Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1892-12-15
HE MOTHER OF ALL.
TALNAGE PRESENTS A NOVEL
lew OF THE DIVINE LOVE.

HOiu STANDARDS IN Grammar nave Led
10 Many to Think of God as Purely
tlscuIine-Div Attributes Are en-
ne Also aud Motheriy.
kookLYN, Dec. 11-Rev. Dr. Talmage
&c ay in selecting a subject for his ser
m d. chose an aspect of the divine charae-
te Which is seldom considered Toan un-
NJ Ally large audience he discoursed on
& Has THE Mother of All, +" the text be-
in Htaken from Isaiah Xvi, 49, 'As one
b. his mother comforteth. so will |
e. Mort you"
be Bible is a warm letter of affection
fl d parent 60 a child, and yet there are
n Nv who see chiefly the severer passages.
, khere may be fifty or sixty nights of
Me dew in one summer that will not
dse as much remark as one hailstorm of
h an hour, so there are those who are
Re struck by those passages Of the Bible
ii announce the indignation Of God than
Ethose that announce his affection There
Nv come to a household twenty or fifty
Htevs of affection during the year, and
key will not make as much excitement
N that home as one sheriffs writ, and so
there are people who are more attentive to
{those passages which announce the judg-
ments Of God than to those which an
nounoe his mercy and his favor.
God is a lion, John says in the book of
Revelation God is a breaker Micah an
nounces in his prophecy. God is rock
God is a king But hear also that God il
love. A father and his child are walking
out in the fields on a summers day, and
there comes up a thunderstorm, and there
Isl flash OF lightning that startles the
child and the father says, My dear, that
Is Gods eyen There comes peal of thun-
der, and the father says my dear, thar is
Gods voice" But the clouds go of the
sky, and the storm is gone, and light foods
the heavens and floods the landscape, and
the father forgets TO say, That is Gods
smile"
The text of this morning bends with great
centleness and love over all who IRE pros
trate in sin and trouble. 1t lights up with
compassion. II melts with tenderness 1t
breathes upon us the hush of an eternal
lullaby, for il announces that God is our
Mother. CAS- one whom his mother com
forteth, so will l comfort you"
THE MATERNAL INSTINCT.
remark, in the first place, that God has
a mothers simplicity of instruction. A
father does not know how to teach child
the a Is 1. men IRE not hkliiui III Lnc
primary department but a mother has so
much patience that she viii tell child for
the hundredth time the difference between
F and G and between l aud j. Sometimes
it is by blocks; sometimes by the worsted
work; sometimes by the slate; sometimes
by the book She thus teaches the child
and has noawkwardness of condescension
in so DOING So God, our Mother stoops
s,.f, Ia ,lp
Though we are told thing thousand
times and we do not understand it, our
heavenly Mother goes on, line upon line,
precept upon precept, here a little and
there little God has been teaching some
of us thirty years and some of us sixty
years one word Of one syllable, and we do
not know il yet-faith, faith! When we
come to that word we stumble we halt,
We lose our place, we pronounce it wrong
Still Gods patience is not exhausted God,
our Mother, puts us in the school of pros
perity, and the letters are in sunshine, and
We cannot spell them. God puts rs in the
the school OF adversely, and the letters are
black, and we cannot spell them. If God
were merely king he would punish us; II
he were simply father he would whip us
but God is mother. and so we are borne
with and helped all the way through.
A mother teaches her child chiefly by
pictures. II she wants TO set forth TO her
child the hideousness of a quarrelsome
spirit instead of giving lecture upon that
subject she turns over "A leaf and shows the
child two boys in a wrangle, and says,
Does not that look horrible?" II she
wants to teach her child the awfulness of
war she turns over the picture book and
shows the war charger, the headless trunks
Of butchered men, the wild, bloodshot eye
of battle rolling under lids of flame, and \
she says, THAT is warp The child under
stands it,
In great many books the best parts are
the pictures. The style may be insipid, the
type poor, but picture always attracts a
child's attention. Now God, our Mother, 1
teaches us almost everything by pictures.
Is the divine goodness to be set forthg How
does God, our Mother, teach usy By an /
autumnal picture. The barns are full I
The wheat stacks are rounded. The cattle I
are chewing the cud lazily in the sun. The |
orchards are dropping the ripe pippins into
the lap of the farmer. The natural world |
that has been busy all summer seems now 1
to be resting in great abundance We look /
at the picture and say, Thou crownest the
year with thy goodness, and thy paths /
drop fatnessn
A PICTURED JUDGMENT
Our family comes around the breakfast
table. 1t has been a very cold night. but
the children are all bright because they I
slept under thick coverlets, and they are
now in the warm blast of the open register.
and their appetites make luxuries out OF
the plainest fare, and we look at the pic
ture and say, Bless the Lord, o my soulr'
God wishes to set forth the fact that in
the Judgment the good win be divided from
the wicked. How is it donei BY picture,
by parable-a fishing scene. A group of
hardy men, long bearded, geared for stand
ing to the waist in water, sleeves rolled up.
Long oar, sun gilt; boat battered as though
i had been playmate of the storm. 4
iull net humping about with the fish,
which have just discovered their captivity,
The worthless mossbunkers and the useful
founders all in the same net. The fisher
man puts his hand down amid the squirm-