The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-02-29
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Put Ye In the Sickle. for the Harvest
u Ripe.
The Kind of siokles 20 be Used In Reap
Ing the Spiritual Harvost-Ths
Gospel the Most Po-
tont of All.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered
the following discourse on Bringing
in the Sheaves" before his Washington
congregation, taking for his text:
Put ye in the sickle. for the harvest is ripe
| Joel ILL.,, Is
The sword has been poetized and the
world has celebrated the sword of Boil.
war, the sword of Cortez, and the
sword of Lafayette. The pen has been
properly eulogized, and 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
Nurillo, the pencil of Rubens, and the
pencil Of Bierstadt. The sculptor's
chisel has come in for high encomium,
and the world has celebrated Chan
trey's chisel, and Crawford's chisel,
and Greenough's chisel. But there is
one instrument about which l sing
the first canto that was ever sung
bhe sickle, the sickle of the Bible, the
sickle that has reaped the harvest of
many centuries. Sharp, and bent into
semi-circle, and glittering, this reap
ing-hook, no longer than your arm,
has furnished the bread for thousands
Of years. Its success has produced the
wealth of nations. 1t 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 the exquisite sermonic
smile, and you see that instrument
flash 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 He COM
mands them-"Put We in the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe"
Last November there was great re-
joicing all over the land. With trum-
pet and cornet and organ and thou
sand-voiced psalm we praised the Lord
for the temporal harvest. We praised
God for the wheat, the rye, the oats,
the cotton, the rice, all the fruits of
the orchard and all the grains of the
field; and the nation never does bet
ter thing than when IN the autumn it
gathers to festivity and thanks God
for the greatness of the harvest. But
come to-day to speak to you OF
richer harvests, 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 position; but
we know very well there are some men
at the top Of the ladder who ought to
be at the bottom, and some at the bot
tom who ought to be at the top, and
the only way to estimate a man is by
his soul. We all know that we shall
live forever. Death. can not kill us
Other crafts may be drawn into the
whirlpool or shivered on the rocks. btu
this life within us will weather all
storms and drop no anchor, and 10, 00O. n,
600 years after death will shake BUT
signals on the high seas of eter1fty.s
You put the mendieant off your door
step and say he is only a beg&aEss
but he is worth all the gold ofElthes
mountains; worth all the pearls ofthel
sea, worth the solid earth, worth$snn
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 feetest pens
make figures on that paper for Il, 900
years. and they will only have begun
to exprass the value of the soul Sup
pose owned Colorado and Nevada
and Australia, of how much value
would they be to me one moment af-'
ter departed this life? How much of
Philadelphia does Stephen Girard own
to-day? How much of Boston property
does Abbott Lawrence own to-day?
The man who to-day hath dollar in
his pocket hath more worldly estate
than the millionaire who died last
year. How do you suppose I feel,
standing here surrounded by multi
tude of souls, each one worth more
than the material universe? Oh, was
l not right In saying, this spiritual
harvest Is richer than the temporal
harvest? must tighten the girdle,
must sharpen the sickle. l must be
careful how swing the instrument
for gathering the grain, lest one stalk
be lost. l#i.tt. Ii
One of the most powerful sickles for
reaping this spiritual harvest is the
preaching of the Gospel. If the sickle
have rosewood handle, and it be
adorned with precious stones, and yet
it can not bring down the grain, it is
not much of sickle, and the preach
ing amounts to nothing unless it har-
vests souls for God. Shall we preach
philosophy? The Ralph Waldo Emer-
sons could beat u.s. at that Shall we
preach science? The Agassfzes could
beat US ar that. The minister of
Jesus Christ with weakest arm going
forth in earnest prayer, and welding
this sickle of the Gospel, shall
find the harvest all around him
waiting for the angel sheaf. bind
ers. Oh this harvest Of souls! +
notice in the fields that the farmer did
not stand upright when he gathered
the grain. l noticed he had to stoop
to his work, and 1 noticed in order to
bind the sheaves the better he had to
put his knee upon them. And as we
GO forth in this work for God we can
not stand upright in our rhetoric, and
our metaphysics, and .pur cerpdfti9n.
We have toistoop TO bpir EorliI Ny, I've