Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1901-07-04
LOST OPPORTUNITIES
DR. TALMAGE'S SUNDAY SERMON
1t is Often Beneficial For Us to Have
toWork Hard for Living and Be-
Thrown on Our Own Resources.
copyright 1901.

| DIR. Ialmage In this discourse shows the
| importance of prompt action in anvthing
we have to DO for ourselves or otb herr :
| text, Ecclesiastics xi, 4, He that obsery-
| eth the Wind shall not sow"
What do you find in this packed SEN
| teRce OF Solomon,s monologue? find in
it a farmer at his front door examining
| the weather. 1t is seedtime. His CeIds
wheat is in the barn in sacks, ready to be
! taken afeld and scattered Now is the
time to SOW. But the wind is not favor
! able. 1t may blow up a storm before
night, and he may get wet if he starts out
| for the sowing Or it may be a long storm
| that will wash out the seed from the soil.
| Or there may have been long drought,
! and the wind may continue to blow dry
weather. The parched fields mar not
| take in the grain, and the birds NAV pick
! 1t up, and the labor as we'll as the seed
| may be wasted. So he gives up the work
! for that day and goes back into the house
! and waits to see what it will be on the
| morrow. On the morrow the wind is still
| IN the wrong direction, and for a whole
| week, and for month. Did you ever see
! such a long spell of bad weather? The
| letbargc and OycrcautiOus and dilatory
agr;;culturist allows, the season to pass
| without sowing, and no sowing, of course
| 10 harvest. That is what Solomon means
! when he says IN my text, He that obser-
! Fcth the wind shall not SOW"
| As much in our times as in Solomonic
times there is abroad a fatal hesitancy-
a disposition to let little things stop ua \
| ruInous adjournment. We all want to do
! some good in the world. but how easily
| We are halted in our cndeav0rs. Perhaps
! we are solicitors for some great charity
There Is a good man who has large
means, and he is accustomed to give Iber-
/ ally to asylums, to hospitals. to reform
organizations, to schools, to churches, to
| HpSniatpI it'll fiOOH do
| vastatcd with fires. But that good man,
| like many good man. is mercurial in his
! tenn cramcnt. He is depressed by atmos-
| Phcric changes. He is always victimized
by the cast wind. For this or that ,ea-
son yOu. postpone the charitable solicita-
ton. Meanwhile the suffering that Won
wish to alleviate does its awful work. and
the opportunity for relief IS past. If the
wind had been from the west or north
west, you would have entered the phiIan.
thropists counting room and sought the
gift, but the wind was blowing from the
cast or northeast and you did not make
the attempt, and you thoroughly illus
trated my text, He that observeth Che
wind shall not SOW"
There comes a dark Sabbath morning,
The pastor looks out Of the window and
sees the clouds gather and then discharge
their burdens Of rain. Instead of a full
church it will be a handful of peoDlc with
doorway or in the end of the pew. The
pastor has prepared one of his best ser
mons; 1t has cost him great research,
and he has been much in prayer while
preparing it.. He puts the sermon aside
goes home quite depressed, but at the
same time feeling that he has done his
duty. lie did not realize that in that
small audience there were at least two
persons who ought to have had better
treatment. One Of those hearers was a
man in crisis Of struggle with evil appc-
tie. \ carefully prepared discourse I'M
der the divine blessing would have been
to him complete victory. The fires OF
SIN would have been extinguished, and his
keen and brilliant mind would have been
cOnsecrated at the gospel ministry and he
would have been a mighty evangeI, and
tens OF thousands of souls would have I'M
der the spell of his Christian eloqueucc
given up sin and started a new life, and
throughout all the heavens there wouId
have been cOngratulation and hOsanna.
and alter many ages OF eternity had
passed there would be celebration among
one stormy Sunday in a church on earth
under q mighty gospel sermon delivered
to fifteen or twenty people. But the cri-
SIS speak of was not properly met. The
man IN strugg with evil habit heard that
stormy day. 10 word that moved him. He
helped back to his evil way and Won to
hi, overthrow. Had it been a suashny
Sabbath he would have heard something
worth hearing. But the wind blew from a
stormy direction that Sabbath day. That
gospel husbandman noticed it and acted
upon is suggestion and may discover
some day his great mistake. He had
sacttul of the finest of the wheat, but he
withheld it, and some day he will find
when / he whole story is told. that he was
vivid illustration of the truth of my
text, He that observeth the wind shall
nos SOW
There was another person in that
Something better from that pastor than
eNte3mporized nothingness. 1t was
m>,her who was half awakened to a
sense of responsibility in regard to her
household. She had begun to question
hcTset as to whether it would not be bet
ter TO introduce into her home a religion
that would decide Alright the destiny Of
her sons and daughters. Her home had
so lar been controlled only by worldly
principles. She had dared the riot of the
clements that morning and had found her
way to church, hoping to hear something
that would help her to decide the domes-
tic question which was to her solicitude.
4 good, strong sermon under the divine
blessing would have led her into the king
dom OF God and afterward her whole fam
lily. The children, whether they became
farmers or mechanics or merchants or art
lists or men Of learned profession or wom-
en- at the head of households, would have |
done their work in a Christian way, and |
after lives of usefulness on earth would |
have taken thrones in heaven. 1t would |
have been a whole family saved for time |
and saved for eternity. But the pastor
had adjourned the strong and effective |
discourse to a clear Sunday. The mother |
went homo chilled IN hCIy, nj !
ana concluded not to trouble herself or
her household about the future, and to let |
to-morroW take care of itself and keep on
dong as they had been doing. No forma-
ton OF thorough Christian character in |
the lives of those growing up boys and |
girls They will go out into tie world to
meet ITS vlcissltudes without any sublime |
reinforcement of the gospel. What pity |
it was that he did not put down the man
nscriNt Of his well prepared sermon on the |
i}loIe If he preached from notes or pour
It out OF his soul if he had lodged it there
through careful preparation! No. He al |
lowed that opportunity, which could never |
return, to pass into eternity unimproved. |
He observed by the way the rain dashed |
against the windows of the parsonage and |
the windows of the church that the wind |
was from the east or the northeast, and |
he dld not SOW or sowed that which was
not worth sowing.
, In all departments of life there are those
hindere3d by the wind of public opinion
1t has become an aphorism in politics and
III all great movements, He is waiting to
see which way the wind blows" And it
IS IS no easy thing to DEFY public opinion, to
hauled in social circles, to be anathema-
tied by those who heretofore were your
friends and admirers. 1t requires a hero
ism which few possess. Yet no great re-
formatory or ele:ating movement has ever
been accomplished until some one was
willing to defy what the world should |
think or say or do. But there have been
men and women of that kind They stand |
all up and down the corridors of history,
examples for us to follow Charles Sum
ner in the United States Senate, Alexan-
der H. Stephens in Georgia convention.
Savonarola stalking his life in time of per-
secutlon. Martin Luther fighting the bat
tie for religious freedom against the |
mightiest anathemas that were ever |
hurried. William Carey leading the mis- |
movement to save a heather |
world while churches denounced INN as |
fanatic and with attempting an impossi- |