Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1903-11-30
TALMAGE
SERMON
BY Rev.
FRANK DE- WITT TALMAGE. DID,.
Pastor Of Jefferson Park Presby.
terrain Church. Chicago

IItaNhtI ldhtS US INTO the IOftSJS anu
from the life and death Of the wood
land monarchs draws an eloquent les
son that is rich i'm natural beauty and
full Of spiritual helpfulness. The text
Is Ecclesiastes Ii. 3. in the place where
the tree falleth there il shall be-"
Every intelligent student has been
impressed with the memorable Sc
Quenccs Of natural causes. If man
should allow his rowboat to be pushed
out into The middle Of the roaring.
rushing river which filings itself over
Niagara falls. no human power on
earth could save him. Why? The hui
man arm is not powerful enough to
stem that awful current. The onsweep-
ing rush Of death is stronger than the
would be resCuers will If a man
standing upon the top Of the Eiffel
tower i'm Paris should leap from its
summit. his body would be whirled
round and round until ii was at last
dashed into a mangled heap of un-
recognizable flesh when II struck the
earth below. Why? The attraction Of
gravitaton which dragged that body
down could not be overcome by the
vibrating arm as il is by the wings Of
bird, which, launched from such
height. could arrest its fall in midair
and fly higher and higher until it dis
appeared into the blue sky Of the heav-
ems dome. There is an inevitable Sc
qucnce in natures laws. There is Il
natural sequence in spiritual laws. If
man plants the right seed for a spir-
itual harvest. he will reap a spiritual
harvest If he plants sinful seeds, he
shall reap a sinful harvest Further
more, 10y the same kind of reasoning,
after a mans earthly life's work is
done, whether it be well or badly done,
1t Is done forever. 1t is like a tree
which has fallen to the north or to the
south. "In the place where the tree
falleth there it shall be-"
The study of Trees.
| am going to use for my pulpit the
trunk of a fallen tree upon which we
have rested in our wanderings through
the woods. do not care whether this
tree lies upon the steep mountain side
covered with moss and creeping ivy,
whether it spans some brook or wheth-
Ell it lies at the foot of great precipice
over which it has tumbled. The only
thing | do care about is that this trunk
should have fallen of it's own accord.
BY that | mean it has not been cut
down by Il woodman's AK. When we
study the laws of nature as symbols of
the spiritual life we must study them
I'm their simplicity. We must study
them as nature was studied by King
Solomon, who evidently spent as much
time roaming over the Judean hills as
he did in the Jerusalem palace.
a tree may live to be very old; but,
after all, there must come a time when
the trees life shall cease to exist.
Then. after it totters and falls, it is al
ways a dead tree. What has been done
by that tree has been done forever.
Some trees have been known to live
100, 800 1000 and some are even sup
posed TO have lived 5000 years. DR..
AdamSon has declared that the baobab
tree of Africa sometimes lives to be
5000 years old. The explorer De Can
dole has estimated that the TaXdiUm
distichum lives even to a greater age
than that y trees age can be esti-
mated by saving the trunk in two and
counting the rings that are found in
the wood, every ring representing a
year. But. though the tree may live
5000 years or even longer, there comes
q time when that tree must fall. Then
a fallen tree is always Il dead tree. So
there must come q time when a mans
earthly life is done, and it is done for
In no Nx-hn froo
falleth there it shall be-"
A startling Thought.
Is II not startling thought that aft
er a mans heart once ceases to beat he
cannot change anything in his past
life? Is it not startling thought that
a man who is president of the United
States. with an army and navy and
fifty millions of people back of him. as
Abraham Lincoln had. can within G
few hours be a cold corpse and unable
TO utter a word? One night sitting il
Ford's theater; a short time afterwarC
with Edwin Stanton bending over hin
and saying He is gone; we must leav,
his work to be judged by the cen
turiesr' Is Il not an overwhelming fac
that a man with all the mental power
OF a Gladstone cannot arrange his pa
pers after he Is once dead. but had [,
leave them all to his literary executor
oh. how often we have heard this sen
tence I'm house where there has latel.
been sad funeral: IF | could onl.
bring him back for few moments L
ask him what he would like me to d
about this natter But the fallen ire
is a dead tree. What that tree ha
done is done forever and can never b
undone. What has been left undone /
left undone forever.
dying mans last gasp is even NOR
significant and overwhelming than
newborn baby's first cry. One is tn
rising. the other the setting. sun. Tn
one is the first word of a story whic