The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-02-01
POWER OF EXAMPLE.
Subject of the Latest Sermon by
DR.. Talmage.
If the Professor of Christianity Wants
Others to Serve zoe He Must Set the
Example Himself-Each Must
Do His Share.

I. Dewitt Talmage took for his sub
ject 1.-THE Power of Example" TIL:
text selected was from Judges, ix:4s
And Abimelech took an ak in hi.
hand and cut down a bough from the
trees, and took it and laid it on hi:
shoulder and said unto the people thai
were with him: What we have seer
me do make haste and do as 1 have
done And all the people likewise Gu
down every man his bough." DIR. Tai
mage said:
Abimelech is a name m~alodorous in
Bible history, and yet full of profitable
suggestion. Buoys are black and un.
comely, but they tell where the rocks
are. The snakes rattle is hideous, but
it gives timely warning. From the
piazza of my summer home, night by
night, 1 saw a lighthouse Is miles
away, not placed there for adornment,
but to tell mariners to stand off from a
dangerous point. So all the iron-bound
coast of moral danger iss marked with
Saul, and Herod, and Rehoboam, and
Jezebel, and Abimelech. These bad
people are mentioned in the Bible not
only as warnings, but because here
were sometimes flashes of good con-
duct in their lives worthy of imitation.
God sometimes drives a very straight
nail with a very poor hammer.
The city of Shechem had to be taken,
and Abimelech and his men were to do
it. I see the dust rolling up from their
excited march. I hear the shouting of
the captains and the yell of the besieg-
ers. The swords clack sharply on the
p~arrying shields, and the vo~ciferation
of two armies in death grapple is hor-
rible to hear. The battle goes on all
day; and as the sun is setting Abime-
lech and his army cry, surrender to
the beaten foe. And, unable longer to
resist, the city.of Shechem falls; and
there are pools of blood, and dissev-
cred limbs, and glazed eyes looking up
beggingly for mercy that war never
shows, and dying soldiers with their
head on the lap of mother, or wife, or
sister, who have come out for the last
Offices Of kindness and affection; and q
.groan rolls across the city, stopping
not, because there is no spot for it to
rest, so full is the place of other
groans A city wounded A city dy-
ingi A city deadi Wall for Shechem,
all We who know the horrors of a
sacked town.
AS 1 look over the city, I can find
only one building standing, and that
IL the temple of the god Berth Some
soldiers outside of the city in a tower,
finding that they can no longer de-
fend Shechemanow begir to look out
for their personal safety, and they
fly to this temple of Berth. They go
within the door, shut it. and they say:
Now we are safe. Abimelech has
taken the whole city, but he cannot
AXE the temple of Berth. Here we
shall be under the protection of the
gods" o Berth, the godi do your
best now for these refugees. If you
have eyes, pity them. II you have
hands. help them. II you have thun-
derbolts, strike for them. But how
shall Abimelech and his army take this
temple of Berth and the men who are
there fortified? VIII they do it with
sword? Nay. Will they do it with
spear? Nay. With battering ram, rolled
MP by hundred-armed strength, era sh-
ing against the walls? Nay. Abimelech
marches his men to a wood in Zalmon.
With his AK he hews off a limb Of q
tree, and puts that limb upon his W
and then he says to his men:
You do the same" They are obedi-
emit to their commander. There is q
struggle as to who shall have axes. The
whole wood is full of bending boughs,
and the cracking and the hacking, and
the cutting, until every one of the host
has a limb of the tree cut down, and
not only that, but has put it on his
shoulder just as Abimelech showed
him how. Are these men all armed
with the tree branch? The reply comes:
"All armed" And they march on
oh, what q strange army, with that
strange equipment! They come up to
the loot of the temple at Berth, and
takes his limb of a tree and
throws il down; and the first platoon
II soldiers come up and they throw
their branches: and the second
and the third, until all around
about the temple of Berth there is a
bile of tree branches. The Shechem-
ties look out from the window Of the
,emple upon what seems to them child
!sh play on the part of their enemies.
But soon the fints are struck, and the
spark begins to kindle the brush, and
he fame m up all through the
pile, and the red elements leap to the
easement, and III woodwork begins to
,laze, and one arm OF flame Is thrown
I'D Oh the right side of the temple, and
mother arm of fame is thrown up on
he left side of the temple, until they
lasp their lurid palms under the wild
sky, and the cry OF "FireT
and "Firer' without, an
the terror, and the strangula-
ion, and the doom of the Sheehemites,
nd the complete overthrow of the
emple of the god, Berth. Then there
vent up a shout, long and loud. from
he stout lungs and swarthy chests of
Abimelech and his men, as they stood
mid the ashes and the dust crying
sVictoryI victoryi'
Now / learn first, from this subject,
he folly Of depending upon any one
orm of tactics in anything we have to
o for this world or for God. Look
yer the weaponry of olden times
a~velins, battle-axes, h~abergeons. and
how me a single weapon with which
lbimelech and his men could have
aimed such complete triumph. 1t is
% easy thing to take a temple thus
/ have seen a house where,
urinp the revolutionary times, a man
nd his wife kept back q whole regi-
hour after hour, and because
hey were inside the house. Yet here
.bimeIech and his army come up. they
this temple, and they cap
lred It without the loss of a single
on the part of Abimelech, al
1 suppose some of the old
heroes told ,Abimelech:
You are only going mp there to be
ut to pieces" Yet you are willing
, testify to-day that by no other
lode-certainly not by ordinary modss
hat temple SO easily, so thor
have been taken. Fathers
nd mothers, brethren and sisters in
esus Christ, what the church most
to learn, this day. is that any
Ian is right, is lawful, is best. which
clips to overthrow h temple of sin,
nd capture this world for God. We {
Re very apt to stick to the old modes
attack. We put on the old style
rat of mail. We come up with b !
larp. keen, g~littering steel spear OF I
-gument, expecting ia that way to ]
Ike the castle; but they have a thou
md spears where we have ten. And
the castle of sin stands. oh, my
lends, we will never capture this l
orld for God by any keen saber of