Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-10-27
REV. DR. TALMAGE.
Tho Eminent Divine's SUNDAY
Disc urse.

| mugnty suiiuence Of Prayer For tn,
Worlds GOOd-It Comes From Secre
Places-The Christian Home the Foun
tain of PiOus and Gracious Influences
Text: 81 answered. thee in the secret
place OF thu nder. Psalms 81: vii.
| 1t is past midnight, and o'clock in tn,
! morning; far enough from sunset and sun
rise to make the darkness very thick, ant
| the Egyptian army in pursuit Of the escap
| ing Israelites are on the bottom of the Rec
| Sea, its waters having been set up on either
| side in masonry of sapphire, for God car
| make a wall as solid out Of water as out o.
; granite. and the trowels with which these
; two walls were built were none the les:
powerful because invisible. Such wall:
had never before been lifted. When saw
the waters of the Red Sea rolling through
the Suez Canal they were blue and beauti
| full and flowing like other waters but as
the Egyptians look up to them built into
walls, now on one side and now on the
other, they must have been frowning wa
| ters, for 1t was probable that the same
power that lifted them up might suddenly
| fling them PROSTATE. A great lantern OF
| cloud hung over this chasm between the
| two walls. The door of that lantern was
opened toward the Israelites ahead giving
them light, and the back of the lantern
was toward the Egyptians, and 1t grOwled
and rumbled and Jared with thunder; not
thunder Ike that which cheers the earth
after drought promising the refreshing
shower. but charged and surcharped with
threats Of doom The Epyptian ca,tajns
lost their presenae of mind and the horses
reared and snorted and would not answer
to their bits, and the chariot wheels got in
terlocked and torn Off and the charioteers
were hurled headlonc and the Red Sea fell
on all the, host. The confusino AMI con-
founding thunder was in answer to the
prayer Of the Israelites With their backs
cut by the lash and their feet bleeding and
their bodies decrepit with the suffering OF
whole generations, they had asked Almighty
God tn ensepulcher their Egyptian pur-
suers in one great sarcophagus, and the
splash and II. roar OF the Rcd Sea as 1t
dropped to its natural bed were only tha
shutting of the sarcophagus on a dead host!
That is the meaning of the text, when God
says: Il answered thee in the secret place
of thunder"
Now thunder. all up and down the Bible,
Is the symbol of power Small wits depre,
ciate the thunder anU say, 1t is tho
lightning that strikes" But God evident%
ly thinks the thunder of some Importance
or He would not make so much Of 1t. That
man must be without imagination and with,
out sensitiveness and without religion who
can, without emotion, see the convention
of summer clouds called to order by tho
falling gavel Of the thunderbolt. There Is
nothing in the natural world that awes and
soiemnizes me- As the thunder. The Egyp+
tian plague of hail was accompanied with
this ful diapason Of the heaven. While
samuel and his men were making burnt
Offering OF lamb, and the Philfstines were
about to attack them, it was by terrorzing
thunder they were discomfited. Job, who
was combination of the Dantesque and
the MitOaic, was solemnized by this rever-
beration OF the heavens, and cried: The
thunder of His power, who can under
stand?" and He challenges the universe by
saying: "Can'st thou thunder with voice
like Him?" and he throws Rosa Bonheur's
"HOrse Fair" into the shade by the Bible
photograph of war horse, when he de-
seribes his 4Dck as clothed with thunder"
Because ofthe power Of James and John
they were called the sons of thunder"
The law given on the basaltic craSs of
Mount Sinai was emphasized with this cloudy
ebullition. The skies all round about st.
John at Patmos were full of the thunder OF
war, and the thunder of Christly triumph,
and the thunder of resurrection, and the
thunder of eternity.
But when my text says, L answered thee
In the secret place of thunder, it suggests
there Is some mystery about the thunder.
To the ancients the cause Of this lombard
ing the earth with loud sound must have
been more Of n mystery than 1t is to us.
The lightnings, which were to them wild
monsters ranging through the skies, in our
time have been domesticated. We harness
electricity to vehicles and We cage 1t in
lamps and every schoolboy knows some
thing about the fact that it Is the passage of
electricity from cloud to cloud that makes
the heavenly racket which we call thun-
der. But, after all that chemistry has
taught the world, there are mysteries about
this skyey resonance, and my text true In
the time of the psalmist, is true now and
always will be true, that there is some Sc
cret about the place of thunder.
Now, right along~by natural law there
is always a spiritual law. As there is
secret place of natural thunder, there is
a secret place of moral thunder. In other
words the religious power that you see
abroad in the church and in the world has
hiding place and in many cases it is
never discovered at ALL l will use a simil-
ftude 1 can give only the dim outline of
a particular case. for MANY of the remark
able circumstances have forgotten. Manv
wears ago there was a large church which
was characterized by strange and unac-
countable conversions. There were no
great reyiyaIs. but individual cases of
spiritual arrest and transformation. A
young man sat in one of the front pews.
He was IA graduate of Yale. brilliant as
the north star and notoriously dissolute.
Everybody knew him and liked him for
his genialty. but deplored his moral er-
rantry. To please his parents he was every
Sabbath morning in church. One day
there was a ringing of the door bell of the
pastor oil tnat cnufcn, ana tlat young man,
whelmed with repentance, implored PRAYER
and advice and passed into complete re-
formation OF heart and life. All the neigh
borhood was astonished and asked, Why
was this? His father and mother had said
nothing to him about his souls welfare
On another side of the same church sat an
old miser. He paid his pew rent, but was
hard on the poor and had no interest in any
philanthropy. Piles OF money! And pcople
said: what struggle he will have, when
ne quits this lie, to part with his bonds
ana mortgages. one day he wrote to his
minister: fleaSe TO call Immediately:
nave matter Oh great inPoftanee ABOUT
WHICH want 10 see you. mnen the pastof
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AMI IL 40 T wisb yon wnnia til m, ho,v .,
Unn, bis soni H.. Habt soon downa5 ana
the old miser not only revolmtionized In
heart bnt in life beVan to scatter bena-
factions. and toward ali the great charil