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About The Sioux County journal. (Harrison, Nebraska) 1888-1899 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1894)
l.' linn e4 V-'- - ? ' The Sioux County Journal. VOLUME VI. HAKKISON, NEBRASKA, THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1894. NUMBER 33. TALMAGE'S SERMON. THfe PREACHER'S SUBJECT WAS "STRANGERS IN TOWN." It Waa from the Test, -I Waa a Streamer, and Te Took Ma In" her the Stran ger Should and Should Not Go Exploring City" lniqaltlca. At the Tabarnacl Before no audience in the world could such a sermon us liev. Dr. Tal mage preached latit Sunday be so ap propriate a In the Brooklyn taber nacle, where it is estimated that 100, OoO strangers attend everv year. It waa a sermon that had for them a Special interest. The text selected was Matthew xxv, 35, "I wasastranger, and ye took me in." It Is a moral disaster that jocosity has despoiled so many passages of Scripture, and my text is one that has suffered from Irreverent and misap plied Quotation. It shows great pov erty of wit and humor when people take the sword of divine truth for a game at fencing or chip off from the Kohinoor diamond of inspiration a sparkle to decorate a fool's cap. My text is the salutation in the lust judg ment to be given to those who have shown hospitality and kindness and Christian helpfulness to strangers. By railroad and steamboat the popu lation of the earth are all the time In motion, and trom one year's end to an other our cities are crowded with visit; ors. Every morning on the tracks of the Hudson Uiver, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Long Islund railroads, there come passunur trains more than 1 can Dumber, so that all the depots and tuo wharves aro a-rumble and a-clang with the coming in of a groat immigration of strangers. Some of them come lor purposes of barter, some for mechan ism, some for artistic gratification, some for sightseeing. A greut many of thorn go out on the evening trains, and consequently the city makes but little impression ujion them, but there are multitudes who, in the hotels and boarding bouses, make temporary resi dence. They tarry here for threo or four days, or as many weeks. They spend the days in the stores and the evenings in sightseeing. Their tem porary stay will make or break them not only liuancially, but niorully, for this world and the world that is to come. Multitudes of them come into our morning and evening services. I am conscious that I stand in the pres ence of many this moment. 1 desire more especially to speak to them. Mw God give me the right word and help me to utter it in the right way. Mora Awful Than Wintry Midnight. There have glided into this house those unknown to others, whoso hist ory, if told, would be more thrilling than the aoepest tragedy, more excit ing than I'atti's song, more bright than a spring morning, moro awful than a wintry midnight. If they could stand up here and tell the story of their escapes, aud their temptations, and their bereavements, and their dis asters, and their victories, and their defeats, there would be in this house such a commingling of groans and ac clamations as would make the place unendurable. There is a man who, in fancy, lay in a cradle satin lined. Out yonder is a man who was picked up, a foundling, o.i t toston common. lie re is a man who is coolly observing this religious service, expecting no advantage and cm ing for no advantage for himself, v inle yonder is a man who has been lor ten years in an awful conflagration of evil habits, and he is a mere cinder t .. Iniitainniul nudiaA nmst Vi (a WAn. dering If there shall be in this service and escape or help for his immortal soul Meeting vou only once perhaps face to face, I strike hands with you In an earnest talk about your present condition and your eternal well being. St. Paul's ship at Melita went to pieces where two seas meet, but we stand to day at a point where a thousand seas converge, and eternity alone can tell the issue of the hour. The hotels of this country for beautv and elegance are not surpassed by the hotels in any other land, but those that are most celebrated for brilliancy of tapestry and mirror cannot give to the guest any costly apartment unless he can afford a parlor In addition to his lodging. The stranger, therefore.will generally find assigned to him a room without anv pictures and perhaps any rocking chair, lie will find a box of matches on a bureau, and an old news paper left by the previous occupant, and that will be about all the orna mentation. At 7 o'clock in the even ing, after having taken his repast, he will look over his memorandum book of the day's work, he will write a let tor to his home, and then a desperation will seize upon him to get out. You bear