The Iola register., 1902-03-07
IA HAVEN OF REFUGE.
Heaven Affords Comfort and Pro.
F: lection to the Trusting.
Dr. Talmage Draws n Sermon from
the Familiar Illustration from
the Barnynrd-simpIe Teach
ings of Christ.


by. DIR. Talmage to show the comfort
and protection that Heaven affords to
all trusting souls. The text is Mat
thew 23:37: Even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings and ye
would not"
Jerusalem was in sight as Christ
came to the crest of Mount Olivet,
height of 700 feet. The splendors of
the religious capital of the whole earth
irradiated the landscape. There is the
temple. Yonder is the kings palace.
Spread out before his eyes are the
pomp, the wealth, the wickedness and
the coming destruction of Jerusalem,
and he bursts into tears at the
thought of the obduracy of place
that he would gladly have saved and
apostrophizes, saying: 80, Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, how often would | have
gathered thy children together, even
as hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings, and we would notl"
Why did Christ select hens and chick
ems as a simile? Next to the Apostle
ness of the comparison, think IT was
to help all public teachers in the mat
ter of illustration to get down off
their stills and use comparisons that
all can understand. The plainest bird
on earth is the barnyard fowl Its
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
them from n height of 1000 feet on
both sides of the Himalayas. It has no
pretension of nest like the eagles
eyrie. 1t has no luster of plumage
like the goldfnch. 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 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 course of literary disorders as
children a 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
ems. \.
There is not much poetry about this
winged creature of God mentioned in
my text, but she is more practical
( and more motherly and more suggest
i've of good things than many that fly
higher and wear brighter colors. She
is not a prima donna of the skies noI
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 after
family affairs. She does not swooE
like the condor of the cordileras tc
transport a rabit from the valley tC
the top of the crags, but just scratches
for a living.
/ am in warm sympathy with the
unpretentious and old fashioned her
because, like most of us, she has tC
scratch for living. She knows at tn,
start what most people of good sens,
nre slow to learn-that the gaining o.
n livelihood implies work and tina
successes do not lie on the surface, but
are to be upturned by positive and con
tinuous effort. The reason that soci
ETY. and the church and the world ar,
so full of failures, so full of loafers, 81
full of deadbeats is because the peo
pie are not wise enough to take tn,
lesson which any hen would teacl
them that If they would find for them
selves and for those dependent upol
them anything worth having they mus
scratch for it.
One day in the country we say
sudden CONSERVATION in the behavio
of old Dominick. Why the he
should be so disturbed we could no
understand. We looked about to Sc
II a neighbours dog were invadin
the farm. We looked up to see
!. n stormcloud were lowering w
could see nothing on the ground tina
co,,Id terrorize and we cOuld se
nothing in the air to ruffle the featt
ers of the hen, but the loud, wilC
affrighted cluck which brought all he
brood at full run under her feather
made us look again around and abov
us, when we saw that high up and ia
away there was rapacious bir
wheeling round and round and dow
and down, and, not seeing us as W
stood in the shadow, it came neare
and lower until we saw it's beak wa