Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1893-03-30
TALMAGE AT CHICAGO.
He Does Not Preach, But Prepares
a Sermon for the Press
On "Reiigion at Home''-what Religion
Does for the Observation-Disclosures Both
Parents Are Right the Children
Are Sure to be Right.


recently DIR. Talmage did not preach
but prepared for the press the follow
ing discourse on Religion at Home,
the text selected being Joshua, xiv.
Is ''As for me and my house we viii
serve the Lord"
Absurd, Joshua. You will have nc
time for family religion; you are a mil
itary character, and your time will be
IA ken up with affairs connected witt
the aNc"' You are a statesman az
your time will be taken up with public
affairs; you are the Washington. the
Wellington, the Mcmahon of the Israel.
itish host, you will have a good many
questions to settle, you will have nc
time for religion. But Joshua, with the
same voice with which he commanded
the sun and the moon to halt and stack
arms of light on the parade ground OF
the heavens says: ''As for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord"
Before we adopt the resolution Of
this old soldier, we want to be certain
it IS a wise resolution. If religion is GO
ing to put my piano out of tune, and
clog the feet of the children racing
through the hall, and sour the bread
and put Grape on the door bell, do not
want it in my house. / once gave So tc
hear Jenny Lind MARBLE. / have never
given a cent TO hear anyone groan. viii
this religion spoken of in my text do
anything for the dining-hall, for the
nursery, for the parlor, for the sleeping
apartments?
1t is great deal easier to invite
disagreeable guest than to get rid OF
him. If you do not want religion you
had better not ask it to come. for after
coming it may stay great while.
Isaac Watts went to visit Sir Thomas
and Lady Abney at their place in Theo-
bald, and was to stay week, and
stayed thirty-five years; and if religion
once gets into your household the
probability is it will stay there for
ever
Now the question want to discuss
is: What will religion do for the house.
hold? Question the first What did il
do for your fathers house. if you were
brought up in Christian home?
That whole scene has vanished. butt
comes back to-day. The hour for morn.
ing prayers came. You were invited
in. Somewhat fidgety, you sat and lis
tened. Your father made no preten
ton to rhetorical reading, and he jus
went through the chapter in a plain,
straightforward way. Then you all
knelt 1t was about the same prayer
morning by morning and night by
night, for he had the same sins to ash
pardon for. and he had the same bless
ings for which TO be grateful day after
day and year after year. The prayer
was longer than you would like to hav,
had it, for the game at ball was wait
ing, or the skates were lying under the
shed, or the school books needed one OF
or two more looking at the lessons
Your parents, somewhat rheumatic ano
stiffened with age, found it difficult t.
rise from their kneeling. The chair a.
which they knelt is gone, the Bible on,
of which they read has perhaps faller
to pieces the parents are gone, the
children scattered north, east, south
and west: but that whole scene
flashes upon your memory to.
day. Was that morning and even.
ing exercise in your fathers
house debasing or elevating? Is it not
among the most sacred "reminiscences:
You were not as devotional as some OF
the older members of your fathers
house who were kneeling with you a,
the time, and you did not bow your head
as closely as they did. and you looked
around and you saw just the posture
your father and mother assumed while |
they were kneeling on the floor The
whole scene is so photographed on your
memory that if you were an artist you |
could draw it now just as they lSnelt |
For how much would you have tina |
scene obliterated from your memory? / |
all comes back to-day, and you are il
the homestead again. Father is there
mother is there, all of you children ar,
there. 1t is the same old prayer, open
ing with the same petition, closing will |
the same thanksgiving. The famil,
PRAYER of IS40, 1850, as fresh in you
memory as though they were uttered
Yesterday. The tear that starts from
your eve melts all that scene. Gone. il
it? Why, many time it mas held you
steady in the struggles of life. Yor
once Slarteu LOT pldCc, anu tHdt ulcih'
DRY jerlSed you back, and you could moi
enter.
The broken prayer of your father ha:
had more effect upon you than all yor
read in Shakespeare, and Milton and
Tennyson and Dante. You have gone
over mountains and across seas. You
never for a moment got out of sight OF
that domestic altar o, my friendsl Is
it your oninion this morning that the
ten or fifteen minutes subtracted from
each day for daily devotion was ar
economy, or waste of time in your
fathers household? think some of "
are coming to the conclusion that the
religion which was in our fathers
house would be a very appropriate re
lirion for our homes If family prayers
did not damage that household there is
no probability that they will damage
our household.
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