The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1899-04-15
ON THE CITY STREETS
The Contrasts of Splendor and Woe
Seen Upon Them.
Or. Talmage Says They Are Unlike
the Democratic Gospel of Christ
Their Shams, PretensiOns and
Temptations.

Temptations.
washington. Copyright. 1897
| In this discourse DR.. Talmage, who
has lived the most of his life in cities.
draws practical lessons from his own
| observation; text, Proverbs 1870:
"Wisdom crieth without. She uttereth
| her voice in the streets"
| 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 instrument
responds unsteady to the other, so in
the great cathedral of nature day re-
spends to day. and night to night, and
flower to flower, and star to star in
the great harmonies of the universe.
| The springtime Isl an evangelist in bios
SONS preaching of Gods love. and the
winter is a prophet-white-be bearded
denouncing woe against our sins. We
are all ready to listen to the voices of
nature. But how few of us learn any
thing from the voices of the noisy and
| dusty street. You go to your mech
anism, 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 pass?
Are there no tufts of truth growing up
between these cobbestones, beaten
with the feet of toll and pain and pleas
ure. 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 with
out. 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 jarring
with wheels and shutting with feet and
hummirg with voices and covered with
the breath of smokestacks and a-rush
with traffickers. Once in awhile you
find man going along with folded
arms and with leisurely step, as though
he had nothing to do but. for the most
part. you find men going down these
streets on the way to business, there
is anxiety on their faces, as though
they had some errand which must be
executed at the first possible moment.
You are jostled by those who have bar
gains to make and notes to sell. Up
this ladder with hod of bricks, out
of this bank with a roll Of bills, on this
dray with load of goods, digging a
cellar, or Singing a roof, or shoeing
a horse. or building wall, or mending
a watch, or binding book. Industry
with her thousand arms and thousand
eyes and thousand feet, goes on singing
her song of work, work, work, while
the mills drum it and the steam
whistles fife it. All this is not because
men love to 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 bur-
dens carried. how many losses SUI
fered, how many battles fought, how
many victories gained, how many ex-
ASPIRATIONS endured--what losses,what
hunger. what wretchedness, what pal
lor, what disease. what agony, what de-
spair! Sometimes | have stopped at
the corner of the street as the multi
tudes went hither and yon, and it has
seemed to be a great pantomime, and as
! looked upon it my heart broke. This
. great tide of human life that goes
down the street is rapid tossed and
!. turned aside and dashed ahead and
driven back-beautiful in it's confusion
and confused in it's beauty. In the car
peted 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 sprinkling the cracked ifs with
baptism of whirlwind and tempest,
is the best place to study God. but in
the rushing, swarming, raving street
is the best place to study man.
J Going down to your place of business
I and coming home again | charge you
! to look about-,see these signs of power
: ty. of wretchedness. of hunger. of sin
] Of bereavement = and as you GO
through the streets and come back
through the streets, gather up in the
, arms of your prayer all the sorrow, all
I the losses. all the sufferings, all the be-
1 reavements of those whom you pass
! aud present them in prayer before an
all sympa thetic God. In the great day
> of eternity there will be thousands of
! persons with whom you in this world
t never exchanged one word who will
! rise up and call you blessed, and there
: will be thousand fingers pointed at
you in Heaven, saying: That is the
6 man. that is the woman, who helped