The Nation Kneeling
2Ki_20:7 : ’93And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.’94
Good Hezekiah had been given up to die by the surgeons and by the clergy. Recovery was pronounced an impossibility. Then God came to the rescue and prescribed for the illness, and a great change took place. A lump of figs was the cool and strong poultice applied to the carbuncle, and Hezekiah rises from his sick bed for fifteen more years of earthly existence.
Our afflicted United States President in his sufferings has been the anxiety of all Christendom for the last eight weeks. More recently attention was diverted from the wound by the assassin to the virulent swelling which resisted the poultice, and the danger which the doctors said was imminent and the worst. Convalescence after convalescence, relapse after relapse, and last Saturday a week he was given up to die. All the six or seven surgeons decided that he must die; all the medical men throughout the United States, so far as heard from, declared that death was just at hand; all the newspapers said that soon the President would pass out of life. Those who had been most hopeful became despairing. Just in that darkest hour, in answer to the prayers that have been going up day and night from church and storehouse, from rail-train and ship’92s deck, from all the civilized nations of the earth, a change took place, and the symptoms of the patient are more promising now than at any time since the murderous revolver attempted its work. I rejoice with trembling, but I rejoice and hope, that President Garfield will get well. But never within your memory or mine has there been such a conspicuous and indisputable evidence of the fact that God honors prayer. Men who for forty years had not offered a supplication bent the knee during the last eight weeks. People who had no suspicion that they were praying, at the first calamity cried out, ’93God help us!’94 And last Sabbath afternoon, when the cheerful bulletin came in, exclaimed, ’93Thank God!’94 You may call that what you will; I call it prayer. Sublimest of all spectacles! We have seen nations in controversy, and nations in war, but here was a nation in prayer.
In that corps of six or seven surgeons there is some of the most eminent talent of this land, and of all lands’97some of them of more ability, and others of less ability, but all admit they have done their very best. When I have thought of those surgeons under the nervous strain of the last eight weeks, all nations seeming to hold them responsible for the life of their illustrious patient, toiling on day and night amid the most depressing circumstances, all my sympathies have been aroused in their behalf, and my daily prayer has been, ’93God help and inspire and sustain and reward the doctors!’94 But, my friends, it was after all that combined medical and surgical skill had been defeated God stepped in; and he shall have all the glory, whether of present improvement, or in case of final restoration.
An unbeliever comes and says: ’93Oh! it was the result of natural causes; it was from subsidence of the parotid gland.’94 My wise friend, who made the parotid gland go down? If the Divine Physician, at the call of prayer, had not come to the bedside, the obsequies of your President would have already been concluded. This is the way God deals with nations. The Prince of Wales was down with typhoid fever. Worse and worse the case, until the official bulletin announced that he could not survive three hours. Meanwhile, his queenly mother was at prayer, and all England was at prayer, cathedral and coal shaft, House of Lords and the factory operatives, the mighty and the mean at prayer, and the tides of life which had been going out so rapidly suddenly began to rise, and the Prince of Wales got well. Had it not been for the prayers of the Christian people of this country, I believe that leaden bullet would seven weeks ago have completed its work. As surely as there is a God in Heaven, he heard prayer on the first Sabbath after the calamity, and the second Sabbath and the third Sabbath and the fourth Sabbath and the fifth and the sixth and the seventh and the eighth. I demand that you hereafter acknowledge prayer as an important factor in national prosperity. Have you not noticed in this case that every Saturday it seemed to dip to the lowest point, as if God on Sabbath morning would call upon the nation for prayer, saying, ’93You have called upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer!’94 And then almost invariably Monday morning has presented a cheerful bulletin.
