Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-02-17
THE BIBLES SICk lie.
ITS HARVEST FAR GREATER THAN
THE TEMPORAL GARNERING.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1G. "A change
has taken place. d.. Talmagc when
first coming to Washington preached on
ly Sunday evenings, bat so great has
been the demand for his services that he
now breaches Sunday morning and even
ing and takes charge of the Thursday
evening meeting. The throngs are i'm
mense. The subject of his sermon for
today was, bringing In the Sheaves, "
the text being Joel iii, ID, "Put ye in
the sickle, for the harvest is ripe -
The sword has been poetized, and the
world has celebrated the sword of Boil
var, the sword of Cortes and the sword
of Lafayette The pen has been properly
eulogized, and the world has celebrated
the pen of Addison, the pen of Southcy
and the pen Of Irving. The painters
pencil has been honored, and the world
has celebrated the pencil Of Murillo, the
pencil of Rubens and the pencil Of Bier
stadt. The sculptor's chisel has come in
for high encOmium, and the world has
celebrated Chantrey's chisel and CraW
ford's chisel and GreenOugh's chisel.
But there is one Instrument about which
/ sing the first cantO that was ever sung
the sickle, the sickle Of the Bible, the
sickle that has reaped the harvest Of
many centuries. Sharp and bent into
semicirclo and glittering, this reaping
hook, no longer than your arm, has
furnished the bread for thousands Of
years. It's 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 eX-
quisite sermonic simile, and you see that
instrument flash all up and down tho
Apocalypse as st. John swings it, while
through Joel in my text God commands
the people, as through his servants now
he commands them, ''Put ye in tho
sickle, for the harvest is ripe
Richer Harvests.
Last November there was great re-
joicing all over the land. With trumpet
and cornet and organ and thousand
voiced psalm we praised the Lord for
the temporal harvests. We praised God
for the wheat, the rye, the oats, the cot
ton, the rice, all the fruits of the Or
chard and all the grains Of the field,
and the nation never does better thing
than when in the autumn it gathers to
festivity and thanks God for the great
ness of the harvest. But come today
to speak to you of richer harvests, even
the spiritual. How shall we estimate
the value OF man? We say he is worth
SO many dollars, or he has achieved such
and such position, but we know very
we'll there are some men at the top of
the ladder who ought to be at the bot
tom and some at the bottom who ought
to be at the top, and the only way to
estimate q man is by his soul. We all
know that we shall live forever. Death
cannot kill u.s. Other crafts may be
drawn into the whirlpool or shivered on
the rocks, but this life within us will
weather all storms and drop no anchor,
and 100000 years after death will
shake out signals on the high seas of
eternity. You put the mendicant Off
your doorstep and say he is only beg
gar, but he is worth all the gold of the
mountains, worth all the pearls of the
sea, worth the solid earth, worth sun
and moon and stars, worth the entiro
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 f1eetest pens make fig
ures on that paper for 10, 600 years, and
they will only have begun to express
the value of the soul. Suppose owned
Colorado and Nevada and Australia, OF
how much value would they be to mo
one moment after I departed this life?
How much of Philadelphia does Stephen
Girard own today? How much of Bos
ton property does Abbott Lawrence own
today? The man who today hath dol
lar in his pocket hath more worldly es
tate than the millionaire who died last
year. How do you suppose feel, stand
ing here surrounded by a multitude of
souls. each one worth more than the
material universe?
A Powerful Sickle.
Oh, was 1 not right in saying this
spiritual harvest is richer than the tenn
poral harvest? 1 must tighten the CIR
die, I must sharpen the sickle, must
be careful how I swing the instrument
for gathering the grain, lest one stalk
be lost One of the most powerful sic
kles for reaping this spiritual harvest is
the preaching of the gospel. If the Sic
kle have a rosewood handle, and it be
adorned with precious stones, and yet it
cannot bring down the grain. it is not
much of a sickle, and preaching amounts
to nothing unless it harvests souls for
God. Shall we preach philosophy? The
Ralph Waldo Emersons could beat us
at that Shall we preach science? The
Agassizes could beat us at 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 binders. Oh, this
harvest of souls! I notice in the fields
that the farmer did not stand upright
when he gathered the grain. I noticed
he had to stoop to his work, and I no