Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1897-02-11
fHEHARBOR OFHONIE
Rev. DR.. TALMAeE breaches UPON
A GRAND THEME.
fhe Home ss q Test Of Character. As p
Safeguard. rs School and rs Type Of
Heaven-A Beautiful Dream.


Dr.. Talmage will set many memories ring
ng with the good old times. His subject
Ias "Harbor Of Home" and the text Mark
!, 10, go home to thy friends and tell
hem how great things the Lord hath done
.or thee. "
There are great many people longing
or some grand sphere in which to serve
5od. They admire Luther at the diet Of
Worms, and only wish that they had some
such great opportunity in which to display
heir Christian prowess. They admire
Paul making Felix tremble, and they only
wish that they had some such grand occa-
ZION in which to preach righteousness, tenn
oerance and Judgment to come. All they
want is an opportunity to exhibit their
Christian heroism. Now. the apostle comes
% us, and he practically says, "Iwill show
Tou place where you can exhibit all that
s grand and beautiful and glorious in
Christian character, and that is the domes-
ic circle. I"
If one is not faithful in an insignificant
sphere, he will not be faithful in resound
ing sphere. If Peter will not help the Grip
pie at the gate of the temple, he will never
be able to preach 5000 souls into the king
iom at the Pentecost. If Paul will not
lake pains to instruct in the way of saliva
ion the sheriff of the Philippian dungeon,
he will never make Felix tremble. He who
Is not faithful in a skirmish would not bo
faithful in an Armageddon. The fact is,
we are all placed in just the position in
which we can most grandly serve God, and
we ought not to be chiefly thoughtful about
,ome sphere of usefulness which we may
after awhile gain, but the all absorbing
question with you and with me ought to
be, "Lord, what wilt thou have me (now
and here) to do?"
Significance of Home.
There is one word in my text around
which the most of our thoughts will today
revolve. That word is home. Ask ten diff
terent men the meaning of that word and
they will give you ten different definitions.
10 one it means love at the hearth, it
means plenty at the table, industry at the
workstand, intelligence at the books, de-
votion at the altar. To him it means
greeting at the door and a smile at the
chair. Peace lowering like wings. Joy
,lapping its hands with laughter. Life
tranquil lake. Pillowed on the ripples
sleep the shadows.
Ask another man what home is and he
will tell you it is want looking out of a
.heerless fire CRATE and kneading hunger in
an empty bread tray. The damp air shiv-
.ring with curses No Bible on the shelf.
Children, robbers and murderers in en-
bryo. Vile songs their lullaby Every face
\ picture of ruin. Want in the background
and sin staring from the front. No Sab
bath wave rolling over that doorsill. YES
tibule of the pit. Shadow of internal walls.
Furnace for forging everlasting chains.
Faggots for an unending funeral pile Aw-
tul word 1t is spelled with curses, it
weeps with ruin, it chokes with woe, 1t
weats with the death agony of despair.
The word home in the one case means
everything bright. The word home in the
other case means everything terrific
shall speak to you of home as a test Of
character, home as refuge, home as po-
litical safeguard, homo as a school and
home as type Of heaven.
| And in the first place remark that
home is powerful test of character. The
disposition in public may be in gay cos
5ume, while in private it is in dishabille.
As play actors may appear in one way on
the stage and may appear in another way
behind the scenes, so private character may
be very different from public character.
Private character is often public character
turned wrong side out. A man may re-
ceive you into his parlor as though he were
distillation of smiles, and yet his heart
may be swamp of nettles. There are
business men who all day long are mild
and courteous and genial and good natured
in commercial life, keeping back their ir-
ritability, and their petulance, and their
1iscontent, but at nightfall the dam
breaks and scolding pours forth in floods
and freshets.
Reputation is only the shadow of charac-
ter, and q very small house sometimes will
cast a very long shadow. The lips may
seem to drop myrrh and cassia, and the
disposition to be as bright and warm as a
sheaf of sunbeams, and yet they may only
be a magnificent show window to wretch
ed stock of goods. There is many a man
who is affable in public life and amid COM
mercial spheres who, in cowardly way,
takes his anger and his petulance home and
drops them in the domestic circle.
| Piety at Home.
The reason men do not display their bad
temper in public is because they do not
want to be knocked down. There are men
who hide their petulance and their irri-
liability just for the same reason that they
do not let their notes go to protest-it does
not pay. Or for the same reason that they
do not want a man in their stock company
TO sell his stock at less than the right price,
lest it depreciate the value As at sunset
the wind rises, SO after a sunshiny day
there may be tempestuous night. There
are people who in public act the philan-
thropist who at home act the Nero with
respect to their slippers and their gown.
Audubon, the great ornithologist, with
gun and pencil went through the forests
of America to bring down and to sketch
the beautiful birds, and after years of toll
and exposure completed his manuscript
and put it in trunk in Philadelphia for
| few days of recreation and rest and came
back and found that the rats had utterly
| destroyed the manuscript, but without
any discomposure and without any fret or
bad temper, he again picked up his gun
and pencil and visited again all the great
forests of America and reproduced his i'm
mortal work. And yet there are people
with the n-thousandth part of that loss
who are utterly irreconcilable, who, at the
loss of apencil or an article of raiment,
will blow as long and sharp as northeast
| storm.
Now, that man who is affable in public
and who is irritable in private is making a
! fraudulent overissue Of stock, and he is as
bad as a bank that might have $4O0, 900 or
| $500, 900 of bills in circulation, with NO
specie in the vault. Let us learn 'to show
piety at home" If we have it not there,
we have it not anywhere. If we have not
genuine grace in the family circle, all our
outward and public plausibility merely
springs from fear of the world or from
the Shiny, putrid pool Of our own selfish
ness. tell you the home is mighty test
of character. What you are at home you
are everywhere, whether you demonstrate
| 1t or not.
"A Refuge and q Safeguard.
Again, remark that home ia n refI1re