Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1893-02-27
A PROTECTING WING.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE's SERMON ON THE
HEN AND CHICKENS.

Why Christ Selected the Home1y Com pari-
son--Some Familiar stories-The World
Is Just What We Make It-A Great Re-
sponsibility.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 26.-Previous to the
sermon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle this
morning Rev. DIR. Talmage, in giving
out number of notices, dwelt upon the
fact that certain picture makers of
Brooklyn had used his name as refer
ence in their advertisements and circu-
lars without his authority. Thousands
of letters of complaint have come to him
in this respect. and he wanted it distinct
ly understood that he knew nothing of
these people or their business methods.
The text selected for the morning sermon
was Matthew xiii. 81, Gas hen gath
ereth her chickens under her wings, and
ye would net"
Jerusalem was in sight as Christ came
to to the crest of Mount Olivet, height
of 700 feet. The splendors of the reli-
gious capital of the whole earth irradi-
ated the landscape. There is the tenn
pie. Yonder is the kings palace
Spread out before his eyes are the pomp,
the wealth, the wickedness and the COM
ing destruction of Jerusalem, and he
bursts into tears at the thought of the
obduracy of place that he would gladly
have saved, and apostrophizes, saying,
80 Jerusalem. Jerusalem, how often
would have gathered thy children to-
gether, even as hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings. and ye would
not"
Why did Christ select hen and chick
ems as simile? Next to the Apostle
ness of the comparison think it was to
help all public teachers in the matter of
illustration to get down off their stills
and use comparisons that all can under
stand. The plainest bird on earth is the
barnyard fowl. Its only adornments are
the red comb in it's headdress and the
wattles under the throat. It 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
pretension of nest like the eagles eyrie.
1t has no luster of plumage like the gold
finch. Possessing anatomy that allows
fight, yet about the last thing it wants
to do is to fly, and in retreat uses foot
almost as much as wing
Musicians have written out in musical
scale the song of lark and robin red
breast and nightingale, yet the hen of
my text hath nothing that could be taken
for song, but only cluck and cackle.
Yet Christ in the text uttered, while
looking upon doomed Jerusalem, declares
that what he had wished for that city
was like what the hen does for her chick
ems Christ was thus simple in his teach
ings, 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 audiences,
to attain that heavenly and divine art of |
simplicity.
We have to run a course Of literary |
disorders as children course of phys |
ical disorders. We come out of school |
and college loaded down with Greek
and out of the theological
seminary weighed down with what the
learned fathers said, and we fly with |
wings of eagles and famingoes and alba
trosses, and it takes a good while before |
we can come down to Christ's simili-
tudes, the candle under the bushel, the |
salt that has lost it's SAVIOR, the net |
thrown into the sea, the spittle on the |
eyes of the blind man and the hen and |
chickens.
There is not much poetry about this
winged creature of God mentioned in
my text, but she is more practical and
more 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 aisle of the forest. She
does not cut circle under the sun like
the Rocky mountain eagle, but stays at
home to look after family 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 vigor
ously with her claws she pulls away the
ground to bring up what is hidden be-
meath! When the breakfast or dining
hour arrives, she begins to prepare the
repast and calls all her young to partake
UNDER OLD DoMINICK's WINGS.
l am in sympathy with the unpreten-
tious old fashioned hen, because, like
most of us, she has to scratch for a liv-
ing. She knows at the start the lesson
which most people Of good sense are
slow to learn-that the gaining of live
lihood implies work, and that successes
do not lie on the surface, but are to be
upturned by positive and continuous ef-
fort The reason that society, and the
church, and the world are SO full of fail
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
ind for themselves and for those de-
pendent upon them anything worth hav-
ng they must scratch for it.
Solomon said, go to the ant, thou
'luggard." l say, "Go to the hen, thou
sluggard" In the Old Testament God
compares himself to an eagle stirring up
her nest, and in the New Testament the
Holy Spirit is compared to descending
love, but Christ, In a sermon that begins