Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-01-24
THE REARMOF GOD
REV. DIR. TALMAGE'S IMPRESSIVE SER
MON AT THE TABERNACLE.

Arm"--A wonderful Reserve of Power.
Achievements without ERort-on the
winning Side.
BROOKLYN, Jan. 21.-Singularly ap-
proprinte and impressive was the old
gospel hymn as it was sung this morn
ing by the thousands of Brooklyn Tab
prnacle, led on by cornet and organ:
Arm of the Lord, awake, awakel
Put on thy strength, the nations shake.
Rev. DR.. Talmage took for his sub
ject The Bare Arm of God, " the text
being Isaiah lii, 10, THE Lord hath
made bare his holy arm.
It almost takes our breath away to
read some of the Bible imagery. There
is such boldness OF metaphor in my text
that have been for some time getting
my courage up to preach from it. Isa-
iah, the evangelistic prophet, is sound
ing the jubilate of our planet redeemed
and cries out, THE Lord hath made
bare his holy arm" What overwhelm-
ing suggestiveness in that figure of
speech, THE bare arm of God!" The
people of Palestine to this day wear
much hindering apparel, and when
they want to run a special race, or lift
a special burden, or fight special bat
tie, they put off the outside apparel, as
in our land when man proposes a
special exertion he puts off his coat
and rolls up his sleeves. Walk through
our foundries, our machine shops, our
mines, our factories, and you will find
that most of the toilers have their coats
.aIzz III
Isaiah saw that there must be tre-
mendous amount of work done before
this world becomes what it ought to be,
and he foresees it all accomplished, and
accomplished by the Almighty, not rs
we ordinarily think of him, but by the
Almighty with the sleeve of his robe
rolled back to his shoulder, The Lord
hath made bare his holy arm"
THE CREATION OF LIGHT.
Nothing more impresses me in the
Bible than the ease with which God
does most things. There is such re-
serve of power. He has more thunder
bolts than he has ever flung, more light
than he has ever distributed, more blue
than that with which he has overarch-
ed the sky, more green than that with
which he has emeralded the grass, more
crimson than that with which he has
FURNISHED the sunsets l say it with
reverence, from all can see, God has
never half tried.
You know as we'll as | do that many
of the most elaborate and expensive in
dustries of our world have been en-
ployed 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 book or stop the ruffian-
ism oi your great cities. Had not the
darkness been persistently fought back
by artificial means, the most of the
worlds enterprises 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 uncounted numbers of people at
work the year round in making cham
deliers and lamps and fixtures and
wires and batteries 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 ap-
paratus, and after all the work the
greater part of the continents and hem
ispheres at night have no light at all,
except perhaps the fireflies flashing their
small lanterns across the swamp.
MADE WITH HIS FINGERS.
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 noon
day 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 on the first day, 1t
took 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 any
thing so easy as that? So unique? Out
of word came the blazing sun, the
father of flowers and warmth and
lightl Out of word building fire.
place for all the nations of the earth to
warm themselves by! Yea, seven other
worlds. five of them inconceivably lar
ger than our own. and 10 asteroids, OF
worlds ON a smaller scale! The warmth
and light for this great brotherhood,
great sisterhood, great family OF
worlds. 81 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 solar
system God could have created II he
mad put forth his robed arm, to say
nothing of an arm made barrel Bu'
this know. that our MONDAY sun waf
a spark struck from the anvil OF one
word. and that word Light.
But. says some one, do you mol
think that in making the machinery OF
L.. a i. s,t. ,arI