Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-02-09
DOWNFALL OF RELIGION.
DIR. TALMAGE TAKES HIS TEXT
FROM ACTS H., 20.

BROOKLYN, n. V. Feb. S.-Before tn,
sermon to-day DR.. Talmage expounded
chapter from the Prophecies. The open
ing hymn was:
From Greenlands icy mountains,
From India's coral strands,
Where Afrlc's sunny fountains
Roll down her golden sands"
DR.. Talmage's subject was ''The Down
fall of Religion" and his text was taker
from Acts H., 20: "The sun shall be turned
into darkness" The following is the ser
mon in full:
Solar eclipse is here prOphesied to take place
Just before the destruction of Jerusalem
Josephus, the worldly historian, says thai
| TINS prophecy was literally fulfilled, and thai
| the skies were full of strange appearances
about this time. OF course the sun was moi
oOllterated, but clouds rolled between il and
| the earth. Christianity Is the rising sun in
| eur time, but there are mqny who by the up
| rolling yapors of skepticism and the smoke oi
| into darkness.
Suppose the archangels of malice and horror
! were unlOOsed and permitted to eXtinguish
| the sun IN the natural heavens. They throw
on that great lamp of our planetary system
| oceans from other worlds, and the waters roll
| Kissing down into the ravines and chasms of
that great luminary, and explosion follows
| explosion until only a few peaks of fire are
| left, and now they are cooling off and going
| down until the vast continents of flame are
| reduced to a small acreage of fire, and this
mas been reduced to few Goals, and they are
| whitening and soon go out, not a spark left in
| the mountains of ashes and the valleys of
| ashes and the oaverns of ashes. An eXiin-
| gulshed sun. A dead sun. A buried SUM-
Let all worlds vail at the stupendous obse-
qules.
| Under this withdrawal of solar light and
| neat our earth, of course, takes universal
| chill, and the tropics become the temperate
| N a no tnrn IL 4
| there are frozen rivers and frozen lakes and
| frozen oceans. The inhabitants gather in
| If0m arctic and antarctic regions toward the
centre, to find the equator as the poles The
slain forests are heaped into huge bonfres
! around which shivering villages and cities
gather. The wealth of all the coal mines is
| hastily poured into furnaces and stirred into
rage OF combustion; but even the bOnfrcs are
| lowering, and the furnaces are cooling Off
| and the nations are dying. VesuVius and Co
| topaX and Stromboli and the Californian
| geysers cease their smoke, and the ice of the
hallstOrms remains unmelte1 in the craters
All the flowers have breathed their last
breath. All the leaves of the forests have
Ialen. Ships on the sea, with sailors frozen
at the mast, and helmsman frozen at the
Wneel, ana passengers frozen IN the cabin.
All nations dylng-6rst at the North then at
at the south. Children frosted and dead in
| Ine cradle. Octogenarlan frosted ana dead
| by the hearth. Workmen. with frozen arm
| holding the hammer, or with frozen foot on
| the shuttle. Winter in all zones, winter
| petual winter. Hemisphere shackled to
| hemisphere. Globe of frigIdity. Universal
Nova Zembla. The whole earth an ice-1oe
| grinding against other ice foes, So the arch
angels OF malice and horror have put out the
| natural sun and destrOyediOur world, and they
may take their throne OF glacier and their
| crown OF ice and their sceptre of icicle.
What the ObliteratiOn Of the natural sun
would do for the natural world the de-
| structiOn of Christianity would do for the
moral World-the sun turned into darkness.
A the present time lntidelty is a Joke. There
are people who will give 80 cents or 81 TO hear
Christianity assailed by epigram and quibble,
and Dadlnage and harlequlnade. If correctly
reported one of the lOudest laughs in Brook
yn The tire last Sabbath night was at the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.
the One who came to carry our sorrows. /
read from that lecture the following in re
gard to Christ: "Nhen He was here He was
tOrglving and half human But now He is
God. Instead of saying Father forgive them,
for they know not what they do He sends
them TO eternal fire. 1t is wonderful the
difference Office makes with some people
Laughter"
Now, there is one law that ought either to
be erased from the statute book or else exc
cuted, ana that IS the law against blasphemy.
