Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1900-07-18
SERMON
Rev. DR.. Callfla9{

Subject God's Saving Graee-Relieion IL
an Active Principle which Works
Constantly For the Welfare of Body
and Mind and soul-Hope For Sinners.
| tCopyr,ght Isoo.I
| WASHINGTON, d. Cdr. Talmage is
now travelling in Norway, where he has
been deeply interested in the natural phe
nomena and the quaint social life of that
wonderful land. In this sermon he ar
gues, contrary to the opinion of many
works constantly for the welfare of body
and mind and soul. His text is Luke xiv.
81. salt is good"
| The Bible is dictionary of the finest
SMILES. 1t employs among living Great
ures storks and eagles and doves and uni
sycamores and terebinths and pomegran
ates and almonds and apples; among jew
els pearls and amethysts and jacinths
| and chrysoprases. Christ uses no stale
illustrations. The lilies that He plucks in
His discourse are dewy fresh; the ravens
of birds, hut warm with life from wing tir
to wing tip; the fish He points to are not
| dull about the gills, as though long can
tured but a-squirm in the wet net just
brought up on the beach of Tiberias. Ir
my text, which is the peroration of one o
1 a
holds it before His congregation as an illus
tration of divine grace in the heart wheI
He says what we all know by experiment
salt is good"
| l shall try to carry out the Saviour S
| idea in this text and in the first place say
to you that grace is like salt in its beauty.
| In Gallicia there are mines of salt with ex-
| cavations and underground passages reach.
| ing, am told, 2SO miles Far underground
+: there are chapels and halls Of reception.
the columns, the affairs and the pulpits of
salt. When the king and the princes come
| to visit these mines, the whole place is
Illuminated, and the glory of crystal walls
and crystal ceilings and crystal floors and
| crystal columns. under the glare of the
| torches and the lamps, needs words of crys
tai to describe it. But you need not go sc
far as that to find the beauty of salt. You
live in land which produces millions of
bushels of it in year, and you can take
| the morning rail train and in a few hours
| get to the salt mines and salt springs, and
| you have this article morning. noon and
night on your table; Salt has all the
| beauty of the snowflake and water foam,
with durability added. 1t is beautiful to
the naked eye, but under the glass you see
| the stars and the diamonds and the white
tree branches, and the splinters, and the
bridges of fire as the sun glints them.
| There is more architectu al skill in one of
| these crystals of salt tfan human ingei
/
bra or st. Peters.
| It would take all time With an infringe
ment upon eternity. for an angel of God
to tell one-h half the glories in salt crystal.
So with the grace of God; it is perfectly
| beautiful. / have seen it smooth out wrin-
kles Of care from the brow; / have seen it
make an aged man feel almost young
again: / have seen it lift the STOPPING
shoulders and put sDarkle into the dull eye.
Solomon discovered its therapeutic quail
ties when he said, 1T is marrow to the
bones" It helps to digest the food and
to purify the blood and to calm the pulses
and quiet the spleen. and instead of !Tyn-
dalPs prayer test of twenty years ago, pit
| ting man in philosophical hospital to he
expermented upon by prayer, it keeps him
80 wefl that he does not need to be prayed
for as an invalid. am speaking now of q
ion that sits for three hours on a grave
stone reading Hervey's Meditations
| Among the Tombs"-a religion that pros
pers best in bad state of the liver! ]
speak of the religion that Christ preached
| I suppose, when that religion has con.
| quered the world, that disease will he ban.
ished, and that man 100 years of age will
come in from business and say, 81 am
| tired; / think it must be time for me to
| CO." and without one physical pang heaven
will have him.
| But the chief beauty of grace is in the
soul. 1t takes that which was hard and
cold and repulsive and makes it all over
| again. 1t pours upon ones nature what
David calls "the beauty of holiness. 1t
| extirpates everything that is hateful and
unclean. If jealousy and pride and lust
and worldliness lurk about, they are
chained and have very small sweep.
Jesus throws upon the soul the fragrance
of summer garden as He comes in say.
! ing, Il am the Rose of Sharon" and He
/ submerges it with the glory of a spring
morning, as He says, 81 am the light"
Oh, how much that grace did for the
three Johns! 1t took John Bunyan, the
foul mouthed, and made him John Bun
yam, the immortal dreamer; it took John
Newton, the infidel sailor. and in the midst
| of the hurricane made him cry out, NV
mothers God, have mercy upon mel Ii
took John Summerfeld from life of sin
and by the hand of a Christian maker of
edge tools led him into the pulpit that
burns still with the light of that Christian
| eloquence which charmed thousands to the
| Jesus whom He once dcspiscd. Ah you
may search all the earth over for anything
90 beautiful or beautifying as the grace OF
God! Go all through the deep mine pas
sages of Wieliczka and amid the under
| ground Kingdoms of salt in Hallstadt and
| show me anything SO transcendently beau
tiful as this grace of God fashioned and
hung in eternal crystals.
| Again, grace is like salt in the fact that
IL is a necessity of life. Man and beas
perish without salt. What are those pathi
across the western prairie; Why, they
| were made there by deer and buffalo going
to and coming away from the salt '.licks.' >
Chemists and physicians all the world over
| tell us that salt is a necessity of life. And
| so with the grace of God; you must have it
| or die. l know a great many speak of it
as mere adornment, sort OF shoulder
| strap adorning a soldier, or a light, froth'
| ing dessert brought in after the greatest
part of the banquet of life is over, or q
| medicine to be taken after powders and
mustard plasters have failed to do their
| work, but ordinarily a mere superfluity, a
| string of bells around a horses neck while
he draws the load and in nowise helping
him to draw it. So far from that declare
| the grace of God to be the first and the
] last necessity. 1t is food we must take or
| starve into an eternity of famine. 1t is
clothing without which W. freeze to the
and the only plank, on which we can float
shoreward. 1t is the ladder, and the on,y
ladder, on which we can climb up into the
light. 1t is a positive necessity for the
soul. You can tell very easily what the
effect would be if a person refused to take
fail, the lungs would struggle with the air.
slow fevers would crawl through the brain.
the heart would flutter, and the life would
| be gone. Salt, u necessity for the life oil
the body; the grace OF God, necessity
for the life of the soul
Again, remark that grace is like salt in
| abundance. God has strewn salt in vast
profusion all over the continents. Russia
seems built on a salt-cellar. There is one
region in that country that turns ont 80 ,00C
tons of salt in a year. England and Russia
and Italy have inexhaustible resources in
this respect. Norway and Sweden, white
with snow above, white with salt beneath
Austria, yielding 100000 tons annually
Nearly all the nations rich in it-rock salt
spring salt, sea salt.
Christ, the Creator of the world. when
He uttered our text, knew it would become
Imore and more significant as the shafts
were sunk. and the springs were bored
and the pumps were worked, and the crys
tails were gathered. So the grace of God i:
abundant. 1t is for all lands, for all ages
for all conditions. 1t seems to undergir
everything-pardon for the worst sin, com
fort for the sharpest suffering, brightes'