The age-herald., 1901-12-08
Dr. T'aln1age's Sermon.

and Boliva are transported to our fields and make our vegetation leap. Highways by this blow are changed from boggy sloughs into roads like the Roman Applan way. Fields go through bloodless revolu- tons until there the farmhouse stands In summer honeysuckles chamber over the trellises. On one side there stands a garden, which Is only a farm con densed. On the other side there is a stretch of meadow land with thick grass and as the wind breathes over it 1t looks like the deep green ocean waves. There goes brook, tarrying long in it's wind ings. as if loath to leave the spot where the reeds sing, and the cattle stand at monday under the shallow of the weep Ing willows. Tn winter the sled comes through the cracking snow with huge logs from the woods, and the barn floor quakes under the thumpings of the flair or the deafening buzz of the thrashing machine. Horses stand beneath now poles bend ing under loads of hay and whinny to the we'll filled out bins Comfort laughs at the wind rattling the sashes and clicking the icicles from the caves
 Parts of our country, under industrious tillage, have become an Eden of fruit fitness, in which religion stands as the tree of life and educational advantages as the tree of knowledge of good and evil not one of them forbidden. We are ourselves surrounded by we'll cultured farms. They were worked by your fath- CTS. and perhaps your mothers helped spread the hay in the field. On their headstones are the names you bear As when you were boys. in the sultry noon you sought for the harvest field with re- treatments for your fathers and found to hat asleep under the trees, so peacefully now they sleep In some country churchyard. No more fatigued. Death has plowed for them the deep furrow of a grave.
 Agricultural Prosperity.
 Although most of us have nothing di- rectly to do with the tillage Of the soil, yet in all our occupations we feel the ef- feet of successful or blighted industry. We must, in all our occupations rejoice over the victories of the blow today. The earth was once cursed for mans sake and occasionally the soil reyenges itself on us by refusing a bountiful harvest. l suppose that but for sin the earth would be producing wheat and corn and sweet fruits as naturally as now it produces mullein stalks and Canada thistles There is hardly hillock between the forests of Maine and the lagoons of iioiidc, UctWccn lilt DedCn OTCndTQS OI New Jersey and the pines of Oregon, that has not som etimes shown its natural and total depravity.
 Praise God for the great harvests that have been reaped this last year? Some of them injured by drouth or insects or freshets were not as bountiful as usual others far In excess of what have ever before been gathered, while higher prices Will help make up for any decreased sup ply Sure sign of agricultural prosperity we have in the fact that cattle and horses and sheep and swine and all farm animals have during the last two years increased in value. Twenty million swine slaughtered this last year, and yet so many hogs left. Enormous paying off of farm mortgages has spoiled the old speeches of the calamity howlers. If the ancients in their festivals presented their rejoicings before Ceres, the goddess of corn and tillage, shall we neglect to re- joice in the presence of the great God now? From Atlantic to Pacific let the American nation celebrate the victories of the blow.
 l come next to speak of the conquests of the American hammer It's iron arm has fought It's way down from the begin hing to the present. Under it's swing the city or Enoch rose, and the foundry of Tubai Cain resounded. and the ark f1oated on the deluge. At its clang an- cient temples spread their magnificence and chariots rushed out fit for the bat tie. It's iron fist smote the marble of Paros and 1t rose in sculptured Minervas and struck the Pentelican mines until from them Parthenon was reared winter than palace of ice and pure as an angels dream. Damas and Jerusa- lem and Rome and Venice and Paris and London and Philadelphia and New York and Washington are but the long pro tracted echoes of the hammer. Under the hammer everywhere dwellings have gone up, ornate and luxurious. School houses, lyceums hospitals and asylums nave added additional glory to the enter prise as well as the beneficience of the American people. Vast public works have been constructed. bridges have been built over rivers and tunnels dug un- der mountains and churches of matchless beauty have gone up for him who had not where to lay his head and the old theory Is exploded that because Christ was born in manager we must alway. worship him in a barn.
 Goodness of God.
 Railroads of fabulous length have been completed, over which western trains rush past the swift footed deer. making the frightened birds to dart into inc heavens at the cough of the smoke pines and the savage yell of the steam whistle. In hot haste our national industry ad- vances, her breath the air aof 10000 fur naces, her song the voice Of uncounted factories, her footstep the flash of wheel buckets and the tread of the shaft and the stamp of foundries. Talk about an tedeluvian longevity! I think the aver age Of human life is more now than if ever waS There mechanical facilities men work so much faster and accomplish so much more in lifetime that a man can afford tn die now at forty years as well as one of old at 900. I think the average of human life in point of ac-i compiishment is now equivalent to abo,,+ 800 years, as near as I can calculate. In all our occupations and professions wa feel the effect of a crippled or enlarged mechanical enterprise. We all have stock in every house that is builded and In every public conveyance that is con- structed and in every ship that is sailed When we see the hard-working men of the land living in comfortable abodes. With luxuries upon their table that once even kings could not afford having the advantage of thorough education. of ac complishment and art, we are all ready at this season to unite with them in praise to God for his goodness.
 You shall yet see American labor rising up with stronger arm and a stouter heart and a swarthier frame. New cities will be built. Commerce on the lakes will take new wings. Where now stand un- broken forests great capitals of business and affiuence will rise, and streams that have idled away 5000 years will be har- messed to ponderous machinery and com