Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-10-23
TALMAGE
SERMON
By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMACr. DID,,
Pastor Of Jefferson Park Prssby.
terrain Church, Chicago

ItlOD OF mOtner fOr her cn1ld is used
by Rev. Frank De Witt Talmage as O
symbol of the divine love for the hui
man race in this sermon on the text
Isaiah Xvi, 13, "As one whom his
mother comforteth, so will l comfort
you"
Washington Irving has aptly beer
called the father of American litera
ture, but among all the writings Of the
wizard Of Sunnyside there is not a
chapter more trenchantly powerful
than that on 1.-THE Art of Bookmak.
ing" In it the author pictures him.
self asleep and dreaming in the
library of the British museum
His head is pillowed upon a pile
of musty tones. While he dreams
he sees the different authors of the
present day porting over the manu-.
scripts of the ancient libraries and
les Of the same and, indeed, going SO
far as to cut entire leaves from the
books of Beaumont, n Fletcher, a
Pollock and Ben Jonson. Then the
dreamer sees these modern authors
FASTING together the verbatim excerpts
and the stolen leaves into new vol
umes and printing their own names
upon the title pages. These literary
piracies continue until at last the cry
Of "Thieves! Thieves!' is raised. Then
there is a great hubbub and scurrying
among the modern authors because the
ancient writer's whose faces and bodies
are pictured within the quaint, old
fashioned frames hanging upon the
walls Of the British museum are
changed into flesh and blood, ready to
snatch the new books out of the hands
Of the k1dnapers and to claim them as
the offsprings of their own brain, some
of them born centuries upon centuries
ago
The obvious moral of the imaginative
tale is that there is nothing new under
the sun. No man, woman or child, no
matter how intelligent, can ever lay
claim to true originality. We are all,
physically and mentally, as well as
spiritually, reproductions of other
lives. We are all combinations of other
peoples thoughts and desires and ac-
tons, even as the walls of an ancient
palace are often huge mosaics Of many
different stones cut from many diff
ferent Quarries. While many have
contributed to make us what we are,
the largest contribution is the maternal
one. How much of all that is good and
pure In our nature do we owe to our
mothers. How much of all the peace
and comfort we have enjoyed do we
owe to their wise and loving ministry!
1t is this fact, which we all recognize,
that the prophet uses TO impress on us
the love and kindness of God No
simile could he have used so effective
as that in my text, "As one whom his
mother comforteth."
The Christian Mother.
The words of my text have for many
OF us very tender and reverent appli-
cation. The greatest lessons of a sac
rficing and a forgiving love have been
learned by most of us from the now 81
lent lips Of our Christian mothers.
Though your mother may have been
dead for ten or twenty years. yet you
y y
how tenderly she cared for you when
you were little child. You remember
how she nursed you through that long
tit of sickness when you We're about
fifteen, and every time she left the
room you would call: Mother, mother!
Where is MOTHER" You well remem-
Der how she placed her hand upon
earnestly into your eyes the day YOU
left for the great city or college, as
though she were trying to make up her
mind whether she could trust YOU
away from home. You also remember
how, when man grown, you had that
great trouble in life and your chief
desire was to get back to the old home
stead and tell mother. And, alas you
well remember the dark day when you
carried her out to gently let her body
down into the open grave, when YOU
laid her away TO sleep among the
spring flowers or when you covered
her up under the soft quilt of spotless
snow, the purest gentlest, noblest,
most forgiving and helpful of human
your side. Remembering all this love
and devotion, we realize the force of
the metaphor which Isaiah. the proph-
ct, uses when, seeking to show how
tenderly God loves and cares for his
children, he takes the gentle, maternal
influence which has done so much to
develop our physical and mental and
spiritual life and says, "As one whom
his mother comforteth, so will | COM
fort you"
The Divine Being shows the love of
n mother in wanting TO be the com
forter Of all the young folks who are
preparing for the great struggle Of
life. The mother wants to be the in
spring friend of her boys and girls
during the long years Of immaturity,
when the world at large is sneering at
them and laughing at their ambitions,
as though they We're the mere out
growths of n foolish and visionary
brain. She wants to be the friend of
the young men and the young women
during those school days when they
have no earning capacity and when
they are entirely dependent upon
others for financial support. The strug-
gle of life even under the best condi-
tons is hard one but that strug-
gle does not commence, as some
people suppose, when the young man
stands with a diploma in hand on the
graduating day from school or college.