Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-03-02
AT THE TABERNACLE,
"As A HEN GATHERETH HER CHICK
EMS UNDER HER WINGS"

mon-He Complains That Certain Adver-
tisers Have Been Using His Name with
out Authority.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 26.-Previous to the ser,
mon In tho Brooklyn tabernacle this morn.
ing Rev. DR.. Talmage, in giving cut num-
Der OF notices, dwelt upon the fact that Ger.
tain picture makers Of Brooklyn had used
his name as u reference In their advertise
ments and circulars without his authority.
Thousands Of letters of complaint have
come TO him in this respect, and lie wanted
it distinctly understood that he knew moth.
ing Of these people or their business meth
DDS. The text selected for the morning
sermon was Matthew xiii, 81, AS hen
gathereth Ter chickens under her wings.
and ye would not"
WHY THIS sIMILE9
Jerusalem was in sight as Christ came 70
the crest Of Mount Olivet, a height of ZOO
feet. The splendors of the religious capital
OF the whole earth irradiated the Landscape.
There is the temple. Yonder is the kings
palace. Spread out before his eyes are the
pomp, the wealth, the wickedness and the
coming destruction Of Jerusalem, and he
bursts into tears at the thought of the OBJ
duracy of place that he would gladly have
saved, and apostrophizes, saying, 20, ,Je-
rusalem, Jerusalem, how often would |
have gathered thy children together, even
as hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would notr'
Why did Christ select hen and chickens
as a simile' Next to the appositeness of the
comparison | think it was to help all pub
lie teachers in the matter of illustration to
get down off their stills and use compari.
sons that all can understand. The plainest
bird on earth is the barnyard fowl. Its
only adornments are the red comb in its
headdress and the wattles under the throat.
1t has no grandeur Of genealogy. All we
know is that its ancestors came from India.
some of them from height of 1000 feet on
the sides of the Himalayas. 1t has no pre-.
tension OF nest like the eagles eyrie. 1t
has no luster of plumage like the goldfinch
Possessing anatomy that allows flight, yet
about the last thing it wants to do is to fiy,
and in retreat uses foot almost as much as
wing.
Musicians have written out in musical
scale the song Of lark and robin redbreast
and nightingale, yet the hen of my text
hath nothing that could be taken for a song,
but only cluck and cackle. Yet Christ in
the text, uttered while looking at doomed
Jerusalem, declares that what he had
wished for that city was like what the hen
does for her chickens, Christ was thus sim
pie in his teachings, and yet how hard it is
for us, who are Sunday school instructors
and editors and preachers and reformers
and those who would gain the ears of audi
ences, to attain that heavenly and divine
art of simplicity.
We have to run course of literary disor
ders as children course of physical disor-
ders. We come out CT school and college
loaded down with Greek mythoIogies, and
out of the theological seminary weighed
down with what the learned fathers said,
and we fly with wings of eagles and fiamin-
goes and albatrosses, and it takes a GOOD
while before we can come down to Christ's
similitudes, the candle under the bushel,
the salt that has lost its SAVIOR, the net
thrown into the sea, the spitte ON the eyes
of the blind man and the hen and chick
ems.
There is not much poetry about this
winged creature of God mentioned in my
SSNoi cub 0hO 10 AiAOiS PInCulCdl LlOTE
motherly and more suggestive of good
things than many that fly higher and wear
brighter colors. She is not a prima donna
of the skies nor strut of beauty in the
aisles of the forest. She does not cut cir
Gle under the sun like the Rocky mountain
eagle, but stays at home to look after fam
lily affairs. She does not swoop like the
condor of the Cordilleras to transport
rabbit from the valley to the top of the
crags, but just scratches for living. How
vigorously with her claws she pulls away
the ground to bring up what is hidden be-
neathl When the breakfast or dining hour
arrives, she begins to prepare the repast
and calls all her young to partake.
TIE HEN AS A TYPE.
amin sympathy with the unpretentious,
old fashioned hen, because, like most of us,
she has to scratch for living. She knows
at the start the lesson which most people of
good sense are slow to learn-that the gain
ing of livelihood implies work, and that
successes do not lie on the surface, but are
to be upturned by positive and continuous
effort. The reason that society, and the
church, and the world are so full of fai.-
ures, so full of loafers, so full of dead beats,
is because people are not wise enough to
take the lesson which any hen would teach
them-that if they would find for them
selves and for those dependent upon them
anything worth having they must scratch
for it.
Solomon said, go to the ant, thou slug
gard" say. Go to the hen, thou sluggard.
In the Old Testament God compares him.
self to an eagle stirring up her nest, and in
the New Testament the Holy Spirit is COM
pared to descending dove, but Christ, in
a sermon that begins with cutting sarcasm
for hypocrites and ends with the paroxysm
of pathos in the text, compares himself to
hen.
One day in the country we saw sudden
CONSERVATION in the behavior of old Domi-
nick. Why the hen should be so disturbed
we could not understand. We looked about
to see if neighbours dog were invading the
farm. We looked up to see if stormcloud
were lowering We could see nothing on
the ground that could terrorize, and we
could see nothing III the air to ruffie the
feathers of the hen, but the loud, wild, af-
frighted cluck which brought all her brood
at full ruE under her feathers made us look
again around us and above us, when we
saw that high up and far away there was a
rapacious bird wheeling around and around,
and down and down, and not seeing us as
we stood in the shadow it came nearer and
lower until we saw its beak was curved
from base to tip, and it had two flames of
fire for eyes, and it was hawk.
But all the chickens were under old DOM
inick's wings, and either the bird of prey
caught a glimpse of us, or not able to find
the brood huddled under wing darted back
into the clouds. So Christ calls with great
earnestness to all the young. Why, what
is the matterP 1t is bright sunlight, and
there can be no danger Health is theirs.
A good home is theirs. Plenty of food is
theirs. Prospect of long life is theirs. But
Christ continues to call, calls with more
emphasis and urges haste and says not
second ought to be lost. Oh, do tell us
what is the matter!