SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5478, 7 June 1879, Page 3

SUNDAY READING.

SUNSHIJSTE. BY EFV. T. BE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. "Her ways are iriys of pleasantness."—Proverbs ill. 17. You have all heard of God's only begotton Son. Have you heard of God's daughter ? She was born in heaven. .She came down over the hills of our world. She had queenly step. On her brow was celestial radiance. Her voice was music. Her name is Religion. My text introduces her. "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." There has been some recent discussion in regard of my theories of religion. Am I orthodox or heterodox ? In my sermon this morning, and in sermons at different times, I ehal! set before you what are my theories in regard of the Christain religion. The fact is that theological study has had a different effect upon me from the effect sometimes produced. Every year I tear out another leaf from my theology until I have only three or four leaves left. In other words, a very brief and plain statement of Cbristain belief. An aged Christain minister said, " When I was a young man I knew everything; when 1 got to be thirty-five years of age in my ministry, I had only a hundred doctrines of religion ; when I got to be forty years of age, I had only fifty doctrines of religion ; when I got to be sixty years of age, 1 had only ten doctrines of religion ; and now I am dying at seventy-five years of age, aud there is only one thing I know, and that is, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And so I have noticed in the study of God's word and in my contemplation of the character of God and o£ the eternal world, that it is necessary to cling to the one great doctrine that man is a sinner and Christ is his Almighty and Divine Saviour. Now, I take these three or four leaves of my theology, and 1 find that, in the first place, and dominant above all others, i 3 the sunshine of religioD. When I go int'.i a room, I have a passion for throwing open all the shutters. That's what I want to do this morning. We are apt to keep so much of the sepulchral in our religion, and to close the shutters, that it is only through a crevice here and there that the liaht streams. The religion of the Lord Jesus "Christ is a religion of joy indcscribible and unutterable. Wherever I find a bell I mean to ring it. If there are any in this house this morning who are disposed to hold on to their melancholy and their gloom, let them now depart this service before tho fairest and the brightest and the most radiant being of all the universe uomen in. find's Son has left our world, but Uod's daughter is here. Give her room ! Hail ! Princess of Heaven. Hail! Daughter of the Lord God Almighty. Come in, and make this house thy throne-room.

In setting forth this idea, the dominant theory of religion ia one of su.NsmxE. I hardly know where to begin ; for there are so many thoughts that rush upon my soul. A mother saw her little child seated on the floor in the sunshine, with a epuon in her hand. She said, " Aly darling,, what are you doing there ?" " Oh," replied the child, "I'm getting a spoonful of thia sunshine." Would to God that to-day I might present you a gleaming chalice of this glorious, everlasting Gospel sunshine. First of all, I find a great deal oE sunshine in Christian society. Ido not know of anything inore doluful than the companionship of the mere fun-makers of the world, the men whose entire business it is to make sport. They make others laugh, but if you will examine their autobiography, or biography, you will find that down in their soul there was a terrific disquietude. Laughter is no aii»n of happiness. The maniac laughs. The drunkard laughs. There is a terrible reaction from all sinful amusement and sinful merriment. Such men are cro3S the next day. They snap at you on the exchange, or they pass you not recognizing you. Long ago I abandoned mere worldly society for the rea son it was so dull, so-insaue, and so stupid. My nature is voracious of joy. I must have have it. I always walk on the sunny side of the street. And for that reason I have crossed over into Christian society. I like its mode of repartee better. I like its style of amusements better. They live longer, Christian people, I sometimes notice, lire on when by all natural law they ought to havo died. I have known persons who continued to hold their existence when the doctors said they ought to have beeen dead ten years. Every day of their life was a defiance of the laws of anatomy and physiology ; but they had this supernatural vitality of tho Goapel in their soul, and that kept them alive. Put ten or twelve Christian people in a room for Christian conversation, and you will from eight to ten o'clock hear more re. sounding glee, more britht strokes of wit, and fiud more thorough and profound satisfaction, than in any merely worldy party. Now, when I fay " worldly party" I mean that to which you are invited because under the circumstances of tho case it is best for you to be invited, and to which you go because under all the circumstances of the case it is better that you go; aud leaving the shawls on the second floor, and the hats on the third floor, you go into the parlour to give formal salutation to the host and the hostess, and then move around, spendiug the whole evening iu the discussion of the woather aud in apology for treading on long trains, and in effurt to keep the corners of the mouth to the sign of pleasure, and going around with an idiotic "he-he" about nothing, until tha collation is served, and then, aftor going back again into the parlour to resume the weather, and then, at the close, going at a very late hour to the host and hostess, and assuring them that you have hid a most delightful evening, and then passing down off the front steps —the slam of the door the chief

