The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-12-23
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Divine Character From an
Aspect Seldom Considered
God n Mother Who Comrorteth Her
CI.lldren-Love for All Who Are
PROSTATE I'm Sin or
Trouble.


The Mother of ALL" in the Brooklyn
tabernacle. The text was:
As one whom his mother comforteth, so VII
comfort you.-Isaiah Xvi, 13.
The Bible is warm letter of affec.
ton from a parent to child, and yet
there are many who see chiefly the Sc
we're passages. As there may be fifty
or sixty nights of gentle dew in one
summer, that will not cause as much
| remark as one hailstorm of half an
hour, so there are those who are more
struck by those passages of the Bible
that announce the Indignation of God
than by those that announce His af-
lection. There may come to house
hold twenty or fifty letters of affection
during the year, and they will not
make as much excitement in thathome
as one sheriff's writ; and so there are
people who are more attentive
to those passages which announce
the judgments of God than to those
which announce his mercy and his
favor. God is lion, John saws in the
Book OF Revelation. God is breaker.
Micah announces in his prophecy. God
is rock. God is a king. But hear
also that God is love. father and his
child are walking out in the fields on
a summers day, and there is fash of
lightning that startles the child, and
the father says: my dear, that is
Gods eye" There comes peal of
| thunder, and the father says: "My
dear, that is Gods voice" But the
clouds go off the sky, and the storm is
gone, and light floods the heavens and
floods the landscape, and the father
forgets to say: THAT is Gods smile. -
The text of this morning bends with
great gentleness and love over all who
are PROSTATE in sin and trouble. 1t
lights up with compassion. 1t melts
with tenderness. 1t breathes upon us
the hush of an eternal lullaby, for it
announces that God is our mother.
AS one whom his mother comforteth,
so will comfort You"
1 remarl1, in the first place, that God
has a mothers simplicity of instruc-
ton. A father does not know how
to teach a child the A, B, c. Men are
not skillful in the primary department;
but a mother has so much patience that
she will tell child for the hundredth
time the difference between T and G.,
and between | and J. Sometimes it is
by blocks; sometimes by the worsted-
work; sometimes by the slate; some
times by the book. She thus teaches
the child, and has no awkwardness of
condesccnsiOn in so doing. So God,
our Mother, stoops down in our infan-
tile minds. Though we are told a
thing thousand times, and we do not
understand it, our Heavenly Mother
goes on, line upon line, precept upon
precept, here 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 it yet-faith, faith.
When we come to that word we STUN
BILE, we halt, we lose our place, we pro-
nounce it wrong. Still, Gods patience
is not exhausted. God, our Mother,
puts us in the school of prosperity, and
the letters are in sunshine, and we can
not spell them. God puts us in the
school of adversely, and the letters are
black, and we can not spell them. If
God were merely a king, he would
punish us; if 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. If she wants to set forth the
hideousness of a quarrelsome spirit, in
stead of giving lecture upon the sub
ject, she turns over leaf and shows
the child two boys in a wrangle, and
says: docs not that look horrible?'
If she wants to teach the child theiawful-
ness of war, she turns over the picture
book and shows the war-charger, the
headless trunks of the butchered men,
the wild, blood-shot eye of battle roll
ing under lids of flame, and she says:
THAT is war;! The child understands
it. In great many books the best
part are the pictures. The style may
be insipid, the type poor, but a picture
always attracts a childs attention.
Now, God, our mother, teaches us al
most everything by pictures Is the
divine goodness to be set forth? How
does God, our Mother, teach us? BY an
autumnal picture. The barns are full.
The wheat stacks are rounded. The
cattle are chewing the eud '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 to be resting in
great abundance. We look at the
picture and say, Thou crownest the
year with Thy goodness, and Thy
paths drop fairness" Our family comes
around the breakfast table. 1t has
been very cold night, but the children
are all bright, because they slept under
thick coverlids, 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
picture and say, ''Bless the Lord, o my
soulr'
God wishes to set forth the fact that
i'm the judgment the good will be d.
vided froIn the wicked. How is e done?
BY picture; by a parable fishing
scene. A group of hardy men, long
bearded, geared for standing to the
waist in water, sleeves rolled up. Long
it had been playmate of the storm
A full net, humping about with the
fish, which have just discovered their
captivity, the worthless moss-bunkers
and the useful founders all in the
same net. The fisherman puts his
hand down and amid the squirming
fms, takes out the moss-bunkers and
throws them into the water and gath
ers the good fish into the pail. So,
says Christ, it shall be at the end of the
world. The bad He will cast away and