the great city thundering under i'our windows, and you say, "I must oln that procession," and in ten min utes vou nave joined it. Where are you going.' "Oh," you say, "1 haven't made up my mind yet!" Better make up your minu ueiore you suiru i er baps the very way you go now you will always go. Twenty yoars ago there were two young men who came down the Astor House steps and started out In a wrong direction, where they have been going ever since. The Haotla Flush of Death. "Well, where are you going'" says one man. "I am going to the Acad emy to hoar some music." Good. I would like to join you at the door. At the tap of the orchestral baton all the fates of harmony and beauty will open efore your soul. I congratulate you. Where are you going "Weil." you say, "I am going up to see some ad vertised pictures." Good. 1 should like to go along with you and look over the same catalogue and study with you Kensatt and Biers tadt and Church and Moran. Nothing mora elevating than good pistwas. - .. . Where are you going? "Well." you ay, "I am going np to the Young Men's Christian Association rooms." Good. You will find there gymnastics to strengthen the muscles, and books to improve the mind, and Christian in fluence to save the soul. I wUh every city in the United States had as fine a palace for its Young Men's Christian Association as New York has. Where are you going!" "Well," you say, "I am going to take a long walk up Broadway, and so turn around into the Bowery. 1 am going to study human life." Good. A walk through Broadway at 8 o'clock at night is interesting, educat ing, fascinating, appalling, exhilarat ing to the last degree. Stop in front of that theater and see who goes in. Stop at that saloon and see who comes out. See the great tides of life surg ing backward and forward and beating against the marble of the curlistone and eddying down Into the saloons. What is that mark on the face of that debauchee? It is the hectic flush of eternal death. What is that woman's laughter:1 It, is the shriek of a lost soul. Who Is that Christian man going along with a vial of anodyne to the dying pauper on Elm street? Who is that belated men on the way to a prayer meeting? Who is that city missionary going to tuke a box in which to bury a child? Who are all these clusters of bright and beautiful faces' They are going to some interest. ng place of amusement. Who is that man going into the drug store? That is the man who yesterday lost all his fortune on Wall street. lie Is going in for a dose of belladonna, and before morn ing it will make no difference to him whether stocks are up or down. I tell you that Broadway, between 1 and 12 o'clock ut night, between the Battery and Central i'ark, is an Austerlitz, a Gettysburg, a Waterloo, whore king doms are lost or won, and three worlds minglo in the strih). MeetiiK the Hlnmc I met another coming down off tho hotel steps, und I say, ' Where are you going':"' You say, "I am going with a merchant of New York who has prom ised to show me tho underground lifo of tho city. I am his cstoraer, and ho is going to oblige me very ru.ich." Stop! A business house that trios to get or keep your custom through such a process as that is not worthy of you. There are b.islnoHS establishments in our cities which have for years been sending to destruction hundreds and thousands of merchants. They have a secret drawer in the counter, where money is kept, and the clerk goes and gets it when he wants to take these visitors to the city through the low slums of the place. Shall I mention the names of some of these groat commercial establish ments? I have them on my lips. Shall I? Perhaps I had better loave it to the young men who, in that process, have been destroying others. 1 care not how high Bounding the name of a commer cial establishment if it proposes to get customers or to keep them by such a process as that. Drop their acquaint ance. They will cheat you lefore you get through. They will send you a style of goods different from that which you bought by sample. There will be in tho package half a dozen less pairs of suspenders than you paid for. They will rob you. Oh, you feel in your pockets and sav, "Is my money gone?" They have robbed you of something tor which dollars and cents can never give you componsalion. When one of those Western mer chants has been dragged by one of those commercial agents through tho slums of the city, he is not tit to go home. Tho mere memory of what ho has seen will be moral pollution. I think you had better let the city mis sionary and tho police uttond to the exploration of New York and under ground life. You do not go to asmall ox hospital for the purpose of explora tion. You do not go there because you are afraid of contagion. And yet you go into the presence of a moral