Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-31
STORM OF LIFE IS
THEME OF PASTOR
TALMAGE breaches A NEW
YEARS SERMON
Shows in How Many charaete ristios
Biblical Comparisons to Now
eIist's Creation Is JUS
titled

titled
How the :ears are flying awayl
Henry Clay once stood upon the top of
the Allegheny mountains in an attitude
of listening. When someone asked him
to what he was listening, the great
Kentucky statesman, in his deep, pow
erful, resonant, oratorical voice. an
swered: I am listening to the mighty
tramp of the coming generationsp To-
day we may not have an imaginative
ear keen enough to hear the thunderous
echoes of the moving feet which shall
walk this earth, two centuries or a
thousand years hence, but we can now
| hear the pattering of feet of the multi
tudes of school children. We may hear,
| too, the rumbling of the hearses, which
shall sooner or later carry out our dead
bodies to the newly-dug graves We
hear of the inexorable warning that, in
few years, or perhaps even in the
coming year of 1907, we shall look upon
the rising sun for the last time. Then
our bedrooms, where we have often
slept and laughed and cried, shall be
! called the chambers of Leath' Dear
old year of 1906! 1t seems only yester-
day that we welcomed thee into the
WCiio. III d lGW kldyS, WltH IHy SIlOW=
white hair and shriveled form, and pal
lid cheek and trembling limb, we shall
have to carry thee out and lay thee
away until we meet thy condemning or
approving face at the judgment seat of
heaven.
1.-The inspired psalmist considering
the passing of an earthly life uses a
beautiful smile. Moses, to whom the
Psalm Is ascribed, was not only a great
legislator and powerful leader, but a
poet. He not only opened path across
the Red sea with his rod, but he cut a
sure path into the gratitude and affec-
tion of all good men and women by the
sharp point of his pen. Thus the an
cient author, who was a pioneer in the
making OF books, compared the earthly
existence Of every human life to a tale
that is told The seconds are the let
ters. The minutes are the words The
hours are the sentences. The days are
the paragraphs. The weeks are the
pages The months are the chapters.
The years are the books. The whole
number of different books of the human
story of life, like the five different books
of Victor Hugos great novel, Les Mis-
CRADLES, are bound together in one big
| volume, with a slat from the cradle to
serve for one cover and n tombstone
used for the other cover. May God help
me, on this last Sabbath of the dying
year, to interpret Alright how we spend
our years as tale that is told
! EVERY tale, whether fictitious or no,
has a bright or sad beginning. In al
most the first words which the narrator
speaks, he introduces his listeners to the
hero or the heroine. Sometimes he rocks
that hero's cradle down among the
plantations of Louisiana or Georgia;
sometimes among the SHOWS of the New
England hills, or in palace of Europe,
where the prince or princess was born.
| But though many heroes and heroines
| of fictitious tales may have had un-
happy childhood influences do not be-
| lieve it was thus with us. The bright
est passages of the tale of life when
applied to our own biographies, are to
be found for the most part in those first
days which we spent in the old home
stead. We neved had those huge
monsters, the sons of Tartarus and Ter
ra to storm our pursuers. We never
had a murderous guardian, a King
| Richard, to incarcerate us in a dun
geon; nor fiendish Martha, of Goethe's
Faust, for a nurse,-our infantile play
ground was more like the delectable
mountains of Bunyan's Pilgrims Pro-
gress Therefore, as most of our lives
have started amid such purified sur
roundings 1t is no more than right to
| expect that our stories of life should
| be pure and true and noble tales.
But, alas, no sooner were we born
| and grown into young manhood and
womanhood, than the current of our
lives led us away from the purities of
our youthful home circle They led us
into the haunts of sin and into the cold,
! damp, dark caVerns of selflshness. You
know there are books numbered among
! the masterpieces of literature which
you, as wise parent, would not allow
! in your home You say to your wife,
| :Childe Harold may be the most Won
derful portraiture Lord Byron ever
wrote: but 1t is a character of sin and
infamy. 1t is character glowing with
| poetic imagina ton, but a character
with "the worm that never dies" suck
ing at it's heart. Our children should
not be allowed to read its pages There
are stories which are not fitted for pub
| lie ears. Our biographies cannot be
told to the world at large. The beauti-
| full ancient ballad of The Marriage of
Sir Gawain describes how the cavalier
of old took to himself in marriage a
| hideous woman called the loathy lady,
| merely because no one else would marry
her. As soon as the loathy lady was
welded she Immediately changed into a
bride of the most Winsome loVeliness,
pecause-so goes the story-that mar
riage ring was able to enchant "a malig-
nant enchanter, who had been cursing
| her life heretofore. Alas, The Mar
riage of Sir Gawain' has been reversed
in many of our lives. Most of US came
forth fair and beautiful from a Chris
tian mothers nursery, Fair and beau
tiful though we once were, we ccepted
for our guide the proffered hand of sin.
Then, in the sight of God'and all heaven
we became the loathy lady, accursed
by the evil past i'm which we had lived.
| No matter how pure and bright our ma
| tiVity may have been, we have all sim
ned in the sight of God. There is none
that doeth g. ID, no not one The bright
ness of a gospel sunrise has been dark
ened by the stormy clouds OF sinful
midnoon,"
Animal Wit