The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1900-11-23
CAPTIVITY OF JOB.
DR.. Talmage Urges Us to Avoid
Selfish Thoughts.
Lessons ID Ira wn from Him Who Prayed
for His Friends While Imprisoned
-Self-COncentration the
Fault of Too Many.
Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch. N. ~
Washington,


In this discourse DIR. Talmage wars
on narrowness of view and urges life
helpful to others; text, Job 42-10:
''And the Lord turned the captivity OF
Job when he prayed for his friends"
Comparatively few people read this
last chapter of the Book of Job. The
earlier chapters are so full of thrilling
incident, of events SO dramatically por-
trayed, of awful ailments and terrific
disaster, of domestic infelicity, of STAG
cato passage, of resounding address, of
omnipotency proclaimed, of utterances
showing Job to have been the greatest
scientist of his day, an expert in mining
and precious stones, astronomer and
geographer and zoologist and cleo
trician and poet, that most readers
stop before they get to my text, which,
strangely and mysteriously, announces
that "the Lord turned the captivity of
Job when he prayed for his friends"
Now, will you please explain to me
how Jobs prayer for his friends halted
his catastrophes? Give me some good
reason why Job, on his knees in behalf
of the welfare of others, arrested the
long procession of calamities. Mind
you, it was not prayer for himself, for
then the cessation of his troubles would
have been only another instance of
prayer answered. But the portfolio of
his disaster was rolled up while he
duplicated God in behalf of Eliphaz
the Temanite, Bldad the Shuttle and
Zophar the Naamathite. I must con-
fess to you that 1 had to read the text
over and over again before got its full
meaning: "And the Lord turned the
captivity of Job when he prayed for |
his friends
Well, if you will not explain it to me
! will explain it to you. The health
lest, the most recuperative thing on
earth to do is to stop thinking so much
about ourselves and go to thinking
about the welfare of others. Job had
been studying his misfortunes, but the
more he thought about his bankruptcy
the poorer he seemed, the more he
thought of his carbuncles the worse
they hurt, the more he thought of his
unfortunate marriage the more intol-
cradle became the conjugal relation,
the more he thought of his house blown
down the more terrific seemed the cy-
clone. His misfortunes grew blacker
and blacker. But there was to come a
reversal of these sad conditions. One
day he said to himself: 81 have been
dwelling too much upon my bodily all
ments and my wife's temper and my
bereavements. 1t is time l began to
fhipE al - 10 |
for others, and will start now by pray
ing for my three friends" Then Job
dropped upon his knees, and as he did
so the last shackle of his captivity of
troubles snapped and fell Off Hear it,
all ye ages of time and all We ages of
eternity. "the Lord turned the captiv- !
ity of Job when he prayed for his 7
friends"
The fault with most of us is too much t
Observation-Disclosures health, our q
fortunes, our Advancement, our social S
position. our achievements. our losses, t
our defeats, our sufferings, our perse- l
cution, our life, our death, our immor- P
fality. Of course there is a lawful and v
righteous selfishness. In a world and a
in time of such activities and rivalries n
and temptations we must look after W
'ur own interests and our own destiny 81
Or we will go under Do not wait for il
others to take care of you. Take care W
Of yourself But it will not hinder our B
reservation and prosperity if we en- II
arge the sphere of our wishes and Of
prayers so as to take in others. The n
aw in the natural world would do we'll n
or the moral and spiritual world. The II
'entrlpetal force in nature would a!
nrow everything in toward the center pi
no the centrifugal force in nature tC
would throw everything out from the tC
enter. But the centripetal and the m
centrifugal work beautifully together
he one force that would throw every re
hing toward the center is balanced by ii
he force that would throw everything til
utward. Nc
Our world, with its own interests, ca
eels the pull of other worlds. No w
World, no nation, no community, no Fl
nan, no woman. can afford to exist Sc
My for itself or himself or herself en-
he hour in which Job has that so III
loquy about the enlargement of his CT
rayers so as to take in his friends liz
nj ne put into execution his good he
esolution, was tie hour when he felt pr
tonic, sedative, a nervine, a cata- to
lasm that helped to cure his body ce
nd revived his fortunes till they were CT
hundred per cent better than ever tn
efore, for the record is "the Lord on
ave Job twice as much as he had be- III
Ire," and tended to make him a won to