The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-11-26
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Doctrine of Substitution Forci'
bly, Presented, M y
Showing the Place Held by VfcariOus Sac
rifice In the Education of the World
The Heroism of Sacrificing Self
for Others Good.

Witt 1almage on the sunJecG OF biooo,
as anoIied to v;carious sacrifice. His text
was: ~ @ - e
without shedding Of blood is no remission.
SEHebrews, w., p.
The preacher said: John G.. Whittier,
the last of the great school of American
poets that made the last quarter of CEN
tury brilliant, asked me in the White
Mountains one morning after prayers, in
which had given out Cowper's famous
hymn about the "The fountain filled with
blood:" "Do you really believe there is
literal application of the blood of Christ to
the soul?" My negative reply then is my
negative reply now. The Bible statement
agrees, with all physicians and all physi-
ologsts and all scientists in saying that
the blood is the life, and in the Christian
religion it means simply that Christs life
was given for our life. Hence all this talk
of men who say the Bible story of blood is
disgusting, and that they don't want what
they call "slaughter-house religion"
only shows their incapaciiy or unwilling
ness to look through the figure of speech
toward the thing signifed. The blood that
on the darkest Fl iday the world ever saw
oozsd, or trickled. or poured from the brow
illustrious sufferer, back of Jerusalem, in
few hours coagulated and dried up and
forever disappeared; and If man had de-
pended on the application of the literal
blood of Christ, there would not have been
soul saved for the last eighteen centu'
ries. ~
In order to understand this red word of
my text, we only have to exercise as much
common sense in religion as we do in
every hing else. Pang for pang, hunger
for hunger, fatigue for fatigue, tear for
tear, blood for blood. lie for life, we see
every day illustrated. The act of substi-
tuition is no novelty, although / hear men
talk as though the idea of Christ's suffer.
ing subs. ituted for our suffering were
something abnormal, something distress.
ingly odd, something wildly eccentric, a
solitary episode in the WORLDS history;
when could take you into this city and
before shutdown point to you five hundred
cases of substitution and voluntary suffer.
ing of one in behalf of another.
At two O'Clock tomorrow afternoon go
among the places of business or toll. 1t
will be no difficult thing for you to find
men who, by their looks, show you that
they are overworked. They are prema-
turely old. They are Fastening rapidly
toward their decease. They have gene
through crises in business that shattered
their nervous system and pulled on the
brain. They have shoreiless of breath
and q rain in the lack of the head, and at
night an insomnia that alarms them. Why
are they drudging at business early and
late? For fun. No; it would bs difficult to
extract any amusement out of that ex-
haustion. Because they are avaricious?
In many cases no. Because tie own
personal expenses are lavish? No: a
few hundred dollars would meet all their
wants. The fact is, the man is enduring
all that fat que and exhaustion and
wear and tear to keep his home prosper
Gus. There is an invisible line reaching
from that store, from that bank, from
that shop, from that scaffolding, to
quiet scene a few blocks, few miles
away, and there is the secret of thai bust.
ness endurance. He is simply the cham
pion of a homestead for which he wins
bread and wardrobe and education and
prosperity, and in such bate 10000 men
fall. OF ten business men whom | bury
nine die of overwork for others. Some
sudden disease finds them with no power
of resistance, and they are gone. Life for
life; blood for blood. Substitution.
At one O'Clock tomorrow morning, the
hour when slumber is most unin err upted
and most profound, walk amid the dwell.
ing houses of the city. Here and there
you will find dim light, because it is
the household custom to keep a subdued
light burning, but most of the houses,
from base to top, are as dark as though
uninhahited. A merciful God has sent
forth the archangel of sleep, and he puts
his wings over the city. But yonder is a
clear light burning. and outside on the
window easement q glass or pitcher
containing food for a sick child,
the food set in the fresh air.
This is the sixth night that mother
has sat up with the sufferer. She
has to the last point obeyeo the phvsi.
clans prescriptions, not giving drop too
much or to little, or moment too soon or
too late. She is very anxious, for she has
buried three children with the same dis.
ease, and she prays and weeps, each
prayer and sob ending with kiss of the
pale cheek. BY dint of kindness she gets
the little one through the ordeal. After
it is all over the mother is taken down.
Brain or nervous fever sets in, and one
day she leaves the eonvaIescent child with
mothers blessing and goes up to join
the three in the kingdom Of Heaven. Life
for life.
About twenty-four years ago there went
forth from our homes hundreds of thou
sands of men to do battle for their coun.
try. And the poetry Of war soon van
ishsd and left them nothing but the ter
rible prose. They waded knee-deep in
mud. They slept in snow banks. They
marched till their cut feet tracked the
earth. They were swindled out OF their
honest rat.ons and lived on meat not fit
for q dog. They had jaw all fractured.
and eyes extinguished, and limbs shot
away Thousands Of them cried for water
as they lay dying on the field the
night after the battle, and got it no.. Thew
were homesick and received no message
from their loved ones. They died in barns.
in bushes, in diiches, the buzzards of the
summer heat the only attendants ON their
Dbssquies. No one but the infinite God
who knows evervthiuo knows tho fan