102. Garrison Duty

Garrison Duty

1Sa_30:24 : ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

If you have never seen an army change quarters you have no idea of the amount of baggage’97twenty loads, fifty loads, a hundred loads of baggage. David and his army were about to start on a double-quick march for the recovery of their captured families from the Amalekites. So they left by the brook Besor their blankets, their knapsacks, their baggage, and their carriages. Who shall be detailed to watch this stuff? There are sick soldiers and wounded soldiers and aged soldiers who are not able to go on this swift military expedition, but who are able to do some work, and so they are detailed to watch the baggage. There is many a soldier who is not strong enough to march thirty miles in a day, and then plunge into a ten hours’92 fight, who is able with drawn sword lifted against his shoulder to pace up and down as a sentinel to keep off an enemy who might put the torch to the baggage. There are two hundred of these crippled and aged and wounded soldiers detailed to watch the baggage. Some of them, I suppose, had bandages across the brow, and some of them had their arms in slings, and some of them walked on crutches. They were not cowards shirking duty. They had fought in many a fierce battle for their country and their God. They are now part of the time in hospital, and part of the time on garrison duty. They almost cry because they cannot go with the other troops to the front. While these sentinels watch the baggage, the Lord watches the sentinels.

There is quite a different scene being enacted in the distance. The Amalekites, having ravaged and ransacked and robbed whole countries, are celebrating their success in a roaring carousal. Some of them are dancing on the lawn with wonderful gyration of heel and toe, and some of them are examining the spoils of victory’97the finger rings and earrings, the necklaces, the wristlets, the head-bands diamond starred, and the coffers with coronets and cornelians and pearls and sapphires and emeralds, and all the wealth of plate and jewels and decanter and the silver and the gold banked up on the earth in princely profusion, and the embroideries and the robes and the turbans and the cloaks of an imperial wardrobe. The banquet has gone on until the banqueters are maudlin and weak and stupid and indecent and loathsomely drunk. What a time it is now for David and his men to swoop on them. So the English lost the battle of Bannockburn because the night before they were in wassail and bibulous celebration, while the Scotch were in prayer. So the Syrians were overthrown in their carousal by the Israelites. So Chedorlaomer and his army were overthrown in their carousal by Abraham and his men. So our Northern forces were defeated in a battle because one of the commanders was drunk. Now is the time for David and his men to swoop upon these carousing Amalekites. Some of the Amalekites are hacked to pieces on the spot, some of them are just able to go staggering and hiccoughing off the field, some of them crawl on camels and speed off in the distance.

David and his men gather together the wardrobes, the jewels, and put them upon the backs of camels, and into wagons, and they gather together the sheep and cattle that had been stolen, and start back toward the garrison.

Yonder they come! yonder they come! The limping men of the garrison come out and greet them with cheer. The Bible says David saluted them. That is, he asked them how they all were. ’93How is your broken arm?’94 ’93How is your fractured jaw?’94 ’93Has the stiffened limb been unlimbered?’94 ’93Have you had another chill?’94 ’93Are you getting better?’94 He saluted them.

But now came a very difficult thing, the distribution of the spoils of victory. Drive up those laden camels now. Who shall have the spoils? Well, some selfish soul suggests that these treasures ought all to belong to those who had been out in active service. ’93We did all the fighting, while these men stayed at home in the garrison, and we ought to have all the treasures.’94 But David looked into the worn faces of these veterans who had stayed in the garrison, and he looked around and saw how cleanly everything had been kept, and he saw that the baggage was all safe, and he knew how that these wounded and crippled men would gladly enough have been at the front if they had been able, and the little general looks up from under his helmet and says: ’93No, no; let us have fair play;’94 and he rushes up to one of these men and he says, ’93Hold your hands together,’94 and the hands are held together, and he fills them with silver. And he rushes up to another man who was sitting away back and had no idea of getting any of the spoils, and throws a Babylonish garment over him and fills his hand with gold. And he rushes up to another man who had lost all his property in serving God and his country years before, and he drives up some of the cattle and some of the sheep that they had brought back from the Amalekites, and he gives two or three of the cattle and three or four of the sheep to this poor man, so he shall always be fed and clothed. He sees a man so emaciated and worn out and sick he needs stimulants and he gives him a little of the wine that he brought from the Amalekites. Yonder is a man who has no appetite for the rough rations of the army, and he gives him a rare morsel from the Amalekitish banquet, and the two hundred crippled and maimed and aged soldiers who tarried on garrison duty get just as much of the spoils of battle as any of the two hundred men that went to the front. ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

The impression is abroad that the Christian rewards are for those who do conspicuous service in distinguished places’97great martyrs, great patriots, great preachers, great philanthropists. But my text sets forth the idea that there is just as much reward for a man who stays at home and minds his own business, and who, crippled and unable to go forth and lead in great movements and in the high places of the earth, does his whole duty just where he is. Garrison duty as important and as remunerative as service at the front. ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

The Earl of Kintore said to me on an English railway: ’93Mr. Talmage, when you get back to America I want you to preach a sermon on the discharge of ordinary duty in ordinary places, and then send me a copy of it.’94 Afterward an English clergyman coming to this land brought from the Earl of Kintore the same message. Alas! that before I got ready to do what he asked me to do, the good Earl of Kintore had departed this life. But that man, surrounded by all palatial surroundings and in a distinguished sphere, felt sympathetic with those who had ordinary duties to perform in ordinary places and in ordinary ways. A great many people are discouraged when they hear the story of Moses and of Joshua and of David and of Luther and of John Knox and of Deborah and of Florence Nightingale. They say: ’93Oh, that was all good and right for them, but I shall never be called to receive the law on Mount Sinai, I shall never be called to command the sun and the moon to stand still, I shall never be called to slay a giant, I shall never preach on Mars Hill, I shall never defy the Diet of Worms, I shall never be called to make a queen tremble for her crimes, I shall never preside over a hospital.’94

There are women who say: ’93If I had as brilliant a sphere as those people had, I should be as brave and as grand; but my business is to get the children off to school and to hunt up things when they are lost and to see that dinner is ready and to keep account of the household expenses and to hinder the children from being strangulated by the whooping cough, and to go through all the annoyances and vexations of housekeeping. Oh, my sphere is so infinitesimal and so insignificant, I am clear discouraged.’94 Woman, God places you on garrison duty, and your reward will be just as great as that of Florence Nightingale, who, moving so often night by night with a light in her hand through the hospitals, was called by the wounded the ’93lady of the lamp.’94 Your reward will be just as great as that of Mrs. Hertzog, who built and endowed theological seminary buildings. Your reward will be just as great as that of Hannah More, who by her excellent books won for her admirers Garrick and Edmund Burke and Joshua Reynolds. Rewards are not to be given according to the amount of noise you make in the world, nor even according to the amount of good you do, but according to whether you work to your full capacity, according to whether or not you do your full duty in the sphere where God has placed you.

Suppose you give to two of your children errands and they are to go off to make purchases, and to one you give one dollar and to the other you give twenty dollars. Do you reward the boy to whom you gave twenty dollars for purchasing more with that amount of money than the other boy purchased with one dollar? Of course not. If God give wealth or social position or eloquence or twenty times the faculty to a man that he gives to the ordinary men, is he going to give to the favored man a reward because he has more power and more influence? Oh, no! In other words, if you and I do our whole duty, and you have twenty times more talent than I have, you will get no more divine reward than I will. Is God going to reward you because he gave you more? That would not be fair, that would not be right. These two hundred men of the text who fainted by the brook Besor did their whole duty; they watched the baggage, they took care of the stuff, and they got as much of the spoils of victory as the men who went to the front. ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

There is high encouragement in this for all who have great responsibility and little credit for what they do. You know the names of the great commercial houses of these cities. Do you know the names of the confidential clerks’97the men who have the key to the safe, the men who know the combination of the lock? A distinguished merchant goes forth at the summer watering place and he flashes past, and you say: ’93Who is that?’94 ’93Oh,’94 replies some one, ’93don’92t you know? that is the great importer, that is the great banker, that is the great manufacturer.’94 The confidential clerk has his week off. Nobody notices whether he comes or goes. Nobody knows him, and after a while his week is done, and he sits down again at his desk. But God will reward his fidelity just as much as he recognizes the work of the merchant philanthropist whose investments this unknown clerk so carefully guarded. Hudson River Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, Erie Railroad, New York and New Haven Railroad’97business men know the names of the presidents of these roads and of the prominent directors; but they do not know the names of the engineers, the names of the switchmen, the names of the flagmen, the names of the brakemen. These men have awful responsibilities, and sometimes through the recklessness of an engineer, or the unfaithfulness of a switchman, it has brought to mind the faithfulness of nearly all the rest of them. Such men do not have recognition of their services. They have small wages and much complaint. I very often ride upon locomotives, for I like engineers, and riding on the locomotive you seem to get there sooner, and I ask the question, as we shoot around some curve, or under some ledge of rocks, ’93How much wages do you receive?’94 and I am always surprised to find how little for such vast responsibility. Do you not suppose God is going to recognize that fidelity? Thomas Scott, the president of the Pennsylvania Railway, going up at death to receive from God his destiny, was no better known in that hour than was known the brake-man who last night on the Erie Railroad was jammed to death amid the car coupling. ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

