Connecticut western news., 1896-10-22
LESSONS IN FARMING.
REV. DR. TALMAGE SEES A SERMON
 IN RURAL LIFE.


 IN RURAL LIFE.
 He Finds Food For Thought In Flowing,
 Planting, Reaping, Thrashing and Gar
 nerinE-An Eloquent and Hortatory Per
 oration-The Harvest Home.
 WASHINGTON, Oct. 18.-This sermon, at this season, after most people have had good, long breath of the country, if they do not actually live there, will revive many pleasant memories, while it deals with great religious truths. Dr. Talmage's text was John xv, 1, ''My Father is the husbandman.
 This last summer, having gone in different directions over between 5000 and 6 1000 miles of harvest fields, can hardly open my Bible without smelling the breath of new mown hay and seeing the golden light of the wheatfield. And when open my Bible to take my text, the Scripture leaf rustles like the tassels of the corn.
 We were nearly all of us born in the country. We dropped corn in the hill, and went on Saturday to the mill, tying the grist in the center of the sack so that the contents on either side the horse balanced each other, and drove the cat tie afield. our bare feet wet with the dew, and rode the horses with the halter to the brook until we fell off, and hunted the mow for nests until the feathered oo- cupahts went cackling away. We were nearly all of us born in the country, and all would have staid there had not some adventurous lad on his vacation come back with better clothes ard softer hands, and set the whole village on fire with ambition for city life. So we all understand rustic allusions. The Bible is full of them. In Christ's sermon on the mount you could see the full blown lilies and the glossy back of the crow's wing as it flies over Mount Olivet. David and John, Paul and Isaiah, find in country life source of frequent il illustration, while Christ in the text takes the responsibility of calling God a farmer, declaring, My Father is the husbandman.
 Noah was the first farmer. We say nothing about Gain, the tiller of the soil. Adam was 8 gardener on large scale, but to Noah was given all the acres of the earth. Elisha was an agri- culturist, not cultivating a 10 acre lot, for we find him blowing with 12 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 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 $16 years ago gave pre-emption right to 160 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. It was supposed that they would have their time entirely occupied with their own profession, although l am told that sometimes ministers do plunge so deeply into woridliness that they re- mind one of what Thomas Fraser said in regard to a man in his day who preached very well, but lived very ill, "When he is out of the pulpit, it is 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 email crops raised in those times, for though the arts were rude, the blow turned up very rich soil, and barley, and cotton, and flax, and all kinds of grain came up at the call of the harvesters. PHny 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 king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and he turneth it as the rivers of water are turned, whitherso- ever he will. II
 The wild beasts were caught, and then a hook was put into their nose, and then they were led over the field, and to that God refers when he says to wicked Sennacherib, II will put hook in thy nose and will bring thee back by the way which thou camest." And God has hook in every bad man s nose, whether it be Nebuohadnezzar or Ahabor Herod. He 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 a hook in his nose.
 This was the rule in regard to the culture of the ground, 'tThou shalt not blow 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 instSutions comes from the disre- gard of this command of the Lord, 'Thou shalt not blow 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 2 1000 sheep, 5000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen. The time of vintage was usher ed in with mirth and music. The clus- ters 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 crucifxion, making use of this allusion when the question was asked. Wherefore art thou red in thine appa- rel and thy garments like one who treadeth the wine vat?" he responded, "I have trodden the wine press alone. 1"
 In all ages there has been great honor paid to agriculture. Seven-eighths of the people in every country are disciples of the blow. A government is strong in proportion as it is supported by an ath- letic and industrious yeomanry. So long ago as before the fall of Carthage, Strabo wrote 28 books on agriculture. Hesiod wrote poem on the same subject, "The Weeks and Day, Cato was prouder of his work on husbandry than of all his military conuuests Rut I must not be