SATISFACTION of the evening. Oh ! young man come from the country to spend your days in city life, where are you going to spend your evenings ? Let me tell you, while there are many placesof innocent worldly amusement, it is most wise for you to throw your body, mind, and soul into Christian society. Come to me at the end of five years and tell me what has been the result of this advice. Bring with you the man who refused to take the advice, and who went into sinful amusement. He will come dissipated, shabby in apparel, indisposed to look anyone in the eyes, moral character eighty-five per cent. off. You will come with principle settled, countenance frauk, habits good, soul saved, and all the inhabitants of heaven, from the lowest angel up to the archangel, your coadjutors. This is not the advice of a misanthrope. There is no man in the house to whom the world is brighter than it is to me. It is not the advice of a dyspeptic—my digestion is perfect ; it is not 110 advice of a man who cannot understand a joke or who prefers a funeral; it is not the advice of an old man, but a mau who can aee this world in all its brightness, and, considering myself competent in judging what is good cheer, I tell the multitudes of young people in this house that there is nothing in worldly association so grand and'so beautiful and so exhilarant as in Christian society. I know there is a good deal of talk about tho self-

denials of the Christian. I have to tell you that where the Christian has one self-denial the man of the world has a thousand Selfdenials. The Christian is not commanded to surrender anything that is wa , th keepioe. But what does a man deny who denies himself the religion of Chriet ? He denies himself pardon for sin ;■ he rleniei himself peaca <,f conscience; he denies himself the joy of the Holy Ghost; he denies himself a comfortable death-pillow; he denies aims If the glories of heaven. Do not talk to me abjut the self-denials of the Christian life. Where there is one in the Christian life, there are a thousand in the life of the world. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. Again : I find a great deal of religious sunshine in Christian and Divine explanation. To a great many people, life is a>i inexplicable tangle. Things turn out differently from what was supposed. There is a useless woman_ in perfect health. There ia an industrious and consecrated woman a complete invalid. Explain that. There is a bad man with thirty thousands dollars of income. There is a good man with eight hundred dollars of income. Why 11 that? There is a foe of society -who lives on doing all the damage he can, to seventy-five years of age, and here is a Christian father, faithful in every depart ment of life, at thirty five years of ace taken away by deatb, his family left helpless. Explain that. Oh! theieis not a seutt-nne that ofteaer drops from your lips than this : "I cannot understand it. I cannot under stand it." Well, now, religion comes in just at that point with its

