Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-12-05
,RIZPAH ON THE ROCK
DR.. TALMAeE ON THE DEEP TRAGEDY
OF THE SONS or SAUL.

discourses of Dr. Talmage delivered from
texts which no one seems to have used be-
fore. Important 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 selected being III
Samuel xxi, 10, "And Rizpah, the daugh-
ter of Allah, took sackcloth and spread It
for her upon the rock, from the beginning
OF harvest 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 by night"
Tragedy that beats anything Shake
spearean or Victor Hugoian. After return
ing from the Holy Land briefly touched
upon it, but must have whole sermon
for 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 whis-
tie which is daily heard at Jerusalem will
for many miles around clear Palestine of
cruel claw and beak. But in the time of
the text those regions were populous with
multitudes Of jacllals and lions Seven
sons Of Saul had been cruciied on a hill
Rizpah was mother to two and relative to
five of the boys. What had these boys done
that they should be crucifed2 Nothing
except to have bad father and grand
father. But now that the boys were dead
why not take them down from the glib
betsP No. They are sentenced to hang
there.
So Rizpah takes the sackcloth, rough
shawl with which in mourning for her
dead she had wrapped herself aud spreads
that sackcloth upon the rocks near the
gibbets, and acts the part of a sentinel
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 for half year
One hundred and eighty days and nights
of obsequies. What nerves she must have
had to stand thati All, do you not know
that a mother can stand anything?
THE MOTHERS vIGGLs.
Oh, If she might be allowed to hollow a
place in the side Of the hill and lay the
bodies of her children to quiet rest! If in
some cavern of the mountains she might
find for them Christian sepulturel Oh if
she might take them from the gibbet of
disgrace and carry them still farther away
from the haunts OF men, and then lie be
side them in the last long slecpl Exhaust
ed nature ever and anon falls into sumber,
but in a moment she breaks the snare, and
chides herself as though she had been
cruel, and leaps up on the rock, shouting
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 in
decency. The corpses had been chained to
the trees. The chains are unlocked with
horrid clank, and the skeletons are let
down. AN the seven are buried, and the
story ends.
But it hardly ends before you cry out,
What hard thing that those seven boys
should suffer for the crimes of father
and grandfather Yes But it is always
30. Let every one who does wrong know
that he wars not only, as in this case,
against two generations, children and
grandchildren, Int against all the genera
tions of coming time. That is what makes
dissipation and unClcanness SO awful. 1t
reverberates in other times, 1t may skip
one generEiOn, but it is apt to come up i'll
the third generation, as is suggested in the
Ten Commandments, which say Visiting
the iniquities Of the fathers upon the chill
dren unto the third and fourth generation"
Mind you, it says nothing about the sec
ond generation, but mentions the third and
the fourth That accounts for what you
sometimes 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 unto the
third and fourth generation" If when
Saul died the consequences of his iniQuity
4 f.,1 lii 4 ,,,,t
have been so bad. Alas, mol Look on that
hill a few miles out from Jerusalem and
see the ghastly burdens of those seven glib
bets and the wan and wasted Rizpah watch
ing them.
Go today through the wards and aims
houses and the reformatory institutions
where unfortunate children 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 cOrpsos. Like the seven
sons of Saul, though dead, uuhuried. Alas
for Rizpah, who not for six months, but
foryears and years, has watched theml She
cannot keep the vulturcs and the jack
ais off.
Furthermore, this strange incident in
Bible story shows that attractiyeness of
person and elevation of position are no
security against trouble.
THE DISCOVERED FANoRITE.
Who is this Bizpah sitting in desolationY
One of Sauls favortcs. Her personal at
fractions had won his heart. She had been
caressed of fortune. With a mothers
pride she looked on her princcly children.
But the scene changes. Behold her in
banishment and bercavemeut-Rizpah on
the rookl
Some of the worst distrcsses have come
TO scenes of royalty and wealth. What
porter at the mansions gate has not let
In ohamping and lathcrcd steed bringing
evil dispatchP On what tesScllated hail
has there not stood the solemn bier9 I'm
der what exquisite fresco has there not
been enacted tragedy of disasterY What
curtained couch hath heard no cry of pain?
What harp hath never triled with sorrow
What lordly natAre hath never leaned
against carved pillar and made utterance
of woeP Gall is not less bitter when
ouaGfed from golden chalice than when
taken from pewter mug. Sorrow Is
often attended 10y running footmen and
laced lackcys mounted bchtud Queen
Anne Boleyn is desolate in the palace OF
Henry VIII.
Adolphus wept in German castles oven
the hypocrisy of friends, Pedro ! among
brazilian diamonds shiyered with fear OF
massacre. Stephen of England sat ON 4
rocking throne. And every mast of pride
has bent in the storm, and the highest
maintains of honor and fame are covered
with perpetual snow. Sickness will frost
the rosiest check, wrinkle the smoothest
brow and stillen the sprighthest step