DR. TALMAGRE'S SERMON
Cursing and Swearirg.
“So went Satan forth from the presence of
the Lord, and smote Job with sore bolls from
the sole of his foot unto h's crown. And he
took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal |
and he sat down among the ashes. Then said
hic wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine
integrity? Curse God, and die. Job 2: 7-8,
A story onental and marvellous,
Job was the richest man in all the East,
He had camels and oxen and asses and
sheep, and, what would have made him
rich without anything else, seven sons
and three daughters. It was the habit
of these children to gather together for
family reunion. One day, Job Is think-
ng of his children as gathered together
at a banquet at the elder brother's
Louse,
While the old man is seated at
tent door, he sees some one running,
evidently from his manner bringing
bad news, What is the matler now?
“Oh, says the messenger, *‘a foraging
party of Sabeans have fallen upon the
oxen and the asses, and destroyed them
aud butchered all the servants except
myself,” Stand aside!
senger running. What 1s the
now? **Oh,” says the man, “the light-
has struck the sheep and the shep-
and all the shepherds are destroy-
Stand aside! An-
What is the
‘the
the camels
his
HL
herds,
ed except myself.”’
juessenger running.
matter now? “Oh,” he
Chaldeans have captured
and slain all the camel-drivers except
Stand asidel Another mes-
ing. ‘What is the matter
h,” he **a hurricane
four of the tent
children were assembled at
they are all dead,”’
other
Says
J Py
nyse
now?’
Struck
where your
the banquet, and
But
Says,
corners
CALAMITY
ended, Job was smitten with
tiasis, or black leprosy. Tum-
head to foot—forehead ridged
ibercles—eyelashes fall
excoriated —v« destroys d
exhalations from
with none dress his
sores, he down with
nothing but pieces of broken pottery to
use iu the gery of his wounds, At
ti needed all en-
has not
with
nostriis
intolerable
body,
out
1Co
the entir
to
¥ }
in the
ntl
LAEGER,
sits ashes
this ome when he
all consolation,
fret and a rage, a
olerable! Our prep-
n, and now
and
couragement and
wile co
Says:
erty go:
you covered u ha 1s loathsome
disgust l :
Swear’
Ak, Job knew right well
DE wi uld not cure
of his agonized body,
back the
would L restore
dren. knew that
only ihe the pain more
and the poverly more dist
the berea more
But,
fey
iil
that
ane of the
would
p } eh
Of dest
one of
vemeut
udging from
HE PROFANITY
in oul . You might come to the con-
clusion was some great ad-
vantage to be reaped from profanity,
Blaspliemy is all abroad. You hear it
in every direction: The drayman swear-
ing at his 1
cating the tangled
ant cursing the long lin
figures,
ing in
sweariu
factory.
Women
rough ealling on the
low restaurant, clear
“0 lord!” of a
room; and the one is as much blasphen
as the other,
There are times when we must ery
out to the Lord by reason of
cal agorry or our mental distress, and
that is only throwing out our
hand toward the strong arm of a father.
It was no profanity when James A.
Garfield, shot in the Washington depot,
cried out: “My God, what
mean?’ There is no prof:
ing out upon God in the da
in the day of darkness, in
physical anguish, in the day of Lx
ment; but I am speaking now of
triviality and of the reckless
which the name of God 1s
used,
THE WHOLE LAND 18
s1 4% te
ALE 3%,
1
that there
ring at
10ft, swearing i!
s street, swearing i e
Children swear. Men swear,
Swearing, from the
Almighty in the
up to the reckless
swear!
Ties
glittering drawing-
Y
ur physi-
weak
ol His this
sanity in call-
y of trouble,
fis
ness with
sometilnes
CURED
A gentleman
the far West sat in the ca
day behind two persons wh
dulging in profanity; and he made up
his mind that he would make a record
of their profanities, and at the end of
two days several sheets of paper were
covered with these imprecations, and
at the close of the journey he handed
the manuscript to one of the persons in
front of him, “Is it possible,”
the man, *‘that we have
many profanities the last few days?”
*‘It is,’ replied the gentleman. “Then,”
said the man who had taken the paper,
“I will never swear again.
But it is a comparatively unimport-
ant thing if a man makes record of our
improprieties of speech, The more
memorable consideration is that every
improper word, every oath uttered, has
a record in the book of God's remem-
brance, and that the day will come
when all our crimes of speech, if unre-
pented of, will be our condemnation, I
shall not to-day deal in abstractions, I
hate abstractions, I am going to have
a plain talk with you, my brother,
about a habit that you admit to be
wrong.
The habit grows in the community,
by young
FEOPLE THINKING IT MANLY
to swear. Little children, hardly able
to walk straight on the street, yet have
enough distinctness of utterance to let
you know that they are damning their
own souls, or damning the souls of
others, It Is an awful thing the first
time the little feet are lifted, to have
them set down on the burning pave-
ment of hell | Between sixteen and
twenty years of age, there is apt to
gome a time when a young man Is as
much ashamed of not being able to
swear gracefully as ho is of the dizzi-
ness of his first cigar, He has his hat,
his boots, and his coat of the right pat-
tern, and now, if he can only sweat
without awkwardness, and as well as
his comrades, he believes he isin the
fashion. There are young men who
walk in an atmosphere of imprecation
’
~—oaths on their lips, under thelr ton-
Res, nesting in their shock of hair.
They have no regard for God, although
they have great respect for the ladies!
ness in that, The most nngentlemanly
thing a man can do is to swear,
FATHERS FOSTER THIS CRIME,
not to swear in the
children; in a moment of sudden anger,
habit. Do you not know, O father,
that your child is aware of the fact that
He 1s practicing now, In
you
son not know it, awful
the father
to be profane, and then to have the
echo of his example come back
It isan
The crime is also fostered by mnaster
are at the head of men in hat factories
and in dock-yvards, and at the head of
great establishtaents, When
you go down to look at the work of
scaffolding, and you find it is not done
right, what do vou say?
ing, is it? The employer swears-
employea is tempted to swear.
man says: ‘‘I don’t know why my em
ployer, worth $50,000 or $100,000, should
xury I should be ]
am poor. Because |
am poor and dependent on a day's
wages, haven't 1 as much right to swean
l ne?’ Eine
as he has with his large ince
makes “0 1any
business
ployers swear, and that
employees swear. The habit also cor
Y ¥ TAL PE
FR OF TEMPE]
pe ple
ave righteous
angered they
I'here are a good
when they ane
f speech, but when
ness of
many
at peace, |
blaze al
at +
unfarnished profanit
ing and
3 ou happy
Vebster ill give you ten
vords with which express
¢
02 OL ©
1 righteously
} Armories in
cabulary-
lation,
You
Ineanness or
5
that ever
express
!
SION 1
ip from the pit, and I will come
right on after you and give you a thous.
¥
’ y \ $5vs is
are © ites OF QeNUN
mj
never
ked tongues
Jonored
the pure, the innocent,
Anglo-Saxon in
and Job
ed
whicl
n sang, un Bunyan dream
and Shakespeare dramatized.
wher
age
words,
every Ci
Do yi
Cron ’s name
know that people who take the name of
God oh their lips in and
svfvd isan AF
trivial use of
recklessness
Ki nes
Make the name
foot-ball in the community, and it
no power when in court-room and
legislative assembly it is employed
solemn adjuration! See the
in
way,
kiss the book!’ Smug-
gling, which is always a violation of the
You say to aman: * How is it
can't understand it.”
as it might be.”’ An
cath does not mean as much as it would
and in solemnity. Why is it that so
often jurors render unaccountable ver.
charges, and useless schemes pass in our
What is au oath?
Anything that marks an event in a
man’s history? Oh, no! It is kissing
the book! There is no habit, I tell you
plainly—and I talk to hundreds and
thousands of men to-day who will
thank me for my utterance-1I tell you,
my brother--I talk to you not profes-
sionally but just as one brother talks to
another on some very important theme
«Jf tell you there is no habit that so
depletes a man’s nature as the habit of
profanity.
You might as well try to raise vine-
yards and orchards on the sides of blech-
ing Stromboli, as to raise anything good
on a heart from which there pours out
the scoria of profanity. You may swear
yourself down; you cannot swear your-
self up, When the Mohaminedan finds
a piece of paper he cannot read, he
puts it aside very cautiously for fear the
v
name of God may be on it. That is
one extreme, We go to the other,
WHAT B THE CURE
of this habit? It is a mighty habit,
Men have struggled for vears to get over
it. There are merf in this house of God
who would give half their fortune to get
rid of it. An aged man was in the de-
lirium of a fever. He had for many
years lived a most upright life and was
honored in all the community ; but
when he came into the delirium of this
fever he was full of imprecation and
and they could not under-
After he came to his right
explained it, He said:
stand it.
reason he
I conquered the habit, but I
had to struggle all through life, You
haven't for forty years heard me say
word, but it has been an
awful struggle. The tiger is chained,
but he is-alive vet,”
If you would get rid of
want you, my friends, to dwell upon
HE USELESSXESS OF IT.
Did a volley of oaths ever start a’ heavy
a bad debt?
Did they ever
rieumatism?y
ache?
the
tion? Co
week the profanities
shop, factory? They «
nursed His Word,
ly Begotten Son
ng. on Fulton Street, as 1
along, I heard a man swear
by the name of My hair difted,
My blood ran « My breath caught,
My foot halted. Do you
that God Is aggravated? Do
suppose that God knows
Dionysius used to have a cave in whic
is culprits were incarcerated, and h
stendd at the top of that eave, and he
onld hear every groan, he could hear
every and he could hear every
whisper of those who were imprisoned.
He was a tyrant. God is not a tyrant ;
bends over this world, and He
hears everything-—every voice of praise,
of Imprecation. He hears
The oaths seem to die on the air,
Wis passing
Joss,
old
not s IPpose
you not
about it
0
sigh,
but
THEY HAVE ETERNAL ECHO,
They come back from the ages to come,
tigten | “All blasphemers shall
have their place in the lake which burn-
oth with fire and brimstone, which is
the second death.’ And if, according
in the next world the sing which he
commits in this world—f unpardoned,
unregenerated-— think of a man’s going
on cursing in the name of God to all
enternity |
The habit grows. You start with a
small oath, you will come to the large
oath, I saw a man die with an oath
between his teeth. Voltaire only grad-
ually came to his tremendous impre-
eation ; but the habit grew on him until,
at the last moment, supposing Christ
stood at the bed, he exclaimed, *‘Crush
that wretch | Crush that wretch 1! Oh,
my brother, you begin to swear, and
there is nothing impossible for you in
the wrong direction.
Who is this God whose name you are
using in swearing? Who is He? Is
esos
a tyrant? Has He pursued you all
your life long? Has he starved you,
frozen you, tyrannized over you? No!
He has loved you, He has sheltered
you. He watched you last night. He
will whateh you to-night, He wants to
love you, wants to help you, wants to
save you, He was
YOUR FATHER'S
and your mother’s God,
them from
shelter you, Will spit in
by an imprecation? Will
thrust Him back by an oath?
Who is this
heard in the imprecation? Has He
pursued you all your life long? What
vive thing has He done to you that you
should so dishonor His name? Why,
GOD,
He has housed
his face
you
You
Jesus whose name 1
in the fires of sacrifice for
the Brother that took off
that you might put it on.
you, He is
His crown,
He has pur-
life long with mercy:
He wants you to love Him, wants you to
serve Him, He comes with
and broken heart, and
OO BAVe you.
streaming
eyes blistered
let that
lifted, that 1
Where
mm imprecation again?
, now bloodtipped, bx
Not one,
jriay
ered, and
overthrow
¢ hand
effort over these dark, boilin
critne and sin. “Aha! Ale
deriding workl, But wait. T
of divine help will begi
way will clear for the
Christian philanthropists ;
treasures of the world's
will line the path of our feet | and to the
other shore we will Ix
the of all. heaven's
while those who resist and
pursue us will fall under
there will be nothing left
here and there,
the beach,
chariot, and, thrust out from
the breathless of a
charger,
oul ti
great army of
the glittering
beneficence
Tes tend
cymbals ;
deride and
the sea, and
of them but
clash
nostril
—-—-——
A Bottle Making Machine,
I.ike many other industries, the work
that it bas almost been driven from
this country, Germany and Belginm be-
ing the largest producers, It is hoped,
however, that the lost industry may be
again revived here, these hopes being
founded upon a lately invented ma-
chine, which will turn out bottles far
more expeditiously than they can be
made by band, and at a tithe of the
cost, This machine is the invention of
Mr. Howard M. Ashley, and is being
worked at the glass manufactory of
Messrs, Sykes, Macvay &Co., of Cas-
tieford. In this machine the molten
glass is poured into a thold, and the
plication of air under pressure dstends
the glass and causes 1t to fill the inter
for of that mold, It is believed that
when this machine Is complete, with
six or eight molds, it will be possible by
it to make twenty-four bottles per
minute,
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON.
BUNDAY, Arnis 20, 1858,
———
The Talents,
LESSON TEXT.
Matt, 25: 14-9). Memory verses, 2.21)
LESSON PLAN.
Toric OF THE QUARTER :
King tn Zion.
J!
Je SUB,
cren
with glory and honor. — eb, 2 : 9,
Le
ing Ae
SON
Toric: A Message Fmphasiz.
ountability.
Iewnon { d
Outiine | %
Talents Entrusted, va, 14.
Fidelity Rewarded, vs,
38. Neglect Punished, va, 2
Text: Be thou faithfi
and I will give thee
Rev. 2:10,
GOLDEN
(Crows
Dairy HoMeE READIN
M, —Matt.
aried Abilities
wtanity Improved
fs
. Opportunity Neglected
leturning Laowed
a CKi
The Good Report
meth, and maketh
1} The coming of
The reckoning with
The x ttlement of
{
the servants: (3
their destiny,
Well done, good and fa
vant.’ {1} The servant's charac-
ter 3; (2) The servant's conduct ; (3
The servant's commendation,
‘Enter thou he joy of thy
lord,” (1) A grand opportunity
(2) A gracious invitation,
11. NEGLECT PUNISHED,
I. The Buried Talent :
I....hid thy talent in the earth (25).
.. from the pres.
ence of the Lord (Jonah 1: 3).
If....the light that is in thee be dark-
ness, how great | (Matt, 6: 2
He said, I go, sir: and went not
(Matt, 21: 30),
Thy pound, which I kept laid up in a
napkin {Luke 19: 20).
11. The Neglected Duty
Thou oughtest....to have put my
money to the bankers (27).
Do it with thy might (Eccl, 9: 10),
Seek ye first his Kingdom (Matt, 6 : 33).
Wherefore gavest thon not my money
into the bank? (Luke 19 : 23),
Do all the glory of God (1 Cor, 10 : 31).
HL The Terrible Penalty
Cast ye out the unprofitable servant
into the euter darkness (30),
The sons. .. .shall be cast forth into the
outer darkness (Matt, 8 : 12).
And shall eut him asunder (Matt,
24: 51).
That servant. ...shall be beaten with
many stripes (Luke 12 ; 47).
Slay them before me ( Luke 19 : 27),
thiul SOT.
fey d
ARENA
man,” (1) Superiom
claimed ; (27 Unjust
charged ; (3) Base neglect
uated,
2. "Lo, thou hast thine own,’
own unimpaired ; (2) Hisown unis
proved, {1} The soleinn trust
Theslothful service: (3) The
olent re 4) The
knowl
storation
pected doom.
3. “Thou oughtest,
of human obligation
of human obligation; (i
i of human obligation
(uence
LESSON BIBLE REABINCG,
HUMAN NTABILITY
12;
ACCOR
Covers all things (Matt
Proportioned ability (2 Cor.
Mark 12 : 43, 44).
Make 5 CACH INA A
oA
{to
steward
10).
What a
$lizzard Is,
ble
wrth wes
their d
DOSE Sid
Persian Cavalry Repulsed by Prayer
Mr, Saltet, a German Missionary
richly blessed in gathering a
church of converts in Shushi. a Per-
sian town, ceded to Russia, In his
memorials John Venning relates that
* morning, I think in 1826, the
town was struck with dismay on per-
ceiving the hills covered with a body
of Persian cavalry, 10,000 in number,
under the command of Abbas Mirza,
who had thus invaded the country
without provocation, in a time of
peace, when the Russians were unpre-
pared to meet such a force, A berald
was sent by the Persian Prince, using
menaces like those of Rabshakeh, big-
Was
gine
Lilie
one
Salis
little Christian band to
*ILet us go into our
house of prayer, and there lay the Per
all was confusion and dismay.
They went into the sanctuary,
continued in prayer t«
Him who is a very present help in
trouble, Towards the close of the af
tha Persians thought they
{which was not the case), and they de-
camped; not a Persian was {0 be seen.
Mr. Saitet wrote me a long account of
this, with many other details of the
goodness of God in their sore distress,
A Bright Little Chinaman.
The Chinese Embassy has with it a
boy of 12. He has a pleasing counten-
ance, with bright, black eyes. He
wears the dress of his country, not
omitting the queue. The long gown is
made of the finest silk and is a most
picturesque costume. He is bashful,
like all boys, when conversing with the
‘pretty ladies,” and is as much at loss
for a reply as his Amencan brothers.
He 1s attending school here and, it is
said, is a very bright pupil,
I IOs ions,
Tipsy Mooking Birds.
A letter written from Orange, Cal,
says that the mocking birds in that lo-
eality feed on the berries that grow on
the Chinese umbrella tree, and that this
sort of food makes them tipsy, They
act very foolishly just afeer a hearty
meal and stagger about badly intoxi-