The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-12-22
RlzPAH ON THE ROCK,
THE STORY OF RlzPAH AND
HER LONG WATCH.
Feminine Patience and Coura ge
and the Strength OF Maternal
Il LoVe--inlqultles Of the Fa-
thers--After Death @
l.- Watching.

one OF those discourses of DR.. Tai
mage delivered from texts which no
one seems to have used before. I'm.
portant and practical lessons were
drawn. The opening hymn, in which
many thousands joined, was:
Come ye disconsolate, where er we languish.
The subject OF the sermon was,
"Rizpah on the Rock, the text select
ed being II. Samuel, xxi, 10: "And
Rizpah, the daughter OF Allah, took
sackcloth and spread it for her upon
the rock, from the beginning OF har-
vest until water dropped upon them
out OF heaven, and suffered neither
the birds of the air to rest on them
by day, nor the beasts of the field at
night"
Tragedy that beats anything Shaks-
pearean, or Victor Hugoian. After
returning from the Holy Land I brief
ly touched upon it, but 1 must have
a whole sermon on that SCENE The
explosion and flash OF gunpowder
have driven nearly all the beasts and
birds OF prey from those regions, and
now the shrek of the locomotive
whistle which is daily heard at Jeru-
salem will for many miles around
clear Palestine of cruel claw and beak.
But in the time Of the text those re-
gions were populous with multitudes
OF jackals and lions. Seven sons of
Saul had been crucifed on a hill.
Rizpah was mother to two, and rela.
tive to five OF the boys. What had
these boys done that they should be
crucifed? Nothing except to have a
bad father, and grandfather. But
now that the boys were dead why not
take them down from the gibbets.
No. They are sentenced to
hang there. So Rizpah takes the
sackcloth, q rough shawl with
which in mourning for her dead she
had wrapped herself, and spreads the
sackcloth upon the rocks near the
gibbets, and acts the part of a. senti-
mel watching and defending the dead.
Yet every other sentinel is relieved,
and after being on guard for few
hours some one else takes his place.
But Rizpah is on guard both day and
night and for half year. One hun
dred and eighty days and nights Of
obsequies. What nerves she must
have had to stand that. All! do you
~ lo+ i
any thing.
Oh! if she might be allowed to hol-
low a place in the side Of the hill and
lay the bodies Of her children to quiet
rest! If in some cavern of the noun
tains she might find for them Christian
sepulture, Oh! if she might take them
from the eibbet of disgrace and carry
them still further away from the
haunts ofmen and then lie beside them
in the last long sleep! Exhausted ma
ture ever and anon falls into slumber
but in amoment she breaks the snare,
and chides herself as though she had
been cruel and leaps up on the rock
shooting at wild beast glaring from
the thicket and at vulturous brood
wheeling in the sky. The thrilling
story of Rizpah reaches David and he
comes forth to hide the indecency. The
The corpse had been chained. to the
trees. The chains are unlocked with
horrid clank and the skeletons are let
down. All the seven are buried. And
the story ends.
THE 1NlQU1TIEs OF THE FATHERS.
But it hardly ends before you CRY
out: What a hard thing that those
seven boys should suffer for the
crimes OF a father and grandfather!
Yes. But it is always so Let every
one that does wrong know that he
wars not only as in this case against
two generations, children and grand
children, but against all the general
tions OF coming time. This is what
makes dissipation and uncleanness
so awful. 1t reverberates in other
times. 1t may skip one generation,
but it is apt to come up in the third
generation, as is suggested in the ten
commandments which say: "Visit-
ing the lniquities of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth
generation" Mind you, it says moth
ing about the second generation but
uleuClOll Vllo UulIu tl1u Cl1o lOurCu.
That accounts for what you some
times see, very good parents with very
bad children. Go far enough back in
the ancestral line and you find the
source OF all the turpitude. "Visiting
the iniquities of the fathers upon the
children, up to the third and fourth
generation"
II when Saul died, the consequences
of his inquiry could have died with him,
it would not have been so sad. Alas,
no! Look on that hill few miles out
from Jerusalem and see the CHASTITY
burdens of those seven gibbets, and
the wan and wasted Rizpah watching
them go to-day through the wards
and alms-houses, and the retormatory
institutions where unfortunate chill
dren are kept, and you will find that
nine out of ten had drunken or vicious
parents. Yea day by day on the
streets OF our cities you find men and
women wrecked OF evil parentage
They are moral corpses. Like the
seven sons OF Saul, though dead, un-
buried Alas for Rizpah, who, not
for six months, but for years and years
has watched them. She can not keep
the vultures and the iackas off.
Furthermore, this strange incident
in Bible story shows that attractive