We have had in this country four great consecutive harvests, and everybody supposed that the same natural causes would produce the same results, and this year we would have larger crops than ever before, because more corn had been planted, and more wheat had been sown, and more fruit had been grafted; but in all the year I have not heard one audible prayer for a great harvest. What is the consequence? The corn crop, the wheat crop, the fruit crop, almost a failure in Michigan, almost a failure in Iowa, almost a failure in Pennsylvania; and the Associated Press reports giving to us the information from Cincinnati and from Toronto and from Pittsburg and from Chicago and from the great centres of trade, ’93no rain here in three weeks,’94 ’93no rain here in four weeks,’94 ’93no rain here in six weeks,’94 ’93no rain here all summer.’94 What does it mean? Why, it means that we want some Elijah to go up on the mountain top, and with strong hands of prayer squeeze out the sponge of the cloud on the dry and thirsty land. ’93Oh!’94 you say, ’93we haven’92t any such man as Elijah now.’94 We have. The Bible distinctly says he was a poor, sinful man like ourselves. How does it read? ’93Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are; and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth gave forth her fruit.’94 I remember in my boyhood days that the Governor of New Jersey proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer on account of a great drought. We gathered in the country meeting-house, and I remember well that before the close of the service the sky began to darken with clouds, and that night the earth was saturated. ’93Oh!’94 you say, ’93it just happened so.’94 Well, if you want to worship the blind god Fate, the helpless god Fate, who is the crippled idiot of the universe, you can worship him. I am glad to know that the vast multitudes of the American people during the past few weeks have preferred to worship the God of Elijah, the God of Hezekiah, the God of earth and Heaven, the God sympathetic, as well as omnipotent; Father, as well as King.
’93But,’94 says some one, ’93suppose now there should be a bad turn in the President’92s case, and, what is possible, that he should die, then your prayer would be a failure.’94 Ah, no! What do we mean when we pray for the President? We mean his welfare and the welfare of this nation; and if God takes him it will be because it is best for his welfare, and, in some inscrutable way, best for this nation. You and I cannot understand it, but there is where Christian faith comes in. Two things you can always depend on. One is that God is always good. The other is that God is always right. Agassiz says that America was first created. So it seems that this continent is the senior of Europe, Asia and Africa’97the Yosemite older than the Alps, Lake Cayuga older than Lake Como. Now, if Agassiz be right in this great geological fact that America was the continent first created, then I say let it be the first in loyalty to God, first in worship, first in consecration to all that is good and holy and Christian.
The first great use of this national calamity is that it has driven the nation to prayer. If you ask me what to do next, I say, Go on as now, pray and pray and pray. Queen Elizabeth said to Walter Raleigh: ’93Walter, when will you cease begging?’94 Raleigh replied: ’93When your Majesty ceases giving.’94 The time for us to stop imploring the divine mercy in our behalf, and in behalf of the nation, is the time when God’92s ear becomes deaf, and his heart becomes hard, and his hand, now open in supply, is clenched in eternal denial. Have you not noticed that just as the sceptics of this country and the infidels thought that they had fully persuaded the great masses of the people in America that prayer is an absurdity, the wounding of the President makes millions of people cry to God for help? What a scene it was when the Roman army was surrounded and water was inaccessible, and the twelfth legion, all made up of Christians, knelt before God and prayed for rain. It is not a Christian record, but it is a profane record that very soon the clouds gathered and the rains descended in torrents, and these soldiers caught the rain in their helmets, holding the helmet with the left hand and then drinking, while with their right hand they continued to fight. So let this nation ever be looking up for the rain of divine help, while at the same time it goes right on in the struggle of righteousness and order and good will to men.
Another great use of this national calamity is a revelation of woman’92s courage, woman’92s faith in God, and woman’92s endurance. It is the domestic side of this calamity that has most deeply stirred the people. There never was a more difficult position opened before any woman than on the fourth of March last at the White House was opened before Mrs. Garfield. The position had been occupied four years by a very queen of womanly character and attractiveness, a model of simplicity, her presence in this nation a constant rebuke to the hollowness of fashion and the womanly extravagance which more than once directly or indirectly has plunged this nation into bankruptcy. It was no easy thing to be the successor of Mrs. President Hayes. But this national calamity has made a dark background to a beautiful picture of womanly courage and womanly sacrifice and womanly faith in God. Those two queens of modern society will go down side by side through history.
But what I want to impress upon you this morning is that all this is only a revelation of what is in woman’92s nature, and that in ten thousand inconspicuous spheres of which you have never heard, there is just as much faith in God, womanly faith in God, womanly self-sacrifice, womanly courage. The story has never been told, and it will never be told on earth; it will be told in Heaven. Of course, there are among women fools, as there are fools among men; but you have known many a wife who would sit four months, six months, by the bedside of a sick husband, giving the medicine at just the right time, no professional nurse to help, no encouraging bulletins placarded, no help from outside; with her own needle at the same time earning a livelihood for the household, buying medicines and bread, coughing her own life away in slow consumption until she dropped a martyr into the grave.
