The Portland daily press., 1892-12-17
At THU TABERNACLE.
The Diyine and the Maternal Tri.
butes Compared.

Faiher-Mercy, Patience, Love for the
Weak and Gentle Teaching.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 11.-Rev. DR.. Tai.
mage today, in selecting subject fo,
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 s'The Mother
of All" the text being taken from Isaiah
Xvi, 10, LAS one whom his mother com
forteth, so will comfort you"
The Bible is q warm letter of affection
from parent to child, and yet there
are many who see chiefly the severer
passages. AS there may be fifty or sixty
nights of gentle dew in one summer
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 affection. There may come
to a 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 lion, John says in the book
of Revelation. God is a breaker, Micah
announces in his prophecy. God is a
rock. God is king. But hear also
that God is love. A father and his
child are walking out in the fields on a
summers day, and there comes up d
thunderstorm, and there is flash of
lightning that startles the child, and the
father says, 'sMy 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,
ssThat is Gods smile"
GOD A LOVING TEACHER.
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 an
nounces that God is our mother. Gas
one whom his mother comforteth, so
will comfort you"
/ ! remark, in the first place, that God
has mothers simplicity of instruction
A father does not know how to teach
child the A B C. Men are not skillful
in the primary department, but a mother
has SO much patience that she will tell a
child for the hundredth time the diff
ference between T and G and between
/ and 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
SO doing. So God, our Mother, stoops
down to cur infantile minds. :.
Though we are told thing a 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 sun
shine, and we cannot spell them. God
puts us in the school of adversely, and
the letters are black, and we cannot 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 SO set forth to
her child the hideousness of quarrel
some spirit, instead of giving a lecture
upon that subject she turns over leaf
and shows the child two boys in a wran
gle, and says, "Does not that look hor-
rible?" If she wants to teach her child
the awfulness Of war She turns over the
picture book and shows the war charger,
the headless trunks of butchered men,
the wild, bioodshot eye of battle rolling
under lids Of flame, and she says, ''That
is war;" The child understands it.
In great many books the best parts
are 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 us? 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 album
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. 1t
has been very cold night, but the chill
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