leprosy that Is as much more dangerous to you as the death of the soul is worse than the death of the body. I will undertake to say that nine-tenths of tho men who have been ruined In our cities have been ruined by simply going to observe without any idea of participating. Exploring a Cliy' Iniquities. The fact is that undeground city life is a filthy, fuming, reeking, pestiferous depth which blasts the eye that looks at it. In the reign of terror of 1792 In Paris, people escaping from the officers of the law, got into the sewers of the city and crawled and walked through miles of that awful labyrinth stifled with the atmosphere and almost dead, somo of them, when they came out to the river Seine, whore they washed themselves, and again breathed the fresh air. Hut 1 have to tell you that a great many of the men who go on the work of exploration through tho- un derground gutters of New York lifo never eomo out at any Seine river, where they can wash oil tho pollution of the mora! sewage. Stranger, if one of the representatives of a commercial establishment proposes to take you and show you tho "sights" of the town and underground New V'ork, say to him, "please, sir, what part do you propose to show mor About sixteen years ago, as a minis ter of religion, I felt I had a divine commission to explore the Iniquities of our cities. I did not ask counsel of my session, or ray presbytery, or of the newspapers, but asking the companion ship of threo prominent police olllcials and two ot tho elders of my church I unrolled my commission and It said: "Hon of man, dig into tho wall, and when 1 had digged into the wall be hold a door, and he said, go in and see tho wicked abominations that are done here, and 1 went In and saw, and be hold:" Brought up in tho country and surrounded by much parental care, I had not until that time seen the haunts of Iniquity. By the grace of God de fended, I had never sowed my "wild oats." I had somehow been able to tell from varlou sources something about tho Iniquities of the great cities, and to preach against them, but I saw, In the destruction of a great multitude of people, that there must be an infat uation and a temptation that had never been spoken about, and I said, "I will explore " I caw thousands of men go ing down, and if there had been a spiritual percussion answering to the physical percussion, the whole air would hive been full of the rumble, and rear, and crack, and thunder of the demolition, and this moment, if we should pause In our service, we should hear the crash, crash! Where Rained Soul Are Buried. ' Just as in the sickly season you some times bear the bell at the ate of the cemetery ringing almost lncea-antly, so I found that the bell at the gate of the cemetery where ruined souls lare burled was tolling by day and tolling by night. I said, "I will explore." 1 went as a physician goes into a fever lazaretto, to see what practical and useful information I might get. That would be a foolish doctor who would stand outside the door of an invalid writing a Latin prescription. When the lecturer In a medical college it done with his lecture, he takes the students into the dissecting room, and he shows them the reality. I went and saw. and came forth to my pulpit to report a plague, and to tell how sin dissects the body, and dissects the mind, and dissects the soul. ' - "On," say jou. "are you not afraid that in consequence of such exploration of the iniquities of the city other per sons might make exploration and da thomselves damage?'1 I reply, "If ia company with the commissioner ht police, and the captain of police, and the inspector of police, and the com pany of two Christian gentlemen, and not with the spirit of curiosity, but that you may see sin in order the bet ter to combat it, then, in the name oi the eternal God. en. But, it not, then stay away." Wellington, standing In, the" battle of Waterloo when the bul lets were buzzing around his head, saw a civilian on the field. He said to him: "Sir, whut are you do ng hero? Bo o!T!" "Why," replied the civilian "there Is no more danger here for ma than there is for you." Then Welling ton flushed up and said, "God and my country demand that be here, but you have no errand hero." Now, I, as an officer in the army ot JeHus Christ, went on that exploration and onto that battlefield. If you bear a liko commission, go; if not, stay away. A young man comes in from the country bragging that nothing can do him any harm. He knows all about the tricks of city life. "Why," he says, "did not I receive a circular in the country telling me that somehow they j I 1 T V..,, V luufi i uub l woo a num y uubiuqdb uiau, and if 1 would only send a .n,2f amount of money by mail or express, charges prepaid, they would send a package with which I could make