The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-12-09
HUsKING TIME.
Harvest Home Discourse By Rev.
DR.. Talmage.
Gathering the Grain That is Ripe For
the Harvest-The Final Garner
Ing of the Great Crop
of Souls.

In recent sermon at Brooklyn DR..
T. Dewitt Talmage discoursed upon
the harvest season. The text selected
was: AS a Shock of Corn Cometh in
in His Season." Job V. 90, DR.. Talmage
said:
This is the time of the year for huslz-
ing corn. If you have recently been in
the fields you know that the corn is all
cut The sharp knife struck through
the stalks and left them all along the
fields until a man came with a bundle
of straw and twisted a few of these
wisps of straw into band, and then
gathering up as much of the corn as he
could compass with his arms, he bound
with his wisp of straw, and then stood
it in the field in what is called a shock.
About corn as an imported cereal or
corn as metaphor, the Bible is con-
stantly speaking. You know about
people in the famine coming to buy
corn of Joseph, and the foxes on fire
running into the standing corn" and
about the oxen treading out the corn,
and about the seven thin ears of corn
that in Pharaoh's dream devoured the
seven good ears, and the ''parched
corn" handed to beautiful Ruth by the
harvesters of Bethlehem, and Abigairs
five measures of ''parched corn with
which she hoped to appease the enc
mics of her drunken husband, and
David's description of the valleys ''cov-
cred over with corn" and "the handful
of corn in the earth" and 1.-The full
corn in the ear" and Christ's Sabbath
morning walk through corn fields, and
the disciples 'plucking ears of corn"
and so l am not surprised to find corn
husking time referred to in my text:
CAS- shock of corn cometll in in his
season"
There is difference of opinion as to
whether the orientals knew anything
about the corn as it stands in our fields;
but recent discoveries have found out
that the Hebrew knew all about Indian
maize, for there have been grains of
corn picked up out of ancient crypts
and eXhumed from hiding places where
they were put down many centuries
ago and have been planted in our time
and have come up just such Indian
maize as we raise in New York and
Ohio; so l am right when say that my
text may refer to a shock of corn just
as you and bound it, just as you and l
threw it, just as you and l huskeS it
There may come some practical and
useful and comforting lessons to all our
souls, while we think of coming in at
last like a shock of corn coming in in
his season"
1t is high time that the King of Ter
rors was thrown out of the Christian
vocabulary. A vast multitude of peo-
pie talk of death as though it were the
disaster of disasters instead of being to
a good man the blessing of blessings.
1t is moving out of a cold vestibule into
warm temple. 1t is migrating into
groves of redolence and perpetual fruit
age. 1t Is change from bleak March
Sc roseate June. 1t is a change of
manacles for garlands. 1t is the
transmitting of the iron handouts of
earthly incarceration into the dia-
monded wrislets Of a bridal party;
or, to use the suggestion of my text, it
is only huslling time. 1t is the tearing
off of the rough sheath of the body that
the bright and the beautiful soul may
go free. Coming in like a shock of
corn cometh in in his season." Christ
broke up a funeral procession at the
gate OF Main by making a resurrection
day for a young man and his mother.
And | would that l could break up
your sadness and halt the long funeral
procession of the worlds grief by some
oln e,,1 e Ahn To-
transition.
We all know that huslzing time was
time of frost. Frost on the fence.
Frost on the stubble Frost on the
ground Frost on the bare branches of
the trees. Frost in the air Frost on
the hands of the huskers. You remem-
Der we used to hide between the corn
stacks so as to keep off the wind, but
still you remember how shivering was
the body and how painful was the
cheek and how benumbed were the
hands. But after awhile the sun was
high up and all the frosts went out of
the air and hilarities awakened the
echoes, and joy from one corn shock
went up, AHA, aha"' and was an
swered by joy from another corn shock.
AHA. ahar' So we all realize
that the death of our friend is
the nipping of many expectations,
the freezing, the chilling, the frosting
of many of our hopes. 1t is far from
being a south wind 1t comes out of
the frigid north, and when they 60
away from us we stand benumbed in
body and benumbed in mind and be-
numbed in soul We stand among our
dead neigh bors, our dead families, and
we say: "Will we ever get over it?'
Yes, we will get over it amid the shout
ings of heavenly reunion, and we will
look back to all these distresses of be-
reaEement only as the temporary dis
tresses of husking time. Weeping
may endure for a night, but JOY cometh
in the morning" Light, and but for
moment" said the apostle, as he
clapped his hands, light, and but for
a moment" The chill of the frosts fol-
lowed by the gladness that cometh in
like shock of corn cometh in in his
season"
Of course the huslzing time made
rough work with the ear of corn. The
husking peg had to be thrust in and the
hard thumb of the husker had to come
down on the swathing of the ear. and
then there was a pull and there was
ruthless tearing, and a complete snap
ping off before the corn was free, and
If the husk could have spoken it would
have said: why do you lacerate me?
Why do you wrench. me?" All! my
friends, that is the way God has ar
ranged that the ear and husk shall part,
and that is the way he has arranged
that the body and soul shall separate.