Connecticut western news., 1896-02-20
THE BIBLES SICKLE.
trs HARVEST FAR GREATER THAN
 THE TEMPORAL >GARNER,NG.

thE tEMf~0NAI I~1ANNshtNG.
 De. TalaAxs Pr~aNh~s . Moving Sermon
 sa -Rriaetag In the sAeave."--rhe Pow
 CT ef Christian soag-A Cure In one
 Drep ef the Divine Elixir.
 WASHINGTON, Feb, l6. A change has taken place. Dr. Talmage when first coming to Washington preached on- ly Sunday evenings. but so great has been the demand for his services that he now breaches Sunday morning and even ing and takes charge If the Thursday evening meeting. The tarongs are inn mense The subject of his sermon for today was. Bringing In the Sheaves. the text being Joel iii, IS, Put ye in the sickle. for the harvest is ripe"
 The sword has been poetized. and the world has celebrated the sword of Boli- var. the sword of Cortes and the sword of Lafayette. The pen has been properly euloeiDed, a&d the world has celebrated the pen of Addison, the pen of Southey and the pen of Irving. The painters pencil has been honored. and the world has celebrated the pencil of Murillo. the pencil of Rnbens and the pencil of Bier stads The sculptor's chisel has come in for high encomium, and the world has celebrated Chantrey's $ chisel and Craw ford's chisel and Greenoueh's chisel But there Is one instrument about which l sing the first canto that was ever sung the sickle, the sickle of the Bible, the sickle that has reaped the harvest of many centuries Sharp and bent into 8 semicircle and ghtteriug. this reaping hook. DO longer than your arm, has furnished the bread for thousands of years. Its success has produced the wealth of nations It has had more to do with the worlds progress than sword and pen and pencil and chisel all put together. Christ puts the sickle into ex- quisiee sermonic simile. and you see that instrument flash all up and down the Apocalypse as St John swings it, while through Joel in my text God commands the people. as through his servants now hs commands them, Put ye in the sickle. for the newest is ripe"
 Rschsr Harvesss.
 Lask November there was great re- joicing all over the land. With trumpet and cornet and organ and thousand voiced psalm we praised the Lord for the temporal harvests. We praised God for the wheat. the rye, the. oats, the cot ton, the rice. all the fruits of the or chard and all the grains of the field. and the nation never does a better thing than when in the autumn it gathers to fessivity and thanks God for the great nees of the harvest But come today to speak to you of richer hsrvests, even the spiritual How shall we estimate the value of a man? We say he is worth so many dollars, or he has achieved such and.such a position. but we know very we'll there are some men at the top of the ladder who ought to be at the bot tom and some at the bottom who ought to be at tho top, and the only way to estimate . man is by his soul. We all know that we shall live forever. Death cannot kill us. Other crafts may be drawn into the whirlpool or shivered on the rooks, but this life within us will weather all storms and drop no anchor. and 0.OO0. 900 years after death win shake out signals on the high seas of eternity. You put the mendicant of your doorstep and say he is only a beg gar, but he is worth all the gold of the mountains, worth all the pearls of the sea, worth the solid earth. worth sun and moon and stars. worth the entire material universe. Take all the paper that ever came from the paper mills and put it side by side and sheet by sheet, and let men with neetest pens make fig nres on that paper for 10, 900 years. and they will only have begun to express the value of the soul Suppose I owned Colorado and Nevada and Australia. of how much valne would they be to me ono moment after I departed this life? How much of Philadelphia does Stephen Girard own tcdayf How much of Bos ton property does Abbott Lawrence own today? The man who today hath a dol lar in his pocket hath more worldly es- Sate than the millionaire who died last year. How do you suppose feel, stand ing here surrounded by a multitude of souls. each one worth more than the material universe?
 A Powerful Sickle.
 Oh. was I not right in saying this spiritual harvest is richer than the tenn poral harvestr I must tighten the gir- de. must sharpen the sickle. l must be careful how swing the instrument for gathering the grain. Lest one stalk bs lost. One of the most powerful sic kles for reaping this spiritual harvest is the preaching of the gospel If the sic kle have . rosewood handle, and it be adorned with precious stones, and yet it cannot bring down the grain. it is not much of . sickle. and preaching amounts to nothing unless it harvests souls for God. Shall we preach philosophy? The Ralph Waldo Emersons could beat us as that Shall we preach science? The Agassizas codld beat us at that. The minister of Jesus Christ with weakest arm going forth in earnest prayer. and yielding this sickle of the gospel, shall find the harvest all around him waiting for the angel sheaf binders. Oh, this harvest of soulsi I notice in the fields that the farmer did not stand upright when he gathered the grain. l noticed he had to s.oop to his work. and no  ,iced in order SO bipd the sheaves the better be had to put his knee upon them. And as we 70 forth in this work fol God Ne cannot stand upright in oul rhetoric and our metaphysics and oul erudition. We have to stoop to ou, work. Aye. we have to put our knee tt t CT we will never gather sheaves fol the Lords garner. Peter swung tha gickle on the day of Pentecost, and 8, 00t sheaves came in. Richard Baxter swung that sickle ae Kidderminster, and Mo Cheyne at Dundee. and vast multitudes came into the kingdom of our God
 Teach All Nations-
 : On, this is 6 mighty gospel! It cap trreA not only John the lamb, but Pau
 the lion Men may gnash their teeth .
 1t, and clinch their fists, but it is th
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