The Stark County Democrat

THE LABOR QUESTION.

Rev. Dr. T. De Witt Talmage

Discourses of "The Battle for Bread."

"And the Ravens Brought Him Bread and Flesh in the Morning and Bread and Flesh in the Evening."

The subject of the sermon of Rev. Dr. Talmage, in the Brooklyn Tabernacle was "The Battle for Bread," and the text was taken from I. Kings, xvii., 6: "And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening." Dr. Talmage said:

The ornithology of the Bible is a very interesting study. The stork, which knoweth her appointed time. The swallow, teaching the lessons of God's providence. The ostriches of the desert, by careless incubation, illustrating the recklessness of parents who do not take enough pains with their children. The eagle, symbolizing riches which take wing and fly away. The pelican, emblemizing solitude. The bat, a flake of the darkness. The night-hawk, the ossifrage, the cuckoo, the lapwing, the osprey, by the command of God in Leviticus, hung out of the world's bill of fare. I would like to have been with Audubon as he went through the woods with gun and pencil bringing down and sketching the fowls of heaven, his unfolded portfolio thrilling all Christendom. What wonderful creatures of God the birds are! Some of them this morning, like the songs of heaven let loose, bursting through the gates of heaven. Consider their feathers, which are clothing and conveyance at the same time; the fine vertebrae of the neck, the three eyelids to each eye, the third eyelid an extra curtain for shutting the light of the sun. Some of these birds scavengers and some of them orchestra. Thank God for quail's whistle and lark's carol and the twitter of the wren, called by the ancients the king of birds, because when the fowls of heaven went into a contest as to who could fly the highest, and the eagle swung nearest the sun, a wren on the back of the eagle, after the eagle was exhausted, sprang up much higher, and so was called by the ancients the king of birds. Consider those of them that have golden crowns and crests, showing them to be feathered imperials. And listen to the humming-birds serenade in the ear of the honeysuckle. Look at the belted kingfisher, striking like a dart from sky to water. Listen to the voice of the owl, giving the key-note to all croakers. And behold the condor among the Andes, battling with the reindeer. I do not know whether an aquarium or aviary is the best altar from which to worship God.

There is an incident in my text that baffles all the ornithological wonders of the world. The grain crop had been cut off. Famine was in the land. In a cave by the brook Cherith sat a minister of God, Elijah, waiting for something to eat. Why did he not go to the neighbors? There were no neighbors; it was a wilderness. Why did he not pick some of the berries? There were none. If there had been, they would have been dried up. Seated one morning at the mouth of his cave the prophet looks into the dry and pitiless heavens, and he sees a flock of birds approaching. Oh, if they were only partridges, or if he only had an arrow with which to bring them down! But as they come nearer he finds they are not comestible but unclean, and the eating of them would be spiritual death. The strength of their beak, the length of their wings, the blackness of their color, their loud, harsh "cruck! cruck!" prove them to be ravens. They whirr round about the prophet's head, and then they come on fluttering wing and pause on the level of his lips, and one of the ravens brings bread and another raven brings meat, and after they have discharged their tiny cargo they wheel past, and others come, until after awhile the prophet has enough, and these black servants of the wilderness table are gone. For six months, and some say a whole year, morning and evening, the breakfast and supper bell sounded as these ravens rang out on the air their "cruck! cruck!" Guess where they got the food from. The old rabbins say they got it from the kitchen of King Ahab. Others say that the ravens got their food from pious Obadiah, who was in the habit of feeding the persecuted. Some say that the ravens brought the food to their young in the trees, and that Elijah had only to climb up and get it. Some say that the whole story is improbable; for these were carnivorous birds and the food they carried was the torn flesh of living beasts, and that ceremonially unclean; or it was carrion and it would not have been fit for the prophet. Some say they were not ravens at all, but that the word translated "ravens" in the text ought to have been translated "Arabs;" so it would have read: "The Arabs brought bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening." Anything but admit the Bible to be true. Hew away at this miracle until all the miracle is gone. Go on with the depleting process, but know, my brother, that you are robbing only one man—and that is yourself—of one of the most comforting, beautiful, pathetic, and triumphant lessons in all the ages. I can't tell you who these purveyors were: they were ravens. I can tell you who freighted them with provision: God. I can tell you who launched them: God. I can tell you who taught them which way to fly: God. I can tell you who told them at what cave to swoop: God. I can tell you who introduced raven to prophet and prophet to raven: God. There is one passage I will whisper in your ear, for I would not want to utter it aloud, lest someone should drop down under its power: "If any man shall take away from the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city." While, then, this morning we watch the ravens feeding Elijah, let the swift dove of God's spirit sweep down the sky with divine food, and on outspread wing pause at the lip of every soul hungering for comfort.

