The Iola register., 1896-04-10
SEEING OURSELVES.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the
Prodigars Return.
And He Said: "I VIII Arise and Go to Ny
Father'-The Joy of Going Home After
Career of sin-The Heavenly
Fathers Blessing.

In late sermon at Washington Rev.
7. Dewitt Talmage diseoursed on the
Prodigars Return and the joys of
Home. His text was from Luke xv.,
Is: 81 will arise and go to my father"
The noted preacher said:
There is nothing like hunger to take
the energy out of a man. A hungry
man can toll neither with pen nor hand
nor foot There has been many an
army defeated, not so much for lack of
ammunition as for lack of bread. 1t
was that fact that took the fire out Of
this young man of the text Storm and
exposure will wear out any mans life
in time, but hunger makes quick work
The most awful cry ever heard on
earth is the cry for bread. A traveller
tells us that in Asia Minor there are
trees which bear fruit looking very
much like the long bean of our time.
1t is called the csrob. Once in while
the people, reduced to destitution,
would eat these carobs, but generally
the carobs, the bean spoken
of here in the text, were thrown
only to the swine, aud they crunched
them with great avidity. But this
young man of my text could not even
get them without stealing them. So
one day, amid the swine troughs, he
began to soliloquize. He says: These
are no clothes for a rich mans son to
wear; this is no kind of business for
Jew to be engaged in, feeding swine;
I'll go home; l will arise and go to my
father" / know there are a great
many people who try to throw fas-
cination, romance, halo about sin;
but notwithstanding all that Lord
Byron and George Sand have said in
regard to it, it is a mean, low, con-
temptible business, and putting food
and fodder into the troughs of herd
of iniqufties that root and wallow in
the soul of man is very poor business
for men and women intended to be
sons and daughters of the Lord
Almighty, and when this young
man resolved to go home it was
very wise thing for him to do,
and the only question is, whether we
will follow him. Satan promises large
wages if we will serve him; but he
clothes his victims with rags, and he
pinches them with hunger, and when
they start out to do better he sets
after them all the bloodhounds of hell.
Satan comes to US to-day and he prom
ises all luxuries and emoluments if
we will only serve him. Liar, down
with thee to the pit! THE wages of
sin is death" Oh! the young man of
the text was wise when he uttered the
resolution, Il will arise and 60 to my
father" In the time of Mary, the per-
secutor, a prosecutor came to Chris
tian woman who had hidden in her
house for the Lords sake one of
Christ's servants, and the prosecutor
said: Where is that heretic?" The
Christian woman said: You open that
trunk and you will see the hereto" p"
The prosecutor opened the trunk, and
on the top of the linen of the trunk he
saw a glass. He said: There is no
hereto here" "Abr' she said, you
look in the glass and you will see the
hereto"
As / take up the mirror of Gods
Word to-day would that, instead ofsee-
ing the prodigal of the text, we might
see ourselves-our want, our wan
dering, our sin, our lost condition, SO
that we might be as wise as this young
man was and say: Il will arise and
so to my father" The resolution of
this text was formed in a disgust at
his present circumstances. If this
young man had been by his employer
set to culturing flowers, or training
vines over an arbor, or keeping an &C
count of the pork market, or oversee
ing other laborers, he would not have
thought of going home. If he had had
his pockets full of money, if he had
been able to say: Il have $1,000 now
of nv own, what's the use of my GO
ing back to my fathers house? Do
you think I'm going back to apollo
gize to the old man? Why, he
would put me on the limits; he
would not have going on around the
old place such conduct as l have been
engaged in; won't go home; there is
no reason why l should go home;
have plenty of money, plenty of pleas
ant surroundings; why should l go
homer Ahl it was his pauperism, it
was his beggary. He had to go home
Some man comes and says to me: why
do YOU talk about the ruined state of
the human soul? Why don't you speak
about the progress of the nineteenth
century, and talk of something more
exhilaratiag?' 1t is for this reason:
A man never wants the gospel until he
realizes he is in famine-struck state
But" says some one in the audi
ence, .'how do you know that we are
in ruined condition by sin?" Well, /
can prove it in two ways, and you may
have your choice. can prove it either
by the statements of men or by the
statement of God. Which shall it be?
You say. Let US have the statement
of God" Well, He says in one place,
THE heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked" He says in
another place, What is man that he
should be clean? and he which is born
of woman, that he should be right
eous?'' He says in another place,
There is none that doeth good
no, not one" He says in another
efr