252. Pillars of Smoke

Pillars of Smoke

Solomon’92s Son_3:6 : ’93Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke?’94

The architecture of the smoke is wondrous, whether God with His finger curves it into a cloud or rounds it into a dome, or points it into a spire, or spreads it in a wing, or, as in the text, hoists it in a pillar. Watch it winding up from the country farmhouse in the early morning, showing that the pastoral industries have begun; or, see it ascending from the chimneys of the city, telling of the homes fed, the factories turning out valuable fabrics, the printing-presses preparing book and newspaper, and all the ten thousand wheels of work in motion. On a clear day this vapor spoken of mounts with such buoyancy, and spreads such a delicate veil across the sky, and traces such graceful lines of circle and semicircle, and waves and tosses and sinks and soars and scatters with such affluence of shape and color and suggestiveness that, if you have never noticed it, you are like a man who has all his life lived in Paris and yet never seen the Luxembourg, or all his life in Rome and never seen the Vatican, or all his life at Lockport and never seen Niagara. Forty-four times the Bible speaks of the smoke, and it is about time that somebody preached a sermon recognizing this strange, weird, beautiful, elastic, charming, terrific and fascinating vapor. Across the Bible sky floats the smoke of Sinai, the smoke of Sodom, the smoke of Ai, the smoke of the pit, the smoke of the volcanic hills when God touches them, and in my text the glorious Church of God coming up out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke.

In the first place, these pillars of smoke in my text indicate the suffering the Church of God has endured. What do I mean by the Church? I mean not a building, not a sect, but those who, in all ages, and all lands, and of all beliefs, love God, and are trying to do right. For many centuries the heavens have been black with the smoke of martyrdom. If set side by side you could girdle the earth with the fires of persecution. Rowland Taylor burned at Hadleigh; Latimer burned at Oxford; John Rogers burned at Smith-field; John Hooper burned at Gloucester; John Huss burned at Constance; Lawrence Saunders burned at Coventry; Joan of Arc burned at Rouen.

Protestants have represented Catholics as having a monopoly of persecutors, but both Protestant and Catholic have practiced infamous cruelties. The Catholics, during the reign of Hunneric, were by Protestants put to the worst tortures, stripped of their clothing, hoisted in the air by pulleys with weights suspended from their feet, then let down, and ears and eyes, nose and tongue were amputated, and red-hot plates of iron were put against the tenderest part of their body.

George Bancroft, the historian, says of the State of Maryland: ’93In the land which Catholics had opened to Protestants mass might not be said publicly; no Catholic priest or bishop might utter his faith in a voice of persuasion; no Catholic might teach the young. If a wayward child of a Papist would but become an apostate, the law wrested for him from his parents a share of their property. Such were the methods adopted to prevent the growth of Popery.’94

Catholicism as well as Protestantism has had its martyrs. It does seem as if when any one sect got complete dominancy in any land, the devil of persecution and cruelty took possession of that sect. Then see the Catholics after the Huguenots. See the Gentiles after the Jews in Touraine, where a great pit was dug and fire lighted at the bottom of the pit, and one hundred and sixty Jewish victims were consumed. See the Presbyterian Parliament of England, more tyrannical in their treatment of opponents than had been the criminal courts. Persecution against the Baptists by P’e6do-Baptists. Persecution of the Established Church against the Methodist Church. Persecution against the Quakers. Persecution against the Presbyterians. Under Emperor Diocletian one hundred and forty-four thousand Christians were massacred, and seven hundred thousand more of them died from banishment and exposure.

Witness the sufferings of the Waldenses, of the Albigenses, of the Nestorians. Witness St. Bartholomew’92s massacre. Witness the Duke of Alva driving out of life eighteen thousand Christians. Witness Herod and Nero, and Decius, and Hildebrand, and Torquemada, and Earl of Montfort, and Lord Claverhouse, who, when told that he must give account for his cruelties, said: ’93I have no need to account to man, and as for God, I will take Him in my own hands.’94 A red line runs through the Church history of nineteen hundred years, a line of blood. Not by the hundreds of thousands, but by the millions must we count those slain for Christ’92s sake. No wonder John Milton put the groans of the martyrs to an immortal tune, writing:

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.

The smoke of martyrs’92 homes and martyrs’92 bodies if rolling up all at once would have eclipsed the noonday sun, and turned the brightest day the world ever saw into a midnight. ’93Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke?’94

Has persecution ceased? Ask that young man who is trying to be a Christian in a store or factory, where from morning to night he is the butt of all the mean witticisms of unbelieving employes. Ask that wife whose husband makes her fondness for the house of God, and even her kneeling prayer by the bedside, a derision, and is no more fit for her holy companionship than a filthy crow would be a companion for a robin or a golden oriole. Compromise with the world and surrender to its conventionalities and it may let you alone, but all who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. Be a theatre-going, card-playing, wine-drinking, round-dancing Christian, and you may escape criticism and social pressure. But be an up-and-down, out-and-out follower of Christ, and worldling will wink to worldling as he speaks your name, and you will be put in many a doggerel, and snubbed by those not worthy to blacken your oldest shoes. When the bridge at Ashtabula broke, and let down the most of the carload of passengers to instant death, Mr. P. P. Bliss was seated on one side of the aisle of the car writing down a Christian song which he was composing, and on the other side a group of men were playing cards. Whose landing place in eternity would you prefer’97that of P. P. Bliss, the Gospel singer, or of the card-players?

A great complaint comes from the theatres about the ladies’92 high hats, because they obstruct the view of the stage, and a lady reporter asked me what I thought about it, and I told her that if the indecent pictures of actresses in the show windows were accurate pictures of what goes on in many of the theatres, night by night, then it would be well if the ladies’92 hats were a mile high, so as to completely obstruct the vision. If professed Christians go to such places during the week, no one will ever persecute them for their religion, for they have none, and they are the joke of hell. But let them live a consecrated and Christian life and they will soon run against sneering opposition.

For a compromise Christian character an easy time now, but for consecrated behavior, grimace and caricature. For the body, thanks to the God of free America, there are now no swords or fiery stakes, but for the souls of thousands of the good, in a figurative sense, rack and gibbet and Torquemada. The symbol of the domestic and social and private and public suffering of a great multitude of God’92s dear children, pillars of smoke. What an exciting scene in India when, during the Sepoy rebellion, a regiment of Highlanders came up and found the dead body of one of General Wheeler’92s daughters, who had been insulted and mauled and slain by the Sepoys. So great was the wrath against these murderers that the Scotch regiment sat down, and, cutting off the hair of this dead daughter of General Wheeler, they divided it among them, and each one counted the number of hairs given him, and each took an oath, which was executed, that for each hair of the murdered daughter they would dash out the life of a bestial Sepoy. But as we look over the story of those who in all ages have suffered for the truth, while we leave vengeance to the Lord, let us band together in one solemn vow, one tremendous oath, after having counted the host of the martyrs, that for each one of those glorious men and women who died for the truth an immortal shall live, live with God and live forever.

But as I already hinted in the first sentence of this sermon, nothing can be more beautiful than the figures of smoke on a clear sky. You can see what you will in the contour of this volatile vapor, now enhanced castles, now troops of horsemen, now bannered procession, now winged couriers, now a black angel of wrath under a spear of the sunshine turned to an angel of light, and now from horizon to horizon the air is a picture gallery filled with masterpieces of which God is the artist, morning clouds of smoke born in the sunrise, and evening clouds of smoke laid in the burnished sepulchres of the sunset.

The beauty of the transfigured smoke is a divine symbol of the beauty of the Church. The fairest of all the fair is she. Do not call those persecutors of whom I spoke, the Church. They are the parasites of the Church, not the Church itself. Her mission is to cover the earth with a supernatural gladness, to open all the prison doors, to balsam all the wounds, to moss all the graves, to burn up the night in the fireplace of a great morning, to change iron handcuffs into diamonded wristlets, to turn the whole race around, and whereas it faced death, commanding it, ’93Right about face for heaven!’94 According to the number of the spires of the churches in all our cities, towns and neighborhoods, are the good homes, the worldly prosperities, and the pure morals, and the happy souls.

Meet me at any depot the world over, and with my eyes closed, take me by the hand, and lead me so that my feet will not stumble, and without my once looking down, or looking on the level, take me to some high roof or tower and let me see the tops of the churches, and I will tell you the proportion of suicides, of arson, of murders, of thefts. According as the churches are numerous, are the crimes few. According as the churches are few, the crimes are numerous. The most beautiful organization the world ever saw or ever will see is the much-maligned Church, the friend of all good, the foe of all evil, ’93fair as the moon and clear as the sun.’94 Beautiful in her Author, beautiful in her mission, the heroine of the centuries, the bride of Christ, the queen of the nations!

