456. Our Own Generation

Our Own Generation

Act_13:36 : ’93David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.’94

That is a text which has for a long time been running through my mind, but not until now has it been fully revealed to me. Sermons have a time to be born as well as a time to die, a cradle as well as a grave.

David, cowboy and stone-slinger and fighter and czar and dramatist and blank verse writer and prophet, did his best for the people of his time, and then went and laid down on the southern hill of Jerusalem in that sound slumber which nothing but an archangelic blast can startle. ’93David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.’94

It was his own generation that he had served; that is, the people living at the time he lived. And have you ever thought that our responsibilities are chiefly with the people now walking abreast of us? There are about four generations to a century now, but in olden time life was longer, and there was, perhaps, only one generation to a century. Taking these facts into the calculation, I make a rough guess and say that there have been at least one hundred and eighty generations of the human family. With reference to them we have no responsibility. We cannot teach them, we cannot correct their mistakes, we cannot soothe their sorrows, we cannot heal their wounds. Their sepulchers are deaf and dumb to anything we might say to them. The last regiment of that great army has passed out of sight. We might halloo as loud as we could, not one of them would avert his head to see what we wanted.

I admit that I am in sympathy with the child whose father had suddenly died, and who in her little evening prayer wanted to continue to pray for her father, although he had gone into heaven, and no more needed her prayers, and looking up into her mother’92s face, said: ’93O mother, I cannot leave him all out. Let me say, ’91Thank God that I had a good father once, so I can keep him in my prayers.’92’93 But the one hundred and eighty generations have passed off. Passed up. Passed down. Gone forever. Then there are generations to come after our earthly existence has ceased. Perhaps a hundred and eighty generations more, perhaps a thousand generations more. We shall not see them, we shall not hear any of their voices, we will take no part in their convocations, their elections, their revolutions, their catastrophies, their triumphs. We will in nowise affect the one hundred and eighty generations gone, or the one hundred and eighty generations to come, except as from the galleries of heaven the former generations look down and rejoice at our victories, or as we may by our behavior start influences, good or bad, that shall roll on through the advancing ages. But our business is, like David, to serve our own generation, the people now living, those whose lungs now breathe and whose hearts now beat. And mark you, it is not a silent procession, but moving. It is a ’93forced march’94 at twenty-four miles a day, each hour being a mile. Going with that celerity, it has got to be a quick service on our part, or no service at all. We not only cannot teach the one hundred and eighty generations past, and will not see the one hundred generations to come, but this generation now on the stage will soon be off, and we ourselves will be off with them. The fact is, that you and I have to start very soon for our work, or it will be ironical and sarcastic for any one after our exit to say of us, as it was said of David, in our text, ’93After he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell on sleep.’94

Well, now, let us look around earnestly, prayerfully, in a common-sense way, and see what we can do for our own generation. First of all, let us see to it that, as far as we can, they have enough to eat. The human body is so constituted that three times a day it needs food as much as a lamp needs oil, as much as a locomotive needs fuel. To meet this want God has girdled the earth with apple orchards, orange groves, wheat fields, and oceans full of fish, and prairies full of cattle. And notwithstanding this, I will undertake to say that the vast majority of the human family are suffering either for lack of food or the right kind of food. Our civilization is all askew on this subject, and God only can set it right.

Many of the greatest estates of today have been built out of the blood and bones of unrequited toil. In olden times, for the building of forts and towers, the inhabitants of Ispahan had to contribute seventy thousand human skulls, and Bagdad ninety thousand human skulls, and that number of people were slain to furnish the skulls. But these two contributions added together made only one hundred and sixty thousand skulls, while into the tower of the world’92s wealth and pomp and magnificence have been wrought the skeletons of uncounted numbers of the half-fed populations of the earth’97millions of skulls. Do not sit down at your table with five or six courses of abundant supply and think nothing of that family in the next street who would take any one of those five courses between soup and almond nuts and feel they were in heaven. The lack of the right kind of food is the cause of much of the drunkenness. After drinking what many of our grocers call coffee, sweetened with what many call sugar, and eating what many of our butchers call meat, and chewing what many of our bakers call bread, many of the laboring classes feel so miserable they are tempted to put into their nasty pipes what the tobacconist calls tobacco, or go into the drinking saloons for what the rumsellers call beer. Good coffee would do much in driving out bad rum. Adulteration of food has got to be an evil against which all the health officers and all the doctors and all the ministers and all the reformers and all the Christians need to set themselves in battle array.

