SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5364, 25 January 1879, Page 3

SUNDAY READING.

By Key. T. De Witt Talmage, D.D. [The first of a Series of Snhbath Hominy Discourses on the Night Hide of City Life, as recently seen in company with three Ai<ih Pol Ox Officials.]

MIDNIGHT EXPLORATION.

*' Th*n avd he unto me, Son of Man, <-*jg now in th*» wall ; and wh«*n 1 had d gged in behold. a door. And he sod unto me. Go in. and behold the wicked abomina-ions that ih u y do here. So I went in and s-aw : and behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts. — Ezek. vii\, S 10.' So this minister of religion, Ezekiel, was commantled to enter upon the exploration of the sin of liia day. He waa not to stand outside the door, guessing what it was, but was to go in aud see for liims- If. He did not in vi>ion say :"0 Lord, I don't, want to g »in ; I dare not go in ; if I go in I miuhfc he criticised ; O. I.orl, please me off!" When tvod told Fz-kiel t-> go in he went in, " and saw, and beheld all manner of deepine thing* and abominable beasts." I, minister ot religion. felt I had a Divine commission to explore the iniquities of our cities. I did not ask c«un«el of my ses-i-m, or my presbytery, or of the newspapers, but, asking the com panionship of throe prominent police officials and two of th* eldeis of my church, I un« tolled my commission, and it said : "Son of man. dig into the wall ; and when I had digged into the wall, behold a door ; and he said, Go in and see the wicked abominations that are done here ; and I went in, and saw, and beheld !"' Brought up in the country and surrounded by much parental care, I had not, until this autuuiu, oeeu fcho haunts of iniquity. By the urace of God defended, I never sowed any 41 wild oats." I had somehow been able to tell, from various sources, something the iniquities of tho great cities, and to preach against them ; but I saw, in the destruction of a great multitude of the people, that there must be an infatuation and a temptation that had never been spoken about, and L said, ,4 I will explore." 1 saw tens of thousands of men being ruined, and, if there had been a spiritual percussion answering to th* physical percussion, the whole air would have b- en full of the rumble, and roar, and crack and thuuder of the demolition, and «his moment, if we should pause in our service, we should hear the crash, crash ! Juht as in the sickly season you sometimes he ir tho bell at the gate of the c inetery ringing almost incessantly, so I fouud that the bell at the of the cemetery where lost souls are buried was tolling by day and tolling by night. I said, 44 1 will explore/' I went as a physician i>o*s into a small-pox hospital, or a fever hospital, to see what practical or useful info-matiou I might get. That would be a foolish doctor who wcukl t-tand outside the door of an invalid writing a Latin prescription. When the lecturer in a medical college is done wi«.b his lecture, he t ikes the students into the diistrctumroom, and he shews them the reality. 1 a ill here this morning to repoit a plague, and to tell yi»u how sin destroys the body, and d«s'roys the mind, and destroys the soul. 41 Oh!" siy you, "are you not. afraid that, in consequence of your exploration of the iniquities of the city, other persons may make exploration, and do themselves damayc?" I reply, "If, in company with the Commissioner of P lice, and the Captain of Police, and the Inspector of Police, aud th-i company of two Christian gcntlemeu, and not with tho spirit of curiosity, but that you may sec sin iu order the bctt'-r to combat it, then, in ihe name of the et« mal God, col But. if not, then stay away." Wellington, standing in the battle of Waterloo when the burets were buzzing »ound his head saw a civilian cm the held. He J*aid to him, "Sir. wha*. are you doing here? Be otf." " Why," replied the civilian, 44 there is no m« re danger here for me thin tin re is for you." Then Wellington Hushed up, aud said, 44 God and my couutry demand that 1 be here, but you have no . rrand here." Now I, as an officer in the army of Jesus Christ, went on this exploration. and on this batt'elie'd. If you bear a like commission, go ; it not, stay away. But you say, 14 Don't you think that somehow \ our description of thes* pi ices will in luce people to go and see for themselves ? ' 1 answer yes, juat as much as the description m me yCuow lever at oicuurtw iduou people to go down there and get the pestilence. It was told us there were hardly enough p.-ople alive to bury the dead, aud 1 Mil going to tell you a story ill tluse Sabbath morirng sermom of places where they arc all dead or dying. Ami 1 shall n.»t gild iniquities. I shall play a diri»o and not an anthem, and while I shall not put fanUst blush on faireht cheek, I will kiixllo the chet ks of many a man into a eoi-lUgration, and I will make his earn tii gle. But you say, Don't you know ihat the papers a*e criticising y»u for the poßiii-.il yon talc ?' I *ny yes ; and do you know how L fe» 1 about, it ? There is no mau who i- moreindeb ed to the newspaper Press than I am. My business is to preach the truth, aud the wider the audience the uews* paper Press gives me. the wider my field is. I As the Press of the United States, and the Canada*, aud of England, and Ireland, and SScotlaud, and Austiaia, aud New /alaud, are giving me eveiy week nearly three million souls for an audience, I *ay 1 am indebted to the Prtss, anyhow. Go on ! To the day of my death 1 cannot pay them what lon o them. So slash away, gentlemen. The more the belter. If there is any'hing I denpise, it is a dull time. Bri-k criticism is a coarse Turkish towel, with which every public man needs every day to be rubbed down, iu order to keep healthful circulation, Gi>e my love to all the secular | ami religious editors, and full permission to j run their pens nlcar through my sermons, from introduction to application. It was ten o'clock of a calm, clear, star«

