Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-04-13
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: "Perils of the Metropolis"-Thc
Luxury and the squalor of Great Cities
Thrown Into Violent COntrast-Object
Iassons nrawn From Experience.


Lessons Drawn From Experience.
TEXT: 'Wsdom crieth without: she ut
tereth her voice in the treets."--Proverbs
l., 20.
We are all ready to listen to the voices OF
nature-the voices OF the mountain, the
voices of the sea, the 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 in
strument responds musically to the other,
go in the great cathedral Of nature day re.
spends to day and night to night and
flower to flower and star to star IN .ne
great harmonies Of the universe me
springtime is an evangelist IN blossoms
preaching of Gods love, and the winter Is
a prophet-white neutrality-suspicious.
woe against our sins. We are all ready to
listen to the voices OF nature, put now rev
of us learn anything from the voices OF the
noisy and dusty street? You 80 10 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 pave
ments over which we pass? Are 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 I thrust in the sickle because the
she uttereth her voice in the streets"
In the first place, the street impresses
me with the fact that this life is a scene of
toll and struggle. By ten o'clock every day
the city is iarring with wheels, and shuf-
ling with feet, and humming with voices,
and covered with the breath OF smoke
stacks, and rush with traff1ckers. Once
in awhile you find man going along with
folded arms and with leisurely step, as
shough 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
had some errand which must be executed
Mt 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
n roll of bills, on this dray with a load OF
goods, digging a cellar, or shingling roof,
or shoeing a horse, or building wall, or
mending watch, or binding book. In
dustry, with her thousand arms and thou
sand eyes and thousand feet goes on sing
ing her song OF work, work, work, while
the mills drum it and the steam whistles
fife it. All this not because men love toll.
Some one remarked, every man Is as lazy
as he can afford to be- But 1t IL because
necessity with stern brow and with uplifted
whip stand over you ready whenever you
relax your toll to make your shoulders
sting with the lash.
Can 1t be that passing up and down
these streets on your way to work and
business that you do not learn anything
of the worlds toll and anxiety and
struggle? 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 ex-
asperations endured; what losses, what
hunger, what wretchedneSs, what pallor,
what disease. what agony, what despair!
Sometimes have stopped at the corner OF
the street as the multitudes went hither
and yon, and it has seemed to me great
pantomime, and as looked upon 1t my
heart broke. This great tide OF human life
that goes down the street is a rapid, tossed
and turned aside, and dashed ahead, and
driven back-beautfful in its confusion,
and confused in its beauty. In the carpeted
aisles of the forest. in the woods from
which the eternal shadow is never lifted,
on the shore Of the sea over which iron
coast tosses the tangled foam sprinkling
the cracked cliffs with baptism of whirl-
wind and tempest, Is the best place to
study God, but in the rushing, swarming,
raving street is the best place is study
man.
Going down to your place of business
and coming home again, charge you to
look about---see these signs of poverty, OF
wretchedness, OF hunger, of sin, of bereave-
ment-and as you go through the streets,
ana come DacR through the StreetS, Satner
npi in the arms OF your prayer all the sor-
row, all the losses. all the sufferings, all
the bereavements of those whom you pass,
and present them in prayer before an all
sympathetic God. In the great day Of
eternity there will be thousands of persons
with whom you in this world never ex-
changed one word, will rise up and call
you blessed, and there will be thousand
fingers pointed at you in heaven, saying:
''That is the man, that is the woman, who
helped me when 1 was hungry and sick and
wandering and lost and heartbroken. That
is the man, that is the woman" and the
blessing will come down upon you as
Christ shall say: II was hungry, and ye
fed Me; l was naked, and ye clothed Me; l
was sick and in prison. and ye visited Me;
inasmuch as We did it to these poor waits OF
the streets, ye did it to Me-
Again, the street impresses me with the
fact that all classes and conditions of So
ciety must commingle. We sometimes cul-
ture wicked exclusiveness. Intellect de-
spises ignorance. Refinement will have
nothing to do with boorishness. Gloves
hate the sunburned hand, and the high
forehead despises the fiat head, and the
trim hedgerow will have nothing to DO
with the wild copsewood, and Athens hates
Nazareth. This ought not so to be. The
astronomer must come down from the
starry reyelry and help us in our naviga-
tion. The surgeon must come away from
his study of the human organism and set
our broken bones. The chemist must come
away from his laboratory, where he has
been studying analysis and synthesis, and
help US TO understand the nature of the
soils. 1 bless God that all classes of peo-
pie are compelled to meet on the street.
The glittering couch wheels clashes against
the scavenger's cart. Fine robes run
against thr peddler's pack. Robust health
meets wan sickness. Honesty confronts
fraud. Every class OF people meets every
other class. Impudence and modesty,
pride and humility, purity and beastliness,
frankness and hypocrisy, meeting on the
same block, in the same street, in the same
city. Oh, that is what Solomon meant
when he said, "The rich and the poor meet
together; the Lord is the Mailer of them
ALL
1 like this democratic principle of the
gospel OF Jesus Christ which recognizes
the fact that we stand before God one and
the same platform. Do not take on any
airs. Whatever position you have gained
in society you are nothing but a man,
born OF the same parent, regenerated by
the same spirit, cleansed by the same
blood, to lie down in the same dust, to get