Connecticut western news., 1902-06-19
TALMAGE SERMON
By Rev. FRANK DE WITT TALMAGE. D.D.. Pastor of Jefferson Park Presby- tariAn Church, Chicago

Chicago, June 15.-The inevitable re suits of wrongdoing are forcibly de scribed in the following sermon by Rev. Frank De Witt Talmage from the text Galatians vi, 8, "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corrup ton"
 Some familiar texts are like power ful tonics. They have a snap and strength which we do not always find in the water of life when it is held in strange and peculiarly labeled bot ties. They are like the lullabies with which we were sung to sleep in child hood. They have been repeated over and over again by the lips of our de- parted loved ones, so that each word is made sacred by holy associations. Every time we speak them it seems as though these words were the ushers welcoming us into the vestibule of the church in which the service was held when we gave our hearts to God. Or these texts are associated with the ser mons of some famous minister, which we have either read or heard.
 But though many great preachers have spoken from this text and though many holy associations gather around it's words yet would fain speak upon 1t for two reasons: First, because I am passionately fond of the country. Therefore any text which has in it the ,l cimile which is scented with the smell of the new mown hay or of the clover tops, any figure which echoes the song of the wood robin or the call of the nightingale, any text which is glinted with the golden colors of the wheat , fields or reddened with the hectic flush of the autumn leaf, has for me an in- tense and suggestive fascination. My heart never beats more exultantly than when it Is keeping time to the music of the moving machine or to the swish of the swinging scythe.
 The second reason why speak from this text today Is because the spring time of the year, when the American weeks past The blows only short time ago had the rust of many months rubbed of their sharp noses. The har- rows teeth are yet white from chewing and breaking the sods. And the sower. with his bag of seed hanging upon one arm and his handful of seed swinging at the end of the other arm, only short time ago, with measured tread, went across the fields, scattering the seeds to the right and to the left. May God help us to teach the lessons of sinner's retribution in the language of the spring blowing.
 The Seed and the Harvest.
 The seeds of the flesh by the inexora- ble law of the fields can only produce the harvests of the flesh. This state ment is an axiom, a self evident fact. So self evident Is the law that the seeds which are planted only produce harvests after their kind that United States agricultural department has been established. the chief purpose of which is to introduce into the different localities the right kind of seeds for the best development of the different kinds of crops. The official head of this de partment Is a member of the presi- dents cabinet. Every year at public expense thousands of seed packages are scattered over the country. Each congressman has an allotment for gra- tuitous distribution among his rural constituents
 As there is spiritual law in the natural world so there is natural law in.the spiritual world. And the sower to the flesh has no more right to expect to reap the harvest of the sower to the spirit than farmer has right to ex- pect to gather a crop of barley from wheat seeds or a crop of oats from corn seeds or crop Of rye from cotton seeds or a crop of potatoes from musk, melon seeds. Any sinner who is trying to argue himself into different spirit nal belief Is not only mocking God. but making himself ridiculous.
 Elon Foster tells us that one day a uinful Roman master told hls Christian slave to go into a certain field and sow . crop of barley. When the time Of harvest came, the master returned to that field and found there harvest of eats ready to be garnered. In indigna- ttOn he called his slave and asked: "Did I not command you to sow here q neA of barley? Why, then, have ye sNwn oatsT The Christian slave an- Gswered, ~Master, I sowed oat seed in l1D hope that they would grow up into harley." His master gruf1y said: "WhAt foolishness ia this? Has GSer any one heard that oRt seeds will pro ouce a harvest of ba,leyf" "Ah, mas tsr." replied the Christian slave, "yUu yourself are constantly sowing in alae world the seed of evf, and ret you Ax- pect to reap in the reiurrection day slle frutts of virtue. Thihefore I thought aloo that I might get barley by sowing oata" And the sinful master was ahaohed and could not anawer . word.
 aA Few wiJh ANAs.s
 Go where you will TS0 win And that the sower to the fledl always reaps . harvest of corruptidh. Sit with the judge upon the bencDL ana hA will tell you that the young han sanding be- fore him for sentenIe Aid not think that the seeds of sin v1hidh he planted in secret would ever tAke roSt and be gin to sprout. He df mt thanh that his sowing a few ''skiid oaeH would ever cause hia downfall. let God was watching him SOW thpsD aaods. His employers were watchthG him. Al most every large busfnsn1 h0use in the great cities has spies 6st1AleA to fol low the tracks of its employees. So when the money disappeared from the safe the detectives naturally hunted np the young man who spent hls Sundays at the races, the one whoie eonps.n- ions were not what they O1Iht O have been They naturally eans to that young man and put the nARas OE the law upon his shoulder. aAyinar "Come, young man. The conviee'n csll awaiti you. Comew
 Chnrles Stewart Pain4ll wgls one of the keepest. shrewdest, nao1k fArnoeina parltnm0atarIans Ireland ever pro