The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-14

Chicago, September 7.-By a vivid, startling parallel Rev Frank De Witt Talmage portrays the evil of sin and it's remedy. His text is II Kings, V, l. But he was leper.'
 The best blood in all Europe flows into the army The keenest of brains are covered by the soldiers cap. The peas antry are overtaxed and browbeaten and flung under the iron heel of oppression in order that the gilt laced officer, who is the scion of an aristocratic family, may have a soft couch upon which to sleep and a cean-limbed thoroughbred upon which to cavort while he salutes the re- viewing officer during dress parade. Every civilian is at the beck and call of the military-from the inn keepers daughter, flirting with the sergeant or the young corporal up to the princess smiling ct the favorite staff officer of her father, the king. The German shop keeper will turn his back upon you in an instant if the clank of the sword is heard and the glitter of the shoulder strap is seen in the doorway. On ac- count of this foolish adoration by a cringing populace the foreign officer or private soldier has grown arrogant and conceited and snobbish and supercilious and petulant and spoiled.
 The Syrian nation was a military na- ton. with all that the word implies, and Captain Naaman was the commander-in- chief of all its armies, the headquarters of which were to be found in the Damas- GUS capital But Naaman wielded high CT influence than that which belongs even to the greatest soldier of Q military king dom. The phrase used by the inspired historian, "a great man with his mas ter, and honorable" implies that he held a position more powerful in the kingdom than the head of the privy council, the prime minister or the secretary of state or secretary of the treasury. and he may have held through the prestige of his military successes, some or all of these offices in his own person, as great pa- shas often do in oriental lands He oc- cupied practically the same position In the Damascus capital that the Duke of Wellington occupied after the battle of Waterloo The Duke of Wellington, by the overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty, not only became the prime minister of England, but for awhile the most influ- ential statesman in all Europe. Naaman had in Damascus an influence similar to th4t of Julius Caesar when he returned to Rome from his foreign victories or which Napoleon held in the French na- ton when he was first consul as well as ths commander of the French legions Naaman was mighty in influence as was the French cardinal who used to overawe his king In the council chamber, when he would stamp up and down the room. crying: '1t shall be donel I say it shall be donei am Richelieu who says it. and it shall be done" And when the e,eat French statesman would thus speak the frightened king dared not an- swer a word.
 The Symbol of Sin.
 But after have shown you Naaman's fame and power in the Syrian nation; after have figuratively piled stone upon stone and height upon height and noun tain upon mountain in setting forth this pyramid of human greatness. the whole structure tumbles into ruins when speak the words of my text. bring the inightest human influence of the east down to the lowest depths of earthly misery. I bring Naaman down from his high pedastal until even the poor beggar fin the street might have cause to pity him. I bring him down until not one physically well man in all the world, no