The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-08-20
FRESH RELIGION.
Sermon Preached by Rev. T. De-
Witt Talmage.
Tho Feast of the acknowledgement of
Our Long March to Heaven-Our
Residence Here Temporary
Affair at Most.
Subject: screen and Fresh Religion"

mount and fetch olive branches and pine
branches and myrtle branches and palm
branches and branches of thick trees to make
booths
The Mount of Olives seems unmoored.
Tho tree branches are being cut off and
shouldered and carried on down in great
procession to the city of Jerusalem. These
tree branches are bent and twisted into
arbors or booths, and set on the house,
top and along the streets. Folated booths
everywhere, and the people coming out
from their homes to live in them for seven
days. Why do the people come from their
comfortable houses to this temporary
booth? 1t is a grand festival. 1t is the
Feast of the Tabernacles. The people cole
brate the deliverance of their fathers from
desert travel, where they lived in tents.
And it is also typical of our march to
Heaven, pilgrims in temporary booth on
the way to Canaan, so that l say in a fig
urative sense what was said to the Jews in
literal sense: go forth into the mount
and fetch olive branches and pine branches
and myrtle branches and palm branches
and tie branches of thick trees to make
booths"
Our residence here is temporary affair.
w g rent or lease or buy a house; but the
lease soon runs out, and the deed must
soon be surrendered. Bowling Green,
once inhabited by merchant princes, has
become shipping offices. Where are the
men who did importing in our great cities
thirty years ago? Passed off the STAGE
Where are the men who owned New York
fifty years ago? They have departed this
life for the most part There is no use in
our driving our stakes too deep, for we
shall soon have to pull them up. We are
on the march, and are stopping only in a
temporary booth of twisted branches on
the way to palaces eternal. Where are
the other generations? So far gone that
we can not even hear the sound of their
feet. They have passed up the hill. We
shall soon follow them. But, blessed be
God, we are not living here out of doors
and unsheltered. No; we may go into the
mount of God and bend and twist for orr
selves a shelter of comfort and delight,
and bid you to ego forth into the mount.
and fetch olive branches and pine branches
and palm branches and myrtle branches
and the branches Of thick trees and make
booths"
} ,
used as sign of peace. The olive-tree
grows in warm climates to the height of
about twenty-five feet, has an upright
stem and many outshooting branches,
which can easily be stripped off. If a
twig of this tree in time of war is handed
from one General to another it means the
unsaddling of cavalry horses and the
hanging up of the war kuapsacks. After
hostlllties have ceased these branches are
placed over doorways, and they are built
into triumphal arches, and they are waved
In professions. They spell out in verdur-
GUS letters that Heaven born word of
"Peace~ Now, my friends, in this Cos
pei arbor which God sends US to build we
must have two of these olive branches.
Peace with Godl don't mean to intimate
by that that God is bloody chieftain and
has grudge against US; but l want to in
Innate that there is more affinity between
a hare and hound, between a hawk and
a pullet, between an elephant and the
swine, than there is between holiness and
sin; and since God is all holiness, and we,
by Nature, all sin, there must be some re-
adjustment, some appeasement, some re-
construction, some treaty, some stretch
ing forth of olive branches. The fact is,
that the race has begun q lawsuit against
its Maker, and that lawsuit is now on the
calendar. 1t is the human versus the
Divine. 1t is iniquity versus the i'm
maculate. 1t is weakness versus ON
impotence. God did not begin war
against us; we began war against
Him; and it is high time that this
farce of the finite struggling against the
Infinite were ended. We are tired of the
war. We want to back out. But how
shall we get cessation of this contest?
by going up into the mount of God and
plucking olive branches. What mount?
calvary. Modern travellers say it is only
an Insignificant hill; but persist in call
ing 1T mount, because, through the
grandeur of its meaning, it overtops the
very highestof all earthly elevations. The
Alps and the Himalayas are less than ant
hills compared with it. In the very ex-
cavation on Calvary, where the cross was
once set, afterward the olive was planted
and 1t is green and thrifty and foliaped
to-day, and strip it off and wave it, cry-
ing: Peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ" Oh, if there is anv ioyful
thought enough to overthrow ones eaui-
hbrium that is the thought. 1t may be a
matter of very little Importance what
queen Victoria or Emperor William think
OF any one; but to be brought into close
and intimate and hearty and glowing re-
lations with the God of the round universe
that makes hallelujah seem stupid. If
we had continued this fight against God
for ten thousand years, we could not have
captured so much as sword, or taken so
much as cavalry stirrup or wrenched off
so much as chariot wheel of his omuipo
tence; but God and all Heavens artillery
came over on our side at the first swing of
the olive branch. Peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no
peace IN any other way.
But amity with God is not enough. We
must have two olive branches. Peace with
each other. Oh, it is easy enough to get
up quarrel. There are all around ne
gunpowder Christians and the smallest
match of provocation will set them off, It
is easy to get up quarrel in Church or
state; but it never pays. When two
Christians contend with each other. thew
always both get whipped. Satan slightly
whan ba II,