a fortune in two months, but I did not believe it. My neighbor did, but I did not. Why, no man could take my money. I carry it in a pocket inside my vest. No mun could take it. No man couM cheat me at the faro table. Don't I tnow all about the 'cue-box,' and the dealer's box, and the cards stuck together as though they were one, and when to hand In my checks? Ob, they can't cheat me. I know what I am about," w bile at the same time,, that very moment, such men are suc cumbing to the worst sutanic lnlluences In the simple fact that they are going to observe. Now, if a man or woman shall gc down into a haunt of iniquity for the purpose of reforming men ana women, or for the sake of ling ablet intelligently to warn people against such pe rlls; if, as did John Howard, or 1.Mlnnt.nU L h.. .... rni.,i.-..nu ft, ..In... ..a thov co down anions the abandoned r-.li&auuiu iv, ui a n w . i i 10 umiiucio, u for the sake of saving tnem, tnen sucn oxplorors shall be God protected, and they shall come out hotter than when they wont in. liut If you go on this work of exploration merely forthe pur pose of satisfying a morbid curiosity I will tako 20 per cent, oil your moral character. The Seventh Day Hatred. Sabbath morning comes. You wake up in the hotel. You have had a longer sleep than usual. You say: "Whore am 1? A thousand miles Irom home? I have no family to tuke to church to duy. My pastor will not expect my presence. I think I shall look over my accounts and study my memorandum book. Then I will write a few busi ness letters and talk to that merchant who came in on the same train with mo." Stop! You cannot afford to do it. "But," you say, "I am worth $500, flfin " Yon rjinnnt. afford to do It. You , . say, "I am worth $l,0u0,000.", You not affprd to do it. ah you gain dj. breaking the Sabbath you will lose. , You will lose one of three things- your intellect, your morals, or your property ana you cannot point in the ! whole earth to a single exception to this rule. God gives us six days and koeps one for himself. Now, If we try to got the seventh, he will upset the work of all the other six. I remember going up Mount Wash ington, before the railroad had been built, to tho Tip-Top House, and the sruldo would come around to our horses and stop us when we wore crossing a very steep and dangerous place, and ho would tighten tho girth of the horse and straighten the saddle. And I have to tell you that this road of life is so steep and full of peril we must at least one day In soven stop and have the harness of life readjusted and our souls re-equipped. The seven days of the week are like seven business part ners, and you must give to each one his share, or tho business will be broken up. God is so generous with us; he has given vou six days to his one. Now, here Is a father who has seven apples, and be gives six to his greedy boy, proposing to keep one for himself. The greedy boy grabs for the other one and loses all the six. Canine the Sabbath. How few men there are who know how to keep the Lord's day away from home! A great many who are con sistent on the banks of the St. Law rence, or the Alabama, or the Missis sippi are not consistent when they get so far off as the East River. I repeat though it Is jmttlng It on low ground you cannot financially artora to break tho .Lord's day. it is only another way of tearing up your government secur ities and putting down the price of (foods and blowing up your store. I have friends who are all the time slicing off pieces of the Sabbath. They cut a Tittle of the Sabbath off that end and a little off that end. They do not keep the twenty-four hours. The Bible says, "itemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." I have good friends who are accus tomed to leaving Albany by the mid night train on Saturday night and get ting home before church. Now, there may be occasions when it is right, but generally It Is wrong. How if the train should run off the track into the North Kiver? I hope your frion is will not send to me to preach your funeral sermon. It would be an awkward thing for me to stand up by your side ana preach you a Christian man, killed on a rail train traveling on a Sunday morning. "Itemember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Whatdoes that mean? It means twenty-four hour. A man owes you a dollar. You don't want him to pay you HO cents. You want the dollar. If God demands of us twenty-four hours out of the week, he means twenty-four hours and not nineteen. Oh, we want to keep vigi lantly in this cbuntry the American Sabbath and not have transplanted here tue Kuropean Sabbath, which, for the most part, is no Sabbath at alL If any of you nave been In Paris, you know that on Sabbtttn morning the vast population rush out toward the country with baskets and