Connecticut western news., 1892-12-15
AT THE TABERNACLE.
THE DIVINE AND THE MATERNAL TRIBUTES COMPARED.


 TRIBUTES COMPARED.
 pr. Talmage Believes We Should Think of God as Our Mother as We'll Our Tather-Mercy, Patience, Love for the weak and Gentle Teaching.
 BROOKLYN, Dec. 11.-Rev. pr. Tal- mage today, in selecting a subject for his sermon, chose an aspect of the di- vine character which is seldom consid- cred. To an unusually large audience he discoursed on God as "The Mother of AL" the text being taken from Isaiah Xvi, 18, "As one whom his mother com forteth, 50 will comfort you"
 The Bible is 8 warm letter of affection from a parent to child, and yet there arc many who see chiefly the severer 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 gre more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce his affection. There may come to . household twenty or fifty letters of affection during the year, and they will not make as much excitement in that home as one sheriff's 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 nounce his mercy and his favor.
 God is 8 lion, John says in the book of Revelation. God is 8 breaker, Micah announces in his prophecy. God is a rock. God is a king. But hear also that God is love. A father and his child ara walking out in the fields on a summers day, and there comes up q thunderstorm, and there is 8 flash 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 land scape, and the father forgets to say, "That is Gods smile."
 GOD A LOVING TEACHER.
 Tho text of this morning bends with great gentleness and love over all who arc prostrate in sin and trouble. It lights up with compassion. It melts with tenderness. It breathes upon us tho hush of an eternal lullaby, for it an- noumces that God is our mother. "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will comfort you"
 Iremark, in the first place, that God has mothers simplicity of instruction. A father does not know how to teach a child the A B 0. Men are not skillful In the primary department, but 8 mother has % much patience that she will tell child for the hundredth time the diff fersl ce between and G and between l anl J. Sometimes it is by blocks; sometimes by the worsted work; some times by the slate; sometimes by the book. She thus teaches the child and has no awkwardness of condescension in 70 doing. So God, our Mother, stoops down to our infantile minds.
 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 little and there little. God has been teaching some of us thirty years and some of us Exty years one word of one syllable, and we do not know it yet-faith, faith. When we come to that word we stum- ble, 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 sum- shine, and we cannot spell them. God puts us in the school of diversity, and the letters are black, and we cannot spell them. If God were merely king he would punish ,us; if he were simply a father he would whip us; but God is a mother, and so we are borne with and helped all the way through.
 A mother teaches her child chiefly by pictures. If she wants 80 set forth to her child the hideousness of a quarrel some spirit, instead of giving 8 lecture upon that subject she turns over a leaf and shows the child two boys in wran- gle, and says, "Does not that look hor- Tibler If she wants to teach her child the swfulness 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 wari" The child understands it.
 In great many books the best parts arc the pictures. The style may be in- sipid. the type poor, but picture al- ways attracts child's attention. Now God, our Mother, teaches us almost everything by pictures. Is the divine goodness to be set forth? How does God, our Mother, teach us2 By an autumnal picture. The barns are full. The wheat stacks are rounded. The cattle 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 to be resting in great abun- dance.
 We look at the picture and say. "Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness." Our family comes around the breakfast table. It has been very cold night, but the chil- dren are all bright because they 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 pie ture and say, "Bless the Lord, O my sOulp'
 GOD TEACHES BY PICTURES.
 God wishes to set forth the fact that h the judgment the good will be divided from the wicked. How is it done? By picture; by parable-a fishing scene A group of hardy men, long bearded gsared for standing to the waist in water; sleeves rolled up. Long ca, sun gilt; boat battered as though it had been . playmate of the storm. A full net humping about with the fish which have just discovered their captiv. fly, the worthless mossbunkers and the useful founders all in the same net