The House on the Wall

[Delivered in Brooklyn, N. Y., February, 9th., *And the young men that were spies, went in and brought out Rahab, and her father and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had.’ Joshua, vi, 23.

^^jg^HEN, only a few weeks ago, I visited Jericho, I it be possible that this dilapidated

^^fW place is the Jericho that Mark Antony gave as a wedding present to Cleopatra? Where are the groves of palm trees? Where are Herod’s palaces which once stood here? Where is the great theatre from the stage of which Salome told the people that Herod was dead? Where is the sycamore tree on the limb of which Zacchens sat when Jesus passed this place? Where is the wreck of the walls that fell at the blowing of the rams’ horns? But the fact that all these have disappeared did not hinder me from seeing in imagination the smash of everything on that fated day, save one

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talmage’s sermons. house on the wall. The scene centuries ago comes back to me as though it were yesterday.

A SAD HOUSE. There is a very sick and sad house in the city of Jericho. What is the matter? Is it poverty? No. Worse than that. Is it leprosy? No. Worse than that. Is it death? No. Worse than that. A daughter has forsaken her home. By what infernal plot she was induced to leave I know not; but they look in vain for her return. Sometimes they hear a footstep very much like hers* and they start up and saj;: She comes!’’ but only to sink back again into disappointment. Alas! Alas! The father sits by the hour, with his face in his hands, saying not one word. The mother’s hair is becoming gray too fast, and she begins to stoop so that those who saw her only a little while ago in the street know her not now as she passes. The brothers clench their fists, swearing vengeance against the despoiler of their home. Alas! will the poor soul never come back? There is a long, deep shadow over all the household. Added to this there is an invading army six miles away, just over the river, coming on to destroy the city; and what with the loss of their child and the coming on ot that destructive army, I think the old people wished that they could die. That is the first scene in this drama of the Bible.

TWO SPIES.

In a house on the wall of the city is that daughter. That is her home now. Two spies have come from the invading army to look around through Jericho and see how best it may be taken. Yonder is the lost child, in that dwelling on the wall of the city. The police hear of it, and soon there is the shuflSling of feet all around about the door, and the city government demands the surrender of those two spies. First, Rahab — for that was the name of the lost child — First, Rahab secretes the two spies and gets their pursuers off the track, but after awhile she says to them: ‘’I will make a bargain with you. I will save your life if you will save my life, and the life of my father and my mother, and my brothers, and my sisters, wh(fn the victorious army comes upon the city.’’ O, she had not forgotten her home yet, you see. The wanderer never forgets home. Her heart breaks now as she thinks of how she has maltreated her parents, and she wishes she were back with them again, and she wishes she could get away from her sinful enthrallment; and sometimes she looks up in the face of the midnight, bursting into agonizing tears. No sooner have these two spies promised to save her life, and the life of her father, and mother, and brothers, and sisters, than Rahab takes a scarlet cord and ties it around the body of one of the spies, brings him to the window, and as lie clambers out — nervous lest she have not strength to hold him — with muscular arms such as as woman seldom has, she lets him down, hand over hand, in safety to the ground. Not being exhausted, she ties the cord around the other spy, brings him to the windovv% and just as successfully lets him down to the ground. No sooner have these men untied the scarlet cord from their bodies than they look up, and they say: ^’You had better get all your friends in this house — your father, your mother, your brothers and your sisters; you had better get them in this house. And then, after you have them here, take this red cord which you have put around our bodies and tie it across the window, and when our victorious army comes up, and sees that scarlet thread in the window, they will Spare this house and all who are in it. Shall it be vso?”

cried the spies. *^Aye, aye,’^ said Rahab, from the window, *4t shall be so.’’ That is the second vScene in this Bible drama.

FLY! FLY!

There is a knock at the door of the old man. He looks up and says: ‘’Come in,” and lo! there is Rahab, the lost child; but she has no time to talk. They gather in excitement around her, and she says to them: ‘’Get ready quickly, and go with me to my hquse. The army is coming! The trumpet! Makehaste! Flyl The enemy”! That is the third scene in this Bible drama..