lLhr.ed uiuht when the carriage rolled with R us from the blight part of the city down into * the region where gambling, and crime, and death hold high ornival. When I speak of ' houses of dissipation, I do not tefcr to one >in, or live sins, but to all sins. As the horses halted, and, escorted by the oflicers of the law, wo went in, wo moved into a world of J which we were aB piautically ignorant as < though it had swung as far off from us as j Mercury is from -Saturn. No shout of revelry, 1 no guffaw of laughter, but comparative ( silcce. Not many signs of death, but the 1 dead were there. As 1 moved through this ' place I said, "This is the home of lost j souls." It was a Dante's Inferno ; nothing • lo stir the mirth, but many things to fill the ; eyes with tears of pity. Ah ! there were ■ moral corpses. There were corpses on the stairway, corpses iu the gallery, corpses in the gardens. L' per met leper, but no bandaged mouth kef hick the breath. I felt that I was sitting on the iron coast which l'-uroclydon had driven a hundred dismasted hulks—every moment more blackene-1 hulks rolling in. And while I stood and waited for the going down of the storm, and the lull of the sea, I bethought myself, this is an everlasting storm, and the billows always rage, and on cach carcass that strewed tho beach alr. aly had alighted a vulture. —the lougbeaki d, filthy vulture of unending despair, now pecking into the corruption, and now, with the black wing, wiping the blood of a soul! No laik, uo robin, no ch-flinch, — but vultures, vultures, vultures ! I was reading of an incident th«t occurred in i Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, where a natuialist had prciented to him a deadly s ip- nt, and he put it in a boltle, and stood it iu his studio, and one evening, while in 1 the studio with his daughter, a bat Hew in j the window, oxtingui-hed tho light, struck ' the bottle containing the deadly serpent, and I in a few monieuts there was a shiiek from ' the daughter, and in a few hours she r was dead. She had been bitten of the - serpent. Amid these Lauuts of death, iu l that midnight exploration, I saw t iat th. re ' were lions, and eagles, and doves for iu--1 siguia ; but, I thought to myself, bow in - . appropriate. Better the insignia of an adder , and a bat. I" ist of all, I have to report, as a result of Ibis midnight exploration, that all the u Bucred rhetoric about the costly magnilicenco ' of the haunts of iuiquity is' apocryphal. i We were shewn wfiat was called the costliest and mt st majnificent specimen. 1 had often heard that the walls were adorned with e miisterpieces ; that the fountains were bewitching in the gaslight; that the music 2: »vaß like the touch of a Thai berg or a Gottschalk; that the upholstery was imI perinl ; that the furniture in some places a was like the throne-room nf tho Tuileries. It 't is all false. Masterpieces ! There was not a 'I painting worth 5 dollars, leaving aside the frame Great daubsofcolourthatnoiulelligeut ? mechanic would put on his wall. A crossi" breed between a chromo and a splash of e poor paint. Music ! Some of the homeliest y creatures I ever saw squawked discord, ace companied by pianos out of tune ! Upe holstery ! Two characteristics: red and is cheap. You have board so much about tho » wonderful lights—blue and green, and it yellow and orange, Hashing across the dancers and the gay groups, Seventy-five

