The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-03-04
USEFUL LESSONS.
DR.. Talmage Draws Some From a
Simple Story.
Chrlst's Appeal to Jerusalem - Invisible
Dangers-Temptations of Life Smile
of the Hons Protecting wing-A
shelter From the Storms,

In a late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage took his text from
Matt. xxi. 81: AS a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and We
would not" lie said;
Jerusalem vas in sight as Christ came
to the crest of Mount Olivet, a height
of 700 feet. The splendors of the re-
hgious capital of the whole earth ir-
radinted the landscape. There is the
temple. Yonder is the kings palace.
Spead out before his eyes are the pomp,
the wiclSedness and the coming destruc-
ton of Jerusalem, and he bursts into
tears at the thought of the obduracy of
q place that he would gladly have
saved, and apostrophized, saying: 'Oh,
Jerusalem, how often would l have
gathered thy children together, ever as
a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not"
Why did Christ select hen and chick
ems as a smile? Next to the Apostle
ness of the comparison, / think it was
to help all public teachers in the mat
ter of illustration to get down off their
stills and use comparisons that all car
understand. The plainest bird on earth
is the barnyard fowl. 1t has no gran
deur of ~genealogy. All we know is
that its ancestors came from India,
some of them from n height 1000 feet
on the sides Of the Himalayas. 1t has
no pretention of nest like the eagles
eyrie. 1t has nc luster of plumage like
the goldfinch. Possessing anatomy
that allows fight, yet about the last
thing it wants to do is to fly, and in re-
treat 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 a song, but only cluck and
cackle. Yet Christ, in the text
uttered while looking upon doomed
Jerusalem, declares that what he had
wished for hat city was like what the
hen does for her chickens. Christ was
thus simple in his teachings, and yet
how hard 1t is for us, who are Sunday
school instructors and editors and
preachers and reformers, and those who
would gain the ears of audiences, to at
tain that heavenly and divine art of
simplicity. We have to run a course OF
literary disorders, as children a course
of physical disorders, 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 spittle on the eyes of the
blind man, and the hens 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 tina fly higher
and wear brighter colors.
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 a
livelihood implies work, and that sue
cesses do not lie on the surface, but are
to be upturned by positive and contin-
ous effort. The reason that society
and the church and the world are sofull
of failures, SO full of l~oafers, 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 themselves and for those
dependent upon them anything worth
having they must scratch for it. Solo
mon said: go to the ant, thou slug
gard"
One dav in the country we saw sud-
L.. 49, &. AE@ l1lo -. ~
Dominick. Why the hen should be so
disturbed we could not understand.
We looked to see if a neighbours dog
were invading the farm. We looked
up to see if n storm cloud were hover
ing. We could see nothing on the
ground hat could terrorize, and we
see nothing in the air to ruffie the
feathers of the hen, but the loud, wild,
affrighted cluck, which brought all her
brood at full run 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 round and round, and
down and down, and not seeing us as
we stood in the shadow, it came nearer
and lower, until we saw that its beak
was curved from base to tip, and it had
two flames of fire for eyes, and it was a
hawk. But all the chickens were un.
der old Dominick's wings, and either
the bird of prey caught a glimpse of us,
or not able to find the brood huddled un'
der wing, darted back into the clouds.
So Christ calls with great earnestness
to all the young. Why, what is the
matter!
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 n second ought to be lost. Oh,
do tell us what is the matter. All
now l see, there are hawks of tempta
tation in the air, there are vulture:
wheeling for their prey, there are
beaks of death already to plunge, there
are claws of allurement ready to clutch
Now l see the peril. Now l understand
the urgency. Now l see the only safe
ty. Would that Christ might this day
take our sons and daughters into hi!
shelter, a a hen gathereth her chick
ems under her wing"
And so the temptations of this life
are various. Some make quick work. O
death, and others agonize the mind anC
body for many years, and some like the
living blood of great souls, and Others
prefer those already gangrened. Blu
for every style of youth there is
swooping wing and a sharp beak and
cruel claw, and what the rising genera
ton needs is a wing of protection
Fathers, mothers, older brothers ant
sisters, and Sabbath school teachers
be quick and earnest and prayerful anC
importunate, and get the chicken
under wing. May the Sabbath school.
of America and Great Britain
within the next three months
sweep all their scholars into the
kingdom. Whom they have now
under charge is uncertain. Concerning
that scrawny, puny child that lay il
the cradle many years ago, the fathe'
dead, many remarked: "What a mercy
if the Lord would take the child" ant
the mother really thought so too, bu
what a good thing that God spared the
child, for it became world renowned il
Christian literature, one of Gods mos
illustrious servant's-John Todd. Re
member your children will remain
children only a little while. What you
do for them as children you must de
quickly or never do at all. "Why have
Won never V~yrittan "a boolyon said som.