The hosts of Israel are all around about the doomed city of Jericho. Crash goes the great metropolis, heaps on heaps. The air suffocating with the dust, and horrible with the screams of a dying city. All the houses flat down. All the people dead. Ah no, no. On a crag of the wall — the only piece of the wall left standing — there is a house which we must enter. There is a family there that have been spared. Who are they? Let us go and see. Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers, her sisters, all safe, and the only house left standing in all the city. What saved them? Was the house more firmly built? Oh, no; it was built in the most perilous place — on the wall; and the wall was the first thing that fell. Was it because her character was any better than any of the other population of the city? O, no. Why, then, was she spared and all her household? Can you tell me why? O, it was the scarlet line in the window. That is the fourth scene in this Bible drama.

THE SCARLET THREAD. Yvhcn the destroying angel went through Egypt it was th’j blood of the lamb on the door posts that saved the Israelites; and now that vengeance has come upon talmage’s sermons.

Jericho it is the same color that assures the safety of Rahab and all her household. My friends, there are foes coming upon us, more deadly and more tremendous, to overthrow our immortal interests. They will trample us down and crush us out forever, unless there be some skillful mode of rescue open. The police of death already begin to clamor for our surrender; but, blessed be God, there is a way out. It is through the window, and by a rope so saturated with the blood of the cross that it - is as red as that with which the spies were lowered; and if once our souls are delivered, then the scarlet cord stretched across the window of our escape, we may defy all bombardment, earthly and satanic.

STRETCH THIS SCARLET CORD.

In the first place, carrying out the idea of my text, we must stretch this scarlet cord across the window of rescue. There comes a time when a man is surrounded. Whatisthat in the front door of his soul? Itisthethreatenings of the future. What is that in the back door of the soul? It is the sins of the past. He cannot get out of either of those doorwa^s. If he attempts it he will be cut to pieces. What shall he do? Escape through the window of God’s mercy. That sunshine has been pouring in for many a day. God’s inviting mercy. God’s pardoning mercy. God’s all conquering mercy. God’s everlasting mercy. But you say the window is so high. Ah, there is a rope, the very one with which the cross and its victim were lifted. That was strong enough to hold Christ, and it is strong enough to hold you. Bear all your weight upon it, all your hopes for this life, all your hopes for the life that is to come. Escape now through the window.

i’But,” you say, “that cord is too small to save me; that salvation will never do at all for such a sinner as i I have been.” I suppose that the rope with which Rahab let the two spies to the ground was not thick enough: but they took that or nothing. And, my dear brother, that is your alternative. There is only one scarlet line that can save you. There have been hundreds and thousands who have been borne away in safety by that scarlet line, and it will bear you away in safety. Do you notice what a very narrow escape those two spies had? I suppose they came with flustered cheek and with excited heart. They had a very narrow escape. They went in the broad door of sin; but how did they come out? They came out of the window. They went up by the stairs of stone; they came down on a slender thread. And so, my friends, we go easily and unabashedly into sin, and all the doors are open; but if we get out at all it will be by being let down over precipices, wriggling and helpless, the strong grip above keeping us from being dashed on the rocks beneath. It is easy to get into sin, young man. It is not so easy to get out of it.

THE FIRST STEP. A young man goes to the marble counter of a hotel. He asks for a brandy smash — called so, I suppose, because it smashes the man that takes it. There is no intoxication in it. As the young man receives it he does not seem to be at all excited. It does not give any glossiness to the eye. He walks home in beautiful apparel, and all his prospects are brilliant. That drink is not going to destroy him, but it is the first step on a bad road. Years have passed on, and I see that young man after he has gone the whole length of dissipation. It is midnight, and he is in a hotel — perhaps the very one where he took the first drink. A delirium is on him» He rie iVom th bed and comes to talmage’s sermons.

the window, and it is easily lifted; so he lifts it. Then he pushes back the blinds and puts his foot on the window-sill. Then he gives one spring, and the watchman finds his disfigured body, unrecognizable, on the pavement. O, if he had only waited a little while — if he had come down on the scarlet ladder that Jesus holds from the wall for him, and for you, and for me; but no, he made one jump, and was gone.

A minister of Christ was not long ago dismissed from his diocese for intoxication, and in a public meeting he gave this account of his sorrow; He said: “I had a beautiful home once; but strong drink shattered it. I had beautiful children; but this fieildof rum took their dimpled hands in his and led them to the grave. I had a wife — to know her was to love her; but she sits in wretchedness to-night, while I wander over the earth. I had a mother, and the pride of her life was I; but the thunderbolt struck her. I now have scarcely a friend in the world. Taste of the bitter cup I have tasted, and then answer me as to whether I have any hatred for the agency of my ruin. Hate it? I hate the whole damning traffic. I would to God to-night, that every distillery was in flames, for then in the glowing sky I would write in the smoke of the ruin- “V7oe to him that putteth the bottle to his neighbor’s lips!” That minister of the gospel went in through the broad door of temptation; he came out of the window. And when I see the temptations that are about us in all countries, and when I know the proclivities to sin in every man’s heart, I see that if any of us escape it will be a very narrow escape. O, if we have, my friends, got off from our sin, let us tie the scarlet thread by which we have been saved across the window. Let us do it in praise of him wliosc dyed it that color. Let it be in announce-THK house: ok tHL WALL. ment of the fact that we shall no more he fatally assaulted. “There is now no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ.*^ Then let all the forces of this world come up in cavalry charge, and let spirits of darkness come on — an infernal storming party attempting to take our soul — this rope twisted from these words. *^The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,’^ will hurl them back defeated forever.

PROTECT YOUR HOUSEHOLD. Still further, we must take this red cord of the text and stretch it across the window of our households. When the Israelitish army came up against Jericho, they said: “What is that in the window?” Some one said: “That is a scarlet line.” “Oh,” said some one else, “that must be the house that was to be spared. Dont touch it.” That Ime was thick enough, and long enough, and conspicuous enough to save Rahab, her father, her mother, her brothers and her sisters — the entire family. Have our households as good protection? You have bolts on the front door and on the back, and fastenings to the window, and perhaps burglar alarms, and perhaps aij especial watchman blowing his whistle at midnight before your dwelling; but all that cannot protect your household. Is there on our houses the sign of a Saviour’s sacrifice and mercy? Is there a scarlet line in the window? Have your children been consecrated to Christ? Have you been washed in the blood of the atonement? In what room do you have family prayers? Show me where it is you are accustomed to kneel. The sky is black with the coming deluge. Is your family inside or outside of the ark? It is a sad thing for a man to reject Christ: but to lie down and in the night of sin, across the path of heaven, so that his family come up and trip over him — that is

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terrific. It is a sad thing for a mother to reject Christ; but to gather her family around her, and then take them by the hand and lead them out into the paths of worldliness, away from God and heaven, alas! alas! There may be geranium and cactus in that family window, and upholstery hovering over it, and childish faces looking out of it, but there is no scarlet thread stretched across it. Although that house may seem to be on the best street in all the town or city, it is really on the edge of a marsh, across which sweep poisonous malarias and it has a sandy foundation, and its splendor will come down, and great will be the fall of it. A home without God! A prayerless father! An undevout mother! Awful! Awful! Is that you? Will you keep on, my brother, on the wrong road, and take your loved ones with you? Time is so short that we cannot waste any of it in apologies, or indirections, circumlocutions. You owe to your children, O father, O mother, more than food, more than clothing, more than shelter — you owe them the example of a prayerful, consecrated, pronounced, out and out Christian life. You cannot afford to keep it away from them.

