The Penn's Grove record., 1893-06-16
REV. DR. 1ALNAGE'S SERMON
TIE Brooklyn Divfnes Sunday
sermSna
Subject 1.-THE Thrashing Machine"

IHtcheS are beaten out Nth a staff and the rum
min nth a rod. Bread corn is bruised be-
cause he mil not eUer be hrashing IT,
Isaiah xviii, 81, %.
There are three kinds OF seed mentioned
titches, cummin and corn. OF the last we
all know. But 1t may be well to state that
the ftches and the cummin were small seeds
IKE the earraway or the ~ehickpea. When
these grains or herbs were to be thrashed.
they were thrown on the floor, and the work.
men would come around with sta1f or rod or
fail and beat them until the seed would be
separated, but when the corn was to be
thrashed that was thrown on the floor, and
the men would fasten horses or oxen to a
cart with iron denied wheels. That cart
would be drawn around the thrashing floor,
and so the work would be accomplished.
Different kinds of thrashing for different
products. ''The fltches. are not thrashed
with a thrashing instrument, neither is a cart
wheel turned about upon the cummin but the
fitches are beaten out with a stafY and the
cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised
because he will not ever be thrashing it."
The great thought that the text presses
upon our souls is that we all go through some
kind OF thrashing process. The fact that you
may be devoting your life to honorable and
noble purposes will not win you any escape.
Wilberforce, the Christian emancipation, was
In his day derisively called cdr. Cantwell."
Thomas Babinton Macaulay. the advocate of
all that was good long before he 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 industriously maligned in all quarters
although on the day when he was carried out
to his burial a 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 for1
ever and ever" All the small wits of Lon4
don had their fling at John Wesley, the father
Of Methodism.
II such men could not escape the malienI
Ing Of the world, neither can you expect to
get rid of the sharp, keen stroke of the tribl
uium. All who will live cody in Christ Jesus
must suffer persecution. Besides that there
are the sicknesses, and the BANKRUPTCIES and
The irritations, and the disappointments
which are ever putting a cup of aloes to your
lip. Those wrinkles on your face are hiero4
glyphics which, if decipherad, would make
out u 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
footprints showing where swift trouble alieht-
ed.
Even amid the joys and hilarities Of life
trouble will sometimes break in. As when
the people were assembled in the Charles
town theatre during the Revolutionary war
and while they were witnessing a farce and
tho audience was in great graduation 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 mid the joys and festivities of this
world you hear the cannonade of some great
disaster. All the ttches, and the cummin,
and the corn must come down on the thrash-
ing floor and be pounded.
My subject, in the first place, teaches US
that it is no compliment to us ii we escape
great trial. The fitches and the cummin on
the thrashing floor might look over to the
corn on another thrashing floor and say I
LOOK at that poor, miserable, bruised corn.
We have only been a little pounded, but that
has been almost destroyed" Well, the corn,
If it had lips, would answer and say 800
you know the reason you have not been as
much pounded rs L have? 1t is because you
are not so much worth as am. II you were,
you would be as severely run over"
Yet there men who suppose they are the
Lords favorites simply because 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 oummin, 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 thrashing machine is ac-
cording to the value of the grain. If you
have not been much tbrashed in life, perhaps
there is not much to thrash. If you havd
not been much shaken of trouble, perhaps
there is going to be a very small yield. When
there are plenty of blackherries the gatherers
go out with large baskets. but when the
drought has almost consumed the fruit then
o quart measure will do as well. 1t took the
venomous snake on Paul's hand and the
| pounding of him with stone until he was
taken up for dead, and the jamming against
him of prison gates, and the Ephesian vocif-
Grafton, md the skinned ankles of the pain4
full stocks, and the laundering of the Alex
andrian corn ship, and the b~eheading stroke
Of the Roman sheriff to bring Paul to hid
proper development.
1t was not because Robert Moffat and Lady
Rachel Russell and Frederick 0berlin 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 the thrashing you may all
ways conclude the value of the grain.
Next my text teaches us that God propor1
lions our trials to what we can bear, the
staff for the fitches, the rod for the cummin.
the iron wheel for the corn. Sometimes
people in great trouble say, sob, I can't
bear itY" But you did bear 1t, God would
not have sent it upon you II He did not know
| that you could bear it. You trembled, and
you swooned, but you got through. God
4 will not take from your eyes one tear too
many, nor from your lungs one sigh too
deep, nor from your temples one throb too
sharp. The perplexlties Of your earthly
| business have not In them one tangle too inI
tricate.
You sometimes feel as il our world were
| full Of bludgeons flying haphazard. Oh. no
they are thrashing instruments that God just
| suits to your case. There is not a dollar of
bad debts on your ledger, or a d~isappoint5
ment about goods that you expected to cd
up, but that have gone down, or a swindle
OF your pushes partner, or a trick on the
part OF those who are in the same kind OF
business that you are, but God intended to-
override for your immortal help. ''Oh,"
you say, '.there is no need talking that way
| to me. / don't like to be cheated and out
ragged" Neither does the corn like the corn
thrasher, but after it has been thrashed and
/ winnowed il has a great deal better opinion
of w~innowing mills and corn thrashers.
'tWell, you say, "Tf 1 could choose my
troubles l would be willing to be troubled"
All, my brother, then 1t would not be trouble.
You would choose something that would not
hurt, and unless it hurts it does not get sane
tilted. Your trial perhaps may be childless-
ness. You are fond of children. You say
"Why does God send children to that other
household, where they are unwelcome and
are beaten and banged about, when would
have taken them in the arms OF my affec-
tions?' You say, "Any other trial but this. 4"
Your trial perhaps may be a disig-
ured countenanee or a face that Is
easily caricatured, n you say, "oh,l
/ could endure anything If only Il
was good looking" And your trial perhaps
is a violent temper, and you have to drive 1t
like six unbroken horses amid the gunpow-t
der explosions Of a great holiday, and ever
and anOn it runs away with you. Your trial
is the asthma. You say, "oh, II it were
rheumatism or neuralgia or erysipelas, but
1t is this asthma, and 1t is such an exhaust
ing thing to breathe" Your trouble Is a hus-
band, short, sharp, snappy and cross about
the house and raising a small riot because a
button is Of How could you know the but
ton is on? )
Your trial is a wife ever In contest with the
Servants and she is a sloven. Though she
was very careful about her appearance in
your presence once, now she is careless, be-
cause she said her fortune is made! Your
trial ia a hard school lesson you cannot
learn, and you have bitten your finger nails
until they are a sight TO behold. Everybody
has some vexation or annoyance or trial,
and he or she thinks 1t Is the one least
aI,-A 49, u III