ILLUMINATION and its explanation. There is a business man -who has lost hie entire fortune. The week before he lost his fortuue there were twenty carriages that stopped at the dour of his mansion. The tveek after he lost his fortune all the carriages you could count on one finger. The week before his financial trouble began, people nil took off thiir hats to him as he passed dowu ths street. The week his financial prospects were under discussion, people just touched their hats, without anywise bending the rim. The week that he was pronounced insolvent, pe.iple just jolted their heads as th«y passed, not tipping their hats at all, and the week the sheriff sold him out, all his friends were looking in the shop windows as they went down past him. Now, while the world goes away from a man when he is in distress, the religion of Christ comes to him, and says, "You are sick, and your sickness is to be moral purification. You are bereaved ; God wanted in some way to take your family to heaven, and Hβ must begin somewhere, and so He took the one that was most beautiful and was most ready to go." I do not say that religion explains everything in this life, but I do say it lays dowu certain principles which are grandly consoUtory. You know, business men often telegraph iu ciphers. The merchant iu Chicayo telegraphs to the merchant in New York certain information in ciphers which no other man in that line of business can understand ; but the merchant in Chicago has the key to the cipher, aud the merchant in New York has the key to the cipher, and on that information transmitted there are enterprises involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, the providences of life sometimes seem to be a mysterious cipher ; but God has a key to that cipher, aud the Christiana key to that cipher, and though he may be hardly able to spell out the meaning, he gets enough of the meaning to understand that it is for the best. Now is there not sunshine in that ? Is there not pleasure in that ? Far beyond laughter, it ia nearer the fountain of tears than boisterous demonstration. Have you never cried for joy? There are tears which are eternal rapture in distillation. There are hundreds of people in this house who are walking day by day in the sublime satisfaction that all is for the best, all things working together for good for their soul. How a man can get along through this lifewithout th« explanation of religion is to me a mystury. What !is that chilil gone for ever ? Are you never to get it back ? Is your property goue for ever ? Have you no explanation, no Christian explanation, and yet not a maniac? Bat when you have the religion of Jesus Chrisb in your soul, it explains everything so far as ifc is best for you to understand. You look off in life, and your soul is full of thanksgiving to God that you are so much better off than you be. A man passad down the street without any shoes, and said, "I have no shoes ; isn't it a hardship that I have no shoes 2 Other people have shoes ; no shoes, no shoes," until he saw a man who had no feet. Then he learned a lesson. You ought to thank God for what He does instead of grumbling for what He does not. Gad arranged all

THE WEATHER in this world: the spiritual weather, the moral weather, as well as the natural weather. " What kind of weather will it be to-day ?" said some one to a farmer. The farmer replied, "It will be auch weather as I like." " What do you mean by that ?" asked the other. "Well," said the farmer, ''it will be such weather as pleases the Lord, and what pleases tho Lord pleases me." Oh! the sunshine, the sunshine of Christian explanation. Here is someone bending over the grave of the dead. What is going to be the consolation ? The flowers you strew up >n the tomb ? Oh ! no. The services read at the grave? Oh ! no. Tha chief consolation on that grave is what falls from the throne of God. Sunshine.' Glorious sunshine. Resurrection sunshine.

Again : I find a great deal of the sunshine o£ this Bibla and of our religion in the perfect joys that are to come. A man who gets up and goe3 out from a concert ri.ht after the opening voluntary has been played aud before a prima donna siugs, or before the orchestra begins, has a better idea of that concert than that man who supposes that the chief joys of religion aie in this world. We have only the first note of the eternal orchestra. Wo shall in that world (we get an antepast of it now) have the joy of discovery. We will soon citch up with the astronomers, the geologists, the scientists, the philosophers of all a.ses who Eo far surpassed us in (jhis world. We can afford to adjourn astronomy and geology and many of the sciences to the next world, because we shall there have better apparatus and better opportunity. I must study these sciences so far a3 to help me in my work, but beyond that I must give myself to saving my own soul, and saviog the souls of others, knowiug that iu one flash of eternity we will see all. Oh ! what an observatury-in which to study astronomy heaven will be ; not by power of telescope, but by supernatural vision ; and if there be something doubtful ten million miles away, by one stroke of the wing you are there, by another stroke of the wing you are back again, au.i all in less time than I tell you, catching it all iu one flash of oteruity. And geology! What a place that will bo to study geology when the world is being picked to pieces as easily as a schoolgirl in botanical lesson pulls the leaf from the corolla. What a place to study architecture, amid the thrones and the palaces au 1 the cathedrals, St. Mark's and St. Paul's rook-eri'-'S in comparison. Sometimes you wish you could make the tour of the whole earth, going around as others hare gone; but you have not the time, you have not the meaus. You will make that tour yet, during one musical pause in the eternal anthem. I say tlieaj things for the comfort of those people who are abridged in their opportunities— those people to whom life is a

HUMDRUM, ivho toil and work, and toil and work, and aspire after knowledge, but have no time to get it, and eay, "If I had the opportunities which other people have, how I would fill my mind and soul with grand thoughts !" Bβ not discouraged, my friends. You are going to the university yet. Death will only matriculate yon into the royal college of the universe. What a sublime thing ic was that Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina, uttered in his last dying moments ! As he looked up he said, " It opens, it expands, it expands."