MY GOOD MOTHER. Now, as I stand here, you do not see any hand outstretched towards me, and yet. there are hands on both my shoulders. They are hands of parental benediction. It is quite a good many years ago now since we folded those hands as they began their last sleep on the banks of the Raritan, in the village cemetery; but those hands are stretched out towards me to-day, and they are just as warm and they are just as gentle as when I sat on her knee at five years of age. And I shall never shake off those hands. I do not want to. They have helped me so much a thousand times already, and I do not expect to have a. trouble or a trial between this and my grave where those hands will not help me. It was not a very splendid home, as the world calls it; but we had a family bible there, well worn by tender perusal; and there was a family altar there, where we knelt morning and night; and there was a holy Sabbath there; and stretched in a straight line or hung in loops or festoons there was a scarlet line in the window. O, the tender, precious, blessed memory of a Christian home! Is that the impression you are making upon your children? When you are dead — and it will not be long before you are — when you are dead, will your child say: ^’If there ever was a good Christian father, mine was one. If there ever was a good Christian mother, mine was one?’’*

Still further: We want this scarlet line of the text drawn across the window of our prospects. I see Rahab and father, and her mother, and her brothers, and her sisters looking out over Jericho, the city of palm-trees, and across the river, and over at the army invading, and then up to the mountains and the sky. Mind you, this house was on the wall, and I suppose the prospect from the window must have been very wide. Besides that, I do not think that the scarlet line at all interfered with the view of the landscape. The assurance it gave of safety must have added to the beauty of the country. To-day, my friends, we sit in the window of earthly prospects, and we look off towards the hills of heaven and the landscape of eternal beauty. God has opened the window for us, and we look out. We only get a dim outline of the inhabitants. We now only here and there catch a note of the exquisite harmony.

THE SCARLET LINE AT THE WINDOW.

But blessed be God for this scarlet line in the window. That tells me that the blood of Christ bought that home.

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for m soul, and I shall go there when my work is done And as I put my hand on that scarlet line, every -thing in the future brightens. My eyesight gets better, and the robes of the victors are more lustrous, and our loved ones who went away some time ago — they do not stand any more with their backs to us, but their faces are this way and their voices drop through this Sabbath air, saying with all tenderness and sweetness, “Come! Come! Com!” And the child. that you think of only as buried — why, there she is, and it is May day in heaven; and they gather the amaranth, and they pluck the lilies, and they twist then into a garland for her brow, and she is one of the May queens of heaven. O, do you think they could see our waving to-day?

It is quite a pleasant day, pretty clear and, not many clouds in the sky. I wonder if they can see us from that good land? I think they can. If from this window of earthly prospects we can almost see them, then from their towers of light I think they can fully see us. And so I wave them the glory, and I wave them the joy, and I say: ^’Have you got through with all your troubles? And their voices answer: “God hath wiped away all tears from our eyes.’’ I say: “Is it as grand up there as you thought it would be?” And the voice answers: ^’Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for those that love him” I say: ‘’Do you have any more struggle for bread?” and they answer: ‘’We hunger no more, we thirst no more.” And I say: ‘’Have you been out to the cemetery of the golden city?” and they answer: “There is no death here.” And I look out through the heavens, and say: “Where do you get your light from nights, and what do you burn in the temple?” and they answer: “There talmage’s skrmons.

IS no night here, and we have no need of candle or of star,” And I say: * ‘What book do you sing out of?” and they answer: ‘’The Hallelujah Chorus.’^ And I say: “In the splendor and magnificence of the city, don’t you ever get lost?” and they answer: “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne leadeth us to living fountains of water.” O how near they seem. Their wings — do you not feel them? Their harps — do you not hear them? And all that through the window of our earthly prospects, across which stretcheth the scarlet line. Be that my choice color forever. Is it too glaring for you? Do you like the blue because it reminds you of the sky, or the green because it makes you think of the foliage, or the black because it is in the shadows of the night? I take the scarlet because it shall make me think of the price that was paid for my soul. O the blood! the blood! the blood of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

I see where you are* You are at the cross roads. The next step decides everything. Pause before you take it; but do not pause too long. I hear the blast of the trumpet that wakes the dead. Look out! Look out! For in that day, and in our closing moment on earth, better than any other defense or barricade, however high or broad or stupendous, will be one little, thin, scarlet thread in the window.