Now, while you admire, as you ought to admire, the womanly courage and faith in God, as seen in the White House, do not think it is exceptional. Greenwood is full of them; Mount Auburn is full of them; Laurel Hill is full of them; the graveyards and cemeteries of the earth are full of them. Women who lived, toiled, sacrificed, suffered, died for others. Are you surprised that one good woman should expect her husband’92s recovery after all the world said he must die? I have seen that a score of times in my parishes. After all the physicians said there was no hope, she had hope; and when death had set the signal on the brow and the life was gone, still violently resisting anything that implied that he was dead, saying: ’93He is not dead; he is no more dead than you are; he will come to.’94 Rev. Dr. Burchard, the useful minister of Christ, admired by all who know him, and many of you were baptized by him, and received into the church of Christ, and the pronunciation of his name makes you reverential’97Dr. Burchard, after severe surgery, was pronounced dead by a group of surgeons who stood in the room. One of the surgeons was deputed to go to another room and tell his wife of the death of her husband. He went with that information, and she came into the room where her husband lay. She said: ’93He is not dead; he will preach the Gospel yet for many a long year.’94 She took command of the scene and of the occasion. She told one surgeon to inflate the lungs; she told another surgeon to apply friction to the hands and to the limbs, appointing to each one his work; and they, to gratify the wish, and what would seem to be the insane wish, of a bereft wife, went to work, and after three-quarters of an hour had passed, he breathed. I suppose this very Sabbath morning he is preaching the Gospel, as he has been for twenty years since that supposed death-scene.
That is woman in awful crisis of suffering. The heroine, God’92s heroine. Why, there are five hundred women in this house this morning who have within them the elements of the heroine’97Ida Lewises and Grace Darlings, not with oar of lifeboat on raging sea, but on the awful surge of domestic calamity, if God called them to it. I say this not in any compliment or flattery. I say it because I want every honest man to know what a grand and glorious blessing God has given him if he have a good wife. She may be a little fretful and nervous under household cares, but you get down flat on your back with pneumonia, or fever, or under the wounds of an assassin, and you know better than I can tell you who would be the best watcher, and who would speak the brightest encouragement, and who for you would drop dead in her tracks. I thank God for this revelation from the White House of woman’92s courage and woman’92s faith in God and woman’92s endurance, not a revelation of something new, but a revelation of something very old.
Another practical use of this great national calamity is that it has disgusted more than ever people with this free use of firearms. There is too much shooting going on in this country. If a man insults you, shoot him; if a man doubts your veracity, shoot him; if a man stand in the way of your advancement, shoot him. It is bang, bang, bang! And there are Guiteaus in all the towns and villages and cities of this country. There are too many pistols, and human life is too cheap. I wish that this Washington ruffian going about with a navy revolver in his pocket, practising at a mark so as not to fail hitting the heart of the President, might disgust all our young men with the habit of carrying deadly weapons.
On the frontier, or if it is your business as an officer of the law to make arrest of desperados, you had better be armed. Armed police, armed sheriffs, armed explorers, armed jail-keepers, are well enough; but it is high time that all respectable citizens snap in two their sword canes and unload their deadly weapons. If you move in reputable society in Brooklyn or New York or Washington or London you have no need of any more weapons than the two weapons which God gave you, two honest fists. If you feel the need of having a pistol in your pocket, you are a miserable coward. If you are afraid to go down the street unarmed, you had better get your grandmother with her knitting needles to go with you! I am glad that the Common Council of Brooklyn last week passed an ordinance forbidding the carrying of deadly weapons, or gave new emphasis to a law previously enacted. A pistol is the meanest and most infernal weapon ever invented. It is compact and portable murder. There is some dignity about a sword. If you are going to take a man’92s life with a sword you have to expose your own life, and so some courage is demanded; but a pistol is the weapon of a sneak. I would as soon carry a toad in my vest pocket! And what is more, the people who carry deadly weapons in this country are people of ungovernable temper. Now, if a man be cold and phlegmatic and calculating in his nature, there is not much danger in his carrying deadly weapons; but if a man be quick and sharp and irritable and violent and gunpowdery and explosive in his nature, he ought not to carry anything more dangerous than a dull jack-knife. You do not know what, under temptation, you might do. Away with this pistol business. Let Charles Guiteau and John Wilkes Booth have all the honors of assassination.
