The Chanute times., 1899-03-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
SPLENDOR AND WOE OF AMER
ICA'S GREAT CITIES.
"Wisdom Crieth Without; She Uttereth
Her Voice In the Streeta''-Prov 1870
AN Eloquent Appeal to All Good
Spirited Christians.

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, so in the great cathedral of ma
ture, day responds to day, and night
to night, and flower to flower, and star
to star, in the great harmonies of the
universe. The spring time is an evan
gelist in blossoms preaching Of Gods
love; and the winter is a 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 the
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 a 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
| thrust in the sickle because the har-
vest is ripe. Wisdom crieth without;
she uttereth her voice in the streets" J"
In the first place, the street i'm
presses me with the fact that this life
is a scene of toll and struggle. By 10
o'clock every day the city is Earring
with wheels, and shuf1ling with feet,
and humminS with voices, and covered
with the breath of smoke-stacks, and
a-rush with traffickers. Once in a
while you find man going along with
folded arms and with leisurely 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 busi-
ness, there is anxiety in their faces, as
though they had some errand which
must be executed at the first possible
moment You are jostled by those who
have bargains to make and notes to
sell. Up this ladder with a hod of
bricks, out of this bank with a roll of
bills, on this dray with load of goods,
digging a cellar, or shingling roof, or
shoeing a horse, or building WALL q
mending watch, or binding a 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 meS love toll. Some one re-
marked: Every man is as lazy as he
can afford to be-" But it is because
necessity with stern brow and with up
lifted 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 any
thing 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 suf-
fered, how many battles fought, how
many victories gained, how many de-
feats suffered, how many exasperations
endured-what losses, what hunger,
what wretchedness, what pallor, what
disease, what agony, what despair!
Sometimes l have stopped at the cor
ner of the street as the multitudes
went hithe- and yon, and it has seemed
to be a great pantomime, and as l
looked upon 1t 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-beautifu in its confusion,
and confused in its 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 tosses the tangled
foam sprinkling the cracked cliffs with
a 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.
Going down to your place of business
and coming home again, charge you
to look abolt-see these signs of pow
erty, 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
the losses, all the sufferings all the
bereavements of those whom you pass,
and present them in prayer before Gn
all-sympathetic God. In the great day
of eternity there will be thousands Of
persons, with whom you in this world
never exchanged one word, 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 wan
dering, and lost, and heart-broken.
That is the man, that is the woman"