bundles, and toward night they come back fagged out, cross and intoxicated. May God preserve to us our glorious, quiet, American Sabbaths. Into the Tower of Uod'a Mercy. Oh, strangers, welcome to the great city. May you find Christ here, and not any pnysicai or moral d-imasre. Men coming from inland, irom distant cities, have been ,, found. God and found Him in our service. May that be your case to-day. You thought you wore brought to this place merely tor the purpose of sightseeing. Perhaps God brought you to this roaring city for the purpose bf working out your eternal salvation. Go back to your homes and tell them how you met Christ here the loving, patient, pardoning, and sympathetic Christ. Who knows but the city which has been the destruction of so many may be your eternal redemption? A good many jears ago Edward Stanley, the English comman ler, with his regiment, took a fort. The fort was manned by some 300 Spaniards. i fort, leading his men, when a Spaniard thrust at hun with a spear, intending to destroy his life, but Stanley caught bold of the spear, and the Spaniard, in attempting to ierk the spear away from Stanley, lifted him up into the battlements. No sooner hud Stanley taken his position on the battlements than he swung his Bword, and the whole regiment leaped after him, and the fort was taken. So It may be with you, O stranger. The city influences which have destroyed so many and dashed them down forever shall be the means of lifting you up into the power of God's mercy and strength, your soul more than conqueror through the grace of Him who has promised an especial benediction to those who shall treat you well, saying, "I was a strang er, and ye took me in." The Power of Thought. "Human beings often die from the effects ot imagination," said Dr. E. IT. sincla r. "One case, well known I . a In mod cal annals, but which has never been given general publicity, is that of a condemned murderer whom be Royal Medical Society obtained the consent of the crown to experi ment upon. lie was to have been hanged, but the day before the execu tion he was told that Instead ot bang ing be was to he bled to death at 6 o'clock in the morning. At that t me physicians entered. The eyes of thecondemned man were bandaged, bis head held over a basin of water. A sharp, quick stroke with a knife, made over tho temple, not sufficient, however, to break the skin, and a physician dropped tepid water a drop at a time, upon the supposed wound and from there into the basin. In twenty minutes the man was uncon scious, and in an hour and a half he was dead. The cases wnere men can-4have had a premonition, which tuey believed, that they would die at a certain time, are explained usually upon this principle. Premonitions of this kind are very a t to prove fatal, and then they are considered as occult and mysterious." St- Louis Globe-Democrat. His Bonn of Hope. A well-known man of business In this city is noted for his remarkably cheerful disposition. Tbouuh he has suifered financial disasters more than once, bis bonhommle has carried him through without a wrinkle. Asked to ex, lain how be managed to retain so much Mark Tapley philosophy through every crisis, he replied 'When I was a young man in busl ness my disposition was quite dlllcr ent Though 1 was provided with everything desirable, the least set back caused me excessive worry, and once, thlnklnir my firm was on the verge of fal.ure, I resohed upon self destruction. Early one morning, af ter a sleepless night, 1 started out to ward the river, brooding deeply upon my troubles. 1 happened to look up ana saw an old rag peker going cheerfully about his work, humming 'Pop Goes the Weasel.' I stopped and turned back. The contrast be tween his condition aud disposition and mine left a lasting impression, and i have hummed that same care dispelling air, at intervals, ever since.'1 Ph, ladelphla Itecord. THE C0MKERCIAL BANK. ESTABLISHED 1868.1 Harrison, BL at BnwtTU, President. D. H. ORISWOLD, Cashier. AUTHORIZED CAPITAL. $50 000. Transacts a General Banking Busine CORRESPONDENTS: Amrwwniw EXCHAN'al NaTWNAI. Bakx, New York, Ut-'TK Statb National Bank, Omaha, First National Bank, Chadroav Interest Paid on Time Deposits. Ef DRAFTS SOLD ON ALL PARTS OF EUROPE. THE PIONEER Pharmacy, J. E. PHINNEY, Proprietor. Pure Drugs, Medicines, Paints, Oils and Varnishes. "ARTISTS' MATERIAL. School Supplies. Prescriptions Carefully Compounded Day or Night. SIMMS & SMILEY, Harrison, Nebraska, Real Estate Agents; Have a number of bargains in choice land in Sioux county. Parties desiring to buy or sell real estate should not fail to call on them. School Lands leased, taxes paid for non-residents; farms rented, eta CORRESPONDENTS SOLICITED. Nebraska. a r. Coma, Vie- 13 BftUUES. : i 1 ' .v. i.TS'Vj'i-.-'.i .
