Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-26

appropriate and impressive was the old
gospel hymn as it was sung this morn
ing by the thousands of Brooklyn
tabernacle led on by cornet and organ:
Arm OF the Lord, awake, awake!
Put on thy strength, the nations shake.
Rev. DIR. Talmage took for his sub
ject, 1.-THE Bare Arm of God" the text
being Isaiah 80 Y, 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
ii. Isaiah the evangelistic 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
God!' The people of Palestine to this
day wear much hindering apparel, and
when they want TO run special race,
or lift special burden, or fight
special battle, they put off the outside
apparel, as in our land, when a 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 off and their sleeves
rolled up.
Isaiah saw that there must be a ire
mendous amount of work done before
this world become what it ought to be,
and he foresees il all accomplished,
and accomplished by the Almighty;
not as we ordinarily think of him. but
by the Almighty witt he sleeve of his
robe rolled back to hfs Shoulder: THE
Lord hath made bare his holy arm"
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 over-arched the sky; more green
than that with which he has emer-
aided the grass; more crimson than
that with which he has FURNISHED the
sunsets ! say it with reverence; from
all l can see, God has never half tired.
You know as well as do that many
of the most elaborate and expensive
industries 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 illumina-
ton they are failures. They will not
allow you to read book, or stop the
ruflianism of 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 un-
rebul1ed Hence, all the inventions for
creating artificial light, from the flint
struck against steel in centuries past,
10 the dynamo of our electrical manu-
factories What uncountcd numbers Of
people at work the year round in max
ing chandeliers, 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 toll
anG 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 fire-ilies fash
ing their small lanterns across the
swamp.
But see how easy God made the
light lie did not make bare his arm;
he did not even put forth his robed
arm; he did not lift so much as fin
ger. 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
on the first day, it took its rays from
the first to the fourth day TO work
through the dense mass of fluids by
which this earth was eompassed. Did
you ever hear of anything so easy as
that? So unique? Ont of word came
the blazing sun, the father of flowers,
and warmth, and light? Out of a word
building a fireplace for all the nations
of the earth TO warm themselves by!
Yea, seven other worlds five of them
inconeeivablv larger than our own,
and seventy-nine asteroids or worlds
on a smaller scalel 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 ont of the one word-"Iight I"
The sun $50, 900 miles in diameter.
do not know how much grander a solar
system God could have created if he
had put forth his ROBBED arm, to say
nothing Of an arm made barrel But
this know; that our MONDAY sun was
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 sys-
tenn is comparatively a small wheel
working into mightier wheels, it must
L. IL