How can we serve our generation with enough to eat? By sitting down in embroidered slippers and lounging back in an armchair, our mouth puckered up around a Havana of the best brand and through clouds of luxuriant smoke reading about political economy and the philosophy of strikes? No! No! By finding out who in our own city has been living on gristle, and sending them a tenderloin beefsteak. Seek out some family who through sickness or conjunction of misfortune have not enough to eat, and do for them what Christ did for the hungry multitudes of Asia Minor, multiplying the loaves and the fishes. Let us quit the surfeiting of ourselves until we cannot choke down another crumb of cake, and begin the supply of others’92 necessities.

We often see on a small scale the recklessness about the welfare of others which a great warrior expressed on a large scale when his officers were dissuading him from a certain campaign, saying, ’93It would cost two hundred thousand lives,’94 replying with a diabolism that can never be forgotten, ’93What are two hundred thousand lives to me?’94

So far from helping appease the world’92s hunger there are those whom Isaiah describes as grinding the faces of the poor. You have seen a farmer or a mechanic put a scythe or an ax on a grindstone, while some one was turning it round and round, and the man holding the ax bore on it harder and harder, while the water dropped from the grindstone, and the edge of the ax from being round and dull got keener and keener. And the mechanic lifted the ax, glistening and sharp, and with edge so keen he must cautiously run his finger along, lest while examining the implement he cut his hand to the bone. So I have seen men who were put against the grindstone of hardship, and while one turned the crank, another would press the unfortunate harder down and harder down until he was ground away thinner and thinner’97his comforts thinner, his prospects thinner and his face thinner. And Isaiah shrieks out: ’93What mean ye that ye grind the faces of the poor?’94 It is an awful thing to be hungry. It is an easy thing for us to be in good humor with all the world when we have no lack. But let hunger take full possession of us, and we would all turn into barbarians and cannibals and fiends.

I am glad to know that the time is coming, God hasten it! when every family in the round world will sit down at a full table and it will be only a question between lamb and venison, or between partridge or quail on toast, and out of spoons made of Nevada silver or California gold the luxuries will drop on tongues thrilling with thankfulness because they have full enough. I have no idea God is going to let the human race stay in its present predicament. If the world winds up as it now is, it will be an awful failure of a world! The barren places will be made fertile. The pomologist, helped of God, will urge on the fruits. The botanist, inspired of the Lord, will help on the gardens. The raiser of stock will send enough animals fit for human food to the market, and the last earthquake that rends the world will upset a banquet table at which are seated the entire human race.

Suppose that some of the energy we are expending in useless and unavailing talk about the bread question should be expended in merciful alleviations. I read that the battle-field on which more troops met than on any other in the world’92s history was the battle-field of Leipsic, one hundred and sixty thousand men under Napoleon, two hundred and fifty thousand men under Schwarzenberg. No, no! The greatest and most terrific battle is now being fought all the world over; it is the struggle for food. The ground tone of the finest passage in one of the great musical masterpieces, the artist says, was suggested to him by the cry of the hungry populace of Vienna as the king rode through and they shouted, ’93Bread! Give us bread!’94 And all through the great harmonies of musical academy and cathedral I hear the pathos, the ground tone, the tragedy, of uncounted multitudes, who with streaming eyes and wan cheeks and broken hearts, in behalf of themselves and their families, are pleading for bread.

