The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1894-05-09
AT The TABERNACLE.
a Sermon of Imagery or the spl' ltuai
Coz ficts of Life.

nacle was crowded this morning with tht
usual throog Of eager listen$s. DR.
Talmage preached on the spiritual con
fiicts Of life, taking for his text Genesis
xxxil, 1926: And Jacob was left alone
and there Wreetled man with him unt
the breaking of the day. And when he
saw that he prevailed not against him nc
touched the hollow of his thigh, and the
hollow OF Jacobs thigh was out OF 'olnt
as he wrestled with him. And he said
LIE. me 20, for The day breaketh. And
he said, will not let thee go except thou
bless me-"
The dust arose from q travelling hero
OF cattle and sheep and goats and camels'
They are the present that jacob SENDS TO
Gain the good will of his Offended brother.
That night Jacob halts by the brook
Jabbek. But there IS no rest Tor the
weary man. No shining ladder to lei
the angels down into his dream, but a
fierce combat that lasts until the morn
ing with an unknown visitor. They
each try to throw the other. The un'
known visitor, to reveal his superior
power, by e. touch wrenches Jacobs
thieh bone from It's socket, perhaps
manning him for life. AS or the morn
ing sky the cluters Of purple cloud be-
gin to r'pen Jacob sees Ii is an angel with
whom be has been eontending and not
one of his brothers. coadiutors. Let me
go,n cries the angel, lifting hlmselfup
into increasing light. "The day break
sth.''
You see IN the first place that God al
lows good people sometimes TO get into
a terrible Struggle. Jacob was good
man, but here he is LEFT alone IN the mid
night to wrestle with tremendous in
Huence by TIE brook Jabbok. For Joseph
Dit, for Dsniel, wild beast del; for
David, delhronement and exile; for John
the Baptist. wilderness diet and tie
execunorer's Ak; for Peter, a prison; for
Paul. shipwreck; for John. desolate Pat
mes; for Vsshli, most insulting cruelty
for Josephine, banishmenl; for Mrs
Sigourney. the agony of a drunkard's
wife; for John Wesley, stones hurled by
an lnturiated mob; for Catherine, the
Scotch girl, the drowning surges OF the
sea; for Mr.. Burns. the buteliDg OF the
Montreal populace; for John Brown CT
EdlnburQh, the pistol shot Of Lord
Cla7erh use; for Hugh McKail, the scat
told; for Lalimer, the stake; for Christ,
the cross. For whom the rocEs, the glt
bets, the gulllotines, tie thumbscre~s?
For the soDs and daushters of the Lord
God Almighty. SCme one said 10 a
Christian reformer, "The world is
asains1 you" Then" he replied, Il
am.against the world
! will 60 further and say that every
Christian has his struggle. This man
had his combat in Wall street; this one
on Broad street? this one on Fulton
street; this one on Chestnut street; this
one on State street, this one on Lombard
stree; this one On the bourse. With
financial misfortune you have had the
midnight wrestie. Rsdhot disasters
have dropped into your store
from loft TO cellar. What you
bought you could not sell. Whom you
trusted fed. The help you expected
would not come. Some giant panic,
with long arms and grip like death, took
hold of you in an awful Wrestle, trom
which you have not yet escaped, and it
Is uncertain whether II will throw you Or
you will throw 1t.
Here is another in struggle with some
bad appetite. He knew not how stealth.
ly it was growing upon him. One hour
he woke up. He said, For the sake OF
my soul, of my family and of my chill
dren and Of my God, I must stop this!"
Aud, be hold, be found himself alone By
the brook Jabbok, and it was midnight.
That evil appetite seized upon him, and
be seized upon it, and, oh, the horror of
the conflict! When once bad habit
has aroused itself up to destroy man,
and The man has sworn that, by the help
Of the eternal God, he will destroy 1t,
all heaven draws itself out in a long line
of light to look rom above, and hell
stretches itself in myrmidons Of spite to
look up from beneath. I have seen men
rally themselves for sucha struggle, and
they have bitten their lip and clinched
their fists and cried with a blood red
earnestness and rain Of scalding tears,
"God help me-"
From wrestle with habit l have seen
men tall back defeated. Calling for 90
help, but relying on their own resolu.
tious, they have come into the struggle,
and for time it seemed as if they were
getting the upper hand of their habit, but
that habit ralhed again It's internal power
and lifted g soul from its standing and
with a force borrowed from the,plt hurled
it into utter darkness. First I saw the
auctioneer's mallet fall on the pictures,
and musical instruments, and the rich
upholstery OF his family parlor. After
awhile saw him tall into the ditch.
Then, in the midnight, when the chill
dren were dreaming their sweetest
dreams and Christian households are sill
ent with slumber angel watched I heard
him give the sharp sbriek that followed
the stab of his owp poniard, He fell from
an honorsd social position; be tell from
a family circlesof which once ne was the