Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-12-12
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: Now is a Time Tor Rejoicing -
Peans of Praise For the Victories of
Peacc-The Triumphs of Husbandry
-Conquests of the Pen.


-Conquests of the Pen.
WASHINGTON, d. C.-This discourse of
DIR. Ialmage is national congratulation
over the achievements of brain and hand
during the past twelve months. The
texts are: l Corinthians tx, 10, HE that
ploweth shall plow in hope" Isaiah xii,
=. He that smootheth with the hammer"
.. 1ges v. A., They that handle the pen
of the writer"
There is table being spread across the
top. OF the two great ranges of mountains
which ridge this continent a table which
reaches from the Atlantic to the Pacific
sea: 1t is the Thanksgiving table of the
nation; They, will come from the East
and the West and the North and the
South and sit at it. On it are smoking
the products of all lands, birds of every
aviary, cattle from every pasture, fish
from every lake, feathered spoils from
every farm. The fruit baskets bend down
peach fields of Maryland. the apple or
chards of Western New York, the orange
groves of Florida, the vineyards of Ohio
and the nuts thrashed from New England
woods. The bread is white from the
wheat fields of Illinois and Michigan, the
gold, and the table is agleam with Nevada
silver, and the feast is warmed with the
fire CRATES heaped up with Pennsylvania
coal. The hall is spread with carpets
from Lowell mills, and at night the lights
will flash from bronzed brackets of Phila-
delphia manufacture.
Welcome, Thanksgiving Day! Whatever
we may think of New England theology,
we all like New England Thanksgiving
Day. What means the steady rush to the
depots and the long rail trains darting
their lanterns along the tracks of the Bos-
Chicago Great Western, the st. Paul and
Duluth and the Southern railway? Ask
the happy group in the New England
farm house; ask the villagers whose song
of praise in the morning will come over
the Berkshire hills; ask all the plantations
Of the South which have adopted the New
England custom of setting apart. day of
thanksgiving. Oh it is great day of ma
tional festivity! Clap your hands, We peo-
pie, and shout aloud for joy! Through
the organ pipes let there come down the
thunder of nations rejoicing! Blow the
cornet! Wave the palm branches. ooh,
that men would praise the Lord for His
goodness and for His wonderful works to
the children of men!"
For two years and a half this nation has
been celebrating the triumph of sword and
gun and battery. We have sung martial
airs and cheered returning heroes and
sounded the requiem for the slain in bat
tie. Methinks it will be healthful change
if on this years Thanksgiving in church
and homestead we celebrate the victories
of the pillow, the hammer and the pen, for
nothing was done at Santiago or Manila
that was of more Importance than that
which in the last year has been done in
farmers field and mechanics shop and
authors study by those who never wore
an epauet shot a Spaniard or went
hundred miles from their own doorsill.
Come up, farmers and mechanics and liter
ary men and get your dues as far as l can
pay them.
Things have marvelously changed. Time
was when the stern edict of governments
forbade religious assemblages. Those who
dared to be so unloyal to their king as to
acknowledge loyalty to the Head OF the
universe were punished. Churches aw.
fully silent in worship suddenly heard
their doors swung open, and down upon
the church aisle score OF muskets
thumped as the leaders bade them Ground
&rms!" This custom of having the fathers,
the husbands, the sons and brothers at
the entrance of the pew is a custom which
came down from olden time, when it was
absolutely necessary that the father or
brother should sit at the end of the church
pew fully armed to defend the helpless
portion of the family. But now how
changed Severe penalties are threatened
against any one who shall interrupt relig-
ious services, and annually, at the com.
mand of the highest official in the United
States, we gather together for thanksgiv,,
ing and holy worship. To-day | would
stir your souls to joyful Thanksgiving
while l speak of the mercies of God and in
unconventional way recount the conquests
of the plow, the hammer and the pen.
Most of the implements of husbandry
have been superseded by modern inven-
tions, but the plow has never lost its
reign 1t has furrowed it's way through
all the ages. Its victories have been waved
by the barley of Palestine, the wheat of
Persia, the fax of Germany, the ricestalks
~ n. l., IS tp1x hn-
turned up the mammoth of Siberia, the
mastadon of Egypt and the pine groves of
Thessaly. Its iron foot hath marched
where Moses wrote and Homer sang and
Aristotle taught and Alexander mounted
his war charger. 1t hath wrung its Golfer
on Norwegian wllds and ripped out the
stumps of the. American forest, pushing
its way through the savannahs of the Car
olinas and trembling in the grasp of the
New Hampshire yeomanry. American
civilization hath kept step with the rattle
of it's clevises, and on its beam hath rid
den thrift and national plenty.
l do not wonder that the Japanese and
the Chinese and the Phoenicians so par
ticularly extolled husbandry or. that Gin
cinnatus went from the consulship to the
plow or that Noah was farmer before
he became shipbuilder or that Elisha was
in the field plowing with twelve yoke, OF
oxen when the mantle fell on him or that
SHIPPED the OK as tiller of their lands.
To get an appreciation of what the
American plow has accomplished | take
you into the western wilderness. Here IN
the dense forest l find collection of In
dian wigwams. With belts of wampum
the men lazily sit on the skins of deer,
smoking their feathered caluInets, or, driv-
en- forth by hunger, l track their mocca-
sins far away as they make the forest
echoes crazy with their wild halloo or fish
in the waters of the still lake. Now tribes
challenge and council fires blaze, and war
whoops ring, and chiefs lift. the toma-
hawks for battle. After awhile wagons
from the Atlantic coast come to those
forests BY day trees are felled, and by
night bonfires keep off the wolves. Log
cabins rise, and the great. trees begin to
throw their branches in the path of the
conouering white man. Farms are cleared.
Stumps, the monuments of slain forests,
crumblc and are burned. Villages appear,
with smiths at the bellows, masons on the
wall carpenters on the housetop. Churches
rise III honor of the Great Spirit whom
the red men ignorantly Worship. Steamers
on the lake convey merchandise to her
wharf and carry east the uncounted bush
els that have come to the market. Bring