The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-22
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
sv THE REV. FRANK DE WITT rALMAeE. D. e.


 1 the water and black the shoes and run the errands of the older students. On bitterly cold nights, with their little shiV- erlng bodies, they had to crawl III between the sheets of the big boys beds ana warm them before they could go to their own beds. They had to do everything the big boys ordered them to do Ihere We find 'rc law of Rugby was the same as is the universal law of life AS rule, the boy who had the hardest tune as a little boy was the hardest upon his Tag when he became pig boy. What American boy has not had the big lump come into his throat when he read of the struggles of little Tom Brown? And, oh, the prayer of grateful ness we uttered when the "big boy or that book, that good big boy came to the rescue of little Tom My friends, cannot we be the good big boys Of life! All of us have served our apprenticeships as Tags" We have had our hard times. Shall we not try to make the burdens or the little flags" about us lighter, as Joseph tried to do, or are we going to be hard upon fellow men, as was tho chief butler who forgot about the trou- bles of Joseph, who was once his fel- low prisoner?
 In the Buffers Place.
 There Is centripetal as well as cen trifugal lesson resulting from this butler of my text ignoring his past misfortunes. The one forgetfulness blinds his eyes and hardens his heart to the sufferings of others. The second forgetfulness blinds his eyes and hardens his heart to the threatening misfortunes which are ahead. Because this chief butler had safely weathered one hurricane on the sea of life he is very apt to forget to look to the seaworthiness of his craft and to feel that from now on there will be nothing but a smooth passage and no threatening storms ahead. Because he has lain down upon the operating table and had the surgeons knife cut near his vtals and successfully remove the dan gerous tumor he foolishly supposes that he will never have another tumor and never have to undergo another similar physical and mental ordeal Then what is the result? As he forgets his past troubles he also forgets to guard against the sins and evil habits which might have 1 brought him into his late difficulties. Let us for a moment put ourselves into that | buffers place.
 Three days after the interpretation of the chief buffers and the chief baker s | dreams is past Joseph had said to the l baker, You must de;" to the butler, You shall be restored as the cupbearer of the king" We hear the tramp of the soldiers The warden of the prison enters. He first points to the poker and announces to him that the king has con demned him and orders him out to be i hanged. To the butler the warden turns and says: "Cupbearer, thou art free. | The king thee hasten as his faith ful servant to his palace The inter- pretation of .e two dreams came true. Now, if the chief butler had feared that he might be flung again into prison and suffer the fate of the baker, what would he have doen when he donned the uni | form of royal servant? The same as you would do in a similar condition Methinks l might see him as soon as he goes to his room after the first night S banquet is over. He paces up and down | as he says: T must get Joseph out of prison; l must have him by my side I must have this interpreter of dreams here to warn me against any dangers which are ahead. He must keep me from doing wrong again" But, mo- That was not the chief buffers way After the different court officials had congratulated | him he hunted up his gold chalices and | looked at their sides. There he sees his own smiling face. Then he said: Aha, am safe! l am safe! 70 danger now l am safe foreverv Then in his sun posed safety he forget the warning sig. nals of the past. Perhaps he fell into | the same evil ways which he once fol. lowed, which evil ways may ultimateIy have caused his execution, like the bakers His decomposing flesh may have been eaten by the hyenas and the vultures who banquet off the dead bodies or all Egyptian criminals .dv brother can IL be that we are forgetting our mis- iortunesF Have We forgotten the awful | results of our past sins? Do we forpe, the patience and the pardon and the love | or God which once rescued us as th. butler was pardoned from death bv hi, royal master?
 Forgetful of Past.
 The misfortunes of the past can he reproduced in our lives if we go on re. producing the evils which once caused our downfall. The forgetfulness of tho butler may be compared to the dyspep. ties forgetfulness of his physical ago nies. Nature takes him in hand ant | fiays him with scorpions By eatine what he ought not to eat some night he nearly dies. He is careful one day, one week. per haps one month Then tho past sufferings are forgotten The era V. | fngs of a gormand are satisfied Anothe, | night of horror or perhaps even death is the result. The buffers forgetfulness |. Ike that of the drunkard. Delirium tremens has gripped him. He imagines serpents are crawling over his bed. De mons with eyes of burning coals of fire are glaring at him. Wild beasts. witt their angry roar and their glitterinf white teeth and their lolling red tongue. | and their sharp claws working convul sively, are springing upon him. But in 4 1 few weeks he feels so we'll and strons that he forgets his past terrors. Another glass of fiery liquid turns his brain into a madhouse. The butler is like you ane | me if we forget the past evils which wt | brought upon ourselves through our pas | sins. O God, teach us never to take oul eyes off the awful precipices of tempta 1 ton over which we have tumbled agair | and again into the yawning chasms ot despair unless it be to raise them ir gratitude to the face of our Savior who though exalted to the right hand of God | remembers us still Let us never forget | our rescue and our deliverer as the but | Ter forgot Joseph.
 But l must hasten on. I brand thi. | butler of my text with one of the black est marks ever placed on a mans brow | It Is as black as lue mark upon the | forehead of Cain, who killed his brother Abel. He is not only blind to his owr l interests. but he is an ingrate. He has l turned his back upon the one friend who | was true to him in his time of difficulty | He IS like miner l was reading about | who discovered a rich vein of gold ore | He went and showed it to a friend thai | they might be sharers together in tn, | wealth. Then this supposed friend slew the miner that he might possess all tn, gold himself. This butler was not onl, a perjurer, he was an ingrate as we'll
 That Good Sister.