Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1899-12-21
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
FORGIVENESS BEFORE SUN
DOWN SUNDAYS SUBJECT.
From Epnssians, Chapter Four, Verse
Twenty-six, as Follows; Let Not the
Sun Go Down Upon Your WRATH
Plea to Mans NobIest Instincts.
Copyright 1899 by Louis Klopsch.,

Wnlcn, at evening, IL is buried.
Sunset among the mountains 1t
almost takes ones breath away to re-
call the scene. The long shadows
I stretching over the plain make the
glory OF the departing light, on the tip
top crags and struck aslant, through
the foliage the more conspicuous. SAT-
from and gold, purple and crimson
commingled. All the castles of cloud
in confiagration. Burning Moscows on
the sky. Hanging garden of roses at
their deepest blush. Banners of va
por, red as if from carnage, in the bat
tie of the elements. The hunter
among the Adirondacks, and the Swiss
villager among the Alps, know what is
sunset among the mountains. After
a storm at sea, the rolling grandeur
into which the sun goes down to battle
at nightfall, is something to make
weird and splendid dreams out of for
a lifetime. Alexander Smith, in his
poem, compares the sunset to 1.-The
| barren beach of hell" but this wonder
full spectacle of nature makes me
think of the FURNISHED wall of heaven.
Paul, in prison, writing my text re-
members some of the gorgeous sunsets
among the mountains of Asia Minor,
and how he had often seen the towers
of Damascus blaze in the close Of the
oriental days, and he flashes out that
memory in the text when he says, Let
not the sun go down upon your
wrath"
Sublime all-sugestive duty for peo-
pie then and people now! Forgiveness
before shutdown! He who never feels
the throb of Indignation is imbecile.
He who can walk among the injus-
tees of the world inflicted upon him
self and others, without flush OF
cheek or flash of eye, or agitation of
nature, is either in sympathy with
wrong or semi-idiotic. When Ananias,
! the high priest, ordered the constables
of the court room to smite Paul on the
mouth, Paul fired up and said: God
shall smite thee, thou whited wall.
In the sentence Immediately before my
text, Paul commands the Ephesians:
BE we angry and sin not" 1t all de-
long the feeling lasts, whether anger is
right or wrong. Life is full of exas-
perations. Saul after David, Succoth
after Gideon, Korah after Moses the
Pasquins after Augustus, the Pharisees
after Christ, and every one has had his
pursuers. and we are swindled, or be-
lied, or misrepresented, or prosecuted.
or in some way wronged, and the
danger is that healthful Indignation
shall become baleful spite, and that
| our feelings settle down into a pro-
longed outpourng of temper displeas-
ing to God and ruinous to ourselves.
and hence the important injunction OF
the text: Let not the sun go down
upon your wrath"
Why that limitation to ones anger?
What that period of flaming vapor set
to punctuate a flaming disposition?
What has the sunset got to do with
ones resentful emotions? Was it a
haphazard sentiment written by Paul
without special significance? No, no;
think of five reasons why we should
not let the sunset before our temper.
First: Because twelve hours is long
enough to be cross about any wrong
inflicted upon us. Nothing is so ex-
hausting to physical health or mental
faculty as a protracted indulgence OF
ill-humor 1t racks the nervous system.
1t hurts the digestion. 1t heats the
blood in brain and heart until the
whole body is first overheated and
then depressed. Beside that, it sours
the disposition, turns one aside from
his legitimate work, expends energies
that ought to be better employed. and
does us more harm than it does our
antagonist. Paul gives us good, wide
allowance of time for legitimate de-
nunciation, from o'clock to 6 o'clock,
but says: stop there!" Watch the
descending orb of day, and when il
reaches the horizon, take a reef in
your disposition. Unloose your collar
and cool off, Change the subject to
something delightfully."- pleasant I'm
roll your tight fist and shake hands
with some one. Bank up the fires at
the curfew bell. Drive the growing
dog of enmity back to its kennel. The
hours of this morning will pass by.
and the afternoon will arrive, and the
sun will begin to set. and, / beg you.
on its blazing hearth throw all your
feuds, invectives and satires.
other things being equal. the man
who preserves good temper will come
out ahead. An old writer says that the
celebrated John Henderson of Bristol.
England, was at dinner party where
political excitement ran high and the
debate got angry. and while Hender-
son was speaking, his opponent, un-
able to answer his argument, dashed a
glass of wine in his face, when the
speaker deliberately wiped the liquid
from his face and said: This, sir, is
a DEPRESSION; now, if you please, for
the main argument" While worldly
philosophy could help but very few to
such equipoise of spirit, the grace OF
God could help any man to such tri-
umph. Impossible, you say, IL
would have either left the table in
anger or have knocked the man
down." But / have come to believe
that nothing is impossible II God HELM.