Let us take another look around to see how we may serve our generation. Let us see, as far as possible, that they have enough to wear. God looks on the human race, and knows just how many inhabitants the world has. The statistics of the world’92s population are carefully taken in civilized lands, and every few years officers of government go through the land and count how many people there are in the United States or England, and great accuracy is reached. But when people tell us how many inhabitants there are in Asia or Africa, at best it must be a wild guess. Yet God knows the exact number of people on our planet, and he has made enough apparel for each, and if there be fifteen hundred million fifteen thousand fifteen hundred and fifteen people, then there is enough apparel for fifteen hundred million fifteen thousand fifteen hundred and fifteen. Not slouchy apparel, not ragged apparel, not insufficient apparel, but appropriate apparel. At least two suits for every being on the earth, a summer suit and a winter suit. A good pair of shoes for every living mortal. A good coat, a good hat, or a good bonnet, and a good shawl, and a complete masculine or feminine outfit of apparel. A wardrobe for all nations, adapted to all climes, and not a string or a button or a pin or a hook or an eye wanting. But, alas! where are the good clothes for three-fourths of the human race? The other one-fourth have appropriated them. The fact is, there needs to be, and will be, a redistribution. Not by anarchistic violence. If outlawry had its way, it would rend and tear and diminish, until instead of three-fourths of the world not properly attired, four-fourths would be in rags.

I let you know how the redistribution will take place. By generosity on the part of those who have a surplus, and increased industry on the part of those suffering from deficit. Not all, but the large majority of cases of poverty in this country, are a result of idleness or drunkenness, either on the part of the present sufferers or their ancestors. In most cases the rum jug is the maelstrom that has swallowed down the livelihood of those who are in rags. But things will change, and by generosity on the part of the crowded wardrobes, and industry and sobriety on the part of the empty wardrobes, there will be enough for all to wear. God has done his part toward the dressing of the human race. He grows a surplus of wool on the sheep’92s back, and flocks roam the mountains and valleys with a burden of warmth intended for transference to human comfort, when the shuttle of the factories, reaching all the way from the Chattahoochee to the Merrimac, shall have spun and woven it. And here comes forth the Rocky Mountain goat and the cashmere and the beaver. There are the Merino sheep, their origin traced back to the flocks of Abrahamic and Davidic times. In white letters of snowy fleece, God has been writing for a thousand years his wish that there might be warmth for all nations. While others are discussing the effect of high or low tariff, or no tariff at all, on wool, you and I had better see if in our wardrobes we have nothing that we can spare for the shivering, or pick out some poor lad of the street and take him down to a clothing store and fit him out for the winter. Do not think that God has forgotten to send ice and snow because of a wonderfully mild January and February. We shall have deep snows and so much frost on the window pane that in the morning you cannot see through it; and whole flocks of blizzards, for God long ago declared that winter as well as summer shall not cease, and between this and the spring crocus we may all have reason to cry out with the psalmist: ’93Who can stand before his cold?’94

Again, let us look around and see how we may serve our generation. What short-sighted mortals we would be if we were anxious to clothe and feed only the most insignificant part of a man, namely, his body, while we put forth no effort to clothe and feed and save his soul. What are we doing for the souls of this present generation? Let me say it is a generation worth saving. Most magnificent men and women are in it. We make a great ado about the improvements in navigation and in locomotion and in art and machinery. We remark what wonders of telegraph and telephone and the stethoscope. What improvement is electric light over a tallow candle! But all these improvements are insignificant compared with the improvement of the human race. In olden times, once in a while, a great and good man or woman would come up, and the world has made a great fuss about it ever since, but now they are so numerous we scarcely speak about them. We put a halo about the people of the past, but I think if the times demanded them it would be found we have now living in this year 1889 fifty Martin Luthers, fifty George Washingtons, fifty Lady Huntingdons, fifty Elizabeth Frys. During our Civil War more splendid warriors in North and South were developed in four years than the whole world developed in the previous twenty years. I challenge the four thousand years before the flood and the eighteen centuries after the flood to show me the equal of charity, on a large scale, of George Peabody. This generation of men and women is more worth saving than any of the one hundred and eighty generations that have passed off.

But where shall we begin? With ourselves. That is the pillar from which we must start. Prescott, the blind historian, tells us how Pizarro saved his army for the right when they were about deserting him. With his sword he made a long mark on the ground. He said: ’93My men, on the north side are desertion and death, on the south side is victory; on the north side Panama and poverty, on the south side Peru with all its riches. Choose for yourselves; for my part I go to the south.’94 Stepping across the line, one by one his troops followed, and finally his whole army. The sword of God’92s truth draws the dividing line today. On one side of it are sin and ruin and death, on the other side are pardon and usefulness and happiness and heaven. You cross from the wrong side to the right side, and your family will cross with you, and your friends and your associates. The way you go, they will go. If we are not saved, we will never save any one else. How to get saved? Be willing to accept Christ, and then accept him instantaneously and forever. Get on the Rock first, and then you will be able to help others upon the same Rock. Men and women have been saved quicker than I have been talking about it. What! without time deliberately to think it over? Yes. What! without a tear? Yes, believe! That is all. Believe what? That Jesus died to save you from sin and death and hell. Will you? Do you? You have. Something makes me think you have. New light has come into your countenances. Welcome! Welcome! Hail! Hail!

