The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1902-03-14
A HAVEN OF REFUGE.
Heaven Affords Comfort and Pro-
lection to the Trusting.
Dr TaImage Draws . Sermon from
the Familiar Illustration from
the Barnyard-SimpIeT each-
inss Of Christ.
rcopyright, 1902, by Louis Klopsch, N. x'l
Washington,


A familiar illustration from the
harvard is employed in this discourse
nv DR.. Talmage to show the comfort
and protection that Heaven anoras 70
all trusting souls. The text " MAI
thew 1887: even as hen gatheretn
her chickens under her wings anu Je
would not.''
Jerusalem was in sight as Chrlst
came to the crest of Mount Ollvet' a
height of 700 feet. The splendors OF
the religious capital of the whole ear'h
irradiated the landscape. There is the
temple. Yonder is the kings palace
Spread out before his eyes are the
pomp. the wealth, the wickedness anu
the coming destruction of Jerusalem
and he bursts into tears at the
thought of the obduracy OF place
that he would gladly have saved ana
apostrophizes, saying: 20, Jerusalem
Jerusalem, how often would nave
gathered thy children together even
as hen gathereth her chickens unoer
her wings, and we would not!
Why did Christ select hens and chlck-
ems as smile? Next to the opposite
ness of the comparison, think 1t was
to help all public teachers in the mat
ter of illustration to get down OH
their stills and use comparisons that
all can understand. The plainest blrd
on earth is the barnyard fowl. It's
only adornments are the red comb IN
its headdress and the wattles under
the throat. It has no grandeur OF
genealogy. All we know is that its an
cestors came from India, some OF
them from a height of 1000 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 goldfinch. Possessing anat-
omy that allows fight yet about the
last thing it wants to- do is to fly, and
in retreat uses foot almost as much
as wing. Musicians have written out
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 song, but
only the cluck and cacl1le. 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 course of physical disorders.
We come out of school and college
loaded down with Greek mythologies
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 man and the hen and chick
sens.
There is not much poetry about this
winged creature of God mentioned in
nv 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. Sht
is not prima donna of the skies moi
a strut of beauty in the aisle of the
forest. She does not cut a circle un
der the sun like the Rocky mountain
eagle, but stays at home to look afteI
family affairs. She does not swooI
like the condor of the cordilleras t.
transport a RABBIT from the valley t.
the top of the crags, but just scratches
for living.
1 am in warm sympathy with tn,
unpretentious and old fashioned hel
because, like most of us, she has t,
scratch for living. She knows at tn
are slow to learn-that the gaining o
a livelihood implies work and tina
successes do not lie on the surface, blu
are to be upturned by positive and con
tinuous effort. The reason that soc
ety and the church and the world ar
so full of failures, so full of loafers, S
full of deadbeats is because the pee
pie are not wise enough to take tn
lesson which any hen would teac
them that if they would find for then
selves and for those dependent upo
them anything worth having they mus
scratch for it.
One day in the country we sa'
auddap CON eft ernafion in the heh vic
of old Dominick. Why the he
should be so disturbed we could nc
understand. We looked about to sc
If a neighbours dog were invadin
4hn farm We looked IN To see