The Penn's Grove record., 1893-04-28
REv. DIR. TALMAGR,
The Brooklyn Diyine's
Sunday Sermon.


TEXT: "And round about the throne ,Uer,
four and t'1entN seats, md upon the seat
! SalU four and tiUsntp Observation-Disclosures
w., 4.
This text I choose chiefly for the numerals
1t mentions-namely, four and Twenty. That
was the number Of elders seated around the
throne Of God, but that is the number of
years seated around my BROOKLYN ministry.
and every pulpit Is a throne of blessing or
blasting, a throne of good or evil. And to.
day in this my twenty-fourth anniversary
sermon 24years come and sit around me.
and they speak out in a Renaissance OF
gladneSs and tears. Tw~enty.four years ago
j arrived in this city TO shepherd such a flock
as might come, and that day / carried in on
my arms the infant son who in two weeks
from to day / will help ordain to the gospel
ministry, hoping that he will be preaching
long after my poor work is done.
We have received into our membership
over 5000 souls, but they, | think, are only n
small portion of the nultitudes who, COM
ing from all parts of the earth, nave in our
house of God been blessed and saved.
Although we have as a church raised 81, 101,-
600 for religious purposes, yet we are in the
strange position of not knowing whether
in two or three months we shall AVE any
church at all, and with audiences of 5000 or
1000 people crowded into this room aud the
adjoining rooms we are confronted with
the question whether / shall go on with my
work here or go to some other field. What
an awful necessity that we should lave
been Obliged to build three Immense
churches, two of them destroyeib by FIRE.
A misapprehansion is abroad that the
financial exigency of this church is past,
Through journalistic and nersonal friends a
breathing spell has been aft Iried US, but be-
fore us yet are financial obligations which
must promptly be met, or speedily this house
OF God will go into worldly uses and become
a theater or a concert hall. The $l2, 900
raised cannot cancel a floating debt OF
$40, COO. Through the kindness OF those to
whom We are indebted $50, 900 would set us
forever free. l am glad to say that the case
is not hopeless. We are daily in receipt OF
touching evidences of practical sympathy
from all classes of the community and from
all sections of the country, and it was but
yesterday that by my own hand | sent for
contributions gratefully received nearly 50
acknowledgements east, west, north and
south.
Our trust is in the Lord who divided the
Red Sea and ''ma1e the mountains skip like
lambs" With this paragraph | dismiss the
financial subject and return to the spiritual.
This morning the greatness of Gods kind.
ness obliterateS everything, and If | wanted
TO build a groan | do not know in what for
est | would hew the timber, or from what
quarry | would dig the foundation stone, or
who would construct for me an organ with
Il tremelo for the only stop. And so this
morning [ occupy my time in building one
great, massive, high, deep, broaj, heaven
piercing halleluiah. In the review of the
last "a years l think it may bs useful to
consider some of the characteristics OF 9
Brooklyn pastorate.
In the first place | remark that a Brook
lyn pastorate is always a difficult pastorate.
No city under the sun has a grander array
of pulpit talent thar Brooklyn. The Metho-
dist, the Baptist, the Congregntionalist. the
~Episcopalians, all the denominations send
their brightest lights here. He who stands
in any pulpit in Brooklyn preaching may
know that he stands within fifteen minutes
walk of sermons which a Saurin, and q
Bourdalone, and a John M. Mason and a
George Whitefield would not be ashamed of.
No city under the sun where a poor sermon
Is such a drug on the market.
For forty years Brooklyn has been sur
charged with homiletics, an electricity OF
e~loquence that struck every time 1t flashed
from the old pulpits which quaked with the
powers of a Bethuns, and a Cox, and a
Spencer, and a Spear, and a VintoD, aud a
Farley, and a Beecher, not mentioning the
magnificent men now manning the Brooklyn
pulpits. So during all the time there has
4 cNNh tNNhASh''h6 ~ BIN ~ wv hhGAI Q
taste and to crafty every mans preference.
| Now, let me say to all ministers of the
gospel who are ambitious for a Brooklyn
pulpit that it is always a difficult pastorate.
II a man shall come and stand before any
audience In almost any church in Brooklyn
he will find before him men who have heard
the mightiest themes discussed in the
mightiest way. You will have before you,
IL you tail in an argument, fl ty logicians in
a fidget. If you make a slip in the use of a
commercial figure of speech. there will be
500 merchants who will notice it. II you
throw out an anchor or furl a sail in the
wrong way, there will be ship captains right
off who will wonder If you are as ignorant
of theology az you are of ~navigation! So
it viii be a place of hard study. If you
are going to maintain yourself, you will
find a Brooklyn pastorate a diff cult pas
torate.
remark still further, a Brooklyn pasto-
rate is always a conspicuous pastorate. The
printing press of the country has no greater
force than on the eacoast. Every pulpit
word, good or bad. wise or ignorant. kind
or mean, is watched. The reportorial corps
of these cities is an organized army. Many
OF them have collegiate education and large
culture, and they are able to weigh GRAFTON
or address or sermon. If you say a silly
thing, you will never hear the end of il, and
il you say a wise thing it will go into per-
petual multiplication. There is no need OF
deriving that fact. Men whose influence
has been built by the printing press spend
the rest of their lives in denouncing news
papers. Thu newspaper is the pulpit on the
wing. More preaching done on Monday
than on Sunday. The o%mnivorous, all eyed
printing press is yer vigilant.
Besides that, a Brooklyn pastorate Il
always conspicuous in the fact that every
body comes here. Brooklyn is New York
in its better mood. Strangers have not seen
New York until they nave seen Brooklyn.
The East River Is the chasm in which our
merchants drop their cares, and their
anxieties. and their business troubles and
by the time they nave greeted their families
in the home circle they have forgotten all
about Wall street and Broadway and the
shambles. If they commit business sins in
New York during the day, they come over
to Brooklyn to repent of them.
Everybody comes here. Stand at the
bridge entrance or at the ferry gates on
Sabbath morning at 10 o'clock, or Sabbath
evening at z O'clock and you see north,
south, east, west-Europe, Asia, Africa,
New Zealand, notwithstanding to Brook
lyn to spend the Sabbath, or part Of it in the
persons of their OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES OF
them fresh from the sea-. They ave just
landed, and they want to seek the house OF
God publicly to thank the Lord for their
deliverance from cyclones and toR banks on
Newfoundland. Every song sung, every
prayer offered, every sermon preached In
New York and Brooklyn and all along this
sea coast in some shape goes all round
the world. A Brooklyn pastorate is al
the greatest altitude OF c~onspicuity.
Again l remark that a Brooklyn passionate
is characterize1 by brevity. l bethink my
self of but three ministers of the gospel now
preaching here who were preaching when
came to Brooklyn. Most OF the pulpits
around me have changed seven or eight
times since my arrival.
Sometimes the pa~storate has been brief
for one reason and sometimes for another
reason. Sometimes the ministers OF the Cos
pei nave been too god for this world, and
heaven has transplanted them. Sometimes
they changed places by the decree Of Their
denomination. Sometimes they came with
great blare of trumpets, proposing to carry
everything before them, and got extin
guished before they were distinguished
some got preached out in two or TIRES year:
and told the people all they knew, Somt
with holy speed did in a short time WORK
which It takes a great many years to do.
Whether for good or ba reasons a Brook
iyn pa~storate is characterized by brsvity,
not much of the old plan by which a minis
ter of the gospel baptized an infant, then re-
ceived him into the church, after he had be-
com an adult married him, baptized his
children. married them and lived on long
enough to hurry almost everybody but him =