Saved yourselves, how are you to save others? By testimony. Tell it to your family. Tell it to your business associates. Tell it everywhere. We will successfully preach no more religion, and will successfully talk no more religion, than we ourselves have. The most of what you do to benefit the souls of this generation, you will effect through your own behavior. Go wrong, and that will induce others to go wrong. Go right, and that will induce others to go right. When the great Centennial Exhibition was being held in Philadelphia, the question came up among the directors as to whether they should keep the Exposition open on Sundays, when a director, who was a man of the world from Nevada, arose and said, his voice trembling with emotion and tears running down his cheeks: ’93I feel like a returned prodigal. Twenty years ago I went west, and into a region where we had no Sabbath, but today old memories come back to me, and I remember what my glorified mother taught me about keeping Sunday, and I seem to hear her voice again and feel as I did when every evening I knelt by her side in prayer. Gentlemen, I vote for the observance of the Christian Sabbath.’94 And he carried everything by storm, and when the question was put, ’93Shall we open the exhibition on Sabbath? it was almost unanimous, ’93No,’94 ’93No.’94 What one man can do if he does right, boldly right, emphatically right!

I confess to you that my one wish is to serve this generation, not to antagonize it, not to damage it, not to rule it, but to serve it. I would like to do something toward helping unstrap its load, to stop its tears, to balsam its wounds, and to induce it to put foot on the upward road that has at its terminus acclamation rapturous and gates pearline and garlands amaranthine and fountains rainbowed and dominions enthroned and coroneted, for I cannot forget that lullaby in the closing words of my text: ’93David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.’94

What a lovely sleep it was! Unfilial Absalom did not trouble it. Ambitious Adonijah did not worry it. Persecuting Saul did not harrow it. Exile did not fill it with nightmare. Since a red-headed boy, amid his father’92s flocks at night, he had not had such a good sleep. At seventy years of age he lay down to it. He had had many a troubled sleep, as in the caverns of Adullam, or in the palace at the time his enemies were attempting his capture. But this was a peaceful sleep, a calm sleep, a restful sleep, a glorious sleep. ’93After he had served his generation by the will of God, he fell on sleep.’94 Oh, what a good thing is sleep after a hard day’92s work! It takes all the aching out of the head, and all the weariness out of the limbs, and all the smarting out of the eyes. From it we rise in the morning, and it is a new world. And if we, like David, serve our generation, we will at life’92s close have most desirable and refreshing sleep. In it will vanish our last fatigue of body, our last worriment of mind, our last sorrow of soul. To the Christian’92s body that was hot with raging fevers, so that the attendants must by sheer force keep on the blankets, it will be the cool sleep. To those who are thin-blooded and shivering with agues, it will be the warm sleep. To those who, because of physical disorders, were terrified with night visions, it will be the dreamless sleep. To nurses and doctors and mothers who were wakened almost every hour of the night by those to whom they ministered, or over whom they watched, it will be the undisturbed sleep. To those who could not get to bed till late at night, and must rise early in the morning, and before getting rested, it will be the long sleep.

Away with all your gloomy talk about departure from this world! If we have served our generation it will not be putting out into the breakers, it will not be the fight with the King of Terrors; it will be going to sleep. A friend, writing me from Illinois, says that Rev. Dr. Wingate, President of Wake Forest College, North Carolina, after a most useful life, found his last day on earth his happiest day; and that in his last moments he seemed to be personally talking with Christ, as friend with friend, saying: ’93Oh, how delightful it is! I knew you would be with me when the time came, and I knew it would be sweet, but I did not know it would be as sweet as it is.’94 The fact was. he had served his generation in the Gospel ministry, and by the will of God he fell on sleep. Grimshaw, the evangelist, when asked how he felt in his last moments, responded, ’93As happy as I can be on earth and as sure of glory as if I were in it. I have nothing to do but to step out of this bed into heaven.’94 Having served his generation in successful evangelism, he fell asleep. When in Africa, Majwara, the servant, looked into the tent of David Livingstone and found him on his knees, he stepped back, not wishing to disturb him in prayer, and some time after, went in and found him in the same posture, and stepped back again; but, after a while, went in and touched him, and lo! the great traveler had finished his last journey, and he had died in the grandest and mightiest posture a man ever takes’97on his knees. He had served his generation by unrolling the scroll of a continent, and by the will of God fell on sleep.

