The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1896-12-18
|, DR.. Talmage'S
1 ScrnOn~@wzE@
( ROYALTY IN
J DISGUISE.

/ draws SOlllt SIdIlllub leSSOHS, anu ISois
OF me Eaasque of deceit. The text is
I Kings IA &c: "Why feignest thou
thyself TO be another?"
In the palace of wicked Jero-
boam there is a sick child, a very sick
! child. Medicines have failed; skill is
exhausted. Young Abijah, the prince,
has lived long enough to become very
popular, and yet he must die unless
/ some supernatural aid be afforded.
! Death comes up the broad stairs OF the
palace and swings back the door of the
sick room of royalty, and stands look
| ing at the dying prince with the dart
uplifted. Wicked Jeroboam knows that
he has no right to ask anything OF the
! Lord in the way OF kindness. He knows
: that his prayers would not be an
swered, and so he sends his wife on the
delicate and tender mission to the
prophet of the Lord in Shiloh. Put
ting aside her royal attire, she puts on
| the garb of a peasant woman, and
starts on the road. Instead OF carry
ing gold and gems, as she might have
carried from the palace, she carries
only those gifts which seem to indicate
that she belongs to the peasantry-a
few loayes OF bread and few cracknels
and cruise Of honey. Yonder she goes,
hooded and yelled, the greatest lady in
all the kingdom, yet passing unob-
served. No one that meets her on the
| highway has any idea that she Is the
first lady in all the land. She is a
queen in disguise. The fact is that
Peter the Great, working in the dry
docks OF Saardam, the sailors hat and
the shipwright's axe gave him no more
thorough disguise than the garb of the
peasant woman gave to the queen of
| Tirzah, But the prophet Of the Lord
saw the deceit. Although his physical
eyesight had failed, he was divinely IL
lumined, and at one glance looked
through the imposition, and he cried
out: Come in, thou wife of Jero-
boam. Why feignest thou myself to
be another? / have evil tidings for
thee. Get thee back TO thy house, and
when thy feet touch the gate of the
city, the child shall die" She had q
right to ask for the recovery of her son;
she had no right to practice an impo-
sition. Broken-hearted now, she start
ed on the way, the tears falling on the
dust of the road all the way from
Shiloh TO Tirzah. Broken-hearted now,
she is not careful any more to hide her
queenly gait and manner. True to the
prophecy, the moment her feet touch
the gate of the city, the child dies. AS
she goes in, the soul of the child goes
out. The cry in the palace is joined by
the lamentation of nation, and as they
carry good Abijah to his grave, the air
is filled with the voice of eulogy for the
departed youth, and the groan of an
afflicted kingdom.
The story of the text impresses me
with the fact that royalty sometimes
passes in disguise. The frock, the VEIL
the hood Of the peasant woman hid
the queenly character OF this woman
of TirZah. Nobody suspected that she
was queen or a princess as she passed
by, but she was just as much a queen
as though she stood in the palace, her
robes incTusted with diamonds. And
so all around about us there are prin-
cesses and queens whom the world
does not recognize. They sit on no
throne OF royalty, they ride in no char
lot. they elicit no huZza, they make no
pP.ense, but by the grace Of God they
are princesses and they are queens.
Sometimes in their poverty, sometimes
in their self-denial, sometimes in their
hard struggles of Christian service
God knows they are queens; the world
does not recognize them. Royalty
passing in disguise. Kings without
the crown, conquerors without the
palm, expresses without the jewel
You saw her yesterday on the
street. You saw nothing important in
her appearance, but she is regnant over
a vast realm of virtue and goodness
realm v2eter than Jeroboam ever
: looked at. You went down into the
: house of restitution and want and suf-
FERNS. You saw the story of trial
written on the wasted hand of the
mother, on the pale cheeks Of the chill
dren, on the empty bread-tray, on the
fireless hearth, on the broken chair.
,, You would not have given a dollar for
all the furniture In Tie house. But by
| tHe gftcC u OUU SIe Is Il princess. Ine
! oversecrs of the poor come there and
: discuss the case and say, Its q pau
|, per-" They 10 not realize that God has
.. FURNISHED for her crown. and that
,, after she has got through the fatiguing
journey from Tirzah to Shiloh and
from Shiloh back TO Tirzah, there will
be a throne OF royalty on which she
: shall rest forever. Glory yelled. Al
> fuence hidden. Eternal raptures hustled
up. A queen IN mask. y princess in
disguise.
q But there was a grander Disgusting
r The fayorlte Of great house looked
out OF the window OF his palace and hf
saw that the people were carrying
f heavy burdens, and that some OF them
: were bobblng on crutches. and he saw
r some OF them lying at the gate exhibit.
o ing their scgos, and then he heard fheii
= lamen;ation. and he said: Il will JUS
:, put on the clothes OF those poor peopl,
r, and / will - down and sec what theii