Another practical use of this great national calamity is the ordination of suffering. If President Garfield get well’97and he has conquered so many occasions of relapse and collapse that I shall expect him to get well until I know he is buried’97if the President get well, he will go forth to his work with an ordination such as no President ever had. Ordination, not by the laying on of human hands, but ordination by the laying on of hands of pain, hands of fever, hands of midnight anguish, hands of national solicitude, hands of mercy, both hands of God. During these whole eight weeks our President has looked over into the next world and he will feel his responsibility; if he comes back to us, he will come as from the very presence of God; and though all this year should be absorbed in convalescence, from fourth of March to fourth of March, he would have left three full, round years in which to scourge the seven devils of American politics and bury the putrescent carcass of Mormonism where it can no longer poison the nation.
If he get well, I say, he will have an ordination that no other man ever had. Our other Presidents, for the most part, so far as reform has been concerned, have been divided into two classes’97those who had the moral disposition but not the courage, and those who had the courage but not the moral disposition. President Garfield, during the past eight weeks, has shown he has the courage, for if a man is not afraid of death, he is not afraid of anything, and he has shown also that he has the moral disposition. If he shall come forth from the sick bed under this ordination of suffering, look out, political corruption; look out, polygamy, look out. There will be hundreds of people who, now praying that he may live, will pray that he may die. If fully recovered, he goes forth from this ordination of suffering, he will be a thunderbolt in the right hand of God launched against the gigantic evils that are afflicting this country. But, my friends, we have all felt this ordination of suffering, and are we not ready to do better work as patriots, as reformers, as philanthropists, and as Christians? National suffering, political suffering, financial suffering, domestic suffering, ought to be ordination. It is not health, it is not gladness, it is not prosperity, which qualify for especial work, but suffering, sharp suffering, intense suffering, long-continued suffering. Fire of pain, fire of persecution, fire of bereavement, are ordination. It was not until Beethoven had become so deaf he could not hear the fortissimo of a full orchestra that he composed his chief oratorio. It was not until John Milton had become stone-blind that he could dictate the sublimest poem of the ages. It was not until Walter Scott was kicked off the horse and confined to the house for many days that he could write the ’93Lay of the Last Minstrel.’94 The painter who mixes his colors with blood from his own broken heart makes the best pictures. The mightiest men of all the ages have been mightiest in their agonies. Oh, my friend, do not think that God sent trouble on you to break you down; it is for inspiration and for lifting up. God grant that this national trouble may be national ordination!
I remark once more, this great calamity ought to teach us to be contented with our humble lot. What a time our new President has had! Not one moment of rest, or quiet, or peace since he stepped into the White House. Weary, worn out, shot. There is not one person in this house this morning, who, so far as comfort and quiet are concerned, but is better off than he. Public men are targets to be shot at, belied, pursued, misinterpreted, assassinated. But it is no new story; it has always been so. I was surprised to read what Macaulay wrote in one of his intense sentences, after all his bright career in the English Parliament, and after being renowned the world over by all who could admire fine writing and great thought’97Macaulay says: ’93Every friendship which a man may have becomes precarious as soon as he engages in politics.’94 Daniel Webster, after his wonderful career and in the close of his life, writes: ’93If I were to live my life over again, with my present experiences, I would under no considerations allow myself to enter public life. The public are ungrateful. The man who serves the public most faithfully receives no adequate reward. In my own history those acts which have been before God most disinterested, and the least stained by selfish considerations, have been precisely those for which I have been most freely abused. No, no, have nothing to do with politics. Sell your iron, eat the bread of independence, support your family with the rewards of honest toil, do your duty as a private citizen to your country, but let politics alone. It is a hard life, a thankless life. I have had in the course of my political life, which is not a short one, my full share of ingratitude; but the unkindest cut of all, the shaft that has sunk the deepest in my heart, has been the refusal of this administration to grant my request for an office of small pecuniary consideration for my only son.’94
That is the testimony of a man who ought to know. My friends, better stay down than be shot down. He who has a good occupation, a good home, a good character, a good field of usefulness, and a good hope in Jesus Christ has all that is worth having. More than that is exposure, is chagrin, is worriment, is exhaustion, is death. By the turmoil, and the consternation, and the horror of the White House, for the last eight weeks, I solemnly charge you, ’93Be content with such things as you have; you brought nothing into the world, and it is very certain you can carry nothing out. Having food and raiment, be therewith content.’94
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage