Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-06-16
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
TALMAGE breaches ON THE
NEW RECRUITS
Who Have Put the Armor In his
Farewell Sermon Before his
Departure for the Land of the Mill
list and Gar.

! mage prefaced his sermon this morning with q
statement 10 the effect that he would sail on
Wednesday next for Europe and might be able
TO be present at the distribution in the famine
stricken districts of Russia OF the Christian
Herald relief cargo, consisting of 100000
pounds Of -four and other supplies which goes
out this week on the steamship Leo, chartered
for the purpose. He congratulated the Amer
lean people on the generous spirit evirced by
this magnificent gift to the starving people
His sermon was from the text, Ephes. g. II:
Put on the whole armor of God"
There is in this text great rattle of
shields, and helmets, ana swords.
Soldiers are getting reauy :cr battle.
We have had recently in this church
new enlistments and shall address
myself to those in this and other
churches who are putting on the armor
Of God, and who may feel themselves
to be as yet only raw recruits. Mas
terly retreat" is term often used in
military circles, but in religion there is
no such thing. 1t is either glorious ad-
vance or disgraceful and ignominious
falling back. 1t would be strange
thing if all our anxiety about
men ceased the moment they
were converted. You would
almost doubt the sanity of that
farmer who having planted the corn
and seen it just sprout above ground,
! should say: "My work is all done. !
have no more anxiety for the field.
No. There is work for the pillow and
/ the hoe, and there must be careful
keeping up of the fences, and there
must be a frightening away of the
birds that would pillage the field. And
say the entrance upon Christian life
| Is only the implantation of grace in
the heart. There is earnest, hard
years of anxiety before there shall be
heard the glorious shout of Harvest
home" The beginning to be a Christian
is only putting down the foundation;bu
after that there are years of hammer
ing polishing, carving, lifting, before
the structure is completed. 1t takes
FIVE years to make Christian char
acter; it takes twenty years; it takes
forty years; it takes seventy years, if a
man shall live so long. In other
words, man dying after half n CEN
tury of Christian experience feels that
he has only learned the "A b C's'' of a
glorious alphabet. The next year will
decide great deal in your history,
young Christian man. 1t will decide
whether you are TO be Il burning and
shining light of the church, or a spark
of grace covered up in barrel of
ashes. 1t will decide whether you
are to be a strong man in Christ
Jesus, with gigantic blows
striking the iron nail of darkness or n
bedwarfed, whining, grumblng sol
der, that ought to be drummed out of
the Lords camp with the "Rogues'
March" You have only just been
launched; the voyage is to be made.
Earth and heaven and hell are watch
ing to see how fast you will sail, how
well you will weather the tempest, and
whether at last amid the shouting of
the angels, you shall come into the
right harbor. May God help me this
morning to give you three or four
words of Christian counsel, as | address
myself more especially TO those who
have just now entered the Christian
life.
My first word of counsel is, hold be-
fore your soul a very high model. Do
not say, II wish could pray like that
man, or speak like this man, or have
the conservation of this one" Say:
Here is the Lord Jesus Christ, per-
feet pattern. BY that / mean, with
ENI' IN, hn oil
other words you will never be any more
a Christian than you strive to be. If
you build foundation twenty by
thirty feet you will only have a small
house. If you build foundation one
hundred by one hundred feet, you will
have large house. If you resolve to
be only middling Christian,
you will only be middling
Christian. If You have no high
aspiration in worldly direction
you will never succeed in business If
you have no high aspiration in religious
things you will never succeed in relig-
ion. You have right to aspire to the
very highest style of Christian char
acter. From your feet there reaches
out a path of Christian attainment
which you may take, and deliberately
say that you may be better man than
was Paul, or David, or Summerfeld, or
Doddridge-a better woman than Han
nah More or Charlotte Elizabeth Why
not? Did they have a monopoly of
Christian grace? Did they have a
private key of the stOrehouse of Gods
mercy? Does God shut you out from
the gladness and the goodness to which
they were introduced? o, no. You
have just the same promises, just the
same Christ, just the same Holy Ghost.
Just the same offers of present and
everlasting love, and if you fall short
of what they were-ay, if you do not
come up TO the point which they
reached and so beyond tit is not be-
cause Christ has shut you out from any
point of moral and spiritual elevation,
but because you deliberately refused
TO take it. l admit that man cannot
become Christian like that without a
struggle; but what do you get without
| lighting for it? The fortresses of dark
ness are TO be taken by storm. You
may by acute strategy flank the hosts
of temptation; but there are tempta-
lions, there are evils, in the way that
! you will have to meet face to face,
and it will be shot for shot, gun for
gun, grip for grip, slaughter for slaugh-
ter The Apostle Paul over and over
again represents the Christian life as
! combat.
! When the war-vessel of Christs
Church comes into glory bringing its
crew and its passengers, it will me-
come in like North River yacht,
beautifully painted and adorned, swing
Ing into the boathouse after a pleasure
excursion. Oh, no. 1t will be like a
vessel coming with heavy cargo from
China or India, the marks of the wave
and the hurricane upon it-sails rent,
riggings spliced, pumps all working to
keep her afloat, bulwarks knocked
away. j see such a vessel coming