Once, for thirty-six hours we expected every moment to go to the bottom of the ocean. The waves struck through the skylights and rushed down into the hold of the ship and hissed against the boilers. It was an awful time; but by the blessing of God and the faithfulness of the men in charge we came out of the cyclone and we arrived at home. Each one before leaving the ship thanked Captain Andrews. I do not think there was a man or woman that went off that ship without thanking Captain Andrews, and when years after I heard of his death I was impelled to write a letter of condolence to his family in Liverpool. Everybody recognized the goodness, the courage, the kindness of Captain Andrews; but it occurs to me now that we never thanked the engineer. He stood away down in the darkness amid the hissing furnaces doing his whole duty. Nobody thanked the engineer, but God recognized his heroism and his fidelity, and there will be just as high reward for the engineer who worked out of sight as the captain who stood on the bridge of the ship in the midst of the howling tempest. ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

A Christian woman was seen going along the edge of a wood every eventide, and the neighbors in the country did not understand how a mother with so many cares and anxieties should waste so much time as to be idly sauntering out evening by evening. It was found out afterward that she went there to pray for her household, and while there one evening she wrote that beautiful hymn, famous in all ages for cheering Christian hearts:

I love to steal a while away

From every cumbering care,

And spend the hours of setting day

In humble, grateful prayer.

Shall there be no reward for such unpretending yet everlasting service?

Clear back in the country there is a boy who wants to go to college and get an education. They call him a bookworm. Whenever they find him’97in the barn or in the house’97he is reading a book. ’93What a pity it is,’94 they say, ’93that Ed cannot get an education.’94 His father, work as hard as he will, can no more than support the family by the product of the farm. One night Ed has retired to his room and there is a family conference about him. The sisters say: ’93Father, I wish you would send Ed to college; if you will, we will work harder than we ever did, and we will make our old dresses do.’94 The mother says: ’93Yes, I will get along without any hired help; although I am not as strong as I used to be, I think I can get along without any hired help.’94 The father says, ’93Well, I think by husking corn nights I can get along without any assistance.’94 Sugar is banished from the table, butter is banished from the plate. That family is put down on rigid, yea, suffering economy, that the boy may go to college. Time passes on. Commencement Day has come. Think not that I mention an imaginary case. God knows it happened. Commencement Day has come, and the professors walk in on the stage in their long gowns. The interest of the occasion is passing on, and after a while it comes to a climax of interest as the valedictorian is to be introduced. Ed has studied so hard and worked so well that he has had the honor conferred upon him. There are rounds of applause, sometimes breaking into vociferation. It is a great day for Ed. But away back in the galleries are his sisters in their plain hats and their faded shawls, and the old-fashioned father and mother’97dear me, she has not had a new hat for six years, he has not had a new coat for six years’97and they get up and look over on the platform, and they laugh and they cry, and they sit down, and they look pale, and then they are very much flushed. Ed gets the garlands, and the old-fashioned group in the gallery have their full share of the triumph. They have made that scene possible, and in the day when God shall more fully reward self-sacrifices made for others, he will give grand and glorious recognition. ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

