The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-08-28
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Spoke on the Subject: "a Shadow
on the Harvest Field"
Parents Appealed To to Guard Well the
Spiritual as Well as the Phys
ical Being of Their
Children.

especially appropriate at this season,
when the reapers are busy in many
parts of the land and the har-
vests are being gathered. The text
j. 3 kings. iv:1s-I9-20 And when the
child was grown, it fell on day that
he went out to his father to the reap
ers. And he said unto his father, my
head. my head! And he said to lad,
carry him to his mother. And when he
lad taken him and brought him to his
mother. he sat on her knees till noon,
and then died" In discussing this text
DIR. Talmage said:
There is at least one happy home in
Shunem. To the luxuriance and
splendor of a great house had been
gwen the advent of child. Even when
the angel of life brings new soul to
the poor mans hut star of joy shines
over the manger. Infancy, with its
helplessness and innocence, had passed
away. Days of boyhood had come
days of laughter and frolic, days of
sunshine and promise, days of strange
questions and curiousity and quick de-
velopment / suppose among all the
treasures of that house the brightest
was the boy. One day there is the
shout of reapers heard afield boys
hea always bounds at the sound of
sickle or scythe. No sooner have the
harvesters cut a swath across the field
than the lad joins them, and the
swarthv reapers feel young again as
thy look down at that lad, as bright
and beautiful as was Ruth in the har-
vest fl Ids of Bethlehem, cleaning
after the reaperS. But the sun was
too hot for him. Congest on of the
brain seized on him.
see the swarthy laborers drop their
sic les, and they rush out to see what
is the matter, and they fan him and.
they try 10 cool his brow; but all is of
no avail In the instant of conscious
ness, he puts his hands against his
temples and cries out: "My head my
head" And the father said: Garry
him to his mother" just as any father
would have said, for our hand is too
rough, and our voice is too harsh, and
our foot is too loud to doctor a sick
child, if there be in our home a gentler
hand and a stiller footstep. But all of
no avail. While the reapers of Shunem
were busy in the field, there came a
stronger reaper that way, with keener
scythe, and for a richer har-
vest. He reaped only one sheaf, but
o, what a golden sheaf was that! do
not want to know any more about that
heart breaking scene than what see
in just this one pathetic sentence:
HE sat on her knees till noon and
then died" Though hundreds of years
have passed away since that boy
skipped to the harvest field and then
was brought home and died on his
mothers lap, the story still thrills us.
Indeed, childhood has a charm always
and everywhere. l shall now speak TO
you of childhood; its beauty, its sus-
ceptibility to impression, its power
over the parental heart and its blissful
transition from earth to Heaven.
The childs beauty does not depend
upon form or feature or complexion or
apparel. That destitute one that you
saw on the street, bruised with un-
kindness and in rags, has a charm
about her, even under her restitution.
You have forgotten great many per-
sons whom you met, of finely cut fea-
lures and with erect posture and with
faultless complexion, while you will
always remember the poor girl who,
on a cold, moonlight night, as you
were passing late home, in her thin
shawl and barefoot on the pavement,
put out her hand and said: Please to
give me penny" All! how often we
have walked on and said: 20, that is
nothing but street vagabondism;" but
after we got a block or two on, we
stopped and said: 'Ab, that is not
right" and we passed up that same
way and dropped mite into that suf-
fering hand, as though it were not a
matter of second thought so ashamed
were we of our hard-heartedness.
With what admiration we all look
upon a group of children on the play
ground or in the school, and we clap
our hands almost voluntarily, and say:
How beautiful" All stiffness and
dignity are gone, and your shout is
heard with theirs and you trundle
hoop, and fly their kite, and strike
their ball, and all your WEAKNESS and
anxiety are gone as when a child you
bounded over the playground yourself.
That father who stands rigid and I'M
sympathetic amid the spOrtfulness of
children, ought never to have been
tempted out of crust and unredeem-
able solitariness. The waters leap
down the rocks, but they have not the
graceful step of childhood. The morn
ing comes out of the gates of
the east, throwing its silver on
the lake and its gold on the
towers and its fire on the clouds;
but it is not so bright and beautiful
as the morning of life! There is no
light like that which is kindled in
child's eye; no color like that which
blooms on a child's cheek; no music
like the sound of a child's voice. Its
face in the poorest picture redeems any
in art When we are
weary with toll, their little hands pull
the burdens off our back. o, what a
dull, stale, mean world this would be
without the sportfulness of children.
When l find people that do not like |