w nat Is DlaSpnemy? / went into the law IL
brary and l find this authority: "BIasphe-
nous words against God. cOntumelious re-
proaches and profane ridicule of Christ or the
Holy Scriptures are Offenses punishable at
common law whether uttered by words or in
writing" If a poor drunken man stood on
the street corner this morning and took the
name of God irreverently on his lips In pres-
ence of passers-by, he would be grabbed and
hustled to the police station. But there is not
a city authority in the United States that has
backbone enough to stop the indecent and
bla5Dhem0uS utterance OF last Sunday NIGHT
though it is being delivered in all the cities
Penalties and prisons for those who defamc
the most insignificant man in the city, but
defamation of God has perfect immunity II
would have been the finest drama ever enact
ed on the stage of that Brooklyn Theatre it,
in the midst of such utterances nv friend
Patrick Campbell, Chief of Police, who be-
heyes In God and Christ had, with platoon
of his officers, stepped upon the stage and
gently putting his hand upon the shoulder of
the lecturer said: ''In the name of the com
mon law of this country, and In the name Of
the families of Brooklyn, this infamv must
stop, and stop here and stop now"
but" says some one, "are you not in favor
Of free speechF' on, yes; L am in favor of
all styles of freedOm-free driving of horses
but not liberty to run over people in The
street; free fire in your stove, but not incen-
dlarlsp or the burning of the property OF
others; free air, but not permission to poison
that which other breathe: free use of knives
but no right to stab others; free use OF gun,
powder, but no allowance for assassination:
free speech, but no permission for Obscenitv
or SANDER or false swearing or blasDbemV:
free to do right and act according to law but
never free to do wrong and against law
call the attention of judges and ATTORNEYS and
police commissioners and mayors of cities to
the Importance of either driving the law
against blasphemy from the statute book or
putting it into immediate execution. There
will III some of our cities arise authority taU
enough to see beyond all political surround
ings and strong enough to execute the stat
utes of the States, and then we shall have no
more of the eXecrable and dastardly abOml-
nations that were uttered last Sabbath night
in Brooklyn theatre, and the carrion stencil
of leprous intidelity will be fumigated from
the atmosphere.
There is a class of persons in all our COM
tv hOnIOO 10 nVar bPOv II
tian religion, and many who are bold to saw
that the world will be better off without it
than with it. L want to show them the end of
this road, the terminus OF this crusade and
what will be the state of things on the sun
position that they triumph.
First, woman's complete and unutterable
degradation. l will prove it by arguments
and facts that no sound or honest being VIII
dispute. In the communities and the cities
and the nations where the Christian religion
has reigned WOman's condition has 6epn
amelOrated and improved and she is hOnOred
and deferred to in a thousand things and
there is not gentleman who does not take off
his hat In her presence. She may in the
United states and England suffer some inius-
tice, but she has more OF her rights in Chris
tendon than anywhere else. If your associa-
tions have been good, you know that the
words wife and mother and sister and daugh-
ter are suggestive of the most gracious sur
rOundlngs. The best schools and seminaries
of the United States are for young women
Then take wOman's condition in lands
where Christianity has made no or little head
way-China, Egypt, Turkey, Assyria, Bor-
| neO, Barbary. The Burmese sell wives and
| daughters like sheep. The HindoO Bible for
bids a woman to hear music or sit at a win
dow during the absence of her husband and
| allows a divorce if the wife eats before her
| husband finishes his meals. The HindOo wife
is consumed on the funeral pyre of her hus-
| band. The horse, the COW. the dog the cat
are better off They were intended for brutes
| and they expect to be treated as brutes But
| see the whine bundles on the rivers in the
mo raIT1or in Inf anti of
| eide. Female children cast OF because they
| are females. See the women harnessed to
| plows like oxen. Hidden from the sight az
| man by barricades and by wells and bV all
styles of cruel seclusiOn. Their birth disaster
| their life a torture, their death a horror
| The missionary of the cross in heather
| lands to-day breaches to an audience divided
into two parts the men who may sit as thew
| will and do as they will, and the women
cruelty hidden in a side apartment where
| they can hear and cannot be SEEN no inteIIi
| gence. no liberty, no refining influences. no
| hope Tor TINS lie and no hope for the life to
/ come. hinged nose, cramped foot, disfigured
| face, maltreated mind and embruted soul
| How far back toward that condition would
women go If the Bible and Christianity were
Withdrawn IS only Question in dynamics.
| ii an OBJECT be lifted to a certain point and be
not fastened there and the lifting power be
withdrawn, how far will the object fall? Clear
| back to the point from whence it was lifted.
| Christianity found woman in the last point of
| skies. Now, let the power that brought her
| up be withdrawn and she Will fall clear down
| to the depths from which she was resurrect6S
Again, the downfall OF IelglOn and the
| triumph of infdelity mean the demoraliZa-
| tion of society he most obnoxious thing to
| iniidelity is the idea of retributiOn. Now
take all fear OF voluntary punishment out of
society, and let the rule be that all go as they
| please, and how long before disintegration? I
| declare it, take the fear of hell out of the
minds OF men en- and the majority Of them would