The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-21
0 o.o oo.o< , DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON
 
 FRANK DEWITT TALMAGE, D.
os ANGELES. Cal, April 14-In this

r oS ANGELES. Cal, April 14-In this
 Sermon we learn the lesson that if A we do our full duty to God and society much of our lives must be devoted to foundation laying and seed planting The text is John iv, 97, "One soweth, and another reapeth."
 Christ is here describing a group of workmen going forth to their labors. Each laborer carries upon his arm a bag full of seed. They fill their hands with the seeds and begin to scatter them far and wide. Finally one of these laborers turns and says to Christ: 9Why, Jesus for what am I planting these seeds? I will never live long enough to gather the harvests in this world" No" answered Christ, 'I know 1t. But the coming generations will gather the harvests of your seed plant, ing. As your ancestors planted seeds from which you are today gathering harvests. so you must plant seeds that your children and childrens children may gather their harvests." In other words, the great lesson of this text is that we ourselves may die and be forgotten, but our works shall live on, and other men may get the credit of the work" Come, let me read to you the text in full And herein is that saying true, one man sow eth and another reapeth."
 Every generation builds upon the tombs and the catacombs of previous genera tions. This fact is enphatically true in both the scientific and the industrial world. It is true of the houses in which we live, and the railroad trains and steamboats in which we travel, and the food that we eat, and the clothing that we wear, and the electric lights by which we see, and the books that we read. It is true in almost all the industrial de- Velopments of life. It Is also true that the men who made these industrial devel- opments possible themselves, as a rule, got very little reward out of their in- Ventions or Improvements.
 FrankIin's Question.
 When Benjamin Franklin was making his electrical investigations, people used to laugh at him. One day he produced the proof that lightning and electricity are identical. Then the people again be- gan to sheer and say, Well even If that Is true, what is the good of the discovery?' What is the use of a child?' answered Franklin. Tt may yet become q man. This truth is now only in its in- fancy. You cannot foresee how it may be applied and into what power 1t may yet be developed" Did not the "child of electricity" grow into amazing strength? Long after the sage of Phil adelphia was buried Galvani and Volta and Oersted and Joseph Henry and Far aday and Sir Humphry Davy and Gramme and Morse and Edison and Cyrus Field got to work, and with this Tar reaching truth discovered by Benjamin Franklin as a basis they developed power to run our street railways, and power to turn the wheels of factories, and pow CT with which to scatter the darkness of the night, and power with which to send our messages under the seas. Could Benjamin Franklin awaken now rom ms grave truly he would not recognize the face of his "child of electricity" He planted the seed of electrical develop ment but others have garnered the har- vests. "One man soweth, and another reapeth."
 Many years ago a poor Yale student who had tendency to consumption was living in South Carolinas~inssthe home of the widow of qenerals Nathaniel Greene. While there he met some south ern planters who were bemoaning the fact that the chief profit of the cotton industry was lost because no machine had yet been invented. which could sepa- rate the cotton seeds from the cotton Young Eli Whitney, for that was the Yale students name, went to work and labored on month in and month out. He perfected the cotton gin, but before he could get a patent upon the invention the barn in which he had his workshop was broken open, and the machine was stolen, and his ideas were patented by other men. Eli Whitney. the man who has made millions of dollars for the south, the man who has doubled the quad ruped and infinitely increased the earn ing capacity of the southern plantations poor Eli Whitney himself never got dollar from his cotton gins save the poor pttance of S50000 granted him by the legislature of South Carolina. Like Rob ert Fulton with his steamboat, like Morse with his telegraph wires like Watt with his steam engine, like George Stephenson with his locomotive, like R. A. Holden, the agronomst, and Burbank, the wizard of flowers and vegetables. these men have