The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-17
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
sv TIE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAeE. 9. Q.


 Gods providence? Here are all the mys- tertes of sorrow. The doubter perhaps has lost little child or the mother of his children. He cannot understand why God took his loved ones. Shall we pass over these mysteries of sorrow with mere wave of the hand? Here are all the shortcomings of Christians which blind the doubter's eyes. Perhaps some elder of church has cheated him in business deal. Shall not the doubter be talked to lovingly in reference to that matter and shown how there have been Judases among Christ's professed follow CTS at all times? Yes, Christ wants to draw to his arm those who are mentally blinded He would have us lead them as carefully as l saw the other day boy leading his little brother of eight sum- mers, who was blind in both eyes across a country field. As I saw these two boys going past me there were tears in my eyes for an especial reason. As they were passing I was told that only a year before that little boys eyes were as good as your or mine. But his own | brother who was then leading him, while hunting one day had accidentally dis charged his gun and shot his brothers sight away. O God" I said to myself can 1t be that some of us, by our own sins Of commission or sins of omission, nave made some of thy children mentally blind to thy lover" Can 1t be that doubt CTS and skeptics and agnostics and men tai antagonists to God are resisting Him today merely because we will not take away the bands which are blinding their l eyes because there is no one to uncover their eyes-as the discipline of old took on the bands from the eye sockets of helpless Lazarus? o God, today give us more sympathy for the honest doubterl Inspire us with holy zeal to try to scatter these doubts away whenever and wherever they arel
 Bound Hand and Foot.
 But as I go up to the open tomb where l slept the dead Lazarus I find that not 1 only was he blinded, but his movements were restrained His resurrection body has its graveclothes bound around the arms and the hands, the legs and the feet and the stomach as we'll as around the forehead, the lips and the eyes, h. deed, so helpless was Lazarus physically that he could not have stepped out of ms crypt of the tomb, you and I would throw back the bedclothes of a morning and leap out upon the floor, but he must have had to give a lurch and roll out upon the stones of the tomb Then he struggled to his feet and stood like statue. Thus stood Lazarus re- surrected body As I go on up and ex- anime the mans bound hands and feet l say to mself, Yes how much in sym bol does Lazarus look as a man bound hand and foot with financial debt!'' The man In financial distress sometimes can not make one move if he would So I believe Christ's words, Loose him and let him go" have their application i'm reference to financial liberation as well as mental or intellectual How much of financial liberation many people need but few of us have any adequate con- ception.
 Financial liberation Is needed in the store. The temptations of business life Inra ta has been left an executor of a friend estate. For years and years he has led an honorable life But the hard times have come. The people who once bought his goods cannot buy them now, i for they have no money with which to l buy. "Oh," he says to himself. If [ can only tide myself over this winter I know everything will come out right" Shall he surrender? Shall he hand over to his creditor the store and walk out bankrupt. or shall he borrow some of the money of his friends estate and put If into his business? It is all well enough Tor you to denounce the misrepresentation Of trust funds. But, supposing you were In that mans place and your creditors were knocking at your door, what would you do? l fear you might do just as thousands of men have done in the past who have been bound hand and foot with the graveclothes Of debt You would be dishonest, as they were dishonest. The financial temptation would fling you
 Poverty Versus Crime,
 Or take another view of the same sub l 1ect. Supposing you are not a merchant, but clerk or laborer. On account of the hard times you have lost your posi- tion In the store or the mine. Supposing you have tramped the streets day after day looking for work and never have been able to find it. And then, suppos- ing hunger is beginning to gnaw at your vitals and the bitter cold to send it's chills playing "hare and hounds'' up and down your back, what would you do? You may have learned what cold and hunger are when some time you were out hunting or tramping through the woods and you were lost. You remember how you tramped on and on until you became faint from lack of food, and per haps your lips became swollen for water to drink, but there was no water, no food, no house in sight. How, then, did you look at life? Does a hungry man. a cold man. have the same chance for virtue and honesty and purity we'll fed man and warm man? Oh my friends, if you and I ever find a time when we can relieve some of these finan- cial dstresses I believe we will take away a large per cent of the crimes and the dishonesties of the world. Indeed, know what I say is true Most men are not dishonest for mere pleasure, but only when they nave become DTuIdllZeu Dy hunger and bodily wants and financial necessities. The majority of men are honest at heart
 This truth was forced upon me some months ago In a powerful way. I met one of the boys of one of the old farmers of my Bushhill church, where I preached for two summers as a theological stu dent, thirteen miles from a railroad. From being farmers son he had worked his way through college and was travel ing through the country in a camping wagon lecturing at the little towns and schoolhouses upon the Anthracite Coal Beds of Pennsylvania. As a lecturer that man had been everywhere. On the deserts, in the mountains. at mining camps and in railroad towns he had spoken. He had camped alone in ravines and by Mexican dugouts and by Indian villages. Were you never afraid of being attacked and robbed?" I asked him. Never" said he. q started out years ago believing that most people were hon. est and that if you trust them they would not betray you. I have been among the cowboys and had Indians ride up to me upon the desert miles away from any human being, and I have never been molested. Furthermore, have never car ried a firearm either gun or pistol I never locked up my things. But I'd 20 away from my wagon for days at time goods just where I left them. If you they will not betray you" So say I From a rather varied experience feel sure that most people want to do right. md