The Progress., 1897-03-20
THE FLAGS HOISTED.
REV. Or. TAlMAGE breaches A VIVID
AND APPROPRIATE SERMON

the Right Kind of Martial Spirit-Words
OF Glowing and Picturesque Exhorta-
tIon.
WASHINGTON, March I4-At this time,
when our national capital has for ten days
been ablaze with our national Gag, the
imagery Of this sermon Of DR.. Talmage
seems very vivid and appropriate. The text
Is Psalms Xxx, 8, "In the name OF God we
will set up our banners"
hate war. In my boyhood we may
have read the biography OF Alexander or
of some Revolutionary hero until our
young heart beat high and we wished we
had been born over 100 years ago, just tor
the glory of striking down a Hessian. For
rusty swords hung up on the rafters and
bullets cut out Of log houses in which they
were lodged during the great strife we had
unbounded admiration, or on some public
day, clothed in our grandfather's so1dier1y
nccouterments, we felt rs brave rs Carl
baldi Miltiades. We are wiser now, for
we make a vast distinction between the
poetry and the prose Of war. The roll Of
drums and the call OF bugles and the
champing OF steeds foaming and paving
for the battle, 100, 900 muskets glittering
among the dancing plumes, "God Save the
King" waving up from clarinets and
trllnpets and rung back from deep dedles
or the arches of PROSTATE city, distant
capitals of Kingdoms Illuminated at the
tidings, generals returning home under
flaming arches and showering anaranths
and the shout Of empires-that Is poetry
Chilled and half blanketed, lying on the
wet earth; feet sore with the march and
bleeding at the slightest touch; hunger
pulling on every fiber of flesh or attempt
ing to satisfy itself with scanty and
spoiled ration; thirst licking up the dew
o. drinking out of filthy and trampIed
pool; thoughts of home and kindred far
away while just the eve of q deadly
strife, where death may leap on him from
any ono OF u hundred bayonets; the closing
In of two armies, now changed to 100, 600
mansncs; the ground slippery with blood
and shattered flesh; fallen cncs writhing
under the hoofs of unbridled chargers mad
dened with pain; the dresdfulness Of
night, that comes down when the strife Ia
over; the struggle OF the wounded ones
crawling out over the corpscs; the long,
fevcrish agony Of tho crowded barrack and
hospital, from whose mattresses the frag-
hnents OF men send up their groans tho
only music Of carnage and butchery; desc
late homes, from which fathers and hus-
bands and brothers and sons went off;
without giving any dying message or
sending q kiss to the dear ones at home
tu,nbled into the soldiers grave trench
and houses in which few weeks before
unbrolEen family circles rejoiccd, now
plunged in the great sorrows of widow
hood and orphanage. That is prose.
But there is now on the earth king
dom which has set itself UP for conflicts
without number In Its march it tranples
no grainflelds, 1t sacks no cities, It impov-
erishes no treasures, it fills no hospitals,
IL bcreayes no families. The courage and
victory Of Solferino and Magenta without
cnrnagc The kingdom of Christ against
the kingdom Of satan. That Is the strife
now raging. We Win offer no ar1nistices.
We Win make no treaty. Until all the re-
Soited nations of the earth shall submit
ngan 70 King Emmanuel ain the name OF
God we will set UP our hampers
Tho Ensign.
Every army has Its cnsigns. Iono he.
foro the time when David wrote the text
they We're in use. The hosts of Israel dis
played them, the tribe of Benjamin carried
nag with the inscription OF a wolf, the
tribe OF Dan "a representation of cherubfm.
Judah lion wrought into the groundwork
OF white, purple, crimson and blue. Such