ceDts' worth of chemicals would produce all that in one night. Tinsel, gewgaws, tawdrines-, frippery, seemingly much of it bought at a second-hand furniture store, aud never paid for ! For the most part the inhabitants were repulsive, Here aud there a soul on whom God had put the crown of beauty, but nothing comparable with the Christian loveliness aud purity which yon may see any pleasant afternoon on any of the thoroughfares of our great cities. Young man, you are a stark fool if you go to places of dissipation to see pictures, and hear music, and admire beautiful and gracious countenances, tome to me, and I will give ynu a letter of introduction to any one of five hundred homes in Broi klyn aud New York, where you will see finer pictures and hear more beautiful music—music and pictures compared with which there is nothing worthy of speaking of in houses of dissipation. Sin, however pretentious, is almost always poor. Mirrors, divan*, C'hickeriug grand pianos she cannot keep. *1 he sheriff is after it with uplifted mallet, ready for the vendue. "Going! going ! gone i"

But, my friends?, I noticed in all the haunts of dissipation that there was an attempt at music, however poor. The door swung open and shut to music ; they stepped to music; they danced to music; they attempted nothing without music, and I said to myself, 14 If such inferior music has such power, aud drum, and fife, and orchestra are enlUted in the service of the devil, what uiultipotent power there must be in music ! and is it not high time that in all our churches and reform associations we tested how much power there is in music to bring men off the wrong road to the right read ?" Fifty times that uight I said within myself, "If poor music is so powerful in a bad direction, why cannot good music be almost omnipotent in a good direction ?" Oil ! my friends, we want to drive men into the kingdom of God with a musical staff. We want to shut off the path of death with a musical bar. We want to snatch all the musical instruments from the service of the devil, and with organ, and cornet, and bass viol, and piano, and orchestra praise the Lord. Good Kichard Cecil, when seated in the pulpit, said tbat when Doctor Wargan was at the organ, he, Mr. Cecil, was so overpowered with the music that he found himself looking for the Hist chapter of Isa'ah in the prayer-book, wonderiug he could not lind it. Oh I holy bewilderment. Let us send such men as Philip Phillips, the Christian vocalist, all around the world, and Arbuckle, the Cornetist, with his "Robin Adair" set to Christian melody, and George W. Morgan, with his Hallelujah Chorus, and ten thousand Christian men with uplifted hosannas to capture this whole earth for God. Oh! my friend?, we have had enough minor strains in the church, give us major strains. We have had enough dead marches in the church ; play us those tuues which are played when an army is on a dead run to overtake an eneniy. Give us the double-quick. We are in full gallop of cavalry charge. Forward, the wnole line ! Many a man who is unmoved by Christian aTgumeut surrenders to a Christian song. Mauy a man under the power of Christian music has had a change take place in ins soul and in his life eqnal t<> th*t which took place in the life of a man iu Scot'and who for fourteen years had betn a drunkard. Coming home late at night, as he touched the doorsill, his wife trembled at his coming. Telling the story afterward, she eaid : " I didn't care to go to bed, lest he should violently drag me forth. When he came home there was only about the half-inch of a candle in the socket. When ho entered, he sa d, i Where are the children? 1 and 1 j>ai«l, * They are upstairs in bed.' He said.

* Go aud fetch them,' and I went up and I kuelc down, and I prayed God to defend me and my children from their cruel father. And then 1 brought them down.

lie took up the eldest in his arms aud kitsed her, and said, 'My dear lass, the Lord hath sent th«.e a father home to-

night.' And so he did with the second ; and then he took up the third of the children, aud said, \My dear boy, the Lokl hath sent thee home a father tonight.' And then he took up the babe, and said, 'My dailiug babe, the Lord hath sent thee home a father to-night.' And then he put his arm around me and kissed m", and said, ' My dear lass, the I ord hath seut thee home a husband to night.' Why, sir, 1 had ua' heard anything like that for fourteeu years. And he prayed and nc was v,wuiivriso<l, «*\<l my Raul was restored, for 1 didn't live as I ought to have lived— close to God. 31y trouoie naa DroKeu ui© «lown. J ' Oh ! for such a transformation in *omc "f the homes of Brooklyn to-day. By holy conspiracy, in the last song of the morning, let its sweep every prodigal into the kingdom of our God. Oh !ye chanters above liethftliem, come, hover this morning, aud give us a snatch of the old tuue about 44 g00d will to men."' But I have, my friends, also to report of that midnight exploration, that I saw something that am zed me more than I can tell. 1 do not want to tell it, for it will ciuse pain to many hearts far away, and I cauuot comfort them. But I must tell it. In all

