The Monitor-register. [volume] (Woodstown, Salem Co., N.J.) 1892-1972, 1896-10-30
THE FORESTS GLORY
REV DR.. TALMAeE DRAWS lNSPlRA-
TON FROM THE WOODS.

He Likens Human Life to the "oooiano
Ieayes-Man Without Religion Dies
without Tinge of Hope-Perishes With
No Hope of Resurrection.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20. The season
of the year adds much appositeness TO
DIR. Talmage's sermon, which we SEND
ont today. His subject is "The Pag-
eautry of the Woods" and his text
Isaiah Xiv, 6, "We all do fade as
leaf"
IT is so hard for us to understand re-
ligious truth that God constantly relt-
crates. As the schoolmaster takes
blackboard and puts upon it figures and
diagrams, SO that the scholar may not
only get his lesson through the ear, but
also through the eye so God takes all
the truths of his Bible and draws them
ont in diagram on the natural worlu.
Champollion, the famous Frenchman,
went down into Egypt to study the
hieroglyphics on monuments ana tem,
nles After much labor he declphefeo ,
them and announced to the learned
world the result Of his Investigations.
The wisdom, goodness and power OF
God are written in hieroglyphics all
over the earth and all over the heaven.
God grant that we may have under
standing enough to decipher them!
There are Scriptural passages like my
text which need to be studied in the
yery presence of the natural world.
Habakkuk says, 'Thou makest my
feet like kinds feet, p" a passage which !
means nothing save to the man that
knows that the feet of the red deer, or
hind, are peculiarly constructed. SO that
they can walk among slippery rocks
without falling. Knowing that fact, we
understand that, when Habakkuk says,
"Thou makest my feet like kinds feet"
he sets forth that the Christian can
walk amid the most dangerous and slip
perry places without falling, In Lamen-
tations we read that ''the, daughter of
my people is cruel, like the ostriches of
the Wilderness" a passage that has no
meaning save to the man who knows
that the ostrich leaves its egg in the
sand to be Matched out by the sun, and
that the young ostrich goes forth unat-
tended by any maternal kindness.
Knowing this, the passage is significant,
''The daughter of my people is cruel,
like the ostriches of the wilderness.
Glory of the Forest.
Those know but little of the meaning
at it through the eyes of others and
from book Or canvas taken their impress
sion. There are some faces so mobile
that photographers cannot take them,
and the face of nature has such flush
and sparkle and life that no human de-
scription can gather them. No ore
knows the pathos of birds voice IN
less he has sat at summer evening tide
at the edge Of a wood and listened to
the cry of the whippoorwill.
There is today more glory in one
branch of sumach than painter could
put on whole forest of naples. God
hath struck into the autumnal leaf a
glance that none see but those who
come face to face-the mountain look
ing upon the man, and the man looking
upon the mountain.
For several autumns have had tour
to the far west, and one autumn, about
this time, saw that which shall never
forget. I have seen the autumnal sketch
es of Cropsey and other skiliful pencils,
but that week I saw pageant 1000
miles long. Let artists stand back when
God stretches his canvas. A grander
spectacle was never kindled before NOR
tai eyes. Along by the rivers and up
and down the sides of the great hills
and by the banks of the lakes there was
an indescribable mingling of gold and
orange and crimson and saffron, now
SOLDERING into drab and maroon, now
flaming into solferino and scarlet. Here
and there the trees looked as if just
their tips had blossomed into fire. In
the morning light the forests seemed as
if they had been TRANSPORTED, and in
the evening hour they looked as if the
sunset had burst and dropped upon the
leaves. In more sequestered spots, where
the frosts had been hindered in their
work. we saw the first kindllng OF the
flames Of color in a lowly sprig. Then
they rushed up from branch to branch,
until the glory of the Lord submerged
the forest. Here you would find tree
just making up its mind to change, and
there one looked as if, wounded at every
pore, it stood bathed in carnage. Along
the banks of Lake Huron there were
hills over which there seemed pouring
cataracts of fire, tossed up and down and
every whittier by the rocks Through
some of the ravines we saw occasionally
a foaming stream, as though it were
rushing to put out the confagration. If
at one end of the woods a commanding
tree would set up its crimson banner,
the whole forest prepare to follow. If
Gods urn of colors were not infinite,
one swamp that saw along the Maui
NEE would have exhausted it forever.
1t seemed as if the sea of divine glory
had dashed its surf to the tiptop Of the
Alleghanies, and then it had come drip
ping down to lowest leaf and deepest
cavern.
We Fade Gradually.
Most persons preaching from this text
find only i'll it a vein of sadness. find
that have two strings to this gospel
harp-a string of sadness and Ia string
of joy infinite
First, like the foliage, we fade grad
ually. The leaves which week before
last felt the frost have day by day
been changing in tint and will for many
days yet cling to the bough, waiting for
the fist of the wind to strike them. Sup
pose you that the pictured leaf that you
hold in your hand took on its color in
an hour, or in day, or in week? No.
Deeper and deeper the flush till all the
veins of its life now seem opened and
bleeding away. After awhile leaf after
leaf they fall, now those on the outer
branches, then those most hidden. until
the last spark of the cleaning forge
shall have been quenched.
So gradually we pass away. From
day to day we hardly see the change.
But the frosts have touched us. The
work Of decay is going on, now a slight
cold, now a season of overfatigue, now
fever, now stitch in the side, now a
neuralgia thrust, now a rheumatic
twinge, now a fall Little by little.
pain by pain, less steady of limb, sight
not so clear, ear not SO alert After
awhile we take a staff. Then, after
much resistance, we come to spectacles.
Instead of bounding into the vehicle,
we are willing to be helped in. At last
the octogenarian falls. Forty years of
decaying. No sudden change. No fierce
cannonading of the batteries of life, but
fading away, slowly, gradually, as
the leaf-as the leafi
Again, like the leaf, we fade to
make room for Others Next years for
ests will be as grandly foliaged as this.
There are other generations of oak leaves
to take the place of those which this