The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-12-25
Dr.. Talmage's
SermOn~um@
ROYALTY IN
DISGUISE...
DISGUISED.

Washington, Dec. 10, 1896.-In this
sermon from a bible scene never used
In sermonic discourse, DR.. Talmage
draws some startling lessons, and tears
Off the masque of deceit. The text is
l. Kings 40: why feignest thou
myself 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
upl1fted. Wicked Jeroboam knows that
ne mas 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
dellcate n 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 loaves of bread and a few cracknels
n a 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
nrst lady in all the land. She is a
queen in disguise. The fact is that
refer 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
T1rzah. But the prophet of the Lord
saw the deceit. Although his physical
eyes1ght had failed, he was divinely il
lumlned, and at n glance looked
through the imposition, and he cried
out: Come in, thou wife Of Jero-
ooam. Why feignest thou myself to
be another? I have evil tidings for
tnee. Get thee back to thy house, and
when thy feet touch the gate of the
city, the child shall die" She had a
right to ask for the recovery of her son;
she had no right to practice an impo-
sltlon. Broken-hearted now, she start
cd 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 a nation, and as they
carry good Abijah to his grave, the air
is nlled 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 oma hid
the queenly character of this woman
OF Tirzah. Nobody suspected that she
was a 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 i%ncrusted with diamonds. And
80 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 nc
pretense, 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 withou1
the crown, ,onquerors without the
nalm empreSses without tho Jewel