On the banks of what rivers have been the great battles of the world? While you are looking over the map of the world to answer that, I will tell you the great conflict to-day is on the Thames, on the Hudson, on the Mississippi, on the Kennebec, on the Savannah, on the Rhine, on the Nile, on the Ganges, on the Hoang-Ho. It is a battle that has been going on for six thousand years. The troops engaged in it are fourteen hundred millions, and those who have fallen are vaster in numbers than those who march. It is a battle for bread. Sentimentalists sit in a cushioned chair, in their pictured study, with their slippered feet on a damask ottoman, and say that this world is a great scene of avarice and greed. It does not seem so to me. If it were not for the absolute necessities of the case, nine-tenths of the stores, factories, shops, banking houses of the land would be closed to-morrow. Who is that man delving in the Colorado hills? or toiling in a New England factory? or going through a roll of bills in the bank? or measuring a fabric on the counter? He is a champion sent forth in behalf of some home circle that has to be cared for, in behalf of some church of God that has to be supported, in behalf of some asylum of mercy that has to be sustained. Who is that woman bending over the sewing-machine? or carrying the bundle, or sweeping the room? or mending the garment, or sweltering at the wash-tub? That is Deborah, one of the Lord's heroines, battling against Amalekitish want, which comes down with iron chariot to crush her and hers.

The great question with the vast majority of people to-day is not "home-rule," but whether there shall be any home to rule; not one of tariff, but whether they shall have anything to tax. The great question with the vast majority of people is "How shall I support my family? How shall I meet my notes? How shall I pay my rent? How shall I give food, clothing, and education to those who are dependent upon me?" Oh, if God would help me to-day to assist you in the solution of that problem, the happiest man in the house would be your preacher. I have gone out on a cold morning with expert sportsmen to hunt for pigeons; I have gone out on the meadow to hunt for quail; I have gone out on the marsh to hunt for reed birds; but this morning I am out for ravens.

Notice, in the first place, in the story of my text that these winged caterers came to Elijah directly from God. "I have commanded the ravens that they feed thee," we find God saying in an adjoining passage. They did not come out of some other cave. They did not just happen to alight there. God freighted them, God launched them, and God told them by what cave to swoop. That is the same God that is going to supply you. He is your Father. You would have to make an elaborate calculation before you could tell me how many pounds of food and how many yards of clothing would be necessary for you and your family; but God knows without any calculation. You have a plate at His table and you are going to be waited on unless you act like a naughty child and kick and scramble and pound saucily the plate and try to upset things. God has a vast family and everything is methodized, and you are going to be served if you will only await your turn. God has already ordered all the suits of clothes you will ever need, down to the last suit in which you shall be laid out. God has already ordered all the food you will ever eat, down to the last crumb that will be put in your mouth in the dying sacrament. It may not be just the kind of food or apparel we would prefer. The sensible parent depends on his own judgment as to what ought to be the apparel and the food of the minor in the family. The child would say: "Give me sugars and confections." "Oh, no," says the parent, "you must have something plainer first." The child would say: "Oh, give me these great blotches of color in the garment." "No," says the parent, "that wouldn't be suitable."

