The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-03-20
STREETS OF A CITY.
DR.. TAlMAGE CONTRASTS THEIR
az sPLENoOR AND WOE.

/ NM8 Onw0Ey-SMohU aDO &Eee
tcnsions-work For Christians.
Copyright. 1889, by American Press Asso'
| ciation.l
WARRINGTON, March 1e.-In this dis
course DR.. Talmsge who has lived thu
most Of his life In cities. draws practica
lessons from his own observation; text
Proverbs 1, 30: Wisdom cricth without
| She uttereth her voice in the streets"
We are all ready to listen to the voices
Of nsture-the voices Of tho mountain,
the voices Of the sea, tho voices of the
storm, the voices Of the star. As In some
Of the cathedrals in Europe there is an
organ at either end Of the building, and
the one instrument responds musically to
the other, so in the great cathedral Of
nature day responds to day, and night 10
| night, and flower to flower. and star to
star in tho great harm0nies Of the uni
| verse. The springtime is an evangelist
in blossoms preaching Of Gods love, and
the winter Ia prophet-white bearded
denouncing woe against our sins We are
/ all ready to listen to the voices Of nature
But how few Of us learn anything from
tho voices Of the noisy and dusty street.
You go to your mechanism, and to your
work, and to your merchandise, and you
come back again-and often with how
different heart you pass through the
streets. Are there no things for us to
learn from these pavements over which we
pass9 Arc there no tufts Of truth growing
up between these cobblestones, beaten
with the feet Of toll and pain and pleasure
the slow tread Of old age and the quick
step Of childhood Aye, there are great
harvests to be reaped, and now thrust in
the sickle because the harvest Is ripe.
"Wisdom crieth without She uttereth
her voice in the streets.
Toll and Struggle.
In thefrst place the street impresses me
with the fact that this life Is scene Of
toll jshd struggle By 10 O'Clock every day
tbs city Is jarring with wheels and shut
fling with feet and ,humming with voices
and covered with the breath of smoke
stacks and a-rush with traffickers. Once in
while you find man going along with
folded arms and with lesurely step, as
though he had nothing to do, but, for the
most part, as you find men going down
these streets on the way to business, there
Is anxiety in their faces, as though they
at the first possible moment. You are
iostled by those who have bargains to
make and notes to sell. Up this ladder
with hod Of bricks, out of this bank with
roll Of bills, on this dray with a load Of
goods, digging cellar, or shingling roof
or shooting horse or building wall, or
mending watch, or binding book. In
dustry, with her thousand arms and
thousand eyes and thousand feet, goes on
singing her song of work, work, work,
while tho mills drum 1t and the steam
whistles fife it. All this is not because
men love toll Some one remarked, "Every
man is as lazy as he can afford to be"
But it is because necessity with stern brow
and with uplifted whip stands over you
ready whenever you relax your toll to
make your shoulders sting with the lash
Can it be that passing up and down
these streets on your way to work and
business you do not learn anything Of
the worlds toll and anxiety and strug-
gle? Oh how many dropping hearts, how
many eyes on the watch, how many miles
travelled, how many burdens carried how
many losses suffered, how many battles
fought, how many victories gained, how
many defeats suffered, how many exas-
pcrations endured-what losses, what
hunger, what wretchedness, what pallor,
what disease, what agony, what desPairl
Sometimes have stopped at the corner of
the street as the multitudes went hither
and yon, and it has seemed to be great
pantomime, and as looked upon 1t my
Thi, ttIo ~ b,,v,
life that goes down the street is rapid
tossed and turned aside and dashed ahead
and driven back-beau5iful in it's confu-
sion and confused in its beauty. In tho
carpeted aisles Of the forest, in the woods
from which the eternal shadow is never
lifted, on the shore Of the sea over whose
iron coast losses the tangled foam sprin-
king the cracked cliffs with baptism of
whirlwind and tempest is the best place
to study God. but in the rushing, swarm
ing, raying street is the best place to study
man
All Classes Meet.
Going down to your place Of business
and coming home again charge you to
look ahout-see these signs Of poverty, Of
wrctchedness, of hunger. Of sin, of be-
navcmcnt-and us you go through the
streets and come back through the streets,
gather upin the arms of your prayer all
the sorrow, all tho losses, all the suffer-
ings, all tho bereavemcnts Of those whom
you pass and present them in prayer be-
fore an all sympathetic God In the great
day of eternity there will DO thousands Of
persons with whom you in this world
never exchanged one word who will rise up
and call you blessed, and therp will be a
thousand fingers pointed at you in heaven,
saying. THAT is the man, that is tho
woman, who helped me when was hun
cry and sick and wandering and lost and
heartbroken That is tho man, that is the
woman - And the blessing will come
down upon you rs Christ shall say: II
was hungry and ye fed me; l was naked
and ye clothed me: was sick and in prison.
and ye visited nc Inasmuch as ye did it
to these poor waits Of the Streets 70 did
1t to me
Again, the street imprcsses me with
the fact that all Glasses and conditions Of
society must cninmingle. We sometimes
culture wicked cxciusiveness. Intellect
dcspises ignorance Refinement will have
nothing to do with bo0rishness Gloves
hate the sunburnrd hand, and the high
forehead despises tho flat head, and the
trim hedgcrow will have nothing to do
with the wild copscwood, and Athens hates
Nazareth This ought not SO to be Tho
astronomer must come down from his
starry revelry and help us IN our naviga.
ton. The surgeon must come away from
his study of the human organism and set
our broken bones Tho chemist must
come away from his laboratory, where no