The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-04-11
SEEING OURSELVES.
Dr.. Talmage Disoourses on the
Prodigars Return
And He Said: "I Will Arise and Go to MY
Fathsr"-The JOY of Going Home After
Career of SIn-The Heavenly
Fathers Blessing.

Fathers Blessing.
In a ate sermon at Washington Rev.
T. Dewitt Talmage d~iscoursed on the
ProdigaI's Return and the Joys of
Home. His text was from Luke XIV,
is: Il will arise and go to my father
The noted preacher said:
There is nothing like hunger to take
the energy out of a man. A hungry
man can toll neither with pen o hand
nor foot. There has been many an
army defeated, not so much for lack of
ammunition as for lack of bread. 1t
was thai fact that took the fire out OF
this young man of the text. Storm and
will wear out any mans life
in time, but hunger makes quick work.
The most awful cry yer heard on
earth is the cry for bread. A traveller
tells us that in Asia Minor there are
trees which bear fruit looking very
much like the long bean of our time.
1t is called the carob. Once in a while
the people, reduced to restitution,
would eat these carobs. but generally
the CAROLS, the bean spoken
of here in the text. were thrown
only to the swine, aud they crunched
LuGDl VIZ RICub
Young man of my text could not even
get them without stealing them. So
one day, amid the swine troughs, he
began to soliloquize. He says: "These
are no clothes for a rich mans son to
wear; this is no kind of business for a
Jew to be engaged in, feeding swine;
I'll go home; 1 will arise and go to my
father" 1 know there are a great
many people who try to throw a fas-
cination, a romance, a halo about sin;
but Notwithstanding all that Lord
Byron and George Sand have said In
regard to it, it is a mean, low, con-
temptible business, and putting food
and fodder into the troughs Of a herd
of iniquities that root and wallow in
the soul of man is a very poor business
for men and women intended to be
SONS and daughters of the Lord
Almighty, and when this young
man resolved to go home 1t was
a very wise thing for him to do,
and the only question is, whether we
will follow him. Satan promises large
wages If we will serve him; but he
clothes his victims with rags, and he
pinches them with hunger, and when
they start out to do better he sets
after them all the b~loodhounds of hell.
Satan ONE to us to-day and he prom
ises all luxuries and emoluments 1t
we will only serve him. Liar, down
with thee to the pitt ''The wages of
sin is death" Obi the young man of
the text was wise when he uttered the
resolution, ~ will arise and go to my
father" In the time of Mary, the per-
secutor, a prosecutor came to a Chris
tian woman who had hidden in her
house for the Lords sake one of
Christ's servants, and the prosecutor
said: "Where is that heretic?" The
Christian woman said: "You open that
trunk and you will see the hereto"
The prosecutor opened h trunk, and
on the top of the linen of the trunk he
saw a glass. He said: There is no
hereto here" "Ahr" she said, you
look in the glass and you will see the
hereto"
As l take up the mirror of Gods
Word to-day / would that, instead of see
ing the prodigal of the text, we might
see ourselves-our want, our wan
dering, our sin, u lost condition, so
that we might be as wise as this young
man was and say: 81 will arise and
60 to my father" The resolution of
this text was formed in a disgust at
his present circumstances. II this
young man had been by his employer
set to c~ulturing flowers, or training
vines over an arbor, or keeping an ao-
count of the pork market, or oversee
ing other laborers, he would not have
thought of going home. If he had had
his pockets full Of money, If he had
been able to say: 81 have 81, 900 now
of my own, what's the use of my GO
ing back to my fathers house? Do
you think I'm going back to apollo
Qize to the old man? Why, he
would put me on the limits; he
would not have going on around the
old place such conduct as 1 have been
engaged in; 1 won't go home; there is
no reason why 1 should go home; 1
have plenty of money, plenty of pleas
ant surroundings; why should 1 go
homer" All! 1t was his pauperism, it
was his beggary. he had to go home
Some man comes and says to me why
do you talk about the ruined state of
the human soulP Why don't you speak
about the progress of the nineteenth
century, and talk of something more
exhilarating?" 1t is for this reason:
A man never wants the gospel until he
realizes he is in a famine-struck state.
But" says some one in the audi
ence, ''how do you know that we are
in a ruined condition by sinP" Well, l
can prove it in two ways, and you may
have your choice. I can prove 1t either
by the statements of men OIL by he
statement of God. Which shall it Der
You say, LET us have h statement
of God" Well, He says in one place,
1.-THE heart s deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked" He says in
another place, What is man that he
should be clean9 and he which Is born
of woman. that he should be right
eousP' He says in another place,
There is none that doeth good
no, not one" He says in another
place, "As by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and
SO death passed upon all men, for that
all had sinned." WELL" you say, At
am willing to acknowledge that. but
why should I take the particular rescue
that you proposeP" This is the reason:
Except q man be born again he can
not see the kingdom of God" This is
the reason: There is one name given
under Heaven among men whereby
they may De saved. linen Lnere are q
thousand voices here ready to say:
"'Well, 1 am ready to accept this help
of the gospel; 1 would like to have this
divine cure; how shall 1 go to work. /"
Let me say that a mere within, an unde-
fined longing amounts to nothing.
You must a a stout, q tremendous
resolution like this young man in the
tex when he said: II will arise and
60 to my father"
When Napoleon talked of going into
Italy, they said: you amt get there.
II you knew what the Alps were you
wouldn't talk about it or think about
IT. You can't get your ammunition
wagons owe the Alps" Then Napo-
leon rose in his stirrups, and waving
his hand toward the mountains, he
said: There shall be no AlpsI" That
wonderful pass was laid out which has
been the wonder of all the years since
the wondOrment of all engineers.
And you ELL we there are such noun
tains of sin, between your soul and
God. there is no mercy. Then / see
Christ waving His hand toward the
mountains 1 hear Him say; l will
come over the mountains of thy sin
and the hills of thine iniquity." There