The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-12
THE THRESHING MACHINE.
ALL Humanity Must Go Through a
ThrGShlDg Process.

Part of the Process-It is No Com-
pliment to Escape Great Trial-God
Proportions Our Trials to What We
Gan Bear.
Brooklyn, June 11.-Rev. DR.. Talmage
chose as the subject Of his sermon to-day,
"The Threshing Machine" the text be-
ing from lisa. xviii, 27-2s, "For the
fitches are not threshed with a threshing
instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned
about upon the cummin but the fitches
are beaten out with STAFF and the cum.
min with u rod Bread corn is bruised;
because he will not ever be threshing it.n
There are three kinds of seed mem
tioned-ftches, cummin and corn. OF the
last we all know But it may be we'll to
state that the 6tches and the cummin
were small seeds, like the carraway or
the chiclS-pea. When these grains or
herbs were TO be threshed they were
thrown on the floor, and the workmen
would come around with staff, or rod, or
fail and beat them until the seed would
be separated; but when the corn was to
be threshed that was thrown on the floor,
and the men would fasten horses or oxen
to a cart with iron-dented wheels that
cart would be drawn around the thresh-
ing floor, and so the work would beaccoui-
plished Different kinds of threshing for
different products "Ihe ftches are not
threshed with a threshing instrument,
neither is n cart wheel turned about upon
the cummin; but the fitches are beaten
out with staff and the cummin with
rod Bread corn is bruised, because he
will not ever be threshing it,"
The great thought that the text presses
upon our souls Is that we all go through
some kind of threshing process. The fact
a hn dpNOffngr llfa fot
honorable and noble purposes will not
win you any escape. Wilberforce, the
Christian emancipator, was in his day
derisively called cdr Cantwell.n
Thomas Babington Macaulay, the advo-
cate Of all that was good long before no
became the most conspicuous historian
of his day, was caricatured in one of the
quarterly reviews as "Babbletongue
Macaulay" Norman Mcleod, the great
friend of the Scotch poor, was industri-
ously maligned In all quarters, although
on the day when he was carried out TO
his burial workman stood and looked at
the funeral procession, and said: "If he
had done nothing for anybody more than
he has done for me, he should shine as the
stars forever and ever" All the small
wits of London had their fling at John
Wesley, the father Of Methodism
If such men could not escape the mH.
ligniug of the world, neither can you ex-
DEEN TO RCb IlC OF LLG HuuIDs keen SbEOkU
OF the tribulum. All who will live godly
In Christ Jesus must suffer persecution.
Besides that, there are the sicknesses,
and the bankruptcies and the irritatfOns,
and the disappointments which are ever
putting cup of aloes to your lip. Those
wrinkles on your face are hieroglyphics,
which, If deciphered, would make out a
thrilling story Of trouble. The footstep
of the rabbit Is seen the next morning on
the snow, and on the white hairs of the
aged are the footprints showing where
swift trouble alighted.
Even amid the joys and hilarities of life,
trouble sometimes will break in. AS when
the people were assembled in the Charles
town theater, during the revolutionary
war, and while they were witnessing a
farce, and the audience was in great gratu-
lation, the guns Of an advancing army
were heard, and the audience broke up in
wild panic and ran for their lives, so
ofttimes while you are seated amid the
Joys and festivities Of this world you hear
the cannonade Of some great disaster. ALI
the fitches, and the cummin, and the corn
must come down on the threshing floor
and be pounded
My subject, in the first place, teaches
us that it Is no compliment to us IL wel
escape great trial. The fitches and the
cummin on the threshing floor might loolrl
over to the corn on another threshinga
able, bruised corn. We have only been q
little pounded, but that has been almosts
destroyed" Well, the corn, If it hadk
lips, would answer and say: "Do youi
know the reason you have not been as
much pounded as l havel II is because
you are not of so much worth as / am; III
you were you would be as severely run
over" Yet there are men who supposed
they are the Lords favorites simply be-
cause their barns are full, and their bank
account is flush and there are no funerals
In the house. II may be because they are
fitches and cummin, while down at the
end Of the lane the poor widow may be
the Lords corn. You are but little
pounded because you are but little worth,
and she bruised and ground because she
Is the best part of the harvest.
The heft Of the threshing machine IS
according to the value of the grain. II
you have not been much threshed in life,
perhaps there is not much to thresh liz
you have not been much shaken OF
trouble, perhaps it is because there Is go
ing to be a very small yield When there
are plenty of blackberries the gatherers
go out with large baskets but when the
drought has almost consumed the fruit,
then quart measure will do as well 1t
took the venomous snake on Paulis hand
and the pounding of him with stones
until he was taken up for dead, and the
jamming against him of prison gates, and
the Ephesian vociferation, and the skinned
ankles Of the painful stocks, and the
laundering of the Alexandrian corn ship,
and the beheading stroke of the Roman
sheriff to bring Paul TO his proper devel-
opment.
II was not because Robert Moffat, and
Lady Rachel Russell, and Frederick Ober-
lin were worse than other people that
they had to suffer, it was because they
were better, and God wanted to make
them best BY the carefulness of tho
threshing you may always conclude the
value Of the grain.
Next, my text teaches US that God pro-
portions our trials to what we can bear.
The staff for the ftches. The rod for
the cummin. The iron wheel for the corn.
Sometimes people in great trouble say:
so, ! can't bear It'll" But you did bear
it, God would not have sent it upon you
if he did not know that you could bear it.
You trembled and you swooned; but you
got through. God will not take from your
oyes one tear too many nor from your
lungs one sigh too deep, nor som your
temples one throb too shap. The per-
plexities of your earthly business have
not in them one tangle too intricate.
You sometimes feel as If our world
were fun of bludgeons flying haphazard.
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