The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-03-15
WAR ETCHED IN FIERY WORDS.
TALMAGE DRAWS a PICTURE OF
ITS POETRY AND PROSE.


Twentieth PsaIm-A Kingdom ON
Earth which Has Set Itself Up For
Conflicts without Number, But
VIII Leave No Devastation in
Their Wake.
Washington. March 14-At this time,
when our national capital has for ten days
been ablaze with our national flag, the
imagery of this sermon of DIR, Talmage
seems very vivid and appropriate. The
text is, Psalms 20:5 I'm 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 hundred years ago.
Just for the glory of striking down
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 ad-
miration, or on some public day, clothed in
our grandfather's soldiery accoutrements,
we felt as brave as Garibaldi or Miltiades.
We are wiser now, for we make a vast
prose of war The roll Of drums and the
call of bugles and the champing of steeds
foaming and paving for the battle; hun
bred thousand muskets glittering among
the dancing plumes: God Save the King
waving up from clarionets and trumpets
and rung back from deep deflles or the
arches of PROSTATE city; distant CAPT
.F Iii, ipaf Mt Ia Il
ings; generals returning home under
flaming arches and showering amaranths
and the shout of empires; that is poetry
Chilled and -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
or drinking out of filthy and trampled
pool; thoughts of home and kindred far
away while just on the eve of a deadly
strife, where death may leap on him from
any one of a hundred bayonets; the clos
ing in of two armies, now changed to a
hundred thousand maniacS: the ground
slippery with blood and shattered flesh;
fallen ones writing under the hoofs of
unbridled chargers maddened with pain;
the dreadfulness of night that comes down
when the strife Is over; the struggle of
the wounded ones crawling out over the
corpses; the long. feverish agony of the
crowded barrack and hospital, from whose
mattresses the fragments of men send
up their groans, the only music of car
mage and butchery; desolate homes from
which fathers and husbands and brothers
and sons went off; without giving any
dying message or sending a kiss to the
dear ones at home, tumbled into the sol
dier's grave trench, and houses in which
a few weeks before unbroken family
circles rejoiced. now plunged in the great
sorrows of widowhood 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 tram
pies no grain fields, it sacks no cities, 1t
impoverishes no treasures. 1t fills no hos
pitals it bereaves no families. The cour-
age and victory of Solferino and Magenta
without carnage. The kingdom of Christ
against the kingdom of satan. That is
the strife now raging. We will offer
no armistices; we will make no treaty.
Until all the revolted nations of the earth
shall submit again to King Emanuel, In
the name of God we will set up our BAN
ners."
Every army has its ensigns. Long be-
fore the time when David wrote the text
they were in use. The hosts of Israel dis
played them. The tribe of Benjamin car
ried a flag with the inscription of a wolf.
The tribe of Dan a representation of
cherubim. Judah a lion wrought into the
groundwork of white, purple crimson and
blue. Such flags from their folds shook
fire into the hearts of such numbers as
were In the field when Abijah fought
against Jehoram, and there were twelve
hundred thousand soldiers, and more than
five hundred thousand were left dead On
the field. These ensigns gave heroism TO
such numbers as were assembled when
Asa fought against Zerah, and there were
one million five hundred and eighty thou
sand troops in the battle. The Athenians
carried an inscription Of the owl, which
was their emblem of wisdom. The flags
of modern nations are familiar to you all,
and many of them so inappropriate for
the character of the nations they repre-
sent it would be impolitic 10 enumerate
them. These ensigns are streamers borne
on the point of a lance and on the top or
wooden shafts. They are carried in the
front and rear of armies. They unroll
from the Observation-Disclosures t-head of
an admirals flagship to distinguish it
among other ships of the same squadron.
They are the objects of national pride.
The loss of them on the field is ignomini-
Gus.
The three banners Of the Lords hosts
are the banner of proclamation, the ban
ner of recruit, and the banner of victory
When nation feels its rights infringed
or its honor insulted, when its citizens
have in foreign chimes been oppressed and
no indemnity has been offered to the
inhabitant of the republic or kingdom a
proclamation of war is uttered On the
top of batteries and arsenals and custom
houses and revenue offices flags are imme-
diately swung out. All who look upon
them realize the fact that unoompromising
war is declared. Thus it is that the church
of Jesus Christ, Jealous for the honor of
its sovereign, and determined to get back
those who have been carried off captive
into the bondage of satan, and intent upon
the destruction of those mighty wrongs
which have so long cursed the earth, and
bent upon the extension of the Saviour $
reign of mercy, in the name Of God sets
up its banner of proclamation.
The church makes no assault upon the
world. do not believe that God ever made
a better world than this. IL Is magnificent
in its ruins. Let US stop talking so much
against the world. God pronounced it
very good at the beginning. Though a
wandering child of God, l see in il yet the
Great Fathers lineaments. Though tossed
and driven by the storms OF six thousand
years. she sails bravey yet, and as at her
launching la the beginning the morning