these haunts of iniquity I found youu" men with the ruddy culour of couutry health on their cheek, evidently just come to town for

liusiuess, —entering stores, and shops, and cilices. They had helped to gather the summer grain. There they were in haunts of iniquity, the look on their cheek which is never on the cheek except when there has

een hard work on the farm and in the open

air. Here were tucse young men, who had heard how gaily a boat dauccs on the edge

of a Maelstrom, and they were venturing. (J O.id ! will a few weeks do such an awiul work for a young man '! 0 Lord ! hast 1 hou foigotlen what trauspi'ed when they knelt at the family altar that morning when he came away, and how his father's voice trembled iu the prayer, and mother and i-ister sobbed as they lay on the iluor ? I saw that young man when he first confronted evil. I saw it was the first night there. I saw on him a defiant look, as much as to say,

"I am mightier than sin." Then I saw him consult with iniquity. Then saw him waver and doubt. Then I saw going over his countenance the shadow of sad reflections, and 1 knew from his looks there was

a powerful memory stirring his soul. I think there was a whisper going out from the gaudy upholstery, saying, " My eon, go home." 1 think there was a hand stretched out from under the curtains—a haud tremulous with anxiety, a haud that had been worn with woik, a hand partly wrinkled

with age, that seemed to beckon him away, and. so goodness and Ein seemed to struggle iu that y uung man's soul; but Bin triumphed, and he surrendered to darkness and to death

—an ox to the slaughter. Oh ! my soul, is this the end of all the good advice ? Is this the end of all the prayers that have been made 1 Have the clusters of the country

vineyard bien thrown into this great wiuepress where Despair and Anguish and Death trample, and the vintage is a vintage of blood ? I do not feel so sorry for that yDiing man who, brought up in city life, knows beforehand what are all thesurrouudiug temptatim.s ; but God pity the country la>l, unsuspecting and easily betrayed. Oh ! young man from ihe farmhouse among the hills, what have your parents done that you should do this against them. Why are you bent on killing with trouble her who gave ycu birth ? Look at her fingers—what makes them so crooked 1 Working for you. Do you prefer to that honest old face the berouged cheek of Bin 1 Oh ! write home to-morro>v morning by the first mail, cursiug your mother's white hair, cursing her stooped shoulder, cursing her old arm-chair, cursing the cradle in which she rucked you. "Oh J" you say, "1 can't, I can't." You are doing it already. There is something on your hands, on your forehead, on your feet. It is red. What is it? The blcod of a mother's broken heart ! When you were thrashing the harvest apples from that tree at the corner of the field last summer, did you think you would ever come to this ? Did you think that the ehaip sickle of death would cut you down so soon ? Oh ! if 1 thought 1 should break tlia infatuation 1 would cuine down from the pulpit, and throw my arms around you, aud beg yon to stop. IVrhaps I am a little more sympathetic with you because I was a country lad. It was not until fifteeu years of that I saw a great city. 1 remember how stupendous New York looked as I arrived at Uortlandt Ferry. And now that I look 1 auk and remember that I had a nature all awake to hilarities and amusements, it is a wonder that I escaped. I was saying thi3 to a gentleman in .New York a few days ago, and he said, "Ah ! sir, I guess there were some prayers hovering about." When I see a young man coming from the tame life of the couutry, and going down in the city ruin I am not surprised. My only surprise is that any escape, considering the allurements. I was a few days ago on the St. Lawrence River, and I Baid to the captain, " What a swift stream thiß is." "Oh he replied, " seveuty-tive miles from here it in ten times Bwifter. Why, we have to employ an Indian pilot, and we give him a thousand dollars for , his Bummer'a work, just to conduct our boati through between the rocks and the islands,

