The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-22
THE BARE ARM OF THE LORD
Talmage breaches on One Of the Bold
Metaphors Of the Bible.

dertakinE-The Manifold Evils that
Challenge Christianity.
Brooklyn, Jan. 21.-Singularly appro-
pirate and impressive was the old gospel
hymn as it was sung this morning 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. DR.. Talmage took for his subject,
EThe Bare Arm of God" the text being
Isaiah 1910, THE Lord hath made bare
bis 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 I have been for some time getting
my courage up TO preach from it. Isaiah,
the evllngeleitic prophet, is sounding the
Jubilate of our planet redeemed, and cries
out. THE Lord hath made bare his holy
arm" What overwhelming suggestive
ness in that figure of speech, The bare
arm of Cod" The people of Pales-
tine to this day wear much hindering ap-
parel. and when they want to run spec
ial race, or lift a special burden, or fight
a special battle, they put of the outside
apparel, as in our land when a man pro-
poses a special exertion, he puts of 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
xnendous amount of work done before this
world becomes what it ought to be, and
he foresees it all accomplished, and &C
complished by the Almighty; not as we
ordinarily think of him, but by the
A ln.sr I, NIT kn eli nf hi .haa
rolled back to his 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 reserve of power
He has more thunderbolts than he 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 emer-
aided the grass; more crimson than that
with which he has FURNISHED the sunsets.
/ say 1t with reverence: from all l can
see, God has never half tried.
You know as well as l do that many of
the most elaborate and expensive indus
tries 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 in
struments of illumination they are fail
ures. They will not allow you to read
book, or stop the ruffianism of your great
cities. Had not the darkness been per-
sistently 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 artifi-
cial light, from the flint struck against steel
in centuries past, to the dynamo Of our
electrical manufactures. What UNI
counted numbers of people at 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 poisei 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 hre-fies fash
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 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 comprised. 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 word building a fire place for all
the nations of the earth to warm
themselves by! Yea, seven other worlds,
five of them inconceivably larger
than our own, and seventy-nine asteroids,
of worlds on a small scale! 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
$4,000 miles in diameter. do not know
how much grander solar system God
could have created if he had put forth
his robed 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 system is
comparatively a small wheel working
into mlghtler wheels, it must have cost
God some exertion? The upheaval of an
arm, either robed, or an arm made bare2'
No; we are distinctly told otherwise.
The machinery of universe God made
simply with his fingers. David, inspired
in night song, says so: when / con-
slider thy heavens, the work of thy fin
gers"
A 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
sald, What splendid sky!" Mr.. Car
lyle reDlied, as he glanced upward, "Sad
sight, sad sight!' 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.
list to the woven hangings of tapestry, as
they were known long before David S
time. Far back in the ages what enchant.
ment of thread and color, the F'lorentine
velvets of silk and gold and Persian car
pets woven of goat'slhair If you have
been in the Gobelin mandatory of
tapestry in Paris-alas! now no more
you witnessed wondrous things, as YOU
saw the wooden needle or breach, going
back and forth and in and out; you were
transixed with admiration at the pat.
terms wrought. No wonder that Louis
XIV bought it and it became the possess
sion of the throne; and for a long while
none but thrones and palaces might
have any of its work! What triumphs OF
loom What victory of skilled fingers So
David says of the heavens, that Gods fin
gers VVOVp iuto tbant tho li0bf. tIat cd,