Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1892-11-16
IT WAS HUNGRY AND YE FED ME-"

IT WAS HUNGRY AND YE FED Me-"
Talmage Talks About His Trip to
Russia and How It Impressed Him.
DR.. Talmage, the great Brooklyn
preacher, recently returned from Eu-
rope where he went with the ship Leo
with food for the starving Russians.
We give few extracts from descrip-
ton of what he witnessed on that trip {:
THE FAMINE.
Now, we know nothing about fam
inc in America. The grasshoppers
may kill the crops in Kansas, the
freshets may destroy the crops along
the Ohio, the potato worms may kill
the vines of Long Island, the rust may
get into the wheat of Michigan, yet
when there has been dreadful scarcity
in some parts of the land, there has
been plenty in other parts. But in
districts of Russia, vast enough to drop
several nations into them, drought for
six consecutive years has devasted and
those districts were previously the
most productive of all the empire. 1t
was like what we would have in Amer
lea if the hunger fiend somehow got
out of hell and alighted in our land,
and swept with his wing over Mlnne-
sofa and said: "Let nothing grow
here" and over New York State, and
said: "Let nothing grow here" and
over Missouri and said: "Let nothing
grow here" and over Ohio and Georgia
and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania
and Nebraska and Dakota and the Car
olinas, and said: "Let nothing grow
here" and the hunger fiend had swept
the same whitening and blasting wing
over the best parts of America in the
years 1887, 1883, 1889, 1890, 1891 and
1892, and finally all our families were
. put on small allowance, and we all
had risen from the table hungry, and
after o while the children had only
quarter enough, and after awhile
only one meal day, and after a
while no food at all, but mixture of
wheat and chaf and bark Of trees, and
then three of the children down with
hunger typhus, and then all the fami-
ly unable TO walk, and then crawling
on hands and knees, and then one
dead in each room, and neighbors not
quite so exhausted, coming in to bury
them, and afterwards the house becom-
ing tomb with none to carry the
dead to more appropriate sepulcher-
whole families blotted out. That was
what occurred in Russia in homes more
than were ever counted, in homes that
were once as comfortable and happy
and as bountiful as yours or mine, in
homes as virtuous as yours or mine, i'll
homes where God is worshipped as
much rs in yours or mine. 1t was to
do little something towards beating
back that archangel of wretchedness
and horror that we went, and we have
now to report that, according to the
estimate of the Russian faminine relief
committee, we saved the lives Of 1885,
900 people. AS at the hunger relief
stations, the bread was handed out
for it was made into loaves and dis
tributed-many people would halt be-
fore taking it and religiously cross
themselves and utter prayer for the
donors. Some of them would come
staggering back and say: "Please tell
US, who sent this bread to u.s." And
when told it came from America, they
would say "What part of America ?
Please give us the names of those who
sent" All, God only knows the names
of those who sent it, but He certainly
does know, and many a prayer is going
up, l warrant you, day by day for those
who sent flour by the Leo. Perhaps,
some of us at our tables rattle off q
prayer that means nothing, although
we call it Saying grace" but I warrant
when those people who received the
bread which saved their lives "sald
grace" it meant something.
THE HUNGER BREAD.
hold in my hand something very
suggestive. What does that black and
uncomely thing look like? That is
what is called hunger-bread from Rus
sia: that is what millions of people
lived on for months before help came
from England, Scotland, Ireland and
America that is a mixture that seems
to have in it not one grain of susie.
nance. 1t is mixture of pigweed and
chaff and the sweepings of stables.
That is something which, if dropped
in the street, your dog or cat might
sniff ut, but would not eat. That was
the only food on which millions OF
men and women lived. You must
look at that hunger-bread of Russia
before you can get proper appreciation
of what an attractive and beautiful
thing a good loaf of bread is. 1t is SO
common to us we cannot realize its
meaning. Stop and look at it i'll a
bakery window or see it on your fami.
ly table, mean an honest loaf OF
bread, white as ball of packed snow.
with crust brown as the autumnal
woods, and for keen appetite more
aromatic than tlowers-a loaf OF
bread as you remember it in childhood,
when the knife in the hand of your
father or mother cut clean through
from crust to crust and put before you
not a quarter of slice, or half slice
but FULL round slice and another and
another, just suited to a boy always
ready to eat and for the most time
hungry, even in Il well supplied house
Why does not some poet ring cantc
on a loaf of bread, or some modern
Raphael paint it, or some historian tel
its story?
WHEN THE SHIP LANDED.
Yet, must tell you of Il picture o.
pathos and moral power impressed
upon my mind so that neither time mol
eternity can cflnce it. The ship Lee
swung to the docks Il few miles bclo"
st. Petersburg, loaded with flour from
America. The sailors Oh board huZ
zacd rs they came to the wharf. From
a yacht on which we had descended
the river to the sea, the prominent cit
liens discmbarked. The bank was
crowded by prosperous citizens, who
stood on the wharf, and back of them
by poor laborcrs who had come down
to offer their services free of all charge
for the removal of the breadstutls
from the ship to the imperial freight
train that took the flour to the intcri-
or free of charge. While we stood
there, the long freight train rumbled
down to the docks, the locomotive and
each car decorated with ilag-the
American flag and the Russian flag al
ternating. Though flag to some
eyes is only floating rag, you ought
to see how the American flag looks
5000 miles from home. 1t looked that
day like n section Of Heaven let down
to cheer mortal vision. Addresses OF
welcome and responses were made,
and then the work began the only