The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1894-01-24

ing by the thousands Of Brooklyn taber-
nacle, led on by cOrnet and organ,
Arm of the Lord, awake. awake,
Put on thy strength, the nations shake.
The Rev. DR.. Talmage took for his
subject THE Bare Arm Of Cod the
text being Isaiah iii, 10, THE Lord hath
made bare His holy arm
1t almost takes our breath away to
read some Of the bible imagery. There
Is such holiness of metaphor in my text
that L have been for some time getting
my courage up TO preach from it. Isaiah.
the evangefistic prophet, is sounding the
jubilate of our planet redeemed and
cries out. THE Lord hath made bare
His holy arm" What overwhelming
suggestiveness in that figure Of speech,
The bare arm of Godr' The people of
Palestine to this day wear much hin
dering apparel. and when they want 10
run a special race, or lift a special bur
den. or fight a special battle, they put
of the outside apparel, as in our land
when man proposes a special eXertion
he puts of his coat and rolls up his
sleeves. Walk through our foundrieS,
our machine shops. our mines, our fac
tories. and YOU will find that most of the
toilers have their coats off and their
sleeves rolled up.
Isaiah saw that there must be ire
mendUus amount of work done before
this world becomes what it ought to be,
and he foresees il ali accomplished, and
accomplished by the Almighty, not as
We ordinarily think of Him. but by the
Almighty with the sleeve or his robe
rolled back 10 his shoulder, THE Lord
hath made bare His holy arms.
Nothing more impreSses me in the
bible than the ease with which God does
NEST things. There is such reserve of
power. He has more thunderbolts than
lie has ever flung. more light than He
has ever distributed. more blue than
that with which He has overarched the
sky. more green than that with which
He has emeraled the grass, more GRIM
son than that with which He has bur
nished the sunsets. / say il with rever-
ence from all l can see, God has never
half tried.
Tired Arm of Toll.
You know as well as 1 do that many
Of the most elaborate and expensive in
dustries of our world have been employed
in creating artificial light. Half of the
time the world is dark The moon and
the stars have their glorious uses, but
as instruments Of illumination they are
failures They will not allow you to
read a book or stop the ruffianism Of
your great cities. Had not the darkness
been persistently fought back by arti-
fetal means. the most of the worlds en-
terprises would have halted half the
time, while the crime of our great
municipalities would for half the time
run rampant and unrebuked; hence all
the inventions for creating artificial
light, from the flint struck against steel
IN centuries past TO the dynamo OF our
electrical manufactures. What I'M
counted numbers of people work the
year round in making chandeliers and
lamps and fixtures and wires and bat
teries where light shall be made or
along which light shall run or where
light shall pOise. How many bare arms
Of human tOil-and some of those bare
arms are very tired-in the creation Of
light and its apparatus. and after all the
work the greater part of the continents
and hemiSpheres at night have no light
at all, except perhaps the firefiies flash
ing their small lanterns across the
swamp.
But see how easy God made the light
He did not make bare His arm; He did
not even put forth His robed arm; He
did not lift so much as finger. The
flint out Of which He struck the MONDAY
sun was the word Light" Let there
be light" Adam did not see the sun
until the fourth day, for though the
sun was created Oh tllt AtiSl udNs IL LUX
its rays from the first to the fourth day
To work through the dense mass of
fluids by which this earth was COM
passed. Did you ever hear of anything
so easy as that? So unique? Out of
word came the blazing sun, the father
of flowers and warmth and light. Out
of a word building fireplace for all
nations Of the earth TO warm themselves
by Yea, seven other worlds, five of
them incOnceivably larger than our
own, and seventy-nine asteroids, or
worlds on a smaller scalei The warmth
and light for this great brotherhood
great sisterhOOd, great family of worlds
eighty-seVen larger or smaller worlds.
all from that one magnificent fireplace
made out OF the one word Light" The
sun SS6, 900 miles in diameter. / do not
know how much grander a solar system
God could have created if He had put
forth His robed arm, to say nothing OF
an arm made bare! But this 1 know
that our monday sun was a spark
struck from the anvil Of one word, and
that word Light"
But" says some one do you not
think that in making the machinery Of
the universe, Of which our solar system
IS comparatively a small wheel working
into mightier wheels, it must have
caused God some exertion-the upheaval
Of an arm, either roDed or an arm made
bare?" No. We are distinctly told 9TH
God made simply with His fingers. Da-
vid, inspired in a night song, says so
When consider Thy heavens, the work
OF Thy fingers"
Accomplished by Fingers Only.
Scottish clergyman told me a few
weeks ago Of dyspeptic Thomas Carlyle
walking out with a friend one starry
night. and as the friend looked up and
said. What a splendid skyr' Mr. Car
lyle replied as he glanced upward, Sad
sight, sad sightr' Not so thought David
as he read the great scripture of the
night heavens 1t was a sweep of en-
broidery of vast tapestry. God manipu-
lated. That is the allusion Of the psalm
ist to the woven hangings Of tapestry as
they were known long before David's
time. Far back in the ages what en-
chantment Of thread and color. the Flor
entine velvets Of silk and gold and Per-
sian carpets woven Of goats hairl If you
have been I'm the Gobelin mandatory
OF tapestry in Paris-alas, now no morei
you witnessed wOndrCus things as you
saw the wooden needle. or breach. going
back and forth and in and out You
were transfixed with admiration at the
patterns wrought. No wonder that
Louis XIV bought it. and it became the
possession of the throne. and for a long
while none but thrones and palaces
might have any of its work What
triumphs OF loomi What victory Of
skilled fingersi So David saws of the
heavens that Gods fingers wove into
them the light; that Gods fingers tapes
tried them with stars; that Gods fingers
embroidered them with worlds How
much Of the immensely Of the heavens