Men may desecrate it, as Cromwell, when he stabled his cavalry horses in St. Paul’92s Cathedral; or break off the image of Christ, as did the iconoclasts in York Minster; or hurl against it august literary antipathies, as did Gibbon; or plot its overthrow, as do some in every community whose pride, and hate and debauchery are reproved by the Ten Commandments which it thunders, and the Sermon on the Mount which it breathes. But it will stand as long as the earth stands, the same unique, and wonder-working, and beatific, and miraculous thing for which God decreed it. Small wits tax their brain to say things that will put her at disadvantage, but many of them will send for its condolence when dying, and their children will be gathered up under its benedictions after the parental curse has been removed. Through her gates will march all the influences for good that shall ever reach our world. Take her membership as a mass, not speaking of the acknowledged exceptions, they are the noblest, grandest, kindest, best men and women of the ages. But for them the earth would long ago have been a burned-out volcano. They have been the salt that has kept the human race from putrefaction insufferable either to human or angelic olfactories.

You lying and hypocritical world, shut up those slanders about the Church of Christ, an institution which, far from being what it ought to be, and never pretending to be perfect, is five hundred times better than any other institution that the world ever saw or ever dreamt of. The highest honor I ever had, and the highest honor I shall ever receive, and the highest honor I ever want, is to have my name on her records as a member. At her altars I repented. At her sacraments I believed. In her service let me die. From her doors let me be buried. O, Church of God! Thou home of the righteous! Thou harbor from tempest! Thou refuge for the weary! Thou lighthouse of many nations! Thou type of heaven! I could kiss thy very dust with ecstasy of affection.

For her my tears shall fall,

For her my prayers ascend,

To her my toils and cares be given

Till toils and cares shall end.

’93Perfumed smoke,’94 says Solomon, in the words following my text. Not like the fumes coughed up from the throat of a steam-pipe, or poisoned with the gases of chemical factories, or floating in black wrath from the conflagration of homesteads, or sulphurous from blazing batteries, but sweet as a burning grove of cinnamon, or jungle of sassafras, or the odors of a temple censer. ’93Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense?’94 Hear it, men and women everywhere, that the advance of the genuine Church of Christ means peace for all nations.

Victor Hugo, in his book, entitled ’93Ninety-three,’94 says: ’93Nothing calmer than smoke, but nothing more startling. There are peaceful smokes, and there are evil ones. The thickness and color of a line of smoke make the whole difference between war and peace, between fraternity and hatred. The whole happiness of man, or his complete misery, is sometimes expressed in this thin vapor which the wind scatters at will.’94 The great Frenchman was right; but I go further, and say that as the kingdom of God advances like pillars of smoke, the black volumes belching from batteries of war and pouring out from portholes of ships will vanish.

A distinguished general of our civil war told me that Abraham Lincoln proposed to avoid our civil conflict by purchase of all the slaves of the South and setting them free. He calculated what would be a reasonable price for them, and, when the number of millions of dollars that would be required for such a purchase was announced, the proposition was scouted, and the North would not have made the offer, and the South would not have accepted it if made. ’93But,’94 said my military friend, ’93the war went on, and just the number of millions of dollars that Mr. Lincoln calculated would have been enough to make a reasonable purchase of all the slaves, were spent in war, besides all the precious lives that were hurled away in the two hundred and fifty battles.’94 In other words, there ought to be some other way for men to settle their controversies without butchery.

The Church of God will yet become the arbiter of nations. If the world would allow it, it could today step in between Germany and France and settle the trouble about Alsace and Lorraine, and between England and her antagonists, and between all the other nations that are flying at each other’92s throats, and command peace and disband armies, and harness for the plow the war horses now being hitched to ammunition wagons, or saddled for cavalry charge. That time must come, or through the increased facility for shooting men and blowing up cities and whelming hosts to instant death, so that we can kill a regiment easier than we could once kill a company, and kill a brigade easier than we could once kill a regiment, the patent offices of the world more busy than ever in recognizing new enginery of destruction, the human race will, after awhile, go fighting with one arm, and hobbling with one foot, and stumbling along with one eye, and some ingenious inventor, inspired of the archangel of all mischief, will contrive a machine that will bore a hole to the earth’92s centre, and some desperate nation will throw into that hole enough dynamite to blow this hulk of a planet into fragments, dropping the meteoric stones on surrounding stellar habitations.

But this shall not be, for whatever I let go, I hang on to my Bible, which tells me that the blacksmith’92s shop shall yet come to its grandest use when the warrior and the husbandman shall enter it side by side, and the soldier shall throw into its bank of fires his sword, and the farmer shall pick it up a ploughshare, and the straightest spear shall be bent into a crook at each end, and then cut in two, and what was one spear shall be two pruning-hooks. Down with Moloch and up with Christ! Let no more war horses eat out of the manger where Jesus was born.

