The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1895-03-07
POINTS OF COMPASS"
Rev. DR.. Talmage Disc curses on the
Gospel Campaign.
From All Points of the Compass Shall
Come the Seekers After Truth, and
To All Shall be Sent the
Gospel of Christ.


The following discourse was deliv-
cred by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage in the
New York Academy of Music. Its sub
ject: ''Points of Compass" is based on
the text:
They shall come from the east, and from the
west and from the north, and from the south,
and shall sit down.'-Luke xiii, 29
The man who wrote this was at one
time practicing physician; at another
time talented painter; at another time
powerful preacher; at another time
a reporter-an inspired reporter. God
bless, and help, and inspire all report
ers! From their pen drops the health
or poison of nations. The name OF this
reporter was Lucanus; for short he
was called Luke; and in my text, al
though stenography had not been born,
he reports verbatim sermon of Christ,
which in our paragraph bowls theround
world into the light of the millennium.
''They shall come from the east and
from the west, and from the north, and
from the south, and shall sit down"
Nothing more interested me in my re-
cent journey around the world than to
see the ship captain about noon,
whether on the Pacific, or the Indian,
or Bengal, or Mediterranean, or Red
sea, looking through a nautical instru-
ment to find just where we were sail
ing; and it is well to know that
though the captain tells you there
are thirty-two points of divi-
sion of the compass card in the
mariners compass, there are only four
cardinal points, and my text halls
them, the north, the south, the east,
the west. So l spread out before US
the map of the world to see the extent
of the Gospel campaign. The hardest
part of the field to be taken is the
north, because our Gospel is an emo
tional Gospel, and the nations of the
far north are a cold-blooded race. They
dwell amid iceberg and eternal SHOWS
and everlasting winter. Greenlanders,
Laplanders, Icelanders, Siberians-
their vehicle is the sledge drawn by
reindeer. Their apparel the thickest
furs at all seasons. Their existence
is lifetime battle with the cold. The
winter charges upon them with swords
of icicle, and strikes them with bullets
of hail and pounds them with batter
ing-rams of glacier.
But already the huts of the arctic
hear the songs of divine worship. Al
ready the SHOWS fall on open New
| Testaments. Already the warmth of
the sun of righteousness begins to be
fo1 1,a Nd lc
and souls of the hyperboreans. Down
from Nova Zembla; down from Spitz-
bergen seas; down from the land of the
midnight sun; down from the palaces
| of crystal; down over realms of ice,
and over dominions of snow, and
| through hurricanes of sleet, Christ S
disciples are coming from the
| north. The inhabitants of Hud-
| sons bay are gathering to the
cross. The church missionary society
| in those far cliIues has been gradually
successful in esta blishing twenty
four gospel stations, and over
| twelve thousand natives have be-
lieved and been baptized. The
| Moravians have kindled the light of
| the gospel all up and down Labrador.
The Danish mission has gathered dis
ciples from among the shivering inhab-
itants of Greenland. William Duncan
breaches the gospel up in the chill lati-
tudes of Columbia, delivering one SER
mon nine times in the same day to as
many different tribes who listen, and
then go forth to build schoolhouses
and churches. Alaska, called at its
annexation William H. Stewards folly.
turns out to be William Fl. Stewards
triumph, and it is hearing the voice OF
God through the American missiona-
| ries, men and women as defiant OF
Arctic hardships as the old Scottish
chief who, when camping out in a
winters night, knocked from under
his sons head pillow of snow, saying
that such indulgence in luxury would
weaken and disgrace the clan. The
| jeanette went down in latitude seven
| ty-seven, while De Long and his freez-
ing and dying men stood watching it
from the crumbling and cracking
| polar pack; but the old ship of the
Gospel sails as unhurt in latitude sew.
enty-seven as in our own forty degrees
and the one-starred flag floats
above the top-gallants in Baffin's
Bay, and Hudson's strait and
Melville sound. The heroism OF
| polar expedition, which has made
the names of Sebastian Cabot, and
Scoresby, and Schwatka, and Henry
Hudson immortal is to be eclipsed by
the prowess of the men and womer
who, amid the frosts Of the highest
latitudes are this moment taking the
upper shores of Europe, Asia and
America for God. Scientists have
never been able to agree as to what is
the aurora borealis, or northern lights
/ can tell them 1t is the banner o.
victory for Christ spread out in the
northern night heavens. Partially
fulfilled already the prophecy of my
text, to be completely fulfilled in the
near future: They shall come FROM
| the north"
| But my text takes in the opposite
point of the compass. The far south
has through high temperature
tsmpsatios to lsthargy. and in
dolence, and hot blood, which teni
toward muitiforu ayil Wa hay1