DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON Superfluities a Hinderance. we * A man of great stature, whose fingers and tases were four and twenty, six on each hand, anv «ix on each foot: and he also was the son of a giant. But when he defied Israel, Jona- thacen the son of Shimea, David's brother, slew ban, 1 Chron. 20: 6,7. MALFORMATION photographed, and forr what reason? Did not this passage siip in by mistake into the sacred Script- wares, as sometimes a paragraph utterly almoxious fo the editor gets into his merwspaper during his absence? 1s not tials Scriptural errata? No, no; there is nothing haphazard about the Bible. This passage of Scripture was as cer- tainly intended to be put in the Bible as the passage, “In the beginning God ereated the heavens and the earth,” or, “430d so loved the world that Ile gave FIis only begotten Son.” Aud I select it for my text to-day be- eause it is charged with practical and tremendous meaning. By the people of € od Lhe Philistines had been conquers ext, with the exception of a few giants, The race of giants is mostly extinct, 1 sum vlad to say. There is NO USE FOR GIANTS NOW except to enlarge the income of muse- wazms, But there were many of them in widen times, Gollath was, according to the Bille, eleven feet, four and a half inches high. Or, if you do not be- Yieve the Bible, the famous Pliny, a secular writer, declares that at Crete, &v an earthquake, a monument was broken open, discovering the remains of a giant forty-six cubits long, or sixty-nine feet high. So, whether you prefer sacred or profane history, you maust come to the conclusion that there were in those times cases of human al- fitude monstrous and appalling. David had smashed the skull of one of these giants, but there were other giants that the Davidean wars had not yet subdued, and one of them stands in my text. He was not only of alpine stature, but had a surplus of digits. To the ordinary fingers was annexed an additional finger, and the foot had also & superfluous addendum. IIe” had fwenty-four terminations to hands and feet, where others have twenty. It was ¥ i profession, but what an unlimited sweep would pneumonia and diphtheria and scarlet fever have In the world if it were not for ten thousand common doctors. The old physician in his gig, rolling up the lane of the farm-house, or riding on horseback, his medicines in the saddle-bags, arriving on the ninth day of the fever, and coming in to take hold of the pulse of the patient, while the family, pale with anxiety, are looking on and walting for his decision in regard to the patient, and hearing him say, “Thauk God, Ihave mastered the case; he is getting well |" excites in me an admiration quite equal to the mention of the names of the great met- ropolitan doctors, Pancoast or Gross ol Joseph C, Hutchinson of the past, oi the illustrious living men the pre- sent, Yet what do we see in all depart- ments? People not satisfied with ordi- nary spheres of work and ordinary duties. Instead of trying to see what they can do with a hand of five lingers, they want six, Instead of usual en- dowment of twenty manual and pedal addenda, they want twenty-four, A cer- tain amount of money for livelihood, and for the supply of those whom we leave behind us alter we have departed this life, is important, for we have the best of - authority for saymg, *‘lle that provi- deth not for his own, and especially those of his own household, is worse than an infidel’’; but the large and fa- bulous sums for which many struggle, if obtained, would be a hinderance rather than an advantage. The anxie- ties and annoyances of those whose ESTATES IHIAVE BECOME PLETHORIC. can only be told by those them. Itwill bea good thing when, through your industry and public pros- perities, you can own the house in which rou live, But suppose you own fifty | | houses, and you have all those rents to | | collect, and all those tenants to please. Suppose you have branched out in busi- | ness successes until in almost every di- | rection you have investments, The fire-bell rings at night, you rush up- | stairs to look out of the window, to see | if it is any of your mills, Epidemic of crime comes, and there are embez ments and abscondings in all directions, | and von wonder whether any of your | zle- | fot the only instance of the kind. Tavernier, the learned writer, says that the Emperor of Java bad a son endow- od w the same number of extremi- ties. Vaoicatius, the poet, had six fin- | @ers oh each hand. Maupertuis in his | celebrated letters, speaks of two fam- | ilies near Derlin, similarly equipped of hand and foot. All of which I can be- lieve, for 1 buve seen two cases of the | same physical superabundance. But | this giant of the text is in battle, and as David, the dwarf warrior, had de- seat. bed giant, the brother David slays this monster of my text, and there he lies after the battle in Gath, i { { | oue of i i i A DEAD GIANT. His stature did not save him, and his | superfluous appendices of hand and foot | did mr save him. The probability was v #2 tlic battle his sixth finger on his hand oade bim clumsy the pse of his weapon, and his sixth toe crippled his gait. Bebold the prostrate and mal- formed giant of the text: “A man great of stature, whose fingers and toes svere four and twenty, six oneach hand and six on each foot: and he also was the son of a giant, Dut when be de- | Ged £5 ael, Jonathan, the son of Sh mea, Pavid’s brother, slew him." sliold how superfluities are a nce rather than a help! In all the tir it Gath that day there was not a weap with ordinary d and ordinary foot ail ordinary stature that was not bet! # than this physical curiosity ol my text. As physical size is apt to run in families, the probability is that this brother of David, who did the work, was of an abbreviated stature. A dwarf on the right side is stronger than a giant tl : and | y ie ii i i i bin. dera Bast, han i i on the wrong side, all the body and mind and estate and opportu- dler that you cannot use for God and the betterment of the world is a sixth @nger and a sixth toe, and a terrific hinderance, The most of the good done 1: the world, and the most of HOSE WHO WIN THE BATTLES for the right, are ordinary people. Count the fingers of their night hand, and they have just five, no moreand no tess. One Doctor Duff among mission- aries. but three thousand missionaries that would tell you they have only com- mon endowment, One Florence Night- tngale to nurse the sick in conspicuous places, but ten thousand women who are just as good nurses, though never heard of. The Swamp Angel was a big gun that during the war made a big uoise, but muskets of ordinary cal. dbre aud shells of ordinary heft did the execution, President Tyler and his Cabinet go down the Potomac one day to experiment with the Peacemaker, a great iron gun that was to affnght with its thunder foreign navies. The gun- ner touches it off, and it.explodes, and feaves Cabinet Ministers dead on the deck, while at that tame, all up and down our coasts, were cannon of ordin- ary Lore, able to be the defence of the nation, and ready at ‘the first toach to waken to duty, The curse of the world is big guns. After the politicians, who Fave made all the noise, go home hoarse from angry discussion on the evening af the first Monday in November, the mext day the people, with the silent ‘allots, will settle everything, and set- £e it right; a million of the while slips ot paper they drop making about as much noise as the fall of an apple- | | Blossom, Clear back in the country to