What if we could get this whole generation saved! The people who are living with us the same year and amid the same stupendous events and flying toward the future swifter than eagles to their prey. We cannot stop. We say, ’93Come now, my friend, let us stop and discuss this subject;’94 but we do not stop, the hour does not stop. The year is a great wheel, and there is a band on that wheel that keeps it revolving, and as that wheel turns it turns three hundred and sixty-five wheels, which are the days, and then each of these three hundred and sixty-five wheels turns twenty-four smaller wheels, which are the hours, and these twenty-four smaller wheels turn sixty smaller wheels, which are the minutes, and these sixty smaller wheels turn sixty smaller wheels, which are the seconds, and they keep rolling, rolling, rolling, mounting mounting, mounting, swiftening, swiftening, swiftening. O God! If our generation is going like that, and we are going with them, waken us to the short but vast opportunity.

In the museum of Greenwich hospital, England, there is a fragment of a book that was found in the arctic regions amid the relics of Sir John Franklin, who had perished amid the snow and ice, and the leaf of that piece of a book was turned down at the words, ’93When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee.’94 Having served his generation in the cause of science and discovery by the will of God, he fell on sleep.

Why will you keep us all so nervous taking about that which is only a dormitory and a pillowed slumber, canopied by angels’92 wings? Sleep! Transporting sleep! And what a glorious awakening! You and I have sometimes been thoroughly bewildered after a long, fatiguing journey; we have stopped at a friend’92s house for the night, and after hours of complete unconsciousness we have opened our eyes, and the high risen sun full in our faces, and, before we could fully collect our faculties, have said: ’93Where am I, whose house is this, and whose are these gardens?’94 And then it has flashed upon us in glad reality. And I should not wonder if, after we have served our generation, and, by the will of God, have fallen on sleep, the deep sleep, the restful sleep, we should awake in blissful bewilderment and for a little while say: ’93Where am I? What palace is this? Why, this looks like heaven! It is. It is. Why, there is a building grander than all the castles of earth heaved into a mountain of splendor’97that must be the palace of Jesus. And look there, at those walks lined with a foliage more beautiful than anything I ever saw before, and see those who are walking down those aisles of verdure. From what I have heard of them, those two, arm in arm, must be Moses and Joshua, him of Mount Sinai, and him of the halting sun over Ajalon. And those two walking arm in arm must be John and Paul, the one so gentle and the other so mighty.

But I must not look any longer at those gardens of beauty, but examine this building in which I have just awakened. I look out of the window this way and that, and up and down, and I find it is a mansion of immense size in which I am stopping. All its windows of agate and its colonnades of porphyry and alabaster. Why, I wonder if this is not the house of ’93Many Mansions’94 of which I used to read? It is, it is. There must be many of my kindred and friends in this very mansion. Hark! whose are those voices, whose are those bounding feet? I open the door and see, and lo! they are coming through all the corridors and up and down all the stairs, our long absent kindred. Why, there is father, there is mother, there are the children. All well again. All young again. All of us together again. And as we embrace each other with the cry, ’93Never more to part! never more to part!’94 the arches, the alcoves, the hallways, echo and re-echo the words, ’93Never more to part! never more to part!’94 Then our glorified friends say, ’93Come out with us and see heaven.’94 And, some of them bounding ahead of us and some of them skipping beside us, we start down the ivory stairway. And we meet, coming up, one of the kings of ancient Israel, somewhat small of stature, but having a countenance radiant with many victories. And as all are making obeisance to this great one of heaven I cry out, ’93Who is he?’94 and the answer comes: ’93This is the greatest of all the kings. It is David, who, after he had served his generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage