The Monitor-register., 1897-02-12
HIS PRAISE OF HOME.
Jan ELOQUENT AND TOUCHING SER
r MON BY REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
He Takes ''Harbor of Home" For His Sub
ject and Pays Fine Tribute to the Do
mestic Hearth and Its Influence.

mestic Hearth and Its Influence.
WASHINGTON, Feb. This sermon
Of DR.. Talmage will set many memories
ringing with the good old times. His
subject was "Harbor of Home" and
the text Mark V, 10, $50 home to thy
friends and tell them how great things
the Lord hath done for thee"
There are a great many people long
ing for some grand sphere in which to
serve God. They admire Luther at the
diet of Worms and only wish that they
had some such great opportunity in
which to display their Christian PROV
ess.s They admire Paul making Felix
tremble, and they only wish that they
had some such grand occasion in which
to preach righteousness, temperance and
Judgment to come. All they want is an
opportunity to exhibit their Christian
heroism. Now the apostle comes to us,
and he practically says, ST will show
you a place where you can exhibit all
that is grand and beautiful and glorious
in Christian character, and that is the
domestic circle. -
If one is not faithful in an insignif-
cant sphere, he will not be faithful in
a resounding sphere. If Peter will not
help the cripple at the gate of the tenn
pie, he will never be able to preach
5000 souls into the kingdom at the
Pentecost. If Paul will not take pains
to instruct in the way of salvation the
sheriff of the Philippian dungeon, he
will never make Felix tremble. He who
is not faithful in a skirmish would not
be faithful in an Armageddon. The
fact is, we are all placed in just the po-
sition in which we can most grandly
serve God, and we ought not to be
chiefly thoughtful about some 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?"
The Word "Home."
There is one word in my text around
which the most of our thoughts will to-
day revolve. : That word is home. Ask
ten different men the meaning Of that
word, and they will give you ten differ
ent definitions. To one it means love at
the hearth, it means plenty at the table,
industry at the workstand, intelligence
at the books, devotion at the altar. To
him it means greeting at the door and
smile at the chair Peace lowering
like wings. Joy clapping 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 cheerless fire CRATE and kneading
hunger in an empty bread tray. The
damp air shivering with curses. No Bi-
BILE on the shelf. Children, robbers and
murderers in embryo Vile songs their
lullaby. Every face picture of ruin.
Want in the background and sin staring
from the front. No Sabbath wave roll
ing over that doorsill. Vestibule of the
pit Shadow of internal walls. Furnace
for forging everlasting chains. Fagots
for an unending funeral pile. Awful
word! 1t is spelled with curses; it weeps
with ruin; it chokes with woe; it sweats
with the death agony of despair.
The word "home" in the one case
means everything bright. The word
"home'' in the other case means every
thing terrific.
I shall speak to you of home as test
of character, home as refuge, home as
political safeguard, home as school
and home as type of heaven.
And in the first place I remark that
home is powerful test of character.
The disposition in public may be in gay
costume while in private it is in disha-
billie. AS play actors may appear in one
way on the stage and may appear in
another way behind the scenes, so pri-
vate character may be very different
from public character Private charac-
ter is often public character turned
wrong side out. A man may receive YOU
into his parlor as though he were a dis
tillation 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 ma
tured in commercial life, keeping back
their irritability and their petulance
and their discomfort, but at nightfall
= the dam breaks. and scolding pours forth
in floods and freshets
Good Cheer at Home.
Reputation is only the shadow Of
character, and very small house some
times will cast 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 sun
beams, and yet they may only be q
magnificent show window to wretched
stock of goods. There is many q man
who is affable in public life and amid
commercial spheres, who, in a cowardly
way, takes his anger and his petulance
home and drops them in the domestic
circle.
The reason men do not display their
bad temper i'll public is because they do
not want to be knocked down. There
are men who hide their petulance and
their irritability just for the same rea-
son 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 depreclate the value. AS at sunset
the wind rises, so after sunshiny day
there may be tempestuous night.
There are people who in public act the
philanthropist 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 a few days of recrea-
tion and rest and came back and fou1:d
that the rats had utterly destroyed the
manuscript, but without any discompo-
sure 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 immor-
tai work. And yet there are people with
the ten -thousandth part of that loss who
are utterly irreconcilable; who, at the
loss of a pencil or an article of raiment,
will blow as long and sharp as north
east storm
Now, that man who is affable in pub
lie and who is irritable in private is
making fraudulent overissue of stock,
and he is as bad as a bank that might
have $400, 900 or $500, 900 of bills in
circulation with no specie in the vault
Let as learn ''to show piety at home" If
we have it not there, we have it not any
where. If we have not genuine grace ia
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 selfishness. I
tell you the home is mighty test of
character. What you are at home you