There is high encouragement in this subject also for those who once wrought mightily for Christ and the church, but through sickness or collapse of fortune or advanced years cannot now go to the front. These two hundred men of the text were veterans. Let that man bare his arm and show how the muscles were torn. Let him pull aside the turban and see the mark of a battle axe. Pull aside the coat and see where the spear thrust him. Would it have been fair for those men crippled, weak and old, by the brook Besor, to have no share in the spoils of triumph? I was in the soldiers’92 hospital in Paris and I saw there some of the men of the First Napoleon, and I asked them where they had fought under their great commander. One man said, ’93I was at Austerlitz.’94 Another man said, ’93I was at the Pyramids.’94 Another man said, ’93I was in the awful retreat from Moscow.’94 Another man said, ’93I was at the bridge of Lodi.’94 Some of them were lame, they were all aged. Did the French Government turn off those old soldiers to die in want? No; their last days were spent like princes. Do you think my Lord is going to turn off his old soldiers because they are weak and worn and because they fainted by the brook Besor? Are they going to get no part of the spoils of the victory? Just look at them. Do you think those crevices in the face are wrinkles? No; they are battle scars. They fought against sickness, they fought against trouble, they fought against sin, they fought for God, they fought for the church, they fought for the truth, they fought for Heaven. When they had plenty of money their names were always on the subscription list. When there was any hard work to be done for God, they were ready to take the heaviest part of it. When there came a great revival, they were ready to pray all night for the anxious and the sin-struck. They were ready to do any work, endure any sacrifice, do the most unpopular thing that God demanded of them. But now they cannot go further. Now they have physical infirmities, now their heads trouble them. They are weak and faint by the brook Besor. Are they to have no share in the triumph? Are they to get none of the treasures, none of the spoils of conquest? You must think that Christ has a very short memory if you think he has forgotten their services.

Fret not, ye aged ones. Just tarry by the stuff and wait for your share of the spoils. Yonder they are coming. I hear the bleating of the fat lambs and I see the jewels glint in the sun. It makes me laugh to think how you will be surprised when they throw a chain of gold over your neck, and tell you to go in and dine with the King. I see you backing out because you feel unworthy. The shining ones come up on the one side, and the shining ones come up on the other side, and they push you on and they push you up, and they say, ’93Here is an old soldier of Jesus Christ,’94 and the shining ones will rush out toward you and say, ’93Yes, that man saved my soul,’94 or they will rush out and say, ’93Oh, yes, she was with me in the last sickness.’94 And then the cry will go round the circle, ’93Come in, come in, come up, come up; we saw you away down there, old and sick and decrepit and discouraged because you could not go to the front, but ’91As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’92’93

There is high consolation also in this for aged ministers. They sit in pews in our churches. They used to stand in pulpits. Their hair is white with the blossoms of the tree of life. Their names marked on the roll of the General Assembly, or of the consociation, ’93Emeritus.’94 They sometimes hear a text announced which brings to mind a sermon they preached fifty years ago on that same subject. They preached more Gospel on four hundred dollars a year than some of their successors preach on four thousand dollars. Some Sunday the old minister is in a church and near by in another pew there is a husband and a wife and a row of children. And after the benediction the lady comes up and says, ’93Doctor, you don’92t know me, do you?’94 ’93Well,’94 he says, ’93Your face is familiar, but I cannot call you by name.’94 ’93Why,’94 she says, ’93You baptized me and you married me and you buried my father and mother and sisters.’94 ’93Oh, yes,’94 he says; ’93my eyesight isn’92t as good as it used to be.’94

They are in all our churches’97the heroes of 1860, the heroes of 1870, the heroes of 1880. By the long grave trench that cut through half a century, they have stood sounding the resurrection. They have been in more Balaklavas and have taken more Sebastopols than you ever heard of. Sometimes they get a little fretful because they cannot be at the front. They hear the sound of the battle and the old war horse champs his bit. But the eighty thousand ministers of religion this day standing in the brunt of the fray shall have no more reward than those retired veterans. ’93My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.’94 ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

Cheer up, men and women of unappreciated services. You will get your reward, if not here, hereafter. When Charles Wesley comes up to judgment and the thousands of souls which were wafted into glory through his songs shall be enumerated, he will take his throne. When John Wesley comes up to judgment, and after his name has been mentioned in connection with the salvation of the millions of souls brought to God through the Methodism which he founded, he will take his throne. But between the two thrones of Charles Wesley and John Wesley, there will be a throne higher than either on which shall sit Susannah Wesley, who, with maternal consecration in Epworth rectory, Lincolnshire, started those two souls on their triumphant mission of sermon and song through all following ages. Oh, what a day that will be for many who rocked Christian cradles with weary foot, and who patched worn-out garments and darned socks, and out of a small income made the children comfortable for the winter! What a day that will be for those to whom the world gave the cold shoulder and called them nobodies, and begrudged them the least recognition, and who, weary and worn and sick, fainted by the brook Besor. Oh, that will be a mighty day when the Son of David shall distribute among them the garlands, the crowns, the scepters, the chariots, the thrones. And then it shall be found out that all who on earth served God in inconspicuous spheres receive just as much reward as those who filled the earth with uproar of achievement. Then they shall understand the height, the depth, the length, the breadth, the pillared and domed magnificence of my text, ’93As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage