The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1902-04-03
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject. The Benefits of Adversitv-We
Must All Go Through Some Kind OF
Thr.shing Process For Our Own Good
Triumph After Misfortune.


WASHINGTON, d. C.-From process
familiar to the farmer DIR. Ialmage draws
lessons of consolation and encouragement
for neonle in sorrow and adversely. The
text is Isaiah xviii, q, 29: FOR the
6tches are not thrashed with thrashlng
instrument. neither is a cart wheel turned
about upon the cummln, but the htches
are beaten out with staff and the cum
min with rod. Bread corn IS bruised De-
cause he will not ever be thrash1ng 1t.
Misfortunes of various kinds come upon
various neople, and in all times the great
need of ninety nine people out OF hun
bred is solace. Look, then, to this neg
lected allegory of my text
There are three kinds of seed men
tioned-fitches, cummin and corn. VI the
last we all know But it may be well to
state that the fitches and the cummln were
small seeds, like the caraway or the chick
pea. When these grains or herbs were to
be thrashed they were thrown on the
floor and the workmen would come around
with staff or rod or fail and beat them un-
til the seed would be separated, but when
the corn was to be thrashed that was
thrown on the floor, and the men would
fasten horses or oxen to a cart with IRON
dented wheels that cart would be drawn
around the thrashing floor, and so the
work would be accomplished. Different
kinds of thrashing for different products.
1.-THE ftches were not thrasEed with
thrashing instrument, neither Is cart
wheel turned about upon the cummln, but
the fitches are beaten out with stan and
the cummin with rod. Bread corn Is
bruised because he will not ever be thrash
ing it."
The great thought that the text presses
upon our souls is that we all go through
some kind of thrashing process. The fact
that you may be devotlng your life to hon
orable and noble purposes Will not win you
any escape. Wiberforce, the Christian
emancipation, was i'll his day derlsiveiy
called Doctor Cantwell." Thomas Bah
ington Macauley, the advocate of all that
was good, long before he became the most
conspicuous historian of his day, was carl
catured in one of the quarterly reviews as
"Babbletongue Macaulay." Norman Nc
Leod, the great friend of the Scotch poor,
was industrously maligned in all quarters,
although on the day when he was carried
out to his burial workman stood and
eff he had done nothing for anybody more
than he has done for me, he would shine
as the stars forever and ever" All the
small wits of London had their fling at
John Wesley, the father of Methodism.
If such men could not escape the malign
ing of the world, neither can you expect
to get rid of the sharp, keen stroke OF the
H.
Jesus must suffer persecution. Besides
that, there are the scknesses and the
bankruptcies and the limitations and the
disappointments which are ever putting a
cup of aloes to your lips Those wrinkles
on your face are heiroglyphics which, if
deciphered, would make out thrilling
story of trouble. The footstep of the rab
bit is seen the next morning on the snow,
and on the white hairs of the aged are the
showing trouble
alighted.
Even amid the joys and hilarities of life
trouble will sometimes break in. As when
the people were assembled in the Charles
town theatre during the Revolutionary
War, and while they were witnessing a
farce and the audience was in great gratu-
lation the guns of an advancing army were
heard and the audience broke up wild
panic and ran for their lives, SO oftentimes
while you are seated amid the joys and
festivities of this world you hear the can
nonade of some great disaster. All the
ftches and the cummin and the corn must
come down on the thrashing floor and be
pounded.
My subject, in the first place, teaches us
that it is no compliment to us if we es-
cape great trial. The ftches and the cum
min on one thrashing floor might look
over to the corn on another thrashing floor
and say: Look at that poor, miserable,
bruised corn! We have only been a little
pounded, but that has been almost de-
stroyed" Well, the corn, if it had lips,
would answer and say: DO you know the
reason you have not been as much pounded
as / have? 1t is because you are not of so
much worth as l am. If you were, you
would be as severely run over" Yet there
are men who suppose they are the Lords
favorites simply because their barns are
full and their bank account is flush and
there are no funerals in the house. 1t may
be because they are ftches and cummin,
while down at the end of the lane the poor
widow may be the Lords corn.
You are but little pounded because you
are but little worth and she bruised and
ground because she is the best part of the
harvest. The heft of the thrashing ma
chine is according to the value of the
grain If you have not been much thrashed
in life, perhaps there is not much to
thrash! If you have not been much shaken
of trouble, perhaps it is because there is
going to be very small yield.
When there are plenty of blackberries,
the gatherers go out with large baskets.
but when the drought has almost consumed
the fruit, then a quart measure will do as
well.
1t took the venomous snake on Paul's
hand, and the pounding of him with stones
until he was taken up for dead, and the
jamming against him of prison gates, and
the Ephesian vociferation, and the ankles
skinned by the painful stocks, and the
laundering of the Alexandrian corn ship,
and the beheading stroke of the Roman
sheriff to bring Paul to his proper develop
ment.
1t was not because Robert Moffat and
Lady Rachel Russell and Frederick ODER
lin were worse than other people that they
had toasuffer. 1t was because they were
better, and God wanted to make them
best. By the carelessness of the thrashing
you may always conclude the value of the
grain.
Next, my text teaches us that God pro-
portions our trials to what we can bear
the staff for the ftches, the rod for the
cummin, the iron wheel for the corn.
Sometimes people in great trouble say,
"Oh, can't bear it," But you did bear it.
God would not have sent it upon you if
He had not known that you could bear it.
You trembled and you swooned, but you
got through. God will not take from your
eyes one tear too many nor from your
lungs one sigh too deep nor from your tenn
pies one thro6 too sharp. The perpiexi-
ties of your earthly business have not in