The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-12-08
GOD SENT THE WHEEL.
THEME OF DR.. TALMAGE'S THANKSGIV-
ING SERMON.
Reasons for National Gratitude shown
in the Development of the Arts of
Peace-The Wheel as a symbol OF
Prosperity.
Copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1899

sermon Of preparation for the national
observance of this week and in an un-
usual way calls for the gratitude of the
people. the text, Ezekiel x, Is, las for
the wheels, 1t was cried unto them in
my hearing, o WHEEL"
Next Thursday will, by proclamation
of president and governors. be observ-
ed in thanksgiving for temporal mer-
cies. With what spirit shall we enter
upon it? For nearly a year and a half
this nation has been celebrating the
triumph of sword and gun and battery.
| We have sung martial airs and cheered
returning heroes and sounded the re-
QUEEN for the slain in battle. Methinks
it will be a healthful change if this
Thanksgiving week, in church n
homestead, we celebrate the victories
of peace, for nothing was done aI san
tiago or Manila that was more import
ance than that which in the last year
has been done in farmers field and
mechanics shop and authC~'s study by
those who never wore an eDaulet or
shot a SDaniard or went a hundred
| miles from their own dOOrsill. And now
I call you attention to the wheel of
the text.
Man, a small speck in the universe,
| was set down in a big world, high
| mountains rising before him, deep seas
arreSting his pathway and wild beasts
capable of his destruction, Yet he was
to conquer. 1t could not be by physi-
cal force, for compare his arm with
| the ox's horn and the elephants tusk,
and how veal he is! 1t could not be
by physical speed, for compare him to
the antelope's foot n ptarmigan's
wing, and how slow he is! 1t could
not be by physical capacity to soar. or
plunge, for the condor beats him in one
direction and the pOrpoise in the other.
Yet he was ITO conquer the world. Two
eyes, two hands, and two feet were
insufficient. He must be REINFORCED,
so God sent the wheel.
Twenty-Five times is the wheel men,
toned in the Bible, sometimes, as in
Ezekiel, Illustrating providential move
ment; sometimes, as in. the Psalms,
crushing the bad; sometimes, as in
Judges, representing o charioted
| progress. The wheel that started in
| Exodus rolls on through Proverbs,
through Isaiah, through jeremiah,
through Daniel, through Nahum,
through the centuries, all the time
gathering momentum and s%plendor,
until, seeing what it has don for the
worlds progress and happiness, we
clap our nd0OS III I1dIkSSlNlHS dHu
employ the apostrophe of the text,
crying, 80 WHEEL"
I call on you in this Thanksgiving
| week to praise God for the triumphs
of machinery, which have
lied the world and multiplied it's at
fractions. Even paradise, though very
picturesque, must have been COMPARE
lively dull, hardly anything going on,
no agriculture needed, for the harvest
was spontaneous; no architecture re-
! quired, for they slept under the trees;
no manufacturers loom necessary for
the weaving of APPAREL, for the fashions
were exceedingly simple. To dress the
minutes a day.
TURNED OUT OF PARADISE.
Having nothing ITO do, they got into
mischief and ruined themselves n
the race. 1t was asad thing to be
the race. 1t was a sad thing to be
| compelled to work. To help man up
and on o. sent the wheel. If turned
| ahead, the race advances; if turned
back, the race retreats. To arouse
your gratitude and exalt you praise
I would show you h the wheel has
done for the domestic world, for the
agricultural world, for the travelling
world, for the literary world. "As for
the wheels, it was cried unto them in
my hearing, o Wheel"
In domestic life the wheel has
wrought revolution. Behold the sew
ing machine. 1T has shattered the
housewives bondage and prolonged
woman's life and added unreasonable
advantages. The needle for ages had
punctured the eyes and pierced the
side and made terrible massacre. To
| prepare the garments Of a whole house
hold in the spring for summer n in
the autumn for winter was an exhaust
ing process. Stitch, stitch. stitch"
| Thomas Hood set it to poetry, but mil
| lions Of persons have found it agoniz-
ing prose.
Slain by the sword, we buried the
| hero with Dead March" in Saul"
and flags at half mast. Slain by the
needle, no one knew it but the house
hold that watched her health giving
way. The winter after that the chill
dren were ragged n cold n hum
CRY OF in the almshouse. The hand that
welded the needle had forgotten its
cunning. Soul and body had parted at
the seam. The thimble had dropped
from the palsied finger. The thread of
life had snapped and let a suffering
human life drop into the grave. The
spool was all unwound. Her sepulcher
was digged not with sections spade,
but with a sharper and shorter impie-
lCCoAS. al ollo Ia
crate dead have ornamented graves at
Arlington Heights and Richmond and
Gettysburg, thousands by thousands,
but it will take the archangel'S trum-
pet to find the million graves Of the
vaster army 6f women needle slain
Besides all the sewing done for the
household at home, there are hundreds
of thousands of sewing women. The
tragedy of the needle is the tragedy of
hunger and cold and insult and home
sickness and suicide-ive acts.
But I heal the rush of a wheel. Wo-
man puts on the band and adjusts the
instrument, puts her foot on the trea-
die and begins. Before the whir and
rattle pleurisies, consumptions, head
aches, backaches, heartaches, are
routed. The needle, once an opDres-
sive tyrant, becomes a cheerful
slave-roll and rumble and roar until
the family wardrobe is gathered, and
winter is defied, and summer is well
coined, and the ardors and seventies
of the seasons are overcome; winding
the bebbin, threading the shuttle,
tucking, quilting, ruffling. cording. EN-
bordering. undertaking, set TO mu-