Connecticut western news., 1898-12-15
LIGHT IN DARKNESS.
DR. TALMAGE COMFORTS THE SICK
 AND HELPLESS.

AND HELPLESS.
 Lake Noah Tn the Ark, They Are Safe
 the Lord For an All Wise PurpaAe.
 The "withouts" nnd "withins." Copyright. 1898, by American Press Asso-
 ciation.1
 WASHINGTON Dec. 11.-This dis course of Dr. Talmage, which is helpful to all who find life struggle, is es- pecially addressed to class of persons probably never before addressed in a sermon. The text is Genesis vii, 16, "The Lord shut him in.
 Cosmogony has no more interesting chapter than the one which speaks of that catastrophe of the ages, the submer- sion of our world in time of Noah, the fret ship carpenter. Many of the nations who never saw Bible have a flood story-Egyptian flood story, Grecian flood story, of which Duoalion was the Noah; Hawaiian flood story, New Zea- land flood story, Chinese flood story, American Indian flood story-all of which accounts agree in the immersion of the continents under universal rains, and that there was a ship floating, with a select few of the human family and with specimens of geological and or nithologioal and reptilian worlds, al- though could have wished that these last had been shut out of the ark and drowned.
 All of these flood stories represent the ship thus afloat as finally stranded on mountain top. Hugh Miller, in his ..tTeetimony of the Rocks, thinks that all these flood stories were infirm tradi tions of the Biblical account, and be- lieve him. The worst thing about that great freshet was that it struck Noah's Great Eastern from above and beneath. The seas broke the chain of shells and crystal and rolled over the land, and the heavens opened their clouds for fall ing columns of water which roared and thundered on the roof of the great ship for a month and ten days. There was one door to the ship, but there were three parts to that door. one part for each of three stories. The Bible account says nothing about parts of the door be- longing to two of the stories, and l do not know on which floor Noah and his family voyaged, but my text tells us that the part of the door of that partio ular floor on which Noah staid was closed after he had entered. "The Lord ahut him in. So there are many peo- pie now in the world who are as thor onghly shut in, some by sickness, some by old age, some by special duties that will not allow them to go forth, some surrounded by deluges of misfortune and trouble, and for them my sympathies are aroused, and from them I often re- ceive messages. and this sermon, which I hope may do good to others, is more especially intended for them. Today I address the shut in. "The Lord shut him in.
 The Divine Hand.
 Notice, first of all, who closed the door SO that they could not get out. Noah did not do it, nor his son Shem, nor did Ham, nor did Japheth, nor did either of the four married women who were on shipboard, nor did desperadoes who had scoffed at the idea of peril which Noah had been preaching close that door. They had turned their backs on the ark and had in disgust gone away. I will tell you how it was done. A hand was stretched down from heaven to close that door. It was divine hand as we'll as kind hand. "The Lord shut him in."
 And the same kind and sympathetic being has shut you in, my reader or my nearer. You thought it was an acci- dent, asoribable to the carelessness or misdoings of others, or a mere "happen so." No, mol God had gracious design for your betterment, for the cultivation of your patience, for the strengthening of your faith, for the advantage you might gain by seclusion, for your eter- nal salvation. He put you in a school room where you could learn in six months or a year more than you could have learned anywhere else in life- time. He turned the lattice or pulled down the blinds of the sickroom, or put your swollen foot on an ottoman, or held you amid the pillows of couch wbioh you oonld not leave, for some reason that you may not now under stand, but which he has promised he will explain to you satisfactorily, if not in this world, then in the world to come, for he has said, "What do thou knGwest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter F.
 The world has no statistics as to the number of invalids. The physicians know something about it, and the apothecaries and the pastors, but who can tell us the number of blind eyes, and deaf ears. and diseased lungs and congested flyers, and tangled nerves. and neuralgia temples, and rheumatic feet. or how many took no food this morning because they had no appetite to eat, or digestive organs to assimilate, or have lungs so delicate they cannot go forth when the wind is in the east, or there is fog rising from the river, or there is dampness on the ground or pavement because of the frost coming out? It would be easy to count the peo- pie who every day go through street, or the number of passengers carried by . railroad company in a year, or the number of those who cross the ocean in ships, but who can give us the statistics Of the great multitudes who are shut in? T call the attention of all such to their superior opportunities of doing good. Those of us who are well and can see clearly, and hear distinctly, and par take of food of all sorts, and questions of digestion never occur to us, and we can wade the snow banks and take an equinox in our faces, and endure the thermometer at zero, and every breath of air is tonic and stimulus, and sound sleep meets us within five min lutes after our head touches the pillow, do not make so much of an impression when we talk about the oonsolations of religion. The world says right away: 1T guess that man mistakes buoyanoy of natural spirits for religion. What does he know about it2 He has never been tried" But when one goes out and