Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1903-09-24
TALMAGE
SERMON
/, By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TAkMAGE. DID,.
Pastor Of Jsifsv.on P.tk Presby- y
terrain Church. CHICAGO

when the great army of teachers take
up their tasks in our schools. colleges
and universities, many of them for
the first time, this sermon is peculiarly
and widely appropriate. The text Is
Matthew xi, 90 LEARN of me-"
The school-house is the great reser-
,voir in which are collected the streams
of knowledge which have flowed down
from the ages. 1t Is the place where
scholars can climb upon the broad
shoulders Of the intellectual giants of
the past and the present and see as
far MS they have seen, because those
shoulders are lifting those students
heads toward the stars. 1t Is the
place in which man Is taught how to
harness the winds and lasso the cleo
tricity and tap the oil wells and con
tribute to the common wealth and de-
velopment of his brother man, so that
all working together may cause the
desert to blossom as the rose" what
Is the cause Of all those fine farms, big
barns and immense granaries? Why
this thrift and prosperity every
whereE | once asked Pennsylvania
farmer when bicycling through Ian
caster county. "The school-house," he
replied You cannot go anywhere
in this part of the state without find
ing the public school-house Mt almost
every crossroads and the small college
in almost every town of any size"
"What Is the cause Of your dilapidatcd
farms and the slothfulness and filth l
see everywhere around me" | asked
another farmer that same spring in n
region a few hundred miles from the
one the prosperity of which prompted
my first question. ITO the absence of
the school-house," was the answer.
"Most Of our people are ignorant and
uneducated. What is more, most Of
our people do not want TO learn;
neither do they wish their children TO
learn" Against such a wall of oppo-
sition az that 1t is almost impossible
for intellectual progress to make any
true Roadway.
A Representative Term.
We would eulogiZe that compound
word of eleven letters called the
'schoolhouse." But, after all, the
tive term. Its true value is not in the
intrinsic worth of the bricks and
stones and wood which compose its
buildings; it is in the spiritual and in
tellectual worth of the men and the
women who stand behind its teachers
desks. Students from far and near
came to st at the feet of Hillel and
his famous grandson Gamalel, al
though for the most part those teachers
had no buildings Of any worth. Plato
was the disciple of Socrates and the
teacher Of Aristotle, who is the founder
of the academic school famous the
world round, yet for the most part
these men had the stree corners for
their classrODms and the hillsides for
their laboratories. They were poor in
pocket, though rich in brains. The
name of Thomas Arnold has given
Rugby its greatest fame. The name of
Eliphalet Mott Is the most priceless
heritage Union college Mt Schenectady
ever received. The name of Mark
Hopkins Is of more value to Williams
college than an endowment of $4,000
900 could ever be. With my own eyes
as a student I saw that great educator
then etghty-four years of age, leaving
our college town to attend the Harvard
centennial. Seated upon the rostrum
at Harvard on that great occasion
were the president of the United States
and senators and governors and leaders
in the various walks of life. But when
Mark Hopkins, old Williams pride
slowly assembled the platform the whole
audience rose en- masse and bowed
That homage was tribute 10 the fact
that the skilled workman is greater
than his factory; that the teacher is OF
more importance than the school-house
In which he stands.
The Divine Teacher is our theme. If
we have not yet learned the value Of
Jesus Christ as an instructor then let
US learn 1t now in the command of my
text Jesus In these three words re-
corded in Matthew emphasizes the
great fact that from him, and him
alone, we can learn the gospel lessons
we ought to learn. Thus today would
grasp the ropes of the village school
house and the city church bells as the
college sexton holds his bell rope, and
as l pull and the church bells swing
backward and forward and the silver
notes of these bells go echolng down
the valleys until they plunge up against
the sounding boards Of the hills l would
try as q gospel minister: Come to
school! Come to school. All We who
would learn of Jesus, come to school,
rome to schoolp' Is not this the mean
ing of my text Learn of meT'
The Gospel Classroom.
The gospel classroom, in the first
place, has in Christ an authoritative
teacher. / invite you with confidence
TO sit at his feet because he has n right
TO teach. He speaks not only because
Is a human being he has learned what
We ought to learn, but he comes cloth
I'd with divine authority. His creden-
halls are higher than those of any hui
nan teacher. They proceed from God
himself. He is the Son and the CO.
EQUAL of God the Father. He comes
10 us as a conqueror clothed in white
yesture, "and on his thigh name
written, King of kings and Lord Of
lords" "For he taught them as one
having authority and not MS the
,cribes."
In this age of intellectual progress it
Ia absolutely essential for every true
teacher, whether of the higher or the