Connecticut western news., 1895-05-02
THE GOSPELS CALL.
ESTIMATION" THE THEME OF REV.
 DR. T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

DR. T. DE WITT TALMAGE. ''Seek Nc the Lord While He May Be
 Found" Supplies the Text For an Elo-
 quent Disoourse-A Call to tho Unoon-
 verted.
 NEW YORK, April 2S-Rev. Dr. Tal- mage today again preached to a great audience in the Academy of Music. AS usual, many were turned away for lack of seats. The sermon was on "Salva- tion," the text selected being Isaiah lv, 6, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found
 Isaiah stands head and shoulders above the other Old Testament authors in vivid descriptivepess of Christ Other prophets give an outline of our Saviour's features. Some of them present, as it were, the side face of Christ, others bust of Christ, but Isaiah gives us the full length portrait of Christ. Other Scrip ture writers excel in some things-Eze- kiel more weird, David more pathetic, Solomon more epigrammatic, Habakkuk moro sublime-but when you want to see Christ coming out from the gates of prophecy in all his grandeur and glory you involuntarily turn to Isaiah, so that if the prophecies in regard to Christ might be called the "Oratorio of the Messiah" the writing of Isaiah is the "Halleluiah Chorus" where all the batons wave and all the trumpets como in. Isaiah was not a man picked up out of insignifcance by inspiration. He was known and honored Josephus and Philo and Sirach extolled him in their writ ings. What Paul was among the apostles Isaiah was among the prophets.
 My text finds him standing on a mountain of inspiration, looking out into the future, beholding Christ ad- vancing and anxious that all men might know him His voice rings down the nges, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. "'"Oh, says some one, "that was for olden times" No, my nearer. If you have travelled in other lands, you have taken a circular letter of credit from some banking house in New York and in St. Petersburg or Venice or Rome or Melbourne or Calcutta You present ed that letter and got financial help inn mediately. And want you to under stand that the text, instead of being appropriate for one age or for one land, is circular letter for all ages and for all lands, and wherever it is presented for help the help comes "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found"
 Personal Religion.
 come today with no hair spun the ories of religion, with no nice distinc- tions, with no elaborate disquisition- but with an urgent call to personal re- ligion- The gospel of Christ is a power, full medicine. It either kills or cures. There are those who say: 1T would like to become Christian. have been waiting good while for the right kind of influences to come," and still you are waiting. You are wiser in worldly things than you are in religious things. If you want to get to Albany, you go to the Grand Central depot or to the steamboat wharf, and having got your ticket you do not sit down on the wharf or sit in the depot. You get aboard the boat or train. And yet there are men who say they are waiting to get to heaven, waiting, waiting, but not with intelligent waiting. or they would get on board the line of Christian influences that would bear them into the kingdom of God.
 Now, you know very we'll that to seek a thing is to search for it with earnest endeavor. If you want to see certain man in this city, and there is matter of $1O,0 connected with your seeing him, and you cannot at first find him, you do not give up the search. You look in the directory, but cannot find the name. You go in circles where you think perhaps he may mingle, and hav- ing found the part of the city where he lives, but perhaps not knowing the street, you go through street after street and from block to block, and you keep on searching for weeks and for months.
 You say, "It is 8 matter of $10, ,0O0 whether see him or not" Oh, that men were as persistent in seeking for Christi Had you one-hah that persist ence you would long ago have found him who is the joy of the forgiven spirit We may pay our debts, we may attend church, we may relieve the poor, we may be public benefactors, and yet all our life disobey the text, never seek God, never gain heaven Oh, that the Spirit of God would help me, while I try to show you, in carrying out the idea of my text, first how to seek the Lord and in the next place when to seek him
 Necessity For Earuestness.
 I remark, in the first place, you are to seek the Lord through earnest and believing prayer. God is not an autocrat or despot seated on throne. with his arms resting on brazen lions and a sen- tinel pacing up and down at the foot of the throne. God is father seated in a bower, waiting for his children to come and climb on his knee and get his kiss md his benediction. Prayer is the cup with which we go to the fountain of living water" and dip up refreshment for our thirsty soul Grace does not come to the heart as we set cask at the corner of the house to catch the rain in the shower. It is pulley fastened to the throne of God, which we pull, bringing the blessing
 l do not care so much what posture you take in prayer nor how large an amount of voice you use You might get down on your face before God, if you did not pray right inwardly there would be no response. You might cry at the top of your voice, and unless you had believing spirit within your cry would not go further up than the shout of plowboy to his oxen. Prayer must be believing, earnest, loving. You are in your house some summer day, and shower comes up, and 8 bird, alright ed, darts into the window and wheels about the room. You seize it You smooth it's ruffled plumage. Ton feel its fiuttering heart. You say, "Poor thing, poor thingp' Now, a prayer goes kl. ~R kl>