so swift are the rapidfr." Well, my friends, every man that comes into 2sew York and Brooklyn life comes into the rapids, and the only question is whether he shall have safe or unsafe pilotage. Youug mau, your bad habits will be reported at the homestead. You cannot hide them. There are people who love to carry bad news, ?.nd there will be some accursed old gossip who will wend her step toward the old homestead, and she will sit down, and after she has a while wriggled in the chair, she will say to your old parents, ".Do you know your son drinks Then your parents will get white about the lips, and your mother will ask to have the door set a little open fur the fresh, air, and before that old gossip leaves the place she will have told your parents all about the places where you are accustomed to go. Then your mother will come oat, and she will sic down on the step where yon used to play, and she will cry aud cry. Then she will be sick, and the gig of the country doctor will come up the country lane, and the horse will be tied to the swinggate, and the prescription will fail, and she will get worse and worse, and in Ler delirium she will talk about nothing but 3-012. Then the farmers will come to the funeral, and tie the horses at the rail fence about the house, and they will talk about what ailed the one that died, and one will say it was intermittent, and another will say it was congestion, aud another will say it was premature old age ; but it will be neither intermittent, nor congestion, nor old age. In the ponderous book of Almighty God iz will be recorded for everlasting ages to read that you killed her. Our language is very fertile in describing different kinds of crime, staying a man is homicide, claying a brother is fratricide. Jslayiug a father is patricide. Slaying a mother is matricide. It takee two words to describe your crime—patricide and matricide.

1 must leave to other Sabbath mornings the unrolling of the scroll which I have this morning only laid on your table. We have come only to the vestibule of the subject. I have been treating of general*. I shall come to specilics. 1 have not told you of all the styles of people I saw in the haunts of iniquity. .Next Sabbath morning 1 will answer the question everywhere asked me, Why does municipal authority allow these haunts of iniquity ? I will discuss the question. 1 will shew all the obstacles in the way. I hope, before I get through with this course of Sabbath morning sermons, by the hrip of the eternal God, I will save ten thousand men ! And in the execution of this mission 1 defy all earth and hell.

But I was going to tell you of an incident. I said to the oiticer, " Well, let us go ; I am tired of this scene and as we passed out of ihe haunts of iuujuity into the trebli air, a soul passed in. What a lace that waß! Sorrow only half covered up with an assumed joy. It was a woman's face. I saw as plainly as on the page of a book the tragedy. You know there is such a thing us fcoinnambulisui, or walking iu one's sleet). Well, in a fatal somnambalism, a soul started off from her father's house. It was very dark, and her feet were cut by the rocks ; but on she went until *he came to the verge of a chasm, and the began to descend from boulder to b »ulder down over the rattling shelving cliffs, for you know while walking iu sleep people will go where they would not go when awake. Further oil down, and further, where no owl of the night or hawk of the day would venture. On down until she touvhod the depth of the chasm. Then, in walking asleep, she began to ascend the other side of the chasm, above rock, as the roc Uouudeth. Without having her head to swim with the awiul steep, she scaled the height. 2fo eye but the sleepless eye of God watched her as she went down one side the chasm and came up the other side the chasm. It was an August night, and a storm was gathering, and a loud burst of thunder awoke her from her somnambulism, and she said, <$ Whither shall I Hy V' and with an afrighted eye she looked back upon the chasm she had crowed, aud she looked in fiont and there was a deeper chasm before her. She said, What shall Ido ? Must I die here V And as she bent over the one shasrn, she heaid the sighing of the past ; and as she beut over the other chasm, she heard the portents of the future. Then alio fcat down on the granite cr.ig, and cried, "O! for my

father's house 1 O ! for the cottage, where I might die amid embowering honeysuckle! O! the past! O! thy future I O! father ! O ! mother ! O ! God 1" Bub the storm that had been gathering culminated, and wrote with finger of lightning ont"*r x the transgressor is hard." And then thunderpeal after thunder-peal uttered it: " Which forsaketh the guide of lier youth and forgetteth tho covenant of her God. Destroyed without remedy !" And the cavern behind echoed ifc, *' Destroyed without remedy There she perished, her cut aud bleeding feet on the edge of one chasm, her long locks washed by the storm dripping over the other chasm.

But by this time our carriage had reached the kerbstone of my dwelling, and I awoke, aud behold it was a dream !