Now, God is our father and we are minors, and He is going to clothe us and feed us, although He may not always yield to our infantile wish for sweets and glitter. These ravens of the text did not bring pomegranates from the glittering platter of King Ahab. They brought bread and meat. God had all the heavens and the earth before Him and under Him, and yet He sends this plain food, because it was best for Elijah to have it. Oh, be strong, my hearer, in the fact that the Same God is going to supply you! It is never "hard times" with Him. His ships never break on the rocks. His banks never fail. He has the supply for you, and He has the means for sending it. He has not only the cargo, but the ship. If it were necessary He would swing out from the heavens a flock of ravens reaching from His gate to yours, until the food would be flung down the sky from beak to beak and from talon to talon.

Notice again in this story of the text that the ravens did not allow Elijah to hoard up a surplus. They did not bring enough on Monday to last all the week. They did not bring enough one morning to last until the next morning. They came twice a day and brought just enough for one time. You know as well as I, that the great fret of the world is that we want a surplus—we want the ravens to bring enough for fifty years. You have more confidence in the Fulton bank or Nassau bank or Bank of England than you have in the Royal bank of heaven. You say: "All that is very poetic, but you may have the black ravens: give me the gold eagles."

We had better be content with just enough. If in the morning your family eat up all the food there is in the house, do not sit down and cry and say: "I don't know where the next meal is to come from." About 5 or 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning, just look up and you will see two black spots in the sky, and you will hear the flapping of wings, and instead of Edgar A. Poe's insane raven alighting on the chamber door, "only this and nothing more," you will find Elijah's two ravens, or the two ravens of the Lord—the one bringing bread and the other bringing meat—feathered butcher and baker.

God is infinite in resource. When the city of Rochelle was besieged and the inhabitants were dying of famine, the tides washed up on the beach as never before, and as never since, enough shell fish to feed the whole city. God is good. There is no mistake about that. History tells us that in 1555 in England there was a great drought. The crops failed, but in Essex, on the rocks, in a place where they had neither sown nor cultured, a great crop of peas grew until they filled a hundred measures; and there were blossoming vines enough promising as much more.

But why go so far? I can give you a family incident. Some generations back there was a great drought in Connecticut, New England. The water disappeared from the hills, and the farmers living on the hills drove their cattle down toward the valleys, and had them supplied at the wells and fountains of the neighbors. But these after a while began to fail, and the neighbors said to Mr. Birdseye, of whom I shall speak: "You must not send your flocks and herds down here any more, our wells are giving out." Mr. Birdseye, the old Christian man, gathered his family at the altar, and with his family he gathered the slaves of the household—for bondage was then in vogue in Connecticut—and on their knees before God they cried for water: and the family story is, that there was weeping and great sobbing at their altar that the family might not perish for lack of water, and that the herds and flocks might not perish. The family rose from the altar. Mr. Birdseye, the old man, took his staff and walked out over the hills, and in a place where he had been scores of times without noticing anything in particular he saw the ground was very dark, and he took his staff and turned up the ground, and water started; and he beckoned to his servants, and they came and they brought pails and buckets until all the family and all the flocks and the herds were cared for, and then they made troughs reaching from that place down to the house and barn, and the water flowed, and it is a living fountain to-day.

Again, this story of the text impresses me that relief came to this prophet with the most unexpected, and with seemingly impossible, conveyance. If it had been a robin redbreast, or a musical meadow-lark, or a meek turtle-dove, or a sublime albatross that had brought the food to Elijah, it would not have been so surprising. But no. It was a bird so fierce and inauspicate that we have fashioned one of our most forceful and repulsive words out of it—ravenous. That bird has a passion for picking out the eyes of men and of animals. It loves to maul the sick and the dying. It swallows with vulturous guzzle everything it can put its beak on; and yet all the food Elijah gets for six months or a year is from ravens. So your supply is going to come from an unexpected source. You think some great-hearted, generous man will come along and give you his name on the back of your note, or he will go security for you in some great enterprise. No, he will not; God will open the heart of some Shylock toward you. Your relief will come from the most unexpected quarter. The Providence which seemed ominous will be to you more than that which seemed auspicious. It will not be a chaffinch with breast and wing dashed with white and brown and chestnut; it will be black raven.

There was a child born in your house. All your friends congratulate you. The other children of the family stood amused looking at the new-comer and asked a great many questions, genealogical and chronological. You said—and you said truthfully—that a white angel flew through the room and left the little one there. That little one stood with its two feet in the very center of your sanctuary of affection, and with its two hands it took hold of the altar of your soul. But one day there came one of the three scourges of children—scarlet fever, or croup, or diphtheria—and all that bright scene vanished. The chattering, the strange questions, the pulling at the dresses as you crossed the floor—all ceased. As the great friend of children stooped down and leaned toward that cradle, and took the little one in His arms and walked away with it into the bower of eternal summer, your eye began to follow Him, and followed the treasure He carried, and you have been following them ever since, and instead of thinking of heaven only once a week, as formerly, you are thinking of it all the time, and you are more pure and tender-hearted than you used to be, and you are patiently waiting for the day-break. It is not self-righteousness in you to acknowledge that you are a better man than you used to be—you are a better woman than you used to be. What was it that brought you to the sanctifying blessing? Oh, it was the dark shadow on the nursery; it was the dark shadow on the short grave; it was the dark shadow on your broken heart; it was the brooding of a great black trouble; it was a raven—it was a raven! Dear Lord, teach this people that white providences do not always mean advancement, and that black providences do not always mean retrogression.

Children of God get out of your despondency. The Lord never had so many ravens as he has this morning. Fling your fret and worry to the winds. Sometimes under the vexations of life you feel like my little girl of 4 years, who said under some childish vexation: "Oh, I wish I could go to heaven and see God and pick flowers!" He will let you go when the right time comes to pick flowers. Until then, whatever you want pray for. I suppose Elijah prayed pretty much all the time. Tremendous work behind him. Tremendous work before him. God has no spare ravens for idlers or for people who are prayerless. I put it in the boldest shape possible and I am willing to risk my eternity on it. Ask God in the right way for what you want, and you shall have it if it is best for you. Mrs. Jane Pithey, of Chicago, a well-known Christian woman, was left by her husband a widow with one half dollar and a cottage. She was palsied and had a mother 90 years of age to support. The widowed soul every day asked God for all that was needed in the household, and the servant even was astonished at the precision with which God answered the prayers of that woman, item by item, item by item. One day rising from the family altar, the servant said: "You have not asked for coal and the coal is out." Then they stood and prayed for the coal. One hour after that the servant threw open the door and said, "The coal has come." A generous man, whose name I could give you, had sent as never before and never since—a supply of coal. You cannot understand it. I do. Ravens! Ravens!

My friend, you have a right to argue from precedent that God is going to take care of you. Has He not done it two or three times every day? That is most marvelous. I look back and I wonder that God has given me food three times a day regularly all my lifetime, never missing but once, and then I was lost in the mountains: but that very morning and that very night I met the ravens. Oh, the Lord is so good that I wish all this people would trust Him with the two lives—the life you are now living and that which every tick of the watch and every stroke of the clock informs you is approaching. Bread for your immortal soul comes to-day. See! They alight on the platform. They alight on the backs of all the pews. They swing among the arches. Ravens! Ravens! "Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness, for they shall be filled." To all the sinning and the sorrowing and the tempted deliverance comes this hour. Look down and you see nothing but your spiritual deformities. Look back, and you see nothing but wasted opportunities. Cast your eye forward, and you have a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary. But look up, and you behold the whipped shoulders of an interceding Christ and the face of a pardoning God and the irradiation of an opening heaven. I hear the whirr of their wings. Do you not feel the rush of the air on your cheek? Ravens! Ravens!

There is only one question I want to ask: How many of this audience are willing to trust God for the supply of their bodies and trust the Lord Jesus Christ for the redemption of their immortal souls? Amid the clatter of the hoofs and the clang of the wheels of the judgment chariot the whole matter will be demonstrated.