The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1902-03-08
A HAVEN OF REFUGE.
Heaven Affords Comfort and Pro-
lection to the Trusting.
DR.. Talmage Draws = sermon from
the Familiar Illustration from
the Barnyard-Simple Teach-
ings of Christ.
copyright, 1902. by Louis Klopsch. N. ~
Washington,


by DR.. Talmage to show the comfort
and protection that HEAVEN affords to
all trusting souls. The text is Mat
thew 1887: Even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings n We
would not"
Jerusalem was in sight as Christ
came to the crest of Mount Ohvet' a
height of 700 feet. The s%plendors OF
the religious capital of the whole earth
irradiated the landscape. There is the
temple. Yonder is the kings palace.
Spread put before his eyes are the
pomp, the wealth, the ~wickedness n
the coming destruction of Jerusalem
and he bursts into tears at the
thought of the obduracy of a place
that he would gladly have saved ana
apostrophizes, saying: 80, Jerusalem
Jerusalem, how often would l nave
gathered thy children together, even
as a hen gathereth her chickens unoer
her wings, and We would mott
Why did Christ select hens and chick
ems as a smile? Next to the Apostle
ness of the comparison. L think IL was
to help all public teachers in the mat
ter of illustration to get down OH
their stills and use comparisons mat
all can understand. The plainest olrd
on earth is the barnyard fowl lts
only adornments are the red COMB IN
its headdress and the wattles under
the throat. 1t has no grandeur OF
genealogy. All we know is that its an
cestors came from India. some OF
A.. f.-. hat~ht Of 4 OOQ feet on
both sides of the Himalayas. 1t has no
pretension of nest like the eagles
eyrie. 1t has no luster of plumage
like the goldfnch. Possessing anat-
omy that allows flight yet about the
last thing it wants to- do is to ny, ana
in retreat uses foot almost as much
as wing. Musicians have written u
in musical scale the song of lark and
robin redbreast and nightingale, and
yet the hen Of my text hath nothing
that could be taken for a song. but
only the cluck and cackle. Yet Christ
in the text uttered while looking upon
doomed Jerusalem declares that what
he wished for that city was like what
the hen does for her chickens.
Christ was thus simple in His teach
ings. and yet how hard it is for us who
are Sunday school instructors and ed
itors and preachers and reformers
and those who would gain the ears of
audiences to attain that Heavenly and
Divine art of simplicity! We have to
run a course of literary disorders as
children a course of Observation-Disclosures.
We come out of school and college
loaded down with Greek m~ythologies
and out of the theological seminary
weighed down with what the learned
fathers said. and we fly with wings OF
eagles and flamingoes and albatrosses,
and it takes a good while before we
can come down to Christ's similitudes,
the candle under the bushel, the salt
that has lost its SAVIOR, the net thrown
into the sea, the spittle on the eys OF
the blind nan and the hen and chick
ems.
There is not much poetry about this
winged creature of God mentioned in
my text, but she is more practica
and more motherly and more suggest
i've of good things than many that fly
higher and wear brighter colors. Sh'
is not a prima donna of the skies no
a strut of beauty in the aisle of tn,
forest. She does not cut a circle un
der the sun like the Rocky mountain
eagle, but stays at home to look afte
family affairs. She does not swool
like the condor of the cordilleras T.
transport a RABBIT from the valley t
the top of the crags, but just scratche
for a living.
I am in warm sympathy with tn
unpretentious and old fashioned he
because, like most of us. she has t
scratch for a living. She knows at tn
start what most people of good sens
are slow to learn-that the gaining c
a livelihood implies work and tha
successes do not lie on the surface, BIT
are to be upturned by positive and col
tinuous effort. The reason that soc
ETY. and the church and the world al
so full of failures, so full of loafers, s
full of deadbeats is because the pc,
pie are not wise enough to take tt
lesson which any hen would teaC
them that if they would find for Their
selves and for those dependent upC
them anything worth having they mu
scratch for it.
One day in the country we "a
sudden CONSERVATION in the behavi,
of old Dominick. Why the HI
should be so disturbed we could n
understand. We looked about to S
if a neighbours dog were invadii
the farm. We looked up to see
a stormcloud were lowering. V
could see nothing on the ground tn
could terrorize. and we could S
nothing in the air to ruffle the feat
ers of the hen, but the loud, wi.
affrighted cluck which brought all h
brood at full run under her feathe
made us look again around and abo
us, when we saw that high up and +
AVA there was a rapacious hi
wheeling round and round and doy
and down, and, not seeing us as '
stood in the shadow, it came near
and lower until we saw it's beak w
curved from base to tip and it h
two flames of fire for eyes and
was a hawk. But all the chicke
o- .,oIar oJd nonipick'c xviuUs n