The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1902-05-06
THE MANY TEMPTATIONS.
Dr.. TaImage Says the Assailants of
Virtue and Honesty Are
Numerous.
Needs For Divine Professionalism Grace
BriRgeth Salvation

WASHINGTON, ID. CA familiar illus
tration from the barnyard is employed in
tins discourse by DIR. Talmagc to show
the comfort and protection that heaven af
lords TO all trusting souls. The text IL
Matthew xiii 81. Even as a hen gather
eth her chickens under her wings, and yt
would not"
Jerusalem was in sight as Christ came
10 the crest of Mount Olivet, a height OF
700 feet. The splendors of the religious
capital of the whole earth irradiated the
landscape. There Is the temple. Wonder
Is the kings palace. Spread out before
His eyes are the pOmp, wealth, the wick.
odness and the coming destruction OF Jc.
rusalem, and He bursts into tears at the
thought of the ohduTaCy OF a place that
He would gladly have saved and apostro.
phizcs, saying, 20 Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
how. often would l have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and We
would not:"
Why did Christ select hen and chickens
rs smile: Next TO the appositeness of
the comparison, think it was TO help all
public teachers in the matter of illustra.
ton 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 head-dress and the wattles un-
der the throat. 1t has no grandeur of
geneclogy. All we know is that its ances.
tors came from India, some of them from
a height OF 1000 feet on the sides of the
Hmalayas. 1t has no pretension of nest
like the eagles eyrie. IL has no lustre of
plumage like the goldhnch Possessing
anatomy that allows flight, yet about the
last thing II 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, yet the hen of my text
hath nothing that could be taken for a
NNnHN IL.
Christ IN the text uttered while looking
upon doomed Jerusalem declares that what
He had 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 editors
and preachers and reformers and those
who would gain the ears of audiences to
attain that heavenly and divine art of sim
phcity! We have 10 run course of lit
erary disorders as children a course of ply
steal disorders We come out of school
and college loaded down with Greek my
thologies and out of the theological semin-
airy weighed down with what the learned
fathers said, and we fly with wings of
eagles and iiamingoes and albatrosses, and
1T takes good While before we can come
down to Christ's simihtudes. the candle
under the bushel. the salt that has lost it's
SAVIOR, the net thrown into the sea, the
splttle on the eyes of the blind man and
the hen and chickens.
| am In warm sympathy with the unpre-
tentlous old fashioned hen because. like
most OF us, she has TO scratch for a living.
She knows at the start the lesson which
most people of good sense are slow to
learn-that the gaining of a livelihood i'm
plies work. and that successes do not lie
on the surface, but are to be upturned by
positive and continuous effort. The rea-
son that society and the church and the
world are so full of failures so full of loaf
ers, so full of dcadbeats is because people
are not wise enough to take the lesson
which any hen would teach them that If
they would find for themselves and for
those dependent upon them anything worth
having they must scratch for it. Solo
mon said, Go to the ant, thou sluCgard"
i say, Go to the hen, thou sluggard In
the Old Testament God compares Himself
70 an eagle stirring up her nest and in
the New Testament the Holy Spirit is
compared to a descending dove, but Christ
IN sermon that began with cutting ear-
casm for hypocrites and ends with the
paroXysm of pathos in the text compares
Himself 20 a hen.
One day in the country we saw sudden
CONSERVATION IN the behavior of old Dom.
iaick. Why the hen should be so dis.
turhed we could not understand We
looked about TO see If a neghbor's doc
were invading the farm. We looked up to
see if storm cloud were lowering. We
terrorize, and we could see nothing in the
mir to ruffie the feathers of the hen, but
the loud, wild, affnghted cluck which
brought all her brood at full run under
her feathers made us look again around
and above us when we saw that hiQh nm
and lar away there was n rapacious bird
wheeling round and round and down and
down, and not seeing us as we stood IN
the shadow. 10 came nearer and lower un.
III we saw, its beak was curved from base
TO tip end it had two flames of fire foI
eyes, and 1t was a hawk. But all the
chickens were under old Dominick's wings
and either the bird of prey caught a
glimpse of us or not able to find the brood
huddled under wing, darted back into the
clouds.
So, Christ calls with great earnestuess to
all the young. Why, what is the natter
IL Is bright sunlight. and there can be nc
danger. Health is theirs. good home
is theirs. Plenty of food is theirs Pros.
pect of long life Is theirs But Christ con.
tinues to call calls with more emphasis
and urges haste and says not a second
ought to be lost Oh. do tell us what is
the matter An. now ] see; there are
hawks OF temptation in the air. there are
vultures wheeling for their prey there
are heaks of death ready to plunge there
are claws of allurement ready to clutch
Now j see the peril Now / understand
the urgency Now / see the only safety
Would that Christ might this day take
our sons and daughters into His shelter
las men gaihereth her chickens under
her wing"
Ghe fact is that the most of them will
never mind the shelter unless while thew
are chickens. 10 is a simple matter of In
eNorabIe statistics that most of those who
10 not come 20 Christ in youth never come
A. all. What chance is there for the
y~dng without divine protection There
arc the grOgshops. there are the gamb
hing hels. there arc the infdeities and
lmmoralltics of spirituolism, there are the
bad books. there are the impurities. there
are the business rasCalitIcs. and so numer
Gus are these assaiIauts that it is q wonder
that honesty and virtue are not lost arts
The birds of prey, durnal and nocturnal
of the natural world are ever on the alert
They are assassins of the sky; they have
varieties of taste. The eagle prefers the
hesh of the living animals. the ulturs
prefers thc carcass The falcon kills with
one stroke, while other styles of bcak
give prolongation of torture And so the
temptations of this lile are various
Fathers mothers older brothers md
sisters and Sahbnf h.arhoot fa4rher- d..