News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-03-05

er Life. Etc.
1.-THE sun shall be turned into dark.
ness" was the text selected by DIR.
Talmage at the Brooklyn Tabernacle
Sunday morning for sermon in which
he proposed to answer this question.
sis there no law against such blasphemy
as was uttered at Brooklyn theatre
Sunday night p asked Mr.. Talmage, al
Iuding to the lecture in the Academy of
Music by Mr.. Robert Ingersoll.
The inddelity of the present time, he
remarked, was considered a great joke,
and there were people in these days who
gathered together to hear Christ assaulted
with quip and joke. A lecturer in a
Brooklyn theatre, if correctly reported,
had said, among other things "When
we compare our God with man He is
not much of a God. When Christ was
here He was forgiving and half human;
but now He is dead, he sent them to
eternal fire. 1t is wonderful what a DIFF
ference Office makes with some people. !"
The Lord Jesus Christ, who came to
carry our sorrows, TO bear our griefs,
maligned in the presence of the citizens
SA OISChlSu Is lLSlS
as blasphemy? Ii there be, is there no
law against it2 These are tremendous
questions which I ask of the legal fra
ternity, the judges of our courts, and
through them the Legislature of the
thing as blasphemy. Let the law
against blasphemy be erased from the
statute book or let it be executed. But.
LII
free speech 90 'Yes, free riding of
horses, but not TO run over people; free
knives, but not knives for assassination,
and free speech, but not the speech of
1aIsehood or pIasPhemy. 1t would have
been the grandest drama that Brooklyn
had ever seen if on Sunday my friend
Patrick Campbell, the Chief of the Po-
lice, who believes in God-in Jesus
Christ-had walked on the platform, fol-
lowed by platoon of police officers, and
had put his hand on the shoulder of the
blasphemous lecturer and said to him
''In the name of the common law, in the
name of the State of New York, and in
the name of the city of Brooklyn, this
infamy must stop-must stop here and
must stop now"
propose to take this infidelity and
put it, seriously, before you. ! want to
show you what the end of this infdel's
road will lead you to, and what this
world would be if infidelity and atheism
were to triumph over it.
It would be the complete and utter
degradation of womanhood. Wherever
the Christian religion is dominant wo-
mans condition has improved. While
women may suffer injustice in England
and the United States, she has more of
her rights in Christendom than else
where. Nevertheless, I read in the
newspapers that at this infdel's lecture
there were women present to witness
this wholesale commandment of Chris
tianity. / make no remark; let the 81
lence OF your own soul make its own OBJ
servation.
Next, if Christianity is to be over
thrown you have a disintegration of
society. Take away the idea of retribu-
ton and the majority of the infdels
would soon turn the world into a hell.
The idea of punishment in an after
life makes men afraid to sin. But for
this idea Brooklyn, New York, Boston,
Charleston and Chicago would become
Sodoms. The march of infdelity would
destroy our Sunday schools, for Christ
is taught there; would destroy our phil
anthropic institutions, for they are
founded on Christianity; would close all
the~picture galleries of the Continent of
Europe, for the larger portion of them
portray incidents and subjects taken
from the Bible; our grand oratorios,
our sculpture and the headstones on the
graves of childhood that said, "Asleep
in Jesus"
I am asked if Christianity will become
obsolete ? Yes, Just as the clouds of
smoke from the chimneys will shut out
the MONDAY sun. Great Britain will
turn all Europe to God, and the United
States will turn al America to God, and
DOth or IncIu together wiz LIiHs5 f1.<s
whole earth in subsection to him. ''1he
mouth of the Lord has said it. Halle
lniah Amen -
MIR. BEECHER ON A HIGHER LIFE.
''hTen of an ordinary morality are
irrigated by mechanical appliances, as
it were," said Mr.. Beecher at Plymouth
Church, "while Christian men are re-
freshed by the rain dropping down from
heaven. They live in an atmosphere
and with an inspiration of feeling that
dess not belong to those that are not
Christians.
"rhe full Christian lives in higher
realm than other men. He lives where
the best part of his life is unseen. 1t is
the realm of imagination, of affection,
of divine inspiration, a realm where the
of Gods nature raises thou
sand beautiful images which cannot be
told of.
"Men say in regard to these higher
fanciful experiences, as they call them,
that they are dreams. | am sorry for
the man to whom they have never come.
''hIen are so bound up in the practi-
cality of the lower life that they don't
believe in the higher life. 1t is poetic,
they say-as if poetry itself was not
the higher form of truth, or might be-
every deep soul has within itself
a threshold over which no foot may
tread, and the most sacred feelings are
those that are never exhibited, not even
TO the choicest and dearest, Are there
no such cavernous crystalline -haunts
within you ?"
PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY.
Charity has very properly from the
very beginning been regarded as the
principal adornment OF Christianity.
none of its outcomes put it 70 much in
harmony with the character of its Di-
vine Founder. In our great cities this
feature of Christian social life is, as is
natural enough, most strongly marked.
The total income for the London chart
ties for 1884, was about G4, 500, 900. OF
this sum about 100000 were con-
tributed to church and chapel building
funds, missionary, tract, Bible and book
societies. Commenting upon this amount,
the London Times speaks of it as being
more than twice the revenue of the
Swiss Confederation, greater than that
of Sweden and Denmark, and nearly as
much as Portugal, Belgium and the
Netherlands.
THE LENTEN FAST.
The annual circular giving rules for
the observance of Lent in the Roman
Catholic diocese of New York has been
received by the priests of the various
parishes from Cardinal McCloskey. and
given by them to their congregations.
But one full meal and light evening
repast are allowed daily, except on Sun
days, from the 18th inst. Cash Wedneg-
lay) until Easter Sunday april a.
Fresh meat may be eaten on Mondays,
Tuesdays and Thursdays, but not on
Holy Thursday (April p. The aged,
nfrm, and those of delicate constitution,
invalids and persons engaged
in exhausting work and women with
nursing children are not included among
those ordered to keep the fast.
PREsBYTERIANIsM AND DANCING.
The Free Church of Scotland, which |
has very noble origin and very wor-