Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1893-03-08
MPERILED THOUSANDS.
Every Moment the Dangers Are
Pointed Out to Them.
stii They Lurk In Hazardous Abodes-rhe
Hawks of Temptation-sermon by
Rev. 4. De Witt Taimage, ID. ID.


Rev. 4. De WIT Talmage, ID. ID.
The text selected by DIR. Talmaee for
the sermon Sunday was Matthew
xii, 81: ''As hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, and ye would
not"
Jerusalem was in sight as Christ came
10 the crest OF Mt Olivet, n height of
TOO 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 obduracy of a
place that He would gladly have
saved, and apostrophizes, saying:
"Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
often would l have gathered thy
children together. even as a hen gath
ercth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not" Why did Christ Sc
lect hen and chickens as a smile? Next
to the appositeness of the companions,
think it was 10 help ali public teach
ers in the matter of illustration TO get
down off their stills and use COMPARE
sons that all can understand. The
plainest bird on earth is the barn-yard
fowl. It's only adornments arc the red
comb in its hcad-dress 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 IL has no pre-
tension OF nest like the eagles eyrie.
IT has no luster of plumage like
the goldfnch. Possessing anatomy
that allows flight, yet about the
last thing it wants TO do is TO hy,
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 "a SONG. but only
cluck and caclSlc. 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 chickens
Christ was thus simple i'm 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 audiences,
TO attain that heavenly and divine
art of simplicity. We have TO run
n course of literary disorders as
children a course of physical dis
orders We come out of school and coll
lege loaded down with Greek mythol-
ogies, and out of the theological semi
nary weighed down with what the
learned fathers said, and we fly with
wings of eagles and tlamingoes and
albatrosses, and it takes good while
before we can come down 10 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 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 coll
ors. She Is not n prima donna of the
skies, nor n strut OF beauty in the Isles
of the forest She docs not cut n circle
under the san like the Rocky mountain
eagle, but Stays at home to look after
family affairs She does not swoop
like the condor Of the Cordllleras to
transport a 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 beneath!
When the breakfast or dining hour ar
rives She begins to prepare the repast,
and calls her young to partake
l am in sympathy with the unpre-
tentious, old-fashioned hen, because.
like most of us, she has to scratch for a
living. She knows at the start the les
son 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
20 be upturncd by positive and contin-
uous effort The reason that society
and the church and the world are so
full of failures, so full of loafers, so full
OF dcadbeats 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 10 the ant. thou slug
gard" / say, go 90 the hen, thou slug
gard. In the Old Testament God COM
parcs Himself % an eagle stirring M
her nest, and in the New Testament the
Holy Spirit is compared TO a descending
dove, but Christ, in n sermon that began
with cutting sarcasm for hypocrites and
ends with the paroxysm Of pathos in the
text, compares himself TO q hen.
One day in the country, we saw sud-
den CONSERVATION in the behavior Of
old dominic. Why the hen should be
so disturbed, we could not understand.
We looked about 20 see IL q neigh boris
dog were invading the farm We look
ed mp 70 see ia storm-cloud were hover
ing. We could see nothing on the ground
that could tcrrorizc, and we could see
nothing in the air Co ruillc the feathers
Of the hen. but the loud wild, alright
ed ciuck which brought all her brood
at full run under her feathers. made us
look again around as and above us,
when we saw that high up and far
away there was rapacious bird
wheeling round and round, and
down and down and not
seeing us. as wc stood i'm the
shadow, 30 came nearer and lower.
until we saw its bcak was curved
from base 60 tip. and 10 had two flames
of FIRE for eyes and 10 was hawk But
all the chickens were under old
dominic.s wings, and either the bird n