The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-12
DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT rALMAoE. D. D.

percentage represents your desire 10 nave your children move In good society? Eff teen per cent. What percentage of your ambition is left to serve, for Christ's sake, the poor and the helpless? Only about per cent of your whole life" Dr. Bonar awoke from the dream horror struck. In that midnight hour he then and there promised to give himself wholly up = the higher motive of serving for Christ's sake alone. Like that Edinburgh minis ter, may we be willing to honor Jesus not so much for what he may do for us as for what we may do for him.
 The Flekleness of Humanity.
 Palm Sunday emphasizes the reckless and nnreasoning hcklessness of the hu- man race. Christ, the popular favor ite, being led to cruchXion within six days after his triumphal entry into Je- rusalem. has his counterpart all over the world. Human likes and dslikes, adula- ton and denuncIation appreciation and prejudice are very apt to tread upon each others heels. The oscillating pendulum which swings one way gathers momentum to swing as far the other way
 If we make an idol of common human clay, as the French did of General Boulanger in 1889, then in very little while we may become iconoelasts and smash our idol and also the shrine before which we once worshiped President Carnot understood this ficlseness of the human race. When the Man on Horse back as Boulanger was called, threat ened to ride down the Champs Elysees and overthrow the French republic, some | of the leading statesmen like eX- Premier Waldeck- Rousseau, wanted the | president to quietly lead Boulanger to the , outskirts of the city and have him shot for the good of France The president only smiled at his friends anxiety. He said l to them: Wait, wait just few months. | The rabble will turn. Then the most popu- lar man of France will be the most de- spised. Such popular adoration as this is always short lived" Carnot spoke l better than he knew. Not only did the
 tidal wave of public adoration which threatened to lift the Man on Horse back" into the Tuileries subside, but within few months General Boulanger l was friendless. In despair he committed suicide by the grave of his mistress Mime. Bonnemain while an exile in Brussels. The Duke of Wellington well under stood the ficileness of popular applause. Long after the oonauerer of Napoleon had regained his popularity and had be- come the most beloved subject of the Vics torian empire he always kept the fence around his city home broken down as an object lesson to recall the time when the London mob battered it down to show their disgust at one of his official acts as prime minister. William F. Gladstone was again and again execrated in the streets of the British capital, through which his dead body was afterward car ried to sleep It's last sleep among the honored dead of Westminster the Prince of Wales, now king. being among the pall- bearers. Joan of Are. wno led the French armies to victory, was deserted by her followers, who came to believe her a wiz h and devil. The same tongue which once charmed the Roman assemblies was afterward cut out from the mouth of Cicero by the mobs and nailed up in the Roman Forum, with the eptaph, Thou fool, wag no moren' An, we do not have to stand among the vocferating multi tudes of Palm Sunday to hear and see the fickleness of the human racei We can see everywhere the human idols being shattered. The same voices that are ready to cry to us, Put him upon a throne"' are the voices which tomorrow will call, Lead him away to execution" Is Popular Applause Worth Seeking.
 Now, my brother, as the adoration of the human race is so short lived, it does not pay to sacrifice everything for popu- lar applause. Cannot and will not we live with the nobler and higher purpose of trying to have God rather than man think well of us? Would that we might one and all heed the blessed advice which Chinese" Gordon, short time before his death wrote to a friend then living in distant England:
 Dear Friend-Why will you keen car ing for what the world says? Try, oh, try to be no longer a slave to it. You have little idea of the comfort of free dom from It. It Is bliss. All this caring for what people will say Is your pride Hoist your flag and abide by it. Thank God, l am quite well and so happy now that l resigned the government of the province and put all the faults on my Friend He Is able to bear them and will use me as long as he pleases as his mouthpiece, and when he Is done with me he will put me one side. Casting all your care on him has just come to mind"
 Palm Sunday indicates the city as the greatest of all battlegrounds where the spiritual conquest of a sinful world Is to be decided. It Is the field of Esdraelon, where the Satanic and divine powers will make their last stand and grip and wres- tie in mortal combat. It is the Sedan where the demoniac invaders will be an initiated as chemist with d pestle crushes substance in a mortar. 1t Is the waterloo the Yorktown, the Agrigentum the Solferino, the Chalons, the Ther- mopylae, where all the powers and prin- cipalities of darkness shall be forever overthrown by the princpalities and powers of light. and Christ shall be pro claimed King of kings and Lord of all
 Why is the city to be the great field whereon the sovereignty of Christ shall be universally recognized? In the city there Is eommingling of all classes. Among the throngs who came forth or Palm Sunday to greet Jesus I see the good and the bad, the autocrat and the plebeian, the mighty capitalist and the small shopkeeper, the Pharisee, the discl- pie, the curiosity seeker, all commingling all eircling. some cheering and some cursing under their breath. We are not to suppose for moment that all who came forth to sec Jesus threw branches in his way. Oh, no! The high priests hirelings were in that crowd as well as , Jesus disciples. l am thankful that you and l live in great city. We live in city where our influence for good can tell most effectively if we only use that influence as Jesus would have us do. If we capture Paris for Christ we capture France; London for Christ means Eng land saved; Berlin for Christ means Ser. many lowing before the cross. If we capture New York and Chicago and our other great cities for Christ we capture America for Christ Oh. what blessed opportunity 1t is for us to be able to fight under the standard of the cross, where the Satanic forces are unlimbering their hoa r-ta T