Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1892-12-08
RIZPAH ON THE ROCK
DR.. TALMAGL IN THE DEEP TRAGEDY
OF THE SONS OF SAUL.

of Bereaved Mothers-The Heroines Of
History.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 4.-This is one of those
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 "Rzpah
on the Rock" the text selected being Ii
Samuel xxi. TO- "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 ofprey from those regions,
and now the shrek of the locomotive wills
tie which is daily heard at Jerusalem viii
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 jackals and lions. Seven
sons of Saul had been cruciiied on hill
Rizpah was mother TO two and relative to
five of the boys. What had these boys done
that they should be crucifedf 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, "A 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 thatl All, do you not know
that a mother can stand anything?
THE MOTHERS vIGILs
Oh, if she might be allowed to hollow
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 On, 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 sleepl Exhaust
ed nature ever and anon falls into slumber,
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. All the seven are buried. aud 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
So Let every one who does wrong know
that he wars not only, as in this case,
against two generations, children and
grandchildren, but against all the genera
tions of coming time. That is what makes
dissipation and uncleanness so awful. 1t
reverberates in other times 1t may skip
one generation, but it is apt to come up in
the third generation, as is suggested in the
Ten Commandments which say, Visiting
the iniquities of the fathers upon the chill 4
dren unto the third and fourth generation |
Mind you, it says nothing about the sec 4,
Ond generation, but mentions the third and
the fourth. That accounts for what you
see-very good parents with very |
bad children. Go far enough back in the
ancestral line and you find the source of 4
all the turpitude. Visiting the iniquities |
of the fathers upon the children unto the 1
third and fourth generation" Ii when /
Saul died the consequences Of his iniquity /
could have died with him it would not Z
have been so bad. Alas mol Look on that 4
hill few miles out from Jerusalem and 4
see the CHASTITY burdens of those seven glib I
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 corpses. Like the seven
sons of Saul, though dead, unburied. Alas
for Rizpah. who not for six months, but
for years and years, has watched theml She
cannot keep the vultures and the jack
ais off.
Furthermore, this strange incident in
Bible story shows that attractiveness of
person and elevation Of position are no
security against trouble
THE DISCOVERED FAvoRITE.
Who is this Rizpah sitting in desolstiony
One of Sauls favorites. Her personal at
fractions had won his heart. She had been
,aressed of fortune With mothers
pride she looked on her princely children
But the scene changes Behold her in
Punishment and bereavement-Rizpah on
he rockl I,
Some Of the worst distresses have come
% scenes of royalty and wealth. What
porter at the mansions gate has not let
n champing and lathered steed bringing II
svil dispatch? On what tessellated hall
las there not stood the solemn bierf I'm
Ter what exquisite fresco has there not
been enacted a tragedy of disasters What
couch hath heard no cry of pains
What harp hath never trilled with sorrow?