Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-12-12
GOD LIKE A MOTHER,
A Characteristic Sermon on His Mer-
cies by DR.. Talmage.
THE EXTREME OF TENDERNESS.
People Are Usually Struck by the Harsh
Bible Passages
INSTEAD OF THOSE SHOWING FAVOR

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPATcH.l
BROOKLYN, Dec. 1I-Rev. DR.. Talmag
to-day, in selecting subject for his sermon
chose an aspect of the divine characte
which is seldom considered. To an un
usually large audience he discoursed OF
God as 'sThe Mother of All, the text be,
ing taken from Isaiah, Xvi, 13: Gas on,
whom his mother comforteth, so will com
fort you"
The Bible is q warm letter of affection
from parent to a child, and yet there are
many who see chiefly the severer passages.
As there may be 80 or 60 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 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 20 or 80 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 judgments OF God than
to those which announce His mercy and His
favor.
The text of this morning bends with great
gentleness and love over all who are pros
trate in sin and trouble. 1t lights up with
compassion. 1t melts with tenderness. 1t
breathes upon us the hush of an eternal lul-
laby, for it announces that God is our
Mother. GAS one whom his mother COM
forteth, so will 1 comfort YOU"
AMother's Simplicity.
1 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 mother has so
much patience that she will tell child for
the hundredth time the difference between
+ and G, and between 1 and j. So God, our
Mother, stoops down to our 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 puts us in the school of adversity,
and the letters are black, and we cannot
spoil them. If God were merely king He
would punish us; if He were simply father
He would whip us; but God is mother, and
80 we are borne with and helped all the
way through.
a mother teaches her child chiefly by
pictures. If she wants to set forth to her
child the hideousness of a quarrelsome
spirit, instead of giving lecture upon that
subject, she turns over a leaf and shows the
child two boys in a wrangle, and saws,
"Does that not look horribe?" 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, bloodshot eve
of battle rolling under lids of flame, and
she says, THAT is warp The child under |
stands it. In great many books the best |
part are the pictures The style |
may be insipid, the type poor,
but a picture always attracts |
3 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 |
picture. The barns are full. The |
wheat stacks are rounded. The cattle are |
chewing the cud lazily in the sun. The or
chards 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 abundance. We look |
It the picture and say, ''Thou crownest the
-ear with thy goodness, and thy paths
irop fatness." Our family comes around
he breakfast table. 1t has been a very
old night. but the children are all bright,
because they slept under thick coverlids,
md they are now in the warm blast of the
pen register, and their appetites make lux
lries out of the plainest fare, and we look
t the picture and say, ''Bless the Lord, o
ny soul r'
The Sheep and the Goats.
God wishes to set forth the fact that in
he judgment the good will be divided from
be wicked. How is it done? BY picture;
" parable-a fishing scene. A group of
lardy men, long-bearded, geared for stand
ng to the waist in water; sleeves rolled up.
1ong oar, sungilt; boat battered as though