The age-herald., 1902-03-09
Dr. Talrnage's Sermon.


 three months sweep all their scholars in- to the kingdom. Whom they have now under charge is uncertain. Concerning that scrawny, puny child that lay in the cradle many years ago, the father dead, many remarked, What a mercy if the Lord would take the child!" And the mother really thought so too. But what good thing that God spared that child, for 1t became world renowned in Christian literature and one of Gods most illustrious servants-John Todd. Re- member your children will remain chil- dren only a little while. What you do for them as children you must do quickly or never do at all Why have you neV- CT written a book?" said some one to a talented woman She replied: T am writ ing two and have been engaged on one work ten years and on the other five years-my two children They are my life work" When the house of John Wes- ley's father burned and they got the eight children out, John Wesley the last before the roof fell in, the father said; Let LIS kneel down and thank God The children are all saved Let the rest of the place go." My hearers, if we secure the present and everlasting welfare of our children, most other things belonging to us are of but little comparative import ance. Alexander the Great allowed his soldiers to take their families with them to war, and he accounted for the bray cry of his men by the fact L. at many of them were born in camp and were used to warlike scenes from the start Would to God that all the children of our day might be born into the army of the Lord!
 The Mercy of God.
 But we all need the protecting wing "a u-b manhood or womanhood what was ahead of you. would you have dared to under take life? How much you have been through! With most life has been a dis appointment. They tell me so. They have not attained that which they expected to attain. They have not had the physical and mental vigor they expected or they have met with rebuffs which they did not anticipate. You are not at forty or fifty or sixty or seventy or eighty years of age where you thought you would be. I do not know anyone except myself to whom life has been a happy surprise never expected anything, and so when anything came in the shape of human favor comfortable position or widen ing field of work it was to me a sur prise. I was told in the theological semin- ary by some of my fellow students that l never would get anybody to hear me
 
 that when I found that some people did come to hear me 1t was happy sur prise. But most people. according to their own statement, have found life a disap- pointment. Indeed, we all need shelter from its tempests.
 About o'clock on hot August after noon you have heard rumble that you I first took for a wagon crossing a bridge but afterward there was a louder rum bling, and you said, "Why, that is thun- der! And, sure enough, the clouds were being convoked for full diapason. A whole park of artillery went rolling down the heavens, and the blinds of the win dows in the sky were closed. But the sounds above were not more certain than the sounds beneath. The cattle came to the bars and moaned for them to be let down that they might come home to shelter, and the fowl, whether dark Brah- ma or Hamburg or Leghorn or Dominick, began to call to its young, "Cluck, chuck, cluckr' and take them under the wagon house or shed and had them all hid un- ger the soft feathers by the time that tne first splash of rain struck the roof So there are sudden tempests for our souls, and oh, how dar-- 1t gets and threatening clouds of bankruptcy or sick ness or persecution or bereavement gath CT and thicken and blacken, and some run for shelter to a bank, but 1t Is poor shelter, and others run to friendly ad- visers, and they fail to help and others fly nowhere simply because they know not where to go. and they perish in the blast, but others hear a divine call say ing, Come for all things are now ready" 'The spirit and the bride say come'
 Need of Warmth.
 The wings of my text suggest warmth, n hnf iG hot fact is that this is a cold world wheth- CT you take it literally or figuratively. We have big fireplace called the sun, and 1t has very hot fire, and the stok- CTS keep the coals well stirred up, but much of the year we cannot get near enough to this fire place to get warmth. The worlds eXtremities are cold all the time. Forget not that it is colder at the l south pole than at the north pole and that the arctic is not so destructive an the antarctic Once in awhile the arctic l will let explorers come back. but the | antarctic hardly ever. When at the south | pole ship sails in, the door of ice is | almost sure to be shut against its re- | turn. So life to many millions of people | at the south and many millions of peo- | pie at the north Is a prolonged shiver. But when l say that this is a cold world l chiefly mean fguratively. If you want | to hiOh "Hdl iS tIle meaning or the dinary term of receiving the "cold shoulder. get out of money and try to borrow The conversation may have been almost tropical for luxuriance of thought and speech, but suggest your necessities and see the thermometer drop to 50 de- grees below zero, and in that which ill a moment before had been a warm room. Take what is an unpopular position on some public question and see your friends ny as chan before windmi ill. AS far as myself is concerned, I have no word of complaint, but I look off day by day and see communities freezing out men and women of whom the world is not worthy. Now it takes after one and now after another. It becomes popular to depreciate and defame and execrate and lie about some people. This Is the best world l ever got into, but it is the mean est world that some people ever got in- to. The worst thing that ever happened to them was their cradle, and the best