Beside that we shall have all the pleasures of assoociation. We will go right before God without any fright. All our sins gone, there will be nothing to be frightened about. There our old Christian friends will troop around us. Just as now one of your sick friends goes away to Florida, the lansl of flowers, or to the south of France, and you do not see him for a long while, and after a while yon meet him, and the hollows und°r the eyes are all filled, and the appetite has come back, nnd the crutch has been thrown away, and he is so changed you hardly know him ; you say, " Why, I never saw you looking so well." He Bays, " 1 couldn't help but be well; I have been sailing those rivers, an'l climbing those mountains, and that's how I got this elasticity ; I never was so well. . Oh ! my friends, your depirted loved ones are only away for their health in a better climate, and when you meet them they will be so changed you will hardly know them; they will be so very much changed ; and after a while, when yon are assured that they are your departed friends, you will say : " Why, where is that cough ? where is that paralysis ? where is that pneumonia ? where is that consumption?" and he will say, "Oh ! I am entirely well; there are no sick ones in this country; I have been ranging these hills, and hence this elasticity; I have been here 1 now twenty years, and not one sick one have

I seen; we are all well in this climate." And then I stand at the gito of the celestial city to see the processions come along, and £ dee a long line of little children'with their irms fall o£ flowers, and then I see a line of kings and priests* moving in celestial pageantry—a long procession, but no blacktassellert vehicle, no mourning tjronp, and I siy, "How strange it is! vVhere ie your Greonwpod 1 where is your Laurel Hill t where is your Wo tminstar Abbey ?" And they shall cry, " There are no graves here." And then I listen for the tolling of the old belfries of heaven, theolil belfries of eternity ; 1 listen to hear them toll for the dead ; bat they toll not for the deati ; they only strike up a .' -

SILVERY CHIME, ""' tower to tower, east gate to west gate, as they ring out, " They shall hunger no more, ne-ther thir-t any more, neither shall the Him HghS on them nor any heat; for the Lamb wiiich is in cue midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Oh ! unglove your hand aud give it to me iu congratulation on that scene. I feel aa if

I could shout! I will shout ! Hallelujah, 1 Dear Lord, forgive me levercomplainedabcnt anything. If all this is before us who oarea

for anything but God ami heaven and eternal brotherhuod ? Tako the crapo off the doorbell. Your loved ones are only away for their health in a land ambrosial. Come, Lowell Mason ; come, Charles Wesley; come, Isaao Watts, and give us your best hymn. about joy celestial. What is the use of postponing our heaven auy longer? Let it begin now; aud whosoever hath a harp let her strike it; and whosuever hath a trumpet, let him b'.ow it; and whosoever hath an organ let him i»ivo us full diapason. They crowd .- down the air, spirits blest, moving closed by - tf; in cavalcade of triumph. The chariot wheelajjljfe ..< whirl iu the Sabbath suulight. They so near perhaps they wish us to join thenE llkel Oh ! my frienls, it would take a aetmoaad' long as eternity to tell the joys that are,ebtt- Ji ing to us. 1 just ect open tUe sunshiny dpor. / x Coma in, yo disciplus of the world who have -•'-'*?-. found the world a mockery. Come in, ye .'4' : disciples of the dance, and see the bounding •'■ *\« feet of this heavenly gladuess. Arise, ye *"• d'. ad in ein, for this is the morning o£ resurrection. The joys of heaven submerge our soul. X pull out the trumpet atop. Fα Thy presence there is fulness of joy 1 at Thy right haud there are pleasures for ever more."

" BlessU are th* saints bolo-ed of God ! Washed arc their rob->» i > Jesui* blood .Brighter than angels Io ! tliry shine, Tho r glories splend. d a: d sublime. "Jlysul antic pates the day— Wou:d stretch her wing and soar airay, To aid the s nig. the rtilm to bear, And bow, ihe chief of sinners therj.* . Oh ! the sunshine, the glorious sonßhineg the everlasting sunshine !