Peace! Forever roll off the sky the black pillars of smoke from the Marengos, and Salamancas, and Borodinos, and Sedans, and Gettysburgs of earth! And right after them, roll into the heavens the peaceful vapors from the chimneys of farmhouses and asylums and churches and capitals of Christian nations, and, as the sunlight strikes through these vapors they will write in letters of jet and gold all over the sky from horizon to zenith: ’93Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men!’94

While thinking of these things I looked out from my window, and the wind was violently blowing. And I saw from many chimneys the smoke tossed in the air, and whirled in great velocity, volume after volume, fold after fold, and carried on the swift wind were the great pillars of smoke. And helped by Solomon in the text I saw the speed of the Church symbolized. Do you realize the momentum the Church of God is under? Why, the smoke of a chimney on the top of Mount Washington, when the wind is blowing sixty miles the hour, is slow as compared with the celerity of good influences. For fifty-eight centuries the devil had it his own way among the nations. Nearly all the great missionary movements have been started within the century, and see what one century has done to recover the world from fifty-eight centuries of devastation. What great revivals! What mighty churches! What saved millions!

From the ruins of Babylon and Assyria and Nineveh, and the valleys of the Nile, confirmations have been exhumed proving to all fair-minded men that the Bible is the truest Book ever written. The mythologies of Egypt were found to have embodied in them the knowledge of man’92s expulsion from Paradise, and the sacrifice of a great emancipator. Moses’92 account of the creation, corroborated by the hammer of Christian geologists; the oldest profane writers, Hiromus, Helanicus, and Berosus, confirming the Bible account of ancient longevity; Tacitus and Pliny confirming the Bible accounts of destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; Tacitus and Porphyry telling the same story of Christ as Matthew and Luke told; Macrobius telling of the massacre of children in Bethlehem, and Phlegon sketching at the crucifixion.

It is demonstrated to all honest men that it is not so certain that William Cullen Bryant wrote ’93Thanatopsis,’94 or Longfellow wrote ’93Hiawatha,’94 as that God, by the hand of prophet and apostle, wrote the Bible. All the wise men in science and law and medicine and literature and merchandise are gradually coming to believe in Christianity, and soon there will be no people who disbelieve in it except those conspicuous for lack of brain or men with two families, who do not like the Bible, because it rebukes their swinish propensities.

The time is hastening when there will be no infidels left except libertines and harlots and murderers. Millions of Christians where once there were thousands, and thousands where once there were hundreds. What a bright evening this, the evening of the nineteenth century! and the twentieth century, which is about to dawn, will, in my opinion, bring universal victory for Christ and the Church, that now is marching on with step double-quick, or, if you prefer the figure of the text, is being swept on in the mighty gales of blessing, imposing and grand and majestic and swift like pillars of smoke.

Oh, come into the Church through Christ the door, a door more glorious than that of the Temple of Hercules, which had two pillars, and one was gold, and the other emerald! Come in today! The world you leave behind is a poor world, and it will burn and pass off like pillars of smoke. Whether the final conflagration will start in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, which, in some places, have for many years been burning and eating into the heart of the mountains; or whether it shall begin near the California geysers, or whether from out the furnaces of Cotopaxi, and Vesuvius, and Stromboli, it shall burst forth upon the astonished nations, I make no prophecy; but all geologists tell us that we stand on the lid of a world, the heart of which is raging, roaring, awful flame, and some day God will let the red monsters out of their imprisonment of centuries, and New York on fire in 1835, and Charleston on fire in 1865, and Chicago on fire in 1872, and Boston on fire in 1873, were only like one spark from a blacksmith’92s forge as compared with that last universal blaze, which will be seen in other worlds. But gradually the flames will lessen, and the world will become a great living coal, and that will take on ashen hue, and then our ruined planet will begin to smoke, and the mountains will smoke, and the valleys will smoke, and the islands will smoke, and the seas will smoke, and the cities will smoke, and the five continents will be five pillars of smoke. But the black vapors will begin to lessen in height and density, and then will become hardly visible to those who look upon it from the sky galleries, and after a while from just one point there will curl up a thin, solitary vapor, and then even that will vanish, and there will be nothing left except the charred ruins of a burned-out world, the corpse of a dead star, the ashes of an extinguished planet, a fallen pillar of smoke.

But that will not interfere with your investments if you have taken Christ as your Saviour. Secure heaven as your eternal home, and you can look down upon a dismantled, disrupted, and demolished earth without any perturbation.

When wrapped in fire the realms of ether glow,

And heaven’92s last thunder shakes the earth below,

Thou, undismayed, shalt o’92er the ruins smile,

And light thy torch at Nature’92s funeral pile.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage