DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON: Queer Christians. Co —————— “And he was angry and would not go in’ Lasko 16: 28, *‘Is the elder son of the parable so ansympathetic and so cold that he is mot worthy of recognition? The fact is that we ministers pursue the younger son. You can hear the flapping of his rags in many a :sermonic breeze, and the cranching of the pods for which he was an unsuccessful contestant, I con- fiess that for a long time I was unable to train the camera obscura upon the elder son of the parable. I never could get a negative for a photograph. There was not enough light in the gallery, or the chemicals were poor, or the sitter mnoved in the preture, But now I think 1 have him. Nota side-face, or a three- quurters, or the mere bust, but A FULL-LENGTH PORTRAIT, @s he appears to me, The father in the arable of the prodigal had nothing to rag of in his two sons, The one was a rake, and the other a churl. I find nothing admirable in the dissoluteness of the one, and I find nothing attrac- tive in the acrid sobriety of the other. The one goes down over the larboard side, and the other goes down over the starboard side; but they both go down. From the window of the old home- stead bursts the minstrelsy. The floor quakes with the feet of the rustics, whose dancer is always vigorous and gesounding. The neig'bors have heard of the return of the younger son from his wanderings, and they have gather- ed together. The house is full of con- gratulators, I suppose the tables are loaded with luxuries, Not only the one kind of meat mentioned, but its concomitants, “Clap!” go the cym- Dals, “thrum!” go the harps, ‘‘click!” go the chalices, up and down go the feet inside, while outside is a most sorry spectacle. The senior son stands at the corner of the house, A FRIGID PIHLEGMATIC. He has just come in from the fields in yery substantial apparel. Seeing some wild exhilarations around the old man- sion, be asks of a servant passing by with a goatskin of wine on his shoulder what all the fuss is about, One would have thought that, on hearing that his younger brother had got back, he would have gone into the house and rejoiced, and if he were not conscientiously op- posed to dancing, that he would have joined in tie Oriental schottische. No. There he stands. His brow lowers, His lip curls with contempt. He stamps the ground with indignation. He sees nothing at all to attract. The odors of the feast coming out on the air do not sharnen his appetite. The lively music does not put any spring into his step. He is in a terrible pout. He criticises the expense, the injustice, and the morais of the entertainment, The father rushes out barehexded, and coaxes him to come in, Jie will got go in. Ie scolds the futiier. goes in! pasquinade ufainst younger Lrother, the you put a premium ca vagabondism, I stayed at home znd worked om the farm. You nefer made a party for that woulda’t have cost half as much fit 16 be seen, and what a time you piake over him! Hebreaks your héart, and you, pay him for it. That calf to which we have been giving extra feed during all these weeks wouldn't be so fat and sleek If I had known to what use you were going to put it! That vagabond deserves to be cowhiled in- stead of banqueted, Veal is too good for him!” That evening, while the younger son sat telling his father about his adventures, and asking about what had occurred on the place since his de- parture, the senior brother goes to bed disgusted, and slams the door alter him. THAT SENIOR BROTHER STILL LIVES, You can see him any Sunday, any day of the week. At a meeting of minis. uestion, “Who is that elder son?’ and rummacher answered, **I know him; [ saw hum yesterday.” And when they insisted upon knowing whom he meant, he said, “Myself; when I saw the account of the conversion of a most 4bnoxious man, 1 was irritated.” Tirst this senior brother of the text gands Tor the self congratulatory, self- satisfied, self-worshipful man. With the game breath in which he vituperates against his younger brother he utiers a pan gyrie for himself. The self-right- sous man of my text, like every other self-righteous man, was full of faults, He was an iugrate, for he did not ap- jate the home blessings which he had all those years, He was dis- obedient, for when the father told him to come in be stayed out, He was a . liay, for he sald that the recreaut son . bad devoured his father’s living, when the fathér, so far frem being reduced “to pentiry, had a homestead left, had instruments of music, had jewels, had a mansion, and instead of being a pau- per, was a prince. This senior brother, with 80 many faults of his own, was merciless fu his criticism of the younger brother, THE ONLY PERFECT PEOPLE ‘that I have ever known were utterly about himself, but much about Christ and heaven, gets kindlier and more gentle and more useful, until one day nis soul spreads a wing, and he flies away to eternal rest, and everybody mourns his departure. The other higher-life man goes around with a Bible conspicuously under his arm, goes from church to church, a sort of gen- eral evangelist, is A NUISANCE to his own pastor when he Is at home, and a nuisance to other pastors when he is away from home; runs up to some man who is counting out a roll of bank- bills, or running up a difficult line of figures, aud asks him how his soul is; makes religion a dose of ipecacuanha; standing in a religious meeting making an address, he has a patronizing way, as though ordinary Christians were clear away down below him, so he had to talk at the top of his voice in order to make them hear, but at the same time encouraging them to hope on, that by climbing many years they may after a while come up within sight of the place where he now stands! I tell you plainly that a rearing, roystering, bouncing sinner is not so repulsive to me as that higher-life malformation. The former may repent; the latter never goes over his pharisaism. The younger brother of the parable caw back, but the senior brother stands out- side entirely oblivious of his own delin- quencles and deficits, pronouncing his own eulogium, Oh, how much easier 1t is to blame others than to blame our- selves! Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamn- ed the serpent, the serpent blamed the devil, the senior brother blamed the younger brother, and nons of them blamed themselves. INCREDULOUS CHRISTIANS, Again, the senior brother of my text stands for all those who are faithless about the reformation of the dissipated and the dissolute, In the very tones of his voice you can hear the fact that he has no faith that the reformation of the younger son is genuine. His entire manuer seems to say, ‘That boy has come back for more money. Ie got a third of the property; now he has come back for another third, He will never be con’ ented to stay on the farm. He will fai . I would go in too pad rejoice with: lie others if I though this thing was genuine, but it is zx sham, That boy is a confirmed inelfiate and debauchee.”” Alas! my fri¢nds, for the incredulity in the Church of Christ in regard to the reclamation of the recre- ant. You say a mza has been a strong drinker. I say, “Yes, but he has re- formed.” **O%." you say, with a lu- gubrious farce, ‘1 hope you are not mis- taken, I lope you are not mistaken.” | his eonversion, for soon he will be un converted, I fear. | « party for that returned prodigal, oi { strike the timbrel too loud; and if you | kill a calf, Kill { luxuriating in the paddock.” the reason HOME It | infidelity in the church of God on this i subject. | streets of heaven that has not in | prodigal that has feturned and staid | home, There could be unrolled before you a scroll of a bundred thousand | names—the names of prodigals who came back, for ever reformed. Who was John Bunyan? igal. Who was Richard returned prodigal. Who Whitefield, the thunderer? ed prodigal. And I could go out in all directions in this audience and find on either side those who, once far asiray for many years, have been faithful, and their eternal salvation Is as sure as though they had been ten years in heaven, Amd yet, some of you have not enough faith in their return. i to their father’s house, Jaxter? A was George A return. with a prodigal. You do not know how to pray for him. You do not know how to greet him. He wants to gail in the warm gulf-stream of Chris tian sympathy. You are i | THE ICEBERG AGAINST WHICH HE STRIKES j and shivers, You say he has been a prodigal, I know it. But you are the sour, unresponsive, censorious, satur+ nine, cranky, elder brother, and if you are going to heaven one would think) some people would be tempted to go to perdition to get away from you. The hunters say that if a deer be shot the other deer shove him out of their com+ pany, and the general rule is, awa with the man who has been wounded with sin. Now, I say, the more bones a man has broken the more need he hay of a hospital, and that the mere a man has been bruised and cut with sin, the more need he has to be carried into human and divine sympathy. But for such men there is not much room in this world-—~the men who waut to come back after wandering. Plenty of room for elegant sinners, sinners in velvet and satin and lace, for sinners high- salaried, for kid-gloved and patent leather sinners, for sinners fixed up by hairdresser, pomatumed and lavender- ed and cologned and frizzled and erimp- ed and “banged” sinners—plenty of room! Such we mest elegantly at the door of our churches, and we invite them into the best seats with Chester- fieldian gallantries; we usher them into the house of God, and put soft ottomans under their feet, and put a git-edgad prayerbook in their band, pass the contribution box before them with an air of apology, while , the generous souls take out the exqu - nale, and open it, and with diamonded- push down beyond the ten-dollar jeces and delicately pick out as an expression of gratitude their to the Loed of one cent, For sinhems, plenty of room, plenty of room. T THE MAN WHO HAS BREEN DRINKING i hh 8 i } : : i il ¥ tongue, and his shrieking yet immortal spirit—=—no room. . Oh, if this younger son of the para- ble bad not gone so far off, it he had not dropped so low In wassall, the pro- test would not have been so severe; but going clear over the precipice as the younger son did, the elder son is angry and will not go in. On, be not so hard in your eriticlsm of the fallen, lest thou thyself also be tempted. A stranger, one Sunday, staggered up and down the alsles of my church, DISTURBING THE SERVICE, until the service had to stop, until he was taken from the room. He was a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of a sister denomination, That man had preached the Gospel, that man had broken the bread of the Holy Commun- ion for the people. From what a height to what a depth! Oh, I was glad thers was no smiling in the room when that man was taken out, his poor wife following him with his hat in her band and his coat on her arm. It was as solemn to me as two funerals—the funeral of the body and the funeral of the soul, Boware, lest thou also be tempted, An invalid went to South America for his health, and one day sat sunning himself on the beach, when he saw something crawling up the beach, wrig- gling towards him, and he was affright- ed. He thought it was a wild beast, or a reptile, and he took his pistol from his pocket. Then he saw it was nota wild beast. 1t was a man, an immortal man, a man made in God's own image; and the poor wretch crawled up to be feet of the invalid and asked for strong drink, and the invalid took bis wine flask from his pocket and gave the poer wretch something to dripk, and then vider the stimulus he rose and gave his history. He had Leen A MERCHANT IN GLASGOW, Scotland. He %ad gone down under so reduced %0 poverty, that he was lying ia a boat just off the beach, “Why,” said the invalid, *“I knew a merchant in Ciasgow once,” a merchant by such pad such a name, and the poor wretch straightened up and sad, *'1 am that man.” “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.’’ Again, I remark that the senior brother of my text stands for the spirdd of envy and jealousy. The senior broth- er thought that all the honor they did to the returned brother was a wrong to him, and I ought to have had the ring, and I ought to have had the banquet, and I ought to have had the garlands.” Alas tor this spirit of envy and j=alousy com- ing down through the ages! Cain ud David, Haman and Mordecal, Oh Orlando and Angelica, Caligula and Torquatus, Caesar and Pompey, Colun 3 ses, and the brother he slew because Le was a better marksman, Dionysius and Jealousy among and Geoffrey Fran. anxious to see a picture of Ra- Raphael sends him a picture, Francis, seeing it, falls in a fit of jeal- ousy, from wuich he dies. Jealousy authors: How seidom contem- each other, Xenop- painters: Closterman 3, would RELIGIOUS JEALOUSY; rain during a drought, no rain coming. and the rain comes. Then the kept the drought on, so as to keep them praying; but that the Christians began with their prayers that He sent rain right away, so He would not hear any more of their applications. Ob, this let us stamp it out from all our hearts, A wrestles was so envious of Theo- genes, the prince of wrestlers, that he could not be cousoled in any way; and after Theogenes died, and a statue was lifted to him in a public place, his en- vious antagonist went out overy night and wrestled with the statue, until one night ho threw it, and it fell on him and crushed him to death, So jealousy is not only absurd, but its killing to the body, and it is killing to the soul, How seldom it is you find one merchant speaking well of a merchant in the same line of business! How seldom it is you hear of a physician speaking well of a hysician on the same block! Oh, my riends, the world is large enough for all of us. Let us rejoice at the success of ethers. The next best thing to own- ing a garden ourselves, Is to look over the fence and admire the flowers. The next best thing to riding in fine equip- age, is to stand on the street and ad- mire the prancing span. The next best thing to having a banquet given to our- selves, is having a banquet given to our prodigal brother that has come home to his father’s house, Besides that, if we do not get as much honor and as much attention as others, we ought to congratulate our- selves on what we escape in the way of assault, THE FRENCH OENERAL, riding on horseback at the head of his troops, heard a soldier complain and say, ‘It is very easy for the general to command us forward, while he rides and we walk.” Then the general dis- mounted and compelled the complain- ing soldier to get on the horse. Coming through a ravine, a bullet from a ter struck the rider, and he fell The the general said, “How much safer it is to walk than to ride!" that this pupers, pouting at the church, pouting at the government, pouting at the high heaven! Their spleen is too large, their liver does not work, their digestion is broken down, There are two cruets in their castor always sure to be well sup- plied VINEGAR AND RED PEPPER] Oh, come away from that mood. Stir a little saccharine into yeur disposition, While you avoid the dissoluteness of the younger son, avoid also the irascib- ility and the petulance, and the pouting spirit of the elder son, and imitate the father, who had embraces for the return- ing prodigal, and coaxing words for the splenstic malcontent, All the tace of this pouting elder son is put before us in order that we might better see the radiant and forgiving face of the father. Contrasts are mighty. The artist in sketching the field of Waterloo, years after the battle put a dove in the mouth of the cannon. Rs- phael, in one of his cartoons, beside the face of a wretch put the face of a happy and innocent child, And so the sour face of this irascible and disgusted elder brother is brought eut, in order that in the contrast we ruay better un- derstand the forgiving and the radiant face of God, This is the meaning of it —that God is rezdy to take back any- body that is zorry, to take him clear back, to take him back forever, and for- ever, and forever, to take him back with a foving hug, to put a kiss on his parcied lip, a ring on his bloated hand, a easy shoe on his chafed foot, a gar- iand on his bleeding temples, and heaven in hissoul. Oh, 1 fall flat ou that mercy! Come, my brother, and let us get down into the dust, resolved never to rise until the Father's forgiv- ing hand shall Jift us, OH, WHAT A GOD WE HAVE] Bring your doxologles, Come, earth you not feel the Father's arm around your neck?Do you not feel the your cheek? Surrender, younger son! Surrender elder son! Surrender, alll Ob, go in to-day and sit at the banquet, Take aslice of the fatted ealf, and afterward, when you are seated, with one hand in the hand of the returned brother, and the other hand in the hand of the re- make merry, and be is alive again; and was lost, and is a Th Number of the Stars ——————————— The total ni of stars see will depend very of the one can There he i ere about in ordinarily Of ever, Call ever soe more than a fraction at any time, Le- hal sphere is always be- If we could see a star are int whole celestial £2 od eye, Wwe one cause i half of the low the horizon of the whole number, visihie on Lie horizon a half would Le or A'S Near ure f phere as greatly to obse and only the brightest AS a resait of it is not likely that {ite ones can there tion, al a 00K other stars are so near the Soul Pole that they never rise in tudes, Hence, out of GOOD supposed 10 be visible, only 4000 ever come within the range of our vision, unless we make a journey towards the equalor, oul I ——— SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON. Suspay, Berreunxn 2, 188%, The Spices Sent Into Canaan. LESSON TEXT, Nuan, 18: 17-38. Memory vores, 9-01) LESSON PLAX, Toric OF THE QUARTER: Covenant Relations with Israel. God's GoLpEX TEXT YOR THE QUARTER: Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from i to the right hand or to the loft, that twu mayest have good suce cess whither soever thou goest—Josh, 1:7. Lesson Toric: Encouraged on Lie Way. Lesson f Outline: { Exploration, vs, 17.92, Discovery, va, 25.99. Encouragement, va. 350.52, GOLDEN Text : Let us go up at once, and p-ssess it; for we are well able to overcome it.—Num, 13 : 30, Day Hove READINGS: M.—Num. 13 : 17-35. sent into Canaan. T.—-Num. 13 : 1-16. Spies, W.—Num, 14 1-25, among the people, T.—Num. 14 : 206-45, inflicted. F.—Gen, 13 : 1-18, ised to Abram. 8. Deut. 1 : 19-46, from Canaan, B~-Deut. 8 : 1-20, aroused, The spies Trouble Gratitude LESSON ANALYSIS, I. EXPLORATION. I. The Land . The land of Canaan (17). Abram. ...went forth to go in land of Canaan (Gen, 12 : 5). I will give unto thee... Canaan (Gen, 17 : B). Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel (Num. 13 : 2). The land which I sware untojAbraham (Num, 32: 11% IL The Residents : the people that dwelleth there- the to in {18}, The Canaanite and the Perizzite dwell- edd then in the land (Gen. 13 : 7). of the {ye hornet. . . .shall 24 : 9). drive (Exod, 23 ; Canaanites out Canaanite ani. 19. land of Canaan (Acts 13: III: The Visitors: Bo they went land (21 wh by wad 3 $4 y . and spied out the Send a man Th te ELLE LO Inurtnel men. . Let may search the la I took twelve men « us send men 3. “Be ve of good courage, § of the fr "” trie Gn Pir uit land. it for God's work; | turn in God's work. OVERY. ai the 1318 far exceeding our present ones were made, they would no doubt show new stars of the twentieth and twenty-first, elo, magnitudes, But it 1s highly One cluster of figs (23). of the choice fruits of the land 43 : 11). yey 1a FETT OTA TY BTADPES, . . . PpOlLegTAL~- YOur vi sels {Gen vae sun (Deut, 33 : 14). The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, (Gal, 5: peace 22). bearing twelve manner 1 dy ae of fruits (Rev. cessive orders of stars would net in- crease in the same ratio as is observed in the eights, nimth, aud tudes, for example, The enormous fabor of estimating the number of stars of such classes will long prevent the ac- cumulation of statistics on this ques. special regions of the sky, which have been searchingly examined by various telescopes of spccessively locreasing apertures, the number of new stars found is by no means in proportion to the increased instrumental power. If this is found to be true elsewhere, the conclusion may be that, after all, the stellar system can be experimentally shown to be of flnite extent and to con. tain only a finite number of stars. In the whole sky an eye of average power will see about 6000 stars, as 1 have just said. With a telescope this number is greatly increased, and the most power- ful telescopes of modern times will show moro than 60,000,00) stars, Of this number, not one out of one hun- dred Las ever been catalogued at all v + « Inall, 314,926 stars, from the first to the 9} magnitudes, are contain- ed in the northern sky; or about €U0,- 000 in both hemispheres. All of these can bo seen with S