ne autumn weather, the
heat ~p,unging into the cold, and the usual
clothing which is a compromise between
summer and winter is not required. 1t
makes a difference in the sale Of millions
and millions OF dollars of goods, and some
o~versanguine young merchant is caught
with a vast amount OF unstable goods that
will never be salable again, except at prices
~ruinously reduced.
The young merchant with a somewhat
limited capital is in a predicament. What
shall the old merchants do as they see the
young man in this awful crisisf Rub their
hands and laugh and say: Good for him.
He might have known better. When he
has been in business as long as we have he
will not load his shelves in that way. Hal
Hal He will burst up before long. He had
no business to open his store so near to ours
anyhow" Sheriffs salei Red flag in the
window: 'tHow much is bid for these out
of-fashion spring overcoats and spring hats
or fall clothing out of datef What do
| hear in the way OF n bidr' "Four dol
lars.n Absurd; I ann take that bid Of
four dollars apiece. Why. these coats
when first put upon the market were offered
at fifteen dollars each. and now 1 am offered
only four dollars. Is that allf Five dollars
do / hears Going at thatl Gone at five
dollars and he takes the whole lot
The young merchant goes home that
night and says to his wife: swell, Mary,
we will lave to move put OF this house and
sail our piano. That old merchant that
has a an evil eye on me ever since l
started has bought out all that clothing,
and he will v it rejuvenated, and next
year put il on the market as new, while We
will do well II we keep out of the poor
house, The young man, broken spirited,
goes TO hard drinking The young wife with
Ter baby goes to her fathers house. and moi
only Is his sepre wiped out but his home, bis
morals and his prospects for two worlds
this and ths next. And devils make a ban
quet Of fire and I'LL their cups of gall, and
drink deep to the health Of the oil merchant
who swallowed up the young merchant who
got stuck On spring goods and went down.
That Is q way, and some Of you have tried
~