Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1903-12-03
TALMAGE
SERMON
By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMAGE, DID,.
Pastor Of Jefferson Park Presby.
terrain Church. CHICAGO

preacher taxes us into the forests and
from the life and death of the wood
land monarchs draws an eloquent les
son that is rich in natural beauty and
full Of spiritual helpfulness. The text
is Ecclesiastes II, 3, "In the place where
the tree faleth there it shall be-"
Every intelligent student has been
impressed with the memorable &C.
quences 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 rescuer's will. If man
standing upon the top Of the Eiffel
tower in Paris should leap from its
summit his body would be whirled
round and round until ii was at last
dashed into mangled heap of I'M
recognizable flesh when 1t struck the
earth below. Why? The attraction of
gravitation which dragged that body
down could not be overcome by the
vibrating arm as It Is by the wings Of
bird, which, launched from such
height, could arrest It's 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
quence in natures laws. There Is
natural sequence in spiritual laws. II
a man plants the right seed for a spir-
itual harvest. he will reap spiritual
harvest. If he plants sinful seeds, he
shall reap sinful harvest. Further
more, by the same kind Of reasoning,
after mans earthly lifes work is
done whether it be well or badly done,
it 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 1t shall be"
The study of Trees.
l 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 ii spans some brook or wheth-
er it lies at the foot Of q great precipice
over which it has tumbleo. The only
thing ! do care about Is that this trunk
should have fallen of its own accord.
BY that | mean 1t has not been cut
down by a woodman's ak. When we
study the laws of nature as symbols of
the spiritual life We must study them
in their simplicity. We must study
them as nature was studied by King
Solomon, who evider+ly spent as much
time roaming over the Judean hills as
he dii in the Jerusalem palace.
A tree may live to be very old; but,
after all, there must come time when
the trees life shall cease to exist
Then. after it totters and falls, it Is al
ways 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 u greater age
than that A 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
a time when that tree must fall. Then
a fallen tree Is always 4 dead tree. So
there must come a time when a mans
earthly life is done. and it is done for
ever. "In the place where the tree
falleth there it shall be-"
A Startling Thought.
Is 1t not a startling thought that aft
err 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 q
few hours be cold corpse and unable
to utter a word? One night sitting in
Ford's theater; a short time afterward
with Edwin Stanton bending over him
and saying "He IS gone; we must leave
his work TO be judged by the CEN
turies! Is 1t not an overwhelming fact
that a man with all the mental powers
OF Gladstone cannot arrange his pa
pers after he IL once dead, but had to
leave them all to his literary executor?
oh, how often we have heard this SEN
tence In house where there has lately
been sad funeral: If l could only
bring him back for q few moments to
ask him what he would like me to do
about this natter But the fallen tree
s dead tree. What that tree has
done is done forever and can never be
undone What has been left undone is
left undone forever
A dying mans last gasp is even more
significant and overwhelming than a
newborn baby's first cry. One is the
rising, the other the setting, sun The
one is the first word Of a story which
is about to be told and may be told
well; the other is the last word of the
last sentence of the last page, when
the story Is ended. One Is the reveille
sounding the call to arms the other Is
tattoo beaten upon a muff1ed drum
by the side OF an open grave. One Is
the spring blossom, the other falling
snowflake. One is birds note sung
among the growing leaves the other is
the swapping Of trunk when the old
tree is about to make its last plunge
and go down with n crash