The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1901-09-11
4 SUMNER SERMON.
Discourse Full of the Breath Of
Hills and Fields.
DR.. TaImaGe Applies His Text TO the
World in Which We Live-The
Need of Olive Branches in
Every Day Life.
copyright. 1901. by Louis Klopsch, n. "
Washington, Sept. l.

Icopyright. 1901. by Louis Flopsch, n. "
Washington. Sept. l.
This discourse of DR.. Talmage is
full of the breath of the hills and
fields and is summer sermon: text,
Nehemiah viii, Is, go forth unto the
mount and fetch olive branches and
pine branches and myrtle branches
and palm branches and branches OF
thick trees to make booths"
It seems as if Mount Olivet were
unmoored. The people have gone in
to the mountain and have cut off
tree branches and put them on their
shoulders, and they come forth now
into the streets of Jerusalem and on
the house tops, and they twist these
tree branches into arbors or booths.
Then the people come forth from
their comfortable homes and dwell
for seven days in these booths or
arbors. Why do they do that? well,
it is a great festal time. It is the
feast of tabernacles. and these peo-
2le are going to celebrate the desert
travel of their fathers and their &C.
iyerance from their troubles, the e1-
perience of their fathers when, traTe--
ing in the desert, they lived in booths
on their way to the land of Canaan.
And so these booths also became high
ly suggestive-I will not say they are
necessarily typical, but highly sug-
eestive-of our march toward Heaven
end of the fact that we are only hV-
ing temporarily here, as it were, IN
booths or arbors, on our way to the
Canaan of eternal rest. And what
was said to the Jews literally may
be said fguratively to all this eu-
dience. Go forth unto the mountain
and fetch olive branches and pine
branches and myrtle branches and
palm branches and branches of thick
trees to make booths.
Yes, we are only here in q tenn
porary residence. We are marching
on. The merchant princes who used
70 live in Bowling Green, New York.
have passed away, and their resi-
6ences are now the fields Of cheap
merchants. Where are the men who
60 years ago owned Washington and
New York? Passed on. There IL no
use in our driving our stakes too
deep into the earth; we are on the
march. The generations that have
preceded US have gone SO far on thai
we cannot even hear the sound of
their footsteps. They have gone
over the hill, and. we are to folio"
them. But, blessed be God, we are
not in this world left cut OF doors
and unsheltered. There are Gospel
booths or Gospel arbors in which orr
souls are to be comforted. Go forth
unto the mountain and fetch olive
branches and pine branches and
myrtle branches and palm branches
and branches of thick trees and build
booths.
Well, now we abe readyto construct
q Gospel arbor or Gospel booth, and
how shall we construct it? Well, we
must get all the tree branches and
build. According to my text, we
must go up into the mount and
bring olive branches. What does
that mean? The olive tree grows
in warm climates, and it reaches the
height Of 70 or % feet, a straight
stem and then an offshoot from that
stem. And then people come, and
they strip off these branches some
times, and when in time of war the
general of one army takes one Of
these olive branches and goes out to
the general Of another army, what
does that mean? Why, it means un-
saddle the war chargers. It means
hang up the war knapsacks. It is but
a beautiful way Of saying, Peace!
Now, if we are to-day going to
succeed in building this Gosp:l arbor
we must go into the mount Of Gods
blessing and fetch. the olive branches,
and whatever els. we must have we
must have at least two olive
branches, peace with God and peace
with man. When say peace with
Goo, do not mean to represent God
as an angry chieftain, having a
eru6ge against US, but I do mean to
afi-n that there is no more antag-
onisn between a hound and hare,
between a hawk and a pullet, be-
tween elephant and swine, than there
is hostility between holiness and sin.
And if God IS all holiness and we are
all sin there must be treaty, there
must be g stretching forth Of olive
branches.
There is a great lawsuit going On
now, and it is lawsuit which man IS
bringing against his Maker. That
lawsuit is now on the calendar. It is
the human versus the Divine, it is ini-
ouity versus the immaculate, it is
weakness versus omnipotence. Man
began it. God did no. begin the law
suit. We began it. We assaulted our
Maker, an6 the sooner we end this
part of the struggle, in which the
finite attempts to overthrow the in
finite and omnipetent-the sooner we
end it the better. Travellers tell US
there is no such place as Mount
Calvary, that it IS only hill, only an
insignificant hill, but I persist in
calling it the mount of Gods divine
mercy and love, far grander than
any other place on earth, grander
than the Alps or the Eimalayas, and
there are no other hills as compared
with it, and I have noticed in every
sect where the cross of Chris: is set
forth it is planted with olive
branches. And all we have to 90 is
to get rid of this war between God
and ourselves, of which we are all
tired. We want to back ont Of the
war, we want to get rid Of this hos
tllity. All We hav. to do is just to
get up on the mount of Gods bless
ing and pluck these olive branchea
enocuntering a human being or sight
ing "a sail.
THAN c,oe11 ctonks of nro-isione fin