The Monitor-register., 1896-10-23
LESSONS IN FARMING
REV. DIR. TALMAGE SEES A SERMON
i IN RURAL LIFE.


nering-An Eloquent and Hortatory Per-
oration-The Harvest Home.
WASHINGTON. Oct 1S.-This sermon,
lat this season, after most people have
had a good. long breath of the country,
If thew do not actually live there, Will
revive many pleasant memories, whlie
IL deals with great religious truths DR..
Talmage's text was John XIV, l, my
Father is the husbandman.
This last summer, having gone III
different directions over between 0, ooo
and c. 600 miles of harvest fields, can
hardly open my Bible without smelling
the breath of new mown hay and seeing
the golden light of the wheatnelo. Anu
when open my Bible to take my te1.,
the Scripture leaf rustles like the tasseis
of the corn. u.o
We were nearly all of us born IN tine
country. We dropped corn in the NH,
and went on Saturday to the MILL Tying
the grist in the center OF the SAGE %
that the contents on either side the MORSE
ibalanced each other, and drove tae Cav
Ale afeld. our bare feet wet with the
dew. and rode the horses with the haiter
to The brook until we fell off, and hunted
the NOV for nests until the 1eatnereo &C.
cupants went cackling away we were
nearly all of Us born III the country ana
lau would have staid there had not
800 sdyanturous lad on his vacation
.,o,,,o hack with better clothes and softer
hands and set the whole village on fire
1,,itb ambition for city life. So we all
understand rustic illusions. The Bible
Is fnIl of them. In Christ's sermon on
the n,ount YOU could see the full blown
lilies and the glossy back of the crows
wing as it flies over Mount Olivet
David and John, Paul and Isaiah, find
i'm country life source OF frequent IL
Jnstration. while Christ in the text takes
the responsibility of calling God
farmer. declaring, my Father is the
husbandman.
Noah was the first farmer. We say
nothing about Cain, the tiller of the
soil. Adam was gardener on large
scale, but to Noah was given all the
acres of the earth. Elisha was an agri-
culturist, not cultivating 10 acre lot,
for we find him blowing with 10 yoke
of oxen. In Bible times the land was SO
plenty and the inhabitants SO few that
Noah was right when he gave to every
inhabitant a certain portion of land,
that land, if cultivated, ever after to be
his own possession-just as in Nebraska
the United States government on pay
ment of SIG years ago gave presumption
right to 100 acres to any man who
would settle there and cultivate the soil.
In the Fields.
All classes of people were expected to
cultivate ground except ministers of re-
ligion. 1t was supposed that they would
have their time entirely occupied with
their own profession, although I am
told that sometimes ministers do plunge
so deeply into worldliness that they re-
mind one of what Thomas Fraser said
in regard to man in his day who
preached very we'll, but lived very ill.
"When he is out of the pulpit, it is a
pity he should ever go into it, and when
he is in the pulpit it is pity he should
ever come out of it. "
They were not small crops raised in
those times, for though the arts were
rude, the pillow turned up very rich soil,
and barley, and cotton, and flax, and
all kinds of grain came up at the call of
the harvesters Pliny tells of one stalk
of grain that had on it between 800 and
400 ears. The rivers and the brooks,
through artificial channels, were brought
down to the roots of the corn, and to
this habit of turning a river wherever
it was wanted Solomon refers when he
says, "The kings heart is in the hand
of the Lord, and he turneth it as the
rivers of water are turned, whitherso-
ever he will.
The. wild beasts were caught, and
isnen hook was put into their nose, and
len t,l they were led over the field, and to
So God refers when he says to wicked
No nacherib, ct will put hook in thy
way . aha 1 will bring thee back by the
"a hool- - thou earnest" And God has
it be NJ erT bad mans nose, whether
He ssse ,uchadnezzar or Ahab or Herod.
- may think himself very independent,
but some time in his life, or in the hour
of his death, he will find that the Lord
Almighty has hook in his nose.
This was the rule in regard to the
culture of the ground, 'Thou shalt not
pillow with an OK and an ass together, !"
illustrating the folly of ever putting in
telligent and useful and pliable men in
association with the stubborn and the
unmanageable. The vast majority of
troubles in the churches and in reforma-
tory institutions comes from the disre-
gard of this command of the Lord,
."Thou shalt not pillow with an OK and
an ass together
There were large amounts Of property
invested in cattle. The Moabites paid
100, 900 sheep as an annual tax. Job
had 1000 sheep, 5000 camels, 500 yoke
of oxen. The time of vintage was usher
ed in with mirth and music. The clus-
tiers of the vine were put into the wine
press, and then five men would get into
the press and trample out the juice from
the grape until their garments were sat-
urated with the wine and had become
the emblems of slaughter. Christ him
self, wounded until covered with the
blood of crucifixion, making use of this
fal1usion when the question was asked,
rel and thy garments like one who
treadeth the wine vat?" he responded,
81 have trodden the wine press alone. !"
In all ages there has been great honor
paid to agriculture. en-eighths of
the people il every country are disciples
of the pillow. A government is strong in
proportion as it is supported by an ath-
letlc and industrious yeomanry. So long
ago as before the fall of Carthage, Strabo
wrote 20 books on agriculture. Hesiod
wrote poem ON the same subject, "The
Weeks and Days. Cato was prouder of
his work on husbandry than of all his
military conquests. But must not be
tempted into discussion of agricultural
conquests. Standing amid the harvests
and orchards and vineyards of the Bible,
and standing amid the harvests and
orchards and vineyards of our own coun-
hy-Iarger harvests than have ever be-
fore been gathered-I want to run out
the analogy between the production OF
crops and the growth of grace in the
soul, all these sacred writers making
use of that analogy.
Eitti The P1ow.
In the first place, L remark, in grace
as in the fields, there must be pillow.
That which theologians call conviction
is only the plowshare turning up the
sins that have been rooted and matted
in the soul A farmer said to his indo-
lent son, "There are 500 buried deep
in that field'' The son went to work
and pIowed the field from fence to fence,
and he plowed it very deep, and. then
complained that he had not found the
money. But vAe-l the crop had been
gathered and sold for 800 more than
any ,,revious YEAR then the vounp man